Sunday 22 April 2018

Lincoln in the Bardo - my surprise love.


Recently I flew up north with an agenda that I knew might be stressful and difficult. The night before leaving I was half way through a book that I had not really engaged with and knew I'd finish in a day or two anyway and then have nothing to read. But I'd recently (bravely?) purchased George Saunders' Man Booker Prize winner Lincoln in the Bardo.
I wasn't confident of embracing it, much less finishing it, on the basis of what some people had said in their reviews. So I took it with me on my trip north - only a week - on the assumption that if I had nothing else to read I might stick with it.
Much to my surprise, I was hooked within a few pages.
It is, without doubt, the strangest book I've ever read.
Multiple voices, some historically authentic, others fictitious. We're left to work out which are which - which isn't difficult and nor does it matter.
The small fact of the death of Abraham Lincoln's beloved boy, Willie, is set within the whole terrible drama of the American civil war, encompassing race, class and horrific tragedy. While Lincoln himself is crushed by grief and can't stay away from the crypt where Willie's body is taken, Willie himself is trapped between life and release and in the course of one night a cast of characters of all stripes wrestle over his fate and his soul.
The story is, at different times, heart-wrenchingly sad, funny, ghastly, cruel, and shocking.

The text itself is very odd. Many (most?) pages are scattered only with lines of sparse conversation or comment. So here's a tip, with back story...

Many pages are sparsely filled

My spoken French is pathetic. I turn to stone when someone babbles at me in French, expecting an answer. I can bumble my way around if I have to, an experience that leaves me feeling like I've just come out of major surgery. BUT my translation of written French isn't too bad. I read through text quickly and don't stop to agonise over unknown words. And this was a bit like how I read Lincoln. I read predominantly for meaning, and didn't always stop to process who was speaking. Sometimes of course I did but the two Greek Chorus kind of voices of hans coleman and roger bevins iii were easy to read just as conversation.
When I did take time to read more closely it was because of the beauty of the language and the imagery. The simplicity of it was immensely powerful:
"They buried Willie Lincoln on a day of great wind, that tore through the roofs of houses and slashed flags to ribbons."
roger bevins iii speaks of the many soldiers lying dead and wounded in open fields with their "rain-soaked/blood-soaked/snow-crusted letters scattered about them."
There are "geese above, clover below, the sound of one's own breath when winded. The way a moistness in the eye will blur a field of stars..."
It's a beautiful book, tender and dazzling, tantalising us with glimpses of a thousand different characters and their stories, all satelliting around the terrible grief of the President and the loss of his little boy.
I think I'm going to read it again.


~*~

Sunday 1 April 2018

Just A-Walkin' the Dog

"Every dog knows how to love a person. Not every person knows how to love a dog."

                                                                                            Unknown.

I often walk our dogs in an expansive parkland that runs alongside the railway line in outer suburban Melbourne. There's grass, a creek, birds galore and flowering trees to take your breath away. 
I’m loathe to give its name as it’s an unofficial and much treasured off-leash area though no signs attest to this and some kill-joy is bound to come along one day and complain. But - so far so good.
 If ever a person felt lonely or bereft they’d have only to come here to be uplifted, entertained, puzzled or to laugh out loud. There are funny stories, sad stories and no end of observations to be made, about dogs and humans alike. 
Take Rose. Rose is a robust but unremarkable black dog who fancies herself to be part cat. When I first met Rose she was pouncing into the long grass in what her owners told me was a promising pursuit of field mice, an activity at which she excels. When Rose is feeling affectionate towards her owners at home she will back up, lift her tail in the air and do those schmoozing slow twirls around their legs, just like a cat. She grew up with cats and kittens apparently and took on many of their feline behaviours. It made my day, meeting Rose.
There’s Henry the tradie’s dog who fell off the back of a truck one day and whose owner sped along, oblivious.
The absence of name tags, registration or the necessary speed to get the number plate resulted in Henry now living in the lap of luxury in a posh leafy suburb with his own couch and a penchant for watching the footy with his rescuer and now besotted new owner.
But not all encounters are happy ones. There’s the elderly lady who for years walked two beautifully behaved Airdale terriers, one spritely, one starting to dodder. We chatted several times about doggy things—best food, best parks, vet bills—and then one day she turned up with just the one dog. I knew not to say ‘I know just how you feel’—although I probably did— but this is not what the bereaved dog owner wants to hear. They know that no-one has ever been through anything as bad as what they’re going through right now. No-one. So don’t compete, don’t even empathise. Just listen and know what they're going through. 
Other behaviours come as a surprise. A few dog owners get tetchy if you get the gender of their dog wrong.  A well-meaning ‘What’s her name?’ can bring on the pursed lips and clouds of offence if she is in fact a he. Short of doubling over in a true hairpin bend to check the undercarriage for tell-tale signs of gender, it’s best not to commit. I’ve modified Catherine Deveney’s advice from an old column for Greeting Ugly Babies in these circumstances. Smile directly at the subject, look deeply indulgent and say ‘Well, look at you! And what’s your name?’ Thanks Catherine. Works every time. Unless it’s called Dusty or Spot. The dog, that is.
Of course some owners don’t deserve to own a dog. There are the two regular, lycra-clad runners who pound on ahead of a poor little fluff ball in full designer doggy-gear but who can’t keep up and frequently gets lost, needing to be rescued by some other more observant and caring dog owner. I long for a falling branch to bring them down or for that little bridge to collapse and send them plunging into the drain below but so far, no luck. We can but dream.
There are the owners who keep their dogs on a tight leash which they yank viciously if another dog approaches for a friendly sniff. 'C'mon Raymond!' they command, dragging the dog along mercilessly by the neck. 
Presumably they believe that decapitating their dog is preferable to letting it socialise with another. A variation on this theme is to swoop down and lift the dog high, clutching it to the breast defensively in an act of fierce protection. Unfortunately this usually leads to the approaching dog leaping high and repeatedly, pogo style, to get at the dog now cowering on its owner’s shoulders. Ah me, if only dogs were left to their own devices.
The non-poo-picker-uppers are another source of entertainment if you approach them kindly and say 'Forgot your bags? Never mind, here, have one of mine.'

Then stay and watch. Chances are they've never done it before and won't appreciate your interference one little bit.



Me, I often head for this park to walk our dogs, always off-lead. Until recently we've had three and people would often say ‘Oh, you have your hands full!’ But no. They’re friendly, full of fun and they come when they’re called.  I suspect this is because they’re all rescue dogs and so far I’m the only source of Schmakos they know.

~ * ~
(A version of this article originally appeared in The Big Issue.)