11.25.2003

How philistines converse


M. went over to Kowloon with his friend from Nu Yawk to buy suits and shirts at a tailor's yesterday while I was in bed with a cold.

Being ill, I shouldn't have read anything that invokes morbid thoughts. But I had just bought 'Norwegian Wood' and 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' the other day, so I had to read them.
"What were you reading?" M. asked when he got back, tired out from tramping around Kowloon.
"Well, one book featured a depressed young man who sleeps with about ten people and his girlfriend is in a mental institute. She was depressed because her boyfriend killed himself."
"What?"
"Oh, and she kills herself later too. But she has a room mate who is a 31 year old housewife who gets seduced by a 13 year old girl."
"What?!"
"And the guy's male friend's girlfriend marries someone else and after two years she kills herself. Oh, and the girl who killed herself had a sister who also killed herself."
"What kind of book is this?"
"Well, everyone else thinks it's good. The other book featured aunts seducing nephews."
"Uh, right...."
"They covered each other in apricot jam and licked each other like dogs. Don't look at me like that, I'm just repeating what the book says. But the whole village gets blown away in the end, so it's OK."
M. looked at me like I was the one who had covered myself in apricot jam - but not in a lusty kind of way.

I think this may be why he doesn't like me reading so much.


1:13 AM |