Daily reminiscences of novels: oranges in 1930s Depression, onions during World War II, artificial flowers in a sci-fi future

I always enjoy small daily actions that remind me of some favourite scenes in great novels. The hero Rick Deckard in Phil K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" in his apocaliptic future sees artificial life imitations all around him, from the electric sheep in his home to the frog he offers his wife at the end. It is a bit too bleak to own robot animals, but I am often pleased to have artificial flowers both at home (in picture) and in the office. Originally, the novel was supposed to be  in 1992 or 2021, but despite the pandemic we still have animals all around us. But I believe that actually my artificial flower vases are quite ecological and mood soothing, since they spend no water, unlike the robot animals of Deckard.

There is also the onions that I always eat plentiful in every salad buffet, which remind me of the scene when Bendrix first meets Sarah in The End of the Affair during the years just before World War II, "Is it possible to fall in love over a dish of onions? It seems improbable and yet I could swear it was just then that I fell in love."

But my favorite literary reference to a daily item or activity is in John Fante's book, where the young author Arturo Bandini living in poverty in his rented LA room has been eating oranges as meals for month, a sweet liquid sunlight that fills up his stomach, the cheapest food he can find. Orange peels pile up with cigarette ashes in his room. Other creative solutions for his poverty is to use the strings from the cereal boxes as a belt and shoe laces, then applying the carton box paper to fix up his shoe sole. Arturo reflects upon looking at the nice ladies arriving to the luxury hotels in LA that their shoes are worth more than everything he ever owned... But Arturo - despiste his rough philosophy - is in fact a soft-hearted boy and ends up using his first check as an author to pay a beef meal to a senior neighbor. Arturo also adds extra sugar to his coffee in order to get a bit more taste and calories. The same choice of taking several bags of sugar in a coffee cup is admitted by a character in John Steinbeck's novel "The winter of our discontent".

I just really love the Arturo Bandini character, because of his so many flaws and realism, his cowardice, made up lies even to himself, lack of success and inability to talk elegantly to people. Yet Arturo's deep honesty and resilience makes him rise up above the poverty around him. 

I have a great taste for sweet oranges and enjoy eating 2 per day in winter while looking at the city of Santiago in the mid-afternoon with its smog-filled horizon. In some ways it is a bit like the smoggy LA. That is why eating oranges - fortunately, for me a food choice - always makes me think of Bandini and his so many flaws, yet always painted with the colored sincerity of a good heart.