Week in Seven Words #521

This covers the week of 1/12/20 - 1/18/20.

cheerless
Gray streets dusted with litter. A chain store here and there, lots of chain link fencing, and some windowless concrete walls.

convolution

I almost flub one part of the coding test by overthinking things, making the questions more complicated than they are. Instead of looking at the simplest explanation for what they mean, I interpret them as a set of trick questions. 

drowsy
A sleepy walk, early when it's still dark. It seems like the only other people outside are the ones walking their dogs before work.

interconnected

Reading a memoir, I notice that the author speaks of going it alone but at the same time keeps mentioning people – family, friends, mentors, colleagues – who helped out along the way. There was no "going it alone." Sure, there was hard work, individual effort. But the support, encouragement, and connections were ever present.

provisions
The basement food pantry has shelves of beans, canned meat, packets of tuna and pink salmon, canned vegetables and fruits, and plastic bags bulging with bread. Some of the bags are collecting moisture. Some of the bread is stale. A delivery of food arrives through a chute propped up under an opening high in the wall. Boxes of food tumble down the chute and skid across a long table.

tidewater
Waves of sadness come over me, pouring over and through me.

upchuck
A pleasant dinner followed by the unpleasantness of a stomach bug.

Week in Seven Words #516

This covers the week of 12/8/19 - 12/14/19.

aromatic
The holiday market is a dense, sweet-smelling mass of pine and cider. Clustered booths of ornaments, jewelry, scarves, and glossy desserts are overrun by curious and restless shoppers.

doubting
She questions my safety to a ridiculous extent. Sometimes I wonder how much of what she voices is concern versus a vague impulse to undermine my sense of competence.

frosty
It's so cold outside, our fingers are burning with it, as if ice is being rubbed all over them. The metal seats pour more cold into our butts and backs. We huddle into ourselves and share a small bag of lime ranch potato chips.

hospitably
The bookstore where I donate a bunch of DVDs has a friendly, barn-like feeling. You're expecting authors to roost in the rafters, dropping pages of their latest drafts.

slammed
The subway doors slam against my arms, punishing me for my unwillingness to wait for the next train.

spiritless
The second bookstore looks like the backdrop to an upscale magazine photoshoot. It's stylish, with lots of dark wood and gleaming hardcover books, but it feels inert and uninviting. You could easily imagine a few models in overpriced clothing posing next to the pristine cookbooks. An area devoted to books on wine is close to the children's section. There are no kids around.

withdrawn
He's tired, so his thoughts spiral inwards. His eyes glance off the rows of trumpeting angels, the massive tree in the background, and the crowds holding up their phones to capture the scene.

List of Books I Recommend (2019 Edition)

Over the past year, along with continuing to read good short fiction, I've enjoyed some books I'd like to recommend here.

Three of the nonfiction books deal with critical thinking and the ability to discuss ideas:

How to Think by Alan Jacobs, which I wrote about in this post – What Affects the Quality of Your Thinking? (It's Not Just Intelligence).
The Tyranny of Opinion by Russell Blackford, which I wrote about here.
The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, which discusses various policies and attitudes that are preventing kids from becoming more resilient and emotionally and intellectually mature.

In another nonfiction book, the author traveled around the U.S. for half a year and recorded conversations with a variety of people – The Lies They Tell by Tuvia Tenenbom, which I wrote about here. Come to think of it, this book also deals with critical thinking and honest, well-informed discussion (and their frequent absence from conversations, speeches, and interviews).

Another nonfiction book, The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi (translated by Raymond Rosenthal), discusses some aspects of the Holocaust that are most difficult to explain and discuss, particularly the psychological effects (on victims, tormenters, bystanders). He's exploring how humans think and feel in circumstances that are deeply, deliberately inhumane.

For novels, there are a bunch I'm recommending:

Two Shirley Jackson novels – We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Road Through the Wall. Although they're different in many respects, they both present confining worlds for their characters. In one, it's a home where the reclusive remnants of a family live years after a horrible crime. In another, it's a street in a 1930s California suburb, where everyone is deeply conscious of class, sex, race, and religion, and cruelty and loneliness flourish even in respectable homes. Dysfunction is prevalent.

Speaking of confined spaces, As We Are Now by May Sarton is a powerful novel about a retired math teacher who is placed against her will in a nursing home and struggles to keep hold of her sanity and spirit:

Yes, I am afraid of a torture far worse than petty harassments, the torture of not being believed. I am afraid of being driven mad.

One of the heart-breaking things is, as the novel goes by, you want to keep believing her (and you can of course) but there might also be a doubt in the back of your mind about the accuracy of some of her perceptions. That uncertainty, however small, is part of the experience of reading this novel. And then she will say things like, "I am not mad, only old. I make this statement to give me courage," and it hits you once again how alone she is.

You'll find another interesting and tricky narrator in The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, which I wrote about here. Mr. Stevens, the butler to end all butlers.

In Good Behaviour by Molly Keane, the narrator also leads a narrow life, where much passes her by, and the reader may realize things about her family and acquaintances that remain unnoticed by her.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith has a teenaged narrator keeping a journal about her life in an old castle. Her dad is a writer stuck in what appears to be a hopeless state of writer's block. Other castle inhabitants include her sister, brother, and sweet, eccentric stepmom; also, a young man who continues to live with the family and help them out even though they can't pay him anymore and are barely staying afloat in their genteel poverty. I enjoyed the narrative voice in this coming of age story.

Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson is a novel that begins and ends in Australia. The main character struggles to escape from her backwater town only to return there towards the end of her life and wonder why she had left. A strong voice, vivid descriptions, and insights into regrets and what-ifs make this one worth reading.

I also read more Australian novels from the Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries series by Kerry Greenwood. Miss Fisher is a wealthy society lady and private detective in 1920s Melbourne, and the secondary characters in the books are memorable too. I haven't read each book in the series, which starts with Cocaine Blues, and some of the books are better than others, but overall the experience is like sampling chocolates from a large box.

Moving on to something quite different – Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (translated by Nicholas Bethell and David Burg). The novel is set a couple of years after Stalin's death, and the characters are the patients and medical staff at a cancer hospital. They're facing the personal upheavals of disease and the political shifts that might mean a return for an exile and the fall of a once-favored party official. The hospital is its own little world reflecting different aspects of Soviet society and politics.

Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo is set in a small town in NY state. The town itself is a character, as well-written as the rest of the characters who are very much a part of their surroundings. You couldn't picture them living elsewhere. (Years ago, I watched an adaptation of the novel starring Paul Newman and Jessica Tandy, and I remember liking it. I'm glad that watching it made me add the book to my to-read list.)

I recently wrote a post on narrative point-of-view inspired by Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones. The novel focuses on three fifth-grade students in Atlanta during the child murders of 1979-1981. I like how distinct each character is in this book.

Then there's The Unknown Bridesmaid by Margaret Forster. It cuts back and forth between the adulthood and childhood of a psychologist who works with troubled young girls. The psychologist herself needs to deal with guilt and isolation stemming from her own childhood, in particular a life-changing day when she took her cousin's baby out for a walk without permission.

Week in Seven Words #472

corporate
She prefers working for a smaller company. The larger corporations demand too much conformity.

doe-eyed
The room has deep red wallpaper and animal heads mounted on the walls. Nothing else.

gerunds
I'm looking through picture books for a gift, and it amazes me how skinny books with simple illustrations and one word per page ("Running," "Flying,") have double-digit price tags.

illumination
He returns to the topic of his anger, and how he wishes he had learned earlier in life a whole vocabulary of emotions. To be able to put words to his feelings would have helped him stave off the outbursts that derailed his career. It's never just about words; it's about understanding yourself, the source of your feelings, and the options for how to act.

net
The branches of the bare trees form a diaphanous net that catches the sunlight.

opens
I overcome my own self-consciousness to talk to him, which helps him overcome his self-consciousness. We have a lovely chat.

uniform
From many windows, the same game is flickering. One large TV after another, mounted to a wall and dominating a room with the same shots.

Week in Seven Words #412

amusements
This time, the game we play is one where I try to tickle her belly, and she tries to block me. When she grows bored with it, she stands under the dining table for a while, her hand on her mom's knee.

apportion
Her younger siblings agree that she should distribute the chocolates. She slices open the box and displays the possibilities. She reads the chocolatey description of each truffle and its contents. As they crowd around, she cuts the truffles into halves and thirds for sampling.

pooled
The candles melt into a pond of rose, purple, and sea green.

reawaken
Good books reinvigorate the conversation you have with yourself and the world.

release
She's abandoning her social media accounts, one by one, to unclutter her mind and free her time.

scales
The soprano warms up her voice in the ringing acoustics of a church.

scorning
It's a grubby work of art. It shows a meanness of character, a cynicism that denies beauty.

Blog's Name in Books

I found this fun little activity here: match a book from your to-read list to each of the letters in your blog's name.

Tale of Genji (Murasaki Shikibu)
History (Elsa Morante)
Excellent Women (Barbara Pym)

Shirley (Charlotte Bronte)
I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith)
Love and the Platypus (Nicholas Drayson)
Leaving Atlanta (Tayari Jones)

Only Yesterday (S.Y. Agnon)
Faust (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Timeline (Michael Crichton)
Home (Toni Morrison)
Ella Minnow Pea (Mark Dunn)

Winter's Bone (Daniel Woodrell)
Ormond (Maria Edgeworth)
Rhinoceros (Eugène Ionesco)
Little Dorrit (Charles Dickens)
Dombey and Son (Charles Dickens)

Week in Seven Words #403

artifice
The small cakes and cookies displayed in the shop window look like they were created with paint markers. They can't be real baked goods. And if they are, they can't taste as good as they look.

congenial
They're slightly loud and fuzzy with wine when we bring gifts. Their dog trots around, absorbing pats and belly rubs and cuddles.

conspicuously
A tall, beefy man in a turquoise tank top and cream-colored Bermuda shorts is walking three small, identical white dogs.

handling
When he's stressed out, his home crackles with tension. His family skirt around him, finding things to do in other rooms and saying little that isn't necessary.

jawbreakers
The room is overrun by kids who pelt each other with candy, kind of like dodgeball but without any clear sides, more like a free-for-all of sugary projectiles.

serendipitous
On a brief visit to a library before a meeting, I find what promises to be an excellent book. I didn't expect to come across it and wasn't looking for anything like it, or anything in particular. Is this something that can be experienced online, where algorithms suggest only books that are similar to what's been recently read or searched for?

streaming
The girl glides on a scooter, her golden hair floating in the light of the streetlamps.

Week in Seven Words #361

absorptive
They have a quick, vicious temper. They'll unleash it without absorbing its effects; they may even forget, an hour later, just how angry they were. The absorption is left to me.

auxiliary
She's finished reading the Harry Potter series, but doesn't want to let it go. Potter Puppet Pal videos are among the media she's found to maintain her connection to the Wizarding World.

crayons
Teens with fruit punch hair bump shoulders as they drift through the park.

defense
For indoor soccer, the footrest is the goal. In the middle of the game, the dog trots over and lies down in front of it to lick the floor.

irrelevant
"He's entitled to his own opinion!" she tells me the day after. An irrelevant comment, as I never argued about anyone's right to share an opinion. As for the content of the opinion, I can't argue about that either, without being called names or told that I don't really mean what I'm saying.

melting
The gingerbread truffle bursts and melts on my tongue. I think with even more gratitude about the person who gave it to me.

runny
Throughout the store, there are sniffly kids with smeary noses and slurpy coughs.

Week in Seven Words #332

borne
Walking the length of a massive bridge on foot. Car fumes, heat, and over-the-shoulder glances to check for bikers bearing down. A pause now and then to stare at the river spreading undisturbed in a blue haze.

fitting
Some of the steps are even. Others are ragged stone stitched together with grass.

irregular
A trail threading through tall grass. It wears a patchy coat of sunlight.

marrow
Shortening a conversation with someone who likes to pour fear into my bones.

offset
Planning and leading the hike takes a new kind of confidence, and I like that I can pull it off. I tend to brood about everything that can go wrong in any situation. To some extent, it's useful, but not when the thoughts become paralyzing.

serene
By the river, there's music from decades ago and greasy food and cooler air. Shade on overhung paths and peace for the soul.

synopsis
She asks me what the book I'm reading is about. How do I explain it to a kid? (Or to anyone, in a few seconds.) It's about people making bad decisions and receiving bad advice. Plus, someone doesn't know who his real parents are. And another person doesn't much like a man she's encouraged to marry. And...

Agnes Grey - Revenge of the Governess!

I didn't know anything about Anne Bronte before reading Agnes Grey, except that she's the overlooked Bronte sister. But by the end of the book I figured she'd worked as a governess and that it had not gone well. This book might have given her a little power. On paper, she could enjoy some mastery - trotting them out, all the wealthy vulgar fools who spoil their children and mistreat their governess (a governess who, in the book at least, earns a happy ending to make up for all the unappreciated labor and neglect).

Agnes is a clergyman's younger daughter, and when her family falls into financial straits, she offers to work as a governess. Her older sister and parents doubt her and try to discourage her. She's the baby of the family and has led a sheltered life. She romanticizes the job, imagining that it involves a lot of gentle teaching and chiding and comforting.

In the first family she works for, she gets a bunch of unmanageable brats dumped on her. The parents offer her no support and blame her for the children's faults, so she's helpless in dealing with them. The second family that hires her gives her teenaged daughters to work with. There's little she can do to teach them. Outside the schoolroom, they sometimes spend time with her when they're out of other options. Otherwise, they ignore her. Neglect, loneliness, invisibility - Bronte writes these feelings confidently. The only upside to Agnes being ignored is that she enjoys a few opportunities to spend time with a local curate. She falls in love with him, and he's actually a decent man. (No Heathcliff here.)

Week in Seven Words #319

applesauce
Half the content of these books is beautiful nonsense, lovingly tended to in the small, dim library.

dryadic
One ranger is a flinty middle-aged woman. The other is a younger woman with red, wind-bitten cheeks and an honest face. They takes us down paths strewn with the sweet gums' spiky seed pods.

everything
"You have a special bond with her," she says. "And she loves you so much."

infliction
American beech bark scarred with names.

nosegay
A long stretch of gray glass buildings broken up by a grocery store, flowers huddled by its door.

pronounce
It isn't a discussion he wants, but a chance to speak his opinion as if it's law.

rousing
This is love, or some of what love is - sharing the best parts of yourself with others, and hoping their own best self responds.

Week in Seven Words #296

citrine
The neon fizzle of lemonade and the odor of fried food at the street fair.

cushioned
On the subway, he sits with his head nestled between huge headphones. As the train screeches around a bend, he bobs his head and smiles.

distribution
"In the divorce," she says, "I got the friends. The good friends."

forth
Among the books displayed shoulder-to-shoulder or on their backs along the table, I find a collection of Yiddish stories. It smells like it's been waiting in the back of a bookcase for its day in the sun.

individuate
The child pushes away her mom's hand. She wants to try walking on her own, away from the hand that clutches at her shoulder and arm.

lightheartedness
I love watching adults do cartwheels or dance spontaneously.

rabid
A hard blue river foaming at the mouth.

Week in Seven Words #290

guffawing
The three of us on an old couch, laughing until our eyes sting and our stomachs cramp.

maritime
As the bathtub fills, it becomes a sea of rising toys: capsized boats, smiley animals, figurines peering into the soapy deep.

nest
The room doesn't get much direct sunlight. The light that fills it is soft, and partly filtered through branches. On powder-white shelves there are books, seashells, perfumes and lotions, homemade art, flowers, and small gadgets.

nibble
I like the buffet-style meal, where at least ten dishes are spread out on the kitchen counter, and I take a tiny bit of almost everything.

partiality
I read to him for hours, and he gets teased about it. They tell him he's choosing boring books that no one who's older than him could like. For a moment, he looks uncertain. "My books are interesting!" he insists. And I back him up. He shouldn't feel bad about the books he loves. And some of them are interesting, even for adults. Even when they're read more than once.

querying
I like seeing how their understanding of life develops. How they think about their own experiences, make sense of the world, question ideas that don't seem quite right.

zoology
He won't be satisfied if you tell him you saw a shark. He needs to know the kind of shark. Blue shark, lemon shark, whale shark. He even has a reference book that he can't read yet, but that he's had others read to him so many times that he can point you to the right page and have you educate yourself about the proper shark. I learn about animals I didn't even know existed.

Week in Seven Words #282

bibliotheca
She pushes a stroller heaped with picture books. There's a child in there too, somewhere.

cramping
At some point, he started to sound like a 1950s TV dad. Though in some ways he has matured, his thoughts have also hardened and narrowed.

mindset
I leave the room in anger. Outside, a few things calm me: The air, the trees and the soft afternoon light. The self-possession I feel, when I finally realize that the greatest part of my anger comes from things I'm insecure about or afraid of in myself.

rafters
The music surrounds us, forms a roof over our head with the clouds and stars beyond it.

recollecting
I'm told she was a quiet, self-conscious child who sometimes had problems at school. Her own stories of her childhood are different - that she was confident, tough, never afraid.

slacken
The cough that latched onto my windpipe for weeks is finally relaxing its grip.

surmount
The bottom half of the beech tree is a mess of scars and initials. Farther up, the trunk smooths out, rising past all the parts that are defaced.

The Country of the Pointed Firs: Jewett's Exquisite Book

The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett is intense in its depictions of people sharing their lives while also living apart and alone. An author spends a summer in a remote coastal village in Maine, at the end of the 19th century. She meets people who show her parts of their life and the depths of their character. And at the end, she has to leave. It's only a season, full of weight and breadth but also coming quickly to an end.

The book, which I read for the Classics Club Challenge, isn't plot-heavy. It's a collection of meetings, conversations, meditations on nature (human and the natural world), all beautifully written. The people who inhabit the village become extraordinary because of the attention the author gives them. Here's one look at Mrs. Todd, whose house the author stays in for the summer:

It is not often given in a noisy world to come to the places of great grief and silence. An absolute, archaic grief possessed this countrywoman; she seemed like a renewal of some historic soul, with her sorrows and the remoteness of a daily life busied with rustic simplicities and the scents of primeval herbs.

And here is an old man she meets:

There was a patient look on the old man's face, as if the world were a great mistake and he had nobody with whom to speak his own language or find companionship.

The book weaves together beauty and joy with misery and loss. These feelings are inseparable. As the author looks out on nature, she observes the decay and death along with the promise and loveliness:

The tide was setting in, and plenty of small fish were coming with it, unconscious of the silver flashing of the great birds overhead and the quickness of their fierce beaks. The sea was full of life and spirit…

It was not the first time that I was full of wonder at the waste of human ability in this world, as a botanist wonders at the wastefulness of nature, the thousand seeds that die, the unused provision of every sort.

The author grows pretty close to some of the villagers, and the villagers feel fairly close to each other, or at least committed to each other; at the same time, they're separated in private griefs and memories they rarely speak about. They've enlarged their lives by finding a place in an extended family or community, or by gaining an intimate knowledge of nature, whether the woods or the sea. But they're still alone, each distinct and separate in character.

I'm tempted to share many more excerpts from this book, because it's so beautifully written. The author takes a season and tries to give it permanence in text. Even when there's the bittersweet feeling of knowing it all passes, that all these people have died, something of them and the world they live in are still around.

In the life of each of us… there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and recluse of an hour or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell to whatever age of history they may belong.

Week in Seven Words #271

cultivated
Three ladies leafing through books in a room hung with tapestries.

delivery
A rattling cart, laden with aluminum trays of warm fragrant meat.

getaway
The only splash of color in the office comes from a banner with a beach scene: sunset, gold sand, palms imprinted on curling waves.

muted
Without the usual roar from the TV, there's a startling quiet in the house.

overcompensating
His know-it-all attitude masks a fear of the world and an uncertainty about his place in it.

treacherous
Dinner isn't so much a minefield as a sea dotted with icebergs. What's above the surface is dangerous enough; below, there are contours and formations we can't bear to think about.

upgrade
"Our online system works well. People can find things easily and save their search results reliably. Clearly we're doing something wrong."

Week in Seven Words #264

blanching
The fluorescent lights wash the life out of her face. She stares at me with smudged eyes.

channeled
It occurs to me that I'm only really learning at this point in life what to do with anger. Before, my conscious attitude towards it was, "Don't have it" and "Feel guilty about having it." I hadn't really thought of it as a healthy emotion, although - when confronted, understood and directed in mature ways - it definitely can be. Denying it is self-destructive.

erudition
Books with gilt-edged pages bursting out of mahogany shelves.

mean-spirited
It's not ignorance that bothers me so much as people acting triumphant about what they don't know. They're proud to not make an effort to learn or think about something, even while sharing their opinion or making decisions about it. They smirk at my frustration, like they've beaten me at a game I never agreed to play. At this point, I try not to engage with them, or I don't show much of an emotional response when I do. Easier to do when there's no personal connection between us; but also manageable when there is, though that involves giving up on a part of the relationship.

regressing
When someone tries to take their problems out on me, one thing I do is picture them the way they looked as young children. This makes their adult-sized tantrum less stressful. Though they want me to parent them and deal with their problems for them, I don't want to be a stand-in for their mother.

sweetened
Pink stickers, Hershey's kisses - little things that brighten a run-of-the-mill evening of homework and TV.

undeterred
He stares at the orange, pink and white floral sofa. Then shrugs and arranges himself elegantly on it.

Week in Seven Words #253

covert
She's hidden things behind her books - keys to cabinets, necklace pendants, folded letters. She says it's extra protection against casual burglars; they won't rifle through her shelves. But I also suspect it's her romantic streak. She's always wanted the kind of bookcase that would hide a secret, like a door that springs open when you pull out a volume of Donne's poetry.

demolishing
The book I use as a sledgehammer, to smash obstructions in my mind.

ducking
He has always crouched behind a shield. Currently, it's his wife. As long as he's with her, he's protected. No one looks too closely at him.

filling
Strange how the book leaves us both satisfied and empty.

olio
He has in his speech flavors of other countries. He's brimful of anecdotes about bodyguards and bugged hotel rooms, spicy cuisine and off-the-road ruins.

redolence
A begonia in a copper-colored pot, and a cup of orange spice tea.

reversals
Two months earlier, she was fine. Now she has health problems and a career in tailspin through no fault of her own. She speaks in disbelief about her life.

Week in Seven Words #245

found
Sometimes I'll walk somewhere without any particular purpose, and I'll find something I didn't know I needed. In this case, it's a book, and its contents are so relevant to me I spend most of the day carrying it around and peeking into it when I get the chance.

lashed
In a moment of childish temper, a middle-aged woman strikes another older woman on the back. People gasp. She pretends not to notice their dismay, but hurries out soon after, her face tight with the knowledge that no one will ever see her the same way again.

leaping
Light-headed elation as sunset draws the day down.

muffle
Bundled up on the sofa while the clock ticks and traffic murmurs.

patchouli
They're back - the spindly, perfumed twins who dress like they've stepped out of a steampunk novel. The backs of their hands betray their age, but in other ways they're young; they share a seat and adjust each other's hair.

pervade
Feet clad in cold damp tights. A chill seeps through the door.

trickle
Cold rain snaking into the sleeves of my poncho.

Week in Seven Words #243

collected
I love her look - black jeans, black blouse and vest, a fedora on springy curls of hair. An attitude of cool self-possession.

enticingly
A bright warren of books and tables for two.

seitan
Sometimes it's meat-like and meat-flavored. Other times it's like a rubber ball sliced up and well-seasoned.

spongy
What's left of the plant is brown, sponge-like matter crumbling on a sunny window.

streamers
The paintbrush releases ribbons of color into the water.

trending
She has the look of someone who works in a social media company. Sleek and tan, her nimble fingers dancing across a tablet. Like a creature sprung fully grown from an iPhone.

viscid
Green pulpy whirly gunk in a blender.