The Intermittence of Memory

Marilynne Robinson has a new book out. It's called Gilead. The New York Times Book Review calls it "demanding, grave and lucid." (Read their review here.)
I read Marilynne Robinson's first novel, Housekeeping about 10 years ago. I remember that I liked it a lot. But what was it about? ... an aunt, a couple of orphans maybe? I think the aunt comes to live with her nieces (or is it nephews?) after their parents die. Or something like that. And then my mind goes blank.
This is no slam on Robinson. I clearly, clearly, remember reading Anna Karenina when I was 16. My favorite English teacher recommended that I read it specifically, and it made a big impression on me. I loved the opening sentence: "All happy families are the same, but every unhappy family is unhappy in it's own way." But beyond that? Of course, I remember that Anna has an affair with Vronksy, and then she throws herself onto the railroad tracks in despair. But can I remember anything more insightful than this Cliff's Notes-like synopsis? I cannot.
This disturbs me. As I grow older, I find more and more that I can't remember details and subtle insights of all the books I've read. Sure I can remember some things ... I can remember specific lines like "Blow, winds, blow and crack your cheeks!" from King Lear. I can remember the spooky owl from the children's book Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, the poignancy of him foretelling the death of the tree where he lives. I can remember the love that Henri, a soldier in Napoleon's army, has for Villanelle, the Venetian casino dealer of Jeannette Winterson's The Passion. (But even that isn't quite so: I remember the love story, but I had to look up Villanelle's name and I initially misspelled Henri.)
If I can't remember books, does that mean I've lost their insights? I think I have lost some part of them. Partly for that reason, there are some books I read over and over again. To Kill a Mockingbird, for instance, is a book I try to read every year. And every year I get more out of it: I understand an allusion I didn't get previously, or certain parts of it mean more to me as I get older.
When it comes down to it, though, I think I do derive benefit from books even when I later lose track of their details. They affect me at the time that I read them. Here's a good analogy: I don't remember what I had for breakfast the first time I ran a 5K race, but I have no doubt it helped me all the same.

$5 vs. $0

As I've written previously, I recently watched the movie versions of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and "Sense and Sensibility."
I rented the two movies -- technically, one movie and one mini-series -- from the local corporate video outlet at a cost of approximately $5. This weekend, I was at the library and saw both titles. I could have checked them out from the library at a cost of approximately $0.

Librarians in the news

Two recent news bits on libraries here ...
First, librarians in Michigan want to pursue jail time as a penalty for the most egregious cases of overdue books. (Thanks to RF for the tip!)

For example, one patron from Bad Axe owes $1,190 for 73 items — mainly science-fiction books — hoarded for more than a year, Paffhausen said.

Patrons keep an average of $25,000 in overdue materials out of the county's library system each year, officials said.

That costs taxpayers money, because the library often must buy second copies to replace unreturned materials, leaving less for new books, CDs and DVDs, Paffhausen said.

The other news is librarians in Orlando want to stop solitary adults from loitering in the children's section. Adults can go into the kid's section and get books, but no hanging out alone allowed.
Librarians there say they haven't had any problems, but they want to act now to create a "safe environment for children". That seems a little vague to me. I would describe it plainly as a pre-emptive meaure against child sex predators. But I guess they don't want to say "libraries" and "child sex predators" in the same sentence, and I suppose I can't blame them.

Jail time for the worst overdue borrowers sounds pretty good to me. I have more mixed feelings about the no-adults-in-the-kids-section rule. In principle, I don't like to see restrictions created before any actual problems have happened. It seems paranoid. On the other hand, I don't see a huge problem in asking adults, once they've made their book selections, to leave the kids section for the kids.
What do you think?

Glutting myself on Jane Austen

I liked Sense and Sensibility so much, I moved right on to Pride and Prejudice.
I liked that one even better -- dear Miss Elizabeth Bennett and proud Mr. Darcy!
Then I rented the movie versions of both books (here and here).
My spouse thinks I'm wacky, but we're having fun imitating Austen-speak:
"My dear Mr. -----, Shall we dine at the charming Thai restaurant near East Lake-enshire this evening? The particulars of their meals are quite charming."
"Why, that would be quite splendid, Mrs. -----. I should enjoy partaking the evening meal in your stimulating company. Would you be so kind as to do me the honor of traveling alongside me in my Nissan Sentra?"

Daring To Name Names

Remember my previous post on Another Bullshit Night in Suck City? It's a literary memoir about the author's relationship with his alcoholic father.

National Public Radio recently interviewed author Nick Flynn on "Morning Edition." You can hear it here.

Interestingly, the book title that so intrigued me is deemed unspeakable on NPR. They don't say it until the very end and then they say, literally, "Another B.S. night in Suck City." If the book's title is so unspeakable, why even bother discussing it? My spouse said it was just another example of NPR being ridiculously squeamish. I think it's kind of silly of them myself. Like people are going to run screaming from their radio if they hear the word bullshit, especially after hearing the disturbing story of a wretched, homeless alcoholic.

Not that this kind of thing hasn't happened before in other media. The New York Times, for instance, reviewed a play by Suzan-Lori Parks called "Fucking A," but refused to name it. (Here's a Village Voice review documenting the flap.) The Times referred to it as "F----- A". I honestly couldn't figure out what the title was for the longest time ... I knew it was some variation on "Fuck" but the familiar phrase just didn't occur to me. Finally, I was in New York visiting friends and saw an unexpurgated sign advertising the play. "Oooooh! That's what it is!"
And Parks isn't some nobody flinging around profanity for an easy pose, either. She won a Pulitzer for her play "Topdog/Underdog" and wrote a novel, "Getting Mother's Body." I haven't read any of it, but my favorite independent bookstore recommends "Getting Mother's Body," so it's probably pretty good.

Yet the NFL can show Janet Jackson's exposed breast or their similarly tasteless Desperate Housewives promo. (I'm not going to bother detailing these recent flaps; if you haven't heard about them, read about it here.)

I don't worry so much about TV taste scandals. If you don't want to see crude depictions of sexual commodification, here's a news flash: Don't turn on your TV. Shocking as it may seem, you don't have even have to have a TV in your home. Though I wonder how many people realize this.

But literary self-censorship bothers me more. I don't want to live in a world full of profanity, by any means, but come on. This is serious literature here. If it's worth talking about, why not just say the name? Isn't there a common-sense solution here that doesn't smack of big-brotherish prudery?

What's your opinion?

Librarian Humor

Someone on the librarians' email group that I subscribe to put this together. It made me chuckle ...

I must admit, there have been times I’ve had a difficult time keeping a straight face at the reference desk because of off-the-wall questions, but it’s important that one does. It’s a true test of librarian diplomacy to treat each and every question respectfully, even off-the-wall ones.

Weird Questions Asked of Librarians:

"Do you have a list of all the books written in the English language?"

"I was here about three weeks ago looking at a cookbook that cost $39.95. Do you know which one it is?"

"Can you tell me why so many famous Civil War battles were fought on National Park sites?"

"Do you have any books with photographs of dinosaurs?"

"I need a photocopy of Abraham Lincoln's birth certificate."

"Do you have a list of all the books I've ever read?"

My favorite books, Part 1

I've been working on a list my favorite books, but it's taking me a lot longer than I thought ... partly to decide what books should be on the list, and partly to describe the books and do them justice.
So here is Part 1 of my favorite books, with more to come at a later date.

Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
My blog is named in tribute to this wonderful book. See previous post here.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Like Spoon River, Life of Pi uses beautiful writing to tackle the most important issues: What is life and why does it matter? The philosophy is carefully cloaked in an adventure story: A young boy is shipwrecked and must share his life boat with a tiger. A real tiger. I found an excerpt you can read here.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
The book's characters include teenaged tennis prodigies, recovering alcoholics in South Boston, Quebecois wheelchair assassins and the Prettiest Girl of All Time. Infinite Jest is very long, very difficult, very funny, and very profound. Wallace's writing has a very kind, compassionate quality here that I don't see as much in some of his more recent work.

Collected Poems by T.S. Eliot
I read The Waste Land when I was 16, and it still startles me whenever I go back to it. It's so full of longing and sadness, but it also has a very dignified kind of hope. I've read that Eliot wanted to call this poem "He Do The Police in Different Voices" but Ezra Pound talked him out of it. Thank goodness for friends.

Enchanted by Austen

Jane Austen was on the long list of authors I'm embarrassed to say I've never read. (William Faulkner and James Joyce are also sadly on that list.)
Fortunately, Kristin in my book group chose Sense and Sensibility for our last selection. The novel is about two sisters: Elinor, sensitive but practical, caring but cautious; and Marianne, passionate, strong willed, and a real "To thine own self be true" type. Marianne's emotions get her into trouble, while Elinor cautions restraint.
This novel falls into the category of what we used to call in college "the marriage drama," and both these young women are clearly on their way to the altar. But who will win their hands? In the meantime, it's Elinor's Sense vs. Marianne's Sensibility.
What interests me is that the battle is still relevent. Check out this story on a local college's problems with its study abroad program, the problem being the kids can't behave themselves, getting into fistfights and displaying other examples of poor manners. A Marianne of 2004 might join these kids in saying, "I gotta be me!":

Professors say some of the problems overseas come when students have trouble adjusting to a new culture.
"Students have a very strong sense ... that it's important to be natural and true to their feelings," said Andrew Chittick, an associate professor of East Asian humanities at Eckerd.