Page 163
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
O'Dandy argues that music taste follows money, memory, and the need to avoid explanation, then folds sex, cash, and shattered dreams into the same lesson while Michael turns the talk back toward the crash, the lawsuit, and the dead men left on the West Virginia road.
The page is coarse but sharp about class, especially in the claim that symphony is something one can afford to like. What begins as musical talk ends up back at bodily cost, because every preference is being measured against wreckage, money, and survival.
Driving in O'Dandy's Cadillac convertible through coal-mining towns at pre-dawn, Michael asks to be shown his own dreams; O'Dandy replies that misery is his preference and probes whether Michael likes rock and roll or jazz.