At first I thought, for a book about a father-son relationship where both are struggling with substance abuse, the father gets little mention until laAt first I thought, for a book about a father-son relationship where both are struggling with substance abuse, the father gets little mention until late in the book. Then, in the Notes at the end, I see that Nick Flynn was using the old Moby-Dick model for his dad. You know, lots of talk about the white whale in the room (ocean?) for the most of the book, but no actual appearance till late in the game.
Oh. OK.
Jumps back and forth in time. Reminds me in some ways of Death of a Salesman, the way the sorry dad is so confident about his coming success in the writing world. Big dreams. Big ego. Big problems ignored.
When Nick goes to NY for writing education, he eventually writes a collection of poetry, gets it published and shares it with his grandfather and brother (only later with his dad, too, as many poems are about both his alcoholic father and dead mother). He writes:
"Neither my brother nor my grandfather have said a word about my book. Like dropping a pebble into a very deep pond. Just as neither of them has a photograph of my mother on display in their homes, yet there she is, beside my father's bed."
Boy, could I identify with that. Weird how, when you give a copy of your book to a family member, it drops into a black hole and is never mentioned again. The reasons could be myriad, so I guess that's for writers to figure out.
Anyway, what I enjoyed most about this book was it's inside look at the Pine Street facility in Boston where the homeless go for a bed at night, especially come winter. Flynn worked there and, eventually, his own father showed up as a homeless person in need.
I had no ideas about the ins and outs of such places, but I know this -- you've got to be a saint to work in one because it is a tough, tough business with no easy answers. I think of it each time I see people looking for money at stoplights or tent encampments on stretches of green in towns and cities....more
Finished, but I plan to reread it anyway because I liked it so well, perhaps as well as any Glück I've read (and, according to the experts. The Wild IFinished, but I plan to reread it anyway because I liked it so well, perhaps as well as any Glück I've read (and, according to the experts. The Wild Iris deserves that designation).
Maybe its the "Our Town" aura that helps it, the way LG uses Everyvillage to show us certain things about the human condition (general) through the device of various villagers (specific). A few of these poems use the ubiquitous pronoun "I" but not many -- a welcome relief.
I found this excerpt mentioning the book from an online interview she gave to Henri Cole:
I also think of my books as either operating on a vertical axis, from despair to transcendence, or moving horizontally, with concerns that are more social or communal, the sort of material you might expect to show up in a novel rather than a poem. Averno (2006), for instance, is a book quintessentially on a vertical axis. And A Village Life (2009) is utterly the opposite—with different speakers coming from different times of life, living in some unspecified little seemingly Mediterranean village, though the model was Plainfield, Vermont, where I lived for many years. You make substitutions to keep yourself inventing.
Vermont? I knew these sound more familiar than a European village should!
See what I mean with this example from the text:
In the Plaza
For two weeks he's been watching the same girl, someone he sees in the plaza. In her twenties maybe, drinking coffee in the afternoon, the little dark head bent over a magazine. He watches from across the square, pretending to be buying something, cigarettes, maybe a bouquet of flowers.
Because she doesn't know it exists, her power is very great now, fused to the needs of his imagination. He is her prisoner. She says the words he gives her in a voice he imagines, low-pitched and soft, a voice from the south as the dark hair must be from the south.
Soon she will recognize him, then begin to expect him. And perhaps then every day her hair will be freshly washed, she will gaze outward across the plaza before looking down. and after that they will become lovers.
But he hopes this will not happen immediately since whatever power she exerts now over his body, over his emotions, she will have no power once she commits herself—
she will withdraw into that private world of feeling women enter when they love. And living there, she will become like a person who casts no shadow, who is not present in the world; in that sense, so little use to him it hardly matters whether she lives or dies....more
I feel as though I've read this before but GR says I have not read this before and God knows arguing with software is like arguing with a wife: You seI feel as though I've read this before but GR says I have not read this before and God knows arguing with software is like arguing with a wife: You seldom win and there is no going to the replay.
Anyhoo, Ferlinghetti is always fun to return to and this 1958 collection is, in some ways, better than even the most famous Beat book of poesy, Howl and Other Poems (sorry, Ginsberg fans). Certainly it's better than any poetry Jack Kerouac ever wrote, though JK wasn't just kidding about being the most famous beat you'd never meet (unless you picked him up on The Road before he became as swollen as an alcoholic sausage, poor guy).
A sample poem from this book's more innocent days (those golden 50s) that sounds a lot like our more compromised days (these tin 20s):
I Am Waiting
I am waiting for my case to come up and I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder and I am waiting for someone to really discover America and wail and I am waiting for the discovery of a new symbolic western frontier and I am waiting for the American Eagle to really spread its wings and straighten up and fly right and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety to drop dead and I am waiting for the war to be fought which will make the world safe for anarchy and I am waiting for the final withering away of all governments and I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Second Coming and I am waiting for a religious revival to sweep thru the state of Arizona and I am waiting for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored and I am waiting for them to prove that God is really American and I am waiting to see God on television piped onto church altars if only they can find the right channel to tune in on and I am waiting for the Last Supper to be served again with a strange new appetizer and I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for my number to be called and I am waiting for the Salvation Army to take over and I am waiting for the meek to be blessed and inherit the earth without taxes and I am waiting for forests and animals to reclaim the earth as theirs and I am waiting for a way to be devised to destroy all nationalisms without killing anybody and I am waiting for linnets and planets to fall like rain and I am waiting for lovers and weepers to lie down together again in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed and I am anxiously waiting for the secret of eternal life to be discovered by an obscure general practitioner and I am waiting for the storms of life to be over and I am waiting to set sail for happiness and I am waiting for a reconstructed Mayflower to reach America with its picture story and tv rights sold in advance to the natives and I am waiting for the lost music to sound again in the Lost Continent in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the day that maketh all things clear and I am awaiting retribution for what America did to Tom Sawyer and I am waiting for Alice in Wonderland to retransmit to me her total dream of innocence and I am waiting for Childe Roland to come to the final darkest tower and I am waiting for Aphrodite to grow live arms at a final disarmament conference in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting to get some intimations of immortality by recollecting my early childhood and I am waiting for the green mornings to come again youth’s dumb green fields come back again and I am waiting for some strains of unpremeditated art to shake my typewriter and I am waiting to write the great indelible poem and I am waiting for the last long careless rapture and I am perpetually waiting for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn to catch each other up at last and embrace and I am awaiting perpetually and forever a renaissance of wonder...more
Winner of the National Book Award, and I found some things to like in Torres' debut, We the Animals, so I gave it a go but this one was a struggle. TwWinner of the National Book Award, and I found some things to like in Torres' debut, We the Animals, so I gave it a go but this one was a struggle. Two men, one young (called "Nene") and one old (Juan Gay), each with a history at a mental institution, meet and talk. In truth, it may be one man. Either way, lots and lots of dialogue. Or monologue, if you subscribe to the outer-inner voice theory. Some of the discussion surrounds Juan's project involving a book called Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns, but really the episodic sketches drift all over the place.
As I moved deeper into the book, I thought in time more would be at stake, but that wasn't the case. Lots of images, pictures, and erasures of documents embedded throughout, too, but the erasure docs had such small print I gave up on trying to read them. Were some of the sketches more engaging than others? Yes, thankfully, but it's not like a novel where suspense builds.
Why? Because there's no plot, really. I typically like plotless books. I just think the author has to make up for lack of plot in other ways, e.g. with stop-readers-in-their-tracks writing and/or with characters you fully invest in. For me, neither was the case with this book. I didn't find any sentences I just HAD to reread because they were so poetic or original.
That said, a look at the blurbs tells me that lots of people with great literary talent and taste feel otherwise (need I repeat: National Book Award), so I'll chalk it up to my own subjective opinion and move on, tipping my hat to to Justin Torres and saying congrats....more
My second Nunez and, as it follows the same pattern as the first (which I enjoyed) -- her latest, The Vulnerables -- I liked this just as well. I beliMy second Nunez and, as it follows the same pattern as the first (which I enjoyed) -- her latest, The Vulnerables -- I liked this just as well. I believe I called her newest catnip for writers and readers who like to read about writing and reading. This I'll call dognip, even if the herb hasn't been invented yet.
Whereas The Vulnerables has a winsome parrot, this one has a cool Great Dane (or maybe it's a dachsund in the roman á clef) as a sidekick for the author/speaker/writer/college English professor protagonist. Oh, man. CHECK those boxes, Sigrid!
And really, though it's a novel by name, there's enough sheep's clothing to go around for everyone. These books are researched as if SN were composing for Dewey as in Decimal, mayor of the Nonfiction part of town. All manner of interesting facts about famous writers and famous books. Some movies, too. And lots of tidbits about raising a dog (or raising hell, whichever occurs first).
There's really no plot to speak of. You just wade into the surf and let waves of episodes wash over. Yeah, yeah. Something about a male writer/prof who committed suicide and left his dog Apollo to an unsuspecting fellow staff member. But just a few poles to hold up the tent of many colors.
Tone, really. In my wheelhouse with the right tone, making her (two, so far) books a good match for me -- also from the world of teachers slash writers slash dog lovers.
Meaning: Don't listen to ME and go out and read it. Listen to your own interests and see if any intersect....more
As a writer, zero expectations is what I cherish most from a reader. I say that because I see it at work as a reader myself. Sometimes I approach bookAs a writer, zero expectations is what I cherish most from a reader. I say that because I see it at work as a reader myself. Sometimes I approach books with high hopes. Nowhere to go but down, sadly. Then there are books like The Vulnerables where I bring no expectations to the table. How lucky for Sigrid Nunez!
For one, it's a Covid Lockdown book, and I've had little luck with that sudden genre treating the winter-spring of 2020 (here's looking at Our Country Friends in particular, and many a poetry anthology that wishes it went viral). And it opens as a kind of middle-aged ladies "buddy" deal. I always feel a bit out of place, listening in, but I found I liked a lot of what I overheard, especially the voice of the narrator-let's-face-it-author.
See, she's a writer too. And author of previous books (none of which I've read). And a teacher (more for me to relate to). She alludes so much to this background and raids her writer's notebook so often that the book quickly becomes catnip. Can I roll in these herbal bushes a bit? Thank you!
The setting is New York City, a place made more holy for lack of people. I remember waking at 5 a.m. in the city once and walking from my hotel to St. Patrick's Cathedral. Practically no one was about. I felt like I owned the joint, not like some out-of-place country boy (my usual role).
Anyway, to the book's rather simple set-up: Narrator bird-sits (the cover!) for a friend stuck in California and about to have a baby. Only there's more than a bird to deal with, as the previous bird-sitter, a college dropout, reappears after a fight with his parents in Vermont. The place is big enough (we're talking money here) for the two to coexist, but our narrator's none too happy. Still, she perseveres.
Not only perseveres, but goes off on these worldly tangents. Episodic and delightfully uneven, the book chugs along on its own wit and intelligence. Nunez loves Joe Brainard's quirky book, I Remember (which I remember loving too) and uses it to teach her student writers. Meanwhile, she riffs on many writers Goodread readers are familiar with like Joan Didion, Chekhov, Coetzee, Borges, Winterson, Céline.
Do readers love reading about reading? Rhetorical question.
A little reading/writing example quote:
"If you're having trouble concentrating, goes the advice, try writing very short things. One writer I know suggests experimenting with just a title and a single sentence.
The Celebrated Novelist
Explained in an interview that he went from writing novels to writing poetry after learning that the celebrated poet John Ashbery wrote for only one hour a day."
And another:
Proud Author
The pleasure of seeing a beautiful young woman reading his novel on the L train was somewhat spoiled by the fact that she was moving her lips."
Pretty funny, that.
In any event, parrot notwithstanding, the character and point of view were so singular and charming and erudite and wry and wistful that I downed the whole thing in a day. Greedy like. Like you get at times with certain books offering zero expectations but generous calories.
Now the tough question: Ruin a good thing by trying another Sigrid Nunez? I can't help but bring high expectations, after all.
New Yorker comic artist Roz Chast impressed me with her book Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?, a darkly humorous work dealing with elderlyNew Yorker comic artist Roz Chast impressed me with her book Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?, a darkly humorous work dealing with elderly parents in their twilight years and the toll they can take on their adult children/caretakers.
She impressed me less with this, her latest, which is a mishmash of "types" of dreams (e.g. Recurring, Lucid, Celebrity, Cartoon-Idea, Nightmares, Body Horror, Food Dreams, Everyday Dreams, and Dream Fragments). Yeah, some witticisms here and there along with amusing drawings, but overall leaning ho and hum.
There's no telling, really, how many of these recollections are actual dreams. Probably more than you think, given that she kept a dream journal. Still, it's easy to get creative and make up a few dreams, too, or to gussy a few up.
Roz Chast says one of the most common recurring dreams is losing your teeth. Weird. I've never once dreamed about my teeth. And I've been living on this block for awhile now, dreaming in color with the best of them. Oh, well. At least I could identify with some of her dreams, like school stress dreams. Who hasn't dreamt of messing up at school, being late, lacking clothes, etc.? But the teeth? Hmn.
Easily read in one sitting, so if you're a Chast fan and/or dream-curious, you might give it a go. She even ends the book with recommendations on good dream books (and a few bad ones)....more
Unusual, yes. Brazilian poet Adélia Prado has written eight volumes of poems, many of the works mystical, some referring to Christ as "Jonathan." Can'Unusual, yes. Brazilian poet Adélia Prado has written eight volumes of poems, many of the works mystical, some referring to Christ as "Jonathan." Can't say I'm a fan of the "Jonathan" stuff, but it's most prevalent in selections from Knife in the Chest here. The other two books featured in this volume are The Pelican and Oracles of May.
Ex-Voto is published by Tupelo Press, which featured this book on sale for $5 (albeit with $5 shipping, but still far below the listed price of $21). She's one of those "widen your horizons" poets.
Two example poems:
HERALDRY
What grand luxury to be poor by choice, temptation to be God who has nothing, immeasurable pride. Which is why I’m reminded that many will enter the Kingdom before me: thieves, bad poets, and, worse, the flunkeys who praise them. I’m distressed by the thought that kings belong in palaces and workers in factories and warehouses. A stiff sentence awaits those who, like me, are dazzled by a light so bright! I know a bad line when I see one, when it shows no sign that it escaped from the unknown margins of the soul. Is it pride or joy that possesses me, unrecognizable, masquerading in rags? It can only be love that fuels the wearisome task of searching for pearls, tracing a millennial lineage in coats of arms. No one knows how to talk about the poor.
Nap with Flowers
Ofelia thinks a tempest is a rainstorm with a slow tempo. It’s back, the little taptapping noise in my ear. Calling someone a cow is combative, but only the word—cows are good. I suffer from aristrocraticism, me of all people, born in the sticks of Rusty Creek. I invaded my son once, if I ever do that again I’ll give up my tongue. At the schoolhouse door a sick boy helps another up the steps, we humans are God’s crutches. There’s no rest for us here, in exile, building mobiles in the sand. Roosters know, they crow at all the wrong times to hurry the day along, newborns scream god is god is god is and then there are the dahlias smelling virginity and death. The taptapping taps on, but now it’s like a lullaby: god is god is god is...more
OK, now the "Review To Follow" part. Only, when you wait 10 days and come back to review a book, distance hurts hindsight. So mote it be. I'll justRTF
OK, now the "Review To Follow" part. Only, when you wait 10 days and come back to review a book, distance hurts hindsight. So mote it be. I'll just say this:
I started out liking the book because of the unique personality of Charles, even though he was a narcissist and a solipsist. Then the weight of his obsessions began to weigh on me. Here I was again, manacled to a protagonist I did not like and realizing that the sea crossing would take 500 pages. Could I stand it, Ben Franklin (or was it Mark Twain) notwithstanding? ("Like fish, guests start to smell after three days.") Or maybe it was two days? Counting a mother-in-law? One day.
But where was I? Oh, yes, in an almost haunted house on the sea, the sea, experiencing a fair amount of misery. Luckily Murdoch came to the rescue with some plot devices. This distracted me a bit from the oppressive character of our ex-actor Charles.
I got into it again despite the author's consistency in her characterization. Better still, I began to appreciate the way she was manipulating me through her writing. All this BAD was GOOD, seen through THAT lens.
By that time, I just wanted to see what she'd do with this pitiful clown. She'd already paired him with all manner of ex-loves and ex-actors, many holding the same opinion of his mental health as I did. Stakes were big, too. A death, an ambush, some gothic flourishes in the grand old house.
And, of course, the sea, always ready to serve. You know what I mean. Davy Jones' locker is always open. And me, I grew more open to Iris Murdoch's book during my stay, making it all OK....more
Sometimes a book deserves credit for audaciousness, even if it isn't the best thing you ever read. Here we have echoes of Jonah -- boy swallowed by spSometimes a book deserves credit for audaciousness, even if it isn't the best thing you ever read. Here we have echoes of Jonah -- boy swallowed by sperm whale. Gullets, stomachs, muscles, blood, methane. As a subplot, a father-son story about a kid who could never get along with his well-known (among divers) dad.
Weird science.
Speaking of, Kraus does his darnedest to teach readers a few facts about diving, the ocean, and its creatures. So there's that: an educational angle, even if the boy-as-dyspepsia bit strains credulity. In any event, the pages flipped fast enough.
If you like adventure in tight spaces, maybe this is your cup of whale oil. Or if you just like whales. Or odd-isn't-the-word-for-it reads. Read like YA to me, but the library sticker has it on the FICTION shelves. ...more
Another one of those books that all Americans should agree on because it argues that our government should be more representative of the people than iAnother one of those books that all Americans should agree on because it argues that our government should be more representative of the people than it is, that all our votes should count equally, that change is a necessary part of life and thus should have some kind of role in governance as well.
But no. I'm sure instead the book will strike readers as controversial. In it authors Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that our republican form of democracy is far behind others in the world and change is necessary, especially when you consider that NOT changing leaves the country prey to democracy's worst predators: minority rule advocates who take advantage of our system's historical weaknesses and authoritarian sorts who only want law and order to apply to their political enemies (when they break the law, it's "patriotic" and, by the way, up is down and cold is hot).
For starters, the authors reach into the histories of both the USA and other democracies to show where dangers lie and to put matters like the Constitution into context. It is not holy writ. It has its faults and needs to change with the times. Even the Founding Fathers warned as much. But now there are those who stubbornly fight any semblance in change to things like the Constitution, the Electoral College (not in the Constitution, folks), and the Senate filibuster (as well as its controversial from the start form of "equal representation" -- Wyoming and Rhode Island are as powerful there as California or Texas, as all get two senators who can wreak havoc with legislation or, more likely, block everything that cannot muster 60 votes).
In addition to making their points through historical data, the book details the contemporary scene and just how dangerously we've wandered from the Founders' original intent, to the point where candidates lose popular votes both in states and country elections yet maintain control with such blatantly unfair advantages as gerrymandered districts they've rigged in advance to make losing control of legislatures all but impossible to an Electoral College that gives one party (Republican) about a 4-5 point advantage over its opponent (Democrats). That is, the GOP candidates can afford to lose by up to 4-5% in the popular vote and STILL win the Electoral College, an outdated compromise from early in our history that has made a mockery of the word "democracy." No one was much happy with it when it began and no one is much happy with it now -- except tyrants of the minority who benefit from it every four years.
In the final chapter, the authors lay out a plan for change that includes term limits for Supreme Court justices (another subject in the news of late... partisans in robes making mockery of "blind justice" by thwarting the will of majorities of Americans).
If you believe in democracy and still have hope for a country under siege, you could do worse than educate yourself by reading this succinct 260-pager. ...more
If you’re a fan of minimalism and restraint in poetry, you might cast your eye on Mike Bove’s latest collection, Eye. In these 51 poems, Bove eschews If you’re a fan of minimalism and restraint in poetry, you might cast your eye on Mike Bove’s latest collection, Eye. In these 51 poems, Bove eschews capital letters, punctuation and, most interestingly in this age of identity poems, the pronoun “I.” Instead we get metaphor. Everything is seen through the literal and figurative lens of an eye.
The provenance of the work is unique. Bove writes, “These poems were written over five days immediately before, during, and after the last major snowstorm of the year.” In the case of his home state, Maine, this would be from early last March, and the fact that this many poems could be born under the white grace of 120 hours is amazing.
The collection opens with the short and aptly titled poem shared here:
Sight
a closed eye sees just as well
as one that is open and maybe
better maybe more
There's a Buddhist restraint of sorts, an almost Haiku-like herald of the observation and introspection to follow. It’s the “better” and “more” that Bove subsequently explores through themes of family, loss, alcoholism, nature, memory, and change. In doing so, he strikes both personal and universal notes, as seen in this poem:
Tree
in 82 or 83 when mom was in rehab dad realized it was halloween and something normal was crucial so he found my brown coat and we collected wide leaves fallen from the big maple here he said pinning them on now you are a tree and for the last he found a greeting card of a spooky cartoon oak someone sent just days before and cut two holes tied some string and put it on my face you are a tree he said and in the dark we went from house to house hand in hand and took what we were given
In few words, a kind of poignancy, gentle and intimate—the challenge Bove set for himself in each poem that comes before the reader’s eye as they take what they are given.
All about the time the Netanyahus came to a formerly quiet little New York campus as guests of fellow Jew, Dr. Blum, whose wife Edith and daughter JudAll about the time the Netanyahus came to a formerly quiet little New York campus as guests of fellow Jew, Dr. Blum, whose wife Edith and daughter Judith and co-workers (assume typical names here) are in for the surprises of their lives.
Oddly, for a 235-page book, the Netanyahus do not "land" until p. 135 or so. Up until then, a lot of angst and foreshadowing and humor. Well, humor after that page, too. Before it's most memorable when the laws and the in-laws visit (the text reads like a sitcom script here).
Then, after the infamous Family N. lands, the humor moves to Benzion Netanyahu and his handful-ain't-the-word-for-it wife as well as their three devil incarnate sons. Most notable is how the author uses Netanyahu's field of expertise (Iberian Jews in the Middle Ages), ignorance (he thinks upstate New York is part of New England), and fierce individualism to make the book so quixotic and erudite. This while slapstick humor is tumbling to the floor (or a snowbank) and rolling all around it.
If you think this is easy to pull off, I wish you well in trying it. Though it's not consistently funny, it is funny so often that it's hard to complain without coming across as overcritical and petty. So you read, disbelieve, laugh, turn pages, and actually learn a little about the Jews (for starters, stop considering them as a monolithic bloc with like beliefs and opinions)
Deceivingly complex, in its way. The ending takes all....more
I don't read a lot of science fiction but I find when I do that it's not easy to comfortably label, almost like there's a wide variety of science fictI don't read a lot of science fiction but I find when I do that it's not easy to comfortably label, almost like there's a wide variety of science fictions, a big-tent genre that can range from almost realistic fiction to way, way out there (pick a planet and plant it with worms on steroids, for instance).
This one is more Earth-bound. It owes a bit to the cop thriller genre. In this case, our San Francisco "cop" is a bounty hunter looking for "andys" (a.k.a. androids) of a new, more sophisticated variety -- one tougher to identify, more wily, and thus more dangerous to bounty hunters.
It's a post-apocalyptic world and the Golden Gate Bridge is more a Dusty Gate one. Almost all animal life has vanished, and those that survived are as valuable as Taylor Swift tickets (which are worthless to me, but worth big bucks to most, so I'm told).
It shows its 60s bloodlines at times, but the novel is interesting because it has some nice suspense as the protagonist goes for his list of rogue androids one by one. The extra wrinkle is provided by author Philip K. Dick, who blurs the line so well between human and android that the line becomes a philosophical one. In what ways are humans like machines? And, of course, in what ways are machines becoming more human (hello, AI, well in advance!)?
Meaning: There's old-fashioned plot pulling you through the book with a bit of thinking man's heft at the same time. I enjoyed that.
Finally, it should be noted to movie fans that this book is the basis of a film called Blade Runner. I haven't seen it, so really don't get where the title comes from. No blades that I know of in the book. Android sheep, sure, but blades?...more
Reviewing an essay collection is no picnic. The best method is to make a few notes for each essay and/or to mark a few quotes to share. I was negligenReviewing an essay collection is no picnic. The best method is to make a few notes for each essay and/or to mark a few quotes to share. I was negligent on both counts, so I'm left with a few broad observations instead.
Inger Christensen, a Copenhagen native, was what they call a well-rounded writer: essayist, novelist, poet. Many essays touch on poetry, in fact. The title comes from Novalis, who wrote, "The outer world is the inner world, raised to a condition of secrecy." Novalis was a big-picture nature guy who saw humans as just another piece of the puzzle called Earth and life, etc. Christensen agrees.
In fact, if anything, her essays lean philosophical. The good news? Her philosophic thoughts are a lot easier to understand than most philosophers. I'm drawn to philosophy but every time I read a famous philosopher's work I feel like an idiot. Not here, at least.
Anyway, it was nice spending some time with Inger. She seems like the sort you could have dinner with and come out all the richer (rich food, rich discussion). Unfortunately, the dinner date will have to wait, as Inger moved into the great mystery (she references death frequently) in 2009 at age 74....more
If you like your poetry rich and dense and don't mind occasionally scratching your head and saying, "Huh?" Jamaican native Safiya Sinclair's CannibalIf you like your poetry rich and dense and don't mind occasionally scratching your head and saying, "Huh?" Jamaican native Safiya Sinclair's Cannibal might make its way into your provisions. Themes include family, race, feminism, race, history, race, sex, race, and the sexes (among others).
Some turns of phrases give me pause and cause me to read again. Others either fly over my head or under my feet (and what's the difference, really?). Example poem:
Confessor
This is where you leave me. Filling of old salt and ponderous,
what’s left of your voice in the air. Blue honeycreeper thrashed out
to a ragged wind, whole months spent crawling this white beach
raked like a thumb, shucking, swallowing the sea’s benediction, pearled oxides.
Out here I am the body invented naked, woman emerging from cold seas, herself
the raw eel-froth met beneath her tangles, who must believe with all her puckering
holes. What wounds the Poinciana slits forth, what must turn red eventually.
The talon-mouths undressing. The cling-cling bird scratching its one message; the arm
you broke reset and broke again. Caribbean. Sky a wound I am licking, until I am drawn new
as a lamb, helpless in the chicken wire of my sex. I let every stranger in. Watch men change faces
with the run-down sun, count fires in the loom-holes of their pickups, lines of rot,
studying their scarred window-plagues, nightshade my own throat closed tight
against a hard hand. Then all comes mute in my glittering eye. All is knocked back,
slick hem-suck of the dark surf, ceramic tiles approaching, the blur of a beard.
The white tusk of his ocean goring me. This world unforgiving in its boundaries.
Have I read this book before? I feel like I've read this book before. But I have not read this book before. Instead, I've read a healthy quota of bookHave I read this book before? I feel like I've read this book before. But I have not read this book before. Instead, I've read a healthy quota of books about square peg individuals suffering in round-hole societies.
It makes sense and crosses international borders, actually. Writing is a lonely trade and it stands to reason that misanthropes, loners, sensitive types who take up pens might create sad protagonists with a hint of autobiographical bloodlines.. Kafka has them. Walser the German-Swiss. Salinger, too, thank you. And that's just to name a few.
If I'm supposed to cheer for the afflicted lead in these books, then I'm a great match because I do. That said, I also cringe at times. Shake my head. Wish there were more help for the likes of Oba Yozo who resorts to playing the clown to fit in. And then drawing cartoons. But mostly drinking.
Hate humans. Love the bottle. Yozo seems to have an ill-fated affinity for the women, too, who, not surprisingly, show more sympathy (at their own peril) to his plight and situation. Still, he's his own worst enemy, and the slow-motion train wreck narrative, while familiar, is always different from book to book and country to country. (Cue Tolstoy's opening to Anna Karenina).
Interesting. Glad I read it, though it was a major downer. No Longer Human is All Too Human, really. Loneliness and isolation haven't gone away, after all. In the age of the internet, they've gone viral, is all....more
Aptly titled Man Alone, Nick Petroulias’ debut effort chronicles a weekend in the life of a man (Phillip) who's been married with children long enoughAptly titled Man Alone, Nick Petroulias’ debut effort chronicles a weekend in the life of a man (Phillip) who's been married with children long enough to see a gulf form between his present domestic state and his former unmarried one.
This is not just any weekend, though. For the first time in a long time, wife Beatrice and daughters Fiona and Elena are off for a weekend beach vacation with another mom and her children. This means Phillip gets to fill his weekend as he wishes with time well spent.
But what is time well spent? Is it the same as it once was -- a time of carousing, loafing, reading, going out with friends? Or has it changed into something more practical, as in “buying time” for when the family returns by making enough spaghetti sauce to cover multiple future meals, thus easing the nightly crush of kids returning from school and parents returning from work?
Not a novel with a central conflict or plot seeking resolution, Man Alone is better described as a quiet, meditative piece. René Descartes had best move over, too, because his first and foremost precept “I think, therefore I am” is about to get a workout, as Phillip mixes the weekend occupations of Everyman with midnight cogitations of philosophers.
Of specific interest to Phillip is the concept of time. How do our memories stretch it, shrink it, eliminate it? To tackle this, Petroulias has his narrator return over and over to the niggling question of Johnson, a kid he knew briefly in grade school but struggles to recall. Phillip begins to question whether a person can even exist if he is forgotten. Like a tree falling in the wilderness, existence might depend on sound. Or defy it. Memory might also be like a ladder, each rung depending on the last time you thought of the memory.
As Phillip's foil, we have Daniel, a friend from high school days that he meets for a drinks at a local café. They are, unsurprisingly, drifting apart, and Daniel can’t help but rib his friend for thinking constantly of his wife and the girls when he has license to focus on himself. Or is it his former self? Or are the two – bachelor and married father – two personalities forever struggling with each other in the same body?
Overall this first-person narrative stops and smells the roses while musing over its thorns – quite leisurely in its pace, yet strangely compelling for it. A lot of Phillip’s observations on matters quotidian come across as aphoristic:
”And the coffee? The potential pleasure of the second cup comes with the release from the drug urgency of the first. The period before drinking the second is better than the one before. I’ve learned to appreciate the cessation of pleasure and the let–down of satisfaction.”
There’s also debate with his still-single friend over the direction his life (and its thought process) has taken. At one point, Daniel goes for the jugular: "You think that because you have kids, you have automatic access to great insights to the world, don’t you! You think that if you can’t arrange to see your friends, or have a life beyond your children and family, then that gives you the right to an endless stream of dead-end feelings looking for sympathy. Am I close? I think I am. You feel depressed. You even look depressed. You probably even want me to share your depression. You can’t get your act together because you have the best excuse in the world to do as you please – to leave life and play dead. To disappear up your own arse.”
To which Phillip wonders whether there’s any point in a riposte, though he does consider rejoinders, such as the fact that Daniel “will remain a child forever for not having children of his own.”
It’s a tough and familiar grind for men. Friendship, I mean. Especially when one marries and the other remains single, each wondering if the grass is greener. Meanwhile, there's the approach of Birnam Wood, seen by the reader like a piece of dramatic irony. Time. Memory. Death. Happiness. Finding a way. Sure there is a way, even while suspecting there might not be.
A lot of heavy things, in other words. Things that loom larger and louder when the house is suddenly empty and expectations and anticipation run into the realities of the human mind and its gloriously painful capacity to think (and therefore be).
Reading this unique work left me to wonder what I would do in a similar situation when my kids were young and still living at home. I mean, in such straights, Friday to Sunday looks HUGE. Alas, I think I often burned time just thinking about what to do with it. Making false starts. Ruminating on the past instead of creating the present. Or, perhaps better said, wondering if I can make like Dr. Frankenstein and bring the distant past back to life by hitting it with electric bolts of revelatory thought.
Thinking. It can be enticingly painful. This is one man's 3-day journey toward proving the point....more
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