In the last paragraph of her story "Indian Uprising," Ann Beattie's character Maude, a would-be poet and maybe short-story writer, muses:
"Then winter ended and spring came, and I thougth, even if I don't believe there's a poem in anything anymore, maybe I'll writer a story. A lot of people do that when they can't seem to figure out who or what they love. It might be an oversimplification, but they seem to write poetry when they do know"(from the collection, The Accomplished Guest, hardback, 18).
Friday, December 1, 2017
Joseph O'Neill on when a story is finished
Joseph O'Neill in a New Yorker interview about his story "The Sinking of the Houston":
"The interpretation of motive really is the reader’s prerogative. In any case, I’m not really sure why the father does he what he does. A basic sense of mystification is precisely what can push one into writing about something. You keep the plot going until you reach a point where you no longer know what’s happening. Then you’re done."
"The interpretation of motive really is the reader’s prerogative. In any case, I’m not really sure why the father does he what he does. A basic sense of mystification is precisely what can push one into writing about something. You keep the plot going until you reach a point where you no longer know what’s happening. Then you’re done."
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Bernard MacLaverty "Midwinter Break"
"He believed that everything and everybody in the world was worthy of notice but this person beside him was something beyond that. To him her presence was important as the world. And the stars around it. If she was an instance of the goodness in this world then passing through by her side was miracle enough"(243).
Sunday, April 16, 2017
Henry James "Spoils of Poynton"
All page numbers reference Penguin Classics edition (isbn 0-14-043288-4) edited and with an introduction by David Lodge and notes by Patricia Crick, 1987.
It is easy to be simply frustrated by Fleda Vetch. To be frustrated by what seems her "systematic...idiotic perversity"(183).
If the apparatus of the Penguin edition I used is to be believed, the critical community has viewed Fleda with some ambivalence, seeing her as a young woman who is frightened by what she wants and at cross-purposes with her own self. She is a classic James motherless heroine, trying to forge an alliance but deeply ignorant and terrified of all matters sexual. In the introduction, Lodge mentions a number of Freudian interpretations of Fleda's actions and motivations.
Perhaps, by the end of the book, I find myself at one with Mrs. Gereth who comes to greater understanding of Fleda after long exposure, who "resigns" herself to Fleda's choices after "some practice in following queer movements prompted by queer feelings"(189). Nevertheless, its difficult not to identify with a character as compelling, brave and extraordinary as Fleda Vetch. After some practice, I'm not sure she is best or most completely explained by all the critics who see her as sexually frustrated.
In part, Fleda takes a collector's, a connoisseur's approach to her relations. And, this is not just in matters of person or physical form but in terms of their manners and morals. At the last meeting of Owen and Fleda in the book, the two acknowledge their love for one another, there is the extraordinary embrace, "he clasped her and she gave herself....something prisoned and pent, throbbed and gushed"(161). But, then, Fleda holds back and insists that Mona must release him. That Owen made her a promise and only Mona can release him from it. Perhaps its a fine moral point, but its in Fleda's nature to insist on such fine points, whether the fine points are related to a piece of furniture or to the conduct of the young man potentially in her life. In the flush of these moments of their coming to a knowledge and an understanding, Owen exclaims, "'Oh, I'm so awfully happy'"(164) and James writes, "'You'll be happy if you're perfect!' Fleda risked"(164). Owen laughs at her statement and Fleda wonders if "he saw the absurdity of her speech and that no one was happy just because no one could be what she so easily prescribed"(164).
The last sentence is filled with complicating detail. It clearly shows Fleda is attached to perfection, in people as well as furnishings. It also shows her aware of how impossible her attachment and program is, however helplessly she professes it. Yet, it may be what drives her, however inappropriate or impossible collectors' standards may be when it comes to including people in one's life. And, it complicates what drives Fleda's attachment to Mrs. Gereth which may be the most important relationship in Fleda's life.
General Notes
Fleda Vetch:
"She herself was prepared, if she should ever marry, to contribute all the cleverness, and she liked to figure it out that her husband would be a force grateful for direction"(40).
"On that flushed and huddled Sunday a great matter occurred; her little life became aware of a singular quickening"(40).
of Mrs. Gereth's son Owen: "It was clear enough, however, that the happy youth had no more sense for a motive than a deaf man for a tune; a limitation by which, after all, she could gain as well as lose"(46).
Adela Gereth: "She trod the place like a reigning queen or a proud usurper; full as it was of splendid pieces it could show in these days no ornament so effective as its menaced mistress"(63).
"...it left her occasion to marvel at the way a man was made who could care in any relation for a creature like Mona Brigstock when he had known in any relation a creature like Adela Gereth"(63).
In a fit of pique, Mrs. Gereth accuses, "it was his failure from the first to understand what it was to have a mother at all, to appreciate the beauty and the sanctity of the character. She was just his mother as his nose was his nose"(65).
"The shimmer of wrought substances spent itself in the brightness"(71).
"She thought of him perpetually and her eyes had come to rejoice in his manly magnificence more even than they rejoiced in the royal cabinets of the red saloon" (71-72).
Timeline:
Mrs. Gereth seems to accede to Owen's request and accepts a move to Ricks after visiting: "at the turn of a corridor," Fleda finds Mrs. Gereth "with the hanging hands of despair and yet with the active eyes of adventure"(70). Mrs. Gereth tells Fleda "'I'm thinking over what I had better take!'"(70).
It is easy to be simply frustrated by Fleda Vetch. To be frustrated by what seems her "systematic...idiotic perversity"(183).
If the apparatus of the Penguin edition I used is to be believed, the critical community has viewed Fleda with some ambivalence, seeing her as a young woman who is frightened by what she wants and at cross-purposes with her own self. She is a classic James motherless heroine, trying to forge an alliance but deeply ignorant and terrified of all matters sexual. In the introduction, Lodge mentions a number of Freudian interpretations of Fleda's actions and motivations.
Perhaps, by the end of the book, I find myself at one with Mrs. Gereth who comes to greater understanding of Fleda after long exposure, who "resigns" herself to Fleda's choices after "some practice in following queer movements prompted by queer feelings"(189). Nevertheless, its difficult not to identify with a character as compelling, brave and extraordinary as Fleda Vetch. After some practice, I'm not sure she is best or most completely explained by all the critics who see her as sexually frustrated.
In part, Fleda takes a collector's, a connoisseur's approach to her relations. And, this is not just in matters of person or physical form but in terms of their manners and morals. At the last meeting of Owen and Fleda in the book, the two acknowledge their love for one another, there is the extraordinary embrace, "he clasped her and she gave herself....something prisoned and pent, throbbed and gushed"(161). But, then, Fleda holds back and insists that Mona must release him. That Owen made her a promise and only Mona can release him from it. Perhaps its a fine moral point, but its in Fleda's nature to insist on such fine points, whether the fine points are related to a piece of furniture or to the conduct of the young man potentially in her life. In the flush of these moments of their coming to a knowledge and an understanding, Owen exclaims, "'Oh, I'm so awfully happy'"(164) and James writes, "'You'll be happy if you're perfect!' Fleda risked"(164). Owen laughs at her statement and Fleda wonders if "he saw the absurdity of her speech and that no one was happy just because no one could be what she so easily prescribed"(164).
The last sentence is filled with complicating detail. It clearly shows Fleda is attached to perfection, in people as well as furnishings. It also shows her aware of how impossible her attachment and program is, however helplessly she professes it. Yet, it may be what drives her, however inappropriate or impossible collectors' standards may be when it comes to including people in one's life. And, it complicates what drives Fleda's attachment to Mrs. Gereth which may be the most important relationship in Fleda's life.
General Notes
Fleda Vetch:
"She herself was prepared, if she should ever marry, to contribute all the cleverness, and she liked to figure it out that her husband would be a force grateful for direction"(40).
"On that flushed and huddled Sunday a great matter occurred; her little life became aware of a singular quickening"(40).
of Mrs. Gereth's son Owen: "It was clear enough, however, that the happy youth had no more sense for a motive than a deaf man for a tune; a limitation by which, after all, she could gain as well as lose"(46).
Adela Gereth: "She trod the place like a reigning queen or a proud usurper; full as it was of splendid pieces it could show in these days no ornament so effective as its menaced mistress"(63).
"...it left her occasion to marvel at the way a man was made who could care in any relation for a creature like Mona Brigstock when he had known in any relation a creature like Adela Gereth"(63).
In a fit of pique, Mrs. Gereth accuses, "it was his failure from the first to understand what it was to have a mother at all, to appreciate the beauty and the sanctity of the character. She was just his mother as his nose was his nose"(65).
"The shimmer of wrought substances spent itself in the brightness"(71).
"She thought of him perpetually and her eyes had come to rejoice in his manly magnificence more even than they rejoiced in the royal cabinets of the red saloon" (71-72).
Timeline:
Mrs. Gereth seems to accede to Owen's request and accepts a move to Ricks after visiting: "at the turn of a corridor," Fleda finds Mrs. Gereth "with the hanging hands of despair and yet with the active eyes of adventure"(70). Mrs. Gereth tells Fleda "'I'm thinking over what I had better take!'"(70).
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Nostromo and Decoud
Nostromo is a deeply flawed hero who accuses himself of betraying two people: Senorita Viola and Martin Decoud.
As to the latter, he leaves him on the Isabel with the silver and heads back to Sulaco. When he does so, he appears intent on returning or in somehow assisting Decoud. Decoud must stay on the isle given the enmity between himself and the Monterist forces (259). At the point he leaves Decoud, Nostromo is not aware that the public believes the lighter with the silver was sunk. He believes he will have to account for it. When he discovers from Monygham that the public believes the silver sunk, this knowledge changes the equation and Nostromo then seems to abandon Decoud, maybe with the idea of making the silver his own? At a minimum, once Monygham charges him with the noble, saving task of travelling to enlist Barrios and his troops, the prospect of another grand, public gesture and the acclaim it will add to his prestige and legend quickly makes him "forget" about Decoud stranded on the Isabels.
As to the latter, he leaves him on the Isabel with the silver and heads back to Sulaco. When he does so, he appears intent on returning or in somehow assisting Decoud. Decoud must stay on the isle given the enmity between himself and the Monterist forces (259). At the point he leaves Decoud, Nostromo is not aware that the public believes the lighter with the silver was sunk. He believes he will have to account for it. When he discovers from Monygham that the public believes the silver sunk, this knowledge changes the equation and Nostromo then seems to abandon Decoud, maybe with the idea of making the silver his own? At a minimum, once Monygham charges him with the noble, saving task of travelling to enlist Barrios and his troops, the prospect of another grand, public gesture and the acclaim it will add to his prestige and legend quickly makes him "forget" about Decoud stranded on the Isabels.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Nostromo: the telling of history
Conrad generally does not relate the large, historic events. He is rarely the narrator of such events. Instead, he steps aside and others tell those portions of the tales. Battles, riots, the stuff of newspapers.
Thus, he serves to tell of Barrios departure for Cayta, when the Riberist forces are battling the Montero forces for control. Dona Emilia, Martin Decoud, Antonio and sundry others see the troops off. Later, there is a meeting at the Casa Gould of the various Europeans and local political players with ties to the Riberists. After he has left, Martin returns to tell Mrs. Gould of something he has learned from Nostromo on the way home: the Riberist forces have lost (197). He tells her of his plans for an independent Occidental Republic and ask for her help, her keeping it a secret so the Silver can be brought down. She agrees with "an almost imperceptible nod of her head"( 204).
This brings us to the end of chapter 6 of The Isabels section of the book. Much occurs between the end of 6 and the start of 7, but this happens off-stage, is not presented by the narrator. We only read of it in the written account Decoud sends his sister after the events. He sends her an account of the prior two days of rioting, suppression and conniving. What apparently happens: the news of the Monterist victory gets out. Already, two moderate provincial assembly men have started to lean that way and come out in open favor. There is a great demonstration on the plaza and things get edgy. At this point Ribero himself appears, having fled across the mountains and the crowd begins to attack him. Nostromo spots the commotion and comes to his aid, spiriting him away to a boat that departs Sulaco (206).
Similarly, there is a gap in the action right after Nostromo decides to enlist in the cause of the Occident Republic and head down to Cayta to get Barrios and his troops aboard. This occurs at the close of chapter 9. With the start of Chapter 10, time has passed, the tumultuous events are in the past, and we are told of them by the pompous, ridiculous OSN Steamship Captain Mitchell.
Mitchell is a fool, "proud of his experience, penetrated by the sense of historical importance of men, events, and buildings, he talked pompously in jerky periods, with slight sweeps of his short thick arm, letting nothing 'escape the attention' of his privileged captive"(395-396). Captain Mitchell is prone to clichés and stereotypes in his self-aggrandizing telling of the events giving rise to the Occident Republic. "The phrase 'In my delicate position, as the only consular agent then in port, everything, sir, everything was a just cause for anxiety,' had its place in the more or less stereotyped relation of the 'historical event' which for the next few years was at the service of the distinguished strangers visiting Sulaco"(394).
The reader does not experience the "historical event" but is told of it. Given a choppy relation, in the past tense, as Mitchell takes a guest around town, showing him the sites. Here is where Barrios put down Pedrito Montero's troops. Here is the home of Antonia Avellanos, who Mitchell comically describes as "'the beautiful Antonia. A character, sir! An historical woman!'"(396). Here is where the miners' army confronted the Nationals, saving their boss Don Carlos. There is the former bandit Hernandez, who was enlisted in the fight back in the day, and created the legendary "Carabineers of the Campo"(399). Conrad interrupts, so to speak, to add "The programme went on relentlessly, like a law of nature"(400).
As with the self-important, Mitchell nurses grievance. Mitchell elevates his role in events. He tells his visitor how Nostromo went to Barrios in Cayta to enlist him in the Separation efforts but that he wasn't aware Nostromo was alive or so sent at the time these events occurred. As Mitchell tells it, "'I was never told; never given a hint, nothing-as if I were unworthy of confidence"(401). But, he sees Nostromo's actions as central to the events and is quick to point out that he discovered Nostromo. So, in the end, the Occidental Republic would have never happened but for him, Mitchell. "The merciless cicerone"(404), Mitchell, boasts, "'you can't get over it, Sir...the "Treasure House of the World", as The Times man calls Sulaco in his book, was saved intact for civilization-for a great future, sir'"(402).
Conrad sympathizes to the listener of Mitchell's history, "the privileged passenger....stunned and as it were annihilated maentally by a sudden surfeit of sights, sounds, names facts, and complicated information imperfectly apprehended, would listen like a tired child to a fairy tale"(404-405).
Conrad comes close to saying here is history. Here is its source. Here are its objects: nations, armies, great men. Here is its typical end-to show action in defense of "civilization." But, this history is not the center of his story. Suspicious of stories that have tidy shape, clear ends and morals, Conrad ends his story with the tragic, compelling tale of Nostromo's end, reshaping Nostromo into something other than heroic and far more fascinating.
.
Thus, he serves to tell of Barrios departure for Cayta, when the Riberist forces are battling the Montero forces for control. Dona Emilia, Martin Decoud, Antonio and sundry others see the troops off. Later, there is a meeting at the Casa Gould of the various Europeans and local political players with ties to the Riberists. After he has left, Martin returns to tell Mrs. Gould of something he has learned from Nostromo on the way home: the Riberist forces have lost (197). He tells her of his plans for an independent Occidental Republic and ask for her help, her keeping it a secret so the Silver can be brought down. She agrees with "an almost imperceptible nod of her head"( 204).
This brings us to the end of chapter 6 of The Isabels section of the book. Much occurs between the end of 6 and the start of 7, but this happens off-stage, is not presented by the narrator. We only read of it in the written account Decoud sends his sister after the events. He sends her an account of the prior two days of rioting, suppression and conniving. What apparently happens: the news of the Monterist victory gets out. Already, two moderate provincial assembly men have started to lean that way and come out in open favor. There is a great demonstration on the plaza and things get edgy. At this point Ribero himself appears, having fled across the mountains and the crowd begins to attack him. Nostromo spots the commotion and comes to his aid, spiriting him away to a boat that departs Sulaco (206).
Similarly, there is a gap in the action right after Nostromo decides to enlist in the cause of the Occident Republic and head down to Cayta to get Barrios and his troops aboard. This occurs at the close of chapter 9. With the start of Chapter 10, time has passed, the tumultuous events are in the past, and we are told of them by the pompous, ridiculous OSN Steamship Captain Mitchell.
Mitchell is a fool, "proud of his experience, penetrated by the sense of historical importance of men, events, and buildings, he talked pompously in jerky periods, with slight sweeps of his short thick arm, letting nothing 'escape the attention' of his privileged captive"(395-396). Captain Mitchell is prone to clichés and stereotypes in his self-aggrandizing telling of the events giving rise to the Occident Republic. "The phrase 'In my delicate position, as the only consular agent then in port, everything, sir, everything was a just cause for anxiety,' had its place in the more or less stereotyped relation of the 'historical event' which for the next few years was at the service of the distinguished strangers visiting Sulaco"(394).
The reader does not experience the "historical event" but is told of it. Given a choppy relation, in the past tense, as Mitchell takes a guest around town, showing him the sites. Here is where Barrios put down Pedrito Montero's troops. Here is the home of Antonia Avellanos, who Mitchell comically describes as "'the beautiful Antonia. A character, sir! An historical woman!'"(396). Here is where the miners' army confronted the Nationals, saving their boss Don Carlos. There is the former bandit Hernandez, who was enlisted in the fight back in the day, and created the legendary "Carabineers of the Campo"(399). Conrad interrupts, so to speak, to add "The programme went on relentlessly, like a law of nature"(400).
As with the self-important, Mitchell nurses grievance. Mitchell elevates his role in events. He tells his visitor how Nostromo went to Barrios in Cayta to enlist him in the Separation efforts but that he wasn't aware Nostromo was alive or so sent at the time these events occurred. As Mitchell tells it, "'I was never told; never given a hint, nothing-as if I were unworthy of confidence"(401). But, he sees Nostromo's actions as central to the events and is quick to point out that he discovered Nostromo. So, in the end, the Occidental Republic would have never happened but for him, Mitchell. "The merciless cicerone"(404), Mitchell, boasts, "'you can't get over it, Sir...the "Treasure House of the World", as The Times man calls Sulaco in his book, was saved intact for civilization-for a great future, sir'"(402).
Conrad sympathizes to the listener of Mitchell's history, "the privileged passenger....stunned and as it were annihilated maentally by a sudden surfeit of sights, sounds, names facts, and complicated information imperfectly apprehended, would listen like a tired child to a fairy tale"(404-405).
Conrad comes close to saying here is history. Here is its source. Here are its objects: nations, armies, great men. Here is its typical end-to show action in defense of "civilization." But, this history is not the center of his story. Suspicious of stories that have tidy shape, clear ends and morals, Conrad ends his story with the tragic, compelling tale of Nostromo's end, reshaping Nostromo into something other than heroic and far more fascinating.
.
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Nostromo: Martin Decoud
The man who imagines the new Occidental Republic prides himself on his lack of faith in anything. He is moved by love, which is defined as "the strongest of illusions"(92) by Conrad.
The night before he and Nostromo set out in a boat with the silver, he paces the floor of the Albergo of United Italy, before the picture of Garibaldi, "the Fathful Hero [who] seemed to look dimly ....at the man with no faith in anything except the truth of his own sensations"( 209).
"In the most skeptical heart there lurks at such moments, when the chances of existence are involved, the desire to leave a correct impression of the feelings, like a light by which the action may be seen when the personality is gone, gone where no light can ever reach the truth which every death takes out of the world"(210).
Suggesting a strength latent in a profound cynicism, Decoud writes, "I have the feeling of a great solitude around he [he continued]. Is it, perhaps, because I am the only man with a definite idea in his head, in the complete collapse of every resolve, intention and hope about me?'"(210).
The night before he and Nostromo set out in a boat with the silver, he paces the floor of the Albergo of United Italy, before the picture of Garibaldi, "the Fathful Hero [who] seemed to look dimly ....at the man with no faith in anything except the truth of his own sensations"( 209).
"In the most skeptical heart there lurks at such moments, when the chances of existence are involved, the desire to leave a correct impression of the feelings, like a light by which the action may be seen when the personality is gone, gone where no light can ever reach the truth which every death takes out of the world"(210).
Suggesting a strength latent in a profound cynicism, Decoud writes, "I have the feeling of a great solitude around he [he continued]. Is it, perhaps, because I am the only man with a definite idea in his head, in the complete collapse of every resolve, intention and hope about me?'"(210).
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Nostromo: The Goulds
Gould's father's prohibition (79): "...never to return to Costaguana, never to claim any part of his inheritance there, because it was tainted by the infamous concession."
"A vague idea of rehabilitation had entered the plan of their life. That it was so vague as to elude the support of argument only made it the stronger. It had presented itself to them at the instant when the woman's instinct of devotion and the man's instinct of activity receive from the strongest of illusions their most powerful impulse"(92). Strongest of illusions=love in Conrad's schema.
Of Charles Gould: "Abandoned workings had for him strong fascination. Their desolation appealed to him like the sight of human misery, whose causes are varied and profound. They might have been worthless, but they also might have been misunderstood. His future wife was the first, and perhaps the only person to detect this secret mood which governed the profoundly sensible, almost voiceless attitude of this man towards the world of material things. And at once her delight in him, lingering with half-open wings like those birds that cannot rise easily from a flat level, found a pinnacle from which to soar up into the skies"(81).
"And when she wondered frankly that a man of character should devote his energies to plotting and intrigues, Charles would remark, with a gentle concern that understood her wonder, 'You must not forget that he was born there'"(82).
"His usual expression was unconditionally approving and attentive. He was in his talks with her the most anxious and deferential of dictators, an attitude that pleased her immensely. It affirmed her power without detracting from his dignity"(83).
"...his expression was tense and irrational, as is natural in a man who elects to stare at nothing past a young girl's head"(84).
"She had never before given him such a fascinating vision of herself. All the eagerness of youth for a strange life, for great distances, for a future in which there was an air of adventure, of combat- of subtle thought of redress and conquest-had filled her with an intense excitement, which she returned to the giver with a more open and exquisite display of tenderness"(85).
"Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions. Only in the conduct of our action can we find the sense of mastery over the Fates"(86).
"She could converse charmingly but she was not talkative. The wisdom of the heart having no concern with the erection or demolition of theories any more than with the deference of prejudices, has no random words at its command. The words it pronounces have the value of acts of integrity, tolerance, and compassion. A woman's true tenderness, like the true virility of man, is expressed in action of a conquering kind"(87).
"...he contemplated her from the height of his long legs with a visible appreciation of her appearance. The consciousness of being thus contemplated pleased Mrs. Gould"(89).
"...marveling inwardly at the mobility of her physiognomy"(90)
"'I only wondered what you felt,' she murmured, gently.
During the last few days, as it happened, Charles Gould had been kept far too busy thinking twice before he spoke to have paid much attention to the state of his feelings. But theirs was a successful match, and he had no difficulty in finding his answer.
'The best of my feelings are in your keeping, my dear,' he said lightly; and there was so much truth in that obscure phrase that he experienced towards her at the moment a great increase of gratitude and tenderness"(90-91).
"A vague idea of rehabilitation had entered the plan of their life. That it was so vague as to elude the support of argument only made it the stronger. It had presented itself to them at the instant when the woman's instinct of devotion and the man's instinct of activity receive from the strongest of illusions their most powerful impulse"(92). Strongest of illusions=love in Conrad's schema.
Of Charles Gould: "Abandoned workings had for him strong fascination. Their desolation appealed to him like the sight of human misery, whose causes are varied and profound. They might have been worthless, but they also might have been misunderstood. His future wife was the first, and perhaps the only person to detect this secret mood which governed the profoundly sensible, almost voiceless attitude of this man towards the world of material things. And at once her delight in him, lingering with half-open wings like those birds that cannot rise easily from a flat level, found a pinnacle from which to soar up into the skies"(81).
"And when she wondered frankly that a man of character should devote his energies to plotting and intrigues, Charles would remark, with a gentle concern that understood her wonder, 'You must not forget that he was born there'"(82).
"His usual expression was unconditionally approving and attentive. He was in his talks with her the most anxious and deferential of dictators, an attitude that pleased her immensely. It affirmed her power without detracting from his dignity"(83).
"...his expression was tense and irrational, as is natural in a man who elects to stare at nothing past a young girl's head"(84).
"She had never before given him such a fascinating vision of herself. All the eagerness of youth for a strange life, for great distances, for a future in which there was an air of adventure, of combat- of subtle thought of redress and conquest-had filled her with an intense excitement, which she returned to the giver with a more open and exquisite display of tenderness"(85).
"Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions. Only in the conduct of our action can we find the sense of mastery over the Fates"(86).
"She could converse charmingly but she was not talkative. The wisdom of the heart having no concern with the erection or demolition of theories any more than with the deference of prejudices, has no random words at its command. The words it pronounces have the value of acts of integrity, tolerance, and compassion. A woman's true tenderness, like the true virility of man, is expressed in action of a conquering kind"(87).
"...he contemplated her from the height of his long legs with a visible appreciation of her appearance. The consciousness of being thus contemplated pleased Mrs. Gould"(89).
"...marveling inwardly at the mobility of her physiognomy"(90)
"'I only wondered what you felt,' she murmured, gently.
During the last few days, as it happened, Charles Gould had been kept far too busy thinking twice before he spoke to have paid much attention to the state of his feelings. But theirs was a successful match, and he had no difficulty in finding his answer.
'The best of my feelings are in your keeping, my dear,' he said lightly; and there was so much truth in that obscure phrase that he experienced towards her at the moment a great increase of gratitude and tenderness"(90-91).
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Notes from Conrad's Nostromo
Penguin edition edited by Martin Seymour-Smith (1983, 10th printing)
lines, phrases I loved-
"He had found no need to drop his voice; it had been low all the time, a mere murmur in the silence of dark houses with their shutters closed early against the night air, as is the custom of Sulaco"(178).
Decoud: "I have only the supreme illusion of a love"(179).
Decoud about Nostromo: "He is a fortunate fellow! His work is an exercise of personal powers; his leisure is spent in receiving the marks of extraordinary adulation"(181).
"It seemed to him [Decoud] that every conviction, as soon as it became effective, turned into that form of dementia the gods send upon those they wish to destroy"(188).
"It was part of what Decoud would have called his sane materialism that he did not believe in the possibility of friendship between man and woman.
The one exception he allowed confirmed, he maintained, that absolute rule. Friendship was possible between brother and sister, meaning by friendship the frank unreserved, as before another human being, of thoughts and sensations; all the objectless and necessary sincerity of one's innermost life tryint to react upon the profound sympathies of another existence"(205).
lines, phrases I loved-
"He had found no need to drop his voice; it had been low all the time, a mere murmur in the silence of dark houses with their shutters closed early against the night air, as is the custom of Sulaco"(178).
Decoud: "I have only the supreme illusion of a love"(179).
Decoud about Nostromo: "He is a fortunate fellow! His work is an exercise of personal powers; his leisure is spent in receiving the marks of extraordinary adulation"(181).
"It seemed to him [Decoud] that every conviction, as soon as it became effective, turned into that form of dementia the gods send upon those they wish to destroy"(188).
"It was part of what Decoud would have called his sane materialism that he did not believe in the possibility of friendship between man and woman.
The one exception he allowed confirmed, he maintained, that absolute rule. Friendship was possible between brother and sister, meaning by friendship the frank unreserved, as before another human being, of thoughts and sensations; all the objectless and necessary sincerity of one's innermost life tryint to react upon the profound sympathies of another existence"(205).
Friday, March 10, 2017
Reading Lore Segal's Ladies Lunch on a lunch break on Sassafrass Mountain
"The five women have grown old coming together, every other month or so for the last thirty or more years, around one another'story table."
Not table for lunch. Nobody. Me, a banana, a Hershey bar and a bottle of water. And, the wind nearly unimpeded.
Not table for lunch. Nobody. Me, a banana, a Hershey bar and a bottle of water. And, the wind nearly unimpeded.
Friday, March 3, 2017
Coy fiction
Curtis Sittenfield interviewed in the New Yorker online about her story "The Prarie Wife":
"The kind of fiction I like to read and write is very specific and detailed about everything—settings, moods, smells, textures—so to me it's kind of silly or coy not to apply that specificity and detail to sex, and I don't see the point of coy fiction. Therefore, I write the scenes that I think serve a particular story or novel, and in the moment of writing, I sort of exist in a parallel universe and don't consider what, say, my uncle or my former co-worker might think of my description of a blow job."
"The kind of fiction I like to read and write is very specific and detailed about everything—settings, moods, smells, textures—so to me it's kind of silly or coy not to apply that specificity and detail to sex, and I don't see the point of coy fiction. Therefore, I write the scenes that I think serve a particular story or novel, and in the moment of writing, I sort of exist in a parallel universe and don't consider what, say, my uncle or my former co-worker might think of my description of a blow job."
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing
Struck by these passages from Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi:
A mother, Willie, reflects on a hard past with her young son, Carson: "The sweetness of the smile was bitter too, for it reminded Willie of the days of his endless crying. The days when there was no one in the world except for the two of them, and she was not enough for him. She was barely enough for herself."
As an alienation sets in between Willie and her husband Robert: "Even on that first day she'd gone to play with him, even as she pushed him, even as he fell, Robert had always kept his eyes steadily, almost ravenous lyrics, on hers."(208)
"The Morris's had been in New York since before the Great Migration, but they ate as though the South was a place in their kitchen instead of one that was miles and miles away."(209)
A mother, Willie, reflects on a hard past with her young son, Carson: "The sweetness of the smile was bitter too, for it reminded Willie of the days of his endless crying. The days when there was no one in the world except for the two of them, and she was not enough for him. She was barely enough for herself."
As an alienation sets in between Willie and her husband Robert: "Even on that first day she'd gone to play with him, even as she pushed him, even as he fell, Robert had always kept his eyes steadily, almost ravenous lyrics, on hers."(208)
"The Morris's had been in New York since before the Great Migration, but they ate as though the South was a place in their kitchen instead of one that was miles and miles away."(209)
Friday, February 10, 2017
Do you know, have you heard the story
Always interested in the way people use stories.
In Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, there is much about stories. At one point, a young Asante woman, Esi, being held captive in 18th century Ghana by slavers. Amidst the brutal conditions of her prison in Cape Coast, Tansi, a woman she has met in captivity , asks her "'Do you know the story of the kente cloth?'" Esi had "heard it numerous times before, twice from Tansi herself, but she shook her head. Asking if the story had been heard before was a part of the story itself"(30). Thus, the question and response are a ritual. The asker is asking the listener to mind the story again, to take its wisdom to heart, to hear it, or, in this case, pay attention and heed it again.
Stories bear wisdom for coping and navigating life. They also bear history for the characters who often, due to the fact of their enslavement, have a sparse sense of their history. Yet stories of ones past can be a thin gruel for some. Kojo (whose name is a story that speaks to his being born on a Monday) escaped slavery when his mother and father attempted to flee north in the 1830s. They don't make it but infant Kojo does.
In Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, there is much about stories. At one point, a young Asante woman, Esi, being held captive in 18th century Ghana by slavers. Amidst the brutal conditions of her prison in Cape Coast, Tansi, a woman she has met in captivity , asks her "'Do you know the story of the kente cloth?'" Esi had "heard it numerous times before, twice from Tansi herself, but she shook her head. Asking if the story had been heard before was a part of the story itself"(30). Thus, the question and response are a ritual. The asker is asking the listener to mind the story again, to take its wisdom to heart, to hear it, or, in this case, pay attention and heed it again.
Stories bear wisdom for coping and navigating life. They also bear history for the characters who often, due to the fact of their enslavement, have a sparse sense of their history. Yet stories of ones past can be a thin gruel for some. Kojo (whose name is a story that speaks to his being born on a Monday) escaped slavery when his mother and father attempted to flee north in the 1830s. They don't make it but infant Kojo does.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Sufficient
jenifur passed, was let go, died this past Friday.
That morning, I had been listening to the pod cast recordings of Section 43 of Whitman's Song of Myself on the University of Iowa's International Writing Program's Whitmanweb.
Some lines of that poem struck me that morning and stayed with me all day, before and after jen and I said bye.
That morning, I had been listening to the pod cast recordings of Section 43 of Whitman's Song of Myself on the University of Iowa's International Writing Program's Whitmanweb.
Some lines of that poem struck me that morning and stayed with me all day, before and after jen and I said bye.
"Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers,
I take my place among you as much as among any,
The past is the push of you, me, all, precisely the same,
And what is yet untried and afterward is for you, me, all, precisely the same.
I do not know what is untried and afterward,
But I know it will in its turn prove sufficient, and cannot fail.
Each who passes is consider'd, each who stops is consider'd, not a single one can it fail."
I miss you jenifur. I hope it was sufficient. I hope it is sufficient. I hope sufficient is sufficient.
A Legible Causality
From Laura Miller's review new Yorker 1/30/2017 of Paul Auster's 4 3 2 1: "The narration in Auster's novels typically dominates every other element in a ferocious and doomed assertion that the world the book describes is not ruled by happenstance. Maybe that's what all storytelling is meant to do: reassure its audience that a legible causality shapes our world and our lives."
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
20th Century Women
Yesterday, had a dental cleaning; the usual, selling me the grinding guard, the electronic toothbrush. All of which I should buy. And, always, the only appointment was a 2 pm, which leaves me at a weird point in my workday.
I decided to take the rest of the day off and catch a matinee of 20th Century Women. It's about a mother and son, at its heart. But, in the beginning scenes, there are five people living in a large, ramshackle old house in Santa Barbara owned and perpetually renovated by Dorothea, played with intelligence and grace by the underappreciated Annette Benning. In the early scenes, you watch the people coming in and out and its clear they move about the house, inhabit it at some level together, but that they are not a traditional family. And, I liked that the film is not in a hurry to explain their relationship or the nature of the family these five folks constitute. Explaining always suggests something needs explaining, that its not quite what it seems.
The film really does revolve around the two members who are related, Dorothea and her son Jamie. Dorothea had Jamie in 1964 when she was forty. Jamie is now in the midst of teendom and increasingly a mystifying riddle to his mother. She worries he is not right, harmed by growing up without a real male presence in his life. There is her tenant and handyman living in the house, William, a hippy of sorts who is way deep into making rough, amorphous clay bowls. Jamie and William don't identify. So, Dorothea seeks the help of Jamie's best friend Julie, a malcontent teen in flight from her psychotherapist mother, and her tenant Abbie, a punk-feminist photographer recovering from cervical cancer. She asks them to help make her son a man, to share their lives with him so that he might have a better idea of his future and how to get to it.
They do their best. Abbie introduces him to late seventies feminism, sharing two books with him, Our Bodies Ourselves and Sisterhood Is Powerful. He learns of clitoral orgasm and decides he is a feminist and expresses his desire to satisfy women and treat them with respect. He discovers reality often conflicts with intent. Julie, his peer, is his best friend and escapes her house to be with him at every chance, even climbing scaffolding outside the house to reach his room and sleep platonically with him at night. When he gets frisky, she pushes him off, telling him she's too close to him have sex with him and sex would ruin their friendship. Both provide an education to him of sorts, as his mother asked.
However, much of what he learns seems to be in the service of better knowing his mother. This is a story of a parent and a child who love each other but are unable to fully express that love. Both seek to know the other but yet continually they miss each other. There is a wonderful scene in which Jamie reads a passage from Sisterhood Is Powerful to his mother which seems to pretty clearly identify her. The essay is about how society choses not to see older women, to recognize their wit, their beauty, their desire. Instead, society simply ignores older women till they fade away. He presents this essay to his mother as if he has found a key to understanding her. Dorothea is offended, and curtly tells her son she doesn't need to read books to understand herself and he wont find her there. And, there is something true to her response. Dorothea is a one-of-a-kind. But, as there is never any truly one-of-a-kind, she rebuffs him out of a pride. The picture he offers in the hopes of gaining understanding, in the hopes she will confirm it, does seem fairly accurate on a certain, basic level.
Dorothea is an amazing woman. She is bohemian but not lazy or hazy. She has a clear integrity, a sense of what she's about. She's a traditionalist. She strives to try and understand everything, to bring a rational, calm perception to all. Unafraid. I loved one scene especially. William suddenly kisses Dorothea on the lips, in a sudden burst of passion or affection or who knows what. SHe asks him why he kissed her and he tells her he doesn't really know. She responds, you should always know why you kiss a woman. She then asks him whether or not he is sleeping with Abbie and he admits he is, but just for fun, it doesn't mean anything. She responds, why would you do that? Dorothea is always questioning her actions and looking for more.
But, she's vulnerable and hiding it as best she can. She is unhappy. She's never achieved a love of her life and she believes in love. And, at one point, she admits, she's failed to have this experience, and her honesty in this regard moved me to tears. She basically admits she so wanted to be in love, to tast the real thing, she rushed into relationships that didn't have a chance of true love. Moving.
Annette Benning is amazing. Greta Gerwig is worth the price of admissions. Watch her facial reactions. She has a vocabulary of faces that is unsurpassed. And, the soundtrack features some great punk/alt tracks from the time period, side-by-side with As Time Goes By and Louie Armstrong. Must see.
I decided to take the rest of the day off and catch a matinee of 20th Century Women. It's about a mother and son, at its heart. But, in the beginning scenes, there are five people living in a large, ramshackle old house in Santa Barbara owned and perpetually renovated by Dorothea, played with intelligence and grace by the underappreciated Annette Benning. In the early scenes, you watch the people coming in and out and its clear they move about the house, inhabit it at some level together, but that they are not a traditional family. And, I liked that the film is not in a hurry to explain their relationship or the nature of the family these five folks constitute. Explaining always suggests something needs explaining, that its not quite what it seems.
The film really does revolve around the two members who are related, Dorothea and her son Jamie. Dorothea had Jamie in 1964 when she was forty. Jamie is now in the midst of teendom and increasingly a mystifying riddle to his mother. She worries he is not right, harmed by growing up without a real male presence in his life. There is her tenant and handyman living in the house, William, a hippy of sorts who is way deep into making rough, amorphous clay bowls. Jamie and William don't identify. So, Dorothea seeks the help of Jamie's best friend Julie, a malcontent teen in flight from her psychotherapist mother, and her tenant Abbie, a punk-feminist photographer recovering from cervical cancer. She asks them to help make her son a man, to share their lives with him so that he might have a better idea of his future and how to get to it.
They do their best. Abbie introduces him to late seventies feminism, sharing two books with him, Our Bodies Ourselves and Sisterhood Is Powerful. He learns of clitoral orgasm and decides he is a feminist and expresses his desire to satisfy women and treat them with respect. He discovers reality often conflicts with intent. Julie, his peer, is his best friend and escapes her house to be with him at every chance, even climbing scaffolding outside the house to reach his room and sleep platonically with him at night. When he gets frisky, she pushes him off, telling him she's too close to him have sex with him and sex would ruin their friendship. Both provide an education to him of sorts, as his mother asked.
However, much of what he learns seems to be in the service of better knowing his mother. This is a story of a parent and a child who love each other but are unable to fully express that love. Both seek to know the other but yet continually they miss each other. There is a wonderful scene in which Jamie reads a passage from Sisterhood Is Powerful to his mother which seems to pretty clearly identify her. The essay is about how society choses not to see older women, to recognize their wit, their beauty, their desire. Instead, society simply ignores older women till they fade away. He presents this essay to his mother as if he has found a key to understanding her. Dorothea is offended, and curtly tells her son she doesn't need to read books to understand herself and he wont find her there. And, there is something true to her response. Dorothea is a one-of-a-kind. But, as there is never any truly one-of-a-kind, she rebuffs him out of a pride. The picture he offers in the hopes of gaining understanding, in the hopes she will confirm it, does seem fairly accurate on a certain, basic level.
Dorothea is an amazing woman. She is bohemian but not lazy or hazy. She has a clear integrity, a sense of what she's about. She's a traditionalist. She strives to try and understand everything, to bring a rational, calm perception to all. Unafraid. I loved one scene especially. William suddenly kisses Dorothea on the lips, in a sudden burst of passion or affection or who knows what. SHe asks him why he kissed her and he tells her he doesn't really know. She responds, you should always know why you kiss a woman. She then asks him whether or not he is sleeping with Abbie and he admits he is, but just for fun, it doesn't mean anything. She responds, why would you do that? Dorothea is always questioning her actions and looking for more.
But, she's vulnerable and hiding it as best she can. She is unhappy. She's never achieved a love of her life and she believes in love. And, at one point, she admits, she's failed to have this experience, and her honesty in this regard moved me to tears. She basically admits she so wanted to be in love, to tast the real thing, she rushed into relationships that didn't have a chance of true love. Moving.
Annette Benning is amazing. Greta Gerwig is worth the price of admissions. Watch her facial reactions. She has a vocabulary of faces that is unsurpassed. And, the soundtrack features some great punk/alt tracks from the time period, side-by-side with As Time Goes By and Louie Armstrong. Must see.
Monday, January 23, 2017
Section 38 of Song of Myself
Section 38 of Song of Myself
"I remember now,
I resume the overstaid fraction,
The grave of rock multiplies what has been confided to it, or to any graves,
Corpses rise, gashes heal, fastenings roll from me.
I troop forth replenish'd with supreme power, one of an average unending procession,
Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines,
Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth,
The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands of years."
Whitman continually throws up terms that challenge a good Google search. In the passage above, "overstaid fraction" has me stymied. The passage is in communication with the preceding one, 37, in which Whitman embodies and becomes one with various outlaws and sufferers: convicts, mutineers, larcenous youngsters facing the law, and a beggar. Section 38 begins with him exclaiming, "Enough! enough! enough!" and then shortly after he remembers, as quoted above. But, what does he remember? What is the overstaid fraction? I don't have time to pursue but jot this down in the way of planting these questions in my reading forward and backward henceforth.
Before passing, one can't help but note here, as in other passages, Whitman taking on a Christ like role. He does so in more sweeping and dramatic fashion in Section 40, a passage I found moving an trying at once. So full of promise but so impossible to trust:
"To any one dying, thither I speed and twist the knob of the door,
Turn the bed-clothes toward the foot of the bed,
Let the physician and the priest go home.
I seize the descending man and raise him with resistless will,
O despairer, here is my neck,
By God, you shall not go down! hang your whole weight upon me.
I dilate you with tremendous breath, I buoy you up,
Every room of the house do I fill with an arm'd force,
Lovers of me, bafflers of graves.
Sleep—I and they keep guard all night,
Not doubt, not decease shall dare to lay finger upon you,
I have embraced you, and henceforth possess you to myself,
And when you rise in the morning you will find what I tell you is so."
"Magnifying and applying come I,
Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,
Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,
Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,
Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,
In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved,
With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli and every idol and image,
Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent more,
Admitting they were alive and did the work of their days,
(They bore mites as for unfledg'd birds who have now to rise and fly and sing for themselves,)
Accepting the rough deific sketches to fill out better in myself, bestowing them freely on each man and woman I see."
M and I walked Timmerman, went to Café Strudel and Lowes. Bouyed me up. Saw La, La, Land by myself Saturday and it too blew me away and filled me with joy and hope. Alas, there was work today: another delay in opening and a useless meeting.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Yiyun Li and the eternal desire to establish contact
It's funny how stories can find you at just the right time.
Yiyun Li's story On the Street Where You Live (New Yorker, 1/9/2017) captures a mother's struggle to calibrate her expectations and ideas in light of her autistic son. Six year old Jude sees two specialists four times a week, crafted a sign for kindergarten, "'I'm Not talking because I DON't WaNt TO!'" and in general seems to prefer a SpongeBob pillow and himself. Parroting a banal children's book, Becky frets, "Oh, the places he'll not go, and the things he'll miss in life!"
Becky works against his wishes, his bent. She keeps a diary for him in which she tries to capture all the interesting people she encounters in her daily life with the aim of one day sharing it with him, to give him a glimpse of the richness of human life he's blinded to in the cocoon he wraps around himself. But, she realizes at one point, this book is for her. An exercise in defining normal, admirable.
She fears she's failing her son. That she lacks the imagination to truly appreciate him as he is, raising the question of whether any of us truly appreciate the other, the otherness of others.
At the ribbon cutting for an art museum her surgeon husband patronizes, she stands in front of a Jackson Pollock, alongside another spectator, who whispers conspiratorially, "'It makes me angry that I don't own the art work. I'd hate to share with others. They'd never see what I see." Becky is taken aback. The work itself, "a masterpiece staring back in silence," has challenged her. Fixed and unchanging itself, it seems to demand change from her, demand she can't offer-appreciation, understanding, comprehension.
Li has a surrealistic, wacky edge at times. As she continues to stare at the masterpiece, a Sherlock Holmes impersonator comes besides her and asks Becky if she likes the piece. Becky doesn't really say but wonders what "would happen if somebody would splash more colors onto the painting." Faux Sherlock,, with a cool, rational air and elevated vocabulary responds that this would be vandalism causing Becky to wonder if it would be such if one owned the painting. Sherlock asks Becky, Jude's mother, the telling questions: "'Might it be that you perceive imperfection in the painting and want to add your own touch? Or even destroy it?...was [she] an artist?"
Becky defines herself as something other than an artist. She believes she fails her son, fails to appreciate his oddity because she is too normal. She adopts as her own the line of Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, "Who knows better'n I do what normal is?" She doesn't know what to do or make of her boy. The exchange with Sherlock suggest there is an art to mothering, to relating to the people around one. That art does not lie in trying to change what we encounter. In Li's vision, people present a discrete spectrum of difference and the act of imagination is not in trying to erase, ignore and rewrite that difference in acts of vandalism. But, to simply see it and work toward giving it a safe place in the world.
Born in China and a native Chinese speaker, Li writes movingly in the January 2nd edition of the New Yorker (To Speak Is To Blunder) of her decision to write, think, dream and speak almost exclusively in English. She claims that the decision was crucial. According to her, we all require a private language in distinction to the public language we all use. The private language allows us to express our own private thoughts, to capture the nuance, the unspeakable, the vague aspects of our life that would otherwise go unsaid, unnamed. She can only capture memories if she imagines them in English. She can only begin to write of her past if she is writing of it in stories, in English. She can recall memories from her past because "I have given these moments-what's possible to be put into English-to my characters." Writing in English allows her to "feel invisible but not estranged. It is the position I believe I always want in life. But with every pursuit there is the danger of crossing a line, from invisibility to erasure."
The essay gets confusing. Li writes of being confined to a mental hospital twice after suicide attempts. There she finds consolation of a kind in the writing of Katherine Mansfield; she "devoured Mansfield''s words like thirst-quenching poison." Some of the words: "'There is something profound & terrible in this eternal desire to establish contact."
I wonder if Li writes to establish contact with others or with herself. In the story, Jude claims his greatest fear is monophobia, a fear of being alone. Li never clearly articulates the dynamic underlying this autistic boys monophobia. Does he shun others to avoid confirming that he truly is alone? Does he fear being alone despite the fact he equally fears others. I would guess Li feels a deep kinship to the boy. As do I.
Yiyun Li's story On the Street Where You Live (New Yorker, 1/9/2017) captures a mother's struggle to calibrate her expectations and ideas in light of her autistic son. Six year old Jude sees two specialists four times a week, crafted a sign for kindergarten, "'I'm Not talking because I DON't WaNt TO!'" and in general seems to prefer a SpongeBob pillow and himself. Parroting a banal children's book, Becky frets, "Oh, the places he'll not go, and the things he'll miss in life!"
Becky works against his wishes, his bent. She keeps a diary for him in which she tries to capture all the interesting people she encounters in her daily life with the aim of one day sharing it with him, to give him a glimpse of the richness of human life he's blinded to in the cocoon he wraps around himself. But, she realizes at one point, this book is for her. An exercise in defining normal, admirable.
She fears she's failing her son. That she lacks the imagination to truly appreciate him as he is, raising the question of whether any of us truly appreciate the other, the otherness of others.
At the ribbon cutting for an art museum her surgeon husband patronizes, she stands in front of a Jackson Pollock, alongside another spectator, who whispers conspiratorially, "'It makes me angry that I don't own the art work. I'd hate to share with others. They'd never see what I see." Becky is taken aback. The work itself, "a masterpiece staring back in silence," has challenged her. Fixed and unchanging itself, it seems to demand change from her, demand she can't offer-appreciation, understanding, comprehension.
Li has a surrealistic, wacky edge at times. As she continues to stare at the masterpiece, a Sherlock Holmes impersonator comes besides her and asks Becky if she likes the piece. Becky doesn't really say but wonders what "would happen if somebody would splash more colors onto the painting." Faux Sherlock,, with a cool, rational air and elevated vocabulary responds that this would be vandalism causing Becky to wonder if it would be such if one owned the painting. Sherlock asks Becky, Jude's mother, the telling questions: "'Might it be that you perceive imperfection in the painting and want to add your own touch? Or even destroy it?...was [she] an artist?"
Becky defines herself as something other than an artist. She believes she fails her son, fails to appreciate his oddity because she is too normal. She adopts as her own the line of Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, "Who knows better'n I do what normal is?" She doesn't know what to do or make of her boy. The exchange with Sherlock suggest there is an art to mothering, to relating to the people around one. That art does not lie in trying to change what we encounter. In Li's vision, people present a discrete spectrum of difference and the act of imagination is not in trying to erase, ignore and rewrite that difference in acts of vandalism. But, to simply see it and work toward giving it a safe place in the world.
Born in China and a native Chinese speaker, Li writes movingly in the January 2nd edition of the New Yorker (To Speak Is To Blunder) of her decision to write, think, dream and speak almost exclusively in English. She claims that the decision was crucial. According to her, we all require a private language in distinction to the public language we all use. The private language allows us to express our own private thoughts, to capture the nuance, the unspeakable, the vague aspects of our life that would otherwise go unsaid, unnamed. She can only capture memories if she imagines them in English. She can only begin to write of her past if she is writing of it in stories, in English. She can recall memories from her past because "I have given these moments-what's possible to be put into English-to my characters." Writing in English allows her to "feel invisible but not estranged. It is the position I believe I always want in life. But with every pursuit there is the danger of crossing a line, from invisibility to erasure."
The essay gets confusing. Li writes of being confined to a mental hospital twice after suicide attempts. There she finds consolation of a kind in the writing of Katherine Mansfield; she "devoured Mansfield''s words like thirst-quenching poison." Some of the words: "'There is something profound & terrible in this eternal desire to establish contact."
I wonder if Li writes to establish contact with others or with herself. In the story, Jude claims his greatest fear is monophobia, a fear of being alone. Li never clearly articulates the dynamic underlying this autistic boys monophobia. Does he shun others to avoid confirming that he truly is alone? Does he fear being alone despite the fact he equally fears others. I would guess Li feels a deep kinship to the boy. As do I.
Monday, January 16, 2017
Comfortable
Maybe....for now, I'm most comfortable by my self. Moved a bunch of things back to Ashton. No need to trouble folks, make them feel uncomfortable by asking for a base line level of order and cleanliness. Not a neat freak; but dirty dishes piling in rooms, unflushed toilets, blood and feces on toilet seats, candy wrappers all over a table next to the tv couch in a bonus room.. At least let me be upset, mumble under my breath if more open requests are not going to garner a response.
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Cataloochee
I had wanted to go into Cataloochee Valley where there is an elk herd. Alas, the road into was closed. Last five miles into this area is a crazy dirt road. Park had shut it down due to damage from ice storms which ran through earlier this week. I'm going back to see those elk.
So, since yesterday I couldnt get into valley, hiked Cataloochee Divide trail from Cove Creek to Swag House, all along eastern boundary of Smokies. All along the trail, there is an old, or the remnants of an old, CCC fence put up in 30s. I suspect some parts have been redone by zealous landowners.
Hiked with Maggie the dog, who found me about a mile from Swag House and hiked with me for three hours, right to trail head and my car. Dog is a long story but not my dog. I ended up having to go into Asheville to the humane. Good news, Maggie has been reunited with her owner.
Leaves, section 20 of Song of Myself:
"All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,/ Else it were time lost listening to me." That is a charge.
So, since yesterday I couldnt get into valley, hiked Cataloochee Divide trail from Cove Creek to Swag House, all along eastern boundary of Smokies. All along the trail, there is an old, or the remnants of an old, CCC fence put up in 30s. I suspect some parts have been redone by zealous landowners.
Hiked with Maggie the dog, who found me about a mile from Swag House and hiked with me for three hours, right to trail head and my car. Dog is a long story but not my dog. I ended up having to go into Asheville to the humane. Good news, Maggie has been reunited with her owner.
Leaves, section 20 of Song of Myself:
"All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,/ Else it were time lost listening to me." That is a charge.
Friday, January 13, 2017
Friday 13; no truckling, please
Jen got dehydrated and it got close.
Going to Catalahoochee hoping to see elk.
Leaves:
Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids,/
Conformity goes to the fourth-removed/
I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.
Going to Catalahoochee hoping to see elk.
Leaves:
Whimpering and truckling fold with powders for invalids,/
Conformity goes to the fourth-removed/
I wear my hat as I please indoors or out.
Sunday, January 8, 2017
Filtering from the self
It's hard to type on a cell phone with Antonio bumping his boy-cat head against your hands.
Leaking in roof at Ashton has spread, into the back room of the original house. Frustrated.
Yesterday was lazy day. Cold, rainy in morning. Went to Ashton and read Turner House and Leaves of Grass. Then, washed kitchen floor quick. Went to see Met simulcast of Nabucco which was wonderful. Verdi is so tuneful and the tunes are always so lovely, lilting, singable (is this what is meant by lyrical?). Tuneful, often sweet sounding, regardless of the content of the song.
The Hebrew slave chorus in Act 3 was just sublime, it appeared the chorus's performance brought James Levine to tears? They encored it, which I think is a fairly rare occurrence.
The singer Liudmyla Monastyrska played Abigaille ando from her entrance her presence and vitality was unmistakable. Big voice but she can also sing soft, wring every last ounce out of an aria. Her voice, her performance focuses ones ear. You can't help but listen. Her dying aria ("su me morente")at the very end was magic.
Now usually playing baritone roles (he's sang 17 Verdi roles and performed thousands of times at Met. WOW), Placido Domingo played Nabucco and was the afternoons draw for many. New Yorker complained his singing lacked bite. I'm not sophisticated enough a listener to know when I'm not getting bit.
Sunday was lazy. Read at Ashton. Wanted to hike at Harbison but apparently the wet conditions necessitate the closing of the trails in their entirety. Went to Peachtree Rock preserve in Pelion and hiked there about four miles. It was nice. Had forgotten to bring a hat. So, on way to Harbison, stopped at Sportsmans Authority on Piney Grove and bought a green hat branded "Turtle Fur."
Came back. Worked on Turner House and book group. Exploring possible hike for Saturday in Eastern Smokie Mountain Park.
Leaves of Grass with its big promise:
From Section 2 of Song of Myself
"Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems/
You shall possess the good of the earth and the sun, (There are millions of suns left,)/
You shall no longer take things second or third hand , nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,/
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."
From Section 3:
"There was never any more inception than there is now,/
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,/
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,/
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now."
Leaking in roof at Ashton has spread, into the back room of the original house. Frustrated.
Yesterday was lazy day. Cold, rainy in morning. Went to Ashton and read Turner House and Leaves of Grass. Then, washed kitchen floor quick. Went to see Met simulcast of Nabucco which was wonderful. Verdi is so tuneful and the tunes are always so lovely, lilting, singable (is this what is meant by lyrical?). Tuneful, often sweet sounding, regardless of the content of the song.
The Hebrew slave chorus in Act 3 was just sublime, it appeared the chorus's performance brought James Levine to tears? They encored it, which I think is a fairly rare occurrence.
The singer Liudmyla Monastyrska played Abigaille ando from her entrance her presence and vitality was unmistakable. Big voice but she can also sing soft, wring every last ounce out of an aria. Her voice, her performance focuses ones ear. You can't help but listen. Her dying aria ("su me morente")at the very end was magic.
Now usually playing baritone roles (he's sang 17 Verdi roles and performed thousands of times at Met. WOW), Placido Domingo played Nabucco and was the afternoons draw for many. New Yorker complained his singing lacked bite. I'm not sophisticated enough a listener to know when I'm not getting bit.
Sunday was lazy. Read at Ashton. Wanted to hike at Harbison but apparently the wet conditions necessitate the closing of the trails in their entirety. Went to Peachtree Rock preserve in Pelion and hiked there about four miles. It was nice. Had forgotten to bring a hat. So, on way to Harbison, stopped at Sportsmans Authority on Piney Grove and bought a green hat branded "Turtle Fur."
Came back. Worked on Turner House and book group. Exploring possible hike for Saturday in Eastern Smokie Mountain Park.
Leaves of Grass with its big promise:
From Section 2 of Song of Myself
"Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems/
You shall possess the good of the earth and the sun, (There are millions of suns left,)/
You shall no longer take things second or third hand , nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,/
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."
From Section 3:
"There was never any more inception than there is now,/
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,/
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,/
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now."
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
January 4, moving eve
Word came down and we're set to start packing and moving our collection tomorrow.
Having lunch in the Extension, facing a field and a band of trees. Originally, when I started lunching in my car here, after a long while lunching at noisy, dirty, chaotic Moe's, Extension seemed away, natural. A place of repose. And, these are quieter lunches. But, lately, I notice much more the traffic noise from Clemson. You learn real quiet when you hike in back country areas.
Continued to read Turner House at lunch. It's a family novel, with thirteen siblings and their children and Grands. But, the novel resolves down to the story of two of the siblings, eldest Cha Cha and youngest Lelah, who are struggling in their lives and in need of some kind of salvation. I'm sixty pages or so from finish and both Cha Cha and Lelah are only going into a deeper bottom.
There is a back story. The story of Francis', the Turner patriarch's first months in Detroit are woven through the story of the Turner children in the present day. Francis Turner leaves Arkansas and his new wife Viola for what he imagines will be a preaching opportunity.
Everything falls through and his early days in Detroit are rough, rife with loneliness and setbacks. He drinks too much. He takes up with the woman who runs the boarding house he stays. He fails to send word back to Viola about his well being and doings. He confesses, " It took courage to let a woman in on one's disappointment, one's fear"(278). He labels the time distant from Viola, his wife, as his "heathen period"(278).
Having lunch in the Extension, facing a field and a band of trees. Originally, when I started lunching in my car here, after a long while lunching at noisy, dirty, chaotic Moe's, Extension seemed away, natural. A place of repose. And, these are quieter lunches. But, lately, I notice much more the traffic noise from Clemson. You learn real quiet when you hike in back country areas.
Continued to read Turner House at lunch. It's a family novel, with thirteen siblings and their children and Grands. But, the novel resolves down to the story of two of the siblings, eldest Cha Cha and youngest Lelah, who are struggling in their lives and in need of some kind of salvation. I'm sixty pages or so from finish and both Cha Cha and Lelah are only going into a deeper bottom.
There is a back story. The story of Francis', the Turner patriarch's first months in Detroit are woven through the story of the Turner children in the present day. Francis Turner leaves Arkansas and his new wife Viola for what he imagines will be a preaching opportunity.
Everything falls through and his early days in Detroit are rough, rife with loneliness and setbacks. He drinks too much. He takes up with the woman who runs the boarding house he stays. He fails to send word back to Viola about his well being and doings. He confesses, " It took courage to let a woman in on one's disappointment, one's fear"(278). He labels the time distant from Viola, his wife, as his "heathen period"(278).
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
January 3: Turner House, delayed move
From the Turner House by Angela Flournoy: "other siblings feared Marlene...she was too quick to get angry and too long to forgive, but Leah knew that Marlene simply loved hard"(212, pb). I am hoping this will be defined.
Sometimes, Flournoy spells it out when she need not and other times she assumes an understanding. Such as when younger son Troy visits his aging mom and complains, "Viola could complain about Cha Cha all day if you allowed her, just as she could Francis Turner, never mind that he was dead"(177). And, we know from this that Troy is feeling a bit unloved by his mum. But, just in case you're obtuse, or reading this while watching the ball game, Flournoy adds (in Troy's thoughts or via the narrators voice?), "The constant complaining suggested she cared for them most"(177).
Then, there's nice: "Cha Cha thought, if only she was as understanding as she was nurturimg"(218).
Moving delayed. Spent the afternoon reassigning staff.
Sometimes, Flournoy spells it out when she need not and other times she assumes an understanding. Such as when younger son Troy visits his aging mom and complains, "Viola could complain about Cha Cha all day if you allowed her, just as she could Francis Turner, never mind that he was dead"(177). And, we know from this that Troy is feeling a bit unloved by his mum. But, just in case you're obtuse, or reading this while watching the ball game, Flournoy adds (in Troy's thoughts or via the narrators voice?), "The constant complaining suggested she cared for them most"(177).
Then, there's nice: "Cha Cha thought, if only she was as understanding as she was nurturimg"(218).
Moving delayed. Spent the afternoon reassigning staff.
Monday, January 2, 2017
Identity from Swing Time by Zadie Smith
If Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat, said Gene Kelly, and by this logic Bill "Bojangles" Robinson should have really been my dancer, because Bojangles danced for the Harlem dandy, for the ghetto kid, for the sharecropper-for all the descendants of slaves"(24).
Love and entrapment: from Swing Time by Zadie Smith
"She believed my father wanted more children in order to entrap her, and she was basically right about that, although entrapment in this case was only another word for love"(19).
Sunday, January 1, 2017
New Year's Day
Perhaps a new start.
Perhaps the first entry in a reader's diary. A life diary.
Drove in a chill rain to Ashton to finish grouting countertop. Began by re-reading parts of Swing Time by Zadie Smith. I finished it yesterday.
Was struck by her description of the main character's mother's speeches intending to instill pride in the downtrodden citizens of her neighborhood as "effortful light"(240).
Read about an hour. Then went to work. I regrouted a couple years back, so I suppose what I did today was re-regrouting. Don't remember it being so messy. I also don't remember using my finger so much, to make sure difficult joints got filled. I also don't remember really worrying last time about getting the lines "right," making sure they appeared solid, white and wide. Was never satisfied with the last job. Hope I got it right this time.
Went to Moe's to read a bit. Read a good New Yorker (10/17/2016) profile of the writer Henry Green by Leo Robson. The perpetually neglected Henry Green who is once again being noticed and championed. But, this work seems to have been continually picked up and dropped throughout my reading life. Perhaps Green is the perpetually noted as neglected Henry Green.
Writer Terry Southern was a champion of Greens and hoped to launch him to notice with a 1958 interview in the Paris Review. It is an odd interview. Southern goes out of his way to pitch Green as eccentric, the odd, genius artist. It wasn't an actual interview. The questions and answers were completed via mail but Southern made it appear as if the interview took place in real time, at a real place. He makes it appear as if Green had trouble hearing him and often Green comes across as mishearing questions (mistaking the word "subtle" for "suttee"). In a phrase which pleased me, Robson refers to this interview by Southern as "strenuousy oddball."
Visiting V who claims not to be feeling well and is parked on the couch in the bonus room watching Criminal Minds. Horrible. While sitting with her for about half an hour I watched one guy hack off a strapped down woman's arm with a machete and another guy kill his victim, strapped down in a bathtub, with a hammer to the head. I don't get it.
Re-certified my ICR plan. Made more sense than watching Criminal Minds, even if I had to jump through some hoops to get it done.
Darkness has descended and it stays cold and wet. Isis just asked V to take him out. V came down stairs wrapped in her blanket, bitching at the dog. Happy New Year!
And...sitting down at 6:46 to read the next book for the library's book groups, Angela Flournoy's The Turner House, an old-fashioned family novel featuring a very large black family who calls the east side of Detroit home.
I was just going to read and then decided it would be wise to start on the notes I compile for book group. I'm two thirds of the way through and haven't written down a thing. Writing down notes, compiling a version of the story, helps to find questions and establish the patterns and themes in a book.
But, I seem driven to write today. Perhaps, I'm driven by a half-conscious resolution to write this year. More? Better? I'm feeling self-conscious about my ability to write lately, perhaps in part to criticisms from my supervisor at work. Just in general, feeling not up to the many challenges ahead. These worries about abilities have caused me to dream quite a bit of late, after many years in which I can't recall dreams. Three dreams in the past two weeks stand out-one, I'm working through a swampy area infested with alligators and snakes. Just when you think you've gotten through the worse of it, a whole new host comes out of the mud and murk. In another dream, I'm on stage in front of a large audience who is waiting for me to make them laugh with a stand-up routine. I'm supposed to go for an hour and can't get started. The third dream, I just remember a part. Joseph Biden is raking me over the coals for my lack of writing skills. I'm lacking the basic requirements in this area according to our Vice President. An interesting messenger.
Perhaps the first entry in a reader's diary. A life diary.
Drove in a chill rain to Ashton to finish grouting countertop. Began by re-reading parts of Swing Time by Zadie Smith. I finished it yesterday.
Was struck by her description of the main character's mother's speeches intending to instill pride in the downtrodden citizens of her neighborhood as "effortful light"(240).
Read about an hour. Then went to work. I regrouted a couple years back, so I suppose what I did today was re-regrouting. Don't remember it being so messy. I also don't remember using my finger so much, to make sure difficult joints got filled. I also don't remember really worrying last time about getting the lines "right," making sure they appeared solid, white and wide. Was never satisfied with the last job. Hope I got it right this time.
Went to Moe's to read a bit. Read a good New Yorker (10/17/2016) profile of the writer Henry Green by Leo Robson. The perpetually neglected Henry Green who is once again being noticed and championed. But, this work seems to have been continually picked up and dropped throughout my reading life. Perhaps Green is the perpetually noted as neglected Henry Green.
Writer Terry Southern was a champion of Greens and hoped to launch him to notice with a 1958 interview in the Paris Review. It is an odd interview. Southern goes out of his way to pitch Green as eccentric, the odd, genius artist. It wasn't an actual interview. The questions and answers were completed via mail but Southern made it appear as if the interview took place in real time, at a real place. He makes it appear as if Green had trouble hearing him and often Green comes across as mishearing questions (mistaking the word "subtle" for "suttee"). In a phrase which pleased me, Robson refers to this interview by Southern as "strenuousy oddball."
Visiting V who claims not to be feeling well and is parked on the couch in the bonus room watching Criminal Minds. Horrible. While sitting with her for about half an hour I watched one guy hack off a strapped down woman's arm with a machete and another guy kill his victim, strapped down in a bathtub, with a hammer to the head. I don't get it.
Re-certified my ICR plan. Made more sense than watching Criminal Minds, even if I had to jump through some hoops to get it done.
Darkness has descended and it stays cold and wet. Isis just asked V to take him out. V came down stairs wrapped in her blanket, bitching at the dog. Happy New Year!
And...sitting down at 6:46 to read the next book for the library's book groups, Angela Flournoy's The Turner House, an old-fashioned family novel featuring a very large black family who calls the east side of Detroit home.
I was just going to read and then decided it would be wise to start on the notes I compile for book group. I'm two thirds of the way through and haven't written down a thing. Writing down notes, compiling a version of the story, helps to find questions and establish the patterns and themes in a book.
But, I seem driven to write today. Perhaps, I'm driven by a half-conscious resolution to write this year. More? Better? I'm feeling self-conscious about my ability to write lately, perhaps in part to criticisms from my supervisor at work. Just in general, feeling not up to the many challenges ahead. These worries about abilities have caused me to dream quite a bit of late, after many years in which I can't recall dreams. Three dreams in the past two weeks stand out-one, I'm working through a swampy area infested with alligators and snakes. Just when you think you've gotten through the worse of it, a whole new host comes out of the mud and murk. In another dream, I'm on stage in front of a large audience who is waiting for me to make them laugh with a stand-up routine. I'm supposed to go for an hour and can't get started. The third dream, I just remember a part. Joseph Biden is raking me over the coals for my lack of writing skills. I'm lacking the basic requirements in this area according to our Vice President. An interesting messenger.
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