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Olivier Azam and Daniel Mermet: Howard Zinn, une histoire populaire américaine (2015). First part: Bread and Roses. I first caught this on Free Speech TV. It provides a good sampling, focusing in good part on the Robber Baron period and the impact of the First World War.
Howard Zinn (1922-2010) devoted much of his energy on consciousness raising, building up an appreciation of the history of people and clashes and changes often forgotten or -- like the eight hour work day -- taken for granted. His work is influential; and he was a sweet person.
"Between 1900 and 1920, like Howard Zinn’s parents, more than 14 million immigrants arrived in the United States. They came fleeing poverty or war, racism or religious persecution. They dreamed of a promised land, of wealth, or simply of a better life. The New World opened its arms wide to the poor and huddled masses of the Old: its unwanted, its fugitives, and even a few utopians . . . After all, the rapidly expanding industries of the time required cheap labor, and immigrant workers - men, women and children - were easy to exploit. But the same period also saw the birth of organized labor, with its strikes and conflicts, and the appearance of great figures like Emma Goldman, Mother Jones, Eugene Debs and the Wobblies." (Source here).
Olivier Azam and Daniel Mermet: Howard Zinn, une histoire populaire américaine (2015). Zinn's A People's History of the United States was originally published in 1980.
Zinn Education Project: link here.
Les mutins de Pangée est une coopérative audiovisuelle et cinématographique de production, d’édition et de distribution (en salles, DVD, VOD). Here is a a link.
Today's Rune: Initiation.
Francis Fukuyama: Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.
On this centenary of the end of the First World War, Identity is relevant to an understanding of that conflict and today's world.
"The great struggles in American political history -- over slavery and segregation, workers' rights, women's equality -- were ultimately demands that the political system expand the circle of individuals it recognized as having equal rights." (p. 22)
With identity politics in the 21st century, however, "desire for equal recognition can easily slide . . . into a demand for recognition of the group's superiority" -- for example, among nations, tribes, religious sects and ethnic groups. (p. 22)
"Individuals come to believe that they have a true or authentic identity hiding within themselves that is somehow at odds with the role they are assigned by their surrounding society. The modern concept of identity places a supreme value on authenticity . . . (p. [25])
The "Arab Spring" begins in Tunisia on December 17, 2010. (p. [42])
Various uprisings sparked by desire for dignity. (pp. 44-48). Scapegoating used by rulers to divide opposition.
"The desire for the state to recognize one's basic dignity has been at the core of democratic movements since the French Revolution." (p. 49)
Gemeinschaft (village) to Gesellschaft (urban) demographic shift over time, especially since 1900. "The dislocation . . . laid the basis for an ideology of nationalism based on an intense nostalgia for an imagined past of strong community in which the divisions and confusions of a pluralist society did not exist." (p. 65)
Deterioration of "middle-class status may then explain the rise of populist nationalism in many parts of the world in the second decade of the twenty-first century." In the USA, "the working class, defined as people with a high school education and less, has not been doing well over the past generation." (p. 87)
". . . resentful citizens fearing loss of middle-class status point an accusatory finger upward to the elites . . . but also downward to the poor, whom they feel are undeserving and . . . unfairly favored." (p. 88).
"White nationalism has a long history in Europe, where it is called fascism." (p. 121) Ethno-nationalism, ethnic cleansing. Anti-immigrant sentiment is back on the rise due to refugee crises, especially since the Arab Spring, blaming the refugees rather than the causes.
"National identity begins with a shared belief in the legitimacy of the country's political system, whether that system is democratic or not . . . [It] also extends into the realm of culture and values. . . what it takes to become a genuine member of the community." (p. 126). Diversity. Resilience. Resistance to complete homogenization. (p. 127)
"National identities can be built around liberal and democratic political values, and the common experiences that provide connective tissue around which diverse communities can thrive." (p. 128)
"Citizenship is a two-way street: it endows citizens with rights that are protected by the state, but it also enjoins duties on them, above all, the duty of loyalty to the country's principles and laws." (p. 148)
Results of the American Civil War. XIII, XIV and XV Amendments. "Identity has to be related to substantive ideas such as constitutionalism, rule of law, and human equality." (p. 171)
A thoughtful book.
Today's Rune: Strength.
Allen Ginsberg, The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats, edited by Bill Morgan. New York: Grove Press, 2017. Foreword by Anne Waldman.
Anne Waldman: "Denver, the place of all possible crossroads." (p. x) "The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. (p. xi)
Each core member of the Beats "literarily had had some form of break in the ordinary nature of consciousness . . . as the central preoccupation, concern with the very nature of consciousness and with what you would call visions or visionary experience." (P. 26)
"The element of aggression, of ideological insistency, was considered unhip and by unhip I mean lacking in awareness." (p. 29)
"I'm thinking of 'salt peanuts, salt peanuts,' or some squiggle of rhythm in [Jack] Kerouac's head that follows that off accenting, the irregular accenting, the noniambic accenting of [Dizzy] Gillespie." (p. 35)
With the death of his father, Kerouac "got interested in becoming the recording angel of the dream scene, and began recording his dreams, literally, as well as the dream of life itself." (p. 44)
"The world hanging in space, the skyscrapers hanging in space . . . you'd realize you were not standing in New York City but you were standing in the middle of the universe, the vast open sky . . . It was the first discovery [by the main Beats, in the 1940s] of a crack in consciousness, that we were made of the same suchness, that we were ghosts. ' ' There's this early hint in On the Road of mind which is already Buddhist-oriented. Appreciating the phantom nature of things, of ourselves, an awareness of the mortal . . ." (p. 52)
On meeting Jack: "Kerouac was a very mellow, shrewd, observant, tolerant person, so there was mutual curiosity." (p. 55)
Kerouac later "used to stand in the backyards at night when everybody was eating supper and realized that everybody was a ghost eating ghost food. Or that he was a ghost watching living people." (p. 56)
On meeting William S. Burroughs: "When we all went to see Burroughs, it was for that laconic, mellowed-out, cooled-out experience." (p. 86)
Louis-Ferdinand Céline as a major influence. "I think it's one of the great moments of Western literature, when the hero wakes up in the middle of the battle and realizes that everyone around him is crazy and figures he better get out of there. I would say that is hipness, that attitude . . ." (p. 88)
". . . little puppets of eternity, clawing each other in their vanity, with great clouds brewing overhead in the empty sky." (p. 96)
". . . panoramic consciousness or time consciousness . . ." (p. 98)
Kerouac: ". . . the flitting ghost-ends of a brood who will grow . . ." (p. 99)
Today's Rune: Wholeness.
David Lynch: Mulholland Drive / Mulholland Dr. (2001). Starring Naomi Watts, Laura Elena Martínez Herring/Harring (Countess von Bismarck-Schönhausen) and Justin Theroux.
After having seen everything David Lynch at least once, it's easier to go back and reconsider Mulholland Drive.
In short, what a cool, weird film! Watts is also in Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), and Harring has since enjoyed a strong turn as a lawyer in the FX series The Shield (2006), among other things.
What is Mulholland Drive? Are we delving into alternate realities, psychological realms, dreams, feeling-driven memory distortions, alternate state consciousness, hallucinatory experiences, floating through the bardo, a limbo-like state, or a blend of such elements with off-kilter surrealism? You tell me. The final response will be: "Silencio."
Today's Rune: Possessions.
Kim Thúy, Ru. New York: Translated from the French by Sheila Fischman. New York: Bloomsbury, 2012; originally published in French in 2009.
This is a lovely short novel, organized as a series of interconnected (but mostly capable of standing alone) short chapters that look on the page like prose poems or flash pieces.
Ru has the gravitas of a personal nonfiction account. I found it completely absorbing on a first read and can imagine combing through it again soon to see what I missed.
"I came into the world during the Tet Offensive, in the early days of the Year of the Monkey, when the long chains of firecrackers draped in front of houses exploded polyphonically along with the sound of machine guns." (page 1)
An Tinh Nguyen, the main protagonist, is born in Saigon. French and Vietnamese culture are strong in her childhood years, even after the American War when the country is unified. Eventually, she escapes with members of her family to Malaysia, until they are taken in by Canadians and relocated to Quebec.
I appreciate the fact that Ru is mostly neutral on the opposing sides of the war and its aftermath, allowing the reader to focus instead on what it's like to be a war child and refugee.
Throughout Ru, we are taken as if by the hand to see conditions in Vietnam during and after the American War, in boats and refugee camps, and in a new, unfamiliar land -- Canada. We see the family of An Tinh Nguyen and come to understand something of its structure (Aunt Seven, Step-Uncle Six, Cousin Sao Mai, etcetera), and see what it's like to become accustomed to a new country, while still yearning for the old.
Deft and memorable.
Today's Rune: Initiation.
Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
The Afghanistan War (1979-1989), according to Aleksandr Konstantinov: "'an absurd stupidity.'" (page 263) Olga Martynkina: "'terrible and unnecessary.'" (ibid.) Gennady Ivanov: '"Besides heroism, it gave us nothing but cripples and drug addicts.'" (page 265)
"Diluted state repression remained an element . . . mostly because it constrained people's choices by switching on their self-censorship. Few Baby Boomers had direct run-ins with the KGBm but all felt its presence." (page 265)
Glasnost. Aleksandr Babushkin: '"You have to understand that any cultured person, intellectual, is able to distinguish between true and false information.'" (page 286)
Perestroika. Olga Gorelik: "'it gave freedom to several strata of the population, to the intelligenstia, for example. But, on the other hand, it created complicated economic problems. Not everyone can restructure themselves, namely our generation.'" (page 288)
"For some [Soviet] Baby Boomers glasnost meant fulfilling a life-long dream of traveling abroad . . ." (page 295)
Collapse of Soviet Union. "[b]y 1994, 67 percent of the population had no savings or extra cash . . . murders, suicides, and divorces reached extreme levels . . . Between 1992 and 1997 life expectancy for men fell from 67 to 57 years and for women from 76 to 70 . . . (page [312])
"The emergence of fifteen independent states from the ruins of the former Soviet empire . . . complicated life for the Cold War generation." (page 317)
Religion and Philosophy. Resurgence of Orthodox Church. New Age. Osho (Rajneesh). Buddhism. Scientology. Transcendental Meditation. (page 322)
Robber Barons. Oligarchs. Crime "five times higher" (page 323). "Privatization" gave "rise to a class of rich businessmen, as well as to a cohort of entrepreneurs who had accumulated massive fortunes . . .oligarchs, who acquired enormous holdings through insider trading . . . The resulting social inequality and effrontery of the new rich fed disillusionment with market economics and the democratic political system. Retirees looked back upon the Soviet days with nostalgia." (page 327)
Yelena Kolosova on Boris Yeltsin: "'He was a massive man who drank, and therefore could be trusted.'" (page 329)
21st century. Vladimir Putin. Chechnya. "Russian liberals and others backing a free market system believed political freedoms remained as important as a strong leader; however, Russian Communists, nationalists, and supporters of Putin's umbrella organization, Unity, stressed the need for an authoritarian order in the country." A blueprint for Donald J. Trump in the USA: "Either Russia, will be great, Putin pronounced, or it will not be at all." However, unlike Trump among Americans, Putin enjoyed "the backing of almost 75 percent of the [Russian] population." (page 334)
Lyudmila Gorokhova on Putin: "'Although he's not handsome, he has a great deal of charm. . . His range of interests is indisputably wide, and he's intelligent.'" (page 336)
A Russian doctor: "'I believe today's youth are awful. . . the wars contribute a lot. We see many Afghan vets, and many more after the wars in Chechnya. Military action has a very negative effect on people. As a rule, they become apathetic and depressed." There is "widespread alcoholism." (page 343)
Youth are adrift and slack in the mind; what happened to intellectual curiosity? Vladimir Kirsanov: "'In the past, we had to get hold of information on our own by reading books, and by researching something, and this always makes the brain work more actively, but now information is absorbed passively. This is the main thing that distinguishes the two generations. Today's students don't like to read.'" (pages 344-345)
Anna Lyovina: '"The future is with people who have seen the world, analyzed things, compared, and took what they liked that was good and interesting, from wherever.'" (page 348)
A summary of the Soviet dream: pages 360-361. There was in Soviet society a double-consciousness, the projection of a public persona and the development of a private person. Raleigh doesn't use this term, but it seems equivalent: "there were two truths 'one for everyone, and the other that's inside you.'" (pages 366-367). This is how life is everywhere, to varying degrees up and down the spectrum. But would you rather live in Amsterdam, or Pyongyang?
Today's Rune: Signals.
Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
"The Soviet practice of sending work cohorts on vacations together made it complicated for families to travel together, giving rise to vacation romances." (page 206
Families became smaller. "At the end of the 1970s, 52 percent of Soviet families with children had only one child . . ." (page 206)
On Lithuanians: "The people . . . are very peculiar . . ." (page 208)
Marina Bakutina, guide-interpreter: "'I could think whatever I liked, but not say it.'" (page 209)
"The Baby Boomers also continued to have vicarious encounters with foreign cultures through movies and books . . ." Olga Kamayurova: "'I like the films they used to show at film clubs, that is, complicated, sophisticated films not for ordinary viewers . . . They showed us lots of such films, including, my heavens, Fellini and Antonioni. It was like food for us movie lovers . . . Sometimes, when they picked some sensational film, I would think . . . this is so extraordinary.'" (page 210)
When some of the Soviet Baby Boomers moved to the USA, they were appalled by the high cost of health care and education (page 217).
Travel: "'It's better to see something once than to hear about it seven times,'" goes the Russian proverb."
Viktor D. on the late Soviet era: "'health care was free and unequivocally on a higher level than now. Education was free, including higher education and graduate school . . . People received apartments, they had confidence in tomorrow. Maybe everything was on a lower level than in America, but there was stability.'" (page 237)
The Brezhnev to Chernenko era became an embarrassing gerontocracy, "'an awful spectacle.'" (page 240) "Yelena Kolosova recalled asking, 'Who's Chernenko? He was even worse than Brezhnev, absolutely nothing more than a joke.'" (page 243)
Oddly, at the New World resort in Crimea, some Russian Baby Boomers became New Age types, or joined Osho (the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh movement that spread worldwide, with a "Zorba the Buddha" style colony in Oregon) . (See page 246)
Ideas of existential freedom. L. G. Ionin: "'The Soviet people chose from among the available choices and understood freedom as having choices from among what was.' In this regard, for a free person, the Soviet Union was a free society. Freedom existed as a real choice, as an individual emotional experience." (page 249)
[to be continued.]
Today's Rune: Possessions.
Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Strange phenomenon: making "primitive 78-rpm recordings on used X-ray films." (page 140)
Aleksandr Galich, Bulat Okudzhava, Vladmimir Vysotsky, the latter's songs included "And All Is Quiet in the Cemetery." (pages 142-143)
Voice of America, Deutsche Welle (German Wave) broadcasts (pages 146-147).
Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jazz Hour, etcetera (page 148)
BBC better than Voice of America, to Yelena Kolosova (pages 149-150)
Cuba as romantic inspiration: many of the interviewed Soviet Baby Boomers thought that Castro and the Cubans were cool (just like hepcats and beatniks in "the West" did). "'Cuba, my love, island of crimson dawns.'" (page 151)
Split with China over Cultural Revolution and Damansky / Chenpao Island crisis (page 153), late 1960s. Ready for war, if needed. "'[P]eople think the Chinese are strange.'" (page 155)
As in "the West," Soviet Baby Boomers mostly ignored "the Developing World." "In 1966 Soviet citizens harbored 'unequivocal disinterest in the 'Third World,' whereas 91 percent of those surveyed were interested in America and admired its technological progress and living standards. Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were enormously popular, and many believed Americans were much like Russians." (page 158)
The assassination of JFK was felt as a tragedy and "calamity." Yelena Kolosova: "'Since the assassination, I've had a fierce hatred of Texas. The first time I flew to Dallas, I couldn't overcome that ominous feeling that the tragedy had taken place there.'" (page 162)
"The Baby Boomers came of age at the zenith of Soviet socialism, only to see the system crumble some three decades later. Ironically, much of this had to do with the Soviet system's very success at effecting social change, whose byproducts included rapid urbanization and a rise in the number of educated professionals." (page 169)
1968 was a turning point of sorts, after the Prague Spring was crushed; things were worsened by the Afghanistan War (1979-1989).
Interesting gender statistics. "In 1970, 86 percent of working-age women were employed (the figure was 42 percent in the United States): 71 percent of the country's teachers were women, 70 percent of its physicians . . ." (page 190).
Also as of 1970, the divorce rate in the Soviet Union was second only to that in the USA. "Soviet women initiated divorce more than men . . ." (page 201).
Today's Rune: Fertility.
Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
"Soviet teachers were among the strongest believers in socialist values." (page 94)
From the Young Pioneer manual: "'It will be the best, the most just and the happiest society on earth.'" (page 110)
"influence, connections, and pull -- blat in Russian." (page 118)
Soviet schools: "They instilled in their charges basic human values that would be appreciated in most societies." (page 118)
A Soviet Baby Boomer about living in the 1960s: "'We always had decent food; we went to the theatre, to the movies, to the circus, and to whatever else was of interest. We didn't differ from other average people of our time.'" (p. [120]).
Many Soviet Baby Boomers developed an "identification with a larger global youth culture;" guys in particular tinkered with space-related themes (page 121).
"Many female Baby Boomers loved theatre, ballet, dancing, reading, hanging out with friends . . . Olga Gorelik liked to read, draw, go to the movies, and spend time with her girlfriends." (page 122)
Many enjoyed sporting events. Pioneer palaces gave people places to hang out. (pages 122-124) Kids loved to play in apartment courtyards (dvor), too. (page 125)
On social relationships, Raleigh notes: "Friendship lacks a definition that works for all times, places, and peoples, because the phenomenon is a cultural and historical one that changes over time: the type of society determines the nature of friendships." (page 126) Soviet friends provided emotional and practical support for each other, and they could counter or at least alter government and family controls (pages 126-127). A fair number of high school friends remain friends for life. (page 127)
"The Soviet Union prided itself in being the 'most reading' nation," and many continue to read heartily long after the collapse of the USSR. Friends traded books and they also utilized libraries, like many sensible people still do wherever they are available. "Reading conferred status" (page 129). During an interlude in the 1960s, Mikhail Bulgakov (Master and Margarita), Solzhenitsyn (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) Kafka and Kierkegaard were published (pages 130-131). Samizdat (underground writings produced in the USSR) and tamizdat (things smuggled into the country from the outside) also made the rounds (page 131) -- and made reading all the more exciting, no doubt. Eventually, photocopy machines sped up the process of underground writing production. (page 132)
Movies opened up portals to other worlds (as T. Bone Burnett, an American Baby Boomer, has put it, after growing up in conservative Fort Worth, Texas). These were real social events: "it was always something you simply had to see. . . not only so that you could take part in conversations but also because they really were worth seeing" (such as Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky films) . Through cultural diffusion, in came American jazz, Western fashion and music, and exotic tastes. (page 135)
"'[B]ut it was difficult to get hold of such things. . . and we need to "get hold of" them. The meaning of the very "get hold of" is probably uniquely Russian' . . . it means acquiring something with great difficulty." (page 136)
Tape recorders became popular when they were made available -- music could be recorded and shared, especially underground material: "'forbidden fruit is always sweet.'" (page 140)
[To be continued.]
Today's Rune: Possessions.
Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
An absorbing look at the world through the hearts and minds of the Soviet high school graduating class of 1967. Specifically, via two elite high schools, one in Moscow and one in Saratov, a city on the Volga River that is about 850 kilometers / 528 miles southeast of Moscow. From the perspective of "the Sputnik Generation," one also gets at the entire arc of the Soviet Union, from beginning to end, and then onward right into the Vladimir Putin era.
Their grandparents' generation, generally speaking, experienced the First World War, Bolshevik Revolution and Russian Civil War; and their parents, the Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) era, including mass repression, the Second World War, and the Nikita Kruschev (1894-1971) "Thaw" after Stalin's death.
The Baby Boomers benefited from the Thaw, were excited by Sputnik and Kruschev, but eventually became embittered during the Leonid Brezhnev era (1906-1982), especially toward its end; then on to Mikhail Gorbachev (born 1931), glasnost, perestroika, the breakup of the USSR, Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007) and Putin (born 1952).
Most of the interviewed boomers were the children of "third tier" elites -- those immediately below nomenklatura and second tier elites -- that is, they were children "of the mass intelligentsia -- professionals (doctors, research scientists, professors, engineers, architects, artists, teachers, librarians, etc.)," the kinds of bourgeois specialists who tend to help maintain a semblance of civil society (not only in the Soviet Union but also in 'The West'). (page 22)
Stalin, a brutish nationalist and proponent of the Cult of Personality (namely his own), turned against those with a more internationalist sensibility, and aimed, almost right up to the time of his death in 1953, "to root out 'cosmopolitanism,'" partly a code word for Jewish intellectuals, sophisticated urbanites and their "fellow travelers." (page 32) Luckily for most, in the wake of Stalin's death came "the Thaw," which relaxed the atmosphere a bit.
As for attitudes and actions over time, Raleigh notes: "Within any historical situation, people pick their fates and live their lives both as passive objects and as active agents." (page 64)
Teachers were very important to the elite Baby Boomers: they "'had very colorful personalities' and played an enormous role in shaping their charges' worldviews' . . . 'They taught us to think, not only to learn things by heart' . . . 'Actually, all of the teachers were excellent! Except for a few individuals, they were all interesting.'" (page 91)
[To be continued.]
Today's Rune: Signals.
Halle Butler, Jillian. Chicago: Curbside Splendor, 2015.
Most often, we see things from the perspective of Jillian and Megan, but we also catch fleeting glimpses of consciousness from other characters, mostly people but also a dog (Crispy), raccoons, trees and a bird. I love this! Also, it reminds me of Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), in which we briefly see things from the perspective of an alligator and an iguana and hear separate musings about the dreams of a pet fish.
Jillian: Characters central and peripheral. Jillian Bradley, her son Adam and dog Crispy. Elena, Susie, Carol -- church ladies. Julie, Tessa, Emma -- Adam's childhood frenemies at day care. Barb - day care teacher.
Emily (dog seller).
Dr. Billings, Dr. Schraeder -- at the gastroenterologist office where Jillian works with Megan.
Randy - Megan's live-in paramour, often thinking privately about breaking up with her.
Unnamed cop -- pulls Jillian over and orders her car impounded, inspiring Jillian to concoct a story about hitting a deer, requiring imaginary auto repairs and real pain killers.
Mike Johnson -- County Clerk's office.
Drug representative with dolly cart -- Jillian and Megan's office.
Carrie, Janet, Jessica, Steve, Bill, Annie, Amanda, David, Will, James, Sarah, Albert, Kelly, Anthea -- various and sundry acquaintances and frenemies, objects of jealousy and competition.
Loud Jim and unnamed guy on bus -- provide outside perspectives.
Raccoons, trees, unnamed bird -- provide outside perspectives, sort of Zen, sort of Shinto.
Not to worry: no deer is injured in the novel. Jillian does acquire TYLENOL® T3 with Codeine for her "accident," though.
Megan immediately responds to Jillian's not showing up at work: "Her absence was intriguing." (page 102). This is exactly the same way I respond when someone doesn't show up at work, so I can't help but laugh every time I read this -- as with so much else in the novel.
Off the charts: a section on "Memory Palaces" and, earlier, Megan going to a fancy grocery: "That day she thought, 'F**k it,' and went to the smaller grocery store. The store was for rich people, but f**k it, right? There were delights there."
(page [109]. "F**k" is spelled out in the original, but as I'm not sure what the censorship policies are for blog posts, here I've added asterisks to protect the eyes of delicate readers and keep Puritans at bay).
Jillian's snack choices (and her life choices in general) also inspire knowing laughs -- read and weep!
I'm truly looking forward to Halle Butler's The New Me: A Novel (Penguin Books, 2019) and wish I could read it immediately: "because life just keeps grinding on, right?" (Jillian, page [109]).
Today's Rune: Initiation.
Halle Butler, Jillian. Chicago: Curbside Splendor, 2015.
I read this twice in a row, first to see what happens and secondly, to see how things happen.
Musing on Butler's style and substance, I had a vision of Diablo Cody (Juno, Young Adult, Tully) working with Werner Herzog (Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Bad Lieutenant) to create a variation on Charles Schulz's Peanuts. It's wacky, sad and right on.
The setting is not overplayed, but there are clues that the location is Chicago (North Side, Far North Side, Northwest Side, Palatine or thereabouts), and the time is the 21st century, with lingering vestiges of the 20th (an office fax machine, for instance).
If you approach the main characters with the Dalai Lama's discussion of Compassion in mind, you will truly empathize with them. "To be genuine, compassion must be based on respect for the other, and on the realization that others have the right to be happy and overcome suffering, just as much as you. On this basis, since you can see that others are suffering, you develop a genuine sense of concern for them." (The Essential Dalai Lama: His Important Teachings, edited by Rajiv Mehrotra, New York: Penguin, 2005, p. 22).
Jillian Bradley is, on the surface, recklessly optimistic, while her office co-worker and foil Megan is heedlessly cynical. Both are unmoored, lost, nearly alone (socially alienated, trapped in their own minds) as they deal with contemporary life, complete with its endless economic constrictions, demands and expectations. The raucous humor of Butler's approach underscores the daunting realities of their lives. It's a bit like Ulysses through the scrim of two 21st century adult female workers who must deal with the indignities, absurdities and possibilities of daily life.
Another post will delve into additional details, but the main things to keep in mind for now are that Jillian has a young son, Adam, and she adds a dog, Crispy, to the volatile mix of her household economy; while Megan, depressed and cutting -- wickedly so, at times -- has a dubious paramour, Randy, and even more dubious frenemies to contend with. It is through their interconnecting social -- and socio-economic -- relations that Jillian and Megan must operate, and with which many readers will undoubtedly relate.
Today's Rune: Harvest.
Jon Meacham, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. New York: Random House, 2018.
A thoughtful overview and discussion that helps put crazy times in perspective. Well-documented.
In the introduction, Meacham brings up Richard Hofstadter's concept of "the paranoid style in American politics," a phenomenon even more widespread in 2018 than it was in 1963. There is always grand conspiracy, the End Times approach! "Time is forever running out." (page 17)
Just a few days ago, I came across a perfect example of the paranoid style in American society: TV evangelist Jim Bakker (born January 2, 1940), now broadcasting from Branson, Missouri.
Jim continues to shriek about the End Times, but meanwhile, audience, send lots of money, buy containers of dried food, buy books and recordings.
It doesn't add up. Bakker claims that Christians are persecuted and suppressed in the USA, even while he continues broadcasting away, one of legions of dedicated channels that spotlight tax-free Trump-supporting Christian evangelicals.
Bakker's show is a perfect combination of paranoid, crazy, greedy and delusional, and somehow it's also crudely entertaining.
In The Soul of America, Meacham provides plenty of excellent quotations. Here's a snippet of Ike Eisenhower: "you do not lead by hitting people over the head. Any damn fool can do that, but it's usually called 'assault' - not 'leadership' . . . I'll tell you what leadership is. It's persuasion -- and conciliation -- and education -- and patience. It's long, slow, tough work." (page 39).
From Robert Penn Warren: "a crazy man is a large-scale menace only in a crazy society." (page 53). That's Trump in a tiny American nutshell.
One of the most perceptive of American thinkers that Meacham cites is Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), who comes across as more 21st century than 19th century in his outlook. Douglass' analysis of Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln within an American context is brilliant.
The current president, thinking Douglass still among the living, claimed early last year that "Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice."
Early on Douglass came to understand the value of reading and learning -- a good role model for all. Meacham gets it, too, even if a man named Trump never will.
Today's Rune: Wholeness.
