Garden of Evening Mists (Entry 5) Aritomo... what happens next?

Did Aritomo leave at the end, to disappear into the jungles of Malaya to die?
I don't think so.
Maybe to live a new chapter of his life.

I am certain he didn't get lost in the Highlands. He was the book's hero. Super hero. He wasn't about to get lost.

Or did he return to the Japanese Emperor to design gardens? (Remember, he had just received the letter of pardon.)

His work with Yun Ling was finished. His garden at Yugiri was finished. His work at Yugiri was done. It was time for him to move on.

It was said that he was a man of the background that would finish his job. He did finish.

So was he Lao Tzu and just walked out the gate, leaving civilization. Into the wilderness?  I think this is what happened. Not sure.

And while I'm at it, was he with Golden Lily?  Is that why he left Yun Ling the map? Is that how he knew the location of her prison camp and the 'buried treasure?' If so, I absolutely do not think he left to find the treasure. No way.

Well, just thoughts.

Garden of Evening Mists (Entry 4) Some Passages

Highlighted passages.
Things that hit me while I was reading.
Page numbers are from my paperback book.

1. Memory. So  much about memory. As we sit in stillness, our minds are able to stir up memories of way past, or of recent past. Light falls on them and we can observe them with the advantage of time passed. So we might see them differently that when in the midst of the painting. Healing can happen. Understanding. Learning. Or maybe just plain acceptance. 

I post this passage first. It still resonates with me. 

(page 294) Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley, shifting with the movement of the clouds. Now and then the light will fall on a particular point in time, illuminating it for a moment before the wind seals up the gap, and the world is in shadows again.




2. Sometimes I can see sound left behind from words or music or laughter. Can't you? Not really see as in physical, but it is so real that I sense it so strongly. I see it. Here Yun Ling leaves her office for the last time. The watercolor is her sister's work. 

(page 9)  Carrying my briefcase and the watercolor, I walked out of the courtyard. In the sky above me, the last line of prayer from the mosque drifted away, leaving only silence where its echo had been. 

3. Memories again. But spoken so poetically. It's a poem Aritomo recited for Yun Ling. 

(page 16) Though the water has stopped flowing, we still hear the whisper of its name. 

4. We all know we can never totally empty ourselves of our past and start new. We must do the work to grow. Here Yun Ling reads that the Japanese gardens under Zen Buddhism's influence allowed for reflection on faith as they were less cluttered, towards emptiness. 

(page 81) I put the book down and closed my eyes. Emptiness: it appealed to me, the possibility of ridding myself of everything I had seen and heard and lived through. 

5.  From what I can tell, shakkei (borrowed scenery) generally is the concept of designing your garden to interact with the outside landscape... emphasizing, reflecting, building upon what you wish. 

(page 110) Shakkei. Aritomo never could resits employing the principles of Borrowed Scenery in everything he did, and the thought comes to me that perhaps he may have even brought it into his life. And if he did so, had there come a time when he could no longer distinguish what was real and what were only reflections in his life? And will this also happen to me in the end?

6. Reminds me of John Lennon's "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."  

(page 136) Pull every breath deep down into you. Feel your body expanding as you breathe: this is where we live, in the moments between each inhalation and exhalation. 

7. Rebirth, change, the rhythms of the seasons. Thank you Shelley.

(page 138)

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,

        And the nursling of the Sky;

I pass through the pores, of the ocean and shores; 
 I change, but I cannot die
For after the rain, when with never a stain 
 The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, 
 Build up the blue dome of Air  
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph 
 And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, live a ghost from the tomb, 
 I arise, and unbuild it again.

8. He did it. He applied the Shakkei of Japanese gardening to our design of our spirits, of our souls.  

(page 143)  'A garden borrows from the earth, the sky, and everything around it, but you borrow from time," I said slowly. "Your memories are a form of shakkei too. You bring them in to make your life here feel less empty. Like the mountains and the clouds over your garden, you can see them, but they will always be out of reach."

9.  Mono no aware, another Japanese gardening concept. A beautiful one. The awareness of the impermanence of life. Which makes the present ever so more precious. 

(page 163) "That point in time just as the last leaf is about to drop, as the remaining petal is about to fall; that moment captures everything beautiful and sorrowful about life."

10. Aritomo knew he was to heal Yun Ling's memories. He knew he was to nurture, to teach, to connect. To draw out the memories so she could forgive the Japanese (as best she could) and forgive herself (for leaving Yun Hong.) This was Aritomo's part. When it was done, he was to move on. The garden was finished, and Yun Ling needed him no longer. 

(page 284)"I often feel I am on a ship, heading for a destination on the other side of the world. I imagine myself in that blank space, between the two points of a mapmaker's calipers."  "That empty space exists only on maps, Aritomo."  "Maps and also in memories."

11.  Another concept. The charting of our lives. Making sense of our lives. We are all trying to do it. Compassion for our fellow travelers.

(page 307)  Are all of us the same, I wonder, navigating our lives by interpreting the silences between words spoken, analyzing the returning echoes of our memory in order to chart the terrain, in order to make sense of the world around us?

The Garden of Evening Mists (Entry 3) Finished it!

I have finished "The Garden of Evening Mists." Couldn't put it down until I finished it. Read the last third right through.

Wow.

Forgiveness.
Forgetting.
Or not forgetting.
Forgetting what we want to remember. Remembering what we don't want to remember.

SPOILER ALERT... I'm going to talk about details in the book that are best unfolded as you read...

SPOILER ALERT.SPOILER ALERT.SPOILER ALERT.SPOILER ALERT.SPOILER ALERT.

Lao Tzu leaving civilization on his Water Buffalo

The writer got me into their world. I was immersed in Malaya. In Malaysia. I was there at Yugiri and next door at Majuba in the late 1940's. I was there in 1989. I was in the corner of the room, sitting silently watching the tattooing. I could feel the humid air, the sensuousness. I was scared to death when the Kwai Hoon was in her kitchen, and when the people from the "Committee to Locate Prison Camps" or whatever came.  I told Yun Ling they were not to be trusted. Well, Kwai Hoon was to be trusted, but the CT's would find Yun Ling.  I knew that moment when Aritomo walked without Yun Ling that he wasn't coming back. He was acting out the path of Lao Tzu. He was finished. He wasn't going to return to Japan. He had his garden in Malaya. He had made his map. He was finished.

The spiritual world and the physical world intersect.
The memories.
Forgiving. Forgetting.

Yun Ling carried me through her life story. I ate up every word. I processed it all with her. I was confused when she was confused. I was in survival mode when she was. I floated when she did. I learned to trust when she did.

What wasn't perfect about this book? The map to show the treasure was contrived I thought. Too much hinting at the treasure, the gold. And her back, and the garden itself as the missing piece? I thought that a little too contrived. Too clever. I didn't think it was necessary actually. The story held up beautifully on it's own as a story of completion, of healing between Yun Ling and Aritomo, between a Chinese prisoner and a Japanese who knew what had happened. Okay, so the tattoo did pull them together. So maybe just the tattoo and the map, not the treasure. I'm softening a bit here on this point.

Superb how Tominaga Noboru was connected  with Yun Ling and with Aritomo. Loved that part. And how Magnus sacrificed himself for Emily, Yun Ling and Aritomo. What a guy. He and his son Frederik were so real to me. Frederik was the spoiled kid, Magnus was full of life. Bigger than life. Flying his Transvaal flag. Opening up his home to Yun Ling in the first place. The final sacrifice.

Okay, how about this: Were you surprised when you found out that Yun Ling was a snitch in the prison camp? WOW. I was. Opened up a whole 'nother side of her to my eyes. Maybe I should have seen it, how when she escaped she chose a career of getting revenge, of putting Japanese war criminals behind bars.

Can I really call her a snitch? She told Fumio what other prisoners were doing. It was survival. But still. I don't know. Thankfully I have never been in her shoes.

 And there's the comment made so many times, that she was the only one who escaped alive from that camp. When I heard that the first time, I thought there was some self-survival action she did to escape. But then I thought, she wouldn't leave her dear sister behind to die. Not to judge. In the book she had no choice.  Ferried off by Tominaga and set free... would I have run for it right away? She went back, only to watch the implosion. She did go back.

Returning to the story, were you surprised when Aritomo and Yun Ling spent their first night together? I was stopped in my tracks. Thought they had a mentor-student relationship. Guess I should have seen the bow-and-arrow sexual tension coming.

Did this book change my thinking? Does it seep into my mind randomly? Well yes. Even since finishing it last night, yes.

First the concept of memories. Writing down your memories, as you will forget them. Yun Ling had a powerful story to tell, quite the life. We all have a powerful story to tell. We are all in the midst of living our lives. But please please let us pause and reflect once in awhile. Let us listen to our life story, learn from it, grow from it, heal from it, accept it as our own.

I am not a true student of Japanese Gardening. I see it takes years and years to understand, and perhaps part of it is you never understand it all. But I gather the gardens can have several purposes. One is contemplation. Pausing in peace and controlled serenity. Which allows the person who enters moments to think. With nature controlled and surrounding you. Immersed in bound-by-people nature, yet with nature still moving forward. The heron. The change of seasons. The breeze.

Contemplate.

Loved the part where Aritomo asked Yun Ling to close her eyes. "I want you to listen to the garden. Breathe it in. Cut your mind from its constant noise. When you open your eyes again" - Aritomo's voice seemed to come from far away - "look at the world around you." 

Patience. I hope you all did just this. Close those eyes. Wait. Patience. Do it. Close those eyes. Listen. Breathe.

Then open them.

My eyes skimmed over the water to the camellia hedges, to the trees rising to the mountains, the mountains entering the folds of clouds. ..... For the first time I felt I was inside a living, three-dimensional painting.... A sigh, both of contentment and sorrow, drained from deep within me. 

There's a "way of life" component to this story Eng wrote. I like that.

Second big thing that is seeping into me. Forgiveness doesn't have to be complete, or at least at first. Doesn't have to be unconditional. Doesn't mean you say,"It's okay you hurt me. And that you killed my sister." But what is it?

So what is forgiveness?

I have thought it meant not needing revenge. Accepting the event as something done, and move forward with no judgement towards the doer. I will look this up.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines forgiveness as 'to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offence or debt. In most contexts, forgiveness is granted without any expectation of restorative justice, and without any response on the part of the offender (for example, one may forgive a person who is incommunicado or dead).'

So forgiveness is me moving forward. Totally. As Yun Ling kept doing all through the book. How else could she have loved Aritomo so purely. BUT it took stages. It took years. It took conversations and events and processing. It took time and work. So worth it to not carry the anger and hate. So worth it. 

As a Christian, I think of Christ's redemptive act on the cross, for forgiveness of my sins. 
Forgiveness is me moving forward. 
Hope. 

All I can say is "thank you."

More on parts of the book I highlighted later. Off to church. 

Garden of Evening Mists (Entry 2) Malaya maps

1989 Malaysia

I am absolutely loving this month's book, The Garden of Evening Mists.  Yugiri.                        

As my history and geography background is scattered, had to look up some context. Here's a map of current southeast Asia, with Malaysia in teal acting as bookends to the south South China Sea. Singapore and Brunei are carved out.

 I always wondered where the Sultan of Brunei hailed from. Now I know.

BUT BUT BUT they talk about Malaya as well as Malaysia.. notice the deleted "si". We start off  in 1989 in Malaysia,  but we dive back to 1940-45. Teoh Yun Ling might be telling us about her life in other years also, but this is as far as I have gotten in the story.

In 1989, the map of Malaysia looked like above. From 1946 to 1965 the British territories on the Malayan Peninsular, along with several islands and part of Borneo all did 19 years of a Scottish reel of joining, separating, joining, changing formal names .... which ended in the above map. A bumpy road. So the above map is the Malaysia of Teoh Yun Ling's present. 

1940 British Malaya

Now we have the time of 1940-45, Yun Ling's past.  British Malaya initially was three parts, all having to do with how they were governed by the British. On the map to the left are the Straits Settlements (red), the Unfederated States (blue) and the Federated Malay States (yellow.)          

From 1942-45 the Japanese occupied all of British Malaya. 

In 1945 at the end of World War II, the British took over rule again.  Here's when Yun Ling journeyed  to the Cameroon Highlands, to meet with Arimoto. And stay with Magnus Pretorius.  Below you will find the Cameroon Highlands, Tanah Rata, Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh. 

Current Malaysian Peninsula

The Garden of Evening Mists (Entry 1)

 Our book for March is The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twang Eng.




 


Shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, here's their description:

Set during the Japanese occupation, The Garden of Evening Mists follows young law graduate, Yun Ling Teoh, as she seeks solace among the plantations of the Cameron Highlands. Here she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the secretive Aritomo. Aritomo agrees to accept Yun Ling as his apprentice “until the monsoon” so that she can design a garden in memorial to her sister. But over time the jungle starts to reveal secrets of its own…

Interview with the author

New York Times Review

Quartet

Responding to an email invitation sent yesterday, a bevy of us went to the movies this afternoon, a glass of wine afterwards.


Quartet.

I went not knowing anything about it, only that it was about music and an old age home.

It was fantastic. I had tears in my eyes at the end when, well, I'm not going to tell you why...

Go see this movie if you have EVER sung a song.
Go see this movie if you have EVER had your heart broken. 
Go see this movie if you are willing to acknowledge we all are aging daily.

My dear, life-is-a-gas father said, "Getting older isn't fun, but it sure beats the alternative." Thankful for every day, for every experience.

I admit, the first fifteen minutes I thought to myself, This is sure a lot of old people. And they have lots of wrinkles and they move slowly. Then you see beyond the surface. You see the personalities and the energy and the life and their fascinating stories. You see their frustrations. You see some give up. You see some accept and thrive. You see compassion and community.

Very light-hearted. Funny beyond funny with that dry, wry British humor. And the humor is even more delightful if you are a person comfortable about aging.

When my time comes to move into a place where others take care of me, I want to be at Beecham House. What a hoot.

Quartet is SO WORTH IT. 

Pot Luck Supper

I thought I was sitting in the middle of a Tinkers's page-long passage describing (brilliantly) the words and laughter from a conversation past remaining in the air, floating around and up and down on air currents.

Sitting on one of our four Plantation-style chairs, upholstered in grayish aqua and white paisley fabric, in my living room. The round wicker coffee table in front of me had just hours ago held trays of parmesean cheese cubes, proscuitto and salami circles, spinach-artichoke dip with crackers. Next to me sat dear Beth and Mike, all of us sipping full glasses of Pinot Grigio. Catching up on the day, waiting for the first guests to arrive.

Now I sit there, just Mike in the house with me. He's getting a dog biscuit for Sporty, I can hear the clink of the biscuit jar. It is quiet. The lights are still dim. I'm pooped.

I can see the words floating around up there, spiraling up into the air of the 22 foot peaked ceiling, over the white trusses crossing from lake side wall to front courtyard wall. I can see the sentences. Then the laughter. The emotions are thick like a tiny cloud caught up there.

I love gatherings.

"I sang with Barry Manilov!"
 "You mean you were pregnant when you got married?"
 "Abbey the English Bulldog."
"He's buying a used car in Chicago."
"First tap dancing, now this."
"What, she's a prostitute?"
"There are more females than males in college today, why?"
"Sweet tooth."

We missed those who couldn't make it. Pot Luck Suppers are so cool. A construct all their own. As a child, I went to so many at our church. Mom made macaroni and cheese. And we would learn of so many cutting edge recipes at those Pot Luck Suppers. These were the years before Food TV and internet searching for recipes. Then our recipes were either handed down verbally mother to child, or gleaned from those handful of trusty cookbooks such as Joy of Cooking or Bennet Farm Cookbook. Seven Layered Salad! Cool Whip Jello Mold! Chicken with Broccoli and Creamed Mushroom Soup!

Pot Luck Suppers have evolved. Starting with a spread worthy of an apartment off the Plaza Popoli, we savored cubes of aged Parmesean, surrounded by the spread of cured Italian meats. Retro Artichoke-Spinach Dip with Wheat Thins. Rounded off with Camembert and a Boursin. Self service drinks in the living room Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Cabernet, and sparking waters was an experiment by the hostess, and I think it worked. Got us meandering out of the kitchen.

For the mains, we had garlic and rosemary Turkey Tenderloins, marinated Flank Steaks, Chicken Greens Salad, Orzo/Feta/Asparagus/Peppers Salad, Roasted Cauliflower and Broccoli, Butter Lettuce with Fruits and Nuts. And the grande finale was a Made-from-Scratch Chocolate Cake w whipped cream frosting, strawberries and vanilla ice cream. Oh man. Savor that coffee or peppermint tea, this was quite a feast.

We all fit at one table, and some enjoyed a spell outside on the porch. It was mentioned that it would be fun to do this every quarter, not only every year (or two or three.) Great idea.  Who will put it into action? Mike and I agreed, everyone is so nice, and such fun to be with. Thank you all for these moments of gathering. I just love them!

Tinkers (Entry 2) ... Borealises

This is an addition to the previous blog on Tinkers, by Paul Harding.

Oh I can hear it. Some of you are saying, WHAT? There's more to say about that mess?
Yes there is.
Because others are saying, YES, THANK YOU! I didn't want the conversation to be over.

The Borealises.

As I said before, or I meant to, this book is as if I were allowed to be inside a man's brain as he was dying. What would he be thinking? What is so core to your life that you would think on it those last few days? And, how would you think on it? He rambles, he hallucinates, he imagines, he remembers. He yearns to reunite with the father that deserted him. He wants to relive the moments that were strong emotional moments. Positive and negative.

The six Borealises, to me, lent some structure to this book, to this collage of memories. Here's my thoughts, by no means proven. Just opinions.  Did the author intend this structure, I don't know. As an engineer, when I see something repeatedly inserted into a book, I want to know WHY? The Radical Horologist's ramblings were good to highlight some of the themes, but these Borealises seemed to have more of an outline purpose. Maybe, maybe not. See what you think.

What is a borealis? Literally, borealis means "pertaining to the north wind."

 It is also short for the Aurora Borealis, which is the spectacular light show in the sky caused by collisions of charged particles with our upper atmosphere.  Quite dramatic. Nature and electricity combining to a dramatic moment? Reminds you of epilepsy?

So our author creates six short Borealis passages read by the grandson to George as he dies. Written into a journal by Howard or by George. I think they were written by George. Not positive though.

We start out the book with calm, peace, order. We meet Howard. He is a hero. He pulled Gilbert's tooth, put out a fire, fished the drowned child from the creek.His son George is dying peacefully, surrounded by family. All is orderly in the world.

The first Borealis is Cosmos Borealis. Cosmos is a harmonious system, such as our universe. Nature in harmony, the opposite of Chaos.

"Light skin of sky and cloud and mountain on the still pond. Water body beneath teeming with reeds and silt and trout.. Skin like glass like liquid like skin; our words scrieved the slick surface.."

The world is calm on the surface. Nature is supreme, with humans just barely an influence compared to nature's momentous and eternal workings.

"What is it like to be full of lightning? What would it be like to be split open from the inside by lightning"

Bam. Howard's world changes in an instant. But the cosmos doesn't change a wit. We don't experience his epilepsy as vividly as in later pages. Here we listen to Howard's attempt to understand his seizures. This violent force of nature that comes literally into Howard's life and changes it unalterably.  Talk about 'man versus nature' battle.

 Sam gives George a shave. He bleeds. Howard is on his cart, it is evening.

The second is Crepuscule Borealis. Twilight, dusk. The gloaming.

"1. The bark of birches glows silver and white at dusk. The bark of birches peels like parchment. ... 4. Foxes keep to the shadows. Owls look down from branches..." 

Talking about clocks, trying to capture time. Talking about George's headstone after he dies.

This is the twilight. Darkness is about to happen.

Third is Tempest Borealis. Violent windstorm.

" 1. The sky turned silver... The wind blew and the trees showed the silver-green undersides of their leaves.... Lightning crawled down the mountain and drank at the water, lapped the shallows with electric tongues, stunning bolt-eyed frogs and small trout and silver minnows. Thunder cracked like falling timber and shook the cabin as it clapped the water skin."

The violent windstorm of Howard's adult life/ of George's childhood. Howard makes a nest, creating beautiful order from nature's leavings. Then has a seizure. He has an ache in his heart. Upswelling of emotions. He loves his family so dearly. We are with him as he watches George release the dead mouse on a birch canoe of flames. Then Howard's violent seizure where he bites George's hand. Howard abandons his family rather than be sent to an asylum by his wife.

Next we see the windstorm of Howard's childhood. His own father faded, probably with dementia. He was taken away by his wife and four friends. Howard searched long and hard for him in the woods, and there experienced his first epileptic seizure.

These two windstorms / tempests provide us some dynamite passages.

On family and generations and memories:
“Because they are like tiles loose in a  frame, with just enough space so they can all keep moving around...which  will generally stay together but move about within another whole and be mingled with in endless ways of other people's memories, so that I will remain a set of impressions porous and open to combination with all the other vitreous squares floating about ..... and to their great-grandchildren, I will be no more than a tint of some obscure color, and to their great grandchildren nothing they ever know about, and so what army of strangers and ghosts has shaped and coloured me until back to Adam, until back to when ribs were blown from molten sand into the glass bits that took up the light of this world.... ” 

On dementia:
"The world fell away from my father the way he fell away from us.  We became his dream."

On wisdom looking at youth:
"So there is my son, already fading... even thought Howard understood, too, that the fading was yet to begin in a any actual sense, that at that moment he and his son, the father standing in the dimness, the son kneeling and partly obscured by the charred door, were still only heading, not yet arrived, toward the point where the fading would begin."

Perspective, it's how you process what your senses provide you:
“Howard thought, Is it not true: A move of the head, a step to the left or right, and we change from wise, decent, loyal people to conceited fools? Light changes, our eyes blink and see the world from the slightest difference of perspective and our place in it has changed infinitely: Sun catches cheap plate flaking--I am a tinker; the moon is an egg glowing in its nest of leafless trees--I am a poet; a brochure for an asylum is on the dresser--I am an epileptic, insane; the house is behind me--I am a fugitive. His despair had not come from the fact that he was a fool; he knew he was a fool. The despair came from the fact that his wife saw him as a fool, as a useless tinker, a copier of bad verses from two-penny religious magazines, an epileptic, and could find no reason to turn her head and see him as something better.” 

Fourth is Cometa Borealis. A comet is a small solar body made of ice and dust and rocks, which usually has a tail. We think of them zooming through our night sky, with their tails trailing behind.


"We entered the atmosphere at dusk. We trailed a wake of fire... We barely caught a glimpse of the darkening world below us before we burned away to nothing."

What tail do the windstorms leave? Here the tail is Howard's life in Philadelphia.  We are left to imagine the emptiness of George growing up after Howard's leaving. There's talk of a clock's escapement mechanism. Constructing a bird's nest (order from nature's chaos.)

Fifth is Domestica Borealis. Home. Family.

"1. New Year's morning we watched crows collect tinsel for their nests.... 3.  We lashed fishing line to playing cards and raise a house...."

The universe is compared to a mechanism like a clock, with celestial gears, spinning ball bearings, hands orbiting like planets, etc. The reassurance of nature's cycles and repetitions, the deeper mysteries which "puzzle and beg for consideration."

January 1972 Howard dies. Day Six, maybe it's 2009, George is dying. George's spirit is leaving its temporal home.

Megan leaves for her home in Pittsburgh, Howard for his family in Massachusetts.

And sixth is Homo Borealis. Humans.

"1. We kicked the bark of dead trees and the soft wood beneath was as pale as sawdust and sometimes covered with strange designs...We sensed, finally, the foolishness of attributing the unknown to secret cabals, to conspiracies. Everything was almost always obscure. understanding shone when it did, for no discernable reason, and we were content.... 5. When it came time to die, we knew and went to deep yards where we lay down and our bones turned to brass... Our ribs were fitted as gear teeth and tapped and clicked like tusks., This is how, finally we were joined."

George dies.

The last thing he remembers? George remembers Christmas dinner, 1953. Howard arriving unexpected at George's home. He sees his father for the first time in thirty years. Only a few words spoken. Nothing of importance. Then Howard leaves.

Well, George is only imagining this reunion with his father. Before he dies, which memories are real and which memories are dearly wished hallucinations? Is it the inherent goodness of life that allows George to experience his father returning? Think of the hours and hours George would have pictured this. Longed for this. Dreamed up scenes in which the ending moment was his father's return to the family. So here, his last thought, was "remembering" his one heart's desire.

And his one heart's desire wasn't a thing. It was a person. It was love.

I had better end on that note.

Tinkers, Paul Harding (Entry 1)

The first Friday of the month is my favorite day of the month. It's book lunch day! I get to gather with fourteen of my dear friends, and talk about a book. This is our 21st year. How cool is that?

Today there were thirteen of us. French Onion Soup, Curried Chicken Salad and Salmon Salad, Green Bibb lettuce, a plethora of muffins. And Cinnamon-y Apple Crisp.

The book, Paul Harding's Tinkers.

GEORGE WASHINGTON CROSBY BEGAN TO hallucinate eight days before he died. From the rented hospital bed, placed in the middle of his own living room, he saw insects running in and out of imaginary cracks in the ceiling plaster. 

I want to write down some of our thoughts, and some links which threw some light. Not exhaustive. Please forgive my omissions.

You could tell some of us weren't thrilled with the book, so we started the conversation (after the soup, during the salads) with going around the table rating the book. If the book had mixed reviews right off the top, this is a good way of starting. You stated your rating on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being "Best book I've ever read I'm buying ten copies and giving them to everyone I know" and 1 being "What was he thinking?" And you added a few sentences of defense for your rating.

This moves along, because we all know we want to hear everyone. We were split. One 10, a couple 8's, a few 6's, and many 2's. And one 4 3/4.

All agreed the writing needed some editing.  Pretty amazing that he would win a Pulitzer Prize with confusing tense changes, some sentences running on a bit too long, and several discussions loosing the reader in the dust.

Some thought it was morbid. Others that it was hopeful and comforting. Depends on what's going on in your life right now, perhaps, that gives you one filter or the other for reading this book?  Or just plain it hit you that way.

All also agreed there were moments of brilliance, of poetry, of sentences and paragraphs and descriptions you wanted to hold onto.

Then we talked about the structure. We don't have a list of questions. I try to guide the discussion a little, but not much. Usually each book grabs different people to think up questions or discussion topics. Every month a few people come with paragraphs to read from the book, or insights gleaned while reading. We want this to be a book DISCUSSION group. Conversation with the book as the topic, and also as a launching pad. How did this book affect you? This takes thought time. Challenges us to stretch. Fun stuff.

So the structure. Not apparent to all.  Doesn't hit you in the face as a fast plot line. We came to think the author collaged this as the mental ramblings of George dying over the 8 days.


George Crosby remembered many things as he died, but in an order he could not control. To look at his life, to take the stock he always imagined a man would at his end, was to witness a shifting mass, the tiles of a mosaic spinning, swirling, reportraying, always in recognizable swaths of colors, familiar elements, molecular units, intimate currents, but also independent now of his will, showing him a different self every time he tried to make an assessment.

I read in an interview that the first scene the author wrote of this book was the scene of Howard abandoning his family... when George is 12.  Right after Howard bites George during a seizure. Right after Kathleen props the Insane Asylum brochure up on his dresser.  In the published book, this scene is in the middle-ish of the book. So we could say the author doesn't demand linear chronology in his own life.

 Interview by Powells.

After much discussion, much thought, much much discussion we postulated a plot line. For those of us who like to give order to things. We like crossword puzzles, we have all our pens in one place on our desk, etc.

The plot line of the book could be George traveling from age 12 through the moment of death.  The terminal stop at the end of his life journey is reuniting with his father. The reunion at the very very end (according to an author interview) was totally imaginary in George's mind. In life, they never reunited. WOW. Think about that.

Take another minute and think about that. His entire life's journey, through  trials and tribulations and joys and celebrations, was to heal the sacred relationship that was broken in childhood, with his father.

Now do some of the passages in the book come alive to you?

And how powerful that this reunion is only in his mind. Even at the last moments of life. Only in his mind. How strong his need for this healing was, that his mind was remembering his desires as fact.

Interview in Open Loop Press, Dec 2009

Looked at the passage on life being tiles. Our tiles fade. Other's memories fill in the porous tiles of our past lives.
 “I will remain a set of impressions porous and open to combination with all of the other vitreous squares floating about in whoever else’s frames, because there is always the space left in reserve for the rest of their own time, and to my great-grandchildren, with more space than tiles, I will be no more than the smoky arrangement of a set of rumors, and to their great-grandchildren I will be no more than a tint of some obscure color, and to their great grandchildren nothing they ever know about, and so what army of strangers and ghosts has shaped and colored me until back to Adam, until back to when ribs were blown from molten sand into the glass bits that took up the light of this word because they were made of this world . . . ” 

Vivid descriptions of the epilepsy seizures.

Reminiscent of Moby Dick, the book held insights into clocks. Time passing, clocks, nature, the cosmos....

We saw kindness in the family, George and his sister, his wife, his kids and grandkids. So there must have been love, forgiveness. George must have been an okay person. Must have grown past his father biting him and leaving him and his mother who wouldn't talk about the illness.

“Boy to his dying grampa: "I am a century wide. I think that I have my literal age but am surrounded in a radius of years. I think that these years of days, this near century of years, is a gift from you.” 

 Here's another passage we read.

“Howard thought, Is it not true: A move of the head, a step to the left or right, and we change from wise, decent, loyal people to conceited fools? Light changes, our eyes blink and see the world from the slightest difference of perspective and our place in it has changed infinitely: Sun catches cheap plate flaking--I am a tinker; the moon is an egg glowing in its nest of leafless trees--I am a poet; a brochure for an asylum is on the dresser--I am an epileptic, insane; the house is behind me--I am a fugitive. His despair had not come from the fact that he was a fool; he knew he was a fool. The despair came from the fact that his wife saw him as a fool, as a useless tinker, a copier of bad verses from two-penny religious magazines, an epileptic, and could find no reason to turn her head and see him as something better.” 

George was fading, receding, dying. There was acceptance. Something reflecting Buddhism we said. The connection of each of us to the unity of all. 

“Hands, teeth, gut, thoughts even, were all simply more or less convenient to human circumstance, as my father was receding from human circumstance, so, too, were all of these particulars, back to some unknowable froth where they might be reassigned to be stars or belt buckles, lunar dust or railroad spikes. Perhaps they already were all of these things and my father's fading was because he realized this: My goodness, I am made from planets and wood, diamonds and orange peels ...” 


Touched on the Borealis notes lending structure to the passage of time in the book. And to the Radical Horologist's highlighting of the themes.

Bookdrum,  go to this website to read factual insights on items mentioned in book.

Read a few more sentences and passages that hit us.  This book is a meditation on living, and on dying. Not a book to read on an airplane or while on an exercise bike.

 It's a book to savor bit by bit. To put down and think about what he just said. Talk to someone about it. Think a little more. Then pick it up again.

Definitely talk to someone about it. 

It's not fast food. These words need to be savored.  Not for everyone, at all times. You will know.

Friday night. Need to get into the kitchen to feed the troops. Well, the two of us. Still need to get into the kitchen. Bye for now...