The Lonely Silver Rain
I have been reading the Travis McGee novels by John D MacDonald for the last few years, knowing that there were only 21 of them. A couple of weeks ago, I finally broke down and bought the final one, knowing that when it was done, that was it. It was weird...I almost felt like if I didn't have it, the series wasn't really over.
But it is.
The Lonely Silver Rain was everything great about the novels, a crackling mystery, lots of action, but the philosophy that fills in the cracks around the action is why I read. Here were the quotes that burned themselves into my mind as I read the damn thing in a single sitting.
“It had been an oddly aimless year for me. Old friends ha died in faraway places. In the spring of the year there had been some weeks shared with a lonely woman. We liked each other. We laughed at the same things. The sex was good. Nothing electric. More like cozy. Lois had come down to manage a new health spa, one of a chain. What we tried do to, out of mutual loneliness, was to make more out of the relationship than it could support. Then, it becomes pretend, and you are both saying things cribbed from half-forgotten books, and plays. So the structure topples over, like vanilla ice cream piled too high. At the end of it there was an obscure impulse to shake hands.”
“Everything comes with price tags.”
“I thought I was going to marry Billy because I was looking for a safe haven. I thought I was going to marry him because it would mean an end to scuffling. But in the end, I married him because I loved him. He made me feel loved. Nobody else ever did that. Wanted and loved...So I had to keep living up to what he thought I was. Can that make you a better person, McGee?”
“Communication is the process of interpreting symbols. Words are symbols. Gestures and gifts and touchings are symbols. In any life we misinterpret more than we should, perhaps because our deepest intentions are often at odds with the messages we project.”
“At times it seems as if arranging to have no commitments of any kind to anyone would be a special freedom. But in fact they whole idea works in reverse. The most deadly commitment of all is to be committed only to one's self. Some come to realize this after they are in the nursing home.”
“Why no emotional involvement? Because there was nothing left in the inventory. Nothing left to give. I had said 'forever' too many times to too many people. I had spent my stock. I was bankrupt. With the next leaf pulled back I discovered that the bankruptcy was what was souring the look of my world.....The answer, of course, would be under the next leaf. So I peeled it back and there it was. Nothing. Just a little hole in the middle, protected by all the folded leaves of self-deception. McGee, the empty vessel. The orifice had once been packed full of juice and dreams. Promises. Now there was a little dust at the bottom of it. Some webs across it. It is to moan, to beat the breast, tear the hair. I had no smart retort, nothing witty to say to myself. I was ten thousand times better off than Willy Nucci physically. But in spirit, he was laps ahead.”
But it is.
The Lonely Silver Rain was everything great about the novels, a crackling mystery, lots of action, but the philosophy that fills in the cracks around the action is why I read. Here were the quotes that burned themselves into my mind as I read the damn thing in a single sitting.
“It had been an oddly aimless year for me. Old friends ha died in faraway places. In the spring of the year there had been some weeks shared with a lonely woman. We liked each other. We laughed at the same things. The sex was good. Nothing electric. More like cozy. Lois had come down to manage a new health spa, one of a chain. What we tried do to, out of mutual loneliness, was to make more out of the relationship than it could support. Then, it becomes pretend, and you are both saying things cribbed from half-forgotten books, and plays. So the structure topples over, like vanilla ice cream piled too high. At the end of it there was an obscure impulse to shake hands.”
“Everything comes with price tags.”
“I thought I was going to marry Billy because I was looking for a safe haven. I thought I was going to marry him because it would mean an end to scuffling. But in the end, I married him because I loved him. He made me feel loved. Nobody else ever did that. Wanted and loved...So I had to keep living up to what he thought I was. Can that make you a better person, McGee?”
“Communication is the process of interpreting symbols. Words are symbols. Gestures and gifts and touchings are symbols. In any life we misinterpret more than we should, perhaps because our deepest intentions are often at odds with the messages we project.”
“At times it seems as if arranging to have no commitments of any kind to anyone would be a special freedom. But in fact they whole idea works in reverse. The most deadly commitment of all is to be committed only to one's self. Some come to realize this after they are in the nursing home.”
“Why no emotional involvement? Because there was nothing left in the inventory. Nothing left to give. I had said 'forever' too many times to too many people. I had spent my stock. I was bankrupt. With the next leaf pulled back I discovered that the bankruptcy was what was souring the look of my world.....The answer, of course, would be under the next leaf. So I peeled it back and there it was. Nothing. Just a little hole in the middle, protected by all the folded leaves of self-deception. McGee, the empty vessel. The orifice had once been packed full of juice and dreams. Promises. Now there was a little dust at the bottom of it. Some webs across it. It is to moan, to beat the breast, tear the hair. I had no smart retort, nothing witty to say to myself. I was ten thousand times better off than Willy Nucci physically. But in spirit, he was laps ahead.”