Social and Moral Values

While the context of this address is being an American Catholic in the political arena, there are a lot of thoughtful points that anyone might appreciate.  Archbishop Charles J. Chaput spoke to an audience in Canada about his book Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life and the current cultural and political sentiments in the U.S.  A lot of what he said deals with abortion and the sanctity of life.  I found his discussion of that particularly insightful.

The most challenging aspect of his address lies in his call to courage and integrity, to living one’s beliefs in public rather than living separate public and private lives (which, really, isn’t possible).  That point, I think, applies to all of us.  While tolerance has its place, it’s all too tempting to remain silent for fear of offending someone.  I’ve seen both the disrespectful and damaging arguing of people with opposing viewpoints and the calm listening of one person hearing another person’s beliefs all while allowing his own to go unspoken, maybe even letting the speaker think he agrees with her.  But rarely have I seen two people respectfully discussing both sides.

Flannery O’Connor Biography

Check out this link for information on the Flannery O’Connor biography out today.

After moving, and going without internet until today, I hope to update again once I’m caught up on e-mails.

Barthelme Biography

Click here to read an excerpt of  Tracy Daugherty’s biography of Donald Barthelme.  Sounds intriguing.

National Grapefruit Month

My sister sent me this link.  I love grapefruits these days.  Sunflower Market sold them four for a dollar on Wednesday.  Yum.

Kindle

Let’s take a moment to discuss Amazon’s Kindle and any counterparts or competitors.  I may not be the best candidate to talk about this technology since I have neither seen one in person nor used one (which I guess is implicit in the former), but as a reader, I have my opinions.

At a party my parents hosted when my dad was in town a month or so ago, the conversation turned to the pleasant and welcome topic of books.  I sat at a table with mostly women aged 40 to perhaps 60.  A few of them raved about Kindle and how having one is like having ten books in your purse for those times when you’re waiting in line or bored or whatever.  A Kindle is small enough to fit into one’s purse (or back pocket? maybe not), making it ideal for travel or running errands or simply slipping to another room at a boring party.

But I’m skeptical, as was at least one person in this discussion.  What do you do when you want to write in the margins or underline something?  You can! they say. Well, is that the same?  And what about looking at a screen?  Aren’t we all tired of looking at screens, whether it’s television, computer, iPod, etc.?  Oh, but they’ve made it easy on the eyes.  You can adjust the screen! But it’s still a screen.

I suppose its size appeals to me, the female who’d rather not carry a purse but still looks for one large enough to hold a book or two.  But I can’t get into it.  It’s not the same.  You’re right, I’ve never tried one.  But what about manually turning a page and holding the physical object in your hand?  And do they have the front and back covers on the Kindle?

Personally, I say we stick with books in hardback or paperback, and while we’re at it, get rid of the iPod (although I do love podcasts) and buying music online and go back to CDs or cassette tapes or even records.  Something’s lost in the experience of reading and music when we take the physical object out of the equation.  Whatever happened to buying an album and listening to it all the way through while looking at the liner notes?  And what about the thrill of picking a book off the shelf and looking at the cover and flipping the pages?

Or maybe I’m just a technophobe.  (Is that a word?)

To Read and Listen

You can find this month’s New Yorker Fiction Podcast here. It features Roger Angell reading “Playing with Dynamite” by John Updike.

In this interview, Saul Bellow addresses a question about “writers of ideas” including Don DeLillo:

Interviewer: Do you find yourself reading certain novelists who might be called novelists of ideas? I’m thinking of Milan Kundera and Don DeLillo—writers who set up structures that allow them to put ideas into play.

Bellow: Kundera is a dude. I take him to be a kind of dandy—an apparently new, but really quite old, type. That is to say, he’s an Eastern European who is crazy about France and Paris and the dernier cri. He does it more or less successfully, but I don’t really take much interest in it. I read DeLillo’s White Noise. I liked it. I thought it was very good.

He goes on to talk about growing up during the Depression without radios or televisions, when people read and discussed books and ideas.  It sounds lovely.

Scholastic Not So Scholastic

This is sad.  Scholastic book orders were one of my favorite parts of elementary school.  I’d hate to see books competing with video games and toys for a child’s attention.  That’s not to say I don’t have faith in books, rather the other options might seem fancier or easier to a kid.  I loved books as a kid, but I also wanted a nifty all-in-one flashlight/radio/clock gismo.  Sure some toys require a child’s imagination, but video games?  And I’m sure today’s kids have no lack of toys and electronics, at least in some demographics.

I’ve been reading Charles Baxter’s The Art of Subtext, and in one chapter/essay, Baxter considers how over-stimulation causes a person to tune out, and how we have become masters at doing just so.  He mentions how children and older adults have a harder time with this, often times resulting in a kid screaming.  To put today’s child next to one from 1909 might provide an excellent social commentary.  I’m not saying I don’t like technology (though I’m not its biggest fan) or that I don’t appreciate the benefits of the information age, but I do wonder how we’d turn out if we had fewer distractions, if we had only the outdoors and books to entertain us as children.  But maybe entertain is the wrong word.  Or the crux of the problem.  When did entertainment take center stage?

Audio Book Club

Sometimes it’s nice to listen to podcasts or read discussions of books to continue ruminating on the book and experience.  Slate has an audio book club that features quite a few good books.  The link goes to The Great Gatsby, but there is a listing below that for other books.

The Lure of Vegetarianism

Ever since I did a report on vegetarianism in 7th grade, I’ve tinkered with the diet/lifestyle.  There were a few stretches (the longest maybe two years) when I didn’t eat meat, but I never really learned how to cook vegetarian meals since I was a teen and then a college student living in the dorms.

But lately I keep wanting to learn vegetarian recipes for variety and for health.  I just read this resource page on Vegetarian Times about the benefits of a vegetarian diet.  I haven’t made a commitment yet, but I’m leaning toward going mostly vegetarian, eating meat maybe when refusing would be impolite or too much hassle for a host.  Who knows.

The First Month’s Books

January:

Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life – Margaret Kim Peterson

The premise–a look at keeping house and theology–seemed interesting, but didn’t quite live up to my expectations.  The author makes a good argument for why a well-kept house (regardless of the makeup of the people in it–group of friends, aging relatives, etc.) lends to a better quality of life.  Claiming theology was a bit of a stretch.

New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 2008 – Edited by ZZ Packer, Series Editor Kathy Pories

A fantastic collection.  I highly recommend it to anyone who likes short stories or wants something to read in small bits.  The first half was excellent, but much of the second half weren’t to my liking.

The Inheritance of Loss – Kiran Desai

I was excited to read this book because it was a bestseller and I was on an India kick.  However delightful the language and the atmosphere and the setting were, the characters were lacking.  It felt more like a novel about a place or an idea than about the characters, but not like most idea or place novels (if that makes any sense).  I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it seemed like there was too much distance between the characters and the reader.  I read that Desai cut several hundred pages from a draft of this, so I wonder if those pages would have made the characters more accessible.

Right now I’m finishing The Power and the Glory, which I bought on my birthday because it was on sale and because I’d been meaning to read Graham Greene.  I am ecstatically surprised.  So far, it’s a contender for a slot in my favorite list.