"The Apologizer" by Milan Kundera

The story can be found here in The New Yorker, May 4, 2015.

First Line: "It was the month of June, the morning sun was emerging from the clouds, and Alain was walking slowly down a Paris street."

Last Line: "Then they walked toward the museum."

This is the first Kundera I have read since college.  When I went back to my beloved literature textbook, there was only one piece in there - "The Hitchiking Game" - and it had been ripped out!  Why?  Was I upset with the story?  It obviously stirred something in me.  The idea that once you play the game you can't go back to where you once were?

I was upset with "The Apologizer".  There is a lot that I did not agree with on a personal level - the personality and purpose of Eve, our agency in coming to this Earth, the "unalienable" rights we have, the purpose of abortion, the purpose of sexuality, the idea of apologizing for living...

I first revolted against the style.  The story begins with a series of thoughts, ideas.  Then it shifts into a seemingly unrelated backstory using a different tense and point of view.  And finally we are led to the real story - everything else having just been introduction and support.  Then when I understood their purpose to the story, I wasn't closed off - I became curious, but with a hearty dose of hesitation.

All the pieces are brought together for a well-crafted short story full of organic symbolism and natural imagery.

But I still struggled with the ideas.  And I know that that is okay - sometimes even necessary.  For a story is to make us ask questions, not to pose solutions.  And the hatred was heavy...  It was so thick and desperate.

A mother who doesn't apologize or hold herself accountable, but blames and assigns feelings and intents to make herself the victim.  A son who just wants to be loved by his mother - so much so, that he is willing to have an enabling, codependent relationship with her ghost: "Isn't it lovely, apologizing to each other?"

Well-written.  I reacted to the ideas with in it in an emotional way.  I left the story, still feeling.  Frustrated with the things we make up to make our world feel safe or at least "known" to us - when in fact, we can never really KNOW someone else and their minds and hearts.  Which is the importance of hope and the fight against despair..

Kundera must have done something right for I am incited.  Ugh. Again.

Thanks...

Thanks to Sunshine Seekins at Bottled Up Bliss Photography for the great photo that has become my new header!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bottled-Up-Bliss-Photography/856117291085742
 

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Previously published in the Canon City Daily Record on April 25, 2015.


All the Light We Cannot See has spent 50 weeks on The New York Times Besteller List and just has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. And for good reason. As soon as I finished the 530th page, I immediately turned back to the beginning. I had to read it again. It is a beautiful book that I did not want to end.

Anthony Doerr's tightly knit story began as a simple idea: a blind girl reading to a boy over a radio, and developed into a gorgeous World War II novel of depth and honesty.

The striking cover was my original attraction to the book. It is a photograph of the town of Saint-Malo in France, but it is not traditional black and white. It is many shades of blue. The lyrical title is in pure white font, bright, above the horizon. Still, I put the book down and walked away. I didn't want to read another book about World War II.

I am glad I was again pulled to it, for this is not your average World War II story. There is no discussion of the Holocaust or the Japanese. It is not about the British or the North African front. It concentrates on these two children and how their experiences overlap, even running headlong into each other. It is about the intersection of human hearts.

Marie-Laure LeBlanc has been blind for ten years and learns to find her way around the neighborhood by scale models built by her father, the Master of Locks at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Werner Pfennig, an orphan in a German mining town, finds that his talent for radios lands him in an elite Nazi-run school, where he is forced into an existence that confuses and overwhelms him.

Mr. Doerr's details and imagery are crafted in such a way that I was swept into the world of Marie-Laure, blind, working in the Resistance, seeking to do the right thing. At the same time, I was drawn into the dark and celebrated world of Werner, and his path - finding and destroying those resistant to Hitler. These children are caught up in a very "grown-up" war. They are called to make decisions that both cost and save lives.

I found that the short chapters and shifting points of view create a fast-paced book. It is sweeping and cinematic, but, at the same time, small and focused. There is suspense and grief - with moments of celebration and hesitation. It is about the strength of a seaside town against a giant enemy and a jewel called the Sea of Flames. It is about the power of radio as propaganda to the poor, the masses, the foot soldiers. It invites us to examine what we choose when we are alone and the decisions we make in the presence of others.

With realistic characters and a surprise ending, this story challenges the notion that the difference between good and evil is clear in people. People are not so polar. They cannot be. For people are filled with "all the light we cannot see."

Today is TED day - Harry Baker

Harry Baker.

It's just fun to say his name.

It's even more to say it in a British accent.

It's the best to hear him say "Harry Baker".

Harry Baker is the 2012 World Poetry Slam Champion.  In this amazing TED talk, he shares why he chose to move from an expected career path and into the world of poetry. "I believe words hold power."

He talks about accepting a part of our Self: the powerful part that says we are unique, boxless, and we all have something important to do.

"If I didn't write my poems no one else would."

Harry Baker is engaging, witty, and a brilliant and contemporary poet.  He is creative and inspirational, honest and sensitive.

He tells his story of the world.  And it is enough.

Here's more Harry Baker:
 http://www.ted.com/talks/harry_baker_a_love_poem_for_lonely_prime_numbers?language=en
http://www.harrybaker.co/
 

The ways I show my books they are loved...

The ways I show my books they are loved:

• I always have one in my purse.
• I take them into the bath.
• Some were rescued from library throw-away piles and "free" boxes at yard sales.
• They are slept on and with. All drool is carefully wiped off.
• I read them.
• I hold them.
• I flip through their pages.
• I rearrange them.
• I write notes in them - about the plot, an idea for my next story, phone numbers, grocery lists, doodles.
• I break bindings.
• I free them from tight and unfashionable book jackets.
• They are spider-squishers.
• I have used them as step-stools and seats.
• I dog-ear pages.
• I eat salads with drippy, splashy dressings in their company.
• I hold it firmly at the bottom of the spin when reading on the couch.  In bed, the top of the spine is held tightly.
• I bandage ripped pages with tape.
• They sit in the sun all day with me.
• I stack them on the floor for ambience, and so as to not cram them into my over-full shelves.
• I keep the ones that were left out in the rain and have been dried, hanging over the back of a dining room chair, above the heating vent.  
• I cry over the moldy ones...  Sometimes I will read them one last time before they must go...
• My bookshelves are on exterior walls - they are insulation.
• And that fine layer of dust?  It makes each one feel like a treasure when I pull it down to read.

Books are tools.  Some may be fancy tools, where you are told to "look with your eyes and not your hands".  That is understandable.  

But my books?  Those are the highways and byways of life meant to be walked, ridden, biked, and skipped, picking up new friends and experiences along the journey.  

A little bit of "road rash" is a sign of a book well-loved.

For proper book-care...
http://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/books.html
http://www.nypl.org/press/press-release/2011/11/01/dos-and-don%E2%80%99ts-taking-care-your-personal-books-home

"Peacetime" by Luke Mogelson

This story can be found here in the April 27, 2015 issue of The New Yorker.

First Line: "I was living in the armory on Lexington Avenue."

Last Line: "Somewhere someone was calling my name."

Oh, I enjoyed this story!  From beginning to end, I was engaged.  I didn't look to check the clock or flip the pages ahead, wondering how many more were left.  With the first line, I just settled in for the ride.

The narrator tells us he was living in an armory.  Not staying overnight to get away from it all and clear his head.  Not a drill weekend for his unit.  Not stopping by to chat with the commanding officer.  He was living there.  He told the First Sergeant "two weeks, max" and ended up there for months after returning stateside.  He was avoiding going home to his wife.

Why?  We don't know yet.  But as we follow the episodes that occurred during this time, we find out more about the man we only know by last name, Papadopoulos.  

He works as an EMT.  There is a "regular" 911 caller - a lonely widow who calls in every Wednesday.  He and his partner, Karen, respond to a motorcycle accident, a rotting body, a gas explosion, a failed suicide attempt. Twice.  All of these incidents skillfully intertwine with Papadopoulos's off-hand attitude about his marriage, a war-induced pulmonary disease, a new hobby - kleptomania, drinking, drill weekends.  

Papadopoulos tells us everything that is going on with candid honesty.  There is an unburdening of self that shows he is conscious of the audience to his story, but also is not completely aware of himself just yet. Karen hits the nail on the head: "You think you're being a good person, but you're not.  What you're being is afraid."  

Every episode of this story is shared for a reason - to give us insight into this young veteran.  We learn about him best through his interactions with his commanders, partner, neighbor, fellow soldiers, patients. 

He is a good person.  He has loyalties and a sense of right and wrong.  And his profession is one of rescue and nurture - to come into a moment of crisis and create a sense of order and control, healing.  

But who can offer him the healing he is seeking?  War creates an altered definition of "peacetime" and here, now, looking back on the events shared, Papadopoulos recognizes he is broken and haunted.  "Someone somewhere is calling [his] name."

The writing voice of Luke Mogelson is conversational, like a casual interview. With increasing comfort, Papadopoulos spirals deeper and deeper into memories, creating a tight and honest tale.  The details are written with such conviction and accessibility it could be a nonfiction account.  And such a tone held my interest.  The realism of the story, the emotion, the humanness were welcoming.  Mogelson posed questions without dictating a solution. Heavy and important themes were approachable here.

I searched for more of this author's work after reading this piece. He is a journalist by trade and I was able to look at some of those writings.  I found them to be compelling as well.  I look forward to more by Luke Mogelson.

a thought...

 

Part of the painful beauty of creativity is going through a hell, and then learning to sit on its edges, objectively exploring it without falling in.

Today is TED Day - Dave Isay

On Fridays I will post a TED talk that I find supports my claims that the story is enough: enough to teach truth and create connection.

"Dave Isay: Everyone around you has a story the world needs to hear"

Dave Isay is the founder of StoryCorps.

I first found StoryCorps on NPR.  It is an oral history project - but it is one of the largest ever.  Recorded conversations - casual interviews - are preserved and shared.  Because "everyone around [us] had a story the world needs to hear".  Because talking and sharing our stories is how we learn about each other - that our lives are not meant to be lived in "quiet desperation".  

The story is enough to help us discover how similar we are.  We discern collective truths.  We find we are not very different when it comes to the heart.

"Major Maybe" by Ann Beattie

The story can be found here in The New Yorker.

First Line: "The red-haired homeless lady was arrested after she fell in the street and a taxi almost ran over her."

Last Line: "Indelible, the yellow pollen on the floor."

"Major Maybe" is a story of a memory - nostalgia.  It is about an image that pops up and takes the narrator back to a time that is rich with thoughts, choices, feelings.  A time when she was free to not choose and a time when she was able to observe and live without judgment. 

Remembering the red-haired woman's "mad dash into traffic" brought up recollections of a neighbor's dog, accused by the woman to be a devil.  The narrator's memories are further pressed into the building she lived in, the neighbors, her roommate, their affection that had its brief moment.  We dance along with Beattie in and around these images.  Up one tangent, and down another.  We follow her from an abrupt passionate moment with her roommate to her current state: married and remembering those days gone by.  All of this brought about by a picture she sees in a magazine of her old apartment.  

With my first reading, I felt like I was the tail-end in a game of Crack-the-Whip.  Beattie took me one direction, and then yet another.  The tone was both conversational and poetic. I was excited to follow where it would go.

But then it ended.  Sharply.  Beattie took a turn that left me stunned, fallen on the grass, gasping for fresh air.

Even so, I love the last line.  It echoes.  It lingers.  It made me ponder and made me go back into the story to find it's importance - to find why it hovered in my mind.

But it also made me question what a story is.  

At first, it seemed a poetic vignette - a lyric.  A snapshot-memory and then, life goes on.  How is this a shorty story?  What is the purpose in sharing this bit of nostalgia?

The purpose of the short story is to elicit a response from the reader.  Someone has insisted that they entertain. And Chekhov has said that writers are to ask the readers questions, not to answer them.  But each story must have a beginning, middle, and end.  That's what separates it from vignettes. 

I read again "Major Maybe" looking for the plot, the questions, looking for my answer to them.  And it was the ending line that kept haunting me.  "Indelible, the yellow pollen on the floor."

In an interview with The Paris Review, Ann Beattie said:

Certain things that I like about endings—endings that hint at the whole story, that let you know there is an arc, but that offer some related image or emotion, instead of decoding the initial image, or pattern, or symbol, endings that alter the tone and the mood just a bit. I realize that some people criticize me for being arbitrary with my endings. I think my stories are very determined. I can tell you the reverberation I have in mind for each element in the story. I can’t make you read it that way, but it’s been contrived, and then revised. What is there is intentional.

I can see it. There is an "intentional" arc in this story.  Both the plot and the characters shift from where they were in the beginning.  There is a beginning, middle, and end.  The narrator shifts.  And her life has shifted with her.  

I can see it, but I had to look really hard, with eyes squinted, to see it.

The thing that remains?  Something "indelible".  Memories.


My "response" to this story?  "And?  So?"

Did I find questions here to examine?  Yep: "What is the author trying to do here?"

Was I entertained?  For a bit. 

Do I still think this is really more like a photograph despite the beginning, middle, and end and the narrator's shift?  Does this feel like a vignette forced to dress-up like a short story?

Yes.

 

How I choose my next book...

There are so many to choose from - books. 

And they all have stories inside.

How do I decide which one I want to read next?

I was a Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) volunteer for a number of years.  I connected books with the children who would love them best.  I talked about the stories, I read them snippets, I gave advice on how to pick a book and then I let them loose to choose their free book.

I taught them to choose books the way I do - with my five senses.

SIGHT - Do I like the cover?  The font?  The size of the type?  The color of the pages?  Is there artwork within the story?  Do I want the big, thick, LONG book, or do I need a light, thin one?  Are there lots of words, chapters?  Am I okay with that today?

SOUND - Do I like the sound of the title in my ears?  What about when I fan through the pages?  Is it a nice sound?

SMELL - How does this book smell?  If I am going to curl up into a ball and read it, will the smell make me happy or give me a headache?  

TOUCH - How does this book fit in my hands?  Do I want a hardcover?  A mass-market paperback or a trade paperback?  Do I like the feel of a glossy cover or a matte cover?  Can I take off the book jacket if I want to while reading?  Can I turn the pages easily enough?  How much give is there in the binding?  Can I keep it open comfortably?

TASTE - I am not going to put this book in my mouth, but is it my style?  Do I like this genre, author, reading level, story?  Will I enjoy reading this tale?  Did someone else like it before me?

And I do choose a book this way - based on cover, title, how it feels in my hands, the smell of the ink and paper, reviews...

After all, all books have stories.

Which one do I want to read next?
 

"The Drop" starring Tom Hardy

 
I watch movies with a writer's eye.  I want the elements I adore in fiction to be just as powerful on film.  I want the characters to be believable - real.  I want the setting to make sense.  I want the plot to move and carry me along with it.  I want the conflict to be credible.  And I want the themes to linger - I want to walk away still thinking about what I just saw and experienced.

That is what happened to me when I watched "The Drop" starring Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, and James Gandolfini.  Bob, the main character, was easy to connect to and I wanted to find out his story - the one he was in, and the one he was from.  And it takes place in a city neighborhood, residents bonded together by making a living and keeping head above water.  All relatable and quite interesting.

But the conflict?  Fantastic! An inept young man, living his parents old house, works at his cousin's bar, now a drop location for criminal money.  He finds a wounded dog and with the help of the lovely, but secretive young woman, nurses the dog back to health.  Weaving throughout this story is, of course, "the drop", a man from the woman's past, and Bob's mysterious secrets. It is constantly moving forward at an exciting pace.  The tense and active scenes are well-balanced with scenes that develop the characters and the plot.

And I could not stop thinking about this film.  

So I decided to read the short story on which the screenplay was based: "Animal Rescue".  Both were written by Dennis Lehane, who also write "Mystic River".  His latest novel is World Gone By.

And I must say, I preferred the film to the short story.  I rarely do, but this time, what I loved about the movie was not in the story.  The film's suspense, curiosity, and thrills were nowhere  found in the short story.  It explained the plot and detailed the conflict, but in the film, things were not linear and they were not so obvious.  What we know about Bob in the short story's beginning becomes the twist that seals the deal in the film. 

I was disappointed by the short story.

I was very impressed with the film.

I walked away thinking about love, trust, honor.  I had a lot of "what would I do if it were me?" moments.  And I am still considering.  Do I agree with choices made?  Disagree?  Understand?  Did I really just cheer for that?

I highly recommend this film.  Check it out on IMDb first. There is violence and language and a few references to sexuality.



 
 

"Apollo" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This story can be found here in The New Yorker.

First Line: "Twice a month, like a dutiful son, I visited my parents in Enugu, in their small overfurnished flat that grew dark in the afternoon."

Last Line: "I could have taken back my lie and left my parents merely to wonder."

"Apollo" is the story of a Okenwa, "a dutiful son", visiting his parents, now retired.  They have changed in his eyes and seem to move from their educated thoughts of his childhood years to accomodate the mythical beliefs, the stories they scorned just fifteen years earlier. 

Okenwa, now 27, is also changed.  He is prompted to return to a moment when he was twelve years old, by a conversation he has with his aged parents about increased crime in their area.  One of the ring leaders is purported to be a one-time houseboy of theirs, Raphael.  His mother shrugs it off, saying that her son would not remember this houseboy - there had been many and her own son had been so young, so unaware.

The narrator turns to the reader, "Of course I remembered Raphael."

The story takes us back to when Okenwa creates a friendship with Raphael. Together they watch Bruce Lee films, master nunchucks, and hide their socialibility from his harsh and unyielding parents.  "It was after school, with Raphael, that my real life began." 

And then this comraderie is taken to the next level when Raphael becomes ill with "Apollo", conjunctivitis.  (The landing of the Apollo 11 on the moon coincided with a pandemic of conjunctivitis that swept through many countries in Africa. The disease was subsequently nicknamed "Apollo".)

The parents banish the houseboy to his quarters, and while they provide him with the medicines he needs, Raphael is not learned in how to put in the eye drops.  Okenwa, with fondness, decides to assist without his parents' knowledge or permission.  Shortly thereafter, Okenwa is stricken with Apollo. The tale then comes to its precipice.

I found this story to be neat and tidy.  It was sparse, but with perfection, containing all the elements of a short story: character, plot, theme, conflict, and setting.  It was classic in its presentation and a great piece to read.

"I am drawn to brave endings that stun you and make you reconsider the beginning," says author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Did her story do that here?  Was Okenwa a dutiful son?

I found myself reconsidering the beginning.  The more I think about this story, the more I find to consider and ponder.

UPDATE - April 14, 2014 - please listen to Chimamanda's Ngozi Adichie's powerful TED talk - The Danger of a Single Story.

"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

 

The Things They Carried.  Tim O’Brien.  New York: Broadway Books, 1998.  246 pp

I’m always buying books.  Thrift stores, yard sales, estates.  At a recent auction, I was excited to find a box holding many titles familiar to me but not yet read.  I won the bidding on the box and that evening pulled out the books, touching them, enjoying covers and blurbs, placing them where they belonged on my shelf.

I mis-shelved The Things They Carried.  I thought it was non-fiction.  It wasn’t until I pulled it down a few weeks later that I realized my mistake.

Fiction it is.  But it is fiction intertwined with truth.  O’Brien used his own experiences in Vietnam to give validity and depth to the tales told here.  This book is an exploration of the platoon soldier’s experience enhanced by the author’s specific and detailed memories.  The conversational tone and authentic voice encourages readers to listen and comprehend.

This story follows a path much like concentric circles.  Incidents are touched on, and revisited later in the story with much more depth, honesty, and vulnerability.  Like an onion, the first chapter is gorgeous and golden.  But it is a papery husk covering the crisp layers opening to the sulfur-rich center. With each chapter, story, we are invited deeper and deeper into the trenches, into the war, into the hearts of each man.  There we find tender feelings covered by bravado, silence, or ill-humor.

The title story was my favorite.  I read it twice before reading the rest of the book.  How creative to share characters by detailing what they carried!  How compassionate, and yet naïve, of us, the reader, to think we know the kind of man who carries M&Ms or scriptures or love letters!

Included in my copy was a slip of paper with a professor’s name and email.  The pages of the book were dog-eared.  I do not doubt that this copy was read and discussed as literature in a college somewhere.  I am sure it also elicited conversations of human nature, friendship, war, and death, for those that may never have to face a draft. 

The book didn’t focus on the enemy or “good versus evil” or even “right or wrong”.  Here are the stories of boys who become men - the stories of discovering the truth of what they really carried.