January 2022 Reading

New year, new list, same program.  In January, I read 14 books.

 

One of them, Yoga and the Quest for the True Self, I wrote about on my work blog here.  I re-read Jonathan Livingston Seagull and put some thoughts about that book in this post here.  Which leaves twelve more.

 

Four of those were nonfiction books.  Katie Daisy’s book How to Be a Wildflower is very pretty and inspirational.  It didn’t change my life or anything, but I enjoyed it as a reminder to reconnect with the natural world.

 

My slow progress through the collected works of Ursula Le Guin brought me to her collection of essays Dancing at the Edge of the World.  Her thinking is always interesting, even when my opinion differs from hers.  What is especially interesting about this book in particular is that, in putting it together, she took the opportunity to note how her own thinking evolved over time.  She did not revise the texts of her speeches or older essays, but added on some commentary.  I think that one of the least appreciated and most needed characteristics in our culture is the ability to shift our positions as new information comes in or new ways of thinking open up, so I value this aspect of the book a lot.  Also:  gorgeous prose.

 

As a person of privilege in our society, it is my job to educate myself about the issues and concerns of people who have less privilege than I do and my responsibility not to make my education a burden to them.  In that spirit, I read two books about black hair.  Both Hair Story by Ayana D. Byrd and Lori L. Tharp and Twisted by Emma Dabiri are full of fascinating and useful information about black hair and its intricate involvement in the oppression of black folks, its complex history, and its undeniable glory.  It is unconscionable that our society polices how hair grows out of some people’s heads.  I learned a lot.  I might have liked more pictures as examples of what the authors were talking about from time to time, but the internet helped me out there.  Highly recommend both books.

 

On to fiction!  My kid loves me, so I got Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather for Christmas.  It’s like Nightmare Before Christmas except good.  (I have Issues with most of Tim Burton’s work.  Your mileage may vary.)  On one level, it’s a story about Death taking over for the Hogfather at holiday time.  But with Pratchett, there are always other levels, like what makes reality real, how belief changes us, and where power comes from.  Two thumbs up.

 

Even when I (try to) keep myself from buying more books, I make exceptions for some authors.  When Elizabeth George comes out with a new Lynley book, I buy it.  Something to Hide is not the easiest read because it deals with female genital mutilation among immigrant populations from Nigeria in the UK.  Also, I spent most of the book worried about a little girl.  I would have liked more Havers, just because I love her, but Lynley seems to be getting back on track as a character, so I am optimistic about the future of the series.  The story stuck with me over time.

 

My continued reading of Ann Cleeves brought me to Blue Lightning and Dead Water.  I just love these books.  The characters and the settings are so wonderful.  The prose is economical and yet lyrical.  I just like to hang out with the people, even if bad things happen.

 

Finally, I did some kid book reading.  A gazillion people suggested that I read The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune.  I can see why because ultimately it is a good book, but I found the reading very stressful.  Not surprising, since the process of becoming oneself and taking responsibility for one’s work in the world can be stressful and that is what the book is about.  It’s also about difference, conformity, learning, and love.  The writing is lovely, but the aforementioned stress will probably keep it from being one of my favorites.

 

Brian Selznick is a genius.  I have loved every single one of his books since The Invention of Hugo Cabret.  Kaleidoscope is another beautiful work, full of love and longing and heartbreak and gorgeous drawings.  It is a treat and a gift.  Read it.

 

Somehow I got behind in my reading of Rick Riordan.  I don’t know how that happened.  However, I have now read the last two books in the Trials of Apollo series, The Tyrant’s Tomb and The Tower of Nero.  This series tackles some tough topics, like the ongoing results of trauma and abuse.  Bad things happen to good people.  However, the long arc of the story tends toward redemption and there is a depth to these books that I appreciate.  Loved them.

 

On to February!

Evolution of a Seagull

(Picture from similar location, but different time of day.)

At Christmas in 1980, I was twelve.  One of our family friends gave me two books, slim paperbacks, that, like most books, changed my life.  One of them was T.S. Eliot’s Selected Poems, which blew up my idea of what poetry was (I was a twelve-year-old girl, remember?) and the other was Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull.  Back then, it was Jonathan I loved and returned to over and over.

 

I thought of Jonathan for the first time in a long time over the weekend in Moss Landing.  Early in the morning, I sat in my room looking out over the little finger of water between my hotel and the next batch of dunes.  There were herons and smaller duck-like birds and handfuls of seagulls.  Each different kind of bird did what they did best:  herons looming, duck friends paddling at the edge of things, and seagulls alternately flapping and riding the currents of air.  My window looked west, but in the dawn light the horizon still tinted pink and yellow, the blue coming in higher.  The water was glassy.  It was all very twelve-year-old-girl poetic, but not trite because it was really there.

 

What I remembered about Jonathan was that he wanted to fly better than any other seagull and that one of his breakthrough ideas was that he needed to emulate a falcon’s short wings to dive.  I remembered that he ended up eating better than the gulls who were focused on feeding instead of flight.  And that was about all.

 

It has romance, that idea that some higher purpose, some pursuit of excellence will transform our lives, our very selves.  But the whole thrust of the book was belied by the scene in front of me.

 

When I was twelve, I knew nothing about Buddhism or libertarianism or individualism.  Rereading Jonathan today, it’s obviously a Zen fable, complete with bodhisattvas.  It’s also a peculiarly American fable—number one best-seller!  Of course we alternative-thinking hip birds of 1970 (when the book came out) don’t want to go along with the Flock and their sold-out existence.  Our groovy excellence will set us apart, give us access to the higher planes and better sushi, all at once.  All we have to do is release our limitations, baby.

 

Seagulls are scavengers.  They’re prettier than rats and look well against a dawn or sunset sky.  Evolution has made them good-enough fliers, adaptable eaters, persistent pests.  They’ll kill for leftover fries.  That’s the place they fit in the universe.  The herons hunt.  The ducks flip their little behinds in the air to get to the tasty water plants and whatever else it is they chomp just below the surface.  The gulls do not have a falcon’s short wings on purpose because they’re not falcons.

 

To be clear, I am not saying that anatomy is destiny.  Humans are not, in fact, seagulls, even if they will kill for leftover fries.  What I’m saying is that when I saw the real gulls in the real sky, I finally had to take out Jonathan and look at him and see where he did not serve me well.

 

I’m not rejecting the Buddhist path, either.  There is wisdom to be had there, as there is in all the searches for meaning we humans persist in making.

 

I’m just done with the capitalist insistence that we always need to be doing more, doing better, changing our bodies, trying to achieve some elusive perfection.  I’m done with the image of the lone searcher, the outcast wise man.  I want the web of life, the real seagull in the real environment.  I am an evolved seagull, thank you very much.  I don’t want or need to be a falcon or a heron or even a sea otter.