But in the prose passages he is trying to sound like something else. The language is often appallingly trite: "I get sad when I think of you making it with someone else" (27). What is one to make of passages such as "For a while I watched all the women dancing, trying to discern who could really make love and who couldn't" (35). Would a real lounge lizard say "discern"?
he poetry is
marginally better, though there is a tendency toward
platitude. The search for Beauty with a capital B seems like
an act of compensation. Norris apparently feels compelled to
make up for the "lowness" of the prose with the false
"sublimity" of the poems. Even if a poem is good, as "The
Eternal and the Infinite" (38) is, there is something
jarring about it in this context, surrounded by the
tawdriness of his prose pieces.
etween The
Better Part of
Heavenand
IslandsNorris wrote One
Night(1985),
a parody of burning love poetry and of current popular
poetic practices, including some of his own. In his most
recent non-"Report" books he had made extensive use of the
metaphor of the love affair as quest for inspiration. In
this sequence, he opens by making fun of his career and
preoccupations: "For years you've watched me chase
lovers,.../cry into the hanky of a poem/whenever it's all
come apart." (9) Instead of reading about the poet and his
lover, the reader becomes the loved one, as Norris plays
with point of view and parodies trendy literary mannerisms.
What could the following be but the ultimate in reader
response theory?
You lie still
upon the pillow, I move
down between your legs, caress your
sex
with my mouth, speaking words
