The Everlasting by Katy Simpson Smith: A review

 

What does it mean to be "everlasting"? I am reminded of the old Arab proverb about the pyramids: "Man fears time, but time fears the pyramids." The city of Rome may not be everlasting on quite the same par as the pyramids, but it was founded in 753 BCE and thus is almost three thousand years old. It comes by its title of "the eternal city" honestly.

Those 3,000 years of history are well-documented and provide a trove of subjects for writers to elaborate upon and from Shakespeare to the present, they've never been shy about doing it. Now comes a writer of historical fiction named Katy Simpson Smith, who I frankly had not heard of before, to give us a view of 2,000 years of that history. To do that she has employed a clever hook on which to hang her story. It is, in fact, a literal hook - a fishhook discovered in an archeological dig in 2015. Carbon dating showed it to have been forged around 130 CE. Smith takes us on the journey that this particular artifact has made through the centuries.

She begins with Tom, a biologist studying the smallest of creatures. He is involved in that archeological dig, and he is suffering from the early signs of multiple sclerosis and is about to go through a divorce.

Next, we head back to 1559 and meet Giulia de' Medici, a princess of Moorish descent, a widow who has recently embarked upon her second marriage. But she enters that marriage with a secret; she is pregnant and not by her new husband but by a secret lover. On the one hand, she wishes to rid herself of this inconvenience; on the other, she wonders about passing the child off as her husband's.

On to the ninth century, 896-897, where we meet Felix, a monk charged with keeping the monastery's crypt. He sits in a catacomb with his decomposing brothers who are seated on stone toilets through which their bodily liquids slowly drip. As he watches the most recently dead, his close friend, begin to decompose, he remembers a beautiful young man named Tomaso who he loved in his youth.

And finally, back to 165 CE and a twelve-year-old girl named Prisca. Prisca's father becomes involved in a new religious sect called Christianity. Prisca sits in the shadows when her father attends meetings and she absorbs the message of the dogma. She becomes inflexible and unquestioning, as only a teenager might, in accepting the truth of this sect as she understands it and that eventually leads to her martyrdom by the Rome of Marcus Aurelius.

Smith presents her stories in a series of eight chapters, two devoted to each character. The stories, at their heart, are about the love and faith of her characters, many kinds of love from adulterous and forbidden to religious and many kinds of faith, in oneself, a higher power, and one's fellow man. It's an ambitious scaffolding for a historical novel and I wanted to like it more than I did, but I found the writing a bit pedantic and occasionally full of itself and I didn't feel a real connection with any of the characters. The writer gets points for imagination and creativity and a considerable amount of research but I do wish the execution could have been more inspired.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

 

Poetry Sunday: One Today by Richard Blanco

This poem was actually written for President Barack Obama's second inauguration in 2013. It speaks of the fact that we live under one sky, one sun that rises every day, and we are one country still, in spite of those who would tear us apart. Perhaps it is a good time to remind ourselves of that.

One Today

by Richard Blanco

Written for the 57^th Presidential Inauguration, January 21, 2013.

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,

peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces

of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth

across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.

One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story

told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors,

each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:

pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,

fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows

begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—

bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,

on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—

to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did

for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,

the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:

equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,

the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming,

or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain

the empty desks of twenty children marked absent

today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light

breathing color into stained glass windows,

life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth

onto the steps of our museums and park benches 

as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk

of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat

and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills

in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands

digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands

as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane

so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains

mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it

through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs,

buses launching down avenues, the symphony

of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,

the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,

or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open

for each other all day, saying: hello / shalom,

buon giorno/ howdy / namaste / or buenos días

in the language my mother taught me—in every language

spoken into one wind carrying our lives

without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed

their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked

their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:

weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report

for the boss on time, stitching another wound 

or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,

or the last floor on the Freedom Tower

jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes

tired from work: some days guessing at the weather

of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love

that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother

who knew how to give, or forgiving a father

who couldn’t give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight

of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,

always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon

like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop

and every window, of one country—all of us—

facing the stars

hope—a new constellation

waiting for us to map it,

waiting for us to name it—together

This week in birds - #433

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment: 

Image borrowed from AllAboutBirds.com.

At the window of my office, I trained my binoculars on the bird feeder in my front yard and noted to myself, Pine Siskins, Pine Warbler, House Fin... Wait a minute! That finch isn't red, it's purple. Purple head, purple chest, purple wash on the wings - it's a Purple Finch! And of course, my camera was nowhere nearby so I couldn't get a picture. And then it was gone. In the thirty-two years that we have lived here, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have seen a Purple Finch in my yard so Friday was definitely a red-letter day for me. Or a purple-letter day. 

*~*~*~*

By now, we must be fully aware that the current evil administration in Washington will do everything it possibly can to trash the environment on the way out the door. Those efforts continued this week, even as the president was also busily inciting insurrection and invasion of the Capitol Building and the attempted overthrow of the government. Eleven days and counting. Or maybe less.

*~*~*~*

The cost of US climate disasters doubled in 2020, reflecting the increased damage being caused by climate change. Hurricanes, wildfires, and other disasters caused $95 billion in damage according to the latest data.

*~*~*~*

A new study has found that there is already enough carbon in the atmosphere to cause the planet to exceed the international agreed-upon limits to control climate change. But all is not necessarily lost. The change could be delayed for centuries if the world quickly stops emitting more greenhouse gases.

*~*~*~*

Hundreds of birders have flocked to the Washington, D.C. area to view an unexpected and unusual visitor.

This Painted Bunting, normally found much farther south, has been visiting the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, found on a bend of the Potomac River, a short journey north-west of Washington in Maryland. Needless to say, birders in the area are thrilled.

*~*~*~*

Dozens of species, including frogs, fish, orchids, and other species were likely lost in 2020 due to our damaging effect on ecosystems throughout the planet. 

*~*~*~*

The invasive Asian carp is a threat to fish that are native to the Great Lakes. Michigan, Illinois, and the Army Corps of Engineers have agreed to work together on a project on a dam and lock near Joliet that is intended to stop any of the approaching carp in the river there and prevent them from entering the lake.

*~*~*~*

Tougher building standards to address the effects of rising waters due to climate change could increase flood insurance rates and that will be one of the challenges faced by the new administration as it seeks to fulfill its pledge to help communities prepare for these effects.

*~*~*~*

Of course, one of the biggest problems facing our planet today is the disposal of plastic. This writer says that manufacturers must be held accountable for their products in order for us to control the problem.

*~*~*~*

The current administration gutted protections for migratory birds on Tuesday, delivering a parting gift to the oil and gas industry, which has long sought to be shielded from liability for killing birds unintentionally in oil spills, toxic waste ponds, and other environmental disasters. If this had been in effect at the time of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf there would have been no penalty to BP.  It is hoped that this entire action can be reversed, along with a lot of other last-minute regulatory changes, by the new administration.

*~*~*~*

Sockeye salmon have hit a record low in Lake Washington and are in danger of becoming extinct in that lake in Seattle. 

*~*~*~*

The black-footed ferret is an endangered species, a relative of the mink. Some minks in the wild have been found to have COVID-19 which presents a further danger to the ferret. Now an experimental vaccine is being administered to the ferrets to try to protect them from the virus.

*~*~*~*

The Environmental Protection Agency under the present administration has finalized a rule to limit what research it can use to craft public health protections, a move opponents argue is aimed at crippling the agency’s ability to more aggressively regulate the nation’s air and water. This is yet another last-minute change that the Biden administration is going to have to try to reverse.

*~*~*~*

Last year, 593 manatees were found dead in Florida. Of those, an estimated 90 died after boat strikes, according to preliminary data from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, but that number could be higher because many of the deaths were not thoroughly investigated due to restrictions caused by the pandemic. 

*~*~*~*

New satellite data shows the long decline of Arctic sea ice.

*~*~*~*

A new study has revealed that roughly one in three of large American rivers has changed color since 1984 and scientists say this could be very bad news for human health as well as the other critters that depend on these rivers.

*~*~*~*

A study of the diet of Eurasian Eagle Owls has revealed a previously overlooked rare bush cricket species in southeastern Bulgaria.

*~*~*~*

Massachusetts is planning to end the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035. In order to meet its goal of net-zero carbon emissions, fossil fuel use by vehicles must be all but completely eliminated by 2050. 

*~*~*~*

In Chicago, endangered Piping Plovers have chosen a sliver of Montrose Beach for their yearly nesting ground. Conservationists are asking that this be protected by adding it to a nearby dunes natural area.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke: A review

I had no idea what I was getting into when I started reading this book. Even a third of the way through, I still wasn't sure. A labyrinthine world of endless halls filled with statues and inhabited by two living humans and thirteen dead bodies? Is this The World or is it a construct of a greater world that exists outside the labyrinth? And if it is only a piece of a greater world, who built it and why? And where is that "greater world"? Our narrator does not know the answers to these questions. He remembers nothing before the labyrinth, not even his own name. The second human in the labyrinth, referred to as the Other, calls him Piranesi, but he does not believe that is his true name.

Piranesi is perfectly happy and content in his labyrinthine House. He sees the House as an entirely good entity that provides him with everything he needs to survive. There is one problem which Piranesi must face in regard to the House: Its lower levels are periodically flooded by tides from the sea. When several tides converge at once, they can be life-threatening. Piranesi studies the tides and charts their courses so that he knows when to expect them. He thinks of himself as a scientist and an explorer who spends his waking hours describing his observations of this world in a meticulous journal. He tells us, "As a scientist and an explorer I have a duty to bear witness to the Splendours of the World. The Beautiful Orderliness of the House is what gives us Life." He records facts about the size, position, and subject of each statue. He searches for patterns in the flight of birds or in the statues' placement. His studies and observations eventually lead him to a kind of revelation:

"The search for the Knowledge has encouraged us to think of the House as if it were a sort of riddle to be unraveled, a text to be interpreted, and that if ever we discover the Knowledge, then it will be as if the Value has been wrested from the House and all that remains will be mere scenery. The sight of the One-Hundred-and Ninety-Second Western Hall in the Moonlight made me see how ridiculous that is. The House is valuable because it is the House. It is enough in and of Itself. It is not the means to an end."

Susanna Clarke conjures this surreal House with hypnotic prose and even though I'm confused, I have to keep reading. This is a suspenseful mystery that one feels compelled to solve. Piranesi is a prisoner and yet he has obviously cheerfully accepted his imprisonment. He accepts the world as he sees it and makes no effort to change it. He meets the Other on regular occasions to report on his findings. He considers the Other his friend. But is he? That is part of the mystery we must solve.

As I progressed through this novel, I began to see parallels between Piranesi's situation and my own. Having spent much of the last nine months being more or less housebound because of the pandemic, I have thought of my own House and Garden as a benevolent place that provides for my needs and helps keep me safe. (Of course, there is a whole unseen army of essential workers out there in the world who are actually providing for my needs and making my life possible: UPS and FedEx delivery people; the U.S. Post Office; grocery store clerks who assemble my food order for me and deliver it to me curbside; restaurants who deliver food when I'm tired of eating my own cooking; a cleaning lady who comes regularly to help keep my house in order and her husband who keeps our yard from becoming an overgrown jungle; daughters who ceaselessly and uncomplainingly run errands for me; I could go on...) I began to suspect that there was more to Piranesi's benevolent House than perhaps he was aware of.  

Throughout the book, I kept puzzling over what genre I should assign it to. Post-apocalyptic science fiction? Fantasy? Psychological thriller? I came to the conclusion that it was all of the above. Most of all, it is a novel that perfectly captures the isolation of this moment. Its final resolution makes clear that none of these categories really matters. Piranesi's voice resonates because he speaks from a place that has become familiar to us and that is enough. 

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante: A review

Twelve-year-old Giovanna is going through puberty and she is not having an easy time of it. She has always had a good relationship with her parents, especially her father who has always assured her that she is beautiful and brilliant. She believed him and her self-image and ego were healthy and strong. Then one night she overhears a conversation between her parents in which her father compares Giovanna to his long-estranged and thoroughly loathed sister, Vittoria. Vittoria's name has long been shorthand in their family for everything ugly and evil. Giovanna understands her father to be saying that she is ugly. She is completely devastated. In short order, she loses her moorings. She becomes moody and obstreperous with her parents and her school work begins to suffer.

Her parents come to understand that she must have overheard and perhaps misinterpreted their talk and they attempt to repair the damage, but she is unresponsive. She has become obsessed with her Aunt Vittoria whom she does not know. She demands to be able to meet her aunt and her father reluctantly arranges it. She meets and befriends the aunt and finds her strangely compelling and even attractive.  She begins to identify with the aunt and wants to visit her more and more often. At the same time, the aunt introduces her to other members of her extended family, cousins whom she had never met. She likes them all, but mostly what she likes is that her parents disapprove of them. Giovanna becomes a kind of double-agent. She reports on her aunt's activities to her parents and she reports on them to the aunt. What she reports is often embellished in the telling.

Meanwhile, the parents' marriage is falling apart. For years they have been close friends with another couple, parents of Giovanna's best friends. Now it turns out that all along her father has been in love with her friends' mother. Both couples separate and her father goes to live with the other woman. Giovanna's world is further shattered. She sees all the adults in her life as living lying lives and decides none of them can be trusted.

At about this time, she also becomes infatuated with a young man named Roberto. He is a charismatic personality and when he assures her that she is beautiful, her fragile self-image begins to be restored.  

Ferrante's fiction is always focused on relationships between women. In her Neapolitan quartet, it was all about Lila and Lenu as they grew up together and their lives took their separate paths. Here, we have a broader range of Giovanna's relationships with her mother, her aunt, her childhood friends, and the new cousins she meets along the way. The women in her books go through many, often torturous or traumatic moments in their relationships, but generally, the writer gives them a grace note at the end. If they don't live happily ever after, at least they have the possibility of doing so.

This book seemed to me to be a bit more loosely plotted than Ferrante's early books that I've read. That's not necessarily a criticism; I liked the book quite a lot but there were a few strands of the story that were left dangling. Most likely that was intentional and the truth is, I enjoyed the book from beginning to end.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars 

 

   

 

Poetry Sunday: The Swan by Mary Oliver

On the Texas coast, there are currently thousands, maybe millions, of Snow Geese spending the winter. Last week I saw a video of them that a birder had shot at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. They lifted into the air, a great multitude, and the sky turned white with their wings. Such a thrilling sight!

I thought of this poem by Mary Oliver. It's a different bird of which she writes but the description of an "armful of white blossoms" and "a snowbank, a bank of lilies" is apt. We only have to multiply that one by several thousand. The "shrill dark music" of their voices is unforgettable. And as we watch, we may feel in our hearts how this beauty pertains to everything, as the poet says.

The Swan

by Mary Oliver

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

This week in birds - #432

 A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

The American Goldfinches...

...and the Pine Siskins finally showed up at my feeders this week. They are always welcome guests.

*~*~*~*

The Revelator online conservation magazine featured a roundup of some of their top stories of 2020. Among them were these:

• The Faces of Extinction: The species we lost in 2019.
• Where pandemics come from and how to stop them.
• The destruction of a dam that benefited many species, including people.
• Ten things we've learned since the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
• The importance of mangroves in the fight against climate change.
• Five things we should know about Earth's warming oceans. 

*~*~*~*

Two bird bloggers, 10,000 Birds and Avian Ecologist, listed their best birds of 2020. 

*~*~*~*

The current administration in Washington is still doing its damnedest to guarantee the despoiling of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on its way out the door, but so far they've had no interest from oil and gas companies. In fact, the state of Alaska seems to be the only interested bidder. Nineteen days and counting... 

*~*~*~*

Here are the wildest animal stories of 2020 according to the New York Times.

*~*~*~*

In still more efforts at despoiling Nature, the current administration is planning to grant mining and energy firms access to public lands over the determined opposition of environmental groups and tribal communities. Some of the lands they are trying to give away in Arizona are sacred to Native American groups there.  

*~*~*~*

The Greater Sage-grouse is a threatened species in California, but controlling the invasive grasses that have overrun some of the bird's former habitat there could help it survive and offer the population a chance to rebound.

*~*~*~*

Illegal deforestation is still a persistent problem in South America, especially in the territory of indigenous groups.

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The braininess of the octopus is well-documented, but its cousin, the cuttlefish is no slacker either. Researchers who study the cephalopods have discovered surprising talents in cuttlefish over the years, including an ability to plan ahead.  

*~*~*~*

Much has been written about the respite provided to Nature by the pandemic in 2020. Humans were less visible in many areas in the natural world and that provided an opportunity for many animals to become more visible. This has provided emphasis to a dichotomy: People need access to Nature but human impact jeopardizes what Nature we have. A case in point is the Capercaillie.

Image from The Guardian.

The iconic Scottish bird was once plentiful but now faces extinction, largely because it simply cannot tolerate human disturbance.

*~*~*~*

A decade ago, scientists were concerned that the African lion could go extinct in Kenya, but the population of the animals is now thriving there and it's all because they have gained some remarkable protectors. The Maasai who formerly hunted lions now guard them.

*~*~*~*

A previously unknown, discrete population of blue whales, the largest creature to have ever lived on Earth, has been located in the Indian Ocean. The whales sing a distinct song, different from any other known group.

*~*~*~*

Mongabay, the online Nature news service, gives us its list of the 15 top species discoveries of 2020. Among them is this cute (and endangered) lemur langur.

Popa langur image courtesy of Mongabay.

*~*~*~*

New international rules are designed to stop richer nations from dumping their contaminated plastic waste onto poorer nations. According to a UN agency, it could result in cleaner oceans within five years. 

*~*~*~*

The current administration has done its best to sabotage America's top climate report, but they have largely failed because it turns out those climate scientists can be quite sneaky! And persistent. 

*~*~*~*

Global warming has resulted in the ongoing melting of the Siberian permafrost and that has revealed some ancient treasures, most recently a well-preserved ice age woolly rhino calf. 

*~*~*~*

The removal of four dams on the Klamath River will be the largest dam removal project in American history and it will free up 400 stream-miles of restored habitat for salmon and other migratory species. This action has been long sought by the Yurok Tribe whose livelihood depends on the fish.

*~*~*~*

In another year-end roundup, the Scientific American lists the top five climate stories of 2020.

*~*~*~*

Charlie Pierce's beat is politics and he covers it with a combination of cynicism, righteous anger, and dark humor, but at the end of 2020, he digressed into the world of Nature and gave us some of the things that were not necessarily awful about the year and he ends with a dollop of hope for the future.