Let the Great World Spin

I have finally finished our May book, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. I am sorry that I didn't finish it in time to discuss it, because I really enjoyed this book. An entertaining collection of perspectives, the various lives being lived in their ordinary times, each experiencing their watershed moments as the world spins on and their stories keep unfolding. We are a culture that prides itself on autonomy and independence, and yet this novel reminds us that we are not really capable of being unaffecting to the rest of the world. Even nature herself is speaking to us, changing us, drawing us to one another as we walk forth, balancing on our own tightropes.

I am challenged by a paragraph in the Reader's Guide in the back of the book:

But stories are there to be told, and each story changes with the telling. Time changes them. Logic changes them. Grammar changes them. History changes them. Each story is shifted sideways by each day that unfolds. Nothing ends. The only thing that matters, as Faulkner once put it, is the human heart in conflict with itself. At the heart of all this is the possibility, or desire to create a piece of art that talks to the human instinct for recovery and joy.

Boy howdy have I got a story of recovery and joy, driven largely by the instinct for it (and partly by mere white-knuckling faith), but have struggled to find the words to tell it. It's like I'm still working out the changes, the sideways shifting and I'm still learning what my story is. The story is still unfolding, the instinct drives me onward, but how do I break it up into impart-able vignettes? Although times of quiet reflection and writing are near impossible to come by in this season of my life, I intend to embrace the conflict in my heart, storing it all up and letting the art ooze out in any way that it will. I may not end up with an award-winning memoir or a masterpiece watercolor painting, but I hope that in the end I will have a collection of art that speaks to that instinct for recovery and joy. And that my life itself will reflect that. And may I die with a smile on my face, like Gloria.

Ice Breaker

What do you enjoy most about coming to book group?

Surprising to me is that the first thing that excites me about the last Tuesday is not that I will be away from my children.  But it turns out this is always the quintessential aspect of the night.  Book group is the most adult, most intellectual thing I do all month, and I always walk away with the taste of wine and chocolate on my tongue and a fire burning in my heart, shooting ideas to my brain.  Not only is the subject matter interesting but you women-- your deep lives all very different than mine, but we can see each other...

Cosmicomics, Italio Calvino

I have to admit, I am very insecure.  I still don't know these ladies very well, and I'm still wondering if I fit in with them.  Julie intimidates me; she's so cool.  I feel like a crazy-right-winged-conservative-overprotected-home-schooled-dork around her.  And I wonder: do I have anything to offer this group?  Yet here we are at Julie's amazing old house (the house my house wishes it could have grown up to be) and she didn't even read the book!  She's not the only one.  This is groundbreaking for me, and I am learning about the option to opt out.  To pass up a selection if life is just not lining up in reading's favor, or if the book keeps flying out of your hands and hitting the wall. Like any beautiful thing, a book group has flexibility in it's definition.  And the diversity in these women continues to surprise and delight me!  They think and live diversely and yet they appreciate and love one other... and me.  [What?!]  I am not judged; I belong here, we all do.  We are community.  And this is one of the reasons I am here.  I have rat-raced in narrow-minded christianese circles for far too long.
It is Thanksgiving week and only half of our group is here.  I was surprised that I seemed to be the only one who liked this book, until Febe arrived at least; Cosmicomics was her pick.  And herein lies more of my sad insecurities.  I was happy to tell Febe that I enjoyed her selection; I [codependently] wanted to save her from the disappointment she'd had about us and Madame Bovary.  However, she heard what I hadn't intended on saying, as I used the term forced to describe my opportunity to read, comprehend and enjoy this book.  I enjoyed the challenge. I'm always looking for opportunities for my thinking to be challenged, to see things from a different perspective and to experience different literary genres.  But let's admit it: I didn't eat it up.  It was not the most gripping of stories to me.  And I didn't get very far.  However, I don't have to be ecstatic over every book; I am here to be stretched, forced, if you will, out of the box.
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I am now going to jump ahead in time and look back retrospectively.
Oh my goodness.  Febe's writing about Cosmicomics (read at January's meeting) is so eloquent and beautiful.  I am so uninspired and drab.  We toasted (at December's meeting) to Not Saying We Are Stupid, so I can't say that.  But, I feel like I have so far to go as a writer!  I don't know...oh, SO many things!  I think everyone in that group is more educated and perhaps more life-experienced than myself.  Why am I in this group, why did they let me in?!
It's not that I have no experience whatsoever, nothing to contribute.  There are some things I could say a lot about. And this is the particular thing about this group: everyone counts.  There is no prerequisite.  There is this odd flexibility and lack of judgmentalism that is so unlike my home planet.  You can bring whichever snack...or not.  Read it or throw it across the room.  Be college or street-schooled.  Be an entrepreneur or a stay-at-home-mom.  Like it, don't like it.  Bike or drive (although the biking affinity here is strong...but still, there is no pressure!)
[With this in mind, this collaborative writing idea is even more fascinating.  What is each one of us here to get out of this group?  How and what will we write?  I think I am going to get more than bookshelf inspiration.]
There are some things I could say a lot about, and this is why I think I need to be sharing my story.  Writing more.  Perhaps in different forums...but getting it down.  Today (1.27.10) I went to the Art Museum with the 5th grade, to visit the Native American Exhibit.  One of the first things the docent told us was the reason these Native Americans made so much art, establishing traditions and nurturing their culture was because they didn't have to worry about food, provisions, or war.  It was a time of peace and plenty.
Not so for me.  This is a time of war, in our world and in our personal lives.  We do struggle for food and provisions, and my own creativity is put into solving those problems and surviving.  My art and writing fall to the wayside, to be picked up again in our time of peace and plenty...

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

There was a weird vibe in the air tonight.
I felt a little too dressed up.
There was a spotlight shining in my eyes no matter where I sat.
A couple of girls were sick, or had been recently.
Debra and her gallstones!
Juli and all the shit that's been happening with her!
For crying out loud...Jennifer even cliff-noted the book--haha!
It was just a hard month, I think.
And Madame Bovary-- I just didn't get it.  I do now.  Febe enlightened me to the fact that this novel was originally a series of articles; hence the long, drawn-out plot and the slowly developing Emma Bovary.
As of our meeting, I hadn't gotten as far as her first affair, and all I saw was a discontented spoiled brat, stealing my place as the heroine of a story.  The theme of my life, to put it cheerily, has been to make lemonade from the lemons I've been given.  I have been fighting as long and as hard (if not longer and harder) as any soldier in the "war on terror" (which so conveniently parallels in time-line the battle for my marriage).  And here comes Emma, bringing herself to depression and anxiety because of her choice to not love her husband.  Instead, she loves an idea, a fantasy, a thrill of emotion that can only be temporary but which she has mistaken as a feasible way-of-life.  She chased the wind!  And misses her duty, her opportunity in the present!
My heart is being/has been broken by a Madame Bovary.  I hate her; she is a criminal to me!
However...I appreciated her most, had hope for the potential of her character when she was assisting Charles with medical procedures.  She was brave, she exhibited skills and know-how.  Where did these sudden spurts of character come from?
But then at our meeting, Febe--who might have been the only one to finish the book, was clearly disappointed that we all concurred about Shallow Emma, and didn't even try to put ourselves in her shoes and relate to her.
So I came home with a new fire for the book.  After a while, there were things I could relate to...mostly, how weary the soul can get if one is waiting on fantasy, not communicating and thus being misunderstood and unknown.
I just know that although I could eventually see her as somewhat of a victim of the times (arranged marriage, her family situation) her overall passivity and self-centeredness turns me off and I wish I'd never met her.  I gained nothing from Madame Bovary (the character).  However, I am glad to have read a serialized 19th-century novel, but I confess, I didn't finish... and I'm in no hurry to.