Oh my goodness we are close to the finish line!<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, I’ve been busy writing my thesis on pickles and Midnight’s Children,<\/em> aptly titled, Midnight’s Pickles.<\/em> Pickle-shaped noses aside, this section was a particularly rich source of literary dill.<\/p>\n Twenty-six pickle-jars stand gravely on a shelf; twenty-six special blends, each with its identifying label, neatly inscribed with familiar phrases: \u201cMovements Performed by Pepperpots,\u201d for instance, or \u201cAlpha and Omega,\u201d or \u201cCommander Sabarmati\u2019s Baton.\u201d Twenty-six rattle eloquently when local trains go yellow and browning past; on my desk, five empty jars tinkle urgently, reminding me of my uncompleted task. But now I cannot linger over empty pickle-jars; the night is for words, and green chutney must wait its turn.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We’ve all been eating a lot of pickles, these last several weeks, it’s true. And you know, three jars of pickles is one thing. But twenty-six jars is something else entirely. With five to go. <\/p>\n Only… there are thirty chapters in this book, not thirty-one. I counted three times. <\/p>\n Another mystery to be solved?<\/p>\n And then there’s this:<\/p>\n Of my last miserable contact with the brutal intimacies of family life, only fragments remain; however since it all must be set down and subsequently pickled, I shall attempt to piece together an account.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I loved that. Writing as pickling. Experience plus vinegar, salt, sugar, dill, garlic, onion, and time.<\/p>\n Now maybe it’s just the waft of all this pickle-broth that’s clouded my thinking, but it feels like this could be a good time to catch our breath before we wrap, and perhaps give a few folks a little time to catch up as well.<\/p>\n All to say:<\/strong> Let’s meet at the end of the section entitled “The Wedding” (aka page 484 in the Random House paperback), where someone “really had it in for” someone. (A mere 20 pages hence, as we prepare for the grand finale!)<\/p>\n And this? <\/strong>This is the place for comments on section 3.5.<\/p>\n And also:<\/strong> “castellated” is defined by Merriam-Webster as “having battlements like a castle.” Which seems a little lazy as word-creation goes. But, ok.<\/p>\n As well as:<\/strong> “fissiparous(ness)”; Merriam-Webster: “tending to break or split up into parts” (ness).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oh my goodness we are close to the finish line! Meanwhile, I’ve been busy writing my thesis on pickles and Midnight’s Children, aptly titled, Midnight’s Pickles. Pickle-shaped noses aside, this section was a particularly rich source of literary dill. Twenty-six pickle-jars stand gravely on a shelf; twenty-six special blends, each with its identifying label, neatly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meander"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capellman.com\/cecil1215b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}