Embrace the Murkiness

So we've reached the end of another year. A particularly tumultuous one, that felt quite bleak at time but ends with some glimmers of light. Many are taking a moment, I'm sure, to reflect on what's been and plan changes for what is to come. As someone who is pretty naturally reflective all of the time, I've always had trouble getting excited about New Year's resolutions, feeling the prompt is somewhat artificial and arbitrary simply because of some numbers and names we've assigned to a couple of dates. Still, I usually try to acknowledge the tradition in some way. Here it is.

A new president-elect and a slowly dispersing vaccine for the pandemic are the good news. Still, some people have had such an awful experience with 2020 that they're a bit too eager for 2021, as though all our issues are going to magically melt away. I'm too cynical and cautious to get my hopes up. Here's a mock plan I shared this morning on Facebook:

So, I figure what we'll do is, we'll figure out where there's a really good party. Then we'll take our time getting the kids to bed before heading out really late. We'll wait in the parking lot until a few minutes past midnight and it's fully 2021, then it will be safe for us to head inside maskless and rub bodies with people for the first time in forever. A brilliant plan, no?

It's gotten some laughs. The reality is going to be much more like what follows. Even as someone who enjoys driving across the plains, I'll admit western kansas is as boring as it gets, and eastern Colorado is just as bad. It seems like the mountains will never arrive.

Have you ever driven west through Kansas to get to Denver? You hit the Colorado border and think YES MOUNTAINS. But then you realize the first half is pretty much just more of Kansas. Slowly, you see the blue peaks and the joy of the mountains slowly becomes a reality. 

That’s 2021. The first half is going to be more Kansas. We won’t hit Denver until the summer at the earliest. But not even western Kansas lasts forever, no matter what it feels like on the drive. Let’s be safe and make sure as many of us finish this journey as possible.

I'm sorely disappointed, though, in the lack of response to my idea of using this new picture book as inspiration for crafting resolutions:

Animals Brag About Their Bottoms

by Maki Saito

All bottoms are wonderful! Don't you agree? Each animal in this adorable book has a different reason for loving their behind--from cute and round to fashionable and striped! Talented illustrator Maki Saito makes kids laugh out loud with playful illustrations of the backsides of hippos, zebras, pandas, mandrills, and more of our favorite animals. Her traditional Japanese art techniques add a sophisticated, beautiful feel to a book about ... animal butts!

More seriously, I really enjoy the three articles that follow and find them worthy of aspiration. My second half of the year has been much better than the first, largely because I've done a much better job of "going with the flow." They each share a version of that idea, of accepting things for what they are, rolling with the punches, and finding ways to enjoy circumstances no matter what they are. My goal for 2021 is to continue to do the same.

I've always felt creativity was about more than mere novelty, and I love this concept: creativity is integration. It takes creativity to figure out how to integrate with every context.

To Be Creative, Chinese Philosophy Teaches Us to Abandon ‘Originality’

It’s commonly thought that creativity at least aims at novelty or originality.

This way of thinking about creativity isn’t universal. The Zhuangzi (莊子), a classical Chinese philosophical and literary text, provides a different perspective. On one interpretation, creativity isn’t conceived as aiming at novelty or originality, but rather integration. Instead of aiming at something new, it aims at something that combines well with the situation of which it’s a part. . . . 

The sages’ advice for living well is therefore mere ‘dregs’ if it’s interpreted as instructions that one can simply read and then complete. Living well in general involves much more than this; namely, a spontaneous integration between contrasting types such as the hard and the soft, as well as the learned and the spontaneous, the active and the passive, and even the unproductive and the productive – all of which apply in the case of carving wheels, as well as elsewhere. In other words, living well involves creativity.

This kind of creativity isn’t taken to aim at novelty or originality as such. The wheelwright is presented as creative not because of anything to do with his, or his projects’, novelty or originality, but instead because of his ability to create wheels in a sensitive, responsive and – crucially – well-integrated manner: one not learned by rote, but rather via engaging in sustained, spontaneous activity. . . . 

This alternative perspective on creativity might help us to see it as an everyday phenomenon in which we all participate – rather than an extraordinary talent or gift that only a few enjoy. And it might also allow us to make sense of the idea of living creatively: of an integrated life, lived spontaneously, in which all of life’s contrasting aspects can be arranged to form a rich and variegated whole.

I resolve to try to live an integrated life, lived spontaneously in which all of my life’s contrasting aspects can be arranged to form a rich and variegated whole.

This idea of psychological flexibility is very similar to the one of creativity above.

"Psychological Flexibility" May Be Key to Good Relationships Between Couples and Within Families

What makes for a happy family? The answer — whether you’re talking about a couple or a family with kids — is psychological “flexibility”, according to a new paper in the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science. Based on a meta-analysis of 174 separate studies, Jennifer S. Daks and Ronald Rogge at the University of Rochester conclude that flexibility helps — and inflexibility hinders — our most important relationships.

The pair analysed data from 203 separate samples, comprising almost 44,000 participants in total. They homed in on measures of psychological flexibility and inflexibility within these studies (which often gathered other data, too), and how they related to measures of family and relationship functioning.

A psychologically flexible person is characterised by a set of attitudes and skills: they are generally open to and accepting of experiences, whether they are good or bad; they try to be mindfully aware of the present moment; they experience difficult thoughts without ruminating on them; they seek to maintain a broader perspective when faced with a challenge; they continue to pursue important goals despite setbacks; and they maintain contact with “deeper values”, no matter how stressful a day might be (so, for example, a parent confronted with a screaming child who holds the value of being a kind, compassionate parent is able to bear this in mind when choosing how to react to the child). Psychological inflexibility describes the opposite of these thoughts and attitudes, and also entails feeling judged or shameful for holding negative thoughts and feelings.

That almost needs to be a list. I'll try to:

• be open to and accepting of experiences, whether they are good or bad;
• be mindfully aware of the present moment;
• experience difficult thoughts without ruminating on them;
• seek to maintain a broader perspective when faced with a challenge;
• continue to pursue important goals despite setbacks; and
• maintain contact with “deeper values”, no matter how stressful a day might be.

This is basically the same idea, focused on emotions instead of mindset. Just as creativity is integrating with the context, emotional flexibility is " the capacity to produce context-dependent responses to life events."

Emotional Flexibility: How to Hold *Everything* at Once

Emotional flexibility describes the capacity to produce context-dependent responses to life events, and to respond flexibly to changing emotional circumstances. In a nutshell, emotional flexibility is about holding *everything* at once — happiness, joy, and enthusiasm at the same time as anger, sadness, and frustration — and being able to feel differently at various points throughout the same day and perhaps even the same hour.

Emotional flexibility is integral to living a considered, thoughtful, and whole life. It’s also a hard trait to practice. . . .

Embracing the murkiness — and cultivating the emotional flexibility required to do so — yields large dividends. Resilience comes from deliberately practicing joy, even during awful times; happiness is intensified by experiencing and feeling deep sadness.

Emotional flexibility is also freeing. It says that you can still enjoy a long run through the woods on the same day something terrible happened in the world. It also says that you can feel sad and down even though there may be a lot that is good in your life. On many days you *should* feel all of these emotions — because all of these emotions exist.

As for how to become more emotionally flexible? The first step is giving yourself permission to feel what you are feeling, and to not feel bad about it. The second step is to practice being present in all that you do. The more present you can be the less baggage you carry from the past or from thinking about the future. If what you are doing/thinking about is making you sad, be sad. If what you are doing/thinking about about now is making you happy, be happy. The more you can be in the moment — and be with your feelings in that moment — the fuller your life.

I resolve to embrace the murkiness of accepting all my contradictory emotions at once.

As a youth services librarian, one of my annual year-end traditions is compiling lists of the favorite books I read that year. Many of them are also featured in this blog in various ways. Here are this year's lists.

My favorite books for kids I read in 2020

My favorite books for teens I read in 2020

A couple of other retrospective items to close out the year. This image came across my feed with the caption "Nativity 2020." It completely is. For future readers, "social distancing" has been one of the biggest themes of the year. Keep your distance in lines, with markers to help, and clear partitions to protect from germs at all public service points.

Of course, not everyone has been on board with social distancing. A significant chunk of the population has been vehemently opposed to it. I flagged this article because I live in Kansas, but the same has been happening all over the country. I've captured the dynamic in various ways in my posts throughout the year. In fact, my first post capturing the pandemic, way back in March, included: I think what happens next will be influenced by the interplay of these dynamics: American Individualism vs. Loving Your Neighbor.

'Toxic Individualism': Pandemic Politics Driving Health Care Workers From Small Towns

More than a quarter of all the public health administrators in Kansas quit, retired or got fired this year, according to Vicki Collie-Akers, an associate professor of population health at the University of Kansas. Some of them got death threats. Some had to hire armed guards. . . . 

"The values of hard work, the value of community, taking care of your neighbor, that's what small towns shout from the rooftops, this is what we're good at. We are salt of the earth people who care about each other," Darnauer says. "And here I am saying, then wear a mask because that protects your precious neighbor."

But Darnauer's medical advice and moral admonition were met with contempt from some of her friends, neighbors and patients. People who had routinely buttonholed her for quick medical advice at church and kids' ballgames were suddenly treating her as the enemy and regarding her professional opinion as suspect and offensive. . . . 

"It's heartbreaking," Darnauer says. "Because we say, this is what we value. And then when we actually had the chance to walk it out, we did it really poorly." . . . 

Merrett says towns that let pandemic politics drive medical professionals away are choosing what he calls "toxic individualism" over the common good.

The Deathless Divide

More on toxic individualism. I turned 9 in 1980. Historian Heather Cox Richardson tells the story of the American narrative and politics during my life. It has been a tale of "Movement Conservatives" taking individualist ideology to an extreme. It's a long history, but well worth the read.

"In America, the twenty years since 2000 have seen the end game of the Reagan Revolution, begun in 1980. . . . "

December 30, 2020 (Wednesday)

And so, we are at the end of a year that has brought a presidential impeachment trial, a deadly pandemic that has killed more than 338,000 of us, a huge social movement for racial justice, a presidential election, and a president who has refused to accept the results of that election and is now trying to split his own political party.

It’s been quite a year.

But I had a chance to talk with history podcaster Bob Crawford of the Avett Brothers yesterday, and he asked a more interesting question. He pointed out that we are now twenty years into this century, and asked what I thought were the key changes of those twenty years. I chewed on this question for awhile and also asked readers what they thought. Pulling everything together, here is where I’ve come out.

In America, the twenty years since 2000 have seen the end game of the Reagan Revolution, begun in 1980. 

In that era, political leaders on the right turned against the principles that had guided the country since the 1930s, when Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt guided the nation out of the Great Depression by using the government to stabilize the economy. During the Depression and World War Two, Americans of all parties had come to believe the government had a role to play in regulating the economy, providing a basic social safety net and promoting infrastructure. 

But reactionary businessmen hated regulations and the taxes that leveled the playing field between employers and workers. They called for a return to the pro-business government of the 1920s, but got no traction until the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, when the Supreme Court, under the former Republican governor of California, Earl Warren, unanimously declared racial segregation unconstitutional. That decision, and others that promoted civil rights, enabled opponents of the New Deal government to attract supporters by insisting that the country’s postwar government was simply redistributing tax dollars from hardworking white men to people of color. 

That argument echoed the political language of the Reconstruction years, when white southerners insisted that federal efforts to enable formerly enslaved men to participate in the economy on terms equal to white men were simply a redistribution of wealth, because the agents and policies required to achieve equality would cost tax dollars and, after the Civil War, most people with property were white. This, they insisted, was “socialism.” 

To oppose the socialism they insisted was taking over the East, opponents of black rights looked to the American West. They called themselves Movement Conservatives, and they celebrated the cowboy who, in their inaccurate vision, was a hardworking white man who wanted nothing of the government but to be left alone to work out his own future. In this myth, the cowboys lived in a male-dominated world, where women were either wives and mothers or sexual playthings, and people of color were savage or subordinate. 

With his cowboy hat and western ranch, Reagan deliberately tapped into this mythology, as well as the racism and sexism in it, when he promised to slash taxes and regulations to free individuals from a grasping government. He promised that cutting taxes and regulations would expand the economy. As wealthy people—the “supply side” of the economy-- regained control of their capital, they would invest in their businesses and provide more jobs. Everyone would make more money. 

From the start, though, his economic system didn’t work. Money moved upward, dramatically, and voters began to think the cutting was going too far. To keep control of the government, Movement Conservatives at the end of the twentieth century ramped up their celebration of the individualist white American man, insisting that America was sliding into socialism even as they cut more and more domestic programs, insisting that the people of color and women who wanted the government to address inequities in the country simply wanted “free stuff.” They courted social conservatives and evangelicals, promising to stop the “secularization” they saw as a partner to communism.

After the end of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, talk radio spread the message that Black and Brown Americans and “feminazis” were trying to usher in socialism. In 1996, that narrative got a television channel that personified the idea of the strong man with subordinate women. The Fox News Channel told a story that reinforced the Movement Conservative narrative daily until it took over the Republican Party entirely.

The idea that people of color and women were trying to undermine society was enough of a rationale to justify keeping them from the vote, especially after Democrats passed the Motor Voter law in 1993, making it easier for poor people to register to vote. In 1997, Florida began the process of purging voter rolls of Black voters.  

And so, 2000 came.

In that year, the presidential election came down to the electoral votes in Florida. Democratic candidate Al Gore won the popular vote by more than 540,000 votes over Republican candidate George W. Bush, but Florida would decide the election. During the required recount, Republican political operatives led by Roger Stone descended on the election canvassers in Miami-Dade County to stop the process. It worked, and the Supreme Court upheld the end of the recount. Bush won Florida by 537 votes and, thanks to its electoral votes, became president. Voter suppression was a success, and Republicans would use it, and after 2010, gerrymandering, to keep control of the government even as they lost popular support.

Bush had promised to unite the country, but his installation in the White House gave new power to the ideology of the Movement Conservative leaders of the Reagan Revolution. He inherited a budget surplus from his predecessor Democrat Bill Clinton, but immediately set out to get rid of it by cutting taxes. A balanced budget meant money for regulation and social programs, so it had to go. From his term onward, Republicans would continue to cut taxes even as budgets operated in the red, the debt climbed, and money moved upward.

The themes of Republican dominance and tax cuts were the backdrop of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. That attack gave the country’s leaders a sense of mission after the end of the Cold War and, after launching a war in Afghanistan to stop al-Qaeda, they set out to export democracy to Iraq. This had been a goal for Republican leaders since the Clinton administration, in the belief that the United States needed to spread capitalism and democracy in its role as a world leader. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq strengthened the president and the federal government, creating the powerful Department of Homeland Security, for example, and leading Bush to assert the power of the presidency to interpret laws through signing statements. 

The association of the Republican Party with patriotism enabled Republicans in this era to call for increased spending for the military and continued tax cuts, while attacking Democratic calls for domestic programs as wasteful. Increasingly, Republican media personalities derided those who called for such programs as dangerous, or anti-American. 

But while Republicans increasingly looked inward to their party as the only real Americans and asserted power internationally, changes in technology were making the world larger. The Internet put the world at our fingertips and enabled researchers to decode the human genome, revolutionizing medical science. Smartphones both made communication easy. Online gaming created communities and empathy. And as many Americans were increasingly embracing rap music and tattoos and LGBTQ rights, as well as recognizing increasing inequality, books were pointing to the dangers of the power concentrating at the top of societies. In 1997, J.K. Rowling began her exploration of the rise of authoritarianism in her wildly popular Harry Potter books, but her series was only the most famous of a number of books in which young people conquered a dystopia created by adults.

In Bush’s second term, his ideology created a perfect storm. His administration's disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people and caused $125 billion in damage in and around New Orleans in 2005, revealed how badly the new economy had treated Black and Brown people, and how badly the destruction of domestic programs had affected our ability to respond to disasters. Computers permitted the overuse of credit default swaps that precipitated the 2008 crash, which then precipitated the housing crisis, as people who had bet on the individualist American dream lost their homes. Meanwhile, the ongoing wars, plagued with financial and moral scandals, made it clear that the Republicans optimistic vision of spreading democracy through military conflict was unrealistic. 

In 2008, voters put Black American Barack Obama, a Democrat, into the White House. To Republicans, primed by now to believe that Democrats and Black people were socialists, this was an undermining of the nation itself, and they set out to hamper him. While many Americans saw Obama as the symbol of a new, fairer government with America embracing a multilateral world, reactionaries built a backlash based in racism and sexism. They vocally opposed a federal government they insisted was pushing socialism on hardworking white men, and insisted that America must show its strength by exerting its power unilaterally in the world. Increasingly, the Internet and cell phones enabled people to have their news cater to their worldview, moving Republicans into a world characterized by what a Republican spokesperson would later call "alternative facts." 

And so, in 2016, we faced a clash between a relentlessly changing nation and the individualist ideology of the Movement Conservatives who had taken over the Republican Party. By then, that ideology had become openly radical extremism in the hands of Donald Trump, who referred to immigrants as criminals, boasted of sexually assaulting women, and promised to destroy the New Deal government once and for all. 

In the 2016 election, the themes of the past 36 years came together. Embracing Movement Conservative individualist ideology taken to an extreme, Trump was eager enough to make sure a Democrat didn't win that, according to American intelligence services, he was willing to accept the help of Russian operatives. They, in turn, influenced the election through the manipulation of new social media, amplified by what had become by then a Republican echo chamber in which Democrats were dangerous socialists and the Democratic candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was a criminal. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision which permitted corporate money to flow into election campaigns, Trump also had the help of a wave of money from big business; financial institutions spent $2 billion to influence the election. He also had the support of evangelicals, who believed he would finally give them the anti-abortion laws they wanted. 

Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes but, as George W. Bush before him, won in the Electoral College. Once in office, this president set out to destroy the New Deal state, as Movement Conservatives had called for, returning the country to the control of a small group of elite businessmen who, theoretically, would know how to move the country forward best by leveraging private sector networks and innovation. He also set out to put minorities and women back into subordinate positions, recreating a leadership structure that was almost entirely white and male. 

As Trump tried to destroy an activist government once and for all, Americans woke up to how close we have come to turning our democracy over to a small group of oligarchs. 

In the past four years, the Women’s March on Washington and the MeToo Movement has enabled women to articulate their demand for equality. The travel ban, child separation policy for Latin American refugees, and Trump’s attacks on Muslims, Latin American immigrants, and Chinese immigrants, has sparked a defense of America’s history of immigration. The Black Lives Matter Movement, begun in July 2013 after George Zimmerman was acquitted of murdering teenager Trayvon Martin, has gained power as Black Americans have been murdered at the hands of law enforcement officers and white vigilantes, and as Black Americans have borne witness to those murders with cellphone videos. 

The increasing voice of democracy clashed most dramatically with Trump’s ideology in summer 2020 when, with the support of his Attorney General William Barr, Trump used the law enforcement officers of the Executive Branch to attack peaceful protesters in Washington, D.C. and in Portland, Oregon. In June, on the heels of the assault on the protesters at Lafayette Square, military officers from all branches made it clear that they would not support any effort to use them against civilians. They reiterated that they would support the Constitution. The refusal of the military to support a further extension of Trump's power was no small thing.

And now, here we are. Trump lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes and by an Electoral College split of 306 to 232. Although the result was not close, Trump refuses to acknowledge the loss and is doing all he can to hamper Biden’s assumption of office. Many members of the Republican Party are joining him in his attempt to overturn the election, taking the final, logical step of Movement Conservatism: denying the legitimacy of anyone who does not share their ideology. This is unprecedented. It is a profound attack on our democracy. But it will not succeed. 

And in this moment, we have, disastrously, discovered the final answer to whether or not it is a good idea to destroy the activist government that has protected us since 1933. In their zeal for reducing government, the Trump team undercut our ability to respond to a pandemic, and tried to deal with the deadly coronavirus through private enterprise or by ignoring it and calling for people to go back to work in service to the economy, willing to accept huge numbers of dead. They have carried individualism to an extreme, insisting that simple public health measures designed to save lives infringe on their liberty.

The result has been what is on track to be the greatest catastrophe in American history, with more than 338,000 of us dead and the disease continuing to spread like wildfire. It is for this that the Trump administration will be remembered, but it is more than that. It is a fitting end to the attempt to destroy our government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Sigh.

I feel compelled to reply with this reminder:

While you search to be in the presence of God,

never forget that you are in the presence of the children of God.

Here's a wonderful example in a book I read recently. My review:

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

This is a sort of love letter to a few blocks of New York City projects in 1969, and to the endearing cast of colorful characters brimming with personality. McBride has a magical touch bringing to life the adage everyone has a story. His descriptions are vivid, engrossing, and entertaining, giving both people and setting depth and truth. His dialogue, as well. It's a hard setting full of people living hard, flawed lives. McBride never ducks the grit and grime, violence and suffering, yet still manages to find some measure of joy and an abundance of humor. He paints a breathing portrait of "the least" of society, and he loves them.

Deacon Cuffy Lambkin of Five Ends Baptist Church became a walking dead man on a cloudy September afternoon in 1969. That's the day the old deacon, known as Sportcoat to his friends, marched out to the plaza of the Causeway Housing Projects in South Brooklyn, stuck an ancient .38 Colt in the face of a nineteen-year-old drug dealer named Deems Clemens, and pulled the trigger.

That opening paragraph sets off a complex web of events. Sportcoat is the old neighborhood drunk. He's a bumbling fool, a handyman, a beloved teacher and coach, and a widower who constantly stumbles around having conversations with his dead wife. He was so drunk when he shot Deems he doesn't even remember doing it. Deems was a rising baseball star who's become a rising star dealer. He's part of a new generation selling the new drug Heroin that's taking over the city. That one gunshot sends repercussions rippling through their neighborhood and wider connections. Sportcoat's friends and the old guard from his church. Deems' bosses and suppliers, smugglers and mobsters. Police. The neighborhood is changing from what it used to be, and this one act is a catalyst sending all the competing players and forces into motion.

And, finally, my final book of the year, one I just finished this morning. It is an embodiment of embracing murkiness. It is also the final book of a trilogy. I shared some quotes and images from the first two in You Only Keep on Striving, and That's the Beauty. They're worth a quick visit. Since that's all I've shared before, I'll include my reviews of all three here for the entire story. By Rob Davis.

The Motherless Oven

The weather clock said, "Knife o'clock." So I chained Dad up in the shed. So begins The Motherless Oven.

On its surface this is an intentionally opaque story, with a world so drastically different than ours that it's impossible to not feel unmoored as you read it. In this world it rains knives and the gales blow laughter, parents are mechanistic beings created by their children, devices and gadgets are talking, singing "gods," school subjects include circular history, mythmatics, shrine mechanics, and god science, and so much more that is utterly alien, all presented as normal and matter of fact without explanation. Often it's hard to know just what the characters are talking about. A contemplative reader might try to step outside of the work to see its constructions as metaphors and analogies, but that is a vague and perplexing task with elusive results. Even the characters don't really seem to understand their world much of the time.

And that's where The Motherless Oven works so brilliantly. I may not have understood the facts of the story, but I clearly felt the emotions. The characters are teenagers trying to figure out who they are and how they fit into things, feeling unmoored about most things themselves. On top of that, the protagonist knows he's going to die in three weeks (known deathdays are another of the book's quirks). The world is a strange and confusing place, and Scarper Lee can't make any sense of it or the point of his existence. So part of my experience reading the book was feeling adrift as I meandered with the characters through its confusing landscapes, but the greater experience was feeling enthralled by Scarper's anxieties and compelled to reach his story's bleak yet open ending (I was glad to learn through a bit of research the author has planned a trilogy). Though foreign, it's amazingly effective at capturing and conveying Scarper's teen angst.

I'm not always a fan of black-and-white art for comics and graphic novels, as often it feels a monetary necessity more than an artistic decision, but this time it's perfect. This is a wonderfully drawn story.

Some important little bolt that held my two halves together dropped out and one half of me floated away over the rooftops, like Michael Reydo's mum. Things looked different on the walk home. Opening the front door, the hall looked unfamiliar. Mum looked at me odd, the lights seemed brighter, tea tasted strange and the Tuesday wheel started making sense. I had entered the world of wrong.

Quotes:

We appear to have found a place where safe and dangerous are the same thing.

-----

Stories don't have points. They're lies for keeping the truth in. They're sort of rounded, not pointy at all.

-----

The way to free yourself from any system of control is to do something useless. But do it as well as you can!

The Can-Opener's Daughter

Making sense is overrated, paster. It's just confirming what people already think. Making new sense is more important.

I quickly re-read The Motherless Oven in preparation for reading this, and am glad I did; I like that first book in this trilogy more than ever and didn't feel quite so lost in this book's surface nonsensical nature. In fact, The Can Opener's Daughter provides context for that first book that makes it less nonsensical as well. There may not be rhyme, but there are reasons behind the strangeness of this world and the actions of the characters. Much remains a riddle, but enough is revealed to give hints at what more might be going on.

Like deathdays, for instance. In Scarper's world of the first book, everyone is assigned a predetermined time and manner of death that cannot be avoided. There are other, connected worlds, though. In a more privileged one, everyone gets to chart their own suicide and decide their own fate (assuming they stay on the right side of the law/powers and don't get "forcibly suicided"). Suicide is empirical, there is only one answer! If you get it wrong, you could die too soon and miss stuff or die too late and suffer. And all this is because people used to be immortal but decided that was insufferable and death was needed as a solution. All of this works because the authorities "enforce the lore."

Even more satisfying than the reveals of the world-building is the character development. Each book focuses on one of the three protagonists. Scarper's book was about confusion and alienation. Vera's book, this one, is about loneliness and rebellion. It takes things in a different direction, one that includes getting to know her--and Castro and a variety of secondary characters--much better. I loved the first book for its enigmatic nature; I love this one for the humanity.

I can't wait for the final installment.

Quotes:

Nothing always means something.

-----

A mother should sacrifice herself. The world is a happy place when it can sacrifice mothers on the altar of unconditional love. . . .

I can take the blame. All the blame! I'm designed for it.

I'm like the village witch who gets burned when the child gets sick or the crops fail . . . If you can't blame the weather, blame the mother. Welcome to womanhood. 

The Book of Forks

A fitting conclusion to a beautifully odd, original, absurd trilogy. Goodreads' description of this book includes, The Motherless Oven and The Can Opener’s Daughter may have raised more questions than they answered, but The Book of Forks explains everything. Kind of.

I called that first book an intentionally opaque story, with a world so drastically different than ours that it's impossible to not feel unmoored as you read it. Of the second I wrote, Much remains a riddle, but enough is revealed to give hints at what more might be going on. This third explains the universe Davis has created for these stories that its characters are on a quest to understand, but it does so mostly through the writings of Castro, who is so different that others generally find his attempts at communication unintelligible ravings. After reading Castro's book in this, Scarper tells Vera, "Maybe I'm too stupid, but some of it makes no sense to me at all."

So this book provides explanation, but, well, yeah. And it's wonderful. Their existence makes no more sense than ours, but the exploration is worthwhile nonetheless. It makes for a fascinating and satisfying story.

Here are excerpts from a couple of pages of Castro's book, which interrupt the narrative every so often:

Whether human thought existed before printing is difficult to establish given that printers invented early human thought in the form of books. People thought like books because they read books - it was much later that books had thoughts and began reading people.

State printers print books, primarily for schools. These books--despite having a first and last page--present information in a circular fashion. This removes any sense of meaning.

For example, in circular history books, the past, present and future are all presented as part of the same repeating loop. This breeds futility and a sense that no lesson can be learned. Ever.

Stray printers produce posters that appear for a short time, then vanish forever. This is an attempt to brandish the new--modernising the moment and destroying the past. Incorporating words and pictures, the posters seen to interrupt the daily cycle of futility and repetition with the shock of the new.

Sadly, poster art has sunk to reporting only the destructive activities of delinquents, as if youth equals new.

It may that new was possible in prehistory--that there was a time when thinking travelled in a forwards motion. I imagine this form of thinking as something like my own medicated inference syndrome.

-----

All friendships are built on convenience. These ships easily drift apart when it becomes less convenient to maintain them.

Shared location is the true selector in friendships. Similarity is a secondary factor.

Belief in the unique qualities of the selected friend is required to give value to this interaction. Belief in the specialness of another is equivalent to the belief in your own specialness. It is essential that everyone operates under the delusion that they are special in order to have an social bond.

Belief in specialness leads to a more problematic belief in the lack of it in others.

Having no friendships is considered a sign of unlikability and madness. Here, specialness may be too accentuated and seen as difference. Being no one's friend of everyone's friend presents the same problem to the nature of friendship.

It is my experience of never having been part of a friendship that enables me to see it objectively and reach my conclusion that friendships are anti-social.

Happy New Year!