Do you have "an abiding sense of underachievement?" Does that explain to some degree our devotion to sports teams? When sports stars suffer the humiliation of defeat and thereby capitulate to the "gods of failure," does that therefore enable each of us in our devotion to them to locate our own sense of underachievement by identifying with theirs?
The quotes are from The Finkler Question by Jacobson. One of the characters in the story, the one who is serially unsuccessful with women, gets mugged...by a woman. He awakens the next morning to "an alien sensation of near cheerfulness" because he suffered a "palpable loss of the theft of actual possessions," as opposed to his usual feeling of a "nagging consciousness of something having gone missing."
Here are some other gems from The Finkler Question.
" beautiful unshaven nose-ringed charity worker with whom he was destined to be happy...or, unhappy; it didn't matter which, so long as it was destined."
"I could use the company, but I can't go through the pain of getting it!"
"At a certain age, men begin to shrink; but yet, it is precisely the same age when their trousers become too short for them! Explain that!"
2 comments:
Wonder where that "abiding sense of underachievement" comes from? The novel character plays it out one way... I can identify, though my sense of underachievement certainly doesn't manifest in an interest in sports. Sounds like a fun read.
I actually didn't even get those comments. Something wrong with me?
Post a Comment