Life A User's Manual - post VII

There is an amazing capacity to go deeply into what you might see as odd tangents. For instance a boy reading a magazine about an adventurer in Egypt is focused on and the entire story is relayed. Likewise the entire history of people and the stories in paintings and maps is told in full.

Bullet points between pages 366 – 410

* The story of the ex resident who became a famous cyclist who rode the tour de France is told including what happened to him after he finished racing he becomes a pace setter and after a while becomes jealous of his protégé and takes him on a time trial that ends in a crash and disfigurement

* The disfigured cyclist asks for the pacesetters sisters hand in marriage and after getting it they last a few months before she runs away and he goes to South America where he becomes rich, pays for surgery and comes back for his true love

* You get the entire story of an Arabic speaking Frenchman who is sent by napoleon I to get a pact with the Barbary leader as a result of a boy who is reading about it in a magazine on the stairs while he waits for5 his grandfather a piano tuner

* Bartlebooth goes blind making his jigsaws and has to hire help to explain to him what the pieces are shaped like and what they depict

* Then there is the story told of a judge and his wife who steal for the sexual excitement it causes who are eventually caught and as a result sent to prison and their flat is inherited by the butler

More tomorrow…