Nobody died that year. nobody prospered. there were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre.
The opening lines of the novel are presumably intended to be ironic. And comic. And self-referential in a postmodern sort of way. For definitely the first and almost certainly the last time in the entire book, the narrator presents objective facts not filtered through her own self-centered—almost solipsistic—consciousness. From this point, what follows is not just profoundly subjective, but often divorced from context. The great thing about opening lines is that they create their own context.
That 'writers write' is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever true. Writers drink. Writers rant. Writers phone. Writers sleep. I have met very few writers who write at all.
One might think that this is the single most popular quote identified with the novel. And it may well be. On the pop cultural side of criticism, this quote is probably more likely to be found in any review or mainstream article about the book than any other. The very same quote is a bit less omnipresent among academic papers. The reason for this discrepancy is likely explained easily. The character making this assertion is a writer created by a writer and both seem to be indulging in self-deprecation as a way of deflecting before anyone else can. The writers writing the mainstream reviews and articles about the writer character created by a writer complaining about writers seem to do everything but write is likely a self-reflective reaction. Of course, it is absolutely true that the writer of these words in the story is not exactly shown working from dawn to dusk at the typewriter.
Being neurotic seemed to be a kind of wild card, an all-purpose explanation.
Speedboat belongs to 1970’s New York the way that The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit belongs to the 1950’s. Both novels are documents of specific milieu in a specific era that had broad significance to a great swath of the American reading public. The word “neurotic” does not really show up in fiction much anymore and the use of it in this context pretty much gives the game away. Neurotic, self-involved New Yorkers? Didn’t Woody Allen make this movie already? The lack of any reference to disco is due only to the novel being published the year before Saturday Night Fever hit theaters.
Everything is, to a degree, in the custody of every other thing. Blackmail, kidnapping, then, are among the extreme violations of the deal. Anyway, I seem to be about to have Jim's child.
An essential quote and one that is certainly more significant to the overall construction of what passes for a plot than the thing about writers not writing. In the first place, this short passage is emblematic of the novel. The narrator flits from one topic to another without much if anything in the way of conventional transitions of thought. The jump from blackmail and kidnapping to announcing she is pregnant is not entirely lacking contextual construction; the paragraph begins with a startling metaphor: “Becoming pregnant is taking a hostage.” From there to this point, however, is a dizzying peek into how the mind constructs a coherent narrative from the crazy quilt jumble of thoughts all firing off at once. In the second place: hey, she’s pregnant!
