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With John Updike's reputation as a master novelist in mind, and having admired some critical pieces of his in the past, I recently undertook to read his Rabbit Angstrom novels. If you are unfamiliar with it, the series consists of four books, "Rabbit, Run", "Rabbit Redux", "Rabbit is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest". I was perfectly happy to begin the project, knowing as I did that they would be the product of a basically conservative, if imaginative consciousness, and did not expect to see myself represented in the Angstrom cosmos at all. I'm postgay and post-ironic, raised in the 70's and a survivor of the great plague which ended the 20th century, as well as the lives of many friends and lovers. Mr. Updike was raised in the 50's, his consciousness of human frailty is more shaped by polio than by AIDS,and he reached adulthood having to either defend or surrender his topdog status as a heterosexual white male. So I was not expecting the Rabbit Angstrom books to be some triumph of enlightened liberalism over the narrow values of Mr. Updike's youth. I'm not sure what I expected. MaybeI just wanted to see how that conservative 50's consciousness battled and then bloomed in succeeding eras. something like that, I don't know. What I didn't expect to read was more than 2000 pages devoted to the selfishness, chauvinism and moral calcificationof the protagonist.
In the first book, it's all up for grabs, and I enjoy reading aboutlife from the standpoint of a consciousness radically differennt from my own. I don't expect a white protagonist, to say nothing of a white protagonist coming of age in the 50's to have heroic liberal attitudes about race and sexual identity. When, at the close of "Rabbit, Run", Angstrom once again flees his responsibilities to his wife, it reads like an amusing picaresque. Ah, that undependable Rabbit Angstrom! Just gotta love him, don't you?
And in the seconde book, Rabbit's narcissism and philandering are intercut with his efforts to understand Skeeter, the untrustworthy black revolutionary who takes up residence in Rabbit's house, and whom Rabbit both hates and wishes to satisfy.
But by the third book, "Rabbit is Rich", Angstrom's consciousness is still focused on gratifying Angstrom. His son, who is probably in the closet, has become hooked on cocaine and snorted away $200,000 of the small fortune left to Rabbit by his father in law. His wife Janis, numbed by Rabbit's constant betrayals, struggles to help their son and hold the family together. But all Rabbit can think of is using the wife of an acquaintance, a woman who --I can hardly figure out why-- is deeply in love with him.
I don't know why, after three books chronicling the basic depravity of Harry Angstrom, I expected the fourth to be any different. Probably, I have a deeply classicist streak that wants to hold out for some grand turnabout in the third act. But Mr. updike, I guess, is a Modern Novelist, and we can't expect anything so backward. Having suffered a massive coronary, Rabbit ignores his doctor's orders, wilfully feasts on the fatty foods his doctors have proscribed for him, and dies alone on a basketball court, having played his last game with a young African-American. One could see this as a hopeful political gesture on Mr. Updike's part, I suppose. Perhaps he's saying that Patriarchy, its arteries clogged with2000 years of moral plaque, is destined for an imminent death. But damn it, I spent hours on this series. I followed rabbit through his affair with the spiny Ruth, the accidental drowning of his daughter Becky and his innumerable trysts and evasions. What I was hoping for is not some facile political statement about the Death of Whitey, but something elegant --and Mr. updike was more than capable of elegance-- about transformation and transcendence. Couldn't he have learned to love his son? Couldn't he have learned to love his wife? Couldn't he have learned to love something or someone more than he loved Harold "Rabbit" Angstrom? No, and he had to die alone on an abandoned basketball court to prove it.
Now, I can see ending a series this way, the pressure an artist might feel to bring forth this kind of message. But if that's all there is --narcissism, depravity and death, why do you need 2000 pages to do it? I know these books are viewed in many mainstream literary circles as triumphs of the art. But to my own understanding they represent a complicated failure, and as I contemplate the second book of my own semiautobiographical series, a very clear primer on what not to do. Goodnight, Mr. Updike. I'm sure I'll see you in heaven, but the Rabbit Angstrom books are going straight to hell.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Crank Radio
AS anyone who knows me will tell you, and like many a liberal during the eight years of the Boy Emperor, I had a very grimn view of the American republic. Especially, I was grieved by people like Rush limbaugh and Ann Colter, who are not just conservative, which would be respectable enough, but simply mean-spirited and bloated with darkness. I don't have much use for the self-serving pundits on Fox News, either, and when I heard Sean Hannaty in one of his addled rants or his friend the grackle-voiced Mark Levin, I would grind my teeth down to the gums.
But now, in these Golden Years, I listen to these guys and I LAUGH. They fulminate, thunder and burble their threadbare lies and I chortle because just a few years ago they were talking seriously about a permanent Republican majority in both House and Senate. But now? They're clowns, out of power and out of favor if not out of air time. Obama has welcomed a delegation of LGBTG folks into the White House, Al Franken has won the Senate seat in Minnesota, it's the Fourth of July and all is well. God bless America!
But now, in these Golden Years, I listen to these guys and I LAUGH. They fulminate, thunder and burble their threadbare lies and I chortle because just a few years ago they were talking seriously about a permanent Republican majority in both House and Senate. But now? They're clowns, out of power and out of favor if not out of air time. Obama has welcomed a delegation of LGBTG folks into the White House, Al Franken has won the Senate seat in Minnesota, it's the Fourth of July and all is well. God bless America!
Out With the Girls
So, Goebbels, Goering and Himmler all blew into town last week and the Feuhrer was busy so I had to entertain them. I showed them the night spots, and of course Leni dropped in. Then all of us girls went to the salon and had our hair done, nails, foot massage and oh just everything. Then Goering and Goebbels had a fight over who was the prettiest and I had to break it up, since Himmler is notorious for not getting involved unless there's some man she wants in the deal. I thought we had it all ironed out and we were going to a show at the Jewel Box, but the three of them got in a knife fight over a diamond tiara and who was the prettiest, and oh it was ugly. And it wasn't even real diamond, it was cubic zirconium. I finally got Goebbels and Goering to make up, but Himmler wouldn't stop crying and we ended up missing the show because her makeup was smeared and she wouldn't think of stepping outside until her mascara was perfect again. And of COURSE it could never be perfect, what with that ghastly green shade she prefers and has all the boys mad for, or so she thinks. Even with the two G['s swearing that she looked divine, Miss H. couldn't be budged, the stubborn attention whore. And then who should drop in but Alger Hiss and...
The Rhyme of Hannibal Lecter
Your head is made of paper,
Your head is made of straw,
Your head is made of little men
Who break the law.
Your head is made of murder,
Your head is made of law,
The world is made of little men
Who break your jaw.
The world is made of people,
The world is made of straw,
These words are made of paper,
And paper makes the law.
The law is made of paper,
The law is made of straw,
The law is made of murder words
That break your jaw.
Break the jaws of murder.
Break the men of straw.
And break the world of people
Who break your perfect law.
Your head is made of straw,
Your head is made of little men
Who break the law.
Your head is made of murder,
Your head is made of law,
The world is made of little men
Who break your jaw.
The world is made of people,
The world is made of straw,
These words are made of paper,
And paper makes the law.
The law is made of paper,
The law is made of straw,
The law is made of murder words
That break your jaw.
Break the jaws of murder.
Break the men of straw.
And break the world of people
Who break your perfect law.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
In Case of Falling Astronauts Break Glass
I.
o heavenly desert for a wandering tribe, nazareth to astronauts;
cradle of prophets with mirrored faces, our mystics of absolute zero,
striding through hells of kelvin heat or leaping lead-footed for joy.
we knew no domes of glass nor wise antennaed
mayors would meet our traveling boys, flown so far
from the roiling blue, flung so far into darkness and dust.
but if a desert, still a place of birth, you anvil moon: like silver
minted fresh, we’d shine our lives by the pure silent hammers of sol.
this was our dream, our all-american dream of astronauts
grave and poetic: faces full of infinity, minds on plans
for compassionate cities, angelic hands at work in the vine-
yards of science. the rocket packs and rayguns were toys,
dolls in the hands of scheming boys we never thought they’d keep.
what we were after, as always, was space: another place to go
when nowhere was left
a heavenly desert to a wandering tribe,
second bethlehem to a dream.
II.
I wonder what plagues we gave to the Indians of the Moon,
I struggle to remember which treaties we broke with the Lunar Sioux,
the precise year of that famous ambush so successfully sprung by
the cavalry of the American Third Orbital Marines upon the Lakota
living by the shores of the Sea of Tranquility.
And I forget exactly how many chiefs we lashed to the coils
of fusion drives, or swung from rocket gantries
or tumbled into void with a one two three.
I get all the dates mixed up, but from where I’m standing
I can still smell the silicate smoke of tipis burning on lunar prairies.
III.
When I still played hopscotch,
when i knew just how to throw the stone
and what these lines are for,
I read about Laika, the dog in space,
How the Russians loved their doggy cosmonaut
(a snapshot from some grade school primer:
white coated men and a scrappy mutt
with a lolling tongue) and how she loved her cozy Sputnik, just enough room for her race.
I imagined the husky steering her tiny craft:
Adroit Captain Laika, the dog between worlds,
equal parts Egyptian goddess and loyal pet;
the constellation, drawn in the sky with
stars of chalk, the constellation given life,
the Hunter’s Dog unleashed to gambol and howl
fully enfleshed in the backyards of night.
When I still played hopscotch, and knew
the counting rhymes, and how to get through the game
without hitting the lines, I read about Laika:
but not how her husky fur must have burned
in a blaze when her tiny cage returned to earth,
nor a word for her terrified yawp as the Sputnik
crashed through a ceiling of air, splashed down
in the southernmost part of the Indian Sea.
I know she died before I was born, and how.
But I learned it late, and now I call her:
here girl, come on down now and lick my hand;
and brief me on dreams brought low,
dogs in space, these chalk marks
whose use I used to know.
o heavenly desert for a wandering tribe, nazareth to astronauts;
cradle of prophets with mirrored faces, our mystics of absolute zero,
striding through hells of kelvin heat or leaping lead-footed for joy.
we knew no domes of glass nor wise antennaed
mayors would meet our traveling boys, flown so far
from the roiling blue, flung so far into darkness and dust.
but if a desert, still a place of birth, you anvil moon: like silver
minted fresh, we’d shine our lives by the pure silent hammers of sol.
this was our dream, our all-american dream of astronauts
grave and poetic: faces full of infinity, minds on plans
for compassionate cities, angelic hands at work in the vine-
yards of science. the rocket packs and rayguns were toys,
dolls in the hands of scheming boys we never thought they’d keep.
what we were after, as always, was space: another place to go
when nowhere was left
a heavenly desert to a wandering tribe,
second bethlehem to a dream.
II.
I wonder what plagues we gave to the Indians of the Moon,
I struggle to remember which treaties we broke with the Lunar Sioux,
the precise year of that famous ambush so successfully sprung by
the cavalry of the American Third Orbital Marines upon the Lakota
living by the shores of the Sea of Tranquility.
And I forget exactly how many chiefs we lashed to the coils
of fusion drives, or swung from rocket gantries
or tumbled into void with a one two three.
I get all the dates mixed up, but from where I’m standing
I can still smell the silicate smoke of tipis burning on lunar prairies.
III.
When I still played hopscotch,
when i knew just how to throw the stone
and what these lines are for,
I read about Laika, the dog in space,
How the Russians loved their doggy cosmonaut
(a snapshot from some grade school primer:
white coated men and a scrappy mutt
with a lolling tongue) and how she loved her cozy Sputnik, just enough room for her race.
I imagined the husky steering her tiny craft:
Adroit Captain Laika, the dog between worlds,
equal parts Egyptian goddess and loyal pet;
the constellation, drawn in the sky with
stars of chalk, the constellation given life,
the Hunter’s Dog unleashed to gambol and howl
fully enfleshed in the backyards of night.
When I still played hopscotch, and knew
the counting rhymes, and how to get through the game
without hitting the lines, I read about Laika:
but not how her husky fur must have burned
in a blaze when her tiny cage returned to earth,
nor a word for her terrified yawp as the Sputnik
crashed through a ceiling of air, splashed down
in the southernmost part of the Indian Sea.
I know she died before I was born, and how.
But I learned it late, and now I call her:
here girl, come on down now and lick my hand;
and brief me on dreams brought low,
dogs in space, these chalk marks
whose use I used to know.
The Gunslinger Followed
Last night I read Stephen King's autobiography and writing manual "On Writing". The early stuff about coming of age in the 60's and the sales of his first novels was wonderful reading. I'm still staggered by the fact that he got a $400,000 advance for "Carrie" way back in 1973. I'm staggered because that would be a nearly unthinkable sum for a debut novelist even now, when an advance for a first novel from a major publisher tends to be in the low six figures.
But unlike many as-yet unpublished writers, I don't have any issues with Mr. King. He's written some fine novels and penned some lines which I especially admire. My favorite is the opening sentence of his Dark Tower series:
"The man in black fled over the desert, and the gunslinger followed."
As they say in "Sweeney Todd", God that's good! It has such majesty and poetry in it, and yet is so elegant and simple. And ensuing paragraphs reveal what the sentence is really about: King the perpetual craftsman in pursuit of King the true artist. I have to reread that series again in order to find out if Roland succeeds. As King has written a few novels which I greatly admire --especially "Firestarter" and "Misery"-- I want to believe that he does, although I seem to remember hearing that things turn out quite badly for the hero.
But more affecting than anything else in that book, maybe, is King's description of his near encounter withdeath. He was taking a walk along a country road when a truck veered into him, nearly ending his life. As someone who has nearly died three or four times myself,I find this stuff very compelling. I know that my experiences have tended to sharpen my sense of my own mortality, and thus quite directly affected my habits and attitudes surrounding the production of daily pages. I am mostly grateful for my thanatic encounters, though, where King is obviously furious about his. I hardly blame him. My experiences came as a result of madness and my own carelessness about certain things, whereas King was creamed by a grinning lunatic.
Still, for all of our differences as writers and men, I recognize in King's account the story of one who has returned from the dead. Once you've been near that border, your spirit and your art change for good. He announced several years ago that he has retired. But I hope that he will draw something mighty from that dark well, and vex everybody who dismisses him as ahack. Well, what do they know, Mr. King? I still say you've got your best novel ahead of you.
But unlike many as-yet unpublished writers, I don't have any issues with Mr. King. He's written some fine novels and penned some lines which I especially admire. My favorite is the opening sentence of his Dark Tower series:
"The man in black fled over the desert, and the gunslinger followed."
As they say in "Sweeney Todd", God that's good! It has such majesty and poetry in it, and yet is so elegant and simple. And ensuing paragraphs reveal what the sentence is really about: King the perpetual craftsman in pursuit of King the true artist. I have to reread that series again in order to find out if Roland succeeds. As King has written a few novels which I greatly admire --especially "Firestarter" and "Misery"-- I want to believe that he does, although I seem to remember hearing that things turn out quite badly for the hero.
But more affecting than anything else in that book, maybe, is King's description of his near encounter withdeath. He was taking a walk along a country road when a truck veered into him, nearly ending his life. As someone who has nearly died three or four times myself,I find this stuff very compelling. I know that my experiences have tended to sharpen my sense of my own mortality, and thus quite directly affected my habits and attitudes surrounding the production of daily pages. I am mostly grateful for my thanatic encounters, though, where King is obviously furious about his. I hardly blame him. My experiences came as a result of madness and my own carelessness about certain things, whereas King was creamed by a grinning lunatic.
Still, for all of our differences as writers and men, I recognize in King's account the story of one who has returned from the dead. Once you've been near that border, your spirit and your art change for good. He announced several years ago that he has retired. But I hope that he will draw something mighty from that dark well, and vex everybody who dismisses him as ahack. Well, what do they know, Mr. King? I still say you've got your best novel ahead of you.
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