A Man of His Word

 

Secret Aging Man on the road again in his Ford pickup truck sometime in the late 1970s



SAM's fluorite story card

Having finished Carolyn Haines' Greedy Bones over a week ago, I decided to write a little review before details started fading. If I get something wrong maybe SAM will point it out to me. He's reading the book at my request, though he's never been much of a fiction reader or writer, for that matter. That's not to say he doesn't know how to write. As you can plainly see above, he's pretty good at putting words together. Most of the writing he's done over the years has been work-related, technical stuff that's all in a day's work for a professional geologist. From oil prospects to environmental assessments, he has produced enough reports in the last 30 years to fill a small-town library. (I've edited quite a few of them.) Somewhere along the way, I guess about 15 years ago, he got the urge to break out of the mold and came up with some story cards to go along with rock kits he had assembled. One side of each card describes a mineral's physical and chemical attributes, and on the other side SAM applies what he has learned over the years. I think it's pretty amazing what he's learned.  

SAM on duty, after work, at his other job--as Daddy, 1982

While SAM has been reading Greedy Bones, I decided to take on Anna Quindlen's novel, Every Last One. Click on this link to a review of it in the New York Times. The two novels don't have much in common, except for a few details. For one thing, they're both written by women, probably middle-aged or at least with some experience under their belts. Then there's the fact that men are secondary characters in these novels. They're more like props than anything, definitely not prime movers, muscle bound though they may be. If you want to think in anatomical terms, they might even be considered antagonistic, resisting the female protagonists and throwing monkey wrenches into their lives--marriage, kids, and that sort of thing. I tend to do that--think anatomically, not throw monkey wrenches--when I'm dissecting a novel. It's probably a good thing I never became a surgeon. You would think that female protagonists in this day and age would be, though. Instead, they're amateur sleuths/actresses (Greedy Bones) or professional landscapers (Every Last One). Not that there's anything wrong with those occupational choices. It's just that according to what pundits from the last few decades would have you believe, they're a few bricks short of a full load of ambition, a half a bubble off the feministic ideal of a woman. But don't expect to find any air heads in these novels. Even the female villains/victims are canny.

SAM, the Prime Mover, behind the wheel of our once-upon-a-time, 15-passenger van. We bought it for transporting the church youth group in the mid 90s when gas was still cheap!

Holiday social event, December 2009

I don't know what to make of novels these days, especially those written by women. They're difficult to pigeonhole, even if you do manage to dissect them. I've tried, believe me. Is Haines' protag, Sarah Booth Delaney, today's version of Nancy Drew, now empowered by the sexual revolution and a hefty inheritance?  SAM's comment about her tendency to hop on a plane or jump into dangerous/awkward situations at the drop of a hat: Unrealistic. Okay, that's coming from a conservative businessman/bureaucrat's perspective. I shrugged it off as just another supernormal power that socialite heiresses enjoy, besides the ability to communicate with dead family members/friends. Calgon, take me away!

I'll admit that Quindlen's novel worked me over emotionally. Its subject matter is pretty intense from anyone's perspective--anyone that has a heart, that is. Besides the M&MM (murder and maternal mayhem that follows), I had the wind knocked out of me when I thought: what's really at stake here, literally and figuratively? Fatherhood/philosophy, sanctity of marriage, music, poetry--Glen; Glen/MaryBeth, et al; Max, Ruby. All of them on the chopping block at once. Scary!

It seems that some authors are beginning to take Deleuze and Guattari to heart: Write a rhizome. Let it become more than the sum of its parts. We are working on it.


SAM's rock kit, disassembled, outside of the box.

"We are no longer ourselves. Each will know his own. We have been aided, inspired, multiplied." (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus)