"Citizen," by Aaron Shurin

At a recent event at the University of San Francisco, I heard two fellow faculty members, Aaron Shurin and Micah Ballard, read their poetry. I have mentioned Shurin’s work before (e.g., on 3/18/11), and will focus on his reading here. (I also enjoyed hearing Ballard’s poetry.) Aaron read from his latest book, “Citizen” (City Lights, 2012), a collection of prose poems. As he read, I was mesmerized by the brilliant imagery, one image following another in a gorgeous cascade. I was in awe, and grateful for the chance to hear it read aloud, always the best way to experience poetry. And I felt again how fortunate I am, working at a university, to be around such creative and inspiring writers and artists.

"Dying for a Blue Plate Special," by Beth Kalikoff

My friend S. told me about enjoying a mystery novel by her colleague and friend Beth Kalikoff; it is titled “Dying for a Blue Plate Special” (Five Star, 2005). I like the occasional mystery, and I respect S.’s recommendations, so I found and read the book. It takes place in Tacoma, in Washington, a state I am partial to (I have had several relatives and friends there, and it is very close to one of my childhood homes, Vancouver, BC.) It is set mostly on and around a fictional campus there; campuses are also settings I -- as a long time college faculty member -- am familiar with and fond of. The portrayal of the campus and of the various faculty members is satirical and quite negative in some cases; this is part of a long tradition of the campus satire. The heroine, Jewel Feynman, is a descendant in another tradition: the tradition of feisty female detectives that began in the 1970s with such PIs as Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone, Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski, and Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone. Jewel is not actually a detective, but rather a caterer (thus the title); however, when a much-disliked and manipulative college dean dies at a meal Jewel has catered, she turns detective in order to rescue her catering business’ reputation and future. Like the earlier detectives mentioned above, Jewel presents a (mostly) confident, no-nonsense, snappy front, although she is actually often insecure and vulnerable. When she is angry, as she is now about the imputations that her food caused the dean’s death, she becomes fearless and a bit reckless in her pursuit of the truth. There is plenty of humor and even some romance in this book, along with the catering and the detecting. Although this mystery does not have the complexity of a Dorothy Sayers or P. D. James novel (and how many do, after all?), it can compete with books such as Sue Grafton’s, is very entertaining, and kept my attention throughout.

Yes, Punctuation Can Be Controversial!

Readers of this blog may remember that I am fascinated by punctuation and how it is used. (You see what an exciting life I lead!). So recent mentions in New York Magazine and elsewhere that the writer Cormac McCarthy has declared a sort of war on what he deems excess punctuation – mainly semicolons, exclamation points, and quotation marks – caught my eye. Intriguingly, it turns out that he – out of love for science – has copyedited at least one book on science, and told the author from the beginning that he would excise as much punctuation as possible. His own work uses punctuation sparsely. Although I agree with McCarthy that too many exclamation points are a problem, I have a fondness for both commas and semicolons (see my post of 10/16/10 on semicolons). Of course fiction operates by different rules, but at least for nonfiction, I am in favor of whatever clarity can be added through judicious use of punctuation.

A Window into Canadian Literature

My cousin A., who like me is originally from Canada but who moved to the United States much more recently than I, was kind enough to pick up a copy of the Autumn 2011 issue of “BC Bookworld” for me the last time she was in Canada. (Our extended family is from the Vancouver area in British Columbia.) With the exception of books by established authors such as Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro, much of Canadian literature is not published or reviewed in the U.S. I treasure, and still feel connected to, Canadian literature, especially fiction (see, for example, my 3/19/10 post about Canadian writers, my 2/20/10 post on Carol Shields, and my 7/22/10 post on Alice Munro), and try to find and read it when I can, but it is not easy to do so. So it is a delight for me to have this small, very up-to-date window into Canadian literature. There are articles on writers I know about, such as Jane Rule, but many more on writers I have not heard of, let alone read. To name just a few of these mentioned in this issue: novelists Esi Edugyan and Bertrand Sinclair, poets Susan Musgrave and Clea Roberts, short story writer Jack Hodgins, and memoirist Willow Yamauchi (her “Adult Child of Hippies” sounds intriguing!). I hope to find and read work by at least some of these. Thank you, A.!

"The Man Within My Head," by Pico Iyer

In “The Man Within My Head” (Knopf, 2012), the writer Pico Iyer tells of his long obsession with, or perhaps haunting by, the writer Graham Greene. He looks at Greene’s life and work with a clear-eyed judgment; he by no means sees him as perfect. But there is something about Greene’s restlessness, his need to travel to faraway lands, and his shifting relationship with God, with religion, and with his fellow humans, that speaks to Iyer. The book describes Iyer’s own travels (to Bolivia, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Easter Island, among other destinations), many to places where Greene spent time; this book describes a sort of nonlinear pilgrimage. In a much smaller way, Iyer has been in turn, from time to time, a man within my own head. I have occasionally read his articles in various publications over the years, and my antennae have always gone up when I have seen his byline. This man of Indian origin who grew up in California and went to boarding school in England, who has traveled far and wide, and who now is based in a small town in Japan with his Japanese wife Hiroko, is just the sort of citizen of the world that I am fascinated by. I am drawn to writers with this sort of background, and I have myself written about “third culture kids” who have lived and studied in several countries. My own upbringing and life surely come into this: I was born in Canada, grew up in India, and have lived my adult life in the United States; my husband is from a different country, two of my three sisters-in-law are from still other countries, I have traveled fairly widely, and I teach mostly international students, here in one of the most international, multicultural cities in the world, San Francisco. But my fascination with Iyer’s writing, and with his restless quest for identification with Greene, goes beyond my own autobiographical facts. Despite my own current rootedness in one city, there is something mysteriously attractive to me in the unmoored life, the restless movement and wider perspective provided by travel, that both Greene and Iyer have sought out. The particular confluence in Iyer’s life of India, England, and California -- some of the places that have been important in my actual life and my intellectual/emotional life -- provides another connection, another factor in my being drawn to Iyer’s work. And -- I realize I have not yet said, but should -- Iyer is a wonderful writer, evocative, descriptive, and meditative.

Literature Asks Us to Pay Attention

My friend M.C.C. passed along the following quotation from the writer Frederick Buechner, and I was quite taken with his perspective on literature:

“From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady on the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.”

"W;t," by Margaret Edson

The following post is (even) more personal than usual, but my experiences with the play “W;t” remind me of how intensely personal reading literature can be, especially when it intersects closely with one’s own life experiences.

In March, 1999, my dear longtime friend from graduate school, C., whom I have written about here before (most specifically on 4/29/11) and I went to see a new play titled “W;t.” C. had lived in New York for many years before she moved to another East Coast city, and when I was going to go there during my spring break, she met me there for a few days of museums, plays, restaurants, and good talk. She chose “W;t,” among other plays we attended during those few days, and although it was sad and hard to watch, it was also riveting and wonderful. It tells the story of Dr. Vivian Bearing (vividly portrayed by Kathleen Chalfant), a professor of English specializing in Donne, as she lies in a hospital bed enduring treatments for late-stage ovarian cancer, knowing that death is approaching. She has been a rigorous, acerbic teacher and scholar who has dedicated her life to her scholarship and teaching. Now she alternates between the painful present and memories of the past. She still turns to Donne for meaning and for a kind of austere comfort.

Twelve years later, in March, 2011, C. died of ovarian cancer after a three-year battle during which she lived with incredible grace. C. had also been (before she started another career) an educator, with degrees in English literature, and with a lifelong passionate love of literature.

Recently a copy of the book version of “W;t” (Faber and Faber, 1999), by Margaret Edson, came into my possession through a friend. I put off reading it for weeks, knowing it would be painful, and then read it very slowly, despite its brevity. The memories of C. elicited by the play were powerful, and as I approached the end of the book, I was overwhelmed with sadness. And yet in a way, reading “W;t” was cathartic for me, as literature can sometimes be.

This post is dedicated to the memory of C.