books

I finished “The Corrections” by Jonathan Franzen the other night; it almost made me cry which puts it in the emotional vicinity of Atonement, Lolita and King Lear. Except that I can’t compare, in the way that every book is so uniquely itself. The contemporary humor and bluntness and surface pessimism of “The Corrections” are unlike what moves me about the other books. Some feelings it evoked were similar to past ones I’ve had, but this isn’t to say that my response was the same at all. My favorite books have a lot in common; they make me a little (or very) sad, contain clear moments of happiness to cling to, articulate feelings or thoughts I’ve had that I haven’t described, or haven’t described well, or haven’t recognized. I usually finish them quickly. These qualities being general, the books that embody them are pretty different and I have a different relationship with each of them. I thought maybe I should start writing more about them (and writing more in general), to avoid the consuming inwardness that having a “relationship” with your books fosters, to think more about what I want to do with what the books give.

I went into the book without really knowing too much about it, though it’s well-known. The title made me think of journalism and for whatever reason that stopped me from starting it for awhile. “Corrections” turns out to be about many kinds of corrections; there are physical, concrete ones but also of course the personal, emotional ones. It’s a dysfunctional family story about parents and children and siblings and significant others trying to prevent, deny, and compensate for each other’s mistakes and flaws. It’s long and about a lot of things, but really it’s about this one thing—how screwed up we become by trying so hard not to screw up, by trying to correct ourselves into better versions of the flawed people around us.

I liked:

“When the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn't that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you're less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn't it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you've experienced before?”...In typing this quote, I find that it reminds me a little of how I might think/write about something like that. Things for me are all about how I internalize them. While concrete events or singular experiences have an immediate impact on me, it’s the way they linger, build up, flow back in mind and heart over time that really changes me. We’ll see how that pans out in the future, because I’m sure I’ve only seen a tiny bit of what can change you through a life.

“He'd lost track of what he wanted, and since who a person was what a person wanted, you could say that he'd lost track of himself.”...Maybe the character believes in this line, but I don’t think the writer does. I believe in intentions, even as I feel they only go so far and am often disappointed in lack of actions (largely in myself and a small number of others from whom I expect a lot). I think what you want is a huge part of who you are, even if it’s not something you can be or do. Honestly, it’s what I fall back on when I need encouragement. I remember Mr. Floyd, our high school history teacher, asking us what categories he should grade our projects by—and I suggested effort. I remember Anna B. scoffing at this notion, and then Mr. Floyd said, effort would show in the quality of the work, so it doesn’t need quantification. Personally I think the correlation between effort and quality differs among people, and god, it’s hard to always be your best, so whatever, I’m making effort its own category.

So it’s easy to see how everyone’s felt a lost sense of self because they don’t know what they want. But maybe the things that lead you to uncertainty are just as much who you are, and maybe they’re the same things that lead you back. The book made me feel anew these cliches, of a self that stays in tact in the midst of lives falling apart and so much mess.

It scared me a little, as each day I both recognize and avoid more the reality that life will be imperfect—and not just imperfect in the romanticized way I look at flaws, mistakes, mishaps, difficult love, second choices…but imperfect in that gut-wrenchingly painful, that-was-not-for-the-best, damn-this-is-hard way. Yet, it’s easier to look back on pain in retrospect and see what each one meant and how important it was, when so much passing of time and life happens in a book...instead of trudging through it in real life. I think we develop a lot of expectations of how we’re going to feel during certain phases of our lives and through certain events, through stories—books and movies. I worry about being overprepared, because I expect certain emotions and events that I see in these fictional lives and maybe this will keep me from experiencing things I hadn’t foreseen. I worry about being underprepared, because I might think that life can be as neat of a mess as fiction is, and life will prove me wrong and it will hurt. I’m getting so confused writing this, but I also realize now I don’t have to worry about these things.

I wonder how people foresaw their futures before there was such widespread, accessible stories of fictional people, created by real people. Maybe people just absorbed things as they came, without knowing too much beforehand, without too many expectations based on what’s supposed to happen in a life. I like this idea, and believe that it still applies to us, as awash in other people’s stories as we are. Things are new and yours when they happen to you; your story is going to be the one you feel most, and most genuinely, and there will be surprises still, and you’ll be hurt and you’ll be fine.

And okay, since I mentioned it and because I came across a We-Hate-Atonement facebook group today that made me hostile and impulsive—I need to passively-aggressively defend this book. Not against people who have judged the book in its entirety and still don’t like it, but against the people who haven’t given it enough consideration to justify what they say. Not that I know the book, or any book, in its entirety but I do think there are things Atonement-critics overlook. Maybe I’m not as irritated by Briony, the protagonist, because I see a lot of myself in her, but I do see why she would annoy people. What I don’t get is how people focus on the fact that she’s to blame for everything. Yes, the book is about her crime and guilt, but it’s also clear that it’s really about atonement—which is different from forgiveness, which she isn’t asking for, or repentance, which she already obviously feels.

What’s more—people who bash the ending: the twist is not everything, and it’s more complicated than you give it credit. If you consider the implications of her self-representation, the notion of her fiction, then you see that the Briony you dislike is one that she’s created for you, and for herself. It takes a lot of courage to be honest about yourself, more so to (possibly) distort things to make your own flaws all the more apparent. Besides that, the ending isn’t clearcut. Maybe the twist is fictional, too, maybe it’s more self-inflicted punishment. Who really knows? But you just can’t hate on the novel’s premise without first considering how the ending changes not just the final parts but the entire book, without thinking of how it opens up endless perspectives on her character and the plot and atonement. If you give it at least that, you can then hate all you want. I’m mostly accepting of differences of opinion, though I have a lot of natural defensiveness that I’m trying to decrease; I just hold things I love very, irrationally close.

huh

I was reading old entries and almost two years ago I alluded to that King Lear line about "Reason not the need" when I was writing about Walden Pond. That didn't even register when I wrote about it again, awhile ago (and coming to a similar conclusion both times). In fact, realizing that I wrote about it two years ago made me remember that it was Professor Greenblatt, not Parker, who lectured on it and who I was referring to in the more recent entry...but I'd mixed them up since I took Shakespeare with both, and I mistakenly wrote that Professor Parker had talked about that line. My memory being something I value, this was a little disconcerting even as I know it's normal to mix up details even for those with the best memories.

I almost went back and corrected my entry, from Parker to Greenblatt, but I didn't.

I'm glad I wrote the few times that I did over the past years, because these entries feels both close and distant. Sometimes I write a phrase and feel like I must've written the same thing at another time. Then there are things I don't remember at all. Not that I don't remember the events, but the same feelings aren't so close at hand. Not that the feelings in which I was so endrenched are surprising when I re-read them, but some of them feel new rather than lived-in, while others are precursors of current thoughts and thus feel near, but not quite. It's very bittersweet.

highlights

I usually write about happy things when they're making me happy, but I think I can learn from my friends who practice focusing on blessings when they're down. I've been really happy lately and I should draw upon that to get past this momentary slump.

books movies music
There are some good bookstores on Irving/Judah. I miss Harvard libraries, even though I rarely checked anything out for pleasure since I always had plenty of good/bad reading for class. "The Namesake" started me out on a steady streak because it was so good. Stephen and I read it around the same time and he thought it was just like any other immigrant story and maybe in narrative terms it was, but the writing was so nuanced and beautiful. I remember picking up "Interpreter of Maladies" at the bookstore and reading the first story in one go because the language was so compelling, and that surprised me a little because contemporary fiction doesn't do that often for me. I think raising students on the classics makes them (or just me) think that a certain foreign-ness of language adds to beauty and depth, but lately I find the same in current language and I'm glad I've recognized that finally. Maybe it's a combination of the language and detail, and this phase in my life, but I connected to Namesake more than with any other immigrant story I've read (most of which have been more closely tied to my own background). It actually pushed me to talk to my parents about their stories, and made my recent desire to see Vietnam, in a personal way and not as just another place, more substantial.

"The Things They Carried," (a series of bitingly personal stories of Americans in the Vietnam War) which Andrew sent to me back in January, was my next choice. That sequence made me think of Aud's idea of things being interconnected, and I wonder if I consciously chose "Things" because "Namesake" made me think about Vietnam and my family's past and where I fit in or whether it just happened that way, fittingly without my notice. A bit of both, probably. In any case, the core of "Things" is about stories, and it went by fast and made me think that masterpieces are rare and require some ineffable talent but a touching book can just be about experience and sensitivity, and that that's all I aspire to achieve in life. Again making my own patterns out of the unrelated, my next read, "The World According to Garp" was also full of stories and about the process of making up stories. How I feel about all that, stories, is for another time.

Movies are for those times when I want to be overdosed--isn't it weird how people and worlds can be packed into two hours? Watching "Fallen Angels" and "Days of Being Wild" got me to re-watch my favorite Wong Kar Wai, "In the Mood for Love." I don't think any other moviemaker gets feeling like he does. I love that he captures how emotion can arise from anything, from sounds and colors and looks and a word said a certain way--that plot has so little to do with our longings. And he's obsessed with time, and as much sadness and pain that comes from understanding this concept, he knows how much beauty it gives everything. And nothing beats his lush lush images. Another highlight was Zhang Yimou's "Not One Less" which is such a simple, moving story about a 13-year-old substitute teacher in rural China on an insanely stubborn quest to find one of her students in the city and return him home. Another recommendation for anyone remotely interested, and a non-Asian movie, is "All the Real Girls," a sort of coming-of-age indie except it's the coming-of-age of people who are supposed to be past the time for that. The movie's told in vignettes that tell a linear story but also capture side moments, and everything's very warm and real at the same time. And it's funny, slightly quirky and a little melancholy. Ooph, and Duy and I started watching "The Best of Youth," a six hour Italian movie, without knowing how long it was or what it was about, and that was the best way to see it. It was like reading a book, the events and whole lives unfolding. I'm not doing any of these justice; that's what I get for saving them all up for one entry. I've also watched a slew of really bad movies.

As for music, Snow Patrol was good, especially Chocolate, Set the Fire and Chasing Cars (which I don't even like as much as most people, I rarely listen to it--but it was very full, sung live) but I have to admit that I let the experience be tainted by the obnoxious teenyboppers. I think Duy enjoyed it though, and it was his Christmas present after all. I can't wait for Coachella in a few weeks: Regina Spektor, Jose Gonzalez, RHCP, Tilly & the Wall, Sparklehorse, Arcade Fire and of course my best friend. A few days ago I was most excited for Damien but now I barely focus on that because Jackie & I will be front row center in a solo Damien concert! Eeeeeee!

family/home
The frustrations I felt toward my family for the first half year I came back to California have subsided, not completely gone but the dominating feeling is appreciation. I've grown to know that I don't have to convince them of who I am--they'll draw upon what they've known and maybe in some rare moments see something new. I don't get so frustrated with the fact that they'll be somewhat detached from my present and my future, because they do have my past and that's as much of me as anything else. And for all the things that should make me resentful or annoyed--they are also the reason that in the end, I'm not resentful, because they've been so good to me that I can be a person who sees that over anything else. I really hope that someday I can see my parents' home with them.

cooking
It's pathetic how proud I get over making simple things. But the one new year's resolution I've faithfully kept is the one new recipe a week one. Since then I've successfully made spinach lasagna with prosciutto, sausage & eggplant pasta shells, chicken piccata, breaded and smothered pork chops, quiche (mushroom/bacon/spinach), honey mustard glazed salmon, lemon spaghetti, steamed catfish, chicken/tuna noodle casserole, lemon-lime halibut (actually that one wasn't so successful).

las vegas
What a perfect trip/blockmate reunion! I'm so happy that things went well and that everyone had a good time and that we were all in one place. I'm so grateful to know people who think about things and who get and give all the more because of it. Oh the food, the dancing, the laughs, the carefreeness of happy people in a fake city in a desert.

I used to think friendship was defined by perfect connection, and I think it made me disappointed in the ability to do that. But I feel (rather than just know) now that it's imperfect, it's the unstraightforward ways of reaching out and relating, the differences, the way we balance each other out, the way we love across disconnections, and it's about the surprise, not the expectation, of connection.

california
Being here has been less coming back home and more getting to know a new place. I sit on our porch in our backyard to read, which I rarely did when I actually lived there. My parents keep nagging me about being in the sun when I'm so tan already, which is another thing I've long learned to ignore, and I'm so happy with the warmth. I can consciously feel the difference between this year and last--there was a period of time when each day I felt wonder at the fact that it has been continuously warm, and that there was no harsh winter to break it up. Duy and I took a day drive to Marin County and I saw my first West Coast lighthouse. We took my parents to Half Moon Bay and we read for hours, again in the sun but my parents didn't say anything to me about it this time. I found my new favorite clothing store in SF, on Fillmore Street--Crossroads, which combines pricey vintage pieces with really cheap used clothing sorted by color. I'm awaiting the Cherry Blossom festival in Japantown. Steph and I made our way through Golden Gate Park and walked almost all the way to Ocean Beach (grabbed the bus toward the end), which has very shiny water. The farmer's market at the Ferry Plaza is heaven, and I resisted buying anything for home because so much of the flavor comes from having small bites on the street. I remember A. and I talking about all the different kinds of people who sold items at Haymarket in Boston and all the different kinds of people who come to buy them. Who doesn't love farmer's markets?

I'm going to miss California a lot more when I leave in the fall, than when I left for college. I know it has something to do with the different phases of our lives, how back then it was a home to go back to and now it's a place where I've grown and failed to grow/am still stuck in some ways, and that's not something you can quite go back to. I love my apartment so much, because I poured so much effort into settling--it didn't come immediately or completely naturally. But I'm trying hard not to envision an ideal "place" for myself next year because I want to be open to what comes. I know this is hard for me because I get so fixated on what's ideal.

I feel like amidst all these words I haven't really said anything at all, but that's a little like the way life has been...a flow of things that don't seem much but are everything.