A little thunder

It's been a long and in many ways frustrating week. I'm so tired of politics. So tired of lying politicians. So tired of lazy journalists who refuse to do the research and take the time to expose the lies. So tired of billionaires trying to buy my country. So tired of dishonorable state officials trying to steal the election for their party by intimidating voters to discourage them from exercising their constitutional right.

I NEED SOME JOY IN MY LIFE!



Through the magic of YouTube, all the E-Streeters live again, and help the Boss to once again bring the joy of "Thunder Road." Even in Barcelona, they know the words and sing along. Of course, Springsteen concerts are always audience participation events.

If you surveyed all Springsteen fans, this would probably be our number one favorite of his songs. I know it contains one of my favorite bits of lyric in all pop music:

"So you're scared and you're thinking

That maybe we ain't that young anymore

Show a little faith, there's magic in the night

You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright

Oh and that's alright with me."

Every time I hear it, it makes me smile and every time I imagine that he wrote it just for me.

Thanks, Bruce. I needed that.

Happy weekend!  

Does your vote count?

Less than three weeks now until election day and I get more and more frustrated and angry every time I think about it. Not about the campaigns or the candidates, although there is plenty there to be angry and frustrated about. No, what frustrates me is our antiquated system of electing presidents and the knowledge that, as passionately as I may care about this election, my vote won't make one iota of difference!

You see, I live in Texas, a state that is completely dominated politically by anti-critical-thinking, evolution and climate change-denying, gun-worshiping, anti-women, immigrant-hating, gay-bashing, Bible-thumping tea party Republicans. And those people get to decide who gets Texas' electoral votes and it's only the electoral votes that matter in a presidential election. The individual votes of people like me who do not agree with the majority do not count at all. For all practical purposes, we might as well sit at home on election day.

It is the same for citizens who would vote Democratic throughout the deep South, where Republicans currently have a strangle-hold on the machinery of government and intend to keep it that way through voter-suppression. Moreover, Republican voters in states like California, New York, and Massachusetts have the same frustration. Their votes for president are absolutely worthless, like mine, because the electoral votes in those states will be awarded to the candidate picked by the heavy Democratic majority of voters.

I have never understood why our Founders saddled us with such a clumsy way of selecting our leader. One can only surmise that they had a deep mistrust of the ability of average citizens to make these important decisions. After all, they initially didn't allow for senators to be elected directly either. That was eventually changed, but still we limp along with this clumsy Electoral College system of electing presidents.

We've paid the price repeatedly throughout our history for failing to ensure a direct popular vote election for the president, where each person's vote has the same weight as her neighbor's. Most recently, in 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote in the country. Actually, he probably won the majority of electoral votes as well, but we'll never know because a meddling Supreme Court, eager for a Republican victory, stepped in and stopped the counting of votes in Florida, effectively appointing George W. Bush president. And the rest as they say is history, as are the lives of many, many thousands of innocents.

There is no way of really knowing whether a majority popular vote would select better presidents than our current system, but at least it would be fairer to all voters in all states and those of us in the minority in individual states would not have to feel that the act of voting is completely useless. I don't expect to see this undemocratic election system changed in my lifetime and so I will continue to struggle every four years with my anger and frustration. But I will also cast my protest vote, because I do not agree and it is the least - and the most - that I can do.

Literary prize season continues

The latest major award to be given in this season of literary prizes was the Man Booker which was announced yesterday. And, wonder of wonders, it was given to an author and for a book that I had actually read and loved. Hilary Mantel won for Bring Up the Bodies, the second in her three book series about Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's chief minister. I thought it was a wonderful book, even better than Wolf Hall, the first in the series which also won the Man Booker for 2009.  (My review is here.)

Mantel is, of course, an amazing writer of historical fiction. She brings the past to life and makes her characters fully informed human beings, not just cardboard cutouts. She has even managed to make Thomas Cromwell, who has been somewhat notorious for his Machiavellian manipulations in Henry's court, into a rather sympathetic character. We can begin to understand just what motivated him and perhaps what he had hoped to achieve as minister. Now that she has brought us to this point, we can only look forward to the third in the series, which I assume will cover Cromwell's bloody downfall. It may well be a wrenching read and yet I can hardly wait!

I can't imagine any book was more worthy of this literary prize than Bring Up the Bodies, but, on the whole, I think judging one literary work (or any work of art, for that matter) against another is a very chancy thing. It has to be subjective and what is very meaningful to me might leave another reader cold. My husband, for example. We both enjoyed reading C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake series, which includes Thomas Cromwell as a historical character, and so, when I finished reading Wolf Hall, I recommended it to him, thinking he might enjoy a different perspective on Cromwell. He hated it! I think he may have read twenty pages before he gave up on it. (I've just about stopped recommending anything to him. Who knows what the cranky old man likes?)

But the point that I was trying to make before I digressed into the mysteries of my domestic life is that there were five other books that were on the short list for the Man Booker prize: The Garden of Evening Mists  by Tan Twang Eng;  Swimming Home  by Deborah Levy;  The Lighthouse   by Alison Moore;  Umbrella  by Will Self; and  Narcopolis  by Jeet Thayil. I haven't read any of them yet and there are some of the writers that I'm not familiar with at all.  How do I know that one of them might not be an even more amazing and worthy book than the Mantel work? And if I read one of them on any given day it might well be more meaningful to me. 

A lot depends on where the reader is in his/her own life when he/she reads the book. And that really is one of the things that makes reading such an exciting and interactive enterprise. Getting to know a previously unknown writer can be a real adventure and sometimes a challenge, not unlike making a new friend. It can be a risky business but definitely worth the trouble, even when the relationship doesn't work out.

As for awarding literary prizes, though, if I were a judge, I'd probably never be able to make a decision. Even when people sometimes ask, "What's your favorite book?" I really have no answer. Well, today my favorite book is The Sense of an Ending, but who knows what it will be tomorrow? No, I'd never make it as a literary judge.   

And the prize goes to...

Now tell me honestly, did you know the name Mo Yan before it was announced last week that he had won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature? I freely admit that I did not know of this, apparently quite famous, Chinese author. Perhaps that is really not so surprising since there are evidently wonderful writers from the North American continent whose acquaintance I have not yet made. In fact, I'm meeting new ones all the time. It's an exciting experience for this constant reader.

I was interested to read about Mr. Mo and also about China's reaction to his selection. It seems that he is quite a popular literary light in his own country, in spite of the fact that much of his writing encompasses criticism of Chinese history and of contemporary Chinese culture. He is embraced by the Chinese Communist government and his winning of the Nobel Prize set off a national celebration. It was considered a major cultural accomplishment and affirmation and it was a boost to the national psyche.

Based on what I've read of him, it seems that although social criticism is a big part of his art, he is not a political dissident and, indeed, does not consider himself political. In that regard, I thought this quote from him that was included in The New York Times story about him was quite revealing:

A writer should express criticism and indignation at the dark side of society and the ugliness of human nature, but we should not use one uniform expression. Some may want to shout on the street, but we should tolerate those who hide in their rooms and use literature to voice their opinions.

I think that he sees himself not as one who shouts in the streets but who uses literature as a means of expressing opinions. I can relate to that. But not all Chinese dissident writers are big fans of his and some criticize his approach. They see him as part of a corrupt and oppressive establishment since he serves as vice-chairman in the state-sanctioned Chinese Writers Association.

At 57, Mr. Mo seems relatively young to be a Nobel winner, but he has had a very prolific writing career, stretching back to the 1980s.  Again, just based on the articles I've read since he won, it appears that his masterwork (at least so far) is Red Sorghum, an epic tale that covers the time of the Japanese occupation of the country and which came out in 1993. Another very highly praised book of his was The Garlic Ballads, published in 1995. His books are primarily about rural Chinese society and he employs a style of writing that is close to the magical realism of many South American writers. The western writers that he is often compared to are William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Not bad company.

Unfortunately, I don't read Chinese, but I understand that his works, especially the most popular and praised ones, have been translated into English and are widely available. So, no excuses! Here's one more name to add to my very, very long "to be read" list.


 

"I'm not so sure about you."

Political cartoonists see the world with clear and cynical eyes and their cartoons often succinctly get at the truth of our modern society in a way that mere words cannot. All of that is very true, in my opinion, of this wonderful skewering of a certain segment of our "Modern World" by the cartoonist Tom Tomorrow, found in today's Daily Kos.


In the world of the purist, the only one who can be trusted is oneself and there are way too many purists in our society.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes: A review

This slim book by Julian Barnes which won the Man Booker Prize last year was an absolutely mesmerizing read for me. I could have read it in a single sitting, had I not had other things to do. The story of Tony Webster, a man in his 60s looking back over his life and meditating on the mysteries of how memory works and how time changes memory, hit me where I live.

Tony had passed through his early life in something of a sleepwalk. He never thought deeply about what he was doing or what was going on around him. He never understood, never bothered to try to understand the effect that his words and actions might have on others. He was simply oblivious to everything except his own senses.

As a young man, he had a coterie of three friends and a girlfriend but, eventually, the girlfriend broke up with him and as he grew older, he drifted away from all of them, finally losing contact. He went to America for a while, then, returning to England, he met Margaret and they married, had a daughter named Susie, and created a stable life together.

After several years of marriage, Margaret met another man who she found more exciting and she divorced Tony, but they continued to maintain an amicable relationship. Now in their retirement years, they are friends who lunch together and Susie is a friendly, if somewhat distant, part of Tony's life, along with her husband and their children.

And then, suddenly, unexpectedly, that long-ago, almost forgotten past comes surging back into Tony's life, overwhelming all the barriers he has built around himself and he meditates about how time changes one's perspectives:

But time...how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them. Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.

It's as if he were reading my heart and mind. The entire book, brief though it is, is dense with meditations like that. Most of the action is within Anthony Webster's mind as he looks back over his life and struggles to make sense of it all. Where did he go wrong? Where did he misunderstand? What could he have done to make things turn out differently for himself and for those who were close to him? In fact, how much responsibility does he bear for the death of one friend and the ruined relationships of others? As a young man, he had only considered his own hurt pride and feelings as he lashed out at others. How self-centered that young man now appears to the Tony in his 60s.

In my terms, I settled for the realities of life, and submitted to its necessities; if this, then that, and so the years passed. In Adrian's terms, I gave up on life, gave up on examining it, took it as it came. And so, for the first time, I began to feel a more general remorse - a feeling somewhere between self-pity and self-hatred - about my whole life. All of it. I had lost the friends of my youth. I had lost the love of my wife. I had abandoned the ambitions I had entertained. I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was.

Again, it is as if he were looking into my soul and teasing out the regrets that live in the shadows there. 

The philosophical ideas contained in this book are at once disturbing, suspenseful, sometimes funny, always graceful and brutally honest, and, in the end, very life-affirming. It is a complicated book, as all lives are complicated. I do not usually reread books over and over again, but this is one that I think that I will. It is so full of ideas and insights that I am sure that I missed much the first time around and I want to know them. 

Here is one more meditation by Tony that struck deeply with me:

Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does; otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also - if this isn't too grand a word - our tragedy.

Wonderful writing.

I confess I had not read Julian Barnes before, although, of course, I knew of him and his reputation. I will definitely now be seeking out more of his work. Someone who understands me so well must have more wisdom to impart, more guidance to give. Not only did his book win the Man Booker Prize for 2011, it wins the Dorothy Borders Prize for 2012 for the most insightful and influential book I have read all year - and I have read some very good ones.

Save that bird!

The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to conserve native birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. They strive to encourage an Americas-wide landscape where diverse interests collaborate to ensure that native bird species and their habitats are protected, and where their protection is valued by society. It is the only U.S.-based group with a major focus on bird habitat conservation throughout the entire continents of North and South America. The organization addresses the full spectrum of threats to birds to safeguard the rarest bird species, restore habitats, and reduce threats, thereby unifying and strengthening the bird conservation movement.

Each week, ABC spotlights one American bird, usually one that is threatened or endangered, and designates it as the "Bird of the Week." It sends out email newsletters with a picture of and information about the bird and describes the "threat status" of the bird. Thus, we get to learn more about the most endangered birds on the two continents, birds that we may never actually see in real life but that we might be able to help in concert with the American Bird Conservancy.

When I opened my email today, I had to smile to see who had been designated this week's Bird of the Week - the most endangered bird of all.

Bird of the Week Big Bird

- Big Bird is an eight-foot two-inch-tall bright yellow bird. He can roller skate, ice skate, dance, sing, write poetry, draw, and even ride a unicycle. He lives in a large nest at 123 Sesame Street, and has a teddy bear named Radar. His lovable, innocent, and curious personality has helped endear him to millions of children and adults all over the world. Big Bird is a flightless bird, of indeterminate species and genus, describing himself at different times as a “Golden Condor”, a lark, or a canary. Regardless of his species, he is a unique and talented creature who has helped educate generations of children, appeared on countless television shows and movies, and even has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Big Bird’s conservation status is perilous. He is likely the last of his species, with no female having been found so far. He is now nearly 43 years old, but it is not known if this is past breeding age, should a mate ever turn up. However, he continues to travel around the world and has been sighted in 140 countries so far, making him perhaps the most migratory bird in history. Big Bird’s popularity is just another example of the positive impact of birds on society and culture.