First I read The Judas Window by Carter Dickson, bought for the minimal investment of a dollar at Commonwealth Books in downtown Boston. I hadn't read a mystery in a long time (with a very few exceptions, such as Dissolution by C. J. Sansom), but this locked-room mystery was a novelty that sparked my curiosity. As I read, the courtroom drama engaged me; the barrister/detective, Sir Henry Merrivale, was a droll character. A few months later, I moved on to The Scandal at High Chimneys, written under the author's actual name, John Dickson Carr. This was an altogether different sort of mystery. For one thing, it was set in (a carefully researched) Victorian London. Overall, it was no less entertaining than The Judas Window...had I found a new direction in the area of light reading?
Simultaneously, I had noticed that I could find books by John Dickson Carr (or Carter Dickson) only in used bookstores, sometimes. I wondered, why had this excellent mystery writer fallen into obscurity? Then I bought The Hollow Man. It was a puzzle. By that I mean The Hollow Man focuses almost exclusively on murder as puzzle. The characters--although they often feature eccentricity, minor or major--manage to be dull. Similarly, the detective, Dr. Gideon Fell, is eccentric but ultimately dull. Meanwhile, though it becomes clear that the victim had a criminal past, the link between the victim's past and his murder--which soon becomes two murders--is as clear as mud. Thus, neither characterization nor possible motives compelled me, and I felt dragged along to the wondrous puzzle of it all.
I did not feel wonder. I felt something between annoyance and boredom, especially during chapter 17, "The Locked-Room Lecture," which I skimmed, then skipped...have I been spoiled by the complexities of, say, a P. D. James mystery novel? Or, had I discovered why John Dickson Carr has fallen into obscurity? In any case, I am now reading Sovereign by C. J. Sansom (and dedicated to P. D. James!).
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
A read to remember
There is much to love about All This Talk of Love, by Christopher Castellani. Let me count a few ways.
For one thing, love is not just talked about. Love is genuinely manifest in the Grasso family, from the first page, where Frankie Grasso and his mother are discussing a woman in a soap opera over the phone. Frankie praises this woman, faker of a pregnancy; his mother, Maddalena, emphatically condemns her. Maddalena reserves her praise for her daughter Prima (and husband Tom) for securing a lot to build a home on, and for managing her son Patrick's confirmation--"You know Prima saved you [Frankie] a place at the table for the confirmation." (7) All this is something of a burden for Frankie, but it does seem like a happy burden--unlike Frankie's dissertation, which seems like an unhappy burden.
Meanwhile, a restaurant--the Grasso family restaurant, the Al Di La--is a vital player in the life of the family. Its origins are poignant and powerful. Antonio Grasso, Maddalena's husband, named the family restaurant in Wilmington, DE, after the Al Di La Café in Santa Cecilia, Italy, where he is from. He chose the name of this café as a tribute to Maddalena, because, during his courtship of her, he had danced with her there. Overall, he "and his mother loved the Ristorante Al Di La like it was one of their own children." (33) The Al Di La is a center of work and profit for the Grasso family. It is also a place for pleasure and love. While Antonio meticulously supervises the restaurant, his children, Prima and Tony, and later his grandson, Ryan, set the tables, wait on the diners, and bus the tables. Although Prima turns out to be a poor waitress and Tony dies young (more on him later), Ryan labors lovingly at the Al Di La, e.g., at a party for prodigal son Frankie:
On the table are candles and the good white linens and fresh flowers. "All Ryan's idea," Prima's father told her, when the sight of it...took her breath away. (285)
Ryan's labor of love at the Al Di La is reminiscent of Tony's labor of love at the Al Di La, where Tony demonstrated--
...a talent for design, for making the perfect crease in the napkins, for spacing the knives and forks exactly the right distance apart. (93)
Tony demonstrated something else, not acceptable to his father Antonio, and that was passion for a waiter, Dante--who, it turns out, is making love to Prima.
After Antonio fires Dante, Tony, an adolescent, kills himself. Tony's death remains a hole in the fabric of the Grasso family. It is, really, more than a hole; it is a quiet indictment. Beneath all the seeming togetherness of the Grasso family, there is a lot of disconnect. There is a hint of it at the start, when Frankie's friends ask him--
"But what do you talk about [with your mother]? I haven't spoken an honest word to my mother since kindergarten."
"Who said anything about honesty?" [Frankie replies.] (5)
Meanwhile, although Prima saved a place for her brother Frankie at the table, she is mistrustful of him--with reason. After all, he does not tell anyone in the family about his lover, Professor Birch. At no time over the decades does Antonio tell his wife Maddalena (or any other family member) about Tony's homosexuality. Prima tells no one in the family about her affair with Dante. All this secrecy in the family belies its supposed unity.
The mother-daughter relationship seems intact, more or less happily--until it isn't. Prima badly miscalculates Maddalena's reaction to Prima's announcement that she has reserved plane tickets for the entire Grasso family to travel back to Italy. Maddalena does not "come around" as Prima expects; at the outset, she refuses to go, and she does not change her mind. Maddalena's point of view is especially compelling throughout. She wants to bring Frankie back into the family fold, but she does not want to visit what is left of her family in Italy. She loves her husband Antonio, but she is deeply exasperated with him, too. She tells Frankie her clear-cut views on love:
When we romance, we do it with our hearts, but we love our husbands and wives with our brains; our children and parents we love with our souls. (255)
Sadly, Maddalena's brain is fast deteriorating. This does not mean, however, that she does not feel. She approves of Frankie's girlfriend, Kelly Anne, she bonds with her sister, Carolina, and she expresses abiding love for Antonio. Maddalena looms.
The phrase "all this talk of love" comes from Prima, near the end of the story. This talk of love is rather gossipy--that is, when will Frankie propose to Kelly Anne?--but it reminds Prima of her long-ago love affair with the waiter, Dante, an affair that has had lasting impact on her--enough so that she is bringing it up, years later. Prima's disclosure of her "crush" on Dante in turn reminds Antonio of his son Tony's fatal attraction to Dante.
"All this talk of love" is, assuredly, more than talk.
For one thing, love is not just talked about. Love is genuinely manifest in the Grasso family, from the first page, where Frankie Grasso and his mother are discussing a woman in a soap opera over the phone. Frankie praises this woman, faker of a pregnancy; his mother, Maddalena, emphatically condemns her. Maddalena reserves her praise for her daughter Prima (and husband Tom) for securing a lot to build a home on, and for managing her son Patrick's confirmation--"You know Prima saved you [Frankie] a place at the table for the confirmation." (7) All this is something of a burden for Frankie, but it does seem like a happy burden--unlike Frankie's dissertation, which seems like an unhappy burden.
Meanwhile, a restaurant--the Grasso family restaurant, the Al Di La--is a vital player in the life of the family. Its origins are poignant and powerful. Antonio Grasso, Maddalena's husband, named the family restaurant in Wilmington, DE, after the Al Di La Café in Santa Cecilia, Italy, where he is from. He chose the name of this café as a tribute to Maddalena, because, during his courtship of her, he had danced with her there. Overall, he "and his mother loved the Ristorante Al Di La like it was one of their own children." (33) The Al Di La is a center of work and profit for the Grasso family. It is also a place for pleasure and love. While Antonio meticulously supervises the restaurant, his children, Prima and Tony, and later his grandson, Ryan, set the tables, wait on the diners, and bus the tables. Although Prima turns out to be a poor waitress and Tony dies young (more on him later), Ryan labors lovingly at the Al Di La, e.g., at a party for prodigal son Frankie:
On the table are candles and the good white linens and fresh flowers. "All Ryan's idea," Prima's father told her, when the sight of it...took her breath away. (285)
Ryan's labor of love at the Al Di La is reminiscent of Tony's labor of love at the Al Di La, where Tony demonstrated--
...a talent for design, for making the perfect crease in the napkins, for spacing the knives and forks exactly the right distance apart. (93)
Tony demonstrated something else, not acceptable to his father Antonio, and that was passion for a waiter, Dante--who, it turns out, is making love to Prima.
After Antonio fires Dante, Tony, an adolescent, kills himself. Tony's death remains a hole in the fabric of the Grasso family. It is, really, more than a hole; it is a quiet indictment. Beneath all the seeming togetherness of the Grasso family, there is a lot of disconnect. There is a hint of it at the start, when Frankie's friends ask him--
"But what do you talk about [with your mother]? I haven't spoken an honest word to my mother since kindergarten."
"Who said anything about honesty?" [Frankie replies.] (5)
Meanwhile, although Prima saved a place for her brother Frankie at the table, she is mistrustful of him--with reason. After all, he does not tell anyone in the family about his lover, Professor Birch. At no time over the decades does Antonio tell his wife Maddalena (or any other family member) about Tony's homosexuality. Prima tells no one in the family about her affair with Dante. All this secrecy in the family belies its supposed unity.
The mother-daughter relationship seems intact, more or less happily--until it isn't. Prima badly miscalculates Maddalena's reaction to Prima's announcement that she has reserved plane tickets for the entire Grasso family to travel back to Italy. Maddalena does not "come around" as Prima expects; at the outset, she refuses to go, and she does not change her mind. Maddalena's point of view is especially compelling throughout. She wants to bring Frankie back into the family fold, but she does not want to visit what is left of her family in Italy. She loves her husband Antonio, but she is deeply exasperated with him, too. She tells Frankie her clear-cut views on love:
When we romance, we do it with our hearts, but we love our husbands and wives with our brains; our children and parents we love with our souls. (255)
Sadly, Maddalena's brain is fast deteriorating. This does not mean, however, that she does not feel. She approves of Frankie's girlfriend, Kelly Anne, she bonds with her sister, Carolina, and she expresses abiding love for Antonio. Maddalena looms.
The phrase "all this talk of love" comes from Prima, near the end of the story. This talk of love is rather gossipy--that is, when will Frankie propose to Kelly Anne?--but it reminds Prima of her long-ago love affair with the waiter, Dante, an affair that has had lasting impact on her--enough so that she is bringing it up, years later. Prima's disclosure of her "crush" on Dante in turn reminds Antonio of his son Tony's fatal attraction to Dante.
"All this talk of love" is, assuredly, more than talk.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
On the 20th century, unfortunately
As an English major, over twenty years ago, I did not read much American literature. So, in the past year, I went on a campaign to study, on my own, 20th century American literature. I started with Invisible Man (by Ralph Ellison), which had recently been dramatized by the Huntington Theatre Company at Boston University. I moved back in time to Main Street (by Sinclair Lewis) and The Jungle (by Upton Sinclair), and I moved forward to The Sun Also Rises (by Ernest Hemingway). These early 20th century American novels, not to my surprise, featured severely disillusioned individuals struggling to breathe free despite the broken promise of the United States of America. Then I leapt from Ernest Hemingway, in 1926, to William Styron, in 1951.
The issue is no longer the same. Styron's Lie Down in Darkness chronicles the collapse--nay, the dramatic implosion--of a family in Virginia. The Loftis family begins soundly but soon sickens, literally. Helen takes refuge in Nembutal and cigarettes. Her husband, Milton, drinks continually and joylessly. Their elder daughter, Maudie, is physically crippled, while their younger daughter, Peyton is spiritually--well, more on her later. The interactions among Helen, Milton, and Peyton tend toward the theatrical, often theatrically furious. For instance, Helen whirls to face Milton in outrage that he has given their daughter, Peyton, one drink of whiskey at her 16th birthday party; shortly before, Peyton confides frankly to Milton that "I just don't love [Helen]...I just don't think I love her." (85)
The awfulness of the Loftis family reaches a climax at Peyton's wedding, described in pp. 260-305. At first, all is proceeding OK. Then, Peyton pushes her father away angrily, exclaiming, "Don't smother me, Daddy! You're crazy!" (286) Helen becomes "so distraught as to be on the verge of some striking biological change" (292). Milton develops the "face of someone on the verge of apoplexy" (304). None of this promises future happy times for bride and groom, but least promising is the bride's own attitude to her marriage, as observed by the minister, Carey Carr--
...her "I will" had seemed less an avowal than a confession, like the tired words of some sad, errant nun. (291)
The marriage does not last. Peyton quickly exasperates and outrages her husband, a New York Jew named Harry Miller, who ultimately turns away from her. While, at the end, Peyton goes in search of Harry, her mind keeps reverting to memories of her mother telling her things like "you mustn't mustn't can't you be proper. God punishes improper children." (366) Has Peyton internalized her mother's judgments? Has she become her mother? An inquiring mind will never know, because Peyton commits suicide. At Peyton's funeral, Milton nearly kills Helen. Darkness, lying down or not, seems to characterize all three.
More specifically, despair characterizes their lives. At one point, after tending to Maudie, Helen considers taking an overdose of Nembutal. Milton experiences his marriage as "brutal and agonizing" but he is unable to act, "like a bug wriggling upside-down on the floor." (155) Long before she commits suicide, Peyton is dangerously fixated on her mother and father. While she physically leaves them behind in Virginia--to live with her husband Harry in New York--emotionally, she cannot let them go. She never moves past the confounding legacies of her parents, as if they are an impenetrable wall.
The word "despair" or a word like it is omnipresent in the novel. Consider these phrases:
"a predicament, overwhelming and hopeless, such as this one, couldn't be helped by piety, or prayers..." (105)
"a sort of hopeful despair on his round, friendly face, but with more despair than hope" (144)
"past the frozen reach of ice the bay was as black as dusk, as despair..." (171)
Two of them are from the point of view of the minister, Carey, who is supposed to provide transcendent hope.
Not only has the family collapsed, but religion has collapsed. Although religion is paramount for most of the characters in the novel, it is rarely effective or redeeming. Christmas Day at the Loftises is not a festive celebration of the birth of Christ but rather is "Pure hell." (163)--and the hell lasts. As for Maudie--if she places faith in another being, that faith is not in Christ but in a wild man named Bennie who performs tricks for her (220-223). Meanwhile, the minister fails to convince Helen that there is a God--"...he had not saved her, he had not taught her faith enough to endure disaster." (239) In her stream-of-consciousness narrative at the end, Peyton seems to have an exaggerated sense of her sinfulness, which leads her to, as she puts it, "lie down in darkness."
The one character in the book who receives any joy from religion is Ella Swan, housekeeper and cook for the Loftises. She looks up to an itinerant preacher named Daddy Faith, whose invigorating words lead her to proclaim, "You, Daddy! Yes, Jesus, you loves us!" (397) and, a little later, "Yes, Jesus! I seen him! Yeah! Yeah!" (400) Ella's cries of faith in God conclude the novel, which has been characterized by faithlessness.
Her cries of faith, however, feel too little, too late. If the Loftises are any indication, the South is already in full self-destruct mode.
The issue is no longer the same. Styron's Lie Down in Darkness chronicles the collapse--nay, the dramatic implosion--of a family in Virginia. The Loftis family begins soundly but soon sickens, literally. Helen takes refuge in Nembutal and cigarettes. Her husband, Milton, drinks continually and joylessly. Their elder daughter, Maudie, is physically crippled, while their younger daughter, Peyton is spiritually--well, more on her later. The interactions among Helen, Milton, and Peyton tend toward the theatrical, often theatrically furious. For instance, Helen whirls to face Milton in outrage that he has given their daughter, Peyton, one drink of whiskey at her 16th birthday party; shortly before, Peyton confides frankly to Milton that "I just don't love [Helen]...I just don't think I love her." (85)
The awfulness of the Loftis family reaches a climax at Peyton's wedding, described in pp. 260-305. At first, all is proceeding OK. Then, Peyton pushes her father away angrily, exclaiming, "Don't smother me, Daddy! You're crazy!" (286) Helen becomes "so distraught as to be on the verge of some striking biological change" (292). Milton develops the "face of someone on the verge of apoplexy" (304). None of this promises future happy times for bride and groom, but least promising is the bride's own attitude to her marriage, as observed by the minister, Carey Carr--
...her "I will" had seemed less an avowal than a confession, like the tired words of some sad, errant nun. (291)
The marriage does not last. Peyton quickly exasperates and outrages her husband, a New York Jew named Harry Miller, who ultimately turns away from her. While, at the end, Peyton goes in search of Harry, her mind keeps reverting to memories of her mother telling her things like "you mustn't mustn't can't you be proper. God punishes improper children." (366) Has Peyton internalized her mother's judgments? Has she become her mother? An inquiring mind will never know, because Peyton commits suicide. At Peyton's funeral, Milton nearly kills Helen. Darkness, lying down or not, seems to characterize all three.
More specifically, despair characterizes their lives. At one point, after tending to Maudie, Helen considers taking an overdose of Nembutal. Milton experiences his marriage as "brutal and agonizing" but he is unable to act, "like a bug wriggling upside-down on the floor." (155) Long before she commits suicide, Peyton is dangerously fixated on her mother and father. While she physically leaves them behind in Virginia--to live with her husband Harry in New York--emotionally, she cannot let them go. She never moves past the confounding legacies of her parents, as if they are an impenetrable wall.
The word "despair" or a word like it is omnipresent in the novel. Consider these phrases:
"a predicament, overwhelming and hopeless, such as this one, couldn't be helped by piety, or prayers..." (105)
"a sort of hopeful despair on his round, friendly face, but with more despair than hope" (144)
"past the frozen reach of ice the bay was as black as dusk, as despair..." (171)
Two of them are from the point of view of the minister, Carey, who is supposed to provide transcendent hope.
Not only has the family collapsed, but religion has collapsed. Although religion is paramount for most of the characters in the novel, it is rarely effective or redeeming. Christmas Day at the Loftises is not a festive celebration of the birth of Christ but rather is "Pure hell." (163)--and the hell lasts. As for Maudie--if she places faith in another being, that faith is not in Christ but in a wild man named Bennie who performs tricks for her (220-223). Meanwhile, the minister fails to convince Helen that there is a God--"...he had not saved her, he had not taught her faith enough to endure disaster." (239) In her stream-of-consciousness narrative at the end, Peyton seems to have an exaggerated sense of her sinfulness, which leads her to, as she puts it, "lie down in darkness."
The one character in the book who receives any joy from religion is Ella Swan, housekeeper and cook for the Loftises. She looks up to an itinerant preacher named Daddy Faith, whose invigorating words lead her to proclaim, "You, Daddy! Yes, Jesus, you loves us!" (397) and, a little later, "Yes, Jesus! I seen him! Yeah! Yeah!" (400) Ella's cries of faith in God conclude the novel, which has been characterized by faithlessness.
Her cries of faith, however, feel too little, too late. If the Loftises are any indication, the South is already in full self-destruct mode.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Plenty of heart and plenty of hope
The emotional core of All Souls: A Family Story from Southie comes from its very first sentence which emphatically defines Southie as "the best place in the world." (MacDonald 1) This is Michael Patrick MacDonald's mother's (or Ma's) proclamation, but it is Michael who espouses it, to the bitter end (and beyond, but that's another subject). It is Michael who feels, already as an 8-year-old, that "It was good to be part of the neighborhood." (68) He feels this way on an evening that does not sound especially "good" at all: "One night as I sat in the window watching and waiting for something to explode, I saw a giant cockroach appear out of the corner of my eye." (67, italics mine) This neighborhood sounds frightening and disgusting. And yet, the 8-year-old Michael thinks, above all: "This was great... My whole family and a good portion of the neighborhood were sticking together to gang up on the giant cockroach." (67)
Nor is this crazy episode that combines "tension building" and "sticking together" isolated or atypical in the Old Colony projects in South Boston where Michael grew up. The tension certainly builds fast in the protests against forced busing in Boston in 1974, and so does unity of the very different parts of Southie. And again, it is this unity that (the child) Michael perceives: "God, we couldn't have been living in a better neighborhood! Everyone's sticking together, I thought." (75-76)
This rather rosy perception does not last. Peaceful motorcades are quickly followed by racial fights and horrific riots, until Michael comes to feel "sick of the police, sick of busing, sick of being thrilled or scared, and sick of the hate." (91) It's about this time that Michael's older brother Davey remarks that Southie is "worse than Mass Mental" (105), the (no longer extant) psychiatric hospital where Davey had been committed. Even Ma starts to think that maybe Southie isn't the best place in the world, after all. During yet another incomprehensibly violent protest over forced busing, Ma says that "she didn't know where to turn, what to belong to...." (118) All of the above represents one shift in their attitude about Southie, one turning point--among many. This is not a work of fiction with a neatly defined dramatic arc. This is messy reality (and how).
Just as Michael initially believes that Southie is the best place in the world, so he initially believes that the outlaw Whitey Bulger is some sort of benevolent ruler, "...the king of Southie, but not like the bad English kings who oppressed and killed the poor people of Ireland... He had definite rules that we all learned to live by, not because we had to, but because we wanted to." (110) While Michael's feelings about Southie shift back and forth many times before he decides unequivocally that it is a "death trap" (205), Michael's feelings about Whitey Bulger are not equivocal in this way at all. After the murder of his older brother Frankie--and, before that, the suspicious death of his older brother Davey--Michael sees clearly that Whitey is part of the "Irish Mafia" and he forbids his much younger brothers, Seamus and Stevie, to go to neighborhood stores connected to Whitey and the "bad guys." (199) More than that, it turns out that Whitey was an informant for the FBI: a traitor as well as a killer, not some benevolent father figure. There is no ambivalence about Michael MacDonald's condemnation of Whitey Bulger.
In the end, there is ambivalence about Michael MacDonald's attitude to Southie. Although he decides that Southie is a "death trap"--although he swears that he'd "never come back to Southie again" (236)--he does, after four years away, move back near the Old Colony Project where he grew up. He comes to see, and focus on, what is worthy and valuable about Southie: from "its loyalty and caring for poor souls like Bobby-Got-A-Quarter" (257) to "[their] solidarity with the mothers who'd been victimized and silenced by violence and the drug trade." (259) Indeed, he feels that this kind of solidarity reflects "the real Southie, the good Southie." (259)
And Michael MacDonald leaves us with an image of "the good Southie": a vigil at the Gate of Heaven Church, where, he writes--
[Hundreds of Southie residents] stood in line in defiance of the strong winds and pouring rain, and walked past the bagpipers playing "Amazing Grace." They were children, teenage friends of kids who'd committed suicide, mothers whose kids had been murdered...older men and women with canes.... A few black and Latino women got out of taxis they'd taken through the storm, braving the town they'd always been warned not to enter, and being embraced by women like Kathy Havlin and Theresa Dooley. (262)
Amen to that.
Nor is this crazy episode that combines "tension building" and "sticking together" isolated or atypical in the Old Colony projects in South Boston where Michael grew up. The tension certainly builds fast in the protests against forced busing in Boston in 1974, and so does unity of the very different parts of Southie. And again, it is this unity that (the child) Michael perceives: "God, we couldn't have been living in a better neighborhood! Everyone's sticking together, I thought." (75-76)
This rather rosy perception does not last. Peaceful motorcades are quickly followed by racial fights and horrific riots, until Michael comes to feel "sick of the police, sick of busing, sick of being thrilled or scared, and sick of the hate." (91) It's about this time that Michael's older brother Davey remarks that Southie is "worse than Mass Mental" (105), the (no longer extant) psychiatric hospital where Davey had been committed. Even Ma starts to think that maybe Southie isn't the best place in the world, after all. During yet another incomprehensibly violent protest over forced busing, Ma says that "she didn't know where to turn, what to belong to...." (118) All of the above represents one shift in their attitude about Southie, one turning point--among many. This is not a work of fiction with a neatly defined dramatic arc. This is messy reality (and how).
Just as Michael initially believes that Southie is the best place in the world, so he initially believes that the outlaw Whitey Bulger is some sort of benevolent ruler, "...the king of Southie, but not like the bad English kings who oppressed and killed the poor people of Ireland... He had definite rules that we all learned to live by, not because we had to, but because we wanted to." (110) While Michael's feelings about Southie shift back and forth many times before he decides unequivocally that it is a "death trap" (205), Michael's feelings about Whitey Bulger are not equivocal in this way at all. After the murder of his older brother Frankie--and, before that, the suspicious death of his older brother Davey--Michael sees clearly that Whitey is part of the "Irish Mafia" and he forbids his much younger brothers, Seamus and Stevie, to go to neighborhood stores connected to Whitey and the "bad guys." (199) More than that, it turns out that Whitey was an informant for the FBI: a traitor as well as a killer, not some benevolent father figure. There is no ambivalence about Michael MacDonald's condemnation of Whitey Bulger.
In the end, there is ambivalence about Michael MacDonald's attitude to Southie. Although he decides that Southie is a "death trap"--although he swears that he'd "never come back to Southie again" (236)--he does, after four years away, move back near the Old Colony Project where he grew up. He comes to see, and focus on, what is worthy and valuable about Southie: from "its loyalty and caring for poor souls like Bobby-Got-A-Quarter" (257) to "[their] solidarity with the mothers who'd been victimized and silenced by violence and the drug trade." (259) Indeed, he feels that this kind of solidarity reflects "the real Southie, the good Southie." (259)
And Michael MacDonald leaves us with an image of "the good Southie": a vigil at the Gate of Heaven Church, where, he writes--
[Hundreds of Southie residents] stood in line in defiance of the strong winds and pouring rain, and walked past the bagpipers playing "Amazing Grace." They were children, teenage friends of kids who'd committed suicide, mothers whose kids had been murdered...older men and women with canes.... A few black and Latino women got out of taxis they'd taken through the storm, braving the town they'd always been warned not to enter, and being embraced by women like Kathy Havlin and Theresa Dooley. (262)
Amen to that.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
A memoir with muscle
This small book covers a lot of territory, besides territory in Japan, Greece, New York, or Boston. In under 200 pages, Murakami brings up many issues: attentiveness to rhythm and music, preference for solitude, his inclination towards setting expectations for himself, total commitment, habituation, acceptance of events outside his control, and, of course, a multiplicity of connections between running and writing.
Last year, as I read this book, many of these issues jumped out at me, for instance, his preference for solitude, which he asserts early on at length:
...I'm the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I'm the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone...as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring. I've had this tendency ever since I was young.... I could always think of things to do by myself. (15)
This was refreshing. This was true of me. This is true of me this morning. I sit on the back porch of my host's home in Washington State near Vancouver, and I put together this essay on What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I pause to look at the plants, herbs, and flowers in pots on the wooden railing. I read Catfish and Mandala, which I'd bought a few days before at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, then I head toward the Clark County Fair, where I will pick up a shuttle bus to Vancouver Mall. From Vancouver Mall, I decide to go into Portland and take a look at Pioneer Courthouse Square, from there wending to the Chinese Garden in Old Town... I, too, can always think of things to do by myself.
A word that jumped out at me at the start of the book is "accept," first on p. 17 ("...we merely accept that vast expanse [of sky]...") and then on p. 18 ("Just like I accept the sky, the clouds, and the river.") Nor is this a mere flash never to re-appear. On p. 22, Murakami talks about accepting the process of aging, on p. 86 about accepting his body and face, and on p. 120 about accepting "my runner's blues"--a sudden loss of enthusiasm for running, as much a mystery to him as "the tide rising and falling, John Lennon's death, and miscalls by referees at the World's Cup." (120)
All this talk of acceptance struck me for a couple reasons. One, it brought back to mind the concept of Radical Acceptance in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), a concept that was hard for me to grasp until I connected it to the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." (Which, nevertheless, presents a tall order.) Two, at the same time that Murakami stresses acceptance of life events, he is talking a lot about running, which involves striving. At one point, when his whole body starts hurting during an ultramarathon, Murakami "tried to talk each body part into showing a little cooperation" (109), so that he could finish the race. He is not accepting his body's aches; he is not accepting an event outside his control. Is this a contradiction to his usual Radical Acceptance? Or a complement to it? (My guess: a complement).
This year, while pedaling vigorously on the elliptical at the gym, I remembered that Murakami had talked about making the muscles used to unwonted physical effort. This came as a relief. Instead of a heroic "No pain, no gain" push, working out could be a matter of gradual strengthening through habitual physical exertion. Murakami puts it in this (humorous) way:
If you carefully increase the load, step by step, [your muscles] learn to take it. As long as you explain your expectations to them by actually showing them examples of the amount of work they have to endure...as long as you take your time and do it in stages, they won't complain--aside from the occasional long face--and they'll very patiently and obediently grow stronger. (71)
For this habituation to be effective, total commitment to the process is required. This is not a hardship for Murakami. Quite the opposite. It is customary for him to "totally commit to whatever I do." (31) When he opened a jazz club after college, he "figured...that since failure was not an option, I'd have to give it everything I had." (25) The phrase "everything I had" recurs--
when he decides to become a professional novelist, and then when he chooses long-distance running to keep fit. And it inspired me to work out at the gym at least four mornings a week for about two hours.
Murakami's many connections between running and writing are indisputably at the heart of this book, and yet, I confess, they did not make much impact on me. Except one. In Chapter 4, Murakami talks about the qualities a novelist needs: talent, focus, and endurance. Unlike talent, he writes, focus and endurance can be acquired through training--i.e., through habituation--like the strengthening of muscles. He draws this conclusion briefly on p. 78 but then elaborates on it from p. 79 to p. 82...
...with humility, humor, and candor. Wowza!
Last year, as I read this book, many of these issues jumped out at me, for instance, his preference for solitude, which he asserts early on at length:
...I'm the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I'm the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone...as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring. I've had this tendency ever since I was young.... I could always think of things to do by myself. (15)
This was refreshing. This was true of me. This is true of me this morning. I sit on the back porch of my host's home in Washington State near Vancouver, and I put together this essay on What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I pause to look at the plants, herbs, and flowers in pots on the wooden railing. I read Catfish and Mandala, which I'd bought a few days before at Powell's Bookstore in Portland, then I head toward the Clark County Fair, where I will pick up a shuttle bus to Vancouver Mall. From Vancouver Mall, I decide to go into Portland and take a look at Pioneer Courthouse Square, from there wending to the Chinese Garden in Old Town... I, too, can always think of things to do by myself.
A word that jumped out at me at the start of the book is "accept," first on p. 17 ("...we merely accept that vast expanse [of sky]...") and then on p. 18 ("Just like I accept the sky, the clouds, and the river.") Nor is this a mere flash never to re-appear. On p. 22, Murakami talks about accepting the process of aging, on p. 86 about accepting his body and face, and on p. 120 about accepting "my runner's blues"--a sudden loss of enthusiasm for running, as much a mystery to him as "the tide rising and falling, John Lennon's death, and miscalls by referees at the World's Cup." (120)
All this talk of acceptance struck me for a couple reasons. One, it brought back to mind the concept of Radical Acceptance in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), a concept that was hard for me to grasp until I connected it to the Serenity Prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." (Which, nevertheless, presents a tall order.) Two, at the same time that Murakami stresses acceptance of life events, he is talking a lot about running, which involves striving. At one point, when his whole body starts hurting during an ultramarathon, Murakami "tried to talk each body part into showing a little cooperation" (109), so that he could finish the race. He is not accepting his body's aches; he is not accepting an event outside his control. Is this a contradiction to his usual Radical Acceptance? Or a complement to it? (My guess: a complement).
This year, while pedaling vigorously on the elliptical at the gym, I remembered that Murakami had talked about making the muscles used to unwonted physical effort. This came as a relief. Instead of a heroic "No pain, no gain" push, working out could be a matter of gradual strengthening through habitual physical exertion. Murakami puts it in this (humorous) way:
If you carefully increase the load, step by step, [your muscles] learn to take it. As long as you explain your expectations to them by actually showing them examples of the amount of work they have to endure...as long as you take your time and do it in stages, they won't complain--aside from the occasional long face--and they'll very patiently and obediently grow stronger. (71)
For this habituation to be effective, total commitment to the process is required. This is not a hardship for Murakami. Quite the opposite. It is customary for him to "totally commit to whatever I do." (31) When he opened a jazz club after college, he "figured...that since failure was not an option, I'd have to give it everything I had." (25) The phrase "everything I had" recurs--
when he decides to become a professional novelist, and then when he chooses long-distance running to keep fit. And it inspired me to work out at the gym at least four mornings a week for about two hours.
Murakami's many connections between running and writing are indisputably at the heart of this book, and yet, I confess, they did not make much impact on me. Except one. In Chapter 4, Murakami talks about the qualities a novelist needs: talent, focus, and endurance. Unlike talent, he writes, focus and endurance can be acquired through training--i.e., through habituation--like the strengthening of muscles. He draws this conclusion briefly on p. 78 but then elaborates on it from p. 79 to p. 82...
...with humility, humor, and candor. Wowza!
Monday, June 14, 2010
Hear ye! Hear ye!
This blog is going on summer vacation. It plans to return in the fall with entries on two memoirs--What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami, and All Souls: A Family Story From Southie, by Michael Patrick MacDonald--followed by a slice of non-fiction life--Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer.
Hope you like!
Hope you like!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
More sound and fury, signifying something
The Signet Classic's short bio of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley tells us that Mary wrote Frankenstein as a result of a story-writing competition among the Shelleys and Lord Byron. In the Author's Introduction to a re-issue of Frankenstein in 1831, Mary Shelley more than confirms this.
First of all, Mary puts herself in a community of Romantic poets amid the majesty of Nature that first shines, and then rains, upon them, thus confining them to the house--and ghost stories. (Shelley, viii) Then, after they read these ghost stories, Byron proposes that each of them write a ghost story (ix); then, after she listens to a conversation between Byron and Shelley related to galvanism in which "the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth," Mary announces that she has thought of a story (x); then, after she writes a "few pages, of a short tale...Shelley urged me to develop the idea at greater length...." (xi) Two things stand out here. One--at every point, before and during the genesis of Frankenstein, relationship to another person, or persons, was crucial to the development of Mary Shelley's work. Two--Nature plays a pivotal role in the course of events. Not coincidentally, I suspect, both the importance of relationships and the centrality of Nature make a recurring significant appearance in Mary Shelley's novel.
At the very start of Victor Frankenstein's narrative, the focus is on family, marriage, and friends. Frankenstein says of his parents that "they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of live to bestow them on me." (33) When he is about five, his parents adopt a peasant girl, Elizabeth, who becomes "my more than sister--the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and all my pleasures." (35) After his parents settle in Switzerland, he unites himself in the "bonds of the closest friendship to one among [my schoolfellows, Henry Clerval]." (37) Loving relationship with another is clearly the goal of existence, perhaps even the pinnacle of emotional health.
After Frankenstein leaves behind family and friends for the university at Ingolstadt, he develops a habit of solitary scientific pursuit. From asking himself, "Whence...did the principle of life proceed?" (50), Frankenstein then examines and analyzes "all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me." (51) At first, this "sudden light" waxes into "the first enthusiasm of success" (52), but soon it wanes into "my person...emaciated with confinement" as he pursues his goal of animating lifeless matter "in a solitary chamber...separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and a staircase...." (53) The result of all this isolated activity is a monster whose life is, in turn, utterly confined and defined by isolation.
The monster tells his creator that, in his wanderings, he soon discovered that people either fled from him or attacked him. Consequently, he creates for himself a "hovel" (102), from which he then observes a girl, a young man, and an old man. Especially, he observes that "they enjoyed one another's company and speech, interchanging looks of affection and kindness." (106) In addition, he hears the story of the beautiful woman from Turkey; he learns that she, Safie, and the young man, Felix, are in love--a love that was nearly thwarted by Safie's autocratic father. Far from being thwarted, their love is augmented by the study of language (presumably, French). Study does not, however, improve the monster's condition. On the contrary--"Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was." (125) More and more, the monster longs for what 20th century psychologist Abraham Maslow called belongingness. High stakes. And, of course, the monster loses. Once again, people (the girl/Safie) either flee him or people (the old man/Felix) attack him. So, now unquestionably isolated, the monster commands his creator: "My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create." (137)
Meantime, throughout, relationship to Nature is as important as relationship to another. Initially--although he has created the monster--Frankenstein can still take pleasure in "happy, inanimate nature.... A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy." (68) The monster also initially takes pleasure in Nature, particularly in the moonlight and in birdsong. (99) But soon, utterly alienated and enraged, the monster kills Frankenstein's much younger brother William and then implicates the devoted family servant, Justine, in the murder. Upon the deaths of William and Justine, Frankenstein cannot take pleasure in Nature, but rather considers drowning himself in a "beautiful and heavenly" lake. (87) There are a few times, later, when Nature can still please, divert, or console Frankenstein, but predominantly he feels like "a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul...." (153) Frankenstein's friend Clerval, who does not feel like "a blasted tree," feels invigorated by the country around the Rhine:
...I have seen the mountains of Le Valais, and the Pays de Vaud; but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders. The mountains of Switzerland are more majestic and strange, but there is a charm in the banks of this divine river that I never before saw equalled. (148)
And so on. The literary critic, Howard Bloom, in his Afterword to Frankenstein, suggests that Mary Shelley based Clerval on the Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and I suspect that he is right. Nature is absolutely no footnote to Henry Clerval...
...and neither is it a footnote to Elizabeth (Lavenza), who says to Frankenstein on their honeymoon:
Observe how fast we move along and how the clouds...render this scene of beauty still more interesting. Look also at the innumerable fish that are swimming in the clear waters.... What a divine day! (183)
Very apparently, unity with another and harmony with Nature are inextricably intertwined, in a novel, in the early 19th century. And they still are, for the non-fictional rest of us, in the early 21st century.
First of all, Mary puts herself in a community of Romantic poets amid the majesty of Nature that first shines, and then rains, upon them, thus confining them to the house--and ghost stories. (Shelley, viii) Then, after they read these ghost stories, Byron proposes that each of them write a ghost story (ix); then, after she listens to a conversation between Byron and Shelley related to galvanism in which "the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth," Mary announces that she has thought of a story (x); then, after she writes a "few pages, of a short tale...Shelley urged me to develop the idea at greater length...." (xi) Two things stand out here. One--at every point, before and during the genesis of Frankenstein, relationship to another person, or persons, was crucial to the development of Mary Shelley's work. Two--Nature plays a pivotal role in the course of events. Not coincidentally, I suspect, both the importance of relationships and the centrality of Nature make a recurring significant appearance in Mary Shelley's novel.
At the very start of Victor Frankenstein's narrative, the focus is on family, marriage, and friends. Frankenstein says of his parents that "they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of live to bestow them on me." (33) When he is about five, his parents adopt a peasant girl, Elizabeth, who becomes "my more than sister--the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and all my pleasures." (35) After his parents settle in Switzerland, he unites himself in the "bonds of the closest friendship to one among [my schoolfellows, Henry Clerval]." (37) Loving relationship with another is clearly the goal of existence, perhaps even the pinnacle of emotional health.
After Frankenstein leaves behind family and friends for the university at Ingolstadt, he develops a habit of solitary scientific pursuit. From asking himself, "Whence...did the principle of life proceed?" (50), Frankenstein then examines and analyzes "all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me." (51) At first, this "sudden light" waxes into "the first enthusiasm of success" (52), but soon it wanes into "my person...emaciated with confinement" as he pursues his goal of animating lifeless matter "in a solitary chamber...separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and a staircase...." (53) The result of all this isolated activity is a monster whose life is, in turn, utterly confined and defined by isolation.
The monster tells his creator that, in his wanderings, he soon discovered that people either fled from him or attacked him. Consequently, he creates for himself a "hovel" (102), from which he then observes a girl, a young man, and an old man. Especially, he observes that "they enjoyed one another's company and speech, interchanging looks of affection and kindness." (106) In addition, he hears the story of the beautiful woman from Turkey; he learns that she, Safie, and the young man, Felix, are in love--a love that was nearly thwarted by Safie's autocratic father. Far from being thwarted, their love is augmented by the study of language (presumably, French). Study does not, however, improve the monster's condition. On the contrary--"Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was." (125) More and more, the monster longs for what 20th century psychologist Abraham Maslow called belongingness. High stakes. And, of course, the monster loses. Once again, people (the girl/Safie) either flee him or people (the old man/Felix) attack him. So, now unquestionably isolated, the monster commands his creator: "My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create." (137)
Meantime, throughout, relationship to Nature is as important as relationship to another. Initially--although he has created the monster--Frankenstein can still take pleasure in "happy, inanimate nature.... A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with ecstasy." (68) The monster also initially takes pleasure in Nature, particularly in the moonlight and in birdsong. (99) But soon, utterly alienated and enraged, the monster kills Frankenstein's much younger brother William and then implicates the devoted family servant, Justine, in the murder. Upon the deaths of William and Justine, Frankenstein cannot take pleasure in Nature, but rather considers drowning himself in a "beautiful and heavenly" lake. (87) There are a few times, later, when Nature can still please, divert, or console Frankenstein, but predominantly he feels like "a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul...." (153) Frankenstein's friend Clerval, who does not feel like "a blasted tree," feels invigorated by the country around the Rhine:
...I have seen the mountains of Le Valais, and the Pays de Vaud; but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders. The mountains of Switzerland are more majestic and strange, but there is a charm in the banks of this divine river that I never before saw equalled. (148)
And so on. The literary critic, Howard Bloom, in his Afterword to Frankenstein, suggests that Mary Shelley based Clerval on the Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and I suspect that he is right. Nature is absolutely no footnote to Henry Clerval...
...and neither is it a footnote to Elizabeth (Lavenza), who says to Frankenstein on their honeymoon:
Observe how fast we move along and how the clouds...render this scene of beauty still more interesting. Look also at the innumerable fish that are swimming in the clear waters.... What a divine day! (183)
Very apparently, unity with another and harmony with Nature are inextricably intertwined, in a novel, in the early 19th century. And they still are, for the non-fictional rest of us, in the early 21st century.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
