Author: ellen

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Reading “The Underground Railroad”

 I should have read “The Underground Railroad”sooner. I should have read it as soon as I heard about it or as soon as I read the spell-binding excerpt that arrived with my New York Times on a Sunday in August. I should have read it in mid-October after I heard its author, ColsonWhitehead, speak at the Boston Book Festival. I should never have left it to read after November 8.
It is an astounding book. The writing is so vivid that I had a moment of questioning whether the Underground Railroad had been, in fact, an actual rail line running below ground. It is also unsparing in its depictions of barbaric cruelty inflicted with sick and sickening gusto, and its portrayal of Cora and other former slaves who, balanced on a razor edge between fear and hope, are nearly numbed to either. The book indicts not only the “peculiar institution” of slavery with its unspeakable inhumanity, but also the whole white supremacist outlook, from the “manifest destiny” of claiming Native American territory to the new reality we are grappling with since Donald Trump’s ascendancy made America hate again.
Late in the book a woman in the early 20th century, hearing about “The Great War,” will feel it was misnamed. “The Great War was the one between black and white. It always would be.”  And here we are now at a moment when we are hearing every day about post-election acts of hatred– including the march scheduled for this weekend in Whitefish, Montana-– directed at all “others” who are not white, Christian, and male,.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever felt what people seem to call patriotic, though I have revered the country’s institutions and its promise. Now that America is over, though, I am despondent. For my grandparents it was the land of milk and honey where dreams could be made reality. I am guessing that was the case for most of the immigrant ancestors of the currently American.
“Stolen valor” is a concept I happened upon recently, the dishonest claiming of unearned military honors. It is a term that feels strangely appropriate, as well, to describe how what is being loudly claimed as “American” now feels so constricted, exclusionary, and antithetical to the promise I always thought it embodied.
In “The Underground Railroad” a character says, “Still we run, tracking by the good full moon to sanctuary.” If America is to exist as America again, at the very least don’t we each have to be a good full moon to our neighbors?

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What Elena Ferrante Owes Me

What does a writer owe a reader? Isn’t that what’s at question in an investigative journalist’s hunting down and gleefully exposing the person he says—ta-da!–is Elena Ferrante? I will not write the name he has uncovered. I will accept what has been given to me—thoughtful, well-written fiction that, as the best fiction does, illuminates reality.
A confession: I am not among the legions of Ferrante fanatics. I like her books, but I don’t love them. “Pride and Prejudice” will not need to share its permanent place on my nightstand. That said, I enjoyed reading the books and I appreciate that many readers, especially many women readers, heard their own voices in her words.
When I heard the disclaimer that “Elena Ferrante” was a pseudonym and that her true identity was unknown, my reaction was a shrug. Wasn’t her “true identity’ being the author of those works? I was totally fine with a writer who chose not to open his or her life up to close scrutiny, who—just imagine!– was uninterested in celebrity, a writer who merely sought to offer us his or her soul and tears and imagination and efforts, and, in exchange, be granted the personal privacy she requested. 
Do readers have the right to barge into a writer’s life and rummage around for clues? Do we have the right to demand context, background, further explanation? Can we not respect something that grows entirely out of imagination? Of course who the writer is has bearing on the work. Maybe it would have made a difference to me to know that these women’s lives had been created by a man. Though Emma Bovary…though Anna Karenina …though…But we can do the work of understanding on our own. What advantage is there in knowing that Elena Ferrante did not personally experience these exact adversities, challenges, and triumphs, but different ones? 
Go in peace, Elena Ferrante. I thank you for characters worth knowing, ideas worth thinking about. You gave me the offering of your gifts; I gave you my attention. We gave each other our time. What more do we possibly owe each other?

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“The Muralist”: reading and thinking about art and and the world and other things

I went to see a beautiful exhibit at the Portland (Maine) Art Museum. It highlights the work of four 20thcentury women artists, three of them far less known than they should be. In addition to paintings by the deservedly celebrated Georgia O’Keeffe was the work of Florine Stettheimer, Marguerite Zorach, and Helen Torr. For each the determination to make art was counter-balanced—sometimes upended–by life’s making other plans in ways that male artists are rarely called upon to negotiate.
Later, in discussing the exhibit with my cousin Judith Lerner, a painter whose work I hugely admire, she mentioned a book she had recently read, “The Muralist,” a novel by B. A. Shapiro about a woman painter in the male-centric art world of mid-20th century New York. Shapiro places her heroine, a young Jewish woman artist, in the circle of Mark Rothko, Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, and Willem DeKooning and gives her relatives in harm’s way in Nazi-occupied France.  She is at work on a mural that she hopes will galvanize public opinion in support of rescuing those who are beginning to disappear into concentration camps before that becomes an actual descriptive term. The villain is not the distant and nearly unimaginable Hitler so much as the banally evil Breckinridge Long, who, in fact, as a bureaucrat in FDR’s State Department, made it his mission to deny as many visas as possible to desperately fleeing refugees, particularly Jews. Read Muslims, read wall; so many others, so many ways to keep them out.
What made “The Muralist” especially compelling to me was its ability to let the reader in on the passion with which art is made. Mystical, exhilarating, that concentration of energies. (A digression: last week I saw one of my favorite examples of this, Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” that, though it was a lackluster production, still got me teary over Seurat’s and Sondheim’s evocation of “an ordinary” Sunday. Here’s a little gift to you—this terrific video of the original cast doing the Act I finale at the 1984 Tony awards.)

A lot to think about at this moment in the world, in our country. And always interesting how fiction helps us see what’s most true.
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The Occasional (Repeated) Recipe: Panzanella

I think the time is right to re-run a past blog post in which I gave a recipe for the Italian bread-and-tomato salad panzanella. After all, it’s the end of August. Farm markets are still open and vegetable gardens are filled with seasonal bounty: there are tomatoes out there, folks.  Made it last night but instead of French bread, I used white bread I had baked.
In case you’re impressed, you should know that the bread recipe I use is as easy as all my other recipes. Takes no longer to mix together than it takes to describe. It’s my dumbed down version of this.  Mix together in a bowl:
            1 ½ c. warm water—pretty warm but not hot
            ½ Tbsp. kosher salt
            ½ Tbsp. yeast
            3 cups flour
Cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise 2-5 hours. Put it in a greased loaf pan and let it rise again, about 20 minutes or so, then bake 30 minutes in 450 degree oven. You can also after the first rising, refrigerate it a few days, then bring it to room temperature, let it rise in loaf pan, and bake. I also make this with half or a third whole wheat and often with the addition of toasted walnuts and sesame, sunflower, and pumpkin seeds. Or other goodies.
And here’s the panzanella recipe I originally posted:
In mid-summer it’s hard to avoid coming home from the farm markets without too much of something that looked delicious. My downfall is tomatoes. Off-season I don’t buy fresh tomatoes: the world is too filled with heartbreak as it is. So during the summer I tend to go a little overboard. Ok, a lot overboard.
On this particular day I had beautiful ripe tomatoes and was thinking of panzanella, that summery Italian bread salad. It seemed easy enough…some tomatoes…some bread…olive oil…..let’s see.  I looked through my three shelves of cookbooks: nothing. (Really, “Nigellissima”?? Really, “VB6”??) I looked online: too much. Too many ingredients, serving too many people. Maybe in the summer you’re always suppose to be cooking for a crowd. Tonight I’m cooking for two. So, as often happens–admittedly, not always with marvelous results–I made up a recipe. And I’m sharing it with you as I made it. No specific amounts, no specific proportions–you’re in charge. I’m just telling you there are ripe tomatoes out there–go make panzanella.
What you need:
tomatoes
red onion
basil
cucumbers
dried cubes of French bread
olive oil
salt/pepper
I cut the tomatoes, bread, and cucumber in nice-size chunks; you can do the same depending on your idea of nice size. I cut some red onion in smaller pieces, because that’s what I prefer. I added a little olive oil and salt and pepper. I tore a bunch of basil leaves. Not “a bunch” as in what Whole Foods puts in a rubber band, but a “bunch” as in what my plants were offering and what I thought looked like a good amount.  I tossed it all and took a moment to enjoy how it reminded me of the Italian flag. And then I set it aside in a (non-metallic) bowl for a few hours. Do not refrigerate it. Refrigeration does terrible things to tomatoes.
At this very moment it is still in progress, the tomatoes’ juices and the olive oil doing their magic on the bread cubes. I plan to taste a little throughout the afternoon because the one amount I was unsure of was the olive oil. But I’m thinking this is going to be very good. And I’m hoping that if you find something that could make it better, you’ll let me know.

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“A Little Life”

I heard an NPR interview with David Denby about his new book “Lit Up”and his concern that the distraction of the ubiquitous screen is crowding out the pleasure of reading for today’s children and young adults. I was hearing this just as I had had that mystical experience of coming to the end of an engrossing book, closing the cover, and continuing to live in its world. It’s a feeling I’ve had many times throughout my life, one I know my daughters have had, and one I hope my grandchildren and their peers do, too. I can’t imagine my life without books. For me, one of the basic questions for those close to me is, “What are you reading.”
And what I just read is “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara. Remarkable, absorbing, provoking much thought and conversation. A tough book, dark and sad—be warned. But read it anyway.
The jacket flap copy mentions “brotherly love” and some reviews say “gay novel” but neither of those descriptions feels right to me. What I saw was love and human connection with no limiting description. The central relationship is, yes, between two men, but it’s love between two human beings; gender doesn’t feel like what matters.
A lot has been said about the novel’s darkness. It certainly has sadness at its heart, along with unspeakable cruelty, degradation, damage. But also compassion, kindness, and love at its most unquestioning and unconditional among a remarkable assortment of people.
One of the main character is a painter who becomes wildly successful (one of the book’s oddnesses is  just how wildly successful each of the original four friends becomes) with several series of paintings of the other three at mundane moments in their lives, most memorably, listening to someone tell a story. There is also a moment when one of the characters looks around at a room that holds signs of an absent beloved—clothes draped across a chair, a book splayed open—all signs of  how our lives are lived not only in large moments and large events, but also, powerfully and memorably, in the small moments that make up the little lives we are given.
The jacket photo is titled, “Orgasmic Man,” but it looks to me like someone who is reacting, not necessarily to sexual pleasure but to the intensity of those “little life” moments—to the cruelty we want to look away from, to love of incomprehensible magnitude, to losses, to pleasures, to the whole enormity of what they add up to.
I do have to say, unfortunately, that the book illustrates the importance of editors, noticeable here in the breach, with passages that can go on too long and lead nowhere, with the singular masculine pronoun whose referent can be nearly indecipherable. And copy editing—idiotic things like “binging” for “bingeing” that feels like an infuriatingly sloppy betrayal of a gifted author who has, for 720 pages, worked to give the reader an unforgettable experience.
But that’s small potatoes. My annoyance with that is just that it interrupts, taking you out of the beautifully-written flow of the words. I wanted to stay in those words, in that world in which, for all its darkness, I found optimism. I found hope in the thought that someone so irreparably damaged in body and spirit could endure as long as he did, could find moments of true delight, could be surrounded and supported by the love of people who hoped that would be enough. That it wasn’t didn’t feel like a triumph of the darkness, but a testament to the power of the human connections that, at least for a time, were successful in sustaining the light.

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Summer Reading

Was it only a week ago that the two weeks of conventions ended? Needing a little non-substantive refreshment, I went to the gloriously renovated Boston Public Library for a little frothy palate-cleanser before getting back to the weightier books on my list.  I grabbed “The Summer Before theWar,” by Helen Simonson.  I was hoping for light reading, a confection. Funny how that worked out.
1914 England and the sun is shining down on those it always shines on, English upper-class fortunates. A thinly-disguised Henry James even makes an appearance. These fortunates are in Rye, walking in their gardens and trying to ignore the slow-motion slide into The War, the one before numbering was shown to be necessary. It was a moment when a woman of privilege could speak of never riding on public railway cars but, instead, having a private car which was cleaned by two of her maids before she got it. (A private railway car? Just for her use? Did the train wait at the station while the maids cleaned it? I am still wondering.)
I had echoes in my head of Hillary’s acceptance speech as I read how the (unmarried, of course) heroine was forced to account for every penny she spent from her own inheritance and how she had to fight for a job she was more than qualified for. And, beyond that, the casual cruelties of 98 years ago:  a gay man threatened with being outed—a way too modern term for what discovery would have meant, a lesbian couple living in shadowy ambiguity, a pregnant rape survivor shunned by “polite society.” Human rights…..women’s rights….The pieces of the plot, totally right for the time, felt shocking in the context of what I had been watching for the past days.
And underneath it all, the war. Waving banners, patriotic parades, young women handing out white feathers to brand unenlisted men as cowards, and only the most astute observers understanding that this was not likely to be an exciting and brief adventure. Especially for the poor recruits on the front lines. Especially given the class distinctions which persisted through who got on the ambulances, who was treated in which hospitals.
Echoes.

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Mourning in America

This morning I am, like so many others,  heartbroken. For the lives lost. For the families whose empty places will never be filled. Mostly, though, I am heartbroken for America.
America, which can only be “great” if its promise as the land of opportunity is there for all its people.
Years ago I had the honor of working with the late Jonathan Mann on a project to encourage college students to become human rights advocates. His message was that, though there are many important actions to be taken, what underlies them all, what makes you an advocate for human rights is acknowledging every human being’s right to respect and dignity. 
I’ve been thinking about that message lately, and especially this morning, just days past the celebration of our country’s beginnings, when we’re focused, through the political campaign, on emphasizing differences, seeing people as “Other” instead of seeing commonality, beginning with respect for the dignity of each person..

In his brilliant musical, Lin-Manuel Miranda has the dying Hamilton sing, “America, you great unfinished symphony.” The next movement will depend on how we see each other.
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My flawed candidate, myself

Ok, I tried, but I couldn’t do it: I said I was staying away from campaign news but that was when we had a lineup of candidates yelling at each other about their body parts, aka the good old days. I felt smug back then, watching my side talking substance and showing respect for each other, for the office, and for us. 
Now reality intrudes. 
At first I was glad to see Bernie in the race. I thought he’d give Hillary cover to move a little farther left and enlarge the discussion. I thought he’d add the energy of his supporters to the effort to retain the Presidency and take back the Senate and House. I thought his modest decade-long record in the Senate would position him to speak to briefly before acknowledging his opposing candidate’s superior depth of experience and capability for the office, and graciously throwing his support to her.  I was wrong.
Instead he is, more each day, reminding me of Ralph Nader, who must be the hero of every Bush-Cheney supporter in 2000, a man who didn’t let political reality get in the way of his over-confidence that he alone held the key to Truth, Justice, and The American Way.
But back to now, now when the stakes are…pretty high. “Hamilton” groupie that I am, I am thinking of how George Washington, deciding not to seek a third term, sings, “We’ll teach them how to say goodbye.” Bernie, listen. But Bernie isn’t listening. Bernie is, instead, using the energy he’s created among voters as a weapon—and not against Trump. 
I remember Hillary in 2008, disappointed in her campaign and yet, in defeat, generous to her party and its nominee. Bernie, listen.
Bernie, your followers are saying  it’s you or no one. Really, Bernie? Is that what you want? You and your followers are saying Hillary is a flawed candidate. Ok, yes. And Donald Trump isn’t? And you, Bernie, who have been treated gently by Hillary and ignored by Trump, you who have yet to see your flaws splashed above the fold?  Yes, you, too, Bernie, are flawed. As am I, as are we all.
And here’s what your supporters aren’t seeing, Bernie: the Republicans have been kicking Hillary to the curb since the 1990s, with both every legitimate misstep and every invented wrong they could muster.  Twenty-five years of Republican vitriol—during which she continued a life in public service, as a respected and hard-working senator; as a tireless, effective secretary of state—and now you are feeding your supporters the whole putrid stew and letting them lap it up.

Has Hillary been perfect? Certainly not. But picture this—it’s 2018, maybe 4 o’clock on a  gray February afternoon, and the President is in the Oval Office meeting with Congressional leaders on something of importance, something like Obamacare or equal pay for women.  Or a Supreme Court nominee.The excitement of getting elected is long past and it’s time for hard, unglamorous, tedious work. It’s time for sitting in a room with people who may not be respectful and whose priorities are in opposition. What do you picture happening? Is the President telling the others, “You have to do it my way because I’m a terrific president and if not I’ll build a wall somewhere”? Is the President wagging a finger and scolding, “This system is corrupt”? Or is the President sitting there doing the hard work of finding consensus, building bridges, and, yes, probably compromising, and getting it done? Hillary is the only one I can picture being the grownup in the room, respecting the office enough to do whatever it takes to keep the country moving toward the future we need. She may be a flawed candidate, but this flawed voter thinks she is just what we need.
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Stop me before I sing again

My friend Erica just saw “Hamilton” and is in danger of appearing a little obsessed. Like me. She’s the one who gave me the cast recording, which I listened to many times  before I saw the show. As Wesley Morris said in his New York Times Magazine article, “To know someone who has this album is to know someone who needs a restraining order.”
It’s wearing. For me to ask Dr. D. to stand by saying, “Rise up!” “(Eyes up! Wise up!”) Those of you singing along right now know who you are. To wake up not knowing if what’s playing in your head will be “He got a lot farther by being a lot smarter/by working a lot harder/by being a self-starter” or the deliciously smarmy King George lines, “You’ll be back/wait and see/you’ll remember you belong to me.” I did say obsession. Or maybe it’s more like possession–being possessed by the songs.
Broadway and I have history. A brief mention of something can find me leaping to “It’s been a real nice clambake” or “you’re always sorry/you’re always grateful,” not always to the delight of the other person in the room “where it happens/the room where it happens.”
I love all those shows. I consider Cole Porter’s lyrics the essence of sophistication. The music from “Carousel” or “Oklahoma” makes me think  how revolutionary those musicals were when they first appeared. When I saw the Broadway revival of “South Pacific” a few years ago, its commentary on racism, first served up to an audience newly finished with World War II, felt even more astounding seen in our current century. And Sondheim–what can I say? The perfect voice for generations raised since Freud’s ideas became part of the air we breathe.  I even have a soft spot in my heart for “1776,” an earlier well-intentioned but forgettable go at portraying the Founding Fathers, for its rhyming of predicate and Connecticut. (It’s better in the context of the song. Trust me.)
And now this transformative musical that, thanks to the recording, has a reach far beyond the Richard Rodgers Theatre. Ok, possessed…obsessed….I’m there.
(An aside– proof it’s not just me::
Me to Erica—I’m crazy about Daveed Diggs.
Erica, before seeing “Hamilton”: Who’s Daveed Diggs?
Erica, after seeing “Hamilton”: I see what you mean about Daveed Diggs.)
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brilliant show has also made me think about how much the brilliance of hugely gifted people adds to my life. Dr. D and I recently heard Matthew Aucoin’s settings for several James Merrill poems. We saw Maya Lin’s moving River  of Pins , which can’t really be adequately conveyed by a photograph. I read Linda Pastan’s newest collection of poems and thought, with awe, of how she continues to cover the same ground, poem after poem, book after book, going deeper rather than repeating herself, never failing to offer new insight, new understanding, new mysteries. I read Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton before I saw the  show, and that, too, is unforgettable, and impossible to put down, which is a little inconvenient since it’s 700-plus pages. What touches me, what reaches out and makes me feel lucky to experience these and other wonderful works is the passion with which they are created.
I am filled with gratitude.

And I would probably earn the gratitude of those around me if I could just rein in my Hamilton habit a little. (“I wish I could say that was the last time/I said that last time/ It became a pastime.”) Maybe if I just think of all those amazing works of art that I am grateful to have seen and heard and read, I can find the antidote to my obsession by thinking about—(oh no!)–”what they did for love…..”
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Withdrawing from the Race

We’re months away from the election and already I can’t take it any more. I can feel my level of anger rising with every ratcheting up of the coarse discourse.  I am drawing a personal line.
I’m going on a campaign news blackout. What will I miss?  If past experience is any indicator, I won’t miss much.  I’ve got my candidate and if she isn’t on the ballot in November, I’ll vote for the person who comes closest to representing the things I believe in. I won’t need to listen in until then.

It’s not going to be easy, but I am taking a personal vow to distance myself from the ranting polluting our environment. I will no longer allow it to pollute my personal environment.  If you hear of anything really substantive or important, let me know. But I’m guessing that won’t happen. Meanwhile, I am going to concentrate on other things.