In the Red Room – Paul Bowles

Paul Bowles - December 30, 1910 – November 18, 1999

I don’t think a week goes by that I look back at a situation I was in, and discover that I was unable to make myself understood to someone, and must have looked like the incompetent man that I too often see myself as.

Twice today as a matter of fact, during a conversation, I found a away to incorporate the telling of a story that had now need for inclusion in the conversation. The people that were on the receiving end of my tale will certainly think twice about engaging me in conversation again. You see, I am aware that what I say and what I write is...well...nothing all that special.

I know that my command of the language both spoken and written is nothing special. The fact that I recognize that though is good. I believe I have my ego in check.

I wonder, why though I feel the need to share my stories. To inject them into conversations?

To take people into my “Red Room”?

Most people don’t really want to hear other people’s stories unless they ask to hear them. If you offer to tell someone a story, chances are that they will only listen to it with one ear.

I need to keep this irritating little habit under control.

Unknown Feathers – Dianne Benedict

Dianne Benedict - September 17, 1941

Another wonderful story placed into this anthology. I think I need to be in the right frame of mind to accept a story that blurs the lines of reality, and I must have been in that mood because I thought this story really held me. Given Updike’s fascination with all things about life – the decision to include this story must have been easy for him.

Benedict has a Vermont connection and one that is even closer than just a shared connection to the state with me. She received her MFA and taught at Vermont College which was part of Norwich University...which I attended.

This story -

It’s passed though my mind on more than one occasion that I could easily be erased from this earth in a second. A simple smack from a car rounding a corner, smashing my head on the street could end it all.

I don’t let this knowledge dictate the way I lead my life...rather, I lead it like most of us do in this world...that was are going to live a long drawn out life dying of old age.

This is the default setting that we are born with (most of us) and it works out just fine for us humans.

I will also admit that I have thought about the final days and hours of my life before. Will I be laying in a bed passing between dream states out of touch with reality? With my interest in consciousness and discovering the levels of it, its boundaries (if there are any) and the secret powers it holds for us, I think that the time of death will be a very interesting state of mind to find my particular mind in.

I imagine that someone like Aldous Huxley had it right. He instructed his wife to feed him with a nice dose of LSD as he was fading out. That option certainly sounds good to me. I think any efforts to ease the anxiety of the process of dying...in its last few hours certainly can’t hurt, and if it is what the dying man wants then it should be granted.

One time when my father and I were sitting in the forest behind his house, drinking from a bottle of “Isle of Jura’, he looked off into the woods, and said that when he was at the point of dying, he wants to be chained up to a tree with a bottle of scotch and left to die. I’m pretty sure that some of us have made similar statements when drunk, and feeling a little goofy.

Now, he has to know that this little wish will never happen because first, we don’t live in a time where that sort of thing can be done anymore and second, I wouldn’t be the one doing it for him and I’m pretty sure I’m the only one he has every said this to.

There was some honesty with himself in his statement and an almost prophetic longing for what he subconsciously knew would never be. It revealed a lot about him...his past life and where he was at that moment in his world.

All of that is changed now.

His ability to look off into the crisp green woods and imagine a beautiful passing has now changed into a vision where dusk is fast approaching, the forest is getting darker, and cobwebs are forming between the branches of dead tree limbs. The forest is no longer green for him.

I suspect his final days will be spent in a bed with crisp white sheets and the sounds of medical equipment.

Is that really better?

The Naked lady – Madison Smartt Bell

Madison Smartt Bell - August 1, 1957

We all have rats and snakes inside of us. Both are lurking below the surface and both stick their noses or forked tongues out from time to time...and we must decide if we will allow them to cohabitate or permit one to rise above the other.

Allowing one type of sin to trump another isn’t really a tough decision. You just choose to live in a deeper, stronger state of “sin’.

As I’ve detailed quite frequently here, I’ve wrestled with my lack of self-discipline. Sure, I’ll recognize my inability to wrestle it under control as a sort of sin. I should have more control. I think that in some cases with me, there is the need to purchase a snake and allow him to clean up the rats but at the same time I don’t think that I would have the fortitude to allow the snake to have free run to devour the rats. Perhaps the best tactic would be to introduce the snake for short periods of time and allow him to clean up... hoping that the rats don’t have the chance to multiply to a level that will overwhelm the snake and his cleaning efforts.

I’ve asked M before if she thought that I was a bit “off” the norm. I have some strange mannerisms and behaviors and when I step back to look at myself and my behavior, I really feel a bit of awkwardness about the way I act.

Why do I say what I say, why do I do what I do...make the goofy sounds and facial expressions, talk with my hands, become passionate and vocal about something that doesn’t warrant that sort of behavior?

M does a wonderful job at reassuring me that everything I do is what makes “me”...”me”. She is of course right but I have that constant tugging feeling inside of me questioning everything about me...that tugging must be the snake and the rat.

Bell does a wonderful job of showing that that sin exists within each of us, and that sin is what makes us human, coupled with Updike’s constant exploration to expose and address sensitive points of what makes us human makes this a welcome addition to the anthology.

The Final Proof of Fate and Circumstance – Lee K. Abbott

Lee K. Abbott - October 17, 1947

Secrets.

I thought, as recently as a few months ago, that my father would sit me down – over a single-malt or two, and lay out a huge secret story from his past. I thought that it would be something about my parent’s marriage (why they did it), my birth (why they had me) or possibly he would unload all of his baggage and confess to all the affairs that I always suspected he had during he and my mother’s marriage.

Now that his memory is fading, I doubt this will ever happen. I’ve been able to probe his long term memory, about his college years, and he has been quite able to remember those days – versus what happened about 2 hours ago.

We all have our secrets, but this story and the story within the story, told to a son by a father, triggered a strange line of similarity to what I have always thought my happen one day between my father and I.

Son and fathers have a unique bond but unfortunately it’s a bond that I think he and I don’t have.

I was happy to read this story and thought it to be a strong opening to the volume. If the stories continue in this manner, Updike will not disappoint with his selections. Then again, it really won’t take much to be better than the last volume.