A TALE OF LOSS

 

I have just finished William Maxwell’s probably forgotten So Long, See You Tomorrow.  It is one of those novels which leave you feeling forlorn, bereft, forsaken when you get to the end.  These are bits of the human experience beautifully dealt with by this author who lost his own mother when a child. 

In fact, this terrain is so familiar to him that he can even convincingly limn the emotions of an abused farm dog tied to a rope by his indifferent departing master to await the new tenant who expects the dog as just another fixture.  She eventually runs off to town and manages to find her old master.  For this she is beaten and returned.  When she turns back up, she is put down. 

The humans don’t fare much better in this tale of boyhoods left exposed, as I suppose all are, to the whims, passions, and mistakes of their adult caretakers.  Sometimes it is only the occasional small kindness that saves a life from total wreck. It is from reading this kind of tender prose that you realize how tenuously we are tethered to lives of happiness.  It’s a wonder many of us have them. 

THE PLEASURE OF A KIND OF READING

 

My friend, Lynn (not in photo), recently gave me an old paperback called The Secular Journal of Thomas Merton.  I espied it in his house and expressed interest.  He gave it to me which means eBay betrayed no great covetousness for it.  I am thankful, nonetheless.  Like many of my favorite books, it is a great one for just picking up when I have a few minutes to kill.  The other day, I had a spare moment waiting to let in the woman who cleans the restaurant.  I keep such books in my car for those occasions. 

It occurred to me when I put it down that reading these varied essays is like reading a blog.  Then, I thought, no; reading a blog is like reading these essays.  It should properly be recognized which came first and begat the other.  There is really nothing new about blogging except the mode of transmission.  This observation is not a revelation, but I still think it is worth noting that there is a tendency with the new technology for its exponents to hail it as something new under the sun.  It isn’t, and we need to go back at least to Montaigne to properly place our gratitude.  Essay, of course, [Is any phrase more arrogant, than "of course"?] comes from the French word which means “to try” or “to attempt”.  Essays are attempts at explaining or ruminating on a subject.

I make this observation, hopefully, without making the egregiously risible connection between what you are ill-fatedly reading now and the essays of Montaigne or, more lately, Wendell Berry, Joan Didion, or Meghan Daum.  But, I think I do share with them the delight of working out something on paper in order to work it out in my head.  It seems axiomatic to me that the best way to figure out what I really think about a thing is to put out as much as I can on paper, read it, reread it, go away from it and reread it later, and then bring it to a final form.  It is delightful, but often hard.  That’s why some of my posts molder for a time in the “drafts” file of WordPress’ server. 

Too, it’s interesting to pursue this as a conversation with one or a few people you have in mind who may read your writing.  If you’re lucky enough to get feedback, the process I’ve described above is all the more enhanced by this voluntary editing of your ideas. 

NOT SO DAILY

OK, I’ve forsaken DHC for a few days.  The life of a father is unaccompanied by a lot of free time.

In the time since I’ve written, I finished Garp.  I’m glad I had saved it for myself.  Irving is one of those writers who can draw the reader in on an emotional level without compromising his art.  Now reading James Salter’s “The Hunters”.  I have stated several times since I discovered JS that he is now my favorite writer.  I only wish he were more prolific.  The stories in “Last Night” have those electric moments; a single word or image employed at exactly the right moment hits you like the live end of a severed wire.  He is very careful and I am rewarded for his care.

JOHN IRVING

Here’s a link– I think my readers may be linked to death before it’s said and done– to an interview on Powell’s with Mr. John Irving that I enjoyed a while back.  He makes some funny and interesting comments about James Joyce and George Bush.  What company!

http://www.powells.com/authors/irving.html

I loved Owen Meany which I read a long time ago.  I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to read another one of his books.  They’re like the best bites on my plate which I’ve raked to the outer edge with my fork to save for last.