Amen, Sister!

That is what my whole body is shouting over and over again as I turn the pages of Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion, a collection of essays written decades before I was born. I have so much work that I should be doing right now, but I cannot contain myself. In the last two days, I have already called my husband and both of my parents to make them listen to lines from these essays, so since I don't want to bother them anymore, I am loosing my enthusiasm for this writing on the internet.

I have never had any interest in reading collections of essays before, nor have I read anything of Didion's before, but this, as it turns out, is my very favorite kind of writing. It is the kind that makes me stop to write down sentences that I wish I had written and that I don't want to forget. It is the kind of writing that forces me to keep my phone nearby because I have to look up a word or a reference every page or two. I collect words like some people collect...I don't know. Coins? Spoons? Do people still collect spoons? Point is - I like a book that requires a dictionary because it expands my collection.

My Slouching Toward Bethlehem word collection so far (apologies to non-word nerds, read: most people):

desultory (adj): lacking a plan, purpose, or enthusiasm
antimacassar (n): a cover to protect the back or arms of furnitre
rostrum (n): a raised platform on which a person stands to make a public speech
analysand (n): a person undergoing psychoanalysis
apocryphal (adj): of doubtful authenticity
cavil (n): a petty or unnecessary objection
Panglossian (adj): characterized by or given to extreme optimism, especially in the face of unrelieved hardship or adversity
aperçu (n): a discerning perception, an insight
donnée (n): a set of notions, facts, or conditions, that governs, and shapes, an act or way of life
anomie (n): social instability caused by erosion of standards and values
mendacious (adj): untruthful
atavisitc (adj): reverting to or suggesting the characteristics of a remote ancestor or primitive type
sybartic (adj): characterized by or loving luxury or sensuous pleasure

And I'm only on page 165.

On a related note, I knew I was going to write a blog on this when I read Didion's description of the rather lost children of the Haight who seemed determined to forgo the bourgeois language of "the man," relying on "groovy" to do the work of a hundred words. She won me over forever with the following, "As it happens I am still committed to the idea that the ability to think for one's self depends upon one's mastery of the language..." Preach it, Joan.

In addition to words that are mellifluous or whimsical, arcane or anomalous (see what I did there?), I also collect sentences. Sentences that make make me laugh or nod in recognition. Sentences that I wish I had written. Sentences that make me say, "Yes! That. That is exactly what I mean." Sentences that are just plain beautiful. I know a sentence is one I have to have if I feel an urgent need to read it aloud to whomever is closest. This is awkward when I am alone in public. In any event, this book is full of those kinds of sentences. This post is already too long, and I'm sure, too boring, so I'll share just a few of my favorites.

"I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. on a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends" (139).

"Although to be driven back upon oneself is an uneasy affair at best, rather like trying to cross a border with borrowed credentials, it seems to me now the one condition necessary to the beginnings of real self-respect" (143).

"To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, phenobarbital and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves" (144).

"It was once suggested to me that, as an antidote to crying, I put my head in a paper bag. As it happens, there is a sound physiological reason, something to do with oxygen, for doing exactly that, but the psychological effect alone is incalculable: it is difficult in the extreme to continue fancying oneself Cathy in Wuthering Heights with one's head in a Food Fair bag." (146-147).

As I was reading these essays, I realized that these are not the first of Ms. Didion's sentences in my collections. Two years ago, I excerpted a portion of the essay Los Angeles Notebook in which she beautifully describes the Santa Ana winds. Words. I just can't get enough. Obviously. Apologies for the lengthy book report!

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

Read it. It's good. I love me some historical fiction, and Ms. Kingsolver does it up right. Actually, she does everything up right - The Poisonwood Bible is one of my favorites, The Bean Trees is awesome, I've already told you what I think about Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, and The Lacuna is another great read. Fair warning - it starts slow, but trust me; it's well worth hanging in there.

In this novel, Kingsolver has crafted a story that expertly weaves her protagonist into the tapestry of history. The book is primarily made up of the journal entries of the fictional Harrison William Shephard, and his is a diary that you want to read. Half-Mexican and half-American, Shephard is a man who is torn between two identities in more ways than one. He spends much of his early life in Mexico and soon finds himself an integral part of the lives of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and their guest, Leon Trotsky. Of the course of his time in the Rivera-Kahlo home, Shephard serves as Diego's cook, Frida's confidant, and Trotsky's amanuensis*, all while harboring a secret passion for writing.  Upon his return to the United States, his relationships with Rivera, Kahlo, and Trotsky raise the suspicion of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and Mr. Shephard finds that the quiet writer's life he had imagined for himself is not to be.

Interspersed among Shephard's journal entries are newspaper clippings, real stories from the New York Times as well as fictional articles from Shephard's hometown paper. I found these particularly fascinating, and I couldn't help but notice a similarity between the rhetoric surrounding Japanese Americans during WWII and some of the language used to talk about Muslim Americans today. But that is another post altogether...

In any event, I loved this book because Kingsolver has a gift for language that makes me equal parts blissful (it's such a joy to read) and despondent (I could try for a million years and never write anything as lovely), because I really cared for the characters (fictional and otherwise), and because I learned a lot (I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I had no idea that there were attacks on U.S. soil during World War II). See - Ms. Kingsolver would never abuse parentheses like that. Sad face.  Lastly, I loved this book because it is rich with food for thought. 

Highlighted:

"The radio is at the root of the evil, their rule is: No silence, ever. When anything happens, the commentator has to speak without a moment’s pause for gathering wisdom. Falsehood and inanity are preferable to silence. You can’t imagine the effect of this. The talkers are rising above the thinkers. "

"Mr. Shepherd, ye cannot stop a bad thought from coming into your head. But ye need not pull up a chair and bide it sit down."

“…[people] want to believe in heroes… And villains. Especially when very frightened. It’s less taxing than the truth.”

"You know what the issue is? Do you want to know? It's what these guys have decided to call America. They have the audacity to say, 'There, you sons of bitches, don't lay a finger on it. That is a finished product. But any country is still in the making. Always. That's just history, people have to see that."

… nothing wondrous can come in this world unless it rests on the shoulders of kindness

You’ve never seen anything as dramatic as these American trees, dying their thousand deaths. The giant beech next door intends to shiver off ever hair of its pelt. The world strips and goes naked, the full year of arboreal effort piling on the sidewalks in flat, damp strata. The earth smells of smoke and rainstorms, calling everything to come back, lie down, submit to a quiet, moldy return to the cradle of origins.

Does a man become a revolutionary out of the belief he's entitled to joy rather than submission?

The past is all we know of the future.

New vocabulary:

lacuna - 1. An unfilled space or interval; a gap  2. A missing portion in a book or manuscript.  

perfidy – deceitfulness, untruthfulness

haint - Southern colloquialism - ghost, apparition, lost soul

*amanuensis - one employed to write from dictation or to copy manuscript

sigmoidal – S-shaped

sloe-eyed - having soft dark bluish or purplish black eyes (sloe refers to the tart bluish black        globe-shaped fruit of the blackthorn)

bairn - a child

cenote - a deep sinkhole in limestone with a pool at the bottom that is found especially in Yucatán