"bright visions came to haunt him of a world that could and should have been his, a world of intellect and sensibility that now lay forever mixed in his mind with "the east". in the east, he then believed, a man went to college not for vocational training, but in disciplined search for wisdom and beauty, and nobody over the age of 12 believed that those words were for sissies. in the east, wearing rumpled tweeds & flannels, he could have strolled for hours among ancient elms and clock towers, talking with his friends, and his friends would have been the cream of their generation." -richard yates.
i really connected with this passage from character "Shep" in the richard yates' revolutionary road.
typifies why i fell in love with carolina. why i go weak in the knees for boston. the life i yearn to lead. seems pretty basic, though elitist. am i elitist?
1 comment:
It is a great passage, sort of reminiscent of Nick Carraway's summation of Jay Gatsby's dream. Yates himself knew better than to credit "elitism," and one of the morals of Rev Rd, I think, is Shep's discovery, after losing April, that there is no place like home.
You should read A TRAGIC HONESTY by Blake Bailey, about Yates's life--which enriches a reading of all his "fiction." You might also enjoy my SAFE SUICIDE, partly a memoir of my friendship with Yates (see www.dewitthenry.com/works.htm). To some degree I have lived a academic and intellectual life in Boston, and nothing like Shep's glamorized version. Yates, in fact, encouraged me to marry and settle here.
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