"Lauring was grateful to see people around a drugstore, a movie theater, a newsstand. But why did they look so glum and alone? The people in Oslo had happier mouths. Didn't they?" (p. 92)
Two levels of meaning here:
we notice social and cultural differences when we travel, especially between continents (hopefully, later, between planets);
however, Lauring might instead be projecting his own, very disturbed, state of mind onto passersby.
"A pasteboard Santa Claus in a display window clutched a carton of cigarettes." (ibid.)
Not nowadays, he wouldn't. At least, not in Britain. "The past is another country." See here.
"Bring your children to see Santa..." (p. 93)
When my sister and I were very small, we were in a big department store just before Christmas. A guy playing the part of Santa and really looking the part, briefly entered the room where we were standing, waved at us and went back out. We really thought that we had seen the real guy, like glimpsing the Queen, the Prime Minister or Superman. (Again, imagine the current Superman actor in costume, glimpsed by very young children.)
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I had to laugh a bit at that pasteboard Santa Claus clutching the carton of cigarettes. That alone, plus the frequent mentions of people smoking in PERISH BY THE SWORD, indicates the Yamamura books were written before 1964, the year of the now famous Surgeon General's warning against smoking. Lots of people still smoke, but the attitudes towards smoking has reversed from approval to a sometimes hamhanded disapproval of smoking. The Marlboro Man and Joe Camel has both been banished.
Sean
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