"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.