ISHMAEL and GILEAD FEB 2011

Ecce goats!

I'm debating whether to wake son Sam and his friend up or let them sleep. it's Sunday morning in Washington, we're on college road trip. We're seeing a bunch of schools, yet today we have nothing. And I'm motivated to visit Arlington Cemetery. Could this have anything to do with my fast approaching 50th bday? Needless to say, Sam is totally psyched about it. And his friend James! Can't hold him back! Cemeteries? Where do I sign?!!!

Or I could kick back and read a book. Quite like the binary positions posed by Quinn in Ishmael. Kick back and chill or be a seeker after knowledge? Leaver or Taker? Yet there is a conundrum (or perhaps several) at the heart of Ishmael that  I haven't quite been able to sort out, tho I enjoyed the book quite a bit. And that is...

Reading, at least for pleasure, may be a mellow, 'Leaver' type activity. But creating a book-- the concept, the deadlines, the marketing, the paper and glue, to say nothing of the actual research and writing, and indeed the concept of written language itself-- seems decidedly Taker. The book presents this utopian, elysian Leaver ethos through a venue, a product, a lifestyle choice the book is at pains to tell us is destroying the planet. Perhaps, like in Tolstoy's great Kreutzer Sonata story, the solution will eliminate all consciousness of such a problem. Or perhaps we should read more Tolstoy (hint, hint).

Anyhoo, for those of you who don't know what the hell I'm going on about, Ishmael was a didactic novel, a catechism of sorts, kind of an ersatz platonic dialogue on the question of why we live how we live. How did we get here? Why here and not...there? Well, let me tell you a story...so as not to go on for-fucking-EVER, I'll pick out one or two salient points.

Quinn posits there are two types of people in the world, two kinds of societies which he calls the Takers and the Leavers, (trying to be non-judgemental & failing miserably), the Takers being civilized man, kids of 'Mother Culture', busily raping the universe and making it impossible for any life form but our own to hold any dominion whatsoever, and then the Leavers, the unsophisticated, uncivilized aboriginal peoples of the earth, who take what they need and leave the rest, allowing for all creatures to live if not in harmony and peace, at least to live. Rainer was taken with Quinn's brief account of evolution, wherein the jellyfish believes that he of course is the ultimate endpoint of evolution, and that land was created merely to contain the seas in which he reigns supreme. Now, I've talked to a lot of jellyfish, and in my experience found that most subscribe to something more along the lines the Kantian categorical imperative, and wonder why man can't be nicer-- particularly during the summer months off the coast of New Jersey. And they long to play tennis. Alas.

Anyhoo, his take on evolution is interesting-- that Man, in his Taker quest to control EVERYTHING, has effectively stopped evolution in it's tracks. As a corollary (basing much on the story of Cain and Abel), he suggests that the Bible was written by a herder/gatherer culture which was defeated by the nascent agriculturalists (classic primeval land grab), and that it is in fact a Leaver manifesto adopted and reinterpreted, which is to say misinterpreted, by generations of Takers that followed. Essentially that the Bible supports evolution! Creationists, rejoice! Now die!

Another facet I found interesting was his basic belief that consciousness is based not on philosophy or morality or reason, even, but story. Culture is the story we tell ourselves and each other, incessantly, in all media, from cradle to grave. Hey, I'm down. Anything to avoid reading Hegel. 

Which reminds me-- cemeteries! look at the time. We'll never get there if we don't hurry!

As far as Gilead goes-- I read about half, quite enjoyed it, but I'll take Patrick's word when he says he kept waiting for something to happen. And he read the whole thing. 

Continuing our goatish quest for the meaning of life, and this time with footnotes, we agreed to read Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel, which, if any of you have a 10th grader, you should find stuffed under his/her bed.  The other is another Steve suggestion, but this time NOT english, and (therefore?) not depressing. But I can't vouch for the latter. No one knew anything about it. Except it's supposed to be funny. About time. Soooo...

Books for next time:

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

WHEN: Wednesday March 23, 7:30pm

WHERE: ODs in Nyack

See ya there!

dan

as always, your comments, suggestions, rants, insults welcome

Last Word on Richards & Lowzy

First real blog post. In addition to, or perhaps over and above my meanderings, I'd love people to reply with books they'd like us to consider for next meeting. Along with any comments you'd care to share. Remember, as well as Leavers and Takers, we're Carers and Sharers.

Well, I spent the better part of January, as well as all of December and a tad of November, avoiding Under the Volcano. I've gotten about halfway through, but as our next meeting approaches I've finally given up (tho often when I say that to myself, that's just the time my obstinacy kicks in and I finish the job to spite myself. There may be an unique kind of self-reverse psychology at work here, previously unexamined by modern, 'civilized' man. Reverse psychology+self+the various twists and turns this inevitably involves amounts to double-reverse-one-and-a-half-twisting-layout-sticking-the-dismount psychology. Ism.)

Look at me. Already I'm mimicking Malcolm Lowzy by having parentheses surrounding unending perorations by deeply wounded and untrustworthy characters. Kind of a beginner's version of the shifting voices in Ulysses. Another book I've never read. Hmmm, I'm sensing a pattern here- difficult language, no readee. Hey, I read Death In Venice! And got through most of Swann's Way! And for Swann's Way I have a pretty good excuse. I took the Lydia Davis translation over to Spain when I did a bike trip a few years back with fellow goat (very irregular, for shame) Dave R. Tho I've biked for many years, I seemed to be unaware that books add weight to a bike. To pretty much anything, I'd venture. Anyway,  I pictured myself, after a leisurely day's biking, beneath a spreading shade tree, savouring Proustian prose and a fine Madeira with a comely local lass who fed me olives from her garden....Needless to say, the first day out I threw it off a bridge near Girona. Along with a compleat Riverside Shakespeare and my Fodor's Guide to Hot Spanish Babes. Clean underwear trumps guide books every time.

Aanyway, who am I to rake on Malcolm Lowzy? I enjoyed parts of the book, admired his language, swooned over his metaphors, died for his dactyls, but...I just couldn't bring myself along on this journey of self-destruction. Enough with the beetle-browed, self-effacing, knowledgeable but unknowing, wistful, tyrannical, and above all terribly, terribly sad 20th century British anti-hero. Been there done that. First there was Disgrace. My choice, Pretty depressing, but it had it's moments. That was a thriller compared to The Good Soldier, which I in fact loved and responded to on a visceral level. Yet no one would confuse it with an Ealing comedy. But wait. There's more. Volcano makes The Good Soldier look like The Odd Couple! I believe around Jan 17, MLK Day, I reached my depressing self-indulgent British novel limit. It got so that just looking at the cover made me weep. I want to finish it. At some point I'll  have to go back to it, soldier on, vainly hoping I'll get up the gumption for one last push to the end. Just not now... Perhaps I'm taking it on a bit too much. Identifying. Always a danger. If you're going to identify, why not identify with

Keef! Brave, kind, funny, smart, nodding out, ecstatic, reluctant hero of the novel of his own life. And smart enough not to name the book Keef! Tho perhaps that doesn't take a genius. Still, Life. Not 'A Life' or 'My Life', not 'Keith Richards' or 'Keith' or 'Keef', nor surely any humbling addendum like ':my life with the Rolling Stones' or some tacky variant, but just Life. So simple. Like anyone can do it. For solving that first riddle so elegantly, for the title alone, the simple, ingenious bravado of it,  he should get some sort of award.  The Man Boner Prize. I know, I know. It's not a 'great' book. Gets a bit draggy toward the end. Not appropriate for children. It's just not appropriate. The wonder is how readable it is. The wonder is that particular historical moment, rendered so plainly, so simply. Without fear or favor. But containing plenty of both. Who would not settle for that picaresque? Royalty to beggars and everyone in between. And wandering through it all, soldiering on largely oblivious-- our hero. Forget all the rockstar hubris, of which there is plenty. How priceless is that scene where he's on tour just after his divorce from Anita Pallenbergand uses Malcolm, their 7-year-old son, as a navigator, to give directions and to alert him when they're close to the border and he has to shoot up and/or hide his stash because 'back then they 'ad real borders. And Marlon was a right good navigator.' talk about 'How to Listen So your Kids will Talk!

I paraphrase, but that's pretty close. One of the problems of writing this so far after the fact is that books fade, Or is it the recollection? I don't have it right in front of me. I thought the guitar stuff, his exegeses on Jimmy Reed and Chuck Berry, were worthy of Gibbons. And his carping about Mick was interesting, not showing himself in all that great a light (tho commenting on Mick's size...must you? And what did he call it? Must look that up...). His whole take on Mick's development was so...naive. Even at this late date. Funny, really. Mick's the star-chaser and Keith's the keeper of the musical flame. He's true and genuine, and Mick gets seduced by all the ponces with titles. I don't doubt there's some truth to that. But he says virtually nothing about the work it took to make the Rolling Stones into huge stars, from a strictly strategical standpoint. He can't. He just played guitar. Even tho they were in the right place at the right time, that kind of legendary musical stardom doesn't happen by accident. It's work. Mick's work, largely glossed over here. their ascendance 63-66 or so was merely a haze of union halls and recording studios. Halfway through the  70s, in the depth of his drug haze, he mentions in passing being three hours late to a stadium performance. Mick was there too. Tapping his feet. Checking his watch. Places to go, people to see. And Keith all sneeering derision. He kind of laughs it off with 'The show starts when I get there'. Now THAT's a rock star! But if I were Mick, I'd want out too.

Great bits too about swingin London in the 60s, the upper crust hangers on he befriended, & glimpses into nascent 'out' gay culture, and how seriously the cops-- and the public!-- took everything then. Riding around in the deep South with long hair and skinny jeans and pointy boots could get you killed. If you weren't the Stones.  He seems stunningly unaware of what is actually happening in the world. He says at one point about the tour that ended in Altamont something like 'There were alot of changes happening. Vietnam war and all that. ' But...I guess it's a bit like asking Michaelangelo's David what it's like being sculpted. He can't analyze it. He was it. He's hopeless when he tries to make a point about the sixties. Or about anything, really. But when he describes a vial of pharmaceutical grade Merck cocaine, he becomes positively Byronic. Same with Jimmy Reed records. That old hackneyed writing chestnut: show don't tell. there it is. It's in his descriptions of the playing, the partying, drug busts, the paranoia, the good coke, the loose women, the entire tour being run by a gal with a rolodex, a phone, and a telex line back to england...he lends a certain seductive, deceptive charm to it all. And he survived. And is even telling the tale. A bit defensively. He seems to be reacting to his public persona when he writes on the inside flap (I'm paraphrasing) 'it was a gas...and I remember EVERYTHING'.  Touchy.

I never really got into the Stones all that much. Yet I bought the reissued Exile on Main Street about halfway through the book. Some good tunes. No Sticky Fingers (which is not available thru itunes for some reason). I tried getting my daughter, a devoted Beatles fan, into it (btw, loved all the props he gives to the Lads, acknowledging their preeminence and the Stones' very deliberate positioning of themselves as the bad boy anti-Beatles). Played her Shine a Light, All Down the Line, Tumbling Dice, all these shambling, bluesy classics. She was unimpressed. 'They're not, like, songs, really,' she said. 'They just go on and on.' I played her Happy. A bit better. But not like Eleanor Rigby. Now there's an idea. Keith Richards with Strings...
Interesting, reading these two books together. After you read Life and you start wading through the verbal jungles of  Under the Volcano-- admittedly a more difficult, ambitious book-- I just found myself thinking 'Oh shut up ya big baby. Why can't you just get Happy?'

I'm not very far in either of our February books. But I've started both. Story of my life.
next mtg:
Wed. Feb 16, 2011 at O'Ds in Nyack
Books:
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

See ya there,
dan