Never Stop Reading: I Must Give So I Can Live

"We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain."

It feels good to end the month on a high note! Yesterday Laura and I got dirty from digging her garden, walked down Alberta St., drank a lot of coffee, had Happy Hour at the Tin Shed, and wandered into a music instrument store. Laura has her heart set on getting an oud but alas, her quest has been a bit hard-going. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a keyboard, because it's a) cheaper than a banjo and b) I already know how to play it, you know? Sometimes, laziness does play the winning card.

I'm pretty excited about June and the summer in Portland. The Boys & Girls Club is closed for the next two weeks for summer maintenance and to get ready for summer programming, so that's been a nice little break, albeit a bit boring (there's only so much dusting one can do without getting bored). Right now it's so unbelievably hot in the house I'm not sure how much more of this getting-caught-up on silly computer stuff I can take, but I'm sitting in front of the open window where there's a nice breeze so I'm gonna give it my best shot.


How I Became A Nun by Cesar Aira

This is the weirdest book I've ever read in my life. I can definitely see why the Bolaño rave is on the front cover. The back cover summarizes the book as "a modern day 'Through the Looking Glass,' that begins in cyanide poisoning and ends in strawberry ice cream." That's probably about as good as a summary you're going to get.

It's also important to mention that although the main character has the same name as the author, it's never clear whether the narrator is male or female (she appears as a female more often than not). The NY Times book review focuses on this gender ambiguity quite a bit, viewing it as the key unspoken part of the novel: namely, more than anything else, this book is about a girl trapped in a boy's body. I don't know if this interpretation is what Aira intended, but it definitely makes for an interesting reading.

I liked the first chapter, involving said cyanide poisoning. The last chapter, involving a kidnapping, is quite Fargo-esque. The main word I would use the describe this book is "surreal." Or maybe "dream-like." What's up the section involving the main character's friendship with a boy who likes to play dress up with a plastic nose and his grandmother's teeth? What to make of the character's inability to "read" when he/she rejoins kindergarten, after his/her extended hospital stay? What does the title refer to? (The NY Times book review thinks it's a reference to Spanish picaresque novels.) What to make of this book, period? Damn, I've never read anything quite like it, and it's doubtful that you have either. It's pretty damn cool to read contemporary fiction like this.

Rating: Read This Book Before You Die


A Mercy by Toni Morrison

I OWN I am shock'd at the purchase of slaves,
And fear those who buy them and sell them are knaves;
What I hear of their hardships, their tortures, and groans,
Is almost enough to draw pity from stones.
I pity them greatly, but I must be mum,
For how could we do without sugar and rum?
(William Cowper, Pity for Poor Africans)

How could we do without sugar and rum? I mean, we like sugar and rum, right? We like our little comforts. They make our lives easier. We don't need them on the level as we do, say, shelter and food and warmth, but they sure do make our lives a lot better and a lot more comfortable. And when it's our own ease and comfort that's at stake, it gets very, very trick when we start considering where that comfort comes from, and at what cost.

This is just one of the questions asked by this very powerful, well-written book. Toni Morrison kind of reminds me of Tori Amos, in the sense that they can both pump out these absoultely brilliant masterpieces with an ease that would be monumental and earth-shattering for any other author. This book reads as a very effective companion/prequel to "Beloved." There's a lot to like here: the Faulknerian narrative, the poetic language, the history of early European settlement and the beginnings of slavery on U.S. soil, some Bruce Springsteen-worthy imagery of a man's dream house rising on a hill above the Virginia fog, a New World-esque motif of a girl struggling to fit into and get used to her shoes. Themes dealt with include debt, freedom, family, and ultimately how “to be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing.”

This book made me think a lot about Power and how I use Power in my everday life. There's this essay by George Orwell called "Such, Such Were the Joys," in which he describes how his experiences at prep school were his earliest experiences of fascism. Blind Justice being dealt out arbitrarily, for no rhyme or reason that you can see. Sometimes I feel like I'm teaching kids about Facism at my job. "Line up, it's time to go to meeting!" "But why?" they ask. "Why can't I just run around screaming? Why can't I just throw things on the floor? I don't like him, why do I have to stand next to him? Why? Why? Why?" It all must seem very silly, these exercises in How To Be A Socialized Polite Human Being I'm responsible for implementing, day in and day out. I think in the end, as Tori Amos sings on her new album, "I must give so I can live." A good mantra. You get what you give. You can use power (over yourself and over others) wisely, for good rather than for evil. You can be aware of it and the consequences of abusing power. It can make you appreciate, above all else, your Freedom, all the more so if you're a young woman.

Anyway, in the end I think the less you know about this book, the more you'll enjoy it, because that's one of the things I really appreciated: having no idea where the story was going and being constantly thrilled and awed by the skillful writing and plot development. Damn Toni, you write like a motherfucker, and you put us all to shame. It's the kind of book you put down and stare into space for a while after turning the last page. Highly recommended.

Rating: Read This Book Before You Die


By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño

A very memorable, powerful book that asks the very difficult but important question: what is the relevance (if any) of literature to Real Life, especially when said Real Life involves political turmoil? (Specifically a military coup when people are being tortured and killed in basements while literary salon-like parties of the intellectual elite are taking place upstairs.) Is it brave and wise to read Thucycides and Plato when a democratically elected president is being overthrown, or just hopelessly stupid and out-of-touch? With this novella, narrated by a Jesuit priest who gives classes in the history and aesthetics of Marxism to Pinochet after the coup, I can see why Bolaño liked "How I Became A Nun" after reading this book. Oh, Bolaño. You make my life so much better. More than anything else, Bolaño has shown me that truly great literature has a strong connection to the relevant, to what is going on the world.

Rating: Read This Book, Bolaño Fans



Last Evenings on Earth by Bolaño

Amazing. Simply amazing. A must-read. Bolaño makes me feel happy to be alive, and how can a book be anything other than amazing if it makes you feel that way? Bolaño's characters fuck, drink, swear, travel, smoke, live in exile, feel homeless and above all else readreadread and writewritewrite. Standout stories include the title one (a contemporary interpretation of Borges' "El sur" ), "Mauricio ('The Eye') Silva" (which reminded me of "The Ministry of Special Cases," in the way it serves as a eulogy for the victims of the "disappearences" in Chile and Argentina), "Enrique Martin" (scary and disturbing, and more than a little Phillip K. Dick-esque), "Anne Moore's Life" (one of the few Bolaño pieces where the main character is female), "Vagabond in France and Belgium" (I liked the ending: "But she doesn't hang up.") and "Dentist," which contains the closest manifesto of Bolaño-esque fiction that he has perhaps ever written, as well as the following extraordinary sentence: "We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain." Oh, it just makes me want to sigh happily and hug myself with blissful, satisfied, sated contentment.

(The NY Times book review of this book is particulary well-written and makes for a good introduction if you've never read any Bolaño before.)

Rating: Read This Before You Die, If You Know What's Good For You


Nazi Literature in the Americas by Bolaño

The kind of novel Borges would have written, had he written a novel. Basically, this novel is an encyclopedia of fictional fascist right-wing writers; mostly from Argentina, some from the U.S., Germany, and Chile. Apparently Bolano told an interviewer, "(Its) focus is on the world of the ultra right, but much of the time, in reality, I'm talking about the left.... When I'm talking about Nazi writers in the Americas, in reality I'm talking about the world, sometimes heroic but much more often despicable, of literature in general." A very interesting take. Overall, the book's "gimmick" got a little much for me after 150+ pages. All of author's names started to blur together in my mind. I was slightly confused when I realized that the last chapter is basically the same story as "Distant Star;" I'd be interested in knowing which one he wrote first (I assume this one, as it's much less fleshed out and detailed as DS). I'd recommend this only to Bolaño fans because I can see how it might be tough going for someone who isn't used or into this kind of intensely referential writing (think of the footnotes in "House of Leaves" times 190 pages). The NY Times has another really good, well-written review for both the Bolaño fan and novice; it makes the interesting point that had the Nazis won World War II, this book could very well be true, you know? History is all about the point of view; in the case of this novel, it's from the loser's, which creates poetic irony but also makes it a little disturbing when you consider how it could all so easily be true.

Rating: Read This Book, Bolaño Fans and Followers of Borges


First Stop in the New World by David Lida

I read this book in a day. I'm very impressed with myself (as well as slightly horrified by how much time I spend per day commuting). I heard of this book when Corey and I met the author on the plane back from New Orleans; he was very nice and I am very pleased to say that I enjoyed this book very much! It's the kind of book I wouldn't mind writing myself someday: a nice balance of tone, a journalism and literary hybrid. Man, it sure did make me miss Mexico... those sizzling street tacos, mmmm. This book is about as informative and in-the-know as you're gonna get about the D.F. Lida interviews politicians, the richest inhabitants of the city, glue-sniffing street kids, crack-smoking cab drivers, newspaper vendors, artists and more.

I liked how he made use of Octavio Paz's "The Labyrinth of Solitude" when discussing Mexican culture and Mexican behavior. The use of "masks", both personal and cultural, is pretty central in Paz's essay, and it makes me think of what masks I use in my life. In terms of my cultural/racial heritage, I'm mostly British and Portuguese, with some Irish and German thrown in there. I'm basically a child of Empire. I was inventing this theory with Corey on the Max about how maybe historical and cultural baggage can have a subconscious effect on your own self-perception. Maybe that's why Searching and Self-Absorption and Who-Am-I can be understood as Stuff White People Like: we're all carrying around this weighty historical guilt from facilitating or implementing imperialism and colonialism. This is a really badly articulated argument that was formed when I'd had a few beers, so apologies for that. Anyway, all this reminiscing about Mexico makes me all the more pscyhed to see Luis Alberto Urrea at Powell's books on June 3rd. (The Devil's Highway is a really powerful, great work of investigative journalism.)

Rating: Definitely Read This If You're Interested in Mexico City/Mexico

Oh, Ernesto

The person who wrote these notes died upon stepping once again onto Argentine soil; he who edits and polishes them, 'I' am not I; at least I am not the same I was before. That vagabonding through our 'America' has changed me more than I thought.

The whole month of May has been swallowed by the 750-page behemoth that is Jon Lee Anderson's biography of Che Guevara. I've been keeping Corey fully updated on the different stages of Che's life for the past three weeks: “Che's bumming around in Guatemala with not much idea of what to do with himself. God, it makes me feel so much better about my life!” “Che just arrived in the Congo. Things are not looking good.”

This whole month of May feels like it just got swallowed. I could write something about how it's been a year since I've graduated and so now I have this great manifesto... but I don't, so I won't.

My favorite part of the book was the first part, entitled “Unquiet Youth,” mainly because it dealt with what I was most interested in: what Ernesto was like as a young man and what drove him to pick his particular life path. This was my favorite part because it was what felt most relevant to me personally, as a young person still trying to figure out the best way to manage my freedom, my privilege and my choices. It was almost with a sense of relief that I read about Ernesto's lack of direction and pervasive sense of uncertainty following his graduation from medical school. I thought it was really interesting that even though Ernesto was surrounded by all these radical Communists, Socialists and Marxists in Mexico and Guatemela, it wasn't until after (as opposed to before, or during) the American intervention/CIA overthrow that he made the decision that he wanted to be more involved. As he wrote in a letter to his mother, “The bad thing is that at the same time I haven't taken the decisive attitude that I should have taken a long time ago, because deep down (and on the surface) I am a complete bum and I don't feel like having my career interrupted by an iron discipline.” (162-163) I almost felt like cheering when I read this: Ernesto gives a big stamp of approval on bumming around for a couple of years!

I thought it was fascinating to read about the gradual formation and changes of Ernesto's sense of self. It was really interesting to me reading about how your childhood can have such a monumental effect on you throughout your life: as a little kid, Ernesto was so constantly sick with asthma, he was babied a lot by his mother, but also developed this incredibly fierce iron will to compete (like in rugby) and be considered as “good” as the other kids. As the biographer describes it, his asthma also led to his sense of isolation and resulting craving for camaraderie, which the author sees as the main reason for Ernesto's fierce adoption of the Cuban cause and intense loyalty to Fidel Castro. Being a guerrilla made him feel like he was a part of a group, that he had friends, he had comrades. God, it makes me wonder how my childhood is affecting my current life. It also makes me wonder if life can really be seen as a narrative this convenient, that this straight lines can be drawn from our childhood right up to the present day. I guess it's helpful to think so.

When Ernesto adopts 'Che' as his name, I couldn't help but think of Into the Wild and Alexander Supertramp. “Call each thing by it's proper name,” he writes in his journal near the end of the movie, signing his death note with his birth name, Christopher. Man, how hard is that, trying to figure out what your proper name is! Talk about easy say, hard do. It's something that might take a lifetime to do.

At one point, one of Che's comrades says, “In spite of everything, you can't help admiring him. He knows what he wants better than we do. And he lives entirely for it.” I think this is an accurate reflection of my own feelings. I could never, ever live like Che Guevara—hell, very few of us could! It takes an incredible iron will to do so. At times, he was a hardcore maniac to the point of insanity, justifying the executions in Cuba as “justice at the service of future justice.” (458) I thought it was funny how he was particularly enraged by “individualistic” university students with “middle-class' mentalities: “perhaps in the students he saw his self-absorbed former self, and it rankled him. He had given up his self, his 'vocation' for the revolution; why couldn't they?” The answer, Che, is we're all different. We are all different people with different paths in life, and it's not helpful to say that one path is better than others or is the “right” path or whatever. Some of us are constantly seeking happiness and contentment, others find it pretty quickly and effortlessly. That's just the way it is. That's what makes us so valuable as human beings, right? Our individual, crazy, unique messed-up selves, these ridiculous consciousness we're carrying around in the mushy gray matter enveloped behind our thick skulls?

In the biography there are some parts that indicate that Che felt isolated at times, like he was living this double life, due to his commitment to the “revolutionary cause.” At one point he says to Alberto (his old travel companion from The Motorcyle Diaries) “I live like someone torn in two, twenty-four hours a day, completely torn in two, and I haven't got anybody to tell it to. Even if I did, they would never believe me.” (608) As he writes to his mother, “I am still the loner I used to be, looking for my path without personal help, but now I possess the sense of my historic duty. I have no home, no woman, no children [I'm sure his wife and daughter were a bit bummed to read this], nor parents, nor brothers nor sisters, my friends are my friends as long as they think politically like I do and yet I am content, I feel something in life, not just a powerful internal strength, which I always felt, but also the power to inject others, and an absolutely fatalistic sense of my mission which strips me of all fear.” (433-434) I don't know if I could throw my life in a similarly all-in fashion in pursuit of one single goal.

It makes me feel so young saying this, but I remember watching The Motorcycle Diaries with my freshman year boyfriend in theaters on our very first date together and being extraordinarily moved. I was particularly struck by the montage of black and white photos at the end of the different people that Alberto and Ernesto. Here's an excerpt from my personal journal that I wrote on March 19th, 2005, (Gaaaah!) shortly after I came back from the spring break service trip to Juarez:

These are some things that I cannot quite get my head around yet:

1) The difficulty between making a connection between what you think and what you do. This is something I was discussing with Ian the other day in the rhodadendron (god help me, I can never spell that word) gardens. It’s very easy to think that “I”m liberal” or “I’m creative” or “I’m a good person”, but if you don’t acutally DO anything physical in this world that serves as a concrete, physical testament to that belief, well then it just doesn’t sound very realistic to say it anymore, innit? This is something that I admire very greatly about Che Guevara upon reading “The Motorcycle Diaries”: say whatever you might like about him, but he was extremely effective at forming a connection between his ideas and his actions. The equal images of a clenched fist and a mouth streaming ideas, resting side by side... I think I’m going to have to check out some books from the library in order to learn more about him and Cuba from a more academic, scholarly point of view, because all I’m going on here is the adoring worship of the people that I’ve been surrounded by throughout my life. I think it’s creepy that “The Motorcycle Diaries” affected me much more than I ever thought it would. At the time I just thought it was a big deal because it was my first American date or whatever, but look at me, I don’t know how many months later and still thinking about it. I guess it must have resonated very deeply within me, and I have this picture of my soul being struck like a guitar string and still quivering back and forth, months later.

I went on to rant a little about how I was changing my major to General Literature or Spanish as opposed to English and Creative Writing, because I felt it would be more useful. I used an interesting phrase, about "learning to balance the Howard Roark and the mother in me." A struggle that still continues to this day. God, I'd forgotten how excruciating reading old journal entries can be. If nothing else, they serve as a reaffirming validation that yes, it is possible for people to change, and yes, I *have* changed since I was a freshman. Thank god. Anyway, I just thought it was funny, reading what I wrote all the way back then, in context of me in the process of finishing this enormous biography.

It was fun reading about Ernesto's early life because his writings were equally melodramatic. I think he brought a very good definition to being a traveler rather than a tourist: roughing it, being dirty (his lifelong nickname was “El Chancho” (the pig) from how infrequently he changed his clothes and how nasty he consequently smelled), being as open and receptive as possible. I've been thinking lately that I want to try to be more like a “tourist” in my everyday life; that is, to adopt the same mind frame that I aspire to have while I'm traveling here in what I consider my “static” period: working, living in Portland. My definition of being a good traveler is to be as open as possible to new experiences, to try to stay away from judgment. When you're having an experience, to not so much worry about quickly judging it or summarizing it as “good” or “bad,” but instead try to reflect that “oh, this is an experience that I'm having,” and just kind of try to be in the moment, and then reflect upon it in full later. I think this is a good way to avoid the kind of stress you inevitably run into while traveling: late buses, mean people, bad food. I mean, I run into that kind of stuff here in Portland as well, but to some degree it feels less heightened, less intense than it does when I'm in a different country... maybe because I've been living here for a while now.

Here's to being a good tourist in everyday life.


Lying introspectively like Jorge Malabia on his back: a common motif among young brooding men of the Rio Plata region.

April Books

Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

A very well-written, readable and well-argued book. McKibben basically argues that we need to redefine our understanding of classic economics: namely that more doesn't always necessarily equal better, not just for sustainable reasons (we're running out of resources on our planet) but for personal reasons (more stuff, bigger businesses and expanding economies aren't making us happier). It's an interesting argument and he follows through with it pretty well with practical suggestions on how we can refocus our energies on building more local economies and communities. I really enjoyed McKibben's discussion of behavioral economics and the science of happiness, two topics I find really interesting and know very little about. There are a few moments that are a little too "oh god, you are such an environmentalist from Vermont," like when he suggests giving bus drivers your personal mix CDs to slap on the stereo. Also, McKibeen seems to be writing for an audience that he automatically assumes is anti neoliberal and free trade, so if you're not, that might be a problem for you. (Disclaimer: it wasn't for me, I'm just trying to be fair and balanced here.) However, overall McKibben does quite a good job of making practical suggestions for how to make the world a better place and how to be more hopeful in general, which is a nice change from the more general "oh-god-we're-all-doomed" feeling of recent months.

The one part of the book that I keep summarizing and quoting to all of my co-workers and friends is the section where McKibben talks about the science of happiness. He asks the very interesting question of what was the time in our lives when most of us would say that we were happiest. For most people, they would say volunteering, with family, with friends, etc.... being around others. Being *out* of yourself and your chatty little head, and instead feeling like you're a part of something bigger than yourself. That really hit the nail on the head for me, and put into words something I'd been struggling to articulate to myself for a while now: what has brought me some of the highest levels of joy in my life was when I felt like I was "out of myself," part of something larger, whether in the hugeness of nature or within a community of people (like Los Embajadores in Tijuana), not as this self-internalizing super efficient/proficient utility machine.

Whether my enjoyment of finally having this particular feeling put into words actually leads to me doing or deciding something concrete remains to be seen. I think of my advisor's advice to me of why not to go to graduate school, at least not for literature, and it really rings more and more true for me by the day. He was like "travel! Get out in the world! Work with kids!" This summer, I'm gonna garden.

Rating: Read This Book Before You Die



Keep the Aspidistra Flying (George Orwell)

An enjoyable if not earth shattering read. Orwell is the master of succinct, perfect sentences. Along with watching "Revolutionary Road," this book definitely helped put me in a weird mindset about the whole settling down into a comfortable career and lifestyle deal, while thinking that you're this person who's "better" than everyone else around you. The happy ending feels a little forced; if Orwell had been truer to the tone of earlier parts of the book, the characters' fate would have been a lot darker. Orwell said in a letter that when he wrote it, "I was half starved and had to turn out something to bring in £100," which explains a lot. All in all, a nice fictional companion to "Down and Out in Paris and London."

Rating: Read This If You're An Orwell Fan


El Juguete Rabioso / The Mad Toy (Roberto Arlt)

Another book about a character whose life is really affected by money (namely his lack of it). I would have really dug this book in high school, a lot, and probably would have had a little bit of a crush on Silvio, the main character.

The Mad Toy took me a long time to get through, despite its 142 pages. I don't really know why. I don't exactly know what to make of this book. I'm not sure what the title refers to, for one. I guess "the mad toy" is Silvio himself, and the title refers to the way in which he often finds himself inevitably being used as "a toy" by people in power and by the mentors he consistently keeps seeking (and failing) to find. The final chapter (ominously titled "Judas Iscariot"), in which Silvio deliberately betrays a mentor/friend, can be understood as Silvio's attempt to subvert this feeling of always feeling like a plaything to others whims, and instead claim some agency of his own (at the stake of his friend, which is troublesome).

The first chapter is about Silvio as a young boy and his adventures in inventing amateur weapons of war and his life of crime as a book thief, smuggling encyclopedias and Baudelaire out of the school library. I love the sentence that he uses to introduce an anecdote about one of his inventions, copying the language of the pirate and Dumas paperbacks he loves. "A resounding adventure was that of my cannon, and happy am I to recall it." I like to repeat this phrase quietly to myself. It adds so much, narrating the events in our lives with a deliberate aesthetic style!

Needless to say, it says a lot about Silvio that his first career is as a book thief. He goes on to try working as a bookstore assistant, an apprentice airplane mechanic for the military, and a paper salesman, without finding much satisfaction. However, what seems to keep him going is his ability to aesthetically narrate his life and his surroundings, infusing it with what he experiences as an inexplicable joy:

I'm not crazy, one thing is certain, though... I know that life will always be extraordinarily beautiful for me. I don't know whether other people will experience the force of life as I do, but inside me there is joy, a full, unconscious kind of joy. Everything surprises me. Sometimes I have the feeling that it's just an hour since I arrived on earth, and everything is flaming new, fresh, beautiful. (150)

Silvio's goals by the end of the book are to "see glaciers and mountains and clouds." That sounds pretty good to me. The last sentence of the book is "I tripped over a chair, and kept going." It reminded me a lot of the last sentence of Catch-22. You jump out of the way of the whore's knife, life tangles you up and catches you off guard, but you gotta keep going.

Silvio's final mentor figure is the policeman who receives his confession/ratting out his friend, but doesn't arrest him. The wisdom he imparts to Silvio is "we obey a brutal law that's inside us. That's it. We obey the law of the jungle." A very true thing it is, human brutality. And yet it's not the only true thing. We feel as human beings, profoundly and deeply. What is it that drives some people to not just see life as a drudgery and a chore, life as 9-5, as a series of steps: college, job, marriage, children, retirement death? What is it that drives some people to make the conscious choice to love life, to see it as sweet?

I'd like to keep joy inside me. I'd like to aesthetically narrate my life, my day-to-day.

Love, poetry, gratitude toward life, toward books, and toward the world would send an electrical charge through the blue sinews of my soul.
It wasn't me, but the god inside me, a god fashioned from pieces of mountain, forest, sky and memory. (123)

Rating: Read This Before You Die



When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chödrön

A self-help book written by a Buddhist Canadian nun. I first heard of this book when my yoga teacher read aloud a passage at the end of one class that really connected to me. I recognized a lot of her advice from stuff my counselor gave me to read way back in junior year. She talks a lot about loving compassion, the importance of breathing in and out, exercising non-judgment. It's not just all theoretical, there's a lot of practical advice in her. All in all, a very wise book by a very wise lady. Even if you're not in a time of your life where things are falling apart, there's definitely some stuff in here that you could use.

Rating: Read This Book Before You Die

In April I also read Phillip K. Dick's Flow My Tears the Policeman Said and Ubik, both good reads if you're a Dick fan (hee), but not necessarily vital. I also read Faulkner's The Wild Palms, which hopefully I'll be able to devote an entire post to this weekend. And that was my April.