It seems that all of May came and went without me writing a single post. No great loss, perhaps, to the greater world but still a little disquieting to me. And it's not like I've got so much I intend to record here tonight; it's more a waving-not-drowning sort of fly-by visit.
I finished
The Girl Who Smiled Beads a few nights ago; it is, for now, my "outside your bubble" book for
this year's Seattle Public Library/Seattle Arts & Lectures book bingo. Possibly if this year included the "book you bought for its cover" square it would be going there; I really like the cover design. It's one of the books I bought at
Magnolia's Bookstore on bookstore day. In fact, I've just realized, that I've read all three books I bought there and the
Julian Barnes picked up at
Queen Anne Book Company just before; I'm practically working my way through those stacks in chronological order. Of course, the
Mavis Gallant I read
just before
The Only Story was from
Ravenna/Third Place Books, which we reached at twilight on bookstore day so, on reflection, it all falls apart. Never mind.
None of which is what I meant to put here. No, I have sort of mixed feelings about
The Girl Who Smiled Beads; the acknowledgments are so gushing and fulsome while the Clemantine in the body of the book is angry and frequently confrontational. She also knows how to appear to be whatever the person in front of her wants her to be so one wonders who wanted those school girl acknowledgments. But possibly feeling a little knocked off balance is the least I can do after vicariously experiencing the hell of the refugee existence. So, I donno about the book as a whole. But I know that some parts resonated a great deal including this bit:
I've seen enough to know that you can be human with a mountain of resources and you can be human with nothing, and you can be a monster either way. Everywhere, and especially at both extremes, you can find monsters. It's at the extremes that people are most scared--scared of deprivation, on one end; and scared of their privilege, on the other. With privilege comes nearly unavoidable egoism and so much shame, and often the coping mechanism is to give. This is great and necessary, but giving, as a framework, creates problems. You give, I take; you take, I give--
both structures create a hierarchy. Both instill entitlement.
The only road to equality--a sense of common humanity; peace--is sharing, my mother's orange. When we share, you are not using your privilege to get me to line up behind you. When we share, you are not insisting on being my savior. Claire and I always looked for the sharers, the people who just said, "I have sugar. I have water. Let's share water. Let's not make charity about it."
from pp 177 - 178 of The Girl Who Smiled Beads
So I'm not fussed by Samantha Bee's use of "cunt" because that sort of drama is just manufactured nonsense. But people who can see and express the nuances between "giving" and "sharing" (sort of like the bit in
Brighton Rock about the difference between "good and evil" and "right and wrong.") -- now they are onto something meaningful.
