Why I Don't Write Children's Literature Read Free Page B

like passersby, and be none the worse because of it. But we also can give new words a try on their own. Who is this person who looks like a dogmatic priest? What sort of fluctuating shopper is she? Where did they get that dubious car? These adjectives may not quite fit the nouns, but the attempts are interesting. Why don’t we forge the refrigerator? Close but not quite.
    In a recent novel, I paused at this sentence: “ ‘She’s fly,’ said Mathew to his best friend, Ronald.” Fly ? I mouthed the word, quietly befuddled. Was this a typo? Did the author mean to say “She’s flying”? That wasn’t probable because the scenes in the novel were grounded — nothing about planes, terminals, check-in, and such. Failing to grasp the meaning, I asked a young man eating lunch on a bench, who said that fly meant lovely or pretty or hot. Then the young man put down his sandwich and informed me that the word was like a Blackberry — no longer in use.
    Oh.
    I might finish McEwan’s novel — it’s very good, after all. But as my eyes peruse his prose, I can’t help but think of the previous reader — nurse, psychologist, florist, or mail carrier — as concocting a subplot, a sleuth with a pencil poised. With affability, she turned the reptilian page and, through reading glasses thick as mine, made aversive checkmarks on her dubious self-improvement, while her cat and her stuffed slow loris watched with provenance from the end of a very comfy and deciduous bed.

YOU WEAR IT WELL
    This is me several years ago at the British-themed Jack Wills shop on King’s Road in London. With sudden rain, umbrellas were thrust skyward, some like large bright petals and others black as funerals. Hurrying pedestrians knocked into each other. Rain drenched the public, even the stylish dogs in yellow slickers, and leaves choked the gutters.
    We stepped into this clothing shop, where I shook my shoulders of wetness, while my wife pulled away to inspect the baggy pants, bright as toucans, that she had spied across the room. I was left to stand in the middle of the store, alone. I considered the displays mildly amusing. Every item seemed youngish, and the sales help were all young and bright as candy. The music from the speakers was a sort of electronic garble — the throbbing sounds that robots might dance to.
    I found an old velvet chair, got comfy, and opened the program of Richard Bean’s “English People Very Nice,” which we had just seen in a matinee at the National Theatre. It had been a memorable experience; the play is about Indian immigration to Great Britain and the racist comments uttered by the characters sometimes made me grip the arms of my chair. Overall, I thought the show hilarious and so touching that I expected to see it again. In the program, there was a cartoonish display of great moments in immigration, including a 1904 scene in which worshippers at an ultra-Orthodox synagogue (once a Huguenot Protestant church and later, after the synagogue years, a mosque) were pelted with bacon sandwiches by Jewish anarchists on Yom Kippur. I was imagining this moment of flying club sandwiches when my wife called, “Gary, come here.”
    I stood up and looked about, ostrich-like, for Carolyn, who is short and can often disappear among the racks of clothes. When she called again, I got moving and found her on the stairwell, waving for me to giddyup. I followed with a hand on the rail for balance. Soon I was standing before a wall and asking, “What am I looking at?”
    â€œThe jacket,” she pointed.
    Since there was a display of six jackets, I risked, “Which one?”
    â€œThe maroon one — get it down and try it on.”
    The maroon jacket was made of heavy wool and had a school crest and brass buttons. I had to stand on tiptoe to reach it. The lining was yellowish from age. I put it on and shrugged at the cuffs.
    â€œLook in the