Three things I read this week

Shuggie Bain, Liberty finds a way, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I’m sorry for the long absence. It turns out that starting a life in America is a lot of work. If I never have to buy another piece of used furniture in my life I won’t regret it. I’ve also started working a full-time job. Not counting summers working construction, or teaching English to rapscallion Russian pre-teens in Moscow (kind of like this 👇 but with less violence), this is the first time I’ve worked a 9-5 in my life. So… I’m still learning the time management skills that make life work smoothly.

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People ask me what it’s like to live in America, after having called the great “out there” my home for the past decade. What’s the greatest shock? Well… My best friend in Bali was Australian and as is widely known, Australians speak English. Or some variant thereof. So communicating from American ←→ Australian should be seamless, no? We both speak English, so we understand each other right?

Actually, no. In aggregate I only understood about 60% of what my Australian friend was saying. He spoke recognizable English words (usually, although sometimes not. “I got watah in my eah-kahn-no” “What?” “EAH-KAHN-NO” “Uh, what?” He screws up his face and speaks slowly, “Ear-ca, ca, canal, yeh Yankee cunt”) but often I couldn’t interpret the meaning behind the syllables. His speech was like those videos of what English sounds like to non-speakers. We listen to that and hear vaguely recognizable but ultimately meaningless noise.

Inflection, cultural references, idioms, sentence structure and accent can alter the English language so radically that two native speakers can talk right past each other. My Australian friend didn’t understand me, either. Especially my idioms, they just confused him.

Being back in America, especially in the part of the country where I grew up, it’s a tremendous relief to understand people again. This is what I enjoy maybe more than anything else.

1 - Shuggie Bain

You will cry if you read this book. Your soul will be sucked through your skin and its translucent essence exposed to the harsh glare of the afternoon sun. A handful of scenes will have you putting the novel down and swearing that you’ll never open it again.

Then, after meditating on the meaning of life and human suffering, you will pick Shuggie Bain up and resume reading. Shuggie Bain is the light at the end of the dock, you’ve got to pursue what’s there.

100 Years of Solitude.
Blood Meridian.
The Fountainhead.
Shuggie Bain.
Dune.

A flawless ending elevates these books from great to exceptional. This stanza from Blood Meridian may be the finest closing paragraph ever put to paper.

And they are dancing, the board floor slamming under the jackboots and the fiddlers grinning hideously over their canted pieces. Towering over them all is the judge and he is naked dancing, his small feet lively and quick and now in doubletime and bowing to the ladies, huge and pale and hairless, like an enormous infant. He never sleeps, he says. He says he'll never die. He bows to the fiddlers and sashays backwards and throws back his head and laughs deep in his throat and he is a great favorite, the judge. He wafts his hat and the lunar dome of his skull passes palely under the lamps and he swings about and takes possession of one of the fiddles and he pirouettes and makes a pass, two passes, dancing and fiddling all at once. His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.

This passage hits like a freight train because it’s well-written. Also, it summarizes a novel’s worth of characterization in just one paragraph. We are reminded that the judge is ample, popular, talented, graceful, physically unique, mystical and eternal. Cormac then closes out the action on a sentence - He says that he will never die - which hints at the future for one of the book’s most important characters. And no, there are no spoilers. The judge survives, but I cannot recall a single instance when he was in mortal danger.

Returning to our unbridled praise, I haven’t told you what Shuggie Bain is about. Well… any peasant can jot down the plot and I left the farm ages ago. This book will make you feel emotions you didn’t know you had, and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

2 - Liberty finds a way

The foes of liberty are many and they are powerful—but they are not particularly impressive. They will do everything within their ability to convince others that their might is eternal, that battle against them is pointless and doomed to fail. This is just another one of their many lies. It is said that they will never give up. Yet does wanting power over others mean that they will necessarily get it, and get it easily? Does the fact that they supposedly will never give up somehow imply that their opponents should—or does it imply the opposite?

Evil people surrender all the time. At a certain point the costs—in every sense of the term—simply become too high. They are not all-knowing—far from it. They are often not even particularly bright. They are not all-powerful. They are men and women, far closer to snakes than they are to gods. They can, will, and have been defeated many, many times.

The White Pill, by Michael Malice.

3 - Tinker

Unlike Shuggie Bain, which I read a few years ago, I just finished Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy on Monday. It will go down as one of the most difficult novels I’ve ever had to wrap my rapidly dwindling synapses around. 1970s era British terminology and cultural vibes, mixed with a maddening paucity of description inherent to the art of spycraft.

This book is great, I claim with no great certainty. Like an amateur sommelier swishing a fascinating if unidentifiable vintage. It’s a book that you could finish and then immediately start from the beginning, the second go round would be so much richer. Or do as I did and watch the movie. The movie is a masterpiece and if you’ve read the book beforehand you’ll enjoy so much more nuance. For unlike many modern productions, the film makes the bold assumption that its audience isn’t brain dead.