IJ study archive

Hal on accomplices and the blizzard; the Weston house (p. 957)

quote

Bain, graduate students, grammatical colleagues, Japanese fight-choreographers, the hairy-shouldered Ken N. Johnson, the Islamic M.D. Himself had found so especially torturing—these encounters were imaginable but somehow generic, mostly a matter of athleticism and flexibility, different configurations of limbs, the mood one more of cooperation than complicity or passion.

Context

Hal, still on the floor, forcing himself to imagine the Moms's infidelities as a generic list — and "grammatical colleagues" sits in the roster between graduate students and fight-choreographers. Avril's adulteries catalogued by discipline: even her lovers are filed under grammar. A passing flicker, but it's the theme's vocabulary doing character work.

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