Right before
California shut down most gatherings to shelter-in-place for Covid-19, we were
able to attend CSUB’s production of Tommy. My eldest is a big classic
rock fan, so we went together to see this.
Written
mostly by Pete Townshend, with contributions from Des McAnuff and the rest of
the Who, Tommy is a rock opera that was originally an album centered on
the song “Pinball Wizard.” It was adapted for stage in 1992, and that is the
version we saw.
The plot is
a bit bizarre: young Tommy becomes deaf, blind, and dumb after witnessing his
father (recently released from a POW camp) kill his mother’s lover after a
fight. He remains unresponsive for years, until he turns out to be a pinball
savant, playing entirely by feel. Later, his mother smashes the mirror in which
Tommy saw the killing, and Tommy suddenly recovers his senses. He becomes a
celebrity, but becomes disillusioned with the way his fans look to him as a
spiritual leader, so he withdraws from public life to be with his family.
College
productions are a bit unpredictable, in part because the student talent varies
from year to year. In general, CSUB has high production values, and often some
great acting. The weakest part has typically been the dropoff from the best
actors and singers to the lesser ones. In this case, this was apparent between
the best singers and the ones that were in a bit over their heads.
The good news
is that the part of the adult Tommy was played by Natalie Love, who was
excellent. Also outstanding in a bit part was Jan Mateo Tugab, with
electrifying dance moves and solid singing. The overall ensemble was good, but
a few of the singers tended to drift on pitch from time to time when singing
alone.
The live
band was a real treat. Anchored by local pro and veteran of several outstanding
local bands, drummer Cesario Garaza, the band was tight all night, well
balanced, and energetic. For the most part, it was pros, not students - and
that is how they sounded. For me, that was the best part.
I also loved
the creative set, which evoked a pinball machine. Whoever handles set design
and construction at CSUB deserves major props for both creativity and craftsmanship
- sets have been consistently great for years.
It is sad
right now that all theater in the state of California is shut down
indefinitely, although I support the decision. I am looking forward to a return
to normalcy, and will be out there supporting our local arts scene as
usual.
CSUB needs more publicity photos - this is the only one I could find.
Source of
Book: I own this (and there is some history - see below.)
Dutch-American
author Meindert de Jong didn’t write that many books, but the ones he did write
are absolute classics.
With
suddenly a lot more time at home (and with my wife picking up extra shifts in
the ICU right now), I have taken over a lot more of the childcare, schooling
(everything is distance learning now), and household duties. I realized that,
while I read a lot to the kids when the older ones were younger, I kind of got
away from it with the stuff we had to do for homework checking as they got
older. Thus, my youngest has not had enough in the way of reading by
dad. I decided this needed to be fixed.
My copy looks a lot like this.
I suggested
we read some Meindert de Jong, and the two younger ones picked this book. This
was actually my first introduction to De Jong when I was perhaps a bit younger
than Lillian - who is the age of the protagonist. We happened to own this book
in a cheap paperback from the early 70s - which is still the copy I own,
although it is disintegrating. Journey From Peppermint Street is De
Jong’s last significant book, as far as I can tell, and I wonder if it might
have an autobiographical element. It is set in De Jong’s birthplace, Wierum (Wierom in the book), as is
his best known book, The Wheel on the School. The author’s family
emigrated to the United States when he was age 8, a year younger than the 9
year old Siebren from the story.
Journey
From Peppermint Street is the story of an epic journey, taken by Siebren.
His little brother, Knillis, is ill, has an itchy rash, and his parents are
extra busy. So Siebren is stuck entertaining Knillis for hours. But things
start to happen. The cap salesman gives Mother a tin of chocolates, which she
gives to Siebren for his hard work. Knillis grabs the metal tin, and squeezes
it over Siebren’s thumb, causing a deep gash. With blood everywhere, he vomits
and faints, with everything a mess, when Grandpa shows up.
Grandpa says
that his sister Anna is deathly ill, so he is walking inland to pick up his
other sister Hinka, so they can visit Anna before she passes. He asks if he can
take Siebren, who can then meet his great aunt and great uncle - who is huge,
and also deaf and dumb. Oh, and they live in an ancient monastery in the middle
of a swamp. And they will be walking half the night to get there - and Siebren
has never walked further than the next village over.
Unsurprisingly,
this is already epic in Siebren’s mind. Coming on top of a rather traumatic
incident, he is already emotional, and everything seems larger than life.
But things
get even crazier before the end of the trip. He meets the kind Aal, who helps
him button his pants (he can’t with his thumb.) He gets a giant black ball,
which he names Satan, after...well, I guess that requires its own
explanation.
Grandpa, a
church leader, has had a simmering feud with the Miller of Nes, over a trifling
amount of money. He tells Siebren that the miller is a “handball of Satan,” who
acts strangely. Ironically, Grandpa realizes he has been foolish, and makes up
with the miller during the trip, but Siebren’s overactive imagination takes
over, and he starts to think that he must be a handball of Satan,
because his fears and imaginings swirl in his head. One of the fascinating
things about this book is the way it peers into the head of a child who feels
and thinks deeply. Siebren, between his age and the overwhelming events, swings
wildly between fear, disappointment, ecstasy, and longing. His fatigue at the
journey, his first night alone in a strange and scary place, his mental picture
of people he has never met, and so on contribute to this turbulent state of
mind.
De Jong
writes this rather fantastical inner journey in a way that spoke to me at age
8, and was surprising to re-read again for the first time as an adult. I can
see why it seemed almost too strong to take at the time. Although I liked it
(and re-read it), I ended up liking De Jong’s other books better as a kid.
Ironically, although I can remember the basic plots for The Wheel on the
School,The House of Sixty Fathers, and Along Came a Dog, I
never forgot the emotional landscape of Journey From Peppermint Street.
The throbbing thumb. The fear of being left alone in the dark marsh. The bed in
the cold giant hall with an indoor well-cistern and a frog, the huge uncle who
turns out to be a witty and gentle giant, the tornado which nearly kills him.
And, of course, the way the giant black ball becomes a metaphor for Siebren’s
inner battles.
It is
fascinating to watch Siebren navigate his feelings about adults. Grandpa, while
familiar, is distant - this is Siebren’s first time alone with just him.
Grandpa is prickly but kind, encouraging but impatient, and - even by my
standards - a bit optimistic about how far and late a small kid can hike. (The
kids and I hike ~120 miles a year together, and have since they were little.
But never until nearly midnight, and without some training first.)
Pretty much
every other character they meet after leaving Siebren’s home is a stranger to
him. Who is kind? Who doesn’t even notice he is there? Is the miller truly
malevolent?
For the most
part, the people he meets are just ordinary people. Although Great Aunt Hinka
and Great Uncle Siebren are the best possible people - they don’t talk down to
him, but expect that he can discuss serious and deep topics. Which is precisely
what he needs at the time. It just isn’t the same with parents, particularly
ones exhausted by work and a demanding toddler. Siebren finds exactly what he
needs at that time.
There are
other fun things in the book which my kids enjoyed just as I had. The bullfrog
who lives in the cistern, Vrosk. (Which is really the perfect onomatopoeic name
for a frog.) The giant pike with its sharp teeth and tricky bones. The secret
passage under the monastery. The swamp at night. The dessicated rat that died
years before of hunger and thirst. The giant symbolic ball.
The book was
as good as I remembered it, and I am glad that the kids found it interesting as
well.
***
Interesting
historical note:
It had been
so long since I had read this, that I had entirely forgotten where it came
from. On the first inside page is a stamp, reading, “Harbor House, 2728 E. 10th
St., Oakland, CA, 94601.”
As I
mentioned when I wrote about There There by Tommy Orange, my late
maternal grandparents lived in Oakland until I was about age 8. They ran a
ministry of some sort (they were previously missionaries to Mexico, where my
mom was born) called Harbor House. My memories of Oakland are both vivid and
shaky, because of my age. We used to visit a few times a year from when I was
4, until they retired and moved to Oregon. At first, they lived in part of the
upper portion of the “up and down” place at the address above. Then, they lived
in the lower portion of a similar house a block or so away. (I thought it was
in the 70th St. range, but apparently it was the 10th St. East area instead.
Cut me some slack - I was all of 8 at the oldest.)
Here is the
place, as it looked as of the most recent Google Maps picture. Harbor House
itself is clearly defunct, as I could not find any trace on the internet, but
the house is still there. We used to have church services in Spanish behind
that bay window on top, in that big room. I remember Christmas there too, with
the ghastly eggnog and ginger ale “punch” they used to make. (The good food all
came from my dad’s side of the family - a “Christmas Ham” was literally a
canned ham with cloves stuck in it. And dead vegetables.)
I am
guessing that the book was donated to Harbor House for its library for the
children of Latino immigrants to borrow. When my grandparents retired, I
imagine the library was disbursed, and we got a few books. It was weird to open
the book and suddenly have that flood of memories.
My
relationship with Theodore Roosevelt is a bit complicated. His legacy, after
all, is complicated. On a personal level, I identified a little with him from
the first time I read a kids’ biography of him. We both were sickly kids who
worked to become stronger through exercise and outdoor activity. Even today, I
have a bit of a “damn the torpedos” approach to life. If I waited until I had
no allergies to do things, for example, I’d never get out. I am not, however,
reckless, which TR tended to be.
Likewise,
his public legacy is complicated. There is no doubt that he was prejudiced,
particularly as a young man. His statements about Indigenous people are
painfully awful. (Although, to be fair, there is evidence that he changed his
mind about the worst of his beliefs as he got older - something rather the
opposite from my experience with a lot of my parents’ generation, who seem to
have gotten increasingly xenophobic over the last decade.) He was, alas, a
product of his time, an era in which the supremacy of white people was taken
for granted by most white people around the world.
There were
some good parts to his legacy, however. His distrust of big business led to the
first real regulations on corporations and trusts - he is correctly considered
the founder of the Progressive movement in the United States. In fact, while he
was generally liked by conservatives during my childhood, as the American Right
has veered strongly to the far right, he is now being disowned as a “communist”
by a surprising number of people I know on the Right. These days, seeking the
common good is controversial, it seems. For his time, TR was a reformer, and
many of his ideas remain core parts of the progressive legacy.
One thing
that remains true about him is that those who knew and worked with him
generally respected and liked him. As the book points out, in person he was a
tremendously hard worker, generous with everyone, full of good humor, and
self-sacrificing as a leader. And that goes for how he treated least powerful
people as much as the best. The native Brazilians who did much of the hard
labor during the trip this book describes were assisted by TR and his son
Kermit, and TR gave away his own food, often to his own detriment. So, again, a
complex, imperfect person, but someone who genuinely tried to be moral and
generous.
The River
of Doubt is the story of a lesser-known escapade in Theodore Roosevelt’s
life. As is better known, Roosevelt left office after a term and a half as
president (he took over when William McKinley was assassinated), assuming that
President Taft would continue the progressive agenda. When Taft instead started
supporting corporate interests, TR was furious, founded his own political party
(the Progressive Party, colloquially called the “Bull Moose” party after its
founder.) This, unfortunately for TR, was a failure. He took a bullet, making a
speech with the bullet still in his body (dude was a badass), but failed to
win. With a split vote, Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats won the election.
Nursing his
bruised pride, TR decided to do what he usually did after a disappointment:
find an adventure. What started as a tour of South America with a little
moderate river exploration thrown in turned into an attempt to map an unknown
and dangerous tributary of the Amazon. At age 55, no less.
The way all
this came about is a bit of a shitshow of incompetence. Roosevelt was in
contact with Father Zahm, a bit of an amateur naturalist who wanted to explore.
Zahm enlisted Anthony Fiala, whose big claim to fame was nearly dying along
with his expedition to the Arctic - in part due to Fiala’s disastrously
incompetent leadership - to plan their supplies. This probably would not have
been a big deal had they stuck with the original plan. A cruise of a known Amazon
tributary to collect biological specimens would have been easy enough to
accomplish, and the often bizarre packing decisions made by Fiala would have
been merely amusing rather than life-threatening.
Instead, the
government of Brazil suggested that TR join Brazilian explorer Candido Rondon
(perhaps the rare person even more badass than TR) in exploring and
mapping the River of Doubt, an unknown river believed to drain to the Amazon
via the Aripuana and the Madeira rivers.
Partway down, after the drowning of one of their number. I am not certain who the two on the left are, but from there (l-r):
Even to get
there required hundreds of miles of travel on land (with dirt tracks as the
only road), followed by the descent of the river in dugout canoes. During the
land transit, it became clear that supplies were grossly inadequate. As a
result, the party was split in two, with Zahm and Fiala, among others, sent to
descend a known - and much easier - river. It was left to Rondon, TR, his son
Kermit, and 16 others to attempt the River of Doubt. (Now renamed the Roosevelt
River.)
After a few
days, it became obvious that the dugouts were far from ideal, and would not be
able to safely traverse rapids. Thus, portages were made necessary. This slowed
everything down, and left the party badly short on food. It was by a
combination of luck and grit that they made it out at all. By the end, one man
had drowned, one had been murdered (and the murderer abandoned to the jungle),
everyone except Rondon was gravely ill with malaria, dysentery, or something
else, and TR was near death with both malaria and an infected leg.
One could
say, I suppose, that the expedition was a “success” in the sense that they made
it out with most of them alive, and the river mapped. On the other, it was a
disaster, and but for some really good luck (and the fact that the native
peoples decided to leave them alone), it would have been deadly for all
involved.
For
Roosevelt, it was particularly catastrophic in the long run. In an era before
antibiotics, he never fully recovered from his illness, and was dead in less
than five years later. Kermit, too, seemed haunted by the experience and the
early death of his father, and struggled with depression and alcoholism for
years afterward, before committing suicide during deployment in World War
II.
[Side note here: this is Kermit Sr. The
legacy of Kermit Jr. is problematic for rather different reasons. He was the
“mastermind” behind the CIA-engineered coup that
destroyed moderate democracy in Iran. That’s a mistake that
we are still paying for today.]
In a weird
twist of fate, Roosevelt returned from his trip to accusations that he had
faked the whole thing - from respected naturalists and explorers, no less. So,
barely able to walk and speak, the still ill TR made a series of presentations
on the trip. These did serve to restore his reputation, but probably
contributed to further ill health.
Later, in
1927, George Miller Dyott settled things for good, when he made the trip
himself and confirmed that Roosevelt and Rondon’s descriptions of plants, animals,
and geographic features were indeed accurate. In 1992, a third expedition
further confirmed the accuracy - and shot all but one of the rapids using
modern equipment.
This is the
second book I have read by Candice Millard. (The first was The Destiny ofthe Republic, about the assassination of President Garfield - also a good
read.) I like Millard’s writing. She avoids hagiography, presenting the
complexities of the politics and culture of the time. Both books draw heavily
from primary sources, but are written in a compelling prose style that makes
them hard to put down. In both books, she presents the less heroic episodes in
the lives of her subjects, which makes for an interesting look at complex
figures.
I figured I
would end with a mention of the speech that Roosevelt gave after being shot,
because it is phenomenal. You can read the whole thing here.
In it, he lays out the case for progressivism.
“Our creed is one that bids to be just
to all, to feel sympathy for all, and to strive for an understanding of the
needs of all. Our purpose is to smite down wrong.”
Roosevelt
correctly notes that when the poor suffer, society is at risk. At risk of
violent revolution, at a minimum. And this needed to be prevented now,
by enacting legislation that addressed inequality and oppressive employment
practices.
“Now, friends, what we who are in this
movement are endeavoring to do is to forestall any such movement by making this
a movement for justice now - a movement in which we ask all just men of
generous hearts to join with the men who feel in their souls that lift upward
which bids them refuse to be satisfied themselves while their countrymen and
countrywomen suffer from avoidable misery.”
The speech
is pro-union. It is pro-regulation. It vehemently opposes child labor and long
work hours for the most vulnerable (he specifically mentions 16-hour days for
female industrial workers.) It calls for a uniform Federal policy to prevent
states having a “race to the bottom” in terms of regulation. It addresses
policy without making personal attacks.
And it
would be considered flaming Communist propaganda by today’s GOP.
Times have
changed. The GOP of Eisenhower is in many ways to the left of the Democratic
party today. And the GOP is...not conservative at all. It is radically
reactionary, viciously social darwinist, and on the payroll of the plutocrats.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson lays it out pretty well here. And
now we get to 2020, and we are literally hearing that the hoi polloi should be willing
to sacrifice millions of their lives to keep the stock market high.
Roosevelt was right: unless significant changes are made, this will not end
well.
My first
choice for Umberto Eco was originally The Name of the Rose. However, my
wife found this for next to nothing at a library sale (or maybe on the discard
shelf?) So, it was a convenient choice.
This book is
rather on the long side - 641 pages in my edition. For me, that isn’t that
long, as books by Anthony Trollope
and Henry James
tend to run at least 800. So I am used to reading long books. So believe me
when I say:
This book is
too damn long.
I think it
would have been a great book at one-third the length. So much of the book seems
unnecessary and deadly boring, even if it relates to the plot and theme of the
book. Let me explain.
[Spoiler
Warning]
Here is the
basic plot. Three friends, Belbo, Diotellevi, and Casaubon (the narrator) work
for a vanity press company. As part of their work, they screen books by
self-funded authors relating to the constellation of conspiracy theories
surrounding the Knights Templar. Casaubon wrote a thesis on the Templars back
in college, while Diotellevi is a Cabalist. Between the three of them, they go
rather down the rabbit hole of interlocking theories. Eventually, they decide
to write the mother of all conspiracy theory books, by finding ludicrous
connections and metaphors between all kinds of nonsense - literally from
ancient history to Mickey Mouse. To assist them, they use Belbo’s computer
(this was in the 1980s) to randomly re-assort phrases they feed into it. The
result is a bunch of pseudo-profound and utterly ridiculous blither.
But the
problem is, people start believing it. Maybe even the three friends. And
eventually, the belief that the three are in reality holding the great secret
of the Templars for world domination turns deadly.
I avoided
spoiling all of the ending, but that is in fact most of the plot. The majority
of the book is a mess of interconnected conspiracy theories. It starts out well
enough, with a history of the Templars, and then the Rosicrucians, and
then...well it really goes down the rabbit hole. Anthony Burgess said that the
book contained so many esoteric references to alchemy, the kabbalah, and
conspiracy theories, that it needed an index.
The Foucault Pendulum at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles
This was the first one I ever saw, and I still remember it.
Once you get
to about page 400, the plot finally starts to move somewhere. Over the final
240 pages, the ratio of plot to conspiracy theories is about 1:2, which is,
believe it or not, a real improvement. The ending is pretty exciting, actually,
and there are some great moments in that second half. So I am glad I stuck with
it. But I really don’t think I remember all that much of the Templar stuff -
and have no interest in trying to figure it out.
Anyway,
these quotes will give a bit of the flavor. First is Casaubon’s description of
the Templars early in the book.
“Hughes and the original eight others
were probably idealists caught up in the mystique of the Crusade. But later
recruits were most likely younger sons seeking adventure. Remember, the new
kingdom of Jerusalem was sort of the California of the day, the place you went
to make your fortune. Prospects at home were not great, and some of the knights
may have been on the run for one reason or another. I think of it as a kind of
Foreign Legion. What do you do if you’re in trouble? You join the Templars, see
the world, have some fun, do some fighting. They feed you and clothe you, and
in the end, as a bonus, you save your soul.”
This, of
course, was before things got crazy. (Also, this is page 80, and we are still
back on the actual history of the Templars.) I should also mention a
deliciously snarky remark by Belbo. Casaubon has mentioned that things got
uncomfortable after the Crusades, because soldiers do not easily return to
civilian life - particularly as a priestly order. From sleeping with the
plundered women to celibacy? Anyway:
“From prohibitions you can tell what
people normally do,” Belbo said. “It’s a way of drawing a picture of daily
life.”
Another
fascinating insight comes from, of all people, Aglie, describing the Brazilian
fish market and the mashup of all these religious and occult symbols.
“This,” Aglie said, “is the very image
of what the ethnology textbooks call Brazilian syncretism. An ugly word, in the
official view. But in its loftiest sense, syncretism is the acknowledgement
that a single Tradition runs through and nurtures all religion, all learning,
all philosophy. The wise man does not discriminate; he gathers together all the
shreds of light, from wherever they may come…”
One of my
epiphanies of the last few years is that ALL religion, past and present, is
syncretistic. There is no such thing as “pure” revealed religion. It has always
borrowed from the culture in which it exists,
for good or ill.
While it is an oversimplification to say that there is a single tradition,
Aglie is to a certain degree correct. What runs through all religion, learning,
and philosophy is humanity. We are all human, and thus have more in common than
different. It is therefore unsurprising to find so much religious commonality.
Unlike Aglie, I don’t think there is a single conspiracy involving the
Templars, of course.
One of the
subplots of the book is the gradual revelation of Belbo’s childhood, growing up
in a small village during World War Two, when his fellow residents were caught
between the Fascists and the partisan rebels. How to stay alive and “normal” is
a fine dance. There is an exchange between Belbo’s uncle, and Mongo, the rebel
leader, which is revealing.
Mongo said then, “You see, Cavalier,
it’s this way, Major: we were informed that you collect taxes for the Fascist
government that toadies to the invaders.” “You see, Commander,” Uncle Carlo
said, “it’s this way: I have a family and receive a salary from the government,
and the government is what it is; I didn’t choose it, and what would you have
done in my place?” “My dear Major,” Mongo replied, “in your place, I’d have
done what you did, but try at least to collect the taxes slowly; take your
time.” “I’ll see what I can do,” Uncle Carlo said. “I have nothing against you
men; you, too, are sons of Italy and valiant fighters.” They understood each
other, because they both thought of Fatherland with a capital F.
Eco too grew
up under Fascism, and is one of the most perceptive writers about the subject.
(See note at the end.) Fascism and Nazism are not synonymous. Nazism is
Fascist, but not all Fascists are Nazis. For Italy, it was more complicated.
Mussolini wasn’t Hitler. While Italy was complicit, it did not invent the “final
solution,” and was no more anti-Semitic than, say, England.
Around this
time, Aglie shows up in Italy, and kind of worms his way in with Belbo’s
girlfriend, kind of like he did in Brazil to Casaubon’s girl. He gives her some
kind of line about how she is Sophia, the female part of God, and…(I don’t
really understand all of that)...but she has this fun line about it.
“How nice! Does he give that line to
all the girls?”
“No, stupid, just to me, because he
understands me better than you do. He doesn’t try to create me in his image. He
understands I have to be allowed to live my life in my own way. And that’s what
Sophia did; she flung herself into making the world. She came up against
primordial matter, which was disgusting, probably because it didn’t use a
deodorant. And then, I think, she accidentally created the Demi -- how do you
say it?”
“You mean the Demiurge?”
Lorenza is a
minor character, and seems to exist mostly to be part of the love triangle.
Casaubon’s girlfriend (and later baby-mama) Lia, on the other hand, is pretty
much the only sane character in the book. She tries on several occasions to
talk Casaubon back from the cliff, so to speak. The extended passage in chapter
63 is way too long to quote, but she gives Casaubon a brilliant lecture on how
the supposed magic numbers of numerology derive naturally from the body, and
from nature.
Another
tour-de-force is the section where Belbo, on a dare from Casaubon, creates a
whole argument that the automobile powertrain is a metaphor for the Tree of
Life. It’s impressive. And laugh-out-loud ludicrous. I mean, it makes exactly
zero sense. But it makes sense within the context of the ridiculous stuff the
three are coming up with. This is the strong part of the book: the way Eco taps
into the real psychodynamics of conspiracy theories.
But whatever the rhythm was, luck
rewarded us, because, wanting connections, we found connections -- always,
everywhere, and between everything. The world exploded into a whirling network
of kinships, where everything pointed to everything else, everything explained
everything else. . . .
One of the
things that they start doing is finding things that have the initials “R. C.” -
for Rosicrucians. For instance, Raymond Chandler and Rick of Casablanca. Hey,
that reminds me of an R.E.M. song:
[insert]
Lenny Bruce is NOT afraid....
That this
was unhealthy was something they knew, but refused to admit.
When we traded the results of our
fantasies, it seemed to us -- and rightly -- that we had proceeded by
unwarranted associations, by shortcuts so extraordinary that, if anyone had
accused us of really believing them, we would have been ashamed. We consoled
ourselves with the realization -- unspoken, now, respecting the etiquette of
irony -- that we were parodying the logic of our Diabolicals. But during the
long intervals in which each of us collected evidence to produce at the plenary
meetings, and with the clear conscience of those who accumulate material for a
medley of burlesques, our brains grew accustomed to connecting, connecting, connecting
everything with everything else, until we did it automatically, out of habit. I
believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference
between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit
of believing.
This has a
way of happening with any ideology, whether that of Communism or Objectivism.
The line between parody and true faith is beyond blurry.
But all of us were losing that
intellectual light that allows you always to tell the similar from the
identical, the metaphorical from the real.
And that
quote in particular struck me as descriptive of Evangelical theology, which has
been so divorced from reality that it can no longer make those distinctions,
particularly in its own scripture.
Once the
three bring the Jesuits into things, they have an issue: the Jesuits appear to
have been the Templar’s biggest enemies. In coming up with a possible explanation,
Casaubon stumbles upon a really interesting idea:
The Jesuits knew that if you want to
confound your enemies, the best technique is to create clandestine sects, wait
for dangerous enthusiasms to precipitate, then arrest them all. In other words,
if you fear a plot, organize one yourself; that way, all those who join it come
under your control.
The problem
for the three is that they actually have managed to do this -- people are
believing their hogwash. Lia finally tells Casaubon off, and she is
right.
Your plan isn’t poetic, it’s grotesque.
People don’t get the idea of going back to burn Troy just because they read
Homer. With Homer, the burning of Troy became something that it never was and
never will be, and yet the Iliad endures, full of meaning, because it’s
all clear, limpid. Your Rosicrucian manifestoes are neither clear nor limid;
they’re mud, hot air, and promises. This is why so many people have tried to
make them come true, each finding in them what he wants to find. In Homer, there’s
no secret, but your plan is full of secrets, full of contradictions. For that
reason you could find thousands of insecure people ready to identify with it.
Throw the whole thing out. Homer wasn’t faking, but you three have been faking.
Beware of faking: people will believe you. People believe those who sell
lotions that make lost hair grow back. They sense instinctively that the
salesman is putting together truths that don’t go together, that he’s not being
logical, that he’s not speaking in good faith. But they’ve been told that God
is mysterious, unfathomable, so to them incoherence is the closest thing to
God. The farfetched is the closest thing to a miracle. You’ve invented hair
oil. I don’t like it. It’s a nasty joke.
It’s a nasty
joke with consequences. In real life, this happens too. I am thinking
particularly of “Pizzagate,”
which came damn close to getting innocent people killed. Or the whole Trump
presidency, built on racist and xenophobic conspiracy theories, which have
gotten a whole lot of brown-skinned people killed. Think about just the last
couple of weeks, with the claim that Covid-19 was
somehow a Chinese/Democrat conspiracy to remove Trump from office. That would
require the entire rest of the world lying, which is ludicrous. But once you
already live in the psychological place where incoherence is proof of truth,
that’s where you end up. This is one reason why I consider most of the clergy
in this country guilty of gross spiritual malpractice, for feeding
conspiratorial thinking, painting science as the enemy, and turning people who
are different from them into enemies out to get them. It isn’t funny. And the
consequences have been dire.
Anyway,
that’s my take on this book. When it is good, it is great. But it is way too
long with too many rabbit trails - you really do need an index. I am glad I
stuck with it, though.
***
Umberto
Eco and Fascism:
One of the
best long articles I have ever read is Eco’s 1995 article for the New York
Review of Books, “Ur-Fascism.”
Because Fascism takes different forms around the world, it helpful to see what
the Fascism of Hitler and Pinochet, Viktor Orban and Jair Bolsanaro, have in
common. It is also a prescient predictor of the rise of Trump. And yes, Trump
is a textbook Ur-Fascist.
It was this
article that, when I read it several years back, convinced me that white
Evangelicalism in America is proto-Fascist in a number of disturbing ways,
starting with their idolatry of a mythical past and their need to believe in
dire enemies foreign and domestic. And also their obsession with doctrinal and
sexual “purity.” The single greatest reason that Trump appealed so deeply to
white Evangelicals is that he spoke the Ur-Fascist language that they already
built into their doctrine and psyches. (If you don’t think that Trump uniquely
appeals to them, look at the way they lined up to defend him during the
impeachment proceedings - they could have had Pence, supposedly their sort of
candidate: genuinely devout, conservative, and so on. But what Trump has that
Pence will never have, is the ability to speak Ur-Fascism.)
In a
sense, Foucault’s Pendulum is an extended riff on Fascism and its
psychological roots.
This was
this month’s selection for our “Literary Lush” book club. One of the things I
enjoy about this club is that I end up reading interesting books that I never
would have discovered on my own. Daisy Jones and the Six is definitely one
of those books I had no idea existed, and likely would never have decided to
read. Let me say at the outset that this book wasn’t really my cup of tea. It
wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t my kind of book.
The basic
idea of the book is that it is a rock mockumentary. It’s a book about a
fictional rock band (that kind of sort of resembles Fleetwood Mac, maybe?) I
think Reid’s point is to write a book that looks at the rock and roll lifestyle
from a more female perspective, and the book sort of does that. But I have to
wonder why it had to be a fake band rather than a real one. I found it hard to
get interested in or invested in the characters, because they and their songs
didn’t actually, you know, exist.
The usual
rock biography stuff is in there. The band members sleeping with each other.
Lots of booze and drugs. All night songwriting sessions. Drama. Lots and lots
of drama. It’s stuff that you expect.
It might
have been one thing if the characters were somehow unique or compelling (as in
the case of The Air You Breathe),
but they really felt like stereotypes of particular rock stars. Or perhaps like
real rock stars who had the identifying details removed.
On the more
positive side, Reid did a good job at keeping the voices of each character
distinct - and their stories straight. After all, each has a different
perspective and memory of events.
One thing
our group agreed was a significant misstep was the twist at the end: (spoiler
alert!) the “author” of the story is the daughter of the male lead singer. The
problem with this is that there seems to be no freaking way that the characters
would actually be open her - particularly her parents. I mean, who tells their
kid about all the sex and drugs in that kind of detail? Or spills their guts
about their problems with their spouse? It seems implausible. And unnecessary
to the story.
My wife also
noted that despite the lurid details, the language itself was rather naive. Not
really much cussing.
Overall, not
the best book we have read, although diverting in its way.
***
Due to Covid-19, this was our first book club discussion via Zoom. While not as good as an in-person meeting, it worked, and helped keep us all from feeling isolated.
***
Just for
fun, here is the list of books that our book club has read. At least the ones I
have read too. Most of these were read for the club, but a few were ones
I read previously - those posts pre-date the club discussion - and some I read
afterward, because I missed the discussion.
I’m not even
sure exactly how this one got on my list. But I guess that is what happens when
you have something like 300 books on your list that have accumulated over the
course of nearly ten years from a variety of sources.
Kitchen
is the first novel by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto (pen name for Mahoko
Yoshimoto), written in 1988. It is a fairly short novella, delightfully
compact, and achingly bittersweet. Paired with this, in the English translation
from 1993, is Yoshimoto’s debut short story, “Moonlight Shadow,” which is also
lovely.
Both the
novel and the short story are about grief, loss, and love. In each case, the
narrator, a young woman starting out in the world, loses a person close to her,
and then must navigate both the trauma of the loss and complicated feelings of
love.
In Kitchen,
Mikage Sakurai already lost both parents when she was very young. She was
raised by her grandmother, who dies early in the story. She is essentially
taken in by a friend and his mother. Except that this is no ordinary family.
Yuichi Tanabe is a pretty normal young man, but his situation is unusual. His
mother died of cancer a number of years back. After that, his father came to
terms with his gender identity, and now lives as a woman. (Sorry about the pronouns,
I couldn’t make it make sense otherwise.) So, as Yuichi says, “I’d never lived
with anyone but Eriko, she was my mother, my father. Because she was always
just Eriko.”
Eriko is a
kind person, with a sense of humor, and takes in Mikage as part of the family.
Eventually, Mikage gets a job as a chef (hence the name), and moves out. It is
devastating when she learns that Eriko has been murdered by someone who resents
his attraction to a transgender woman.
Both Mikage
and Yuichi are devastated, but unsure how to grieve, how to process things.
And, to top it off, they are in love with each other, but can’t even admit it
to themselves.
The high
point of the novel is a midnight delivery of katsudon as a declaration of
love. It’s a fantastic scene, deliciously written.
The book is
so self-contained, so delicately written, it’s a polished gem. It feels very
Japanese to me, although I’m probably not much of an expert on that. The
emotions are handled with care, with perception, and with grace. It really is a
lovely read.
I want to
mention a couple more lines. After Eriko’s death, Mikage comes over to Yuichi’s
house, and sends him out with a shopping list so she can cook for him. (That’s
both her coping mechanism and part of her bond with Eriko.)
I heard the door close, and when I was
alone I realized I was dead tired. The room was so unearthly quiet, I lost all
sense of time being divided into seconds. I felt that I was the only person
alive and moving in a world brought to a stop.
Houses always feel like that after
someone has died.
And
then this one, a reflection by Mikage about her co-workers and their
lives.
Those women lived their lives happily.
They had been taught, probably by caring parents, not to exceed the boundaries
of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could
never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she
knows best. What I mean by “their happiness” is living a life untouched as much
as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That’s not a
bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, learning
to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love
and marry. I think that’s great. I wouldn’t mind that kind of life. Me, when
I’m utterly exhausted by it all, when my skin breaks out, on those lonely
evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody’s home, then I
despise my own life -- my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret
for the whole thing.
The
catharsis of the ending feels so gratifying because of these earlier moments of
raw grief and existential despair.
“Moonlight
Shadow” is a bit different, although it starts with a loss. Satsuki is reeling
from the death of her long-time boyfriend. He died in a car crash along with
his brother’s girlfriend. (Nothing scandalous about it - he was just giving her
a ride.) Satsuki and the brother, Hiiragi, deal with their grief in different
ways. Hiiragi wears his girlfriend’s school uniform everywhere. Satsuki takes
up running (and probably anorexia as well.) Things change when Satsuki meets a
mysterious woman, Urara, at the bridge where she and her boyfriend used to
meet. Urara brings her to the bridge again at a certain time where they see a
mystical phenomenon, and Urara, Hiiragi, and Satsuki are able to say goodbye to
their beloveds. It isn’t as deep (or nearly as long) as Kitchen, but it
shares the polished, bittersweet loveliness. It is possible, perhaps, to see
“Moonlight Shadow” as a first draft of the themes which Kitchen would explore
in more detail.
I very much
enjoyed this book, and can definitely recommend it as worth the time. Only a
handful of Banana Yoshimoto’s books have been translated into English, but I
may have to seek them out.
