Fun O'Connor reference

Someone shared this link to Variety Magazine's article about a conversation between Bruce Springsteen and Michael Scorsese.  They have some nice things to say about Flannery O'Connor. We're discussing Mystery and Manners at our November book club. It has been some time since I read it.

Here are some highlights from the article:

In their conversation Sunday night at a private Netflix event honoring “Springsteen on Broadway,” Bruce Springsteen and Martin Scorsese spent close to a third of the 45-minute chat discussing their mutual roots in east coast Catholicism and how they’ve both come to terms with a kind of faith. “I think as you get older, what you grow comfortable with is that faith is faith,” Springsteen said. “It’s about all of the mysteries and the answers that you’re never gonna come up with. And I think trying to build it around these concrete answers is vain and humanistic. But if you let it be, that’s where you find a little bit of peace in it. That’s what I’ve found, anyway.” ....

... 

They bonded over their shared love for Catholic literary great Flannery O’Connor, with Springsteen saying that his 1982 album “Nebraska” “was very influenced by Flannery O’Connor stories, and her stories were always filled with the unknowability of God.” Scorsese seemed surprised that Springsteen had not read her collected letters, and urged Springsteen, “Oh, just a few pages a night, every few nights. … I have a quote here from [a letter]…  She said, ‘You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness. Don’t expect faith to clear things up for you. It’s trust, not certainty.’”

“If you’re an artist,” responded Springsteen, “that darkness is always more interesting than the light. It’s nice when you let the light in at the end of something. But I was always interested in, what were the things that didn’t go right? I had a habit: I would drive back through my hometown, and I would do this over and over and over again. And I used to ask myself, why am I coming back here? And I still do. Seventy years old, I still do it. I don’t know if you’re going back to fix things, but there’s so much there that informed your work and your life that it still remains just a rich location. But I always wanted to base the heart of my work in the dark side of things and then find my way. Then you had to earn the light.”

(I looked up the Nebraska reference - He lifts a line from O'Connor's story "A Good Man is Hard to Find" in the song, which is about a mass murderer. You can read "A Good Man' here: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~drbr/goodman.html)  

Interesting that they call out "east coast Catholicism." It would be intriguing to see a study illuminating the differences, which I intuit but don't have time to tease out right now. We have had a busy few weeks. I've been grading papers (Oh but I am an easy grader!), trying to write a paper for a presentation (Oh, but I can't get this thing written!), and reviewing my daughter's college application essays (Oh, I would like to be done with this - what I realize after working with my fourth child in this predicament is that they don't really know how to articulate why they want to go to college nor what they want out of a college education, They don't give it any thought until this point in their lives. This is perhaps primarily a failure on my part and largely a fault of their school that doesn't encourage this kind of thinking, but also a maturity issue. We should be talking about the meaning and purpose of education all along - and I know I've said a thing or two to try to motivate them to do their homework or appreciate their teachers - or deal with mediocre teachers - but it doesn't really stick until they are actually in the process of trying to discern "what next?" So it is a painful process of having to think hard for a few days. 

https://variety.com/2019/music/news/bruce-springsteen-martin-scorsese-talk-netflix-1203206046/

B list fiction

A couple weeks ago I finished Sigrid Undset's Madame Dorthea, published in 1939. I found an old copy at the library while looking for a different book, not out of any intentional desire to read it, although I'm glad I stumbled upon it, even though it one of Undset's lesser known works. I almost turned it in unread, because I had picked up half a dozen other books to read that I didn't finish or skimmed as background reading for my class.  However, once I started it, I was drawn into the Nordic world Undset creates so vividly. It was a welcome escape from sunny, affluent Southern California to the chilly, hardworking, peasant life in Norway - I wasn't sure of the time period - perhaps during the late 18th or 19th century?

Madame Dorthea is the mother of a large family - seven children ranging in age from young teens to infants. The book begins with the mother fearing for the life of her sons who are lost in a snowstorm with their tutor. It turns out that they simply got drunk and lost and eventually found the way to her mother's house a day's journey by sleigh away. But before word of the boys' safety reaches home, their father sets out to find them and is lost himself, despite being a hardy, knowledgeable man.

For weeks, even months, the family hopes the father will return. His loss is particularly tragic to Dorthea because she had had a happy marriage with him after a cold, barren first marriage to a cleric many years her senior. When her first husband dies, Dorthea is able to marry Jorgen, with whom she has created a happy life. He is a manager of a glassworks, so they are well off, without being wealthy, but rich in family blessings.

Eventually, the glassworks must appoint a successor for Jorgen, and the family must begin to recreate their family dynamic. The two oldest boys aren't quite old enough to go off on their own, but a variety of friends help them out, one being a captain in the army who has been exiled because he is having an affair with his housekeeper. At the same time he woos Madame Dorthea. She is flattered by his advances, but unattracted by his failings, telling of a weak will.  Her own will is like iron. She helps nurse his mistress when she falls feverish because of a botched abortion, a dark part of the novel.  Because of the remoteness of the farm and the social ostracism of the captain and the housekeeper, Madame Dorthea seeks help with her nursing from a gypsy healer instead of a doctor.  The housekeeper improves with the herbal remedies and bloodletting of the gypsy, who apparently is also responsible for the abortion, but she eventually dies.  Meanwhile the gypsy offers to tell fortunes and spooks Madame Dorthea, who must confront her own superstitions and fears of the future.

Although the attention of the educated and interesting captain made her reconsider the solidity of her marriage, she seems to realize after this incident what romantic ideals can lead to. In a spirit of returning to the importance of family and marriage, she resolves to return to her mother's village for her brother's wedding. She at first had felt it inappropriate to attend the wedding while in mourning. And she had a mixed relationship with her mother who had forced her into her early unhappy marriage, while proceeding to be wed 4 times herself, each marriage progressively happier apparently.  But Madame Dorthea has had to reflect on love and loss and happiness and decides to reconcile with her mother.

The wedding is a lively event, and it does allow reconciliation and understanding between the mother and daughter, now two experienced women. During the weeklong festivities, the two older boys almost get into a fight over a serving girl and nearly cause a scandal, but eventually they, too, have a coming of age moment where they realize they need each other and a good character in order to survive their straitened circumstances.

In the end the family is making do. Nothing is neatly resolved, but the reader feels tragedy has been endured and survived, and additional tragedy averted.  Unlike the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, religion plays a relatively minor role in the narrative, and there were several moments where the plot jumped or characters seemed to behave inconsistently. This may not be Undset's finest novel, but it was an interesting reflection on marital happiness and family ties central to the plot.  Class structure is questioned, but ultimately it isn't rejected. If anything, the social structure is affirmed because it provides standards for civil behavior, although a future where class is less important is hinted at, especially in the character of Dorthea's mother who marries up and down the social ladder, and seems happiest with her working class Sheriff husband.

Undset has a gift for creating a richly imagined setting and allows a peek into a culture that no longer exists.  Her characters are sympathetic despite their flaws, even the alcoholic, womanizing captain and the prophesying gypsy.  I don't begrudge the several hours stolen from a couple evenings spent following the fortunes of Madame Dorthea - hours I might have spent glazing over social media.  Why does a fictional family from a far away time and place seem more real sometimes than the faces on the screen?

Here is a harsh review from Time Magazine in 1940
Madame Dorthea is a study of a bourgeois wife & mother in the early months of widowhood. A really good novelist could have made something of the theme with no sales-trimmings. Madame Undset puts it in the 18th Century, replete with archeological detail, dopes it to the teeth with "colorful," superfluous characters, whips up a spurious suspense, and still is too much of a bourgeois wife & mother to bring it off.
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,772443,00.html

The power of a smile

"Relax your face!" My high school track coach used to yell this at me during races. I would squint and tighten up my face and make some kind of awful expression. His critique reminded me to let go of the tension, not just in my eyes but in my whole body.  Somehow those words triggered a reaction in my arms and legs, and I'd be able to stride out, stop fighting the pain, cross into the flow zone, and run a better race.

I was remembering this during a recent middle school cross country meet. My eighth grade daughter is running, and this year she is the top 5 or 10 of the meet. She, too, grimaces coming into the finish line. Who doesn't? I think she could run even faster if she put just a little effort into practicing on her own, since the team only practices two days a week and has a meet on Wednesdays. She doesn't really love running though; she likes the social atmosphere of being on a co-ed team.  A friend whose sixth grade daughter is running this year and doing well said her daughter gets really nervous before meets. She asked if I have any advice.  No, I said. I always had sleepless nights before races.  I'd lie awake worrying about not sleeping or have nightmares about missing the start, about my legs not working, about wetting my pants, etc.  I'd practice visualizing the race or clinching and relaxing muscles like the sports psychologists recommended, but the thing that worked best was again something my coach said, "Let me do the worrying."  Somehow, sometimes I would be able to transfer my anxieties to him and sleep well. It really was kind of a mystical thing. If only I was as good about transferring my current anxieties to God. ..

I don't race any more, and running is now my means of exorcising anxiety, as I've written about before.  I still wake up early and limp through the first half mile or so until my body warms up a bit, and then I sort of grit my way through a few miles. Something usually hurts - my feet or knees, my stomach, my shoulder - but, as any runner will attest, I feel better having run than not having run.  I keep thinking that one of these days I'll age out of running.

Yesterday morning, the day after I had had this conversation about managing nerves before a race, I was running along the bay and had one of those rare mornings where running actually felt good again. The sunrise was particularly colorful, and the many of the morning walkers were pausing to snap photos of the sun coming up behind the bridge. I was still pretty creaky as I started off, and I hadn't slept long the night before. But as I ran along the park, I passed an older guy, who looked to be of Pacific Islander heritage, who was just sitting on a park bench, He wore a wide smile, perhaps from enjoying the sunrise, the park bench, the parade of humanity and canines in front of him, a naturally cheery disposition. He was greeting the day and the passersby with a smile and a nod. Maybe he just had had received good news of some sort. Maybe he just was a congenial guy. Whatever was the source of his joy, it was infectious. I heard in his smile, "relax your face."  I stopped squinting and grimacing and smiled back.

The rest of my run, I felt like a weight was removed.  I have to admit I had been tense of late, upset about this and that, but for the next twenty minutes or so, it all melted away.  And so did the ache in my knees and the throbbing in my feet.  My shoulders relaxed. I felt like I was running fast (relatively, of course, not actually) or at least comfortably.  These are the moments worth months of achy runs.

Thank you, guy on the bench. I tried to share your smile with others.  For the next few days, I'm going to remind myself to relax my face more often.  I'm sure I'll slip back into my squinty ways. But maybe someone else will carry your smile on.

What weighs heavily

Sometimes the number of things that weigh heavily on my mind and on my heart act as a doorstop, blocking the door that lets out the self who gets things done.  Instead, I find myself sitting staring into space, or lying in bed too long, or aimlessly straightening piles of papers into new piles that I still don't read.  I'm sure not getting enough sleep has something to do with this, but I can't get enough sleep without somehow letting go of these heavy thoughts.

So here is a list of worries - prayer requests perhaps is a kinder way of phrasing it:

For people suffering from cancer - Right now our family is praying for four friends or family members with cancer. One of them has breast cancer that was caught early, and she will be fine. She's had her first surgery, and the doctors determined the cancer is not in her lymph nodes.  The other three have heavy doses of chemotherapy in their future, when they are already weak and tired and in pain.  My sister-in-law's father is also having surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. My father-in-law was hospitalized after a recent visit with complications from congestive heart failure.

For people suffering the loss or illness of children: A friend who suffered a miscarriage. A friend whose little niece died from a head injury inflicted by a horse. A friend longing for a baby. A friend whose baby is failing to thrive.

For for my own children: I fear for their safety as they learn to bike and learn to drive, weaving through traffic and navigating their ow way, navigating life. They all have sustained minor injuries to their bodies and to their hearts. Two more sons have torn ligaments in their knees - which means two more surgeries. Meanwhile, I also worry perhaps more than they do about the choices they make about their future and effects on their bodies and their souls.

The Spectre Death is always lurking nearby waiting for a victim. 

In less physically worrisome news: I have to finish planning a class and finish work on a paper for a presentation. The needs of the household always seem to present themselves more urgently when I have something to get done. Hence the late nights.

I like to blame some of my sleeplessness on this house and the traffic outside our door, which causes a different sort of angst.  Motorcycles, trucks, loud music, drunk sailors, and other sounds in the middle of the night prevent a restful slumber.  I keep watching the ads for houses to rent and keep my ear open to find out who is transferring, but for one reason or another - price, size, timing, inertia - the opportunity to move to a better location has not arrived. Aside from the noise and congestion from traffic, little things bother me about the house: the toilets run, the pool is green with algae again, even this late in the season, horn worms are eating my plants, the windows are grimy, the showers moldy, the screens black with pollution so that I fear for our health. I try to feel love for this house, and I do feel a fondness for it occasionally, but then something breaks or the pool goes green.  Have I mentioned I will never own a pool?

Then there is the general tiredness caused by middle-aged physical changes -- achy joints, new gray hairs and wrinkles, sore feet and back.  All the signs point to the physical decay of being halfway through life or more, though I still don't want to admit it - and I still worry about getting pregnant. 

'A different kind of angst descends when I read or listen to the news. Gloom! Doom! Spooky times!

October has arrived. Autumnal colors are not especially noticeable here in southern Californa, but the sense of loss and passing time - shorter daylight hours? foggy mornings? - is compounded this time of year. Now that I have exorcised these demons by writing them out, perhaps the spirits can rest instead of haunting the nights...