We Are Not Alone

...even when it feels like we are. Even when you can hear no sound of the highway or airplanes or the rumble of semis (or the steam train whistle, a sound that's heard regularly here and which I find deeply evocative).  Humans are just about everywhere.

Here's where we went yesterday. I love these markers; I don't recall why I started taking photos of them but it's become a habit. I guess the Geodetic Survey is complete and they don't do it anymore, but we've seen the markers nearly everywhere we've gone in the U.S. The one in Provincetown at the Pilgrim Monument almost got paved over and some thoughtful soul scraped the asphalt away from it; I wonder how many have been buried?













The day turned out gorgeous, sunny and unseasonably warm; so I took the boychild, a friend of his, and the dog for a walk.  There were loads of dogs there, and Cooper behaved far better than he ever did in Obedience class!  He's growing up fast (and BIG!):









Walking with him is exercise: no thoughtful strolling is allowed, every nook and cranny must be rushed to and explored in full.  We've been walking every morning and evening since I got him and although I haven't lost much weight, things are ... shifting in the right direction so we're good. 

Signs of Human Intervention:
Primitive?  Yes, it looks almost like petroglyphs!  Vandalism?  Yes.  Art?  Sure it is.










Really, how upset can you get when the graffiti is this much fun?  We have a lot of painted boulders around here, and most of the time I think they're cool.  This one is VERY cool.












And sooner or later, my mind always finds quilty inspiration.









I also spent the weekend reading Stephen King's new book, "11/22/63."  [Note:  Any time you see a reference to reading a new King book, you can presume several things: the dirty dishes are piling up and the laundry is unfolded, I've not slept enough, the kids and spouse are rolling their eyes because I'm Off Elsewhere and it takes several attempts to reach me, and most time away from the book is given only grudgingly until that first read is completed.]  King gives several nods to the private domain he's built (see my earlier post on Faulkner), adds a fair amount to that domain, and builds a Really Big Tale.  Does he answer the Grassy Knoll question?  Sort of.  Did Oswald act alone?  Maybe.  It's not an attempt to answer those questions, but a look into the great rolling effects of our actions - all of our actions - and the interconnectedness of all things.  And strings.  As always with King the tale is about good and evil, love and hate, but mostly Love.  Always.  Go find a copy and immerse yourself for a few days, you'll come out with your brain energized and some very thoughtful questions that will provide ample material for future mulling.

All in all, a rich and fulfilling weekend.

A Finish, Another Finish, and a Rant

First finish:  No, not that kind. This summer I gave myself the task of reading Mervyn Peake’s “Gormenghast” trilogy. I finished! The work defies classification – it’s part allegory, part fantasy, part gothic novel, part fairy tale, part dystopia and all surreal - and it’s LONG (over 1,000 pages, not that I was counting). I’ve not worked this hard on a single piece as an independent project since I read Goethe’s “Faust” about 15 years ago!

Peake’s writing style is ponderous, a real challenge. It took me, no lie, about 300 pages to “get into it.” I did find myself caught up in the tale, especially towards the end of the second book. But every step of the way I had to stop and re-read phrases (what does “an access of evil” mean?), pull out the dictionary, and repeat paragraphs aloud to try to understand the phrasing.

An example sentence, pulled at random:

"Below the cruddled underside of the unbroken cloud-roof, the air, through some peculiar trick of light,which had something of an underwater feeling about it, reflected enough of itself from the gaunt back of Gormenghast to make the herons restive as they stood and shivered on a long-abandoned pavement half in and half out of the clouds."

See what I mean? It sounds a lot better the third or fourth time you read it. BTW, look up cruddled and see what you find: it may be a colloquial bastardization of curdled (the most likely definition here I think), or it may mean to crouch in a fetal position, or to cuddle. Yuh-huh, most of my lookups resulted in answers like this.

There was a film made (by the BBC I think), but I don’t own a copy; I believe it focuses on the first two novels only; the final book of the trilogy focuses on the a different protagonist altogether.  If you have a copy of the DVD(s?) I'd love to swap for it.
Dark? Yes. Depressing? Certainly. Full of wild imagery? Oh, yes. I’d put him up there with Thomas Mann (or even Joyce, to whom he's been compared in some circles) for reading difficulty, but I’m so glad I read it all the way though; it’s a tale unlike any other in modern fiction and if you’re feeling brave and hardy, do give it a go. It will take patience and fortitude to get through it but it will feed your imagination in ways you cannot anticipate.  Peake was well-known as an illustrator and he has painted a thousand indelible images in this work. 

Second finish:  I finally finished my Asterisk quilt! 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The back - poor lighting conditions, sorry.  Simple applique strips done pick-up-sticks style.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Note to self:  black is a LINT MAGNET, don't do a whole back in black again!
 
And the glamour shot:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
And finally, my rant: 
One of the current ubiquitous phrases that really irritates me is, “It is what it is.” I hear it anywhere from one to four times most weeks, and always with respect to something that needs correction. The phrase is universally used as an excuse not only to escape responsibility, but also culpability. Should you have checked the gas tank before firing up that equipment, and given it a tuneup? Of course you should have. Now that it has broken down and is out of gas, you say, “It is what it is.”  No, it isn’t. The worst cases are at work – I work for a company that makes a product, so the phrase is by definition meaningless:  you made the stuff, so you can change it if you care to do so. It’s an abominable act of shirking to use this phrase – by doing so you expect me not only to accept the flaws I’ve noted, but to specifically hold you free from responsibility for correcting those flaws. 


It isn’t what it is.  It is exactly what you make of it.

Whew - thanks guys, I needed to get that off my chest.

What kind of reader are you?

Sandi showed a bit of her lovely library in her latest post. She asked about what folks are reading and I started to respond but it turned into a "thing" so here we are. Here's the kind of reader I am, feel free to tell me what kind you are!

I am more than willing to let an author lead me away into another world – that’s why we read, right? If you believe, then I will too.

I do re-read – some of my books are beloved friends.

- I read every Stephen King that comes out - I can't stop now, I’ve been following him for 30 years and he’s part of my inner workings. The family knows that when a new volume comes out, they can expect to be ignored for a day or two until I finish. The pic is of part of my King section - he's so prolific I resent the amount of space he demands! Here you see most of his section and the start of the poetry section. Before I had kids I had a Sex Section, with selections from erotic poetry to Masters & Johnson to old medical texts (shudder); that section and the Drugs and Rock & Roll section are both in the attic for the next few years.

- I adore Salman Rushdie; his prose is so poetic he's always on the tipping edge of form, and he has seared more lovely and horrifying images in my brain than any other author I've read. I had my original paperback copy of "Midnight's Children" (purchased in 1984!) signed last year and it was a thrill to be able to tell him I wanted my "sentimental" copy signed.

- I am currently reading "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen; will likely finish today and recommend it highly. I think it’s going to make me cry again before it’s done.

- “The Road” was probably my toughest recent read – it’s brutal and I walked around with my mind bruised for days, but it’s worth it. I do like post-apocalyptic pieces and he’s covered the turf very nicely indeed.

- Anything by Ann Patchett is a winner. Really. Run, don’t walk, to the nearest copy of “Bel Canto” and prepare to be swept away.

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez moves me; I re-read “Love in the Time of Cholera” and “One Hundred years of Solitude” regularly.

- I won't read Jodi Picoult any more - I don't like having my emotions yanked around that hard, it feels like a deliberate manipulation and I balk at that.

- Every autumn I feel a need to read Jane Urquhart’s “Away.” Why? I don’t know, it just needs to be done and I'm better off when it’s finished.

- As a child I looked forward to a new Roald Dahl hardcover for birthdays and Christmases, and I still re-read his works with genuine pleasure. I enjoyed the “Harry Potter” series immensely, and feel that J.K. Rowling is the closest thing we’ve got to Dahl these days.

- Catherine is the real villain in “Wuthering Heights,” Tess is a trollop, and "The Satanic Verses" didn't say what folks thought it did; you’ll never convince me otherwise.

- I'm also one of very few people who feels that "The Year of Magical Thinking" was a form of horrifying wallowing and only inspirational if one is considering an extended vacation somewhere they serve you via IV drip.

- I am capable of reading difficult material but don’t often do so voluntarily; I’ve made it through Goethe and Aeneid on my own but prefer someone who can immerse me in their world a little more quickly.

- I love book discussions. Our local library hasn’t had them in a while; I am hoping we’ll find a new leader to get the gears working hard again (though I would not run to re-read “The Magic Mountain”).

- I am more than willing to read my kids’ books; I loved Scott Westerfelds “Uglies” series, avidly read “Twilight” but later thought it fluffy, and absolutely loved Rick Riordan’s “Percy and the Olympians” series.

- I appreciate audiobooks and feel that some work better orally than in print - the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "Frankenstein" both read aloud particularly well, as does Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy.

What kind of reader are you?

On Faulkner and King

Yes, Stephen King. Now, before you get all fired up, let me give you some background. Anyone who knows me knows I read King; I’m no groupie but I buy all of his books when they are published. I have a few first editions, fewer than I’d like, but I don’t go to extraordinary measures to acquire them; it’s enough to have the tales. When he addresses his Constant Reader in his introductions, he’s talking to me. Personally. I’ve been reading him for over 30 years, so I guess that makes me pretty Constant.

A few years back, our local book discussion group read Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom.” I was not keen to read Faulkner; we had just finished reading Tess, and she is one of my least-favorite literary characters (don’t get me started). Anyhow, I talked to my Dad about it; he said he had spent a summer reading Faulkner in his youth, and told me that to understand any of Faulkner, you have to read all of Faulkner. I read three of his other works before beginning the assignment, and there is real merit to that argument: I certainly don’t qualify as a Faulkner scholar, but having read three of his works independently and reading “Absalom” with the guidance of an extraordinary literature professor certainly gave me a solid glimpse into his world.

Fast-forward to last week. I was talking to my daughter and I mentioned the Library Police; neither she nor her friend (who was visiting at the time) had heard the reference before. I was surprised, because I thought it was a given; don’t all kids have this image lurking in the backs of their brains somewhere? Apparently not anymore; they looked at me first like I was nuts, then proceeded to roll their preteen eyes, instantly classifying it as a Fogey Thing. Since the idea grabbed me I pulled “Four Past Midnight” off the shelf and re-read the stories, including “The Library Policeman.” In the introduction to one of the tales King says something like “I’m no Faulkner.”

Wellnow, that’s funny, because when “Duma Key” came out, the first thing I told my Dad about it was that it reminded me very much of Faulkner! Not the setting, though King has made his own little world that does grow with time; not the characters, though he has lots of individuals and even families that get introduced and rounded out across the body of his works. Come to think of it, he has created a rather Faulknerian world over the course of time. I meant his concepts, particularly the concept of Fate or Ka, and the idea of an actual embodiment of Evil; as I was reading “Duma Key” it occurred to me that someone who had not read King before would probably be a little befuddled by some of these references. King has toyed with the idea of Fortune or Fate for many years now, along with – obviously – Evil and its manifestations, and he presents these concepts as a given today; if you hadn’t read his earlier works – and I’m talking lots of them, not just a few – you might just stumble at that point in your reading. Not that you wouldn’t keep reading, because after all “it is the tale, not he who tells it,” but still: you would have to be familiar with several of his other works, some of them going back decades, to really “get” what he was saying.

Faulknerian? Yes.