Lena – Mavis Gallant

Mavis Gallant - August 11, 1922 –

I come to a Gallant story, and I can’t say that I’m excited by it contained in the collection. It’s usually the cause of a reading speed bump for me. She doesn’t pull me through to read the story and I often set the anthology aside, dreading reading her. And you know there really isn’t a good reason for this behavior.

I think with Gallant, one has to be in the right frame of mind to accept what she has written.

I have to let my mind settle before I can deal with her.

This is the forth time I have encountered Gallant...and I am pleased with the volume editor for including her. She did her job and was a speed bump – the BASS 1984 has fallen to the side and I haven’t cracked it for some time.

I pushed through Gallant and in the end, was rewarded.

It’s hard to let go of a “love”.

I think that I have over the years developed an attitude where I am able to let go of my attachments.

I recognize the selfish nature of “keeping something”.

There are far more important things in life than ones possessions – or possessing another.

There is no reason why you can’t keep loving someone/something, but to allow them to remain under your control or for you to fail to release them – well, it’s just not worth it.

And, this attitude falls under my daily and hourly struggle for self-discipline – my struggle to fight against that which I cannot control within myself.

I feel pity for myself at times for my inability to let-go.

A Father's Story - Andre Dubus

Andre Dubus - August 11, 1936 - February 24, 1999

Sitting down to write about Dubus is so intimidating because he is so freak’in good.

I mean, really good.

And this story, “A Father’s Story” has to be one of his best.

If you know a bit about Dubus, then you know that he was horribly injured in a car accident back in 1986...three years after he wrote this story...which also contains a horrible car accident.

Reading the story gives you a bit of a creepy feeling.

What lengths would I go to protect a loved one?

My wife?

My sister?

My mother?

My father?

My child?

What demons –of my own mind - would I be willing to face as a result of protecting them?

Would I hesitate and allow that question to enter my mind or would I act and deal with the results?

Because I am about to have a small life enter into my world, I know that I will be faced with the task of developing a whole new set of decision making parameters.

That’s all I really have to say about this story.

The message caused me to pause and take stock of my character and wonder how it will morph over the next several years.

And that is something that beautiful art can do to a person.

Now do it.

Question yourself.

Gent – Rick DeMarinis

Rick DeMarinis May 3, 1934

As DeMarinis told an interviewer on NPR Performance Today in 1988, "what we do to each other [is] often grotesque and often result[s] in life dilemmas that are almost insoluble."

Several stories, in fact, ironically question the legitimacy of "normalcy" itself, asking how abusive or controlling aspects of human behavior can become comfortably "ordinary."

I chose the two quotes above to bring into my lesson for this story because I felt that they most closely aligned with what DeMarinis was attempting to tell me.

I find myself examining the behavior of others quite a bit, and with more frequency, as I attempt to understand my own behavior.

I’ve been thinking a lot my father’s behavior especially now as I am going to have the chance to be a father myself.

I have mentioned before in these lessons that I really have a difficult time understanding why my father would undertake the challenge of being a father and then step back, look at the long view, and decide to abandon it...in the traditional way.

I suppose that the two quotes at the top really highlight his behavior. My father leaving the family was considered “normal”. Divorce had become more accepted and, well, I suppose I shouldn’t lay the whole thing on him, both my mother and father felt that it was the right thing to do at the time.

Over the years though it has become apparent that my mother was never in favor of the divorce.

Which begs another question.

Her actions over the years – or inaction and silence. Was it, or could it have been, as damaging as my father’s actions?

Sure, I’d say so – there has to be a balance to everything.

My inability recently to really articulate my thoughts to others may be due to me being afraid of offending them in some way. I am really holding back in what I say to others in most situations.

Is this a good thing?

Well, it certainly spares their feelings but at the same time, I walk around feeling like an idiot most of the time.

I have learned to measure out my words before I speak them.

I loved this story because there was something disturbing lurking beneath the surface the entire time.

Just like life.

Looking across the tranquil lake of our life, we have forgot that below that ice still surface lies murky waters with creatures ready to alter our lives in ways that...well... DeMarinis warns us of.

We go about our day to day activities – almost numb – but safe, while our mind has developed the ability to filter out – for our own protection – all the incoming information that could potentially harm us...the really disturbing events that occur around us all the time.

We’ve become desensitized...we have lost the sense of the hunter and the prey – being both in one.

So, I have to filter my words going out, and pull down the filter of everything coming in.

Reality – face it, accept it, live it.

The Cure – Mary Ward Brown

Mary Ward Brown - June 18, 1917

Not surprising that Updike decided to include this short in the collection. If a story had to do with the latter portion of one’s life especially the section where we die, it seems as if the story was almost a shoe-in.

I think about death, and I think about my own death which is obvious when one looks back over my posts.

Now in thinking about my death, I also think about ways to avoid a premature death. I really pay close attention to what I eat and I engage in pretty intense physical activities throughout the week – all with the intention of making my life more pleasurable and extending out my life.

Now, with a little boy on the way, I have even more of a reason to keep the old heart a beat’in.

Putting my body through some of the runs I choose to make causes a bit of discomfort from time-to-time. When I first started running I searched every imaginable website for the cures to fix what was hurting me. I eventually learned to take the advice of my own body and allow it to cure itself through time and rest. Our mind and body can do wonderful things and when we are in tune with it and choose to really listen to it, the best prescriptions are written by us.

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.