I'm reading Oliver Twist now, and though I really want to finish it, if only to prove to myself (and, oh yes, the world) that I can, I'm not sure I will.
I wasn't prepared for such a dark world. The book is so unrelentingly and also so transparently miserable, I can barely stand the thought of 300 more pages. Of course Oliver is not going to return to Mr. Brownlow's house when he offers to take the books back to the bookseller's stall!
Who read this story when it first appeared? I've been trying to imagine the women and the men who took up the magazine, shook it out, folded it over, read, licked their forefinger to turn the page... what did they think? Were they shocked, and satisified to have been? Did they dread the next installment, or look forward to it? Did they have any hope for a happy ending?
I'm not the sort of person to read happy books, especially. So I'm having trouble figuring out what bothers me so much about this. I think, really, this book is far more explicit in its portrayal of evil wrought on children than anything being written today. And yet at the same time, it's so overbaked by today's standards of writing that one can hardly help feeling a bit of mockery towards it. So I have two conflicting emotions every time I read.
Here's a passage about Dick that really ate me up:
The child was pale and think; his cheeks were sunken; and his eyes large and bright. The scanty parish dress, the livery of his misery, hung loosely on his feeble body; and his young limbs were wasted away, like those of an old man. ...
"I should like," faltered the child, "if somebody that can write, would put a few words down for me on a piece of paper, and fold it up and seal it, and keep it for me, after I am laid in the ground. ...
"I should like," said the child, "to leave my dear love to poor Oliver Twist; and to let him know how often I have sat by myself and cried to think of his wandering about in the dark nights with nobody to help him. And I should like to tell him," said the child, pressing his small hands together, and speaking with great fervour, "that I was glad to die whan I was very young; for, perhaps, if I had lived to be a man, and had grown old, my little sister who is in Heaven, might forget me, or be unlike me; and it would be so much happier if we were both children there together."
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Fool Service
This southern city has two indoor ice rinks, but this post is not about ice rinks. Maybe some other day I'll write about the absurdity of a building full of cold, or maybe that's plenty said already.
This post is about how I was driving 1 and 2 and a friend of 1 to the ice rink on the north side of town when I rashly decided to try to find my way to the ice rink on the south side of town.
I had never been to this rink before, but I could see from the address written on a coupon (burning a hole in my supremely middle-class Entertainment Book) that it was sort of close to something I might know the location of. Goaded on by protestations from the back seat--changed plans grate horribly on the nerves of my children--I pulled a u-turn and made a right onto a road that at least initially went in the direction I wanted.
After about 5 minutes, I lost my nerve and, seeing a highway number for something going north, I yanked the wheel right and sped up the ramp, hoping--trusting!--that I would soon see another sign telling me what road I was on. (Roads might be numbered, but everyone here calls them by their local names.)
Instead, I came upon a toll-booth and in the approach I realized that I had less than 50 cents in the entire car. What am I going to do? The girls are dithering in the back. What does anyone do? Will the attendant make me call home and have someone deliver 50 cents to me? Is there some sort of secret driveway that they'll let me slip down as long as I promise to return whence I came and never do this again? Do they take credit cards?
The hundredths of a mile are ticking by, the tollbooths are looming, I'm fumbling in my purse. I have 1 quarter and five pennies and my mind is counting off the words I should use as I pull up to the last slot on the right.
I began my apology and sensed right away that the attendant was fed up: "How much do you have," without even rolling her eyes, which might have been taken as a sign of commiseration. 1 called from the back, "Look on the ground!" and I made a show of peering over the edge of the door.
"There's nothing out there." She took my 30 cents without taking her eyes from mine. With some tollbooth-attendant sleight-of-hand magic, she pulled something from her back pocket, strained out the pennies and tossed two quarters into the basket. I knew it was two quarters because the only moment her eyes left mine to put the pennies in her till, I glanced over at the display as the coins tumbled in.
"Thank you," I said. Maybe I wasn't grateful enough--I admit the thought crossed my mind that the second quarter was a misguided one she herself had picked off the ground earlier--but I was truly relieved. She continued staring at me, never smiling, just a little flick of scorn? anger? at the side of her mouth. I drove away.
This post is about how I was driving 1 and 2 and a friend of 1 to the ice rink on the north side of town when I rashly decided to try to find my way to the ice rink on the south side of town.
I had never been to this rink before, but I could see from the address written on a coupon (burning a hole in my supremely middle-class Entertainment Book) that it was sort of close to something I might know the location of. Goaded on by protestations from the back seat--changed plans grate horribly on the nerves of my children--I pulled a u-turn and made a right onto a road that at least initially went in the direction I wanted.
After about 5 minutes, I lost my nerve and, seeing a highway number for something going north, I yanked the wheel right and sped up the ramp, hoping--trusting!--that I would soon see another sign telling me what road I was on. (Roads might be numbered, but everyone here calls them by their local names.)
Instead, I came upon a toll-booth and in the approach I realized that I had less than 50 cents in the entire car. What am I going to do? The girls are dithering in the back. What does anyone do? Will the attendant make me call home and have someone deliver 50 cents to me? Is there some sort of secret driveway that they'll let me slip down as long as I promise to return whence I came and never do this again? Do they take credit cards?
The hundredths of a mile are ticking by, the tollbooths are looming, I'm fumbling in my purse. I have 1 quarter and five pennies and my mind is counting off the words I should use as I pull up to the last slot on the right.
I began my apology and sensed right away that the attendant was fed up: "How much do you have," without even rolling her eyes, which might have been taken as a sign of commiseration. 1 called from the back, "Look on the ground!" and I made a show of peering over the edge of the door.
"There's nothing out there." She took my 30 cents without taking her eyes from mine. With some tollbooth-attendant sleight-of-hand magic, she pulled something from her back pocket, strained out the pennies and tossed two quarters into the basket. I knew it was two quarters because the only moment her eyes left mine to put the pennies in her till, I glanced over at the display as the coins tumbled in.
"Thank you," I said. Maybe I wasn't grateful enough--I admit the thought crossed my mind that the second quarter was a misguided one she herself had picked off the ground earlier--but I was truly relieved. She continued staring at me, never smiling, just a little flick of scorn? anger? at the side of her mouth. I drove away.
Saturday, September 9, 2006
The Insect Demimonde
Have you ever left a restaurant, satisfied with your meal, and only then wondered if there were cockroaches in the kitchen? I never have, until today. Typically, the cockroach question rears its ugly, radiation-proof head much earlier in the dining experience.
I don't know why, but today as I walked out of the restaurant after lunch, the thought crossed my mind, much in the same way one might think, "I wonder if there are any decent swimsuits left on sale at Target" or "When did all those clouds roll in?"
I feel gratitude toward my brain for being so laissez-faire about the issue.
I don't think I had ever seen a cockroach in my life until I traveled in West Africa, where I encountered roaches that were--we'll say--substantial. They lived in the toilet pits and it was surprisingly easy to ignore them after the first few visits. I never saw them in the houses.
Our house has roaches; few enough that we can try to ignore them, but enough to be worrisome if you happen to be sitting downstairs very late at night, alone, with the lights dimmed and the radio off. Then one will race across the kitchen floor and into the living room, following an invisible route that doesn't seem to make any sense. (what's in the living room? the roach country club?) Soon, it races back--but from a slightly different point, to another corner of the kitchen, so that you're not sure if it was the same roach, or another. A third stanza of scurrying, and it's clear that multiple roaches are in residence: no roach could have that many errands to run in a single evening.
Having read that roaches despise dryness, I once pointed a hairdryer at a crack I had seen a roach retreat into. I know it didn't do any good, but it made a pleasingly nasty mental image, stiff roach wings curling up like a dried apple peel, legs moving slower and slower and slower.
Why am I writing about cockroaches, about killing cockroaches? (catch me another day and I'll give them more-than-grudging respect) Beats me. Anything more meaningful and the words would have felt too sticky, I guess.
I don't know why, but today as I walked out of the restaurant after lunch, the thought crossed my mind, much in the same way one might think, "I wonder if there are any decent swimsuits left on sale at Target" or "When did all those clouds roll in?"
I feel gratitude toward my brain for being so laissez-faire about the issue.
I don't think I had ever seen a cockroach in my life until I traveled in West Africa, where I encountered roaches that were--we'll say--substantial. They lived in the toilet pits and it was surprisingly easy to ignore them after the first few visits. I never saw them in the houses.
Our house has roaches; few enough that we can try to ignore them, but enough to be worrisome if you happen to be sitting downstairs very late at night, alone, with the lights dimmed and the radio off. Then one will race across the kitchen floor and into the living room, following an invisible route that doesn't seem to make any sense. (what's in the living room? the roach country club?) Soon, it races back--but from a slightly different point, to another corner of the kitchen, so that you're not sure if it was the same roach, or another. A third stanza of scurrying, and it's clear that multiple roaches are in residence: no roach could have that many errands to run in a single evening.
Having read that roaches despise dryness, I once pointed a hairdryer at a crack I had seen a roach retreat into. I know it didn't do any good, but it made a pleasingly nasty mental image, stiff roach wings curling up like a dried apple peel, legs moving slower and slower and slower.
Why am I writing about cockroaches, about killing cockroaches? (catch me another day and I'll give them more-than-grudging respect) Beats me. Anything more meaningful and the words would have felt too sticky, I guess.
Saturday, September 2, 2006
Driver 8 take a break
I want to make beauty more important in my life.
What does this mean? Not fresh-flowers-as-dictated. Not things.
A pine cone holds its seeds in quiet, and when it opens its many tongues to speak, the seeds fall away. Lost or given. The pine cone's purpose for existence expires, but that's when we pick it up to admire. That's when it's most delicate.
Or, let's put it plainly: I want more risk in my life. Everything looks the same as far as I can see. My husband cooks the same three meals all the time. I've nearly stopped cooking because there's no pleasure in it.
I need to think more about the companionship of beauty and risk.
School is about to start and I will again be alone for most of my days. I am yearning so much for this that my lungs feel twisted around. I don't know why it's so hard for me to be around all three of my other family members at once.
I'm not sleepy, but I'm tired.
What does this mean? Not fresh-flowers-as-dictated. Not things.
A pine cone holds its seeds in quiet, and when it opens its many tongues to speak, the seeds fall away. Lost or given. The pine cone's purpose for existence expires, but that's when we pick it up to admire. That's when it's most delicate.
Or, let's put it plainly: I want more risk in my life. Everything looks the same as far as I can see. My husband cooks the same three meals all the time. I've nearly stopped cooking because there's no pleasure in it.
I need to think more about the companionship of beauty and risk.
School is about to start and I will again be alone for most of my days. I am yearning so much for this that my lungs feel twisted around. I don't know why it's so hard for me to be around all three of my other family members at once.
I'm not sleepy, but I'm tired.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)