From a copy of Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers, unwisely borrowed from John P (her most ardent admirer) midway through the semester and which I then failed to read, to this chain of semester-long haranguing that continues into the summer:
Day 1:John, handing over the book: This constitutes material evidence of my pride at being a ‘corrupting influence’!
*Later same day:
John: Cue ominous music as corrupting effects of the text do their work.
*Next day:
John: Get cracking: you should be reading–ignore all law school assignments!
Me: Why are you so invested in my reading this book? I have banished it to my bookshelf to sit next to Welcome to Higby (NB: also pilfered from John’s shelf, but a whole semester before) until e-learning week.
John: and for your egregious sins, may you be afflicted with a plague of locusts, and may the torrents of Kushner’s prose devastate your fields.
and may the Dunn come back to haunt you as the letters fall down. . . oh wait, that’s a different novel.
Me: I love Ella Minnow Pea!
John: As well you should, as should future generations. But this does not address your ongoing neglect of Kushner.
*A week and a half later:
John: And I’m more than a little disappointed in my lack of efficacy as a corrupting force.
Me: definitely deficient in the corruption department
John: Challenge accepted: let the corrupting begin.
Me: remember it’s e-learning week: you have to corrupt remotely.
John: Lawyered.
Later same day:John: But wait: doesn’t corruption by its very nature seek to undermine the textual and legal foundations, the fabric of society, the warp and woof of all that is? Just another day in the life of corruption–
Me: i am sea-green incorruptible!
*Yet another week later:
John: Yet nearly a week has gone by, and still no word from you on the Kushner. Meanwhile back at the ranch, Hoss and Little Tom have near lassoed the runaway
Me: kushner languishes where she lies.
John: (cue Sturm und Drang)
*A month later:
John: and with the semester ending, yet another reminder to read Kushner!
Me: i see the attempted corruption is renewed!
John: we have always lived in the castle.
*And two weeks later:
John: and of course now there is another Kushner for you to read–just saw the hardback in Kino yesterday.
Me: nah, my summer is going to be devoted to more classical pursuits!
John: You underestimate the powers of the text, its deceptive allure, its somnolent, yet audible voice, beseeching, bewitching
Me: no siren can lure me from the torrid embraces of Gilbert Murray!
John: Hack
Me: go away. have you no exams to grade? may all your exam scripts be ‘thrilling and prodigious’
[I await the next assault which will be due any day now.]
Best of the Transparent Hummingbird