The Solace of Reading in a Topsy-Turvy World

This week has been an Alice in Wonderland kind of week. I awoke to find myself down a topsy-turvy rabbit hole that I was not expecting, and I have been reeling ever since. I immediately turned to the ballast of books to steady me as wave upon wave of emotion, grief, and realisation threatened to capsize me. The first book I reached for was a perennial favourite of mine, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, a story that captured my heart as a child. But I tossed it aside as soon as I got to the end of the first page, when young Mary Lennox is described “as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.” It was too much to bear; it reminded me of Timothy Snyder’s wonderful On Tyranny, which I had just re-read last week. I am done with the word “tyranny” for a while.

Deciding that escapism would be my preserver, I turned to some illustrated Christmas children’s books, notably Clarice Bean: Think Like an Elf. The innocence of the young protagonist and her faith in a world that is undoubtedly good, was restorative. The humor and delightful illustrations buoyed me for a while, but then my eyes yearned for rest, and I longed for a soft voice to talk me to sleep. And who better to do that than Meryl Streep, of all people, who performs Ann Patchett’s novel Tom Lake on audiobook? What a distraction that was. The light and observant prose carried me along, restoring my belief in a world of kindness, honesty, and joy found in physical, simple things.  There is wisdom on almost every page - spoken by characters who care for one another, in a quintessentially optimistic book, although it is set during the pandemic. (It deserves a separate review, which I will get to soon.)

It encouraged me to lift my head above the parapet and peek out into the big, bad world again, so I picked up Anne Applebaum’s latest publication, Autocracy, Inc.  Where the other books transported me away from the world of corruption and politics, this one took a can opener to my brain and filled its tunnels and ridges with a scalding reality: we are tiny cogs in a power play between the great economies and ideologies of the world. You ask yourself - is it better to know all of these things, or just to look away. I decided on the former, but as there is so much to take in from this book, so much to digest, that I felt I would need to read it in instalments, so I put it aside for another day.

Then I stumbled across Maria Popova’s blog, The Marginalian, and a post on E.B. White’s letter to a man who had lost his faith in humanity. Check it out here. Yet again, the wisdom of words spun me 180 degrees, and deposited me in a new place, with a new mindset. It is sometimes easy to forget what the world has been through in the past, to imagine that things are as bad as they can get.  Yet, somehow White’s words were a reminder - there is always hope. Every dark cloud hides the sun, yet the sun remains still - it is only cast over by a temporary air mass, and even in winter it shines. 

Why is it that the words of writers, written down on the page, can bring such solace? Is there magic in the tangible object of a book, the solidness of a font stretched wide across the page, the sound of words spoken in performance, the shape of a letter addressed to a stranger? What is it that makes us reach for words and stories in a time of crisis? Perhaps it is the structure of the thing itself—an author putting word after word, sentence after sentence, page after page into order—that is so appealing, like a scaffolding to cling to. The most popular author read in the trenches of Flanders in WWI was Jane Austen; we owe her resurgence in the 20th century to the men who feared they might die at any minute in a barrage of fire. But why was that? Did they long for the security of Austen’s world or her prose, where, in the hands of Austen’s beautiful sentences, they could feel safe? There is nothing fractious, explosive, or shocking in Austen’s prosaic style, unlike Dickinson or Plath, say.

It is in times of great stress and anxiety that words, books, poems, blogs, letters, novels, and audiobooks can save us. Through escape or by taking us deep inside the thing that we fear most, books are the answer. If I had indeed fallen down the rabbit hole in Wonderland, and I was searching for a sign to help me escape, I would pass by those that said ‘Drink Me’, or ‘Eat Me’, and would choose the one that said ‘Read Me’, for that is surely the way to get through what we need to get through.  Do yourself a favour today: read something.

Lovely One - Ketanji Brown Jackson

On April 7, 2022, the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the 116th justice of the Supreme Court. In doing so, they fulfilled a promise made by President Joe Biden to nominate an African American woman to the position. This autobiography chronicles the life (thus far) of that most junior justice. The title of the book refers to her name, which means "Lovely One" in an African dialect. She recently caught my attention during her questioning of counsel in the Presidential Immunity Case that came before the Supreme Court concerning former President Donald J. Trump. As I listened to the legal back-and-forth, I wondered: Who is this brilliant new justice, who speaks with such clarity and razor-sharp focus?

This book provides a detailed account of exactly that. It tells us all we could ever wish to know about her and her journey to the highest court in the land. The story begins with a bright young girl, showing obvious talent from the start, and parents who had big dreams for their daughter. It is the story of a dark-skinned girl navigating the world of white privilege, a girl who worked incredibly hard—constantly—to be the best person, daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, lawyer, and judge she could possibly be. 

While her success is undeniable, the moments I enjoyed most were those of struggle, when things did not go according to Ketanji’s plan. For example, she returned to work just four months after her first child was born, juggling the demands of being everything to everyone, just as many of us do. In that way, Ketanji seemed quite unlike any judge I had ever imagined; she was more like me than I could have ever anticipated. She struggled with breastfeeding, finding childcare, giving 100% to her job and her daughter, and was haunted by guilt every minute of the day.

She also faced challenges as a parent of a child with autism, as it took years to have her daughter properly diagnosed and placed in a suitable school where she could excel. I learned as much about autism spectrum disorder from this book as I did about the law. Additionally, she encountered legal troubles within her family: her paternal uncle was imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole for selling drugs, due to the Clinton-era Three Strikes and You’re Out rule. In short, life has not always been a bed of roses for Justice Jackson. 

The processes and procedures involved in being shortlisted and ultimately selected as a Supreme Court Justice are fascinating and worth reading about. She details everything from the references she needed to provide to the questions she faced during interviews. It is all here for any young woman considering following in her footsteps! As Vice President Kamala Harris recently said, “I might be the first, but I won’t be the last!” This book serves as a template for all young women, especially women of colour, who dream of donning the SCOTUS black robe. And when they get there, Ketanji Brown Jackson will welcome them with a smile and open arms.

This is an inspiring book, and I recommend it to everyone, especially women and daughters everywhere.

Michelle Burrowes

04 Nov 2024

On Tyranny - Timothy Snyder Illustrated by Nora Krug

On this, the weekend before an election that might send the first woman to the Whitehouse, I find myself returning to the wise and warning words of Timothy Snyder in his groundbreaking book,‘On Tyranny’.  Published in back in 2017, when politics in America and across Europe took a distinctly dark turn, Snyder sensed that the time was right for some big picture analysis on the rise of fascism and to explain how and why democracies were lost to totalitarianism in the past. 

Snyder presents the reader with twenty lessons from the 20th century, telling us that ‘History does not repeat, but it does instruct’. He begins with the first lesson: ‘Do Not Obey in Advance’. Anticipatory obedience, Snyder tells us, is when enough people offer their services to the new regime ahead of time, allowing autocracies to move more quickly than otherwise, and teaching them, at the same time, what is  possible. 

The second lesson is ‘Defend Institutions’. Institutions, such as courts, newspapers, laws or labour unions do not protect themselves, so he urges readers to choose an institution that they care about, and take its side. You cannot expect that institutions will automatically maintain themselves against attack, he warns.  ‘The mistake is to assume that the rulers who came to power through institutions cannot change or destroy those very institutions.’ 

The third lesson is ‘Beware the one-party state’. Snyder urges the reader to ‘support the multi-party system and defend the rules of democratic elections’. From local to state elections, he tells his readers to ‘vote’ and even consider running for office. He notes that in most situations, when democracy is lost, people do not fully realise that the last time they voted will be the last time that they get to vote. He supports this idea saying, ‘No doubt the Russians who voted in in 1990 did not think that this would be the last free and fair election in their country’s history, which (thus far) it has been.’

And so the book continues, to present all twenty lessons, all in some way or other feel very prescient and indeed pertinent to today’s politics. He supports his theses with examples from the last century up to the year of publication, looking at examples from WWII, Brexit, American elections, terrorist attacks in Russia and the war in Ukraine, all of which are compelling and to the point.  

In this graphic edition, illustrator Nora Krug uses her collage-style, scrapbook aesthetic to bring an additional layer of meaning to Snyder’s words, using photographs, decoupage and graphic design in a highly inventive, clever way.  When depicting how quickly citizens moved from fighting fascism to embracing it, she created a double headed figure, one head facing north, the other facing south, with the accompanying text partly upside down, forcing the reader, like the fickle figure, to change their point of view. 

The book is full of thought-provoking statements, that can keep you thinking for days.  I urge you to seek out a copy of this text, in a bookshop, online, or in your local library.  You can purchase it here from Snyder’s website. He has recently published a sister book, called ‘On Freedom’ which is available in all good bookshops. Meanwhile, to whet your appetite, here are just a few ideas that struck me as note-worthy, especially considering that the book was originally published in 2017. 

‘We certainly face, as the ancient Greeks, the problem of oligarchy - ever more threatening as globalisation increases differences in wealth…’ p 23.

‘It is hard to subvert a rule-of-law state without lawyers, or to hold show trials without judges.’  p31.

‘Professional ethics must guide us precisely when we are told that the situation is exceptional. Then there is no such thing as “just following orders.”’ P 33.

‘Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different… The moment you set an example the spell of the status quo is broken’. P43

‘By 1940 most Europeans had made their peace with … Nazi Germany.  Influential Americans such as Charles Lindbergh opposed war with the Nazis under the slogan “America First”.’

‘Make an effort to separate yourself from the Internet. Read books’. P51.

‘…Truth dies in four modes. The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts.’ P57

‘Generic cynicism makes us feel hip and alternative even as we slip along with our fellow citizens into a morass of indifference.’ P65

‘If tyrants feel no consequences for their actions in the three-dimensional world, nothing will change’. P76

‘When we take active interest in matters of doubtful relevance at moments that are chosen by tyrants, oligarchs, and spooks, we are participate in the demolition of our own political order.’ P83

‘Make sure you and your family have passports’. P87

‘Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.’ P94

‘And to make history, young Americans will have to know some’. P113

  

 

Just Kids - Patti Smith

Patti Smith’s memoir - the story of her coming of age in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s - is perfectly titled: Just Kids. The plural noun is the tell: this in not just Patti’s story, it is also the story of her artistic soulmate, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Indeed the story begins at the end of their relationship and loops back to the start, with their first encounter in New York City, in 1967. Smith moves chronologically though the years, tracing their steps, all the milestones, as a mother might recount the life of a newborn in a diary - and that is just how this book feels, as if we are living through the detailed account of a mother, who feels she must capture every moment of her darling’s life for posterity.  Indeed, Smith reveals close to the end of the book, that Robert asked her to write their story - his and hers - because no one but Patti can tell it.  

As such, this book is a love song to Robert, by the woman who adored him, who always championed his art, who protected him and cared for him, when no one else did. She saw in Robert a real artist, as much as she knew that she was an artist. And the style of the book reflects this adoration. It is written with the intensity of the young - those late night conversations, too earnest to be pretentious, but pretentious all the same. And even though Smith is no longer that teenager, the book’s prose reflects the language of teenagers- sweeping, hyperbolic, dramatic, epic.  Everything is momentous, worthy of note, unique and profound - which, on reflection, it probably was at the time when they lived it. This was THE most interesting aspect of the book for me - how Smith, the narrator in 2010, remained true to her young self in 1967.  The youthful prose style and tone was entirely captivating. 

When Mapplethorpe rips the sheets from their bed, dyes them purple and hangs them on the wall, to signify repentance and penance, it is easy to roll one’s eyes and smirk.  But Mattlethorpe was dealing with deeply felt shame and guilt about his religious upbringing as a Catholic, and his homosexuality. In short, he was going through some things, and Just Kids deals with this head on.  Smith’s honesty is unflinching, brutal and simultaneously heartbreaking. 

She gives something of herself to the reader on every page, relentlessly ploughing up her past to present us with moments that shock and compels the reader. One such moment was when she gave birth to her first child, while still a teenager, knowing that she would give the baby up for adoption. She describes being admonished by the midwives, who left her without proper care, as a punishment for her becoming pregnant out of wedlock. This story is told in the same matter of fact, plain speaking way as the rest of the book, but it is especially moving because the unkindness of these women was acceptable at the time, and Smith herself seemed to let it wash over her.  

Indeed, the world that she lived in could be unspeakably cruel. She finds herself alone, with nowhere to stay in New York City, yet somehow she survived. Running parallel to the cruelty, the books describes the numerous acts of kindness that helped Smith to survive in the city the never sleeps.  She met countless people who gave her a helping hand, the first of those being Robert Mapplethorpe.  

Perhaps this book is a thank you to him, for sharing what little food he had with her when first they met back in 1967.  Just Kids is a testament to two incredible, interesting people; artists, lovers, friends, who were there for one another through the high and lows of life in New York, at an incredibly exciting time for music and art. I read the illustrated version of the book, which I highly recommend, as it is full of Robert’s photographs, Patti’s drawings and personal momentoes.  However, Smith’s Didionesque prose more than suffices in that regard.

If you are music fan, or if love to read about New York in the ‘70s, if you like Joan Didion, or are just a Patti Smith fan, this book should not be missed.  

Strange Sally Diamond - Liz Nugent

If ever there was a book that wanted to be a cartwheel, this is that book. One minute the reader is firmly planted on the ground, aware of their surroundings, the next, the world has flipped over and you are reaching for the sky, trying to make sense of who the protagonist is and whether we like her or not.  In Strange Sally Diamond, Liz Nugent likes to strange-ify the world of the text, to make the strangeness of the title, not only refer to Sally herself, but also to the plot line. We are never really sure what will happen next and where the story is going, which is a delightful thing in a thriller.

From the very first sentence, this book will grip you. The character of Sally, who is one of the book’s narrators, is one of a kind. We are never quite sure what she will do next. Her inability to know when she has crossed the line of acceptable human behaviour engages and unnerves us. Just when we feel that she has acclimatised to the rhythms of everyday life, she hits out against the world, and it is only as the story unfolds that we learn why. 

I will not spoil the surprise of the novel here, never fear, but I will say that there are times in the book when we enter into the minds of unlikeable characters. It is uncomfortable and disorientating for the reader, which mirrors how Sally feels most of the time. This is the real brilliance of the text: Nugent forces the reader to feel like Sally, to cartwheel through the pages, never quiet sure when the horizon will flip once again and we will be left standing on our hands, trying to make sense of an upside down reality.

Set in a small town in Ireland, the book introduces us to a diverse cast of characters that reflects modern Ireland.  Yet there is something dark and corrupt lying just below the surface, with broken family relationships, untold secrets and  troubling memories bubbling up from childhood. As such, this book is rooted firmly in the Irish literary tradition, not a million miles away from the writings of Brian Moore or Edna O’Brien, heartbreakingly familiar to anyone who lived through the 1980s and ‘90s in Ireland.  We just know that the truth will rise to the surface, clawing its way into the light, like Yeats’s  slouching beast, its time come round at last. 

The senes in Ireland are paralleled with similar scenes in New Zealand, but where vast, open landscape conceals secrets of its own, mysteries that lie close to the surface, if anyone should care to seek them out. 

Strange Sally Diamond is as much a story about the workings of the human psyche as it is the goings on in a country village. And as such, this book tries to explore that things that make one person need to dominate another. What makes one human being feel the need to take full possession of another human being, so that one becomes the toy, a plaything for the other? And what is it in the human character that refuses such a yoke? These are the larger themes at work in Liz Nugent’s powerful, unforgettable book.

  Expect a quick ride through Sally’s strange world, I finished it in two sittings. But when you turn the final page, and land at last on your own two feet, do not be surprised if  you find, in the end, that the world never feels quite the same again. 

Michelle Burrowes

The Lincoln Highway ~ Amor Towles

 

Every book takes us on a journey, whether figurative or literal. You might suspect that Amor Towles’s Lincoln Highway merely falls into the latter category only, but you’d be wrong. In most texts, the most important road trip or journey that the central character takes in an internal, psychological one, no vehicles required, and this book is surprisingly such a one.

The journeying that preoccupies Towles in this book is not only inward moving, but it also extends outward, exploring great literary works, referring to Shakespeare’s Othello and Hamlet, and Homer’s The Odyssey. There are also many allusions to other texts, that add additional resonances in the plot line of  Lincoln Highway. Consider how each journey of the central male narrators in the book mirrors the journeys of  the heroes of The Aeneid, Moby Dick, Don Quixote, and Hamlet, but I will leave you to figure out who is who.

Towels’s preoccupation with books and stories continues in how, during the course of the book, various characters ponder the art of storytelling itself, like when one describes the arc of a story as a diamond, with the story’s beginning and ending tapering away, and the climax of the drama spreading to the widest point. Towles even holds a mirror up to the audience, when he presents us with an image of an old man, sitting alone in his bedroom, who has the worst addiction of all, to reading! He could be a future you or me, or the author himself!

There is even one character, young Billy, who carries a beloved book with him wherever he goes, as if his life depended on it. He keeps a journal and decides that the best place to begin a story is in the middle of the action, in medias res. This meta, self-reflective element of the novel is delightful, and serves as an homage to classic books and to book-lovers like us.

While Towles describes the book’s structure as a diamond, it seems to me that the intersection of the five main narrators creates something of a five-pointed diamond or star, which turns as the narrative moves forward, each point linked to the previous narrative and the one following, reflecting light on the story as a whole. 

One character, Emmet, ponders a theory that every character has a positive personality trait that, in them, is so exaggerated that it becomes a flaw. We recognise that it is so with the characters that Towles has gathered in the world of this novel. But not only that, it seems that each character has flaws that connects with others in the group, creating a suite of doppelgängers. 

We are told that Sarah’s flaw is that she is too kind, and that Sally’s is that she is too generous. Billy’s flaw is that he remembers to much, while Duchess forgets nothing. Emmet’s flaw is that he is a realist, a pessimist. He always expects the worst and this leads him to insist on always doing the ‘right’ thing. Contrastingly Wooly’s flaw is that he is a dreamer, an optimist: he always expects the best in others, but other people inevitably let him down.  In this wonderful way, Towles has created a kaleidoscope of characters whose journey in the novel refracts and reflects one another’s, making this an unforgettable novel that delights the careful reader,  and will make you want to read and re-read it again and again. 

This is a book about a journey, but not the one you are expecting. The twists and turns on the Lincoln Highway will send you off in the wrong direction again and again, as you try to predict where the story is will end up. You’ll skirt roundabouts and pot-holes, back roads and dead ends before you reach your destination. I only wish I could take that journey with you again for the first time. But for now, roll down the window, and treat yourself to a road trip on the Lincoln Highway. Enjoy the ride. 

By Michelle Burrowes

The Nurse's Pronouncing Dictionary - by Honnor Morten

Measuring a mere 11.5cm by 9cm, this little book was meant to be small enough to keep in your pocket, discreetly tucked away for whenever you might need it. Published in 1915, when the battles of World War One had begun to rage, I cannot help but imagine that this book found its way into the hands and pocket of a woman who nursed soldiers, or tended to victims of the fighting in one or other theatre of war or on the home front. Wrapped in a red hardback covering, with a prominent black cross on the cover, there is a toughness to this book, which seems fitting.  This book means business. It had a job to do and a part to play in the story of nurses at war time, women who needed the words to help them do a job that was key to the war effort. From A is for ‘Abasia - Difficulty to walking due to incoordination,’ to Z is for ‘Zymotic - a term which includes all epidemic, endemic and contagious diseases arising from germs’, and everything in between, this book must surely have been indispensable at critical moments in the career of a nursing practitioner. 

Interestingly, the book naturally opened on the letter B, a page that defines ‘Bone-setting’, ‘Borax’ and ‘Bovril’, amongst other things. One can only imagine why this is, we will never know.  Nor will we know who used this book and how, when, where and why it was pulled from a pocket, to aid its owner.  What I do know, is that it found its way to the bottom of a box of books, in an auction in Dublin, from where I pulled it out into the light, some 109 years after it was published. It was one of a collection of books, some religious in nature and others with a definite Irish interest, all dating from between 1913 and 1923, some with inscriptions belonging to the same woman.  Yet, inside the tiny book there is also a similar-sized page, perhaps a bookmark or sorts, with an image of Christ on one side, his heart exposed, and surrounded by thorns, and on the other, a certificate of Membership, approved by the Archbishop of New York, dated until 1 March 1923, specifically naming Saint Joesph’s Union, 381 Lafayette Street, New York, and the reverend Mallick J. Fitzpatrick, pastor.

This fact transports the book to New York City, in the post war years, and I wonder, yet again, how the good people of St Joseph’s Union might have required a nurse, along with her dictionary, to come to their aid. Of course, with the help of Google, it was no time before I discovered that that address was the Mission of the Immaculate Convent, an ‘elegant four-story residence with a high stoop’, once owned by by Alexander H.. Stephens, an esteemed surgeon, a Paris Millinery, a Dr Stuart, who used the building to provide ‘Electric Magnetic treatment.’  But from 1888 until 1965, the building became a Mission of the Immaculate Virgin - originally home for destitute and homeless children (boys), run by the Sisters of St. Francis, although the premises was left unused for many years when another home was opened on Staten Island, the convent located at 381 Lafayette St remained.  I have to thank historian Tom Miller who posted all these fascinating details on his blog: Daytonian in Manhattan, ‘The Mission of the Immaculate Virgin Convent - No 381 Lafayette St.,  July 20, 2016. It is certainly worth a look.

These details are all in keeping with the lady whose collection of books ended up in an auction housein Dublin recently.  Among them were prayer books and souvenirs from Rome, that suggested to me that the owner had been in the religious orders and was perhaps an English teacher. Perhaps she or her belongings found her way back to Ireland, perhaps to a niece or godson, who held on to them for a generation, and on their passing, there was no one to remember the Irish girl who went to New York over a century ago to minister to the poor, destitute boys of the city, and who kept the pocket guide to medical pronunciation in her possession for all those years, perhaps the only momento of her time there to survive. A lot of perhaps I know, but I wonder where the book has been for the last 50 years at least, and in whose care.  I'd like to think that it was of good use to someone. 

But the owner herself remains nameless, and I quite like it that way, because she can be anyone, any girl, any nurse with a tool of learning in her pocket, to take her around the world, a ticket to gain entrance her places that perhaps she might never have seen.  All in all, this is a powerful little book, because of its definitions and diagrams, of course, but also because of the book itself, as an historical artefact and the stories it tells. Stories of the type of people, women mostly, who used this book to help others and themselves in the early 20th century, when all women did not yet have the right to vote, or equal opportunity to achieve in science and learning.  In a way, this little red book was for some women, a passport into the future, giving them access to the language and learning that could change their lives: a taste of the type of world we enjoy today, making this tiny red book a mighty book indeed. 

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Red Herrings and White Elephants ~by Albert Jack with Illustrations by Ama Page

  This little book has been sitting on my shelf for the last twenty years and I still have not grown tired of its many fascinating and colourful explanations on the origins of words, and idioms in the English language. In my pre-smartphone, pre-instagram world, this chunky hardback was my go-to while sitting in a dentist’s waiting room or between baby feeds. It never failed to amaze me and would send me running off to share what delicious titbit of etymology I had found.  It today’s Instagram world I would no doubt like and share these little historical gems, to amaze and beguile my children, now grown with smartphones of their own.  Here is just one little example from the book:

    ‘A Deadline… originally was a white line painted at a … prisoner of war camp during the American Civil War… any prisoner crossing white line was shot dead… Since then the phrase was applied to newspaper writers… If they missed the deadline of their story it was considered dead as it would be out of date by the following day’s print run.’ (Apologies for the crude eclipses.). See?  Don’t you want to immediately share that history with the person next to you?  I just did - and he said, ‘Every day is a school day!’  He is not wrong.  You may be lucky enough to have this precious book in your collection already, or you may still be able to get it online somewhere.  It is a great conversation starter, if you want to like and share old school - or, like me, you are partial to a bit of both.   So, if you have ever wondered where the phrases, ‘Raining Cats and Dogs’, or ‘Codswallop’ come from - pick up a copy of this delightful book when you can.