summer

Wish Flowers

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

We were walking the sidewalk along Selby Avenue toward Dark Raven Studios, where the older kids practice tai chi. Here and there, a tree grew along the walk, skirted in weeds and dust. In the center of the street a crow pecked crumbs from discarded cellophane, hopping first to one side, then to the other, as the occasional car passed.

I snuffed a breath through my stuffy nose and grumbled inarticulately. Only the crow seemed to hear, and flapped to a nearby lamppost.

Then Trevor said, “I know why there are so many wish flowers today.”

Wish flowers? I thought. I looked at our youngest. He was gazing at a clump of ragged dandelions, which had shed their jaunty yellow caps to bare their graying heads to the breeze

“There are lots of wish flower because last week there were lots of dandelions!” he said, pointing to the balding stems.

Today a weed; tomorrow a wish. So much I’ve forgotten about wonder. So much to learn.

Faulkner, or Three Things to Love About As I Lay Dying

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

Last summer, I agreed to my friend Jacqui’s challenge to read 15 Classics in 15 Weeks. I’ve not kept pace, but I have persisted — and today I finished William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.

I picked it for two reasons: one, because I was reading Hemingway, and as I recall the two crossed words now and again, and two, because it is told stream-of-consciousness, and I thought it might warm me up for James Joyce’s Ulysses. (As I’m writing this, I realize how poorly read I am: I’m not sure these connections make any sense at all, since I am making them all second- and third-hand.)

At any rate, I enjoyed Faulkner a great deal, although the story and characters aren’t particularly lovely or lovable. That’s part of the genius, I reckon …

And so, Three Things to Love About As I Lay Dying:

  • The Family. The Bundrens are quite the lot. Simple and canny, ugly and magnificent, pitiful and hard-as-nails. You can’t help but pull for them, even though at times they don’t seem to have a lick of sense — like their neighbors, you feel you must help them, even as you shake your head. They muddle along and survive. They persist.
  • The Method. The story unfolds character-by-character, just as it unfolds to their individual minds and senses. Stream-of-consciousness isn’t always easy to follow, but Faulkner makes it fascinating, and each character’s inner workings sing clear and true, if not always in harmony with the others.
  • The Time and The Place. How best to drink from the water bucket. How to get a frightened mule out of a burning barn. How to attempt a river crossing with the bridge out, and how to find woodworking tools lost in the flood. How two drowned mules roll and wash up on a river’s bend. Faulkner describes country life in loving and stark detail.

Next up: Homer’s The Odyssey, then Joyce’s Ulysses.

Wilde, or Three Things to Love About The Picture of Dorian Gray

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

I nearly entitled this post “Three Things to Loathe …” because it seemed more appropriate. It’s a great story full of people you can’t stand, living in a world of false beauty. Without further ado, Three Things to Love about The Picture of Dorian Gray.

  • Awful(ly Fascinating) People. Listen in on just a few of the conversations over dinner and drinks and fresh cut flowers, and you’re hooked. Part of the genius of this book is the sinking feeling that there really are people like these, and we may even know some of them.
  • Intense Beauty. The sights and smells. The small gestures. The long white fingers, red lips, pinks, blues, and greens. The hum of bees. These people are play at Eden, and they fall, fall, fall.
  • Great Premise. Fascinating idea, building to a great ending. I’ve seen similar endings in more recent stories, but I didn’t see it coming here, in part because the ending is swiftly paced.

Next: Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.

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.

First Day of School

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

The kids rolled out of bed around ten to six this morning. It wasn’t yet light, or else my eyes were still closed and I only thought they were open.

It’s good they were excited for school. Trevor starts preschool a couple days a week in another week or so. Campus is covered with students, too — and like clockwork, a cold front blows in, rustling the ivy outside my office window.

Good thing I love fall!