… ce ne andremo di là dalle rive e dai monti, a salutare la nascita del nuovo lavoro, la saggezza nuova, la fuga dei tiranni e dei demoni, la fine della superstizione, ad adorare – per primi ! – Natale sulla terra.
(Arthur Rimbaud)

Buon Natale, scuola pubblica, e un anno che sia davvero nuovo
Questo anno che finisce vede l’Italia più povera, più precaria. C’è la crisi, ma non per tutti. Anche la scuola pubblica è più povera. Mentre vengono aumentati i finanziamenti alla scuola privata. Provvedimenti non ispirati alla didattica ma a una logica di cassa stanno smantellando la scuola italiana. Provvedimenti approssimativi, senza nessuna copertura legale, che proprio in questi giorni sono bloccati dagli organi di controllo. Il Consiglio di Stato blocca la “riforma” delle Superiori. Il Consiglio Nazionale della Pubblica Istruzione chiede il rinvio del Regolamento relativo alle nuove classi di concorso. Il Tar del Lazio ribadisce il limite massimo di 25 alunni per classe; e sta valutando la legittimità dei primi regolamenti del Ministro Gelmini. Il futuro della scuola è sempre più incerto. Buon Natale, scuola pubblica, e felice anno nuovo. Auguri ai lettori de lapoesiaelospirito e a tutto il mondo. E qualche consiglio di lettura.

Anche vivalascuola va in vacanza, riprenderà l’11 gennaio.

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Antonio Machado, Juan de Mairena. Sentenze, arguzie, appunti e ricordi di un professore apocrifo

Fra i massimi poeti del secolo scorso, Antonio Machado pubblicò nel 1936, col titolo di Juan de Mairena, una raccolta di poesie in prosa che conteneva gli aforismi, le testimonianze inventate, gli aneddoti e i motti paradossali riguardanti colui che il narratore chiama suo maestro.

L’interesse per i suoi versi non nasce solo dall’argomento “pedagogico” di tanti aforismi contenuti nella raccolta (di seguito ne proponiamo una selezione) e con cui riesce a tratteggiare in pochi tratti una personalissima “filosofia dell’educazione”, ma anche dalla straordinaria esperienza della scuola “libera” di istruzione superiore che quella filosofia tentò di mettere in pratica: l’Institución Libre de Enseñanza, che Machado fondò insieme ad altri intellettuali e professori universitari (fra cui Unamuno e Ortega y Gasset), allontanati dall’insegnamento per aver denunciato l’ipocrisia e la corruzione del governo spagnolo. La Institución ebbe un’erede altrettanto importante: la Residencia de Estudiantes fondata da Alberto Jménez nel 1910, dove si formò, fra gli altri, Garcia Lorca.

“Credo che mai, dal primo Medio Evo”, scrive Colin Ward, “una scuola abbia dato risultati così straordinari nella vita di una nazione, in quanto è stato essenzialmente per merito della Institución e della Residencia che la cultura spagnola si è improvvisamente innalzata a un livello mai raggiunto nei tre secoli precedenti”.

Un assaggio: “Juan de Mairena aveva pensato di fondare al suo paese una Scuola Popolare di Sapienza. Rinunciò a questo proposito quando morì il suo maestro, al quale aveva destinato la cattedra di Poetica e Metafisica. A sé riservava la cattedra di Sofistica.
- È un peccato – diceva – che siano sempre i migliori propositi quelli che vanno a finir male, mentre le ideucole degli stupidi, inventori di espedienti e mestatori della peggior specie, prosperano…“
(presentazione tratta da “Tra bambini e città” a cura del Centro territoriale Mammut – www.mammutnapoli.org)

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Luigi Monti e Cecilia Bartoli (a cura di), Prima educare nella scuola e nella società
di Giorgio Morale

È un libretto prezioso, da tenere a portata di mano, dopo una prima lettura, per attingere alla bisogna agli stimoli che esso dà in termini di informazione, spunti operativi, provocazioni per pensare. Ogni parola appare ponderata, chiara e ricca di contenuto, come un distillato di esperienza su cui si sia lungamente meditato. La prima dote che risalta alla lettura è un lavoro significativo anche sul piano del linguaggio, che pare sorgere anch’esso dalla viva esperienza e rifuggire la sterilità del didattichese.

Prendendo le distanze dal pedagogismo accademico, Prima educare ha il raro pregio di unire teoria e pratica, come è giusto che sia, in questa scienza sperimentale che è l’insegnamento, non a caso accostato, nella introduzione di uno dei due curatori, Luigi Monti, al teatro; e già da una semplice scorsa all’Indice ciò appare visibilmente: i vari saggi che compongono il volume sono infatti raggruppati in due sezioni, Teorie e Pratiche, pur con le inevitabili interrelazioni tra i due campi.

Il testo iniziale, una lunga conversazione tra Goffredo Fofi e Grazia Honegger Fresco, ricostruisce le più importanti esperienze pedagogiche italiane dal secondo dopoguerra a oggi, indicando dei punti di riferimento (Montessori, Freinet, Borghi, De Bartolomeis, Capitini, Dolci, Lodi, le esperienze del Cemea e del Mce, ecc.; nonché gli esempi di Pestalozzi e Freinet) di cui sente la mancanza la generazione che si affaccia oggi all’insegnamento.

Il volume ha altri suoi punti di forza nel tematizzare la necessità e il senso dell’insegnamento, nonché nel fare piazza pulita dei luoghi comuni, della cultura del talk show e delle false domande che in realtà tendono a modellare i destinatari; nel collegare le tematiche dell’educazione a quelle del contesto sociale e culturale; nell’affrontare alcuni dei punti dolenti dell’oggi, quelli che la società ha estrema difficoltà ad affrontare: la convivenza delle diversità, la mancanza di una attitudine progettuale, lo spaesamento, la rassegnazione, la disabitudine ai tempi lunghi dell’apprendimento.

I testi non danno risposte preconfezionate, ma pongono domande importanti, rischiano proposte, indicano strade, raccontano tentativi, osano utopie e propongono parole forti come la curiosità, la reciprocità, l’ascolto, la relazione. Con ciò hanno l’effetto di coinvolgere chi legge e farlo sentire partecipe di una ricerca, nella convinzione che “Le strade bisogna percorrerle. Hay que andarlas, come diceva il protagonista di un vecchio racconto di Borges”.

A lettura ultimata, mi pare emergere spontaneamente dal volume la conclusione che qualsiasi seria possibilità di riforma della scuola non può che partire dal basso, dalla scuola stessa, dai soggetti che in essa vivono e lavorano. E, pur consapevoli delle difficoltà, i vari autori ci fanno percepire, con la loro passione e con i costanti riferimenti alla storia della pedagogia da Socrate a oggi, che un’altra scuola è possibile, ma perché si realizzi ha bisogno di tutti, e che ognuno parta da sé, dalla disponibilità a mettersi in gioco e dall’apertura al divenire.

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Cosimo Argentina, Beata Ignoranza
di Michele Lupo

Lo scrittore Cosimo Argentina, romanziere tarantino trapiantato in Brianza, insegnante precario di diritto da molti anni, è autore di un breve pamphlet sulla scuola uscito per i tascabili Fandango nel 2008. Ha lavorato dappertutto Argentina, scuole private comprese. Ne sa abbastanza, insomma. E ne ha anche abbastanza, si capisce. Per esempio di sentir parlare di scuola da incompetenti assoluti, e/o da prestanome agli ordini del Ministero del Tesoro, dal quale, come molti italiani non sanno, effettivamente gli insegnanti dipendono. Tanto che, visto lo stato dell’arte, il dicastero della Pubblica Istruzione lo si potrebbe pure smantellare e cavarci un estemporaneo risparmio una tantum che ad Argentina, a chi scrive e forse anche a chi legge, farebbe comodo (ogni riferimento alle esoteriche, ineffabili competenze della signora Gelmini è dovuto).

Il libretto è diviso in una quindicina di brevissimi capitoli; si passa dalla tragicomica questione della precarietà alla famigerata faccenda della meritocrazia, dalla stanchezza dei colleghi alla supponenza analfabeta dei genitori – se in Italia comanda chi comanda e ci chiediamo ancora perché, si osservino attentamente, questi genitori: “i genitori dei geni incompresi”, “i genitori abbagliati” (dal paranoico pregiudizio che i prof ce l’avrebbero con i loro pargoletti), quelli disperati “che non sanno più che fare”, quelli che vanno ai consigli di classe solo per sapere come vanno i loro figli, quelli violenti, quelli supplicanti etc.

I motivi per arrabbiarsi sono tanti e, per chi fa questo mestiere, tutti noti, ma Argentina si fa leggere per la verve sagace e l’acutezza divertita che agilmente ritmano la sua prosa. Si diceva una volta: è come sparare sulla croce rossa, se ad esempio si fa del sarcasmo sui collegi docenti, ma resta il fatto che continuiamo ad accettare questo rito per lo più svuotato di senso quando è ridotto, e ben lo racconta Argentina, a scazzi grotteschi sulle ‘funzioni obiettivo’ (si chiamano ancora così?), interminabili schermaglie dialettiche concernenti i criteri con cui stabilire i criteri per decidere i criteri… i sonni degli inguattati, gli sms non più di nascosto alle babysitter, i pistolotti dei retori innamorati della propria voce…

Nel cahier de doléances di Argentina (ma ripeto, con ammirevole sens of humor, considerato che vive tutto sulla propria pelle) la parte più consistente è dedicata al precariato. Dai ricatti che anch’io ho raccontato altrove dei gestori delle scuole private (“Tu mi lavori gratis in cambio del punteggio”), agli stipendi da fame (che riguardano tutti ma con l’aggravante per chi il 30 giugno viene rimandato a casa di sentirsi sempre come sul Titanic, mentre sulla riva si confezionano agevolazioni fiscali per mantenere Mourinho), al disagio di contare ancor meno dei colleghi in quella stupida guerra fra poveri che insegnanti non sempre all’altezza (etica, intellettuale) del compito conducono in sordina mentre la nave affonda. Magari qualche pagina in più la si sarebbe potuta dedicare alla brillante intelligenza dei dirigenti, figurarsi, eccitati prima dalla prospettiva di finire nell’olimpo delle alte magistrature di questo farsesco paese, poi scornati dal ridimensionamento provocato dalla cronica mancanza di danaro (peraltro, chissà quante persone in Italia sanno che molti dirigenti scolastici non sono stati insegnanti strepitosi, soprattutto perché alla cultura hanno preferito l’intrallazzo utile a fare il salto di qualità al momento giusto – e nemmeno tutto ‘sto gran guadagno, economicamente parlando).

Molti di noi invece non si sorprenderanno di scoprire che anche per Argentina, alla fine della storia, la scuola resta un luogo che può regalare momenti irripetibili, di bellezza autentica. E per quanto antico e demodè possa suonare, alla fine lì torniamo: “irrobustire la mente, crearsi uno stile, scoprire attitudini, abituare al sacrificio (…) tutto per loro, sono loro, la dolce marmaglia, il pane quotidiano”: la scuola, ecco quanto – si provino a sostituirla con qualcos’altro.

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Daniel Pennac, Diario di scuola
di Lucia Tosi

“Ci hai rotto con questo dogma dell’empatia!” (Pennac-somaro a Pennac-prof.).

Il dettato reazionario. La memorizzazione dei testi infantile. La valutazione umiliante. Tutte pratiche terrorizzanti, esecrabili, che la moderna pedagogia (che è sempre moderna fino a che qualcuno non prende una nuova rotta) condanna. Però negli anni si accumulano i disastri, di insegnante in insegnante gli studenti trascinano con sé una perenne “mancanza di basi”: i programmi incalzano, cosicché l’ortografia, la morfologia, la sintassi, in una parola la maledetta grammatica, restano una “patata bollente” che qualcuno dovrà pur smettere di rifilare al collega successivo. Perché “non appropriarsi della letteratura”, perché “lasciar volar via pagine simili come foglie morte”? Forse perché i professori di un tempo erano fissati col farci imparare a memoria poesie di cui non capivamo nulla, “ognuna delle quali prendeva il posto della precedente, come se ci esercitassero soprattutto all’oblio”? Cosicché un’idiozia moderna ha preso il posto di un’antica idiozia. “Imparare a memoria? Nell’epoca in cui la memoria si misura in giga!”.

Queste due osservazioni sull’insegnamento della lingua, tra tante proposte di estremo buon senso che si possono leggere in Diario di scuola di Daniel Pennac, Feltrinelli, 2008, libro plurirecensito come “il punto di vista del somaro sulla scuola”, sono quelle che colpiscono forse meno dei ricordi autobiografici, delle memorie di un ultimo della classe, quale era lo scrittore. Sono riflessioni che meritano tuttavia di essere prese in considerazione nella pratica dell’insegnamento: costerebbe pochissimo studiare un testo alla settimana (con l’obbligo di mantenerlo in vita tutto l’anno), così come curare il “mal di grammatica” con la grammatica. Pennac chiama queste pratiche un tuffo nel grande fiume della lingua: per non annegare bisogna prima o poi imparare a nuotare. Ma il “somaro” recalcitra, non vuole starci (brillante l’analisi della particella ci nel III capitolo), preferisce lo zero in ortografia “una fortezza da cui nessuno verrà a farlo sloggiare”, preferisce rifugiarsi in spiegazioni assurde sui suoi fallimenti, così come l’insegnante si chiude, di fronte a certe risposte assurde, anch’egli nel suo ci: “Con questo qui non ci riuscirò mai”.

Dall’analisi grammaticale di semplici particelle o pronomi nascosti nel tessuto della lingua d’uso, Pennac perviene ad una riflessione globale sul linguaggio e sui linguaggi non verbali degli studenti, sul disagio giovanile a volte enfatizzato dai media, mai affrontato nella realtà. Di fronte ai problemi diversissimi che si trovano ad affrontare, gli insegnanti si lamentano di “non essere stati formati per questo”. Il “questo” è prima di tutto la difficoltà a sollecitare negli studenti la necessità di istruirsi facendole prendere il posto dei desideri: “vuotarsi la testa per formarsi la mente, staccare la spina per connettersi al sapere, scambiare la pseudo-ubiquità delle macchine con l’universalità del sapere, dimenticare rutilanti carabattole per assimilare invisibili astrazioni”. E poiché per far “questo” l’empatia non va, dice il Pennac-somaro al Pennac-prof, ci vuole l’amore. L’amore. “Se tiri fuori questa parola parlando di istruzione, ti linciano”.

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Marcel Postic, La relazione educativa
di Marina Massenz

Questo libro, uscito diversi anni fa, è sempre attualissimo e di straordinario interesse. La prima parte richiama gli aspetti istituzionali e sociologici della relazione educativa e ci sollecita a riflettere su come questi aspetti strutturali condizionino profondamente lo svolgersi delle dinamiche pedagogiche.

La seconda parte sviluppa un’analisi psicosociologica di queste dinamiche, a partire dai concetti di ruolo e status dell’insegnante e dell’allievo, sottolineando come la relazione sia complessa e ricca di aspettative ed interdipendenza da entrambe le parti. La concezione di contratto pedagogico rimanda a una interazione basata non sul potere ma, appunto, su un dialogo educativo che prevede, alimenta e sa gestire una positiva contrattualità tra i protagonisti nella transazione educativa.

L’ultima e terza parte sono a mio parere veramente illuminanti e bisogna riconoscere a Marcel Postic di essere stato il primo (edizione francese del 1979), a parlare dell’esistenza di un registro inconscio nella relazione insegnante-allievo. Questi meccanismi inconsci, che pervadono anche il gruppo classe, sono spesso quelli determinanti nel definire la qualità del rapporto e di conseguenza le possibilità di un buon apprendimento. Parlare di transfert, desiderio, seduzione, identificazione, in una relazione apparentemente “distaccata” come spesso è quella con i ragazzi delle scuole medie e superiori, significa aprire un importante varco alla comprensione di dinamiche, spesso disturbanti e ripetitive, che altri mezzi non sono in grado di far evolvere.

L’aspetto “rivoluzionario” di questo libro è quindi proprio quello di porsi agli antipodi del metodo oggi suggerito per la gestione dei conflitti, che fa della “punizione” o del “voto in condotta” i suoi punti chiave, per suggerire in alternativa un modello di insegnante competente, in grado di leggere le dinamiche proprie, degli alunni, della classe con altri strumenti e di intervenire quindi in modo più consapevole ed efficace nella gestione della complessità, che è senz’altro un segno del nostro tempo. Personalmente credo che non solo tutti gli insegnanti, ma in senso lato tutti gli educatori, dovrebbero leggere questo libro.

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Eraldo Affinati, La città dei ragazzi
di Gianluca Santangelo

Consiglio La città dei ragazzi a chi ha a cuore l’insegnamento e l’educazione e a chi si trova a frequentare persone provenienti da Paesi stranieri, a chi ha interesse per le relazioni umane e a chi non ha smesso di interrogare se stesso.

In particolare consiglio questo libro come un manuale per chi insegna, non perché sia tecnico o prescrittivo ma per il suo valore esemplare. Esemplare ma non imitabile. Se non si può seguire nella lettera, tanto è eccezionale la vicenda narrata, si può però seguire l’esempio da esso fornito nello spirito. Sarebbe bello che tutti gli insegnanti fossero come l’insegnante protagonista del libro, ma nessuno lo può chiedere loro. È bello però sapere che esistono dei casi in cui c’è una totale identificazione col lavoro che si svolge, in cui il lavoro non è alienazione ma espressione della propria identità. In cui il lavoro risponde a un’esigenza profonda, non importa se colmare un vuoto o una ferita o restituire alla vita parte di quello che abbiamo ricevuto.

Sta di fatto che per l’insegnante protagonista, che in questo libro i ragazzi chiamano Raldo, insegnare informa la sua personalità, lo identifica come potrebbe fare una lingua materna, come pensare in Italiano o pensare in Inglese. E scopriamo subito, sin dalle prime pagine, che la sua lingua si chiama relazione, ovvero, detto con una parola suggerita anche se non pronunciata: amore.

Il libro vive della declinazione di questa lingua nelle varie situazioni. È per essa che Raldo si domanda chi sono i ragazzi a cui insegna, da dove vengono, chi sono i loro padri, perché li hanno lasciati andare, quale ferita si portano dentro, cos’hanno da dare, qual è la loro ricchezza. Domande che lo coinvolgono, in quanto lui stesso le fa a se stesso per capire la propria storia, e a cui cerca di rispondere non solo a parole, consapevole che “Ognuno ha un pezzetto di responsabilità; se la disattende, provoca una conseguenza che può ripercuotersi, a distanza di tempo, nelle generazioni future”.

Ed è bello che in una delle ultime pagine si legga: “negli sguardi dei ragazzi riconosco la mia stessa commozione. Quello che accade in aula produce effetti indelebili. È la potenza dell’insegnamento”.

Il tutto in una scrittura curata, sentita, che punta alla chiarezza e all’onestà: se fosse poesia, la ascriverei alla linea Saba della poesia italiana

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Maurizio Salabelle, Il maestro Atomi
di Michele Lupo

Chissà se è mai capitato a qualche studente italiano di fare una gita scolastica in Giappone, per di più in compagnia non del suo insegnante ma di un ispettore scolastico inviato dal ministero. Per poi trovarsi coinvolto in una serie di situazioni assurde, come maneggiare l’indecifrabile moneta locale il cui valore deve essere descritto attraverso smorfie complicate e faticosi sospiri. Oppure di trovarsi di fronte a un bizzarro supplente che si porta a scuola una pentola d’acciaio munita di una struttura metallica collegata alla presa di corrente per dimostrare come dal “brodo primordiale dell’ammasso di molecole disordinate ad un certo punto venne fuori la vita”.

Il passo narrativo di Maurizio Salabelle, scrittore prematuramente scomparso nel 2003, sembra sulle prime un po’ surreale, come la scuola che racconta, un istituto elementare con classi di 39 persone che cercano di arrivare in tempo in aula per non restare senza il posto. Eppure il suo andamento avvince perché è in grado di percorrere con vivida concretezza di fatti e personaggi un paesaggio sorprendente, tutt’altro che gratuito, nonostante o forse proprio in virtù della natura paradossale delle storie che racconta – com’è dei bravi scrittori. Salabelle sembra andare oltre l’intuizione del carattere mai definitivo che si nasconde nel mondo della scuola, il suo negarsi sostanziale all’apparente tran tran che avvinghia i più in una morsa di noia o sfiducia o stanchezza. Anche chi vi lavora da molti anni sa che in una mattina qualunque può succedere qualcosa che non sarebbe potuta accadere da nessun’altra parte. Ne Il maestro Atomi, senza mai farne “discorso” ma sempre e solo dentro il dispiegarsi del racconto, non si tratta più di sorprese che interrompono la routine. La scuola viene reinventata totalmente, ricostruita come un affatturato e insieme ironico universo guardato attraverso gli occhi di un ragazzino, la voce narrante, davvero speciale.

Il romanzo, edito da Comix nel 1997, poi rifabbricato per i tipi Casagrande qualche anno dopo, purtroppo non è facilmente reperibile. Salabelle nella sua breve vita pubblicò anche con Garzanti e Bollati Boringhieri, ma era uno scrittore che non aspirava – suppongo – ai grandi numeri. La sua era una narrativa purissima, antiretorica, in minore – sulla falsariga del suo maestro Gianni Celati – ma niente affatto dimessa, con una sua strana grazia che coniugava l’assurdo con una precisione descrittiva e con una voce narrante molto divertente.

I sei capitoli che compongono Il maestro Atomi possono leggersi in qualsiasi ordine, dando vita a 720 combinazioni possibili. Ma al di là dell’apparente eserciziario postmoderno che sarebbe ormai privo d’interesse, possiamo tranquillamente leggerlo come un insieme di racconti. Sono storie fra il comico e il fantastico, tutte dentro una scuola senza epoca inventata per rompere disinvoltamente con una tradizione narrativa, il racconto fra le mura di un’aula scolastica, troppo spesso incline al patetico e al vittimistico. La stravaganza che cifra il libro non è mai compiaciuta, o letteraria; è negli stessi personaggi: maestri curiosi, supplenti falotici, studenti buffi e allarmati eppure composti come piccoli Buster Keaton. La scuola in questo libro disegna una specie di spazio onirico, tramato in un tessuto di situazioni fantasiose ma serrate nella loro logica alternativa – una specie di ragione parallela al mondo quotidiano, freddamente emozionata, curiosa, come forse agli insegnanti piacerebbe vedere nello sguardo dei loro studenti.

Un libro, uno scrittore lontani dai volgarissimi spettacoli di oggi, compresi quelli più ammodo ma innocui, scontati di fiction televisive che solo tristissimi figuri possono considerare pericolose per la democrazia.

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Giuseppe Deiana, L’etica dell’insegnante
di Roberto Caracci

Il titolo di questo libro, L’etica dell’insegnante, va letto in maniera bifronte, soggettivo e oggettivo: da una parte si tratta dell’Etica insegnata dall’insegnante, dall’altra si tratta proprio dell’etica di quella figura professionale che si chiama Insegnante. Ma dietro questa ambivalenza c’è già uno degli ‘insegnamenti’ di questo libro: nessun insegnante può insegnare qualcosa come l’Etica se il suo lavoro non è eticamente fondato, e se la sua personalità non dà l’esempio di una incarnazione dei valori etici, e professionali. Sarebbe necessaria l’applicazione di una sorta di Giuramento di Ippocrate anche per gli insegnanti.

Questa tesi è legata a un’altra, fondamentale: gli alunni oggi non sono solamente motivati allo studio da un insegnante capace esclusivamente di informare, di istruire, di ultimare i programmi didattici o rispettare le regole della docimologia, e nemmeno dalla figura tradizionale di docente legato al peso della tradizione e dell’autorità, ma a ciò che Max Weber chiamava carisma, ovviamente legato alle competenze. Carisma vuol dire sia capacità di motivare con la propria personalità i ragazzi, sia incarnazione di un modello da seguire, che tanto più è valido quanto più nel suo modo di insegnare manifesta competenza ed eticità, scienza e coscienza, passione per la conoscenza e passione per la formazione.

Ma che cosa vuol dire insegnare l’etica? Ed è oggi possibile proporre un simile insegnamento, nell’era di internet e dopo che l’etica educativa è stata tanto spesso associata nelle nostre scuole ad una mentalità retrograda, tradizionale, da riforma Gentile o da libro Cuore? Sembra di risentire la vecchia obiezione socratico-platonica messa sulla bocca dei sofisti, per la quale le virtù non si possono insegnare: perché o l’allievo le possiede e conosce, e allora è inutile insegnargliele, oppure non le possiede né conosce, e dunque è altrettanto inutile parlargli di quello di cui non sa.

Intanto Deiana parla dell’insegnamento dell’Etica, non di un’etica. Lui sa benissimo che i valori sono tanti, che le tavole dei valori sono numerose e differenziate, che dunque l’etica è plurale e non singolare, policentrica e non unicentrica. Ma è qui che la matrice kantiana di G. Deiana fa una scelta di campo: dietro la molteplicità delle morali, delle etiche e dei valori, nel caos della post-modernità dove le differenziazioni vanno di pari passo col cammino apparentemente opposto della globalizzazione, si tratta di riscoprire l’Ethos comune dei valori condivisi, comunitari e partecipati. Sono i valori ai quali già in qualche modo apparteniamo nel momento stesso in cui facciamo parte di una comunità: famiglia, società civile, stato, Europa, pianeta terra. Sono i valori che uniscono e non quelli che dividono. Deiana sarebbe d’accordo con Gaber quando sosteneva in una famosa canzone che libertà non è stare sopra un albero, ma è partecipazione.

C’è un comune denominatore a questi valori dell’Ethos, che la scuola del futuro può deve insegnare a riconoscere e a coltivare: è quello dell’Appartenenza. Come il dovere filiale o parentale fa ‘appartenere’ a una famiglia, così la solidarietà ci fa appartenere alla società, le virtù del civis ci fanno appartenere alla cittadinanza, la legalità a uno stato di diritto, ecc. Appartenenza vuol dire condivisione di valori comuni, che sono quelli che ci permettono di stare insieme, di fare società, cittadinanza, stato, nazione, Europa, o mondo comune.

La scuola moderna ha dunque questo gravoso compito: educare alle virtù dell’appartenenza, in particolare a quelle legate alla socialità e alla cittadinanza democratica, alla solidarietà e alla legalità, nel nome del bene comune – ma sempre sotto il segno di una libertà non certo soggettivistica ed autoreferenziale, ma produttiva e in grado di non ledere la libertà degli altri. Nella scuola Deiana vede dunque la più importante palestra per l’educazione e la formazione del cittadino, e gli insegnanti ne sono i protagonisti chiamati in prima linea.

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Chiara Valerio, Nessuna scuola mi consola
di Paola Brusasco

“Non se ne esce. Almeno fino a quando non suona la campanella”. Non sempre, visto che certe faccende di scuola ti si appiccicano addosso, ma per Alessandra Faggi, trentenne, supplente annuale, la campanella è liberatoria quanto per gli studenti, perché a scuola – ci dice – “non si cresce mai”. Non una vera trama in Nessuna scuola mi consola, bensì aneddoti e siparietti di un repertorio che Faggi, “non mercenaria ma solo precaria”, usa per presentare i paradossi spesso generati dai rapporti scolastici.

“Dev’essere la struttura della scuola, crea frustrazione più dei corridoi di linoleum, delle porte di compensato e delle pareti di cartongesso”. La bruttezza degli ambienti in cui adulti e adolescenti trascorrono buona parte della giornata – difficili da sentir propri data la decadenza e l’economia dei rabberci – dà il via ad assurdità e osservazioni divertenti che, pur apparentemente strampalate, sono condivisibili. “A scuola si iscrivono tutti e tutti continuano, quasi l’obbligo scolare fosse la carta verde delle ferrovie dello stato”; e, riguardo la difficoltà di tenere le classi, “L’appello è la premessa in un’aula dove non si conosce nessuno. Altrimenti una rimane incinta, un altro si lussa una spalla (…), il quarto, che non sai chi è perché la classe non è tua, sta ammazzando la nonna e il povero supplente passa i guai”.

Pur in tono leggero, Chiara Valerio evidenzia il ricatto dei ricorsi, le montagne di scartoffie, l’impotenza davanti a studenti divisi per lo più fra centri commerciali e reality o talent shows, scarsi di concentrazione e senso del valore dello studio, davanti a presidi tendenti ad anteporre la burocrazia ad altre considerazioni, davanti alla posizione di ostaggio in pugno a leggi che non tutelano gli insegnanti, lasciandoli in pasto alla (possibile mancanza di) coscienza delle famiglie. Ecco allora la resistenza di un nucleo sovversivo di cinque docenti riuniti da Faggi in un gruppo di ascolto che, secondo necessità, si ritrova in sala professori nottetempo, con tanto di candele a dare un tocco satanico.

Pecca talvolta di una sorta di saccenteria generazionale Faggi, convinta – a quanto pare – che solo lo sguardo distaccato ed effimero del precario colga le magagne del sistema. Vero, si incontrano docenti dall’aria rassegnata, ravvivati solo dalla prospettiva della pensione. E c’è ovviamente chi cerca di fare l’indispensabile e anche meno, come in tutti gli ambienti di lavoro, ma c’è una minoranza poco visibile che sfata questi luoghi comuni pur avendo superato i trent’anni e l’immissione in ruolo, gli spartiacque nel libro.

E poi c’è l’episodio, potentemente drammatico, di Berti (Carlo Berti, IV B), invaghito o solo desideroso di emulare la professoressa, che si fa fare lo stesso tatuaggio, scorto per caso a causa di una caduta. Dal contesto ridanciano emerge tuttavia una fraintesa idea di tutela dei minori che rivela come dall’esterno si parta dal presupposto di colpevolezza del docente, la cui incolumità dipende dall’onestà dello studente e dal buon senso della famiglia.

Così, non volendo rovinare il finale al lettore, ci limiteremo a dire che, malgrado le irridenti scenette dissacratorie e le tante osservazioni acute e condivisibili, il libro costituisce una rassegna di macchiette che, per vizi, atteggiamenti e azioni, strizzano l’occhio agli stereotipi (e li confermano) di insegnanti un po’ deragliati, martiri dell’insegnamento o bonari fannulloni visti in varie fiction. Insomma, una lettura che diverte e introduce i non addetti ai lavori a misteri e problemi della scuola di oggi.
(da L’Indice, dicembre 2009)

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Richard Yates, Una buona scuola
di Michele Lupo

Diciamolo subito: A good school, breve romanzo in cui il grande Richard Yates raccontò le vicende di una mediocre scuola privata del New England negli anni Quaranta, non è paragonabile a Revolutionary Road, il suo celebre capolavoro (peraltro quasi sconosciuto al pubblico italiano – e non solo – prima che uscisse l’omonimo film l’anno scorso). Tuttavia, a parte le tracce di un’esperienza biografica mai troppo entusiasmante, segnata com’era dal riconoscibile marchio – fors’anche un luogo comune ma tutt’altro che campato per aria – della peculiare difficoltà di molti scrittori a sfangare la vita, il libro presenta indubbi motivi d’interesse legati al complesso mondo dell’adolescenza, all’ambiguo e tormentato rapporto degli studenti con quella sorta di universo a parte che è la scuola, e non ultima alla relazione fra loro e gli insegnanti.

Scritto in uno dei periodi peggiori di Yates, A good school è una storia corale costruita, più che su un vero e proprio intreccio, sull’andamento rapsodico e a volte enigmatico che scandisce la vita di ragazzi di volta in volta perplessi o fantasiosi, e professori sfigati ma non sempre disposti ad arrendersi. Molti fra i primi vivono in un’impossibile costellazione di sogni, destinati a infrangersi sull’immagine che viene loro restituita dalla vita che di lì a poco li metterà di fronte alla terribilità della guerra (il secondo conflitto mondiale). I secondi, avendo passato la linea d’ombra, sembrano aspettarsi solo che il destino porti a termine quello che ha iniziato molto tempo prima – cercando di stare dignitosamente dentro il ruolo che quel destino ha ritagliato per loro. Ma quella che sembra una deriva lenta e già saputa esplode invece in una catastrofe di cui la stessa scuola si farà carico, finendo per trasformarsi in un centro di accoglienza dei soldati feriti.

Pur concedendo il dovuto alla narrazione dell’ovvio, rituale sistema di amicizie e rivalità, del contrassegno tipicamente adolescenziale della guerra per bande e del confronto ludico e serio insieme fra giovani intenti a primeggiare, a conquistare cuori femminili, il racconto di A good school rinuncia all’implacabile ferocia con cui Yates abitualmente ci racconta le sue storie. Qui il punto di vista del narratore sembra girovagare con uno sguardo elegiaco, a volte umoristico, altre malinconico, da un punto all’altro di questo college rattoppato, come per salvare il tempo che precede la perdita dell’innocenza dal saccheggio implacabile della verità.

Yates svela in questo romanzo un tono più tenero del solito, quasi di simpatia per i suoi adolescenti confusi, incerti, senza però mai diventare stucchevole (Yates disprezzava, parole sue, l’ottimismo sentimentale e facilone degli americani). È come se volesse dirci che all’adolescenza possiamo perdonare tutto, anche di averci ingannato. Del resto non manca il tratto del grande maestro, che è poi, trattandosi di Yeats, il racconto per nulla ostentato o manieristico della crudeltà; si veda l’episodio in cui William Grove, il personaggio più in vista del romanzo, di confessata matrice autobiografica, il più sfigato di tutti, il più goffo, il più timoroso, viene preso dai soliti tre o quattro teppistelli, denudato, deriso e masturbato a forza. La scena è forte ma credibile e quasi domestica nella verosimiglianza descrittiva.

Ciò detto, è un racconto che rifiuta la spettacolarizzazione, quindi quanto di più vicino al vero si possa pretendere da un romanzo. Grove troverà nella scrittura, sia pure solo quella del giornale della scuola, lo strumento per riacquistare un minimo di prestigio, ma soprattutto rispetto di sé. Che era poi la sola salvezza consentita al grande scrittore americano, ciò di cui aveva bisogno per combattere il suo male oscuro e scrivere i suoi libri. A questo genere di sacrificio, i bravi insegnanti sono molto sensibili. Come tutti i veri lettori, del resto.

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Tobias Wolff, Quell’anno a scuola
di Michele Lupo

Non è roba di tutti i giorni, specie di questi tempi, che si possa leggere un elogio dell’insegnamento, esibizioni retoriche e autoconsolatorie a parte. È invece possibile leggendo Quell’anno a scuola di Tobias Wolff, romanzo americano tradotto da Einaudi nel 2005, soprattutto l’ultimo capitolo dal titolo Professore.

Ma andiamo con ordine. Uno scrittore affermato si tuffa nella memoria della sua giovinezza, in particolare intorno all’anno 1960. All’epoca, il ragazzo è abbastanza problematico, rispetto ai suoi compagni proviene da una classe inferiore, si muove senza agio sufficiente in un ambiente fin troppo snob. E anche lui, come il Grove di Yates, ma in un contesto diverso, in un college di ben altre ambizioni, vede nella scrittura una possibilità di riscatto. Solo che qui non parliamo del giornalino scolastico, ma di vera letteratura. Difatti alla Hill School hanno deciso di invitare nientedimeno che il grande Hemingway a consegnare il premio per il miglior racconto scritto dagli studenti. Al nostro non sembra vero. Nonostante i toni molto educati e un décor nell’insieme più che compassato, la cosa lo manda così su di giri da suggerirgli uno scherzetto che sarebbe nulla rispetto alle planetarie truffe dell’odierno, bestiale capitalismo, ma ci ricorda come la nostra vita si risolva infine in una storia singolare che è tutto ciò che abbiamo davvero da vivere: tessuta con il filo delle nostre irripetibili esperienze, piccole o grandissime che siano. Per il ragazzo ciò che conta è ottenere il riconoscimento che spera gli cambierà la vita, visto che gli arriverà dalle mani di uno dei grandi miti della letteratura mondiale. Orbene, la via che sceglie per raggiungere lo scopo è la più semplice e la più rischiosa. Perché invece di scrivere il racconto, il ragazzo decide di rubare un vecchio testo altrui, con il prevedibile risultato di essere scoperto e per questo cacciato dalla scuola.

Il fatto è che niente è come sembra – ce lo ha insegnato la letteratura, appunto, prima degli altri. Nello specifico, e da un certo punto di vista, il ragazzo non ha plagiato nessuno, perché nella verità del racconto di cui si dice indebitamente titolare, nella sua onestà di scrittura ha trovato qualcosa che lo riguardava profondamente: una specie di bellezza compiuta, la giustezza di una parola che era come sepolta dentro di lui. Che ritiene perciò, e sinceramente, che sia anche sua.

Così, il romanzo di Wolff, piano, qua e là un po’ lento, sembra la storia dell’attesa dell’evento, del concorso e dell’arrivo di Hemingway, ma la vicenda più che nell’epilogo rovinoso trova il suo interesse nel percorso che lo avvicina. È infatti una lunga iniziazione alla scrittura, alla scoperta del fatto che in essa si giochino destini che hanno da fare con questioni capitali: la verità, l’illusione, la menzogna. Tutto questo accade, e non è cosa da poco, in una scuola, grazie fra gli altri a un insegnante che come il narratore non è un santo. Come lui ha ingannato gli altri. Come lui ha spacciato per proprio qualcosa che non è suo. Il ragazzo lo ha fatto con un racconto, lui con “qualcosa di molto più grande: (…) una vita che non gli apparteneva”. Perché il professore si era vantato di conoscere Hemingway, di essere suo amico. E nel momento decisivo, per uscire dall’imbarazzo non può che poco misteriosamente sparire.

Da quest’uomo veniamo a sapere che ha imparato molto dal suo mestiere. La possibilità di “essere più altruista, più attento e sincero” per esempio, ma anche che il corpo a corpo con i libri, davanti agli studenti, può risultare dannatamente vitale. Per esempio che è lì, nella scrittura, che ragazzi appassionati e insegnanti possono trovano il cuore delle cose. Che in una storia c’è sempre da imparare, per esempio che quando riusciamo a raccontare “veri esseri umani” prima o poi spunterà qualcuno che ce la farà pagare. “Le storie che devi scrivere ti faranno sempre trovare qualcuno che odia il tuo coraggio” si dice a un certo punto. “Se non succede, stai solo sfornando parole”. Considerando che anche il narratore, il romantico plagiario, dice di aver imparato da lui, una scuola del genere può essere davvero il centro del mondo. Il narratore – o lo scrittore, Tobias Wolff – arriva al punto di dedicarlo proprio a loro, il libro, ai suoi insegnanti. Che poi uno scrittore possa essere un furfante, come tutti, del resto, o Un vero bugiardo – come recita un altro titolo dello stesso autore, dichiaratamente autobiografico – va da sé. Ma ai suoi libri, se sono buoni, ciò non toglie niente.

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Giovanna Ranchetti, A scuola per star bene
di Marina Massenz

Un libro che affronta le complesse problematiche tipiche della pre-adolescenza sotto diversi profili; dall’inquadramento psicologico di questa e della successiva tappa evolutiva (adolescenza), alla centralità della scuola (media in questo caso) sia sul piano educativo che su quello della prevenzione del disagio giovanile, fino ad esporre in modo concreto e “situato” nella nostra realtà sociale alcuni possibili progetti di lavoro che promuovono la scuola come agenzia formatrice e non solo come luogo di trasmissione di saperi (troppo spesso, ahimè, non saperi, ma semplici contenuti!).

Molto interessante poi la parte finale, in cui sono esemplificati alcuni interventi sperimentati dalla stessa autrice in una scuola media dell’hinterland milanese, in cui l’aiuto psicologico ad adolescenti in difficoltà viene trasmesso attraverso l’utilizzo della fiaba, come mezzo per interrogarsi e/o riconoscersi in un cammino evolutivo spesso irto di ostacoli. La fiaba permette infatti di familiarizzare con i processi interiori della mente umana; i protagonisti, gli antagonisti, il viaggio, la ricerca dell’identità, il superamento delle prove, la separazione dai genitori… tutti temi ricorrenti nelle fiabe, riproposti attraverso vicende fantastiche, metafore, personaggi, in cui il ragazzo può riconoscersi, per vivere in modo più consapevole e più da protagonista il proprio iter formativo.

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Un appello di docenti per la scuola pubblica.

Guide alla scuola della Gelmini qui.

Le circolari e i decreti ministeriali sugli organici qui.

Una sintesi dei provvedimenti del Governo sulla scuola qui.

Una guida normativa per l’anno scolastico 2009-20010 qui e qui.

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Dove trovare il Coordinamento Precari Scuola: qui.

Il sito del Coordinamento Nazionale Docenti di Laboratorio qui.

Cosa fanno gli insegnanti: vedi i siti di ReteScuole, Cgil, Cobas.

Spazi in rete sulla scuola qui.

One of the best things about this year is that I discovered Richard Yates – like it or not, thank you Kate & Leo. Where has he been all my life? Anyway, I thought of the Richard Yates Reading Challenge for 2010, where we discover Richard Yates, one book-one month at a time.

Head on over to my Richard Yates Reading Challenge Page for more info–and to sign up!

Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road (2008), stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as married couple, April and Frank Wheeler.

Set in the 1950s, the film follows April and Frank in their seventh year of marriage and their seemingly “perfect” life.

But all is not what it appears…

Living in the suburbs with their two children, Frank commutes to New York for his office job – which he hates – and April is a housewife who dreams of becoming an actress.

In a bid to escape their bored lives, April plans to move the family to Paris, where Frank can finally establish what he wants to be in life, but the idea comes tumbling down when April falls pregnant and Frank is offered a promotion.

From the outset, this film does have everything. A good cast, with the Titanic reunion of Winslet and DiCaprio, and acting skills that are out-of-this-world, but there is a key element missing…

The point…the story doesn’t really have any meaning, and after watching it for 1 hour and 53 minutes, you do sit up and think “Have I missed something?”

Kate Winslet’s character is erratic and just a little bit on the crazy side, while Leonardo DiCaprio’s Frank has the patience of a mildly amused saint.

Based on the novel by Richard Yates and directed by Sam Mendes, the film isn’t bad, but at the same time, it isn’t great.

Reviews And Shoes rating: 5/10

Books I Completed This Week

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates. Hopelessly in love with Yates now. [Click title for my thoughts.]

Captive of Sin, by Anna Campbell. Has got to be one of the best romance novels I’ve read this year. It was unbelievable. [Click title for my thoughts.]

Liars in Love by Richard Yates. And here, Yates grows up. Stories are “more perfect” (haha) than the ones from his last collection. Amazing. [Click title for my thoughts.]

Proof by Seduction, by Courtney Milan. The book will be released in January 2010, and I would like to declare now that she will go to freaking places. I just finished reading it a few hours ago–I stayed up all night, and when it had ended, I promptly collapsed. But–DUDE–READ–HER, mmk? [Click title for my thoughts.]

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Books I’m Currently Reading

What the Duke Desires by Jenna Petersen. I was supposed to read this instead of Milan–but the opening pages didn’t hook me as, erm, firmly as Milan’s Proof by Seduction.

> I’m also sure I’d find something to distract myself with from the ton of schoolwork waiting for me. Guh. If you, for some reason, are wondering what I’m reading for school–Paul Riceour, Thomas Merton, the Philippine Constitution. Yeah. Great. Sigh.

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Up Next

I’ve signed for the GLBT Challenge 2009 (as well as 2010’s), and participating in the 24-hour Read-A-Thon this Saturday. My book lists are in those posts (you go clicky!), as well as links to the blogs hosting the challenges–so if you wanna join in on the madness, you’re very much welcome.

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PS – In my post for this week’s Sunday Salon, I introduced a new segment called Short Story Spotlight. Help out if you can and want to, by a) helping me choose what button should be there, and b) doing your own Spotlight. Please and thank you.

[This all began over here: http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com/. Other bloggers have signed up for the meme, so go ahead and read it, get!]

I suppose I’m now on a campaign to read all of Richard Yates. I’ve read Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (see my thoughts here) and, of course, Revolutionary Road (see my thoughts here). I foresee a problem reading the rest of Yates’ work, since I can’t afford to buy any more books, and the university library only has RR on its shelves (BOO). Liars is the last Yates book available to me. But Christmas is coming, so NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK bitchez. Eherm.

I read Liars in Love about an hour after I read Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, because I couldn’t help it. Seven short stories, each of them kick-ass. That’s as much an objective opinion as I can give.

There are differences between the first collection and this second one. Delightful ones; I feel like a proud mama watching his scarred little boy grow up to be a decent enough man, haha. The stories here are longer, for one, more detailed, definitely more nuanced. Here, Yates reaches depths he’d only teased us with before. He lingers this time, and really goes deep into the guts of his characters—a trait I noticed was very similar to “Builders,” the last story in his previous collection.

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This is an excerpt from the story “A Natural Girl,” and I think the following lines of the dialogue encapsulate how Yates sees a world were people hurt people not out of recklessness or cruelty, but out of a weariness brought about by too much dissatisfaction. [If I were to go OC on you guys, notice how, in the first line of dialogue, those are statements and not questions. Now, class, what does this say about the character?]

Ouch.

“My God, you really mean this, don’t you. I’ve really lost you, haven’t I. You don’t—love me anymore.”

“That’s right,” she said. “Exactly. I don’t love you anymore.”

“Well, but for Christ’s sake, Susan, why? Can you tell me why?”

“There’s no why,” she said. “There’s no more why to not loving than there is to loving. Isn’t that something most intelligent people understand?”

Interestingly enough, she echoes the same words—the same declaration of not loving—to her father. The story, in fact, opens with In the spring of her sophomore year, when she was twenty, Susan Andrews told her father very calmly that she didn’t love him anymore.

Suffering is so matter-of-fact here, gone are your usual images of heartwrenching, Slide Against the Wall On Your Way Down Crying. Here are words thrown carelessly but wounding for life. Here are characters intense in their stifledness. Here are characters in compromising and defeating positions they see no way out of. See the title story, in which the main character has his marriage disintegrate almost casually, and he develops a relationship with a whore. See “A Compassionate Leave,” in which a soldier deliberately spends all his money on alcohol in Paris that he retains his virginity even in a city of whores. See “Oh, Joseph, I’m So Tired,” where we first meet the sculptor Helen, with her grand ambitions and not-so-substantial talent.

I am partial to “Saying Goodbye to Sally” and “Regards at Home”—where we meet, once more, the narrator of “Joseph,” now a grown man with a family and dreams, and yes, his mother is still there. It is in “Regards” that we see a tantalizing view of a—gasp!—a happy ending. But do we trust Yates? Can we? For heaven’s sake, everything in this book is so ominous. “Sally” is just one sad disaster, one after another, and it’s painfully obvious that it’s partially autobiographical. The characters are annoying, for another. It’s this story that I’d like to use to convince people that Yates is such a good writer, you don’t put the book down because you might just whack the characters’ heads for thinking they’re so helpless.

Oh, Richard, I’m so excigamated to read your other stuff.

<3 #01 – About two stories into the short story collection Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, by Richard Yates, I decided that it would catapult me to the happy place of all happy places if I read the entire body of his known work. (Quite ironically, yes, I’m aware; “happy place” and Yates aren’t your usual snuggly pairing.) So that’s seven novels, two short story collections, and a posthumous Collected Stories (which includes his, uh, previously uncollected short stories). Ten Kinds of Loneliness, if you allow me. Oh, you don’t? Oh.

<3 #02 - Goodness, I do think I’m fatally in love with Richard Yates. I recognize how unfortunate that is, of course. In his universe, there’s never anything nice in store for people who claim they’re in love, fatally or otherwise. Still. There’s such a strange affection I have for this writer, him with his “misogynistic” worldview. I’ve once wondered, and scribbled down, Does Yates hate people? But no, I don’t think he does. He’s just pragmatic. Conscious of the reality that governs disappointed people, or dreamers who refuse to admit they’re disappointed. And he has this terse grasp on sentimentality and defeat, and, yes, loneliness. All those syllables really just aim to mean YOU ARE AWESOMEZ RICHARD IF YOU WERE STILL ALIVE AND MARGINALLY FRIENDLY I WOULD HUG YOU.

<3 #03 – There are eleven stories in Eleven Kinds of Loneliness. That might look pretty obvious to you, but I was at the fifth story when i realized this. Math has never been my strong point; this is why I use such long words. Anyhoo. Those eleven stories are Petri dishes on what it means to be a resigned human being, one who dreams too big, one who dreams too small, one who really has no reason to dream at all.

What impresses me about the stories is, well, I never got frustrated over these people’s resignations. Why not? Well, maybe because they’re blissfully aware that they’re disappointed people.  Instead of whiny widdle wankers, these people are, well–they’re lonely, going through a life that is oftentimes heartbreaking (then heart-numbing) in its normalcy. I’ve always been a sucker for these secret heartaches kind of shiz.

<3 #04 – One of my favorite stories of the collection is “The Best of Everything”–it’s a story that vividly captures the hurt we cause by our ignorance, our self-absorption (because, after all, we need to find ways to keep us happy, right?) Here we have a just-about-to-be-bride settling with a marriage she knows–and has accepted–will never make her happy. You almost hear her dismissal: But what’s happiness anyway? There’s this heartbreaking scene where she’s stripped (in more ways than one), and there’s just a lot of ignoring going on, and a lot of goddamned painjesus. And at the end of the story, you know that she’s still going to marry him, and this scene will probably rehashed for years and years, because, you know, what is happiness anyway?

<3 #05 - Yates’ world is fraught with people who are rife with–as one of my Philosophy teachers would put it, thumping a dogeared copy of Foucault–rife with dissatisFACtion. These are people jaded by the war and all that has happened post-war, these are people who’ve settled, because they can’t envision any other option. These are people who grit their teeth through the pain, all that unbelievable pain–and Yates gives you all this in such a calm, so goddamned all-knowing manner, that, for some odd reason only the Big Kahuna may be privvy to, you keep reading, you keep suffering along with these people–and then, suddenly, you find yourself spectators, at the fringes, looking on.

There’s never any pity in Yates Universe.

Then again, who’s to say no one is looking on our settled little lives?

* * * Here’s more shameless fangirly-ness over Yates, for his novel Revolutionary Road. (Do I read into it that I read RR at the height of a storm, one that blasted the power from cities for hours? That I read this shiz by candlelight? Oh, I do think Yates would be disgusted by me, haha. Then again, he always goes for the then-idealistic ones, no?)

Richard Yates is an underappreciated writer, not forgotten, but not widely read either. The recent film of his classic , Revolutionary Road, may help change that, but I have my doubts.

Revolutionary Road, which I write about here, was Yates’ first novel and is still his best regarded. A good school, which I’ve just finished, is among his least regarded (though a lesser regarded Yates is still better than most writers are capable of).

A good school is dedicated to the memory of Yates’ father, and is thought to be largely autobiographical. It is the story of a second-rate (if that) prep school with beautiful buildings but money problems, the Second World War is looming and against that backdrop Yates explores the lives of the school’s staff and pupils and of one of those pupils in particular – William Groves.

William Groves is not one of the popular boys. He is not good at games, and adolescence is not being kind to him (it is to so few of us). He is subjected to sexual hazing games (which the text does not shy away from), looked down on by the teachers and the book is often at its best when discussing his painful attempts to make friends and fit in.

The novel opens with a first person perspective (rare for Yates), with an unnamed narrator looking back and remembering his father, a once-promising tenor who became and lived his life as “assistant regional sales manager for the Mazda Lamp Division (light bulbs).” There is a sadness to this opening, the narrator’s parents are divorced, there is a distance between father and son, but the father is doing his best and that includes paying for a prep school he can’t really afford but which the mother – persuaded by aspirational dreams and a salesman headmaster – is convinced is the right place for their child. The novel briefly returns to this first person voice at the close, a small reflection on the school and the narrator’s father.

The first person passages provide a viewpoint that is looking back, an authorial voice detached from the immediacy of the main part of the book. That main part, almost all the novel really, is written from a third person perspective but up close, right in the school with the teachers, the boys, all their rituals and dramas. The effect of the shifting narrative voice is to create a distance at the start and end, a perspective, but otherwise to immerse the reader deep within the world of the school. The adult can reflect on what happened, what if anything it meant. The boys don’t have that luxury, they are steeped in a world of direct and pressing experience, fevered immediacy, their only reflections are about how other boys will view them and whether they are fitting in.

Yates is particularly good at capturing the trials of adolescent life, the way for example communal showers become a battleground for asserting status, for glory or humiliation.

Lear had nothing to fear from the scrutiny of the shower room: he might not be as spectacular as Terry Flynn but he was all right, his prick was adequate, and he had powerful, admirably hairy legs. Another thing, he knew better than anyone how to snap a wet towel against the buttocks of other bathers.

A boy who has a large penis, or well developed body hair, he has nothing to fear. A boy though whose genitals aren’t really developed yet, whose pubic hair is arriving late, for him every shower is a trauma, an unavoidable ordeal that cannot be discussed with others even though they share it. In later life, status will be driven by considerations of job, money, possessions, but for now it is driven by issues of physical development, sporting prowess, rumoured success with girls. Popularity is a capricious thing, effortlessly achieved for some, unavailable despite all efforts for others.

The school, Dorset Academy, is near bursting with sexual tension. Masturbation is a fact of life, something one puts up with in roommates and which on occasion is done forcibly to a less-popular boy as a means of humiliating him. Erections are yet another source of embarrassment, rearing up at the most inopportune times and prompted by mere conversation with a girl. The boys fixate on the one girl their age they ever see, Edith Stone, a teacher’s daughter and student at a nearby (but quite inaccessible) girls’ school, they dream of her though few of them ever actually speak to her. Sex is an issue for the teachers too, with the crippled chemistry teacher’s wife sleeping with the French Master. The atmosphere is thick with lust, unsatisfied or illicit.

A good school has a wider focus than did Revolutionary Road. Here, Yates explores a whole school, the lives of several of the teachers and pupils. While William Groves is the focus, his experience the core of the narrative, the novel in the main opts for breadth of coverage rather than depth. That said, Yates still has a precise and unsparing eye which captures characters’ vanities and disappointments in a line. Here he describes a teacher’s wife after a quarrel:

When he’d gone she walked the floor for a long time with one hand at her forehead. She might have cried, except that it almost never occurred to her to cry when she was alone.

What impressed me with A good school was the clarity with which Yates captured those years. My own schooling was as far from Dorset Academy as can be imagined, a trendy inner city comprehensive in London rather than a failing prep school in pre-war Connecticut, but for all that I recognised almost everything. There is a universality of experience here, our schools may differ, but adolescence remains much the same. At one point the novel follows Edith Stone, the school’s lone girl, and her life is not that different to the boys – confused, pulsing with unsatisfied desire, obsessed with her developing body (is her chin alright? She checks in the mirror, repeatedly). She is as they are. To them, she is a mysterious and desirable creature, woman with a capital W, but in fact she is just another child struggling with a changing body and a crush of emotions she barely understands.

The opportunities for hurt, the uncertainty of those years, the sheer physical need for friendship coupled with the fear of showing weakness in front of your peers, I recognised it all and I thought it probably the best depiction of what school is like that I’ve read. We didn’t board at my school, but we had school trips where we had to choose roommates for the cheap hotels booked for us, this is how that went and I’m glad it was just for a fortnight and not for a year:

There was a rule at Dorset that you had to room alone during your first year, having a roommate was a privilege reserved for “old” boys. This made for a good deal of emotional tension every May, when the double-room assignments were given out.
“Hey,” one boy would shyly say to another. “Want to get a room together next year?”
“Well, the thing is I’ve already promised somebody else.”
“Oh.”
For a week the quadrangle pulsed with awkward little conversations like that; it was a time of subtle pursuit and hurt feelings and last-minute settlings for second best.

Equally, the following passage reminded me so strongly of when I was a teenager it bordered on painful to read:

Grove spent most of that vacation teaching himself to smoke. He would soon turn seventeen, and he didn’t want to be the fool of the senior club.
First he had to learn the physical side of it – how to inhale without coughing; how to will his senses to accept drugged dizziness as pleasure rather than incipient nausea. Then came the subtler lessons in aesthetics, aided by the use of the bathroom mirror: learning to handle a cigarette casually, even gesturing with it while talking, as if scarcely aware of having it in his fingers; deciding which part of his lips formed the spot where a cigarette might hang most attractively – front and profile – and how best to squint against the smoke in both of those views. The remarkable thing about cigarettes, he discovered, was that they added years to the face that always looked nakedly younger than his age.
By the time of his seventeenth birthday he was ready. His smoking passed the critical scrutiny of his peers – nobody laughed – and so he was initiated.

I didn’t teach myself to smoke. I did, however, have to teach myself how to drink beer. I’d go down the pub when my friends were otherwise occupied, buy a half-pint and force myself to drink it until I got used to the taste. I trained myself to enjoy having a drink, so that I could fit in, so I wouldn’t look childish. To me now, as an adult, that seems bizarre. At the time, it seemed vital.

As the novel continues, Grove starts to find his own place within the school, his own niche. The school’s finances continue to deteriorate, the tensions between the teachers to worsen. For all that, the question remains as to whether it is after all in some sense a good school. Boys who treat each other with appalling cruelty in the early years sometimes find an accommodation, to an extent they simply grow up and become less savage to each other, Groves, though never an academic success, becomes involved with the school newspaper so paving the way for a later career as a writer. Dorset Academy is a lousy school, run by a shyster of a headmaster and with a distinctly dubious reputation and teachers who try to pretend to themselves that it’s a better place than it is, but it is the only school Groves has and lousy as it may be it doesn’t do that badly for him, for all the misery along the way.

A good school is a short novel, under 200 pages, and it’s not at the level of Revolutionary Road. For all that though, it’s well written and it captures the brutality and promise of those years with exceptional skill. It’s a sad novel in many ways, and not always wholly successful (the boys start to get called up as the US enters the war, which is convincing and powerful, but I wasn’t persuaded the novel really needed those elements), but its depiction of school and adolescence is powerful and true and it reminds me how thankful I am to have left those years behind.

A good school

i was in the  fetal position

staring at the wall

i felt ‘ fucked’

i than got up really fast

i felt alert

i thought about flowers

i thought about korean churches

i thought about new orleans

i thought about wedding flowers

i thought about wild flowers

i thought about fake flowers

i thought about flowers

i thought about buying flowers

i felt happy

i felt like i was going to stay up all night

i am thinking about selling cocaine

so i could afford a minivan

and tell people it’s my mom’s minivan

cocaine money

i want to go to sears and buy a bed set

and also a flat screen tv

i will fill out a job  application at sears

under ‘ employment history’ i will write ‘ cocaine dealer’

I’ve been dealing with a cold/flu with symptoms that go unmatched when compared to the last several times I’ve been ill. This one is seriously a doozy. Nose blowing, coughing, deliriousness, it’s been a real blast. Sans cable TV, a man who is ill can rarely find anything to pass his bacteria-infected time other than by reading. In October, I read a great deal of airtight reporting and just generally good non-fiction. There was a novel in there, too.

I’m liking my new subscription to Columbia Journalism Review. Brent Cunningham makes some strong points in his ‘Take a Stand,’ an essay calling for a massive realignment of mainstream journalism’s priorities to include an effort to “lead a discussion that is broad and fearless enough to challenge the systems and assumptions that shape America’s politics, its economics, and its civic and social life.” Read the whole thing here. On a somewhat related note, Graham Rayman at the Village Voice discusses the surviving seven newspapers in New York here.

I read Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road a few weeks back. I don’t imagine you need me to tell you about this, but Yates’ 1961 masterwork is something I won’t soon forget. I haven’t seen the recent film version yet, but the book chronicles the day-to-day interplay in the suburban home of Frank and April Wheeler, a household defined by general despair and some pretension, heavy drinking, and biting arguments that are long rehearsed, each angle born deep within two people who are just dreadfully, dreadfully sad. Mine is a crude and all-too-brief summary when compared to the words that line this deeply affecting book. Here is an essay from writer Richard Ford, adapted from his introduction to the edition that I read.

The New Yorker profile of Wes Anderson is a great read — I like the idea of The Life Aquatic coming together over many lunches in a West Village bar. I’m rarely anything close to productive in a bar. Subscription required.

My friend’s son penned this heartfelt/-breaking column, Making a Phillies Fan: An Architecture of Heartbreak, about what inspires him to return to the Philadelphia Phillies every year, and I’m recommending that any fan of baseball have a look. It was particularly relevant a couple of weeks ago, but I think it will resonate with any enthusiast of the game.

In the wake of Gourmet magazine’s closing (RIP), I followed a hyperlink to a funny and bleak David Foster Wallace piece from their archives called “Consider The Lobster.” I really wish people wouldn’t eat lobster.

Please don’t miss this excellent celebration of long-form journalism from Mark Reynolds at PopMatters. If you didn’t have the chance to read any of the other pieces that they ran as a part of their ten-year anniversary, I strongly recommend checking them out. Happy Birthday, PopMatters. And track down Issue 37 of Wax Poetics — MJ is on the cover. As usual, it’s chock full of insightful music writing wrapped in marvelous design. (Here, also, is the RSS feed to the stuff I Digg. Please find recent choices to the right of the page — it’s updated regularly.)

How exciting, I’m going to be a secret Santa! I’ve dropped my name in Santa’s bag for the Book Bloggers Holiday Swap. Want to join as well? Be quick: subscription ends November 12th!

Good thing the holiday swap perked me up because my attempt at the Bookcrossing Spooky Booky 24 hour readathon was an absolute #FAIL. I knew I was on a tight schedule last week, but I had hoped to at least beat last month’s result of 15 hours and 8 minutes. Well… I didn’t even come close! [starts whispering] I scrambled together a meagre total of 7 hours, 10 minutes

So the ’spooky’ book I’m reading is still the same as last Sunday: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It’s pretty grim! It shows the real thing to fear are our fellow humans; not those Halloween ghosts, vampires or zombies. Capote absolutely has me by the throat!

A more relaxing bookish event that took place at my home yesterday was that some Boekgrrls came over to watch Revolutionary Road, the movie adaptation of Richard Yates’ novel. The overall opinion? Director Sam Mendes did a great job (even though the book is still way better). I’m just not sure whether I would have liked the film as much had I not read the book beforehand.

Another minor detail: I kept seeing Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet instead of Frank and April Wheeler… But still, I’m glad to have seen it: I enjoyed it much, much more than, in example, the adaptations of Atonement and Enduring Love (other books I really like). Although ‘enjoy’ might not be the right word for a story like Revolutionary Road…

Well, I’ve only got another 100 pages left of In Cold Blood, so coming week I hope to start in The Old Capital, by Yasunari Kawabata for my Japanese Literature Book Group. I’m embarrassed to say I had never heard of this Nobel Prize winner before, but since I know we’re going to read his book I have heard other novelists mention him as an example for their own writings. So, I’ll talk to you next week in The Sunday Salon!

The Sunday Salon is a virtual gathering of booklovers on the web, where they blog about bookish things of the past week, visit each others weblogs, oh — and read

I just finished reading A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates by Blake Baily (who has also recently written a bio of John Cheever).  Lacking enough time to pleasure read, I had to renew it from the library twice so for about three months I carried this hefty 650 + page book to and from work, hauling it out to read on transit. In the age of e-readers and soft covers, let me tell you, a hard back, very thick book elicits stares. Not that I noticed them really, Mr. Yates‘ life was so engrossing that a couple of times I almost missed my subway/bus stops.

As a self-confessed literary snob, and reader of what I consider fine literature, I’m feeling a bit sheepish that I only discovered Yates last year, because of the pending film treatment of Revolutionary Road. He was writing in my adult lifetime therefore I could have bought his books and helped, at least in a small way, to contribute to his livelihood. That’s probably a ridiculous thought but it does occur to me that a man who is more well-known posthumously as one of the greatest contemporary American writers could have used at least one more reader while he was alive.

Yates did possess a tragic honesty, in his writing and in his life. He lived in ways people couldn’t understand, perhaps not even himself. He wrote about things people didn’t necessarily want to see in the world and recognize in themselves. It occurred to me while reading about his efforts to get those wonderfully crafted stories published in various magazines (esp. his heartbreak over the elusive New Yorker), that the era of reaching career pinnacles is somewhat behind us. The struggle for an agent, publisher, good review, film contract – these are dying goals in an age when you can publish your own blog, thoughts in 140 characters, and books to sell on consignment in stores. Hell, we might not be needing bookstore soon. So reading this biography was in so many ways a look back into an increasing lost time of the great struggle for lasting art.

Yates was one of those creatives who really couldn’t fully see his own talent – all the while using it – and his stories were often rejected because his characters seemed “bleak,” the atmosphere “dismal.” In actual fact, he was writing about human foibles and realities that are largely inarticulated, even still. Some criticized the fact that he mined the same field – that of his chaotic childhood, father-less (for all intents and purposes) and mother-ful (always there but terrifically selfish). I just think autobiography is  what most artists circle back to. His writing was so much more than a mere account of wrongs done to him. He nailed human intention vs. behaviour – for better or worse. I can’t think of anyone I’ve read who does it better.

Now I’m back to reading (in some cases re-reading) his novels and stories, which are all the richer by knowing what influenced and affected him. Like many artists, he was his own worst enemy, procrastinating writing by poor living habits, and sadly because of  his post-war ill health, made worse by his  alcoholism. Although I have yet to write my first novel, and have only published one short story, I can certainly relate to the difficulty of having to hold down a responsible “day job”  that leaves no free time, physically or mentally, for writing. I fully relate to his frustration with the “PR dodge” an anathema to any kind of creative writing. In true form, he came up with the perfect phrase to encapsulate the rally of many writers between paying the rent and contributing artistically.

Obviously anyone who admires the work of this master should read this book. After I exhaust the far two few books in Yates’ library I plan to go back to the book and author that drove his writing ambition, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby Thought I’ve read it numerous times, this time around I want to try to see it through the keen and sensitive writerly eyes of Richard Yates.

Wat een mazzel! Bij het maken van de woensdagse Mexicaanse maaltijd (met natuurlijk knof en ui in de salsa picante en avocadomousse), kwam ik erachter dat ons voorraadje peterselie op was. En wát zat er in de nieuwe groententas..? Phew, dat scheelt weer knoflookwalm

En ook met de stoofpeertjes zijn we superblij — misschien maak ik daar wel een toetje van voor het loekavondje van a.s. zaterdag: Revolutionary Road staat op het programma, nadat het boek van Richard Yates vorige maand is gelezen door de boekgrrls. Het boek van november is In Cold Blood van Truman Capote, dus zit er nóg zo’n avondje in het verschiet Maar ik dwaal af…

De tas van deze week:

• stoofpeertjes
• platte peterselie
• prei
• bospeen
• winterpostelein
• groene kool

Wie weet een lekker — niet te ingewikkeld — dessert met stoofpeertjes??

Books I Completed This Week

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver. Beautiful, beautiful book. Here are my thoughts–jumbled and breathless as they are. It was moving, and dare I say it, quite compelling in a Dude I Am Talking to You kind of way.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. I like this book a lot. In a restrained manner. It’s like when you come across something so stoic in its hurting, that you have to take a step back and gruesomely admire it. I like it like that. Here are some notes on Yates’ novel.

Change Baby by June Spence. Finished this a couple of hours ago. I’m still on the fence about it, so the review’ll probably be up soon. Later. Someday. Okay, kids, my thoughts on the book’s up!

Wild and Wicked in Scotland, by Melody Thomas. Because I really just needed a Highlander. It was one of those days.

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Books I’m Currently Reading

Tolstoy Lied by Rachel Kadish. Excited to get on with it–I mean TOLSTOY LIED, people. About that “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” thing of his? HE LIED. I’m hoping this will be a relief after all the domestic GAHNOMORE I’ve been reading.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham. I picked this up from my mother’s bookshelf and went home with it. Am just at the prologue, actually.

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Up Next

A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, by Amy Bloom. [Yes, I know I listed this as Up Next last week. But them short stories, sips, sips, sips!]

Her Last Death, by Susanna Sonnenberg.

Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living, by Carrie Tiffany.

[This all began over here: http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com/. Other bloggers have signed up for the meme, so go ahead and read it, get!]

Taking a break from the NaNoWriMo madness (which I call a “whimsy” on my less hopeful/diligent hours). Yates demands that I write about his Wheelers. Never mind that I didn’t bring my book with me (apologies for inaccuracy of quotes; will revise as soon as I can), never mind that in a couple of hours, I’ll be heading off to a cemetery (it’s a Long Weekend of the Dead in this country).

I’m winging this.

>> I took notes as I read Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, almost by instinct. As though I were studying midterms on The Meaning of Life (haha-haa). I read the book in ten-twelve hours. It’s not diligence, I think–it’s stubbornness, as well as, huh, Manila suffered a power outage for hours and hours and all that candlelight and shrieking wind compelled me to finish RR.

I don’t have any illusions that I’m going to say new things about the book. It’s practically canon, after all. [And isn't that a good thing? Wasn't it near-neglected as little as a decade ago?] My discovery of the book was thanks to the movie version starring Titanic couple Winslet and DiCaprio. Before y’all squirm, I’m going to just toss it out there: it was a kick-ass movie, I was aghast by its brutal portrayal of your run-of-the-mill “settled” suburbian couple, I was on the edge of my seat and wringing my hands, and afterwards I had to take a long long long walk and emo myself out. AND it made me run out and shout, “OMG IT’S BASED ON A BOOK GIMME GIMME.” That’s always a good thing to credit a movie.

Here are some of them, given as much sense and coherence as I could, running on two Pepsis and all that jazz. And, obviously, I can’t post all my notes, because this entry will never end that way.

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[1] Does Yates hate people? {I first wrote,} Echoing the question of one too many readers. Well–there’s this impression that the tone of RR is artful misogyny. He can be cruel, yes, cruel in a disarming way that he tends to highlight character’s flaws–Frank’s too-round face, April’s heavy hips, Mrs. Givings’ ugly feet, the wife of an officemate  is “massively soft and wrinkled.” Oh, of course he’s honest, of course he’s brutally so. I think this impression is compounded by the texture of Yates’ narrative–he’s just so darned omniscient, isn’t he? And he reveals too much, too willingly. But–the unflinching “This is what it is, folks” attitude lends an authoritative voice to the subject matter. It’s chilling.

[2] Silence. Revolutionary Road has a lot to say about silence, considering that it gives out such a chatty, domestic-disturbance kind of vibe–ah, shaky marriage most duplicitous: one moment all seething, the next raging. But Yates describes that silence in an early argument (a flashback scene) of the Wheelers–and Frank thinks that it’s over because April’s all quiet. And then–

But it turned out that she was only thinking it over, preparing her next words with great care to make sure they would say exactly what she meant. {p.53}

That sentence gave me pause. I had to put the book down and do my emo Stare-Off-Into-Space schtick. It gives a whole new dimension to all the little silences and request for silences and the welcoming of silences and the petulant refusal to grant silences. Jesus. One of April Wheeler’s refrains is, “Could we sort of stop talking about it?” when Frank is all pseudo-solicitous and adamant at finding out the main thing.

Because, see, throughout the novel, we see alter-scenarios that Frank comes up with. He’d want to say something, but he’d say something else “instead.” And this is an attitude at odds with April’s own. [Ta-dah, conflict!] Goodness, I felt like the LitGods rewarded me when I pulled that out of my noggin.

[3] Perception of the Wheelers, and their Live in Europe Forever and Ever Plan. Two sets of neighbors/friends–the Campbells and the Givingses–call the plan “immature” and “unsavory” {respectively}. Even Frank allows himself to think that “…everything comprised…” against Paris. All this proves the Wheelers’ thesis on the “hopeless emptiness” of middle-class suburbia–and the reader’s lulled into nodding along with them. And of course it’s a certified insane man that tells the Wheelers they’re doing the right thing, that he approves of the plan–because it kicks that “evasiveness,” that denial of what is hopeless right in the gut.

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I have to stop here. For now. I’ll probably do another installment of these RR thoughts–I’ll go back to this post too–as soon as I reunite with my copy, as soon as I’m able to figure out what it really was I was taking notes for.

Happy November, everyone.

The meme’s headquarters is over at Well-Read Reviews–thank you! To quote: ”The first line can make or break a reader’s interest. Just how well did the author pull you in to the story with their first sentence? To participate in this weekly book meme is extremely easy. [1] Grab the book you are currently reading and open to the first page. [2] Write down the first sentence in the first paragraph. [3] Create a blog post with this information. (Make sure to include the title & author of the book you are using. Even an ISBN helps!) [4] Did this first sentence help draw you into the story? Why or why not?”

[1] Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates. When the summer began (that’s the end of March here), this book was on my To-Read-Immediately list, and I’d read it up to a point, and then I abandoned it (too un-summer?). I’d seen the movie starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio–it’s now one of my favoritest movies–and I when I learned it was based on a book (pardon my ignorance) I went out and looked for it. But a friend lovingly got one for me. So. This time around, I’m going to finish it, okay? Okay.

The final dying sounds of their dress rehearsal left the Laurel Players with nothing to do but stand there, silent and helpless, blinking out over the footlights of an empty auditorium.

[2] Change Baby, by June Spence. I love her short story collection Missing Women and Others. No one seems to have heard of her, though. That collection was actually a gift from my boyfriend, who was hunting for art books and children’s books in a Buy-One-Take-One book sale, and got Spence because it “seemed like something [I'd] read.” Nice. So when I found this at a book store, I chucked it into my shopping cart.

My mother, Mabry Goss, had been ill for some time, but she kept it to herself.

>> The first line is a favorite fallback of mine–since I’ve been on a financial crisis since forever, I’ve had to cut back on picking “indiscriminately” from BookSales; if you’re not on my Auto-Buy list, sorry, then, until next time. Unless, of course, you have a wicked first line and an intriguing-enough blurb. Although this intro doesn’t apply to the books I’m reading now, haha, because Yates and Spence are on my auto-buy. But I remember this was how I bought The Feast of Love, by Charles Baxter, and Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald.

Medelålderkrisen är inget nytt påfund. Igenkänningen känns nästan skrämmande i vissa avseenden. Slutet gör berättelsen extra minnes”värd”. Idealt antal sidor.

I boken serverades många drinkar och snittar, liksom på vår DLK kväll.

Betyg: 4,4,4,5,5

Books Read in September '09

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Not a lot happens in this book so I don’t have a lot to say about it. I enjoyed it though, it’s very French, contains a lot of accessible philosophy and is mainly about friendship and the power of literature, film, music and art to bring people happiness.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Review: here.

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
Club Dead by Charlaine Harris
The first three books in the Sookie Stackhouse series. I’m hooked now and eagerly awaiting the arrival of the next few I ordered from Book Depository, but I still think the TV show True Blood is better. Each book represents one series of the show, but the show has taken a lot of liberties with the series by creating lots of new sub-plots. Hmmm I don’t have much else to say about the books I’m afraid, except that they’re very light reading, but so full of sex, violence and drama that they’re not dull. Perfect for me at the moment since my uni workload has gotten so heavy.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

I wish I’d had the time to review Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates immediately after reading it because now, a month later, it’s nowhere near as fresh in my mind. At the beginning of the year I bought a copy after watching the movie left me in tatters, for months after that it sat untouched on my shelf because I knew it would be a heavy going experience emotionally so I was waiting for the right mood. I was right, it did turn out to be an oppressive and upsetting read. But it was definitely worth it, Yates’ writing is so beautifully crafted and he depicts the characters in such a realistic way, to the point that at times his descriptions are downright nasty.

The story revolves around the Wheelers’ tragic marriage in 1950s American suburbia. From the outside everything seems perfect; Frank is known for his cleverness, April is a beautiful housewife and together they have two young children; a boy and a girl. But they’ve both always assumed they were destined for great things and are bitter at the turns their lives have taken. They plot an escape to Paris to save themselves from a life of mediocrity, and from there things start to crumble for the Wheelers.

I’ve read a few reviews of the book and many readers seem to find all the characters completely repulsive and can’t empathise with them at all because of the abhorrent, selfish things they do. But to me they felt like real people and I can’t help but feel an incredible sympathy for them all, trapped by society, their choices and their own shortcomings and ultimately meeting a tragic end through attempting to change their lot in life. To me Revolutionary Road is a critique of 50s society, a study of a marriage and a warning against conventional gender roles and the importance of women having other options in life than getting married and starting a family. I finished it at midnight one night and felt so shaken by it I had to watch a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother in order to get to sleep. It really falls into the “books that wound and stab us” category Kafka so highly recommended.

Here are some of my favourite passages from the book:

“Our ability to measure and apportion time affords an almost endless source of comfort. “Synchronize watches at oh-six-hundred,” says the infantry captain, and each of his huddled lieutenants finds a respite from fear in the act of brining two tiny pointers into jewelled alignment while tons of heavy artillery go fluttering overhead: the prosaic, civilian looking dial of the watch has restored, however briefly, an illusion of personal control. Good, it counsels. Looking tidily up from the hairs and veins of each terribly vulnerable wrist; fine: so far, everything’s happening right on time.”

“I had this idea there was this whole world of marvellous golden people somewhere ahead of me as the seniors of Rye when I was in sixth grade; people who knew everything instinctively, who made their lives work out the way they wanted without even trying, who never had to make the best of a bad job because it never occurred to them to do anything less than perfectly the first time. Sort of heroic super-people, all of them beautiful and witty and calm and kind, and I always imagined that when I did find them I’d suddenly know that I belonged among them, that I was one of them, that I’d been meant to be one of them all along, and everything in the meantime had been a mistake; and they’d know it too. I’d be like the ugly duckling among the swans… It’s the most stupid, ruinous kind of self-deception there is, and it gets you into nothing but trouble.”

“Oh for a month or two, just for fun, it might be alright to play a game like that with a boy; but all these years! And all because, in a sentimentally lonely time long ago, she had found it easy and agreeable to believe whatever this one particular boy felt like saying, and to repay him for that pleasure by telling easy, agreeable lies of her own, until each was saying what they other one most wanted to hear – until he was saying “I love you” and she was saying “Really I mean it; you’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.” What a subtle, treacherous thing it was to let yourself go that way!”

I’m sure that you’ve heard the saying about winning the battle but losing the war. Well, what does that mean, and how does it happen? Oftentimes I think those who wish to accomplish great success have a certain mind-set. This mind-set is rooted in the concept that in order to achieve you must be fighting an uphill struggle constantly. The problem with this philosophy is that, sooner or later, you will deplete yourself of all your resources. I’ve spoken about this in a previous blog post, but, as time has gone on, I have become more and more aware of how it applies to my own life.

An incessant struggle ends up causing you a lot of anxiety and fear, whether you’re always consciously aware of it or not. To be the authentic You, the You that you want to be to surmount obstacles and use your unique potential, you have to establish and maintain an inner sense of peace and calm. Waves of turbulence would be fine if you were an ocean instead of a person. But you are a person and therefore should treat yourself with a certain amount of gentleness.

First of all, it’s essential that you let go of all fears you have about not achieving your goals or making your dreams into a reality. Secondly, it’s crucial that you understand that you’ll have to let go of some things in order to bring certain other and better things into your life. We usually associate the word “sacrifice” with something negative. It implies that you’re giving up something that you want or need. If you go on a diet, you might speak of sacrificing chocolate candy or ice cream or french fries or some other food that you particularly enjoy.

However, the sacrifice I’m speaking of should be regarded as something entirely beneficial for you and your  life. You may actually have to sacrifice your inordinate desire to succeed in order to experience true success. If that sounds like a contradiction on my part, let me explain.

When you experience a hunger for anything–whether it be food or fame, money or sex or something else–your body moves into a mode of tension that will not let up until your need is satisfied. But, what if that need cannot be immediately satisfied? How will you cope with a state of ceaseless tension or anxiety? The answer is, in letting go. Even if it seems like you are miles away from achieving anything significant, until you acknowledge the success that you’ve achieved thus far, no matter how minimal it seems to be, you will not accomplish more. To remind yourself constantly of that which you haven’t done or are not yet able to achieve will diminish your self-esteem and create a psychological barrier between you and ultimate accomplishment.

For most of my life, I’ve been someone who might easily be referred to as an overachiever. At the times when I’ve not achieved something, I’ve still maintained the mind-set of an overachiever. What does this mean? Well, I’ve always had difficulty relaxing and enjoying life for the miracle that it is.

Instead of living in the present, I’ve lived between a past in which I feel I haven’t accomplished enough and a future in which I have envisioned myself not accomplishing even half of what I might desire. Naturally, this has prevented me from experiencing the level of success that I might have enjoyed otherwise. And at this point in time, I recognize that I’ve been walking down the wrong path. Instead of walking down the yellow brick road to the Emerald City of my dreams, I’ve been walking through a forest of painful memories and shattered dreams. Rather than a fairy tale, I’ve been living in a nightmare of my own making. So, where did everything go wrong? How did I end up locking myself up in a dungeon of misery and dissatisfaction?

I don’t honestly think that we can always explain the twists and turns of life. Nor do I think we can necessarily analyze our choices and reactions to the circumstances that take place–no matter how much we might want to. To try to examine every detail of our existence would be like attempting to explain an exquisite work of art or to analyze a symphony or some other piece of complex music. We can conjecture and come to a few conclusions. But, just as many literary critics perceive what they wish to see in a work about which they’re writing, so we, when it comes to our lives, can only make random guesses as to why specific things have taken place.  Although it’s important to take responsibility for our lives and the choices we make, it’s impossible to completely comprehend many of our actions.

However, what we need is to surrender ourselves to life and that which comes our way. We need to combine striving for excellence with letting go of our fears of failure. When we come to a fork in the road of our lives, we need to stand still and actually listen to our own heartbeat. We’ll find ourselves at one with the harmony of the universe. There we’ll accept ourselves for the person that we are, in spite of whatever flaws or shortcomings we possess. That moment–the moment when we’re completely fearless–is when we will leave an open window for magic to come into our world. Miracles can only happen to those who are receptive to them, and fear is a great inhibitor. As long as you fear anything, whether it be failure or even death, you will not be able to use your full potential or experience personal success or fulfillment.

When I think of a story that demonstrates how easy it is to give up almost everything you have because of a desire to have achieved more in life, the classic black-and-white film It’s a Wonderful Life comes to mind. If you have seen the film, you probably remember how close George Bailey (played by actor Jimmy Stewart) came to ending his life. He had a beautiful wife he loved and who loved him as well as a healthy family and a host of friends.

But George reached that moment of despair when he could not look past the misery of the moment to the long-term consequences of a rash action. It was only through the divine intervention of an angel that he regained his faith in life and his desire to continue living. When that angel showed George what the lives of those whom he was thinking of deserting would be like if he committed suicide, George understood what a mistake it would be for him to end his life. In those minutes when George could only think of death, he also thought of all the exquisite dreams he had abandoned in order to live what some would think of as a humdrum existence as an ”ordinary” husband and father and wage earner.  

In a way, the novel Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates echoes this same theme. It tells of a man and woman who end up living a life that neither of them would have chosen, simply because of a certain set of circumstances that came about. But whereas in Revolutionary Road the husband and wife don’t learn to accept their lives without constantly yearning for more, in It’s A Wonderful Life Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed manage to be content with what they have. Granted, a great deal more complexity exists in Yates’ novel than there is in the nostalgic holiday film. But each has a valuable message we can apply to ourselves and our lives.

Moreover, I think a valid point can be made–namely, that we can destroy ourselves by never being satisfied with what life has brought us. This lack of satisfaction is one reason that society is full of people who live in a continual state of unhappiness. They assume that another child, a new car or gadget, a new house, a trip to Europe, or something similar will give them the joy and satisfaction that they have not yet found. But, joy begins with a state of mind that lives in the present–a state of mind that can look at the beauty in everyday existence rather than at that which hasn’t yet been accomplished or acquired.

In another blog post some two months ago, I spoke about the importance of having a “vision”. Well, to have a vision is necessary. But not if it means that you’re incapable of enjoying today. You must surrender yourself to the present in order to get in touch with your destiny. And you must also surrender your ideas about how things must be in order to leave room for your subconscious to guide you. Unlike your conscious mind which acts like a self-critic, who is always there to tell you what won’t work or what you cannot do, your subconscious mind allows you the freedom to explore a myriad of possibilities in every aspect of your life.  When you’re guided by your subconscious, it’s like being a child again–fearless and intrepid, without mental tapes playing in your mind telling you about all the things that are unrealistic or unacceptable or just plain “bad”.

There will always be critics out there to try to make you feel less capable than you are. A few naysayers have told this Success Diva that I’m too compassionate and that I care too much for others. I’ve also been criticized for calling myself a “diva” since the term can have negative connotations.  But it’s our lives we’re leading–not someone else’s. We have to do what we think is best. When you start freely using such words as “Powerful” and “Successful” about yourself, some people will actually back away from you. But it’s only because it evokes feelings of inadequacy and/or insecurity in them.

Do not ever be afraid to go after that which you want with gusto and determination. Those who sit or stand on the sidelines watching the show are there because they did not dare to take part in the production. Seldom is it a lack of talent or intelligence or good looks or personality which prevents someone from achieving his or her goals. Generally, it is fear–either fear of criticism or fear of failure, or a little bit of both. Although it’s rarely possible to be completely impervious to other people’s opinions, it’s nevertheless crucial that you follow your own instincts and make the choices that you know in your heart are best for you, regardless of what others may think.

One thing that you must be prepared for is abandonment by some of your friends and, perhaps,  even family members. When you start to transform yourself from a timid or fearful person who felt incapable of making big dreams come true into someone who’s willing to step onto that path that will take him or her to his or her dreams, you’ll notice that some people simply can’t handle it. It isn’t that these people want you to fail, per se. They simply do not want you to succeed.

As difficult as it may be to comprehend, they would rather see a stranger excel in your chosen field than they would you. Of course, they will only end up bringing unhappiness into their lives with this type of mind-set. However, everyone is at a certain place in his or her life. And some people truly are not yet at the place where they can allow others to succeed when they themselves are not successful.

Every year, many people turn on the Academy Awards Ceremony to see actors and actresses whom they revere win coveted  gold statuettes that they themselves wish they could possess. Oftentimes, those who watch these award shows with such intense interest covet the fame and glory that these celebrities have gained. Yet, would these same envious onlookers be willing to make the sacrifices that those actors and actresses have made? Would they have been willing to wait tables just to pay for acting classes? Would they have given up spending money on things they desired, but didn’t need, in order to pay for training in singing, dancing, modeling, or acting? You might be surprised to learn how infrequently people are willing to sacrifice their immediate wants for their long-term dreams.

This brings me to what I said about winning the battle but losing the war. What are you holding onto in your life right now that you would need to give up in order to start making your dreams come true? Would you have to stop watching so much television? Would you have to stop drinking excessively? Would you have to make dietary changes or start managing your finances more shrewdly? Only you know what changes are necessary, and only you can decide whether it’s worth making those changes. If you would rather just survive instead of thrive, then you can continue living as you are now. However, if you would like to experience the sheer ecstasy of thriving, if you would like to stop being tormented by the chaos of the world around you, if you have goals that seem more like wishes because you see no hope of them coming true, tap into that courage and resilience that you already have within you and surrender to your destiny!

Make the most of today and cherish every moment! Live with passion, enthusiasm, courage, and confidence. Live Without Limits, Success Diva style!

Until soon,

Your Success Diva

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Quickly re Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates:

So much humor in the book, that was somewhat left out of the movie. Lots of subtext regarding doing what you’re “supposed” to do, which is almost never the thing to do that will provide the best outcome. The insane character is the only character who can see clearly.

The writing is so good – the words so precisely placed. Many books draw you into “the world of the book”, but this book is completely real – it is as close a description of real life as any work of fiction I’ve read.

Very rarely do we come across a novel so wonderfully crafted such as Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road. The book has left me speechless with wonder as I turned the last page and put down the book. The word-to-word construction of each chapter is one thing. But what steals your heart is the descriptive yet rhythmic flow of life in American suburbia. From the most mundane descriptions to the most peculiar details, Yates shows you the suburban life as you have never seen it before.

At the epicenter of the plot are the two leading characters, Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple who are quite fed up with the dull life in the suburbs and looking for excitement in life. Their longing to be extraordinary takes the couple on a journey that would change their life forever. With perfect poise and clarity, Yates manages to reach out to the inner feelings of the characters as they embark on their life-changing journey battling against everyday life. What follows is betrayal and tragedy.

The heart-wrenching tale continues at its poetic pace, leaving readers bewildered with excitement having no idea whatsoever on what’s coming. A surprising twist here and a tragic incident there. You’d be surprised but before you knew it, you will be reading the last few pages without even realizing it. Trust me.

I’d say this book isn’t for people who are looking for what I would describe as ‘a light-read’. Because of the descriptive nature, the book appears to be somewhat slow at parts but once you get yourself immersed in it you’d be hooked till you read the last page.

As simply one of the best novel I had read so far this year, it is pointless to mention that I adored this book because clearly you would have figured it by now. Highly and utterly recommended!