The Act of Saying I

Let Me Tell You What I Mean 

by Joan Didion

“In many ways, writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act. You can disguise its aggressiveness all you want with veils of subordinate clauses and qualifiers and tentative subjunctives, with ellipses and evasions—with the whole manner of intimating rather than claiming, of alluding rather than stating—but there’s no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writer’s sensibility on the reader’s most private space.”   ― Joan Didion, Let Me Tell You What I Mean

I have long admired the prose style of Joan Didion and these twelve early pieces never before collected demonstrate that style. This selection of essays offers an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of Joan Didion.

The varied essays in this collection, which are mainly taken from the early years of her astounding five-decade career, feature Didion writing about a Gamblers Anonymous meeting, a trip to San Simeon, and a reunion of WWII veterans in Las Vegas, as well as about subjects like Nancy Reagan, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Martha Stewart.

Didion has written extensively about the following topics: the press, politics, California robber barons, women, the writing process, and her own self-doubt. I think you will find that each essay is typical Didion: razor-sharp, astonishingly perceptive, and very readable.

An Ecstatic Life

Matrix 

by Lauren Groff

“Nothing is all stark and clear any longer, nothing stands in opposition. Good and evil live together; dark and light. Contradictions can be true at once. The world holds a great and pulsing terror at its center. The world is ecstatic in its very deeps.”   ― Lauren Groff, Matrix

I found this to be a bold and compelling reimagining of the life of Marie de France, a 12th-century poet and nun. While the author does not follow the exact historical record, she produces a powerful story about the life of a woman who struggles to find her place in a world that is both oppressive and liberating.

The novel begins with Marie being banished from the French court and sent to England to become the prioress of an abbey. Marie is a reluctant nun, but she soon finds herself drawn to the spiritual life and to the women who live with her at the abbey. As she learns to lead her community, Marie also begins to write again, and her poems soon become famous throughout England.

Groff's writing is lush and evocative, and she brings Marie to life with great empathy. Marie is a complex and conflicted character, and Groff does not shy away from her flaws. But she is also a woman of great strength and determination, and her story is one of triumph over adversity.

The author  paints a vivid picture of 12th-century England, and her characters come to life on the page. . The novel explores themes of faith, power, and womanhood in a thought-provoking way. While some of the characters are underdeveloped, Marie is complex and fascinating at the center demonstrating strength, intelligence, and compassion. Overall, I enjoyed Matrix and would recommend it to fans of historical fiction, women's fiction, and beautifully written novels.

The Last Years of a President

When the cheering stopped: 

The last years of Woodrow Wilson 

by Gene Smith

"We are troubled on every side, yet not destressed,; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. . ."  - Woodrow Wilson in his last days as President, quoted by Gene Smith, p 143.



This is the captivating account of what transpired when President Woodrow Wilson fell ill at the height of his achievement, leading to the U.S. Senate blocking his intentions for the United States to join the League of Nations. Few Americans were aware of what took place during his final two years in office, but Gene Smith's investigations reveal the truth about what lied beneath the bland statements made by presidential surrogates. The ensuing biography of the Wilson Presidency's final days makes for engaging reading.

It is a skillfully written and thoroughly researched account of a remarkable, horrible, and perplexing period in history that centered on the agonies of Woodrow Wilson's ideal of world peace and the man who devoted his life to pursuing it. Wilson was devastated by the death of his wife Ellen, and he bitterly set about the mission of uniting the world. Wilson traveled to Europe with the conviction that the goal for which he had sent American lads there would inspire Americans to embrace the League of Nations, to which he had already committed this nation. Mrs. Galt was his wife at the time of his rededication. He began his exhausting program of cross-country talks with her at his side to reassure him.

The breakdown manifested as a thrombosis and partial paralysis at the end of the tour. In truth, the United States remained without a president from that point on until Harding's inauguration. His doctor, a political aide, and his fiercely protective wife surrounded Wilson. The author has provided a fairly comprehensive view of the President at this time—physically ravaged, prone to helpless outbursts of emotion but still burning with a fierce sense of mission, a ""eagle chained to a rock""—by drawing on contemporaneous notes and interviews. While not a complete biography this is an essential view of an important episode in American history.

Mountain Customs

The Orchard Keeper 

by Cormac McCarthy

“They are gone now. Fled, banished in death or exile, lost, undone. Over the land sun and wind still move to burn and sway the trees, the grasses. No avatar, no scion, no vestige of that people remains. On the lips of the strange race that now dwells there their names are myth, legend, dust.”   ― Cormac McCarthy, The Orchard Keeper

Rereading McCarthy’s first novel, The Orchard Keeper, reminds me of the origins of his novels as he describes the mountain culture of East Tennessee. The story revolves around three characters: Uncle Arthur Ownby, an isolated woodsman, who lives beside a rotting apple orchard; John Wesley Rattner, a young mountain boy; and Marion Sylder, an outlaw and bootlegger. It begins as the young bootlegger Marion Sylder disposes of a man's body in an abandoned peach orchard, a place that serves as a metaphor for the culture's impending decline, after killing him out of self-defense. The body is discovered by the kindly guardian of the orchard, Arthur Ownby, who chooses not to report it. For seven years, he let it to rest in peace. The elderly man also values his personal solitude and tranquility, and when they are invaded by a government holding tank placed on a neighboring hill, he shoots his X at the tank.

Both men adhere to ancient mountain customs, which are by definition ungoverned by the laws of the encroaching contemporary world. In contrast to them, the law enforcement officials who eventually apprehend Sylder, beat him, and committed him to a mental facility appear degenerate. John Wesley Rattner, a youngster who hunts and traps, who is befriended by the two men, and who matures in the novel, represents another important aspect of the book. Ironically, he is the dead man's son. Even though the ancient customs are out of date, he chooses to remain faithful to them.

This first novel shows signs of the novelist that McCarthy will become as he travels further west in his some of his subsequent novels. It is a great place to introduce yourself as a reader of one of our country's greatest novelists.

Classical Consolation

The Consolation of Philosophy 

by Boethius

“Indeed, the condition of human nature is just this; man towers above the rest of creation so long as he realizes his own nature, and when he forgets it, he sinks lower than the beasts. For other living things to be ignorant of themselves, is natural; but for man it is a defect.”   ― Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy

This is a new translation of Boethius Consolation of Philosophy. I found the book to be a fascinating approach to philosophy with the author sometimes using a sort of Socratic approach to question his own beliefs and those of the persona of philosophy herself. This relatively short tome provides a breadth of philosophical discussion that belies the size of the book. Written at the end of his life when he was in prison this thoughtfully raises questions about the use of philosophy for life and how one can pursue happiness as a human being. 

The Phaedo, in which Socrates describes how a philosopher approaches death while imprisoned and awaiting execution, had the most influence on the book. Porphyry and Proclus, two Neoplatonic interpreters, are used to interpret Plato. There also were moments that his approach suggested a touch of stoicism, which is not surprising given the environment in which he wrote this text.

The book narrates a discourse between Boethius and a vision of the Lady Philosophy, or philosophy personified in feminine form and resembling Diotima from Plato's Symposium. The work is primarily written in prose and is organized into five main portions, or books. It also includes 39 poems, which are almost like the chorus odes of Greek tragedy. The Lady Philosophy attacks Boethius for reneging on his philosophical principles under stress and contends that if he had been true to his philosophical education, he would not be sad about being imprisoned, going through torture, or waiting to be executed. Instead of expressing sympathy, the Lady Philosophy blames Boethius. 

His discussion of "what is true happiness'' was one of the high points in my reading. Given that happiness does not represent external occurrences but rather our emotional response to those situations, Lady Philosophy advances the Stoic idea that happiness is within our control. Even if we have no influence over the world around us, we do have control over how we react to it. She also makes the argument that because luck is erratic by nature, one shouldn't rejoice in good fortune or lament poor luck because it is unpredictable and always changing. He also touches on many other issues like the nature of perfection, the problem of evil, and the being of a good God.  

Overall this is one of the best short works of philosophy that I have read and I will put on my shelf with the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and other great short philosophical works.

Medieval Spain

The Myth of the 

Andalusian Paradise: 

Muslims, Christians, and Jews Under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain 

by Darío Fernández-Morera

“The oft-repeated assertion that Islam “preserved” classical knowledge and then graciously passed it on to Europe is baseless. Ancient Greek texts and Greek culture were never “lost” to be somehow “recovered” and “transmitted” by Islamic scholars, as so many academic historians and journalists continue to write: these texts were always there, preserved and studied by the monks and lay scholars of the Greek Roman Empire and passed on to Europe and to the Islamic empire at various times.”   ― Darío Fernández-Morera

This is an exceptional history that looks at the era of medieval Spain when the spread of the Islamic empire reigned. As suggested by the title of the book it is a different sort of history that uses detailed research and documentation to argue against a generally prevailing view that the rule of Islam in this era was one in which the conquered peoples were treated well.

While this is an atypical way to present history, it appears that the method used by the author was necessary to counteract the myths that have developed through incomplete and shoddy scholarship. With the level of documentation provided, this book provides a more balanced and authentic history of the medieval period of Spain under the control of the Islamic empire. Some aspects of the history that impressed me were the way the author described the details of controversy within the Christian and Jewish cultures. This approach helped make his overall case and demonstrated a more balanced approach than would have occurred if he had ignored uncomfortable issues.

Overall I appreciated the documentation and the balanced approach in this necessary antidote to reconsider and reconstruct a misleading history that can be reasonably described as mythology.