In this context the chantlike elements of his “Psalom” came across with a ritualistic, almost Hebraic quality.

On a vast, dry lakebed called Tianshuihai, we came to a community of sorts, a desperate huddle of concrete and mud structures. My map labeled the region “Soda Plain,” and it seemed a long time since any water had gathered there. It was also, evidently, earthquake country. Buildings, many of them abandoned, had been shaken off their foundations; their walls had cracked and roofs fallen in. The military post and gas depot where Qu stopped to refuel had been shored up by heavy concrete buttresses. Thousands of fifty-gallon drums littered the ground, along with broken machinery, derelict vehicles, chunks of concrete, goat carcasses, cans, bottles, and shit.

the rent of the fishings

At one of the ormolu tables, near a lamp with a pink shade, Gaston insisted on making at least a partial statement.