I just need to make a note to myself not to expect quite so much from the dialogue in a novel. (Ah, what the hell, let’s just say many novels fall short in the dialogue department.)
For example:
A: You haven’t talked to him.
M: No. What do you mean? Have I talked to him
about this? (Pause.)
A: Yes. I mean are you actually talking about this, or are we just…
M: No, we’re just…
A: We’re just “talking” about it.
M: We’re just speaking about it. (Pause.) As an idea.
A: As an idea.
M: Yes.
A: We’re not actually talking about it.
M: No.
A: Talking about it as a…
M. No.
But of course they are talking about it as more than an idea. (What “it” is you’ll just have to find out by reading – or watching.)
Because of course we’re never just talking about what our words denote.
The play was first performed in 1983, so the parallels to our time seem worth pointing out: it deals with desperate real-estate salesmen at a point when the market is drying up.
At first I thought it was an updated “Death of a Salesman,” but it turned out to be more fun than just that. The first act is made up of three scenes that get interwoven nicely in the second act (which is one scene).
I’ll leave you with this:
And if security concerns me, I do that which today I think will make me secure. And every day I do that, when that day arrives that I need a reserve, (a) odds are that I have it, and (b) the true reserve that I have is the strength that I have of acting each day without fear.
In true irony, this turns out to be a sales pitch. Good stuff.
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