An Unlikely Pairing: The Lost Generation & The 4th of July

Lately I've been on a Lost Generation reading spree.  It started with The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald with a student book club and giving them some introductory information about the era and then I happened to read The Paris Wife, which is a semi-fictional story narrated from the perspective of Hadley Richardson, the first wife of Ernest Hemingway.  Afterwards, I was fascinated by not only their relationship, but the ex-pat community in Paris, so I went on to read Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, which was a memoir of his time in Paris which he wrote not long before he died and published posthumously.  I was so entrenched in the era that I decided I wanted to read Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, which was on my summer reading list, right away.  Then of course I re-watched Midnight in Paris and noticed all the inconsistencies (though I still love it).

Just like Woody Allen's Gil Pender, it is easy to get caught up in the romance of the ex-pat community in Paris--the incredible art, literature, salons.  Though it is impossible for me to not say that what this reading spree brought up in my thought life the most was how glad I am to be a woman today.  The culture of multiple mistresses and people openly accepting it, coupled with double standards for women and hypocritical expectations for wives in light of it all was truly grotesque.  Zelda Fitzgerald's own artistic life was stunted by Scott having her publish under his name or forbidding her to pursue dance or publish her writing work at all, saying that he had claim to the ideas within it.

The concept that struck me the most while reading, though, was that of memory, which I've written about quite a bit over the years.  It's the great invention of the mind in Rodman Philbrick's Young Adult Freak the Mighty. In Evening, by Susan Minot, it colors the narrator's entire existence.  In Man Walks into A Room, Nicole Krauss's main character loses his memory of all things relational.  In The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai talks about some parts of our narrative are lost and some are purposely forgotten.

I am trying to decide where it fits for Hemingway.  Early in The Paris Wife, he takes Hadley on a trip to where he recovered from being injured in World War 1.  In his mind, the field was still desecrated with loss of life and the town where he was taken care of was pristine and quaint--but neither was the case when he arrived:

"When Ernest found the slope where he'd been wounded, it was green and unscarred and completely lovely.  Nothing felt honest.  Thousands of men had died here jut a few years earlier, Ernest himself had bled here, shot full of shrapnel, and yet everything was clean and shiny, as if the land itself had forgotten everything," (103).

"For the whole visit, Ernest wrestled with memory.  Everything had changed and grown dingy in the four years since he'd been here," (102).  

I suppose it is one of those mysteries of being human--how we can long so deeply for times that are past, even if those times were accompanied by struggle.  Perhaps in our minds, they remind us that we made it through, or perhaps the struggle has been slightly erased so that we don't remember that part anymore.  Hemingway himself describes it in A Moveable Feast: "There are many sorts of hunger.  In the spring there are more. But that's gone now. Memory is hunger," (57).  

Elk Lake, 2011.  I only wish I had a
picture of the American flag boxers
my best friend and I *sewed ourselves*
for 4th of July 1996. 

Today, for me, memory is hunger.  On some levels the memories I've been escaping to this morning seem insignificant--but it happens every 4th of July that I am in New York City--a city I love with all my heart.  All I want right now is to be watching my hometown's parade, wearing my running clothes from the annual 5K, thinking about swimming in somebody's pool and going up to the high school for fireworks later.  Or, sitting at a simple lake house, eating off the grill, and watching a homemade fireworks display planned by friends I've known since the mid nineties.  I keep finding myself wanting to justify my nostalgic longing for these simple memories or the audacity I have for writing them in connection to Hemingway--but I'm not going to, because it's what is true for me today (which is interesting, because the quotes I wanted to write about in this post have been sitting in my blog drafts for a month)

What I do think is worth considering, though, is when you begin to appreciate what is past.  Hemingway did not write of nostalgia until the end of his life.  A Moveable Feast, his memoir of his early years in Paris, was published after he took his own life and carries a tone much different from his earlier work.  In a painful-to-read confession he states that he wishes he had died before falling in love with anyone else.  I'm not sure that I believe him, completely.  Hadley asks him in The Paris Wife, not long after the visit to the town where he was shot and recovered: "When does it mean something? When everyone finally gets smashed to bits?" (145).  I think that is a fair read of Hemingway--and a terrifying way to live, but it pulls together my thoughts.  When he was with Hadley, he could only think of what might be next. The present didn't take on any value until it was long gone.

This year I started talking with my students about the idea of being present where you are, whether it is in a class discussion, a book club, or with their friends.  I suppose that is what I wish the men of the Lost Generation understood (hoping that it wasn't that restlessness that produced their drive and in turn art), and on a much smaller level, what I need to remember as I go over to the Brooklyn Bridge Park to celebrate Independence Day with dear friends later.  It is in view of the Statue of  Liberty, after all.

an aside, after my initial posting: I want to think later today about the implications of these American writers who chose to do so much of their writing elsewhere.  Looking at the title of this post, one might infer that my writing about it was a little more academic.  But alas.  It is a holiday, after all.

Childhood Favorites Post #4: Remembering with Freak the Mighty

"Remembering is a great invention of the mind," so says Kevin in the young adult novel Freak the Mighty. The whole concept of memory is fascinating to me, and I tend to write about it every time that it comes up in a book.

Freak the Mighty is a story of friendship, of hardship, of transcendence.  The characters in this book go through so much, that it is hard to believe that most of my students read it in elementary school. Max lives with his grandparents because his father is in jail for killing his mother.  He considers himself stupid and is in learning disabled classes at school.  People are frightened of him because of his father, how much he looks at him and how large of a person he is.  Kevin has just moved in to his block with his mom. He has a disease that has left him crippled and sick, but is absolutely brilliant.  The two form an unlikely friendship and dub themselves "Freak the Mighty."

"You don't need a time machine if you know how to remember," says Kevin in a theoretical conversation between the boys about recalling what he has learned about the ice age in reference to an imaginary game they are playing.  What he doesn't realize is how weighty this will become for Max. Kevin is wise beyond his years and knows how sick he is.  As much as his friendship with Max has changed him, he is aware that Max will have to move forward without him in the future.  The greatest gift that Kevin offered Max in their friendship was the use of imagination and the reminder of how memories can give strength.  What is so smart about Philbrick's writing, is that he writes in Max's voice throughout the book--Max who hated school, Max who had no confidence in his intellectual ability--and only at the end do you realize that Kevin asked him to write down their story.  At the end of the book it is incredible to "witness" how Max rose above all of his challenges to accomplish this and to see how the memory of his friendship with Kevin empowered him to do so.

And so, yes, remembering is a great invention of the mind.  And even though we all have things we wish we could forget, we also have the store of memories that remind us of who we really are and the things we really love...and those are the memories that give us the strength to move forward as changed people.

A quick question on memory (well, quick to write, not to think about, hence this post.)

This summer I made writing goals with some of my students and one of mine was to write a short story. It is in the very early stages of drafting, but is centered on the idea of memory, born from how prominent a place it has in the literature that I read, so it didn't surprise me when another book centered on memory popped up--and for better or worse, it was asking some similar questions that I have been thinking about.

The narrative of Evening by Susan Minot alternates between the main character's present: dying in her bed in and out of consciousness, and her recollections of a single weekend from her past which has haunted her entire existence since. She met and shared an intense few days with a man named Harris and her entire perception of love changed--and herself right along with it. They parted ways and Ann went on to have three marriages and five children.

My question is if you can or should let one memory color your entire existence? I can't decide if it is deeply beautiful or incredibly sad.

This isn't a rhetorical question. I am soliciting thoughts and answers.

I just got lost.

(Disclaimer: this post is relevant (well, that's my hope, anyway) even if you don't watch Lost, and isn't specific enough to ruin anything if you are relatively up to date this season. )

The latest Lost quandry that has been running through my thoughts is the following:

If you had the ability to change the past so that events in the future would be prevented, would you do it? Or, do you feel like however painful or traumatizing those events might be, they have shaped your selfhood and understanding of life and the world in such a way that you wouldn't want to un-do them?

Is it ethical to try to change an event in your memory? The New York Times discussed this a few weeks ago (not so much in the time travel, science fiction sense, though...it does feel a little like that). Nicole Krauss poses this question in Man Walks into a Room.

Memory is a repeating theme for me in my reading and writing.

What would the consequences be of deleting a scene from your life?
Even now I'm trying to think of potential scenarios that people may want to remove, but it gets so complicated and messy in about 5 seconds of thought.

Today I'm apparently just posing questions.

Memory yet again in Contemporary Fiction: Some Ramblings in response

I recently finished Man Walks into a Room by Nicole Krauss. It was a highly anticipated read, as not only was it very critically acclaimed, but she also wrote one of my favorite books I've ever read, The History of Love. Last year I read a lot of books about memory: The Inheritance of Loss, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, and The Memory Keeper's Daughter. This topic is one that never fails to interest me: perhaps because I fear losing the moments of my past that have shaped and influenced me, perhaps because I fear that the places which in a sense define me are slipping further away into the past tense: rather than my drives through fields and the smell of evening air in Ohio, it is becoming the energy of the city and the smell of Brooklyn sidewalks in the summer.

But last weekend I was out on Long Island, visiting the beach on an unbeachy day, and all that is in me that longs for space and tea and quiet swelled up again. So my memories of those places aren't gone, but just dormant. I think? I'm not sure I could survive in the city without remembering country roads and open skies and the hope that I will get to visit them. (Ironically, I'm not sure if I would survive in the suburbs anymore, either...rural, though, perhaps? A character in the book said that she couldn't go back to the suburbs of Cleveland anymore, not in the same way (page 55). That is how life feels...though I guess that happens with time alone, and not just space.) It's not just outdoor space, either. This has been a year of friends moving and things changing and me realizing the impact of having those people and friendships gone from my immediate life. I can deal with the loss ok (sort of!), because I can remember.

Before I turn into a ridiculously cheesy song lyric, let me explain the literary connection. Samson, the main character in Krauss' book loses all of his memory except up until the age of 12. The book examines not only this theme, but of scientific intervention with memory. But what stuck with me the most was the quote: "I know, I know. A little to the left or right and I might not have remembered how to go to the bathroom. I might have existed in some eternal moment, with no memory of the minute that just passed. I might have lost my ability to feel. I'm lucky, sure. What I lost is, in the grand scope of things, almost...negligible ." (page 44)

I'm just not sure that his loss is negligible. His organs and senses are intact, but his entire framework for seeing and dealing with the world is gone. Interestingly enough, he has his memories from childhood--but they end at age 12--about the age of my students. And though they have had life experience, they don't necessarily process through it meaningfully until much later, through the lens of even more life experience. The scientist who works with Samson brings up the idea that memories are a burden to keep (page 89). This is partially true: I am haunted quite often by memories and they can affect an afternoon or more of my life...but they are also a grounding, I think.

There is so much more thinking that needs to be done about this book, but the simplified bottom line is that this book made me very sad. Near the end, Samson describes his state: "He'd surrendered his past for a plot of emptiness." (page 213)

Maybe my reaction is part of the reason why I am such an incessant reflector in life; I just really believe that there is meaning to be made.

looking.

I washed my hair
with the same travel size shampoo I haven't used since England
a surprise--
my senses highjacked
because I haven't been breathing
all that deep
these months.
Aching,
I wanted
to be
all at sea,
and realized it wasn't just there
but northern Virginia's pines
and the creek in my hometown
and the roads that lead to Oxford
and their cool pockets of air between trees
that i just can't seem to find right now
even though i keep looking
My perceptions, maybe, are playing tricks on me.

On Memory, Part 2

The premise of this post is that we all have a story. I find myself wanting to collect the bits of stories that are a part of my past and my family's past and humanity's past. Then I'm not quite sure what to do with them.

Ironically, my reading lately has spoken to this very thought.

“There were other parts of the tale that none of them would be able to piece together, of course, for some of the narrative had been lost, some of it had been purposely forgotten.”
-Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss, page 31

It is hard for me to accept losing the narrative. Love of story takes over my brain and I wonder if forgetting (or not telling) our narratives is ever a good thing. The most poetic moments of life are found tucked into the small details.

This is a theme that I keep coming across in the books I’m reading. I just need to throw it out there…to use typing as a means of processing. Just know that these thoughts may not be coherent; they may just pose more questions.

“Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.” Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, page 1.

Not being paralyzed by one’s past is a good thing. Moving forward with courage is admirable. Perhaps this asserts a freedom that allows people to truly live. The pattern I’ve noticed in myself is that I remember nostalgically—somehow a lot of the pain has faded. Bitterness and the inability to forgive trap the present and the future with the past.

“Ashes have no weight, they tell no secrets, they rise too lightly for guilt; too lightly for gravity, they float upward and, thankfully, disappear.
These years were blurry for many, and when they came out of them, exhausted, the whole world had changed, there were gaps in everything—what had happened in their own families, what had happened elsewhere, what filth had occurred like an epidemic everywhere in the world that was now full of unmarked graves—they didn’t look, because they couldn’t afford to examine the past. They had to grasp the future with everything they had.
One true thing Jemubhai had learned: the human heart can be transformed into anything. It was possible to forget if not essential to do so.” –Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss, page 338.

Here are my questions: If we forget everything that was bad, how can we shape the future? If I see pain and then forget about it, how can I help it cease? If we, as a people, forget what we know has happened, does that help us move forward? Is it different for individuals versus the collective? Can we move on from hurt, but still gain from the scars?

I am haunted by that excerpt from The Inheritance of Loss on so many levels: personally, globally, spiritually. I guess the idea of the human heart being transformed into anything is a scary thought. I kind of think that’s why it’s important to remember. Aye.

How do we move forward? On Memory, Part 1

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco is a title that I hesitate to bring up. It is the blasted book that I haven’t been able to finish, which I mentioned in my last post. This is distressing for multiple reasons. One is that it bothers me to leave something hanging incomplete. Character flaw or anal retentiveness? Both? Aye. The other reason is because it was incredibly intriguing when I first began. The main character is a man who suffered a stroke and with it lost his episodic, or autobiographical, memory. (“It’s episodic memory that establishes a link between who we are today and who we have been, and without it, when we say I, we’re referring only to what we are feeling now, not to what we felt before…” page 13). An antique bookseller in his sixties, Yambo can remember how to brush his teeth and drive a car, but cannot remember his wife, children, passions or childhood. The book traces his attempt to recover who he was and if that connects to who he is now post-stroke. Please don’t ask me how it turns out because I don’t know. Yet.

So I have been thinking about the degree to which our experiences, that turn into memories by the minute, influence who we are right now and the decisions and thoughts we have today. Yambo’s experience is the following: “Whatever feelings I once had were no longer mine. I wondered whether I had ever been religious; it was clear, whatever the answer, that I had lost my soul,” (page 21).

Whatever is in my past, good and bad, has shaped the way that I view the world. This is why it makes sense to me that different people understand the world in different ways depending on their experience. It is absolutely frightening to think about not being able to draw upon the past to process what is going on in and around me. In essence, Yambo is in the same position as a baby who has yet to create a framework of understanding. If this happens, is it possible to ever be the “same” person?

I have found myself wanting to wish certain parts of my past out of my memory—be it things that hurt so much to remember, or times where I have hurt someone else. But if I honestly think about that, I think most shadows of my past have—for better or worse, I guess—shaped part of my soul, as Yambo puts it. Who are we without our personal story? Does it matter if we remember every word we have ever read, but forget our narrative? One of the most heart wrenching moments in the book is when Yambo talks about his grandson: “I knew all about Alexander the Great, but nothing about Alessandro the tiny, the mine,” (page 20).

Romans 8 is making a little more sense to me in light of this: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” I was talking with some friends last night about His transformative power and this is where I see it…taking our pasts and producing a person closer to who we were meant to be, as if He knows who we can be and draws it out. We need to have our pasts to see this transformation and how making it through the moments that seem to take the life out of us are what help us to become as we reflect…and that is a good thing. And for that reason alone, I no longer want to white out the parts of my life I wish I could revise.

At the same time, I want to remember the times that have most shaped my soul in a pure, painless (unless you count the heart-hurt of beauty, of course)—the summer air of Ohio, reading Anne of Green Gables and The Chronicles of Narnia, laughing with friends and feeling understood. The sweetness of those memories overwhelms me. I’ll leave you with one more thought from Mysterious Flame: “If you don’t back up, you won’t go forward,” (page 28).

And a post-script: It appears that I only read to page 28. I know I teach 12 year olds, but I try not to be as rash as they are—I did read until page 300. I am currently mustering the strength to make it to 450.