Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

I have loved Yiyun Li ever since I first read Gold Boy, Emerald Girl back in 2013. I followed that up with the eviseceratingly tragic yet beautiful The Vagrants about a year ago. It is hard to believe that English isn’t her first language - she shares Conrad’s ability to make amazing art in a language she didn’t grow up speaking. As this book reveals, she intentionally chose to write only in English, and never in her native Chinese. 

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life was published in 2017, five years after Yiyun had a serious mental breakdown, attempted suicide twice, and landed in the hospital for her own protection. The book itself is a series of essays wherein she explores her own psyche, her breakdown, her past, and her relationship to literature and writing. At least, that is the best I can do to explain the book, because it isn’t really like anything I have read before. And it is really, really good. Her writing is so luminous, and simultaneously oblique and devastatingly revealing, it draws you in. 

Yiyun has said in the past that she is “not an autobiographical writer.” That is, her stories are not about her or people she knew. But, as she admits in this book, that was a lie. I don’t think it was a lie in the sense of being actually untrue. She doesn’t write stories with her as a character. But if I am reading her essay on this issue correctly, her story is told through the psyches of her characters, not their situations, plots, or choices. And that feels right, after reading this book. She is a very private person, and her characters tend to keep their emotions mostly out of sight. But, just as her stories reveal the emotions of her characters in such flayed reality that you want to look away, her essays in this book are as introspective and self-revealing as anything I have ever read. I mean, you can see the viscera and throbbing arteries of her emotional experiences. It is hard to take at times, which is why I read the book slowly. The reality is just too real to be looked in the face. 

In an interesting coincidence, this is the second book I have read in as many months that had autobiographical explorations of depression and suicide. The other was a fictional work, Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater. While the two are very different - psychologically different too - the share that uncomfortable look into mental illness. As an example, Emezi’s character has multiple personalities, tends to be loud and act out, and seems like a being on fire more often than not. It is a violent vision of suicide, of self destruction, and inner torment. Yiyun’s on the other hand, is that of a person who is quiet, pleasant, polite, thoughtful, ridiculously erudite - but who is dying internally, filled with a rather quiet self-loathing and distaste for living. It’s really spooky the way she writes it. 

As I noted in the former review, I am not particularly prone to either depression or suicidal thoughts. I’ve been in a few dark places, but they tend to be connected to circumstances, not major depression. And also, I joke that I am more homicidal than suicidal. (Don’t worry, I’m not homicidal. I’m not a violent person, but more of a fuzzball with a smart mouth. I just tend to get angry rather than depressed.) So these books were really more about seeing into the mind of someone else, and recognizing some of the darkness, if not its manifestations. It is an indication of how good the writing is that these books felt so real and familiar - and how deeply they messed with my emotions while reading. 

Yiyun takes an interesting approach to things in the book. For the most part, she doesn’t talk directly about what happened or what she did. Rather, she talks about other writers. Some of these are ones I might have guessed: Turgenev, Chekhov, Marianne Moore, Stefan Zweig. But some were a bit surprising, such as Thomas Hardy. Wait, what?? And some others which I haven’t read, and were not that familiar with, such as Elizabeth Bowen, John McGahern, and William Trevor. (The last of which she formed a friendship with, and who gets most of a chapter to himself.) Yiyun traces her love affair with literature from her childhood through the present, and you can see exactly how she ended up going from a promising career in science to taking the leap into writing. 

Rather than try further to explain the book, let me mention a few quotes that I wrote down as particularly insightful. 

After years of living in America, I still feel a momentary elation whenever I see advertisements for weight-loss programs, teeth-whitening strips, hair-loss treatments, or plastic surgery with the contrasting effects shown under before and after. The certainty in that pronouncement--for each unfortunate or inconvenient situation, there is a solution to make it no longer be--both attracts and perplexes me. Life can be reset, it seems to say; time can be separated. But that logic appears to me as unlikely as traveling to another place to become a different person. Altered sceneries are at best distractions, or else new settings for old habits. What one carries from one point to another, geographically or temporally, is one’s self. Even the most inconsistent person is consistently himself. 

Cue a bit of Clint Black? What makes this a particularly great insight is her understanding of the American mythos, and the way we built an economy on the lie that we can become fundamentally different people if we consume the right way.  

There is another moment when Yiyun recalls a visit to Ireland during a heat wave, and notes that, like music, weather can be a crucial part of a memory - and trigger it. 

Children, unlike their elders, do not converse about the weather. It is a fact to them, connected to the present only. Is it because weather can represent too much that it is often reduced to small talk? Weather gives experiences a place in time: a mood in which to inset a memory, a variable or a constant when comparing now and then. 

It’s bits like that which separate competent writers from the best, and I can only dream of being able to write - and observe - like that. Or how about this recalling of what reading meant to her during her deeply unpleasant time in the Chinese Army? 

I did not see myself in Scarlett O’Hara; or Anna Karenina, or Tess Durbeyfield or Jane Erye; nor did I look for myself in Jean-Christophe or Nick Adams or Paul Morel or the old man fighting the sea. To read oneself into another person’s tale is the opposite of how and why I read. To read is to be with people who, unlike those around one, do not notice one’s existence. 

That last sentence is amazing. And I think that, while I am not so inwardly turned as Yiyun, I get that feeling. Perhaps it is how introverts tend to read? 

Running through the book is Yiyun’s own history, which certainly contributed to her breakdown. Her mother was, to put it mildly, abusive. And probably mentally ill. Yiyun was the favorite child, so her sister probably had it worse, but the things Yiyun tells of her childhood make it clear that her mother abused everyone in the family, including her father. Some of the things said and done are just horrifying, such as her mother telling her that she “deserved the ugliest death” because she didn’t love her mother enough, and on the day she got married, telling her that she had left her with only the hope for Li’s divorce. I mean, it’s bad, and yet Yiyun remains haunted and drawn to her mother. In this context, and the fact that her parents’ memories - even though she doesn’t share them - still affect her in unexpected ways, she quotes Ralph Ellison: “Things were not supposed to be this way.” 

One of the chapters is largely about Turgenev, who had a similarly abusive and possessive mother. How about this fact? After disowning Turgenev’s brother for marrying, and then acting indifferent when the children of that marriage died in the same year, she told Turgenev, “I alone conceived you. You are an egoist of egoist. I know your character better than you know yourself...I prophesy that you will not be loved by your wife.” 

Ouch. But Yiyun’s mother said something similar to her: “I don’t even need to lay my eyes on you to know everything about you because you came from my body.” Apparently, she said this to the young Li regularly. She then asks, “How do we live with what we have, unhaunted?” And the answer is clearly that we cannot. We remain haunted. 

I must admit, a good bit of this resonated with me. My mother was not even in the same class as these controlling and abusive mothers, but she was damaged by her own childhood, and never really was able to transition from the mother of children to the mother of adults in a healthy manner. I did hear all too often during my teens that she feared I would marry a sweet girl and run roughshod over her. In the actual event, I married a strong, confident, and assertive woman, and I am pretty sure my mom was disappointed, which is why she eventually antagonized my wife until she was unwilling to waste time on my parents at all. So yes, I am very much haunted, and have to live with what I have. Things were not supposed to be this way. 

Returning again near the end of the book to her mother, Yiyun gives yet another facet of the issue. 

Writing is the only part of my life I have taken beyond my mother’s storytelling. I have avoided writing in an autobiographical voice because I cannot bear that it could be overwritten by my mother’s omniscience. I can easily see all other parts of my life in her narrative: my marriage, my children, my past. Just as she demands to come into my narrative, I demand to be left out of hers. There is no way to change that; not a happy ending, not even an ending is possible.

Perhaps the most difficult and haunting part of the book is Yiyun’s description of her never-ending quest to be invisible, to not matter, to prove that nothing matters. And it is clear that she wants to be visible, to be loved, to matter, and to prove that everything matters. There is a line in which she perhaps allows herself a glimpse of why. 

Nothing matters. The belief was fallible, but I knew from experience that absence is more reliable than presence, and a lie sustains life with absoluteness that truth fails to offer. 

There are layers to unpack in that one. Most obvious is that Yiyun finds that reality leads her toward suicide, and that some form of self-delusion appears necessary to prevent that. This is some crazy philosophical stuff, to be sure, and it isn’t just her. (As the book makes clear.) But I think too that she hits on a truth about...truth. Truth is complicated and messy and human and ambiguous. A lie is absolute. Lies tell you that everything can be summed up in one rule, one statement, one “truth.” And this is why cults thrive and hate multiplies and people embrace obvious untruths. It is far easier - and simpler because it is absolute - to say “my problems are the fault of those people,” than to look at the complexities of life. Far easier to exterminate the Jews, or deport immigrants, than to address the layers of kludge and rules and laws and systems which have choked the average person. Finding true solutions is always hard work - it is the work of reformation, not revolution - while “solutions” are easy to find. They have an absoluteness that truth cannot offer. On a related note, this observation is interesting, particularly in the context of whether wishing to escape suffering is selfish or not. (Many consider suicide selfish, but are other methods of escape likewise selfish?) 

It is easier to take something away than to give. Giving requires understanding and imagination; taking away requires only resolution and action.

This too ties back: giving - like truth - is complicated, and requires understanding the one to whom one gives, and imagination in finding a mutual good. That’s the complexity of truth. And the lie is easier - just take things away from other people. Send them back. Lock them up. Tell them to shut up. 

In the same chapter is an unexpected insight, which caught me off guard. I mentioned that I was not expecting Thomas Hardy to make an appearance. I was doubly not expecting to find a quote from Phillip Larkin about Jude the Obscure and the ensuing discussion to change my perspective on that book. Yiyun points out something that bothered me about the book: 

Sue is so incoherent that she raises in my mind the question of believability. Not that I don’t believe her as a character--a complaint one sometimes hears as a criticism of a less successful character--but I don’t believe a character can achieve inexplicability as she has. “Really too irritating not to have been a real person” was Larkin’s conclusion, and some biographers have suggested Hardy’s first wife as a model. 

This is true. Characters in stories are not allowed the luxury of being inexplicable. They have to do things for reasons, and Sue seems to have no reasons behind her behavior. She makes no sense. But this is, perhaps, the way a lot of people in real life are, if you think about it. Not everyone, clearly, but enough. The whole passage on Jude and Sue in particular, is really insightful. Even though I still dislike what Hardy did with her, I can understand it better. 

The chapter on language was also fascinating. Yiyun essentially “abandoned” (her words) three key things: her mother, her motherland, and her mother tongue. She compares herself to Nabokov, who likewise had to write in a non-native language. He did it for different reasons, though, and with reluctance. Yiyun did it intentionally, for rather complex reasons (although the fact that her mother cannot read English is one of them.) I can’t even begin to duplicate the extended exploration of this, but I think this line is a good start:

I feel a tinge of guild when I imagine Nabokov’s woe. Like all intimacies, the intimacy between one and one’s mother tongue can demand more than one is willing to give, or what one is capable of giving. If I allow myself to be honest, I would borrow from Nabokov for a stronger and stranger statement. My private salvation, which cannot and should not be anybody’s concern, is that I disowned my native language.

There are eight chapters, but also an “afterword” which seems in many ways to be its own chapter. I guess that is a matter of perspective. In any case, it has an amazing paragraph that I think makes a good way to finish this post. 

One cannot be an adept writer of one’s life; nor can one be a discerning reader of that tale. Not equipped with a novelist’s tools to create plots or maneuver pacing, to speak omnisciently or abandon an inconvenient point of view, to adjust time’s linearity and splice the less connected moments, the most interesting people among us, I often suspect, are flatter than the flattest character in a novel. Not only do we not have any alternatives, we discredit them. It has to be so--this indisputable conviction is often at the foundation of our decisions, including the most impulsive or the most catastrophic. It is easier to be certain of one thing than to be uncertain of a hundred; easier for there to be one is than many might have beens.

Yiyun Li has written one short story collection and two novels that I have yet to read. I was reminded again with this book why I love her writing so much. I definitely have her other works on my list, and I truly hope that she stays with us for a long time. 

***

This interview in The Guardian in relation to this book is pretty fascinating. 

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A tragic footnote: soon after this book was published, Yiyun's teenaged son committed suicide. The amount of pain in this family of generations is lacerating. I wish I had a cure to offer, but life and humans are too complicated for simple answers.

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

This is, without a doubt, the most unusual - and dark - book I have read this year. I’m not quite sure how to describe it, but I will give it a shot. 

The central premise is that the protagonist, Ada, is an ogbanje, a “spirit child.” I discovered this concept earlier this year in Chinua Achebe’s book, Things Fall Apart. In the original Igbo mythology, such a child is a spirit, or a god if you will, and comes to the parents for the purpose (more or less) of breaking the birth mother’s heart by dying young. And then repeating the process over and over. It isn’t difficult to figure out the way such a myth would arise: in an era of high infant mortality, weak genes (or maternal malnutrition or whatever) could easily cause a string of infant deaths. Just the stories of Suzanna Wesley or John Donne or Gustave Mahler alone are filled with dead babies. 

In Freshwater’s version of the story, though, the ogbanje is a hybrid: a human child possessed or occupied by spirits/gods. For Ada, the problem is that she didn’t die - she lived, but tormented by the spirits which are part of her, but that she cannot come to peace with. 

The structure of the book is fascinating as well. There are multiple narrators, with distinctive voices. Much of the book is narrated by “we,” the plural voice of the spirits. Occasionally, Ada her self is heard, usually in the form of a diary entry or a poem, until she finds a voice at the end, which combines her with her spirits in style. The third voice is that of one spirit, who Ada names Asughara. This spirit is feral, animalistic, the personification of desire and darkness. The best I can do to describe the voices is that Ada is timid but recognizably human. We is more like a Greek chorus, with figurative, mythical, and serenely confident. Asughara is personal and lets us see more of Ada than even Ada herself, but is so much concentrated energy and malice and exuberance in one, that she seems other than human. (Which is, presumably, the point.)  

Asughara is “born,” in the language of the book, as the result of a trauma. Ada is raped by a boy at college, and Asughara separates from the We at that time. Asughara becomes the way that Ada can function sexually: Asughara is full of violent lust and desire, but uses sex to punish the men who sleep with Ada. (They deserve it, mostly, because Asughara chooses men who are used to using women.) Freud might describe her as the Id - and not a stereotypically feminine one at that. Even Asughara admits that her flaw is that she has no concern for the emotional consequences to others - even to Ada. 

There is one other spirit who separates somehow from the We, and that is the male spirit Ada names Saint Vincent. He is gentle in all the ways that Asughara is not, and presents an alternative to her dysfunctional sexuality. But, as he is male, he drives Ada to hook up with women, which isn’t at all what Asughara wants (although she tolerates it for Ada’s sake.) 

If this sounds a bit complicated and crazy, it is. And even more so as we see the battles raging in Ada. Asughara feels called back to the spirit realm, and the only way she can do this is by killing Ada - so she pushes Ada toward suicide. This part of the book is damn dark, and I wouldn’t recommend it for someone who is already suicidal. It got to me, and I don’t tend toward depression. (I have my other demons, believe me, and have been in some dark places related to circumstances, but suicidal ideation isn’t the direction my brain is wired to seek first.) 

Eventually, Ada has to find equilibrium in her own way, through the understanding of her ogbanje nature. 

In order to gain some understanding of the book, I think it is helpful to understand the author. Emezi identifies as transgender and non-binary...and also as an ogbanje. The book isn’t strictly autobiographical, but it is significantly so. The author has said that they used their life as the skeleton for the story. But even more than this, it is an emotional and psychological autobiography, a look inside the author’s psyche. For Emezi, the ogbanje explanation makes more sense and “works” better than either the Western psychology framework or the Catholic Christianity that they were raised with. I have decidedly mixed feelings about this because of my own background. I was raised in the “nouthetic counseling” subculture, which is similar (but not exactly) to the Catholic approach that Emezi describes in interviews about that book. For me, that approach was borderline abusive, as it ascribes pain and trauma and grief and all dysfunction to specific sin in the life of the one who suffers. It denies any biological or circumstantial basis for mental illness, and blames its victims for their own pain. Particularly as Bill Gothard taught it, it pretty well fucked me up during my late teens. (And that’s before you get to the lasting relationship damage in my extended family, but that’s a different post.) It took a while (and the process is ongoing) to retrain my brain to understand how and why I react - in a way that doesn’t require “spiritualization” of things - or heaping guilt on me for negative feelings.

On the other hand, I do believe in my deepest being that there is more to life and the self and the psyche than chemistry and electricity. I believe in - and have experienced and continue to experience - a spiritual dimension that is as much a part of me as the physical being that science can describe. So, while contemporary Western psychology has been helpful in understanding myself and my reactions, it isn’t all there is. 

Two things tend to make my understanding of Emezi’s experiences difficult. First, I am a Western person, raised in my particular culture. As such, I can only view Igbo mythology from the outside. (I use that word not as a pejorative, but in the same way C. S. Lewis and Joseph Campbell do. Myth isn’t necessarily untrue, it is just true in a way that isn’t necessarily literally, empirically, naturalistically true. Rather, it is true in some combination of psychological, metaphorical, spiritual, and ontological truth.) The second barrier is that I do not share Emezi’s psychological reality. True, I have conversations in my head all the time (my wife teases me because she can tell), and even arguments. But I never feel like someone or something other than “me” is in my head. I don’t even experience the “angel and devil on shoulder” dichotomy. (If I ever do, can I have Crowley and Aziraphale, please? Please?) So, I have never felt like in a way consistent with the experience of being an ogbanje. 

I couldn't resist.

That said, because of my own experiences, I can see how Emezi could find an Igbo explanation for their experience to be helpful and useful. 

Similarly, I really don’t have a framework to understand Emezi’s other identity experiences. I am strongly cishet, although I don’t fit our culture’s masculine stereotypes particularly well. I feel male...but like a male who loves violin, poetry, nature, suggleing, cooking, and cats. I was mistaken for gay a lot as a kid and young adult for that reason. (I literally laughed out loud when I read Alice Munro’s riff on sexual orientation in one of her stories.) The best I can recommend is the excellent Vox article they wrote about their transition surgeries. It gives an insight in their experience, and the pain and trauma that live in their psyche. 

In that sense, this book was disturbing because it gave a full-on immersion into a psyche which is totally unfamiliar, and occasionally terrifying, to me. I don’t mean that being trans and/or nonbinary is terrifying. I mean seeing into the depths of pain and trauma that leads to self destructive and cruel behavior, and the self-loathing and unwellness that drags one toward suicide. The problem, if it can be called that, is that Emezi writes so very compellingly of this. At several points, I was sure I was absolutely hating the book, and hating what it made me feel, but at the end, after I caught my breath, I had to admit that I admired and respected it. A book that is so real and takes you on that kind of journey cannot be characterized as anything less than outstanding. The writing does what it was intended to do. This is a book that will stay with me. 

In addition to my caution that the book may be a bit much for someone already experiencing suicidal thoughts (although, again, I’m not wired in that direction, so I could be reading this completely wrong), I should also mention that it contains psychologically (not physically) graphic rape and assault. There is a lot of sex in this book, and it can get graphic, although it is all completely necessary, and it is brief. 

The other thing that might be a trigger for those who are connected to the Christian religious description, is that Jesus (as “Yshwa”) is a character. He too occupies Ada’s head, although he is an invited visitor, not part of her, like the spirits. The problem is that Yshwa is a personification of the Problem of Evil. Why wasn’t he there during Ada’s rape - or the sexual assaults we learn she experienced as a young child? Why didn’t he prevent her mother from abandoning the family? Emezi grew up Catholic, so they know the theology and scripture well enough. What is most fascinating is the book’s conclusion about Yshwa: he too was a spirit violently dragged into a fleshly body. He was an ogbanje too. As a result, he knows all too well the pain of being human and being trapped in flesh, and does not want to repeat the experience. I certainly hadn’t thought of that view of things, I suppose. Yshwa is thus not a villain, or even close. He tries, along with Saint Vincent, to encourage Ada to travel a less destructive path. But Ada can never escape the effects of the religion she has imbibed, which taught her that the loss of her virginity made her unacceptable to Yshwa. (Not that Yshwa shares this belief - he may not be able to protect and comfort Ada, but he doesn’t condemn her at all.) I found this perspective on Yshwa to be fascinating. Some of my tradition may freak out, of course. And insist that the book is evil because it doesn’t insist on their preferred theology. I prefer to appreciate the unexpected version of our own mythology, which seems consistent with the mystery of incarnation. 

Because the book is so autobiographical, it is hard to know whether Emezi will be able to write additional books of this quality. I hope they are not a one hit wonder, because they write compellingly. 

***

Just a note on pronouns: I am using “they,” etcetera, because Emezi uses them on their website. The various articles on them are inconsistent, some using female pronouns rather than neutral. Since many of the sources are ones who do aim to use preferred pronouns, I assume that Emezi made a change fairly recently, and that female pronouns were previously acceptable to them. 

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

“If you like ______, then you might like _____.” I kept having this pop up regarding a few of my favorite non-fiction authors (particularly Sam Kean.) The name recommended was Simon Winchester. So, I figured I would find one of the books that was at our local library, and give him a shot. The recommendation was spot on.

The Professor and the Madman is about those two figures, but the real subject of the book is the Oxford English Dictionary.

I have a couple of unabridged dictionaries, both by Webster. My wife brought a 1961 edition to our marriage. I had a 1996 Encyclopedic Dictionary - my mom bought one for each of us kids. But I do not have an actual OED, sadly.

Dictionaries are not all alike. They are written with specific purposes, and serve particular functions. The OED is unique and historically important because of its ambitious goal: to show when each word was first used in writing, and give examples from said writing to illustrate each meaning and nuance of the word.

To this end, those who created it enlisted a vast army of volunteers who searched through old books (and new too), and sent in words in context, with reference to book and page. Forms were created for this purpose, and the committee hired a few dozen clerks to sort through and catalogue the submissions.

Even with this vast machine, the dictionary still took over 75 years to complete, from the time it was first planned, to the day the last installment rolled off the press. No one person was involved from beginning to end; the project was the work of many individuals.

However, one name stands out above the rest: James Murray, who was in charge of the process for several decades. He is the Professor of the title, the educated and energetic man whose vision did more to make the OED a reality than any other person. He created the streamlined process for volunteers, and personally wrote tens of thousands of definitions.

The other character is perhaps even more fascinating. William Minor was a volunteer who contributed many thousands of words and quotes. Along with one other person, he was recognized as the greatest of the volunteers, and was specifically named in the acknowledgements. A quick reader, with an analytical mind, he stayed just ahead of the publication alphabetically, submitting timely and much appreciated information.

He was also confined in an insane asylum after committing a murder.

The book tells the stories of these two men, and how they came to be friends and collaborators. It also tells of the history of English language dictionaries (with quite a few pages dedicated to Samuel Johnson, of course), and the history of the OED project. Each chapter starts with a definition of a key word, quoted from the OED of course.

Winchester spins a compelling tale, one that is unusual, tragic, and redemptive. He also clears away some of the false narratives which became popular after a writer essentially made up a “more romantic” version of the story. Winchester obtained the government archives with the primary sources for use in writing this book. He is able to cite and quote extensively from the correspondence between Murray and Minor and others, and piece together the actual facts.

I won’t say too much about Murray. His story is conventional, and thus not that interesting, until the dictionary project. And even then, like many a diligent person who accomplished great things, his hard work and quiet brilliance don’t make for a good tale. Well behaved editors may make history, but they cannot carry a tale by themselves.

Minor is much more fascinating, because his life goes awry. Born to American missionaries in Sri Lanka, he seemed destined to a successful career as a Physician. During the Civil War, he was called on to serve the Union, and something happened to his psyche as a result. Winchester does the best he can with limited information, but he has to speculate as to exactly what happened. Many Irish immigrants fought in the Union Army - and did so in order to learn how to fight so they could kick the bloody British out of their homeland. When it became apparent that they were often sent in as cannon fodder - and after the Emancipation Proclamation, which the Irish feared would mean competition for their jobs, many Irish deserted. When caught, they weren’t executed - soldiers were needed, after all - but they were visibly branded, which ruined their chances at remaining incognito in an Irish rebellion.

As physician, Minor was certainly called on to dress the brand afterwards, and there is evidence that the branding was done by doctors in many cases. In any event, something clearly went wrong, because Minor started to develop a paranoia about Irishmen, who he felt would revenge themselves on him.

It wasn’t just trauma, however. That served as a trigger for what we would now diagnose as paranoid schizophrenia. Minor became obsessed with the idea that people were breaking into his room at night and poisoning or sexually abusing him. The Army eventually realized he was no longer functional, and gave him a lifetime disability pension. Minor, in an attempt to cure himself with a change in scenery, moved to London. It was there that he caused a tragedy.

In one of his nightly fits, he imagined a man was in his room, charged out with his service revolver, and shot a worker walking to his job in the wee hours of the morning. There was no doubt of his guilt - he admitted it, and was horrified at what he had done. There was also no real doubt that he was mentally ill, and that the illness caused him to do what he did. He was confined to an asylum.

Minor was rather a model inmate, however. Sure, he remained crazy enough with his endless delusions. But he was non-violent and cooperative. As a result, he was given significant privileges, including the chance to acquire a library. It was around this time that he became aware of the OED project, and began to submit words. Eventually, Murray was curious about why Minor never came to meet him, and discovered his situation. He would visit Minor regularly over the decades, and the two became friends.

Much of the book is about Minor, because of his colorful history. Winchester also discusses the change in the treatment of the mentally ill from when Minor committed his crime, to his death many years later. It is interesting to see the change in understanding, even if treatment wouldn’t become effective until long after.

Minor’s life took a somewhat tragic turn in his 70s. Probably suffering from dementia in addition to his other issues, he decided to take a violent approach to his sexual guilt, and cut his penis off. As a result of this, strings were pulled (including with Winston Churchill, then relatively unknown) to have Minor returned to the United States, where his brother could care for him. That part was good, but the last decade of Minor’s life was a long decline.

A few other things in this book were fun. Murray initially gained admission to the Philological Society through the efforts of a certain pigheaded and rude phonetician named Henry Sweet. Said person was the model used by George Bernard Shaw for Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion, later adapted for the musical My Fair Lady. Winchester notes that Rex Harrison wasn’t exactly acting in his part - he too was that rude and pigheaded himself.

I also have to quote the ever-pithy Samuel Johnson.

One woman even disparaged Johnson for failing to include obscenities. “No, Madam, I hope I have not daubed my fingers,” he replied, archly. “I find, however, that you have been looking for them.”

Minor was one of two contributors who were specially recognized. The other was a certain Fitzedward Hall, likewise American, and likewise a bit insane. A successful professor of Sanskrit at a university in India, he had an argument with a colleague, left abruptly, and became a hermit in England for the rest of his life.

This was a fun read. Winchester combines solid research with good storytelling, and ties things together well. I shall definitely be reading more of his books.

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour by Tom Stoppard & Andre Previn

This is perhaps one of the more unusual reviews I have written. I am not an actor. Well, there were a few times back in my school days, sure, but not really. So it was certainly a change of pace to be cast in a role in an actual play. Not a speaking role, but a role nonetheless. 

This is also one of the more unusual plays I have reviewed. I expect that very few ever get the chance to see it live. The reason is directly related to the fact that I had a role in it.

Back in 1977, Andre Previn was the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. This was before his stint as conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which is where my memory of him begins. (As an LA resident at the time, I remember it was big news when Previn retired, and Esa Pekka Salonen took over.) Anyway, Previn approached playwright Tom Stoppard with the idea of writing a play wherein the orchestra was a character. As Stoppard noted, this isn’t the sort of project one could or should say no to. The problem was, Stoppard didn’t really have any ideas about what to write. The original idea was of a millionaire who had his own orchestra. (Hey, maybe they should do that, rather than spend billions on sports teams…) But that didn’t really suggest an interesting and relevant plot. Then, Stoppard though about a lunatic with an orchestra in his head. That was more promising, but Stoppard still didn’t know where to go with the idea.

Then he met Victor Fainberg, a Soviet dissident exiled to the West, who had a fascinating story of being imprisoned in a mental hospital for his “antisocial” opinions. Things clicked for Stoppard, and the play came together. Previn wrote the music, and the whole thing was premiered for Queen Elizabeth II’s silver jubilee. Patrick Stewart and Ian McClellan were among the actors in the original.

I was able to find an online copy of the script (which is otherwise really hard to find). You can read it here in PDF, along with Stoppard’s introduction to the play, which is quite fascinating.

The main characters are two patients in the asylum, both named Alexander Ivanov. One is a political prisoner, locked up until he recants his “slander” and expresses gratitude for his treatment. The other is genuinely insane, and hears an orchestra in his head. Not just an orchestra, but a rather bad one. For purposes of clarity, the sane man is called “Alexander” in the script, while the mad one is “Ivanov.” However, both are referred to as “Ivanov” by the other characters.

There are four other characters in the play. The psychiatrist is also an amateur violinist in a real orchestra. (Which means in some scenes, he mimed along with us. We also parodied his practicing - there are a lot of musical jokes in the score, and they often come at the expense of the characters.) Alexander’s son Sacha struggles with his father’s imprisonment, and also rebels against the system. His teacher (unnamed) tries to make him conform. The final character is the Colonel, who must ultimately make the decision whether to free Alexander.

The play is a dark comedy. It ends on a positive note, but it is pretty tragic in the middle. It is also quite humorous, with music, geometry, politics, medicine, and more up for biting satire. A knowledge of music does help in understanding some of the jokes, as does a familiarity with Russian literature.

The opening scene begins with the orchestral overture, which Ivanov is conducting - and accompanying with a triangle. But it is not going well, clearly, and he cuts the orchestra off, complaining about them to Alexander.

Ivanov: I know what you are thinking.

Alexander: It’s all right.

Ivanov: No, you can say it. The cellos are rubbish.

It goes downhill from there, with successive sections of the orchestra being roundly abused by Ivanov, who really wishes he could have a better orchestra. Previn’s score includes crazy dissonances and weird rhythms to illustrate the jumble of Ivanov’s mind. It is supremely challenging stuff. 

 A bit of the violin part.

However, Ivanov has a fondness for musicians, even if he is tormented by his orchestra. He mentions that he even invites them into his home and feeds them real food. But he is mixed up in his head, and things don’t quite come out right.

Listen, I’ve had clarinet players eating at my own table. I’ve had French whores and gigolos speak to me in the public street, I mean horns, I mean piccolos...

Ivanov insists that Alexander tell him which instrument he plays. Alexander is not a musician and says so, but Ivanov won’t take no for an answer. Poor Alexander is legitimately afraid for his life given Ivanov’s erratic and aggressive behavior. The doctor has to figure out how to cure Ivanov, if possible, and “cure” Alexander, who will have none of it.

In a rather funny exchange, the doctor tries to convince Ivanov that while he, the doctor, plays in an orchestra, Ivanov does not.

Doctor: Did the pills help at all?

Ivanov: I don’t know. What pills did you give them?

Doctor: Now look, there is no orchestra. We cannot make progress until we agree that there is no orchestra.

Ivanov: Or until we agree that there is.

Doctor: But there is no orchestra. I have an orchestra, you do not.

Ivanov: Does that seem reasonable to you?

Alexander later complains about Ivanov to the doctor. The doctor notes that Ivanov complains about Alexander too:

Doctor: He complains about you too. Apparently you cough during the diminuendos.

I’m with Ivanov on this one.

The doctor and Alexander go at it on this and other occasions regarding the problem of Alexander’s incarceration. The doctor is a pragmatic man. He would like to help Alexander get out, but explains that he has to pretend to have treated Alexander, and Alexander must pretend the “treatment” cured him. But Alexander refuses to play the game, instead going on hunger strike. This is inconvenient, because Alexander’s name is known to the West, so his death would crack the facade that the Soviet Union has stopped murdering dissidents.

The problem, of course, is that the Soviets cannot handle dissent, and must suppress it by whatever means are necessary.

Alexander: I have no symptoms. I have opinions.

Doctor: Your opinions are your symptoms. Your disease is dissent.

The doctor indicates that the case is being personally handled by the Colonel, who is a “doctor,” but not a psychiatrist.

Alexander: What’s his specialty?

Doctor: Semantics. He’s a doctor of Philology, whatever that means. I hear he is a genius.

Later, Alexander and Sacha have a dialogue (but they are in different places, so it is a disconnected dialogue.)

Sacha: Papa, don’t be rigid. Be brave and tell them lies. Tell them lies! Tell them they cured you! Tell them you’re grateful!

Alexander: How can that be right?

Sacha: If they’re wicked how can it be wrong?

Alexander: It helps them to go on being wicked. It helps them to think that perhaps they are not so wicked after all.

Sacha: It doesn’t matter. I want you to come home.

Alexander: And what about all the other fathers? And mothers?

Sacha: It’s wicked to let yourself die!

This is a really telling moment. In a month where the term “grateful” has been thrown around as what protesters should be, it seems quite relevant. People should just stop protesting injustice, and show gratitude that it isn’t worse. On a related note, “ungrateful” is the “uppity negro” of the 21st Century. I think Alexander has it right. By playing the game, going along with the system, he would be allowing those who continue the system to think of themselves as less evil. And our modern protesters against a system of white supremacy would, by remaining silent, allow those who continue to benefit from and support that unjust system to think that they are somehow not really complicit with evil. This has come up too regarding my ongoing protest against Trump and those in the GOP who are openly white supremacist. I understand it makes people who voted for them uncomfortable. That is the point. I and others are here to remind you that you bear moral responsibility for the harm that comes to people such as immigrants, refugees, victims of police brutality, and those Americans in Puerto Rico who are being neglected in a way that white communities in Houston and Florida will not be. I’m not going to tell lies and pretend things are fine.

There are a number of other interesting and humorous scenes. There are also a couple of monologues by Alexander that kind of drag. I wondered about them until I read up on the play, and realized that Stoppard drew them from Fainberg’s memoirs. They aren’t just there to give background, but to give a voice to the real people who suffered under the Soviet regime.

Back to the humor. During one of the doctor’s sessions with Ivanov, he realizes he is late for his rehearsal. Ivanov is reciting his mantra about not having an orchestra, but the doctor fails to realize this, and snaps at Ivanov “of course there is a bloody orchestra.” Ivanov is thrilled to “discover” that his orchestra is “real.” And off the orchestra goes into triumphant music.

Ivanov is left by himself in the doctor’s office until Sacha comes for a visit. Ivanov impersonates the doctor, but goes off into an increasingly bizarre set of “postulates” by Euclid which confuse music and geometry.

“A triangle with a bass is a combo.”

“Two triangles sharing the same bass is a trio.”

And my favorite:

“A trombone is the longest distance between two points!”

In this particular performance, Jon Sampson played the colonel, Belle Born played Sacha, Abby Bowles-Votaw played the teacher. All were fine in these minor roles. Credit to Born for her sung parts - picking up the pitch from the music cannot have been easy given the scoring.

Ross Hellwig played Alexander. Hellwig came up from Los Angeles, and has some TV and stage credits. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a great view of his facial expressions from my angle, but overall, I think he did a fine job in the most difficult part. He seemed genuinely haunted and tormented.

Don Kruszka is well known here in Bakersfield for his puppet shows. Not only is he a talented actor, he designs and builds his puppets, which are astonishingly detailed and creative. My wife saw him act in something else a while back, but this was the first time I saw him in a full role on stage. He is quite good - and, since he got to sit with us in the violin section, we got to talk a bit. He is a down to earth guy with a sense of humor, and it was fun getting to know him.

Karl Wade took the role of Ivanov, and pretty much stole the show. It was interesting rehearsing with him, because he experimented with different takes on certain of the lines. All of the different flavors were great, fitting well with the lunatic character, even as they differed from each other.

It was challenging putting together a show like this on two rehearsals. The music isn’t easy, and we had technical issues to address. First, we only got to use the actual location and set for one rehearsal. That’s one as in “1.” Yikes. And furthermore, for reasons that are unclear - I wasn’t in the loop. We didn’t have electricity to our stand lights, and the actors lacked microphones. So full lighting and sound wasn’t in place until the performance itself. Cold sweat time. Anyway, kudos to the actors and to director Jennifer Sampson for rolling with it, and pulling off an excellent performance under trying conditions.

It was a real pleasure to be able to participate in an unusual and thoughtful production. May we all remember that totalitarianism starts with labeling dissenters as “ungrateful” and “antisocial.” Allegiance which is coerced isn’t real anyway. Respect is earned by governments no less than by people. And a trombone is always the longest distance between two points…

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

This was a production at The Empty Space, a local theater known for its intimate setting and high quality despite low budgets. 

The Glass Menagerie was Tennessee Williams’ first hit, and like most of his plays, draws on the dynamics of his own family. This one is perhaps his most autobiographical. I read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof a few years back.

There are only four actors in the play, but, as the narrator - young Tom - explains in the prologue, there is a fifth character, that of the absent father. Tom lives with his mother, Amanda, a faded Southern Belle, and his sister Laura, who is painfully shy and awkward. The fourth character is Jim, one of Tom’s co-workers at the warehouse, who comes to dinner in the second act.

The family is patterned after Williams’ own. His alcoholic father abandoned the family, leaving Williams (also named Tom) to support his mother and older sister. In the play, each of the characters longs to escape their dreary life in an apartment in Saint Louis. Tom, naturally, wishes to get out and see the world - and to write for a living. Amanda dreams of her past glories, when she had so many beaus that they couldn’t fit in the house, and tries to live her life through her children. Laura withdraws into her hobby, a collection of glass animals, the centerpiece of which is a unicorn. 

Nancee Steiger as Laura

The Empty Space publicity photo

The amount of pressure put on the children by the mother is palpable. As far as she is concerned, Laura has two options: she can either marry, or she will have to learn a trade. When Laura quits secretarial school because the stress makes her vomit, Amanda determines that marriage will be her only option. But how to get a “gentleman caller” to the house, when Laura is so shy? Amanda also has failed to acknowledge that society has changed since her youth, and debutantes don’t just sit around waiting for gentlemen in urban Saint Louis. Laura feels even more pressure because Amanda’s one joy in life is to talk about how popular she was, and how great all the young men were that wanted her. Sadly, she picked a loser somehow, so her triumph always mixes with regret.

Tom, too, is under pressure. His mother is determined that he not be like his father, and is willing to guilt, shame, and browbeat him into submission. She even goes so far as to use Laura as a weapon. These are actions I have seen played out all too often in my divorce cases, and it generally doesn’t end well. Tom escapes by “going to the movies” every night to get out of the house. While movies are likely a part of Tom’s escape, he also has taken to drinking on his nights out.

The transformative event occurs midway through the play, when, at his mother’s urging, he asks his co-worker Jim to dinner. This leads to a flurry of activity. A gentleman caller! This will be Laura’s escape, Amanda is sure. Laura realizes that the young man is one she had a crush on in high school, and refuses to be sociable. Jim is charming and draws Laura out of her shell despite herself. However, things will not end well. (Unsurprising for a Williams play.) Jim turns out to be already engaged, although this comes out only after he has kissed Laura. Tom didn’t know, because Jim had not yet announced it at work, but Amanda reams Tom for this disappointment.

One of the interesting things about plays from this era is that there were quite a number of things one simply didn’t say outright. The 20th Century saw the Hays Code in motion pictures and a similar push in live theater which kept certain topics (including interracial relationships, for example) off limits. In many ways, Shakespeare could say more than American playwrights. Williams nibbles around sex in this play through symbolism. Unicorns in mythology are attracted to virgins. Laura shows her prize unicorn to Jim, who inadvertantly breaks it while dancing with Laura. Deprived of its horn, the horse is now just ordinary. On another level, as my wife pointed out, the unicorn is one example of the theme that each of the characters wants to be unique and special, but end up being ordinary. But the sexual connotation is unmistakeable as well. Laura gives Jim the unicorn as a memento with the hope that he treasures it as much as she did. I think Williams also utilizes a metaphor with Laura, who tells of gathering jonquils with her beaus. Her treasuring of her flowers was an important part of who she was, but once she settled on a particular man, the flowers were gone.

My wife also pointed out that there is a dichotomy between the male and female characters. Both females live in the past. Amanda in her days as a belle, Laura in the innocence of childhood joys, her glass menagerie and her phonograph. The men, in contrast, dream of the future. Tom lives for poetry and making a name for himself. Jim takes night courses in technology and public speaking, with the goal of rising above his menial job. In some ways, all are a dream, but there is hope that the future will be better. The past is just a dead end.

As usual, a few things stood out to me as brilliant concepts and lines. First was Amanda’s inappropriate use of “selfishness” to describe Tom. Her son is free to leave, but only once Laura is married or otherwise provided for. Until then, he must dedicate his life to his mother and sister, and anything less than total devotion is “selfishness.” This is baloney, of course, but Amanda totally believes it. After all, she (in her own mind) lives only for her children. He should do the same. Both in the play and in real life, Tom is torn between this burden and his own dreams. After he finally leaves, he remains haunted by Laura, and she is invited to close the play by blowing out the candles. This wasn’t an appropriate burden for him to bear, of course, but he feels it nonetheless. In real life, this turned tragic in the extreme. His sister suffered from mental illness. Although retroactive diagnosis is difficult, she is believed to have suffered from schizophrenia. In the play, particularly as the actress portrayed her in this instance, she appears to have been on the autism spectrum. Whatever the case, she was eventually forced into a lobotomy, which went terribly and and reduced her to a vegetative state. Williams felt guilty, as he was close to her, but he had no choice if he wanted to have a life of his own. He left the bulk of his estate for her care.

Ironically, though Amanda lives in the past, and devotes her life to correcting her own mistakes, she has one of the best lines about the future.

[To Tom: ] “You are the only young man I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don’t plan for it!”

To an extent, she is right. The problem is that she is the main obstacle to Tom planning for his own future in order to avoid regret.

Earlier in the play, during their first catastrophic fight, Amanda accuses Tom of lying about going to the movies. His response is one that reveals pent up frustration as well as a sense that he has reached the breaking point, and from then on, it is only a matter of time until he leaves.

Tom: I’m going to the movies!

Amanda: I don’t believe that lie!

[Tom crouches toward her, overtowering her tiny figure. She backs away gasping.]

Tom: I’m going to opium dens! Yes, opium dens, dens of vice and criminals’ hangouts, Mother. I’ve joined the Hogan Gang, I’m a hired assassin, I carry a tommy gun in a violin case! I run a string of cat houses in the Valley! They call me Killer, Killer Wingfield, I’m leading a double-life, a simple honest warehouse worker by day, by night a dynamic czar of the underworld, Mother. I go to gambling casinos, I spin away fortunes on the roulette table! I wear a patch over one eye and a false moustache, sometimes I put on green whiskers. On those occasions they call me - El Diablo! Oh, I could tell you many things to make you sleepless! My enemies plan to dynamite this place. They’re going to blow us all sky-high some night! I’ll be glad, very happy, and so will you! You’ll go up, up on a broomstick, over Blue Mountain with seventeen gentlemen callers! You ugly - babbling old - witch…

This is both horrifying, and yet all too deserved. 

Mimi Gauthier as Amanda and Ryan Lee as Tom

The Empty Space publicity photo.

One final line was memorable to me. Amanda, trying to make Laura as “attractive” as possible, stuffs some...stuffing into Laura’s bra.

Laura: Mother, what are you doing?

Amanda: They call them “Gay Deceivers”!

Laura: I won’t wear them!

Amanda: You will!

Laura: Why should I?

Amanda: Because, to be painfully honest, your chest is flat.

Laura: You make it seem like we were setting up a trap.

Amanda: All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be.

Ouch. And then, the fact that Amanda comes out in her debutante dress, complete with tiara makes the whole thing even more awkward.

I wouldn’t say this is a pleasant play, not in the least. Nearly everything is painful, but Williams brings to light some oft-buried truths about dysfunctional family dynamics. While perhaps exaggerated for most of us - although perhaps not compared with Williams’ own family - the core of truth is still there, exposing the bitter root of pain that can be seen in so many families.

The Empty Space did a fantastic job with it, with excellent acting - particularly considering half the cast is still in college - combined with a minimalist set that focused the action well.