”A Time To Mourn”

Portland State Library May 2024

I have been away from my writing for a time spending much of it reading about and reflecting on the state of my nation. I chose in the beginning to make my writings more generalized and less political. I will continue to do that. I won’t share much about my country in this space. The internet is full of hastily penned half baked thoughts. I don’t need to add more fuel to the fires already taking place there.

I am making an exception for a personal reason. The photo above was taken in the university library where I studied for both of my Master’s degrees. I am heartsick to view this “response” to the war raging between Israel and Hamas. The notion that destroying a library is “anti war “ makes as much sense as advocating guns to reduce violence.

I have no deep insights into solutions for conflicts anywhere in the world. I do believe that responding to violence and destruction with violence and destruction in a library miles away from any war isn’t the way.

”The Only Rabbit Allowed”

As a child my sympathy was clearly on the side of Peter Rabbit. What, I wondered, made Farmer McGregor chase Peter out of his garden with his rake? How could a little rabbit be a threat? At the time I lived in a neighborhood with neither gardens nor rabbits. Now I live with a lovely yard and a bevy of wild rabbits.

Spring has come late this year, with frost the last two mornings. The daffodils in the photo just opened this week. But before another batch had a chance to shine, a “wascally wabbit” beat them to it and chewed the tops off many. Charlie once again put chicken wire everywhere he thought rabbits might still be sneaking in. So far it is working. It is also preventing the inevitable rabbit-Zoe showdown which wouldn’t end well.

This ceramic bunny will have to do. Maybe it will convince any intruders that this yard is already occupied!

”Zoe On Squirrel Patrol”

Spring and squirrels abound!

”Twain Revisited”

Many years ago I read Jean Rhys’ novel The Wide Sargasso Sea which reframes Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre by imagining the life of Rochester’s “mad” wife who lives and eventually dies in the attic. As I thought about the two books together I was able to question some of my long held views of Rochester’s marriage. In the intervening years although I have found other novels attempting to reinterpret their sources, I have never been as startled as I was when I read Rhys.

That changed this week when I read Percival Everett’s 2024 novel James. Everett takes the widely known Mark Twain story Huckleberry Finn and reframes it through a narrative by the enslaved man known in that novel as Jim. Much criticism has been directed against the Twain book and it has appeared, disappeared and reappeared in American classrooms for years depending on the political climate at any time. Everett takes for granted a prior reading of the novel as well as the endless discussion of its place in American literature.

In James Everett manages to both embrace the tale as told by Finn and place it in an adult story rather than in one of a little boy. Suddenly any criticism of the book disappeared for me as I saw Huck as a fanciful boy seeing his life as a grand adventure with no more awareness of Jim as an adult than many of the “grown-ups” around him. But Everett sees Jim the enslaved man, sees his perilous journey to freedom, his accommodation to behaving as whites expect a slave to act and speak, and his true affection for the fatherless Huck.

As he takes the name James at the novel’s end it becomes impossible to see the diminished Jim as a stereotype in Twain’s book. Rather I got a glimpse, as I imagine Everett might have, of the larger story lying in wait to be told. I hope that future students will get to read both novels together, giving them a rich chance to contrast a boy’s imaginative adventure story with an adult’s breathtaking quest for freedom, a true adventure.

”Hardy Revisited”

Easter Sunday yesterday marked the end of the six weeks of Lent. During that time I was basically off-line and focusing on spiritual work. But I also took a chance to rewatch the 1967 film Far From the Madding Crowd which I first saw at its debut when I was twenty. I remembered very little from that time except finding Alan Bates very attractive. I had no memory of the “old” suitor competing for the heroine’s hand.

In a marked departure from my first experience of the film, I watched it on-line. The original screened in an huge Boston movie house, taking full advantage of the panoramic scenes of farm and moors. On my device they lacked real impact. But the biggest shock was my focus on Peter Finch. At that time Finch seemed to me to be very very old and unworthy of Bathsheba’s attentions.

Time does wonders! I truly appreciated Finch’s anguish over his unrequited love. I was constantly annoyed by Julie Christie’s half-hearted acting. Even Bates had lost some of his appeal. It’s still a great film with excellent casting of extras who look as if they came straight out of the 19th century. The farm and dwelling scenes faithfully recreate copies of their originals.

My granddaughter has directed me to the 2015 remake. I asked her if it had a musical intermission. Startled by the question, she asked me what I meant. When I explained that the long movie had a built in break she allowed it was a good idea. Much better, she said, than having to rush out mid film. 32 ounce Cokes and long movies could still use an intentional pause.

”Orwell in Burma”

In my introduction to literature courses at the art college, I often assigned an essay by George Orwell, Shooting An Elephant from 1936. It provoked lively discussion as students pondered the author killing a valuable elephant basically to save face and act as the British soldier the townspeople expected. Although it sickened him, went against his values, and demanded a requisite skill for a humane shot he lacked, Orwell killed the elephant.

It was this brief encounter with Orwell’s writings, so different from those more familiar such as 1984, The Road to Wigan Pier, and Down and Out in Paris and London that led me to read the 2024 novel by Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib. Both a travel writer and a novelist, Theroux proved the ideal author to imagine, using Orwell’s own writings., Orwell’s five years in Burma from 1922 to 1927 when Orwell was 19 to 24. Orwell’s words from his 1934 Burmese Days starts the book. “There is a short period in everyone’s life when his character is fixed forever.”

Perhaps this book will appeal to a narrow audience, one both interested in life in colonial Burma and the formation of the writer who eventually became known as George Orwell. Born Eric Arthur Blair, he left that name and that patriotic young man behind as he wrote for the public. Beautifully written with descriptions so vivid the book made me feel present in a time and place completely unknown to me. But his time there certainly made him into the man I knew from his later works. The “fixed character” was as far from an obliging colonial soldier as could be imagined.

”Tomato Aspic and Long Nails”

A few days ago I banged my finger on the headboard reaching for the lamp(don’t ask!) and broke a nail below the quick. It had taken a while for that nail to reach a length I enjoy but not so long that I couldn’t use the keyboard. My mind being a storehouse for many kinds of random memories, I saw the Knox Gelatine box in my mind. Not a completely irrational connection because what came back was the promise that Knox would give a user long fingernails.(They didn’t mention toe nails. What happens in aging toenails anyway? No gelatin needed!)

But since Jello had made dessert as easy as mixing Jello powder, water and sugar, why would there have been Knox in our cupboard in the 1950’s? The answer came immediately back–tomato aspic. For the readers too young to have suffered through years of tomato aspic, I share an image

The picture shows little bits in with the tomato juice and Knox, probably celery. My mother’s often omitted the crunch so it was basically tomato Jello. Fortunately this was considered a holiday treat, so I didn’t have to eat it very often.

As for Knox gelatine, the current package omits the image of the cow, source of the gelatin. A bow to the times, I guess, for consumers who would prefer not to know. Jello was wise enough to never feature the cow on the label in the first place.

”No Women In Viet Nam?”

Historical fiction runs the gamut from romance dressed in old style clothes to carefully researched engaging stories set in the past. Kristen Hannah’s latest novel The Women occasionally comes close to the first, but deftly pivots to provide a moving and fact based novel.

As Hannah has matured as a writer she felt she could finally tackle an idea she had nurtured for many years. As a teenager she was aware of the Viet Nam War as it came into her home on the nightly news. She longed to tell the story of the nurses stationed throughout fighting zones to minister to the immediate needs of the wounded, both military and civilian, before they were sent on to a larger hospital. As she finished her last novel, historical fiction set in Paris in World War ll, she dove into the stories of these nurses.

What strikes the reader most strongly reading about the nurses’ “in country” experiences and their PTSD(unacknowledged)when back home is the failure of many, including at the Veterans’ Administration, to recognize that there were indeed women in combat in the war. While they weren’t fighting in the bush, they were dealing with soldiers’ horrendous wounds from that combat in the field “hospitals” to which the nurses were assigned. Their constant witness to casualties, both grave and fatal, affected them deeply.

I previously cited an earlier novel of Hannah’s, The Four Winds, the story of one woman set in the American drought known as the dust bowl. In The Women she also focuses on one woman, allowing the reader to fully, perhaps sometimes too fully(I took breaks in reading) to know how it was to be there. Hannah leaves the reader with deep appreciation for all who were sent to fight and serve in a war that many Americans still regard with contempt. I had never reexamined my own views of that conflict and found myself changed. For the better I must add.

”Easy Wind And Downy Flake”

From my office window

I have mentioned before that since I moved to New England I frequently find myself quoting Robert Frost. Today it is with a line from Stopping In Woods On a Snowy Evening as I look out at the first major snowstorm we have had in over a year. This afternoon the snow has mostly stopped and Charlie, my grandson and many neighbors are out with shovels and snowblowers to move the downfall off walks and driveways. The plow which comes by regularly on our main road continues to leave more on the end of our driveway. Frequent sweeps are a mixed blessing. We enjoy a cleared road along with the nuisance of that repeated new snow pushed off into our lot.

I am grateful that it finally really snowed here. We had what turns out to have been the third rainiest January(up from fifth) since 1905 and the damp, gray and mud were affecting my mood. Something about a cover of bright white snow makes everything seem fresh and promising. February isn’t meant, as it was last Saturday, to be 56 degree weather. Snow comes to remind us that it really is still winter.

I hope that my friends in the heat of the Southern Hemisphere can enjoy watching the little video of snow fall.

“The Modern Milkman”

Just for Halloween

We know that if we wait long enough clothing and music will come back around. Of course I have already given the old things away by the time “long enough” arrives. But to my amazement several months ago we received a mail flyer introducing us to The Modern Milkman. I had been somewhat envious of a fellow blogger who still had milk delivered to his door. Now I might be able to do the same.

A local dairy started an old business with a new twist. Promising glass bottles brought once a week it also had the insight to make other products available with delivery. Knowing the popularity of “buying local” they also bring chips, salsa, cheese, eggs, bagels, dips and cookies with their service. All these add-ons are made by small companies near by, helping to grow their businesses with local customers. While standard milk products are always on the menu, the other items vary week to week with the varieties published several days earlier. Bagels might be blueberry one week and sesame the next, but I can always choose just the ones we like. In addition each week there are special add-ons, such as a pie at Christmas or chocolates for Valentine’s Day.

Among the quirks lingering from my childhood is the fear of no milk in the morning. Logical: no. Still present: yes. The Modern Milkman delivers on its promises. We NEVER run out of milk!