Rick Simonson

A Wet Warm Day
July 23, 2007

Perhaps it was the weather, strange hunkered-down dampness, warm rain, weather you hear of from other parts this time of year, gray weather more prone to being a boon for bugs than for the (sun) ripening of berries ... it has laid itself down here; perhaps it was the day before, the semi-spontaneous getting away and out of town, seeing woods and islands, being ferried (there were meetings, yes, but there was also moments, walking across an old fort's parade ground, of being swooped at, waist-high, the whole way by darting swallows, blue-backed and orange-bellied); perhaps it was the eye-of-the-visiting-relatives storm, after relatives have visited and before more are due; perhaps the relative quiet of lively messages in the e-mail firmament; perhaps it was the collective, communal sway, the draft caused, once the party waters, late night and early morning, had ceased, and the real pleasure embarked upon, as so many, many undertook what readers do, namely, take up a book and read, and yes, we know what tome most were humming their tune by.

It was perhaps by any one of those possible reasons, or some combination, but this past Saturday, something providential happened and, rarity of rarities, it became a day to do almost nothing but read. This almost never happens here. Usually it has to be a plane ride, or some vast distance from computer or phone, for a day of reading to occur. All day ... the windows open, the door open, damp air wafting about, stillness in it, the plip and plop of drops on sills, on surfaces outside, the pavement swoosh of the occasional passing car. Positions were assumed - sitting, reclining, even pacing - by window or doorway - for the steady, unshadowed gray-green light - sofa, bed-top, step, chair, other chair.

And the reading? 

There was the last section of Robert Hass' luminous new book of poems, Time and Materials, forthcoming from Ecco, a book we hear Dan Halpern memorably previewed at the editors' buzz panel this past BEA. Hass is a poet not to be hurried, either in his writing or one's reading. There are shorter poems with shorter lines, and then there are those of length and latitudes. Time is taken, and should be. He starts small, expands, brings what he has evoked or invoked back, alit.

There was the last whole big section, finally sunk into (and almost sunk by) of Naomi Klein's extraordinary, damning The Shock Doctrine, which Frances Coady and Co. are bringing out through Metropolitan. I'm not sure what I can say about this here, as there is some sort of quasi-emabrgo on its contents (someone somewhere is running a serial). To say here that I wouldn't want to be Alan Greenspan with his new book in some sort of one-on-one with Ms. Klein and hers: it is a tough book, anchored by places in the world that have undergone the 'shock doctrines' applied, politically (usually un-democratically), economically, and against our very language and imagination over the past thirty years and more. Several of Hass' poems, as a matter of fact, ruminate on situations portrayed in The Shock Doctrine, one called 'Ezra Pound's Proposition' looking at how the actions of the World Bank are connected to the actions of a young girl in Bangkok offering a Westerner her body for sale. More on this one in time.

Then Stewart O'Nan's fully wrought world within the confines of a short novel, Last Night at the Lobster. Stewart O'Nan, who has written many different kinds of novels (and books of non-fiction) and been published many places. Viking, now, is doing this, a captivating cover on the advance edition. Inside - well, it's characters caught in the play of the last night of a New England mall chain-restaurant, one slated to be closed (ah, the globalized, corporatist world Naomi Klein writes of with an aspect of local application). Funny, rueful, little surprises here and there, a kind of meditation (via well-depicted characters) on responsibility, duty, working for or through something larger than the day, even as the day is what is tended to. And, how sometimes such duty/responsility is seen more cleary and acted upon more forthrightly in one form of life (work) than another (love).

Lastly for this day, as the gray was darkening, finally (it is still midsummer, gray or not), was the first part of Orhan Pamuk's new book of essays, Other Colors, forthcoming from Knopf. Again, more to say later of what is so far a wonderful and various presentation of other aspects of one of the world's more vital writers. Later in the book (I see) there are pieces about his own writing, and there is also a section on other books and writers. What I've read so far are pieces about what he thinks and cares about when he is not writing - largely insightful pieces on family, pieces reflective of a deep attachment to Istanbul (in which memory and the past play a strong part), including ones written in the wake of the devastating earthquake of 1999, which killed thousands there.

No great conclusions by day's end, as perhaps the many younger (and not so young) readers were pursuing in their ready of Harry's last great adventure, but thankful I was for this relaxed stroll on a wet day through a lovely, worded garden. Birds chirp, the cat meows. It's not all your reading, I think she says. There's also my feeding. Yes, Isobel, there is that, and more.

More of these soon, I hope.

Posted by Rick Simonson on July 23, 2007 | Comments (0)