Another I

Another ‘I’ that is quite admirable is that in Damon Runyon’s short stories – an ‘I’ always at pains to keep out of the action narrated, but still ‘getting reports’ and frequently stumbling upon people ‘he wishes to have no track with’.
Reference to Runyon came from one of the ‘Killing time’ books – the one that started it all, the Paul Feyerabend autobiography. “‘Who is this guy?’ I was hooked.” (quoted from memory). If I read someone is hooked, I am close to being hooked, too.
I’ll read the books that people in these books read, and the books read in the former, if any. No one ever reads books in Runyon stories, it seems – just newspapers and occasionally, letters. Quote: “When I ask him why he does not write to his uncle, the high sheriff down there in Georgia, John Wangle says there are two reasons, one being that he cannot write, and the other that his uncle cannot read.” (More than Somewhat: The Bloodhounds of Broadway)

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