ok in the story a young couple (Peter and Poopy) are on honeymoon in Antibes, not quite consummating their marriage, and an older gay couple (Tony and Stephen) try to pry Peter away from Poopy, as the narrator/Greene character watches, wondering if he should intervene, tell Poopy her husband isn't ever going to be interested in her, etc.
"Stephen said, ‘It’s no game. You should realize we are saving him. Think of the life that he would lead – with all those soft contours lapping him around.’ He added, ‘Women always remind me of a damp salad – you know, those faded bits of greenery positively swimming . . .’
"‘Every man to his taste,’ Tony said. ‘But Peter’s not cut out for that sort of life. He’s very sensitive,’..."
lol--well I suppose salads until recently were quite bad in Anglo-world... btw Margaret Visser has a beautiful chapter on salad in "Much Depends on Dinner" (one of the best books I've read in recent years!)
the pick-up artist types used to talk about run-through women in terms of slices of roast beef, but i suppose an over-dressed salad also makes the point…
there’s a Graham Greene short story in which a gay man, explaining his lack of interest in women, says that they remind him of salad
In that they should be well-dressed? Idk what connotations salad would have for a mid-20th c. Englishman!
I think it was said with a shudder of revulsion, I’ll look it up later, it was the title story in ‘May We Borrow Your Husband’ collection
I guess there was a time when even gay men (especially anglos?) weren't eating their vegetables
ok in the story a young couple (Peter and Poopy) are on honeymoon in Antibes, not quite consummating their marriage, and an older gay couple (Tony and Stephen) try to pry Peter away from Poopy, as the narrator/Greene character watches, wondering if he should intervene, tell Poopy her husband isn't ever going to be interested in her, etc.
"Stephen said, ‘It’s no game. You should realize we are saving him. Think of the life that he would lead – with all those soft contours lapping him around.’ He added, ‘Women always remind me of a damp salad – you know, those faded bits of greenery positively swimming . . .’
"‘Every man to his taste,’ Tony said. ‘But Peter’s not cut out for that sort of life. He’s very sensitive,’..."
lol--well I suppose salads until recently were quite bad in Anglo-world... btw Margaret Visser has a beautiful chapter on salad in "Much Depends on Dinner" (one of the best books I've read in recent years!)
the pick-up artist types used to talk about run-through women in terms of slices of roast beef, but i suppose an over-dressed salad also makes the point…