The rumors of summer's death...

have been greatly exaggerated. Summer, the season, ends September 22; summer, the event, ends on Labor Day, which is, at this writing, thirty-seven days away.

Please, no more, "Summer's practically over!" Yes, I love back-to-school supplies as much as the next autodidact, but their reduced prices at Target do not herald the end of summer, only the end of the "summer fun" aisle.

Okay?

Good.

Go ahead. Join.

Although I'm adding a note of caution: Our leader in this project has already confused "viola" and "voila" and "flaunt" and "flout." Perhaps he's being punny?

"Was there anything so real as words?"

From Kenneth Burke's A Grammar of Motives:

Men may violently disagree about the purposes behind a given act, or about the character of the person who did it, or how he did it, or in what situation he acted; or they may even insist upon totally different words to name the act itself. But be that as it may, any complete statement about motives will offer some kind of answers to these five questions: what was done (act), when or where it was done (scene), who did it (agent), how he did it (agency), and why (purpose).

Attempting to decipher a writer's purpose is travel on uncertain ground, of course, but providing the answer to readers' plaintive, "Why?" is the business of literary critics, no? So travel they must, some mincing, some going boldly, all giving literature their spin.

As I mentioned to D.W. (a favorite correspondent and the blogger at "A Circle of Quiet"), I tend to be a little wary of lit-crit that looks at or through the author — his struggles, personality, life, etc. — as a sole means to the work. While there is value in knowing about the author, to be sure, it's a bit like building a house on a sand dune to examine a piece of fiction primarily through its author's biography.

Just what do we need to know about Jane Austen, Stephen King, George Elliot, or Olivia Ann Burns to read Pride and Prejudice, The Stand, Middlemarch, or Cold Sassy Tree? In fact, how many of us were very nearly turned off so-called "serious literature" (not that all of the aforementioned titles qualify for this dubious distinction), or even reading itself, by the soul-deadening "This-author-was-born-in-England-in-yadda-yadda" approach Mrs. Grimm the high school English teacher employed when introducing us to fiction, poetry, drama?

ARGH!

All hail the teacher who can lead his or her students to books in some way, any way other than this because anything, even, yes! rap! or, yes! abridgements! or, yes! seeing a film version! or ANYTHING, anything not this would be better.

Listen to this…

Or,

When I first read this, I thought…

Or,

What use is this book to me? you might wonder. Well, I don't know, but maybe you'll connect with…

Or,

How differently we use language now, yet how similar some of our experiences are to those of the characters in…

You get the idea.

[Collecting myself. Straightening the bib on my overalls. Gulping some coffee.]



My message about literary criticism followed an entry in which D.W. wrote, in part, "Tell me what you like about [The Picture of] Dorian Gray." This was directed to and answered by another of her correspondents, but I felt the pull to respond, too.

Wordsmithery. Mental agility. Finely crafted sentences, some wicked, some wise, some wickedly wise, some wisely wicked, sentences that make. me. think. That's why I "like" Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Listen:

Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever. It is a meaningless word too. The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer.

Hear:

Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?

Remember:

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

Yes, that is all.

Then, maybe not.

In any event, it's the words. The sentences. And the magic that weaves those discrete parts into passages we want to press into our chapbooks.

That's what there is to "like" about a book.

If "like" is even the right word.

What in this book speaks to you? might be a better question.

Why is this one a text to which you return?

Why is this on your students' reading list?

What pleasure or value do you derive from this book?

What did you learn about yourself? About others? About living? About the nature of being human?

The text should stand alone, I wrote to my virtual friend, noting that all of the observations about Oscar Wilde's character, while compelling (and exquisitely rendered in, for example, Richard Ellman's biography), do not alter the message of the text itself.

On revisiting this, I'd amend that slightly: The text can stand alone. If only we let it.

In the case of the inventor of the human, for example, it all but does stand alone. After all, we know next to nothing about Shakespeare. Some scholars even doubt that it was he who penned the secular scripture.

Yet, do we ever doubt the power of the text? The meaning it gives to our reading lives? The definition it offers to our unspoken thoughts? The color it adds to the chambers of our imaginations?

No, no, no, and no again!

The clock says I must bring this all home, yet I find I have so much more to say. Words, books, writers. Ah, the reading life. For a feeble conclusion, then, I offer this: The reviews that prove most helpful to me are those that explore a work's strengths and weaknesses sans too many asides about the author's interest in wrestling or her prolificacy or his previous novel. Not that the author's interest in wrestling, her prolificacy, and his previous novel have no value, mind you. Just that a writer's eating disorder, dysfunctional family, or dearth of novels since the sixties are not foremost in this reader's mind when presented with the promise of new text.

No, it's the words.

For was there anything so real as words?


Related entries

The recommended daily allowance (9.6.2004)

The recommended daily allowance (9.20.2004)

Oscar Wilde (10.27.2004)


Added later...
I.K., who blogs at the M-mv-recommended blog "Magnificent Octopus" writes, in part:

Your post really touched a nerve with me. It's so rare that we -- I mean "the critics" and the professors I had -- allow a text to stand on its own. Sure, biographical detail can enhance one's understanding of the context, motivation, etc., but it doesn't make a work any better (or worse).

Your post reminds me of Doris Lessing's preface to The Golden Notebook. (I wrote about the preface here.) The preface has so many quotable bits relevant to HOW to read and relate to a book. (I only just finished reading the book this morning and hope to write more about it in the next few days. And I didn't fail to notice that the book is top of the pile in your sidebar photo -- I wonder how significant it is to you.)

Your post gives me courage to allow myself to respond to the book, through MY eyes, its meaning in MY life.

Happy to oblige, I.K. Thank you for your note.


Hey!
"Mental multivitamin" appears on the Newsweek site today.




The affiliate program has become ubiquitous; everyone and his mother now features links and subtle (or not so) requests that visitors buy using their links. That is the nature of business, of course. Our only recourse is to thank you for your business and your loyalty. "Mental multivitamin" has never been about making money, but the money we do make helps.

A year ago...

we moved to the little house in the tiny woods on the prairie.



In "Confessions of a country autodidact" (8.16.2004), I wrote, in part:

We’ve long asserted that we’d choose a Jewel cart parked beneath an underpass before we’d live in the suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs. We stand by that assertion. This place, however, this funny old house in which we’ve arranged our books, binoculars, microscope, computers, rock tumbler, pets, beds, etc. is, for now, anyway, just beyond the reach of the people who favor manicured lawns, Mommy & Me classes, and malls, so no need to make a shopping cart reservation for us just yet.

And for the record, no one was more surprised than we were by the realization that we needed more space and time, less noise and grime.

It has been a year of wonder and joy and lessons.

We have returned to flight!

The beginning of the next space race?

From "Shuttle Discovery May Launch Even if Sensor Glitch Recurs" (Space.com):

Shuttle officials said Discovery and its STS-114 astronaut crew are primed for their scheduled July 26 launch at 10:39 a.m. EDT (1439 GMT), with no technical issues crimping NASA’s next launch attempt. But mission managers added that they would okay Discovery’s launch even if a sensor failure similar to that which scrubbed initial July 13 attempt, as long as it lines up with a very specific set of circumstances.

Pray -- even if that is not your wont -- for the success of this mission.

One of the great movies

"Geology is the study of pressure and time.
Thats all it takes really... pressure... and time...
That, and big goddamn poster."
The Shawshank Redemption

From Ebert's essay:

People like excitement at the movies, and titles that provide it do well. Films about "redemption" are approached with great wariness; a lot of people are not thrilled by the prospect of a great film - it sounds like work. But there's a hunger for messages of hope, and when a film offers one, it's likely to have staying power even if it doesn't grab an immediate audience.

This, that, and the other thing

If you've been to the movies in the last couple of weeks, you've probably seen the trailer for The Greatest Game Ever Played. Francis Ouimet, a twenty-year-old amateur, a former caddy among men of privilege, defeated Englishmen Ted Ray and Harry Vardon, two excellent professional golfers, in the 1913 U. S. Open.

I'm part of that demographic that believes more movies like this and fewer like, oh... you know, would be a good thing.

Read the book.



The Greatest Game Ever Played: Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet, and the Birth of Modern Golf (Mark Frost)


March
Hey, in this company of readers, thinkers, and autodidacts, we can't be the only ones who have this on their list of activities for the coming week, right?

Somewhat related entry.


Business



The affiliate program has become ubiquitous; everyone and his mother now features links and subtle (or not so) requests that visitors buy using their links. That is the nature of business, of course. Our only recourse is to thank you for your business and your loyalty. "Mental multivitamin" has never been about making money, but the money we do make helps.

Narrative medicine

From "When Medicine Meets Literature" (Scientific American):

Besides being a general internist and a professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, [Rita Charon] holds a Ph.D. in English. She and others are seeking to improve the relationship between physicians and patients using literature and writing. The goal is to make doctors more empathetic by getting them to articulate and deal with what they feel and to develop sophisticated listening skills, ears for the revelations hidden in imagery and subtext. The field--alternatively called narrative medicine, literature and medicine, or medical humanities, depending on the approach--began by most accounts about 30 years ago and is now widely reflected in medical school curricula around the country. According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, 88 of 125 surveyed U.S. medical schools offered humanities courses in 2004; at least 28 required literature or narrative study in some form.

From the (e)mailbag

K., who blogs at "I Hear the Baby Birds," writes:

I have read and enjoyed your blog for a while now but have never had occasion to contact you until today, when I ran across an article that I thought was right up your alley...

And by the way, I LOVED the Outer Life essay you linked. Have been reading him for a while, too, upon your recommendation.

Thanks for the note, K. The article link she sent was the very one I had logged into Blogger to post. Gotta love Arts & Letters. Something there for every reader, thinker, and autodidact.

From "Stacks' Appeal" (The Chronicle of Higher Education):

Old books are memento mori. Like any conservationist, I am appalled by the fragments of brittle pages that collect on the library photocopiers. Dust to dust. They remind me that I have a body and am not immortal. Where will the library ghosts go -- along with the furtive lovers -- when all the books have been made immaterial and antiseptic through digitization?

What is the message of this new medium? What does it mean when the University of Texas at Austin removes nearly all of the books from its undergraduate library to make room for coffee bars, computer terminals, and lounge chairs? What are students in those "learning commons" being taught that is qualitatively better than what they learned in traditional libraries?

I think the absence of books confirms the disposition to regard them as irrelevant. Many entering students come from nearly book-free homes. Many have not read a single book all the way through; they are instead trained to surf and skim. Teachers increasingly find it difficult to get students to consult printed materials, and yet we are making those materials even harder to obtain. Online journal articles are suitable for searching and extraction, but how conducive is a computer for reading a novel?

As for Outer Life, the writer there sent this kind note (Subject: Thank You):

What a nice link today. Floods of MMVers to my site.

As for publishing, I am ambivalent. I'm happy with this nearly-free instantaneous worldwide distribution system we call blogs and unless someone offers me so much money for my writing that it will change my life, freeing me to spend even more time writing, I'll probably just keep posting it for free on Outer Life.

The recommended daily allowance
Our family book club collectively suggests Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes). Follow up with the movie Charly, dated but excellent. Read, discuss, watch, discuss some more. Serve delicious snacks. Learn, laugh (maybe cry a little), and grow.

Outer Life is brilliant.

The New Guy.

Publish, man. Publish. I'll buy it. And I'll press it on anyone who will listen.

"The primary purpose of a liberal education...

is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's leisure."

— Sydney J. Harris, American journalist and author (1917-1986)

More from the quotable Harris:

It's surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you're not comfortable within yourself, you can't be comfortable with others.

Knowledge fills a large brain; it merely inflates a small one.

Middle Age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, "Why not?" and the other, "Why bother?"

Ninety percent of the world's woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves.

The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face.

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until... we have stopped saying "It got lost," and say "I lost it."

When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"

This entry first appeared here 6.30.2004.

Better than tagged. Complimented.

D.W. at "A Circle of Quiet" writes in her response to recent blog meme:

5 famous people I would like to meet:
I would like to meet C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Alcuin of York, Joan of Arc, and Mrs. Mental Multivitamin.

Now, isn't that pretty neat company?

M-mv is generally a pet- and meme-free zone, but today, in honor of fair D.W., I offer this much:

Ten years ago:
Chicagoans were dying in a heat wave. Dying. The death toll reached over seven hundred, mostly elderly city residents. I worked downtown -- terrific job, gorgeous office, excellent pay. I was pregnant with Miss M-mv(i). It was hot in our spacious but old (read: no central air) flat.

Five years ago:
The family-centered learning project was nearly four years old. Wow. Is that right? Yeah, I guess so.

One year ago:
One year ago this month, we moved to this little house in the tiny woods on the prairie.

Yesterday:
Yesterday was a two-pots-of-coffee day.

Today:
Today was a sleep-in, read-two-papers, swim, read, talk sort of day. Only one pot of coffee required.

But the second was nice.

And that's about as memish as we'll ever get around here, folks. Oh, and the pet.

To complement the third mug of French roast

The Candy Man

Weekending

Take a long walk.

Throw rocks in the lake.

Drive with all of the windows down.

Sing along with the car radio. Even (perhaps, especially) at stoplights.

Dream.

Read.

Sleep in tomorrow morning.

Buy two weekend papers, a local and a regional. Read more than the funnies.

Let Bob's Service wash the car.

Better, participate in a community carwash fundraiser.

Eat cherry or grape tomatoes. Whole. POP! SQUISH!

Let the kids push you on the swing.

Learn something.

Talk about something other than yourself.

Read.

Bring canned goods to the food depository.

Dance to your own eight-track. Stop eyeing the room to see what everyone else is doing. Just move.

Live.

Stop thinking about living, planning it to the minutest detail, scheduling it, listing it, comparing to-do lists with any who will listen.

Just get on with the living.

The Brian Hamman Fan Club

Who? you're asking.

Brian Hamman, whose Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) credits include Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet, Florizel in The Winter's Tale, Percy in Richard II, Puck in Short Shakespeare! A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Dromio of Syracuse in Short Shakespeare! The Comedy of Errors.

Yes, Family M-mv announces the launch of the unofficial Brian Hamman Fan Club.

"And his eyes, Mom," says Miss M-mv(i), "talk about his eyes."

They're blue, I think. But what Miss M-mv(i) fancies is how expressive they are. You see, she fell hard for Mr. Hamman's rappin' Puck last May. Imagine her surprise, wonder, thrill when she realized yesterday that Dromio of Syracuse was Puck in disguise.

The production was a delight, framed by the idea that a company of traveling actors who had intended to stage Timon of Athens resolves to perform The Comedy of Errors when half their troupe and many of their props are delayed. The choreography of the key dances of physical comedy was, quite simply, amazing, and Brian Hamman is the lord of such dances (as anyone who has seen his rappin' Puck can attest).

Terrific stuff.

Why so many in the audience streamed out of that glorious theater after the final bows, I have no idea, because a post-performance discussion with the cast is one of the sparkling gems in the CST crown, and it was announced prior to the performance.

Ah, well. Their loss, I suppose.

Our gain.

Several times during the Q&A, Miss M-mv(i) made to raise her hand, only to fold into herself again, watching while trying to appear not to watch Mr. Hamman. At some point, she determined to meet the actor -- that day, that afternoon. She had, after all, spoken of him at least once, usually more often, a week, every week since May 2004. To be true, it was Puck about whom she spoke, but I think craftsmen allow children this self-deception, no?

I wonder if Mr. Hamman and his fellow players would understand that she wept after that May performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, her first live-theater experience. "It's over already," she cried softly into my ear. "It was so. wonderful."

Oh, I know, sweetie. I know. It almost always is.

She was able to meet the fine actor who portrayed Bottom following the post-performance discussion last spring, but a crowd all but blocked Puck from sight, and Miss M-mv(i) did not enter it.

Rather, she simply thought about him. ("Does he always do that play? Who gave him the idea to act that way?")

Occasionally dreamed about him. ("I had a dream with singing, dancing Puck in it, Mom. I want to be an actress.")

And often talked about him. ("Does that man act in movies, too? Television? Does he know Kenneth Branagh?")

Yes, with no crowds to fight yesterday, the young drama queen decided to wait Puck-now-Dromio out.



And she was rewarded by Brian Hamman's gracious appearance.

"I just love those movies you do."

Well, forgive her. The waiting was hard. And the being right there? Next to him? She looked not unlike a horse dancing in its stall. At one point, I thought I could see white all around her eyes. But for all that, she was reasonably poised, asking for Mr. Hamman's "name on my book" (autograph) and telling him in no uncertain terms that he is awesome.

I know nothing about Brian Hamman other than my experience of seeing him twice dazzle as Puck and once shine as Dromio of Syracuse. This is as it should be. He is an actor; I am part of his audience. But I gathered this much from our family's encounter with him yesterday: He is a fine and entertaining actor who appears to love his craft. And whether it was genuine kindness or another fine bit of acting that made him the model of sweet patience as he accepted a little girl's gushing and that little girl's mother's photographing, matters not. Brian Hamman was the picture of how adults can respond to children without condescension, without a wink and a nod to the others in the room, without a peek at the timepiece.

He was awesome.

So, again, Family M-mv announces the launch of the unofficial Brian Hamman Fan Club. I nominate Miss M-mv(i) president and myself recording secretary.

Mr. Hamman, you rock. Break a leg tonight, tomorrow night, Saturday afternoon, every time you take the stage.

And thank you for your time yesterday afternoon.

Flip, flop, flee!

Now the praying mantises are free!





Related entry.

A bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils

This photo was composed last week, but a conversation about back-to-school shopping was what prompted me to post it.

I love the smell of a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils, the feel of a virgin notebook, and the sound of a new three-ring binder snapping shut.

I also love 25-cent boxes of Crayola crayons, 99-cent packages of 250 (or, sometimes, 500!) sheets of colored paper, and 10-cent folders, composition pads, and college-ruled paper.

I love glue sticks, ten for a dollar; rulers, 15 cents apiece.

I love the promise of an unopened stack of index cards and the excitement of a new academic calendar.

I do not go in search of back-to-school sales, and I don't like to shop. But when I find myself in Jewel or Target or even (*GASP*) Wal*Mart in the months of July and August, I will slip these items into my cart with my regular purchases and remember that without the care and inspiration of a few wonderful public school teachers, I would be a small, sad human being.

New points on crayons, unblemished pads, fragrant pencil blossoms -- these remind me of teachers I loved and those who loved me back.

Cool.

M-mv still gets a number of hits from Adriana Puckett's November 2004 article, "Blogging Away." The most recent were from Teenspoint.org.

As I wrote 11.27.2004, "What a delight to discover 'Mental multivitamin' listed in the company of Dave Barry, Neil Gaiman, and William Gibson."


Hmm.
Would a teen find anything of value here? I mused aloud.

Well, I certainly do, replied Master M-mv.

What a great guy.

You know what? I'm feeling so fine and in such good company, real and virtual, that I almost don't mind the recent idea theft of decidedly M-mv thoughts, phrases, themes, and other schtickl.

I said, almost.


From the (e)mailbag
J. sent a link to this article. "Here’s something you might be interested in enhancing or implementing," she wrote.

What are the “weasel words” you dislike most?
"Implemented." You'll see implemented everywhere. In this language, you “implement” rather than speak or do. And then there is enhanced. Everything is being enhanced. That word is being used in place of other more precise and descriptive words. You can enhance your marriage or your job. You can even implement your enhancements. And "input" is another good one. Companies talk about “input into our people.” This reflects technology and accounting [ideas]. It all has to do with input and outcomes.

Heh, heh, heh. M-mv readers are a smart, funny bunch.

The incomparable R.T. wrote, "Is there really a market out there for this?" The description suggests, "Conceal unsightly clutter with Old-World charm." Since when are the contents of bookshelves "unsightly"?

R.T. sent a second message:

Wait! I have just thought of the perfect use for these.

They would effectively cover up all those paperbacks and any questionable-content material we don't want anyone to know we have read. We can pretend we are well-versed in Dictionaire Historique, Badminton, and Who's Who from 1962 (how DID they select those covers anyway?) and in the meantime cover up the cheesy chick lit, celebrity tell-alls, and horror novels that we have inherited over time.

Of course, that assumes anyone we have over will never peruse our book shelves too closely. Frankly, with the exception of a few business dinners, I have never had such a gathering.

Is a mass paperback copy of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants "cheesy chick lit"? It's tucked in the reading basket in the, erm, bathroom.

Hey, speaking of idea theft, wasn't that story already done -- albeit with four men -- in Ray Bradbury's one-act play, "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" (which was made into the feel-good movie of the same name in 1998)?

In other mail... M. asked, "Did you know that today [7.11.2005] is Harold Bloom's birthday? E.B. White's, as well."

No and yes.

She continued:

Many thanks for the "Patrick O’Brian’s naval mastery," even if it was for Mr. M-mv. (Yes, I have finished the twenty books.) I thought his writing reminiscent of Austen from the beginning, but have never seen it mentioned and hey, what do I, someone who has never studied literature, know? And here it is! ({sigh} Still suffering from that public schooling mindset...) One small quibble, though: "The two spend their evenings together aboard ship playing chamber music: Aubrey on his violin, Maturin slightly more adeptly on the cello." It starts out that way, but, in a surprising turn, Aubrey becomes a virtuoso in the later novels. Not sure why that happens: perhaps because he has no other outlet for his sorrows, while Maturin self-medicates heavily with laudanum and then cocaine. Aren't you a violinist -- is this a plausible explanation?

I am a violin hack, an autodidactic fiddler (since our teacher is back in Chicago, and we hadn't been to formal classes for eighteen months before the move, anyway). But I do know that practice is the difference between bad and adequate, adequate and good, good and really good. The difference between really good and virtuoso, though? I think that's something else entirely.

Sounds like your trip was wonderful, by the way, even if you did miss the Art Institute.

Thank you, J., R.T., M., and all who have sent us messages.


Added later
Another blog recommendation: Notes from the Hinterlands: Examining unexplored aspects of the commonplace.

The recommended daily allowance

From Anna Botsford Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study:

Their nerves were at such a tension that with one more thing to do they must fall apart. The question in my own mind during these conversations was always, how long can she stand it! I asked some of them, "Did you ever try a vigorous walk in the open country every Saturday or every Sunday of your teaching year?" "Oh no!" they exclaimed in despair of making me understand. "On Sunday we must go to church or see our friends and on Saturday we must do our shopping or our sewing. We must go to the dressmaker's lest we go unclad, we must mend, and darn stockings; we need Saturday to catch up."

Yes, catch up with more cares, more worries, more fatigue, but not with more growth, more strength, more vigor, and more courage for work. In my belief, there are two and only two occupations for Saturday afternoon or forenoon for a teacher. One is to be out-of-doors and the other is to lie in bed, and the first is best. Out in this, God's beautiful world, there is everything waiting to heal lacerated nerves, to strengthen tired muscles, to please and content the soul that is torn to shreds with duty and care.

This passage, of course, plays out in my reader's mind a little differently. With a couple of words substituted here and there Comstock's mild rant is not unlike my own about parenting and home-educating. How do you find the time? they all ask. How do you not? I reply.

Captured!

A., do you remember this entry? Well, get a load of this.





Photographing them through the screen was not ideal, but I think I am learning to out-manuever my feathered "friends," no?

Flip, flop, flee!

Butterflies are free!











"I wonder," mused Miss M-mv(i), "if one of these is a Painted Man."

On the nightstand (under the pillow, in the knapsack, etc.)

No, the photo really has nothing to do with the entry. Yes, I usually feature some sort of "Still Life with Books." But this, taken at the Volo Bog over the weekend, absolutely tickles me.

And so it goes.

This is our nineteenth "On the nightstand" entry, and, yes, it's a little late: June passed without a survey of the geography of our imaginations. Frankly, July would have, too, if I hadn't opted for a chapbook-style entry this time around.

Without further fanfare, then.

Searching for Jane Austen (Emily Auerbach)

In all fairness, many adaptations, particularly those done by the BBC, capture Austen's sparkling dialogue and unforgettable dramatic conflicts in brilliant ways. Yet even those films reasonably faithful to Austen's plot and characterization have tended to focus on romance at the expense of other themes. The 1995 Pride and Prejudice boasted an "erotically enhanced Darcy" with "smoldering eyes" who fences, extinguishes a candle with his bare hands, and "strips and dives into a pool." The Darcy parties that grew out of this film would give Austen new grist to pulverize in her mill.

Did you catch our Austen entry (5.28.2004)?

Who Let the Blogs Out? (Biz Stone)

With a seemingly infinite supply of information on the Internet, a blogger is forced to choose wisely when offering up a link. Then that blogger is tasked with adding succinct commentary to explain why that link is blogworthy. This in and of itself is not so hard, but doing it every day exercises the analytical mind because it forces us not only to choose what we think is interesting but also pinpoint why we think it is.
...
Blogging is an information-saturated lifestyle filled with contemplation and expression.

Well.

For some of us, anyway.

Perfect Madness (Judith Warner)

Our baby boomer elders often call us selfish, but in doing so they miss a larger point: that what our obsessive looking-inward hides is at base a kind of despair. A lack of faith that change can come to the outside world. A lack of belief in our political culture or our institutions. Our outlook is something very much akin to what cognitive behavioralists call "learned helplessness" -- the kind of instinctive giving-up in the face if difficulty that people do when they've come to think they have no real power.

Earlier this year, I was dismissive of the Newsweek piece that heralded Warner's book (see "Mommy madness, eh?" (2.15.2005)). I wonder how many folks missed out on this book because that article painted middle-class mothers' angst as much ado about less than nothing. In fact, Warner argues convincingly that "Parenting as performance art" is rooted in complex sociological dirt. Bring this one beach- or poolside.

Everything Bad Is Good for You (Steven Johnson)

Most video games differ from traditional games like chess or Monopoly in the way they withhold information about the underlying rules of the system. When you play chess at anything beyond the beginner's level, the rules of the game contain no ambiguity: you know exactly the moves allowed for each piece, the procedures that allow one piece to capture another. The question that confronts you sitting at the chessboard is not: What are the rules here? The question is: What kind of strategy can I concoct that will best exploit those rules to my advantage?

In the video game world, on the other hand, the rules are rarely established in their entirety before you sit down to play. You're given a few basic instructions about how to manipulate objects or characters on the screen, and a sense of some kind of immediate objective. But many of the rules -- the identity of your ultimate goal and the techniques for reaching that goal -- become apparent only through exploring the world. You literally learn by playing.

In "From the (e)mailbag" (5.01.2005), M. asked if we had read Johnson's article in the NYT Magazine. We had, and it prompted us to borrow his book from the library.

While Everything Bad... certainly made me think, I couldn't help but wonder (and I left this comment at someone's site a couple of weeks ago) if Johnson weren't guilty of a sort of reverse intellectual snobbery. Still, another one for pool- or beachside.

It's All Right Now (Charles Chadwick)

Closer up, the face became carefree, the happiness genuine, but held at a distance again it now seemed the laugh was to attract attention to herself, a jolly good sport used to being left out of things. Perhaps the joke had to do with the sea, for I now realized that the shed in the background was a bathing hut and the fence was a breakwater. I looked at the face again, the dark hair blown across it, but could not tell how pretty it was. Breasts obviously biggish -- she wanted me to notice that -- and one knee bent across the other so as to narrow herself down there and not show too much of her legs. But why did she hold the bicycle away from herself like that? Because she knew the other woman's body, posing and flaunting itself, the dress wrapped round it by the wind, was what the picture was all about, and she was only there to set it off, imperfect and clumsy and learning not to care any longer.

One for the permanent bookshelf.

Sexy (Joyce Carol Oates)

What he admires in skilled swimmers is their keeping their rhythm through a race, not allowing the competition to throw them off their stride, and the ease with which they turn, flip and move underwater and surface again in virtually the same moment; he's executed the move a thousand times but always has to worry he'll crash his head against the concrete, split his skull and spill his brains... He hasn't been diving lately. He can't bear it, climbing up onto the diving board, exposing himself. Swimming he can do, swimming is not exposure, you can actually hide in the water, but he'd lost count of the laps, he was confused now, his vision blotched and he was only just swimming because (this was crazy! but it was so) he'd forgotten how to stop.

Another of JCO's young adult titles. Worth the time.


Briefly noted
Because I'm running out of time.

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith (Ann Lamott)
Not her best work but worth carrying out to the backyard with the morning's second cup of French roast.

Envy (Joseph Epstein)
My affection for Epstein is unwavering. I covered this title here and would add only this:

We all exist on at least three levels: there is the person as he or she appears in public; the person as he or she is known to intimates, which include family and dear friends; and that person, deepest of all, who is only known to him- or herself, where all of the aspirations, resentments, fantasies, desires, and much else that is not ready for public knowledge reside. At this last level, where envy also resides, the wattage tends to be kept low, making self-knowledge not all that clear and the law of contradictions carries no authority whatsoever.

Well, again, for some of us, anyway. Others of us keep the internal wattage at interrogation-high. I do. Self-scrutiny and self-knowledge are precious; I'd no sooner do that work by nightlight than read in the dark. That is why the person that I appear to be in public (or here) is a dead ringer for the person with whom I chat so intimately some mornings at 3:14 a.m.

This, of course, will be of no comfort to those who have dismissed M-mv as a "front" of some sort.

But, then, I'm not really in the comfort business.


Mr. M-mv recommends

The Professor and the Madman (Simon Winchester)
Yes, I finally persuaded him to read it.

We Die Alone (David Howarth)
Ayup. Finally persuaded him to try this one, too.

Alive (Piers Paul Read)


Master M-mv recommends
Among other good books this past month or so:

Johnny Got His Gun (Dalton Trumbo)

Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes)

The Stand (Stephen King)

Different Seasons (Stephen King)


Why repeat myself?
Throughout the month-plus since our last "On the nightstand" entry, I've mentioned other books we're reading. Here are the links.

"I'm Hans Christian Andersen!" (6.1.2005)

The weekend in images (6.18.2005)

The recommended daily allowance (7.06.2005)


A few recent acquisitions

Essential Shakespeare Handbook

Shakespeare (Michael Wood)

Shakespeare's Language (Eugene F. Shewmaker)

More Than Human (Theodore Sturgeon)

Little, Big (John Crowley)


Previous "On the nightstand" entries
5.28.2005
4.18.2005
3.20.2005
2.14.2005
1.14.2005
12.21.2004
11.21.2004
10.12.2004
9.13.2004
8.24.2004
7.19.2004
6.12.2004
5.19.2004
4.22.2004
3.12.2004
2.15.2004
1.26.2004
12.31.2003


As always...



Many thanks to those who purchase books, music, software, and other products through our Amazon.com links.

"I have friends in overalls...

...whose friendship I would not swap for all the favor of all the kings in the world.

-- Thomas Edison



Aunt M-mv now has overalls. I would not have swapped her friendship before, but this certainly seals the deal, no?



Family M-mv missed you before you had even boarded the plane, Aunt M-mv.

The recommended daily allowance

The Shakespeare Stealer (Gary Blackwood)

Shakespeare's Scribe (Gary Blackwood)

Shakespeare's Spy (Gary Blackwood)

Independence Day

Image from Free-Stock-Photos.com.

Winter's tale

From "Literary Warrior" (Harvard Magazine):

The ceiling stretches upward almost two stories; one towering wall is a mammoth bookcase that dominates the space with 19 vertical stacks, each one 15 shelves high and all of it patrolled by a rolling stepladder. The echelons of books dwarf the human figures below and almost seem to observe, perhaps even judge, them with the wisdom of the ages. These volumes aren’t ephemera—Helprin, a traditionalist, claims never to have read a work of popular fiction (or, for that matter, to have drunk a cup of coffee). He wrote about a quarter of the shelved books himself: there are multiple copies of the many English editions of his works, as well as translations in 15 languages.

Best laid plans: Helprin's Winter's Tale has vied for my "Thumpin' good read" (nod to Waterstone's, my once-upon-a-time-ago employer) position several winters in a row now. Maybe this year? We'll see.



"The echelons of books..."



Does anyone else's living room/library feature "Saint George Killing the Dragon" (Bernat Martorell)? Hello, kindred soul.

For Mr. M-mv

"Patrick O’Brian’s naval mastery"

You're the one...

The recommended daily allowance

From Envy (Joseph Epstein):

Whatever else it is, envy is above all a great waste of mental energy. While it cannot be proved whether or not envy is part of human nature, what can be proven, I believe, is that, unleashed, envy tends to diminish all in whom it takes possession. Wherever envy comes into play, judgment is coarsened and cheapened. However the mind works, envy, we know, is one of its excesses, and as such it must be identified and fought against by the only means at our disposal: self-honesty, self-analysis, and balanced judgment.

If theological thinking is unavailable to you, if the very notion of "sin," original or unoriginal, as damning simply makes no sense to you, I would invite you instead to consider envy less as sin than as poor mental hygiene. It blocks out clarity, both about oneself and the people one envies, and it ends by giving one a poor opinion of oneself. No one can see clearly anything he or she envies. Envy clouds though, clobbers generosity, precludes any hope of sincerity, and ends in shriveling the heart -- reasons enough to fight free of it with all one's mental strength.

Envy is the first in the Oxford University Press/New York Public Library Seven Deadly Sins series. Sloth (Wendy Wasserstein) was discussed in the March "On the nightstand (under the pillow, in the knapsack, etc.)."

Autodidacticism

That's the key to education, I've always felt: not the contents of the mind, but the ambience of the space in which those contents are recognized and welcomed, elaborated and set to work.

-- James Mustich, Jr.