tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5642877353447529292.post2154927436693567563..comments2023-10-26T19:29:14.271-07:00Comments on Capital Taps: Fine Beer in Salem Oregon: Toasting the DeadCapital Tapshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04125494106287929220noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5642877353447529292.post-71424473904456244942009-06-13T10:41:07.318-07:002009-06-13T10:41:07.318-07:00In another tribute, this in the New York Times Boo...In another tribute, this in the <i>New York Times Book Review</i>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/books/review/Boyle-t.html?_r=1&ref=books" rel="nofollow">TC Boyle offers a reading of the last line that tends in the opposite direction, away from booze</a>! His reading, as with the whole review, also touched me less than Barnes'; it seemed a little brittle, less generous. Still, I liked the multiplicity of interpretive possibility - that for readers the last words opened up, rather than closed down.<br /><br />Boyle writes: "And then in the story’s — and the collection’s — slyly affecting final line, the narrator steps outside of himself to offer up a fatalistic toast, not with intoxicating wine but with water, life’s pure essence: 'If I can read this strange old guy’s mind aright, he’s drinking a toast to the visible world, his impending disappearance from it be damned.'"Capital Tapshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04125494106287929220noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5642877353447529292.post-7507321019548459412009-06-01T20:45:17.736-07:002009-06-01T20:45:17.736-07:00Updike's death was the second saddest day of the y...Updike's death was the second saddest day of the year for me. I wrote a little tribute to him on my old blog, doesn't have anything on Barnes, though.Emilyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11927529132499597341noreply@blogger.com