If I knew this book was going to have so many great references to Chicago, I would have read it sooner. The city can be both stuffy and vulgar. Interesting to read about the North and South Sides in literature, particularly from 80 years ago.
"Once in his youth he could have gone to Chicago as fellow and docent a the university, and perhaps become rich there and owned his own clinic instead of being only a minor shareholder in a clinic. But when he had thought of what he considered his own thin knowledge spread over that whole area, over all those wheat fields, those endless prairies, he had decided against it. But he had read about Chicago in those days, about the great feudal families of Armour, Palmer, Field, Crane, Warren, Swift, and McCormick and many others, and since that time not a few patients had come to him from that stratum of Chicago and New York." (126)
"Well there's a North Side and a South Side and they're very much separated. The North Side is chic and all that, and we've always lived over there, at least for many years, but lots of old families, old Chicago families, if you know what I mean, still live on the South Side. The University is there. I mean it's stuffy to some people, but anyhow it's different from the North Side. I don't know whether you understand." (152)
"Suddenly Nicole interrupted in succinct Chicagoese: "Bull!"" (154)
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