Thursday, February 29, 2024

Lanterns & The Missing Mother

Girl with Lantern
Otto Toaspern, 1863-1940

Combining a few things I've read this month:

Tom Lake
by Ann Patchett

which opens with a dedication:

"For Kate DiCamillo
who held the lantern high
"

&

You Could Make This Place Beautiful
by Maggie Smith

which opens with the epigraph:

"I am out with lanterns, looking for myself."

~ Emily Dickinson ~
[from an 1855 letter to her friend Elizabeth Holland]

&

Good Bones
by Maggie Smith

which contains the following thematically related lines

from the poem "Where Honey Comes From":

" . . . Honey
is in the hive, forbidden lantern

lit on the inside, where it must be dark,
where it must always be. Honey

is sweetness and fear. . . .
" (p 44)

&

from the poem "Splinter":

" . . . Now she comes in alone from the pasture

at night, raised lantern swaying. She lies
a long time with the child, whisper-singing

some lullaby he's never heard into her hair. . . .
" (p 66)

&

from the poem "Transparent"

"The girl wonders: If she held a lantern
before the woman until she went

transparent enough to read through,
would she see the child inside

like a letter full of secrets? . . .
" (p 76)

[emphasis added]

**********************

Additional Connection:
The Missing Mother Figure
Smith, in the following poem, and Patchett, in her novel, have each captured the disservice to women that is inherent in this annoying theme, so prevalent in popular culture. How many movies have we seen where the mom is conveniently dead or missing from the family? How gratifying to read these well-respected writers calling out this nonsense:


Poem found in the collection
Good Bones by Maggie Smith

If Anyone Can Survive

it's the motherless children in my daughter's books,
orphaned or abandoned or garden - variety alone
with their chipped cups mied from the dump,
their day-old bread squirreled from the bakery,
their milk chilling in glass bottles behind
the waterfall so it doesn't sour. They've learned
to sew their own clothes from rags. They can tie
their own shoes, a sailor's knot, a tourniquet.
They can snare and skin a rabbit, strike rocks
into fire. Speaking of fire, where are their fathers?
At war, in jail, or fly-by-night -- what matters
is the mothers, who must be dead for any rising
action to happen. Nothing is as freeing as grief.
Motherless children -- what do they have to lose?
They're camped in the glacier-hollowed canyon,
whose ice melted millions f years ago. Even
the canyon where the motherless sleep is motherless:
an orphan is anything that outlives what made it.
(p 57)


Passages taken from the novel
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

"Emily seemed able to treat him as her father while at the same time endlessly declaring that someone else was her father. She wanted them both. Two fathers and no mother would have been the dream." (p 35)

"Despite his complete lack of experience, Duke turns out to be a miracle of a father, teaching the children to read and love the lad and master carpentry. The most disappointing scene in the movie is when his wife finally shows up to rescure them from paradise. Disappointment, the children learn early on, is embodies by the mother." (p 41)

"Hugged by Uncle Wallace! [a "Bachelor Father" / "Family Affair" kind of sitcom character] Oh, but I had loved him as a child. The gruff and tender caregiver of sister's orphaned brood. The carefree bachelor, dashing in middle age, had risen to the challenge, leaving children all aross American to wonder how much better their lives might be if only their parents were dead." (p 87)
Ein Rücksichtsvoller Junge ~ A Considerate Boy
Otto Toaspern, 1863 - 1940

More connections to follow . . . "

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

How Many Should I Pack?

If you could only bring one book . . .
but, no worries, you can bring them all!
Illustration from
I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf
By Grant Snider

It's not alway about "How many can I read?"
Sometimes it's about "How many do I need?"

QUESTION: Hey Kit. I’m purging my books again for the last time before I move and I need some advice. Do you regret moving any of your books? The ones I have left I’m rather attached to and I will have bookcases flanking the fireplace so I will have a place to put them. But still there’s a lot of them.

This last week I have been going through old sentimental papers and there was a lot of stuff I didn’t need to be reminded of from the past. However, when I went through my books again I remember reading every one of them and that brought back great memories!!

ANSWER: Our books were by far the costliest item of our move, but worth every penny. I culled a few donation boxes for the library before we moved, but not many. And I have tossed a few in the goodwill bag since we got here — but only a few.

I am very happy to have them and see them all around me, even though most of them I will never reread. Still, it feels important to have them in the background, and you never know when you might want to track down some slight reference to something that crossed your mind.

For example, over Christmas, a reference popped up to an article in Victoria Magazine, December 1992. I went straight to my Christmas magazine section, where I had saved several complete years of Victoria subscriptions, only to be filled with the dull and sinking recollection that I had donated them all to the West Lafayette Public Library fundraiser.

Why????? did I do that? I hope some sentimental soul scooped them up for a few mere dollars to complete her collection and now loves them as much as I did. But honestly, I am still grieving, well into the New Year, over that mistaken decision. It would have cost me nothing extra to have included those magazines in the move, and they would take up only a few inches of shelf space in our new house, and they would have been there waiting for me at that stray moment when I needed them.

But no. I’d had them in my life for over 30 years, and now I don’t. Sigh . . .

Most stuff -- clothes, household decor, dishes, even our wine glasses! -- I would say let it go. But books are different!

Sunday, December 31, 2023

The Year is Going

Something cozy and a little odd
to read on New Year' Eve.

If you can't locate a vintage copy such as this,
the story is also included in
Everyman's Christmas Stories

Companion volume to
Everyman's Christmas Poems.

Never the old year ends
but what you wish you had read more books!

I admit to slacking off toward the year's end,
but here are a couple of fun things that
I read between Thanksgiving and Christmas:

Lessons in Chemistry
by Bonnie Garmus

and

Banyan Moon
by Thao Thai

I love it when fate directs my reading, as it did one morning, a couple of months ago, when a facebook friend shared a deeply heartfelt and convincing recommendation for Lessons in Chemistry. That afternoon, I went to swim my laps, and there was someone sitting beside the pool reading it! Twice in one day -- a sign! I should have ordered a copy that very moment but delayed until the title came up at a dinner party a week or so later. I could wait no longer!

So glad I joined the crowd who are currently enjoying both the book and the mini-series. I am happy to give it my vote as most insightful novel of 2023.

I am classifying Lessons in Chemistry as a feminist manifesto, right up there with The Woman's Room (1977) by Marilyn French (1929 - 2009). I have re-read French's novel many times and can safely say that it was my introduction to the concept of feminism and has informed my thinking continually since the first time I read it. All these decades later, I'm putting Bonnie Garmus (b 1957) in the same category. She gets it! In fact, she gets what everyone should have got back in the 1970s but still has not! And, as my friend Liz asks, WHY NOT?!?!
The entire book is quote-worthy,
but here is one tiny favorite line . .
"She knew being mad at him was unfair,
but grief is like that: arbitrary.
" (p 152)

. . . which in turn reminds me of
the observation in Banyan Moon that there is
"no point in holding grudges against the dead."

But, maybe there is.

******************

P.S.


More Marilyn French on my Blogs
FN ~ QK ~ KL
Also available for viewing:
The Women's Room & Lessons in Chemistry

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Uniquely Magic

Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
Stephen King

I'm not saying that you have to be a reader
to save your soul in the modern world.
I'm saying it helps
.”

~ Walter Mosely ~
[Thanks Chris Jarmick]

*****************
"I consider reading the greatest bargain in the world. A shelf of books is a shelf of many lives and ideas and imaginations which readers can enjoy whenever they wish and as often as they wish. Instead of experiencing just one life, book-lovers can experience hundreds or even thousands of lives. They can live any kind of adventure in the world. Books are their time machine into the past and also into the future. Books are their "transporter" by which they can beam instantly to any part of the universe and explore what they find there. Books are an instrument by which they can become any person for a while — a man, a woman, a child, a general, a farmer, a detective, a king, a doctor, anyone.

"Great books are especially valuable because a great book often contains within its covers the wisdom of a man or woman's whole lifetime. But the true lover of books enjoys all kinds of books, even some nonsense now and then, because enjoying nonsense from others can teach us to also laugh at ourselves. A person who does not learn to laugh at their own problems and weaknesses and foolishness can never be a truly educated or a truly happy person. Also, probably the same thing could be said of a person who does not enjoy learning and growing all their life."
[pronouns adjusted for inclusivity]
~ Gene Roddenberry ~
from Letters to Star Trek
[Thanks Lynn Zentner]

*****************

Allowed to read during church
-- those lucky kids!
See also:
Power of Reading

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Once Upon a Cat ~ Halloween Version

Halloween Version
[and Christmas]
of my favorite tin cat signs
"Winter was back with a vengeance. The sunset colors were violent and a racing wind boomed angrily across the sky. Next door to the mystery house a large cardboard carton had been put out for the garbage collectors, and its top flapped wildly in the wind. . . .

The house remained silent, blind, its blank shaded windows giving back only the red reflection of the setting sun."


from Ginnie and the Mystery House, p 53
The Perfect Halloween
might be sitting home quietly,
with cats in lap & books in hand!

Perhaps perusing some
childhood favorites
for old times' sake:

Ginnie and the Mystery Doll
Ginnie and the Mystery House
both by Catherine Woolley

I Will Go Barefoot All Summer for You
by Katie Letcher Lyle

Winter at Cloverfield Farm
by Helen Fuller Orton
I reread this one because the picture of the horse-drawn sleigh on the front made me wonder if it was the long lost story about wishing away time that I've been trying to locate. But, no, it wasn't.
The Diamond in the Window
by Jane Langton
The introduction by Gregory Maguire (Wicked) -- explaining why this was his favorite childhood novel -- is very inspiring. However . . .

. . . after waiting over 50 years to reread these books, I would have to say that now, for me, they all seem not just sadly but also weirdly dated. Sorry, I can't even make an exception for Jane Langton and The Diamond in the Window, no matter how beloved. These titles may have spoken to my heart in the 1960s, but I certainly would not pick them today for a growing girl.

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Trying to Make Sense

Cartoon by Hartley Lin

*****************

"I tried to make sense of things.
Now that I think about it, I have always tried.
It could be my epitaph.
LEO GURSKY: HE TRIED TO MAKE SENSE
."

From The History of Love (121)
By Nicole Krauss

*****************
My mother had . . . "that cross inquiring look, as if she was going to pull up shortly and demand that everything make sense." (107)

My friend Jerry . . . "hated people using big words, taking about things outside of their own lives . . . trying to tie things together. Since these had been great pastimes of mine, why did he not hate me?" (241)

"The hope of accuracy we bring to such tasks is crazy, heartbreaking. And no list could hold what I wanted, for what I wanted was every last thing, every layer of speech and thought, stroke of light on bark or walls, every smell, pothole, pain, crack, delusion, held still and held together – radiant, everlasting." (276)

"I read 'The Life of Charlotte Bronte' . . . and . . . dreamed a nineteenth-century sort of life, walks and studying, rectitude, courtesy, maidenhood, peacefulness." (212)

From Lives of Girls and Women
By Alice Munro

[and from Who Do You Think You Are?]

*****************

On the other hand . . .

"In one of the first teachings I ever heard, the teacher said, “I don’t know why you came here, but I want to tell you right now that the basis of this whole teaching is that you’re never going to get everything together.” I felt a little like he had just slapped me in the face or thrown cold water over my head. But I’ve always remembered it.

He said, “You’re never going to get it all together.” There isn’t going to be some precious future time when all the loose ends will be tied up. Even though it was shocking to me, it rang true. One of the things that keeps us unhappy is this continual searching for pleasure or security, searching for a little more comfortable situation, either at the domestic level or at the spiritual level or at the level of mental peace
.”

From Start Where You Are:
A Guide to Compassionate Living

By Pema Chodron

[emphasis added]

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Johnny Tremain and Other Heroes


In his essay, "Thank You, Esther Forbes," American essayist George Saunders (b 1958) attributes his love of literature to his third grade teacher, Sister Lynette, who suggested that he read Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (1891 - 1967).

This childhood classic becomes the dividing line in his life: "Before Johnny Tremain, writers and writing gave me the creeps." But after reading it . . .
" . . . the world, suddenly and for the first time, transformed into something describable, with me, the Potential Describer, at the center.

The world, I started to see, was a different world, depending on what you said about it, and how you said it. By honing the sentences you used to describe the world, you changed the inflection of your mind, which changed your perceptions. . . .

Working with language is a means by which we can identify the bullshit within ourselves (and others). If we learn what a truthful sentence looks like, a little flag goes up at a false one.

. . . But this process takes time, and immersion in prior models of beautiful compression.

Forbes was my first model of beautiful compression. She did for me what one writer can do for antoher: awoke a love for sentences. . . . Reading Johnny Tremain, I felt a premonition that immersion in language would enrich and bring purpose to my life, which has turned out to be true.

So thank you, Esther Forbes . . . that boy made out of words, changed things for me forever
" (62 - 64)

It turns out that George Saunders is not the only American talent whose formative years were shaped by Johnny Tremain; there's also Ted Lasso.
Ted: "When I was in fifth or sixth grade, there was this book called Johnny Tremain, and our homework for, like, a month was to read this book. At the end of the month, I hadn't read a lick of it, you know. And we had a test, big test, like, the next day. And the night before, I was anxious as all heck, and I couldn't sleep, and my dad starts getting after me about that. And I start crying. And he's like, "Whoa, buddy. What's wrong? What's wrong?" And I tell him what's up. And he says, "Hey, don't worry about it, okay. Just go up to your room, lay your head on your pillow and think about something you're looking forward to."

So that's what I did. Next morning, I wake up, and he says, "Hey, you ain't gonna ride your bike to school. I'm gonna drive you." And I'm like, "All right." And on the way to school, he talks me through the entire book, like it's a bedtime story or something. Because he stayed up all night, the whole night, reading the whole damn thing, 'cause he didn't want his little boy stressed out over some stupid, silly test. And I ended up getting an A. Boom.

He was a good dad. And I don't think he knew that."


From: Season 2, Episode 10:
"No Weddings and a Funeral"

Despite its widespread influence, Johnny Tremain was somehow absent from my own grade school reading program. As for my children, I remember buying them a copy when the title appeared on their summer reading list, but I can't say for sure that they actually read it.

George Saunders' high praise of Esther Forbes inspired me to correct the oversight at long last. When I went to find Johnny Tremain on our Adolescent Lit Shelf, I pulled down a couple of others as well, that I remember my son Sam reading and reporting on the 6th grade:

Ghost Cadet and Ghost Soldier
both by Elaine Marie Alphin (1955 - 2014)
Thanks Elaine, and Rest in Peace.
We were honored to meet you at the
Happy Hollow Middle School Book Fair.
How we wish you had not died young.

Alphin, like Forbes, wrote novels of American history but with the added component of apparitions and time travel -- always a plus! It's worth taking a moment to look back in time at the conflicts faced by Apprentice Jonathan Lyte Tremain, Cadet Wm. Hugh McDowell, and Private Richeson Francis Chamblee, three earnest protagonists whose stories are fun and mind - expanding, requiring Patriots to be understanding of Loyalists, and Yankees to be tolerant of Confederates.

Another young American hero that Saunders cannot speak too highly of is Huckelberry Finn:
"Huck and Tom represent two viable models of the American Character. They exist side by side in every American and every American action. America is, and always has been, undecided about whether it will be the United States of Tom or the United States of Huck.

The United States of Tom looks at misery and says: Hey, I didn’t do it. It looks at inequity and says: All my life I have busted my butt to get where I am, so don’t come crying to me. Tom likes kings, codified nobility, unquestioned privelege. Huck likes people, fair play, spreading the truck around. Whereas Tom knows, Huck wonders. Whereas Huck hopes, Tom presumes. Whereas Huck cares, Tom denies. These two parts of the American Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the nation, and come to think of it, these two parts of the World Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the world, and the hope of the nation and of the world is to embrace the Huck part and send the Tom part back up the river, where it belongs."
(203 - 04)

Both essays --
"Thank You, Esther Forbes" &
"The United States of Huck" --
can be found in The Braindead Megaphone:
Essays by George Saunders
(2007)

****************

Previously

"Tolstoy thought well of you
– he believed that his own notions
about life here on earth would be
discernible to you, and would move you.

"Tolstoy imagined you generously,
you rose to the occasion
."

~ George Saunders ~