I recently finished 'tom lake' by ann patchett, one of my fav authors. the book takes place in northern Michigan a place dear to me, and it delivers beyond expectations.
“There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well, until one morning you’re picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you’ve ever wanted in the world.”
I underlined and write this one down too while I was reading Tom Lake, Beth. I instantly felt the truth of it. I had an image of looking back at my life as though I was going through a trunk full of stuff I'd kept over the years. You know how that work, you go through the scrapbooks, the photos, a shoe without a mate, a scrap of blanket, and the times we had, desires that drove us, all we lost and replaced, and somehow it all delivered you to this moment in time.
A few of us have like this novel. Maybe we should talk about it?
Dickens's Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” Because even though I first heard it read aloud by my 7th grade teacher in 1956, the sentence resonates today. Not only politically in this country, but in my heart as I age.
I've just discovered your newsletter, Elizabeth, and am so glad I did. What a joy! I wish I had a line to contribute, but nothing comes immediately to mind. As far as the big and good question you've asked - I think we change so slowly, we don't realize it's happened and remain the same so colossally, it's all we can see.
Welcome! I discovered yours today too and am very happy about it. I will be thinking about how you describe the pace with which we change and our focus on how much we remain the same. It's possible that what I sometimes see as change is growth. It's also definitely true that this growth is not a continual trend in one direction. It's one-step-forward, two-steps-backwards kind of thing.
Well, these lines are not from a book, but from my favorite Leonard Cohen song, "Anthem": "Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There's a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in." I felt a shock of recognition when I first heard it. (The fabulous mystery writer Louise Penny, like Cohen a Canadian, borrowed the last line for the title of one of her novels, "How the Light Gets In.")
I have been thinking about whether or not I could change. We spend a lot of time figuring out what type of person we are, exploring those supposed facets, then making peace with it. Not always in there is the fact that we can change if we don’t like who we are.
Right now I’m reading Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King on audiobook and I’d have to do a replay, but there is a character who you get the impression was always who we was and could not have been different. It’s interesting commentary on how some people change for the worse or perhaps become more of who they really are.
This week's Spark took me to one of my commonplace notebooks--I keep one in each of my reading perches as well as carry one with me at all times--This sentence comes from the notebook in the drawer beside my kitchen table where I do my morning reading and writing. It's from Lidia Yuknavitch, "Thrust." "Stories don't care how we tell them. Stories take any shape they want. Not all stories happen with a beginning a middle, and an end. I've come to understand maybe they never do. End, that is."
That one will stay with me. As a writer, I impose an end - and beginninngs/middles too. That whole notion of imposing an order where it may not (certainly does not) exist has always been so dominant. As a writer and a reader I've looked for those definable parts even as I realize how little they resemble the real stories out there.
I just finished putting together an edition of Charles Darwin’s “The Voyage of the Beagle” for Standard Ebooks (standardebooks.org) and this line stood out for me:
...no one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.
Yes! This one. I just finished interviewing two authors about their many years in Antarctica.. These words expressed some what they were trying to convey when surrounded by the best time an unfathomable size abd silence of that continent.
I cannot remember when I shared the opening of my favourite novella with you, but seeing Oxgodby, Oxgodby’ sent a tingle through my body. Thank you for that. As you say ‘these words open A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr.’ It is a story as much about the consequences of war as anything else. The characters don’t change - just like we don’t really change.
A book which hasn’t left my side since 1964, when it became my bible, is ‘Markings’ by Dag Hammaskjold, a former Secretary General of the United Nations, killed in a plane crash in Africa in 1961. It is a collection of notes found in his desk after he died, one of which is headed ‘Towards New Shores - ?’ Not a long note it includes the following sentence: ‘Body and soul contain a thousand possibilities out of which you can build many I’s.’ Looking back over my 79 years I suspect I became the I am after having my first run in with a teacher aged about seven. After that I was forever suspicious of teachers and authority, but that’s a story in itself.🐰
You must now read through the comments to the one left by David Grigg after working in some of Darwin's pages. The quit he shared echoes the "Body and soul" quite you shared above in some way, don't you think? Makes me think about those moments which cause a person to reflect on all we contain and all that life or time contain.
I don't know whether this is a comment or a suggestion. Maybe both. I am in two groups. One I call the Hopewell Valley liberal academics, and the other is made up of members of my Jazzercise studio. I It's my turn this month to devise and post a poll for next month's reading choice for the Jazzercise group. I both groups, I enjoy this little adventure, because I have a sturdy little list of books I want to read and like combing through it for four books I think my fellow members find interesting to read and discuss.
Many of your fans are likely to be book group members, and I wonder, whether they, too, enjoy the selection process --- maybe almost as much fun as the resulting discussion. Tailoring my poll to what I know of the Jazzercise group---lively, energetic, and curious---is part of the challenge. What might your other book group participants have to say about this, and what are their sources of inspiration?
I love this question! If we don't have any book club members chiming in this week, I will share this question in the next newsletter. You've just given me my focus for next week, I think!
My moment of Zen was discovering that this week's topic, The lines that linger, was not about the indelible signs of aging. And I hope that cracks you up. My money says: it will.
I've been reading a lot this summer, finding both delight (A Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell) and disappointment. Sometimes, I wished I'd put down an inferior book sooner (Super Host by Kate Rossi) and sometimes wished it had gone on forever, even if distillation was part of its charm (Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan). Interesting to note that both of these were recommended by Richard Rossi in a New York Times author's profile. The four authors he hadn't met whom he most admired and loved included O'Farrell, about whom I felt the same, and Keegan, whom I immediately searched out and fell for like a ton of books. On the other hand, Kate Rossi is his daughter, so I forgive him for recommending her book. Good dad.
I discovered Keegan last year and gobbled up everything I could of hers after reading "Small Things Like These." I want to read that one again now that I've read all of her stories (that I could find) and Foster. I've been keeping notes on novellas that I've read and want to talk more here about the small books that manage to do so much.
Yes to novellas, though I think we are in the minority. I also love short stories. I attribute this to my being a slow reader, partly, because I never developed the ability to skim and absorb text, and partly due to my passion for languages (yes, plural) and regional accents. And let's get real: if you're from Baltimore, how can you not develop an appreciation for local accents?! I think I read aloud, not only silently---in my head---but also love torturing anyone within earshot by reading choice selections aloud.
I loved the opening line of Luis Urrea's Goodnight Irene: "Then Irene Woodward escaped New York and went to war." I was hooked big-time, and it only got better in the next paragraph: " It was the beginning of October 1943. Irene was twenty-five. She tucked her official letter of acceptance in her pocketbook. She had never volunteered for anything in her life. Along with her letter, her bag held directions on reporting for duty once she got to Washington, her hotel reservation, and her appointment for a physical examination and inoculations at the Pentagon. The War Department had not paid for her train ticket. Nor had the Red Cross. Some of her papers were stamped SECRET. They were hidden at the bottom of her shoulder bag, which rode atop her suitcase, secured by buckled straps. She felt dangerous and at large. No one knew she had signed up, and she had left when nobody was looking. The empress of getaways."
I was just rereading Joan Didion Slouching towards Bethlehem, which I have to say didn’t really resonate with me any better now than it initially did, but this is where she starts, and it was everything: Turning and turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood- dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. WB Yeats. This has just rocked me and I can’t get it out of my head. I was thrilled that this opportunity to share it magically appeared. So can people really change, can the world?
I have always believed that people can change but now I'm not sure. Is growth change? If so, then yes. But the world? The older I get the more I see how limited and stubborn humans are and how willing we are to keep making the same mistakes over and over.
I recently finished 'tom lake' by ann patchett, one of my fav authors. the book takes place in northern Michigan a place dear to me, and it delivers beyond expectations.
“There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well, until one morning you’re picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you’ve ever wanted in the world.”
― Ann Patchett, Tom Lake
I underlined and write this one down too while I was reading Tom Lake, Beth. I instantly felt the truth of it. I had an image of looking back at my life as though I was going through a trunk full of stuff I'd kept over the years. You know how that work, you go through the scrapbooks, the photos, a shoe without a mate, a scrap of blanket, and the times we had, desires that drove us, all we lost and replaced, and somehow it all delivered you to this moment in time.
A few of us have like this novel. Maybe we should talk about it?
great idea
Beth,
I loved this book. I wrote about it last week if you want to check it out. https://pocketfulofprose.substack.com/p/every-year-i-swear-i-forget-how-fall
Dickens's Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” Because even though I first heard it read aloud by my 7th grade teacher in 1956, the sentence resonates today. Not only politically in this country, but in my heart as I age.
In your heart as you age. I think we just arrive at a point when we understand that time holds it all.
I've just discovered your newsletter, Elizabeth, and am so glad I did. What a joy! I wish I had a line to contribute, but nothing comes immediately to mind. As far as the big and good question you've asked - I think we change so slowly, we don't realize it's happened and remain the same so colossally, it's all we can see.
Welcome! I discovered yours today too and am very happy about it. I will be thinking about how you describe the pace with which we change and our focus on how much we remain the same. It's possible that what I sometimes see as change is growth. It's also definitely true that this growth is not a continual trend in one direction. It's one-step-forward, two-steps-backwards kind of thing.
Well, these lines are not from a book, but from my favorite Leonard Cohen song, "Anthem": "Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There's a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in." I felt a shock of recognition when I first heard it. (The fabulous mystery writer Louise Penny, like Cohen a Canadian, borrowed the last line for the title of one of her novels, "How the Light Gets In.")
I have been thinking about whether or not I could change. We spend a lot of time figuring out what type of person we are, exploring those supposed facets, then making peace with it. Not always in there is the fact that we can change if we don’t like who we are.
Right now I’m reading Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King on audiobook and I’d have to do a replay, but there is a character who you get the impression was always who we was and could not have been different. It’s interesting commentary on how some people change for the worse or perhaps become more of who they really are.
I wonder if sometimes by change we actually mean we are becoming who we truly are. The change may be in the discovery and acceptance of that.
This week's Spark took me to one of my commonplace notebooks--I keep one in each of my reading perches as well as carry one with me at all times--This sentence comes from the notebook in the drawer beside my kitchen table where I do my morning reading and writing. It's from Lidia Yuknavitch, "Thrust." "Stories don't care how we tell them. Stories take any shape they want. Not all stories happen with a beginning a middle, and an end. I've come to understand maybe they never do. End, that is."
That one will stay with me. As a writer, I impose an end - and beginninngs/middles too. That whole notion of imposing an order where it may not (certainly does not) exist has always been so dominant. As a writer and a reader I've looked for those definable parts even as I realize how little they resemble the real stories out there.
I just finished putting together an edition of Charles Darwin’s “The Voyage of the Beagle” for Standard Ebooks (standardebooks.org) and this line stood out for me:
...no one can stand in these solitudes unmoved, and not feel that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.
-- Charles Darwin, “The Voyage of the Beaglel
Yes! This one. I just finished interviewing two authors about their many years in Antarctica.. These words expressed some what they were trying to convey when surrounded by the best time an unfathomable size abd silence of that continent.
I cannot remember when I shared the opening of my favourite novella with you, but seeing Oxgodby, Oxgodby’ sent a tingle through my body. Thank you for that. As you say ‘these words open A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr.’ It is a story as much about the consequences of war as anything else. The characters don’t change - just like we don’t really change.
A book which hasn’t left my side since 1964, when it became my bible, is ‘Markings’ by Dag Hammaskjold, a former Secretary General of the United Nations, killed in a plane crash in Africa in 1961. It is a collection of notes found in his desk after he died, one of which is headed ‘Towards New Shores - ?’ Not a long note it includes the following sentence: ‘Body and soul contain a thousand possibilities out of which you can build many I’s.’ Looking back over my 79 years I suspect I became the I am after having my first run in with a teacher aged about seven. After that I was forever suspicious of teachers and authority, but that’s a story in itself.🐰
You must now read through the comments to the one left by David Grigg after working in some of Darwin's pages. The quit he shared echoes the "Body and soul" quite you shared above in some way, don't you think? Makes me think about those moments which cause a person to reflect on all we contain and all that life or time contain.
OOPS: I was 7 - not the teacher!🐰
I don't know whether this is a comment or a suggestion. Maybe both. I am in two groups. One I call the Hopewell Valley liberal academics, and the other is made up of members of my Jazzercise studio. I It's my turn this month to devise and post a poll for next month's reading choice for the Jazzercise group. I both groups, I enjoy this little adventure, because I have a sturdy little list of books I want to read and like combing through it for four books I think my fellow members find interesting to read and discuss.
Many of your fans are likely to be book group members, and I wonder, whether they, too, enjoy the selection process --- maybe almost as much fun as the resulting discussion. Tailoring my poll to what I know of the Jazzercise group---lively, energetic, and curious---is part of the challenge. What might your other book group participants have to say about this, and what are their sources of inspiration?
I love this question! If we don't have any book club members chiming in this week, I will share this question in the next newsletter. You've just given me my focus for next week, I think!
My moment of Zen was discovering that this week's topic, The lines that linger, was not about the indelible signs of aging. And I hope that cracks you up. My money says: it will.
I've been reading a lot this summer, finding both delight (A Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell) and disappointment. Sometimes, I wished I'd put down an inferior book sooner (Super Host by Kate Rossi) and sometimes wished it had gone on forever, even if distillation was part of its charm (Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan). Interesting to note that both of these were recommended by Richard Rossi in a New York Times author's profile. The four authors he hadn't met whom he most admired and loved included O'Farrell, about whom I felt the same, and Keegan, whom I immediately searched out and fell for like a ton of books. On the other hand, Kate Rossi is his daughter, so I forgive him for recommending her book. Good dad.
I discovered Keegan last year and gobbled up everything I could of hers after reading "Small Things Like These." I want to read that one again now that I've read all of her stories (that I could find) and Foster. I've been keeping notes on novellas that I've read and want to talk more here about the small books that manage to do so much.
And yes, good dad.
Yes to novellas, though I think we are in the minority. I also love short stories. I attribute this to my being a slow reader, partly, because I never developed the ability to skim and absorb text, and partly due to my passion for languages (yes, plural) and regional accents. And let's get real: if you're from Baltimore, how can you not develop an appreciation for local accents?! I think I read aloud, not only silently---in my head---but also love torturing anyone within earshot by reading choice selections aloud.
I loved the opening line of Luis Urrea's Goodnight Irene: "Then Irene Woodward escaped New York and went to war." I was hooked big-time, and it only got better in the next paragraph: " It was the beginning of October 1943. Irene was twenty-five. She tucked her official letter of acceptance in her pocketbook. She had never volunteered for anything in her life. Along with her letter, her bag held directions on reporting for duty once she got to Washington, her hotel reservation, and her appointment for a physical examination and inoculations at the Pentagon. The War Department had not paid for her train ticket. Nor had the Red Cross. Some of her papers were stamped SECRET. They were hidden at the bottom of her shoulder bag, which rode atop her suitcase, secured by buckled straps. She felt dangerous and at large. No one knew she had signed up, and she had left when nobody was looking. The empress of getaways."
"The empress of getaways"!!!! I love this. That is the line that called to me and suggested adding this book to my TBR list. Thank you, Jen!
I was just rereading Joan Didion Slouching towards Bethlehem, which I have to say didn’t really resonate with me any better now than it initially did, but this is where she starts, and it was everything: Turning and turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood- dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. WB Yeats. This has just rocked me and I can’t get it out of my head. I was thrilled that this opportunity to share it magically appeared. So can people really change, can the world?
Ah, Didion!
I have always believed that people can change but now I'm not sure. Is growth change? If so, then yes. But the world? The older I get the more I see how limited and stubborn humans are and how willing we are to keep making the same mistakes over and over.