HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER

"It hurt him so, that things had lost their reality.  The first snowdrops came.  He saw the tiny drop-pearls among the grey.  They would have given him the liveliest emotion at one time.  Now they were there, but they did not seem to mean anything.  In a few moments they would cease to occupy that place, and just the space would be, where they had been.  Tall, brilliant tram-cars ran along the street at night.  It seemed almost a wonder they should trouble to rustle backwards and forwards. 'Why trouble to go tilting down to Trent Bridges?' he asked of the big trams.  It seemed they just as well might not be as be"--Sons and Lovers

Yesterday afternoon I saw High Plains Drifter with Dawna (for the second time, except that the first time was on a black & white TV decades ago so I couldn't appreciate the scene where the whole town was painted red!). It's the first of the "avenging angel" westerns directed by and starring Clint Eastwood.  We also saw an episode of his TV western Rawhide--Dawna recognizes every actor who appeared on the first Star Trek series!

High Plains Drifter is the one where stranger Eastwood comes to a town whose marshal was whipped to death by three outlaws who are now getting out of jail, and the town's afraid they'll return for vengeance so they hire him to defend the town and give him a blank cheque, but at the last minute he leaves them to face the outlaws alone, then returns that night and kills them after all, and he's the ghost of the marshal who got whipped to death!

This afternoon was the latest Reading Out Loud Meetup, with the topic of humorous writing. (I titled the event "Jocularity.") I read the part of Huckleberry Finn where the King works a camp meeting; the part of Frank McCourt's Teacher Man describing his first two days teaching school; and James Thurber's The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.  This time we read in Robarts Library's food court.

I just finished Sons and Lovers with a week to spare.  The sensitive hero's relationship with his protective mother reminded me a bit of my relationship with my mother.