Mr. Fox

 

Dear Reader,

I know you have heard enough from me on the topic of What to Read; especially right now, at the onset of whatever it is that 'Summer Reading" season is.  (Lot of is, in that sentence....)  And for me, it just happened to fall here, this great book.  It happened to fall because I was at my online used book place and the Robot Overlords that run it suggested this book- now, let me clear: they suggest books to me every time I go there.  Mr. Fox is the very first time I have taken their advice:  why?  Two things: the author was not an Old White Man, and the cover was just exactly what I want in a cover.  In other words, I judged this book by its cover and I found it very good!

The cover is a treat, and I send along an image of it, so you can appreciate it, even if you end up with a different edition.  Look at the pale celadon!  The paper-doll type figures!  What could be nicer than that?  But, but, I don't want you to read it because of its cover, and I want you to read it because it is so good, so imaginative, so multivalent.  And no, I don't want to tell you anything about it, because, isn't that why we open a book?  To find a surprise?

However, I am willing to go out on a limb: anyone with a summer reading quota would be delighted with this book:  Give it to all your friends & lovers, your book club pals & your sisters and your cousins and your aunts.

As for me, well, I am going to make a start on the books I hadn't read that are mentioned in Mr. Fox, in my usual non-robotic meta method for finding new titles:

Transformations

From the Beast to the Blonde

The Woman in White

Tess of the d'Ubervilles

Thérèse Raquin

Madame Bovary

In addition to that weighty and academic list, I think I will add Bluebeard's Egg, and White is for Witching, but don't expect a review too soon; I expect to take my sweet time reading all of that.

the page

 

Dear Reader,

Sometimes I think about why we read; why I read; why one would read.  The other place, yes, of course- the destination that is not here.  The other voices, the new landscapes.  So, for variety, yes, and sometimes to be validated, and a lot of reading I think might be to increase one's status.  This is eggshell territory, I know- I am suggesting, very, very faintly, that we read to show off.  Why faintly?  Because I think on balance, it is a very minor infraction, showing off our intellects to other readers who are busy showing off their intellects.  I mention it only because I think back on my days, and I want to redact some of my show off statements.  I have regrets about throwing my intellectual weight around.  Don't you worry, though, I am still telling myself I am a paragon of well readness, an empress of big words and complex ideas; I am just hoping, at this point, not to sound like one.  

And what of the less public reasons we might read?  The personal, the private reasons; the reasons we don't tell everyone.  The things we maybe don't say on our media platforms.  We read for greater understanding, which might come under validation.  We read to be comforted, I reckon, and that seems okay to me.  I suggest another category, that we might call 'joyful surprise.'  This is that great feeling where a sentence just yells out at you, flashing its poetic lights and sirens all over the page.  This is a reason to read that can make you run and tell someone else about what you read, except you aren't showing off, you are excited and you actually want to share it; like a really great watermelon, or a cake:  "Hey, you have to try this!  It is so delicious!"

Yes, I am taking the usual scenic route: this is the sentence I want to slice into cold, juicy triangles and give to you today:  "She went looking for Brandon's Memorabilia (a place one of her artist friends told her about) to load up on antique paper angels and fold-out valentines and other useless tendernesses."  Eve Babitz, in Sex and Rage, page 196- in case you want to run out to your library and read immediately for yourself, the beautiful, exquisite phrase: useless tendernesses.

When I read it, useless tendernesses, I was stopped cold.  It all came to a swirling, gyrating center: of course!  It is all useless tendernesses!  My whole purpose in life, my time here, the reason for doing anything!  Useless tendernesses; all my paintings will be titled this from now on!  I will get a tattoo:  Useless Tendernesses!  I will get two: on both arms, reading right and left, and mirror-wise, so I can see it too.  The whole book could have been just blah blah blah printed endlessly, if there was a prize like this in the box!*

You might think, here, mistakenly, that I am being sardonic, or glib, or some damned thing, but what I am meaning is, yes, useless tendernesses, but not, not, not that tenderness is useless.  The whole point is tenderness is maybe all we can try for, useless and all, useless especially.

*  Of course it is a wonderful book, and not at all endless blah blah blah.

PS  I had another photo I was choosing between to lede/lead here.  It was a photo of book spines on my shelf- some read, some to be read, including Sex and Rage, but it felt a little show-offy, in a way that the sloppy stitch work on my denim shirt did not.

More fun.

 

Dear Fun-Seeker,

Today, I offer more opportunities for fun, or the appreciation of fun as a surrogate for actual, real-time fun.

The A's.

Connection.

A creature.

Dance party music.

A lesson on the letter H (including how to draw it).

Until we fun again.

lost stone

 

Dear Shangri-La,

I had a thing I was saving for you.  A thing about the beauty and perfection of a stone.  It meant that the stone was the symbol for all things made by processes of the world.  By extrapolation, it meant we (you, me, the stone) were all beautiful and perfect, not because we thought we were, but because processes had made us so.  Made it so.

All that is what I think it meant, anyway, because like I said, I lost it.  I thought there was a slip of paper marking it.  It's in Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse; so if you really want to, you can go searching for it.  I decided that it's importance was better served through my telling than my searching.

But, I don't feel all that confident about that, and it might be just another miss.  The book's world is very complete, very livable, while you are there, anyway.  But once you leave it, you notice some fraying, or maybe I have frayed?  It's a pretty parable, but don't you already have a drawer full?  I do, and I am trying harder than ever to internalize the messages, the directions, the instructions, and the good advice of so many compelling and enchanting voices.  

In any case, read this instead, if you are looking to read a thing:  Thick, by Tressie McMillan Cottom, because it will rock your tiny boat in a fabulous sea.

A better time.

Dear Ones,

I am sorry to bother you again, with another thing I think you really must read.  Yesterday I read about the selection of an engagement calendar and I thought I'd have to come over and get you up out of bed it was so good, but I figured it could wait, maybe, until a better time.

Who knows when this better time will come, and we all know that it might not come at all.  I should have given that coffee boy the cobalt blue glass mug that he admired and now I cannot.  I have no mug, I have no coffee boy, I have no status for such an exchange at all.  What, you wonder, does that have to do with coming here and waking me up now?  It's just that it's that good, and that real, and that important that you read this little thing, this very short thing, that won't take hardly any of your time.

I have given you books and instructions and admonitions for reading Tove Jansson before; because she is an absolute favorite of mine.  I cannot understand at all why she isn't a Major Literary Figure.  She ought to be on the shelves with all those damned guys that you are supposed to read:  Melville, Faulkner, Joyce, Steinbeck, and a bunch of others that I don't even bother with at all.  The good news is that you, dear friend, are here, and so you can read this wonderful bit of writing.

on my list

Dear Readers,

I have a word here, for our consideration:  peroration.  I found it in the 'bonus section' of a 50th anniversary edition of Catch 22.  I know I looked it up once before, but I couldn't remember what it meant.  As for Catch, I have been meaning to read it for decades.  I took the book from my parents' bookcase, in '95 or 6.  I think I put it aside at page 37.  I might even have taken it earlier than that, but I know that I have had it in three different domiciles, and on four different book shelves.  I lost it, in fact, and searched all over for it before capitulating and getting it from the library.  My paramour thought he had a copy too, but that also couldn't be found.  I don't know for certain that I would even have gotten it read yet.  Here's what it took to read it; a short version:

Taking the book from my parents to begin with, many moons ago, then hauling it around for a long time.  Meanwhile, I dated a lot of people, thinking it would be nice to have a mate and maybe offspring.  More time passed.  I finally found someone I could stand and we got married.  At this point, it was rather late, biologic-clock-wise, so we next had a baby.  Then, he grew and changed and learned to read, and 13 years later he wanted to read Catch 22.  But, we couldn't find the book.  We got it from the library and he read it and he told me little bits and he laughed at it, and he said: 'you should read it- it is a great book.'  The library has a very generous renewal policy, and you can have a book for three months if no one else requests it, so I read it.  Near to the end of reading it, I found the old missing copy- with its dyed leaf edges, in a deep blue green color that suggest a sulfurous smell.

And that's what it takes to read a book, and you can talk to me about your puny procrastination and your perverse pride in it, but I, dear ones, took 22 years to read Catch 22.  Beat that, if you dare!




If you do beat that, then set your sights on this:  I found in my journals (which, you will recall, I am transmuting into sculptural objects) an intention to read The Seven Pillars of Wisdom in 1992.  I haven't even opened it, but my consort* read it 4 or 5 years ago, and so the book is on the shelf and the clock has been ticking already for 26 years, and counting!












* A partial list of unsatisfying words to be used instead of 'husband:'  concomitant, mate (ugh!), spouse, partner, helpmate, other half (dear god!), old man.  It's enough to keep a person from getting married in the first place.  'Swain' is worth a closer look, but it's aimed a bit more at the time before a marriage, like the word suitor, or beau.

The Hard, Brown, Nutlike Word.

Dear Darlings,

I am all rabid with enthusiasm for this tale, Indian Uprising, by Donald Barthelme.  I think it might just say it all.  If you have had the pleasure of reading it, black marks on white paper, I rejoice with you.  If you are one of the ones with less patience, with less bookshelves, with whatever it is you have instead of time to read, please enjoy an auditory reading of it, here.  There is an introduction, which, if you have a shred of sense, you will skip, by starting at 4 minutes and 18 seconds.

There is much superfluous closing material, also, after the story ends- remarks between the interviewer and the reader, Chris Adrian.  Which, given your hurried day, your busy life, you should also skip.  On the other hand, you may itch for explication, and then, you will open that Pandora's box, and your own definitions, your own precious meanings, will fly off, never to be heard from again.  And so, you are forewarned. 

In accord, in solidarity, may we nonevaluate everything, always.

Sommarboken.

Dear Reader,

Here I find myself, again, pleading with you, enjoining you, to read a particular book.  I know, you aren't really looking for a book right now, and you already have three others started, and you really ought to read some of the *classics you've been promising yourself you'll get to, but, if you read only one book that I suggest, let it be The Summer Book.  I know, I know, I said the same thing about The Dud Avocado, and The Animal Family, and The Writing Life, and Lolita, and those wonderful Irish mysteries about the pig, too, but this is a book you will absolutely love- don't wait another minute to read it.

What makes you want to read in the first place?  Do you want a sense of place, or a flavor of the exotic?  A fine turn of phrase?  A compelling narrative?  A world of believability?  A character you can identify with?  A handmade miniature Venice flooded by a storm?  Oh, please read it.  Please read about Berenice's beautiful hair, and loving Moppy the murderous cat harder and harder, and drinking Verner's sherry even though you hate sherry.  Do read it, dear reader, do.

If I cannot convince you, read about the authoress here, and maybe the fascinating details of her life, as delineated by content writing professionals, will compel you to try it.






* Exempli gratia: The Mill on the Floss, The Grapes of Wrath, Catch 22, Anna Karenina, Centerburg Tales.