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He seemed to be choking.
“Mother, it’s getting dark,” he called feebly.
He gasped. There was a rattle in his throat. He turned livid, his eyes dilated widely, became blank, and he went limp. And in the mind of Studs Lonigan, through an all-increasing blackness, streaks of white light filtered weakly and recessively like an electric light slowly going out. And there was nothing in the mind of Studs Lonigan but this feeble streaking of light in an all-encompassing blackness, and then, nothing. (856)
Once upon a time, says the fable, a young Chicagoan named Studs wasted his life and then died of pneumonia. As he lay dying, Communists were marching through the streets of his city, singing, "A better world's in birth" (835). That juxtaposition of bodies on a page constructed out of words, says naturalist theory, is called symbolism. Symbolism is a system of notation intended to make visible naturalism's idea of God -- that is, a metaphor which naturalism called "the Forces." But outside the library, the optics of Chicago seem to promise that if you take the doctor’s advice and avoid congestion, you can soar on perspective right over the symbol, ascending through layers of beauty from black iron to an empty heaven the color of Chicago’s pearly, lake-reflected light.
The original of this facsimile poster was captioned,
"Rapid Transit Lines, Fast . . . Reliable."
I found the little advertisement tucked inside an old book. For some eighty years the turntable spun in the darkness between words. In the light it's spinning still. Clamorosi successi!