CH 1 :: pgs 1- 10 : The Bus Ride, The Journey, Miss MacIntosh
We start on a bus ride, through southern Indiana, presumably
at night, in the spring "but it might have been winter
still, another planet, the face of the dead moon." Grey Goose
Bus, drunken bus driver (Moses Hunnecker), a married couple
(Madge and Homer Edwards) and Vera Cartwheel, our protagonist
(probably). The reader is exposed to a single page of standard
prose before turning and witnessing the first of Young's many
circular and unending poetic descriptions, this first one about
the married woman's dress which contains, more or less but
probably more than every conceivable outdoor sport, bird,
beetles. The whole page is a single block of text like a fixated
Roberto Bolaño instead of a rambling one. It is, as O'Gieblyn
puts it, "hard not to feel that something has gone wrong. The
record is skipping; whoever was manning the controls has stepped
out for a cigarette — or a very potent joint."(Paris Review,
2018) (It should be noted, Young never partook in mind expanding
drugs, as far as I know)
Its dark, misty, the sourthern Indiana roads lonely. They pass a
child perched on a man's shoulders "a double-headed man, staring
at nothingness or beyond it." (4)
Anyway. Characters on the bus, and then it goes into a sort of
meditative rumination on travelling, movement, circles, etc
until it gets metahysical and distant from the bus itself.
Describing Miss MacIntosh lightly, Vera Cartwheel's search for
her, and doubt about the possible success for the search, i.e.
Miss MacIntosh might already be dead. Might already have been
dead for a while. Miss MacIntosh had a broken nose.
CH 2 :: pgs 11- 37 : The Mother, Mr. Spitzer
Vera's Mother (Catherine Helena), believes she is already dead,
that the reality around her is all in her head, and it is
revealed that others, primarily Mr. Spitzer, but also the
servants and workers within Ms Cartwheel's house, are enabling
her opium fueled delusions.
She spends all her time in her bed, initially because of an
invisible birthmark she's convinced has made her ugly beyond
belief (I think?)
She thinks her foot will go and walk without her if she leaves
it uncovered on the bed (or something like that....?)
She holds meetings with past authors of great acclaim.
She thinks Mr. Spitzer is his dead twin brother and has
actually almost convinced Mr. Spitzer of this same fact, an odd
kind of infection of delusion that spreads throughout the house.
She also exhibits knowledge of things she shouldn't know, e.g.
the matters of the house, comings and goings, etc, particularly
about Mr. Spitzer, spooking him somewhat.
She claims there is an Egyptian in the house, which Mr. Spitzer
investigates, and finds out to be true, oddly. Its a very
surreal moment.
At the end theres the story about the canary (pgs 36-7), her one
faithful companion, living much longer than canaries should
live. She always gave the bird a different name, or switched it
up, but it was always the same bird. Actually, Mr. Spitzer had
been replacing the bird whenever it died, and believes Ms.
Cartwheel had never noticed. Actually again, Ms. Carthweel had
seen the bird fly out the window during a storm, and disappear
into the night, only to be back the next day.
So, really, everybody is having a hard time in that house.
CH 3 :: pgs 38- 68 : Miss MacIntosh
Described as a simple woman, with little to no historical
background (Mr. Spitzer, who hired her, had not done a
background check, for....reasons.) Miss MacIntosh and Vera
always took walks along the beach, Miss MacIntosh with her
umbrella and such.
She was born in What Cheer, Iowa, and believed in the Midwest.
she disappeared one day, mysteriously, except for a smattering
of her clothes on the beach (something much unlike Miss
MacIntosh). Vera believed she was dead until she found irvory
knitting needle(s?) on the beach, 4(?) years later.
A simple woman through and through, she despised signs of
wealth, had such a frugal attitude her clothes were ratty and
missing buttons. (e.g. pg 57: She would snap open and shut her
purse which se wore attached by a rusted chain to her waist.
There were neve rmore than two pennies in that scuffed purse of
hers, two pennies with which, she used to say, her eyes would be
closed when she was dead, for her eyelieds would be trained to
settle.)
Miss MacIntosh had an odd admirer in a "Bushman" who constantly
tried to talk to her and court her, and was constantly rebuffed.
Mr. Spitzer can't trust his own memories, but can recall too
much about Miss MacIntosh.
Also, Miss MacIntosh (Georgia MacIntosh) was hired by Spitzer
when Vera was 7, to look after her, until her disappearance,
when Vera was 14.
The loss of Miss MacIntosh induced an illness in Vera, as if she
had lost her true moral compass and it takes her many years to
regain a sense of "life that needed no dream of death" (8, and
also the MY earthlink website)
CH 4 :: pgs 69- 77 : Vera, relationship to mother, lead up
This is where we start to encounter the Circular windings, etc.
She survived the loss of Miss MacIntosh, and grew up, grew thin,
hair is stringy, had a few jobs and college but could not shake
her loss, and needed to go searching. So she did.
CH 5 :: pgs 78- 91 : The Bus Driver, Moses Hunnecker
"How much longer?" I asked, impatiently.(78)
--(first line of quoted dialogue)
Loud, Drunk, probably lost, probably only halfway there in the
first place. Has very long hair because he thinks the barber is
a democrat, and he will be dammed if he ever talks to
a democrat. Its really a wonder that he keeps missing the
potholes. He never answers Vera directly, and it feels like hes
been driving forever.
CH 6 :: pgs 92- 141 : The Married Couple
The woman, crying, married, pregnant. The man, a boy, football
player, sleeping. She worked as a telephone operator, and would
go out with many a man, use her wits to get things, never
committing, and never getting pregnant. She married him simply
because he was there, and she is full of dread and regret. She
didn't mean to get pregnant, she barely knew him at all. And now
they were going to his mothers house, where she will have the
baby, and is convinced she will give birth to death.
She's fixated on herself as continuously dancing. He is more or
less worthless as a man, and moreso as a husband. She paid for
the tickets for this bus, she walks in front, she carries
suitcases.
"He never thought of her but always of that other girl, the
girl he had never dreamed of marrying and who, if the rumors
could be trusted, was also dying, dying a fast death, having
all these unfair advantages over his mortal wife who must take
her time, for that other girl was thin as a moonbeam and was
not heavy with a stranger's child, and she would never give
birth unless to her own image like the ghost of the perfect
love and she would never be dead in his eyes. She would never
have to endure the test of marraige, the daily friction. She
would not have to rub wet wood until it broke into the flame
of a star." (107)
The first part of this chapter is a weirdly close examination of
marriage, specifically of this young girl to her young husband,
and the equating of her marraige to her funeral, and the young
man as a "father", her father, but not the child's father, and
this other woman that he loved but may not have existed ever;
and its all weird because this novel shifts without notice
between Vera's first person stuff and this insanely close
examination of people Vera knows or can see, to the point where
Madge (the young girl) claims to know even what her husband is
thinking, that is, Vera knows what Madge knows what her husband
thinks. This folding, overlapping, self-consuming but unending
prose style is supported and supports the content thereof, where
Madge (Vera?) is ruminating over and over the merits of marriage
and her life and is marriage actually death is she dead already
will she die before she grows old, will she be immortal, will
birth of this child be the death of her, is it birth to death,
and what a beast her husband is, all men are, for never knowing
the pain and of birth, losing the "hour-glass form which had not
kept the hours" (106) she was already losing.
The first part of this chapter is dread and regret, and feeling
stuck in time as she is stuck on this bus which is stuck on this
road that doesn't seem to end during this moonless honeymoon
night which, when it ends, will lead to a honeymoonless
marriage, future, anniversaries, family get togthers with no
families.
