Thursday, May 27, 2004
When life gets hard, I need a book that's like a glass of warm milk. I need historical epics and biographies of queens and theology texts and tracts on compassion by the Dalai Lama. Soothing reads to lead me gently into delicate and longed for sleep. A book to give my busy brain a taste of something diverting, dense and comforting, but not something so intriguing that I'll be reading at 4 a.m.
And life has been hard, I guess, because I noticed last week that I hadn't read any new fiction in a long time. It's because I am a coward. It's because of the way it affects me. It's because — if what I've been reading is a glass of warm milk — a certain kind of novel is like a snifter of some exotic liquor — lens-clear, bending light and coloring everything. Tricky. Hypnotic. Volatile. Is it something to be inhaled? swallowed whole? sipped? Will it burn? Will it satisfy? Will it produce the sweetly drunken state that echoes with those first transporting feelings of reading? (Song of Hiawatha and Hardy Boys Mysteries on the screened porch of the family farm that summer between fourth and fifth grade. Or Catcher in the Rye the freshman fall that I fell in love with my high school english teacher.)
So you see, a novel is not something I can take up lightly in the chaos. So maybe it's a good sign that I wanted to read Carlos Ruiz Zafón's Shadow of the Wind as soon as I heard about it. A mysterious book about a mysterious book. I must be feeling better about life, even if only a little. And I am reading it deep into the morning, and I am dreaming about its heroes and its villains in the few hours it leaves me to dream. It has me thinking, already looking for what to read next. I am being drawn back in to the world of fiction.
I'll tell you nothing about the book itself. It is delicious. Avoid synopses; wade in. But I will tell you that I had to stop reading it, that I am waiting until the weekend to finish it, because then it matters less whether I get good sleep or not.
It tempted from the blue bedside table last night, gold-embossed spine catching the low light. But I was well prepared. At the ready was Alain de Botton's The Art of Travel. ("A jewel of civility, wit and insight," says the Baltimore Sun!) Less like liquor, more than milk, de Botton is a philosophical frappe. Truly yummy. He always makes me feel good. He always teaches me something. Last night I learned Chamfort's dictum "that a man must swallow a toad every morning to be sure of not meeting with anything more revolting in the day ahead." I smiled. Feeling sleep would be easy, I stacked de Botton atop Shadow of the Wind and turned out the light. "Almost the weekend," I whispered to husband Val. "Almost the weekend," he sighed back. And we fell asleep.
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Visit the latest Kate-designed site — www.mycaliforniaproject.org — to learn more about My California: Journeys by Great Writers (June, 2004). This unique book project benefits the California Arts Council. Many of California's premier authors donated their work. Learn more. Buy it now.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Abita Spring: A raucous poppy blooms in my mom's lush Louisiana garden. Thanks Libby!
Friday, May 7, 2004
Unamerican. I haven't wanted to talk about it. Unspeakable, it is too grave to gossip about, too shaming to huff about over after-dinner drinks. Only grieving has seemed appropriate. But yesterday, another picture. That woman — an American soldier — stands in the hallway of the notorious prison, she holds a leash, and at the other end, a naked man cowers on the floor. My heart breaks with shame and with the sure knowledge that the horrible exists in us all, it has only to be nurtured and allowed to flourish.
All it needs is fertile ground. All it needs is rot. And that is something Americans have plenty of — because the Bush administration has repeatedly used this "War on Terror" to justify all kinds of acts that flout "American values."
Because there's a war on: The administration can dump the nation's longstanding non-aggression/no-first strike doctrine and install a policy of "pre-emption." (.pdf)
Because there's a war on: The administration can lie ... to Congress, as Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz did when he said the reconstruction would be paid for by Iraqi oil money. And to the world, as the President did when he made false claims about Iraq's acquisition of uranium in the 2003 State of the Union address.
Because there's a war on: The government can lock up people indefinitely without trial or representation.
Because there's a war on: The FBI can secretly access the library and book buying records of American citizens.
Because there's a war on: The administration can interpret the Geneva Conventions in any way that suits its agenda.
And if all these things — and many more distinctly unamerican things — are possible, are justified, why is Abu Ghraib surprising? After all, the administration tells us every day that 9/11 changed everything, that the war justifies everything. That the ends justify the means.
CNN is on. The Senate hearings drone on in the background. Elizabeth Dole is extolling the virtues of the US occupation of Iraq. She is talking about schools and votes for women. She says that the prisoner abuse in no way represents American values. Words. We can make them true. In this election year, let us show the world that the American people are not false, warlike, blinded by hubris, abusive and inhumane: vote the architects of this disaster out of office. They do not represent us. Throw them out, because — as Senator Tom Harkin said yesterday — they are stealing from us what we are as a nation.
Know for yourself: Read the Taguba Report. See a preview of the Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker.