Before it's May....
Let's see - started off with The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, the nonfiction account of a little Hmong girl with epilepsy and the treatment conflicts between her parents and her doctors. Religion, literacy, economics, etc. all played a part in the mess that Lia's life becomes, and you wonder how two groups who both want the best for a child can both be so wrong and so incapable of finding common ground to work together. Fadiman also exposes some critical flaws in mainstream medicine - the inability of many practitioners to treat patients as a whole, the inability of professionals (and patients) to accept death, the belief that modern medicine knows most and knows best.
I wondered if things wouldn't have gone more smoothly with some of the acceptance present in Franz Lidz's account of his uncles, Unstrung Heroes. The Lidz men all suffered from mental illness in some form, and as a result, often lived along the margins of society, but through Lidz's account of his uncles, frank and unembarrassed by their struggles and idiosyncracies, the marginalized of our society begin to seem more entertaining and interesting. Frustrating and unreasonable, yes, but also whimisical and unselfish. How can you not love someone who collects found shoelaces? Everyone, especially anyone struggling with mental illness, should have someone who loves them as Franz Lidz loves his uncles.
In a month that now seems filled with somber topics, I also waded into Annette Gordon-Reed's Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. All academic work should be so honest; Gordon-Reed admits from the beginning that her belief on whether or not Jefferson and Hemings had a relationship can change from one minute to the next, and that's an important admission, because her research is not, as is often thought, intended so much as to make a case for the existence of the relationship, but to expose and question the belief that such a relationship wasn't possible. For instance, scholars have historically been skeptical of the late-life remembrances of Sally Hemings' children, while accepting unquestioningly the accounts of Jefferson's grandchildren. Gordon-Reed, an attorney, puts the basic structure of trial evidence to work and rightfully questions inconsistencies like this. If we can't rely on the Hemings family oral tradition, why should we rely on the Jefferson family oral tradition? Sadly, the discussion often leaves little basis for the difference in treatment beyond race, but reading Gordon-Reed's lambasting of various historians and their sloppy scholarship will guarantee that you never read histories or biographies the same way again!
Part of the reason I only made it through four books this month was Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden. It was one of those books that I enjoyed so much, I kept picking it up and putting it down again, wanting to read it and knowing that would mean it would end. I read her first novel, The House at Riverton, last year, and found this to be almost as enjoyable, if a little convoluted. It's hard to avoid convolution when you have four female leads spread out through as many generations and on two different continents, a more ambitious undertaking than The House at Riverton, which was told in flashbacks, but mostly focused on one family, one manor house, and one generation. Still, it was just so carefully paced that I enjoyed moving through it and took my time. She's an Australian writer, and the recent globalization of publishing has added her to my list of authors to follow, along with Kate Atkinson, Steig Larsson, John Harwood, and Susan Fletcher.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Just My Imagination
So, once again, Mother's Day, otherwise known as the day I would prefer to spend under the bed. Honestly, I think about draping blankets over the side until they touch the floor and just crawling under there until I feel like rejoining the world. I cry every day for a week beforehand, feeling sorry for myself and then berating myself for being so silly. I wish I didn't feel this way, and I realize it's probably not very adult, but when everything around you is about celebrating something you don't have, that you barely remember having, avoidance does seem to be what comes to mind.
That's probably one of the saddest things about death. The reality is that the farther you get from it, the fewer people still care or at least are still aware. The people closest start off with the sharpest memories, and as time grinds the edges off, most people end up with memories that don't poke and prod at them very often. You end up struggling with something that's invisible to everyone else.
Lately, I shop for her in my imagination, ticking off books that I've read that she would have loved. (That is probably the greatest sadness for me - my mother was the only person I've ever known who read nearly as much as I do. I'm sure there are other people who do, but no one I've meet, let alone know well enough to chat with.) Imaginary retail therapy, kept to myself, seems to help. I can't buy for myself - unwilling to spend money on small vanities like nail polish, persuading myself that hard water would only damage a copper kettle, noting how infrequently I'd have an opportunity to wear a cashmere scarf. Besides, if she were here, sometimes I think I wouldn't want for those sorts of things. I don't know, but I suspect they are the kinds of things your mom buys you for no reason. Buying presents, however, would likely be the quickest path to bankruptcy for me, and I always see things that I would buy for Mom. Dichroic glass pendants, red brocade wallets, heavy pottery mugs with vellum-esque glazes. This year, I'd be leaning toward Sing Them Home, some pricey organic coffee, and one of the beautiful bleeding hearts from the Italian greenhouse down the road. Imaginary shopping for an imaginary relationship seems appropriate.
Of course, in my imagination, she's always whole and happy. Her eyes are bright, her hands don't shake, and she laughs. She squeezes my hand, tucks my hair behind my ear. She is who she was on the good days, and she gets to be my mother instead of me being hers. That's the best part about imagination: when you're telling the story, you can tell it however you want.
That's probably one of the saddest things about death. The reality is that the farther you get from it, the fewer people still care or at least are still aware. The people closest start off with the sharpest memories, and as time grinds the edges off, most people end up with memories that don't poke and prod at them very often. You end up struggling with something that's invisible to everyone else.
Lately, I shop for her in my imagination, ticking off books that I've read that she would have loved. (That is probably the greatest sadness for me - my mother was the only person I've ever known who read nearly as much as I do. I'm sure there are other people who do, but no one I've meet, let alone know well enough to chat with.) Imaginary retail therapy, kept to myself, seems to help. I can't buy for myself - unwilling to spend money on small vanities like nail polish, persuading myself that hard water would only damage a copper kettle, noting how infrequently I'd have an opportunity to wear a cashmere scarf. Besides, if she were here, sometimes I think I wouldn't want for those sorts of things. I don't know, but I suspect they are the kinds of things your mom buys you for no reason. Buying presents, however, would likely be the quickest path to bankruptcy for me, and I always see things that I would buy for Mom. Dichroic glass pendants, red brocade wallets, heavy pottery mugs with vellum-esque glazes. This year, I'd be leaning toward Sing Them Home, some pricey organic coffee, and one of the beautiful bleeding hearts from the Italian greenhouse down the road. Imaginary shopping for an imaginary relationship seems appropriate.
Of course, in my imagination, she's always whole and happy. Her eyes are bright, her hands don't shake, and she laughs. She squeezes my hand, tucks my hair behind my ear. She is who she was on the good days, and she gets to be my mother instead of me being hers. That's the best part about imagination: when you're telling the story, you can tell it however you want.
Friday, May 1, 2009
My Brother
Yesterday, my little brother had a birthday. He probably wouldn't want me to announce his age, but I will say that he's old enough that I don't remember his first one. That always amazes me, the fact that I don't have any memory of his advent in my life, because when it comes to someone's whose existence, whose entrance into the world, I'd want to celebrate, he's at the top of the list.
But, still no memories. I don't remember Mom's pregnancy, staying with grandparents while she was in the hospital, or the red, wrinkly, suspicious bundle that became my brother coming home. No, really - he was suspicious. Even in his first hospital picture, suitably dated by lighter-burned edges and shellacked wood plaque, he's turned partially away from the camera, squinting with his one open eye in a manner that clearly says he suspects everyone and isn't really sure about anything. Either that, or he's reacting like a hamster to the bright camera light, but knowing him as I do, I interpret it as a cosmic wariness that's never really left him. I don't remember being consulting on the naming of the at-the-time-hypothetical brother either, but have been told that I had creative suggestions. (I was two, I wanted a dog, I suggested the name Shadow - what can I say?)
Later, I remember his blue footie pajamas, his constant smell of baby shampoo and dirt, his fascination with tying knots in my jumprope and disassembling my dollhouse. I remember his presence in the dark, when we were both working hard to keep each other from being frightened. I can still conjure the memory of his hand in mine at a funeral, of the quick lie to cover for my mistakes, of Saturday morning arguments over channel 5 versus channel 12. I see a glib teenager vaulting off the edge of a moving haywagon to chase down my baseball cap and a little boy surveying a dammed creek with his hands on his hips. In my dark moments, I hear his voice in my head, the words he used to encourage me to throw caution to the wind when we were small: "We're Davises. We can do anything." Twenty-five years later, when I married, those words are the reason I didn't change my name.
Still, there's no milestone to mark his arrival in my life. Despite that fact that I have memories as early as 12-18 months and that he came along when I was 2 1/2, my mind didn't mark this momentous occasion in any meaningful way. Maybe that's as it should be. I have no first memory of him, just like I have no first memory of the other innate loves of my life. No memory of learning to read, no memory of first loving the presence of a kitty cat, no memory of my brother - he's just always there.
Innate love is a deceptive thing. People think unconditional love is something pleasant and easy, and perhaps it is for the recipient, but not for the giver. For the giver, unconditional love hurts. It worries, it disappoints, it frustrates, it angers, it infuriates. It's not that you don't experience those things with unconditional love, I learned early in life, it's just that they don't make it go away. People look for different metaphors for the enduring timelessness of love - oceans, mountains, rivers - but love's really not that elegant and majestic. In fact, if I search the landscape of my childhood for a symbol, love is multiflora rose - introduced without warning into my environment, it took root and spread with the tenacity of steel. You can hack a multiflora rose down to the ground, pour gas on the roots, set it on fire, and within months, it will be flourishing again. As mentioned, it's not elegant, but frankly, neither is love.
But, still no memories. I don't remember Mom's pregnancy, staying with grandparents while she was in the hospital, or the red, wrinkly, suspicious bundle that became my brother coming home. No, really - he was suspicious. Even in his first hospital picture, suitably dated by lighter-burned edges and shellacked wood plaque, he's turned partially away from the camera, squinting with his one open eye in a manner that clearly says he suspects everyone and isn't really sure about anything. Either that, or he's reacting like a hamster to the bright camera light, but knowing him as I do, I interpret it as a cosmic wariness that's never really left him. I don't remember being consulting on the naming of the at-the-time-hypothetical brother either, but have been told that I had creative suggestions. (I was two, I wanted a dog, I suggested the name Shadow - what can I say?)
Later, I remember his blue footie pajamas, his constant smell of baby shampoo and dirt, his fascination with tying knots in my jumprope and disassembling my dollhouse. I remember his presence in the dark, when we were both working hard to keep each other from being frightened. I can still conjure the memory of his hand in mine at a funeral, of the quick lie to cover for my mistakes, of Saturday morning arguments over channel 5 versus channel 12. I see a glib teenager vaulting off the edge of a moving haywagon to chase down my baseball cap and a little boy surveying a dammed creek with his hands on his hips. In my dark moments, I hear his voice in my head, the words he used to encourage me to throw caution to the wind when we were small: "We're Davises. We can do anything." Twenty-five years later, when I married, those words are the reason I didn't change my name.
Still, there's no milestone to mark his arrival in my life. Despite that fact that I have memories as early as 12-18 months and that he came along when I was 2 1/2, my mind didn't mark this momentous occasion in any meaningful way. Maybe that's as it should be. I have no first memory of him, just like I have no first memory of the other innate loves of my life. No memory of learning to read, no memory of first loving the presence of a kitty cat, no memory of my brother - he's just always there.
Innate love is a deceptive thing. People think unconditional love is something pleasant and easy, and perhaps it is for the recipient, but not for the giver. For the giver, unconditional love hurts. It worries, it disappoints, it frustrates, it angers, it infuriates. It's not that you don't experience those things with unconditional love, I learned early in life, it's just that they don't make it go away. People look for different metaphors for the enduring timelessness of love - oceans, mountains, rivers - but love's really not that elegant and majestic. In fact, if I search the landscape of my childhood for a symbol, love is multiflora rose - introduced without warning into my environment, it took root and spread with the tenacity of steel. You can hack a multiflora rose down to the ground, pour gas on the roots, set it on fire, and within months, it will be flourishing again. As mentioned, it's not elegant, but frankly, neither is love.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Productivity
Or the lack thereof. I'm just not feeling very productive today. And I'm not feeling very guilty about it either. It's not, of course, for lack of things to do. The dishwasher could be stuffed a little more and run, the laundry sorter's beginning to just morph into a laundry heap, recycling needs to go out, the stove needs cleaned in preparation for another bout of cold rain, spiderwort and lilies need planting, with so many cats there's always dusting to do. Then there are the things that don't have to be done, but should be: a draft of the column could be written, the refrigerator could be cleaned, the closets and cupboards could stand a spring weeding, the taxes need filed, the daybook transcription is languishing in ratty notepads, I could stand to get a little exercise and go for a walk.
Or, I could just lie here, watching the sun move across the floor, feeling a little hungry, but not motivated to do anything about it, and enjoy the cool, peaceful quiet. In twenty years, in fifty years, will I wish that I'd done more? Will I think, "My house could have been cleaner. I should have exercised more. I wish I'd had fewer weeds in the paving bricks out back." Are those the kinds of things I'll wish I'd done more of? Or will I think, "I'm glad I lay in the sunshine. I'm glad I took naps and noticed the peace in my life. I'm glad I read every day."
Why do we feel so driven to judge our lives by the way other people live theirs? (Although I suppose this is far better than judging other people's lives by the way we live ours....) I've clearly made decisions to avoid having other people's lives, so why do I occasionally feel like I should judge my life by those standards? My grandmother got up before dawn every morning, baked bread and pies, did laundry and hung it up to dry, packed lunches, prepped for dinner, cleaned floors by hand and went off to work, just to come home, fix dinner, wash all the dishes alone by hand, fall asleep working a crossword puzzle and go to bed, only to do it all over the next day. On her first day of retirement, she cleaned the furnace ducts. I don't think it made her happy. I don't think it even made her feel good about her life. In fact, I'm pretty sure that most days she felt sad or martyred. So why spend decades doing things just because other people expect you to?
Of course, somedays I think about her, and I feel bad - my flowerbeds are neglected, I don't have all my friends and family on index cards with notations of contact information and Christmas cards sent and received, and I frequently make cookies that are not uniform in size. Shirts in my closet (not ironed before they were put there) don't all face the same direction, the sheets occasionally smell a little musty because they spent the night in the washer, and I have blatantly ignored a cobweb by my desk for days. Would I be a better person somehow if my sweaters were ironed and organized by season? If my oatmeal raisin cookies didn't have a size deviation of more than one-quarter inch? If I had fewer cats and fewer books? And what kind of a "better" person would I be? Morally better? Spiritually better? What is "better" anyway? While I know a little organization and neatness soothes my soul, would I be happier? Or would I just be happier if I'd never been told that properly applied stamps had an equal border on the top and right side?
I suppose it's normal to question yourself, to question how you spend your time and your money and your energy, because that's what makes a person an individual, but at the end of the day, I feel comfortable just doing what I want to do in the moment. If I make myself do something, and later regret it, then those are two occasions of time lost, regrets felt. If I do what I want now, and later regret it, well, then, at least I have the comfort of having done what I felt like doing in the moment. The right to choose is about more than having or not having children - it's just that, the right to choose for yourself.
Recently, a retired college professor friend said to Andrew, "You're awfully busy doing all sorts of interesting things. Your house probably isn't really clean, is it?" Andrew told her that we do our best to keep it neat, but that yes, there's always some cleaning that needs done. Her response? "Good for you!" I just love that.
So, I suppose I'll go boil an egg for lunch, grab a book and some tea and maybe spend some time in a deck chair in the sun. Perhaps I'll need a few minutes of chanting, "That is not a standard by which I wish to judge my life. That is not a standard by which I wish to judge my life," but I think I'll manage to not to regret it.
Or, I could just lie here, watching the sun move across the floor, feeling a little hungry, but not motivated to do anything about it, and enjoy the cool, peaceful quiet. In twenty years, in fifty years, will I wish that I'd done more? Will I think, "My house could have been cleaner. I should have exercised more. I wish I'd had fewer weeds in the paving bricks out back." Are those the kinds of things I'll wish I'd done more of? Or will I think, "I'm glad I lay in the sunshine. I'm glad I took naps and noticed the peace in my life. I'm glad I read every day."
Why do we feel so driven to judge our lives by the way other people live theirs? (Although I suppose this is far better than judging other people's lives by the way we live ours....) I've clearly made decisions to avoid having other people's lives, so why do I occasionally feel like I should judge my life by those standards? My grandmother got up before dawn every morning, baked bread and pies, did laundry and hung it up to dry, packed lunches, prepped for dinner, cleaned floors by hand and went off to work, just to come home, fix dinner, wash all the dishes alone by hand, fall asleep working a crossword puzzle and go to bed, only to do it all over the next day. On her first day of retirement, she cleaned the furnace ducts. I don't think it made her happy. I don't think it even made her feel good about her life. In fact, I'm pretty sure that most days she felt sad or martyred. So why spend decades doing things just because other people expect you to?
Of course, somedays I think about her, and I feel bad - my flowerbeds are neglected, I don't have all my friends and family on index cards with notations of contact information and Christmas cards sent and received, and I frequently make cookies that are not uniform in size. Shirts in my closet (not ironed before they were put there) don't all face the same direction, the sheets occasionally smell a little musty because they spent the night in the washer, and I have blatantly ignored a cobweb by my desk for days. Would I be a better person somehow if my sweaters were ironed and organized by season? If my oatmeal raisin cookies didn't have a size deviation of more than one-quarter inch? If I had fewer cats and fewer books? And what kind of a "better" person would I be? Morally better? Spiritually better? What is "better" anyway? While I know a little organization and neatness soothes my soul, would I be happier? Or would I just be happier if I'd never been told that properly applied stamps had an equal border on the top and right side?
I suppose it's normal to question yourself, to question how you spend your time and your money and your energy, because that's what makes a person an individual, but at the end of the day, I feel comfortable just doing what I want to do in the moment. If I make myself do something, and later regret it, then those are two occasions of time lost, regrets felt. If I do what I want now, and later regret it, well, then, at least I have the comfort of having done what I felt like doing in the moment. The right to choose is about more than having or not having children - it's just that, the right to choose for yourself.
Recently, a retired college professor friend said to Andrew, "You're awfully busy doing all sorts of interesting things. Your house probably isn't really clean, is it?" Andrew told her that we do our best to keep it neat, but that yes, there's always some cleaning that needs done. Her response? "Good for you!" I just love that.
So, I suppose I'll go boil an egg for lunch, grab a book and some tea and maybe spend some time in a deck chair in the sun. Perhaps I'll need a few minutes of chanting, "That is not a standard by which I wish to judge my life. That is not a standard by which I wish to judge my life," but I think I'll manage to not to regret it.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
March in Review
All over the place last month, running the gamut from new literary efforts to old classics, popular fiction to nonfiction, massive tomes to novellas!
The "massive tome" was Dan Simmons' Drood, which left me a little conflicted. Simmons chronicles the last five years of Charles Dickens' life, using Wilkie Collins as a narrator and inserting a mysterious London underworld character as Edwin Drood as the source of suspense. Collins and Dickens seem to have been the original frenemies, with Dickens feeling superior and jealous and Collins feeling inferior and jealous. The opium addiction that plagued Collins is also used to good effect in same ways, but in others, I felt a little annoyed by the implication that I might be spending so much time with an unreliable narrator. A deceptive narrator is an interesting device, but as a reader, I tend to resent it if I end up feeling as though I've been on a literary snipe hunt. Perhaps the basic issue was just that "skeleton" and "skin" weren't well-matched - the old silk purse/sow's ear dilemma. It was well-paced and atmospheric, held my attention for 750+ pages and was just enjoyable to read, but I think I wish he'd expended his efforts on a slightly sturdier plot.
John Harwood's The Seance suffered from some of the same problems, I think. Harwood's first novel, The Ghost Writer, was so ostentatiously cryptic that I still don't really know what happened, but it was well-written enough that I thought I'd give his second effort a try. I found The Seance more enjoyable, a fairly light Gothic tale with all the classic elements - ghosts, decaying family manors, missing people, fog, etc. My only complaint was that near the end, I felt that Harwood was intentionally trying to muddy the waters, for effect, not purpose. He's a very skillful writer and creates wonderful settings, but there seems to be constant obfuscation for obfuscation's sake. The Seance represented an improvement, I think, over The Ghost Writer, so perhaps he'll continue to evolve.
After all this literary second-guessing, I enjoyed a nonfiction break with David Grann's The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon. Grann neatly conveys the story of explorer Percy Fawcett who, after several successful trips through the jungles of South America, disappeared with his son and a friend in the 1920s. Fawcett was one of those fascinating historical figures, an obsessive personality who followed his obsession literally to his death, and I came away wondering why it is that some obsessions lead to wondrous discoveries while others lead to madness and why it is so hard to tell them apart in the beginning. Some people persist and achieve success, while the same persistence in others, persistence in the face of ridicule and poverty and resistance, leads to destruction. As is often the problem with nonfiction, it can be difficult to get the story to conform to a traditional story arc, especially if your protagonist wanders off into the jungle and disappears permanently, despite the best efforts of hundreds of searchers to turn up some clue. Grann drops the story a little abruptly on the doorstop of modern archaeological efforts, and I would have appreciated a stronger connection, and think Grann would have achieved a stronger ending, with present-day discoveries.
So, I left the tropics and followed Lincoln Child to the Far North in Terminal Freeze. What can I say? No one writes great rip-roaring tales in the classic storytelling tradition like Child (and his writing partner, Douglas Preston). This was Raising the Mammoth meets The Thing from Another World. Scientists on a grant provided by a Discovery Channel-esque network find a prehistoric creature frozen in ice, native people warn them to leave it alone, the warnings are ignored and bloody chaos ensues. Formulaic - absolutely, fun - absolutely.
I followed that with Bernhard Schlink's The Reader, which was just sad. It's hard to discuss without giving too much away, but the cruel ironies, the damaging secrets and the unrelenting sadness made it one of those books you mull over for quite awhile afterward. Schlink has been criticized for a simplified version of events, and it is, despite some literary window-dressing, a simple story. He's also been criticized for encouraging people to identify with the perpetrators of war crimes, and he certainly does put a "human face" on them, but I felt one of the central questions was can you commit horrible atrocities without being scarred and damaged by them yourself? That's not saying the damages to victim and perpetrator are equivalent, but with the tragic stories now coming out of Africa about child soldiers forced to rape and kill, it is a question worth asking and one we're still struggling with. Sometimes I take away the smallest of concepts from books, and in this case, what I remember is how clearly Schlink defines our struggle to deal with things beyond our ken: "When I tried to understand it, I had the feeling that I was failing to condemn it as it must be condemned. When I condemned it as it must be condemned, there was no room for understanding." Those two sentences seem to sum up the ideological struggles to cope with no only World War II and other horrors of war, but of all our discussions of crime and punishment in our legal and penal systems.
Thankfully, Jan Elizabeth Watson's Asta in the Wings was lighter. Set in 1978, the story of Asta and her older brother Orion is billed almost as science-fiction. After being kept in a boarded-up, decaying house all of her life because of "the plague" that her mother says has killed off so many children, Asta finds herself forced out into the world with her brother after their mother fails to come home. Asta, a precocious and endearing little personage, is reminiscent of all sorts of wonderful precocious children in literature from authors like Louise Fitzhugh (Harriet the Spy) to Fannie Flagg (Coming Attractions). The book wasn't what I expected, because the premise almost seems to promise something more far-fetched, but it was delightful to just watch Asta move out into the world, trying to cope and to keep her brother close and to value her family, regardless of their oddities and dysfunction. Two things sum up how enduring Asta is as a character - early on, whenever she met someone new, I worried for her because of her lack of worldly knowledge, silently chanting, "Please be nice to her. Please be nice to her," and, at the end of the book, I found myself yearning for a sequel, wanting to see her evolve and reach out further into the world. Subtle, gentle and beautiful.
Somewhere in here, perhaps fittingly displaced amongst the clutter, was Franz Lidz's Ghosty Men, a brief biography of the Collyer brothers, interspersed with anecdotes of Lidz's own hoarder uncles. The Collyer brothers are true American Gothic - wealthy and well-educated recluses literally buried in a three-story house filled to the rafters with the detritus of decades. Homer Collyer, who had gone blind and suffered from crippling complications from rheumatic fever, lived with his brother Langley, whose paranoia allowed him to only venture out at night on junk-collecting runs, in Harlem. After an anonymous call reporting a dead body in the house, police broke in (through an upper-story window) and found Homer, dead only a few hours from starvation in the midst of mounds of booby-trapped rubbish and newspapers. It speaks to the incredible state of the house that it took police more than two weeks to discover the body of Langley, only a few feet away from his brother. He'd been felled by one of his own traps, buried under an avalanche of junk, leaving Homer, blind and helpless to waste away. Lidz tells the story with compassion, dealing out doses of his own family struggles with compulsive collecting, and the Collyers emerge from his treatment less horrific than sad, almost figures of tragic absurdity on the scale of Samuel Beckett.
Finally, Andrew read A Girl of the Limberlost to me. Perhaps no great shakes literarily-speaking, but sometimes a person just needs to have the kind of story where good people do good things, confront surmountable problems, and get the good things they deserve in the end. In a dark and cynical world, it's nice to visit with a character who believes in the rewards of kindness and sacrifice, who knows that dark times are just a reminder to keep your inner light in good working condition. Ask yourself the old question of whether you'd rather be smart, beautiful or good, and then go read about Elnora Comstock.
And with eight holds at the library and books piling up all over with the spring publishing rush, there'll be plenty more to talk about next month!
The "massive tome" was Dan Simmons' Drood, which left me a little conflicted. Simmons chronicles the last five years of Charles Dickens' life, using Wilkie Collins as a narrator and inserting a mysterious London underworld character as Edwin Drood as the source of suspense. Collins and Dickens seem to have been the original frenemies, with Dickens feeling superior and jealous and Collins feeling inferior and jealous. The opium addiction that plagued Collins is also used to good effect in same ways, but in others, I felt a little annoyed by the implication that I might be spending so much time with an unreliable narrator. A deceptive narrator is an interesting device, but as a reader, I tend to resent it if I end up feeling as though I've been on a literary snipe hunt. Perhaps the basic issue was just that "skeleton" and "skin" weren't well-matched - the old silk purse/sow's ear dilemma. It was well-paced and atmospheric, held my attention for 750+ pages and was just enjoyable to read, but I think I wish he'd expended his efforts on a slightly sturdier plot.
John Harwood's The Seance suffered from some of the same problems, I think. Harwood's first novel, The Ghost Writer, was so ostentatiously cryptic that I still don't really know what happened, but it was well-written enough that I thought I'd give his second effort a try. I found The Seance more enjoyable, a fairly light Gothic tale with all the classic elements - ghosts, decaying family manors, missing people, fog, etc. My only complaint was that near the end, I felt that Harwood was intentionally trying to muddy the waters, for effect, not purpose. He's a very skillful writer and creates wonderful settings, but there seems to be constant obfuscation for obfuscation's sake. The Seance represented an improvement, I think, over The Ghost Writer, so perhaps he'll continue to evolve.
After all this literary second-guessing, I enjoyed a nonfiction break with David Grann's The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon. Grann neatly conveys the story of explorer Percy Fawcett who, after several successful trips through the jungles of South America, disappeared with his son and a friend in the 1920s. Fawcett was one of those fascinating historical figures, an obsessive personality who followed his obsession literally to his death, and I came away wondering why it is that some obsessions lead to wondrous discoveries while others lead to madness and why it is so hard to tell them apart in the beginning. Some people persist and achieve success, while the same persistence in others, persistence in the face of ridicule and poverty and resistance, leads to destruction. As is often the problem with nonfiction, it can be difficult to get the story to conform to a traditional story arc, especially if your protagonist wanders off into the jungle and disappears permanently, despite the best efforts of hundreds of searchers to turn up some clue. Grann drops the story a little abruptly on the doorstop of modern archaeological efforts, and I would have appreciated a stronger connection, and think Grann would have achieved a stronger ending, with present-day discoveries.
So, I left the tropics and followed Lincoln Child to the Far North in Terminal Freeze. What can I say? No one writes great rip-roaring tales in the classic storytelling tradition like Child (and his writing partner, Douglas Preston). This was Raising the Mammoth meets The Thing from Another World. Scientists on a grant provided by a Discovery Channel-esque network find a prehistoric creature frozen in ice, native people warn them to leave it alone, the warnings are ignored and bloody chaos ensues. Formulaic - absolutely, fun - absolutely.
I followed that with Bernhard Schlink's The Reader, which was just sad. It's hard to discuss without giving too much away, but the cruel ironies, the damaging secrets and the unrelenting sadness made it one of those books you mull over for quite awhile afterward. Schlink has been criticized for a simplified version of events, and it is, despite some literary window-dressing, a simple story. He's also been criticized for encouraging people to identify with the perpetrators of war crimes, and he certainly does put a "human face" on them, but I felt one of the central questions was can you commit horrible atrocities without being scarred and damaged by them yourself? That's not saying the damages to victim and perpetrator are equivalent, but with the tragic stories now coming out of Africa about child soldiers forced to rape and kill, it is a question worth asking and one we're still struggling with. Sometimes I take away the smallest of concepts from books, and in this case, what I remember is how clearly Schlink defines our struggle to deal with things beyond our ken: "When I tried to understand it, I had the feeling that I was failing to condemn it as it must be condemned. When I condemned it as it must be condemned, there was no room for understanding." Those two sentences seem to sum up the ideological struggles to cope with no only World War II and other horrors of war, but of all our discussions of crime and punishment in our legal and penal systems.
Thankfully, Jan Elizabeth Watson's Asta in the Wings was lighter. Set in 1978, the story of Asta and her older brother Orion is billed almost as science-fiction. After being kept in a boarded-up, decaying house all of her life because of "the plague" that her mother says has killed off so many children, Asta finds herself forced out into the world with her brother after their mother fails to come home. Asta, a precocious and endearing little personage, is reminiscent of all sorts of wonderful precocious children in literature from authors like Louise Fitzhugh (Harriet the Spy) to Fannie Flagg (Coming Attractions). The book wasn't what I expected, because the premise almost seems to promise something more far-fetched, but it was delightful to just watch Asta move out into the world, trying to cope and to keep her brother close and to value her family, regardless of their oddities and dysfunction. Two things sum up how enduring Asta is as a character - early on, whenever she met someone new, I worried for her because of her lack of worldly knowledge, silently chanting, "Please be nice to her. Please be nice to her," and, at the end of the book, I found myself yearning for a sequel, wanting to see her evolve and reach out further into the world. Subtle, gentle and beautiful.
Somewhere in here, perhaps fittingly displaced amongst the clutter, was Franz Lidz's Ghosty Men, a brief biography of the Collyer brothers, interspersed with anecdotes of Lidz's own hoarder uncles. The Collyer brothers are true American Gothic - wealthy and well-educated recluses literally buried in a three-story house filled to the rafters with the detritus of decades. Homer Collyer, who had gone blind and suffered from crippling complications from rheumatic fever, lived with his brother Langley, whose paranoia allowed him to only venture out at night on junk-collecting runs, in Harlem. After an anonymous call reporting a dead body in the house, police broke in (through an upper-story window) and found Homer, dead only a few hours from starvation in the midst of mounds of booby-trapped rubbish and newspapers. It speaks to the incredible state of the house that it took police more than two weeks to discover the body of Langley, only a few feet away from his brother. He'd been felled by one of his own traps, buried under an avalanche of junk, leaving Homer, blind and helpless to waste away. Lidz tells the story with compassion, dealing out doses of his own family struggles with compulsive collecting, and the Collyers emerge from his treatment less horrific than sad, almost figures of tragic absurdity on the scale of Samuel Beckett.
Finally, Andrew read A Girl of the Limberlost to me. Perhaps no great shakes literarily-speaking, but sometimes a person just needs to have the kind of story where good people do good things, confront surmountable problems, and get the good things they deserve in the end. In a dark and cynical world, it's nice to visit with a character who believes in the rewards of kindness and sacrifice, who knows that dark times are just a reminder to keep your inner light in good working condition. Ask yourself the old question of whether you'd rather be smart, beautiful or good, and then go read about Elnora Comstock.
And with eight holds at the library and books piling up all over with the spring publishing rush, there'll be plenty more to talk about next month!
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Empty Houses
Went with Andrew Monday to visit a consignor in Cincinnati. He's a spry elderly man in a big rambling house, and he's working on downsizing after the death of his wife in early December. He's managing well, perhaps approaching things from a very organized and orderly fashion in an attempt to bring some clinical sterility to the process. Things seem to be clicking along smoothly enough, but sometimes there's the faintest whiff of automation, like the house in Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains," where mechanical detachment from the outside world just lets a system run on, oblivious to massive destruction.
Consignor work is so often sad, though, and sometimes I wonder how Andrew does it and manages to maintain distance. I want to list items, sign contracts, and then offer to bring over dinner or run to the post office. The houses are invariably fading beauties, lovely exteriors with rot creeping in along the window sills and underneath the bathroom tiles as steadily and fixedly as the weeds creeping up in the flowerbeds. Family support, if there is any, is distant and detached, aside from laying claim to the most valuable of objects. And in the midst of things, sort of a human version of "the last house standing" photographs from the Galveston hurricane, is one person, usually in need of a haircut, a good meal or a hug, shuffling back and forth through echoing rooms, selling off the archaeological record of their world, a world that has ceased to exist.
I suppose that's only to be expected. We aren't normally called in at the happy times in life, when people are newly married and trying to fill an apartment or when a baby has come along and changing tables are being purchased. Those people come into our world, pick things up, place bids, write checks and go home. It's only when the road narrows and darkens that we're invited into their world. Downsizing, death, divorce, disaster - the so-called "four D's of the auction business" - all those roads lead to the same place.
I probably find it sad too because I suffer from terminal empathy, and I can't approach the situation without picturing myself in the same place. Anxiety makes me a planner, hoping that somehow if I worry and strategize enough ahead of time, then I'll be able to avoid the worst. When Andrew's running late and not answering his phone, I don't waste time imagining horrible fates; I just assume the worst and then start thinking, "Will police come to let me know? Should I call my parents first or his parents? Should I call someone to go be with his parents before I call them?" It's as if I think if I have the answers ahead of time, then I'll be able to give them all at once and speed through the awfulness.
But then, I think about our house and all "his" things. No matter how many checks I write or how many objects I admire and bring home, I think of them as his, and I wonder simultaneously how quickly I can get away from all of them and how long I can keep them near me. Part of me would want to send everything away immediately and fill the house with the anesthetizing dullness of new furniture, making our house look like everyone else's, but I also wonder if I couldn't live out my days as the only living object in a shrine of early 19th-century furniture. I dread Andrew's business trips, because I can't help but think of them as dress rehearsals for some day, maybe years in the future, but some day that will come to exist. They offer practice runs, short introductions to how quiet the house is without him, for a time when I will be responsible for all the chores, for remembering garbage day, for filling hours.
Perhaps this morbidity, if that's what it is, will pass. I feel awkward and bizarre even entertaining these thoughts, let alone writing about them. They don't make sense to most people, and we all know that what doesn't make sense normally makes us uncomfortable. After all, we're 35 and most people would say we have our whole lives ahead of us, but I can't unknow what I know - that people can be snatched out of life instantaneously as neatly as if they had been erased. I wonder when/if I cross the magic line of 36 and a half if I'll feel as though the rockiest part of the journey is behind me, but I doubt it. I suspect that even my best efforts to brace myself won't make much of a difference; planning may smooth the road, but the scenery and the journey don't change.
Consignor work is so often sad, though, and sometimes I wonder how Andrew does it and manages to maintain distance. I want to list items, sign contracts, and then offer to bring over dinner or run to the post office. The houses are invariably fading beauties, lovely exteriors with rot creeping in along the window sills and underneath the bathroom tiles as steadily and fixedly as the weeds creeping up in the flowerbeds. Family support, if there is any, is distant and detached, aside from laying claim to the most valuable of objects. And in the midst of things, sort of a human version of "the last house standing" photographs from the Galveston hurricane, is one person, usually in need of a haircut, a good meal or a hug, shuffling back and forth through echoing rooms, selling off the archaeological record of their world, a world that has ceased to exist.
I suppose that's only to be expected. We aren't normally called in at the happy times in life, when people are newly married and trying to fill an apartment or when a baby has come along and changing tables are being purchased. Those people come into our world, pick things up, place bids, write checks and go home. It's only when the road narrows and darkens that we're invited into their world. Downsizing, death, divorce, disaster - the so-called "four D's of the auction business" - all those roads lead to the same place.
I probably find it sad too because I suffer from terminal empathy, and I can't approach the situation without picturing myself in the same place. Anxiety makes me a planner, hoping that somehow if I worry and strategize enough ahead of time, then I'll be able to avoid the worst. When Andrew's running late and not answering his phone, I don't waste time imagining horrible fates; I just assume the worst and then start thinking, "Will police come to let me know? Should I call my parents first or his parents? Should I call someone to go be with his parents before I call them?" It's as if I think if I have the answers ahead of time, then I'll be able to give them all at once and speed through the awfulness.
But then, I think about our house and all "his" things. No matter how many checks I write or how many objects I admire and bring home, I think of them as his, and I wonder simultaneously how quickly I can get away from all of them and how long I can keep them near me. Part of me would want to send everything away immediately and fill the house with the anesthetizing dullness of new furniture, making our house look like everyone else's, but I also wonder if I couldn't live out my days as the only living object in a shrine of early 19th-century furniture. I dread Andrew's business trips, because I can't help but think of them as dress rehearsals for some day, maybe years in the future, but some day that will come to exist. They offer practice runs, short introductions to how quiet the house is without him, for a time when I will be responsible for all the chores, for remembering garbage day, for filling hours.
Perhaps this morbidity, if that's what it is, will pass. I feel awkward and bizarre even entertaining these thoughts, let alone writing about them. They don't make sense to most people, and we all know that what doesn't make sense normally makes us uncomfortable. After all, we're 35 and most people would say we have our whole lives ahead of us, but I can't unknow what I know - that people can be snatched out of life instantaneously as neatly as if they had been erased. I wonder when/if I cross the magic line of 36 and a half if I'll feel as though the rockiest part of the journey is behind me, but I doubt it. I suspect that even my best efforts to brace myself won't make much of a difference; planning may smooth the road, but the scenery and the journey don't change.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Fickle
I've decided I'm just a series of contradictions. I've been so tired of the cold, but when it got to be 70 degrees in here, I was ready to travel back to January and sprawl in a snowdrift. I want time off, but with reduced hours, I've been at a bit of a loss. (In my defense, having time is much more enjoyable if you have money to pay for project supplies, for lunches out, for amusements of some sort!) And, in January and February, we were on the go, and all I wanted was to be at home, in the quiet with the cats and the books and tea made from our well water, and now we've been home for a few weeks, and I'm lamenting the lack of roadtrips, mostly just because I enjoy riding around with Andrew and catching up. That's all apt to be resolved in the next couple of weeks - Monday we go to Cincinnati, Friday we're doing research in Marietta, in West Virginia for the weekend, and in Chillicothe for the day on the way home Monday. Tuesday is Dayton, and then Andrew leaves bright and early Wednesday for a few days in Philadelphia without me, which will probably be just fine with me again by that point. We've also decided to scrap plans for a trip to Wisconsin at the end of the month, but the May calendar is already filling up.
Ditto for energy. I've not had any for so long, and now, with medical marvels, I'm awake, alert and actually feel a bit like a plant poking up out of suffocating dirt into the sun and fresh air. And now, of course, I want to rest. Not really, but it is a little odd; feels kind of like being attached to an engine that isn't racing, just slowly chugging along and towing me with it. I want to sit, I want to disconnect for a few moments, but the engine just keeps moving forward. Probably just an adjustment issue, but still - fickle.
John Henry's also fickle, which resulted in an interesting week. For two weeks, he was desperate to be rid of his plastic cone, tired of washcloth baths, eye ointments and citrus-flavored antibiotics. Monday, he got his stitches out and there was just the tiniest of divots near the end of the incision. The whole process was quick and painless. We were at the vet's at 4:00, out by 4:10, home by 4:35, and by 4:55, he'd ripped the entire area open again. It was gruesome: a big gaping hole near his eye, a fragment of skin between the tear and the corner of his eye (and between keeping his eye in his head and having it rolling around on his cheek), the loose end of a dissolvable suture flapping in the breeze, and the line of stitches holding his upper lid together widening like threads at a torn quilt seam. And, again, 4:55 - Dr. Fred's office was closing.
So, he got what he deserved. I left an message for Dr. Fred, pulled the suture tight and taped the end to his head with a neon blue bandage, and made him a temporary collar with kitchen shears out of a Cool-Whip bowl and duct tape. Fancy. When Dr. Fred saw him, he asked if we lived in Morrow County.... Anyway, J.H. spent the night (and $95 - the little turd is lucky that he can't mow the lawn), and now he's home again - complete with plastic cone, eye ointment and citrus-flavored antibiotics. I'd have cried if it would have done any good, but I just get to start the process over again.
At the moment, I'm not feeling fickle. I'm enjoying the calm that I'm normally just wishing for. It's raining peacefully and steadily, it's Friday, bills are paid, laundry's in the works, cats are napping and work isn't too demanding. But the line between calm and boring is SO thin....
Ditto for energy. I've not had any for so long, and now, with medical marvels, I'm awake, alert and actually feel a bit like a plant poking up out of suffocating dirt into the sun and fresh air. And now, of course, I want to rest. Not really, but it is a little odd; feels kind of like being attached to an engine that isn't racing, just slowly chugging along and towing me with it. I want to sit, I want to disconnect for a few moments, but the engine just keeps moving forward. Probably just an adjustment issue, but still - fickle.
John Henry's also fickle, which resulted in an interesting week. For two weeks, he was desperate to be rid of his plastic cone, tired of washcloth baths, eye ointments and citrus-flavored antibiotics. Monday, he got his stitches out and there was just the tiniest of divots near the end of the incision. The whole process was quick and painless. We were at the vet's at 4:00, out by 4:10, home by 4:35, and by 4:55, he'd ripped the entire area open again. It was gruesome: a big gaping hole near his eye, a fragment of skin between the tear and the corner of his eye (and between keeping his eye in his head and having it rolling around on his cheek), the loose end of a dissolvable suture flapping in the breeze, and the line of stitches holding his upper lid together widening like threads at a torn quilt seam. And, again, 4:55 - Dr. Fred's office was closing.
So, he got what he deserved. I left an message for Dr. Fred, pulled the suture tight and taped the end to his head with a neon blue bandage, and made him a temporary collar with kitchen shears out of a Cool-Whip bowl and duct tape. Fancy. When Dr. Fred saw him, he asked if we lived in Morrow County.... Anyway, J.H. spent the night (and $95 - the little turd is lucky that he can't mow the lawn), and now he's home again - complete with plastic cone, eye ointment and citrus-flavored antibiotics. I'd have cried if it would have done any good, but I just get to start the process over again.
At the moment, I'm not feeling fickle. I'm enjoying the calm that I'm normally just wishing for. It's raining peacefully and steadily, it's Friday, bills are paid, laundry's in the works, cats are napping and work isn't too demanding. But the line between calm and boring is SO thin....
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