Status Updates From Hear us O Lord from heaven ...

"Gin and Goldenrod" A kind of subtly dark tale of the disassociation between the antics of one's drunkenness and one's sober self. Kind of chilling.

"Present Estate of Pompeii" A lovely associative tale recounting the thoughts one has while visiting ruined Naples at the end of WWII and nearby Pompeii, ruined some time earlier but eerily preserved. The tale meditates on disasters both human and natural and the persistence of humans nonetheless. I make my creative writing students read this one as an example of hanging thematic associations on a clothesline "plot."

"Elephants and Colosseum" So far most complete story--character, event, satori. Another writer, but this story gives us an event that brings the literary act full circle in writer's experience. Nice Roman background as well.

"Strange Comfort Afforded by the Profession" More literary musings--a writer in Rome visits Keats & Shelley House, remembers Poe museum in Richmond. A sketch really, an association, as no real plot or conflict. I see literature and writers as common theme in tales about now. Lowry's wonderful prose style--super.

"Through the Panama" Wonderfully po-mo in form, diary of a writer on said voyage who's using the experience to write a character in another story--nice formal experiment too with side comments stolen from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Sadly, a failed experiment overall--but I much enjoyed getting Lowry's literary views in passing. Sadly, it was the diary of the journey got rather thick--too long for no plot.

"The Bravest Boat" A sweet love story. Quite short but still almost entirely description. I wonder if Lowry would have trimmed it if he'd lived to finalize this book. Still wonderful as is if perhaps a tad excessive.