MELANCHOLY

"I got sick from painting, because I stared at landscapes in the sun. And that's why I got sick, I'm sure of it. And I cant' sleep either. That's also probably why I got sick. I listen to the seagulls. I watch the seagulls."
—page 187, Melancholy by Jon Fosse

Lars Hertervig is having a bad day. He is stuck in his obsessive thoughts. He repeats scenes over and over in his head until they become overwhelming, paralyzing. Then the black and white clothes come floating toward him, surround him, close in and smother him. The clothes move back ever so slightly and move in again. They depart when Lars begins to gain some control over the thoughts. He begins to obsess over the same thoughts, the same scenes again, with only slight variation. He does progress through the thoughts, however. It is just that he plays them out so many times in his head that we see them from angles that are just slightly askew from one another. It is like a kaleidoscope of thought, and we are moving through his mind with him.

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"There are readers who simply can't get enough of novels with unreliable narrators, beautiful sentences packed with vivid, poetic prose, and lofty themes about the power of language and society's collective ennui. And there are other readers who prefer a nice, juicy murder."
—Chris Bolton, in his review, "Guilt-free Pleasures," of The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction by Patrick Anderson, on Powells.com

I am the former type of reader. Melancholy is the former type of book. Jon Fosse's book, as translated from Norwegian into English by Grethe Kvernes and Damion Searls, is "beautiful sentences packed with vivid, poetic prose." Sentences alternate between those that are short, staccato, and those that gather up pieces from the short into a longer passage. This rhythm keeps us in the disturbed mind of Lars, without drowning us in Lars's own paranoia and obsession.

The first portion of the book takes place on a single day in 1853 Düsseldorf. Not much happens as far as movement is concerned. Lars is supposed to meet up with his mentor, the painter Hans Gude, at the studio where Lars paints as part of a school of painters. Instead, he gets thrown out of the room he rents because he has fallen in love with the fifteen-year old girl from whose mother he rents the room. He wanders down to the bar, Malkasten, where the other painters hang out. Then, after a while he wanders back to his former place of residence, only to be escorted in police presence.

During all of this, Lars fears meeting up with Hans Gude because he fears how Hans will judge his painting. Lars is sure he will be sent back to his hometown of Stavanger to end up as a house painter. Yet, Lars also insists to us that only he and Hans and one other painter, Tidemann, can paint. Lars obsesses about the girl Helene, even though their only contact has been the two of them hugging, perhaps twice, and him smelling her hair. Yet, Lars is ready to marry the girl. The other painters at the bar take advantage of Lars, or so it seems. They may be joking with him and he simply doesn't know how to handle it, to process it.

The stability of Lars's mind is certainly questionable since he inflates and deflates events and scenes into things they may not necessarily be. I guess one question for me is: what does it say about my own mental state, when I can empathize with Lars at many points? And another: why is this book so compelling? I know that one piece is the rhythm of language that is sets up. It is hypnotic. But, there has to be more to it than that. Perhaps, Jon Fosse has tapped in to pieces of obsession and insecurity that we all, or at least I, possess.

I will let you know more after part two of the novel...

BOREDOM ADDENDUM

It seems there are antidotes other than grief to alleviate boredom. Recent experience has shown the Work Table that anxiety (such as "where is the squirrel in the house now?") and fear (such as "the squirrel just grunted and lunged at me again!") are effective ways to remove boredom from one's life. This shouldn't be news to anyone. It simply highlights the difference between the rational, the intellectual, and the irrational, the experiential.

BOREDOM

An empty box
An open space
A single thought
Leaves a trace
—from "Minimal" by the Pet Shop Boys, from the album Fundamental



"Learn to be satisfied with little—will you deny that this is much?"
—page 211, Provocations by Søren Kierkegaard

What is boredom? Failed imagination? A lesser relative of depression? A vacuum of stimulation and entertainment? Sometimes, I find it difficult to tell if I am depressed, fatigued, or simply bored.

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Fifth Edition defines boredom as "tedium, ennui." It defines ennui as "mental weariness and dissatisfaction arising from lack of occupation or interest; boredom." I find much to occupy myself with. I am not sure that I find all of it interesting. Perhaps Kierkegaard is right: simplification is in order. Perhaps the architect Mies van der Rohe is right: less is more. I do often find satisfaction in the simple things of life. A good beer. A nice meal. An hour of quiet to read. Time spent just sitting with the wife and child. Watching birds jump around in the garden or hanging on the bird feeders. Walking outdoors without purpose.

So, what are my complaints? Are my expectations set too high? Do I let culture dictate how I live my life moreso than I am willing to consciously acknowledge?

For me, comfort comes in knowing that I am not alone in my restlessness. Ghita Schwarz has an essay, "A Case of Boredom: A Rigorous and Lyrical Examination of a Relatively New Illness," in the February 2007 issue of The Believer that helps to ease my mind. She discusses boredom settling in during a difficult time in her life: as her father slowly dies over a period of years due to debilitating cardiac illness. She finds herself restless. She aimlessly surfs the Internet in search of celebrity gossip at work. She finds all food to be bland. She finds sex to be routine and unfulfilling. She questions her own sanity. In her suffering through boredom, I can recognize glimpses of my own life. Some of our symptoms are the same; some are different. Her frustration at where to turn for help feels palpable to me, though; I know her predicament. She also discovers that others around her don't understand her. They see her as unstable or don't know how to deal with her.

She also leaves no solution for the reader of her essay. Her boredom disappears (although, I am certain it will return) with the death of her father. As she writes: "Why did it go? Boredom didn't leave a note, so I can only speculate...grief beats boredom."

Her answer may not satisfy, but it seems truthful. Most states of being involve endurance and tolerance. Maturation only comes in the midst of suffering that is lived through. In the meantime, one can wander, searching, looking for satisfaction in the quotidian and the simple and the small.

PHYSIOLOGICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESSORS

I have a phrase stuck in my head: "physiological manifestations of psychological stressors." I don't know where the actual phrase came from, but I do know that it was triggered by something I read in Norman Rockwell: The Underside of Innocence by Richard Halpern. I cannot locate the actual paragraph that triggered the phrase, but remember Halpern talking about the fact that things that occur in the psyche have a way of affecting us physically—arthritis, ulcers, wounds. I wonder if much of what has been touted as stigmata is primarily psychological in nature. It obviously doesn't change the end but does change the means, which could have implications for a "cure" for stigmata.

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Norman Rockwell: The Underside of Innocence was a nice change in tone of reading material. The killing fields of Sudan from What is the What and the claustrophobic nightmare of Red the Fiend were left behind as Richard Halpern examined some of the works of America's premier illustrator, Norman Rockwell. Halpern spent a good deal of time delving into the social "psyche" that fuels Rockwell's work. Therefore, Halpern's discussion centers not only on what Rockwell brings to the canvas or magazine cover, but also how it reflects the society that Rockwell paints for and lives within. The elements of nostalgia and innocence in Rockwell's work turn out to not be quite so concerned with the past or with purity. They are ways of masking the foibles and flaws, the sexuality and violence, the gaze and voyeurism of painter and audience, that pulse just beneath our conscious acknowledgement.

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The completion of one book brings the start of another. This time, I take another foray into fiction. Melancholy by Jon Fosse was a Christmas gift from the brother-in-law and the sister-in-law. If I thought the world of Red was claustrophobic then that of Lars Hertervig is even moreso. I am only fifty pages into the story so far, but am trapped in the head of Lars, and he is obsessing over the same couple of issues, while slowly working in a few more. I don't know what his overall psychological makeup would be, but obsessive-compulsive and high anxiety would be good guesses as to some of its components. The interesting thing is that the language (and it is an English tranlation of Norwegian) is that the rhythm of the lines does as much to pull me into the story as does the content of the story. The obsessive thought of Lars builds a litany of repetition that compels one to "get inside" the head, the thoughts, of Lars and want to stay.

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The wife and I recently watched two movies on DVD. Last week, we saw Little Miss Sunshine; last night, we saw The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Although Little Miss Sunshine was somewhat funny, all I could think of at the end was that regardless of how "screwed up" the characters were, this was really the plot of National Lampoon's Vacation with the Abba karaoke scene of Muriel's Wedding tacked on as it's ending. I guess I had hoped for more.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was a much more fulfilling and enjoyable experience. The world of the movie was strange yet amazingly self-contained. In other words, it works. Bill Murray gives one of his best performance, along the lines of those given in Lost in Translation and Ed Wood. Steve Zissou may be psychologically unstable, quirky, and unstable, but he felt more real than all of the characters in Little Miss Sunshine combined. Perhaps, it is because Little Miss Sunshine felt dark and somewhat hopeless, with a sugary, Hollywood-style ending added for good measure and closure, whereas The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou felt hopeful even in the midst of all of the loss and suffering that Steve and the crew of the Belafonte experience.

The characters in Little Miss Sunshine feel rather disposable to me. I will not, however, soon forget Bill Murray's Steve, Owen Wilson's Ned, Angelica Huston's Eleanor, or Willem Defoe's Klaus.

GREATER AND LESSER HELLS

"Often, just before sleep, Red sees Grandma's gold tooth gleaming in the perpetual twilight of the long hallway as she opens her mouth to destroy him: bitch, gorgon, harpy, goon."
—page 209, Red the Fiend by Gilbert Sorrentino

"More generally, denial is understood as the mind's default reaction to serious forms of trauma, such as terminal illness or child abuse. Indeed, denial has been recognized as an essential coping mechanism in some situations where intense pain or psychic stress cannot be otherwise relieved."
—page 25, Norman Rockwell: Underside of Innocence by Richard Halpern

"There’s going to come a day when you feel better:
You’ll rise up free and easy on that day,
Float from branch to branch, lighter than the air.
Just when that day is coming, who can say? Who can say?"
—from "Up the Wolves" by The Mountain Goats on The Sunset Tree

I recently completed Red the Fiend by Gilbert Sorrentino. It was a brutal, painful, harrowing journey through a few months in the hell of Red. Red is a twelve-year old boy who has been held back and placed in the "morphodite" class at school. This is primarily due to the physical, verbal, and emotional abuse he suffers from his maternal grandmother. However, she is not alone. Her "allies" include a grandfather who stands by while he is abused, a mother who is slowly becoming her own mother, and a drunken father who is divorced from his mother and mostly absent. The book will shatter any notion of a past "golden age" with which you may surround the Great Depression. These people are the poor and uneducated marginalized.

I found myself drawn into Red's story like a moth to a flame. I knew that I would be consumed. I knew there was going to be little hope. Red's story is too futile, too desperate. He is slowly heading down the path of someone who will in turn abuse because they know nothing else. He is beginning to stand up to Grandma, but it feels hollow. It is his only hope for survival, yet it is nihilistic. I felt drained every time I began to read it again. I felt exhausted when I finished. Now don't get me wrong: this is a well-written book. It may even be a must-read for anyone who wants to better understand the cycle of abuse. It is not, however, for everyone.

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A story of abuse that is infused with hope is that of John Darnielle. John is the singer-songwriter who is the primary member of The Mountain Goats. His album The Sunset Tree is a mostly autobiographical collection of tales about abuse suffered at the hands of his stepfather. Intriguing lyrics of pain and hope, of escape into the world of music, of an attempt to comprehend the monster that inflicts one's suffering, are the hallmarks of the songs on The Sunset Tree.

I pulled the album out and began listening to it again, mostly to get a viewpoint of a victim of child abuse other than that of Red alone. John Darnielle's tale is a survivor's tale, a tale of hope in the face of nightmare; Red's tale is a tale of complete destruction, of a soul extinguished, of death.

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I needed a change of pace. First: a novel about one boy's experiences of the civil war and genocide in Sudan. Then: a novel about one boy's experiences growing up in poverty and abuse. Now: an examination of the painter Norman Rockwell and how his artwork is misunderstood. The interesting connection for me is how Richard Halpern is placing some of the same defense mechanisms that victims of abuse use to survive their torment before us as readers as ways that we try to avoid what Rockwell is actually showing us. Disavowal is laid bare. According to Halpern, we see things but pretend we don't. We bifurcate. We split.

It is interesting to see the sex and violence that seethe beneath the facade of our culture. Halpern's argument is that Rockwell was merely showing the "monsters below" in many of his most well-known and cherished paintings; we just don't want to admit what we see there. So far, the book is a fascinating read, and even though some of the same themes of Red the Fiend are present, they are discussed and examined in a way that makes them more palatable.

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Now, for a brief respite from talk of abuse, of children or otherwise...

I never really liked any of the "cutesy" characters that were prevalent when I was growing up. In fact, I rather loathed Strawberry Shortcake and pals, the Care Bears, the Smurfs, and My Little Ponies. Who knew that when I had a child of my own that My Little Ponies would make a comeback, people would give them to the child as presents, and that I would sit in my own living room brushing the hair of Blushie and Sunny Sparkle with the child? Yet, there is something quiet and calming about brushing the plastic hair of these peach and pink and purple ponies. There is something soothing about pretending to give them numbers (the child's idea) and have them race across the couch. I could almost imagine the blueberry scented air racing past my lavender nostrils and through my mane and tail, as syrupy songs were sung by choirs of Care Bears floating by on cotton-candy clouds. Ah, dreams of cartoon utopia...

[Styling on Blushie and Sunny Sparkle, above, by me!]

SHADES OF RED

"The first one came out ruddy, like a hairy mantle all over, so they called his name: Esav/Rough-One."
—Genesis 25:25

"Esav said to Yaakov: Pray give me a gulp of the red-stuff, that red-stuff, for I am so weary! Therefore they called his name: Edom/Red-One."
—Genesis 25:30, both verses from The Schocken Bible: Volume I: The Five Books of Moses, translated by Everett Fox

"Grandma often wants to hurt Red for reasons that remain her secret. At such times, she patiently constructs an edifice of Red's wrongdoing that, when complete, stands as witness to his crimes, crimes that must be punished. Sometimes these aberrant exercises in domestic sadism take Red into areas of his mind that are darkly inexplicable, but that, even so, act as antidotes to the poisons that surround and invade him."
—page 70, Red the Fiend by Gilbert Sorrentino

"Suddenly Geryon's brother stepped behind Geryon and seized him by the neck. This is the silent death hold, Geryon, in war they use this for knocking out sentries. With one surprise twist I can break your neck."
—page 31, Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

Today, I am three-quarters of the way through Red the Fiend by Gilbert Sorrentino. This novel is a brutal description of one boy's life, as he is physically, emotionally, and verbally abused by his grandmother while his "mollycoddle" grandfather, "tramp" of a mother, and absent "drunk" of a father stand by and allow it to happen. Red is slowly being sculpted by Grandma's abuse into the very person she claims to be trying to save him from becoming. A harrowing look at life in one poverty-stricken dysfunctional family in Depression-era New York, Red the Fiend is nothing if not brutal. It is like watching the aftermath of a car crash. I want to look away but cannot. I am pulled into the story, even as I find it difficult to identify with any of the characters. It is even somewhat to identify with Red, since he is a difficult character to love in spite of the abuse he endures. He is not very sympathetic.

Today, in our weekly staff meeting, we read the story of Esau and the "abuse" he endures at the hand of his brother Jacob. He sells his birthright for a bowl of red lentil stew! The "hunter" is "vanquished" by the "civilized" brother. Soon, he will also lose the blessing of his father, as the first-born son, to the continuing trickery of his brother, with the help and encouragement of his own mother. He will, of course, fight back, but ultimately "lose." It is also, I fear, what is coming for Red as he is transformed into Red the Fiend.

Both stories remind me of Geryon in Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson. He is also Red, in actual coloring, and in spirit. He is also abused by those who love him: first by his older brother, and later by his lover Herakles and Herakles' new lover Ancash. It is another story of a Red who is treated poorly by those who supposedly love him. Geryon, though—unlike Red, who is becoming a monster, and Esau, who is monstrously grotesque ("like a [red] hairy mantle all over")—is a monster who in some ways is the most human of the three Reds, is the most easy to identify with. We can easily feel his pain and predicament, while loving him deeply.

Still: today is not a good day to be Red.

THE IMPORTANCE OF STORY

"How could I put everything down on paper? It seemed impossible. No matter what, the majority of life would be left out of this story, this sliver of a version of the life I'd known." (432)


—Valentino Achak Deng in What is the What by Dave Eggers

The story was important enough that all other activity needed to cease. Work had to continue and rearing of the child and eating and sleeping, but otherwise the story had to be followed and finished, squeezed in wherever time allowed. But, then, does the story finish just because it is followed to completion?

What is the What will most likely be the best book I read in 2007. It easily makes my list of top books. It is a story that compels the reader to read it. It is a story that haunts, that shifts one’s outlook on the world, and leaves the reader different, changed.

I began the book partly due to word of mouth—on the street, a good review in The New York Times Book Review, press on the McSweeney's website—and partly due to interest in the synopsis of the story and enjoyment of Egger's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The story is very compelling, and once I was immersed I knew that I had to keep reading, I had to get to the "other side" of the novel. But, what really compelled me to read with a sense of urgency was getting to hear Achak Deng's story in person, and to speak with him.

I am exhausted, and know that I will have to revisit the book at some point in the near future. But, for now, I am blessed to have lived in Achak Deng's story for the past two weeks. I hope that you will also live there very soon.

WILD PLACES

"I have no history.
I have no memory.
I am a fool."
—Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina in Hotel Rwanda

"My anger was more intense than it had ever been toward the murahaleen. It was born of the realization that there were castes within the displaced. And we occupied the lowest rung on the ladder. We were utterly dispensable to all—to the government, to the murahaleen, to the rebels, to the better-situated refugees." (205)
—Valentino Achak Deng in What is the What by Dave Eggers

Sudan: Baggara Arab horsemen slaughter Dinka and Nuer. Dinka and Nuer eventually feud and kill each other, before once again collectively turning their attention against the Muslim-led northern government. Rwanda: Hutus kill Tutsis. The only way they can be told apart is by their identity cards, identities created during the time of colonization by Belgium. Yugoslavia: Croats murder Serbs; Serbs murder Croats; both murder Muslims. The nation fractures into individual states. Civil war: neighbor kills neighbor; friend murders friend; father turns against son and daughter, daughter turns against mother and mother-in-law.

What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers has become the seminal, defining voice of a conflict for me, in this case the civil war of Sudan. In the same way that William T. Vollmann did for the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict in An Afghanistan Picture Show; Or How I Saved the World; Misha Glenny did for the Yugoslavia civil war in The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War; and Philip Gourevitch did for the Rwandan genocide in We Wish To Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families; Dave Eggers, channeling the voice of Achak Deng in What is the What, has now forced me to confront savagery that has taken place in my own lifetime. This is not distant history that has no overt connection to me. This is not the First World War or the Second World War, or even Vietnam. This civil war in Sudan is a conflict that continues to rage. This civil war in Sudan is a conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced millions, and should have spoken deep into my soul well before now and motivated me into action. This civil war in Sudan is complicated further by the presence of multinational oil companies in the region that want to ensure that they can take their oil at whatever human cost in order that they can reap billions in profits.

Therefore, I am having to educate myself further, in order that I can speak to some of the truth that has been kept from me. (Or, more importantly, the truth that I have kept from myself. The Buddha is telling the truth when he states that, "Ignorance is bliss." We "keep" things from ourselves, on purpose, all the time.) This means having to continue with What is the What until I am finished and then moving deeper into the history of the Sudanese civil war and genocide, through research and other works.

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The wife and I viewed Hotel Rwanda last night. This is another piece of art that is cutting deep into me at the moment. The world stood by while 800,000 to one million people were slaughtered in 100 days, the most people killed in the shortest amount of time in world history. Paul Rusesabagina saved 1200, all the while risking his own life and those of his family members. I am sick. I am ashamed at my culpability. I wish I was more courageous, more bold. I wish that I could speak against these atrocities with fervor and faithfulness to who I believe that I am, rather than just hiding in the safety of my home, my middle-class American life.

I am pretty sure that I am no prophet, however. There is a reason that people like Paul Rusesbagina and Valentino Achak Deng need to speak, to continue to tell their stories. I believe they truly are called to "fulfill a mission."

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Paul Rusesbagina and Valentino Achak Deng and hundreds of thousands of others have been to wild places that I will never know. They have been taken into the wilderness and tempted by the Devil in ways that I cannot even begin to imagine. They have stared into the mouths of the dogs of war, and won small victories in their own ways: they are still alive and still speak. Their presence is a testament to human will and persistence, in the face of the evil and sin that resides deep within us as a people.

VALENTINO ACHAK DENG

"I do not believe that I was saved because I am unique, an individual. I believe that I was saved because I have a mission to fulfill."
—Valentino Achak Deng, Elliott Bay Book Company, Tuesday 09 January 2007

Tuesday night brings more tales of the destruction of Marial Bai. Of the armed militias of Arab horsemen, known then as the murahaleen, known now as the janjaweed, who were intent on killing the Dinka, the tribe of which Achak belongs. Of death and survival in the bush. Of the loss of so many friends. Of years living in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya. Of an opportunity to come to the United States, almost thwarted, since he was initially flying here on September 11, 2001, and incoming air traffic was halted due to the terrorist attacks in Washington DC and New York. Of the difficulty of adjusting to a new language and culture and people. Of his being mugged and robbed. The tales were right from the mouth of the man known as Valentino Achak Deng.

The child and I journeyed up to Seattle to hear Achak speak to a room of two hundred people at Elliott Bay Book Company. Achak is the subject of the novel, What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers. Achak not only told his story, but also spoke of the way that the book was written. He told us about his initial meeting with Dave Eggers and their trip to Sudan in 2003. He told us about their talks and email exchanges. He told us how Eggers would write a section and have Achak review it for accuracy. He told us how Eggers would write a draft for a section and email Achak questions he had about that particular section. The book truly seems a collaboration between author and subject, between the facts that non-fiction provides and the truth that fiction provides.

So there we sat, a group of mostly young, middle-class, white people listening to this humble, generous man, who feels that he must speak out against the atrocities in his homeland in order that others will know about those atrocities, and also speak out and act to see them stopped. And, I kept wondering if any of us, myself included would actually do anything. I felt paralyzed and impotent to act, just as I did when Yugoslavia was tearing itself apart. I felt paralyzed and impotent to act, just as I did when the Tutsis and Hutus were killing each other in Rwanda, even after reading Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You that We Will Be Killed with Our Families. I felt paralyzed and impotent to act, just as I did when the United States invaded Iraq for the first time in 1991 during Desert Storm and more recently during our current quagmire known as Gulf War 2.

This time, however, I have met a survivor of genocide in Africa. I have heard his story. I have seen it enfleshed. I have spoken to him. I have shaken his hand. He flirted with the child, and treated her as though she was just as important as anyone else there. In my copy of What is the What he wrote "To Troy! With gratitude, Valentino Achak Deng." He thanked me for coming. I couldn't believe that he was thanking me. I thanked him for his story, at which he seemed somewhat embarrassed. He glanced down at his hands and thanked me again. Then he looked up at the child, raised his brow, and told her to be good. At that we departed.

I can read and inform myself, as I am doing right now, becoming more upset the more of What is the What that I read.

If I do nothing else, however, I hope to direct someone else to some of the story of Achak and the stories of the people of Southern Sudan and the grievous injuries that they have suffered, individually and collectively. Please take some time to visit the following links:

*Valentino Achak Deng—this website is hosted by Achak as he attempts to tell the world his story and to help the people, his people, of Southern Sudan.

*What is the What—learn more about the book.

*Southern Sudanese Community of Washington—an organization that helps the refugees of Southern Sudan who are relocated in Washington State start to rebuild their new lives.

*Eric Reeves—the website for a man who has spent the past seven years researching and speaking out against the atrocities committed by the Sudanese government against its own people. Reeves is considered an enemy by the government of Sudan. He is also a thorn in the side of many other governments that refuse to put an end to the violence, including the United States.

*Save Darfur—an alliance of over 170 religious, advocacy, and human rights organizations dedicated to speaking out against the genocide in Sudan and obtaining some sort of response to the 2.5 million people killed and 2 million people displaced by the violence.

TIME AT WAR

So now I set about fitting into the training programme of my platoon some of the stalking and catch-me-if-you-can games that I had played with Raleigh Trevelyan’s platoon at Ranby—for did not war seem to be a horribly over-the-top version of a children’s game? (56)

It was all quite like, yes, an apotheosis of a mad apocalyptic children’s game. (124)

—Time at War by Nicholas Mosley.

Two days ago, I completed Time at War by Nicholas Mosley. This was a Christmas gift from the mother-in-law.

Time at War is a memoir of Mosley's experiences in the Second World War. What I liked about the book is Mosley's deflation of his younger self. He challenges his youthful arrogance from the standpoint of a man at the end of life, but also shows how he was challenging many of his assumptions and values even as a young man. He is snivelling and brash and spoiled. He is warm and compassionate and warm-hearted. He revels in the friendships of his fellow students and officers. He wonders about their "playing" at homosexuality, which, for most of them, is left behind once the brutality and horror of war rears its ugly head. He finds fulfillment in war, even as he protests it. He faces the failure of being captured, the thrill of escape, and the redemption of being allowed to "repent" of his failure through the success of leading his platoon into battle. Mosley is contradiction squared. He is human. This humanity and confusion and self-effacement and reevaluation makes him rather endearing.

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Every minute I have to give to this war I grudge angrily. And when things are dangerously active I go about my business in a spirit of complete misery.
—Time at War by Nicholas Mosley, page 143

I was talking with a soldier and his wife on Sunday. He is about to be redeployed at a moment's notice to Iraq, as soon as President George W. Bush decides how many troops he wants to increase our current numbers with. His platoon could leave in a few weeks. It could leave tonight. He doesn't know. But, he does know that he is afraid and mad and wants American involvement in the war to come to conclusion. The insecurity and anxiety is gnawing at him. His fear and worry were visible upon his face and that of his wife. He looked sick and pissed off.

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One could begin to see how the simplicities of war might be easier to deal with than the complexities of peace.
—Time at War by Nicholas Mosley, page 160

Which is how President Bush was reelected. It was simpler to keep him in office and slog through the nightmare we have helped to create than to roll up our sleeves, put someone else into office, and do the real work of diplomacy, withdrawal, coalition building.

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Humans seem at home in war: they do not feel at home in peace. This cannot often enough be said.
—Time at War by Nicholas Mosley, page 161

May God have mercy upon us!

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As soon as I completed Time at War, I immediately began What is the What by Dave Eggers. What is the What is a fictionalized account of the life of Valentino Achak Deng. Deng survived the civil war of Sudan in the early 1980s and his subsequent trek to find shelter in refugee camps in western Ethiopia and northern Kenya.

This is another attempt of an individual to wrap his mind around the concept of war. Only this time the individual is not in his early twenties when he first experiences war, but six years old. I am only 85 pages into the novel at this point, but young Deng has seen his village of Marial Bai destroyed, had his family split up, seen bodies scattered about, and seen and heard fellow boys attacked by lions in the scrub as they flee. He has also been victimized in the United States as a young adult refugee due to his African heritage. His tale is being told to us while he is tied up on the floor of his own apartment after being robbed.

We really are filthy beasts, all of us...

PICK OF THE WEEK

Today is the pick of the week. The day was a fun one for the child and I.

First, we visited Elliott Bay Book Company. I had a gift certificate that I received from my boss. I was able to pick out four books today, which still left me a little bit to use in the future. This allows me to have new reading material for the winter and spring, along with the books I received for Christmas. Today I picked up:

*What is the What by Dave Eggers. Subtitled The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, this is a novel based upon the life of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. Eggers extensively interviewed Deng, had access to pieces Deng had written himself, used other source material written about the Sudanese civil war, and then fictionalized it. It reminds me of William T. Vollmann's Afghanistan Picture Show, which was a blend of "fiction" and reportage, humility and bravado.

*Red the Fiend by Gilbert Sorrentino. A novel about victimization and abuse. Red is transformed into Red the Fiend through the physical and emotional torments of his grandmother, as well as others.

*I'm Not Stiller by Max Frisch. A man is framed by authorities for crimes he did not commit. Or did he? He insists that he is not Stiller.

*Norman Rockwell: The Underside of Innocence by Richard Halpern. A critical look at the work of Rockwell and the subversion contained within his art.

Next, we visited the Frye Art Museum. Our main reason for visiting was to see the sound sculpture by Trimpin. His installation, entitled Klompen, consists of 120 Dutch wooden clogs that contain wooden mallets. Each clog is suspended from a thin computer cable that also serves to tie the mallet to the computer that runs the compositions. Each "play" of the sculpture cost 25 cents, the proceeds of which are donated to charity. Different sized clogs and different sized mallets allow for different notes. The percussive songs were short, each about a minute in length.

The child was intrigued by "the dancing shoes" "that make music." She was also intrigued by her "interaction" in inserting quarters into its box to make it function.

We also had fun at the Erwin Wurm exhibit, I Love My Time, I Don't Like My Time: Recent Work by Erwin Wurm. It included photographs, video, sculptures, and spectator-involvement performance pieces, all of which bordered on the absurd. The child sat on one of the spectator-involvement sculptures and contemplated Spinoza. The child asked questions about some of the photographs and videos. I attempted to explain them to the child as best as possible. The child would watch me as I laughed at some of the photographs.

The child also really enjoyed a couple of video sculptures created by children inspired by the work of Wurm. Collectively entitled Pieces of Clothing, the child enjoyed stop-motion animations of clothing, shoes, and infant outfits that moved about. The child kept asking to go back and look at them.

Another exhibit that intrigued me was Spectatorship and Desire: Loss. These were rooms in the front galleries filled with paintings from the Frye's permanent collection. The layout of the paintings was such that it looked as though some pieces were missing, which upon more exploration I discovered was the case. The exhibit "catalogs" in the rooms duplicated the layouts of the walls, naming the artist and title for each painting, as well as for each negative space! The idea was that the "hole" was the size that the painting it represented would take up if it were hanging on the wall. Loss, indeed. I found it an interesting way to make the spectator think about the pieces that we see, or remember seeing in the past.

Later in the evening, at home, the child took a box, flipped it over, and began making her shoes "dance" on the box by dangling them from their laces like some strange marionettes. She insisted that she was "doing a puppet show." I would consider that the perfect end to a wonderful day: life imitating art.

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The pictures of Elliott Bay, the Klompen exhibit, and the Spectatorship and Desire: Loss exhibit were taken with the pocket digital camera. This allowed the child and I to continue our surreptitious photography in art museums and galleries. I don't think either Elliott Bay or the Frye would have objected to our camera, but it felt good to be continuing our own art project. The purple in one of the Klompen pictures is just one of the "hiccups" of a low-resolution digital camera. The darkness of the others is due to reliance upon ambient lighting.

BEST READS OF 2006

Below are my favorite reads of 2006. They are not necessarily in order of favoritism, although Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die! and Voices from Chernobyl were my top two favorite reads of 2006.

#1—Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die!
by Mark Binelli
The two anarchists, railroaded through the court system and then executed by the U.S. federal government, are reimagined as vaudevillians-cum-comedy team movie stars. Funny, sad, probing.

#2—Voices from Chernobyl
by Svetlana Alexievich
Firsthand accounts of victims of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. Alexievich, who spent three years in The Zone conducting interviews, now has immune disorders from her exposure.

#3—Lincoln's Melancholy
by Joshua Wolf Shenk
A biography of Abraham Lincoln, as seen through the lens of his depression. An interesting look at depression, its public perception then and now, how it shaped Lincoln and his presidency, and how he subsequently handled the Civil War.

#4—Europeana
by Patrik Ouředník
A weirdly poetic fever-dream constructed of facts about Europe, focusing on the past one-hundred years, especially the Second World War and the Cold War. It also looks at the effects of capitalism, communism, fascism, and the influence of the United States on Europe's identity. Is it a novel without characters? Is it a "biography" of Europe? It is subtitled "A Brief History of the Twentieth Century," but I am not sure that helps much.

#5—Mother Country
by Marianne Robinson
An examination of how Great Britain has allowed nuclear facilities to jeopardize the health of its poorest citizenry, and create one of the largest, mostly unnoticed environmental disasters. The book is banned in Britain because Greenpeace sued for libel, due to the unflattering light with which they are portayed. Read this book to see how government really cares very little about the individual.

#6—Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences
by Lawrence Wechsler
Wechsler sees the world differently than you and me, which is a good thing for us. He finds fascinating similarities in juxtaposed images and artworks. Then he write about them. This book also includes the images that he is writing about. The visuals are intriguing and the writing moreso.

#7—Atomik Aztex
by Sesshu Foster
The main character is a high ranking official in the twentieth-century Aztek culture that controls the Western Hemisphere and is now fighting fascism in WWII-era Europe. Or is he? He dreams he is a Latino working in the nightmare of a East Los Angeles meatpacking plant? Or is he? Because he dreams he is a high ranking official in the twentieth-century Aztek culture...

#8—St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
by Karen Russell
Short stories that reflect the collision of our contemporary world and the world of myth and legend. Modern fairy tales, if you will. The Minotaur helps pull his family's wagon in the westward migration that will become known as the Oregon trail. A young girl abandoned by her parents on their alligator farm/tourist attraction struggles with the deteriorating condition of her mentally ill sister and the visits of the Bird Man.

#9—The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
A father and son fight for survival in the apocalyptic wasteland that was once America. Most plants and animals are extinct, most people have banded together into cannibalistic clans, food is being scavenged from the detritus of the consumer culture of a few years prior. Where is God in the midst of it all? Where are most other people? Where are the women? The man and the boy are "keepers of the fire." But, will they survive?

#10—Thank You for Not Reading
by Dubravka Ugresic
Essays challenging the status quo of international publishing and book culture. Ugresic leaves no one unscathed—publishers, book stores, distributors, agents, other authors, even herself. Witty and funny, with enough sense to pull back when the sarcasm is about to become too much.

LINCOLN'S MELANCHOLY

Whereas “melancholy” in Lincoln’s time was understood to be a multifaceted phenomenon that conferred potential advantages along with grave dangers, today we tend to discount its complexities. Psychiatrists see only a biological brain disease. Psychologists see only errors in thinking. That is, is you don’t like yourself, or you feel hopeless, or you see life as fundamentally dissatisfying, you’ve fallen victim to what researchers call “learned helplessness.” By some blend of bad genes and bad experience, you have come to see the world in dark hues. Therapy and medication can help you to see the world the way healthy optimists do. (134)

What’s striking is that all five of the “mature” defenses [psychiatrist George] Vaillant identifies were present in Lincoln as he managed the country and himself. Humor, as we’ve seen, allow a person to fully engage with reality while enjoying its absurdities. Healthy people also practice suppression, which, quite unlike denial, is the selective, forceful act of pushing away the oppressive stimuli; anticipation, which involves dealing with the moment in part by looking ahead to the good and the bad that lie in the future; altruism, or placing the welfare of others above oneself; and sublimation, which involves channeling passions into art. (182-183)

—Lincoln's Melancholy by Joshua Wolf Shenk

Thank God I am not a "healthy optimist." Thank God I am not in therapy or on medication, yet. Thank God I am fairly good at incorporating most of the five "mature" defenses into my life most of the time. It is taking time, but I become more comfortable with my own darkness, my own depression, my own melancholy, with each passing month. Some are easier than others.

"Healthy optimists" scare me because they oftentimes seem to me to live in escapist fantasies or survey their environment through the lens of an unrealistic worldview. I believe that the current executive branch of the federal government is filled with "healthy optimists" who just happen to have the nuclear button in one hand and a warped reading of Biblical apocalyptic texts in the other. No wonder I have "nuclear dreams."

Joshua Wolf Shenk, on the other hand, gives us a look at one of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln, and how his melancholy, his dark outlook on life, helped to shape his presidency and his handling of the Civil War. The book gives great insight into (1) the nineteenth century view of melancholy/depression; (2) its contrast with our "modern" understanding of the same; (3) Lincoln's lifelong struggle with it; and (4) how Lincoln was shaped by it for the better of his person and for the country.

It really was one of those books that spoke deeply to me because it (1) is well-written; (2) is well-researched and noted, with seven years of research and writing undergirding it; (3) is written by someone who struggles with his own melancholy/depression; and (4) speaks to my own struggle. Lincoln's Melancholy was a book that I needed to read at the particular moment it entered into my life, in the same way that The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, by Andrew Solomon, and Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression, edited by Nell Casey, did.

Thank God for the friend that recommended it to me. Now, I do the same for you.

COLLABORATIVE MONSTERS

It is Halloween. We are supposed to be keeping monsters at bay. Instead, the child and I are creating them.

Between the two of us, we possess two Mr. Potatohead bodies, the accessories for the equivalent of three Mr. or Mrs. Potatoheads, and one set of Mr. Potatohead safari accessories. We keep switching out parts. This set of eyes for that set of eyes. A beak instead of a bulbous red nose. Different shoes. An ear as a hat. After every few switches, the child has us trade the Mr. Potatoheads and begin switching parts anew. The improvisation, directed by the child of course, has created some rather interesting creatures. They are not those that will inhabit tales of generations to come, but they are monsters nonetheless, and they will be spoken of in the company of the child and I. We will whisper about them. We will remember them on cold autumn nights. They will be summoned forth on future Halloweens. They will creep about in the recesses of our minds. They will haunt us.

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At work, for our staff meetings, we have been reading the book of Genesis as broken up in a commentary by the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann. We are still in the early chapters of Genesis. These are the tales of the warriors of old, the men of renown, the Nephilim, the giants, the sons of God who mate with human women. These are the tales of phenomenal floods, bloodshed, angels who guard paradise with flaming swords, the rule of Nimrod. These are the tales of an age lost, perhaps of a time and places that never were.

I am reminded of the gods of old and their comingling with humans. Of chimeras, gryphons, creatures half human and half beast, horse or cow or other. Of gorgons, cyclops, minotaurs. Of Leviathan, Behemoth, alligator, hippopotamus. Of giants and dwarves. Of the Other.

I am reminded of the first chapter of For the Time Being by Annie Dillard. She is looking through her copy of Smith's Recognizable Patterns of Human Malformation. She perfectly captures the mixture of fascination and horror that we have for the Other and its siren song. She writes:

A chromosome crosses or a segment snaps, in the egg or the sperm, and all sorts of people result. You cannot turn a page in Smith's Recognizable Patterns of Human Malformation without your heart's pounding from simple terror. You cannot brace yourself. Will this peculiar baby live? What do you hope? (page 6)

The question remains there before you: What do you hope?

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Where do monsters not lurk?

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I started reading the new collection of short stories by Karen Russell, entitled St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. It is also the realm of monsters. The monsters within are all too real, which is the whole point of all monsters. They are attempts for us to describe the undescribable. They may inhabit the language and landscapes of myth, legend, fable, or fairytale, but they still know how to prickle us with fear and worry.

Karen Russell sees monsters around the children in her tales and speaks those monsters to life without explicitly naming them. The anxiety is tangible, like the monsters themselves—rape, incest, mental illness, abandonment. The Bird Man may have the ability to imitate the calls of birds with beauty and talent, but he is still a molester. And, even though, we as readers don't "see" the molestation, it is hinted at, it is there, present, destroying, tearing asunder those it touches.

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How do we protect ourselves from the monsters? How do we stop them? How do we slay them?

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Every once in a while, the game of collaborative monsters that the child and I are engaged in is interrupted by the ring of the doorbell. We are stopped, pulled back into the space and time of the here and now. The child carries a basket of candy at my flank as I pull the door open to view those who are still trying to keep the monsters at bay.

SACCO AND VANZETTI MUST DIE!

Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." Pilate asked him, "What is truth?"
—John 18:37-38

"In a similar fashion, you are attempting a rather bold theft of what may be the oppressor's most prized weapon, his language."
—Bart Vanzetti to Nic Sacco in Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die!, page 182

As I wrote elsewhere, Mark Binelli is playing with language and codes in his "attack" on "established texts" in his novel Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die! The novel is an examination of history and historical memory, as well as the trial and subsequent execution of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. In Binelli's imaginings, though, Sacco and Vanzetti are vaudeville actors and film comedians, in the vein of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers, and the Three Stooges, who live well beyond the date of the death of the actual Sacco and Vanzetti.

Binelli weaves elements of the lives of the "real" Sacco and Vanzetti into the lives of the "fictional" Sacco and Vanzetti. Binelli's Sacco and Vanzetti even undergo a trial, and although they are not executed, they do fade away from the public sight that they so need and crave to keep their film careers going. In essence, they are killed, and it is ultimately capitalism that does them in, just as it was capitalism that couldn't tolerate the real Sacco and Vanzetti and their ilk. The novel is full of references to "executions" of the two, and many allusions of the same. Gallows are mentioned (78, 83); a minor character mock hangs himself (97); the electric chair is discussed, as well as the rivalry between Edison and Tesla in developing such; the bioelectric theories of Galvani and Volta are referenced(190); and, the knife act of Sacco and Vanzetti (one of their vaudeville, and, later, film routines) that threatens their very existence and becomes a source of their downfall, although not as expected, fills the pages of the book.

Binelli has also included many scenes that fluctuate between the "real" and the "fake." These include panoramic backdrops in some of the Sacco and Vanzetti films, photographs, paintings, stories, costumes, ventriloquists and dummies (where does the voice reside?), historical figures that meet Sacco and Vanzetti (Mussolini, Ezra Pound, Italo Balbo, Helen Keller), and movies both real and imagined. In one of the more memorable scenes, Vanzetti is out on the "deck" of a "ship" that is really an elaborate set on a soundstage. The ocean scene is a lengthy panoramic painting that is rolled past the set to simulate movement of the "ship" on the "ocean." The problem is that at the same time that Binelli is describing the "set," Vanzetti and another character, one of the painters of the panorama, are "experiencing" the "ship" as though it were real. The stranger/painter even experiences seasickness: "Then, abruptly, he leaned over the rail and began to retch." What is real, what is a "set," or, in the words of Pilate to Jesus, what is truth? Jesus would declare that he is. But, that is not going to work here.

Another "trick" of Binelli's is to describe a scene from one of the Sacco and Vanzetti films (such as Sacco and Vanzetti Dessert the Cause, Ventriloquism and Its Discontents, Mars Needs Sacco and Vanzetti!). The problem that we are confronted with is that we are hearing monologues and dialogues that could not possibly have appeared on film. The conversations are both internal and external, but mostly between the people known as Sacco and Vanzetti and "the extras" rather than the screen characters that Sacco and Vanzetti play in the film (oftentimes referred to as Fatty and Skinnny, even though they are mostly the same in build and proportion). Therefore, there are three "levels" of truth at play: (1) conversations, thoughts, and actions of the "real" Sacco and Vanzetti; (2) conversations, thoughts, and actions of the "fictional" Sacco and Vanzetti that are the protagonists of the novel; and, (3) conversations, thoughts, and actions of the "characters" "Sacco/Fatty" and "Vanzetti/Skinny" played by the "fictional" "Sacco" and "Vanzetti," who in turn are alternative versions of the "real" "Sacco" and "Vanzetti." The interplay between the three levels, and sometimes not knowing who is speaking, or at what level of "truth" we as readers are located, has the effect of making us as readers very aware of the structure of the novel. Simultaneously, Binelli "pulls the rug out from under us" and allows the narrative to involve us to the point that we forget the structure of the novel and are once again involved in the story as story, for the sake of its own enjoyment.

At times, I found it hard to believe that this is Mark Binelli's first novel. If this is the level of all of his future offerings then I will be a devoted reader. I am ready to suspend the "truth" (just as I know that is ultimately impossible) for awhile and sit back for the show, knowing that as I enjoy it I will also be challenged and not just taken for granted as a reader. Truth, indeed.

on THE NIGHTSTAND

Amnesiascope by Steve Erickson

Well, it has finally happened: the "real" world has become stranger than a Steve Erickson novel. With a summer and early fall that had the worst national wildfire season on record; multiple school shootings involving disturbed individuals and perverts; a Florida politician in charge of drafting Internet predator laws likely preying upon young male pages via email, while his political party's leadership knowingly covers up for him; drug recalls; an E-coli tainted spinach ban; various viruses on the verge of becoming pandemics; a country mired in a Middle East war, with Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan as the beginning of the nightmare, with more to follow; and a presidential cabinet that is hallucinatory, fueled by oil dreams and fundamentalist Christianity; it is hard to read a Steve Erickson novel and believe that he is not a visionary.

I am currently reading his novel Amnesiascope. Like many of his other novels filled with his surreal, apocalyptic imagery and imaginings, Amnesiascope is a parallel universe that teeters on the verge of breaking into our own lives. Elements from preceding novels Days Between Stations, Rubicon Beach, and Tours of the Black Clock make appearances here and elements from Amnesiascope will crop up in following novels The Sea Came In At Midnight and Our Ecstatic Days. The Cathode Flower Club, the film Death of Marat by Adolphe Sarre (as well as the character Adophe Sarre, from Days Between Stations), and imploding Los Angeles are a few of the recurrent themes that play a prominent role in Amnesiascope.

The self-effacement and doubt that plagues all of Erickson's narrators is prevalent here in the life of the nameless protagonist. Time and memory are highlighted as per usual. Sexuality destroys relationships as the "real" world crumbles around the narrator and the other characters.

It feels good to shrug off some of the cares of the "real" world and move into this fictional realm, even if it oftentimes feels real itself. I haven't been within the pages, walls, and geography of a good novel for some time, but am glad to have made the journey.

Also on THE NIGHTSTAND right now:

*Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx—I started reading this because it contains the short story "Brokeback Mountain," which is much better than the film directed by Ang Lee. That, however, is another story for another time.

*Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 by Annie Proulx—Some of the stories in Close Range pushed me toward this volume of short stories.

*The September issue of The Believer, "The Games Issue," with interesting articles on Dungeons & Dragons founder and "creator" E. Gary Gygax, Oulipo, and video wargames.