One of my favorite parts of this book so far is the chapter entitled "Santa Monica" starting on 442. Waterhouse's description of Santa Monica pier, and especially the plants and design of the area is hysterical and quite true. "The are too geometric and perfect. They are schematic diagrams for plants sketched out by some impossibly modern designer with a strong eye for geometry but who has never been out in a woods and seen a real plant. They don't even grow out of any recognizable organic matrix, they are embedded in sterile ochre dust that passes for soili n this part of the country."
All the beach towns in Southern California have this feel- beautiful but somehow not real. Santa Monica to Venice Beach to Laguna- they're perfect for those TV dramas. Of course, there is the litter and the screaming kids and the too-many-seagulls, but the landscaping is very much other-worldly.
I love the ocean, though, and really liked the ocean imagery in this chapter: "A small child's footprints wander across it (the sand), splaying like gardenia blossoms on thin shafts" "The ocean is a turing machine, the sand is its tape"
And Waterhouse is right, I think, in saying that "fighting a war out on that thing could turn oyou into some kind of maniac, make you deranged." The sea is so unpredictable, and I would imagine a lot harder to deal with than land. You can't stage battles or organize a strick, especially with so much hidden below the depths. Like that U-boat that Shaftoe and Root were on that kept hidden underneath the boat on the surface so not to be spotted. the ocean is awesome.