restingmotion

Poetry, Drama, And Yes, One Novel: March Books

Still playing catch-up.  These are the books I read in March:

 

14.     Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice In Her Head, Warsan Shire (poetry)

15.     How I Won A Nobel Prize, Julius Taranto (novel)

16.    The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women, Elizabeth Norton (non-fiction)

17.     How to Know a Person, David Brooks.  (non-fiction)

18.     Anon(ymous): A Drama, Naomi Iizuka  (drama)

19.    Julia Hungry, Hannah Louise Poston (poetry)

 

Look how nicely balanced and aligned my reading was in March!  I don't believe I noticed this until I typed the list out, just now.  The list aligns as if it were a survey of the various types of books I read, which is interesting.  The list is also interesting because, about half of these books I read fairly quickly.  The  shortest books were the books I spent the most time with, namely the two volumes of poetry.  The two non-fiction books,  at the center of the month, were the quickest reads.  I shall start there.

 

Both The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women and How to Know A Person were entertaining, easy to read and informative books. Neither book requires an investment of more than a couple (perhaps a few) hours.

 

I would certainly recommend Norton's book, The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women,  to anyone who doesn't know much about Tudor England, but would like to learn more,  and who is interested in the lives of women.  Norton provides a well-researched survey of what is known about the lives of women, both of the upper and lower classes.  She can be commended for spending time on the lives of the elderly, of servants, and of women who do not often show up in history books.  However, much as I found this a refreshing survey,  I found nothing new here, nothing that I had not already learned from other histories of the Tudor period.  But then, I have long been fascinated by Tudor England, by its history, its politics, its religious struggles, and its literature.      

 

How to Know A Person, David Brooks' latest book is another easy, and sometimes entertaining, at other times maddening, foray into pop sociology.  Brooks is popular and influential; reading his books, is like placing a finger on a pulse of one part of the social landscape.  But I always find them lightweight, as if the author is willing to run right up to an insight, meeting it face to face on the surface, and then pull back, refusing to delve into anything that might be uncomfortable.  The author's trademark technique of combing research and personal narrative is intended to come across as charming, perhaps even engaging, but I almost always end up finishing the book feeling as if there is no "there" there.  Brooks begins by laying out what is necessary to actually get to know others deeply, and initially the book appears laudable.  He tells of his own struggles in terms of being more open; then he falls back into pattern, breaking people up into narrowly defined categories.  The not-so hidden message is that we know what we are supposed to do, but we are flawed. This is a feel-good book, acknowledging what we know, acknowledging that we struggle, but rather than helping us become more open, it gives us permission to fail.  And maybe that is why we (myself included) read David Brooks, he is a milquetoast for the 21st century.  David Brooks appears to have made a career of being reasonable, of reminding us of things we should know, should do, but not pushing too hard or too far.  Brooks has filled a niche as a spokesperson for an age, a group, a society, that knows it is supposed to believe something, it just hasn't quite figured out what that might be.

 

Moving out from the center, I read a novel, How I Won A Nobel Prize, by Julius Taranto.    This is an intelligent and ambitious satiric novel which revolves around campus cancel culture and the wider issues that arise in the midst of rapidly changing social mores.  On a spectrum from commercial to literary fiction, I would place it on the literary side of  commercial, blending aspects of the two, perhaps "upmarket", in that there is a lot of metaphor, a lot of insider, east-coast-elite-education references, and yet there is a very definite clearly satisfying and unambiguous ending.  The novel is very metaphor heavy, often deft in its exploration of the failings of both right-wing and left-wing ideologies in terms of cultural accountability and morality.  I often found it laugh out loud funny.  Well written, and very much of the moment.

 

Anon(ymous) is a play written by Naomi Iizuka. I read the play because it was being performed at the local Clarence Brown Theater.  I have found that I enjoy reading a play before seeing the performance, and sometimes, as I did here, I read the play again after attending the performance.  Reading plays is not like reading novels.  Plays are stories, and you need to read it as if it is telling a story, but unlike a novel, it is incomplete.  The reader must imagine it being acted out, imagine it materializing before their eyes.  Of course seeing a play solves this problem, and this is probably why many people find it easier to see a play than to read it.  I studied a lot of early English Drama in school, plays that are not really performed much today, more's the pity.  I like reading plays and this play was no exception. Anon(ymous) is a powerful play about refugees, about journey, and finding home, based on the Odyssey.  Like Odysseus, Anon left home many years before, his journey is beset by trials and tempests, and eventually he is reunited with family, overcomes suitors that would keep him from family, and triumphs.  The play is filled with characters and situations that directly echo the Odyssey and yet this is a journey for the 21st century.  I distinctly remember thinking that if young people read the Odyssey today in the way this play presents it would hit home so deeply.  It also made me think that perhaps I never considered how the Odyssey itself affected audiences in its own time.  Much to ponder there.  This is a poetic, powerful, and profoundly disturbing play, that really brings home the plight of refugees, but also our own complicity in that plight.   The production was also powerfully realized. I absolutely loved both.  The play reminds me, in terms of its power, and the way it has permanently affected my thinking, of the play Necessary Targets by Eve Ensler, and the novel Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid.  Different, its own story, but one we all need to see and hear.  It also has me wondering about rereading the Odyssey.  What would my 66-year old self see that my 20-year old self did not?

 

I opened and closed the month with volumes of poetry.  Two slim volumes, both by women, both volumes I have carried around in my purse for much of the month.   Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice In Her Head by Warsan Shire is a volume of powerful poems about womanhood, trauma, migration, resilience - poems that are striking, inspirational, that worm their way deeply into the conscience.  I love the way the idea of "blessing" runs through the book, no so much as something bestowed upon, or condoned, by God, but as a process of memory and meditation, to bless something, to take it into your heart so that it shapes who you become, alive in the multiplicity that is the world.  

 

The other volume of poetry Julia Hungry by Hannah Louise Poston is still traveling about in my purse, available to peruse whenever I am stuck waiting in line some place or another.   This slim volume is filled with incredible poetry, rhythmically, almost musically complex, moving, sometimes absurd, sometimes funny, sometimes sad or hopeful.   It has been a long time since a new volume of poetry has struck me so profoundly.   Highly recommended and worth seeking out.

Many pictures. Few Words

I continue to feel over-tired, and over-scheduled.  My ability to function is somewhat on the fritz this morning, so let's just settle for some pretty pictures.  

Flowers are blooming.  I love the apricot iris, which was an end-of-season bargain-bin find.  It has thrived in this spot and makes me happy every spring. 

 

Garden clean-up and planting has been continuing.    It feels like a weight is being lifted.  Another section of the wattle fence is down.  Several uprights were damaged in windstorms but it has been five years, so I would be due for retagging regardless.  I am in the queue for repair.    I love the creeping Jenny, which was a self starter (the field of yellow-green seen through the slats of the fence) although I do have to continually cut it off the paving stones.

 

In fact everything is looking yellow in the evening light. I'm not doing the had work, the digging and planting, but even once the wilds are tamed, I still need to keep the weeds at bay

 

These flag iris were planted several years ago.

 

The cranesbill geraniums make me smile all summer long, but in the spring, with the Caesar's brother iris, they are particularly nice.   

 

An ongoing challenge, but the rewards are great.

 

Books: Looking Back to February

You hammered the iron that lay on your anvil instead of dreaming about working silver.

 

Continuing from where I left off with my January book post, these are the books I read in February

6.  A Single Swallow, Ling Zhang.

7. Erasure, Percival Everett

8. The Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan

9. The Giver, A Play, by Eric Cobie

10. Order of Good Cheer,  Bill Gaston.

11.  The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender.

12. The Right Sort of Man, Allison Montclair.

13. The Giver, Lois Lowry.

 

I have not read a great deal of Chinese Literature, but I have read enough literature in translation to recognize that much of my struggle is related to cultural differences in literary style.  I initially picked up Ling Zhang's A Single Swallow last fall, became bogged down, and put it aside.  Although this attempt was more fruitful, and my headspace was more clear, I continued to struggle until I was well into the novel.  Reading this novel after reading The Vaster Wilds was probably not the best choice, timing-wise, as I found that novel much richer and far more compelling.  But this was good.  

 

The story basically takes place in two villages in China during the Japanese occupation at the end of World War II.  It is told from the perspective of three men, ghosts really, three men who have agreed to meet again at a certain place, a place where they made a pact, upon their deaths.  As each man arrives, they begin to share their stories.  The stories told here are of the war, and at the center of that, of a particular girl/woman, Ah Yan, also known as Swallow.   The novel is told from the perspective of these three men, two American, one Chinese, but aside from the brutality of the war, the story is also the story of Ah Yan.  We never learn her story directly from her, only from the men's view.  They each believe they love her.  They each see her differently, and none of them really ever bothers to get to know her for who she truly is.  That is both frustrating and also far too realistic.   After all, how many of us truly see others as they are, apart from our own expectations and desires of who we wish them to be. The astute reader does, in fact, get a very complex and well drawn portrait of Ah Yan however, although it takes some patience with the rather clunky conceit and a willingness to piece together the rather scattered pieces of the puzzle.  It was a good novel, not an easy novel, but also a novel I will not forget anytime soon.

 

I had wanted to read more by Percival Everett since I read The Trees in 2022.  A friend wanted to see the movie, American Fiction, and I admittedly wanted to see it as well, but I wanted to read the novel first.  And so I read Erasure. I'm glad I did.  I loved the novel.   It is hilariously funny and also painfully sad.  Erasure is an incredibly intelligent novel, filled with literary and cultural ephemera, angry and yet also tender.  It feels like the author had too many ideas to corral, and yet despite this, the novel works.  I also liked the movie, which is obviously based on the novel, and yet different, as it would have to be.   I read a review somewhere stating that the protagonist, Thelonius "Monk" Ellison was far more likable in the movie than in the novel, whereas I found the opposite to be true.  From my perspective the Monk of the book is compelling, complex, interesting, understandable, and yes likable, even when he wasn't very likable at all.  Whereas the movie Monk was a too-bright, and yet clueless, man-child.  A more popular trope I suspect.  The movie was brilliant, but I also loved the novel.  I was drawn to its depth and its wit.  I loved it even when if floundered around in too-muchness.  I loved it even as it made me squirm.  It kept bringing the more recent novel by Sheena Patel, I'm a Fan, to mind, a novel I read last summer and which also addresses the issues facing writers who are also people of color.  I need to be reminded that liberal pretentious are all too often just as damning as more conservative tropes.  When these reminders are also wrapped in a brilliant story, the piercing is softer, but the arrow head drives deeper.  I will be reading Erasure again.

 

Then I moved back into the ongoing Robert Jordan Wheel of Time saga with The Path of Daggers, volume 8 in the series.  It is not the kind of book, or series for that matter, where I dive deeply into the prose, where I am drawn to underlining and copying-out, yet the quote at the top of this post is from this novel:  astute, to the point, apt for much of life.  I do think the writing and the story as a whole grows stronger with each subsequent volume, at least in terms of the themes and complexities of the characters and the world that is portrayed as a whole.  At the same time I was experiencing a bit of series fatigue as I read this volume, so it was perhaps not my favorite.  In many ways I can see why other readers rate this as one of the least interesting of the volumes and although Jordan is a good writer, this novel somehow slightly misses the mark.  It feels transitional, and I think very small shifts, such emphasizing Rand's story more, then setting up the other stories as rippling stories around this story, may have made the novel feel more compelling. Not that I could write a novel, or have taught Robert Jordan anything.   What is good about this novel is that it plays into the idea that the big battle, "the quest",  is only one part of the story, and equally important but often less noted, is the way the process of the quest and the changes in the world affect the growth and development of the characters themselves, some of whom evolve and grow, and some of whom settle more firmly into their hardened shells. I also struggle with Jordan's portrayal of gender dynamics, and I am not alone in this.  There are powerful women in this world, but Jordan's portrayal of this world seems to revolve around a wall between men and women, each blaming the other for everything wrong with the world.   I am however wondering if this is, at least partly, a device used to show the brokenness of this world. If so, it remains clunky.    Given the high level of sophisticated foreshadowing that occurs in these novels, this may be something that reveals itself over time.  Either that, or it is just a weakness in the narrative.  This is not the novel who seek adventure and grand contretemps and yet it is an essential part of the development of the whole.  Anyway, I will be back to the series, but this volume did prompt a short break.

 

After a series of novels, I needed something short, and so I picked up The Giver: A Play by Eric Coble, based on the novel or the same name by Lois Lowry (which you will notice I also read later in the month).  I read The Giver shortly after it first came out in the mid 1990s, and it has since become something of a classic, frequently showing up in middle school, and perhaps some high school curriculums ever since.  I know quite a few younger adults who read the book in school, and some young people as well, which leads me to think it is still relevant.  Well, the subject matter is relevant, but it is nice to know the book is also read.    I think the book remains important because of its clear delineation of the very fine line between a utopia and a dystopia, and a constant reminder of the dangers that arise even when even good people with good intentions try to control behavior to force a given outcome.   

 

But back to the play, and the book.  I was initially less impressed with the play than I remember being with the novel.  It got the point across, but I thought it was somewhat simplistic.  Nonetheless I looked forward to the production of the play at the local Clarence Brown Theater.  I am not reviewing that here, but I found it slightly problematic, although quite a few of my younger friends, more recently acquainted with the book, loved it.  I decided to reread the book, which I did.  It is well-written and fairly predictable, but I still think it is a good book for its intended audience, which I am assuming is 12-13 year olds, give or take.  Big philosophical questions are introduced in this story about a profoundly dystopian society that believes itself to be a humane and utopian one, questions that could open up profound discussions about philosophy, human rights, and what it even means to protect children from pain, or the nature of pain, life, and love itself.  The book provides an approachable setting to introduce ideas that have plagued philosophers for centuries, and with which we still struggle.  (In this, and the entire subject of utopia/dystopia, see also Jordan, ongoing).  In this case, as reading matter, I prefer the book to the play.  But that is really not at all surprising if you've been following my thoughts on reading.

 

Bill Gaston's novel The Order of Good Cheer has been patiently waiting on my bookshelf for some years before I finally picked it up, thinking it would be a good travel book.  And so it was.  The novel alternates between two parallel stories.  One is the eighteenth century story of a winter Samuel de Champlain spent in Nova Scotia battling sickness and scurvy; the second tale is the modern tale of Andy in Prince Rupert, fretting over the return of his lost love.  The prose was beautiful; there are a multitude of contrasts and similarities between the two stories, waiting for the discerning reader, but the author subtly weaves them all together without belaboring the point.  I was particularly taken with Andy's story, the young man who lives far too much in his head, but then I would be, wouldn't I?  An excellent novel, but for me, ephemeral.

 

I found reading Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake to be an emotional roller coaster.  The first section of the book was incredibly sad and difficult, not difficult on an intellectual level, but emotionally.  I did not expect it.  The blurb perhaps made this story seem lighter than I found it.  The book is classified as magical realism, and although I can see that interpretation, I think it is too limiting an idea.  The magical realism provides a metaphoric framework for exploring emotion, empathy, and connection. In this sense, the novel is quite brilliant.  Admittedly my understanding may say more about me than it says about the book.   I see this novel as a deeply felt exploration of love and loneliness, of what it means to be human, about connection, and empathy, and how empathy alone can be just as isolating as the lack of it, about our ability to see and be seen, and our ability to hide from what we fear. 

 

The novel is the story of Rose Edelstein and her family. The story begins as Rose is approaching her 9th birthday. She is beginning to become aware of the emotional contexts of the world around her, as opposed to as reflections of herself.  She is beginning to empathize and process emotions.  The conceit of the book is that she accomplishes this through food, that the emotions of the people preparing the food become evident to Rose as she tastes the fruits of their labors.  This is very interesting because the device maintains a separation between Rose's inner life, herself, and her experience of the outside world.    This proves very difficult for Rose. She is experiencing and attempting to process emotion she cannot handle or fully understand.  She has no one to help her.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that although she is loved, she is also emotionally neglected.   She is an emotionally oriented child in a family that is not that is landlocked emotionally, a family that do not only not express their own emotions outwardly, but who suppress these same emotions within themselves.  She is constantly told she is too clingy --  read sensitive, emotional needy.  My heart constantly went out to the young Rose, but I can also admit that where I saw neglect, others did not. So perhaps this is open to interpretation.  Or perhaps this is exactly the point, including the various interpretations we,  the readers, take regarding Rose and her family.

 

Rose is also the younger child in a family who already has an older extra-needs child (on the spectrum?), a boy who is a scientific genius but completely emotionally disconnected, and who shuns and avoids personal contact on most levels.  The father is accomplished, caring, but closed off.  It is eventually revealed that he has shut off some part of himself due to fear.  The mom is something else altogether.  She reminds me of Penny Blair, the mother in Ann Packer's novel The Children's Crusade, although this book was written before Packer's novel, and this book is more deeply literary, more deeply philosophical, and in many ways unbearably sad.   Both mothers are women who are yearning to be filled up, as if they are looking for something outside themselves to validate their existence.   Lane, the mother in this novel,  scares people off with her neediness, her intensity.  Lane's deep and almost desperate hold on her son, her sense that he offers an answer to her own longing, is particularly poignant, given that it shows both a deep connection while at the same time draining her son of energy to be present, and perhaps fueling his need to disappear. 

 

Rose upset me because of the way she felt disconnected from her family.  She was feeling these emotions she had no way to process, and no emotional guidance.  She had no role models either for healthy family relationships or for friendship.  Much of the novel, from Rose's perspective  at least, is brilliant, told from a deep inner hollowness, the voice of a person who has intentionally hollowed herself out to avoid pain, only to find that this process only creates a shell of a life.  Rose wants connection, wants love, yet she is forced to empty herself because the emotion she possess no foundation in how to process the emotions she takes in.  She does not really begin to discover connection until she is into adulthood.  In the end, Rose does learn to reach out, and I ended up feeling hopeful for her, although the novel is ambiguous at best.  It is also remarkably compelling, not so much like Packer's novel as mentioned above, which is much more accessible in many ways, but  more  reminiscent of the way Harukami Murakami's novel, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, is also confusing and compelling, constantly pulling the reader forward, seeking resolution.  Like Murakami also, both novels are fabulously written, although otherwise nothing alike.  Highly recommended for those who want to be challenged and engaged, even if that means being somewhat uncomfortable.  

 

The last novel is The Right Sort of Man by Allison Montclair.  It is a very British cozy mystery set in post-war London, featuring two women who set up a matchmaking service and end up solving a mystery when one of their clients is murdered.  It was a perfectly refreshing bit of fluff and I look forward to exploring this series further.

 

And so ends February.  More to come.

Another Catch-Up Post

Still April.  

 

And another blog post.  I should celebrate successes as they materialize.  I am working on a book post, but it is coming slowly.  This is primarily because I am still struggling with being over-tired, with doing too much, and learning to accept that normal, even at the still-tender age of almost 66 is not what normal was even a few years ago.

 

That said, even though I feel overwhelmed, and like I have been frittering my time away, this is not exactly true.

 

There has been sewing, mostly simple.

 

Two cross covers, one in lenten purple, one in holy week red, for my church.  These were additions to the set of each made last year, to accommodate a new processional cross. 

 

And one simple garment for me, this a chiffon cardigan to wear to an event.  The dress was already in my closet.  The cardigan is red silk chiffon and is a fairly simple garment to make.  I did use a pattern for this, Marfy 3303 which is one of the "free" patterns included with the purchase of the Marfy 2014/2015 annual catalog.  The pattern picture is shown below:

There are two pattern pieces, two front pieces and two back pieces which are seamed at the center.  You would think they are rectangles, but they are not, part of the genius of the pattern.  Tucks are made at each shoulder, and there is a side seam, but it is in the interior of the cardigan, allowing the edges to float and flutter freely, as if the cardigan were simply a shawl.  The clever cutting and seaming allows this to fit and flow on the body nicely, and also to stay in place when one is dancing.  Always an advantage in my book.

 

I also made six baptismal towels, four in March, for Easter Sunday. 

And two more two weeks later.    Each towel is made by hand from ecclesiastical weight linen, with hand embroidery and hand hemmed.  The entire process takes me somewhere between 8 to 13 hours, the variation depending mostly on the baby's name.  the  shortest of these took me 8 1/2 hours, and the longest slightly over 12, or somewhat over 70 hours total for the six towels, but less than 80 hours.  I love doing this, and I am sure I could find a faster way, but at the moment this is still a labor of love.

 

 

There has been some knitting progress, but nothing has been completed.  I am still working on the ribbon cardigan.  As much as I love both knitting and ironing, I find that this project tests my patience.  I may like to iron but ironing yards upon yards of rayon ribbon flat is tedious at best.  I have just finished ironing the third 100-yard skein of ribbon.  I need to wind it on a spindle, after which I can knit another section of the sweater.  The knitting itself is also slow, fun, but slow.  There have been evenings in the past month where one row of the twisted basketweave stitch is all I can accomplish of an evening.  Of course, the body of this cardigan is being knit in one piece, so the rows are not short.  Sometimes self-justification is all that keeps us going.  I know that I will love this cardigan.  I love the fabric that I am creating.  But it will be a long time before I take on another ribbon sweater.  I will be happy if I have finished this by fall, which is, realistically, as soon as I would wear this sweater anyway.

 

 

Greater progress has been made with "Murder of Crows".  I finished the body of the sweater and have picked up the first sleeve.  This too will be a fall sweater, although there are still early mornings in the garden which would be cool enough to wear this sweater, were it finished.    I really like the way this sweater is turning out and knitting it has reminded me that, as much as I love complicated texture and color work, patterns that require thought, it is also very good to have a simple mindless project on the needles. Pardon the dark photo -- an unblocked sweater on a dark background,  taken on a deeply cloudy day.

 

 

 

April! Already almost half gone....

Hello.  Welcome to my monthly blog post and a brand new peony.

 

This is the first bloom of a new self-starting peony which appeared in my yard a couple of years ago, slowly growing every spring, disappearing in the heat of late summer, and slowly growing.  I have a couple of peonies in places  where I never intended them, but they seem so happy in their chosen abodes that I have been loathe to move them.

 

I think there is a lesson in that.

 

Just as I think there is a lesson in the way this spring has worked out for me, my general sense of overwhelm, my ongoing tiredness, and ongoing struggles in terms of decisions about who it is I want to be in this moment of my life.  I know that sounds strange for a woman who is 65 going on 66, but it seems to me that life is not so much a smooth line but a series of  chasms and summits, opportunities for growth or for stasis.  I've always been a person who embraces change and yet who also struggles with that very change.  The struggle part is not unusual.  I, like most of the people I know, embrace comfort, embrace familiarity.  And yet I think that change is equally a part of what it means to be human.  I am changing.  And as I change I become more the person I have always been.

 

I can't write about what that means yet.  I'm too much in the middle of the process.

I can only leave you with another flower.  The first of the irises.  More will follow.  

 

I too will return.

 

 

 

Hello Spring

I did say I would return in March although my intention had always been for early March.  Missed that internal deadline, didn't I?

It is no matter, somehow things always play out the best way they can.  Or at least that is the view I choose to take on the matter.  It is lent after all, and it always seems to me that lent ends up being a period of upheaval and resolution.  Sometimes metaphysical, sometimes physical, sometimes, surely, all in my head.  

 

Lent is, in many ways much like spring.  Spare and bare still, but with pops of color, pops of hope.  Uncertainty abounds: cold nights, warm days, rain, sunshine, sudden frosts, and yet resurrection surrounds us.

 

And yet it is all a part of the plan, the normal cycle of things.  It shouldn't surprise us, and yet it always does.

I was in Texas and Arizona.  Lovely visits, both with family.

 

I returned to a series of unfortunate glitches:  some kind of mild allergic reaction thingy on my face, a rheumatoid fare, an encounter with gluten that lead to a celiac flare, more struggles with atrial flutter.  All basically minor.  All annoying nonetheless.  

Like the garden, we muddle through, marshal our resources, cliché-filled, marching ever onward.  The camellia is sending out a few precious blooms.  It wasn't the January snow that did it in, but the single digit temps so close to its normal bloom time did set it back.  What blooms appear are late, a little war-torn, but valiant harbingers of hope.

 

The vegetable garden continues.  A few hot days, have prompted the bok choy to bolt, but the flowers are also delicious.  Cabbage, broccoli, bitter Italian greens continue onward.  I will never keep up with them all.  Broccoli is heading.

 

I planted fava beans and they were coming up nicely, little green leaves peaking above the soil.  The same for peas.  And like that, they were gone.  Someone ate them all last night.  The great legume massacre of 2024. Perhaps there is time to sow another crop.  Perhaps best to let it be. Another sign.  But there will just be room for other vegetables.

The first of my "late" daffodils are up.  Actually a little early.  But its the only one so far, although there are lots of buds.  There is always someone who leaps out from the crowd.

 

Anyway, welcome spring.  It is a good spring, a good start.  Always too much too do.  As always it doesn't all get done.  And who says it should anyway?

Blog Break and Project Updates

This will be my last post for February, which has been a quiet month anyway, at least in terms of finishing things. 

 

I don't need to finish objects, there are more than enough things in my life as it is.  Nonetheless there are quite a few piles here and there, and various ideas floating about that may or may not be beginning to shape themselves into tangible form. The creative fog is itself refreshing, and not limited to any particular medium at this point. I am dreaming of gardens and food, embroidery, sewing, knitting, color, texture form.  It will all sort itself out in its own time. 

  

I have managed to finish one thing, a simple scarf sewn up from a navy/blue/black sweater knit.  This piece had been languishing in a stack for a long while.  I had a sweater made from this fabric when I still lived in Hyde Park, but it has long since been worn to threads.  I don't remember my original intentions for the remaining piece, but lately I keep looking at it, thinking "That will make a nice scarf someday" and then putting it aside.  Well someday arrived.  I honestly don't know why I had been putting this off, perhaps thinking I might have a more interesting idea.  But interesting is sometimes overrated. And a scarf in hand is always good.   

 

On the knitting front I've gone from working on one project (Ausma) to having three projects on the needles.  

One is a rayon ribbon cardigan, that I love but which is proving to be a slow project.    I had started this once before but had trouble keeping the yarn from twisting.  I felt like I was spending more time untwisting the yarn than I was knitting.    I ripped and began again after pressing all the twisted ribbon I had already knitted back into smooth silky shape.

I figured out that a ball, even a carefully hand wound ball, didn't work for me.  Somehow, while knitting, I would twist the yarn even more.  I came up with the idea of winding the yarn on a spindle of sort, using an embroidery frame as the spindle.  This is tedious and time consuming, and each skein must be wound on the spindle painstakingly.  That means the interruptions between knitting each skein becomes tedious. More tedious in fact, because the skeins themselves are twisted and tangled. Each new skein has to be slowly unwound, ironed,  and slowly wrapped onto the spindle.  

 

I do not believe the tangling is the manufacturer's fault.  This yarn has been packed and unpacked multiple times, and treated non-too-kindly I fear.  I take full responsibility even as I mutter under my breath while standing (not) patiently at the ironing table. Although I love the actual knitting, and the pattern is both simple and entertaining, the pressing and winding is far less exciting.  It will be some time before this sweater is done, and most of that time will not be knitting time.

The ribbon project is not portable, so I needed something I could tote around with me.  Enter socks.  I'm not far along yet, but far enough that the sock is stable enough for traveling about.  The yarn is a self striping yarn from Urth Yarns called Uneek Sock and I am knitting them on size 1 needles.  The skein pictured is enough for one sock.

Feeling in need of more mindless knitting time to balance both the annoyances of ribbon flattening, and the fog of creative dreaming, I also started another fairly straightforward project, an assigned-pooling sweater using BFL fingering yarn from Barker Wool.  The pattern is from Barker Wool as well and is called A Murder of Crows.  I've just started this as well, so I don't have much to report.  I am having fun with it so far.  I really need a loose comfy sweater to just throw on all the time around the house and studio and I am hoping this will be the one.  

 

Anyway, I hope the remainder of February is kind, and I will see you in March.

Playing with my food

Somehow I think I didn't cook as much in January as December.  Perhaps my memory is faulty; in retrospect I cooked a lot in early January and then I went through a lull.

 

Let's take a look back and see. 

 

I think January started off pretty strongly.  I had a large bag full of fennel fronds after making fennel gratins for Christmas.    I also had a new cookbook, Tenderheart, by Hetty Liu McKinnon.  I noticed that she made a pesto from fennel fronds, and she did it a little differently than my standard pesto recipe in that she used pepitas (pumpkin seeds) instead of pignoli (pine nuts).  I had some pumpkin seeds languishing away and decided to use them up.  At first I wasn't convinced, but the pesto improved with age.  I still think I prefer pine nuts.

 

 

I also thought McKinnon's proportion of garlic to fennel frond was a little high, but that could have also been a factor of my garlic and my fennel.  At first the pesto tasted strongly of garlic and made my eyes water.  But I left it to rest a few hours, which allowed the allicin in the garlic to mellow, and the balance of flavors improved immensely.    I've grown fond of the numerous variation on pesto that I've tried over hte year and tend to keep on hand now.  Some, like this one, appeal to my frugal self -- "look I'm not tossing the fennel greens" -- but they offer wonderful flavor profiles and easy techniques for sprucing up a plate of vegetables or a simple piece of chicken or fish.  I use them more than true basil pesto right now, but that could just be because my basil crop didn't do all that well last summer. 

 

 

That first evening I used the fennel frond pesto with pasta and seared sea scallops.  I may have added slightly too much parmesan, fearing the the pesto was still excessively garlicky, so the color suffered.  Dinner was delicious anyway.

 

 

The next morning I dabbed fennel pesto on my scrambled eggs with some grated radishes and a scattering of pickled red onions.  This was a revelation in flavors, everything harmonizing and playing off each other nicely.  I've continued eating this combination since, it makes my mornings feel like spring even though we are in the depths of winter, 

 

 

The big hit from Tenderheart was McKinnon's recipe for Garlicky Chili Oil.  I've been slathering it on everything and am finishing up my second batch.  Perhaps I've been a little excessive, but it is that good.  She also has a recipe for Chili Crisp that sounds fabulous, but haven't made it yet, mostly because I am so besotted with all the components of this oil.

 

 

I also made McKinnon's version of celery soup.  Here served with a drizzle of chili oil.  I had recently grown bored of my previous celery soup recipe and this was a welcome change, even when using pale, anemic, winter celery from the grocery store.  I think I still need to play with this recipe, or explore recipes a bit more.  Celery soup is a good basic as celery itself is something I find I need only in small quantities, and then I am trying to use up the rest of a bunch before it goes bad, although celery does make a nice stir-fry, one I loved as a child.  I wonder if my mother stir-fried celery as a way of just using it up before it went bad as well?

 

 

Still on a Tenderheart kick, I used McKinnon's recipe for hoisin sauce and a hoisin-glazed roasted cauliflower.  Roasted cauliflower is something I do regularly in season, and I've been making my own hoisin for years, since I first learned I had celiac disease, when the only gluten-free hoisin I could find tasted nothing like the stuff I had been buying previously in my local Asian market.  I still make hoisin,  but felt my version was rather one-note and basic.   I wanted to try a new recipe and I really liked the one I found in this book.  This may well become my new base for hoisin, although I will probably tweak it a bit here and there. 

 

 

During the big snow I was craving "brown food", slow-cooked, braised, warming dishes.  I made myself a pot of chili and a big batch of chicken paprikas, which has been one of my favorite comfort foods since childhood.  I also made Nigella Lawson's Oxtail Bourguinon, from Cook, Eat, Repeat.    This made a large batch as I had 4 pounds of oxtail in the freezer. All that cooking meant that warm and comforting meals went into the freezer and I just finished off the supply this week.  Perhaps that is why I have not been cooking as much recently. Anyway, that is the oxtail pictured above, with lots of carrots and mushrooms.  It was very good, but not perhaps my favorite oxtail stew.  I'm not 100% on that, as it has been a few years since I routinely made oxtail stew or soup.  Something else that may need to change.

 

I also harvested an armful of bok choy before the snow, not being sure how it would weather the single digit temps.  Luckily we had enough snow that it stayed under its snow blanket the entire time and survived just fine.  I am still eating winter bok choy and broccoli raab.  One of the new dishes I tried was a recipe for stir-fried bok chow with crispy tofu from Nik Sharma's new book, Veg-Table.  This was supposed to be the January book from my cookbook club, and so far it is the only recipe have tried, although there are several that look tempting.  They just haven't appealed to my winter-dining cravings for stews and long braised meats. 

 

Anyway the bok choy was really simple, stir-fried with onion, garlic and a simple sauce made of soy sauce (wheat free tamari for me) and Chinese black vinegar.  I loved the flavor the black vinegar added and it reminded me I do not use black vinegar enough,   The tofu was  cut in cubes, coated with bread crumbs and sesame seeds, and fried, yielding a crispy crust and a tender middle.  The combined flavors were wonderful, with the textural differences of crisp and soft, and the bright savory flavor of the bok chow also enhancing the very mild tofu.  The tofu would also be good with a dipping sauce, but I found it a little bland on its own.  I think, once again, my seasonal tastes tend toward something more deeply savory; this might well be the kind of light meal I crave once the weather brightens.

 

 

Did we really think I'd stop reading? January Books

As I was dithering, putting off writing this post, I picked up a book to begin my next read.  The Book is The Vulnerables, by Sigrid Nunez, and I found this quote on the first page:

 

Only when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read.  Now I know the truth:  what matters is what you experience while reading, the states of feeling that the story evokes, the questions that rise to your mind, rather than the fictional events described.   (page 3, paragraph 2, line 7)

 

And so, in the beginning of a novel is a statement that completely encapsulates my approach to reading in general, particularly fiction, but I would argue that there is a corollary that relates to non-fiction as well.    Yes we read non-fiction for knowledge, but how we approach a chemistry text for example, should be different than how we approach history.  We are not empty pitchers waiting to be filled up only to disgorge the contents unfiltered.

 

I read five books in January 2024:

1.  Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan.  Fantasy. Book 6 of the Wheel of Time series.
2. The Fourth Turning: An American Prophesy,  William Strauss and Neil Howe.  Reread from the 1990s. American History, Sociology, Generation Theory.
3. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan.  Fantasy, Book 7 of the Wheel of Time series.
4. Generations: The History of America's Future1584-2069, William Strauss and Neil Howe.  Non-fiction. American History, Sociology, Generation Theory.
5. The Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff.  Literary. Themes include patriarchy, female autonomy, climate change, ecological degradation.

 

In my mind they can be broken into two groups:  the first four, then the final one.

I started both Lord of Chaos and The Fourth Turning before the close of 2023.  They were both slow reads. Oddly, or so it seemed at first, they complemented each other.  But it is not really odd.  They both revolve around a cyclical view of time.

 

I picked up The Fourth Turning, which I had read when it first came out in the 1990s, because I read somewhere that Neil Howe had come out with a new book, The Fourth Turning is Now.  I remembered reading the first book, and the general outline of Strauss and Howe's theory, and wondered whether or not I really needed a further explication of the theory as it relates to current events, or, if would be better just to reread the previous book.  I opted to reread before making a decision. Once I started The Fourth Turning, I thought I should read Strauss and Howe's previous book, Generations, and procured a copy.

 

Both books discuss history, specifically American History, although in the second book they have expanded their timeline backwards to the Reformation in Europe.   Their premise, that history is shaped by generations and that these generations fall into a repeating pattern of approximately a four-generation cycle of 80 to 100 years, called a saeculum, is thought provoking and worth reading.  The idea of the spaeculum is not new, it goes at least as far back as classical Greece.  Nor is the idea of differences in generations or the idea that time and history are cyclical in nature new.  These ideas have a much longer hold on human thought than the relatively new idea that history and time are linear.  

 

In general, people do react to the ideals and actions of the generation that came before them, every era has its own events and stories that shape its particular narrative, and much as many an older generation wishes the younger generations were more like themselves, this cannot be so. We all leave our marks on the culture in which we live, and the world in which our grandchildren live is not precisely the world in which we grew up.  This was as true in the past as now, although rapidity of change is much more marked at this point in time.   There are ages of heroism, ages of rebellion, ages of calm and peace.   Unfortunately the way the previous cycles played out grows dimmer the further removed we are from any particular time.   I am not saying that time or history is strictly cyclical, not in any sense of predeterministic, but I am also not saying that history is strictly linear either.  It seems to me we see what we need to see to survive and in this we see only a fragment of what is true.

Strauss and Howe combine a view of history with sociology in describing social movements and the way ideas shape history.  Was this new at the time? I don't know.  I think both books are good, although the latter book trends a little more toward pop sociology than appears to be the case in the first book, Generations, seems more solid to me, even if a little dry.   In both books, the authors sometimes appear to take great pains to adapt the flow of historical events to their four-generation, four-season outline, and sometimes  they leave out events that I might have thought important.  I am not a historian, but my father was, and he drummed the idea of historicity into me from an early age.  I am also aware that the way we look at the past, the way anyone looks at the past, even a historian attempting to be objective, is shaped by his/her understandings of the world in which he or she lives.  There are facts, but we see them darkly.

 

Anyway, reading these books along with the 6th and 7th volumes of The Wheel of Time was fascinating.  In once sense, the entire series, which takes place over the course of just a few short years, very much fits into the patterns of a crisis or "turning" as Strauss and Howe use the term.  Jordan also employs the idea of time as being a wheel, not repeating exactly, but themes and cycles that recur again and again.  He artfully weaves in "legends" that refer to events of our time, although so misconstrued and misremembered that they could be missed if one was not paying attention.

 

In retrospect I think the first few volumes of The Wheel of Time were a sort of prologue, defining the world and its boundaries.  Now, in the middle of the cycle, I find myself fascinated by the world itself, the societies, the individuals, the complexity of this world that also seems all too familiar in its humanity.  Everyone sees the world through different lenses.  Everyone believes they are right.  Everyone, absolutely everyone, is wrong.  We have a group of young adults who are changing the world, but not so much changing it because they want to, but because they see circumstances that others do not, respond in ways others do not.  They too make mistakes.  Everyone, in trying to help, in trying to guide the future, compounds the crisis. 

 

I find this fascinating because I see it play out all around me.  In global events.  In local politics.  In petty feuds and misunderstandings, some of which drive people apart because they can't let go of their own tiny piece of the world.  I am no better.  This is part of what it is to be human, although I still believe we have the option to attempt to reach beyond this, if we can.   This is what fantasy and science fiction do so well, they explore the everyday themes of human life, society, religion, in an abstract way that allows greater depth through distance.

 

I will continue reading The Wheel of Time but I will also probably take a break when I finish my current book.  I feel no need to read Howe's newest iteration of his theory.  Even in The Fourth Turning, I thought the book was making missteps as it tried to apply a general theory to the specifics of what is happening today.  I still find the ideas fascinating and thought provoking.  Reading the books was time well spent.  The same for Jordan.  But that is about the extent of it. I'm not sure any of us can really understand the forces that govern our life while we are in the midst of living it.    

 

And that takes me to my last book, which is a different thing altogether.

The Vaster Wilds, by Lauren Groff is definitely a literary novel.   The setting is roughly 1609-1610, Jamestown, but this is not specifically an historical novel even as it definitely references some of America's founding myths.  The story takes place over the course of a week or two, and revolves around the struggle of a young girl who has run away from the Jamestown settlement, who is pursued, and is sick and dying in the wilderness.  The scope is simultaneously very small and very grand.  The plot is minimal, and yet the story is compelling. I did not want to put it down.  

 

To this reader, the novel explores many of the themes that were explored in Groff's last novel, Matrix: patriarchy, misogyny, loss of female autonomy, capitalism sometimes masquerading as evangelism, climate change, ecological degradation.  Yet where Matrix explored these issues in a very external way, through a fictionalized character  based roughly on Marie de France, in this novel the exploration is very internal, through the musings of a young unnamed girl.  Yet this story is also very internal to the experiences of a woman in any age.  That the girl has no name is important to the story, as is the fact that she is called by many names, none of which feel real even to herself.

 

There are several things I like about the story and the structure of the story.  I like that Groff has intentionally chosen to write in a voice that is not modern, deliberately evoking the period.  And although our narrator is omniscient, and sometimes perhaps anachronistic in that between alternating sequences of dreams vs the reality of her plight, our young narrator explores issues of male sexual violence, discrimination both on the basis of sex and differences in religion/race, as well as the human need for possession and domination.  Groff bridges this gap well, with beautiful prose.  She also manages to make her protagonist not sound like a 21st century girl trapped in a 17th century setting, a problem I find rampantly annoying in many historical fictions.  In fact we don't know all that much about what 17th century women thought about all of these things, but I suspect their thoughts were not that different than ours even though their contexts and expectations would have differed wildly.

 

I was particularly struck by the question of dominion vs domination and the way it plays out through the story. Although the author addresses this question head on in the middle of the book, as one reads, one realizes that the theme has been pervasive throughout the novel in the various relationships between the characters, both men and women, but also adults and children, englishmen (deliberately not capitalized in the novel) and native americans, humans and nature, even to some extent in the struggle between outer life and inner life, or the ego and the soul.    

 

In this sense, I find the ending of the novel fascinating and necessary.  Our dying protagonist experiences a series of fever dreams in the moments before death in which she has survived and lived for some years, self-sufficient and yet lonely, in the wilderness. Through each iteration of her dream she makes a new realization about the meaning of life and what is truly important, another way of looking at dominion vs domination,  not just of the world, but of the way in which we are willing, or not willing, to embrace wisdom and who we truly are.  

 

In this story of a nameless girl I found, in one sense at least, the story of humanity.  Life is filled with nameless people who lived brave, sad, honorable or terrible lives.  We do not know about most of them, but they are no less important to the world we know today just because they as individuals are forgotten.  The same is true for each of us, each of us embodies humanity.  Most of us will not be remembered a few generations from now, much less hundreds of years.  But each of our lives is valuable, each of us is valuable for the choices we make.   I may be reading a lot more into this book than the author intended but I am not sure whether or not that is the point. I continue to maintain that a book opens the opportunity to form a relationship with an idea.  Reading this book opened a conversation. Discussing this book with my book club, refined and shaped that conversation in new ways, as have my meandering thoughts since that date.  Definitely a book I will want to read again.

 

I am going to conclude this post with a quote from near the end of the novel, during the prologue to the period of fever dreams, as much because I love the wording, as because it captures both the sweep of awareness of grace as the acceptance of peace to come. 

 

And in the air, now, she had a single bright flare, a vision that extended her life vastly beyond this moment of her dying, both in the greater sweep and in the smaller grains.

                                                                   page 233, paragraph 5

 

 

Hello Ausma

Let me introduce you to Ausma!

The pattern is Ausma by Inese Sang and is knitted using A Verb For Keeping Warm's yarn, Reliquary II. The yarn is lace weight, 80% merino, 20% silk.  

During 2020 - 2022, and even into 2023, I belonged to several mystery yarn and knitting clubs. I joined in order to support favorite vendors during what was a difficult time.  I wanted to do my little part.  I didn't actually manage to knit everything I received during that period, but I have no regrets.  This was one of the club offerings I received from A Verb for Keeping Warm, and although I adored the pattern, I was initially less  than thrilled with the colors of the yarns.    I did not re-up my membership in the shawl club, but not because I regretted anything about the club.  In fact participation in these clubs has converted me into a knitter of shawls.  I don't think I will ever give them up, even though sweater-knitting remains my first love.  However, I prefer to have more control over what I actually acquire and make.  When I was younger I would make something just to try a technique, to learn something new.  Now I only want to make what I love.  I feel no need to be on trend. I feel no need to be the first.   I want to knit not just for the joy of knitting, but for the joy found in the finished object.

 

Back to Ausma.

This is basically a warm neutral shawl.  But my coloring is basically soft and cool.  Beige has never been my color.  The base color, Santolina is a beige.  It is a fairly neutral beige, but it is not a taupe.  As I knit this I have made a valiant effort at convincing myself that I can wear this shawl with taupe, and you might think so as well from the photo below. 

But you would be mistaken.  In this photo, in low bedroom light, on a black background the shawl looks beautiful with my silver/taupe evening skirt.  And it would probably work in an evening situation.  But, in bright sunlight, in florescent light, or anywhere the lighting is warm or glaring, the difference in the colors becomes markedly incongruous.  The skirt looks more silver/taupe, and the shawl quite yellow in comparison.  It would not flatter the skirt; it would not flatter my skin. I do not have a photo to show you, so you will have to trust me on this.

 

The contrast color, Paloma, is definitely warm.  The Santolina tones it down in the interior puffed rib panels, but the outer border is definitely warm soft pumpkin color.   

Despite this, I have no regrets.  I loved knitting the shawl.  I have already purchased more of the same yarn, Reliquary II,  in shades that will work for me with the intention of knitting another Ausma, one that will see plenty of wear.   I do not regret the purchase.  I do not regret the time spent knitting.    As I have been writing this post however, I have also realized that I feel no need to hold on to Ausma now that she has been finished.  It is time to release her into the world.    She has already been donated to a worthy cause, and hopefully she will make someone very happy.  That thought makes me very happy.