The Moon In Its Flight by Gilbert Sorrentino, 1971
The magic trick:
Nostalgic romantic narrative, told with a cynical narration
Happy Valentine’s Day! Here’s a love story so good it’s guaranteed to destroy you.
It’s a story about love and memory and regret and overwhelming sadness. But it’s told with an aggressive narrative voice. It’s a narration that’s cynical to the point of being funny – seemingly at odds with the romantic idealism in the story itself. But ultimately the two – narration and narrative – are not at odds at all. The narration’s cynicism reveals itself as bluster, the comedy as genuine desperation, and a sadness settles over the entire production.
And that’s quite a trick on Sorrentino’s part.
The selection:
Rebecca was fair. She was fair. Lovely Jewish girl from the remote and exotic Bronx. To him that vast borough seemed a Cythera — that it could house such fantastic creatures as she! He wanted to be Jewish. He was, instead, a Roman Catholic, awash in sin and redemption. What loathing he had for the Irish girls who went to eleven o’clock Mass, legions of blushing pink and lavender spring coats, flat white straw hats, the crinkly veils over their open faces. Church clothes, under which their inviolate crotches sweetly nestled in soft hair.
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