An Odd Couple

On my walk yesterday I passed a table with some odds and ends on it--a couple of mismatched cocktail glasses, an unknown metal object (I'm guessing a kitchen tool), a box of old shirts. On the street in colored chalk someone had written "Take what you like and leave what you can". Of course I stopped to read the instructions. Compulsive readers don't pass by text of any kind, even, or maybe especially, colored chalk on asphalt. I've been that way for a long time. I have burned into my memory the legend "Don't Forget Zee Napkins!" from a billboard my mother drove past many times during my childhood. I don't really want this cluttering up my memory, but there it is. Why didn't I look at something else on the car ride home? I wish I could have, but there were these big words, and I had to read them every time. Another thing I don't pass up is free books and under the table was a box of them. I came home with three: Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, The Call of the Wild by Jack London and Medieval Literature in Translation ed. Charles W. Jones.

I was going to "save" Travels with Charley for a trip I'm going to take soon. It would be perfect to read while on the road, but the book has as much chance of lasting that long as the last piece of Amish friendship bread on the counter. I begin to nibble. I've never been a Steinbeck fan. He strikes me as a self-conscious show-off, but this only adds to the attraction of the book. "Maybe this will be the one that will help me 'get' Steinbeck," I think. This copy was printed in 1962. It's bound in tan cloth with a little sketch of Charley the poodle on the front corner and enough spots and stains to make it seem loved, but not abused. Right away I'm interested by the truck, the poodle and Steinbeck's excellent prose. I'm released from the book's thrall in Part Two when he begins to quote Joseph Addison. I do have some discipline. I've been rereading Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift From the Sea. I should finish it. I read a little before sleeping. Such different people, Lindbergh and Steinbeck. What if they met? What if they went on vacation together? Two writers, one in a custom camper full of guns and booze, the other on an island collecting shells and thinking about Life. "He says," "She says" scenarios fill my head.

How would packing for the trip go?

He says

I took far too many things . . . tools for emergency, tow lines, a small block and tackle, a trenching tool and crowbar, tools for making and fixing and improvising. I took paper, carbon, typewriter, pencils, notebooks, and not only those but dictionaries, a compact encyclopedia, and a dozen other reference books, heavy ones. Canned goods, shotgun shells, rifle cartridges, tool boxes, and far too many clothes, blankets and pillows, and many too many shoes and boots, padded nylon sub-zero underwear, plastic dishes and cups and a plastic dishpan, a spare tank of bottled gas.

He's having as much fun as boys building a fort.

She says

One learns first of all in beach living the art of shedding, how little one can get along with, not how much. Physical shedding to begin with . . . Clothes, first. Of course, one needs less in the sun. One does not need a closet-full, only a small suitcase-full. And what a relief it is! Less taking up and down of hems, less mending, and--best of all--less worry about what to wear. One
finds one is shedding not only clothes--but vanity.
Next shelter . . . No heat, no telephone, no plumbing to speak of, no hot water, a two-burner oil stove, no gadgets to go wrong, No rugs . . . No curtains . . . As little furniture as possible

Yes, one enjoys clothes, hot water, heat, telephones, rugs and furniture but when one is in charge of taking care of it all, one gets pretty darn tired of it and one wonders if the convenience is worth the trouble. But what does she mean by "no plumbing to speak of"? Not having a toilet is just plain going too far.

Next, where would they go? Would they seek company or solitude?

She says

How wonderful are islands! Islands in space, like this one I have come to, ringed about by miles of water, linked by no bridges, no cables, no telephones. An island from the world and the world's life . . . People, too, become like islands in such an atmosphere, self-contained, whole and serene; respecting other people's solitude, not intruding on their shores, standing back in reverence before the miracle of another individual.

It's OK, Anne, lots of mothers have felt this way. Sometimes you just need a break from those dear little miraculous individuals.

He says

I thought it might be nice if I could invite people I met along the way to my home for a drink, but I had neglected to lay in liquor. . . . I ordered bourbon, scotch, gin, vermouth, vodka, a medium good brandy, aged applejack, and a case of beer. It seemed to me that those might take care of most situations.

I guess if having a conversation with a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author isn't attractive enough to lure people into his camper, there's always beer.

And lastly, who would wear the pants?

He says

A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror.
For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I've lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not a punishment.

I always thought hangovers were caused by drinking . . . but anyway. All I can say is gosh, John, you're quite a guy!

He also says

I am very fortunate in having a wife [actually he had three, but only one at this time] who likes being a woman, which means that she likes men, not elderly babies. Although this last foundation for the journey was never discussed, I am sure she understood it.

Anyway, she was off like a shot to New York City the minute the camper hit the trail. Possibly she needed a break from hauling real men out of the ocean during hurricanes. (You have to read the book to get this one)

She says

This relationship of "persons as persons" was prophetically hinted at by the German poet, Rilke, almost fifty years ago. He foresaw a great change in the relationships between men and women which he hoped in the future would no longer follow the traditional patterns of submission and domination or of possession and competition. . . I wonder if both man and woman must not accomplish this heroic feat. . . Must not [man] also expand the neglected sides of his personality; the art of inward looking that he has seldom had time for in his active outward-going life; the personal relationships which he has not had as much chance to enjoy; the so-called feminine qualities, aesthetic, emotional, cultural and spiritual, which he has been too rushed to fully develop. Perhaps both men and women in America may hunger, in our material, outward, active, masculine culture, for the supposedly feminine qualities of heart, mind and spirit--qualities which are actually neither masculine nor feminine, but simply human qualities that have been neglected. It is growth along these lines that will make us whole, and will enable the individual to become world to himself.

Good luck with that Anne.

E.M. Forster imagined "that all the novelists are at work together in a circular room" in his Aspects of the Novel. I wonder if any writing would get done. All those strong personalities together--it could very well turn into a brawl. In any case, it seems clear to me that certain authors had better not vacation together.

To Read or Not to Read

A book caught my eye at the library recently: How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard. The spine is bright yellow, the word "haven't" is in red, and it got my attention in the same way that Growing Marijuana Indoors caught my attention in a bookstore in Berkeley a few weeks ago. I would probably pick up a book with the title Cooking with Trans Fats with the same mixture of horror and fascination. How does the author justify his position? It turns out that the marijuana author doesn't bother--he goes straight to potting soil. There's no opening paragraph touting the benefits of home-grown pot. I guess if you're buying the book, you already know.

I checked out How to Talk about Books You Haven't Read and took it home and read it, so now I can't follow Bayard's advice, at least about his book. My two sons were very interested in the title, but it doesn't take long to get the irony--you have to read the book to find out how not to have to read books. The possibility of having to read only one more book for life wasn't enough to get either one to crack it.

The basic premise of the book is that no one can ever read a fraction of all the books in the world, or even all the important or even essential books, so everyone, at some point will have to talk about a book they haven't read. The author goes through several methods of talking about books you haven't read. Frankly, I've forgotten all of them already. Bayard is a professor, and probably needs this skill, but I don't see why I do. If someone talks about a book I haven't read, I can always be quiet and listen. And besides, I have plenty of friends who never read anything at all. What I need is a book called How to Talk about Books Your Friends Haven't Read Without Boring the Pants off Them.

One of my professors in college told the class that John Milton read every book in every language that had been written up til then. He may have gotten that story from this statement by Samuel Johnson about Milton: "When he left the university he returned to his father, then residing at Horton in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived five years; in which time he is said to have read all the Greek and Latin writers. With what limitations this universality is to be understood who shall inform us?" So you can read no books, but learn to act as if you have, or you can read all the books, (there will be no one who can check up on you) and have no one to talk to about them. Or you can do what most people sensibly do: read what you like and not worry about silly books that tell you how to talk about books you haven't read.

"Such feelings ought to be investigated"

One of the most dramatic stories in Livy's history is that of the beautiful girl, Verginia. She was the daughter of a centurion named Verginius, and was engaged to be married to an ex-tribune. One day as she was walking through the forum with her nurse, a man tried to seize her, claiming that she was his slave who had been stolen from him as a baby. Her nurse shouted for help, and a protective crowd formed. The man had to let her go, but her problems weren't over, for this man was Marcus Claudius, sent by Appius Claudius, one of the decemvirs (the ten rulers of Rome at the time). Appius had tried to seduce Verginia earlier with money and promises, and when that failed he had ordered Claudius to make the scandalous claim on her. Though that attempt didn't work, Appius didn't give up. He summoned her and her father to court. Livy records their appearance:

"Verginius entered the Forum leading his daughter by the hand--he in mourning, she in rags. With them were a number of women, and well-wishers in plenty. Moving about amongst the crowd, Verginius accosted one man after another and begged for their support--or rather, demanded it as his due; for, as he did not fail to tell them, it was for their wives and children that he stood every day in the battle-line, and no soldier had to his credit a better war record than he. But what price patriotism, if his children were doomed to suffer within the safe walls of Rome the worst horrors of a captured town?"

Since the case was judged by Appius, the same man who wanted to enslave her, the judgment was given in favor of Claudius. He could claim Verginia as a slave.

Verginius, after learning that there could be no appeal, and that his daughter was about to be taken into slavery, grabbed a knife from a nearby butcher shop and killed her. Livy records that the public outrage over this monstrous injustice ended with the overthrow of the decemvirs and the arrest of Appius, who committed suicide in prison.

Whether or not this story happened exactly the way he tells it, Livy obviously has great faith in the power of the crowd and public opinion. With this story he demonstrates that when injustice is brought to light, it will not be tolerated by the majority of people (he specifically mentions women--perhaps women were especially interested in this case because it concerned a women). The reader feels that Livy expects him to share this respect for the rule of law and the idea that when a citizen's rights are violated by one in power, it will not be tolerated.

One good reason for reading history is that you begin to see where your attitudes and beliefs come from. They have a source and are not necessarily the natural way everybody thinks. Learning about that source helps us understand ourselves. Jane Austen's Catherine Morland, my favorite history critic, finds this out when she receives a letter from her brother telling her that his heart had been broken by the false Isabella Thorpe. Catherine is distressed, but not overcome. She says to Henry Tilney, ". . .I do not feel so very, very much afflicted as one would have thought." to which he replies, "You feel, as you always do, what is most to the credit of human nature.--Such feelings ought to be investigated, that they may know themselves." One wonderful result of reading is that our feelings begin to "know themselves" as we investigate the world, past and present,

Are you a Greek or a Roman?

In Aubrey de Selincourt's introduction to Livy's History of Early Rome, he lists the Roman virtues as fair-dealing, integrity, the fear of God, political competence and devoted patriotism. Regarding political competence, he contrasts the Romans to the Greeks who he says "thought of everything but accomplished nothing." I've read the first three out of five books of Livy's history, and so far the Romans have had kings, dictators, decemvirs, consuls, tribunes and, through it all, the Senate. The government was never perfect, and kept changing its form, but it did last hundreds of years. I suppose this is what de Selincourt means by "political competence". This makes me wonder, "Am I a thoughtful Greek or a competent Roman?" Which are you?

Sweet Dreams

What better way to drift off to sleep than with Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility? My grandson is off to a good start in his reading choices.

Laugh with P.G. Wodehouse

My son spends too much time on the computer. He laughs and smiles and gazes fondly at the screen. This makes me uneasy. Like most things that he finds fun, I'm wary of it. Is there some danger to this, some sign that society is going awry? Shouldn't he be interacting with people, maybe talking with someone--his mother, for example--and not some machine? I peek onto the screen to see what is so attractive:
"hahaha thats sooo funny
you think its funny?
yea i do
so do i
me too"
. . .and so on.

I limit his computer time. I tell him that he should be reading, or practicing the violin, or playing Scrabble, or some other wholesome activity that people did back when society wasn't going awry. I've been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder lately. It makes me think he should be doing chores of some kind, or playing the fiddle. When I've been dipping into Jane Austen, I have the feeling that he should be reading aloud to the family in the evenings, or leading us all in a glee. Anyway, I try to keep him from spending too much--any, really--time sitting at the computer. Of course, this makes it all the more attractive, which may explain why he can stomach those pointless conversations.

He resorts to subterfuge. "I need the computer to do my homework!" he cries. I can't help wishing that teachers would require homework to be turned in on lined paper, written with a No. 2 pencil for the lower grades, blue or black ink for the upper. Or better yet, written with a quill on parchment , like at Hogwarts. The point is, while I think the computer is a wonderful invention, when it comes to my son lavishing his time and attention on it, I'm against it.

Of course, as so often happens when I disapprove of what someone else is doing, it isn't long before I catch myself doing the very same thing. For the last three days I have been stealing every free moment to sit with the computer. I have been smiling into the screen and laughing out loud. What could turn me into such a shameless hypocrite? The answer is P.G. Wodehouse, a web site called www.classicreader.com and a story called "The Girl on the Boat".
I could write about how funny and wonderful P.G. Wodehouse is, but it would be more fun (for me, and especially for you) just to give you a slab of it to read for yourself. See if you don't find yourself smiling at your screen.

Wodehouse sets the stage:

"About this time there was a good deal of suffering in the United States, for nearly every boat that arrived from England was bringing a fresh swarm of British lecturers to the country. Novelists, poets, scientists, philosophers, and plain, ordinary bores; some herd instinct seemed to affect them all simultaneously. It was like one of those great race movements of the Middle Ages. Men and women of widely differing views on religion, art, politics, and almost every other subject; on this one point the intellectuals of Great Britain were single-minded, that there was easy money to be picked up on the lecture-platforms of America, and that they might just as well grab it as the next person."

Later on in the story a father and son are talking about their dinner guests:

"A dinner-jacket is perfectly in order. We shall be quite a small party. Six in all. You and I, a friend of mine and his daughter, a friend of my friend's friend and my friend's friend's son."
"Surely that's more than six!"
"No."
"It sounded more."

Two of Wodehouse's books (Right Ho, Jeeves and Code of the Woosters) have made it onto a list of the top ten funniest books according to a survey in Great Britain. While The Girl on the Boat doesn't have any one scene as hilarious as Gussie Fink-Nottle's speech to the Market-Snodsbury school (Code of the Woosters), every page is good for at least a couple of smiles and a laugh or two. Add to that a satisfyingly happy ending, and it's perfect medicine for lightening your worries, even if society is going awry.

weekly quote

Here's something from the other book I'm reading, Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin:

". . .the difference between prosperity and poverty lies simply in our degree of gratitude."

This book came out in 1992. It's a how-to guide for managing money with frugality. You can almost hear Henry David Thoureau cheering in the background as the authors write about living deliberately, and rejecting the current economic trend of "more is better" in favor of following a different drummer. They teach financial intelligence, integrity and independence.

The weekly passage

As well as reading about Livy, try reading this bit from his introduction in Book One:

"I invite the reader's attention to the much more serious consideration of the kind of lives our ancestors lived . . .I would then have him trace the process of our moral decline, to watch, first, the sinking of the foundations of morality as the old teaching was allowed to lapse, then the rapidly increasing disintegration, then the final collapse of the whole edifice, and the dark dawning of our modern day when we can neither endure our vices nor face the remedies needed to cure them. The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings: fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid."

"Real, Solemn History"

In Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen has the character Catherine Morland declare her dislike of "real, solemn history". She says, "it does not tell me anything that does not either vex or weary me . . .with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all--it is very tiresome . . . "

This week I'm reading a book that should qualify as "real, solemn history"--Livy's History of Early Rome. I'm happy to say that it has neither vexed nor wearied me and that good and bad men and women are included. I'm still in Book One and already there has been a spectacularly bad pair, Tullia, the daughter of King Servius Tullius and her brother-in-law, Lucius Tarquinius, or Tarquin. They each kill their spouses (she killing his brother, and he killing her sister) and then literally throw the king out of the Senate House and into the street, where their assassins kill him and Tullia runs over him in her carriage. Tarquin becomes king, and you can imagine what kind of king he is, after that beginning. He finally gets so bad that the populace demand that he and his family go into exile and the position of king be eliminated. Two consuls are elected and the Roman Republic is born.

Of course the ousted king stirs up trouble with Rome's enemies, and during the ensuing war a young girl is taken hostage. This girl, Cloelia, goes against Catherine's theory of history by being both good and a woman. She bravely escapes from the enemy's guards and leads a group of captured girls to swim across the Tiber River and back to the safety of their families. The enemy king is so impressed that he asks for her to be returned to him (curiously, the Romans comply). He then praises her publicly and allows her to select other hostages to be freed. Livy tells us that a statue of Cloelia on horseback was set up at the top of the Sacred Way after the war. There are two other heroes mentioned in this particular war. One tries to assassinate the enemy king and then puts his hand into fire to prove that no punishment will deter him. The other fights off the entire enemy army at the most vulnerable entrance to the city, a wooden bridge, while Roman soldiers work at destroying it. He holds off the enemy until the bridge collapses and then jumps into the river fully armed and swims to safety. He, too gets a statue. By the time Livy wrote down these stories they'd had 500 years to improve. I wonder how much is real and how much legend. Still, it's history--solemn, but not at all tiresome.

Dear everyday reader,

What to read next? That's always the question after you finish a good book. As a teenager I dove into books headfirst--whether they were good, bad, or indifferent. After reading some emotionally charged novel like Jane Eyre or Gone with the Wind I would feel a sense of loss. I had to go back to my ordinary life and return Jane and Mr. Rochester to the library shelf. I sometimes feared that I had now read all the good books, and would never again be deliciously swept away by a good story. I needn't have worried; decades later I am still discovering books and authors that thrill me, although perhaps not in the same way that I was thrilled as a teenager. I would like to share some of those books in this space, which will be part book review, part journal, and part commonplace book*.


*A commonplace book is a small notebook or journal where you write down bits--quotes, lines, or paragraphs that strike you when you are reading so that you can always have them at your fingertips. If you don't have one, try starting one. I keep mine on my nightstand and read it often.