Saturday, October 15, 2011

To the Wedding John Berger


To the Wedding by John Berger is decisively one of those rare books to be digested at least once in your life. Artfully written, often stream of consciousness, ever poetic, it is to see through a blind man's mind, capturing the essence of life on a variety of intersecting, often connected, voices. To really know the profound pleasure & misery we all share in this human condition, one must be reminded of it & are in this work. This novel is a piece of literary art, one that could be laid on a pedestal in a gallery, there for pedestrians to witness & for readers to fall in love with. I now know why the author, Michael Ondaatje, has declared, “Wherever I live in the world, I know I will have this book with me.”

At times, too beautiful, my mind was unable to take it all in. That is the sadness I suffered when ending it. Although, this suggests it is merely the beginning of our relationship as I know I will reopen its pages in later years. Maybe when this migrainer’s mind is less prone to distracting
flight.

It is a love story between Ninon and Gino, a Greek myth connecting past to present, the travelogue of a signalman on his motorcycle riding through paradise to arrive at his daughter’s wedding, & very much more. Yes, there is the story-teller, blind, but not always that way & the mother, Zdena, who has been faraway, in previously occupied lands of the Eastern Bloc before the fall of the Soviet Union. There are prayers, yes, & tama talismans, protecting even the reader from harm along with the power of nature upon one’s soul.

Sounding overly trite, this tale is a celebration of the extraordinary in common, daily actions. A fusion of light & whispers against the supposedly doomed state of HIV, making betrayals, fate’s bitter bites, less than the worth of headlights cast upon boulders in the night. One can admit there is always hope because there is always the next moment. We can’t surrender just because we have contracted a disease or emotional blight or even loss of body parts; we must acknowledge the brilliance of surrendering to each unique moment.

That is what I found in To The Wedding. It is a signal light warning me not to forget where I am, who I am, & when I am.


3:30 am, 10/15/11
4 ½ stars out of 5

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Friday, October 07, 2011

The Voice at the Back Door by Elizabeth Spencer


The Voice at the Back Door
by Elizabeth Spencer

This is the story of rivalries, of alcohol in a dry county in Mississippi, of bygone racism in pre-segregation times, & of course, the confusing nature of love. It is also haunted by past violence, murders in fact, of local “negros” (yes, “n*ggers” is also used, quite often, in this book by both side of the race line) by ignorant & uncompromising rednecks.

Even though I don’t like the N-word, it seemed appropriate in its use here because such a crippling word uttered to undermine & reduce a people for the sake of maintaining the status quo of the ruling Caucasian Southerners, along with its use by American-Africans themselves, was frequently employed during these times. By its fluency, Elizabeth Spencer captured people, generally unthinking, who accept injustice on a daily basis. This was especially significant after local young men of the suppressed portion of the population had experienced freedom, were commonly treated as equality, in Europe during World War II. This was the same dilemma “Negro” veterans found when they return after World War I & that ended in their massacre (i.e., the haunting murders by rednecks).

Mrs. Spencer wrote this in Italy as a kind of home-sick love letter to the Mississippi she was raised in, to the South & its apparent contradictions. It allowed her to hear their voices once more, to wrap the warm southern tones as a comforter about herself. There is a kindness in a Southern accent I personally never heard until I moved to the South & now, love.

The main characters are Duncan Harper, ex-college football hero & local grocer & eventual sheriff pro temp & husband to Tinker; Jimmy Tallant, bootlegger & ex-boyfriend of Tinker, who still loves her; Tinker, the sun between these two rugged men; Kerney Woolbright, senatorial candidate & a good friend to the others; Marcia Mae Hunt, Duncan’s high school sweetheart, who ran off to marry a Marine suddenly, ever confusing Duncan; & Beck Dozer, the lone representative of the segregated people.

I would grade this story 4 out of 5. One I might come back to in older age & read again.

Finished October, 4, 2011.