Author: J. Thorp

Steinbeck, or Three Things to Love About East of Eden

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

At the beginning of summer, I agreed to my friend Jacqui’s challenge to read 15 Classics in 15 Weeks. At least, I agreed in spirit, with the understanding that I may not accomplish it in the suggested timeframe. Obviously I haven’t, but not for the reasons I thought (kids, work, etc.).

In late July I began reading Steinbeck’s East of Eden, a novel Jacqui read in a day and a breath, a novel that my friend Deacon Tyler couldn’t wait for me to finish. I struggled to finish, not because it was slow going or difficult or bad, but because it was so good. It required my full attention for long periods of time, and I wouldn’t cheat it.

This is a novel to break yourself upon — a mountain of a book that makes you want to climb even at risk of life and limb.* This is a book, Jacqui and Jinglebob, that inspires you to want to write breathtaking, aching prose, and makes you afraid to ever set down another inadequate word on paper.

My summertime Three Things to Love schtick seems to belittle this book somehow, but here goes:

  • Grand Themes. The book is biblical, universal, deep, and moving.
  • Minute Authenticity. Steinbeck conveys complex emotion precisely with a single detail: the arch of a brow, the movement of lips. Beautiful.
  • Memorable Characters. Samuel and Liza Hamilton. Cal Trask. Lee and Abra. Complex, flawed, and totally lovable for it.

I liked the book. A lot. Next: The Picture of Dorian Gray.

* * * * *

*This gushing praise is authentic for my part. A colleague started this book during the fall and quit, seeing it as an apologetic for bad parenting. You may not like it; I am not as well read as I should be, but this may be my favorite book I’ve ever read.

Greetings From the North Pole, Part VI

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Blogger’s Note: Over Christmas 2003, we became annual pen-pals with an elf named Siberius Quill, and he has again delivered this year! Transcriptions of the 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 letters from Quill can be seen here.

My dearest Children!

My, but the World is snowy where you live—White Christmas indeed! This is the weather Father Christmas likes: the sleigh runners slick with frost, and thick powder to soften and silence the landing. Kris Kringle should make good time tonight!

You are Good Children, one and all—obedient, respectful, joy-filled, and loving. Good Eggs, your Father might say; we say Good Apples, and you stand in sharp contrast to the Bad Apples, who “spoil the whole bunch,” as they say. Oh, you have your naughty moments, as all Young People do, but these moments of mischief and misbehavior are Lessons, one and all. Your Conscience speaks the Truth—it tells you Right from Wrong—and should you fail to hear It, your parents correct you, all as it Should Be. In that, you are Very Lucky.

Young Master Trevor, your laughter and shouts while opening your Christmas Eve gifts resound clear to the Auroras! Bless my soul, but you make a Joyous Noise! And as we are not bound by Time at the Pole (our nature being magical and the Earth’s rotation here being rather instantaneous), I am able to report that your happiness rang in the ears of Santa’s reindeer and was much-loved. It sparks them the fly high and pull hard! And your singing has caught the ear of our elfin Songmaster, Jovial Moralus, who ensures we elves have Proper Music to work by. Old Jove said your voice would raise the spirits of the most frostbit soul—some elves sing for centuries and never earn such high praise as that!

And Miss Emma—you grow lovelier each winter, and have become Quite The Help around the house. We could use such a hand as you in Santa’s Workshop—the tools get in such disarray during the busy days before Christmas Eve. The Tool-Mistress and Chief Shop-Keep, Methody Straitner, has been hard at work for years organizing the tools and benches and bins to ensure Peak Efficiency. She has seen your handiwork in the kitchen cupboard, and deems you a Natural!

Master Gabriel: I must compliment your question about the existence of frost dragons. Father Christmas and I are both honoured that you would entrust such a question—regarding the Very Existence of a Great Something you’ve never seen—to us, when we know your friends and neighbors have questioned our own Very Existence! I fear, however, that I cannot give you certainty. There is one among My People, a most adventuresome elf called Articus Chippenhammer, who left the Nail Corps when so many toys shifted from wood to plastic. His great-grandfather was a paleomythologist of some reknown, and Chippenhammer has since put his hammer to work exploring the Polar Wastes for signs of such Legends as Abominable Snowcreatures, Sasquatches, Frost Dragons, and the like. It is slow work, chipping away at millenia of rock and ice looking for Mere Fragments of white bone, hair or scales, and after decades of digging he’s found Nothing Conclusive yet.

And finally, B. You are strong, smart and responsible, and have done a remarkable job in your First Year helping your Family bring Christmas to fruition. Well done! A generous heart and a willingness to serve others will serve you well in life, Eldest Brother. Remember the Bishop of Myra, St. Nicholas, and Christ Himself, as your examples, and you will Have Love and Be Loved.

Happy Christmas to you and your family, and Safe Travels to your Busia and Dziadzi. God Bless You and your Family. I wish you All the Best in the New Year—and Always!

Yours truly,

Siberius Quill

Snowy Days Made For Sitting Home

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Blogger’s Note: I’ll have more fresh stuff soon. In the meantime, this snowy weekend brought to mind another old column from my newspaper days. This one ran in the Tuesday, October 28, 1997, edition of The Pioneer, Big Rapids, Michigan, just a few days after Jodi and I moved into our first house. Hope you like it.

I’ve always enjoyed snowy mornings. Some I remember in particular like the [morning of] my birthday eleven or twelve years ago.

My best friend Kevin and I stayed outside ’til well after dark [the night before], playing hide-and-seek from the dog in the piles of brown oak leaves around the yard. The next morning Kevin peeked out behind the blind and announced it had snowed.

“Yeah, right,” I said, and rolled over to sleep.

“No, really,” he persisted. I got up to look, and all thoughts of sleep vanished at the sight of the downy white blanket.

That’s how snow comes — soft and silent. Sunday’s light accumulation scarcely made a sound. Saturday my grandfather had brought his lawn tractor and push mower to cut grass a month and more high; Sunday he brought his sweeper and more than a month’s worth of clippings so they wouldn’t suffocate the lawn.

Thence came the snow. Jodi and I were surprised to find our new yard white to a depth of four inches.

Such mornings are made for sitting home and enjoying. My dog Boomer, a great furry Airedale, understands this — on clear, cold South Dakota evenings, while local news anchors warned of deadly wind chills, Boomer could be found curled up on the ground, snow swirling about his head. He’d lie outside until the trail back to his house filled in, enjoying the quiet.

My sister and mother and I spent a good portion of the weekend painting what is to become the master bedroom and baby’s room — achieving whiteness in rooms once blue and yellow. There are few things more maddening than a hint of color beneath new white paint.

Mother Nature, I think, agrees. An upstart maple in our front lawn scattered leaves, first across the newly-mowed and -swept lawn, then across the new-fallen snow. Both Mother Nature and I stopped and frowned.

The truth, with trees as well as people it seems, is that we cannot leave the snow alone for long. For the young, the snow brings with it opportunity. It lies like a blank canvas, and the red leaves of the young maple are as much a part of the day’s enjoyment as are the footprints and angels and snowmen of children.

And as it turned out, I had no right to frown at dry leaves — reveling in the morning’s cold, I cut a path to our cars and stomped rough ovals around both of them, brushing off snow. By the time I’d managed to back out of the driveway, I’d stained the snow brown with grass, gravel and leaves, effectively ravaging the virgin beauty of the morning.

The debates of superintendents and transportation supervisors, of meteorologists and school-children, would be moot could we all grasp this simple truth: snow is best and most beautiful left undisturbed. The first set of tracks across a snowy field and its beauty is diminished; the first perpendicular cut by a shovel or plow spoils it altogether.

The road to town was slush-covered and edged in browning snow. By mid-afternoon, the world outside was road grime and mud — all because we lacked the sense to stay at home and enjoy the day.

Yes, Suzette, There Is a Santa Claus

/ J. Thorp / 4 Comments

Blogger’s Note: This originally ran as a column, with my clean-cut and -shaven mug alongside, in the Pioneer daily newspaper, Big Rapids, Michigan, circa December 1997 (maybe the Dec. 16 edition?) under the headline “If you believe, Santa will visit you, too.” I didn’t write the headline. As requested, Suz — Merry Christmas!

I cracked a joke the other day, about deer hunting and reindeer, and found myself on the receiving end of a lengthy tongue-lashing from a colleague of mine.

“How can you say that?” she said. “How could you even think of shooting a reindeer?”

“I’ve heard they’re good eating,” I said. “How could you think of hunting whitetails?”

“That’s different,” she replied. “I could never eat Santa’s reindeer.”

“Nor could I — I wouldn’t dream of shooting Santa’s reindeer.”

“How would you tell them apart?”

“Santa’s reindeer fly.”

She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Reindeer do not fly,” she said.

Don’t they? With an attitude like that, I suspect not — at least not around her.

Long before St. Nicholas of Myra began his charitable work in anonymity — long before reindeer flew — gifts and homage were given by the rich and the poor, the wise and the simple, to a child in Bethlehem. That child, named Jesus Christ, is regarded by many to be the Savior — the Son of God come down for mankind’s salvation.

Believe what you will, but as a man Jesus told us if we but had true faith the size of a mustard seed, we could tell the mountain to move and it would.

That’s nearly as far-fetched as flying reindeer.

We are skeptics, one and all — I suspect not one of us would step up to the foot of the mountain and ask it to move, even if no one was watching. And our doubtfulness gets worse the older we get: some of us learn Christmas comes when we laugh and jot From Santa on a gift tag and think how quaint the notion is.

We disbelieve to the point of tradition — we tell our children that Santa does not leave presents for grown-ups.

Rubbish. I am the beneficiary of a midnight visit by that plump and fur-clad Christmas sprite each year. He no longer delivers toys and candy; his brand of cheer is more subtle now — a greater, more spiritual gift. He is a Robin Hood for the soul, the merriest of merry men, stealing smiles from folks with smiles to spare and giving them to those who lack.

St. Nicholas was a believer with enough faith to be canonized. Rest assured, he believed in miracles — in fact, he was required to [have performed] miracles to receive sainthood. If faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, certainly Santa has the faith required to make reindeer fly, to circle the globe in a night and to find his way into each and every home regardless of the size, type or presence of a chimney. He believes he can, and he does.

“What of those people less fortunate?” you may ask. “Where is Santa Claus for them, when Christmas Eve rolls around?”

We fortunate souls who have what we need this season and find ourselves wanting what we don’t — we who are blessed with plenty — are visited but once a year by old St. Nick, but don’t believe for a minute that he sits by the fire for the rest of the year. The Bishop of Myra continues his charity work every day, making certain the needs of those who depend on him are met.

We are graced my his presents annually, and are quick to forget what he brings. The needy he helps on a day-to-day basis — again, his greatest works are the most subtle.

Father Christmas is as real as the holiday is holy, and he believes in you, regardless. Does he know — can he know — if you are sleeping or awake? Bad or good?

You’d better believe it.