I chose not to uncover … The Buried Giant

Kazuo Ishiguro won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

This was an acknowledgement of a novelist who has written brilliant, distinct books each time he writes one. I’ve remained with Kazuo through  his literary journey. That is… until he headed into the Middle Ages & Arthurian fantasy. ( Note: My enchantment with King Arthur ended with the televised Robin Hood. Which is to say the genre of Fantasy is one I skip, along with Science Fiction. (Note:  I was a devoted reader of  Doris Lessing until she flew out into space. But after a series there, she returned to realism on earth and won the Nobel.)

Why did I not want to unbury Kazuo’s giant in his Anglo-Saxon 6th-7th century novel? Because the voices that told the story are “ham-handed, stilted, and tiresome.” I’ve borrowed these adjectives from New York Times literary critic, Michiko Kakutani, whose review was Feb. 23, 2015. That same month two other Times reviewers discussed The Buried Giant. Alexandra Atler’s includes an interview with Ishiguro, which I was glad to read. I especially appreciated Lorna Ishiguro, who spoke candidly about Kazuo’s first stab at this novel. She read the opening pages and said to him, “None of this can be seen by anybody.” Her husband put the book aside and did not return to it for six years. The next time, Kazuo did not show his wife the novel until it was finished. Then together they arrived at the novel’s title while on a road trip.

In the interview, I appreciated this famous writer’s words about aging.  At 60, he feels his mental powers slipping. That was ten years ago, when he said: “Everything’s declining. I used to be able to hold really complicated things in my head at once, complicated worlds. Now if I have an idea, I write it down.” Reassuring for me to read this!

I’m glad I skimmed this 2015 novel, and that my friend with a NYT subscription sent me the three reviews. In thinking about this period of history and “Old English,” I remembered a work of Fantasy I greatly appreciate. I speak of the late John Gardner’s Grendel. This small work of genius is the story of Beowulf, but told from his mother’s point of view.

To be continued next week…

Long Ago the Beatles sang…Will you still love me/ When I’m 64?

Sounds young to deaf ears now, just days from 82.  What sounds even younger is the age that Mike and I were when we moved to the Northern Neck of Virginia in fall 2004.  I was 61 and he 59.

Then in 2010, a five-year-old Miata came into my life.  Now at twenty, it still runs with gusto: a sportscar capable of high speeds that requires me to be alert and shift its five gears. Great for my right hand and left foot. The Miata in British racing green looks much younger than it is. One early winter morning in the dark, I was on the way to play indoor tennis, when a turkey buzzard hit the right headlight and caused considerable damage to the car. I saw a blur of under-belly-white pass by the right side. How that buzzard could have remained in flight after a head-on still mystifies me. But thanks to new paint and body parts, the car looks great for its age.

Together, the two of us, as shown in this photo, are 102 years old. And the ‘hand-me-down’ jacket I wear is a size two my mother wore. Barbara Wilson died a month short of 98. She often said these words, before dementia set in: “I might be old, but I am not fat.” A small triumph Mother felt, in an increasingly larded nation.

I will think of my mother this Thursday when I turn 82. In thinking about her today, I re-read  A Woman’s Story. a 90 page book by Annie Ernaux.

This French writer won the 2022 Nobel Prize for Literature. And Ernaux has written words that resonate with me: “I believe I am writing about my mother because it is my turn to bring her into the world.” On June 5th,  I will give thanks to Barbara F. Wilson for giving life to me in 1943, during the war years, when despair was a luxury the patriotic could not indulge.

Until next week, and an author I’ve long admired: Kazuo Ishiguro and The Buried Giant

Remembering 1962, and the book, I Am a Lover

I had a copy of this book my sophomore year at USC. Costly for a book then because of its large size and full-page photographs. Now in the public domain, I Am a Lover is available through the Hassell Street Press. In recent years I had spoken about this book to my daughter Bonnie, a fine ‘thrift expert” in D.C.  I had hoped she might come across a copy of the book. I had checked I Am a Lover on the internet and discovered it was rare and expensive. Then two years ago, Bonnie surprised me for my 80th birthday with a reprint. The book is smaller, the photographs grainy and dark, but the quotes are all there. They are ones I memorized and used in teaching throughout my life.

Last week in Memoir, my latest class, I thought of this book in relation to Paula Fox, whose two memoirs the students are reading. Paula in early childhood was enthralled with the National Geographic, as was I and many in the class. Some of us remember the photography collection, The Family of Man, which appeared in hard copy during the 1950s.  The soft-cover  I Am a Lover followed, with its photographs all shot in San Francisco, where I headed in 1965 after USC.

Opening I Am a Lover at random, I see a Chinese couple with their two young sons.  The mother is pointing a “reprimanding” finger at the boys. On the page across from this photo, the two youngsters have straws, through which they are shooting something. (I just asked my husband what he’d shot in a straw during boyhood. Wadded, saliva wettened paper… in the shape of a dagger was one thing, and also peas!)  The Chaucer quote for these two pages is:  The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne… On a following two-page spread, the two boys are laughing with wild abandonment!

I flip a few pages and find Shakespeare: Where of are you made/ That millions of strange shadows on you tend?  Thank you William… for this comment with both personal and national application.

Again, I open the book to where it wants to open. This quote is from St. Ambrose and relevant for what I just cited. Before the light vanishes / we pray you/ creator of all things/ to hold us in your keeping.

I flip to another page with a photo I have not forgotten. It reminded me then and still does, of my maternal grandmother. She died at 89 in her sleep, the spring of my freshman year at USC. Grandmother Wilson  knew I loved The National Geographic and she kept it on her dusty glass coffee table for me to read.  The woman in the photograph is large and shapeless, her white hair thin. She stands in a doorway somewhere in San Francisco.

I am not now/ That which I have been. Another quote with personal and national relevance.

The images come and go on the internet.  But these words and photographs have remained with me for over six decades.  Until next week… and more thoughts related to Literature I’ve Loved…