Thursday, 9 February 2017

The Thursday group stopped at: “cutting her teeth too” (18.159)

Catherine Meyer sends another great painting to illustrate last week's reading, accompanied by the following comment:

Once again and now from Molly’s perspective we read about oysters and their supposed aphrodisiac effect: “he must have eaten oysters I think a few dozen” (18.149).

Having read about oysters in previous chapters, I found notes about them and sketches in my notebook and of course a reference to Fritz’s joke about a man asking, “What’s all this mystic about oysters? I had a dozen and only nine of them worked”.

In my painting two ostyers are open and one is closed – as the joke has it, not all of them work. The open ones stand for “being able” (to eat etc.), the closed ones stand for “not being able” (to eat, being inedible etc.)

 

I enjoyed painting the oysters and the oyster eyes. It is, according to my previous notes, a word that appears many times in the book and it has now received a tribute from my side.

Catherine Meyer © Zürich 2017