Worker’s Complaint or Worker Pastoral or The Worker Stain
A striking difference between British and American literary fiction, at least among its younger writers, is the number of people who need to be thanked. Victorian writers rarely thanked anyone at all in the pages of their books. Who does George Eliot thank for Middlemarch? Nobody. An older generation still with us–Roth for example–will make do with a brief and mysterious dedication: “To H.J.”
(Harper’s via Granta 95)
I, too, would like to dedicate the complete body of my work to H.J.
Brief, yes.
Mysterious, not in the least.
February 7th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
no shit, the only way to make this less mysterioso is for him to say “to cold cuts & cored apples - without you i wouldn’t have ejaculated nearly as easily or as forcefully during my formative years.”
February 7th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Trevor:
Yeah, most posts here are basically inside-jokes/jobs/etc.
Anyways, I guess HO == Howard Johnson’s. Good ole Ho-Jo’s. cheap rooms, cheaper food, and super cheap lot-lizards… all along the interstate highways. God blers, ur um bless, ‘mericuns!
-dr
February 7th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
That’s unnecessarily modest, since you seem to have so many people offering to let B.J. assist with the body of your work.
February 8th, 2007 at 9:29 am
I thought I was your muse!
February 8th, 2007 at 9:50 am
DR: you totally need your own blog. why restrict yourself to this ghetto?
but you’re talkin over my head (that’s ok, i’lll step up my game once you get your own blog together): i’m trying to figure out how this is an iniside jokke? i guess it’s an inside joke rfor people who are vaguely familiar with roth’s surface level literary rep? plz explain
February 8th, 2007 at 11:45 am
I have to admit my mind strayed to the BJ line of humor as well. Nothing like a BJ to keep your mind sharp or help you not give a shit about whatever you’re doing at the moment.
“easily or forcefully…” gold!
February 8th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
as someone who’s received three to five good blowjobs in his life (and one was from a hooker - does that count?), i gotta say that HJ’s (99.8% self-administered) have been much more important for keeping me relatively sane and relaxed. nad if you’ve read portnoy’s complaint, you know the same is mos def true for roth.
February 8th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
In “Portnoy’s Complaint” wasn’t he sampling the pot roast before dinner?
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