RIP Mary Oliver

The poet Mary Oliver died a few days ago, on January 17, 2019, at the age of 83, of lymphoma. This is a great loss, and she is being deeply mourned by her many, many readers and admirers. Actually, “admirers” is not a strong enough word for those who love Oliver’s poetry, and whose lives have been directly influenced by her poems. Some years ago, when I didn’t know Oliver’s poetry particularly well, I went to hear her read here in San Francisco. The venue was full, mostly of women, and there was something in the air that immediately indicated that the audience was thrilled to be there, almost worshipful, and that they felt a deep personal connection to her and her work. At that time, Oliver already had some problems with mobility, and had to be helped to and from the podium. But her presence and voice were strong, and from the moment she started speaking and then reading, she had the audience rapt. After this experience, I sought out Oliver’s poetry and saw why it was so popular. She writes about things that matter to her readers: how to live, how to observe, how to relate to nature, how to know what is most important, how to appreciate life. Some critics have been suspicious of her popularity (being popular seems to be automatically regarded as a defect) and have called her poetry lightweight or simplistic. They are simply wrong. (I can’t help wondering if some of the condescension shown to her work is because she is a woman, and because so many of her readers are women….) Her most famous line, in her most famous poem, “The Summer Day,” is “Tell me, what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?” This line has resonated with huge numbers of readers, and with good reason. But there are so many more poems that are also wonderful, beautifully written, aesthetically pleasing, and meaningful, even healing, to her readers. The stature and value of Oliver’s work have also been validated by her Guggenheim, her Pulitzer, and her National Book Award, among other prizes and honors. Goodbye, Mary Oliver, and thank you for your quietly stunning poems, which I am sure will be read by many, many more people for many, many more years.

On Thinning My Bookshelves (Again!)

Recently I have, as I do every few months or so, been going through the “stuff” in our house, trying to get rid of things, especially in my overcrowded “study” (aka put-everything-you-don’t-know-where-else-to-put room). Although, as I have written here in the past, most of the books I read are either from libraries, or passed on to others when I finish with them, I do keep the books that are special to me for some reason (e.g., they were my parents’, or were given to me by other important people in my life, or are reference books, or were written by my very favorite writers, or I think I “might need” them someday, or…you get the idea. This results in several very full bookshelves. For the past few “cullings,” I have considered giving away my small collection (perhaps three dozen volumes) of books about women’s literature: anthologies, encyclopedias, etc. I love literature by and about women, I used to teach women’s literature, and I always think these will be handy references for various purposes, including this blog. I also have an emotional attachment to the topic. But this time I realized that realistically, I almost never consult these books any more. And if I need information, or copies of the stories and poems contained in the anthologies, there are my university and local libraries, and there is the Internet. (I also don’t have room on the shelves in my university office, themselves overcrowded.) So I put these books (all but a very select few) in sturdy canvas bags and hauled them to my beautiful local library to donate to its Friends of the Library organization, which has magnificent monthly sales to raise money for the library. And, somewhat surprisingly, I didn’t feel one iota of regret. In fact I felt “lighter.” These were good and faithful companions, but I didn’t need them any more. And I now had two long empty shelves available. One of these shelves has already, since the “purge,” been repurposed for books for my one-year-old grandson (who, very fortunately for us, lives nearby with his parents) when he comes to visit. A worthy replacement, and a reminder that there are phases in everyone’s life.

"The Library Book," by Susan Orlean

As readers of this blog know or could guess, I love libraries, I go to libraries often, I borrow many books from libraries, and I support my local “Friends of the Library” organization. But did I want to read a nonfiction book about the catastrophic fire of 1986 that nearly destroyed the Los Angeles Public Library? I would have read an article in, say, The Atlantic about this fire, and would be somewhat intrigued by the mystery aspect of whether it was arson and if so who was responsible for it. But a whole book? The answer, it turns out, was emphatically YES! There is a reason that the respected New Yorker writer Susan Orlean’s “The Library Book” (Simon and Schuster, 2018) has been getting so much positive critical attention as well as much popular attention (being on bestseller lists, etc.). It is simply fascinating. Orlean spent several years researching the book, and much time interviewing various people at or related to the library (now rebuilt), including former and current librarians, and often just “hanging out” there, walking through the various sections, observing the librarians and the patrons, listening to the sounds of the library, smelling its scents, and in general immersing herself in the library and its history. Readers will also feel immersed in the library, this one specifically but also “the library” in its larger sense as well: the library as an institution, and all the libraries we each have visited. Orlean is excellent at conveying the atmosphere, the feeling of libraries, and people’s (including her own) visceral connection to libraries. She is particularly interested in public libraries, which have their own joys and issues that are somewhat distinct from, for example, university or school libraries; she doesn’t shy away from challenges that libraries and librarians face. The characters (librarians, patrons, investigators, architects, and more) whom she describes come alive. There is one main character: the main suspect in the fire, a young, somewhat lost would-be actor named Harry Peak. I won’t say any more about what Orlean (or the investigators) find out. And finally, the question of whether the fire was arson is an interesting one, but the joys of the book are much larger than the mystery/detective aspect of the story, just as this book is about, at the same time, one specific library but also all libraries. I very highly recommend this book to anyone who loves libraries.

"Ultraviolet," by Suzanne Matson

It is perhaps not too much of a surprise that so soon after posting (on 12/21/18) about the novel “A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl,” which I noted was a type of novel I usually enjoy very much – the story of several generations of women and families – I found and read another such novel: “Ultraviolet” (Catapult, 2018), by Suzanne Matson. I don’t mean I consciously looked for such a book, but such novels often call out to me. In both books, there are three generations of women, and the women of each generation are different in their circumstances, ambitions, and constraints. They all deal with wondering about family and children and whether and how to balance them with work and creativity. One thing that drew me to “Ultraviolet” was that the first (oldest) of the three women, Elsie, along with her husband, was a missionary in India in the 1930s. Her daughter Kathryn grew up there, and when she returned to the U.S., felt somewhat unsettled. As I have mentioned before, I too grew up in India as the daughter of missionaries, although some time later than Kathryn did, and when I came back to the U.S., I also experienced some mixed feelings. Kathryn moves around, has some adventures and love affairs, and ends up marrying an older man. Overall, her life does not make her happy. Her daughter Samantha wants a better life, one in which she controls her own circumstances much more, and despite some unhappiness of her own, has a career teaching at a university, as well as a reasonably happy marriage and her own children. Many of the differences among the three generations of women can be attributed to societal changes regarding women’s roles over the years, but some are due to the individual women’s personalities. Although in some ways the three generations are not close, love of family prevails. Samantha and her mother Kathryn become much closer as Samantha gets older and more established and secure in her own life, and Samantha does much to take care of her mother as Kathryn ages. The three main characters, along with the less major but still important characters of their fathers, husbands, and lovers, are realistic and believable. This is an intriguing and satisfying novel.

My New Book: "Growing up with God and Empire"

I am happy to announce that my new book from Multilingual Matters, "Growing Up with God and Empire: A Postcolonial Analysis of 'Missionary Kid' Memoirs," was published this month. The book provides historical, political, and religious contexts for missionary work, and then analyzes 42 memoirs of now-adult North American missionary kids who lived in various countries over various time periods, mostly mid-20th century. I look at colonial-related themes such as portrayals of the "exotic," language learning, treatment of local people, schooling, race, social class, and gender. Abundant salient/illustrative/revealing excerpts from the memoirs are included. I end with a “Personal Epilogue” describing some of the issues and struggles I had while writing this book, some of which were to do with re-examining my own missionary kid background (many years ago), balancing my academic and personal roles in writing the book, and trying to be fair in portraying missionary work regarding both the good that missionaries and missions did and the sometimes negative colonial aspects of their work. Writing this book involved much (fascinating!) research and hard work, and at the same time was very engaging and meaningful to me, even emotional at times, as it brought together my own missionary kid background, my scholarly interests, and my love of memoir. I am also pleased that I have provided a glimpse into the under-examined lives of missionary kids and their place in the missionary enterprise and the colonial project. I want to express here my profound thanks to my colleagues and friends who were so supportive as I wrote this book, to the terrific editors at Multilingual Matters, and most of all to my missionary parents and missionary kid brothers. I also deeply thank those scholars who wrote the generous reviews/endorsements listed in the Multilingual Matters catalog (see link below). More detailed information is available at http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?K=9781788922326

"My Year of Rest and Relaxation," by Otessa Moshfegh

Otessa Moshfegh’s recent novel, “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” (Penguin, 2018), has been getting critical praise and much attention, with words like “profound” being tossed about. For a while, I resisted reading it because the descriptions in the reviews sounded oppressive. But I finally decided to go ahead and see what all the fuss was about. I perhaps should have trusted my original instincts. I found the book – and the main character (who is also the narrator) – annoying and depressing. This young woman, who comes from a privileged but emotionally-starved family, decides to leave her lackluster art gallery job, along with most of her life and friends, and “hibernate” in her apartment in Manhattan, as a rather uncertainly-conceived effort to heal herself from her sadness, depression, alienation and anomie. Most conveniently, she has an inheritance that allows her to do so. She sets out to sleep as much as possible, and to help in this goal, she finds an eccentric and highly unprofessional psychiatrist who freely dispenses all sorts of pills to her in large quantities with multiple refills: anti-depressants, anti-anxiety pills, sleeping pills, and much more. Both of her parents -- by whom she was emotionally neglected -- have died, and she seems to have very few human connections. One connection is occasional get-togethers with her longtime on-again-off-again “boyfriend” (of sorts), although they see each other rarely and have an unhealthy relationship, to say the least; Trevor is a successful Wall Street type, about ten years older than she is, and truly uncaring and obnoxious. The other main connection is with her college friend, Reva, who is both intrusive and needy, but on some level caring, and whom our main character treats rather badly. Aside from these two people, she mainly only sees her psychiatrist, her doorman, the owners of the local bodega, and the pharmacists at the Rite-Aid where she fills her numerous prescriptions. I do feel sorry for this young woman, but it is also hard not to be put off by her sense of casual entitlement and the by the way she treats everyone in her life. Although the novel is fairly short, one which I would usually devour in a few hours, I found myself reading a little bit and then setting it aside for a few hours or days before returning to it. I did finish it, and I sort of “get” the book, but I was mostly annoyed by it.

"A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl," by Jean Thompson

“A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl” (Simon and Schuster, 2018) is exactly the kind of novel I am so often drawn to: a multigenerational family saga, focusing mainly on the lives of the women characters, written with attention to the details of relationships among the characters and of everyday life. In addition, its author is Jean Thompson, whose novels and short stories I have enjoyed and admired in the past. Actually, I admired her earlier fiction, but somewhat “went off” her work when I read her last two novels before this one (“The Humanity Project” and “She Poured out her Heart”); “A Cloud…” brought me back to the characteristics of Thompson’s fiction that made me like it so much. A major theme in the novel is that of what a woman’s life is meant to be. Evelyn, of the oldest generation, wanted to work and to “be someone” in the world, but became caught up in being a wife and mother, and was not able to achieve her dreams. Her daughter Laura, on the other hand, wanted most of all to be a wife and mother, even though her marriage turned out to be unhappy, and her children were disappointing in different ways. Her daughter Grace seemed to need to get away from her and the family; her son Michael became addicted to drugs and a series of rehab efforts were mostly ineffective. Despite all these issues, there was definitely love in this family, if not always well expressed. The story goes back and forth among various time periods, and we the readers gradually see connections that were not immediately evident. A sort of subtheme is the question of where “home” is, and what it means. The novel is set in a small Midwestern college town, which is both nurturing and, to some characters, stifling. Two family homes are also important “characters” in this novel. There is much to like in this novel, much to think about. Although it doesn’t feel terrifically original, what it does, it does well. And who am I to question Thompson’s expert and engaging use of this “formula,” when, as I said at the beginning of this post, this is one of the types of novels I most like and savor.