Eulogy
Apr
'07
“I hope it relieves some of your stress to not have to worry about cuddling with me at work anymore.”
“It might, but I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too.”
“I mean, as much pressure as there was, it was still nice to be able to walk up to you in an aisle and put my arms around you, even just for two seconds.”
***
Thursday was my last day at Books-A-Million. I stood in the back room, alone, and looked around me at all the corners I’d spent my last year or so. The desks where I’d eat my lunch every day, staring quietly forward as I listened in on others’ conversations, or reading - I read a lot of good books over this year. Some of those were directly due to working at this bookstore. I’d written down their titles as I was shelving shipment, or I’d find the time to really study the newer books and find one interesting. Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, a hardcover copy of which I stared at day after day, thinking, “this looks really interesting, but I don’t know if I want to buy it.” The moment it came into paperback, it found my hands first. I bought it that day, and now it’s one of my favorite books. The back room was never kept clean or tidy as much as we tried, and it had this awful smell attached to it that couldn’t be pinpointed: I suppose it was a mixture of smells from shipment and cafe trash, the disgusting habits of our customers thrown away in the bathroom, and our own inability to grow up and change the garbage bags. I saw them replace two refridgerators, one of which used to have a poster magnetized to the front - every associate was to claim a section as “theirs” and keep it in order and looking pretty. I think they stopped this right before I arrived to work there, but nonetheless, it became such a familiar sight that when that refridgerator was replaced I was almost hesitant to put anything in it. John Connolly’s Book of Lost Things only had to catch my attention twice before I purchased it, and I haven’t seen it in other bookstores despite browsing fiction sections. And I was the only person in our district (District 33) to buy a pre-sale voucher for Hannibal Rising the new Thomas Harris book which, I suppose, is a prequel to all the other Hannibal books. I haven’t read it yet, but there are still 100-some copies in the store. They told us that how many vouchers we sold was a direct influence on how many copies we got in the store, and to this day I don’t believe that at all. One voucher and over 100 copies, and it wasn’t even a bestseller for long.
A how we met story: Store 960. I remember seeing him reading in the audio section, and as I was standing at the customer service desk I kept thinking he’s cute, but I knew I didn’t have the guts to talk to him, especially not while working. I kept thinking I hope he comes back again so I could see him again. And then, to my surprise, Rick said to him “Michelle will tell you how to clock-in” and in all nervousness I made it sound as stupid as possible. The time clock website is very self-explanitory. It tells you how to do everything if it’s your first time. I walked away thinking, oh God, he’s working here, feeling embarrassed at myself even though there’s no way he could have known what I was just thinking about him…
And even though people discourage workplace romances, this was right. I remember once when we went to Silver Diner with a group of friends, he said something to the effect of, “guys, this is one of those nights that we’ll remember, and we’ll be telling our grandkids about some day.” Someone made jest of this comment, how silly and ridiculous it was to be thinking of telling his grandkids about some night out with friends, but I smiled and thought of how true that was, how some day my granddaughter would ask me about the boys I liked when I was her age, and I’d have to tell her about that night. Of course, that night I didn’t know he liked me back, so I just assumed this child would be from a future venture.
Books-A-Million will be that job for me, too: my “Empire Records job.” Rex Manning comes in the form of erotica-author signings. Each employee is his or her own character (not necessarily that of an Empire Records character, but in that they each have their own “thing” about them, much like the aunts and uncles in your family who always have stories to tell).
We all have such different perspectives on how to live that to give you a well-rounded description of my job day-to-day I’d have to describe every employee. But, frankly, I don’t want to do that.
I’m going to miss it, but I’m moving on to something that may or may not be so much better for me.
***
Today at my new job one of the regulars at Books-A-Million came in, Doris. She always sits in the cafe with her husband and they talk and read the newspaper and drink coffee. They stay there for at least an hour, sometimes talking to Rick or Ronnie or Martin or whoever happens to be in the general vicinity of the cafe. When she saw me counting books at the used bookstore I think she may have been taken aback for a moment. We only ever exchanged pleasantries, because while managers are allowed to stand and talk and look unprofessional at Books-A-Million, associates are not. She smiled politely and left and I felt a sort of closure.
***
I know I’ll miss working with Richard and these first few weeks will be very difficult. I, too, will miss those moments in the bookstore when he’d walk past and make kiss-faces at me, when we’d duck down into the religious section and he’d give me a passionate kiss, when he’d smile at me at the end of my shift and say “I love you” with such devotion that my heart would melt. If I think of it too much, I’ll probably miss it more, but I’ll hold onto those memories every day while I’m miles away.
This chapter in my life is over, and I will be bold and open to a new one.
Velma Wallis - Two Old Women
Apr
'07
In the introduction to this book, Velma Wallis mentions that young people “these days” don’t listen to their elders and, indeed, are uninterested in their stories. Instead, they prefer to sit around and watch television, play video games, or do other such mindless things. The book is copyright 1993 and maybe that was true of that time (though I personally found more freedom in Roald Dahl than Zelda during that time), but I think it’s come back around recently.
Perhaps I believe this because I’m older and I’ve studied folklore and family stories and can therefore appreciate what my elders say more than I did as a child. Maybe people younger than me are still too engrossed in other emptier forms of entertainment to see the value of past lives and the lessons that can be learned from them, but because my family has always liked to sit around and share adventures of the past, I grew up in a different environment. I’m giving the world the benefit of doubt when I say, “I think it’s come back around recently.”
I’m very interested in family folklore, especially my own, and I’m sad to say that I don’t know a lot of my grandparents’ stories. My mother’s, yes, and slight few of my father’s (that which has been told to me by my mother and seldomly by my paternal grandmother, but when I was younger and saw my grandparents several times a year, I didn’t ask about their stories. Instead, we watched Ohio State football or ate. Okay, recipes I have, and that is a form of family folklore - traditions that were passed from my grandmother to me (she had no female children so I only had to ask to receive). But I didn’t know anything of her life until just a few years ago when I decided to start asking.
Reading Two Old Women - the introduction in particular - has made me more aware of this fault in my knowledge. I want to know more about them. I want to be able to tell my children how my grandparents met, even if (God forbid) they never meet them. I want to have a story to write down, as Velma Wallis did, that says something about me by way of sharing information about my family’s past. It’s true, I may not get something as legendary, touching, or deeply nested in a culture as this one, but reading folklore has always made me wish I had more stories under my belt, no matter how sweet and simple they may be.
Sarah Dunant - The Birth of Venus
Apr
'07
I will admit that I picked up this book because it’s a historical novel set during the Renaissance in Italy. But who doesn’t pick up a book based on their own interests? I was really hesitant about it for a very long time because I’ve tried to read a book by this author before and couldn’t find my place in it. It was jumpy and used irregular tense, and quite simply, it didn’t “flow” well enough for me. However, I’ve had it in my library for a while and decided to put it on my TBR list for the challenge.
Reading it so closely after reading The Agony and the Ecstasy was a very good idea, though unplanned and ignorant. Alessandra, the main character and narrator, is a painter, so when she talked of “frescoes” and famous painters of the time, I knew what she was talking about. I was completely ignorant to painting terms and famous painters (except, of course, the larger names, though I didn’t connect that Raphael, Da Vinci, and Michelangelo all flourished during the same time period and, indeed, knew each other — though as a side note, I’m sure Donatello felt left out having to eat pizza all by himself), so I was very glad to have had that detailed background. This novel explains very little about the terms used. In addition to terminology, there’s also the politics. I love Italy - the architecture, the food, the art that came out of it - but I’m a larger fan of ancient Italy, most notably Rome. I know more about Roman politics than I do the current state of American politics. So when I started reading about the popes and Savonarola and the Medici influence in The Agony and the Ecstasy, it was all new to me. However, again, I was very thankful for the background on this subject; when Pope Leo X was mentioned, I knew it was Giovanni de Medici, the very pope who had to deal with Martin Luther and whose cousin would later become Pope Clement VII. Though the popes and Rome weren’t the central focus of this novel (it is entirely set in or very close by Florence), I probably wouldn’t have felt as “into” it without this background information to support what was going on.
Depsite the fact that Alessandra and those she discussed politics and art with did mention affairs of the state and Boticelli a lot, Michelangelo got one mere mention on page 369 (a 391 page book) and it seemed as though only everyone else in Florence knew the depths of the Savonarola “occupation.” For a very short time I thought that she would try to make “the painter” be a younger, fictionalized Michelangelo, and when his name was mentioned on that page my heart leaped into my throat and I was ready to throw the book across the room. My reasoning was that “the painter” had similar training as Michelangelo did: dissections at Santo Spirito. I am not sure how common an opportunity this would have been during those days. As for politics, the reader only seems to get a slight overview, but I suppose her “discussions” were limited, as they would have been at that time with women. I am not sure if the intent was to illustrate how much women were kept in the background, or if the author just wanted to briefly address the surroundings but then get back to the sex. Oh, by the way, there’s sex, and it took me by surprise every time. The only novel I’ve read with a lot of graphic sex was American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, and it wasn’t exactly the same kind of graphic sex. I’m not disgusted by it, but I know it’s unnecessary. To me, it seems like it’s how she draws in unsatisfied housewives (much how I stereotype romance novels, no offense intended). The first sex scene was almost necessary to the plot; the rest did not need to be so described.
When I read back on this I can see my own disgust in the novel, but it’s entirely my opinion. Sure, there are at least three unedited pages in my edition, lacking end quotes, periods, proper capitalization and spelling, and at least one sentence that seems to end in the middle of a thought, but overall I did enjoy the book. I’d have liked more specific discussion about politics and art, but it might be because the Michelangelo book dove so fully into such things that it sparked an interest in me. However, even without it the book is well-written and I might even give Sarah Dunant’s other novel another chance (though I am afraid to read In the Company of the Courtesan because I am sure there will be a lot of necessary sex that I don’t particularly care for). She illustrates a beautiful portrait of Florence and the life of a wealthy woman whose love of art almost completely destroys her life.
Jane Yolen - Briar Rose
Apr
'07
I started reading this almost immediately after I finished The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone, which was probably very unfair to all the other books I have half-finished (Brief Encounters with Che Guevara by Ben Fountain, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne which will by the way have a very large commentary coming with it, Send by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, among others), but I couldn’t wait to get my mind on it. It’s written as part of a “Fairy Tales series” (none of the other books have I read) which I find very intriguing – a fan of fairy tales, Terri Windling wanted to create a series of stories based on the beloved interest. What resulted, presumably, was a few remarkable stories told by remarkable authors, this being one of them.
I hadn’t read anything by Jane Yolen prior to this book, but I previously purchased a copy of The Devil’s Arithmetic, which I intended to read last summer but never seemed to get around to. After reading this book, I’m more convinced to dig through my boxes to find this book than I am to finish any of the above novels that I’m still in the middle of reading. Though I have some style/format issues with this book (some chapters are only half a page long, and I’m one of those people who think that chapters should be at least three pages to be worth calling chapters), the text was beautifully composed and I was amazingly receptive once I got into it. At first, it was slow and I couldn’t find a path for myself, but I eventually found myself calling Richard and telling him to find a ride home because I’d rather sit on the couch and read this all night than take the five minutes to pick him up…
”Stories,” he’d said, his voice low and almost husky,” we are made up of stories. And even the ones that seem the most like lies can be our deepest hidden truths.”
Prior to my recent months of reading, I never paid a lot of attention to tag lines or – for the sake of being entirely honest here — titles, because as a makeshift writer I can never come up with “that brilliant title” that so defines my story, opening up possibilities for the starting readers, as well as bringing it to a defining close for the just-finished readers. The Agony and the Ecstasy, the book I finished a few days ago, opened my mind to the “possibility” of a brilliant title. This book, Briar Rose has created a more fond appreciation for tag lines. On the cover it simply states, “A powerful retelling of Sleeping Beauty that is ‘heartbreaking and heartwarming.’” At first glance it just seems like one of those standard tag lines used to draw in a general population, but after reading the book I see how absolutely true this is. “Heartbreaking” and “heartwarming.”
I read this book in two days because of those two words. I began describing it to Richard after only an hour or two of reading, telling him how utterly involved and interesting this book is. This is exactly the kind of book I wish I could write, though honestly, I probably wouldn’t be strong enough to write about the subject matter – I cried as I was reading Josef’s monologue. But aside from the horrific history, the deep understanding of culture, and the fairy tale “meddlefur,” this book is about stories. People dying for stories, the stories of lives and deaths and heroes and non-heroes, the stories spoken late into the night to small children about fairies and princesses, the stories that gave people the strength to live. The story of a secret. It’s about storytellers, the people who carry on the tradition and bring things to life once again even if they were never “living” in the first place. These stories are heartbreaking and heartwarming and they are intertwined together with such elegance that I can’t imagine why this book doesn’t jump off the shelf.
The one thing he could clearly recall was lying on his back, staring up through the canopy of trees, and thinking that the stars were falling until the first ones hit his face and he realized it was snow.
And it’s one of those books that, when I finished it, I had difficulty talking about every-day things; I just wanted to sit in unexpressed silence and clear my brain of everything. I only wanted to appreciate what I had in front of me, while still appreciating the past but I couldn’t seem to function; I could only think of Magda’s statement that “sometimes living takes more courage than dying,” thinking of Aron’s body in a ditch and what it meant to both Josef and Gemma, thinking of how incredibly real the story was even though it was, as the author notes, almost entirely made-up. It was a truth I couldn’t shake even if I tried. I couldn’t distract myself in another book; I couldn’t wake up from this dream. And so I sat and listened to the loud ring of nothing, feeling that pit of emptiness in my chest pulling me to something I couldn’t define.
Irving Stone - The Agony and The Ecstasy
Apr
'07
After I finished the last line of this book, I fondly closed it and looked at the back cover. “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” I thought, “what a perfectly appropriate title for this book.”
Somewhere in the last 10 pages of reading, I was thinking about how I’d just witnessed nearly an entire life in just three months. I was feeling so fully all of Michelangelo’s pain, frustrations, joys, lonelinesses in life — and not just because it took me so long to read the book, but also because they were so well worded in this novel that it was very easy to feel “part of that world.” I read a lot of books and don’t have very much difficulty being “transported,” as it were, to the places I’m reading about, but this felt like it took me so fully and so intensely into 16th century Italy, politics, religion and all of it. It seemed like every time I set down the book for whatever reason (break was over, sleep, food, etc), I was waking up from a dream. A very, very in depth dream that took me into lives I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to imagine.
It’s sort of the effect Belle & Sebastian’s music has had on me, but slightly more regular and much extended. Whereas Belle & Sebastian engulf me as I’m listening to the songs, Irving Stone’s novel has encompassed my life so that I still feel like I’m there, even though I finished the book several days ago.
The interested reader will find a bibliography at the back of the book, as well acknowledgments to the Michelangelo scholars, a glossary, and a listing of places where Michelangelo’s works are to be found today.
This is written at the bottom of the table of contents page and was ignored throughout most of the reading of this book, but upon finishing it I’ve realized that the “reader” is automatically and instantly morphed into an “interested reader” once the book begins to consume him. No one who has read this book will not further research Michelangelo or want desparately to visit his remaining works. No one will see an official biography on the artist and not want to excitedly pick it up and compare it with what he has just read. That is the effect this has.
I wasn’t too sure of the book when I started it, because while I was immediately enveloped in the words, the pages started coming out: the book was literally falling apart. I don’t read many mass market paperbacks and when I do they aren’t normally this thick (with the exception of occassional Anne Rice novels), so I noted this as a huge discomfort. The words kept me in and kept me going and by the time I had reached the second “book” (there are eleven), I was recommending this to anyone who wanted to read a grand historical fiction. And, as daunting a task as it is, I will continue to recommend it, as I recommend it now to you.
