I don't actually want everything to be about politics, but here we are...

In the last few years, I've felt a strong pull towards the idea of Advent. I've always liked Christmas (this seems like an utterly insufficient way to express the sentiment) - I like the family, the food, finding presents for the people I love. But more recently, I've been drawn towards the anticipation, maybe even more than the actual event. I also love the idea of celebrating the solstice, and I think these stem from the same deep-down place, that idea that yes, it is dark, but there is light and it is drawing nearer every moment.

Anyway, I keep looking for ways to honor the Advent season that feel meaningful to me. I'm quite a lapsed Christian, but one practice that has given me some of that meaning is following along with Advent readings in the Bible. I've also been influenced lately by the brilliant podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text - they have pushed me to make deeper connections with all kinds of text, and they gave me the idea to keep my mind open for florilegia as I read these Advent texts.

It isn't actually Advent yet, but the ELCA has a nice calendar with daily readings and I've been through them the last couple days to get myself in the habit. All of this is a very long way to say that one of today's readings was something I wanted to remember and to share. It feels too long for florilegia, but holy buckets did it feel especially of the moment. It comes from Nehemiah and it is obviously talking about the Israelites as they wandered in the desert. But it hit me hard:

But they, our forefathers, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and did not obey your commands. They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, "This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt," or when they committed awful blasphemies. (Neh. 9, 16-18)

If 45 isn't a golden calf (orange calf), I'm not sure what is. The chapter actually goes on to describe how God brought the Israelites to Canaan and gave them a country that was already inhabited, allowing them to subdue the Canaanites and steal their riches, which is also uncomfortably familiar. Suffice to say, stiff-necked seems like an excellent way to describe Republicans. (The phrase that sparked brightest for me was "slow to anger and abounding in love," but "stiff-necked" was a close second. What I wouldn't give for a sacred text buddy to talk about these sparkly words with.)

 

 

 

Ancillary Mercy

I'm not certain that Ancillary Mercy is the best book in the Imperial Radch, but I think it's my personal favorite. It's the one that makes me laugh out loud (I love you, Translator Zeiat) and it's the one that makes me cry the happiest of tears.

I just hit this section in the middle: Breq has just lost a leg and is awake but obviously pretty heavily drugged. Kalr Five brings Breq water in her own green bowl. Seivarden wanders in (wearing nothing but gloves and underwear), heavily drugged herself, and snuggles in with Breq. And Mercy of Kalr patiently explains to Breq that it loves her, because, "maybe it isn't that ships don't love other ships. Maybe it's that ships love people who could be captains...I do like Lieutenant Ekalu. I like her a great deal. And I like Lieutenant Seivarden well enough, but mostly because she loves you." (Oh, and Kalr Twelve is, while all of this happening, trying to organize a group to sing outside Breq's room. I cannot see through my happy tears.)

I can recognize that this is one of those things that would sound completely crazy to someone who hasn't read these books, which is a testament to the world- and character-building that has happened in the build-up.

Ancillary Sword and BLM

I'm not sure how many times I've re-read Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy now. I think it's safe to say that it's climbing the list of my most re-read books/series, in part because every time I read it, it has new resonance.

I suspect the last time I read it was a few summers ago, but, of course, much has changed since then. And so inevitably, I find myself drawing parallels between Breq and her fight against the tyrant Anaander Mianaai and our current political situation. I won't dive deep into this, because, as I've said too many times already, this is what happens with most of the books I read now (and I doubt I'm alone). But this passage in Ancillary Sword jumped out at me - I appreciated the clarity.

"These people are citizens." I replied, my voice as calm and even as I could make it, without reaching the dead tonelessness of an ancillary. "When they behave properly, you will say there is no problem. When they complain loudly, you will say they cause their own problems with their impropriety. And when they are driven to extremes, you say you will not reward such actions. What will it take for you to listen?"

It's been said before, and it will be said again, but as the debate about Black Lives Matter and kneeling during the national anthem drags endlessly on, I suspect it cannot be said enough.

I briefly interrupt my reading to ask...

"Did you really not read all of my letter? Maybe you didn't read it at all?"

So Shatov asks Nikolai Stavrogin in Dostoevsky's The Possessed (that's what my translation is called, anyway; apparently it also goes by Demons). And I want to ask if anyone in this book reads all of anyone's letters? Maybe they don't read them at all!

Seriously. Mrs. Stavrogin has no use for Verkhovensky's copious letters, Nikolai also doesn't read all that Peter has written him...is this what the story turns on? Nobody reading the letters they receive?

Only one way to find out. BACK TO THE BOOK.

The Night Diary and book discussions

Veera Hiranandani's The Night Diary was next up on my list of book camp books. It's a lovely book, but I don't really want to talk about it so much as around it (I think).

Whenever I read these books for our teacher book club and our summer book camp (one of my biggest losses as I leave for new adventures is the community of kindred spirits that I found through these groups, and I feel that loss keenly as I read - they have made my reading life a slightly less lonely one), I inevitably think ahead to our discussions. Much as I enjoy the discussions as they play out, they always head in a different direction than where my mind takes me. We talk about the books as we would use them in the classroom, the ages of kids they would appeal to, the windows they offered to us into other lives. And those are valuable things!

But when I read Exit, Pursued by a Bear, I wanted to talk about sexism and harassment! And Shakespeare! And Shakespeare adaptations and Women of Will, which I had recently read. (It didn't help that very few in the group had chosen to read it, of course.) And when I read The Wild Robot, I filled a page with notes about artificial intelligence and R.U.R. and Dollhouse (because they shared that R.U.R. reference) and POI and retro-futurism. We talked about what a good read-aloud it would be (it would! I just really wanted to talk about Dollhouse and POI).

So as I read and make notes of the pathways in my brain that link to these books, I wonder how useful those notes will actually be. I hope, with The Night Diary, that we talk about the Partition. I don't know enough about that. (I know that little Prince Louis was named for Lord Mountbatten. That is not particularly useful.) And I would love to talk about this interview from NPR with Veera Hiranandani, because I'm fascinated by the heading for the last quote. NPR describes it as "what [Hiranandani] wants other young girls to take from Nisha's story," while Hiranandani speaks solely of "readers" and "other 12-year olds." This is par for the course when we talk about books that have female main characters, but it never ceases to be frustrating. This book is good, and it could be enjoyed by boys and girls.

Early summer reads

I'm reading Shari Green's Macy McMillan and the Rainbow Goddess (one of our summer book camp selections). It has been a quick read so far (it's in verse), but I was stopped short when Iris told Macy about Anne of Green Gables.

I learned much from Anne -

that the hard things in life

sometimes turn out to be the very things

that equip us for what comes next...

that there's nothing so precious

as a kindred spirit

and a place to call home...

that we need one another...

that words are magical...

and that it's possible - more than possible -

to survive the depths of despair

and come out strong.

The reason I had to stop there and come here is because I wanted to immediately abandon this book and revisit Avonlea and PEI, one of my favorite places to spend the early summer (in the books - I've never actually been there). There's something about Anne's optimism, Marilla's practicality, Matthew's peace, and all the other beloved characters that makes that Anne-girl the perfect early summer companion. (I'm not going to. I have my summer reading planned out and completely, pardon the pun, booked. There just isn't time!)

I blame my work computer

For reasons I don't understand, Blogger is not something I can access on my work computer (I mean, I understand it's a feature of G Suite they have decided to disable, but I'm a little surprised I can't get to this thing already tied to my personal account). And I've become so reliant on how light and not overheated that thing is. It's also just been a strange year, and so, as is my wont when it comes to blogging, I have been remiss.

Summer is close enough that it seems fair to think about it, though you'd never know it from the weather. It's certainly close enough that planning has begun for summer book camp, and since the book I just finished is on the preliminary (overly long) list, I feel like I should document something about it.

That is, admittedly, not the stated purpose of this blog, but the thought of doing that assignment-like recording reminded me that I created this space to comment on the parts of books that I needed to talk about immediately, to share with this blog what I would share with someone who was reading along with me. And really, there are plenty of those things in this book too.

The book, by the way, is Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman. I wasn't playing coy intentionally.

This has to be one of my favorite books of the year. I feel like I've maybe written about how, in this particular bleak era, nearly everything I read takes on greater import, like, no matter when it was written or why, the author was speaking to this time. Thunderhead is full of that feeling. The battle between the New and Old Guard has whiffs of our current political climate, and so much of the Thunderhead's musings seem full of significance. I suspect I could (and maybe should, to be better prepared in August) write pages about all the instances that jumped out at me, but I feel like keeping a bit more with the spirit of this space. I'm sticking to the one that is sticking to my brain.

It comes at the end of Chapter 17, a rumination on "the fine line between freedom and permission."

While freedom gives rise to growth and enlightenment, permission allows evil to flourish in a light of day that otherwise destroy it.

YES! We permit so many things for so many reasons - it's easier, it seems polite, we have short-term goals that obscure long-term welfare. On a small scale, I see this in swapping free periods for a class that is too hard or never attended, in allowing a degradation of etiquette because it is a constant fight to keep hoods down and earbuds out of ears and phones put away. And on a grander scale?

A self-important dictator gives permission for his subjects to blame the world's ills on those least able to defend themselves. A haughty queen gives permission to slaughter in the name of God. An arrogant head of state gives permission to all nature of hate as long as it feeds his ambition. And the unfortunate truth is, people devour it. Society gorges itself, and rots. Permission is the bloated corpse of freedom.