One's own dead

NOW READING: A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

"'I was brought up to be honest; the trouble is it gets me nowhere.'
Liking her better, he smiled and said, 'It'll get us to heaven.'
'Will it?'
'If heaven existed.'
'Do you not believe in heaven, Mr. Fielding, may I ask?' she said, looking at him shyly.
'I do not. Yet I believe that honesty gets us there.'" - p. 267

Again I say the subtlety of this book is what's most striking about it: little bits of philosophy woven throughout like intricate parts of a cloth's design. This particular passage hits home. It's so simple and so clear to me, even if it sounds odd. It's like, screw eternal reward! You should be good anyway.

Meanwhile, Aziz is good and angry now. As well he should be. Although he didn't really help the matter with all of his quirky cultural responses to Adela, the caves, and the field glasses, I kind of like his take now that anything he does will still play into the colonial British imperial hands. He wants to separate himself from that crap two-tiered society. Who can blame him? In one way it does avoid conflict to completely remove ourselves from a troubled situation, but how on earth do we ever make peace?

I really like this bit, too:

"Although her hard schoolmistressy manner remained, she was no longer examining life, but being examined by it; she had become a real person." - p. 272

By the way, 'G' is just around the bend. Elizabeth Gaskell, Nikolai Gogol, Zane Grey?

Justice, sham trials, and the like

NOW READING: A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

This isn't really where I was expecting the book to be going. I was kind of surprised at what happened at the trial. I also kind of feel like we as readers are in the swirl of it all along with Miss Quested. And pray tell what does her name mean, allegorically? I've been meaning to ponder that.

But mostly I'm now struck (and amused) by the fact that here comes yet another little lawyer/trial snippet of life for me to ponder and examine through the prism of having gone to my first year of law school and blah blah blah.* While it of course briefly reminded me I never want to be a lawyer and all that, it also made me remember that the world is really messed up and it's not just the lawyers, and I didn't spend the whole time reading that chapter thinking law schoolish thoughts. Yay!

*yes, even I am thoroughly bored with my newfound gazing at everything through the 1L prism

Hot to trot

NOW READING: A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

I totally want to go to India. I want to go now. I didn't realize how now I want to go until just, well, the other minute as I was idly flipping through my book. I am aware that India is an enormous country and there are so many different regions and things to see that the statement "I want to go to India" doesn't really say much. But that's not the point. It'd be like saying "I want to go to the United States." People have said that. Then who cares if they meant only New York or something? So there's a lot of India to see. So? So I want to start seeing it.

I really am itching to go there. And I want to go for a long time and see as much of India as I've seen of these ol' United States, which could take years, I realize. Recently Brian and I have been amusing ourselves counting how many of the 1000 Places To See Before You Die we've been to. I've been to 43--and a good deal of those are in the U.S. My well-traveled-in-the-U.S.-ness serves me well. In fact, there's a sequel out which is 1000 Places To See Before You Die - USA and Canada and I'm well over 100 in that one.

But back to India, which is big and has many places to see and has not been visited by me. I want to go there. And you know another thing that excites me about India? It's hot. I like hot. In A Passage to India they are all talking about the Hot Weather. The Hot Weather is a-comin'. Mrs. Moore wants to leave India now that all the drama is happening after the disastrous cave visit and everyone's like, "But you can't travel during the Hot Weather." God, I can't think of anything more delectable.

And I like all different kinds of hot. I of course grew up in the dry heat. Just last night I was talking to some random people about dry heat. Well, they were talking about dry heat and I overheard them and asked where they were from (this was taking place in Manhattan) and they weren't from but had been to Las Vegas and they asked where I was from and then we talked about Arizona. I love the "But it's a dry heat" nonsense. I loved when some radio station or newspaper columnist or someone was talking about it, too, something along the lines of, "You go to Phoenix, the heat is killing you but everyone tries to console you with 'But it's a dry heat.' Yeah, sure. Guy bursts into flames on the sidewalk--but it's a dry fire!" Ha ha ha.

Remember those August days when you walk out of your air-conditioned house and it feels like someone's turned a hairdryer in your face? Oh, you Phoenicians and other dry heaters know so well what I'm talking about. The great thing about it, is, why do you live there then if you hate it? Why have you built this sterile civilization of air-conditioning in the middle of the desert by diverting so much water from the Colorado River that hardly a trickle is left when it gets to Mexico? In all sincerity, Phoenix as we know it should not exist. I grew up there and I love it, but I think it's kind of cool that mother nature bitch-slaps us with 122 degrees every once in a while.

I like other kinds of heat, too. Tropical heat. Yummy. Swampy delicious. Man, I spent about five minutes in Jamaica (had a layover in Montego Bay) but my entire impression of that place is that it was just hot--unbelievably hot, giving new meaning to the word. And Cuba? Another world. I never felt heat like that in my life. Never before and never since. The sun is closer to you, seriously. And you feel just this glorious sunny heat all the time. Except during the daily torrential rain(most afternoons during hurricane season).

I think the temperature was probably in the 80s (fahrenheit) most of the time I was there, but there was also humidity. It wasn't just about being muggy either. It was about the sun being so close to you it was as if it could reach down and touch you. It slathered its heat upon you. And the tan--sheesh! I returned from there so amazingly naturally tan, and it was gradual from an entire summer of days under that sun, not one fell sunburn swoop. I remember my sister commenting on a picture that happened to be taken of me with a half a dozen or so family members almost two full months after I returned to the U.S. "Geez, compared to Linda the rest of us look like ghosts!" she observed.

So, what's the heat like in India? I don't know. This book stops short (at least so far) of describing the Hot Weather. I'm sure there are different heats in different parts of the country as well (like here in the U.S.) There was one part of this book where Forster wrote of "films of heat" and I found that a delectable description.

I like other things besides heat. I like snow too. I like brisk autumn days. (Spring and I are still working out our issues.) So, why do I get so passionate about the heat? (That's like the heat of passion, only different) (and that kind of supports my case, as no one ever says things are coldly good in idiom! just cool) (too many parentheses) I rise to its defense because people are so mean about it. But I think we're meant for it. Aren't the cradles of human civilization equatorial desert?

"It was early in the morning, for the day, as the hot weather advanced, swelled like a monster at both ends, and left less and less room for the movements of mortals." - p. 219

Nice! You tell 'em, mother nature. You show us who's boss.

Planners

NOW READING: A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

So, I can relate to Adela. Witness:

"Then she went back to her plans; plans had been a passion with her from girlhood. Now and then she paid tribute to the present, said how friendly and intelligent Aziz was, ate a guava, couldn't eat a fried sweet, practised her Urdu on the servant; but her thoughts ever veered to the manageable future..." - p. 149

And this ties into another recent realization I had about addiction. People often say things about an "addictive personality." Since I have been addicted to something before for which people feel quite comfortable judging you (cigarettes) I have had that "addictive personality" label slapped on me. I've often wondered what that really means, though. Apart from my endless fascination with my own alcoholism or lack thereof (one of my hobbies is taking the Signs You're an Alcoholic quiz and noting that I'm still not in the danger zone) I wonder if there is such a thing as an addictive personality. I mean, take heroin. I've seen how it wrecks lives. It was very physical. I'm not sure the personalities had anything to do with it.

However, my recent realization was about coffee, which if anything would be my current addiction. (And not necessarily Starbucks, although I am happily, cheekily in the "Addicted to Starbucks" group on Facebook.) Notice I didn't say caffeine. I believe my body is currently physically dependent on caffeine in the sense that I have a cup of coffee basically every morning and will have a headache in the evening if I don't. So that is definitely a "habit." But the addiction part is something more, and it amused me when I observed it about myself. On the day that I moved out of my Hofstra residence I still had a few things to pack in the morning. I was in slow motion, and still awaiting the arrival of my dad with the van, and I told Brian (who was so nice as to help me move, yay!) that I wanted to go get coffee first and then come back and finish packing and that would definitely be the more productive way to go. So we walked over to Dunkin' Donuts and back. I then proceeded to finish packing, efficiently, and I made room in bags and tied up loose ends and so forth.

Then I looked up and saw my Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee on the near-empty desk next to the clock radio and realized I'd drunk all of three sips of it. Greatly amused, I pointed it out to Brian: merely having acquired the coffee made me satisfied and I was able to move on and be productive. Of course I would eventually drink it (so as to avoid later headache) and even enjoy it (mmmm...cream, no sugar) but I had this great insight about what satisfying the WANT meant.

I wonder if this relates somehow to my love for planning. Don't you see how it could? It feeds something in me to make lists and make plans and craft and recraft my vision for the future (and reorder my Netflix queue). But I don't think I need to make plans and lists. I'm not sure I'm any more likely to do the things whether I make the lists or not. But I actually like to do it. And I think this also relates to how healthy it feels to meditate, and be mindful, and get my buddha nature on, and live in the moment.

Caveat

NOW READING: A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

Something dramatic is about to happen on their excursion to the caves. And I feel like I'm living in some weird parallel course with this book: I feel sick and unsettled and on the verge of something dramatic, too. This is kind of like when I was dizzy and I swooned in junior English class while we read the part of MacBeth where he hallucinates Banquo's ghost. I don't want to, though. I don't want to be sickened by lingering thoughts of last summer and I don't want to be on the verge of something dramatic. Mrs. Moore is sitting outside the caves because she can't stand a second claustrophobic visit, so she lets Aziz and Adela go on their merry way while she waits. This will turn out to be a mistake any page now. I can feel it.

"The universe, never comprehensible to her intellect, offered no repose to her soul, the mood of the last two months took definite form at last, and she realized that she didn't want to write to her children, didn't want to communicate with anyone, not even with God...For a time she thought, 'I am going to be ill,' to comfort herself, then she surrendered to the vision." -p. 166

Hello. And what a kick-ass description, I must say, of "that sinking feeling."

I just want to know if it's possible that I really could have induced a flashback with all my talk about full circles and coming back from Korea a year ago and the things life brings us. Could I have done that? If I started reading this book and was struck by the expat-in-Asia-ness of it then by dwelling on some twisted nostalgia (for what?) could I have started making my whole month of June into a grotesque replay of last horrible stupid June? Last June of betrayal and lies and me beating my head against a brick wall trying to Figure It All Out? Could I have conjured up the feelings I felt then just by thinking about then? Ewww. And if so, does that mean when I finish reading this book I can close the book on all this flashback nonsense as well? It's so weird.

Aziz has got issues, and I think pretty soon he's going to have a few more. He's trying to please people who don't understand him and whom he doesn't understand. And I don't think he understands why he wants to please them.

"Like most Orientals, Aziz overrated hospitality, mistaking it for intimacy and not seeing that it is tainted with the sense of possession." - p. 157

I relate to that too. Then, and now.

To indeed be a god

NOW READING: A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

"'We're out here to do justice and keep the peace. Them's my sentiments. India isn't a drawing-room.'
'Your sentiments are those of a god,' she said quietly, but it was his manner rather than his sentiments that annoyed her.
Trying to recover his temper, he said, 'India likes gods.'
'And Englishmen like posing as gods.'"
--p. 51

Much as I ruminated today on my blog's "front page" I am struck by how we hardly act different at all from people 100 years ago.

The U.S. might have joined the English in posing as gods in various Asian countries, and insisting it's there in justice and peace. And this is still happening! Korea, anyone? Granted, I made two really good friends because of the U.S. army bases there. And there were a lot of bilingual street signs for which I was grateful. But come on. People would actually tell me with a straight face that the U.S. military is there to protect against "the threat from 'The North.'" Seriously. SERiously??

I didn't know why I felt drawn to read A Passage to India, but now I do. What a fantastic reflection on the expatriate experience. I'd like to think the job of an English teacher is far less offensive than that of a civil servant of the occupying colonial force. I'd sure like to.

This month is bound to happen or, F to the J to the N to the...

NOW READING: A Passage to India by E. M. Forster

I continue in India. Since I have been a slacker and not posting, I'm starting to accumulate many a folded page and nary a post about them. Tonight I'll try to catch up a bit.

For one thing, this book is wonderfully philosophical out of nowhere, sprinkled in among the paragraphs describing the goings-on of English and Indian interminglings, and done so well that when it goes back from philosophy to the "action," you find you are still philosophizing. Like this: "But she did not take the disappointment as seriously as Miss Quested, for the reason that she was forty years older, and had learnt that Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not punctually. She said again that she hoped that something interesting would be arranged for next Tuesday." - p. 23

Then there is the whole thing where you want to harshly judge the English civil officials for their callous and snobby ways among the "Natives" but you also have a tiny bit of sympathy, especially(?) if you have lived and worked abroad, say, teaching English in a Korean academy where you had daily thrown across your path obstacles that were not insurmountable so much as they were inscrutable. But you feel bad about the judgments you yourself made, too. Like this: "'You never used to judge people like this at home.' 'India isn't home,' he retorted, rather rudely, but in order to silence her he had been using phrases and arguments that he had picked up from older officials, and he did not feel quite sure of himself." --p. 33

Then there are the religious considerations, Moslem, Hindu, lots of lapsed Christians. And now I have a question. During one passage we are invited to ponder the likes of jackals and wasps gaining an eternal reward. And if them, then how about bacteria? And cactus? Are they not loved by the gods? The missionary thinks, "No, no, this is going too far. We must exclude someone from our gathering, or we shall be left with nothing." -- p. 38 Well, I can add nothing to that, which just about sums up religion right there.

But I'm curious about the early part of that passage because it starts out with the monkeys: "And why should the divine hospitality cease here? Consider, with all reverence, the monkeys. May there not be a mansion for the monkeys also?...he saw no reason why monkeys should not have their collateral share of bliss, and he had sympathetic discussions about them with his Hindu friends." --pp. 37-38

Wow. After years of listening to The Pixies' "Monkey Gone to Heaven" I suddenly find myself wondering where good ol' Frank Black got his inspiration for that line. Could he have been reading A Passage to India? Why not? I hear tell he came up with the hook and those "monkey gone to heaven" words before he fleshed out the song.

Also I cannot let this opportunity pass. I must say that the repeated "This monkey's gone to heaven" of the chorus is one of the best misheard lyrics ever, having once resulted in my favorite "This month is bound to happen." Indeed it is.

Also, for those who care and even those who don't much, though I'm still in F, guess what? I do believe I know who my 'J' author is going to be. A small prize goes to the first person to guess correctly. And I think I know who my 'N' author is going to be as well, although, AHEM, that one appears to have been selected for me...

"Got killed by ten million pounds of sludge
from New York and New Jersey
This monkey's gone to heaven..."
--the pixies

Sky High

I forgot I wanted to say something about the very beginning of A Passage to India, from when he's setting the scene and describing Chandrapore:

"The sky settles everything--not only climates and seasons but when the earth shall be beautiful. By herself she can do little --only feeble outbursts of flowers. But when the sky chooses, glory can rain into the Chandrapore bazaars or a benediction pass from horizon to horizon. The sky can do this because it is so strong and and so enormous." - p. 5

I thought - what a great way to put it! I tend to be overwhelmed by the sky just in general. Although like everyone else I walk around much of the time forgetting to look up and be appreciative of it. I also stand by my statement that Arizona has the best sunsets in the world and an amazing sky-ness quite often. But I like to gaze out at the horizon wherever I go and let the Indigo Girls lyric "What a blessed sky" run through my head. I am altogether appreciative of the sky. But I had never quite articulated that thought, that it kind of gives the go-ahead to the earth to be beautiful.

Imports and Exports

I have embarked upon A Passage to India. (I never get tired of saying that.) This is exciting for so many reasons. One, I was on my E is for Eco book for nearly two months, and now it's like TGIF - thank god I'm (on) Forster! Two, it was made into an Academy Award-winning film, you know. Three, let's talk about traveling to Asia, shall we?

Sometimes I think my life is a gigantic circle. Other times I know it is. Here I am all contemplating the year since I returned from living abroad, so what better time to read a novel about Westerners in India? A couple of the Englishwomen are discussing whether India really feels like "the other side of the world" or not. I have an amused(television) and an inquisitive(real life) response to this.

First, amusement: I love Designing Women! In this book Miss Quested says she wants to see the real India. "Ronny was in high spirits. The request struck him as comic, and he called out to another passer-by: 'Fielding! how's one to see the real India?' 'Try seeing Indians,' the man answered, and vanished..." - p. 25

Well, how can one not think of Suzanne Sugarbaker? On vacation, prissy Suzanne is the lone voice who does not want to soak up the local culture: "I can assure you that there is nothing around here I want to 'soak up.'" Perhaps you have to know and appreciate the show and the fabulously fun, satirical-yet-hitting-home ways of Suzanne's character (and if you don't appreciate these things, I highly suggest you get thee to your Lifetime and watch some Desigining Women episodes) but it's so fantastic. On another trip, Suzanne elaborates, "I've noticed that whenever people start talking about seeing 'the real' anything, what they really mean is 'hanging out with poor people.' I say, I don't hang out with poor people at home, so why should I do it on vacation?" You see? It's absurd, and shocking, and not politically correct, and doesn't it also ring unfortunately true for so many of us? That, my friends, is the brilliance of Designing Women.

Second, my Korea-induced question to ponder. I never really felt like I wasn't seeing "the real Korea." I mean, it's such a silly way to phrase it, anyway. (I'm with Ronny, in that sense.) We all live in our little subcultures, whether at home or abroad. And we frankly tend to shun The Others no matter where we are as well. So I took refuge in the Commune, my very favorite bar on the planet, where the expats would gather in the low-lit basement pub, play music, meet and greet, launch a renaissance...so what? I also hopped a three-dollar bus to a random town every other weekend, made political connections, and got to know hundreds of children whom I taught. Which parts of that are "real" and "unreal"? What nonsense.

One of my best teacher friends over there hated Korea for this reason: she didn't feel it was different enough from the United States. She might agree with Mrs. Moore: "she too was disappointed at the dullness of their new life. They had made such a romantic voyage across the Mediterranean and through the sands of Egypt to the harbour of Bombay, to find only a gridiron of bungalows at the end of it." - p. 23

Not only did I generally disagree with this friend (then again, I mostly see "similarity to home" as a matter of quantifying the availability of Mexican food, and I used to describe myself as a foreign exchange student in Boston -- from California) but I also wonder if it isn't rather condescending of us to say places are "Americanized." Or even "Westernized." What, like so-called Western Civilization has some sort of monopoly on crappy television, neon, techonology, McDonalds, and the like? Who are we to say that? Now that everyone and their trendy brother eats sushi and does yoga, why don't we say that we are Asia-ized? And don't even get me started on anime and manga.

No, really though? Who the hell are we to say? My experience is that Korea and Japan are so technologically superior to the U.S. it's not even funny. In Seoul I could be three levels underground on the subway and have a cell phone signal, but on Long Island I can't keep one on the Hofstra campus. When I first got there I asked my smug little spoiled adolescent class if they had iPods and they were like, "i-what?" Then they whipped out their phone/camera/mp3 player combos that put us to shame, that every freakin' ten-year-old has. And no offense meant to my Michigan peeps (and besides, my adoring fans all know I love Michael Moore than the lot of you put together) but everyone knows their Toyota runs better than their Ford. I'm not the only one who has come to that conclusion. So why do we think we're so superior?

And why are we perpetually in search of this exotic other, anyway? Would it be so bad if we found more common ground among humanity than differences?

My foray into bookseller addiction

I think this will be my last random book rambling before I embark upon A Passage to India. But I just came across a list in a box of old papers: handwritten on a sheet of notebook paper is a list of a couple dozen books I read in my first year that I worked at Borders! I even vaguely recall making this list. It's probably incomplete, but I remember after I'd worked there a while noting that I was reading even more than I had all my life (in which life I had often been known as the friend who reads a lot). So I'm amused to look back now at the books I read when suddenly they were all around me and I was touching them all the time, plus I now got a discount.

High Tide in Tucson Barabara Kingsolver --contains one of the best essays ever, about atomic missile facilities in the middle of nowhere in the U.S.
The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck (a Pulitzer winner!)
Beneath Mulholland: Thoughts on Hollywood and its Ghosts David Thomson --this book gave me about a thousand suggestions for movies to see. I remember making that list too, as I went along reading it
Crime and Punishment Dostoevsky
Girl, Interrupted Susanna Kaysen
Angela's Ashes Frank McCullough --a true gem. a must for everyone, bookseller or not.
Snow Falling on Cedars David Guterson --don't bother
The Cider House Rules John Irving
In Session: The Bond Between Women and Their Therapists Deborah Lott
The Living Annie Dillard -- made me think she should stick to non-fiction. made me think *I* should stick to non-fiction.
Echoes Maeve Binchy
Mrs. Dalloway Virginia Woolf
The Common Reader Virginia Woolf
Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend Patrick Symmes
Squandering Aimlessly David Brancaccio
Peyton Place Grace Metalious -- sooo good. I'm not even joking.
The Thorn Birds Colleen McCullough --also sooo good. Still not joking.
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee -- duh
The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood -- didn't actually love this one, but have loved every word of hers I've read since. Her brilliance is unmatched.
The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx
Utopia Thomas More
The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing Melissa Bank -- before there was chick lit, there was this. Would that the shelves had remained that way. Her outfit on the cover is pefectly indicative of how she kicks ass.
What We Keep Elizabeth Berg -- I'd read everything else of hers before I worked in a bookstore. Berg was my treasure; I shared her with my co-workers and every other customer who walked through the door. Then Oprah discovered her, too!
Open House Elizabeth Berg -- this is the one Oprah discovered.
The Edible Woman Margaret Atwood -- and my co-workers shared treasures with me, too!
Tuesdays With Morrie Mitch Albom -- had to see what all the fuss was about. And now I could do that without committing my hard-earned money! Employee perks!

I'm sure there were others; I recall scratching my head even back when I scrawled this list. But this is pretty representative of what I read that year. My taste has improved since then, but there were some good finds.

Remember last summer when I was on a quest to get rid of my earthly possessions -- even the books? I'm sort of losing that drive...

Boys and Girls

FINISHED: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
PREPARING TO LAUNCH: A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
ON THE SIDE: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes/Evening by Susan Minot

Yes, the 'F' author has been selected, although not yet begun. Don Quixote is this year's mammoth book of choice, and how appropriate to begin it now as this weekend marks exactly one year since I left Korea and finished War and Peace on a plane somewhere over the Pacific. But first I have a parting Rose thought.

So, I've been having an argument a discussion about Adso's Kitchen Encounter. Which is to say, he is tempted/seduced/blown away/doesn't really know what's going on by beautiful peasant woman whom Salvatore brings into the abbey, and so despite his vow of chastity he gets to experience this act some monks never experience, and is even promptly forgiven by William the next day. (There's more to it than that of course, but that's not my point here.) So the argument discussion is about whether the whole ideal of an enlightening One Romantic Encounter is male fantasy crap that never happens in real life.

I was saying, how could Adso be so enlightened and wowed by ONE time? That never happens. Needless to say -- or is it? -- I was having this discussion with a male. And as I think about it, I think perhaps my notion that it is "male fantasty b.s." might be wrong. Maybe it's male reality b.s. I mean, there are differences and then there are differences but I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that across the board men are more fulfilled by their initial sexual experience than woman ever are. Without exception.

So, this is interesting and probably old news, but what's newly interesting to me is that I'm currently sort of reading Evening, because the previews for the upcoming film have me greatly intrigued, mostly because I (only half-jokingly) refer to it as "the sequel to The Hours," as I've previously mentioned. So even though I don't want to buy it, I read a chapter or two of it every time I am in a bookstore (which is almost every day) and I'm about halfway through it. And the basic plot is that this woman on her deathbed deliriously recalls a life-changing night back in the day that she has never forgotten, although as she lies there murmuring this man's name all her gathered family members are like, "Who? Who's that guy, Mom?"

The story is told flashing back and forth among various time periods, so I haven't yet reached the climactic moment in the far past. That is to say, they have met and strolled together under the stars but haven't yet had the life-altering One Romantic Encounter, although by all indications they will. And it leaves me thinking -- hmm, this book is by a woman. And it's the woman who is, apparently, altered in this particular story. So, is it that we've been so pummeled by the male fantasy over the years, especially in movies I'd say, that women have bought into it, too?

Ah, but then I forget about romance novels. Mostly because I've never read one. But I have shelved a lot of them, and it sure seems that a lot of women in there can have amazing, mind-blowing One Romantic Encounters as well.

Anyway, I just think it's interesting. I'm really not bothered by it at all. This isn't some call to feminist arms, and it wasn't a particularly heated discussion about Adso. I just think it's interesting that as soon as I tried to determine that Adso's experience was an implausible male fantasy, I picked up Evening and then thought, "Oh. Or not."

"They ALL did it!"

NOW FINISHED READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

What a book! I highly recommend it and have even already loaned it to one person to read. I have more to say about it, but quickly, here's a thought. A cursory scan just now of a bunch of reviews on Amazon and the like brought me to comments like: "you feel smarter after you read it" or "this book will make you feel your IQ went up a few points." Huh. Interesting. I hadn't really thought or felt like that, and in all the years my literary-goth-pagan-English major-medieval lovin'-philosophical etc. friends have insisted it's one of the best books ever, I've not really heard that comment either. Do you suppose I hang around (and discuss books with) people who are smarter than the average denizen of the world wide web?

On second thought, as I reread that question, I want to answer myself the way William would answer Adso: use your head. Learn to think. The answer is so obvious.

Or is it just that it really is a mystery, really? Even though it rightly hangs out in Fiction/Lit and is not relegated to the Mystery/Thriller shelves (she said, letting her bias against Genre show). And that mystery lovers haven't read as many smart books? (she said, no longer even trying to hide her bias against Genre)

But...but...I still love Clue! That's one of the smartest mysteries ever, too. And with a happier ending(s). I could see William and Adso fitting in nicely at that little dinner party, puzzling out what happened. It's kind of like The Name of the Rose, now that I think about it. They show up to solve one crime and many other murders follow...

" All right, Chief, take 'em away. I'm going home to sleep with my wife!"
-- fabulous last line of Clue

Diggin' up bones

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

I've just read of William, Adso, and Nicholas-the-replacement-cellarer wandering through the vault of the abbey's treasures and relics. These include a part of the crown of thorns...a piece of the tablecloth from the last supper...the tip of the spear that pierced the Savior's side...a piece of the actual holy wooden cross. Adso is of course in awe at all these relics and William basically tells him, "Yeah, right."

Now, granted this is a fictional abbey, but I know how it is with the relic-seeking and I just wonder, seriously, why do we believe this crap? Really, though? As William puts it, "And don't succumb too much to the spell of these cases. I have seen many other fragments of the cross, in other churches. If all were genuine, our Lord's torment could not have been on a couple of planks nailed together, but on an entire forest." - p. 425

I thought about how we all do this, really. And not just with Jesus. I mean, we even do it with secular figures. ("Washington slept here!" isn't much different) But what it really reminded me of was when I was in Korea and I went to see the Buddha's finger bone, unearthed in China and conveniently on exhibit in Seoul the first weekend I spent there. I won't even try to explain my actions; you can just have a look for yourself here. Did I really think it was the Buddha's finger bone? These things beg the question, of course, of what I mean by "the Buddha." Like, maybe that really was the bone of the man named Siddhartha Gautama. Even so, what does that mean? And suppose the cross that crucified a certain (quite possibly wrongly) accused criminal was salvaged and a bit of it was hanging out in an abbey somewhere? In which case are we fooling ourselves more, that these are the historical fragments or that they are historic fragments?

Also, "the Buddha" is really not quite right to say. There have been other enlightened beings, a couple dozen buddhas in one branch of buddhism, I think. Even the word "buddhism" is misunderstood by most who use it especially when we come from western religious traditions. Where was I at with Buddhism when I randomly discovered that Buddha's bone was spending the same weekend in Seoul that I was? I guess you can see from my tales of my stay at the Buddhist temple Haeinsa, part one and part two. Maybe I'd describe it as faithful wariness?

Adso is sad and horrified that William doubts the validity of these treasures. Poor Adso. He still has a lot to learn.

Badder than old King Kong, far more dangerous than a hydrophobic dog

I think everyone at the abbey starts to go a little crazy as we approach page 400. Not the least of which is my buddy Salvatore. I wonder if I have a little bit of a crush on Salvatore? He's such a freak. But I kinda like it. At any rate, now I've passed page 400 and now he's been sent off to his doom with the "witch"/object of Adso's affection and Remigio. And Remigio, by the way, just FELL APART on the stand there. Well, I say "on the stand" at what passes for a trial...your friendly neighborhood inquisitor meting out justice or something like it...

But, see, I don't think Salvatore is really gone. I think he's going to rear his ugly head (and it is, by all accounts, an ugly head. I don't mean any offense by that) and save the day or something, like Hurley on Lost, when no one else believes he can help. Either that or he's guilty as sin. Hard to say which.

But now Malachi is slumping in his seat at Matins, and I've got to see what happens!

Homo literatus

NOW READING:

• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• Evening by Susan Minot

But the latter I'm just kind of reading. I'm so greatly fascinated by the preview for the movie, which I have seen two out of two times I have attended the cinema in Harvard Square this week, that I had to wander into the Harvard Coop bookstore there and start reading the book. I've read three chapters of it. I'm calling the movie "the sequel to The Hours." Joining author Minot in writing the screenplay was none other than The Hours author Michael Cunningham (my boy!) and the cast is kind of like an Hours reunion. I'm pretty sure I don't want to buy the book Evening but I kind of like reading a chapter a day in the Harvard Coop. (Which, I love that bookstore. I so do love my Boston things. My old haunts.)

But I digress, reader, from the tale at hand. Salvatore! Salvatore! What is going on?! You must save yourself!!!

I am starting to get toward the end of The Name of the Rose, and my goodness. Bernard Guido Inquisitor or whatever his name is is so mean! And I'm getting really sad for Salvatore. But I don't think he can be the murderer, because he's caught now and I think some more people still have to die. We're only on the fifth trumpet. Poor, ugly, picked on Salvatore. As he put it, he "sinned with no malicia." Indeed.

Blood and bones and such

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

I love this book. But I've officially reached the point where occasionally I'm like, "Wait. Who's this guy again?" Furthermore, I've also officially reached the point where I don't always care enough to flip back a bunch of pages to find out, and instead just trust that William and Adso will drop enough tidbits into their conversation to remind me of this or that monk's prior apperance(s). And William and Adso are nothing if not conversation tidbit droppers.

But then there are characters like blind Jorge and especially my boy Salvatore who are just unforgettable. Damn, I love Salvatore. I get excited every time he appears, and especially when he starts his special language-blend of speech. This happens far too infrequently for my tastes. And p.s., just where has Salvatore got to now, with Benno having removed (or did he?) the Greek/Arabic manuscript from Severinus' ransacked laboratory? Benno, by the way, being a key example of the "Who's-this-Daisy-person?" phenomenon I mentioned above. (bonus points to the first person who can cite the "Who's-this-Daisy-person?" reference, no cheating)

I guess my point is - I so don't want Salvatore to be guilty! But he so totally might be. I really have no idea. And, I don't know if law school and the glacial pace at which I've been reading this are to blame for my utter lack of fingering a suspect, not to mention my not at all keeping good track of who the suspects are. Or is it just that convoluted of a book? Well, "convoluted" isn't really the right word. But I did get really happy when they finally just made page 321 a map of the freakin' library and the first letters. Throw a girl a bone, eh.

And speaking of tossing bones about, do sentences get more evocative than this...

"This side was the one brought down on Severinus's head, as was revealed by traces of blood and even tufts of hair and horrible gobbets of cerebral matter." - p. 359

How can you read a line like that and not think you have met your writerly match?

I fought the law and the law won

Deep into the 300s (pages), Adso and William attend the gathering of all the assembled cardinal, abbot, papal delegation, suspected heretics, etc. So there I am, happily back in the world of reading a novel again instead of a laborious law text, when suddenly William jumps up and starts prattling on about the origins of law, jurisdiction, why the Pope can or can't tell people what to do in a secular sense, and even freakin' property and how when Adam started naming animals *that's* when human ownership of things first came into being...

Et tu, Umberto?
Can't I escape law school at all?
Even at the Memorial Day cook-out I attended today, within two minutes of being there my friend had introduced me to three law school people. (2Ls-now-3Ls) They were talking about the reasonable man and using suspiciously familiar casebook terminology. I thought, 'I speak that language...' Ugh.

I daresay William's ramblings on when humans came to own things and whether Christ did or the Church should were interesting. And probably would have been good philosophical reflection for my Property class. Maybe even as good as watching Lost. Maybe I never should have taken a break from The Name of the Rose after all.

Still, I think I prefer William when he's trading cheeky comments with Adso about how crazy are the folk who hail from Anglo lands.

Don't be such a martyr

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Again. Finally.

And I still love it! Like an old friend, it patiently awaited me as I slogged through finals and everything else the universe has been offering up. It sat on the floor of my room (where pretty much everything has been flung and scattered the last few weeks, so it was in good company) and I would eye it but I could not touch, I could not give in to the tempataion, I had to keep moving. On Wednesday after the last final, I crouched down to scoop up the novel in my arms and nearly cried with relief.

So. I don't really remember where William has disappeared to (maybe he's just having a nap) but Adso is talking to Ubertino and hanging around the library by himself and even, bizarrely, encountering a woman in the kitchen! And when I say "encountering a woman in the kitchen" I mean it in the "what Sawyer thought Jack meant when he said he and Kate were caught in a net" sort of way. We are totally getting into the Woman, thou art the embodiment of evil, oh temptress, oh vessel of sin stuff. Good times.

Just before that, however, Adso remembers the execution of heretic Brother Michael who died defying the bishops and pope whom he considered apostate. Adso has it on good hearsay that Brother Michael said, "If we read with such fervor the doctrine of certain sainted abbots, how much greater should be our fervor and our joy in desiring to be in their midst?" (p. 235) Which, I have to say, reminds me of something that has stuck with me from childhood.

As many of you (many? maybe. who are you, anyway? who's reading this?) know, I was pretty much raised Mormon, although some of you don't know that because it's so not in the Top 10 Things I Reveal About Myself these days. More like the Top Ten Significant Things That Manage To Stay Hidden Until I've Known You For a While Unless, Inexplicably, I Trust You Right Off the Bat. (It occurs to me that if I actually made that list, the title might be longer than the ten items.) Well, Mormons are seriously misunderstood. Although they are possibly about to be either much better understood or even more seriously misunderstood, as presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's publicists seems to have found a great way for him to avoid talking about the political issues by just talking about what it means to be Mormon all the time.

Anyway, I always try to dissuade people from disliking the things they've got wrong about the religion ("lots of wives" "magic underwear" "not allowed to drink soda") because the real things that are wrong with the religion are so much more worth disliking! So this one time when I was about eight I was being fed one of the usual legends of founding prophet Joseph Smith's greatness, decidedly free of grains of salt. Mormonism is a fascinating study of modern-day folklore. Forget the claims of angelic visions and golden tablets; the mundane day-to-day life of Joseph Smith is mythologized enough. This particular day we were talking about when when he and his brother were shot and killed by an angry mob at Carthage Jail, aka his martyrdom. They were pretty much imprisoned for their beliefs (although I hear that only happens in Cuba, eh) (ooh, watch out, don't step in the puddle of sarcasm) and now that I think about it, it would be kind of interesting to revisit the whole event from a human rights perspective. But when I was eight I had no perspective, and instead I gobbled up the sweet story of martyrdom and was flat out told in my little Sunday School class that should we ever be placed in the position we, too, must be prepared to die for our religion.

Now, being the bright and inquisitive (albeit perspective-lacking) eight-or-so-year-old that I was, I then required further elaboration. Like, really? I had to say "the church is true" if it came down to my life? The Mormons are big on that phrase "I know the church is true." It's like a little shorthand for Jesus died for us, the Catholics have long since gone astray, the Protestants haven't quite got it right either, Joseph Smith came to save the day, read The Book of Mormon, be worthy to enter the temple, go on a mission if you're a boy, have lots of kids, etc.) It's kind of weird, if you think about it. Spin. How can a "church" be true or false? But, you see, The Church is this all-encompassing thing. It lives. And, they testify, is true.

I pressed the point with my teacher. "What if someone had a gun to my head and said they won't kill me if I just say that the church is not true? What if I cross my fingers behind my back or something? Or can I say it and save my life and then repent really quick for lying?" And my teacher gravely said she hoped I would be able to do the right thing and be prepared to defend the true church. Can you imagine saying that crap to an eight-year-old kid? I mean, it's ridiculous for anyone, really. At my grandmother's funeral this past weekend (that's the Catholic side of my family) the priest went on about how Christ on the cross is the ultimate sign, or symbol. SYMBOLISM, people. Even IF you believe Jesus "died for us" then Joseph Smith didn't "need" to die and neither does random Mormon-on-the-street, least of all some little kid! But there I was, wholly convinced I was going to sooner or later face the terror of being killed for saying, "The Church is true." No wonder I was scared out of my wits lying in bed at night. Maybe it wasn't the fault of The Shining and Helter Skelter after all. (The Exorcist can perhaps still be implicated.)

Years later at BYU I learned another Mormon legend that basically says denying the Holy Ghost and murder are the only two unforgivable sins. Which is kind of an interesting twist on the whole martyrdom thing, if you think about it. Like, I imagine God and or various judging angels (kind of like God's law clerks) gazing down at someone with the gun to someone else's head: "Say it! There is no holy spirit guiding you!" And God et. al. wondering which one will become the Unforgiven.

Perspective, people. Instant perspective. Just add salt.

A few monks' prayers might not hurt...

NOW READING: absolutely nothing

We are approaching the 14-hour mark. Wow! That's huge! Fourteen hours from now I will put to rest the madness of these first year law school exams. And then...then...oh, glorious freedom! Oh happy day! I can return to reading The Name of the Rose!!!!!

Fourteen hours. I can make it. And maybe just maybe I can write a brilliant Property exam in the meantime, with the light of Umberto shining at the end of my tunnel of adverse possession...with William as my guide...he could conquer this exam. He sure could. He would so put Professor One-Man-Show squarely in his place, too.

Fourteen hours. Fourteen hours. Fourteen more hours. Where does that put me now? Nones? Vespers? Compline? Who knows? But I'm almost free.

A Civil Procedure final by any other name...

NOW READING: lots of boring law school crap

So. Clearly I am not reading anything fun because today is, after all, Finals Eve. But I do have thoughts. Here are some of them:

The Buffalo Creek Disaster made me so angry, but it also reminded me if I had any doubt whatsoever that I never ever ever want to be a lawyer. Ugh.

If I were allowed to read anything fun right now, last Tuesday was certainly a bonanza of new book laydowns! Michael Chabon, Barbara Kingsolver, Elizabeth Berg. All in one day! I touched Chabon's new one, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, a lot. I daresay I fondled it. It's an alternate universe in which FDR made Alaska a safe haven for Jews escaping Hitler when they failed to establish the state of Israel in 1948. I so so so so so want to read it. Now. Sigh. Soon, though. Very soon.

And in a mere nine days and seventeen hours will be my triumphant return to The Name of the Rose!

"Always on the outside looking in on others' lives..."

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

I thought some more today about William and Adso trying to figure out how they'll find their way around the labyrinthine library. (Mostly because I haven't had time to read that book so I still haven't progressed beyond that point.)

Adso asks why they could figure it out from the outside but they couldn't figure it out before, while they were still inside. William says it's like Earth/God's creation: God the Creator understands it from the outside but we, who find ourselves plunked down inside life, don't understand it at all.

You guessed it: I think this, too, is like law school.

(Read my main blog for today's other insights into my law studies. )

In the labyrinth

NOW READING:

• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• The Buffalo Creek Disaster by Gerald M. Stern

I have decided that the following passage from The Name of the Rose, spoken by William about the labyrinth, is a description of law school and possibly life:

"Some rooms allow you to pass into several others, some into only one, and we must ask ourselves whether there are not rooms that do not allow you to go anywhere else. If you consider this aspect, plus the lack of light or of any clue that might be supplied by the position of the sun (and if you add the visions and the mirrors), you understand how the labyrinth can confuse anyone who goes through it, especially when he is already troubled by a sense of guilt. Remember, too, how desperate we were last night when we could no longer find our way. The maximum of confusion achieved with the maximum of order: it seems a sublime calcuation. The builders of the library were great masters..."
-- p. 217

Teachers, keep on teachin'...

NOW READING:

• The Buffalo Creek Disaster by Gerald M. Stern
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
  

As I read The Buffalo Creek Disaster, I am more and more convinced I have no desire to be a lawyer, and as I near the end I am actually questioning more and more things about this triumphant lawsuit. Like, maybe we *should* distinguish the "psychic impairment" claims of the thirty-three plaintiffs who were not even there the day of the disastrous flood from the claims of the hundreds of plaintiffs who were present and experienced the trauma. I understand that these "absent plaintiffs" also lost homes, property, loved ones, and so forth. But I think their claims are different. When I say this, it puts me on the "side" of the Evil Greedy Corporate Lawyers who represent Pittston, the deep pockets of responsibility. And that's lame. Because as with most polarized things in this world, I smell a false dichotomy.

And maybe, just maybe that's part of my problem with the lawyering and litigation process. It's really, really funny that I didn't think about this until just now. And not funny-ha-ha, but funny-freakin'-scary. I hate the "two sides" approach. Example: I hate the two-party political system. And not just because our two parties of choice are full of jackasses (as opposed to just the one party that has a jackass for a symbol). I think the two-party system is ridiculous and I resent being asked, "Are you a Republican or a Democrat?" What if I'm neither? Better yet, what if I'm both? And what if I'm both right-brained and left-brained? What if I liked English and math all through school while everyone was trying to draw some line between science people and humanities people? What if someone is both gay and straight? Kinsey would say many of us are in between, you know. What if I like L.A. and New York? What if I'm "a little bit country?"

OK. So. Litigation. This is where it gets complicated. Sometimes the art of lawyering is beautiful. Example, in Torts class last semester, where brilliant Professor Walker demonstrated clear, precise logic in all its beauty. ("What explains the coincidence is the quail." Ahhhhh.....) But today, reading about Buffalo Creek, I get angry, because sometimes I read Mr. Do-Gooder Lawyer's tale and while I love that he stands up for the citizens of Buffalo Creek, who really got screwed over, I also resent the implication that I should be on the legal "side" of the plaintiffs in the face of a good point made by the Pittston corporation, and I further resent that I should then be considered to be denying the plaintiffs' suffering. This is immature, Bush-like thinking: "If you're not with us you're against us."

Which brings me to William of Baskerville, in The Name of the Rose. He left behind the messy business of being an Inquisitor. He's wicked smart and doesn't want to go around torturing people. What's more, he recognizes that this "two sides" business is crap. In the maelstrom of debating popes, politicians, abbots, emperors, philosophers, magicians, scientists, and so-called heretics, William explains to Adso that sometimes everyone is right or no one is right and, most importantly, doctrines are bled together.

Furthermore, the fact that people are often wrong when they try to slap on black and white labels does NOT mean that there are no absolutes. I hate when people mix that up, too. Of course there are moral absolutes. Of course there are things that are inherently wrong (lying, violence, war) I hate when people are like, oh yeah, because you hate either/or labels you must think EVERYTHING is a shade of gray. No. I hate labels that show immature thinking. That show someone is incapable of thinking through the matter or the complexity of the situation. Whereas our boy William is eminently capable of thinking through complexity. Man, I like him. I so feel like I'm hanging out with him and Adso. I am positively savoring this book. Which is why it's OK that it's taking me so long to read it.

Well, that's my preliminary statement on the matter. Clearly now is not the time to abandon The Name of the Rose. In fact, it might help me get through final exams. William is like a beacon, something to strive for, a man who uses his learning and powers for good instead of evil...

"Powers, keep on lyin'
while your people keep on dyin'
World, keep on turnin'
'cause it won't be too long.

I'm so darn glad He let me try it again,
'cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin.
I'm so glad that I know more than I knew then.
Gonna keep on tryin' till I reach the highest ground..."

--lyrics by Stevie Wonder

Buffalo

NOW READING: The Buffalo Creek Disaster by Gerald M. Stern

OK, so I have been trying to be a Good Student, and to that end I have not been reading The Name of the Rose. I have not touched it for more than a week. And frankly, I have not really found myself accomplishing all that much more for my classes and final exams than I was previously accomplishing. So maybe I will allow myself to read a few Umberto pages per day, even during this dreaded exam period. After all, let's be realistic here. It's hardly The Name of the Rose that's to blame for what are sure to be some hideous grades on these finals.

But for the moment, I'm quite engrossed in my Civil Procedure reading, and that is largely because we are reading The Buffalo Creek Disaster and it is a book! An actual book, not a casebook, text, appendix of supplementary legal materials, etc. And it is my favorite thing I have read for Civ Pro in two semesters of the class.

I think it's really interesting even if you're not a law student, and it's a quick read. The "disaster" in question was that the coal mining company had nasty refuse pile "dams" and one day when it rained it was just too much and tons of black water and debris flooded the Buffalo Creek Valley wiping out entire towns, settlements, and hundreds of lives. I'm curious if any of you "old fogies" who read my blog remember when this happened. I'm curious about the news coverage it got outside of West Virginia. I'm curious about your recollections. Please, recollect away.

As law students, we are reading this in Civ Pro as a kind of synthesis/review of the entire semester's worth of material, tracing all the procedural mechanisms of launching (and winning!) an enormous lawsuit. I actually think it's a brilliant teaching move on the part of my professor, and I'm rather enjoying it.

Here are some places you can learn more about the disaster...

West Virginia Division of Culture and History
The Charleston Gazette
Appalshop

...but I highly recommend the book!

April showers bring May roses

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

I'm not really sure that I'm going to be able to finish this book in a timely fashion. What I mean by that is: finals are coming. Oh boy, are they. They are looming so large in my entirely NOT distant future. What that means for The Name of the Rose is that I probably won't finish it until the end of May. Because I probably won't touch it for the next four weeks. Because even I, procrastinator extraordinaire, cannot justify reading that (as much as I want to!) with the vast amounts of reading I need to do for my finals right now.

Sigh.

Maybe I'll read a page or two a week anyway. It's such a good book! I so encourage you to read it. I really feel like I'm hanging out at the abbey with William and Adso, traipsing about, talking to monks, no one above suspicion, everyone revealing little things here and there, and sharp-as-a-tack William seizing upon them all. He's so Holmes-ian, that William. Sherlock or Oliver Wendell. (Wow, I've never until this moment thought about those two both being named Holmes. That's fun.)

On an unrelated literary note, in the last week I've discovered that the vast majority of my reader friends were admirers, fans, devotees of Kurt Vonnegut. I never knew. They never mentioned it, but suddenly Vonnegut died and they all spewed forth into the blogosphere their unbridled love for him. I've only ever read Slaughterhouse Five but I'm starting to think I'd best add Cat's Cradle to my as-soon-as-finals-are-over to do list, right after The Name of the Rose.

Simple Minds

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

It's kind of weird (but fun, interesting) to contemplate the history of the Catholic church in Europe. I suppose I should say "Europe, etc." The powers that were had this way of taking over more and more of everything and subjecting everyone to their will. They "converted," indoctrinated, tortured, and otherwise brought people into the fold. Sure, there were battles along the way and some people put up quite a fight, but they just seemed to get more and more power. Even when the popes and the emperors fought among themselves, the common people could never seem to get the upper hand. There was a lot of greedy storing of treasures acquired from the Middle East and other distant lands, all to make the rich richer and more powerful. And don't forget the total disregard for the truth if it flew in the face of the church-state's agenda.

When you consider that this went on for centuries, it kind of seems like we've got it easy with only eight years of the Bush Administation.

"He explained to me that all his life preachers had told him the Jews were the enemies of Christianity and accumulated possessions that had been denied the Christian poor. I asked him, however, whether it was not also true that lords and bishops accumulated possessions through tithes, so that the Shepherds were not fighting their true enemies. He replied that when your true enemies are too strong, you have to choose weaker enemies. I reflected that this is why the simple are so called. Only the powerful always know with great clarity who their true enemies are." - p. 192

Jesus wept laughed!

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Among the other issues presented in this book, some of the monks in a chapter I recently read argued about laughter. Namely, is it OK? Is it OK to be funny? Did Jesus ever laugh?

Now, of course I'm not really expecting to agree with many monks on many fine points of theological debate, especially seeing as they tend to do this whole taking-the-Bible-literally thing waaaaay too much for my liking. But this I found interesting, and I'd like to gather with Brothers William, Adso, Ubertino, Malachi, and the like to discuss it. And Salvatore. Even though with him it's not really a discussion; he just sort of rambles in his incomprehensible language blend, but I'm rather fond of his incomprehensible language blend. Salvatore is my favorite. He has only had two scenes so far, but I'm hoping for many more.

Anyway the one part I found most interesting was the question of Jesus laughing, and specifically what one of the monks says about it: that he had no reason to, because he was omniscient. Whereas we laugh so often out of surprise, shock, etc., this divine-like being knew everything so you couldn't surprise him! No April Fool's fun hanging with Christ, that's for sure. Although, his big holiday comes right around that time anyway, so maybe you have bigger things to worry about than April fooling. Anyway, I thought this was a bizarre notion. Imagine being all-knowing, and then no longer being able to laugh.

Luckily, I don't believe in any omniscient beings. But I do sometimes refer to The Universe, which I may or may not have characterized as all-knowing, especially when it helpfully delivers me cosmic signs about what I should do with my life by playing a song on the radio or something. However, if said cosmic signs and my resulting life are any indication, then The Universe absolutely, positively knows how to have a good laugh.

Take it away, Depeche Mode!

"I don't mean to start any blasphemous rumors,
but I think that God's got a sick sense of humour,
and when I die
I expect to find
him laughing..."

Dulce et decorum est...

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

There's a whole lot of Latin goin' on in this book.

I like it. First of all, I like languages. This we know. I also like being able to figure out Latin based on my 1)English fluency 2)skill in various romance languages 3)resourcefulness 4)random religious/judicial/choir-singing background and training.

But there's a lot in this book. And sometimes I can't figure it out. And then I frown. And wish for the monks to start speaking in the "vulgar vernacular" again.

That's all for now.

"I've even heard her singing in the abbey!"

NOW READING: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

This one is definitely filed under 'At Long Last.' I first heard about The Name of the Rose years and years ago when I did my brief year at ASU, in between my first "unfortunate incarceration" undergraduate university and my "final resting place" undergraduate university. I took an English class at ASU called Medieval Lyric. It was quite honestly the most specialized class I took throughout undergrad. I can't for the life of me remember the name of the woman who taught it, either, despite the fact that I liked her, and she even had us over to her house at the end of the semester. In fact, she was the first person I heard talk about Dolores Claiborne, too. And we all know what a life-changing experience watching Dolores was for me.

Well, in good ol' Professor What's Her Name's class we talked about lots of medieval things but we also talked about lots of medievel women things. In fact, that was where I first heard of Hildegard von Bingen, too. Wow! I learned a lot in there. Why don't I know her name? Anyway, the class was small. About 10-15 of us. There was one girl in the class who seemed to have read every book on the planet. She was sort of intimidating, in that college-student-feminist-granola-fiercely-smart way. I liked to read, but this girl put me to shame. She brought up The Name of the Rose during one of our medieval women discussions. She said I would love it and "HAD to read it." I was mighty intrigued and pledged to do so. Well, years later I finally make good on this promise.

In the intervening years, of course, we have seen the phenomenon of folly that is The Da Vinci Code. Now, don't get me wrong. I was all over Dan Brown's little mystery, too, and in fact was the first on my block to read it. (And I have a great story about that, too, as anyone who has spent enough time in a bar with me knows.) But I had the misfortune to work in Borders during pretty much the entire reign of The Da Vinci Code; I'm pretty sure it finally came out in paperback sometime while I was in Korea. (The movie came out while I was there, too, but near the end of my time. I still haven't seen it.)

I call the Da Vinci craze folly because I was working in heavily Catholic Massachusetts and I got really sick of people coming in all in a snit about the book. For two reasons. One, these people acted like "God" had just strolled into their bedroom and announced "he" was taking back everything "he" had previously "said," and I just wanted to say, "It's FICTION people. Get over it. When did Dan Brown become your pope/prophet/pastor?" Whatever.

Second reason, though, is because I found nothing all that contradictory to Christianity as I knew and somewhat liked it in the book. Toward the end of my time as a religious person, I was also becoming quite the philosophical feminist, and I pointed out on more than one occasion that Jesus was clearly a feminist and that The Church has hidden certain things over the years and the Bible best illustrates truths when it's not being taken literally and so on and so on. Now that I'm entirely over religion, I don't really care about most of that anymore, but I still marvel at people who are clinging to their religious fervor on whom none of that has dawned quite yet.

Anyway, this is why I am very much liking William, with whom our narrator hangs out visiting the abbey. William is a brilliant monk, inquisitor, judge of human nature and more...and he seems to be challenging some traditional notions of what is good/bad/sin/holy. I like it.

Long live the trobaritzes!

This fate has been brought to you by the letter E

OK, here's how it happened. After my glorious journey through Philip K. Dick's dystopic Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, it was time to select an 'E' author, and the finalists were Louise Erdrich, George Eliot, and Umberto Eco. Only George Eliot was probably never really more than a courtesy finalist. I mean, I may have even picked up Silas Marner once before in my little lifetime, or was it Middlemarch? At any rate, didn't get past a page or two. But as much as I've meant to read her, this little A to Z quest of mine has turned out to be not so much about "classics" and more about twentieth century modernish literary men.

Notice, men. That was one of my main thoughts going into letter E. It was about damn time I had a woman author. At the same time I didn't want to let that stop me from reading something I otherwise intently wanted to read. For example, a book by Umberto Eco. Namely, Foucault's Pendulum, or, even more highly anticipated for even longer, The Name of the Rose.

Well, but then Louise Erdrich, heard so much about her, too. So perhaps it was time for fate to settle this once again, fate having worked out so well with the way it stepped in and chose a Philip K. Dick novel for us.

This time around, I asked fate what to do by going to the Hofstra undergraduate library. After spending enough time in front of the George Eliot shelves to confirm I wasn't really in the mood for her, I moved on to Louise Erdrich, where I was happy to find The Painted Drum, the one of hers by which I was most intrigued. I flipped through some of her others and then decided to stick with that one. All right, then, on to Umberto Eco...and if The Name of the Rose wasn't there, fate would be telling me to read Louise Erdrich.

First I had to remember that what with Umberto being Italian and all, he was on the next floor down (argh, I still say, to Library of Congress call numbers), and then when I finally got there, there was in fact no Rose. That was kind of a "Pam Bachrach moment." Pam was a woman I worked with in L.A., when I spent most of my time in the throes of indecision about what to do next with my life. We'd sit chain smoking on the balcony and she'd give me lots of good advice, most of which I'd ignore. Well, one day as I agonized between two choices she said, "Flip a coin. You'll know while it's in the air how you want it to land."

Ahhh, truer words were never spoken. I've often used this piece of advice since. And while I didn't flip for Louise and Umberto, I realized after fate told me which one to read that I already knew which one I wanted to read, and fate and I didn't agree. (As for me not being on the same page as fate, see also e.g. this year's NCAA tournament.)

Later that night after I finished my law schooly things I was heading back across campus when I recalled that a friend who lives in my building is a fan of The Name of the Rose, so I texted her asking if she owns it and can I borrow it. She responded that she would look right away but wasn't sure if her copy was here on Long Island with her. Perhaps all was not lost. When I got to the parking lot of the building, there she was searching her car, but to no avail.

Well, that was two strikes. But by this point, I had talked to my partner in reading project crime, and it turned out that when I'd pitched The Name of the Rose to him a couple days before I'd been more convincing than I'd realized, and he actually was sufficiently intrigued to read it. Well, then, I couldn't go ahead with Louise, now could I, if I'd sold someone ELSE on Umberto as well?

So, yeah, that's how it happened. Erdrich's The Painted Drum is lying on my floor, ignored, and Eco's The Name of the Rose, procured at Borders, is in my bag, all 500+ pages of it. Hey, it's spring break. I'm more justified than ever in reading a nice luxuriously long non-law book!

"Now, some people say that you shouldn't tempt fate
And for them I would not disagree
But I never learned nothing by playing it safe
I say fate should not tempt me..."

--mary-chapin carpenter, 'i take my chances'

Tears and Roses

I am thinking of electing Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said to my top 10, despite my lack of being able to say anything profound about it here. A book's entry into my top 10 is always a significant event, most recently achieved by Nabokov's Pale Fire in -- what was that -- 2003? Well, unless you count War and Peace. But the W & P just sort of occupies a place of its own; it defies ranking. As novels go, it transcends the medium. About the top 10, the last contender for a spot was Lust for Life by Irving Stone, but in the end that book met a fate much like that of USC's this weekend: it tried, it merited semi-finaldom, but it did not travel to the championship. I still love Lust for Life, though, don't get me wrong. But it really brought me something beyond Top Ten-ness. It brought me Vincent Van Gogh. Totally different.

Anyway, while my mental jury is still out on Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, we have moved on to The Name of the Rose. Is it fated to crack the Top Ten as well, seeing as it makes a lot of top ten lists of a lot of people I've known over the years? I'm so glad I'm finally reading it. Actually, I have something to say about fate's role in the selection of this book...but Property class awaits...stay tuned!

About the rabbit...

See, there's this story that a woman in Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said tells Jason about Emily Fusselman's rabbit. And it's got to be the most amazing story about a rabbit, ever. Giving Watership Down a run for its money, even. In a handful of pages (unlike Adams' allegorical tome) Emily Fusselman's rabbit comes to life, breaks your heart, inspires you, and makes you shake your head at your very existence. I can honestly say that in my decades of reading I have never quite experienced a moment like reading about Emily Fusselman's rabbit. I want to tell you about it, but I also want you to read it. I want to send you scurrying off to your local bookstore/library to read just that chapter, but at the same time I don't think it would be as meaningful out of context, even if it does come out of nowhere. Would it? How do we ever know?

One Big Drug

It's funny, because earlier this week a friend and I were talking about drugs and comparing stories of big drug trips we had experienced/witnessed. And then along comes the revelation (SPOILER ALERT!!) (not that any of you are reading the book!) that Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said is basically an alternative reality concoted by Alys on a maniacal drug trip. It's really bizarre, though, because I wonder why when they come back to reality Felix still doesn't know Jason. Is he lying? Or was part of his brain killed along with Alys? This, this, this is the crux. I tried to develop a theory about this, but it fell apart.

With wondering awe, I ponder a drug that can pull others into its spell. It's like when we were kids and always used to ask each other, "What if this is all just a dream I'm having?!" Except then the other would be like, no, it's a dream I'M having. We all want to be having the dream. It keeps coming back to that, to these questions of self, and identity, and I-think-therefore-I-am. Even on a big drug trip, eh?

Who am I?(Or, "Jukeboxes never made mistakes")

I love to ponder things such as Los Angeles, celebrity, and the so-called shallowness found in the glorious locale that is SoCal. This may be part of why I connected strongly to certain parts of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (which I loved, have I mentioned that?) I find it annoying when people, especially people on the East Coast, talk about Los Angeles with a dismissive wave of their hands of judgment. They accuse people there of being shallow, of driving everywhere even if it's only three blocks away, of being obsessed with celebrity culture, and just generally doing things that everyone else in the nation/most of world also does. I have long since determined that most of the scathing indictments of L.A. that you hear are born of ignorance, jealousy, or both.

I love it there. I miss it, even though I had to move on. I feel conflicted about it in many ways. I was miserable there for a short time, and I was deliriously happy with life there. I would say that it was in fact life in Los Angeles that taught me how to live.

On the other hand, I can totally be self-deprecating and also I can laugh at quirky things, and L.A. is nothing if not quirky. So, for example, I rather appreciate lines from Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said such as this:

"'I hate L.A.'...
'So do I,' the pol said...'But we must learn to live with it: it's there.'"
-p. 122

Yet I also appreciate the much bigger and broader statement that this book makes about celebrity, identity, and self. The whole plot of the book, of course, questions whether without your identity you would really exist. Think about that for a second. The answer probably goes the other way, really, in that once you exist you begin to construct your identity. So, Philip K. Dick probes this and takes it to another level. If you were Jason Taverner, a celebrity performer whose television show is seen every week by 30 million viewers and one day you woke up and suddenly, inexplicably, no one knew who you were, even the woman(en) you'd been sleeping with, and there was no record of your birth, your fame, your place in the world, what would that mean for you?

In the imagined dystopic police state Dick has created in Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (which, by the way, have you noticed I'm not abbreviating that title? I really like the title) it would mean for starters that you need to get your hands on some identity cards, and quick, lest you be shipped off to a forced labor camp or taken out by a pol or a nat. And that is what our hero sets out to do, setting the weird book's plot in motion. But later when his identity is regained (and didn't we know it would be, really?) you're forced to think about what it would mean to lose yourself like that.

Like, if a celebrity fell in the forest and there were no paparazzi there to snap pictures, would it really matter? That sort of thing. But what if YOU fell in the forest? Don't we all just want people to care about us? I used to think about this all the time. Especially when I lived in L.A. and I started knowing more and more people who were related to/dating/working with famous people, ever reducing the degrees of separation. Or who had some notoriety and/or became famous themselves. It never really bothered me that people are interested in someone who knows someone famous. I think it's a lot like high school. I mean, how do there get to be popular people? Sure, some people are friendly and outgoing and involved, and exponentially their "fame" grows, but that doesn't explain it all. At some point popularity feeds upon itself; that's why by senior year you can often predict the same four people who will get nominated for homecoming queen etc. It's the same as someone like Paris Hilton, who becomes ever more famous just for being famous.

Jason is so happy when he gets his identity back, and the reader is SO happy for him. With him. It's quite the exciting moment, there in the coffee shop, when Ms. Pottery Thang innocently strolls back from the jukebox and is like, OK, I'm playing your song. Suddenly, Jason (not to mention me along with him) is in a daze, What?! It's there?! And he continues to marvel, through many playings of the song, at his very existence. Which has been reinstated.

"'Again I'm real,' he said. 'But if it could happen once, for two days--' To come and go like this, to fade in and out--
'Maybe we should leave,' Mary Anne said apprehensively.
That cleared his mind. 'Sorry,' he said, wanting to reassure her.
'I just mean that people are listening.'
'It won't hurt them,' he said. 'Let them listen; let them see how you carry your worries and troubles with you even when you're a world-famous star.'"
- p. 180

We have this great thing here at law school called anonymous grading. On our exams, and on this most recent (huge, dastardly) assignment in our appellate advocacy class, we put our given final exam number instead of our names, and only after the thing has been graded is the product linked to our identity. I see why it happens. It amuses me none the less. Also they are five digit numbers and mine begins with two, so I kept writing 2-X-X-X-X, and in my head then I would start singing from Les Miserables, "Who am I?! Who am I?! Two!-four!-six!-oh!-one!!!!!!!" What a dramatic moment it is when Jean Valjean reveals himself, he who has gone into hiding and come out of hiding, always protecting people he loves and striving for the greater good. Well, I mean, Valjean has a lot of dramatic moments of course. Anyway, I was also thinking during one of my exams last semester as well as during this appellate brief we just wrote that my professors who KNEW me would know it was my exam whether my name was on it or not. I've long been told my "voice" (the figurative one) comes through in my writing, and I can see it happening, usually.

Well...look at me. More information, but still a lot of rambling. I must say, though, that I LOVED this book. When I read the ending, on the subway last night, the last words made my heart skip a beat, made my spirit swell. And I'm totally going to say more about that. Tomorrow.

MADness

All right. It has come to my attention that since my recent discovery of my love for Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, I am giving a lot of random and vague ramblings, without giving a lot of information. Although, hello, isn't that what blogs are for? But that's not the point. The point is: I'm BUSY, people! I'm also almost done with the book. Which I love. And about which I plan to say something specific and enlightening and profound. Soon. Very soon.

For now, another fun quote:

"'Is she insane?' Jason asked him.
'I'm not in a position to know, sir,' the man in the brown uniform said."
-- p. 160

Tear-flowin' love

Love it. Love it love it love it. So much love for the Philip K. Dick. I totally want to go read other things he's written, like right now! I might do that. Speaking of what to read next, for anyone who cares to vote, I'm looking at Eco Eliot or Erdrich for 'E.' (That's Umberto, George, and Louise.) Speaking of voting, and Georges, today I got the brilliant inspiration in the midst of the signs posted for all the "Vote for me for president of law school student government" etc. signs that are up right now, as the campaign for next year's officers is in full swing, that why don't we vote George W. for president of Hofstra Law SBA and then he can step down from "his" current position? That got me a dirty look. Anyway, I digress. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said is so good!

It's funny, like, "I hate L.A., too, but we have to live with it. It's there."

It's totally amazingly deep, as I tried to at least mention in my last post.

And furthermore I totally want to know what is going to happen!

I LIKE this Alys character, a lot. Except now she's ... well, bones? Maybe? What exactly happened there?

I definitely recommend this book.

Off to Indigo...

Love gained

First of all, I now love Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. That's right, I said love. I also love that I'm reading it. I don't know what great secrets of the universe are contained in Valis and the others, but this one is transcendent. WHO KNEW. Love it.

And speaking of love, how brilliant is Philip K. Dick? Because oh, you know, along about chapter 11 he just completely defines love. Hello? Have we not, collectively, as a species, been trying to define love via song, philosophy, scripture, poem, art, action, thought, drug-induced frenzy...for millennia? And along comes Philip to just throw it out there. Love: it overcomes the instinct for survival!

Thing is, even if I didn't have to dash off to Property at the moment, I'd have an incredibly hard time explaining this, and my attempts to paraphrase him would be pathetic. But it is so intense and so good, this book!

And dash I must.

Emily Fusselman's rabbit. Holy. Crap. I will have more to say here.

The Writer's Last Sigh

First, Kathy is MESSED up. Just putting that out there.

Second, I've been giving some more thought to my dislike of sighence fiction and what I think of Philip K. Dick. I have fleshed out my theory. You see, what bugs me is that nearly all sigh-fi writers have the same weakness. They've got this wacky world going on where people live on Jupiter or where there are no more murders or where there are microtransmitters planted in everyone's brain or where the fire department burns books or what have you, and you're reading along, and they drop some hints and provide some things with subtle exposition and good storytelling and context, and then it's like suddenly they go Oh, crap, I have to explain to my readers that in this world everyone has a brain transplant when they turn twelve so suddenly two characters have a totally implausible conversation and one says, "You know how in this world we all have a brain transplant when we turn twelve?" and the other says, "Yes, right, that's so they can collect our old brains for the aliens who come to take the best cells out of them" and it's like -- THEY WOULD NOT BE SAYING THAT! And not because I can't suspend my disbelief about the brain transplant but because they ALREADY KNOW that and it's stupid and it just shows the weak sigh-fi writer has become lazy about subtly exposing and wanted to take a shortcut and I hate it.

So that has happened. On the other hand, I think this book is rather literary. He is forever making literary allusions. Sometimes he comes out and cites "'And leaves the world to darkness and to me,' he thought, reccalling a line from Thomas Gray's Elegy. A long cherished favorite of his..." (p. 79). Other times he just alludes. "Another loser, among many. Many are called, he said to himself, but few are chosen. That's what it means to be a pro." (p.62) One can tell that Philip K. Dick is smart and writerly. But I did sigh a little bit. I haven't sighed for many pages now. We shall see what happens...

Also, I still love Heather. She is my new Myrtle Clare. (And p.s., how rad is it that the real Myrtle was IN THE MOVIE In Cold Blood?!) Heather is so cranky. Psycho Kathy had some Talking Tina-esque doll that knows about people and it told Jason to find Heather in an attempt to get out of this "why don't I exist, suddenly?" predicament. So he calls one of Heather's unlisted numbers, and turns out she doesn't have any more recollection of him than did his agent or the birth certificate files or anybody else, but there is clearly more to come there. Their conversation is hilarious, and she thinks he's some "twerp fan" and keeps calling him that and demanding to know how he got her private number, but it's just so randomly hilarious how she is so feisty. I love it. He's like, Heather, Heather, I'm a six! And she responds, "A six what? You have six legs, is that it? Or more likely six heads. " (p. 58) I can just hear her spitting those words at him. I LIKE her. Immensely.

I'm also rather on the edge of my seat to find out more about this whole six business, I must say. All we know is that they're some kind of elite group of people who were made to be sixes. No idea what that really is about.

Sigh.

Flow My Tears, the 1st-Year Law Student Said

So, yeah. We chose Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. By "we" I mean, variously: me, the whims of fate, my fellow reader/partner in comprehensively dorky crime, the buyers who are responsible for inventory selection (or lack thereof) at behemoth bookstores...

Here are my findings, so far.

• I like the cover. (My edition is ISBN: 0679-74066X) It reminds me a little bit of our poster for The Vagina Monologues, come to think of it.
  
• I can pronounce the title. But can I understand it? It is supposed to come from a poem that composer John Dowland set to music in something like the 1600s. But the references to that piece write his lyric as "Flow, my tears..." In other words, it's a command. So where's Philip K. Dick's comma? Yeah. Exactly. He only puts one, later, preceding "the Policeman Said." Maybe I will understand this when I meet a policeman character later on in the book. Maybe I won't. Stay tuned.
  
• I've read four chapters and have met as many weird characters.
  
• I don't know what I think about it yet. When I first started reading it I was in a wretched mood, brought on by the Evil Appellate Brief Consuming My Life On Which I Am Making Substantial Progress. The other day it was more like the Evil Appellate Brief Consuming My Life On Which I Had Barely Started. I hated everyone I saw, but really I maybe just hated the world of research and procrastination in which I dwelt. And in the first chapter of Flow... there was a cranky woman who hated everyone and perfectly matched my mood and I loved it.
  

  "He had never understood her dislike for fans; to him they were the lifeblood of his public existence...'You shouldn't be an entertainer,' he said to Heather, 'feeling the way you do. Get out of the business. Become a social worker in a forced-labor camp.'
  'There're people there, too,' Heather said grimly."
  

• Yeah, forced labor camps. Why? Well, because it's a weird world. It's a science fiction book. It necessarily has weird flying machines and mind control and a dystopic society and all that other crap. I don't dislike it; it's just so -- well, science fictiony. Sigh. Science fiction makes me sigh. Hey, I should call it sighence fiction! Brilliant! Oh, I'm so going to do that. But I digress.

  My old reading pals in L.A. and I would talk about our Walls. We each had a Wall with regard to books. I think one friend's wall was Latin American magical realism and such. Another person might have a Wall with romance. We're voracious readers, but stop short of reading "everything." My Wall, I think, is usually science fiction. Even when it's good, it takes a lot for me to read it. Plus, I'm not entirely sure I think it's all that good when it's Good Science Fiction. Example, Fahrenheit 451. Loved the message, but frankly I liked the interview with Bradbury included in the back of the 50th anniversary edition better than the book itself. (In the interview he commented among other things on the insidious aspects of television and their similarity to things in his book).

  The only science fiction book I've ever really liked, really, is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Often when I say that, people say, "Well, and that isn't even really science fiction..." Exactly. Nonetheless, I have long been intrigued by Philip K. Dick, and I really wanted to read something by him. Plus I had this idea of him that he was kind of scisighence fictiony, but also kind of postmodern weird fictiony. And I like that very much. Pynchon and the like. So I'm still reserving judgment, and I'm trying to break down my Wall, but so far when I think about whether or not I like this book, I just think, "Well, it's really sighence fictiony..."

• Also, I don't really have time for much of anything until I finish this dastardly Evil Appellate Brief Consuming My Life On Which I Am Making Substantial Progress. But I sneak in a chapter of Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said here and there on the train. And it makes me happy. Because, well, anything is better than the Evil Appellate Brief Consuming My Life On Which I Am Making Substantial Progress. To which I must now return.

Which one, which one, which one?

If anyone has anything to say to me about which Philip K. Dick novel to read (he has been elected to represent 'D') then text me in the next few hours or forever hold your peace. Sara, I have taken into consideration your pitch for Valis, even though we really had narrowed it down to Ubik or Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said... Quite frankly, I'm leaning toward Flow My Tears... if nothing else because I know how to pronounce it. (oh, hush, don't take me so seriously all the time)

By the way, this is fun: http://literature-map.com/