Quote:
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AS LABOR DAY APPROACHES, everybody in the world begins calling in, people Maxine hasn’t heard from for years, a classmate from Hunter who reminds her at length how at just the right moment in an evening of irresponsible stupor she saved this person’s life by hailing a taxi, folks from out of town making their annual autumn pilgrimages into NYC, eager as any city-dwelling leafers headed the other way to gaze at spectacles of decadence, sophisticated travelers who have been away all summer at fabulous tourist destinations, back now to bore everybody they can round up with camcorder tapes and tales of fantastic bargains, travel upgrades, living with the natives, Antarctic safaris, Indonesian gamelan festivals, luxury tours of the bowling alleys of Liechtenstein.
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Not condescending to me personally. But perhaps to the sophisticated travellers back now to bore, or the person whose life she saved in an irresponsible stupor or those gazing at decadence (mindlessly one assumes).
I haven't read the book, and possibly the character (Maxine) has very good reason to regard everyone that is mentioned with such overwhelming disdain. Taken out of context as it was quoted, I find it both condescending and pretentious. But probably they have all done something totally unforgivable that I am unaware of.
Helen