A Concurrent Project, perhaps Commonplace

 Recently, I began rereading The Lord of the Rings. I'm supposed to be writing a book about how Tolkien presents marriage in his works, but I'm getting very bogged down in the Histories and the mythology. So I decided that the best way to remember why it was I wanted to write about Tolkien was to reread the thing I love most by him: The Lord of the Rings.

Meanwhile, I received some lovely things for Christmas: a fine Tomoe River notebook, and a bottle of Diamine Mystique ink (purple with gold shimmer), which I supplemented with a TWSBI Eco pen with a broad nib, which shows off the shimmer:

I am not a person who feels very comfortable with blank books and fine notebooks. I feel like I will mess them up--with mistake or the shoddiness of the thoughts that I have recorded. I have torn pages out of more journals and blank books than I remember because looking back, I just find them embarrassing. I have taken down a few blog posts, for that matter--or whole blogs with years' worth of posts. So the only thing I realize I feel comfortable recording in my book are quotes from what I am reading--a record of whatever strikes me at the time. This is how I began:

But you notice, something different has started to happen:

Instead of simply recording what I am reading, I have decided that I want to record, also, when something I am reading brings to mind something else. It may not be something very similar, but to my mind, there is an association, and I think that is worth recalling. It started with Frodo:

"I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again."

And continued with Puddleglum:

"I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."

And then this:

Tomorrow we may come this way

And take the hidden paths that run

Towards the Moon or to the Sun.

Apple, thorn, and nut and sloe,

Let them go! Let them go!

happened to recall this:

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk along long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

As I believe it always has.

It is, if you will, a Commonplace Book, but also, because it is a book of connections, it reminds me, again, of what things I know. And it strikes me that one of the valuable things in my education was always--and still is--the planting of beautiful words in my head.

With shimmer and shine,

Literacy-chic

P.S. - I am not at all happy with breaking a quote between pages, with my choice to single space the poetry, with my few mistakes, or even my variation in handwriting. And I need to work on wheedling my husband's gold-ink-filled pen on a longer-term basis (that is the color ink that I bought for him!). But I am resolved not to tear out any pages because of perfectionism. New Year's Resolution? We shall see!

How would I teach... Adrienne Rich?

 It had to be poetry. There was never a doubt that, wherever else I went with this, I would start with poetry. One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was not pursuing either poetry or children's literature in my graduate work. This was because 1) I was advised that children's literature wasn't taken seriously as a specialization, or it would limit me too much, or some such... and 2) there wasn't much focus on poetry at the school where I did my graduate work, which was not my first choice. Or my second. Or third. More because of circumstance and finance than because I couldn't get in anywhere else. I would up working on British Modernism because I was able to write a dissertation on British Modernism, and it seemed like a promising field. Except somehow, I didn't write about the cool British Modernists, or the cool issues in British Modernism, so...

I started out intending to work on ecopoetics. I had one of my mentors say that he would "love to work on ecopoetics" with me, as my advisor. He wound up being my advisor, but only because the Modernist I wanted to work on was too rigid. And she got pregnant, got divorced, and left, so there's that. Kids, take it from me: don't choose your Ph.D. program on the strength of a smile and a handshake, no matter how flattered you are by someone's regard. And don't continue into a Ph.D. program because you might as well, since your husband is finishing his second M.A. It is better to wait, teach a few classes or get a different job, and come back to it if you want to. Otherwise, in the immortal words of Admiral Akbar, "It's a trap!"

***

Having decided that I would start this series (?) with poetry, the poems started to flood my brain. Mostly, as promised, poems once considered as part of the canon--if, actually, on the late end of the canon. For example, Tolkien wouldn't have recognized them as canonical. Tennyson was verging on too late for his liking, Yeats was right out, and some of the others I would choose (will choose?) were, in fact, his contemporaries. But the poem that settled into my brain was, in fact, by Adrienne Rich. One of her later poems, that I encountered on my own rather than in a class, because I liked what I did read by Rich in class and, having aspirations to poetry myself, sought out contemporary poets. It is, in fact, "An Atlas of the Difficult World." 

Right now, I am hamstrung by the fact that my poetry books are packed up from my exodus from my final (only?) (contingent) faculty position, by the fact that the poem is very copyright protected, and by the fact that it is, therefore, unavailable in its entirety on the web. But the most evocative section is available online, probably not legally:

Now, the first question with a poet like Adrienne Rich is in what context I would be teaching this poem. A contemporary poetry course, which is likely where I originally encountered her? In an Introduction to Poetry course, if your university has such a thing? In an Introduction to Literature course, if the course included poetry as one of its genres, and if the survey nature of the course allowed for the inclusion of what is a long and surprisingly challenging poem? In an American Poetry course? I wouldn't likely be teaching American Literature, even in an ideal world. Not my cup of tea. How about a Women in Poetry or a Women's Literature course, or Feminism in Literature? Again, probably not subjects I would be teaching, each of which would lend itself to a particular approach involving theory and context. For argument's sake, let's imagine an Introduction to Literature. I would prefer the class that I took as an undergrad against the objection of the advisor, who said that English majors usually took Intro to Lit instead of the two-course sequence of Intro to Short Story/Novel and Intro to Poetry/Drama. I imagine  this being a good poem to teach to nontraditional students in an introductory literature course--to students with life experience, who might have different motivations for returning to school. I believe that Rich would have approved.

How would I begin?

Ideally, the class would already have a pretty firm basis in poetry by this time. Meaning, we would have had a survey of poetic form and covered certain influential figures who preceded Rich. It is a bit of a crime to read Rich without having read Whitman and Ginsburg because of how each one of them uses the poetic line--stretching it to its breaking point and using it to its fullest capacity at the same time. It is, however, possible to do so.

Would I give background on Rich? Students do like a short biography. I personally love the fact that she was chosen by none other than W. H. Auden for the Yale Younger Poets Award in 1951, who commented memorably that her poems were "neatly and modestly dressed, speak quietly but do not mumble, respect their elders but are not cowed by them." Oh, to be condescended to by the likes of W. H. Auden! This, however, would only register with a class already familiar with W. H. Auden, and I have never taught a class--even of senior English majors--in which even one was familiar with Auden, more's the pity. There are certainly some who would be interested and find value in the story of her young marriage and subsequent divorce, her lesbian identity and her feminism. Being brought up as an undergraduate by a flock of professors who were schooled in the original New Criticism, biography tends to be less important to me, though I suppose I would include a slide with her life and career high points. This is why I am not an "expert." My expertise shows itself in the process of reading and discovering, not in the collecting and disseminating of information.

So how would I really begin?

In this poem, I would focus on persona. The usual first question that my professors (or one notable one) taught me to ask--"What is the dramatic situation?"--is not relevant here. Unless it is... The dramatic situation is that the Poet is speaking. And this is why biography does not strike me as helpful in all cases, though again, students like to have something to latch onto, and some "information" that might plausibly be on a quiz. Who, after all, is "the Poet"? Well, it is not Adrienne Rich. And it is quite deliberately not Adrienne Rich. She is speaking here not as "the poet," but as "The Poet." It might be helpful to know a little bit about rhetoric and oratory, here, and to be able to talk about Voice.

Now, Voice is something that I have taught in quite a different context. Specifically, in an upper-division course titled "The Rhetoric of Style," which was designed by a mentor of mine, now retired Emeritus or something, to take writing to the next level. It's great for analysis, as well--for really getting down into the nitty gritty of why writers make the choices they do, or, if they don't know why they make the choices they do, to explain why what they have done instinctively is effective. The foundational text for the course is Performing Prose: The Study and Practice of Style in Composition. The reason I loved this course and its text is because it reminded me of analyzing poetry. And one of the key points is a discussion of Voice, which the authors recast as "Footing"--the author's self-positioning in relation to the subject. After all, Voice is not very helpful, evoking as it does something that you hear when you speak to a person, but that has much less meaning when it comes to describing a written text. "Well, she sounds like..." But if you're talking about what she sounds like, are you talking about Voice, or Tone? Shifting the discourse away from standard (or stale) literary terms can only yield more productive discussion, not less. So... footing. How is The Poet (not Adrienne Rich, but some more formal persona created by Adrienne Rich, a mask, if you will) positioning herself in relation to the subject? Granting, of course, that we have not yet determined the subject. That discovery will come.

So how do we know what we know about The Poet?

Unpacking the persona is really the point of a discussion of this poem, as far as I'm concerned. To discuss this teaches us something about how language positions us in relation to our subject, which can be really valuable to carry back to one's own writing, poetic or not. 

Strikingly, this is a poem written in second person. Which means that it is constructing not only The Poet, the poet's persona, but also the reader (by virtue of the second person pronoun):

I know you are reading this poem

late, before leaving your office

of the one intense yellowing lamp-spot and the darkening window

in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet

long after rush hour. I know you are reading this poem....

Where is the reader positioned in this poem? The first line we read is "I know you are reading this poem." We have been discovered--potentially in a compromising position. Were we not supposed to be reading? Is the Poet sympathetic? Is the Poet a voyeur? These questions evolve with each line. Are we uncomfortable with the position we are placed in? Or for that matter, are we placed in the position of reader? After all, it is with the Poet's voice that we read the poem, not the reader's. Perhaps we are, sometimes, the Poet, and other times, the reader--the subject--the one being regarded. If this is a class that uses theory, we might consider "the Gaze." Does the Poet's regard objectify the subject/reader? If not, why not?

And look! This is a poem about reading. My preoccupation with depictions of reading stretches back before this blog, before my dissertation, before, even, my first paper on the topic, which was probably for a course on Dante and Medieval English Literature, a graduate course that I took at my undergraduate institution. So if I were teaching a course that had a literacy theme, I would, of course, ask what this poem tells us about literacy and what it does for us.

Formally, we might look at the line breaks and consider that "I know you/ are reading this poem late" creates different meaning from "I know you are reading this poem/ late...." I believe I would want to read the poem aloud, which would call for classroom seating that facilitated such a thing. I love arranging certain of my classes in a circle. I would ask what their favorite lines might be, because this is a poem that reaches into the soul of the reader, and I might read some of my favorites:

I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light

in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,

count themselves out, at too early an age. I know

you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick

lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on

because even the alphabet is precious.

I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove

warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your hand

because life is short and you too are thirsty.

This does not answer any questions. I have my ideas about the answers, but I tend not to give them. If this seems a haphazard way of teaching, well, I guess it drives students nuts sometimes. Except the ones who really crave this kind of thing. And sometimes, a whole class would play along, and it was magic.

The value in a poem like this comes from being able to read it, not from knowing what it says. And that's what I love about teaching poetry. Reading together. Discovering. Because life is short and you too are thirsty.

Still searching thirsting,

Literacy-chic

Let's play a game!

 It's a new year, and I admit that I am feeling... well, imposter syndrome. Let's cut to the chase and not mince words. The odd thing is that I don't feel the imposter syndrome of a scholar at a conference, or of a new faculty member in the classroom or a faculty meeting. Nope. I feel imposter syndrome in the comfort of my own home.

You see, while I have this Ph.D., it means absolutely nothing. I am not working in a job in which it matters in the least. I am not likely to do so ever again. There are not many occasions when having a Ph.D. in English means that you can contribute something to a conversation. If I know things, they are so far removed from my daily life, recent experience, and even my most recent teaching experiences (which were largely tech writing), that I wonder if, in fact, I still know them. When I do know something, or feel like maybe I used to know something, I am eclipsed by someone who knows every bit as much as I do in some areas, and more in many others. Not in English literature, but as I say, this rarely comes up in conversation and when it does, it is only tangential to the real substantive knowledge--which he knows. It's the curse of being married to someone with a job that actually makes him an expert in new and interesting things while I work a mostly-clerical job for a publisher of, realistically speaking, nothing I would read.

This is a hard situation for someone who used to be smart. And, I mean, I guess I'm still smart. But who would know it? Isn't that Ph.D. supposed to put some kind of a lid on that "smart" so that it exists for perpetuity? And of course, the answer is no. It doesn't, and no one ever said it did. That's what tenure does. It means that you're already at the top, and it doesn't matter whether you're "current in your field" any more; the field is free to leave you behind. Or is that "Emeritus"? I get confused.

At any rate, the field is leaving me behind--had already left me behind long ago. And that's fine, because I don't want what it has become. So here we come to my game.

I'm not very good at sticking with things, but I need something to do that will make me remember things that I know--or once knew. So I'm going to play a game called, "How would I teach that?" This is purely for my own benefit. I don't claim to be an expert--on anything, really. It's one of the things that was a problem for me as a teacher. That imposter syndrome--it runs deep. But the truth is that I didn't learn more about anything when I was getting my Ph.D. I learned how to write the ideas I had and make them sound scholarly, and I learned about the theories that were supposed to help me to do that and to fit my ideas in with what other people were talking about. I was already pretty good at the "sounding scholarly" part. The "fitting in" never worked.

I am also not claiming to be an expert teacher. I don't teach the way that anyone learns. What I might manage to convey, if I'm lucky, is a model of reading that my teachers imparted on me. And I mean my undergraduate professors, to whom I owe more of a debt for imparting their knowledge and inspiring me than anyone I have encountered since. I have had mentors since then, but not teachers. 

The best part of being in the classroom is discussion, and it, truly, is where I am at my best. I have come up with my best ideas about works of literature while in the middle of explaining something... and sometimes, I've never been able to recapture the brilliance of the moment. But I also love writing (I think), so maybe some sparks can happen anyway.

I don't expect to enlighten anyone. If you had the high school or undergraduate curriculum that I did--a basically canonical kind of thing--you probably won't learn anything new. This is just an exercise. Do I protest too much? I don't want to disappoint anyone--including myself. But if you enjoy reading along, let me know. And feel free to offer suggestions. I might not feel qualified to take them, but maybe I'll challenge myself.

Anyway, with this ambitious plan, I will end, and hopefully think of something worth posting next--some nearly forgotten gem resting in the corner of my memory or my Norton Anthology.

In search of a good closing phrase,

Literacy-chic

Subtle changes

It feels a little chillier today.

A thick layer of leaves fell last night, dead and brown.

The light's a little different in the afternoon.

Bone grates along bone when I walk.

It has nothing to do with the weather.

But it feels a little chillier today.

A life entered my life. It couldn't stay.

I blinked and it had gone away again.

The light's a little different in the afternoon.

Blood is heavier in the veins.

Heart is working harder, but brittle in my chest.

It feels a little chillier today.

Moon follows moon with irregular regularity.

Cycle follows cycle in an excess of pain.

And in the afternoon, the light's a little different.

Last night the dead leaves fell.

My body creaks itself awake, observing

that it feels a little chillier today.

The light will slant differently this afternoon.

Is it the Pandemic? Or is it not?

It's been a rough week or two.

Or three.

2020 notwithstanding.

But the thoughts are so familiar--and yet so different--that I'm not sure if this is just me, the same dissatisfaction replayed in a slightly different key, or if this is the pandemic.

2020 has not been kind to me overall. In early January, I was unexpectedly pregnant--just shy of my 43rd birthday. About a week after my 43rd birthday, I was unexpectedly no longer pregnant. The same day the miscarriage started, we had, earlier in the day, found out that a skin biopsy for my husband had come back as cancerous. In February, he had it removed in an outpatient situation, and all is well with that, but I was shaken. In the next two months, I had an ultrasound on my leg for a nonexistent blood clot and a mammogram for a--well, actually, a strange little breast abnormality that no one knows what to do with--because I was certain that my body was trying to kill me. I mean, why not? It killed my baby. My husband's was trying to kill him...

And then came March.

Besides the crippling fear of horrific death, the lockdowns and quarantines were really not so bad. Of course, we're in Texas, in a suburban setting with no city, and the lockdown wasn't really a lockdown. I enjoyed not going to the office. I still enjoy not going to the office. School drama mostly dried up for the kids. The end of the school year was easy-peasy. There were no functions to rush off to. There were no decisions to make about where to eat out because the restaurants were closed, and why would I want their plague-infested food anyway? (I know--food is not a source of contagion. But it's part of how I stay in control of my situation.) Stores were offering curbside, so while I did have to spend some time on their websites, I didn't have to spend hours in the grocery stores. I still don't. It's lovely. I felt guilty at first, but hey--people used to have groceries and milk delivered in the early 20th C. And ice. Now, there were things that we couldn't get. And it felt austere--like we shouldn't have luxuries. I got over this eventually. 

We took up new hobbies. I began to crochet. I had tried once before with limited success, but between Ravelry.com, this pattern for mandalas, and amigurumi from StringyDingDing, and the fact that focusing on the stitches and the pretty colors made me stop thinking about imminent death, I have gotten rather good. And so has daughter #2.

I wrote the bulk of a book chapter that I was rather dreading. Then I ran out of steam. I guess it was working for two weeks straight with some intensity? Or perhaps it was asking for help with something and opening myself up to "you must include this person's research and these details or seem sloppy and amateurish"? Or simple burnout because you-know-what-I-never-liked-the-Histories-of-Middle-earth-anyway-Tolkien-wrote-some-perfectly-nice-books-that-he-published-while-still-alive-can-we-please-talk-about-those? I wrote to my publisher and let them know that I would need more time. January had already derailed my plans to have a complete manuscript by August. They are content to follow my lead, which I've learned is something that (some?) publishers do. They have other books to publish. Your delay is not the center of their universe. I can say this; I work for one.

Staying home with the kids--with the family--has been a breeze. First, we have a wonderful home for the first time--oh, ever. We have lots of space for all of us and all of our things. This we owe to chance, and my husband's talent for getting to know people. A friend that he met at work and helped through a job transition happened to be moving, but didn't want to sell his house. He also wanted to give his old neighbors some good new neighbors, and he wasn't looking to make a profit. In the space of a conversation, we had a new home.

The other thing is, that while people rely on activities and travel, this "new normal" feels like how I grew up. The kids and I played in the blow up pool. We played video games. Went for walks. Did crafts. Read. It just felt like life as it used to be. No pressure to be or do anything in particular. I wasn't a failure for not enrolling them in camps or lessons or activities. Wasn't letting anyone down because they were just hanging out at home. Wasn't going to have to compare our lack of travel to everyone else's travel. And conferences were cancelled, so I didn't have to worry about whether I wanted to travel, or dealing with being left behind while my husband was traveling.

And that's another thing that was nice. For a while, it felt like he and I were on the same footing, negotiating working from home. And that's where the real low points crept back in.

Because eventually, he had to go back to work on site, part-time. I haven't yet, which suits me fine. But that was a road bump, because I was simply scared. Of him being out in the world. I have had time to get used to it. And in general, I like how things are being done by his boss. She doesn't really want to open to the public. But boundaries are being pushed. So I can refuse a lunch invitation to rub elbows with someone, but he assumes that he can't turn down similar kinds of offers. He did, over the weekend, but more because of the weekend than because of wariness and risk. And because I'm dealing with prospective authors, and not as a person of importance, and he is dealing with big money donors as a charismatic charmer, his situation is different? Having either of us beholden to people with money was not my vision for our lives and careers.

But what was my vision for our careers? It has fallen apart. Working closely allows me to see him coaching others in their career development, often using skills that I taught him for tailoring job materials to the mission and vision of the organization. To see him being the expert that he has become in the years of working this job, and because he absorbs knowledge, and to know that I will never be regarded as an expert in anything, despite my Ph.D. That was a low week, too.

I have had ups and downs with my own job. I have a supervisor who refuses to supervise and then evaluates my performance based on things that she had in her head as standards that she never communicated. She refuses to check in with me monthly just to talk about how I'm doing, because that situation encourages people to hold their problems until a scheduled meeting? I worked in human resources, and this is not sound, but she is inexperienced and stubborn and will not listen. I am left to do clerical tasks while the department I'm in struggles to write material for a deadline--or a week after a deadline--or going on two weeks after a deadline. Last week I told someone in another department that if someone passed along the tidbit that I am literate, that perhaps I could help get that writing done by the deadline. As a result, I've had some people compliment my "fine writing style" and praise my editing of documents for style. This is good because it's more feedback than I had before--for all I knew I could have been targeting the wrong things and irritating people, and no one would give me any feedback!! But it's also really annoying because they know my credentials. They have seen my resume. And if they wanted to know if I could write, there are a million examples I could have shown them. Or, they might have let me do it. 

As a result of my snarky comment, this week is a bit better. But last week, I was so low. I found myself continually dismissed as if I simply didn't know what I was talking about. And worse--I found myself, on my own, just questioning whether I even know anything any more. I don't know if I could teach literature and writing because I just don't know if I know what I used to. I don't seem to have the drive to write that I used to have. I am wondering... and wondering... and wondering... what the point of writing a book even is. And this does come from working with a publisher, because there are many demoralizing offhand comments about "well, no one except X is going to read this anyway." Author beware! These people are jaded because they are only looking at sales numbers, and individual books just don't sell very well.

I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know where I'm going. I should be on top of my game, not waiting for crumbs to be thrown to me because I can rearrange a sentence. I should be advancing in a career, not listening to my husband coach people to the next level of their academic careers. I should be the go-to person for some of the things I'm supposed to know, respected for knowing what I do, and having ideas, and being able to help people develop their ideas. But I'm not.

And then there's the part of me that just wants to stay home. Because my daughters are enjoying online school this year--not through the local district, because that would be a train wreck, but through a public online school that has been around for about 10 years and doing well. I don't want to go back to work on site in a job that is going nowhere, in which I struggle to make people realize my usefulness and ability beyond the narrowly defined box I find myself in. A job in which there is no place for me to go, really, because none of their pre-defined roles suit me. But that I took because I thought it had possibilities and because I would be working with books.

I am fine today.

I may be fine tomorrow.

Editing their catalog and jacket copy so that we don't sound like a bunch of idiots on the back of our books was, indeed, satisfying, and seemed to get my brain working in a way that I could recognize again.

But oh, last week. I didn't even feel smart. Most of the time I'm simply frustrated because I can't prove to others that I'm smart and capable. Last week I didn't feel like I could prove it to myself. 

So I ask you.... is this the pandemic? Or is this just... me? Atrophying?

I wonder...

What Counts as 'Creative'?

Today, what counts as creative is blogging.

Yesterday, that question bothered me a bit, as I found that I was putting pressure on myself to do that one. creative. thing. I don't do well with artificial pressure. I wanted to draw another view of "working at home," but it just wasn't working for me. For days I had been having a cut-out dress from last year on my cutting board... but that really wasn't happening, so I packed it up. That was liberating, actually. And then I sat back and read In this House of Brede and didn't worry too much about it.

Today, I discovered the answer.

Most of the day yesterday, I was fretting about food. I guess I realistically bought enough for two weeks.  Problem was, we ate it over two weeks. Because we haven't been going to restaurants. I believe we have eaten out twice in the past three weeks--pizza and hamburgers. The way I see it, the fewer people handling my food right now, the better. But supplies have been dwindling, and even though I ordered "curbside pick up" on Sunday, the first available pick up time was Thursday.**  So after the kids finished off the bread for lunch yesterday, I was stressing about it a bit. I have some beef in the freezer (long story), which is an unusual luxury, but I knew I had not taken it out to thaw soon enough. (It's probably better, since when I opened the vacuum-sealed bags tonight, one smelled strongly of bread. NOT the smell I expect from beef.) I had some chicken and flour, however, so I made chicken with a thick "soup" and made dumplings (or "clouds," as my family fondly called them!--just biscuit dough, but tasty). We didn't have peas or carrots, so we had some frozen broccoli on the side (or in it for those who wanted, which was delicious!). I realize that, although I had ceased to think of it as "creative" unless it was also "fun," cooking is a creative act, and has, in fact, been taking up more of my energy (creative or otherwise) than I'm used to. So I feel somewhat more justified in not jumping in to arts and crafts. After all, I'm also making sure we get our exercise, and trying to earn some portion of my paycheck as well, which has its own challenges.

This may not seem like much of a revelation. I know I knew this at one time. But being utilitarian does not mean that an act is not creative. I can't even make that seem less obvious by verbal artistry. There it is.

To return to reading, I have, I admit, been tempted to put aside Brede. It doesn't move quickly. Reading it is itself a journey and a contemplation. This is the point--the point of my Lenten reading, and the point of the book, I have no doubt. But books that feel like a plodding journey (thinking also of a very different novel--Gaiman's American Gods) do not end up being my favorites. I favor a bit more stimulation. But it is compelling, and though I'm not reading much at a time, I am continuing to read. I just learned that the main character Philippa is about my age, having been married, lost a son, and achieved a high level of success in her career before embarking on her religious vocation. This strikes me in a couple of different ways. However it was presented in the passage I read last night, it occurred to me that (contrary to my desires and expectations) I would not ever achieve that kind of career success--something that hit me hard recently when I learned that now my husband and my very dear friend had achieved the title of "Associate Professor," which I will now never achieve. (I am very proud of them both, and this in no way affects my happiness for them.) But I realize also that I do not have that same emptiness in my life that Philippa had before her vocation. Meaning, I guess, that somewhere in this daily mess, I in fact have my vocation.  Food for thought.

______

**This morning, I decided to check SAM's club to see if they were delivering locally, and they are partnering with Instacart to deliver. My first "within 5 hour" delivery was here before lunch! That took a lot of the food pressure away. Yay!

One Creative Thing a Day?

When I was out of work, I would try to make myself do at least one "productive" thing a day. I have a comic I drew at the time that illustrates the dilemma I often fell into... what constitutes a "productive" thing?

It's perhaps easier to identify a creative thing. So as I sit trying to make myself sew the dress I cut out last year, or trying to decide if I should start a new project, or trying to think of three things to blog, or to take up one of the many challenges floating around, I think I will open things up for myself a bit. Just one creative thing a day. Today, I chose day 1 of Simcha Fisher's Withdraw2020 Daily Art Challenge: Home.  This is one version of what "working at home" looks like!

#withdraw2020

Just Three Things - Working from Home Day 4

No, you haven't missed posts 1-3! I am just joining the crowd online counting the days of self-isolation or quarantine, though we're still more "social distancing" than anything.

I've been struggling recently, not only with writing, but with all things creative. I was released from my academic employment (non tenure track) in May 2018, and from then until April 2019, I was unemployed. It was not a great time for me, but in order to cope, I drew out all of my creative abilities--I drew, I sewed... I even wrote (but not creatively, and mostly to meet a deadline, if memory serves).  I invented a comic that dried up as soon as I was rehired, but which I was very proud of, and posted some samples here.

It all dried up, except for very small bursts, when I was working again. And given that I have an actual book contract (!!), I really need to find some motivation.

So here is an idea that I got from Melanie at Wine Dark Sea, who traces her inspiration (or exercise) to Melissa Wiley: Tell Me Three Things. Mine is "Just Three Things" so that it doesn't sound too ambitious to anyone--including myself!

***

One.

I have still been reading for Lent, but I have not posted. I am reading In This House of Brede and it is a much more Modern (in the 20th C literary sense) novel than I would have expected--meaning that in the literary sense. While it is not Modernist, per se, it moves through characters' consciousness in a way that is distinct in early 20th C literature, and while it is not experimental, it is not exactly linear. It is interesting and challenging, and I have not had a real structurally challenging novel in a while.

I particularly like the... is it a Preface or a Prologue? I am working for a publisher now, so I need to learn these parts of books, but this is a distinction that I've never internalized. Anyway, Rumer Godden's account of becoming acquainted with the Benedictine nuns who would become the source and model for two of her novels (not Black Narcissus) when her sister was pregnant with a high risk pregnancy was fascinating and lovely.

Two.

Did you know that when the weather grows warm, broccoli and broccolini, summer crops, grow faster than you can harvest them, and produce yellow flowers? My current "work-at-home" space overlooks my backyard, where the owners and former residents (for 17 years) set up a number of garden beds, and where we decided to plant some winter crops. We planted chard, leaf lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, and broccolini--though the only difference I could see between broccoli and broccolini was that the stems of broccoli were a bit thicker. The cauliflower produced four heads, the fourth of which got icky, so I left it. The lettuce first went to seed and then produced abundantly, but it is eaten without being cooked, and I couldn't bring myself to eat it knowing that birds, squirrels, cats, and a little dog who jumped through the back fence all nuzzled up against it at one point or another.  The rainbow chard has been--and continues to be--very productive. And the broccoli/ni are at the end of their growing cycle, but we can't get near them. They are full of honey bees every day! So not only do broccoli produce cute yellow flowers, the bees love them! Who knew?

Three.

One of the best things about working from home is the need to make sure that we all stay active and the ability to follow through with it. We have, in addition to a front yard and a back yard, a wide, quiet street with a park at the end of it, and an equally wide, even quieter short street on the other side of the very narrow park. So every day this week, I've taken my children (now 23, 14, and 12) to the park to walk and bike. True, they don't need me. I guess I could let them go by themselves. But it's nice to be all together. And I need the exercise and the company more than I need the time to myself. It's been nice, and more than once I've wondered whether I might get a job that makes this life possible.

***

There. That wasn't so hard. The last one took me a minute, but not too long. Now let me go write that book... Or make supper, since we're not really eating out right now. I sure could go for a burger, though.

Lenten Booknotes 3: After Miscarriage by Karen Edmisten

Continuing my booknotes, I'm going to try to alternate After Miscarriage and Reflections on the Psalms. I have things to say about both, and I'm reluctant to write/post day after day on the topic of miscarriage, even though (or perhaps because) I think I am writing from an intellectual distance these days, looking back on what has been both an emotional and an intellectual journey. I hesitate to say a spiritual journey, though I have thoughts about the nature of God interwoven. Because I'm not sure, if the experience has carried me anywhere spiritually, that I understand the nature of the direction I'm heading. Which means, of course, that the next quote will be about spirituality, since I have just admitted that I'm feeling adrift. Perhaps this is part of the explanation of why.

***

The author explains that while it seems counterintuitive, asking others to pray for a baby is enriching for the other person, even if the baby is ultimately lost. One male friend of the author, reflecting on  praying with his wife for the author's baby, who would be lost, writes,

"Baby E. became a true epicenter of prayer. To live such a short time without sinning while fueling so much prayer is the stuff of saints." p. 14

Prayer is hard.

Prayer comes easiest to me, I think, when I have a routine with other people involved. Mass, obviously, but also praying with my children at night. Because I am trying to instill this in them, and now, having established it as a routine, I am able to remember, to do. There have been times in my life when, mostly fueled by fear of nightmares and poor sleep, I also repeated, verbatim, a personal prayer that was more or less for peace through the night. On the other hand, an ideal of mine is the kind of dialogue that Tevya has with God in Fiddler on the Roof, which seems to proceed from a certain kind of faith and a mental leap that I find admirable because it addresses God as real. Perhaps what is hard about prayer is that it sometimes feels like abstraction, which is a difficult feeling to fight through.

None of this has anything to do with the quote, except that the baby that I had and lost was--in a desperate, please-keep-these-nightmares-from-me kind of way, an epicenter of prayer. Fear is a powerful motivation, and while I didn't always think I was going to miscarry--I really thought I was going to still be pregnant now, or next month, or in August--I feared and expected it. And I did--I prayed for intercession. Mostly just a casual, "Please give me a healthy baby and a healthy pregnancy"--but also a novena to St. Gerard--and even a special Mass with a blessing for the unborn and their families. This last was on the day that, I truly believe, the pregnancy ended. After leaving the ER at 3 a.m. a few days later to wait and see, having a pretty strong feeling that I was miscarrying, even if it couldn't be confirmed (there was only an empty gestational sac on the ultrasound, which might have meant there was a viable fetus that they couldn't see...), I stopped at the chapel--the same chapel where we had the blessing,and where I stood up for the first time and said publicly that I was pregnant--and prayed for peace.

I have never prayed so much in such a short period of time for one focused thing. I may never again. I don't usually fight in my mind against the things I see as inevitable, including death. In fact, most of the time I mourn for the person who is dying, or likely to die, in advance, and there is no mourning left in me by the time they die. I wonder if that means that I don't truly believe in miracles?

I attribute it, instead, to a kind of realism. Not wanting to fool myself. Which means pride, I guess.

I always understood that, being 43, I was more likely to miscarry than ever before in my life, but I held onto the most hopeful statistics and to the knowledge of every woman I have known (including my mother) to carry a healthy baby to term after 40. When I began to miscarry, I did feel like it was inevitable--after all, they say that in most cases, it does have to do with the viability of the fetus. So what was all of that prayer? What did I expect? A change of outcome?

Well, had an outcome changed, I wouldn't have known anyway. I guess the real benefit to my realism here is that I can't "blame God" for something that I wanted that simply wasn't going to be. I am not bitter--only observant--that I think the pregnancy ended on the day of the blessing. Perhaps that means that my baby was alive when she** received it. I can hope so.

This idea of the unborn baby--who lived a short while--as an epicenter of prayer resonates. If nothing else, she made me reach out to God in a focused way. If that has dropped away a bit for now, it was still a part of my life that I can remember, and build on. That would be appropriate for Lent. But I'm not sure I have it in me just yet. Still healing. Still wondering where I'm headed spiritually.



**There is no way to know if the baby was a girl, but I always expected her to be.

Lenten Booknote 2: Reflections on the Psalms, "Introductory"

I have read very little of C. S. Lewis's apologetics. I should perhaps say that I have read none of his apologetics, since I doubt that The Great Divorce and The Four Loves count as apologetics. My interest in Lewis has been in his fiction, primarily because I don't often enjoy reading apologetics, having come to Lewis as an innocent and rejected him when I was quasi-agnostic, and having come to Catholicism after becoming disillusioned with Lewis (but that's another story). Lewis gets preachy enough in his fiction. I didn't particularly want to delve into his apologetics, which after all are used in very touchy-feely and Protestant contexts, and the touchy-feely Protestants drove me to quasi-agnosticism in the first place. Sort of. I'm representing my younger self here, but I still have limited interest in apologetics--particularly by Lewis. Sometimes his way of expressing things just nettles me. Other times, of course, it's quite lovely.

I'm enjoying Lewis's Reflections on the Psalms, though I wish he had included more of the actual psalm in the text when he's making general or particular observations. I need to have them by my side for quick reference, and yet I chose his reflections exactly because I didn't have a handy little volume of psalms, and didn't quite know where to find one. I also read on Kindle when I'm not researching, and while I do have a Bible on my Kindle, it is cumbersome to switch back and forth to search for a particular poem. These things aside, I am enjoying the read, and from the beginning I have made notes on what interests me.

#1 - "For poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible."

Here, the context is helpful. In a two-paragraph sequence in which he discusses the parallelism which is, he contends, the psalms' most obvious poetic feature, one that is easily translated between languages and can therefore be seen as functioning purely didactically, Lewis chooses to stop and imagine the place of poetry in Creation:

"It seems to me appropriate, almost inevitable, that when that great Imagination which in the beginning, for Its own delight and for the delight of men and angels and (in their proper mode) of beasts, had invented and formed the whole world of Nature, submitted to express Itself in human speech, that speech should sometimes be poetry. For poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible." (p. 24)

Not only is the Word an incarnation (the Incarnation), Lewis says. Poetry is an incarnation. The manner of speech/communication is more or less embodied, tangible. The medium is, in fact, the message, and I'm feeling an undercurrent here of spoken vs. written language. And then we have the idea that the great Imagination is at work in the creation of poetry as a medium, and in the selection of poetry to be a part of the Word of God. A fascinating idea to think of God choosing a genre, and sometimes choosing poetry.

And then there's a sense in which that all of the explanation feels destructive, and I look back and revel a little in the beauty of the expression--"For poetry too is a little incarnation..." In this I hear almost an echo of Auden: "For poetry makes nothing happen..." I'm not entirely sure that the two are incompatible.

#2 - "A man can't always be defending truth; there must be a time to feed on it."

I admit that I was a little relieved to read, in Lewis's own words, that "this is not what is called an 'apologetic' work." I wonder, here, about his use of "apologetic," which seems to suggest "apologizing for," making an "apologetic" a "defense." That was certainly my first assumption about the meaning of the word, but as it was explained to me, "explanation" is a better approximation than "defense" or "apology." That's not the reason that this quote stood out to me, however.  Rather, I like the idea of having time to feed on it. Not even unpacking, which truly, is what Lewis is doing throughout the book. But feeding. Seeking nourishment, and also perhaps savoring. Though that's not in the quote, per se, I can't think of a man like Lewis eating without some kind of appreciation--not with what he's said about peas. Not "chewing on," either. "A time to feed on it." And that sounds particularly Lenten to me.

Lenten Booknote 1: After Miscarriage by Karen Edmisten

I've been jumping around in my Lenten reading so far. I started The Fifth Vital Sign the day before Lent began (Mardi Gras day, but that's hardly relevant). I started Reflections on the Psalms the day after Ash Wednesday. And then I started a book that my friend Melanie Bettinelli of The Wine Dark Sea sent to me as I was grappling with the aftermath of the early miscarriage of an unexpected pregnancy in January. (All of it was in January--the pregnancy and the miscarriage. But the experience can't be contained so neatly.) The book is After Miscarriage: A Catholic Woman's Companion to Healing & Hope by Karen Edmisten. I may someday write about the experience; for today, I want to start to write some of my responses to After Miscarriage. Perhaps these (relatively) quick booknotes will help me get into a writing routine and also sort out some thoughts about the experience itself.

***
#1 - "There's no evidence of it, but I'm a mother." p. 8

I have had many reactions while reading After Miscarriage, short though it is. Some are points of disagreement--mainly acknowledging that how I see the world, how I perceive God in many cases, is different from the ideas that the contributors (usually) express as part of their healing process. This is fine, and does not diminish the book for me. Those moments give me points to think about too, and I'll be working through those. But page 8 was my first really profound point of connection.

One of my disconnects with most of the writing I've seen about miscarriage is that so much of it comes from women who are grappling with infertility and the desire to have a child. Quite often it is the overwhelming burden of childlessness that brings grief as much as the loss of this particular child. This statement is the voice of a woman who longs for the children she seems and is unable to have--a mother who has suffered multiple losses and whose arms and womb are empty as a result. I differ because I have not been longing for another child--the baby we lost was very much a surprise, and difficult to process and adjust to, but nevertheless loved and longed for. Also, I already have children--three, one of whom is has grown to adulthood. It was very surreal to think about revisiting the earlier stages of life while also having one 12, one 14, and one 23. I have evidence that I am a mother.  And yet... this resonated. Strongly. Because one of my refrains has been, "I was pregnant. But I have nothing to show for it." I can't prove that I was pregnant.

Except... I actually can. It's not much, but it's all I have. On Saturday, January 4, I took a pregnancy test. It was positive. I never doubted it. I had been suspecting anyway. But it just seemed so... yes, the word is still "surreal." I just couldn't quite shake the feeling that it wasn't quite real, that I hadn't dreamed it somehow. So since it was a double pack (that I actually bought last May and never used), I took the second test, on January 14. And out of some odd, documentary impulse, I took a picture, so that I could look at it and think about it using a tangible sign. Only now does it occur to me how very Catholic that feels. Eleven days later, I would begin to bleed.

And now I don't have anything to show for it. I can prove I was pregnant, sort of--though I never did have that medical validation. It is readily apparent that I am a mother (something not every mother who has lost a pregnancy has). But right here, right now, after this pregnancy and the promise of this child, I have nothing. My husband said to me one night as I expressed this idea (and I sobbed--though I thought I was fine), "For a little while, we were the parents of four children."** But we can't prove it. There is nothing to show. And that feels important.



** - Just so no one quibbles over semantics, I do know that we are still the parents of four children. As much as I love words, they are sometimes quite inadequate to express the immensity of feeling, or the nuances of meaning.

Ash Wednesday Post

It is the first day of Lent. And I took a walk.

This in itself is not unusual. I have been trying to be more active for a good few years now, and have been taking fairly regular walks at least since last academic year, when I was out of work from May 2018-April 2019.

What was unusual is that instead of taking a walk for health (a given) and to try to process what was in my head, I tried not to process what was in my head. The sun was shining. The clouds had a tinge of grey to their underside but were otherwise bright and cottony. It was cold, and the air burned my nostrils and lungs. My hands stung. And above the noise of the cars coming and going, it was glorious.

I have had too much on my mind for years. So I want to try to give that up. Perhaps not to Google this or that ailment. Not to obsess about what major sin I might commit on a regular basis and just how bad the Church says it is. Maybe--just maybe--it does me more spiritual harm than good to obsess about it. Maybe I won't think about my job and my career and what it isn't and what it never will be, because that's not going to help anyone anyway.

I wrote on Facebook this morning:

I will not obsess this Lent. I will not obsess this Lent. I will not obsess this Lent. I will not obsess this Lent. I will not obsess this Lent.

Is this working yet?

And that's the joke. Of course it's not working.

So what will I do? I did two things. I downloaded an app--Noteworthy. It is a notes app, but it has the ability to set an alarm for each note. I have not set the alarm yet. Maybe I won't need to. But I filled it up with six prayers, that I will try to turn to when I begin to obsess. From various internet sources, here they are:

Prayer #1 – Your Peace

God, who is more than we can ever comprehend,

help us to seek you and you alone.

Help us to stand before all that we could do

and seek what you would do, and do that.

Lift from us our need to achieve all that we can be,

and instead surrender to what you can be in us.

Give us ways to refrain from the busyness

that will put us on edge and off center,

give us today your peace.

Prayer #2 – Inner Peace

Lord, please put Your peace in my heart.

I'm worried and anxious.

My mind races and obsesses.

I can't help thinking about my problems.

And the more I think about them,

the more depressed I become.

I feel like I'm sinking down in quicksand

and can't get out.

Calm me, Lord.

Slow me down, put Your peace in my heart.

No matter what problem I have, Lord,

You are bigger,

You are more powerful than it is.

So I bring my problem to You.

I know what I want.

I know my will.

I do not know Yours.

I do not know how You will use this problem for my salvation.

I do not know what good You will work out from this evil.

But I trust You.

I trust Your goodness and Your wisdom.

So I place myself in Your hands.

Please fill my heart with peace.

Prayer #3 – Whittier, Peace and Calm

Dear Lord and Father of humankind,

Forgive our foolish ways;

Reclothe us in our rightful mind,

In purer lives Thy service find,

In deeper reverence, praise.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the heats of our desire

Thy coolness and Thy balm;

Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;

Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,

O still, small voice of calm.

Prayer #4 – St. Theresa of Avila

Let nothing disturb you,

Let nothing frighten you,

All things are passing;

God only is changeless.

Patience gains all things.

Who has God wants nothing.

God alone suffices.

Prayer #5 – To Let Go

Dear God,

I let go of my need to be perfect, and I let You fill me with Your perfect love.

I let go of my ideas of fulfillment, and I let You fill me with what I truly desire.

I let go of what I think of myself, and I let You define my worth.

I let go of what others think of me, and I let You tell me who I am to You.

I let go of my appearance, and I let You shine through me.

I let go of my unreasonable standards, and I let You work through me.

I let go of my will for my life, and I let You reveal Your plan for me.

I let go of all of my past sins, and I let You forgive me.

I let go of my reliance on myself, and I let You be my Redeemer.

I let go of how I view others, and I let You love them through me.

Prayer #6 – For Peace of Mind and Heart

Eternal, Holy God,

I come to you burdened with worries,

fears, doubts, and troubles.

Calm and quiet me with peace of mind.

Empty me of the anxiety that disturbs me,

of the concerns that weary my spirit,

and weigh heavy on my heart.

Loosen my grip on the disappointments and grievances

I hold on to so tightly.

Release me from the pain of past hurts,

of present anger and tension, of future fears.

Renew me spiritually and emotionally.

Give me new strength, hope, and confidence.

Prepare me to meet the constant struggles of daily life

with a deeper faith and trust in You.

Let your love set me free, for peace,

for joy, for grace, for life, for others, forever.

Step one of not obsessing, perhaps, is not to worry about their authenticity, and not to look up the exact title of the Whittier poem. Not to verify that St. Theresa of Avila actually did write those lines. It doesn't matter. They are for me.

The second thing I did (that first one had a couple of parts--not obsessing) was to take a walk. And I tried to really do that "mindfulness" thing, which is yoga and New Age and whatever, but also valuable and healing. Thoughts intruded, like, "hey, I'm going to type these things up and actually post them to the blog!" and "I will describe breathing in the cold air just like this." I did not, however, criticize myself for the cliché. How's that for not obsessing?

The third thing I plan to do is to switch my reading material in a rather counterintuitive way. I had already decided to do this; it's related to what I've been doing the past few years. I take a break from purely escapist reads--the kind of thing that keeps me from thinking--and switch to literature with more substance, things that I can mull over a bit. Yesterday I worked a bit on a tentative list. Today, I realized that substantive reading, the kinds of things I can mull over, actually keep the mind occupied, and prevent me from obsessing. I knew this once, but I forgot it. I rediscover it once a year, but this time more deliberately.

My (tentative) list (of works to choose from; I won't read them all, I'm sure):

The Fifth Vital Sign: Master Your Cycles and Optimize Your Fertility by Lisa Hendrickson-Jack

This is necessary for me right now. I need a refresher on NFP/Fertility Awareness principles. My confidence is shaken and I'm completely shattered after an unexpected pregnancy and miscarriage. I chart. I know the basics. But I've grown complacent and relied on apps and I just need to read up on the signs. This book is also encouraging because it tells me things I need to know: if your menstrual cycle falls outside of certain parameters, there's something going on in your body that needs to be diagnosed. On the other hand, if there is something going wrong in your body, your cycle will reflect that. The wisdom here: if there's something wrong with your body, your body will tell you and you won't have to guess and fear and panic. I do a lot of guessing and fearing and panicking. This is my first read by default, and it's a thoroughly secular, fast read.

Three to Get Married by Fulton Sheen

I'm not looking for marriage advice, but I have been gathering Church teaching (especially historical Church teaching) on marriage for a while. I have been working off and on on Tolkien and marriage (or marriage in Tolkien) for a few years now, and I have a book contract! It's bound to be instructive to read what Fulton Sheen had to say, particularly since I haven't read him before and he's something of a big deal, as I understand it.

In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

 Godden showed up on more than one list of "novels to read during Lent," which was my starting place--I didn't want spiritual self-help or devotional texts. This one and Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy popped up. I know that Godden's work was the basis for the film Black Narcissus, so I expect something beautiful and perhaps haunting or disturbing. I selected Brede because Five For Sorrow seemed potential too sordid--too much like something I might read because it's a little bit sordid. A friend mentioned that I might want to be aware that there is a sub-plot involving child loss, but somehow that strengthens by resolve. I was also swayed by the fact that it's available through Kindle Unlimited, so I don't have to buy it unless I really want to.

Reflections on the Psalms by C. S. Lewis

This is an odd choice because it has that devotional/religious self-help component that I was convinced I didn't want. This one actually seems to be one of those engineered collections of Lewis's works that is marketed specifically to "Christian readers who want X from C. S. Lewis." But it is a very convenient package. And really, what I wanted was a small volume of a poetic but still Catholic translation of the psalms, so that I might appreciate their beauty. But I figured that whatever C. S. Lewis has to say about them is the next best thing, really.

Our Lady of the Lost and Found by Diane Schomperlen

I believe I found this one and the next on a "Lenten reads" list. This one seems not to be entirely fiction--or it slips into memoir, but is written as fiction. It is another that is entirely secular, in spite of its subject. It even slips into predictable "Mary-as-goddess" territory at least once, according to my friend Melanie, who was very ambivalent about the book. But it seems to be a book of searching and working things out, and maybe never getting there. I like those.  

 Eifelheim by Michael Flynn

Between my conflicted feelings about this one and the contradictory (but mainly glowing) reviews I've had from people whose opinions I trust, I should probably read this one first. It sounds like it has a fair amount of morality to chew on, and I feel conflicted about that. It sounds like it has a lot of SFF world- and race-building, and I feel conflicted about that. I mean, I want spiritual substance, and I love SFF, so where's the problem? I should just jump in and see if there is any problem, and call it done. But something stops me...

Maybe if I read some books, I'll blog about some books. We'll see. I'm not making promises because promises and discipline don't work out so well for me. But I will read. I always read. And maybe, just maybe, I can keep myself from obsessing and grow in some kind of important way.

Tolkien: The Movie - a Review and/or Analysis

**Spoilers**

I'm not sure if this is the kind of film that people watch to find out what will  happen, but I tell both the what, and the how, and speculate on the why.  

***

On Saturday night, as part of an anniversary/Mother's Day weekend, my husband and I saw the film Tolkien. Leading up to watching the film, I have been engaged in conversations surrounding it, with an article I wrote even being connected to the film in a way, which is pretty exciting, as I feel like a "real scholar" or "part of the dialogue," which is something I perhaps told my students was the point of scholarly publishing, but which I only half--if half--believed in.

Because I had been following the reviews, I was not expecting accuracy.  And that bothered me only to the point that there became a divide in the conversation between the people who would remain loyal to the family and to John Garth (whose first review seemed modulated by interview comments  after the Tolkien Estate disavowed the film), and the people who were willing to give the film a chance on its own terms.  While my preference is for accuracy, the backlash against the film rather swayed me--I now wanted to like it.  Also, it's huge that there even IS a Tolkien biopic.  And that it's smart AND sensationalist (even if it IS sensationalist).

One point of dissatisfaction with the dialogue surrounding the film is that I want to know why the Tolkien family has disavowed the film.  As in, specifically.  There are reasons I could guess, but they would be just that--guesses.  Speculation.  Knowing what, particularly, the family found offensive would give some insight into what the film got wrong--though I know it could be turned into "what the family is trying to hide."  It always does.  And, well--the family doesn't want us to know the details.  That's the point, really.  And while I understand that, it does cause some problems for scholarship and understanding.  Mistaken assumptions can't really be corrected.

The best compliment I can give to a film is that it made me think.  And this one certainly did.  It made me think about film and myth and narrative--about story.  And what story the filmmakers were trying to tell.  And at the end of the day, the story that the film was trying to tell was not, in fact, the one I thought I was going to see.  But let me address the individual narratives first...

I say narratives, because there were several.  And these, as I will discuss them initially, are the stories of aspects of Tolkien's life--his war experience; being orphaned and taken away from the country; his courtship of Edith; his school friendships; his education.  These, I would argue, are simply supporting narratives.  They are not the story that the film sets out to tell.  But as these are what we look for when we read or watch "A Biography," these are naturally going to be the usual points of focus and criticism.

Tolkien's War Experience or The Fever Dream

The Great War is used in Tolkien in a way that is interesting and compelling, though a bit overdone. It is the frame narrative, but it provides that artistic framework for the filmmakers without dominating the other narratives.  Rather, it helps to keep those other narratives separate--mimicking the "separation of spheres" that is--since Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Tolkien--characteristic of the author's life as we know it.  And yet, it holds things together and communicates the Story--the main Story--which is not a story of a life, but of a creation.

The war narrative is, in many ways, done very well.  It is visually stunning. Having recently seen Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old, I couldn't help comparing the images that Jackson was working with--the actual footage from World War I--with the depiction of the war in Tolkien.  And the comparison holds up. The filmmakers have also chosen to dramatize the influence of the war on Tolkien's creation of The Lord of the Rings--a fact acknowledged by the critics and, famously, by Tolkien who, in disavowing the influence of WWII (a matter of scholarly debate) affirms the interest of WWI.  Images of the war are set up in ways that evoke scenes of Frodo in Mordor; ghosts of ring-wraiths flit in and out of the battlefield along with other figures from Middle-earth in sequences that are reminiscent of the "Tale of the Three Brothers" sequence from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One, albeit more realistic (?), being set against the backdrop of a war that actually did occur.

In this narrative, which contains scenes that are cut throughout the film as a whole, reality and illusion are conflated. This, in fact, is one of the problems.  I believe I could have more easily, as a viewer, suspended disbelief and enjoyed the sequences, had I not clearly been expected to swallow other things that were clearly fantasy--the presence of a batman named Sam (referring not to a person, but to Tolkien's admission that Sam Gamgee functions--among other things--as a quintessential batman from WWI), and the wandering of a British officer suffering from trench fever all over the front line and in and out of trenches during the Battle of the Somme.  Had Edith, bending over Tolkien in the hospital, said to him, "That must all have been a dream," making the whole thing, including the wandering and the batman Sam, a fever dream, I would have remained in the illusion to a greater degree than having to accept as "reality" the fiction of Tolkien wandering, looking for something that could not be found, amid the chaos of the war. The fact that Tolkien uses vaguely prophetic dreams to great effect throughout The Lord of the Rings, a fact that I don't think is lost on the filmmakers. That lost "something"--Tolkien's friend G.B. Smith, also a solder-- provides the strongest bond between the war narrative and the other narrative(s) of the film.

The Lost Family/Orphan Narrative

Having set up the 'friendship' narrative, I nevertheless have to move chronologically, or this narrative will be completely lost--as it almost is.  The lost family/orphan narrative is the first sub-narrative, if you will, introduced as a flashback away from the chaos of the war. Here, the bleakness of the war contrasts with the countryside and (if memory serves) the very different battle tactics of capture the flag and wooden swordplay.  Sadly, the happiness of living in the country is about to end, as Mabel Tolkien has been forced to announce that they will be moving because of "impecuniary circumstances." The very short sequence that follows establishes the affection in the small family (John Ronald, Hilary, and their mother) and Mabel Tolkien's own influence (which might have been more linguistic and less fantastic than the film implies, but it's nice anyway).  There is no tinge of the purported irrationality that sources attribute to Tolkien's attachment to his mother.  There is beauty and affection... and swift loss.  And while this is, no doubt, appropriate, since his time with her was so fleeting, this is a lost opportunity--to show a strong, intellectually robust female influence (though this was made clear in a small way) and also to give us beauty for the journey (as Tolkien does, even in Mordor).  The connection to the war is tenuous--all soldiers think of their mothers? Too soon, she is dead, and we are not given the cause, though it was known that she had diabetes--there was simply no treatment, and the impact of nutrition was not known.  Tolkien did not regret that she could have been cured by doctors had they had money; I do seem to recall a lament from his letters that they were eating poorly, and that poverty did hasten her death.

There is a split here, and two divergent narratives erupt: the education/schoolboy narrative, and the courtship narrative.

The Schoolboy Narrative

This narrative has the closest connection to the war narrative--because boyhood friends have become comrades-in-arms--and so assumes co-importance with that framing device.  This narrative is one of the more delightful in the film--reminiscent as it is of Dead Poets Society, which it resembles in the cameraderie centered around a belief in literature as important and vital, and in the coming-of-ageness of it all (including challenging of purportedly oppressive parental authority), but without the dynamic role model, which seems to be unnecessary.  It also has a semi-pagan feel that is not quite out of line with Dead Poets, either, with the chanting of Helheima and throwbacks to that goddess who became their muse.  It seems an odd choice, here, for the very Christian boys to take a goddess associated with something like Hell (in the movie's explanation) as their Muse, but it does not spoil the thing; it merely registers as a missed opportunity.

As the friendship matures, there are some other strange additions--excursions with the purpose of "wooing women"; Edith's engagement to another as a means of establishing how the T.C.B.S. would always be there for each other.  Here we simply see how the fabrications and alterations operate in service of the myth-building: boys bond over these things, apparently--at least, in the eyes of the filmmakers.

I quibble a bit with the strong suggestion that G.B. Smith was gay, and in love with Tolkien.  This features in two scenes--one with Tolkien and Smith; one with Tolkien and Smith's mother, after Smith's death. I quibble not because it's not possible; C.S. Lewis waxes poetic (or something) about homosexuality at boys' schools--and I think that we are meant to think of Lewis here, as we are meant to think of the Kolbitar society when we see the T.C.B.S. (The film is not for the uninitiated Tolkien fan.)  But we do not necessarily know this about Smith--at least to my knowledge--and it seems problematic to ascribe a sexual identity to a real person who is unlikely to be known to most except through a film.  However, it is subtle, and may be made much or little of, as critics and viewers decide.  Having Smith depicted as gay can add meaning to the lost-comerade-in-arms motif--albeit a historical stereotypical one that limits male friendship.  I wonder, here, whether this narrative choice would have been counteracted by depiction of the boys' Christianity--or whether it would have been made more poignant.

The Courtship Narrative

Enter the "lovely Miss Bratt."  Once again, I thought that there were parts of the courtship narrative that were quite fine.  When Tolkien first sees/hears her at the piano, he is smitten immediately, and it is lovely to behold. The finest acting was arguably done by the youngest actors. Edith dances for Tolkien in the woods--admittedly out of chronology--and his devotion is clear and the scene is set for his creation of Beren and Lúthien (though again, if we don't already know this, we will not get it from the film).  Edith has spunk and personality, which is a good thing, since her "vivacity" (Tolkien's word) is usually overlooked in favor of her timidity or her nagging.  She has a sense of humor, even in her self-consciousness about being dressed differently from her fellow customers (no hat); she initiates throwing sugar cubes in their hats (which is something she and Tolkien actually did).

Some critics have suggested that the film makes her too much Tolkien's intellectual equal.  To which I would reply--you don't have to be a master of all languages in order to ponder the word "hand." Someone can be thoughtful, and yet not a genius.  And genius doesn't find its equal often enough to be able to wait for it in a spouse.  For me the problem is not her discussion of words with Tolkien; it is the very, very strong scene in which we see Edith brought into, then abruptly removed from the T.C.B.S. because she shows the potential to intellectually engage Tolkien's school friends, and he will have none of it.  In this scene we see a mini-myth:  the myth that Tolkien rigidly enforced Edith's separation from his friends.  This is a feature of virtually all writing about Tolkien and Edith.  It is based on the policies of the Inklings, and in particular of C.S. Lewis, and the assumption that Lewis's particular brand of bigotry toward women, and his strong and firm belief (pre-Joy), articulated in The Four Loves, that women could only destroy the society of men must certainly be shared by his friend.  We see this in action as the T.C.B.S. are tongue-tied in her presence.  And then we see her break past that to engage Wiseman in a conversation about Wagner, which she has apparently craved her entire life, and which Tolkien has denied her (and always will deny her once they are married--so the scholarly wisdom runs).

In this we see very clearly what others have pointed out:  this is not a documentary, and it is not intended to teach people the facts about Tolkien.  It is a film that, ironically enough, speaks into the heart of the people who seem to be producing the strongest negative reactions to the film:  Tolkien scholars.  This is the Tolkien narrative that has been created over time.  The factual inaccuracies are in fact less important than what it tells us about what we believe about Tolkien and Edith.

The Making of the Professor

My very favorite moments of the film take place in Oxford, away from the company of the T.C.B.S. (for the most part), and involve Tolkien's discovery of what will be his vocation.  After a (highly unlikely) drunken night on the green, shouting up at the faculty in a manner very reminiscent of Frank in Educating Rita, albeit in an invented language.  One professor--Professor Wright, as it turns out--looks up the young Tolkien, here adrift and astray, on the verge of being sent down as uninterested in Greek, and more or less taunts him into proving himself, which results in Tolkien's transfer to Wright's course.  The interaction with Wright is one of the gems of the film, and if I'm not very much mistaken, the accent given to Wright in the film bespeaks his working class origins.

The Myths

In telling a story about Tolkien--and in analyzing how a story about Tolkien has been told--what could be more appropriate than evoking myth?  Here, I will use "myth" in a sense that is substantially Tolkienian.  Myths are stories that we tell to help us understand truths about the world.  To be fair, this is probably Tolkien moderated by Pratchett with the capital-T "Truth" of one and the cynical humor of the other stripped away.  Be that as it may--filmmakers are myth-makers, and what you are seeing when you see Tolkien is a product not of discrete myth-making, but collective myth-making.  Quibble as the scholars may, what we are seeing dramatized are some of the myths most dear to scholarship.  Should I confess here that I am a bit of an iconoclast?

The first myth is not a myth, but an observation about men and women in the Victorian era--how the
It has become a sort of origin myth for feminist scholars of post-industrial patriarchy.  Herein lies the "angel of the house"--the mythic counterpart. I don't mean to challenge that designation.  It's a useful image, particularly pedagogically.  And there certainly was a phenomenon of how men and women came to have dominion in certain spaces.  Like all observations of this kind, it can be overstated and permitted to dominate all analyses.

The schoolboy narrative and the courtship narrative are separate--this is important.  There is even a dramatic turning point (completely fabricated) that emphasizes how separate they are--or are meant to be: the meeting of the T.C.B.S.  Here is a moment when the facts are incorrect, but the drama results in a forced separation of spheres. Which leads to Edith as oppressed wife.

Edith is shown to have talent for music, and suffers constraints under Mrs. Faulkner that were based in reality.  This reality of her personality becomes morphed into a passion for intellectual discussion of music, which is not a necessary consequence of a passion for playing music, even if that passion comes from a deep understanding of the music itself.  With music in particular, a deep connection to the music does not demand the ability to articulate that connection.  Humphrey Carpenter asserts that Edith should have had a brilliant career in music.  This has been accepted as truth.  Tolkien is seen to be the means of ruining her career goals.  These assumptions need challenging: she did, in fact, engage herself to another.  Why was she not out developing her career?  This is a complicated question that has a lot to do with the options available to women at the time, her particular circumstances, and class.  But in Tolkien, Edith wants to discourse intellectually on music.  She is a music teacher when engaged to another--as she tells Tolkien.  These narrative choices reinforce the idea that she has willingly or unwillingly sacrificed her ambition for Tolkien's.

There is another myth that involves Edith--the myth of Tolkien's creative and scholarly impotence. Why did he work so hard and long and not accomplish more than he did?  There are many answers to this question--including the extra work he took in to support his family.  And certain demanding friends.  But the film shows us a Tolkien who stays in his study and neglects his family and still does not produce anything.  Edith nags him into producing, apparently.  Which leads to the overarching myth...

 The BIG MYTH: The Myth of Creativity

The big thing that no one is talking about is this:  Tolkien is not a narrative of Tolkien's life.  It is a Myth of the Creative Process. Truly, it's the only way it can be understood.  And this is a very interesting thing, because it is based in the struggle to figure out how someone who had such an outwardly normal, boring life could have created such a profound work of fantasy.  This is a struggle that may originate with Humphrey Carpenter, who asks the question more or less in those terms--how can this comical little uninteresting guy produce this great work of fantasy literature?  Or it simply might originate in our own concepts of genius and artistic production.  Genius and insanity are separated by a thin line, we are told.  Creativity requires torment.  Perhaps we are moving past these concepts, but I'm not so sure.  Lacking other inspiration, Carpenter plays up domestic conflict.  Tolkien the biopic chooses the war--a better choice.  As the framing device, and the manifestation of Tolkien's creative production (ghosts of ringwraiths and whatnot), the War pulls in his other experiences to turn them into something worthy.  What becomes problematic is that we receive a formula for Middle-earth.  War + linguistic genius + love (+ oh yeah friendship) = LOTR.  Or perhaps the War is the catalyst.  This is different from seeing the person as the product of his experiences.  Since we know that these experiences are not actually Tolkien's, the effect is that the person is negated.  In the end, this is, for me, what I emerge with from the film:  the question of how we understand genius and creativity, and why Tolkien seems not to fit in with anyone's--and this includes mainstream academia (looking at you, unnamed department of English)--concept of what a creative genius should be.