He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn.

The Call of the Wild  by Jack London
First published in 1903

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary
 The Call of the Wild  is a tale of friendship, brutality, risk, and the laws of nature. Our protagonist is Buck, a dog who's a cross between a German Shepherd and a St. Bernard. When our tale begins, he's living his best life as the pet to a Judge in California. But little does he know that Manuel, one of the workers on the Judge's ranch, has a gambling problem. Manuel dognaps Buck and delivers him to some cruel men who proceed to 'break him' for the journey north to the Yukon. We're just before the start of the 20th century, you see, and it's GOLD RUSH TIME. So Buck ends up with a series of masters, some fine, some awful, some move on, some die, blah blah blah. Sorry, I wasn't that into the whole gold rush story line, so I'm not going to dig too deep here. After his worst master, he lands a great one in John Thornton, and Buck turns into a masterful sled dog under his influence. They make it to the mine and Buck is happy and proud, but soon he feels the tug of the greater natural world (or some might say, The Call of Wild ;)). He spends some time on the proverbial fence, dancing in between the forest sauvage and the world of man's best friend. In the end, John Thornton is killed by a band of Yeehats (who are of course depicted as evil and also who WERE ALREADY LIVING IN THAT LAND the white dudes were mining, so you know, agree to disagree) and after tearing lots of Yeehats apart with his bare jaws, Buck joins a wolf pack full time.
Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Well, there were some things I liked about this book, but there were also many things I did not like. On the whole, I can see why it was seminal, but I also feel like it's pretty problematic in a few ways. I will leave it to you to decide if you want to embark on it, dear readers. 

Here are my thoughts!

On brutality
I had a hard time reading the first part of this book because Buck was treated so brutally. I suppose that's part of his journey from domesticated pet to 'animal of the wild', but I like to think he could have come into his 'wild' self without being so violently abused. I have to say that a lot of the language about breaking dogs and crushing their spirit and bending them to the will of man felt a LOT like the language I've read about slavery. There's even a line about Buck feeling 'a fear that no master could be permanent' that felt a lot like the mentality of a slave. So I felt like it was problematic that black people in America were still coming out of this kind of culture (and white people were definitely very slow on moving way from it) and yet Jack London was writing about this dog we should really empathize with. 

Dog named 'Nig'
Yeah... so that's a thing. I was not here for it. Felt super racist and gross and also reminded me of Jack Bellew calling Clare that as a nickname. Let's just all agree that it should not be a nickname for anyone where white people are involved. #kthanxbye

They broke their own trail
The dogs are having to do all kinds of crazy things to get the silly men up into the middle of nowhere to go Gold hunting, and at one point it mentions how much harder it is when the dogs have to break their own trail. It reminded me of the snowshoeing course I took when I was living in New Hampshire, and how ridiculously hard it was to break trail when there were several feet of snow. I really felt for the dogs!

Let's hear it for the novellas
While there were many things I did not like about this book, there were many beautiful things about it, and after reading two short novels back to back, I have to say I really enjoyed how much the writers packed into those hundred-odd pages. 

Buck's moccasins
I loved this scene: 

Buck's feet were not so compact and hard as the feet of the huskies. His had softened during the many generations since the day his last wild ancestor was tamed by a cave-dweller or river man. All day long he limped in agony, and camp once made, lay down like a dead dog. Hungry as he was, he would not move to receive his ration of fish, which François had to bring to him. Also, the dog-driver rubbed Buck's feet for half an hour each night after supper, and sacrificed the tops of his own moccasins to make four moccasins for Buck. This was a great relief, and Buck caused even the weazened face of Perrault to twist itself into a grin one morning, when François forgot the moccasins and Buck lay on his back, his four feet waving appealingly in the air, and refused to budge without them.

Later his feet get 'hardened' to the trail and he doesn't need the moccasins anymore, but I loved this moment. 

#atavistic
If we were looking for a hashtag for this book, it would definitely be #atavistic. The whole book is basically about evolving (or devolving) into your truest self.

He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back into life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of dead matter that did not move. This writing is just stunning. 

A mercy
It was crazy how much they rode the dogs until they died, and it felt so selfish to me. 

His comrades talked of how a dog could break its heart through being denied the work that killed it, and recalled instances they had known, where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they were cut out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to die anyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content. So he was harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though more than once he cried out involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt. Several times he fell down and was dragged in the traces, and once the sled ran up on him so that he limped thereafter in one of his hind legs.

On likening themselves to "the Indian", and then simultaneously painting them the villain
Yeah, so like I mentioned in the plot summary, the Yeehats were villainized at the end for protecting their own land, but there were tons of places throughout the journey to the Yukon and back where the white men prided themselves on being like the Indian. It felt like they were trying to have their cake and eat it, too. 

On killing a black bear and a moose
Buck does this. During some of his wilding phases. It was gnarly (and a little gross, tbqh) but I was also a little impressed at the concept of a dog taking down such enormous and powerful animals. This is a picture of a "St. Shepherd", which seems to be a mix of the same two breeds as Buck. 

Lines I Liked

• And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him. 

• They were perambulating skeletons. 


• With the aurora borealis flaming coldly overhead, or the stars leaping in the frost dance, and the land numb and frozen under its pall of snow, this song of the huskies might have been the defiance of life, only it was pitched in minor key, with long-drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. 

• But Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness - imagination. 

• But especially he loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called - called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come.

Sending you all thoughts of safety, health, and healing! On to Sage Descent, or something of that ilk.

It's such a frightfully easy thing to do. If one's the type, all that's needed is a little nerve.

Passing by Nella Larsen
First published in 1929

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary
Passing explores the juxtaposition of two women who look similar, but lead very different lives. We begin with Irene Redfield receiving a letter from Clare Kendry, in the 1920s. Irene is avoiding Clare because, as it turns out, Clare is 'passing'; both women are African-American, both light-skinned. Both are wealthy and comfortable; they meet in Chicago, which is where they both grew up, but later reconnect when Irene is home in Harlem. Irene has a husband whose skin color announces him to the world as definitively African-American; his name is Brian. Clare is married to a white man, Jack Bellew.

In a strange twist, we realize quite early on that Jack has no idea that Clare is not white. In fact, he calls her a very derogative nickname, joking that she could 'pass' as black if she wanted, but that he wants nothing to do with n*****rs. Clare and Jack have a daughter, Margery, who also passes for white (and doesn't, in fact, know that she isn't). Irene and Brian have two sons, Junior and Ted. What follows from their first re-encounter of each other is a series of increasingly high-stakes socializations between the two women. Irene keeps telling herself it's unsafe to re-connect with Clare, but Clare is persistent, and stubborn, and, tbqh, selfish. Clare ingrains herself into the Redfields' household, and after a few months, it becomes clear to Irene that Clare and her husband, Brian, are not simply friends.

Irene bumps into Jack on the street, and since they met before (and because Clare made it seem so, he thought she was white) he greets her, only to realize that she is arm-in-arm with another black woman, which makes him realize she is not so white after all. Irene thinks about telling Clare (and Brian) that Clare may have been outed, but she decides not to, hoping that Clare will simply dematerialize from their lives and give her back her sense of security (and her hubby). A few days later, Jack interrupts a dinner party that Clare, Brian, and Irene are attending at another friend's house. He calls out Clare in front of everyone, and in the blur of a moment, she tips over the ledge of a balcony and falls to her death. As Irene was running her way and had her hand on Clare's arm, it's ever so uncertain if Clare fell or if, perhaps, she was gently pushed.
Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Dear blobbists, 

How are you? Are you surviving all the Coronavirus mayhem? I hope this blob finds you well, and resting comfortably if you are finding yourself not so well. 

I loved this book. Looking back, I'm pretty sure I read it in high school for a class, but I didn't remember the particulars, so it still held a great deal of suspense for me. If you haven't read it, I HIGHLY recommend. It's quite short (120 pages or so) and definitely readable in a day or a weekend. 

Without further ado, my thoughts!

Purple ink
The book opens with Irene reading a letter from Clare and among the many things that stand out (and that annoy her) about it is that it's written in purple ink. I'm sure this was pretty scandalous for the 20's, but it made me smile because all my letters from my best friend Mar are in purple ink. I immediately read purple ink and thought, OOH! Irene got a letter from Mar! 

Clare
Clare is such a fascinatingly drawn character. One of the things I remember about reading the book before is that I thought Clare was the main character. Which, in a way, she is, but also, in another way, she very much isn't. Irene is our narrator, we return to her in between encounters with Clare, and we sympathize with her at various points in the work. I felt a little bad that I kind of forgot Irene entirely. But perhaps that's part of the beauty of the contrast between her and Clare. Here are some lines about Clare that paint a picture. 

• What strange, languorous eyes she had!

• Arresting eyes, slow and mesmeric, and with, for all their warmth, something withdrawn and secret about them.

• The basket for all letters, silence for their answers. 

Clare reminded me in many ways of Rebecca deWinter from Rebecca. She had this allure and mystery and fatal energy floating around her, and it was both fascinating to watch and a little terrifying to behold. 

Layers on layers on layers
Probably what I loved most about this book was how many layers it had packed into its 120 pages. It gets at all kinds of things conceptual, racial, and personal, and deals with everything from womanhood to personhood. Here are some examples of the layers: 

Irene is 'passing' when she encounters Clare at the restaurant. 
Later, Irene makes it clear that she occasionally 'passes' when she's at a restaurant or the movies, for matters of convenience, but that she never willfully misleads people about her race, and she's honest if asked. Still, it makes their first encounter so fraught because Irene is analyzing every bit of herself to see if Clare has realized she isn't white, when in actually, Clare is staring at her because she recognizes her from when they grew up together. 

There's also something sort of mystical about 'passing' that Irene is attracted to, and wants to learn more about: 

She wished to find out about this hazardous business of 'passing', this breaking away from all that was familiar and friendly to take one's chance in another environment, not entirely strange, perhaps, but certainly not entirely friendly. 

'passing over' - at one point, Clare refers to it as 'passing over', which I thought was fascinating because it made me think of dying. And I suppose in a way, Clare transitioning to a world where her blackness wasn't permitted was a kind of death. The terminology felt so final. 

Conversation about children: When Clare has Irene over to her house, another woman, Gertrude is over, who grew up with them. All three women have the skin tone to 'pass', but all live along the spectrum of blackness. Irene, as we've said, 'passes' only on occasion for convenience. Gertrude is married to a white man, but they have known each other since they were young, and he knows that she is black. Clare's husband and daughter know nothing of her blackness. 

I loved this exchange, as they were discussing children, and the layers of complexity of pigmentocracy and self-hatred:

Clare - I nearly died of terror the whole nine months before Margery was born for fear that she might be dark. Thank goodness, she turned out all right. But I'll never risk it again. Never! The strain is simply too - too hellish!

Gertrude - But of course, nobody wants a dark child.

Irene - In a voice of whose even tones she was proud: "One of my boys is dark."

Clare later asserts that the average black woman needn't worry about such things - It's only deserters like me who have to be afraid of freaks of the nature. Like I said. Layers on layers on layers, people. 

On being bound to Clare while also wanting to get as far away from her as possible:

She had to Clare Kendry a duty. She was bound to her by those very ties of race, which, for all her repudiation of them, Clare had been unable to completely sever.

She was caught between two allegiances, different, yet the same. Herself. Her race. Race! The thing that bound and suffocated her. Whatever steps she took, or if she took none at all, something would be crushed. A person or the race. Clare, herself, or the race.

This was so exquisitely articulated. Irene is pushed and pulled by the very thing which Clare has tried to wish out of existence, and it is what simultaneously makes Irene hate and resent Clare and what binds them together in solidarity. 

Irene, talking to Brian: 
Irene: 'It's funny about 'passing'. We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it.
Brian: Instinct of the race to survive and expand.
Irene: Rot! Everything can't be explained by some general biological phrase.

Their conversations about race and passing were also beautifully complex, which is, I think a real triumph not only because she captures it so well but also because she does it so concisely. Every scene, every moment has its purpose and packs its proverbial punch.

Irene talking to Hugh, a wealthy white man at the Negro Welfare League dance:
Irene: 'It's easy for a Negro to 'pass' for white. But I don't think it would be so simple for a white person to 'pass' for coloured.'

Hugh: 'Never thought of that.'

Irene: 'No, you wouldn't. Why should you?'

I suppose it's obvious that the average white person wouldn't try to 'pass' as a person of color (although there are a not insignificant number of recent examples) because the power to be had is on the side of whiteness. I love that Irene points it out to Hugh, though, and makes him do this mental work.

So you want to [not] talk about race
During their tea at Clare's house, Irene watches Clare talk about everything BUT the blunt facts of the matter - that they live in separate worlds. Here's how she describes Clare not talking about race:

It was the most brilliant exhibition of conversational weightlifting that Irene had ever seen.

I love this mental image, and it made me think about how so many white people I know do this. They bend over backwards, twist themselves in all kinds of contortions, to talk about anything but race, and while I recognize that race is a construct, racism is real, and not acknowledging it is basically gaslighting every person of color on a daily basis. It's also just mean, on a really basic level, to pretend that differences in lived experience across race don't exist, because it refuses to allow someone full personhood. So maybe drop those conversational weights, people, and just tell it like it is.

On Jack calling Clare 'Nig'
Yeah, so remember how I said Jack had a very derogatory nickname for Clare? That's it. I didn't even want to type it, but I figured it would be kind of obfuscating if I just wrote asterisks. Again, layers on layers here. There's this brilliant brimming tension when we're in the room with Jack and Gertrude and Irene and Clare, but there's also this vehement hatred just spewing out of his mouth, and Irene's loyalty to Clare (again, ironically largely due to their shared race, though Clare doesn't own it) as well as a sense of personal safety, that keeps her from spitting in his face or calling him out. When Irene calmly asks him what he thinks of n****rs, he says he doesn't hate them, but they're:

'Always robbing and killing people. And...worse.'

Ah yes. So NOT hate then. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. 

The loneliness of 'passing'
There are so many beautiful themes in this book, but I think the loneliness of 'passing' was my favorite. Clare claims in writing to Irene that she would have been fine and never looked back had she not run into her at that restaurant. But when she came back in contact with her past, and with blackness, she felt an ache so all-consuming she was compelled to rekindle their friendship. She says:

I want to see Negroes, to be with them again, to talk with them, to hear them laugh.

Interestingly, Irene experiences loneliness when she's in the room with Gertrude and Clare:

Later, when she examined her feeling of annoyance, Irene admitted, a shade reluctantly, that it arose from a feeling of being outnumbered, a sense of aloneness, in her adherence to her own class and kind; not merely in the great thing of marriage, but in the whole pattern of her life as well.

As I read Passing, I tried to imagine a time in my life where I had felt something close to what Clare was feeling, or even what Irene was feeling in that moment. Obviously as a white person I can't inhabit the experience of a person of color passing as white; that said, I think the closest comparison I came up with was when I was living in France. I could 'pass' as a French person, and my accent was good enough that the average person assumed I was French, but even when I was around Americans, I felt deeply alone. I'm still not sure why that was, but I think a big part of it was that I wasn't proficient enough or comfortable enough in French to really be myself. I couldn't make jokes in French, which sounds silly, but humor is a big part of my identity. And French humor is very localized and super important to their culture, so I felt sort of doubly on the outside in that regard. I also had never spent that much time away from my family, my friends, or my sisters. Anyway, while I kind of wanted to resent Clare, because I wanted to side with Irene, I understood how traumatizing that loneliness could be, and ended up empathizing with her deeply as well. 

LIKE I SAID, folks. LAYERS.

On wealth
I thought it was super interesting that Clare and Irene's lives were not demarcated along lines of wealth. Part of the crux of their conversation in the beginning centers around the fact that they both have money, children, husbands, nice houses. In some ways, I loved the way this challenged 1920's notions of blackness; I don't think the average white person thought of blacks as being educated, capable of being high-income earners, etc. and Irene's husband Brian is a doctor and they have servants. That being said, there was an interesting disconnect in a way, in that I wondered if Clare's passing would have been somehow more 'permissible' if Irene were not living a life that was equally comfortable. But again, perhaps this is precisely Larsen's point! #layersonlayers

On not being safe
I loved these lines. Here's Clare describing herself to Irene, when Irene tells her it wouldn't be 'safe' to spend time together: 

Why, to get the things I want badly enough, I'd do anything, hurt anybody, throw anything away. Really, 'Rene, I'm not safe. God, I love this line. 

And then later, Irene reflecting on Clare's behavior: 

If, at the time of choosing, Clare hadn't precisely reckoned the cost, she had, nevertheless, no right to expect others to help make up the reckoning. Again. LOVE.

On realizing Clare and Brian are...
The scene where Irene puts two and two together around Clare and Brian and Brian's increasing emotional distance is so lyrically depicted:

In the room beyond, a clock chimed. A single sound. Fifteen minutes past five o'clock. That was all! And yet in the short space of half an hour all of life had changed, lost its colour, its vividness, its whole meaning. No, she reflected, it wasn't that that had happened. Life about her, apparently, went on exactly as before.

Yes, life went on precisely as before. It was only she that had changed. Knowing, stumbling on this thing, had changed her. It was as if in a house long dim, a match had been struck, showing ghastly shapes where had been only blurred shadows.

The danger of not counting yourself
Irene is the opposite of Clare, and while Clare thinks of herself and herself only, Irene thinks of everyone else. Here's one of her first thoughts after she realizes her husband has been cheating with Clare:

How would it affect her and the boys? The boys! She had a surge of relief. It ebbed, vanished. A feeling of absolute unimportance followed. Actually, she didn't count.

Again, so beautifully articulated, and, I think, so often true of mothers. And yet also so unspeakably sad, and perhaps, in the end, dangerous.

On intersectionality
Along the lines of incredible layers, Irene suffers from her blackness not in relation to the white world, per se, but because it ties her to Clare, whom she desperately wants to hate and cast out of her life for good: 

For the first time she suffered and rebelled because she was unable to disregard the burden of race. It was, she cried silently, enough to suffer as a woman, an individual, on one's own account, without having to suffer for the race as well. It was a brutality, and undeserved. I think Irene would have liked seeing Lemonade in this moment.

On when you talk to your kids about race when they're POC
Another beautifully nuanced exchange between Brian and Irene as they discuss when it's appropriate to talk about race with their sons: 

Brian: 'You're absolutely wrong! If, as you're so determined, they've got to live in this damned country, they'd better find out what sort of thing they're up against as soon as possible. The earlier they learn it, the better prepared they'll be.
Irene: 'I don't agree. I want their childhood to be happy and as free from the knowledge of such things as it possibly can be.'
Brian: 'Very laudable. Very laudable indeed, all things considered. But can it?'

I think about this a lot not so much in relation to children in my own family (though I have started to have conversations with my nephew, G, about race, and his school has done a fabulous job of guiding exploration of it and diversity) but more so in relation to the students I've worked with. All of my jobs in education have been non-profit positions, designed ostensibly to support underresourced communities and work to dismantle racism, prejudice, inequity, etc. But at one point do we (or do the families of our students) loop them in to the why of our program? Do we put it front and center and speak transparently about it, so we don't gaslight anyone (as mentioned above)? Or do we honor each family's independent decision and timeline around how and when (and if) to address matters like that with their young adult children? I'm sure on many levels, students of all ages are aware of and conscious of race, and it's not for me to "open their eyes" to anything, but it can feel complex when you're working with a young person and trying to honor their personhood to figure out how and when and where to discuss heavy things.

Referents and Reverberations
Two specific ones came to mind. 

This moment: On the floor and the walls the sinking sun threw long, fantastic shadows.

Reminded me of this line from Jane Eyre: Daylight began to forsake the red-room.

And this moment, when Irene is at a party with Brian (and Clare, and a bunch of other people) and she knows about the affair: 

Someone in the room had turned on the phonograph. Or was it the radio? She didn't know which she disliked more. And nobody was listening to its blare. The talking, the laughter never for a minute ceased. Why must they have more noise?

Reminded me of Macon, and his two-sided cassette tape of silence. Maybe he could lend it to Irene. ;)

Well friends, it's been a strange few weeks, and I'm sure they'll get stranger before they feel normal again. All of this 'social distancing' has made me think of how easy it is to subjugate a population by not allowing them to meet in groups. It made me think of Prague Spring and Arab Spring, of secret police, of World War II, of slaves not being allowed to congregate in groups for fear it would foment rebellion. I know the isolation is for our own health in this case, but it's made me realize how easy it would be to keep people from banding together, from revolting, from communicating, from breaking down barriers, from challenging unjust governments. 

And it's certainly reminded me how deeply privileged a life I lead, in that while my grocery store may be short on some goods these days, I've never once gone without a meal from a case of need. And while 'social distancing' reminds me of my loneliness in France, I've never been (and still am not, except perhaps physically) kept from communicating with others, from organizing, from publicly dissenting. And while Coronavirus sounds scary to our most vulnerable communities, and certainly has taken its toll fatality-wise, I live in a country virtually untouched by Ebola, Dengue fever, Malaria, or SARS. 

In the mean time, I will also continue to be grateful for another of my life's privileges - reading books. Keep each other safe. Keep faith. Good night.

Elizabeth's Blog-Along on 'The Accidental Tourist'!

Dear Blobbists, 

As I mentioned in a previous post, Elizabeth read along with me for Macon and Muriel and the whole wild ride. Here are her thoughts on the read, with a few bits of my commentary sprinkled in (in purple, to make Mar smile). To be clear, I asked her not to read my blob before writing her thoughts, so you'll see some overlaps. 

Enjoy!

Elizabeth's thoughts, in no particular order: 

As I mentioned before, the only other Anne Tyler book I have read was A Spool of Blue Thread, and I found it rather meandering, though the characters felt quite “real”. Not too long after, a friend of mine commented on GoodReads that Anne Tyler is one of her favorite authors and when I expressed my lukewarm feelings on Blue Thread, she said “She can write families like no other” and I had to agree on that count. When I realized that the Accidental Tourist was set in Baltimore too, and much of it would be largely taking place in the family’s ancestral home, I wondered if it would be very much like Blue Thread. Some authors tend to write the same story in the same place over and over. But I don’t think that was the case here. The Learys were really not very much like the Whiteshanks. The only similarity I felt was that both families had their own idiosyncrasies and a general feeling that the way they do things is the RIGHT way, and everyone else is ignorant, misled, weird, or just plain wrong. Yet, Tyler manages to show that no family is immune to the struggles that come for everyone - sickness, loss, heartbreak, but also unexpected joy. This story had a much more contained storyline than Blue Thread and I appreciated that very much.

THEMES!

TRAVEL / HOME / FOREIGNNESS

In the afternoon (so to speak), he visited hotels. … Most were maintaining their standards, more or less, but something had happened to the Royal Prince. The fact was that it seemed…well, foreign. Dark, handsome men in slim silk suits murmured in the lobby while little brown children chased each other around the spittoons. Macon had the feeling he’d got even more hopelessly lost than usual and ended up in Cairo. Cone-shaped ladies in long black veils packed the revolving doors, spinning in from the street with shopping bags full of…what? He tried to imagine their purchasing stone-washed denim shorts and thigh-high boots of pink mesh—the merchandise he’d seen in most shop windows. “Er…” he said to the manager. How to put this? He hated to sound narrow-minded, but his readers did avoid the exotic.

Yikes. This passage makes me wince with the latent racism / xenophobia! Though it goes along with the theme of reluctant travelers, who only want to be reminded of the familiar when they are away from home. [Ooph, same feels for me.]

“To tell the truth,” Macon said, “I’ve always thought a hotel ought to offer optional small animals.”
“Animals?”
“I mean a cat to sleep on your bed at night, or a dog of some kind to act pleased when you come in. You ever notice how a hotel room feels so lifeless?”

Yes, I completely agree with Macon. And this is why we now have CAT CAFES all over big cities! Cat Hotels has got to be the next big thing… [OMG I AM SO HERE FOR CAT HOTELS. YES PLZ.]

GRIEF/ LOSS / MEMORY

When Macon’s niece Susan joins him on his Philadelphia trip and mentions Ethan:
She pressed her fingertips to her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said. “For what?”
  “I didn’t mean to talk about him.”
   “You can talk about him.”
 “I don’t want to,” she said.
  She gazed off across the room. Macon, following her eyes, found only a harpsichord. He looked back at her and saw her chin trembling.
 It had never occurred to him that Ethan’s cousins missed him too.

This is so poignant. Grief can be so all-consuming, that one suffering from it becomes a bit self-centered, and unable to see others that are suffering too. There is also a tendency for people to avoid talking about the loss to the ones who are at the center of it, as though speaking of it will hurt them more. I loved this whole scene of Macon and his niece dearly remembering his dead son. This bit too:

“You don’t think he’s mad at us, do you, Uncle Macon?”
 “Who’s that?”
“You think he’s mad we’re starting to forget him?”
“Oh, no, honey. I’m sure he’s not.”

I think everyone can relate to that pang of guilt a person may feel when they realize they haven’t thought of their deceased loved one lately.

I liked this description of how a memory can live in your physical body, not just your mind:

Macon was visited by one of those memories that dent the skin, that strain the muscles. He felt the seat of Ethan’s bike pressing into his hand—the curled-under edge at the rear that you hold onto when you’re trying to keep a bicycle upright. He felt the sidewalk slapping against his soles as he ran. He felt himself let go, slow to a walk, stop with his hands on his hips to call out, “You’ve got her now! You’ve got her!” And Ethan rode away from him, strong and proud and straight-backed, his hair picking up the light till he passed beneath an oak tree. [I forgot about this! Reminds me of Proust remembering the shape of his bed as he wakes up.]

I thought that nicely compared with the stillness and emptiness of the corpse of a loved one, as described when he recollects the time he went to identify Ethan’s body at the morgue: “Odd how clear it suddenly became, once a person had died, that the body was the very least of him. This was simply an untenanted shell…”

In the sleepiness of the night, Muriel places his hand on her C-section scar and it speaks to the universality of grief and loss:

And it seemed to him, as he sank back into his dreams, that she had as good as spoken aloud. About your son, she seemed to be saying: Just put your hand here. I’m scarred, too. We’re all scarred. You are not the only one.

BECOMING A CERTAIN KIND OF PERSON / BEING UNABLE TO CHANGE ONESELF / FINDING STRENGTH TO CHANGE AFTER ALL

I enjoyed following Macon’s journey along this path - first finding himself successful in dating Sarah when he “played it cool” as a young man, then realizing he was unable to STOP playing it cool as he got older. I also enjoyed the descriptions of the Leary family and their specific behaviors that seemed to drive away spouses. I could relate to both Sarah and Muriel as they perceived Macon. Sarah, for being initially attracted to Macon’s cool remoteness, and then later frustrated by their lack of intimacy, especially as they navigated the depths of grief. And yet… still missing him when they were separated. And Muriel for being an open book, being patient and generous of herself with him, and then feeling frustrated when he was holding himself back and not treating her as family.

So many universal feelings related to love and relationships:

• feeling attracted to someone for some feature that later on seems to drive you apart

• finding yourself having locked into certain behavioral patterns for reasons unknown and seemingly incapable to stop doing them

• the joy of being with someone who brings out a different side of yourself, that was previously hidden or unknown 

• what is more important - being with someone who accepts you as-is, or being with someone who challenges you to be different, maybe even better?

• how do you define love? Is it admiring the other person? or admiring who YOU are when you are with that person? [Love this. It's the central question for Macon!]

Upon presenting a cool exterior to Sarah in their early days of dating, when he sometimes didn’t really feel that way at all

He felt he’d been backed into a false position. He was forced to present this impassive front if he wanted her to love him. Oh, so much was expected of men!

Well, that is just hilarious in a head-up-his-ass kinda way. He didn’t stop to think what kind of “front” she may be presenting to him. MEN! [LOL. Preach.]

Later on, Sarah says to Macon:

“Everything that might touch you or upset you or disrupt you, you’ve given up without a murmur and done without, said you never wanted it anyhow.”

hmmmm foreshadowing??? Muriel certainly touches, upsets and disrupts Macon!!

On Rose’s extremely low-and-slow cooked turkey dinner: 

“It’s pure poison,” Danny finished for him.

This scene had me laughing over the nitpickiness of the Leary brothers, when Rose DARES to try something different, mixed with the boredom of Porter’s teenagers, who probably just contributed to the insanity for entertainment purposes. [LOL agreed. I also loved that Julian ate the 'pure poison'. :)]

Macon finds himself becoming a different person with Muriel, and like it:

Then he knew that what mattered was the pattern of her life; that although he did not love her he loved the surprise of her, and also the surprise of himself when he was with her. In the foreign country that was Singleton Street he was an entirely different person. This person had never been suspected of narrowness, never been accused of chilliness; in fact, was mocked for his soft heart. And was anything but orderly.

Muriel starts to get uneasy about Macon’s seeming disinterest in commitment (and appropriately so). She seems to notice that men seem attracted to her because they find themselves able to change when they are with her… and then … they leave.

“It was like I had, you know, cured him, just so he could elope with another woman.”
“Well,” he said.
“You wouldn’t do anything like that, would you, Macon?”

Later, after Macon learns she had quit her job and was starting to rely on him, and his brain starts going ALERT ALERT! 

Seeing her go was like shucking off a great, dragging burden.

And Muriel works her magic again, reassuring him and bringing a smile to his face, this time with a mitten-puppet:

“I’m not Muriel! I’m Mitchell Mitten! Macon, don’t you know Muriel can always take care of herself?” the puppet asked him. “Don’t you know she could find another job tomorrow, if she wanted?…”
I kind of want a little Mitchell Mitten for myself, who can tell me that everything will be okay! [OMG yes I LOVED the mitten-puppet!]

Muriel pushing to go to France with him, refusing to be mugged, etc: 

He had to admire her. Had he ever known such a fighter?
I guess he hasn’t! Seems like most people in his life seem to resign themselves to the hand they are dealt.

Macon again notices how he has changed and wants someone to notice!! Like oh uhmmm I dunno, his estranged wife??

Macon, listening absently while Edward sighed at his feet, had a sudden view of his life as rich and full and astonishing. He would have liked to show it off to someone. He wanted to sweep out an arm and say, “See?”
  But the person he would have liked to show it to was Sarah.

Sarah and Macon on deciding who to be with at this later stage in their lives:

“Macon, I think that after a certain age people just don’t have a choice,” Sarah said. “You’re who I’m with. It’s too late for me to change. I’ve used up too much of my life now.”
…
“After a certain age,” he told Sarah, “it seems to me you can only choose what to lose.”

They both agree with each other, but they aren’t saying exactly the same thing….

…he began to believe that people could, in fact, be used up—could use each other up, could be of no further help to each other and maybe even do harm to each other. He began to think that who you are when you’re with somebody may matter more than whether you love her.

Again, this idea that certain people enhance who you are, and other people detract… and maybe that should be how you select a partner.

More Leary siblings driving away their partners —Sarah describes Rose as like a flounder - “she’s lain on the ocean floor so long, one eye has moved to the other side of her head” - And Julian describes how she ended up moving back to her grandparents house and taking care of “the boys”. I wonder if Macon thinks about Rose’s inability to change and sees it in himself too? Is this why the phrase “you could have taken steps” has such an effect on him at the very end?? His thoughts:

He reflected that he had not taken steps very often in his life, come to think of it. Really never. His marriage, his two jobs, his time with Muriel, his return to Sarah—all seemed to have simply befallen him. He couldn’t think of a single major act he had managed of his own accord.
  Was it too late now to begin?
Was there any way he could learn to do things differently?

This is a great line of thought. So many of us drift through life, one thing after the other. It can be hard to change that habit and actually make up your mind on what you want.. then fight for it!

There is this motif of Muriel weaving threads into Macon: 

It seemed she had webbed his mind with her stories, wound him in slender steely threads from her life.

Upon leaving Muriel, and it not being “so clean-cut” like in the movies when important changes happen in characters’ lives. Macon has to leave some belongings behind.

He had to abandon them—messy, trailing strings of himself cluttering his leavetaking.

Later, when she shows up on the plane to France with him - He was conscious only of Muriel somewhere behind him. He felt wired to her. 

Macon later describes a feeling of tug-of-war with her when she urges him to go to breakfast with her Paris, he declines, then she turns around and walks out…

After they have dinner in Paris and he declines to join her in her room after: And then he felt how she drew at him, pulling deep strings from inside him, when the elevator creaked away with her.

Interesting that the last page, when he rejoins Muriel, does not have any thread/wire/string imagery… instead, confetti!

Little bits I liked:

• Macon wasn’t very familiar with dogs. He preferred cats. He liked the way cats kept their own counsel.

This says a lot about Macon - throughout the book he tries to block out unsolicited stories, advice, secrets, etc. You can easily imagine him awkwardly trying to back out of conversations throughout the book. So it’s interesting that the book follows his relationship with Edward the dog FAR more than Helen the cat (who is barely mentioned at all). 

• In New York the passengers scattered instantly. Macon thought of a seed pod bursting open.

I like this bit of imagery. Why don’t I think of things like this when I’m navigating crowds?

Words I learned: 
So, I didn’t really learn new words; instead, I learned how NOT to use some words - like nauseous or enormity! A few of the Leary-corrections I did know and also am annoyed by - “eck cetera” or abusing the phrase “literally”. When people mix up “your” and “you’re” or “they’re” and “their” I just figure, poor thing, you are not so bright, you can’t help it. But when educated people mix up “effect” and “affect” or “less” vs “fewer” I feel my eyelid start to twitching!! (and YET, I abuse grammar all the time… so where do I get off???) [LOL right there with you. English and Latin teacher parents, so grammar was an all the time topic of conversation. ;)]

Oh! How lucky you are that there is somebody who loves you!

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo
First published in 1831

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary
These are the bullet points I made in the back of my book. I think they summarize it pretty well. 

- Paris, 1482- Pierre Gringoire's ill-fated play
- Quasimodo crowned Pope of Fools
- Esmeralda dances in the square
- Quasimodo tries to kidnap Esmeralda; Pierre tries to stop it; fails, Phoebus (a captain) succeeds
- Q arrested, then flogged
- Pierre taken by Tramps; escapes hanging by 'marrying' Esmeralda
- Esmeralda gives Q water when he is on the pillory
- Esmeralda falls for Phoebus; meets him at night; Archdeacon comes, too; jumps out and stabs P
- E is arrested with Djali (her goat); tortured; made to confess to stabbing P
- On E's hanging day, Q saves her, whisks her into Notre-Dame (Sanctuary!)
- They hang out for a while; the Archdeacon is still crazy over E (he loves her; made Q try to kidnap her that one time)
- Parliament decides to hang E anyway (screw sanctuary)
- The tramps revolt to try to save E; Archdeacon and Pierre Gringoire whisk Djali and E away
- Q fights the tramps because he thinks he's protecting E (who is, in fact, already gone)
- Pierre Gringoire runs off with Djali; the Archdeacon tries to make E love her; she refuses
- Archdeacon leaves her with the Sack Woman, a recluse, who hates E, because gypsies stole her child
- We realize that (DUN DUN DUN) E IS her child (no one is surprised)
- She tries to help her daughter escape being hung (for a crime she didn't commit, btw) and she almost succeeds, but dummy dum E calls out madly to Phoebus, who ignores her, and gets herself captured and hanged
- When Q sees E hanged, he throws the Archdeacon off the side of the church (to be clear, to his death)
- Q is found years later entombed with E
Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Okay, so how are we feeling after that plot summary? Rosy and excited? So so chipper? I read this one in a day, in part because of my aforementioned birthday plan, and in part because once I started, I could tell it wasn't going anywhere happy ever, and I mostly just wanted to be done with it. 

I did in some ways enjoy the reading of it, but I felt like there was so much darkness, and really not a lot of light. Which is cool, I guess; I mean lots of book don't have any light, but I like to have some FLICKERS here and there, just to, you know, keep me from thinking the world is a cesspool of sadness. 

Quasimodo was a great character, and I get how it's so painful and poignant that he's really quite sweet, and he just wants someone, anyone, to love him (thus, the title of this blob). But in the end, NO ONE DOES, and even though he gets to die with Esmeralda (WHAT A WIN, btw), she never warms to him, and the Archdeacon basically uses him as a pawn (did I mention that he's the one who adopted Q, and how he got the whole bell-ringer of Notre-Dame gig? Or that Q is deaf from bell-ringing? Well there, now I did.) So no one gets anything they want, and just about everyone dies, and most of them in ways that are Pretty Darn Gruesome. Other titles for this book could have been: 

That book where no one loves anyone back
The story of how Quasimodo is wonderful and everyone should BE SO LUCKY as to be his friend
That time where Esmeralda almost dies (a bunch of times) and escapes hanging only to be hanged

or perhaps, quite simply: 

Love - it gets everyone killed in the end

Who loves whom?
Here's an incomplete list of the unrequited affections people have in this book: 

Archdeacon (Claude Frollo) -- La Esmeralda - he hates this with every fire of his being, because he's a man of the church and all, and she's basically a witch. But he pursues her and ruins her life (and his) anyway, because, you know, the heart wants what it wants. Reminded me of the creepy preacher in The Scarlet Letter. 

La Esmeralda -- Phoebus (Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers) - she goes hard for this dude, and she's all into the concept of a soldier in uniform, and ultimately he is just the Woooooooorst. He tries to sleep with her, gets himself stabbed by the Archdeacon (WHOM HE TOLD COULD WATCH THEM, HELLO CREEPY), then Doesn't die, but this "doesn't matter" in the eyes of the law because what Esmeralda is convicted of (and then hanged for) is killing him. Yeah. So like I said. The worst. 

Phoebus -- La Esmeralda (but not really; he can't remember her name and starts referring to her as Similar); Fleur-de-Lis (but not really) - Even though it is despicable that Phoebus FORGOT Esmeralda's name, I thought it was kind of hilarious that he kept calling her Similar. Maybe also because she was SO GAGA for him that it literally gets her kilt. Which I know is tragic and all, but come on. Take a hint, Esmeralda. And also be NICER TO QUASIMODO. #kthanxbye

Quasimodo -- La Esmeralda - if there was a hashtag for this, it would be #shedoesntdeservehim. Period. End of sentence. 

La Esmeralda -- Phoebus - le sigh. See above. 

Pierre Gringoire -- La Esmeralda (but also really just her goat, Djali) - again, kind of hilarious, but also hello, RUDE? Dude pieces out and leaves Esmeralda with the Creepy McCreeperson, the Archdeacon and runs off with her goat, because she's the one he really liked in their relationship. Srsly? Srsly? 

La Esmeralda -- Phoebus - I think it was an accident that I wrote this one twice, but let's just leave it in to confirm that her obsession was (a) mis-directed and (b) got her killed. 

Ultimatums where all the choices seem pretty terrible. 
While this book was full of darkness and creepy gruesome violence, there were quite a few funny moments. I can see why people liked Victor Hugo as a writer. Here are some examples of (seemingly terrible) ultimatums that cracked me up. 

(1) The Archdeacon, who literally takes Esmeralda to the gallows on the night of their escape so he can gesture to them and then himself and say: 

The tomb or my bed! The choice rests with yourself - decide instantly. SPOILER ALERT: She chooses the gallows. Metaphorically and literally.

(2) King of the Tramps (a sort of merry band of banditti), to Pierre, when he has been captured by them and then is sentenced to death. 

You have four minutes to settle the affairs of your soul.
This was an alarming announcement. lolololol. 

No more boring us and no more bamfloozling us, either! I mean it!
I also very much enjoyed the parts where Pierre tried in vain to take pride in his play, which is happening when the book starts. (The people are Not Into It, and even though he runs through the crowd yelling "The play! The play! Give us the play!" to get it started again after the Cardinal arrives and interrupts it, they totally abandon it midstream and do their own thing.)

Pierre: I am the poet whose play was performed this morning in the great hall of the Palace.
King of Tramps: But, comrade, because we were bored by you in the morning, is that any reason you should not be hung tonight? LOLOLOLOLOLZ.

King of Tramps: I truly believe you are trying to bamfloozle us with your nonsense. Let yourself be hanged and make no more fuss. It was kind of hilarious how lightly everyone took hanging, but also SUPER MORBID how everyone came to watch the various acts of public violence. 

Cities as characters (Paris, Moscow)
Reading the way that Hugo makes Paris a character in this book made me think of Pushkin and his use of Moscow as a character. That being said, I could have done with several chapters fewer of Hugo waxing poetic about Paris and how 'writing is the new architecture'. 

Now, how precarious is the immortality of the manuscript? A building is an extraordinarily solid, durable, and resistant book! Oh, yes. So durable!

Gypsies and Chocolat
The gypsy storyline, and the back story of the Sack Woman having been a provincial Frenchwoman whose child was stolen by the gypsies when they came to town, reminded me of the gypsies and the 'boycott immorality' scenes in Chocolat. Also, IT WAS SO OBVIOUS THAT ESMERALDA WAS HER DAUGHTER. But no, she's busy locking herself in a cell in the town square and praying for fifteen years and hating Esmeralda whenever she comes by because "the gypsies ate her baby". When this finally got revealed, I was like, DUHHHHHH. #calledit

Jehan (is that a name?)
There were several people named Jehan in this book, and it just kept feeling to me like how when you make your NPR name, you stick your middle initial anywhere into your first name (Merkedith) and list the smallest city you've spent time in (Honfleur). I kept thinking, why is there an H in Jean? I guess it was a name, but it felt very annoying to keep trying to imagine how to pronounce it and stumbling over the H. 

Sanctuary cities
I like this line: Louis XI made Paris a sanctuary in 1467. Because it reminded me of how several American cities became sanctuary cities for protecting immigrants. Guess we've been doing that for a while, huh? 


Notre-Dame as a character
I love this line about Quasimodo and the church: 

Notre-Dame had been successively to him, as he grew up and developed, his egg, his nest, his home, his country, the universe.

In running for the title of this blob:

• The grimace was his natural visage. His whole person was a grimace. They say SUCH awful things about Quasimodo. I ultimately went with one of HIS lines because I thought it better captured his true self. 

• In truth, Quasimodo, with one eye, hunchback, and crooked legs, was only a quasi person.

• He was, in truth, bad because he was wild; he was wild because he was ugly.

• He had picked up the general malevolence. He had picked up the weapon with which he had been wounded.

• She could not conceive how a creature so awkwardly put together could exist. 

• Damnation! That is how one should look, then! One only has to be handsome on the outside! This was so sad - when Quasimodo comprehends his ugliness only in comparing himself to Phoebus, who Esmeralda loves instead of him. 

• There are moments when the hands of a woman possess superhuman force. The Sack Woman is a badass for like five minutes and almost saves Esmeralda from her Second hanging but then Esmeralda has to spoil it. I mean, okay, she didn't want to be hanged or anything, but I was just OVER how she kept mooning after Phoebus. 

Dear reader (a.k.a., dear Mr. Man)
I mentioned in reading Pushkin that I was surprised by references to the reader and then realizing that the author automatically assumed I was a man. Pretty similar time period, happened again here: 

Dear reader, you have been a child, too, and you are perhaps still happy enough to be one. I daresay you have often (I know I have, for whole days together, and some of the best-spend days of my life) followed from bush to bush on the bank of a stream, on a fine sunshiny day, some beautiful green-and-blue demoiselle, darting off every moment at sharp angles and kissing the ends of all the branches. Now, if we were more liberal, we could think that maybe Hugo was queer-friendly, but I think we all know he's talking about men wooing women here.

Harry Potter moments
There were several moments that reminded me of HP, which I loved. 

It was then no longer the bell of Notre-Dame and Quasimodo: it was a dream, a whirlwind, a tempest, vertigo astride an uproar; a spirit clinging to a winged monster, a strange centaur, half man, half bell; a species of horrible Astolpho, carried off by a prodigious hippogriff of living brass. Aha! A hippogriff!!

and also this - Numerous references to Nicolas Flamel and the philosophers' stone. 

Lines I Liked:

• The best way to make the public wait patiently is to affirm that you are just about to begin.

• It would be decidedly unjust and in bad taste to boo a cardinal for coming late to the play when he is a handsome man and wears his scarlet robe so well. lolololz. 

• If he had had Peru in his pocket he would certainly have given it to the dancer, but Gringoire had no Peru there, and besides, America was not yet discovered. heh heh heh. 

• Geometry is harmony.

• He had a real fever for acquiring and hoarding up knowledge, and it seemed to the young man as if life had but one object, namely, to know.

Well, friends, I'm off to the next book, and to the end of my weekend! Happy reading! 

He began to think that who you are when you're with somebody may matter more than whether you love her.

The Accidental Tourist  by Anne Tyler
First published in 1985

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary
The Accidental Tourist is about a man in Baltimore who loses everything, only to find that he has everything to gain. The story centers on Macon Leary, just after his wife leaves him. Their son, Ethan, who was twelve at the time, was killed in a freak crime about a year prior, and for reasons somewhat related to that (and somewhat not), they separate. Macon downsizes his life and tries to take up as little space as possible, but still secretly hopes that Sarah will come back and things will return to normal. Macon's day job is to write guidebooks for the businessman (and later, woman) traveling abroad - thus, The 'Accidental' Tourist. Macon's efficiencies eventually cause him trouble, though, and he breaks his leg during a series of very complicated chores at home. He moves to his familial home to live with his sister, Rose, and his two grown brothers, Charles and Porter. He brings his cat and his troublesome, mostly untrained dog, Edward. He spends several weeks essentially hiding from the world, but eventually his boss (Julian) and his wife (Sarah) locate him. He begins an unexpected relationship with a woman who works at a doggy day-care (the Meow-Bow), Muriel, who is, in many ways, the exact opposite of Macon. She has a young son, Alexander, a bit younger than Macon's son Ethan was when he died. We spend the second half of the book in a bit of a tug of war, watching Macon decide whether he really does want his old life (and his wife) back, or whether he is happier with Muriel and Alexander. In the end, Macon realizes that while things seemed good with his life before Ethan died, he has found a new kind of happiness with Muriel and Alexander. So though his wife has taken him back, he rejects her, and heads home (they're in Paris for one of his trips) with Muriel.
Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Dear blobbists, 
  I really liked this one. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend. I know it may sound a little off-putting, or depressing, at first, but it doesn't read like that at all, in my opinion. Elizabeth, one of this blob's fearless readers, is also reading The Accidental Tourist, and we'll share her thoughts when she's finished her read! Hooray for reading buddies. :0)

In the mean time, here are mine.

Because the characters really make this novel, in my opinion, I'm going to paint you a portrait of some of the main ones.

Macon, our protagonist - writer of guidebooks, unwilling decider, efficiency addict
In the beginning, we watch Macon sort of un-become a person when his wife leaves. Ostensibly, there's a clear logic to each of his adjustments to his daily life. But when you hear them all together, they sound admittedly pretty bonkers. Here are a few snippets to walk you through this. 

• He would start the shower running and spread his clothes in the tub. At times he thought of skipping this part, except there was such a danger in falling behind with your system. If you shower on top of your clothes, who needs to do the laundry? 

• At moments - while he was skidding on the mangled clothes in the bathtub or struggling into his body bag on the naked, rust-stained mattress - he realized that he might be carrying things too far. Lol. His 'body-bag' is a kind of sheet sack that he makes so he can use as few linens as possible. 

• He didn't eat real meals anymore. When he was hungry he drank a glass of milk, or he spooned a bit of ice cream directly from the carton. I love that Macon starts eating popcorn for breakfast because he wants to be able to have it ready in the morning and sit out over night (not so kosher with eggs, his first choice). 

Macon as a traveler
Okay, so while some people probably read Macon as a misanthrope, or a strange hyper-introvert, I saw a TON of similarities between Macon and myself, which might be why I found this book so pleasing. I'm especially glad that I read it after this most recent job of mine, because I've had to travel for work much more than I ever did before, and I saw a lot of kinship between me as a traveler and Macon as a traveler. 

• Macon stared down at the little machine and wondered if he should buy one. Not for the music, heaven knows - there was far too much noise in the world already - but for insulation. He could plug himself into it and no one would disturb him. He could play a blank tape: thirty full minutes of silence. Turn the tape over and play thirty minutes more.  Macon would LOVE noise-cancelling headphones. I was at the gym the other day trying to read over the radio that was playing and I thought, man, what I wouldn't give for some nice silence to play in my earbuds. 

• He spent the rest of the week huddled in his room watching TV, chewing a knuckle, subsisting on nonperishable groceries and lukewarm soft drinks because he couldn't face another restaurant. I don't know what it is about traveling, but especially when I'm alone (as Macon generally is on his trips) restaurants feel like the WORST to me. I often end up getting take out or collecting items from the grocery store and huddling, Macon-style in my bed. 

• I love this exchange with a hotel maître d': 

'Well! This is a real honor, then. We keep your books in the lobby for our guests. But I don't know, I somehow pictured you looking a little different.'

'How did you think I would look?' Macon asked.  

'Well maybe not quite so tall. Maybe a bit, well, heavier. More...upholstered." lololol. This made me think of Slughorn in Harry Potter, when he disguises himself as an armchair.

• Macon: 'To tell the truth, I've always thought a hotel ought to offer optional small animals.'

Hotel worker: 'Animals?' 

Macon: 'I mean a cat to sleep on your bed at night, or a dog of some kind to act pleased when you come in. You ever notice how a hotel feels so lifeless?' I would LOVE if hotels offered small animals. Even if they were stuffed animals that they washed in the machine every night! Just something to make the places feel more alive.  

Macon, on feeling special

One of the things that Macon really likes about hanging out with Muriel and Alexander is that they make him feel special. I loved this line: 

• It had been a long, long time since anyone had made such an event of his arrival. Because it reminded me of every time I arrive at my sister's house and my nephew comes flying across the apartment yelling Aunt MaYUHnUSS is here! It makes me feel so deLightfully important. :)

Julian, guidebook salesman, boss to Macon, later (much to Macon's horror) Rose's husband
I love that Macon is gainfully employed throughout this book, in part because it seems so highly improbable that he will continue to stay employed. It's sort of like watching a slow motion train wreck, waiting to see how disagreeable Macon can be and still keep his job. Here are some of their exchanges: 

Julian: 'So anyway, can I expect it [the manuscript] by the end of the month?'
'No,' Macon said.
Julian: 'Why not?'
'I'm not organized.' LOLOL. Oh, ok. 

Julian: 'Why don't I step outside and wait with you.'
'I'd really rather you didn't,' Macon said. LOL. I died. 

Sarah, wife of Macon when the book just begins, mother to Ethan, self-proclaimed free spirit
One of my favorite scenes in the book is when Sarah and Macon end up back in their house (he's been living at Muriel's for some time, and she had her own apartment, and briefly her own lover) and she sees all the strange remnants of Macon's lifestyle after she left. 

Sarah: 'Why are some of the sheets sewn in half? And the popcorn popper's in the bedroom. Were you eating popcorn in the bedroom?'
Macon: 'I guess I must have been,' he said. LOLOLOLOLZ.

Rose, sister to Macon (and Charles and Porter), homemaker, organizer extraordinaire
Rose is a spectacularly drawn character, in my opinion. I think the Leary family as a whole is a huge part of what makes this book great. At some point, they stop answering the phone (in part, I think, because Macon is hiding from Julian and Sarah and the world). Macon questions this behavior at first:

Macon: 'What if that's some kind of emergency?'
Rose: 'Hmm? Who would call us for an emergency?' lolololz. 

Muriel, worker at the Meow-Bow (for a while, at least), trainer to Edward, lover to Macon, mother to Alexander

Muriel was probably my favorite character after Macon and the general Leary bunch. I love that she's set up as this sort of improbable love interest for Macon, and that it seems like he's not going to do right by her, so to speak, but she keeps holding him accountable in marvelous ways to being a real human. 

This is one of their first exchanges: 

'Why, you must get to travel all kinds of places!'
'Oh, well, travel,' Macon said.
'I'd love to travel.'
'It's just red tape, mostly,' Macon said. Lololol. This reminded me of Marvin in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (What's up? I don't know, I've never been there.)

And probably my favorite part of the whole book, when Muriel tries desperately to get Macon to take her to France with him on his trip:

Over the next few days she kept bringing up France again and again. She sent him an anonymous letter pasted together from the magazine print: Don't FoRget tO BUY plANe Ticket for MuRiel. (And the telltale magazine - with little blocks clipped out of its pages - still lay on the kitchen table.) She asked him to get her her keys from her purse and when he opened her purse he found photographs, two slick colored squares on thin paper showing Muriel's eyes at half mast. Passport photos, plainly.

He doesn't end up taking her (because, in fact, he breaks up with her and returns to Sarah; not cool, man) but she rolls on to the airplane anyway and buys her own ticket. He's all, what are you doing here? And she's like, OH I'M SORRY, DO YOU OWN THE AIRPLANE? It's such a great Muriel moment. 

Alexander, son of Muriel, allergic to most everything, eventually grows on you but it takes a while

Here's one of Alexander and Macon's first interactions, when Macon brings a 'loaded' pizza:

Alexander: 'I'm allergic to pizza.'
Macon: 'What part of it?'
Alexander: 'Huh?'
Macon: 'What part are you allergic to? The pepperoni? Sausage? Mushrooms? We could take those off.'
Alexander: 'All of it.'
Macon: 'You can't be allergic to all of it.'
Alexander: 'Well, I am.'

Edward, ill-behaved, erratic dog of Sarah and Macon, but then just Macon, and sometimes Rose and sometimes Muriel

Edward causes all KINDS of problems for Macon, but he's also kind of endearing. One of my other favorite scenes is when Macon calls the Leary home, freaking out because he's traveled to New York for work and he's at the top of this very high skyscraper having dinner and he has a panic attack. He gets Charles, and he tells him he has to help him to get out. 

Charles: 'You out! What are you talking about? You've got to get me out!'
Macon: 'Pardon?'
Charles: 'I'm shut in the pantry; your dog has me cornered.' LOL. The plan was to put Edward in the pantry when guests came, but Edward snarled and got off his leash so then Charles locks himself in the pantry. Amusingly, Macon thinks longingly of the pantry and how comforting it is, and wishes he were there instead. Charles threatens to shoot Edward (or have him shot), but Muriel saves the day (and Edward).

The Learys
Like I said, the Learys are a weird bunch, but I felt like Anne Tyler had a way of making you want to be a part of the weird bunch. They also reminded me of a family in a Shirley Jackson novel; kind of dysfunctional, somewhat ill-adjusted, mostly oblivious to the external world, or the Berry family in Hotel New Hampshire; insular, in ways that were sometimes marvelous and sometimes problematic.

I loved this line: 'No one else's dressing tasted as good as Macon's.' about how Macon had to make the salad dressing every night, because I feel this way about my mom's dressing, and also my Aunt Amy's dressing. No matter how hard I try, it doesn't taste just like theirs. 

Here's a depiction of the 'rules' of Vaccination, a card game that the Learys like to play nightly (but have also made up), when Sarah was trying to learn it. 

'I thought you said aces were high.'
'They are.'
'So that means -'
'But not when they're drawn from the deck.'
'Aha! Then why was the one that Rose drew counted high?'
'Well, she did draw it after a deuce, Sarah.'
'Aces drawn after a deuce are high?'
'No, aces drawn after a number that's been drawn two times in a row just before that.' Lolololol. It reminded me of True American on New Girl, and how the rules seem to be constantly evolving. JFK! FDR! Lava floor!

When you hear the tone, the time will be . . . Seven thirty three and a half.
There's a line from when Muriel and Macon are just meeting where she talks about how she gets so lonely some times at night that she calls the 'time lady' just to hear her voice, and lets her tell her, over and over again, exactly what time it is. I do vaguely recall there being a time when you could do this (and perhaps you still can!) but it also reminded me of Bringing Up Baby, and the hilarious hijinx having to do with this same 'time lady'. 

Lines I Liked

• She believed in change as if it were a religion.

• He was impressed that someone so old still wanted so fiercely to live. 

Words that were new to me

deckle - a device in a papermaking machine for limiting the size of the sheet, consisting of a continuous belt on either side of the wire; a frame on the mold used to shape the pulp when making paper by hand (I must have know this once, because we made paper a bunch as kids!)

windle - a machine or device for winding thread or yarn (Again, feel like I should know that. Now I do!)

Well, blobbists, believe it or not, I also read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame this weekend (I know, it was a real readingpalooza!) so I'll be blobbing on that next. In the mean time, here's one of my favorite lines, a realization that Macon makes near the end of the book: 

The real adventure, he thought, is the flow of time; it's as much adventure as anyone could wish.

Wishing you all adventures, whether they're at home or abroad, real or imagined, and don't forget to spring forward, if that applies in your time zone! Keep safe, keep faith, and see you soon! 

Should they not stop and laugh instead before their hands have turned blood red?

Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
First published in 1832

Spoiler Alert: Plot Poem

  (Eugene)        (Onegin)
Yev-ghen-ee Ah-nee-ggin, a novel in verse
A tale of love almost, not fated, more cursed
We follow Onegin as he bounds along
Not caring much between right and wrong.

He's a wealthy-ish Russian, with not much to do
But dance at balls and make girls cry boo-hoo
Not too much happens, really, other than this
Until he woos Olga and things go amiss.

Her sister, Tatiana, is lovely and single
And she tells Onegin she's ready to mingle
But he will have none of it, she's young and demure
He'd never be interested in someone so pure.

But Olga's with Lensky, Yevgeny's best friend,
And Lensky has his lady's honor to defend.
A duel is set, a battle twixt allies
Lensky's shot dead, not even a good-bye.

Yevgeny leaves the country-side, missing his pal
Tatiana's bereft, a sad little gal
But some time passes, her heart's on the mend
And on her walks, her feet do wend

Their way into Yevgeny's empty estate
Open to visits, with quite a first rate
Library that she falls for, all over again
With books as companions, who really needs men?

More time then passes, they drift apart
Till Tatiana captures Onegin's heart
He's smitten, now at a Petersburg ball
But she is married, not under his thrall

He tries to convince her, tells tales of his love
But the timing is wrong, not sent from above
She tells him that truly, she'll always love him
But once he dismissed her as only a whim

And now she is married, no longer free
So they two, simply, can never be we.

Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Ooph! I'm not sure how Pushkin pulled off all that poetry! I only did the little spoiler alert in rhyme to be a kind of homage to him, and it was hard! And I had the internet to help me find rhymes!

And huge kudos to the translators, who must have not only worked to translate the meaning, but also preserve the rhyme and the cadence and personality of Pushkin - another tremendous achievement!

You may have noticed I've sped up my reads lately - I have a mildly harebrained plan to have 34 books left to read after my 34th birthday, which is just a few weeks away. So wish me luck! And enjoy the blobs!

I really enjoyed this work - especially making the internet tell me how to pronounce Eugene Onegin, which had definitely been pronouncing YOU-JEAN OH-NAY-GUN. Yevgeny is much more fun than Eugene, in my opinion (no offense to any Eugenes out there). It also has a different number of syllables, which matters quite a lot when you're reading poetry! 

This book was short; only about 200 pages, but spread out because it's a poem. So if you're interested in a romp to Russia, I definitely recommend. Anyway, without further ado, let's jump in!

You speak no French, yes? 
I loved this couplet:

In French, which he'd by now perfected,
He could express himself and write.

Because it reminded me that so many Russians spoke and wrote in French back then. I suppose this was true of a wide variety of Europeans, but it seems so strangely romantic to me that you would grow up in a country like Russia and then write letters to your friends in French. I could technically write letters to my friends in French, but most of them couldn't read them, and it would be a lot of work. At one point, they even reference a woman whose Russian isn't great because she's so used to communicating in French, which I found kind of hilarious. 

Insert chapter here
Genji-style, sometimes chapters were just missing, which the notes section had a lot of opinions on. "The missing chapters are of three distinct varieties.. blah blah blah." I guess it's conceivable that you'd write missing chapters in with a reason, but it seems awfully silly to me that there would be multiple kinds of missing chapters, and some are on purpose, and some he just forgot to write. It seems equally silly to me that we continue to demarcate those chapters in current versions - it makes me think of how in Germantown, they stripped out the cobblestone except in the middle of the road (to keep it historic) and left in the trolley tracks (again, for historical reasons) even though there's no functioning trolley there and so now the road is just ugly AND awfully bumpy to drive on. So sorry, Pushkin, I'm not here for it. 

Fortunes
I liked Tatiana a lot, and I felt bad for her when Yevgeny was like, "Um, thanks for the love letter but I'm super not interested and you're lucky I'm being so nice about it." Here's a passage I liked about her. 

Tatiana held to the convictions
Of ancient lore, believed in dreams,
In guessing cards and the predictions
Discernible in moonlight beams.

It reminded me of my bosom bud, Mar, who is very into dreams, and tells fascinating stories to decipher them whenever we're together. 

Duels
I was totally surprised when Yevgeny ended up in a duel with his buddy, but I loved the poetry of how Pushkin described it. (Also, apparently Pushkin himself died in a duel, defending the honor of His wife? So... life imitating art or art imitating life?)

It was a gentlemanly letter,
A challenge or cartel he'd penned;
Polite and cold and to the matter
He sought a duel with his friend.

Should they not stop and laugh instead
Before their hands have turned blood red?

Fickle friends
I love that Tatiana calls Onegin out when he's suddenly into her now that she's married and living the city life: 

'Admit that in our backwoods haven,
From empty rumour far away,
I was not to your liking...Say, then,
Why you're pursuing me today.

I love you (why should I disguise it),
But I am someone else's wife,
To him I shall be true for life.

Seasons
When the narrator described the seasons, it reminded me of Genji, and the frequent discussions of and descriptions of the seasons. 

How sad to me is spring's arrival,
Season of love, when all's in bud!
What languid tumult, what upheaval
Disturb my soul, disturb my blood!
With what a heavy, tender feeling
I revel in the season, breathing
The vernal wind that fans my face
In some secluded, rural place!

Sleighs
Several times they travel by sleigh, and it's snowing, and it sounds SUPER DELIGHTFUL. I was especially jealous since it didn't snow at all this year and it has therefore felt like winter simply decided not to come. It has left me feeling deeply off kilter. (IN CASE YOU COULDN'T TELL.)

It's dark: into a sleigh he settles.
The cry resounds: 'Away, away';
Upon his beaver collar, petals
Of frostdust form a silver spray.

Tatiana, knowing not the reason,
But being Russian to the core,
Adored the Russian winter season,
The frosty beauty that it wore. 

Slays
Yevgeny is apparently a bit of a fop - super into how he dresses, wealthy, kind of a do-nothing, and it seems Pushkin created an archetype for several Russian characters that would follow. I loved this description of him getting ready: 

My Eugene, like Chaadaev, fearful
Of jealous censure, was most careful
About his dress - a pedant or
A dandy, as we said before.
At least three hours he spent preparing
In front of mirrors in his lair,
And, stepping out at last from there,
Looked like a giddy Venus wearing
A man's attire, who, thus arrayed,
Drives out to join a masquerade.

Sleeps
Amusingly (and perhaps disturbingly), Yevgeny oversleeps the day of his duel:

But, turning morning into nighttime,
Exhausted by the ballroom's din
The child of luxury and pastime
In blissful shade sleeps quietly in.

At last he wakes, prepares to rise,
The curtains of his bed he's parted;
He looks outside - and sees, alack,
He should have started some time back.

Whoops! Time's a wasting! So much time, so many duels to do!

Oh he's away? Let me just check out his library real quick...
I think my favorite part of the book was when Tatiana ended up visiting Onegin's country estate and then devouring books in his library. It reminded me of the scene in Pride and Prejudice when Lizzie visits Pemberley and falls for it and him all at once, in a way.

With apprehension
She avidly began to read
And found a different world indeed.

There's also something beautifully intimate about not just reading his books, but seeing the marks of him having read them. I keep the books I read for this blog and I have marked all of them up, and I like to think that some day when I die, they will be distributed to my close friends and family, and then people can have a piece of me in a way, and a piece of the things I cherished. 

There were preserved on many pages
The trenchant mark of fingernails,
With them the watchful girl engages
As if she were deciphering spells.
Tatiana saw with trepidation
What thought it was or observation
Had struck Onegin, what they meant,
To which he'd given mute consent.
And in the margins she encountered
His pencil marks by certain lines.
Throughout, his soul was by such signs,
Without his knowing it, expounded,
Whether by cross, by succinct word,
Or question mark, as they occurred.

The country
There's a Sylvia Plath line where she thinks about whether she'd want to live in the city or the country, and she says she'd like to live "in the city and the country both". I know just what she means. I live in a city now, but lines like this really make me miss the farms and open spaces of where I grew up:

But I was born for peaceful pleasures,
For country quiet: there I thrive:
There sounds the lyre with clearer measures.
Creative dreams are more alive.

Women reading
Sometimes as I was reading, I forgot that this was published almost 200 years ago, and that as a woman, I would not have been the target audience. I was amused by this line: 

Some would have women reading Russian,
A frightful prospect, if applied;
Imagine females in discussion
With The Well-Meaner at their side!

According to my notes, The Well-Meaner was "a periodical that used to be conducted by the late A. Izmaylov rather negligently. He once apologized in print to the public, saying that during the holidays he had “caroused.” Lolz. 

I also read this, and thought, yes, be my own man. Wait, what? 

Love your own self, be your own man,
My worthy, venerable reader!
A worthwhile object: surely who
Could be more lovable than you? 

I like to think I'm still pretty lovable. ;)

A Few Passages I Particularly Liked:

Through sleeping streets, past houses darkened
Twin carriage lamps pour out a jocund
Illumination row on row,
Projecting rainbows on the snow.

I to this day would love a ball.
I love the youthfulness and madness,
The crush, the glitter and the gladness. Oh, I do LOVE a ball!

Where are my dreams, the dreams I cherished?
What rhyme now follows, if not 'perished'?

Words New to Me:
anchorite - a religious recluse

animadversion - criticism or censure

comet wine - comet vintages are years during which an astronomical event, involving generally a "Great Comet", occurs prior to harvest. The term "comet wine" is sometimes used in the wine world to describe a wine of exceptional quality in reference to the high reputation that comet vintages have. I had never heard of this, and I thought it sounded very cool. 

droshky - a low four-wheeled open carriage of a kind formerly used in Russia

eclogue - a short poem, especially a pastoral dialogue

mazurka - a lively Polish dance in triple time (they dance Lots of mazurkas. Here's a sampling if you're curious.)

mobcap - a large soft hat covering all of the hair and typically having a decorative frill, worn indoors by women in the 18th and early 19th centuries

periwig - a highly styled wig worn formerly as a fashionable headdress by both women and men

Petrovsky Castle - built for Catherine the Great and designed by the famous Russian architect Matvei Kazakov in 1775-82.  It was meant to be the last overnight station of royal journeys from St. Petersburg to Moscow, providing the empress a chance to rest before entering Moscow. Catherine visited once, in 1785. Her son Paul stayed in the palace before he was crowned in the Moscow Kremlin.  In the 19th century Petrovsky Palace witnessed many official ceremonies; it was from here that Russian tsars began their journeys to the Kremlin for their coronation. It survived the Bolshevik Revolution and is currently used as a hotel for dignitaries.

I loved this line about the Petrovsky Palace: 

Here Bonaparte chose to reside
By Fortune's smile intoxicated,
He waited - but in vain he waited -
For Moscow on her bended knees
To yield to him old Kremlin's keys.

I'm rusty on my Russian history, but it seems Russia set Moscow on fire rather than turn it over to Napoleon, and this was the beginning of the end of the French advance into Russia. You'd like this city? Hard pass. We'll just go ahead and light it on fire ourselves. #kthanxbye

I'll leave you with a few final lines I liked, particularly as I think about my birthday coming up, and not being any particularly special age, but getting older and more solidly into the thirties: 

The noontide of my life is starting,
Which I must needs accept, I know;
But oh, my light youth, if we're parting,
I want you as a friend to go!

I like the idea of a noontide, kind of like reaching life's afternoon stage. I also liked this line: 

Meanwhile, enjoy, friends, till it's ended,
This light existence, every dram!

And of course this one, which is so clearly me: 

Oh, I'd surrender
At once this masquerade, this splendour,
With all its glitter, noise and smoke
For one wild garden and a book.

Wishing you weekends full of wild gardens and books, and reminding you to enjoy, friends, every dram! I'm off to read The Purposeful Traveler. Or was it The Intentional Globetrotter? Something of that ilk. Keep each other safe! Keep faith! Good night. 

You are the way and the wayfarers.

The Prophet by  Kahlil Gibran
First published in 1923

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary
The Prophet is a series of questions (asked and answered) posed for Almustafa, a prophet preparing to leave the city of Orhalese after twelve years and sail away on the sea, back to the land of his birth. He speaks to the people of Orphalese, and shares his thoughts on everything from love to clothes to laws to self-knowledge to time to pain and beyond. It is a poignant treatise full of quotable quotes and deep reflections, and it leaves you somehow both truly fulfilled and yet desperately yearning for more. 
Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Okay, okay, so I know I just said that what I didn't like so much about White Teeth was that it wasn't super plot-driven, but I actually really loved that this book wasn't so much about something as it was about everything and nothing and all the spaces in between. Then again, this book was bite-sized (a hundred pages for my copy, and it was really stretching it with the type-face and the spacing) and White Teeth was more substantial, so perhaps that was part of the difference in readerly experience on my end. Since this one is so short and is full of pithy thoughts, I do recommend giving this one a readerly visit. Not that I don't recommend White Teeth, it's just a different kind of reading experience. Here are some parts I enjoyed. 

On giving

You give but little when you give of your possessions. 

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. 

Admittedly, I found it a bit odd to read the sort of agnostic, non-denominational nature of the references to God in this book, because some parts of it read as very Biblical, or religious tract-esque, but there were many parts I still enjoyed.

On sorrow

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. I love even the possibility of this being true, even if it doesn't always feel like it is. 

On crime and punishment

And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?

On laws

You delight in laying down laws,
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.  I love the idea of destroying sand-towers with laughter. 

On freedom

You can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment. I loved this line because it reminded me of a This American Life episode on humane foie gras. This guy in Spain figures out that geese naturally gorge themselves, but ONLY when they know they are in fact truly free, and so he manages to make some exquisite foie gras just by creating this Edenic environment where they can just roam and live and gorge themselves. This American chef loves the concept and tries to recreate in upstate New York, but his geese won't gorge themselves. The Spaniard comes over to help him try to figure out why, and he starts off by taking him to the incubator, and the Spaniard is like, "How could they think they are free?! They know from their Egg shells that they are captives in this incubator!" It's both wildly trippy and deeply hilarious. It turns out that it's basically impossible to meet American standards for food preparation while ALSO allowing the geese to believe in their true freedom. 

On friendship

Your friend is your needs answered.
And let your best be for your friend. 

This one goes out to all my friends who have been my needs answered over and over and over again. There is not enough gratitude in this world for you. May you always have my best, friends. 

On talking

In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. Lol. I see what he's getting at here, but all I could think of was the scene in Notting Hill where Hugh Grant dates a 'fruitarian', who only eats food that has fallen from the tree; when he asks her about the vegetables on her plate, she says that they have been "murdered, yes." 

On pleasure

Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being. 

On beauty

People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror. Be the crown, you are the crown. Lol, there were many places like this where I was like, OKAY, I got it. I'm life. No, I'm the veil. No, I'm eternity. No, I'm the mirror. Wait, what????? 

On strength
You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link.
This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link.
To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.

This was probably my favorite section. How great is that line? To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam. Epic. 

Lines I Liked

• Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy flew far over the sea. 

• And then shall I come to you, a boundless drop to a boundless ocean. 

• A seeker of silences am I.

• If this is my day of harvest, in what fields have I sowed the seed, and in what unremembered seasons? 

• Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars? 

• Even while the earth sleeps we travel.

• Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones?

Since this was a short work, that's all I've got for you, blobbists! I'll leave you with three of my favorite bits. 

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. 

You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields.
That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind.
It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or digs holes into darkness for safety,
But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether.

Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn. 

With that, I'm off to bed, for my sleep has not yet fled. Onwards to Eugene Onegin (can't come up with a fake title, since I'm pretty sure Eugene Onegin is a name, and proper names like Eugene don't really have synonyms) and my dreams. Even while the earth sleeps, I travel.