These Dreams of You

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This begs of X the most profound question of all. That question is whether it’s possible for someone of his country to speak for the Old World. X is of and from a country that no sooner became the New World than it was time’s other bookend, or floated outside time altogether; he is of and from a country that always has belonged to the rest of the world’s imagination more than it belongs to its own. Now X labors to author the novel where the literature of the Old World discovers the vision of the New and waves goodbye to itself. Dublin? X would never be able to explain Dublin anyway. But if he doesn’t know much about Dublin 1904, then let the story take place in the Los Angeles of 1989, seventy years early. Nighttown will be Twilighttown and Molly will be Dolly, and Bloom will be Zoom or Doom or Groom (as in a man searching for a bride) or Ploom (as in a column of smoke) or Woom (as in where a mother carries a child). Or Toom (as in where you’re buried).