Reading James Salter

Supra romantic, occupying a specific place and time in which sex and love are separating.

Post World War II, corporate and protective of certain core values of the American ruling class.

And what are those values?

The desperate search for sexual identity, the conflation of upward mobility and spiritual success, the adoration of established European culture and the hope that its influence will be made manifest here.

War as man's great event, around which all other events evolve.

Hopeful, positive, the kind of prose that looks around the room to see who is looking at it but is able to stand in the corner and take notes without anyone noticing.

The voice of an empire, quiet as silk.