Soll's Ja So Sein

It’s the first line of the fourth verse of an early 17^th-century Lutheran chorale. The most famous setting is by Bach in cantata BWV 48, and it’s one of the most profound Bach chorale settings.  The theology underlying the verse is horrific (hence the unusual setting), so let’s just say that the line itself translates roughly as “If it must be so …”.  (The full translation takes us directly into Lutheran fire and brimstone.)  I hate fire and brimstone, and this chorale downright frightens me.

If it must be so ...... If we accept Richard Flanagan's premise in his Booker-winning novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North .... then we really have no control.  Larger forces are always in play, and those forces make our own efforts futile.  We struggle, we try, we love, we fail.  It's all in service of larger forces that we cannot and probably should not try to fathom. The book is a wonderful and painfully poignant representation of that fatalistic point of view, though I strongly doubt that Flanagan actual espouses it.

Cruelty, love, violence, sensuality ... it's all the same, all a manifestation of unknowable controlling forces combined with biological inevitability.  We simply play out the hand we're dealt.

I very much admire this book.  I very much dislike the outlook that this book represents.  If this really is life, then 'check, please'. But the representation is fascinating and captivating. I live in Silicon Valley in 2014, where failure is simply a rest area on the way to success, where cash is sloshing around looking for a home, where real estate valuations are more insane by the day, where programmers have agents, where life is good for many.  The novel portrays the plight of allied POW's in Burma forced under terrible duress to build the Burma Railway of Death. Thousands of lives lost under brutal conditions. But that plot line is just the most radical manifestation of people caught up in larger forces beyond their control.  Love, war, family, illness, accident, fire ... they all are beyond our control, yet seemingly part of a larger pattern that we can only imagine exists ... that we actually must imagine exists.  We must simply assume that it exists and go on.

Flanagan skillfully weaves in traditional Japanese haiku as well as 19th-century British poetry. In his hands both seem to resonate on similar wavelengths despite the cultural disparity. Yes, the plot is a little contrived here and there.  The writing is superb. This subject matter is full of pitfalls, and Flanagan navigates the waters with aplomb.  There are some thrilling moments, some lyrical moments, and very few thuds indeed.

I'll quote the rest of the chorale here, though the philosophical point of reference is quite different. Nonetheless, every time I think of this text I shudder.  And my most important reaction to the book is to shudder in a similar way.

Solls ja so sein, Daß Straf und Pein Auf Sünde folgen müssen, So fahr hie fort Und schone dort Und laß mich hie wohl büßen.

If it must be so, that punishment and pain must follow after sin, so go on (punishing) here and be merciful there (in the next life) and let me well suffer here.

Awful thoughts, inhibiting and oppressive thoughts.  Downright scary thoughts.  A scary book.  I so hope it isn't true. But I must consider the possibility.

This Is Personal

Marilynne Robinson is receiving accolades and awards by the bucketful these days.  I’m not sure why I hadn’t read her until now.  Some would say that Home was not the best choice for a first read, but it’s what happened to be on my bookshelf.  It’s a lovely book with gracious writing.  The content makes me angry, and that’s clearly my problem.

Home is the second of the Gilead trilogy.  It takes place in rural Iowa around 1960, though at times it seem more like 1860.  There’s an ageing patriarch (retired Protestant minister), a wayward though kind daughter who has come home to care for him, and a prodigal son whose return is the main event of the novel.  Yes, the language is lovely.  Yes, writerly skill is on full display here. 

“Your Honor, I object!”

What does it mean to apply a high degree of literary polish to a septic (my take) human environment? The father is, while clothed in the clerical robes of immunity, passive aggressive, controlling, inaccessible to those who care for him, and incapable of honest emotional communication.  Everything is expressed indirectly.  Censure comes out as praise; silence is the ultimate punishment.  Religion becomes an excuse for lack of honesty and openness. Scripture is the perfect way to comment: it judges from afar, and it is invulnerable to criticism or refutation.  It’s the perfect refuge for those who have shied away from life, chosen a sheltered and safe (though perhaps limited and sad) path, and wish to denigrate those who have taken greater risks in hope of greater reward. That stance is IMHO cowardly and self-serving, and I will have none of it.

Some choose a riskier path.  Some have to deal with more difficult individual impulses.  For some, the safe haven of conventional theology just doesn’t work.  And when some of those risk takers run into trouble, how are they treated by the faithful?  Not with compassion.  Not with genuine empathy.  Instead they encounter a condescending mercy whose primary intention is to protect the forgiver.  Those who cloak themselves in religion have to keep reapplying that coat of immunity whenever they encounter those who stray and sin.  Because the coat keeps wearing off no matter how they smile, no matter how much scripture they quote, no matter how conventionally charitable their actions.  They refuse to acknowledge their own double-edged emotions, their own destructive and selfish impulses, their own humanity, the sadness that is the result of their own decision to shy away from challenge and genuine emotion.  They hide their sadness and their flaws, they go underground, they act in secret, they whisper and titter.

Yes, the growth of trust between the brother and sister is marvelous to observe.  Yes, the historical resonances from the time ring true.  Yes, even the neighbors deserve our empathy. But the suffering imposed on those who choose an alternate path is inexcusable, and witnessing it as a reader makes me angry. Very angry.

I’m told that Housekeeping is a safer bet.  It’s on my list for the future.  For now I need to step aside from this skillful and gracious portrayal of hypocrisy and resultant suffering.  It hurts too much.

Sorry.

Masculinity

Many of the stories in Paul Theroux’s new collection Mr. Bones follow a pattern.  We start with a depiction of a character or situation that seems familiar. We’ve seen it ourselves, or we’ve heard of it or read about it, and it makes sense.  Theroux shows us that we only understand the surface.  The complete picture is actually quite different, and often very disturbing.  Behind love can be violence, behind care can be abuse, behind innocence can be perversion, what seems at first to be threatening can turn out to be playful and harmless.  The twists that take us there as readers are sometimes abrupt, but more likely the hints of what’s to come are there from the beginning if we’re paying attention.  The stories are useful reminders that though we have to make assumptions about others in order to navigate the world, we actually know very little about others, and perhaps not so much about ourselves either. The conventions of society keep crucial truths hidden, truths that we choose not to face very often, truths that a skillful writer can bring to light.

Theroux gives us glimpses of many men that unhinged.  Male aggression and violence is a theme that he weaves into many of the stories in one way or another.  Anger and aggression are channeled in lots of different and unexpected ways, some relatively harmless, some with devastating consequences.  Through it all Theroux also explores the role of the writer and his need to write.

Many of Theroux’s novels are place-centric, and of course his travel books are well known.  So I expected that the stories might be shorter depictions of exotic and interesting places.  While some of the stories do take place in unusual settings, the focus is on the characters themselves.  Sometimes the setting is integral to the story, but only as a way of getting to the characters themselves.

There’s not much subtlety or softness here, but rather sharp edges pretty much everywhere.  Yes there is the occasional clumsy turn of phrase or plot contrivance. The female characters are sometimes just as dangerous as the men but more often hollow foils to the aggressive and confused male characters. The plots are not particularly delicate either, and are sometimes a bit gimmicky.  Lots of extremes and hidden agendas, all potentially dangerous and threatening in one way or another.

There’s a reason we hide behind conventions.  We can’t spend much of our time actually living out all of our feelings and desires.  That would be inefficient, messy, and dangerous.  But it’s good to be reminded of the existence of those strong impulses, especially in men.  They do sometimes come out into the open, and even when behind the scenes they can get hold of the controls. If we’ve been paying attention we won’t be so surprised. Look carefully and you’ll see the evidence even in our tame and conventional lives.  Theroux extrapolates to extreme cases for us, but if we retrace diligently we’ll find the sources within ourselves just about every time.

Late, But Finally Onboard

I may be the only English-speaking human on the planet that has not been able to read Hilary Mantel’s two award-winning historical novels.  For some reason I get bogged down fifty pages in and I’m done.  That’s unusual for me; I’m pretty good (some would say too good) at pushing through reading discomfort.  So when Mantel’s new collection of stories, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, was highly recommended to me by trusted sources I was concerned that once again I would find myself alone off the Mantel bandwagon.

But these stories are highly polished gems.  They’re not short versions of yet-to-be-written novels.  They’re really stories that work on their own terms.  They’re done when they’re done.  The language is highly calculated but not contrived.  No more is said than needs to be said, and often what’s not said (and left ambiguous) is the just as important.  These are not avant-garde DFW stories, but they’re not in the traditionalist Alice Munro mold either.  They are adventuresome, fresh, and unique in their own ways.  I even like the book’s typography: the abundance of white space nicely reflects the open-ended nature of the stories.  Lots of space to do your own thinking.

The stories with tricky or punchy endings are less successful.  The best ones lead the reader to places, times, and characters with contradictions and unanswered questions.  My favorite is probably “Sorry To Disturb”, but “Harley Street” and “How Shall I Know You?” are very good indeed.  And the title story, though entirely improbable, is deliciously executed.  Savor every sentence.  The ending is masterful.

There are only ten stories, none of them very long, but just about the entire collections is worth rereading.  I find myself thinking about them at odd moments, and I have already gone back to reread a few.

Time to give Wolf Hall another go? 

O welche Lust!

When the prisoners in Beethoven’s opera Fidelio emerge from their dark cells into the light of freedom, they sing a chorus, O welche Lust (Oh, such Joy). Only gradually do their eyes adjust to daylight and their minds to freedom. Such is my reaction on finishing a month reading Solzhenitsyn’s In the First Circle.  The sentence was a long one, and the reading experience not as edifying or rewarding as I had hoped.  But finally, yes, sweet release.

Never read (past tense) Solzhenitsyn.  Nobel Prize in Literature.  Gotta try, right?  Well, I encountered numerous obstacles:

Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here

It’s long.  Very, very long.  There are many, many characters.  (After all, it’s a Russian novel.)

It relies heavily on a thorough knowledge of Russian philosophy, history, and literature (which I don’t have).

There must be a translation issue, because I found the writing to be very bland and uninteresting.

I came away totally dispirited, to say the least. Yes, there are ‘uplifting’ moments near the end …. The end where the one quasi-heroic figure is hauled off to prison, and a bunch of intelligent men already prisoners and put in an impossible position are hauled off to a horrific labor camp, some as punishment for their lack of cooperation, others for no particular reason.  But uplifting only in comparison to the total desolation depicted in much of the book.  I guess an inch above the floor of absolute despair and meaninglessness is an inch to be treasured, but it doesn’t make for pleasant reading, not by a long shot.

I learned quite a bit about the Soviet Union in the late 40’s and early 50’s with Stalin at the height of his power.  Russians have their own peculiar blend of intellectual rigor combined with intensely felt emotion.  Contradictions abound, and cruelty is everywhere.  Much of what passes for kind and humane in the book is such only in contrast to the stunning lack of collective and even individual caring.  The justifications for that cruelty are long and numerous. And that can make for some pretty oppressive 750 pages.

Only after 200 pages did the book have any traction for me.  The focus is so broad, so many characters with little large action from any of them.  It takes a while to learn to look for the small plot turns that eventually carry the day.  In 750 pages only a few real events take place.  The rest is commentary and a series of side events.  Solzhenitsyn seems more interested in painting a very broad picture of the Soviet Union of the time, so much so that to make a particular tangential point, he simply introduces a new character for a few short chapters, then drops the character totally.  The character was there as an illustration, not as any kind of dramatic player in the action itself. This instead of a deeper dive into the psyche of a few key individuals.

Well, Solzhenitsyn was a very smart and courageous man.  Nobel Prize in Literature I’m not so sure.

I’m hoping to remove the dark glasses soon.  Daylight is painful for now, but I’m ever so grateful for the discomfort. 

Dr. Murakami

I’m sold.  Have been for a while. A new Murakami book is announced, I pre-order. On arrival, I read it ASAP. That’s how it’s been for me for some time, and the latest book,  Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki was no exception. Is it because of years of therapy? Reading Murakami for me reopens an internal voice, a voice that I learned only with professional help. It’s a voice that has become essential to my ability to guide myself, to know myself, to live as myself.

Very handsomely and expensively printed.

I won’t say much about this particular novel. No need. I don’t think it’s his best work, but it is quintessential Murakami.  For me, just about anything he writes in that special voice will awaken the therapeutic experience.  As usual it’s about a male character who is stuck in life, caught in a period of unhealthy stasis.  The cause is sometimes vague, sometimes clear.  The character’s means of (at least partial) escape is partly psychological, party magical, partly circumstantial.  I liken the approach to that in Freud’s case studies, i.e. Dora.  There’s a problem, there are symptoms and periods of turbulence, there’s exploration, there are dreams, and then there’s a sorting out that leads to tentative healing.

All of that may be beside the point. It may be just the flat unemotional narrative style that appeals to me. That desert is a familiar if unhealthy place for me; I’ve been there many times, and it’s a challenge for me to find my way out.  I have managed it (sooner or later, for better or for worse), and I think reading Murakami’s fiction reassures me that there is always an exit path, no matter how consistently solid the prison walls might seem.  There is an opening if only I could see it. I have constructed the prison myself, and I can also imagine it out of existence.

I’m sorry, we have to stop now. See you next week.

The Power to Please

I recall watching Robin Williams interviewed at the desk on The Tonight Show years ago when Johnny Carson was still hosting.  Williams was absolutely brilliant.  Carson skillfully played the straight man, and Williams changed accents, characters, pace, gesture styles every few seconds.  It was amazing to watch but at the same time it deeply saddened me.  Williams couldn’t NOT do it; because he could please, he couldn’t stop.  He couldn’t just be himself, and to me he seemed manic, desperate and lost.

Of course I have no idea if Williams’s abilities had anything to do with his battle with depression and his eventual suicide.  But I wouldn’t be surprised if his power to please made it more difficult for him to stay in touch with his inner self. 

Celeste Ng’s first novel, Everything I Never Told You tells the story of a teenage girl with the power to please her family (her mother in particular), and also to serve as the glue that held together her fragile immediate family.  In so doing she sacrificed her own pleasures and goals, her own well-being, and ultimately her life.  The story touches on a number of modern themes, including cross-cultural issues and parenting styles.  The approach is very traditional, a straightforward story told in a straightforward way.  We learn about the main character from several points of view.  In the end we piece it all together. The writing is serviceable if not remarkable.  The plot unfolds predictably.  Like The Lovely Bones, we know from the beginning that the girl is dead. The book is about how and why that comes about.

I did learn a few things about my own past.  I too had the power to please my parents, and most often I couldn’t resist it, even when I should have.  I can blame my parents, who to a large extent tried to live through my successes, but I also used their tendencies to avoid my own difficulties, and in the long run those pressures and consequent confusion and pain were my own doing, not theirs.  I don’t think I particularly longed for the applause, but they wanted it for me, and I wanted them to be happy.  If I could provide that, I did, even when I knew (or at least sensed) that there were better paths for me as an individual.

It’s hard enough for an adult to skillfully draw the boundaries between self and others, to navigate the waters in a way that provides both self-fulfillment and strong connections with others.  Children need good models in that way; they need to see the important adults around them make good choices for themselves and lead their lives with appropriate focus and grace.  When parents don’t provide good models, children often make bad choices, or at least choices that may work short-term, but in the long run lead to serious problems.

Ng’s book is an easy read, and I think worth the time if these issues interest you.  If not, move on.