I find myself fascinated with common themes that run through the works of my favorite authors and novelists. Even if the writing is not autobiographical in nature it inevitably reveals more than it conceals about their motivations, their passions and the uniqueness of their message.
I remember reading Wally Lamb’s masterpiece – She’s Come Undone – seven or eight years ago. It was about Dolores, a girl who hailed from a broken home and had absolutely nothing going for her, no confidence, no prospects, a 257 lbs weight problem, a drug problem, you name it she had it. She had the most bizarre ailments possible. The event that turned things around for her was her finding herself washed up on a beach, following a suicide attempt, waking up staring straight into the dead eyes of a beached whale.
Quite a memorable scene, something a reader cannot easily forget, a pivot around which her whole life turns. The dead whale is an omen, as well as a metaphor for her life so far, a sign that she has hit rock bottom and that the only thing left for her to do, was to turn her life around and to start afresh.
Dolores does turn her life around then. She checks herself into a rehabilitation center and emerges a slimmer and more confident version of herself, someone well-equipped to start over.
Lamb’s biting humor, his portrayal of dysfunction in Dolores’ broken family, Dolores’ use of sarcasm as a defense mechanism, all made for an intense reading experience, making me examine the various ways in which I related to Dolores, even though my life is nothing like hers. She was essentially an observer, even while stumbling through life as she was. Her circumstances angered her, frustrated her, drove her to suicide while she remained someone who let life happen to her, who watched with eyes peeled, from front row seats. Her character shared a likeness to the interactive and engaged participants in a stage rendition of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Wally Lamb possessed the gift of exploring banalities and elevating seemingly mundane aspects of life to the most profound statement and analyses of our subconscious drives.
Naturally this book of his sent me looking for his other works, in search for his first novel – I Know This Much is True. I didn’t review these books at the time I read them which was several years ago, so please forgive me for glossing over many essential details. What I do recall, however, is that the book was about twin brothers. One of the twins became a schizophrenic spending time in and out of institutions. His life was a complete mess. His delusions even led him to interpreting the bible quite literally and severing his right hand after being deeply affected by the line – And if thy right hand offends thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee.
Lamb’s consummate storytelling and his observations about despairing, ruined lives was evident once again in the depiction of the mentally ill twin, the shattered pieces of whose psyche, are viewed juxtaposed against the jagged pieces of the normal twin’s equally hellish life; the burdens he bears, the responsibilities he owns and the pain that is as much his as his brothers. Lamb depicts well the warped fusion of the two psyches together.
What stood out for me, in this book, was the normal twin’s coming to terms with his need for counseling and rehabilitation, a need that was equal, if not exceeding, his brother’s. I remember many fascinating pages devoted to the course of treatment his extremely competent psychiatrist prescribed.
The psychiatrist was an Indian lady with a statue of Shiva in her office. And I remember this part, even after seven or eight long years, because of the message the author conveys through her character. The doctor thinks of herself as a “shrink” in the truest sense of the word. Shiva is the God of Destruction and she sees herself as his instrument where she slowly but surely sets about dismantling all his defenses. It is said that schizophrenics are divorced from reality. Yet those of us who are medically sane are even more adept at precipitating this divorce by erecting fortified walls of duty, history, religion, social position; all mere illusions. The doctor successfully dismantles these walls within which the patient, the ‘normal’ twin, has progressively trapped himself, leaving himself no way out. She allows him to return to first principles, so to speak, and then to rebuild his life. She enables him to see himself as separate and distinct, clearly resolved and more objective about his perceived role as his brother’s keeper.
Both Lamb’s books found strong resonance with me. Both are essentially about starting over, about clean slates, about getting back to the very beginning and rebuilding, the right way this time, untainted by other influences and relying on the ‘nature’ rather than the ‘nurture’ aspects of our selves.
He hasn’t written a book since, at least not one I am aware of but I am certain I’ll pick it up when I see it, I like to see lives coming together.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Is there a theme?
Does one common theme emerge out of the writings of those of us who love to write? Have we looked back to see what's reflected back at us? Probably not, because in more than one discussion here and elsewhere people have admitted feeling detached and removed from the words they've spun.
Well, some of us do go back and analyze and are often surprised by the image in this 'mirror'. The analysis often raises more questions than it answers and plunges us deeper into further introspection. Here's one such analysis:
She talked about being an outsider, about being left out in the cold and then about getting glimpses of what it was like to be let in, to be accepted, to bask in the warmth of neon lights, to enjoy being a part of something until the very thing that she had become a part of left her cold from inside, so cold that she couldn’t stand it anymore. She wanted to leave, to run and hide anywhere but here, trying to find some warmth again, real warmth from glowing embers, the kind that conducted through each cell of the body, one cell at a time, mellowing her from within.
She thought about life being lived on a plateau, unchanged, uneventful, dormant, yet simmering within. Did this show prescience of sorts? She was also referring to the illusions of reality, of nothing ever being what it seemed, insincerities and pretensions and again the familiar lack of warmth.
She wrote about tropical vacations and about starting over, about cleansing her mind of all burdensome insecurities, of clutter, of giving life a second chance, this time living in the moment, giving it her all, really settling in.
Then the nightmares began, they were relentless. The guilt set in of not being there for her family, her friends, her work, of a growing disenchantment and disillusionment with everything.
She felt the observer’s woes every time she saw her daughter playing with her husband, enjoying summer sports and winter fun with him, while she watched, while she wrote about it and photographed the two of them together. She never found herself in any pictures, the Kodak Chrome moments didn’t belong to her.
She wondered about her detachment, about being ruled by mercury. Not the planet, the element. An element that adhered to nothing. The detachment reared its ugly head again when she saw herself skirting around the noisome presence of a homeless man, of his cart-borne lifetime of grief.
Coming full circle in this epiphanic exercise in introspection, she reached the inescapable conclusion of her growing detachment, a clinical shearing away from all emotional ties, the first few steps toward a virtually solitary existence.
Is any of it true? She can't be sure. Images are often distorted.
Well, some of us do go back and analyze and are often surprised by the image in this 'mirror'. The analysis often raises more questions than it answers and plunges us deeper into further introspection. Here's one such analysis:
She talked about being an outsider, about being left out in the cold and then about getting glimpses of what it was like to be let in, to be accepted, to bask in the warmth of neon lights, to enjoy being a part of something until the very thing that she had become a part of left her cold from inside, so cold that she couldn’t stand it anymore. She wanted to leave, to run and hide anywhere but here, trying to find some warmth again, real warmth from glowing embers, the kind that conducted through each cell of the body, one cell at a time, mellowing her from within.
She thought about life being lived on a plateau, unchanged, uneventful, dormant, yet simmering within. Did this show prescience of sorts? She was also referring to the illusions of reality, of nothing ever being what it seemed, insincerities and pretensions and again the familiar lack of warmth.
She wrote about tropical vacations and about starting over, about cleansing her mind of all burdensome insecurities, of clutter, of giving life a second chance, this time living in the moment, giving it her all, really settling in.
Then the nightmares began, they were relentless. The guilt set in of not being there for her family, her friends, her work, of a growing disenchantment and disillusionment with everything.
She felt the observer’s woes every time she saw her daughter playing with her husband, enjoying summer sports and winter fun with him, while she watched, while she wrote about it and photographed the two of them together. She never found herself in any pictures, the Kodak Chrome moments didn’t belong to her.
She wondered about her detachment, about being ruled by mercury. Not the planet, the element. An element that adhered to nothing. The detachment reared its ugly head again when she saw herself skirting around the noisome presence of a homeless man, of his cart-borne lifetime of grief.
Coming full circle in this epiphanic exercise in introspection, she reached the inescapable conclusion of her growing detachment, a clinical shearing away from all emotional ties, the first few steps toward a virtually solitary existence.
Is any of it true? She can't be sure. Images are often distorted.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
On Letting Go
These years will go by in a blur,
I’ll find myself in a lonely room somewhere,
Living in the past, ruing lost times with her.
Voices raised in song, the trilling laughter,
Frills and laces, ribbons in her hair,
These years will go by in a blur.
I’ll think of eyes full of mischief and wonder,
Monsters in the closets, the dolls in her care,
Living in the past, ruing lost times with her.
Her sweet kisses that made me feel better,
The adolescent fears, her thinking I didn’t care,
These years will go by in a blur.
Shadows will grow long across a barren shelter,
Its every corner yearning for her appearance rare,
Living in the past, ruing lost times with her.
Unless, I learn that its mind over matter,
Our gentle togetherness, a brief affair,
These years will go by in a blur,
Living in the past, ruing lost times with her
I’ll find myself in a lonely room somewhere,
Living in the past, ruing lost times with her.
Voices raised in song, the trilling laughter,
Frills and laces, ribbons in her hair,
These years will go by in a blur.
I’ll think of eyes full of mischief and wonder,
Monsters in the closets, the dolls in her care,
Living in the past, ruing lost times with her.
Her sweet kisses that made me feel better,
The adolescent fears, her thinking I didn’t care,
These years will go by in a blur.
Shadows will grow long across a barren shelter,
Its every corner yearning for her appearance rare,
Living in the past, ruing lost times with her.
Unless, I learn that its mind over matter,
Our gentle togetherness, a brief affair,
These years will go by in a blur,
Living in the past, ruing lost times with her
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Grandfather's Coat
That coat, its cavernous pockets, the hidden treasures within, it graced Benny’s Scarecrow now.
My hands were always cold. My earliest memories are of times I’d slip my tiny, cold hands into his and ask, “Grandpa, how come your hands are so warm?” He would tell me his coat pockets had special hand-warming powers. He would ask me to see for myself and every time I tried I would come up with candy bars or other trinkets I fancied. The coat had inside pockets as well, for his books, notebooks, pens and pencils. Grandpa’s coat was a source of eternal fascination for me.
I loved our long walks through the woods, the fields, hand in hand stopping by Pirates’ Cove. His binoculars would come out of those pockets so we could watch the Peregrine falcons perched atop the rocks or circling up above. We walked by the scarecrow in the field, its arms extended in mid-speech, exhorting crows to stay away from the corn. Grandpa never failed to hum, “If I only had a brain…”, whenever we saw Benny’s Scarecrow. Benny was Grandpa’s childhood friend and they had crafted it together as little boys.
Deeper in the woods we would wait for the red-breasted bullfinch or the loons on the lake. His notebook always at hand, recording the stunning descriptions of flora and fauna he’d observed around us. I still remember him telling me the zoological name of the bullfinch - Pyrrhula Pyrrhula – and my inquiring if they called it that for its sound, its quiet warble. He laughed at that and told me it probably referred to the male bullfinch’s fiery red breast. I was in awe of Gramps and never left his side throughout my summer vacations.
I watched him now in his room at the Sunset Home for Seniors. The sunken eyes staring out into nothingness. I held his hand in mine watching the translucent skin stretched tight across his frail hands, crisscrossed by underlying blue veins; they had lost the warmth I had sought as a child.
He wasn’t sitting up today or pacing or throwing things in anger and frustration. This lack of energy seemed so uncharacteristic of him. His condition rarely stopped him from pacing around the room or sitting up in bed, scribbling in that notebook of his, its pages yellowed with age.
I’d tucked him in on many a night, before leaving his side; smoothing his brow, positioning his head on the pillow, unclasping his fingers from that notebook. It’s pages were immortalized in my brain, each notation firmly etched, each sketch as fresh as the day it was first rendered, at least in the earlier pages. The latter ones gradually devolving into a spidery scrawl, increasingly unintelligible, just dark squiggles now, meaningless to anyone but me. Yet his arthritic fingers clung to it with ferocity. The nurses weren’t able to pry it away.
He didn’t recognize me anymore, didn’t know my name. He even threw things at me or pushed me aside when I tried to get him to change his clothes or to go out on the lawns or to eat or drink. In his more lucid moments he recalled Benny from seventy-five years ago. He talked about the games they played, their bird watching, their tree house, his mom’s apple pie. But he never remembered his siblings or my parents. It was as if they had never existed for him.
I sat down beside him, tears rolling down my cheeks, on to the notebook, smudging the blue ink. I found the entry from fifteen years ago where he wrote about the morning he’d taken me out for breakfast and had shared the shattering news with me. We’d found our favorite spot at Papa Gallo’s Diner. He had calmly shrugged off the coat as he settled into the booth and ordered the stack of hot pancakes that we both loved. He told me his sudden bouts of forgetfulness had taken him to his doctor and that they had diagnosed the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. He’d warned me about the progressive degeneration, reassuring me, telling me not to get disheartened. He knew things would only get worse from here on end.
They finally were. I stared at the thick blankets covering his frail form. Was my beloved Grandpa really in there? Where was the person I knew and loved?
He had handed me his favorite coat that day at the diner. He had wanted me to replace the frayed one on Benny’s Scarecrow.
My hands were always cold. My earliest memories are of times I’d slip my tiny, cold hands into his and ask, “Grandpa, how come your hands are so warm?” He would tell me his coat pockets had special hand-warming powers. He would ask me to see for myself and every time I tried I would come up with candy bars or other trinkets I fancied. The coat had inside pockets as well, for his books, notebooks, pens and pencils. Grandpa’s coat was a source of eternal fascination for me.
I loved our long walks through the woods, the fields, hand in hand stopping by Pirates’ Cove. His binoculars would come out of those pockets so we could watch the Peregrine falcons perched atop the rocks or circling up above. We walked by the scarecrow in the field, its arms extended in mid-speech, exhorting crows to stay away from the corn. Grandpa never failed to hum, “If I only had a brain…”, whenever we saw Benny’s Scarecrow. Benny was Grandpa’s childhood friend and they had crafted it together as little boys.
Deeper in the woods we would wait for the red-breasted bullfinch or the loons on the lake. His notebook always at hand, recording the stunning descriptions of flora and fauna he’d observed around us. I still remember him telling me the zoological name of the bullfinch - Pyrrhula Pyrrhula – and my inquiring if they called it that for its sound, its quiet warble. He laughed at that and told me it probably referred to the male bullfinch’s fiery red breast. I was in awe of Gramps and never left his side throughout my summer vacations.
I watched him now in his room at the Sunset Home for Seniors. The sunken eyes staring out into nothingness. I held his hand in mine watching the translucent skin stretched tight across his frail hands, crisscrossed by underlying blue veins; they had lost the warmth I had sought as a child.
He wasn’t sitting up today or pacing or throwing things in anger and frustration. This lack of energy seemed so uncharacteristic of him. His condition rarely stopped him from pacing around the room or sitting up in bed, scribbling in that notebook of his, its pages yellowed with age.
I’d tucked him in on many a night, before leaving his side; smoothing his brow, positioning his head on the pillow, unclasping his fingers from that notebook. It’s pages were immortalized in my brain, each notation firmly etched, each sketch as fresh as the day it was first rendered, at least in the earlier pages. The latter ones gradually devolving into a spidery scrawl, increasingly unintelligible, just dark squiggles now, meaningless to anyone but me. Yet his arthritic fingers clung to it with ferocity. The nurses weren’t able to pry it away.
He didn’t recognize me anymore, didn’t know my name. He even threw things at me or pushed me aside when I tried to get him to change his clothes or to go out on the lawns or to eat or drink. In his more lucid moments he recalled Benny from seventy-five years ago. He talked about the games they played, their bird watching, their tree house, his mom’s apple pie. But he never remembered his siblings or my parents. It was as if they had never existed for him.
I sat down beside him, tears rolling down my cheeks, on to the notebook, smudging the blue ink. I found the entry from fifteen years ago where he wrote about the morning he’d taken me out for breakfast and had shared the shattering news with me. We’d found our favorite spot at Papa Gallo’s Diner. He had calmly shrugged off the coat as he settled into the booth and ordered the stack of hot pancakes that we both loved. He told me his sudden bouts of forgetfulness had taken him to his doctor and that they had diagnosed the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. He’d warned me about the progressive degeneration, reassuring me, telling me not to get disheartened. He knew things would only get worse from here on end.
They finally were. I stared at the thick blankets covering his frail form. Was my beloved Grandpa really in there? Where was the person I knew and loved?
He had handed me his favorite coat that day at the diner. He had wanted me to replace the frayed one on Benny’s Scarecrow.
Friday, September 9, 2005
Travel Recollections, Random Associations
There are places I remember all my life,
Though some have changed,
Some forever not for better,
Some have gone and some remain… BEATLES
I often reminisce about places that exist only in my memories now, overwhelmed by nostalgia The 101st floor of the World Trade Center at the restaurant, suspended at an unbelievable altitude and, on a clear day or night, looking out of those windows, across the New York Harbor to New Jersey and beyond, a view that would make the most cynical amongst us pause and ponder the surreal. Fast forward two years and there isn’t a trace of the Twin Towers, there’s a gaping hole at this site of former majesty, of power.
Then there were Princess Diana and Christopher Reeve, every time I think of them I think of Lisbon, Portugal, 1995. The first thing I saw on TV, as I settled in my Lisbon hotel room, was Barbara Walters interviewing a svelte and confident Diana, breaking her silence for the first time in an interview, telling all about Prince Charles’ infidelity, his longstanding affair with Camilla. She discussed her bulimia, her insecurities. On the same trip I learnt that Christopher Reeve had been thrown off his horse in a riding accident and had sustained spinal cord injuries. He never recovered fully. So one need only mention Lisbon and my mind takes me to a Diana’s tentative steps toward freedom, toward strength, showing firm resolve for the first time in her life. And Superman lying crumpled, broken.
Cintra, Byron’s Eden, its cobble-stoned streets, the dense foliage crowding the mountain side, our unbelievably tiny car getting stuck in an uphill, hairpin turn while we tried pushing it back onto the road, Fatima’s Basilica, the majestic Pena Palace, all slide into the deeper recesses of the mind as the dominant celebrities of our age and their lives rise to the forefront.
Then Paris, September 1997, flowers piled high at the mouth of the tunnel near Pont Neuf, the site of Diana’s fatal accident, we were there the day after. The confident Diana of my Lisbon memories was no more. We watched her services at Westminster Abbey on the hotel room TV again, the Queen’s cold speech, Diana’s brother’s impassioned speech, the sad Princes. I remember scanning the faces of the members of Britain’s royal family for residual anger or remorse from their strained and embittered relations prior to her death. Once again the human element had overtaken the sights and sounds of Paris. It’s taken three trips to this enchanted city - its Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysées, Notre Dame, boat rides on the Seine, French cuisine and Rive Gauche enchantments - to leave an indelible impression on our minds and it would certainly take many more.
I' have talked about a landmark that no longer exists, of people whose memories are intertwined with the places I visited who no longer exist and sadly now I have in my travel recollections a city that no longer exists.
The Big Easy they called it. Their slogan - laissez les bon temps rouler - New Orleans: the jewel of the deep American south. An eclectic collection of Spanish, French, Haitian, Cajun, Creole influences, its diversity reflected in the cuisine, the unique architecture, the characteristic wrought iron balustrades that graced each home. Streets filled with sounds of jazz, blues and zydeco music – a New Orleans invention. Napoleon’s fifteen million dollar sale to the Americans in the historic Louisiana Purchase, it went on to become the unique and unforgettable city that it was. It was devastated by two fires during the eighteenth century and rose from the ashes both times. A city that was seventy percent below sea-level where bodies buried underground used to come floating up during heavy rains until they solved the problem by burying their dead over ground in heavily decorated mausoleums.
The Big Easy all the way, easygoing folks, their sense of direction attuned to lakeside, riverside, uptown or downtown instead of north, south, east or west. They never needed an excuse to party, to flood the streets with celebration and color. Every store sold those ubiquitous colored beads bestowed upon women who could lose themselves in the moment, flashing the crowds around them during Mardi Gras. The good times always rolled enveloping everyone in a contagion of bonhomie, laughter and joie de vivre. A city known, ironically, for a rather potent alcoholic beverage called “Hurricane”, leveled by a hurricane.
What’s more bizarre than having travelled to places that ceased to exist within the last few years, people who’ve vanished leaving behind vague recollections and mental associations?
Though some have changed,
Some forever not for better,
Some have gone and some remain… BEATLES
I often reminisce about places that exist only in my memories now, overwhelmed by nostalgia The 101st floor of the World Trade Center at the restaurant, suspended at an unbelievable altitude and, on a clear day or night, looking out of those windows, across the New York Harbor to New Jersey and beyond, a view that would make the most cynical amongst us pause and ponder the surreal. Fast forward two years and there isn’t a trace of the Twin Towers, there’s a gaping hole at this site of former majesty, of power.
Then there were Princess Diana and Christopher Reeve, every time I think of them I think of Lisbon, Portugal, 1995. The first thing I saw on TV, as I settled in my Lisbon hotel room, was Barbara Walters interviewing a svelte and confident Diana, breaking her silence for the first time in an interview, telling all about Prince Charles’ infidelity, his longstanding affair with Camilla. She discussed her bulimia, her insecurities. On the same trip I learnt that Christopher Reeve had been thrown off his horse in a riding accident and had sustained spinal cord injuries. He never recovered fully. So one need only mention Lisbon and my mind takes me to a Diana’s tentative steps toward freedom, toward strength, showing firm resolve for the first time in her life. And Superman lying crumpled, broken.
Cintra, Byron’s Eden, its cobble-stoned streets, the dense foliage crowding the mountain side, our unbelievably tiny car getting stuck in an uphill, hairpin turn while we tried pushing it back onto the road, Fatima’s Basilica, the majestic Pena Palace, all slide into the deeper recesses of the mind as the dominant celebrities of our age and their lives rise to the forefront.
Then Paris, September 1997, flowers piled high at the mouth of the tunnel near Pont Neuf, the site of Diana’s fatal accident, we were there the day after. The confident Diana of my Lisbon memories was no more. We watched her services at Westminster Abbey on the hotel room TV again, the Queen’s cold speech, Diana’s brother’s impassioned speech, the sad Princes. I remember scanning the faces of the members of Britain’s royal family for residual anger or remorse from their strained and embittered relations prior to her death. Once again the human element had overtaken the sights and sounds of Paris. It’s taken three trips to this enchanted city - its Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysées, Notre Dame, boat rides on the Seine, French cuisine and Rive Gauche enchantments - to leave an indelible impression on our minds and it would certainly take many more.
I' have talked about a landmark that no longer exists, of people whose memories are intertwined with the places I visited who no longer exist and sadly now I have in my travel recollections a city that no longer exists.
The Big Easy they called it. Their slogan - laissez les bon temps rouler - New Orleans: the jewel of the deep American south. An eclectic collection of Spanish, French, Haitian, Cajun, Creole influences, its diversity reflected in the cuisine, the unique architecture, the characteristic wrought iron balustrades that graced each home. Streets filled with sounds of jazz, blues and zydeco music – a New Orleans invention. Napoleon’s fifteen million dollar sale to the Americans in the historic Louisiana Purchase, it went on to become the unique and unforgettable city that it was. It was devastated by two fires during the eighteenth century and rose from the ashes both times. A city that was seventy percent below sea-level where bodies buried underground used to come floating up during heavy rains until they solved the problem by burying their dead over ground in heavily decorated mausoleums.
The Big Easy all the way, easygoing folks, their sense of direction attuned to lakeside, riverside, uptown or downtown instead of north, south, east or west. They never needed an excuse to party, to flood the streets with celebration and color. Every store sold those ubiquitous colored beads bestowed upon women who could lose themselves in the moment, flashing the crowds around them during Mardi Gras. The good times always rolled enveloping everyone in a contagion of bonhomie, laughter and joie de vivre. A city known, ironically, for a rather potent alcoholic beverage called “Hurricane”, leveled by a hurricane.
What’s more bizarre than having travelled to places that ceased to exist within the last few years, people who’ve vanished leaving behind vague recollections and mental associations?
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