Like Mother Teresa, Only Better

I am ashamed to admit that I discovered this book only because Amazon.com suggested it to me and offered it to me for $1.99 on the Kindle. Had I known, I would have paid ten times that. Let's just say that Amazon.com has me pegged, and I am going to have to go to Jenny Lawson's blog (www.thebloggess.com) and buy a t-shirt or something to make up for getting the book practically for free. I think I owe her that much. I can't remember the last time a book reminded me as much of myself and made me laugh so hard I cried.

I am confident that if I had been raised in rural Texas instead of rural New Hampshire and my father had been a taxidermist instead of a new age/hippie/Native American woodsman, this is exactly how I would have turned out. As you can see from the cover of the book, Lawson has not exactly escaped her father's taxidermy fetish. This little guy, in case it is not entirely clear from the photo, is the mouse version of Hamlet, with a tiny skull in his right hand, intoning, "alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well, Horatio." I'm not really big on taxidermy, but even I have to admit that this is pretty fucking cool. I would probably display this with pride. Lawson admits that "having one dead animal in the house is eclectic and artistic. More than one reeks of serial killer. There really is a fine line there." (289) It's unclear how many dead animals Lawson now has in her house, but I know there's a boar's head and a baby alligator pirate and I think that last one alone just about pushes her over the line to serial killer. This is really to put the end at the beginning though, as Lawson returns to her roots in rural Texas and starts collecting dead animals. 

As a child and adolescent, she is not quite so sanguine about her rural Texas upbringing. She writes, "My mom was a big proponent of the 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger' theory, almost to the point where she seemed to be daring the world to kill us." (13) Don't I know it. The New Hampshire equivalent of  this sentiment, where winters reach -40 F and summers reach 105 F--and frequently espoused by my parents--is "there's no such thing as bad weather--only bad clothing." When I was growing up the thermostat stayed at 67 no matter how cold it was outside. "Please, sir, may I have some more (heat, that is)?" I'd beg my dad. "No," he'd say, "go put on another sweater." See, he was aware that I was probably already wearing several sweaters, which is, inside the house, going above and beyond the call of duty, IMHO, but his solution was to just pile them on. I'd do him one better and put on a coat and hat and walk around in front of him, and he'd say, "very funny. The thermostat stays where it is." If this sounds like a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon that's because I think there was a strip where Calvin and his mom have a similar exchange. I'm with Calvin here. I think that if Jesus intended the heat to stay at 67, he wouldn't have invented thermostats that go up to 90 (or higher) and I like being able to lounge around the house in pajamas and bare feet even in the depths of winter, especially if someone else is paying for my heat (don't tell my management company) so my thermostat is set at something like 75. 

Lawson captures the excruciating agony of growing up weird in an environment that is pretty fucking weird itself. (Personally, I describe my childhood as taking place in Twin Peaks, which  more or less expresses the same sentiment.) Lawson writes:

When I was little my mother used to say that I had "a nervous stomach." That was what we called "severe untreated anxiety disorder" back in the seventies, when everything was cured with Flintstone vitamins and threats to send me to live with my grandmother if I didn't stop hiding from people in my toy box.  

By age seven I realized that there was something wrong with me, and that most children didn't hyperventilate and throw up when asked to leave the house. My mother called me "quirky." My teachers whispered "neurotic." But deep down I knew there was a better word for what I was. Doomed. (37)

I was spared this doomed feeling for a little while longer than Lawson thanks to a magical hippie private school, but after my first week of public school at nine, I too was suffering from a severe untreated anxiety disorder that my parents tried to treat with, essentially, Flintstone vitamins and a lot of threats to stop hiding in the closet and get my butt into the car so they could take me to school, which was generally accomplished by my father physically dragging me into my classroom. What was missing from Lawson's experience, and my own, was any analysis of why a small child would have such a "nervous stomach," which, as a euphemism does not begin to address the horrors of childhood mental illness. 

Lawson's school experience was pretty terrible--there is a chapter about the artificial insemination of a cow with a turkey baster that I'm not even going to attempt to describe because there is no way I can do it justice so you'll just have to read it for yourself--and she quickly turned into the "weird girl"--the one who wrote book reports on Stephen King novels in elementary school and dressed as a goth starting in middle school. Her status as "weird girl" was greatly exacerbated by experiences such as being followed to school, and into school, by her father's flock of aggressive wild turkeys ("large quail," he called them) who caused havoc and shit all over the building, such that when her class was transitioning to gym or something or other, they all ran into Lawson's father cleaning up mounds of turkey shit. Even in Texas, I think that marks you as weird. 

Like most weird girls, Lawson gravitated to the dark and disturbing, with some experimentation with illicit substances along the way (again, better read in the original). Even as an adult, she still seems to have an OCD about the (apparently imminent) zombie apocalypse. One of her ongoing "life" arguments with her rather more traditional husband is whether Jesus, if he was indeed reborn, would have been a zombie. (She says yes, obviously; he says there's a difference, but I think she makes a strong case.) This is not her only OCD. When she is pregnant for the third time (after two miscarriages), she becomes convinced that her cats have the power to grant her good luck.

Once, as Victor drove me to work in the morning, I realized that I'd forgotten to ask the cats to wish us luck and I demanded that he turn around immediately. He tried to logically explain that the cats didn't actually have the ability to give me good or bad luck, but it didn't matter. I knew that the cats weren't in charge of good luck. These were the same cats who would stand inside the litter box and cluelessly poop over the side. Of course they weren't controlling my destiny. I was controlling my destiny. I was just doing it by following all the little OCD routines that I'd picked up that had made life keep going. (130)

Personally, I think that if one is going to endow any creature with magical powers, cats are a great choice, because they already possess magical powers. I would, and do, totally ask my cats for good luck, fashion advice, pretty much anything, their litter box exploits notwithstanding. And I do not leave the house without saying goodbye to them. Ever. So personally I think that her calling this one an OCD routine actually detracts from its inherent underlying rationality and that her husband should know that. 

I was drawn to Lawson because she not only suffers from some mental health issues but several physical ailments as well. She describes herself as having generalized anxiety disorder, which:

[f]or me . . . is basically like having all of the other anxiety disorders smooshed into one. Even the ones that aren't recognized by modern science. Things like birds-will-probably-smother-me-in-my-sleep anxiety disorder and I-keep-crackers-in-my-pocket-in-case-I-get-trapped-in-an-elevator anxiety disorder. Basically I'm just generally anxious about fucking everything. In fact, I suspect that how they came up with the name. (147)

Lawson is acutely aware of the effect her disorder has on those around her, and I suspect she could rattle off  the dates of all the dinner parties she has inadvertently ruined by panicking and bringing up inappropriate conversational topics. I expect that she remembers the look of horror on her husband's face as she dug herself in deeper and deeper at each of these parties. She claims that her "filter" operates on a seven-second delay, and by the time she realizes that she's saying something inappropriate, she's already said it. I really empathize with this problem--as I am continually reminded, I either (a) don't have a filter, or (b) have a filter that only kicks in, along with great remorse, about an hour too late. Ah, well. The problem is, of course, that when you're the bull in the china shop, you know it, and that makes you even more anxious and your behavior correspondingly worse. Lawson explains:

In short? It is exhausting being me. Pretending to be normal is draining and requires amazing amounts of energy and Xanax. In fact, I should probably charge money to all the normal people to simply not go to your social functions and ruin them. Especially since I end up spending so much money on sedatives to keep my anxiety at least slightly in check, and those expenses are not even tax-deductible. Still it's worth the personal expense, because being drugged enough to appear semi-coherent is preferable to being treated like an unwelcome polar bear at a dinner party. (150)

I think that "unwelcome polar bear at a dinner party" should officially supplant the "bull in the china shop" metaphor I used earlier because it's just so much more descriptive of the anxiety one feels in such situations. The damn bull never seemed to have any self-awareness regarding his problem. 

Unfortunately for Lawson, she also suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, the treatments for which are almost worse than the disease itself. She points out the irony of taking drugs for one chronic condition that themselves put one at risk for other chronic conditions, like cancer. I think this might be one of those "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" things. 

Ultimately, Lawson drags her family back to rural Texas so her daughter can experience the kind of freewheeling rural life that she herself did, having realized that it is the quirks that make her who she is. I'm sure that's true. But Lawson acts as if there's no option other than (a) rural Texas or, (b) suburban Texas. I beg to differ. Why not move to a city, somewhere like Austin where one's quirks will be appreciated for their  diversity? I'm strongly of the opinion that quirky people belong in urban environments where everyone is a little bit tweaked, and I'd sooner gouge out my eyes with a spoon than move back to the emotionally crippling environment where I grew up or subject my family to it. But that's just me. Lawson seems pretty happy, except for the possibility that her house is located on an Indian burial ground and when the zombie apocalypse comes, well, you know. . . 

Maidenhair

It is not an exaggeration to say that Mikhail Shiskin's Maidenhair is probably the best book I've read in years. It is the rare novel that transcends the genre--a collection of stories and interviews and narratives  that blend together so seamlessly as to almost appear effortless. 

Persian King Cyrus and his guards

 Maidenhair is sort of the story of a Russian translator living in Switzerland, but it is also the story of his last love affair, his son and the fantasy world they share, his past loves, the diary of a Russian singer who grew up during WWI and the Revolution, and, not to leave anything out, some of the more memorable bits of Herodotus's Histories. If that doesn't sound like it should work, that's because it shouldn't, but Shiskin weaves these texts together so artfully you'd almost think that someone had intended them to go together. The blurb on the back of the book reads, "Mikhail Shiskin's Maidenhair is an instant classic of Russian Literature. It bravely takes on the eternal questions--of truth and fiction, of time and timelessness, of love and war, of Death and the Word--and is a movingly luminescent expression of the pain of life and its uncountable joys."

Lenin addresses the proletariat

Ordinarily, when someone tells me that a book is a "movingly luminescent expression of the pain of life," dealing with truth, fiction, love, time, timelessness, war, Death, and the Word, I start to feel that a Humanities PhD at whatever University Press has gotten a little out of control and read too much into something. But I had time to read the first twenty pages of this one, and in that short space it became clear to me that Shiskin really was addressing all these themes and doing so in a way that felt, well, right. In other words, it is a book about everything and nothing. What you take from it will depend entirely upon what you bring to it.

It is a novel with at once too many underlying threads and no underlying thread. You might call it "a renunciation of the geographic cure," or you might call it the best argument ever for said cure. You could call it "love" or you could call it "loss." Shishkin has some real zingers that echo home, such as "Dostoevsky, I think it was, said that sacrificing your life might be the easiest sacrifice of all." (35) Trust Shiskin to understand Dostoevsky perhaps better than Dostoevsky himself, and trust him to call into question the life's work of all of us who see ourselves as sacrificing for the greater good.

St. Peter's Basilica, Rome

Time and space are fluid in Maidenhair, and intentionally so, as Shiskin gives us lines like, "But time and space are decrepit, worn, shaky. What if they suddenly snag on something--your blackberry branch? And it snaps off?" (70) Or, "Time can be a slippery thing in winter. Your foot takes a step and you have no idea where or when you're going to plop down. Lo and behold, you're in the Russo-Turkish War." (132) More than anyone except perhaps Faulkner, Shiskin captures the feeling of time travel in his narrative--one minute we're in modern-day Switzerland, the next Chechnya, the next the Russian Revolution. His characters are all more or less transient, being driven across borders and states by the flukes of politics and history. And when not driven by history, they're driven by that geographic cure, the idea that everything would be better if I could just make my way to some better place.

But all Shiskin's characters are really looking for is love, something to fill the gaping holes in their psyches. Love of a spouse, love of a child, illicit love will do--it doesn't matter. As in real life, Shiskin's characters don't really get what they want--at least not in the way that they think they want it--but they do get something, albeit fleeting. A famous actor makes an appearance to tell the would-be singer, perhaps rightly, that, as she writes in her diary, "my love, the kind I will have, will depend on me alone." (297) On the one hand, I want to kill the actor because I know he's manipulating her into a love affair by making it appear that she's choosing it; on the other hand, he has her pegged: she is exactly the kind of person who gets to make a lot of choices (some of them hard) about the kinds of love she wants to allow into her life.

Maybe this is one of Shiskin's revelations--we think that love depends on what someone else brings into our lives and whether it pleases us, when in reality where and when and with whom we find love depends entirely upon what we ourselves have to offer. We are impossible; therefore, love is impossible. And yet it's always there for the taking.

The Keeper of Lost Causes

Detective Carl Morck is emotionally scarred after a shooting in which one of his partners died and the other was permanently paralyzed. As a ploy to get him out of the way and procure extra money for the department, his boss names him director of "Department Q" or cold cases. Morck and his curiously-abled "assistant" Assad (supposedly hired for janitorial and clerical duties but possessed of some serious detective skills and a curious Middle Eastern background) decide to look into the five-year-old disappearance of a politician that seems particularly suspicious. Morck and Assad soon realize that the investigation into the disappearance was botched on every level and that importnt clues were overlooked.

At the same time as Morck and Assad investiage her disappearance, Adler-Olsen shows us what the politician, Merete Lynggaad has been subjected to over the past five years. Half-starved, filthy, and subjected to an ever-increasing pressure chamber, it's amazing that she's still alive. Morck certainly doesn't expect her to be, nor does he expect to find her inside a pressure chamber which, if released, will cause her to explode from the inside out, much like a diver coming up too quickly from the ocean floor.

Anyone who likes their mysteries fast-paced and their detectives sarcastic and not quite law-abiding will appreciate this novel and probably want to read the  next one in the series, The Absent One, as well.

The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War

I haven't gotten to the part of this book where he talks about the far East yet so I can't speak to that, but the first half, which focuses, obviously, on Germany and Russia is truly remarkable. What Andrew Roberts understands that I have not found in any other history of WWII (and I've read more than my share, having been obsessed since childhood, and even more obsessed since learning Russian) is the paradox at the center of the conflict. As he says:

At the heart of the Second World War lies a giant and abiding paradox: although the western war was fought in defense of civilization and democracy, and although it needed to be fought and had to be won, the chief victor was a dictator who was as psychologically warped and capable of evil as Adolf Hitler himself. (169)

Yalta Conference: Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin

If you study Russia and dig beneath the standard heroic narratives of how the Russians won WWII, this is very much what you find. The West couldn't have won the war without Stalin, but Stalin used the war as yet another excuse to more or less exterminate millions of his people--from those he starved in the countryside, to those who became essentially "interchangeable parts" in the Russian war machine. Roberts is clear on this: the Russians were more effective than the Germans not because they were better-trained or better-equipped but because there were so goddamn many of them--when one died there was always another one waiting to replace him. (While reading this I couldn't help drawing parallels to China today.) Moreover, the Russians were commanded not only to fight to the death, regardless of the circumstances, they also knew that their families' lives depended on their doing so. Deserters would not have a family to return to, for the NKVD (precursor of the KGB) murdered the families of deserters without compunction.

Roberts also has an important insight into Hitler's nature. It is clear that in his mind Hitler was not smart (certainly not as smart as he thought he was)--he made unforgivable military miscalculations that potentially cost him the entire war--but merely a charismatic leader and ideologue who compelled people to follow him though drama, manipulation, and fear. Moreover, the war that he sought, and the war that he got, "was the world's first wholly politically ideological war . . . [and] that was the primary reason why the Nazis lost it." (5) If Hitler had waged a war based on reason, rather than one based on ideology (I'm not suggesting he could have been reasonable, just that he could have followed a reasonable military trajectory), he wouldn't have been so convinced of the subhuman nature of the Slavic races or the ease with which they could be conquered and exterminated, and he might have thought twice about opening a war on two fronts simultaneously, one of which had proved too vast and too cold for would-be conquerors going back to Napoleon. Roberts says:

Hitler was also impelled to invade Russia by each of the three major strands in his political credo. As Ian Kershaw points out, the Fuhrer had 'a small number of basic, unchanging ideas that provided his inner driving-force.' Hitler's self-reinforcing Weltanshauung (world-view) was based on the need for Germany to dominate Europe, win Lebensraum for herself and come to a final reckoning with the Jews. These views never altered or moderated, and stayed central to his thinking from the 1920s to his death two decades later. All three could be achieved by an invasion of Russia, and none could be achieved without one. (124)

Sometime this summer I  found myself in an argument--happily, I forget why--with someone who was trying to tell me that the Germans only knew what Hitler intended to do "after the fact." I remember suggesting that one need only read Mein Kampf to have known exactly what he was up to. Roberts supports my point. Again and again he explains how Hitler's ideologies and plans were established in the '20s and remained unchanged, even when militarily they did not serve his purpose. This is the very reason he was as dangerous as he was, but it is also, ironically, the reason why he could be defeated. One shudders to think what could have happened had he not allowed his grotesque ideology to influence, and weaken, his military strategy.

Traveler of the Century

This novel by Andres Neuman is so good that I've put off reading the last five pages for a month. The premise is simple: a traveler (Hans) comes upon a mysterious German town where the streets seem to change their layout and direction every day--the kind of city were "the night barked and meowed" (11). He befriends an organ grinder and his dog, Franz, who live in a cave and sponsor a kind of low-brow salon in which revolution and social justice are the main topics of conversation. He also befriends a young girl, Sophie, soon to be married to a man she does not love, who hosts a high-brow literary and cultural salon, where many of the same topics are discussed from a very different point of view.

Because it is written as a 19th Century novel, I am more or less prepared to forgive Neuman the indulgence of calling his main character Sophie (Sophia = wisdom in Greek). What is particularly wonderful about the novel is that although it reads like a 19th Century novel, Neuman does not stint in his descriptions of the passionate sexual relationship that develops between Hans and Sophie, which is quite beautiful. Consider:

"He thought they shouldn't be doing this and he didn't care. He stopped thinking in a flash, and Sophie dragged him with her. Hans groped in the air, lost control, and found her breasts. They both rolled downhill together" (340). 

Their sexual relationship is premised on a mutual interest in the translation of European literature, and they use sex to heighten the intensity of their translations, and their translations to heighten the intensity of their sex. 

And then there are some lines that are simply too good for words, as wen Hans asks Sophie if something is wrong, and she replies, "No . . . I don't know if I just had an orgasm or a premonition," which has to be one of the best lines in all of modern literature (496). 

In short this is the book that lovers of the 19th Century novel have been waiting for. Ponderous discussions of revolution, history, philosophy, and literature paired with descriptions of a love affair that makes Emma Bovary's fantasy life seem tame. Truly, I am in love with this book. 

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

Unless you're my friend Katie and you're writing a PhD on German history, you probably don't think that much about Germany in the '30s. I mean, we all vaguely understand that that was when Hitler really came into power, even if America didn't see his rise as a problem until...well, until he threatened our oil supply in the Middle East, actually, but there's probably a better book about that particular issue.

The shocking thing about this book is that it chronicles year after year of Americans--not just everyday Americans, but Americans up to and including the President--fighting to remain isolationist even in the face of what is, in retrospect, an enormous global threat.

I was sort of reading this book at the same time as a new, updated history of WWII, and I was constantly asking myself, did we really not see it or did we just not give a shit?

In truth, I think it was more the latter than the former. As Larson's book describes it, diplomats from everywhere imaginable were partying the nights away in Berlin as the situation became more and more desperate for the country's Jewish population. William E. Dodd, the ambassador in this book, started out very naive and enamored of Germany and the German government but slowly came to see the terror that was developing.

Even more interesting, though, is his daughter Martha, who sleeps with almost everyone and has long-term affairs with Rudolph Diels, the first chief of Hitler's Gestapo, and, later, a KGB agent. I pause upon writing that. Yes. She had an affair with the first chief of Hitler's Gestapo. How is that possible, you ask? What can I say? Perhaps she truly didn't get it. Perhaps the word "Gestapo" did not have the same chilling ring it does today. Perhaps she couldn't resist a man in a uniform? An important lesson nonetheless and one we could all take to heart: one day you're sleeping with the chief of the Gestapo (no biggie) and the next YOU'RE SLEEPING WITH THE CHIEF OF THE GESTAPO!!! Oh, shit.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Kevin with his bow and arrows, from the film

What do you do as a parent when you know your child is a sociopath? Worse, what if only you know it because he has your spouse or partner snowed? This is the question that drives Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin. A film version came out last year. It's okay, but it focuses more on the question of how you respond after the world learns your child is a sociopath then it does the question of what one does when you're the only one who knows, so I'd strongly recommend the book, or at least the book as a prequel to the film.

Eva is a travel agent, author of a series of books even rougher than the Rough Guide. For her, pregnancy means settling down once and for all, something she is not necessarily ready to do. A significant difference between Shriver's book and the film version of this story, is that the book suggests that Eva's ambivalence about her pregnancy with Kevin is merely a more intense version of an ambivalence experienced by almost every woman, even though most don't admit it, whereas the film depicts her ambivalence as a sign of not wanting a child. But really, what woman doesn't experience the tiniest degree of ambivalence during her first, life-changing pregnancy, no matter how much she wants it? Obviously I can't speak from experience, but I think you'd have to be crazy not to be just a little bit terrified. (But maybe that's just because I'm terrified of being responsible for any creature needier than a cat.)

Eva tries to love Kevin, but he makes it nearly impossible. Lots of babies cry all the time, but he cries to manipulate and antagonize her. She stays at home with him and he cries all day, but when her husband Franklin comes home, Kevin quiets as soon as his father bounces him around a couple of times. As a toddler, he refuses to play. And as a pre-schooler, he seems to learn things on his own almost to spite Eva. He refuses to let her teach him his letters and numbers, then one day shows her with great pride that he has figured out how to read and do math. He insists on wearing diapers well into elementary school, not because he doesn't know how to toilet himself, but because he simply refuses to do so. As a child he hates everything. He has no friends, no interests.

In what is possibly the least responsible parenting decision ever, Eva and Franklin decide to have another child, who turns out to be a perfect little girl. This time Eva experiences all those warm and fuzzy feelings of motherhood, much to Kevin and Franklin's dismay. Naturally, Kevin abuses his sister terribly. She is scared of almost everything, and he takes advantage. He shoves her beloved pet down the garbage disposal, and the first time he's allowed to babysit he pours lye in her eye, leading her to lose it, then accepts all the credit Franklin gives him for so thoughtfully calling 911. Eva knows he's guilty. She's always known it. But she can't prove it, and the little girl is too terrified to rat out the brother who she no doubt thinks will kill her.

In what is possibly the second least responsible parenting decision ever, Eva and Franklin allow Kevin to take up archery. Growing up somewhere were a lot of people took their kids hunting, I've always wondered how they justified taking their screwed up kids off into the woods and teaching them to use weapons. I wondered that even more while reading this book.

In truth, the only "happy" moment in this book--and I mean that very cynically--is the moment when Franklin realizes that Kevin is indeed the sociopath Eva has been warning him of all along--a moment that comes about five seconds before he dies of an arrow through the head. Kevin's sister dies, too, pinned to a target by four arrows. Then he goes to school, locks all his enemies into the gym with some very sophisticated locks, and shoots them one by one.

Possibly the most telling moment in the entire narrative comes when Eva hears that there has been a shooting at the high school. She knows who her son is at heart, but when it comes down to it, she doesn't fear him, she fears for him. She worries that Kevin has been shot, not that he was the shooter.

In the end, she's his mom after all. She stays in their suburb and waits for his release. She rents a house with a bedroom intended for him. These are not acts that I can pretend to understand. All I know is that in the end, she proves Franklin wrong: even after Kevin has shown the whole world who he really is--perhaps especially after he has done so--she wants to be his mother.