Book Review:  Thunder Song: Essays by Sasha LaPointe

Posted on April 27, 2024 by John Walters

Not long ago I read Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk By Sasha LaPointe. This essay collection is a continuation of the thoughts and emotions expressed in that volume, albeit arranged thematically instead of chronologically. It is just as powerful, or possibly even more so, as LaPointe’s talents as an artist continue to evolve and improve.

I learned of Thunder Songs as I was conducting a search for author events in the area that I might be able to attend. I discovered that Sasha LaPointe would soon be appearing with Maori poet Tayi Tibble at a local bookstore to promote their newly published books. It turned out that at the event Thunder Song wasn’t discussed much; the women mainly read some poems and spoke of how they met and discovered that the Coast Salish and Maori cultures had a lot in common, which was in itself fascinating.

In Thunder Song, LaPointe’s voice as a writer has become even stronger and more assured. She writes about her lighter skin tone and how it delayed her from understanding the way that white people recoil from indigenous people, about the dangers of going missing that native women face, and about a miscarriage that almost killed her due to a doctor that couldn’t be bothered to take the time for a proper medical diagnosis. However, as in Red Paint, she not only writes of the traumas but also the factors that contributed to her healing. When she was young, becoming involved in the punk music scene helped to liberate her spirit. Writing, of course, was a powerful purifying process. She also obtained assistance along the way through sincere relationships with loved ones. She returns again and again to the storytelling ability of her great grandmother. For instance, when her great grandmother learned that she had a passion for the Little Mermaid, she told Sasha the story of the Maiden of Deception Pass, who became involved with a sea spirit and left the land for the ocean, which brought about prosperity for her people.

In my favorite essay in the book, LaPointe writes of the struggles she faced as a vegan in the midst of her indigenous fish and meat-eating culture. She persevered for a long time, but the craving for salmon in particular, which as a ceremonial food is deeply enmeshed in her people’s past, became too much for her. When she compromised and ate some salmon after a long period of abstinence, she felt no guilt but instead a sense of release and freedom. She writes: “I guess I’m the kind of Indian who will never be vegan, who will never again teach herself to be hungry or quiet.” And: “I am the kind of Indian who will never hide who she is again and who will always eat the salmon.”

Another touching essay concerns the healing process she went through with her mother as they walked together along pathways in the evergreen forest. Her mother points out the licorice fern plant, which aids in respiratory conditions and once, it is said, helped a mute woman speak. LaPointe says that the licorice fern will aid them both and give “strength to finally use our voices.”

I was brought up in the Pacific Northwest, as LaPointe was. For many years our family had a beach cabin on the shore of Hood Canal in Puget Sound, and as LaPointe tells of her childhood amidst the evergreens and along the beaches, I recall my own youth in those magical places. My family’s attachment was surface-level at best, though, while hers goes many generations deep. It is good to see these things in their proper perspectives, and LaPointe effectively communicates the power and strength and resilience and value of the indigenous cultures that were here long before white colonists arrived.

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How Are the Mighty Fallen: Adventures on Airlines

Posted on April 24, 2024 by John Walters

I am not sure when I flew on an airplane for the first time, but it might have been when I went from Seattle, where I was born and raised, to San Francisco, California, to check out the University of Santa Clara as a possible site for my ongoing educational endeavors. Since then, I have taken many flights, long and short, on a variety of airlines. During my interminable wait for the initiation of my most recent journey I tried to remember them: Delta, United, Alaskan Airlines, Pan Am, Jet Blue, Singapore Airlines, Thai Airlines, Icelandic Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Indian Airlines, Aegean Airlines, Olympic Airlines… There must have been others. The longest direct flight I ever took was from San Francisco to Hong Kong; that one lasted seventeen hours. The shortest? I’m not sure. It might have been from Athens to Thessaloniki in Greece; there was hardly time for the plane to gain altitude before it started to descend. Or maybe it was the stretch from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Singapore. Regardless of which airlines I have flown on, though, or the distance of the journey, I have almost always, out of necessity, flown economy class.

And so we come to my latest aviation adventure: flying from Seattle to San Francisco aboard Delta Airlines so I could attend the book launch of the first novel written by one of my sons. I have always enjoyed flying on Delta in the past; indeed, I considered it one of my preferred airlines. I think that the trends I observed on this flight are ubiquitous across all airline companies. They are all struggling. They are all trying to save money. Their penuriousness, though, has become an obsession to the point where they ignore or denigrate the people that it’s all for: the passengers.

As I mentioned, I have almost always flown economy class, in contrast to first class, but this difference has invariably been relegated in my mind to the realm of who gives a damn anyway? There was a time that even in economy class a person could enjoy a modicum of comfort. Those times are long gone. I’m not just talking about leg room here; I’m talking about degradation and humiliation. On this flight there was not just first class and economy, no; there were six levels of seating. First class was primary, of course, and then came comfort plus, followed by three more levels whose names I forget, and finally, beneath the rest and last to board, was my level: economy basic. The “basic” is the verbal equivalent of a sneer, as if it carries a stigma, as in “don’t ask; you’re entitled to nothing.”

People in economy class have no rights – not even the right, as I have always had in times past, of seat selection. As soon as I got my reservation, I went to the Delta website so I could choose a seat, only to be informed that I couldn’t get a seat assignment until I checked in – because of my class. If I wanted to grab a specific seat before then, I had to pay a fee of thirty-five dollars. I cannot remember this happening before on Delta or any other airlines. I dutifully waited until twenty-four hours before the flight to check in online, and then went for my seat, only to be met with the same prospect of a thirty-five dollar fee and a notice that I had to be assigned my seat at the gate. Okay, then, damn it. I really wanted an aisle seat so the sardine-like stuffed-in feeling would be somewhat mitigated, so I got to the gate over two hours early; there I was told that economy basic passengers could only obtain seat numbers one hour before the flight. None of this is communicated in advance; I had to pass through numerous trick doorways to find it out.

They’d also way overbooked the flight, by the way, to the extent that they had to offer passengers gift cards if they would agree to take a later flight. They started by announcing four hundred dollar offers and raised these all the way to one thousand dollars before enough people volunteered to defer their trips until later. To top it off, the flight was delayed for over an hour due to ongoing construction in San Francisco. It made me wonder: if they knew about the construction, why could they not better plan for it?

And then there was the carry-on situation. At first, the gate attendant announced that overhead bin space was limited and requested passengers to voluntarily check their carry-on bags at no extra charge. However, when I boarded – as an economy basic passenger one of the last, of course – as I passed the attendant she snatched my bag out of my hands and said, “We’re checking this,” and before I could protest and explain that it could easily fit under the seat in front, she’d slapped a tag on it and set it aside. I had no option but to comply, even though it had things in it I’d intended to use during the flight – my Kindle Fire, for instance – but then, they were charging extra for the wifi too, so I probably wouldn’t have utilized it.

I had an aisle seat in the very back row of the plane, which didn’t bother me much because it gave me an opportunity to chat with the stewardess. I found out she was scheduled on four flights that day: Portland to Seattle, Seattle to San Francisco, San Francisco to Seattle, and Seattle to Portland. A brutal schedule, to be sure! And she had a similar schedule the next day. She seemed chipper enough, though, in spite of it. Ah, to be young again!

No meals were served on the flight, not even to those in first class. Instead, the stewardess moved down the aisle dispensing coffee, tea, soft drinks, potato chips, almonds, and similar items from a snack cart. You could request alcoholic beverages – for a steep fee. I remember a time when, even on these relatively short flights, complementary hot meals were served to all classes of passenger. Beer and wine were free on most flights too. On one of my longer trips, from Auckland, New Zealand, to Los Angeles – in economy class, mind you – I called the stewardess to request a wine refill a few times, and fed up, she finally brought a half-full bottle to me and said, “Here, just keep this.” Those were the days!

Finally, let’s close on a positive note, with an airline improvement. Yes, a few things at least have got better over the years. When I went to the bathroom, I noticed an ashtray, although there was also a no smoking sign. It caused me to remember the days when smoking was allowed on flights, and aircraft had smoking and non-smoking sections. That’s a thing of the past I definitely don’t miss. Can you imagine how dense the air was and how much it stank in the sealed-in container of the airplane? But that’s how it was back then. You could smoke almost anywhere: restaurants, offices, planes, trains, and so on. Just about anywhere except, of course, in church.

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An Earth Day Eulogy

Posted on April 13, 2024 by John Walters

I couldn’t be more pleased and proud to announce the book launch of my son Nestor’s first novel, An Earth Day Eulogy. It will be held on April 19th at 2:00 p.m. at Stanford Bookstore, 519 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, California. If you live in the Bay Area, please stop by. I am coming down from Seattle for the event so I hope to see you there. Here’s a summary:

Jacob Wilder has nothing against Earth Day — he just has ‘real responsibilities’ and can’t be bothered by it. But on Earth Day Eve, the ghost of Wilder’s old platoon buddy, Eddie, announces that three spirits will visit — those of Earth’s past, present, and future — and he warns that one of two things will have to die: Earth, or our old way of life.

As Nestor’s website explains, he was born in Bangladesh, raised in Greece, and served ten years in the U.S. Navy. He has now almost completed his Master’s Degree at Stanford’s Institute of Computational and Mathematical Engineering. Interestingly, a few years ago he was accepted at the Clarion West writer’s workshop; however, the summer his class was scheduled the workshop was cancelled due to the COVID breakout. Since I attended Clarion West in 1973, to my knowledge, if he would have gone it would have been the first time that both a parent and a child attended Clarion West.

If you can’t make the book launch, you can order a physical or digital copy of the book on the website for An Earth Day Eulogy.

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Himalayan Trek: Part Two

Posted on April 10, 2024 by John Walters

I walked all day. The air was clear; the temperature was warm but not hot. I ascended the hills, one after another, and crossed more bridges over streams. Most of the time I was alone. Once a Nepali laborer with a huge load of firewood on his back passed me going in the other direction; he scarcely acknowledged my presence but simply continued on his way, almost running despite his heavy burden. Sometimes I heard woodcutters working in the distance, but I never spotted them.

The most traumatic and dangerous experience involved a water buffalo blocking the path. I had come up a steep flight of stairs and there it was, standing in a narrow gap between cliff-like ledges. Its enormous girth left only a couple of feet on either side of the sheer wall. It had massive horns, and it kept snorting out of its mucus-covered nostrils. The only way onward was past that thing. What was I to do? It gave no indication that it planned to move in the near future. For me, to return to Pokhara in ignominious defeat was out of the question. Instead, I stepped forward and slowly inched past on the left side of the beast. If it shifted its weight only slightly it could have crushed me, but it simply stood there motionless, snorting occasionally, until I was safely past.

Another issue that came up was drinking water. I had no idea whether the water in the streams I passed was clean or not; for all I knew, they might pass through villages that cast their waste into them. However, I had no choice but to drink from them. The water tasted clean, at least.

Onward and upward I walked, seldom stopping to rest. I found a comfortable pace and kept at it, hour after hour, mile after mile. The ubiquitous silence, broken by intermittent birdsong, was soothing, comforting, and profound. As I ascended I felt cleansed. I was leaving the confusion of the communities of humankind for the abode of prophets, of sadhus, and of other holy persons. I gave no thought to the descent; I focused on going higher and yet higher, on finding out what I would discover at the top of the next slope, and the next, and the next.

Finally, though, as is always inevitable even on the most propitious of days, the sun neared the horizon and nightfall loomed. At the perfect serendipitous moment I came across an inn or hostel in that faraway place. I could sleep in a dormitory room in back and have a meal of all the rice and yellow dahl I could eat for a ridiculously low price. I decided to take advantage of this opportunity to rest up so I could continue onward the following day. I ate at least three heaping plates of food, went to bed, fell into a profound sleep, woke at dawn, and drank a few cups of tea thick with milk and flavored with cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar.

Fueled and refreshed, I continued hiking up the path, which by this time had got quite narrow. The landscape was more forested here, and more frequently I heard woodcutters in the groves of trees, but I never spotted them. Onward and upward I went for a few more hours until I came to a point where I could see the snowline not too far in the distance. At that I hesitated. If I kept walking, I was not so confident that I would find any more hostels – or, in fact, habitations of any kind. I had no equipment for camping. What was I doing? Where the hell did I think I was going?

Just a hundred yards or so to the left of the trail was an isolated and steep grass-covered hillock. I decided to climb to the top and ponder my situation and the options open to me. I sat cross-legged staring at the snow-capped peaks and realized that if I went too far in that direction I might truly be risking my life. Was I prepared to take that step? It occurred to me that all of my travels had led to that solitary spot in the Himalayan Mountains. I had been searching for clarity and quiet. I wanted to still the chaotic voices of humankind that always seemed to be pounding in my head by finding a place of peace and serenity. And I had found it. I’d never find a quieter spot than that. It came to me as a revelation, though, that I was faced with two choices: I could continue to climb higher into the mountains and possibly die, or I could return the way I had come and learn to somehow retain my inner peace even though surrounded by the confusion of human communities. I had never been a gregarious person; I had always, at heart, been a loner. I realized, though, that I had no death wish. I had to go back. And hopefully, now that I had found a place of contentment and clarity, I could carry it back with me in my heart.

The decision made, I started back down the mountain. I managed to hike the entire distance back to Pokhara in a single day – going down, of course, is easier and faster than going up. I stopped only once – at a small village to purchase a packet of sweet biscuits and a cup of tea. When I reached Pokhara I found another all-you-can-eat rice and dahl restaurant and feasted. By the lakeside, the German Shiva-worshipping hippies had left. It didn’t matter to me. By that time I was exhausted enough to fall into a deep, satisfying sleep.

My troubles weren’t over, of course; I was still near-broke. I hitched a ride on a bus to the Indian border, took a train to Delhi, found a spot on the floor in the cheapest traveler’s hostel I could find, and almost starved before enough funds arrived from the west so that I could make it back to Europe. Ah, what glorious adventures we can enjoy if we are crazy enough to attempt them!

If you want to hear more about my travels in the United States, Central America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Indian Subcontinent, check out my memoir World Without Pain: The Story of a Search.

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Himalayan Trek: Part One

Posted on April 6, 2024 by John Walters

As I was nearing completion of a rereading of Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, I was struck by his penchant to explore unfamiliar territory in the southwestern desert with a minimum of guidance and gear. He describes, for instance, venturing into a region of canyonlands called The Maze, navigating the Colorado River in a rubber raft, and climbing alone up a peak called Tukuhnikivats. Why did I feel such a thrill of solidarity as I read of these adventures? Because I had also attempted such foolhardy things in my days as a wandering vagabond back in the 1970s. The example came strongly to me of my solitary trek into the Himalayas.

It was during my first trip to the Indian Subcontinent. I had hitchhiked across the Middle East as far as Kandahar, Afghanistan, and then taken public transportation to Kabul, over the Khyber Pass to Peshawar, Pakistan, and from there to Karachi, Bombay, Goa, Sri Lanka, and back to Madras on the Indian mainland. I was running out of money and figured that the safest decision would be to head back to Europe as soon as I reached Delhi. But then I would miss Nepal! So instead, when I got to Delhi I traveled overland by train to the India-Nepal border and by bus to Kathmandu. After several days in Kathmandu, I moved on to Pokhara, one hundred twenty miles to the west.

I arrived in Pokhara with my finances severely depleted. Rather than spend a few coins for a bed in a traveler’s hostel, I walked along the shore of the lake beside the city, looking for a place I could lay my sleeping bag. There I came across a pair of German hippies who were into Shiva worship. They had set up a statue of Shiva and sat cross-legged before it as they passed a chillum of strong hashish back and forth. They were magnanimous enough not to insist that I acknowledge Shiva as I shared their smoke. After I was sufficiently high, I unrolled my sleeping bag near their camp and crawled in. It was so cold, though, at that high altitude in the open air, that I felt compelled to smoke a joint they’d given me in the middle of the night.

The next morning I left the duffle bag with all my possessions near the Germans and went to explore the town. I saw the usual Nepali metropolitan sights: people herding their water buffaloes through the streets, bathing at public fountains, and so on. I walked all the way to the edge of the city, until nothing but a small stretch of open plateau was between me and the foothills that ascended towards the magnificent snow-capped peaks. An urge suddenly struck me to go walking into those mountains. Until that moment I had not planned to go trekking, but now it abruptly hit me with a feeling of overwhelming insistency. I could do it. I had to do it!

I retraced my steps back to the lakeshore, retrieved my duffle bag, slung it over my shoulder, returned to that same spot at the city’s edge, and walked along a dirt road that led straight to a gap in the hills. From there a narrow footpath took me to a bridge across a stream and then a series of switchbacks led upward.

(To be continued)

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Book Review:  Cold Victory: A Novel by Karl Marlantes

Posted on March 30, 2024 by John Walters

Not long ago I attended an author reading at Third Place Books in Bothell, a suburb of North Seattle. Since I spend my days ensconced in my apartment doing remote work at my computer, I have been searching for opportunities to get out. The thought of going alone to a movie or to a restaurant brings on feelings of loneliness, as I remember enjoying these activities with my sons when they were still living with or near me. Readings seemed the perfect answer, as they fed my appreciation for literature and were at core one-on-one relationships between authors and book readers. Searching through event calendars of bookshops and libraries, I came upon this one. It was not too difficult to get to on public transport, and I had fond memories of Marlantes from his novel Matterhorn, which in my opinion is one of the best books ever written on the Vietnam War.

Marlantes was at Third Place Books to promote his new novel, Cold Victory. He is not a prolific writer; this is only his third novel after Matterhorn and Deep River, which is about a family that flees Finland and relocates to a logging community in the Pacific Northwest. As a writer, Marlantes does not stray far from his roots. Matterhorn is based on his experiences as a Marine in the Vietnam War; Deep River draws on his Finnish ancestry and his childhood and youth in Seaside, a logging town in Oregon. Cold Victory he sets in Finland, the homeland of his ancestors, in the year 1947.

World War II is over, but Finland is trapped between the Western Powers and Stalin’s Russia. The story concerns an American couple, Arnie and Louise Koski, who have come to Helsinki for Arnie’s new posting as the American legation’s military attaché. Arnie is reunited with a Soviet officer he met during the war when they were allies, Mikhail Bobrov. In the course of an evening of heavy drinking, they challenge each other to a multi-day cross-country skiing race. They intend to keep the competition secret, as a matter of pride between two warriors, but when it becomes known, it turns into an affair of national and international honor between the United States and the Soviet Union. The novel cuts back and forth between the two racers and their wives, who are forced to deal with the devastating consequences of the publicity while their husbands toil across barren ice fields.

The book starts slowly; the tension only starts to build about fifty pages in when the men challenge each other to the race. After that, it steadily increases as the real stakes become apparent. Mikhail’s wife Natalya, used to living under the paranoia of the Soviet system, realizes the peril her family is in should her husband fail to win the race.

This book effectively exposes the gut-wrenching reality of the opposing forces at work during this suspicion-filled time at the beginning of the Cold War. It is epitomized by the untenable position of Finland: first in 1939 it was in a war for territory against the Soviet Union, then in 1941 it was an ally of Germany, then it was an enemy of Germany, and then it was a buffer zone between the Western and Soviet blocs, uncertain not only of its long-term but also its immediate future. Ultimately, though, the novel becomes the story of two couples who desire only friendship but become caught in the insane political machinations of the times. It is a compelling, entertaining, and deeply emotional story. Highly recommended.

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Book Review: The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation by Cory Doctorow

Posted on March 23, 2024 by John Walters

Recently I took a bus to a bookstore in North Seattle to attend a reading of a new book by Cory Doctorow. It turned out to be not so much a reading as a discussion between Doctorow and Neal Stephenson, author of Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and other works, on the current state of the internet and technology. Doctorow gave a brief summary of his new novel The Bezzle, in which his recurring character Martin Hench, a forensic accountant, investigates the California prison system. He and Stephenson then launched into an intellectual discourse that was as fascinating as it was informative. It concerned details about Big Tech that, as a user along with much of the rest of the world, I recognized but had been unable to put into words, and used compelling words such as enshitification and interoperability. Enshitification is the degradation or decay of large online platforms, and interoperability is the ability of internet users to plug new technologies into existing ones. Doctorow’s novel sounded interesting enough, but after the reading what I really wanted to learn more about was Doctorow’s ideas on technology.

The Internet Con is a recent book, published in 2023. It is mainly concerned with interoperability: why Big Tech doesn’t want it, how it works, and how we can get it. As Doctorow explains in the introduction: “Make it legal for new technologies to plug into existing ones – that is, make it legal to blast holes in every walled garden – and users (that’s us) get immediate, profound relief: relief from manipulation, high-handed moderation, surveillance, price-gouging, disgusting or misleading algorithmic suggestions…the whole panoply of technology’s sins.” Doctorow explains how and why Big Tech got where it is – basically, by using expensive lawyers to circumvent existing legislation and establish monopolies in their respective areas of endeavor. Computers have universality – that means they all operate the same – and interoperability is the natural condition of the internet. However, the strategy of tech companies (and others such as auto manufacturers) is to reduce interoperability as much as possible, making consumers dependent on only one source for their needs and making switching (to another source) prohibitively expensive. Doctorow explains that “providing an excellent experience is harder work than punishing disloyal users.” For instance, in a perfect internet world, if you wanted to switch from one social platform to another, you should be able to transfer your photos and other data with you; Big Tech prohibits this, though, so that even if you hate their platforms you have to keep using them because the cost of leaving is too high.

The answer, of course, is obvious. “If we want to make tech better, we have to make it smaller.” It is insane that Big Tech has been able to monopolize its products, locking consumers into using their services and no others. As an example, Doctorow explains how the major automobile companies use VIN-locking. VIN stands for Vehicle Identification Number – a serial number that is locked into a vehicle’s computer system at the manufacturer so that only authorized technicians can repair them – and charge exorbitant prices for doing so, of course. It is a horror story of American corporate thinking. Doctorow clarifies that contrary to popular opinion, the CEOs of Big Tech are not geniuses; they are simply ruthless people who are greedier and more amoral than most, and they are willing to screw you to make massive profits.

In one of the closing chapters, Doctorow offers solutions. Unfortunately, they are long shots that leave readers (or at least this reader) with a sense of frustration and futility. Are there really politicians concerned enough, ethical enough, and with enough grit to take on Big Tech? Maybe. Even if the situation seems dire and solutions seem scant, it is still worth reading this book to get a clear and honest picture of the current state of the internet and how it got this way.

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About Painsharing and Other Stories

Posted on March 20, 2024 by John Walters

I wrote the stories in the collection Painsharing and Other Stories while living in Greece. However, unlike the tales in my first collection, The Dragon Ticket and Other Stories, which are mainly set on Earth on the Indian Subcontinent, these stories range from future Earth to the solar system to far planets revolving around distant stars. In the title story, for example, the Earth has long been abandoned and is about to be consumed by the dying sun; a group of humans return for a final requiem for the planet that gave birth to their species. In “Fearful Symmetry,” a human colony on a far planet is being terrorized by intelligent white tigers. In “Beyond Purgatory,” the government of a remote colony punishes criminals by deforming them into monsters that become slaves of the state. As I write in the afterword, “these stories run through a broad gamut of settings, but that’s part of the fun of science fiction: the ability to use anywhere and any when for the sake of metaphor, parable, or just plain entertainment.”

Some of the stories previously appeared in magazines and anthologies, while others are original to this volume. I recall that I sent the story “State of Grace” to a publisher for consideration for a particular themed anthology. The editor wrote back that my story did not quite fit the theme of that one, but another editor was putting together an anthology with a different theme and would accept the story; not only that, but I would also receive first prize in a contest taking place for the anthology entries – and additional payment as well. Often things go wrong in the publishing world; I have had several instances selling stories to magazines or books only to have publication cancelled before my stories appeared. This is one case, though, where the circumstances worked out in my favor.

In “The Orpheus Equation,” two strangers must travel to Pluto together. It is an adventure, of course, but at its core it is a love story. It tells of two disparate individuals forced to coexist in a small space who, despite their differences, must learn to love one another not only for their survival but for the advancement of the human race. From the afterword: “Fate tosses many of us into situations where we must get along with others whether we like it or not. Soldiers and sailors inhabit bunkrooms with a multitude of their peers. Office workers sit at rows of desks side by side with colleagues. Students have no choice concerning which other students enter the classroom, and often cannot choose the seating arrangements either. In some countries arranged marriages are the norm, and spouses do not meet each other, or at least do not have a meaningful conversation until after they are married – if then. Then there are brothers and sisters: some get along and some don’t, but for the first decade and a half to two decades of most people’s lives they share a domicile with people they did not choose, and there is nothing they can do about it. Some folks handle situations like these better than others, but almost all of us at some time or another have been confronted with the dilemma of someone you have to be around but you can’t stand. But what if your ability or lack thereof to not only work with but appreciate this other person were not only a convenience but a matter of life-or-death for many? What would you do? Would you hang on to your stubborn idiosyncrasies, your pet peeves, your grudges, your bitterness, or would you let it all go and yield to the empathy inherent in all of us?“

I am personally left-handed, and “The Left-Handed League” is a an exaggerated look at the discrimination that left-handed people face. As I explain in the afterword: “The amazing thing, when you think about it, is that there is any prejudice against anyone for any peculiarities of bodily appearance or function. The human race is composed of such infinite variety, it is such a rich stew of various ingredients, that to point the finger at one peculiarity or oddity is ludicrous. Plus it all has to do with one’s perspective. Put a white middle-class businessman into Europe and North America and he’d likely blend right in; but throw him into the midst of Ghana or Swaziland or China and then who’s in the minority? We have all these differences of gender, color, race, culture, religion, philosophy, size, shape, weight, intellectual or physical dexterity, hobbies and interests, and yes, even handedness, and for as long as humanity has existed we have fought over these things, but what is the point? In the end, we are all just people. All of us.”    

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Thoughts on Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller

Posted on March 16, 2024 by John Walters

Recently I started to read a science fiction novel written back in the seventies. This was an acclaimed novel that had even won awards, and yet somehow I had never got around to it. I thought it would be a slam-dunk, a sure thing. Well, in short, it wasn’t. It started with a prolonged feud between two scientists that reminded me of the ongoing scuffle between the crotchety old guys Farnsworth and Wernstrom in the cartoon series Futurama; it made me want to watch episodes of Futurama instead. Then there was a multiple-chapter description of an alien culture that did nothing to advance the plot – at least in the fifty or so pages of it that I managed to plow through. Finally I gave up. Life is too short. To cleanse my literary palate, so to speak, I picked up Tropic of Capricorn off my shelf.

Discovering Henry Miller back in the 1970s was germinal in my growth as a writer. I first read Tropic of Cancer, followed soon by Tropic of Capricorn. Tropic of Cancer follows Miller’s adventures as a poverty-stricken writer soon after he moved to Paris as an expatriate in the 1930s, while Tropic of Capricorn is a flashback to his life in Brooklyn in the 1920s, before his Paris trip. Both Tropics are notorious for their sexual content; in fact, they were first published in France and were banned for obscenity in the States for decades. It wasn’t until the sixties that the U.S. Supreme Court declared Tropic of Cancer, and by inference Miller’s other works, to be literature.

Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and the three-volume The Rosy Crucifixion (Sexus, Plexus, and Nexus) are all marketed as novels, while other works of Miller’s such as The Colossus of Maroussi are outright memoirs. The novels all have the same narrative voice, and the protagonist identifies as Henry Miller. Most of them are very blatant in their sexuality, and especially in the Tropics books the narrator frequently launches into extended surrealistic passages, elaborate daydreams and thought exercises that often go on for page after page in a single paragraph. These passages are part of the attraction of Miller’s work, though; when he gets going, few other writers can match him for sheer virtuosity and elegance of language.

It bothered me during this reading, though, that the narrator also occasionally lets loose with misogynistic and racism remarks, while the writer Henry Miller, in biographies, comes across as liberal, free-thinking, magnanimous, and tolerant. There are, I think, two main explanations for this. One is that these books were written back in the thirties and the sensibilities of what was allowed in language were different. The main reason, though, as I mentioned earlier, is that these works are novels. The narrator is a fictional character, not the actual Henry Miller; he is nastier, more foul-mouthed, more insensitive, more bombastic – to the extent of being blown up into a cartoon-like character, and much of the motivation for this is comedic intent. Miller uses the blatant obscenities, the exaggerated descriptions, the seeming disregard for the world and everyone in it, to help take away the pain. It is like a purgative. Spewing out all the filth is part of the process of self-cleansing that all sincere writers go through. In Miller’s case, there was more pain and so more rotten stuff comes out. Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn were some of his earliest works, written in the white heat of the discovery of his powers as a writer; works such as The Colossus of Maroussi, which came later, are mellower and contain little or none of the obscenities and insults that mark his earlier books.

I will not recommend Henry Miller’s works to you. I don’t think they’re for everybody; he is an acquired taste. You have to delve in knowing that at some point you are sure to be insulted or have your sensibilities bruised. However, if you have the stomach for it, he is a powerful, poetic writer.

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Book Review: Silence: In the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge

Posted on March 9, 2024 by John Walters

Erling Kagge is a Norwegian explorer, writer, and publisher who was the first person to complete the Three Poles Challenge, namely to hike to the North Pole, the South Pole, and the summit of Mount Everest. I read this book as part of my continuing study of the nature of solitude, but I was hoping it would contain lengthy passages about Kagge’s adventures in the lonely places on Earth. In fact, his solitary walk to the South Pole is briefly alluded to and the other expeditions are barely mentioned. Instead, this book is a meditation on the value of silence. The text is accompanied by an array of beautiful photographs. Unfortunately, I borrowed an ebook version because my local library has been closed for months for renovations; I should have waited and borrowed the physical version because I have a feeling that the photographs, which are tiny on my Kindle, would be magnificent if they were full-sized.

Be that as it may, the book extols the value of silence in our modern era of ubiquitous noise. There are numerous gems to be found in the prose passages. For example, of the South Pole journey Kagge writes: “The secret to walking to the South Pole is to put one foot in front of the other, and to do this enough times.” “The challenge lies in the desire.” “The next hardest challenge? To be at peace with yourself.” Kagge makes it clear that on all his walks, long and short, he eschews extraneous noises such as music or podcasts. Inner peace can only be accomplished with the type of silence that penetrates deep into the soul. This resonates with me. I too never listen to music or podcasts when I take my daily walks or when I exercise. Silence is far too fecund to spoil with noise, no matter how artistic and nuanced that noise might be. I get some of my best ideas and solve major artistic conundrums while walking or working out in silence. I always carry a notebook on my walks, and often I have to pause during my yoga practice at home to run in to my desk and jot down a few ideas.

As I read this book I recalled some of my own significant periods of silence. There was the time I trekked up into the Himalayan Mountains in Nepal without map or guide; there was the time I sequestered myself on a remote beach in Goa, India, when I wanted to ponder my life’s journey; there was the time I stayed alone in a cabin at Cape Mendocino, California, the edge of the west. And now, of course, I live alone in an apartment in Seattle, my kids grown and gone, writing my thoughts and attempting to put a positive spin on my involuntary isolation.

Kagge points out that it’s not necessary to go to the remote parts of the Earth to find the fulfillment that silence provides. He says: “You have to find your own South Pole.” It’s also not always possible to find the perfect external surroundings to experience silence. He states: “I no longer try to create absolute silence around me. The silence I am after is the silence within.” To say that silence is a state of mind may sound somewhat cliché, but it is a cliché with a ring of truth. The demands of our daily lives do not always allow us the luxury of taking off for the remote parts of the world – but we can find silence around us nonetheless, wherever we are, if we actively seek it out. That’s the message of this book, and it is certainly a worthwhile message. Take the time to read Kagge’s thoughts and you may find that you have set yourself on a path to inner peace. If possible, though, pick up a physical copy of the book, so you can enjoy to the full the gorgeous melding of text and photographs.

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