I've been reading lately...

With a divided mind I have decided to rejoin the ranks of People Writing About Themselves On The Internet. Here goes...

I love to read. It’s one of my things. A few days without reading and I’m getting edgy, scratching at the carpet and darkly plotting how to find a few moments in a quiet corner with some well crafted and delicious words. 

I like the old books best. New ones lack a sort of class, or maybe it’s just that they haven’t yet proven themselves against the years. They still may. There’s non-fiction as well as novels, I go through phases. Something about the author, title, the cover, or just the way the book feels in my hands causes a flicker in my mind so I follow the words, page after page to see where they lead.

I don’t know where this urge to read comes from. It’s tempting to say it’s from a desire to know about the world, to understand human nature, to connect with the stories of others and hence to find my place in the greater story of the world. But that doesn’t explain it. It’s more true to say that it’s just how it is, and the best thing I can do is to keep on following the urge. Might as well ask a tree why it grows toward the sun.

There’s a bit of a problem though. I’m not sure if it’s because I race so frantically from one book to another, or maybe I’m not paying enough attention as I read, but I forget a huge proportion of what I have read. It wafts away like summer rain evaporating as soon as it falls. I know I’ve read Slaughterhouse 5 but I couldn’t tell you much about it, and I don’t recall the plot of Wuthering Heights, Brave New World or Walden.

So I thought I’d write my thoughts about what I’ve read, in a little series as long as my enthusiasm lasts. Not so much book reviews as book reflections. How this book fits into my life story and, what it has given me. I’ll not share too much of the plot, I promise! And I’ll try to keep them bite-sized. That’s my plan, and you’re most welcome to join me.

Don't ask a fish

"If you want to know about water, don't ask a fish."

So goes the Chinese proverb, and I like it. Perhaps this says different things to different people, but to me this speaks of how the fish is immersed in water, it always has been and knows no other way, so it does not have the perspective to be able to explain what water is. I like how this can be applied to human culture and behaviour - we get so engrossed in our own way of thinking that we can't even conceive of any other way.

But I want to look at this from another angle - maybe it's a bit of stretch, I'm not sure. I was thinking about this a bit more literally.

It's fairly obvious that humans think of ourselves as the most intelligent species. When we're not dominating, destroying or subjugating other species, we're simply condescending toward them. ("Oh look at that chimp, isn't he so smart?") So in this proverb about the fish,  I hear a bit of "haha, stupid fish, doesn't even know it's in water."

How very clever of us humans. Of course we'd know if we were in water wouldn't we? Well, consider this scenario. I get a clean cup out of the cupboard and hand it to you, and ask what's in the cup? You have a look and, it's quite obvious. Nothing is in the cup.

Nothing? Are you sure?

In fact, the cup is full. It's full of air.

Don't laugh - for it takes only the briefest analysis to realise that air is not nothing. The air in our atmosphere is made up of a mixture of gases - about 78% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, 0.03% carbon dioxide, and a list of others in small quantities. Then there's water vapour, pollen, and dust carried in the air. Your body knows this even if your mind doesn't - think how the air can be different temperatures, it can by hazy or clear, heavy with humidity or salty and crisp. Put simply, air is a thing, not a no-thing.

And this is just the beginning. Consider this passage from a book by David Abram I read recently :

The air is not a random bunch of gases simply drawn to earth by the earth's gravity, but an elixir generated by the soils, the oceans and the numberless organisms that inhabit this world, each creature exchanging certain ingredients for others as it exhales, drinking the sunlight with our leaves or filtering the water with our gills, all of us contributing to the composition of this phantasmagoric brew, circulating it steadily between us and nourishing ourselves on its magic, generating ourselves from its substance. 

Air is a magical, beautiful, vital part of our world. We are in it and it is in us. If it's not always obvious - as it is when the wind is rushing by, making our hair dance - that's because we are exactly like the fish in the water.

A little concentration, however, can reveal to our mind the feel of the air coming in and out of our nostrils - cooler as it goes in and warmer as it comes out. We begin to feel the air brushing our skin, and notice the air rushing in to our lungs with each breath, where it exchanges precious molecules with those in our own blood.

In his writing, Abram describes how many indigenous cultures and mystic religions honour the sacredness of air. They understand it is not nothing. A contemplative mind sees wonder in the breath, the way each breath connects us to everyone and everything else. Now that modern society, so clever and so sure of ourselves, is busily changing the very composition of the world's air, perhaps it would do us well to stop to contemplate, to let the wonder of being alive wash over us. Breathe in and breathe out. Let the mind pause and calm its rapid movements. Let the wisdom of the body and the intuition of the soul speak. Breathe in and breathe out.

Have a read of David Abram's Spell of the Sensuous and Becoming Animal for a mind-opening journey. You'll be exposed to some amazing thoughts! (As well as words like phantasmagorical and chthonic).
Thanks for the lend of these books Danielle!

Night in the Library

So engrossed was I in my search for the perfect combination of books to borrow that I didn't notice the overhead lights being switched off one by one. I didn't hear the jangle of the librarian's keys as they were slid into the lock and turned with a click of finality, I didn't hear the fading footsteps, the car start and drive away, and I didn't notice the dimming daylight.

Still I pored over the shelves, crouching in the Politics and Philosophy corner where the librarian had failed to notice me reading jacket blurbs and admiring cover artworks. It wasn't until I heard that voice that I suddenly stood and looked around and noticed it was night time.

The voice came from over in the Fiction section. It spoke with stately authority and had a distinct Russian accent. I'll never forget what it said, for the words seemed somehow familiar as they echoed around the darkened library. It said "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Quite a statement, I thought. Intrigued, I stalked over towards the voice and sure enough, there on the shelf, with TOLS on it's spine, was a Tolstoy making all this racket.

Before I had a chance to do anything further, the book's neighbour responded.  This time the voice clearly sang, ringing with a shimmer of delight. I thought I heard the sound of pan-pipes in the background as the singing went...
"Hey dol! merry dol! Ring a dong dillo!
Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow!"

This jumble of nonsense, sung with the joy of all life, was also familiar to me but I couldn't place it until the next lines made it clear.

"Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water:
Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter!"

Of course, it was Tolkein! The singing was old Tom Bombabil, that zealous master of the woodland. He and his wonderful wife Goldberry, whose merry dinner table was laden with yellow cream and honeycomb, white bread and butter; milk, cheese and green herbs and ripe berries gathered, where singing came more naturally than speaking, were a happy family quite unlike any I knew of. Tolkein certainly had a point there. 

I was curious to know how Tolstoy would respond, but just then over towards the Ms, I heard the sound of a ghostly wind echoing across the Texan plains and the tormented voice of one who had wrestled demons in the dark slowly drawled “It makes no difference what men think of war. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.” 

I didn't need to see the MCCAR on the spine to know they were Cormac McCarthy's clipped sentences, sharing his thoughts in his characteristic poetry of the damned. A mood of melancholy and the terrible beauty of darkness fell over the library, but then I heard the tinkle of tea cups and the satisfying slurp of steaming tea being poured. An irreverant Scottish voice announced  “It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin.”

I had an inkling, but it wasn't until I saw the MCCAL on the spine that I knew it was Alexander McCall Smith, using his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency to give quite a different view of things. 

The tumbleweed blew again, and McCarthy retorted "People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn't believe in that. Tomorrow wasn't getting ready for them. It didn't even know they were there," as though to prove that darkness also has a sense of humour, albeit laced with arsenic. 

I didn't stay around to hear the debate develop because from the next aisle I heard the unmistakable din of working class nineteenth century Britain, and a confident voice proclaim a favourite line: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was..." I raced over to see Dickens orating, but as I got there he was interrupted by science fiction master Philip K. Dick  with “A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope.”
"-It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness-"
“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”
"-it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity-"
"If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.” 
"-it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness-"
“Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.” 
"-it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,-"
“No single thing abides; and all things are fucked up.” 
"-we had everything before us, we had nothing before us-"
“Everything in life is just for a while.”
"-we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-"
“I can see Richard Wagner standing at the gates of heaven. "You have to let me in," he says. "I wrote Parsifal. It has to do with the Grail, Christ, suffering, pity and healing. Right?" And they answer, "Well, we read it and it makes no sense." SLAM.”

Things were getting louder. Ken Kesey and Jack Kerouac were trying to out-hip one another, but it was made difficult by the absurd interruptions of Kafka, who thought he was a beetle, a few books down. 

Tom Wolfe was trying to joke with Virginia Woolf but she kept disappearing into her interior monologue, and Coelho was dispensing quaint wisdom to Coetze. 

"Call me Ishmael" Melville proclaimed, and Conrad screamed "The horror! The horror!" while from the Ss came the sound of  “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” 

Joyce chimed in with “Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.” 

Ideas were ripe and flowing, the words were crisp and vibrant, life and love were lived and lost; it was a most beautiful night in the library.