Current Read? It's a sloooooow go. Not that long ago, I heard of a little book that was getting a lot of attention, and I decided to pick it up and try it for myself.
So I am reading - or attempting to read - Verlyn Klinkenborg's Notes of an Abject Reptile, and I am simply not that into it. This surprises me since it sounded like it would be just my style. As a quick summation, it is musings on English countryside told through the eyes of a tortoise who resides on the garden of an accomplished naturalist. Usually beautiful style and philisophical meanderings can keep my attention, but as my students say, "I'm just not feelin' it" with this one. I'm no quitter, so I am determined to plow right through. Hopefully I can report back with a change of heart and "feel it" soon. We shall see.
Anyone read this one before and can offer an ounce of insight?
I clearly haven’t blogged in ages, and I’m sad to say that I don’t even really have a book post to finally write. I have been so restless lately, in every possible way. Jumping from book to book without really finishing anything is not very effective, nor is it really characteristic of my usual habits, but that’s what I have been doing lately. When I actually finish something, I’ll be astounded. What a terrible approach and an unfamiliar habit. Who am I?
There’s one thing I know I am and that’s addicted to politics this season. I’ll be the first to say that watching debates, listening to pundits, discussing / arguing about relevant issues has definitely cut in to my reading time (not to mention my sanity) these days. I don’t want to watch anymore, but I can’t stop listening and watching.
The truth is I am scared. I am astounded at how divided this nation has become, and I sincerely hope that whomever is elected can heal this divide. Months ago, my first thought was “Wow. How great! Everyone is really interested in politics this year, and apathy is out of style. How refreshing.” Now, however, I’m seeing that the intense fervor with which the nation is discussing politics is indicative of a much greater issue here. Each side thinks the other is so wrong that this country will go down an unfixable path if that opponent is elected. I cannot remember an election in my lifetime where each side is so earnestly scared of the other party gaining power. And that, my friends, is the scary part.
Take, for instance, this video. It’s only a couple of minutes long, but worth watching.
Now let me say that obviously a Democrat produced this video, and someone could most likely find some anti-McCain supporters at a rally somewhere who look just as crazy. But look at those people. They have lost every sense of sanity, of dignity. They have no regard for the facts or what is right and wrong. They simply want their side to win, and they are honestly frightened of the other alternative.
I had a 45 minute political conversation with my mother this week. Never a good idea. I think my ears were bleeding afterwards. But what I realize after speaking with her is that she is just as honestly passionate about her views as I am mine. I don’t think poor people choose to be poor. I don’t think public schools are a waste of tax payer money, and I don’t think vouchers are a way to fix its problems. I don’t think progressive taxes are unfair; to whom much is given, much is required. (I believe Jesus said that, by the way.) I don’t think it’s ridiculous to say that every child in America must have adequate healthcare.
By the same token, however, my mother (and many others like her) passionately believes that most poor people choose to waste government money, vouchers are the solution to America’s public schools, there should be a straight percentage across the board for everyone’s taxes, and mandatory healthcare for children is one enormous step to a socialized nation. She is just as frightened of Barack Obama as I am of John McCain. Both of us genuinely see America descending on a permanent path to doom if the opposite party is elected.
My students are in the same boat. Everyday, specifically after debates, I have to tell students to stop yelling at each other about politics. I’ve never seen anything like this. I know most of them are regurgitating what their parents say, but it’s still reflective of this alarming trend.
So where does this lead us? I honestly don’t know. I am ready for the election to be here and to have a new, hopefully capable, leader for a change. But I am also nervous about the reaction of everyday Americans after this is all over. The truth is, when you look at popular vote, it is split reasonably evenly. This means that almost half of America will be appalled either way. There is no doubt that America is more polarized now than it was 8 years ago. It was Abraham Lincoln himself who said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” How did we get this way, and how do we fix it?
We have been back from Europe for 5 days but it feels like years. So much going on and too long to explain. Let's just say I wanted to feel peaceful and cozy when I returned home but it has been anything but that. Why does everything seem to happen at once?
I start back to school in 10 days, and I can't believe I am saying this but I almost want to start back just to get my mind off the super-stressful business that has been occupying my time and energy these days. I am trying various approaches to bring peace of mind to myself, and so far early morning grocery shopping is the only thing that works. I can't even read these days.
Oh well. Let's not dwell on unhappy things. I will instead focus on that 16-day-long oasis from craziness. From now on, I will try to imagine myself back to .......
T.S. Eliot's footsteps in the reading room in the British Museum.....
the beautiful stained glass in King's College Chapel....
Cambridge, England - my favorite place on Earth.....
The Trinity College courtyard on a cloudy Sunday afternoon.....
a punt along the River Cam.....
the beautiful Roman Baths....
Where else can you be this happy in the pouring rain?
or maybe the quays of the River Seine....
or the lending library of Shakespeare & Company Books....
a stomach full of French food and an evening stroll in front of the Eiffel Tower....
the quaint canalside lanes of Bruges, Belgium....
Belgian countryside.....
the busy energy of Dam Square ...
the canals of Amsterdam....
Our trip was lovely, and I have so much to reflect on. Reflection will come, but for now, I don't have the energy or the time. I begin school in 10 days and I have a 700-page summer reading book to complete and a sudden lack of concentration ability - such a bad combination. As I've mentioned already, my mental and physical energy is being pulled a million directions at the moment. ....A death in my family, small issues that are unnecessarily being made bigger... and I am saddened by the news that a college friend of mine has been widowed far too early. Her pain is beyond my comprehension.
I'm thinking of her and everything else that is going wrong at that moment, but I am trying to focus on the positive. 10 more precious days of summer.
I wanted to update more often, but I have been doing all of my "computering" with the occasional free wifi on my iPhone.
We are in Belgium now. This picture was taken with my phone last night after a fabulous French meal. Paris was great! Five more nights in Europe - 2 in Bruges and then on to Amsterdam for the final leg of the trip.
As promised a few days ago, I am taking some time to post on Lee Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies - prompted by a little book discussion a few weeks ago.
I first read this book my sophomore year in college as I began to get in the full swing of English major craziness - reading who knows how many books at once. While I love to read as much as anyone I know, it can take the enjoyment out of the experience when you are hurried and simply trying to finish the book just in time to move on to the next one and find an angle for your next essay. It's the eternal ironic dilemma of the English major and the English teacher...when your joy becomes your job.
This book was the exception.
I can remember reading the title, rolling my eyes, and thinking, "Fair and Tender Ladies? Lovely. It sounds like a romance novel or something." I expected hoop skirts, moonlight, magnolias, and all of the other southern cliches many southern lit books deliver. Lee Smith, however, gives us so much more in this novel. Even in the frenzy of mid-semester, I specifically remember relishing the book and lying on my bed a few afternoons in a row as soon as class let out. Once you get to know Ivy Rowe, you can't put this one down, and you are riveted until the tearful last page. As I have come back to it now for the third re-read, I feel a stronger connection to the text every time I read it.
The epistolary novel begins with a young Ivy as she tries to write herself out of her misery in isolated Appalachia where her impoverished family lives. While Ivy suffers a great deal, - hunger, deaths of family members, being denied many things we take for granted - Smith ingeniously allows the reader to sift through all of the expected pity and into the soul of Ivy Rowe. She finds enjoyment in what she does have as her father walks through their fields and tells her, "Slow down, Ivy. Slow down. This is the taste of spring." Young Ivy manages to find joy and even ownership in places that we would not expect in order to accommodate for her seemingly lackluster life atop Sugar Fork. She explains her experience looking down off the mountain to the world around her:
"The whole world was new, and it was like I was the onliest person that had ever looked upon it, and it was mine. It belonged to me. Now it is new for me to feel this as I have not had hardly ever a thing of my own, it is handmedowns and pitching in and sharing everything up here on Sugar Fork, they is so many of us up here as you know. But I looked out over all them hills, and the land was sloped so different from the snow. And every tree was glittering and Sugar Fork black and singing along mostly under the ice. The snow come plum up to my knees. Nobody else had got up yet and I reckon I was the onliest one in the world."
Young Ivy's naivety does not last long as she makes the move down to Majestic and then to the mining town of Diamond where she creates a life of her own and of course a reputation that isn't always favorable. Ivy is not a perfect character as she makes many mistakes that most of us usually find unforgivable. With her, however, the readers find themselves seeing past her discrepancies and straight to the endearing honesty, feistiness, and wit that endears her to us in the first place.
What I find especially interesting is that each time I re-read this novel, I find myself focusing a bit more on a certain phase of Ivy that I perhaps overlooked before. When reading this in college, I adored the devil-may-care sauciness and self-assured attitude that I saw in the younger Ivy as she made a name for herself and fumbled her way through life and early independence. Now as I re-read, I focus on the slightly-older Ivy as she gives a moving description of the birth of her first daughter or settles in to life with her husband Oakley. I know this is a book that I will come back to many other times in life, and my copy is so battered, marked, folded, and bruised that I can find the perfect passage just when I need to read it again and again.
While I am 27 years old and Ivy ends her epistolary story at a much much older age than that, I am already hoping that I too can end my long years with the same sense of satisfaction Ivy does. In her last letter, she describes how life takes you places that you definitely don't expect:
"...how little we know. We spend our lives like a tale that is told I have spent my years so....I have loved and loved and loved. I am fair worn out with it."
What more could any individual ask for as you cross that last bend? Love in its many forms is what makes this novel and this character so enthralling. Lee Smith creates an unforgettable presence that will stay with you long after you turn that last page.
Cambridge, England - my favorite place on Earth.....
a punt along the River Cam.....
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