The Shining

After reading Herzog I decided to read something light.  I’ve been wanting to read a novel by Stephen King and it was Halloween weekend so I decided The Shining would be perfect.  It’s been a few years since I saw Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of the book but, as you know if you’ve seen it, the images were still very clear in my mind.  I expected that the movie had followed the book closely but I was mistaken.  The two stories are similar but distinctly different.  I was a little surprised a the amount of unnecessary and pervasive vulgarity used by King.  It is reminiscent of watching an action or comedy from the eighties where curse words are used just because they could.

The Shining was a fun read and perfect over the Halloween weekend.  I recommend The Shining if your looking for a quick, fun and creepy read.

Herzog

My interest in literary novels led me to the unavoidable confrontation with Saul Bellow.  Bellow is usually mentioned in the list of the last century’s great American writers.  I first heard of Bellow while I was reading Philip Roth’s Zuckerman Bound.  Naturally, or at least I would like to think, I connected Bellow and Roth and assumed a stylistic parallel.  Since I was impressed, but not fond, of Zuckerman I had put off reading Bellow.  Recently I heard Jeffrey Eugenides once again praising Bellow and specifically his novel Herzog.  I could wait no more.

Moses Herzog is a man on the brink of mental, physical and spiritual exhaustion due to a horrific divorce.  He writes letters to friends, foes, colleagues, the famous and the dead.  These letters are sometimes written on any scrap of paper handy and sometimes they are simply written in his mind.

Herzog has all of the urban neurosis and idleness I have  found particularly frustrating in most of the late literary novels I have read.  There is a deep devaluing of manual labor that is assumed and is an unnamed cause of much of the dysfunction in the lives of many characters.

Like Roth, Bellow is very aware of the sexual inclinations of men and does not ignore his character’s desire to be with women.  Unlike Roth, Bellow doesn’t make the pages of his book a vehicle for him to imagine women performing gymanastics on his penis.

Herzog is brilliantly written.  It is conscientious and philosophically challenging and at it’s heart is about a man who wants to love.

I highly recommend Herzog.

But I, with my memory- all the dead and the mad are in my custody, and I am the nemesis of the would-be forgotten.  I bind others to my feelings, and oppress them.

With one long breath caught and held in his chest, he fought his sadness over his solitary life. Don’t cry, you idiot! Live or die, but don’t poison everything.

We Can’t Have It Both Ways

The following quotes are from Jason Peters’ article Long Live the Luddites.

Plenty of technological gluttons regard themselves, and want to be regarded, as careful consumers of technology. They are nothing of the sort. They are large-mouth bass with treble hooks deep in their throats. The principal feature of our economic lives–that we use the world up when we make things and poison it when we throw them away–is no concern of theirs.

But there’s the rub. We’re not going to be able to operate for much longer by eating out and driving home to shit in our own nest. It astonishes me that the sophisticated non-Luddites don’t get this.

For if we want to preserve our communities and the land on which they depend, then we’re going to have to learn to refuse most of what’s for sale. We can’t have it both ways.

Build Soil

The following lines are from Robert Frost’s poem Build Soil.  Find Frost’s collected poems and read Build Soil in its entirety.

Let those who possess the land and only those,

Who love it with a love so strong and stupid

That they may be abused and taken advantage of

And made fun of by business, law and art;

They still hang on.  That so much of earth’s

Unoccupied need not make us uneasy.

Let none assume to till the land but farmers.

I only speak to you as one of them.

You shall go to your run-out mountain farm,

Poor cast-away of commerce, and so live

That none shall ever see you come to market—

Not for a long time.  Plant, breed, produce,

But what you raise or grow, why feed it out,

Eat it or plow it under where it stands

To build the soil.  For what is more accursed

Than an impoverished soil pale and metallic?

Build soil.  Turn the farm in upon itself

Until it can contain itself no more,

But sweating-full, drips wine and oil a little.

I will go to my run-out social mind

And be as unsocial with it as I can.

The thought I have, and my first impulse is

To take to market—I will turn it under.

The thought from that thought—I will turn it under.

And so on to the limit of my nature.

Don’t join too many gangs.  Join few if any.

Join the United States and join the family—

But not much in between unless a college.

Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are is one of the more enjoyable movie experiences I’ve had over the last few years.  I don’t know if I was in the right mood or if it is a good movie.  I will leave the final verdict to film critics and historians.

I do know that it perfectly captures the tension in the lives of children but I don’t think it is primarily a children’s movie.  Uncertainty is the implicit villain.  Uncertain circumstances and uncertain emotions simmer until they reach a boiling rage.  The unfortunate truth of the movie is that many children make that discovery for themselves.

 

Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.
If the children don’t grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little god’s causin rain storms turnin’ every good thing to rust.
I guess we’ll just have to adjust.

lyrics from Wake Up by Arcade Fire

The Crying of Lot 49 and Wendell Berry’s Questionnaire

The Crying of Lot 49 is the first book in some time that I wanted to quit reading after having already read a significant portion of the book.  Pynchon’s style is a significant departure anything I have recently read.  I believe the jarring stylistic difference, the meandering postmodern plot and a character named Mike Fallopian made me yearn for some time with Steinbeck or Berry.

The turning point was Oedipa’s journey through the city and further into uncovering the Tristero organization.  The underground organization is represented by a muted post horn symbol and in her quest, Oedipa finds this symbol throughout the city.  It is never clear if any of what she uncovers is real but like Oedipa it made me want to continue the journey.

Wendell Berry’s Questionnaire

1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.

I Can’t Quit You Blog…

but I had to put you down for a while.

It’s true that my computer has been fixed (I was outed in the comments on my last post) these last three weeks and it is true that I have hesitated in my return to blogging.  I have yet to find a suitable justification for my blogging and spending any more time on the internet than I do already.  I’m not sure if my tendency to over-analyze the negative effects of technology in my life or some form of sound reasoning leads me to find the justification for spending time blogging.

Autumn is upon us in Newark, Ohio.  The leaves are gradually turning colors and falling.  The final harvest  from the garden was a corn shock to decorate the front of our house.  Although we will still be very dependent on the grocery store this winter I was pleased with the amount of canning and freezing we were able to accomplish this year.  We made significant progress in one year and I am looking forward to doing even more next year.

Brooklynn(8) and Emma (2) celebrated birthdays during my  absence from blogging.

Technical Difficulties

The iBook seems to have called it quits at the age of five.  Until it is fixed or I get a new computer I will not be able to post regularly.  I hope to be back to my regular schedule very soon.

Simply Christian

I encounter so very few people who think seriously about their faith and even fewer who act on it that I often feel a loneliness associated with my faith in Jesus and his Kingdom message.  That loneliness often leads to cynicism and piles of sarcasm.  I need books like Simply Christian for hope and encouragement.  There really are people out there who think about God as more than an rationale for their many phobias.  There are those who choose to think and walk the narrow path.  Thank you Tom Wright.

Work, Weeds and Welcome Hospitality

Last week I granted myself an unexpected blogging hiatus.  This hiatus happened to coincide with my family leaving for various destinations leaving me happily alone to catch up on various projects and basic maintenance our home was crying out to be completed.  After weeks of missed opportunities and sickness I spent the majority of my time outside, reading, writing and giving in to my body’s ache for work.

A little progress was made in the nearly unwinnable war against weeds in the garden.  Two weeks of rain and neglect resulted in weeds rising above and around their productive and preferred foes.  I have my doubts that the garden will rise above its current unprepossessing state.

The chicken coop is being completed at a near crawling pace.  I am nearing the end of my abilities and what I have done wouldn’t hold up to close scrutiny.  My neighbor Tom, a carpenter, heard me banging around the coop on Tuesday evening, came over, was gracious, and gave me some tips. He built a coop for a friend last year and could have given me some much-needed help had I asked and had I not been concerned about his reaction to me building a chicken coop.  It was an important lesson on being a neighbor and living in community, two things Tom never shies away from.  On my way home from picking up Andrew that evening I got a call from Tom inviting me over for fresh made chocolate pie.  I accepted and enjoyed his gift of hospitality at his kitchen table.

It was a good and productive week.  With my family back home, and everyone nearly well I am looking forward to our final weeks of summer before school begins.