Some notes on A Married Man

Link the previous review

Also Andes survival

 

On Friday 3 August 1973 three men sat in conference at one of The Inner London Crown Courts  

 

War and Peace and marriage ‘all like that’ bad business

Barrister John Strickland…he does not want to work in August, so he advises this mechanic to plead guilty, so that the case does not take him into next week…barrister said sentence would be supended, but it was not…Clare was tall attractive married tweleve years, eight years younger, but because of two children, breasts were loose, 32, he had a flaccid stomach, though handsome in court, balding under the wig Tom 10 and Anna 7 children

Humor finds The Death of Ivan Ilych thinks maybe soviet dissident or a vegetarian guru in Mexico, it meant something to him…short story Family Happiness, but angry with Tolstoy because it is actually pessimistic, the title ironic – later, reads and is possessed by his fellow lawyer Ivan Ilych – maybe I did not live as I ought to have done – like Ivan, he is terrified of death now …he was a socialist when young like in that joke, then thought life gone wrong when married Clare, for the first time he felt he hated her…repugnance and loathing

Eustace mentions scene in War and Peace wherein Prince Bolkonsky says to his son, Prince Andrew, ‘it’s a bad business, eh? It can’t be helped…they are all like that (wives are all like that), it can’t be helped, one cannot unmarry’

Jilly Mascall the young teenager who becomes central? John knew she is over the age of consent gives card for lunch under the table

Every now and then he felt a touch of what he called Ivan Ilychitis

They talk about cocks and hens how the latter preffer just one and then women do the same they like the colurful cock

Thinks of going into politics at his age, 40

Jilly feels for the first time the consummation of sexual love…in his imagination, and while he thinks this, a muffled fart from his wife

Somewhat sour our man because of noisy children not having his Times paper, orange juice and such

Helen Lough mother in law comes from one of the oldest families of Catholics before the times, tortures of Elizabeth I…she is a snob

Guy is her son the brigadier the husband – Eustace

Eustace is something like me- eccentric wearing old clothes and the others are embarrassed by his views and what…onlyfans?

Guy sells icecream from a van and goes on the dole when he takes a holiday

They have a small Turner and a Constable watercolor, but the garden and insde are rotting away, John hopes one will pass over to Clare

15000 pounds a year, yet could not afford new car

When young John joined the Labor club but then went less and less to Labor meetings

Henry and Mary Mascall have a butler and cook – friends