Journal, Diary, & Blogging / Traveller In an Antique Land
On re-reading Sweet Thursday by Steinbeck on a series of packed and juddering commuter bus trips, I came back into contact with a favourite character of mine. His name was Doc and he worked at Western Biological, a tumbledown laboratory wherein he set up aquariums and studied sea-life. He had women, no shortage in this regard, and beer and whiskey when he wanted it. To me as a young man, he was something of a heroic figure – on his own terms, self-reliant – complete. Something mountainous and aloof about his lack of need.
But the book – maybe a novella – is abouthow Doc comes to realise his loneliness and now I see that Doc is an abiding icon of existential unease. What must one create to ensure that one’s name lives on? A novel, a poem, a child, a business?
We all will pass into the void and none of our great works will remain.
Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Doc took a woman to stave off the question of death.
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There was something mountainous and aloof about his lack of need. He had women -there was no shortage in this regard-and beer and whiskey when he wanted it.
Both ‘abiding ” as an adjective for icon, and the incomplete sentence “two vast and trunkless legs of stone” confound me. There must be a more natural way to get across whate ver you mean by the latter, and the former would sound/look better if you substituted a word cloer to your intent with the use of “icon”. if icon alone won’t suit you, try tot hink of your message here. Typical, prototypical, eternal,a natural icon…
I think you did pretty good looking beyond the story’s literal meaning and seeing this timeless subject lurking. it has a good finale-we can’t do anything about our impending disappearance along with our works, over the centuries,especially with our fast-paced world able to only get faster, deliver more excitemet and choices, as technology advaces in bounds. (Now you can wear clothing that shows video, Sony having made a videoplayer that bends and is thin as paper) . Good observational skills and sound slike a good hero for a boy. Live; you won’t be here in any form tommorrow.
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This is a wonderful, depiction of a favorite character named Doc in a bawdy yet sentimental comedy of John Steinbeck’s. I think that Steinbeck’s most important theme, evident here, is that the everyday bonds of humanity and love make goodness and happiness possible. I like the reference to Doc’s ‘existential unease’ in this piece. I would change the tense in the last sentence to present tense. In line 5, I would put a space between about and how. The piece kind of skirts the issue of the humour in the book. I would probably discuss that out more. It’s there with the women and whiskey but are there other hints to give?
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