It seemed to us to express the right mixture of urgent concern and bracing responsibility that the middle 1970s require. But as the whole book shows, the megalopolitan time bomb is ticking uncomfortably fast. There is little margin for anyone to take a leisurely defusion course.

"Where's your Mainespeak? Say chowder.” “Chowder,” Matthew said. “No, you're supposed to say, Chawdah.” “Speaking of—what's up with your accent?” “What's the national seashore north of Bangor and the town north of that?

By now, a great many people were walking towards the fireworks but their steps fell so softly and they chatted in such gentle voices there was no more noise than a warm, continual, murmurous humming, the cosy should of shared happiness, and the night filled with a muted, bourgeois yet authentic magic. Above our heads, the fireworks hung dissolving earrings on the night. Soon we lay down in a stubbled field to watch the fireworks.

. . . I took off from work to wander alone in Qijin instead of returning to Taipei, after breaking up with the disconsolate girl, so my hero and heroine did not go to the Dongshan River and definitely did not go to Kending, but went to Qijin instead!