Book Review & Vocabulary Lesson

I just finished reading Umberto Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana.

Synopsis from Amazon: A sixty-ish Milanese antiquarian bookseller nicknamed Yambo suffers a stroke and loses his memory of everything but the words he has read: poems, scenes from novels, miscellaneous quotations. His wife Paola fills in the bare essentials of his family history, but in order to trigger original memories, Yambo retreats alone to his ancestral home at Solara, a large country house with an improbably intact collection of family papers, books, gramophone records, and photographs. Yambo submerges himself in these artifacts, rereading almost everything he read as a school boy, blazing a meandering, sometimes misguided, often enchanting trail of words. Flares of recognition do come, like "mysterious flames," but these only signal that Yambo remembers something; they do not return that memory to him. It is like being handed a wrapped package, the contents of which he can only guess. Illustrated with the cartoons, sheet music covers, and book jackets that Yambo uncovers in his search, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana can be read as a love letter to literature, a layered excavation of an Italian boyhood of the 1940s, and a sly meditation on human consciousness.

As I mentioned when I started this book, I’m a little embarrassed to admit I didn’t know of the author, although I had heard of “The Name of the Rose”, at least the movie based on the book.

There are a few prominent plot points that are a bit contrived, not the least of which is the fact that the main character is an antique bookseller, and all he can remember is what he’s read. This is a book where very little happens in real time, it’s all back story. After spending a lot of time rummaging through his history and putting together a few important pieces, fate deals him another blow and he isn’t able to do anything with the knowledge that he gains. In this respect the ending of the book is bittersweet, but none of these minor criticisms took away from my enjoyment of this book. I could have done without a rather lengthy discourse on religion and politics in the middle, but I was particularly delighted with the full-color plates of many of the books Yambo discovers that were included, even in the paperback version.

On the first page of the first chapter, as he awakens from a coma, all he can remember are quotes, in particular, quotes about fog, which he has been collecting his entire life. “Where fog hovers between the towers like incense dreaming? A gray city, sad as a tombstone with chrysanthemums, where mist hangs over the facades like tapestries… My soul was wiping the streetcar windows so it could drown in the moving fog of the headlamps. Fog, my uncontaminated sister..."

I was hooked.

I read on the book jacket that Mr. Eco is a university professor of semiotics. If I had known what that meant I would have been better prepared for his writing style. This was the first of many, many words I encountered in this book that were unfamiliar to me. I don’t think I have ever read a book that contained more words I didn’t know, and I consider myself to have a half-decent vocabulary. Not just words that I didn’t know the meaning of, words I had never SEEN before. I kept wishing I had a dictionary on my nightstand, after the first few sessions I should have put one there. After an extremely cursory flip through the book I put together the following list of new words, in no particular order. How many did you know?

Semiotics: a general philosophical theory of signs and symbols that deals especially with their function in both artificially constructed and natural languages and comprises syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics. Um, yeah, that explains things, doesn’t it?

Callipygian: having well-shaped buttocks. "Her gown clung damply to her body, clearly revealing her callipygian curves, and the entire shapely length of her legs." This one is worth remembering for the next time you see Matthew McConaughey.

Plantigrade: of a mammal walking on the soles of the feet like a human or a bear. "By this point, for both Ada and myself, our beloved plantigrade was a painful sight" In reference to a stuffed bear.

Deuteragonist: the person second in importance to the protagonist in a drama. "A deuteragonist in that little drama, I had a moment of doubt."

Proglottidean: from proglottid, each segment in the strobila of a tapeworm containing a complete, sexually mature reproductive system. "My memory is proglottidean, like the tapeworm, but unlike the tapeworm it has no head, it wanders in a maze, and any point may be the beginning or the end of its journey." Isn't it redundant to say your memory is like something, and then use that same something as a synonym? I'm just askin'.

Asphodel: any of several chiefly Mediterranean plants of the genera Asphodeline and Asphodelus in the lily family, having linear leaves and elongate clusters of white, pink, or yellow flowers; in Greek poetry and mythology, the flowers of Hades and the dead, sacred to Persephone. “…Ophelia floating upon a blanket of jonquils, water lilies, and asphodels.” From the context I knew it was a flower, just one I had never heard of, and of course, he's got to get that symbolism in there.

Syncretism: the combination of different forms of belief or practice. “…characters ranging from the maned Lion Men to the Hawk Men and Blue Magic Men of Queen Azura, all of them dressed with an easy syncretism…” In reference to characters in comic books.

Brachycephalic: short-headed or broad-headed with a cephalic index of over 80. “.. a survey of hooked noses and unkempt beards, of piggy, sensual mouths with buckteeth, of brachycephalic skulls and scarred cheekbones…” In reference to images of Jews during wartime.

Baobab: a broad-trunked tropical tree (Adansonia digitata) of the silk-cotton family that is native to Africa and has an edible acidic fruit resembling a gourd and bark used in making paper, cloth, and rope. “…I glimpsed, among the scant vines and the trees that rose at the hill’s edge, a baobab…”

Babirusa: a large wild swine (Babyrousa babyrussa) of Indonesia. “I kept expecting to see a nice babirusa pop out from between the rows of vines, perfect for roasting over a spit…” Again, by the context I knew it was an animal, but one I wasn’t familiar with.

Pulverulent: consisting of or reducible to fine powder; being or looking dusty. “…an attic promises a rather threadbare paradise, where the dead bodies appear in a pulverulent glow…”

Hyperborean: one of a people known to the ancient Greeks, living in a perpetually warm and sunny land north of the source of the north wind; of or relating to the far north; very cold; frigid. “Most of the action takes place on icy seas covered by hyperborean mist.” Once again he throws in that symbolism, for those of you paying attention.

Avolate: to fly away; to escape; to exhale. He doesn’t actually use this in a sentence, its one of a very long list of words he learns from a childhood book, including baccivorous, cacodoxy, cerastes, grangerism, lordkin, pasigraphy and vespillo. Look them all up if you have the time.

And read this book.

New Design

It's finished! I am so happy with the way the design turned out. I had Amy at Quixotic Pixels spruce it up and she did a fantastic job, don't you think?

I have several posts brewing. Work has been crazy and I've been working with Amy on the design, so expect a flurry of posts very soon.

Horsing Around

Yesterday D and I went to our first horse show. It was in an extremely tony area and the rich folks were out in force. At this particular show (what is referred to a hunter/jumper show) they even judge the tack rooms. The farms where the various horses are from put up these amazing portable stalls and tack rooms, at the front of each is a seating area under lovely cabanas, complete with fountains, gorgeous flowering plants and monogrammed directors’ chairs. Some even brought their own sod so the area in front of the cabana would look fresh and green, and put down expensive carpeting under the teak furniture.

The winning farm also used expensive wood (mahogany?) for the individual horse’s tack boxes. You could literally smell the money. There was a huge covered viewing area for sponsors only, but they were nice enough to set up smaller covered bleacher seats for the riff-raff.








Vendors of high-end tack, riding clothes and jewelry were there to take your hard-earned money. I was lusting over a pair of butter-soft Ferragamo riding boots that cost more than most of the shoes in my closet combined. The age range of the competitors was from about 7 to about 55; the smallest children rode ponies. The entire time I kept wishing that I had had the chance to start riding so much earlier in life. Not that I would have necessarily competed, but I wouldn’t still be learning how to trot as good as a 7 year-old.








There has been so much going on in the news lately, and I’ve consciously avoided blogging about it. Partly because this isn’t a political blog, and partly because I don’t want to deal with the fallout from the crazies who troll blogs looking for key words so they can write hate-spam. One of my favorite bloggers, Helen at Everyday Stranger, lives in the UK and heard the news of the arrests of the would-be terrorists hours before we did here in the US. She wrote a post detailing her feelings on travel and her despair at the state of the world. It didn’t take long before part of her post was copied by a widely-read political blogger (who I refuse to link to here) to show the “moonbat” perspective. Of course it was taken out of context, but that didn’t stop the hateful trolls from inundating her comments and email with insults, anti-American rhetoric and even a few death threats. Because of this exchange she was also invited by Fox News America to come on their radio show as a guest to share her perspective, which she bravely did.

This all made me very angry. Not only because I love Helen, but because I strongly feel she has every right to say whatever the hell she wants to say on her own blog without fear of someone threatening to slit her throat. If we all start censoring ourselves, what are we left with? Of course, we all must live with the consequences of our actions, but once again, if you don’t like what you are reading, you’re welcome to leave.

One of my favorite talk-show hosts is a guy from LA named Karel. He’s the first openly gay host on KGO, which is consistently rated the best talk radio station in America. I don’t always agree with everything he says (although I do more often than not) but I do agree with his feelings on the situation in the Middle East. Here’s a link to a recent post of his that says it better than I could.

In unrelated news, I hired a professional blog designer to spruce up these digs a bit. Watch this space for a new, improved design shortly.

One World

Let peace begin with me
Let this be the moment now
With ev'ry breath I take, let this be my solemn vow;
To take each moment and live each moment in peace eternally
Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me

Lyrics by Sy Miller and Bill Jackson

Eiffel Tower through the Peace Monument
Paris, August 2000
Photo Credit: D

As Time Goes By

With all due respect to Louis Armstrong, “a kiss is just a kiss” isn’t true in my story. On August 10, 1989 in Ashland, Oregon, I received a kiss that changed my life.

I’ve told the story before…I was in a doomed relationship but had only been married 9 months when I signed on as an instructor for a local marching band in February 1989. As luck would have it, they were going to Vancouver, BC on tour in August and I was terribly homesick, having left the only home I’d ever known the previous summer. D was the drum instructor. I remember the first time I ever saw him, he was on the other side of the practice field, holding hands and walking with one of the girls in the band, which I thought was a little bit odd, frankly, that sort of thing is generally frowned upon.

As the season progressed the staff became closer, as you would expect, but there was no spark between us, at least not coming from my direction. I actually felt a lot closer to J, who was D’s best friend, the band’s director and a fellow instructor. I became a bit of a substitute for his wife K, who was on tour with another group (I had in fact been hired to take her place as an instructor).

My ex (as usual) was totally absorbed in his life, his new job, trying to set up new drug connections for his daily marijuana habit – you know, the important things. So I dove into my role and the new people in my life and quickly discovered that there was a different way of living then I was used to.

When you spend 24/7 with someone in a dynamic that is as intense as a competitive band on tour, bonds are created that go deep. The fact that I got to show off my home town to D and J only made the experience that much richer.

I had made plans before we left to meet my ex in Ashland, a stop on the way home from the Northwest, to spend a weekend. As the rendezvous date approached it became clear that I needed an extra day to work with the band and get them ready for the next competition, which I was going to miss. When I called to tell him I wanted to push the date back by one day he blew up. He called me selfish and basically said, “you be there or else”. Although he’d had his moments in the past, this was the first time he’d actually forbidden me from doing something. This could have been because this was the first time in our 5 year relationship that I’d ever asked for anything! Of course, there had been many times in the past when he’d changed his plans, especially when it came to teaching, sometimes things come up, and he should have been OK with it. He was threatened of my new friends and my autonomy, and in hindsight he had every reason to, although I didn’t know it at the time.

On the drive from Vancouver to Ashland I sat between D and J in the equipment truck. Not exactly the most luxurious or comfortable ride, but something happened in those hours – I felt safe, an equal, something I never felt with my ex.

D carried my suitcase up to the room at the old hotel I would be staying in that night with my ex. He’d been quiet all day and I knew he didn’t want to say good-bye, although I had no idea what was coming. He put down the suitcase, took my face in his hands and said, “I’ve fallen in love with you.” He said a bunch of other stuff too, but that was the gist of it. I was dumbstruck. “I’m married”, I stammered back. We talked for a minute about what we should do about this, a question neither one of us had any answers to, and when we would see each other again. As he turned to go, his face a mask of anguish, he gave me the softest, sweetest kiss I’ve ever received.

As he closed the door behind him I sat down on the bed, my head swirling with confusion and emotion. I honestly don’t remember the fight with my ex or any other details about the rest of that weekend in Ashland.

I’m not proud of the way I acted in the next 5 years. I treated both my ex and D badly in turn, and didn’t do anyone any favors by adamantly refusing to leave the marriage until I had checked off every saving effort available, even though I knew it was inevitable.

D gently steered me into therapy to deal with my abuse issues, and was there for me in my darkest moments, even though I could give him no assurances that we would end up together. I cannot thank him enough.

So, happy anniversary my darling, thanks for waiting. God only knows where I’d be without you.

Jonatha Brooke -- God Only Knows mp3

Diana Krall -- A Case of You (live) mp3

Lyrics by Joni Mitchell (partial)

On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh Canada
And your face sketched on it twice

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of youI could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh Id still be on my feet

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I’m frightened by the devil
And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid
I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
Still I'd be on my feet
And still be on my feet

Memoir, Part I

Here's the first installment of my long-awaited memoir. This is my mother's history, or, The Dark Side of the family.

Jan Hra_barczuk was born in January 1904 in Kiev, Ukraine. Then, as now, it was an independent republic, an ancient capital city.




















Marja Ja_nik was born in November 1909 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, (what is now called Slovakia or the Slovak Republic), also an ancient capital city of Central Europe.















Not much is known of their histories, although there is a colorful story regarding my maternal great-grandmother Victoria being stolen by dark-skinned Slavic gypsies as a child because it was thought her rarely seen platinum blonde tresses would bring the troupe luck on their travels. [Incidentally, one of my aunts carries on this family tradition -- the platinum blonde part, not the gypsy or kidnapping part.]

I haven’t been able to uncover the story of how the 800 miles separating them at birth was bridged, how they met or where or when they married. I could ask my mother but she has no interest in speaking about her parents, and I don’t want to listen to why. Custom and culture would almost certainly dictate that they would have married before the birth of their first child, Michal, in November 1929 in Warsaw, Poland, where they were waiting for passage to Canada.

When I first heard the story of their trans-Atlantic crossing I had an image in my head of the type of boat they were on…some god-forsaken ancient freighter filled with rats and starving children. Then I found their immigration record through the Canada archives site, which included the name of the vessel, the Duchess of Bedford, a Canadian Pacific liner, and the fact that they left from Liverpool, England. I have no idea how they got from Warsaw to Liverpool, I can only assume that also was a sea voyage.

Not exactly luxurious, but a far cry from the image in my mind’s eye.










Despite the relative comfort of the crossing, I’ve often thought of how very difficult it would have been to make this journey with a newborn, not speaking the language, having very little money and no support waiting for them at the other end. After a week’s voyage across the Atlantic, Jan, Marja and little Michal became John, Maria and Michael on July 12, 1930 when they arrived in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. They were 26, 24 and 7 months respectively. The immigration worker also changed the “z” in their last name to an “h”, giving them the characteristic Ukrainian “chuk”.

From the mouth of the St. Lawrence River they traveled by train, settling in Beausejour (French for “good camping ground”), Manitoba, 30 miles northeast of the provincial capital of Winnipeg, with many other Ukrainian immigrants. Today it remains a small farming town, with less than 3,000 residents.

My mother Mary was born in April 1933, to be followed by seven more children, born every two or three years through January 1950, when at 41 my grandmother gave birth to her ninth child, a total of five boys and four girls. This picture is the only one that I know of that shows most of the family except my mother, who, unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately), had already left home. It was taken around 1953.


By all accounts my grandfather was a mean drunk. When one of the older children displeased him in some way, he would choose one of the younger children to beat in their stead, to teach them all a lesson. His children universally hated him; so much so that two of the boys legally changed their names to help rid themselves of his legacy. As the oldest girl my mother bore the brunt of the work of raising the younger children as well as chores around the farm. She also bore the brunt of her father’s rage and sexual appetite, forced to participate in an on-going drinking game in which her father and one of his friends would rape each other’s daughters. He was particularly vicious to my mother’s younger sister Anne and threatened to kill her on various occasions. When she was 16 two of her brothers conspired to spirit her out of the house in the middle of the night and put her on a train to BC and the safety of my parents’ home.

My grandfather died on his farm in October 1976 at the age of 72, probably from a combination of ailments brought on by years of alcoholism. Many of his children, including my mother, did not attend his funeral. My aunt Anne told me recently the only reason she went was to see for herself that “the bastard was dead.”

To my knowledge neither of my grandparents ever learned to speak English fluently. By the end of her life my grandmother was speaking a garbled mix of Polish, Ukrainian and Czech that exactly two people on earth could understand. I never met my grandfather, and met my grandmother only once as a teenager.

I thought at the time she looked like the classic Babooshka on a vodka label. She steadfastly refused to leave the farm until the day she died in March 1991 at the age of 82. One of her sons had continually lived with her since my grandfather’s death, to keep the farm running.














Several of my aunts and uncles are still living in and around Winnipeg, which I visited once when I was too young to remember much of anything. The family was close with Michael and with Anne, the only other sibling who managed to escape to another province. All the brothers and sisters are now estranged; there is just too much history they all want to forget. My uncle Michael passed away in 1994, a lifelong batchelor and railway man. My mother has a shrine to him in her living room, right next to the one to my brother.

Despite the fact that my mother (I believe) suffers from NPD, she hardly ever spoke of her childhood and the horrors she endured. Little bits of stories would come out as examples of really bad situations, in contrast to whatever we were complaining about, my pain trumps your pain every time, so shut up and suck it up. She also forbade any books or TV shows regarding the Holocaust, which did nothing except fuel my interest. To this day I will choose Hitler or Stalin over Seinfeld any day. I haven’t been able to find any link of any kind to a relative or family friend having been involved on either side, although it’s certainly plausible. Perhaps there is a shred of humanity inside her somewhere after all, or perhaps there is something so horrible in her history she cannot bear to revisit even the ghost of remembrance. I’ll probably never know. I do know that she created a dynamic in our house that fostered and allowed inappropriate and damaging sexual behavior by all of its inhabitants.

Labels

Liberal:
a) Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
b) Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
c) Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.
d) Liberal Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.

Agnostic:
a) One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
b) One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.

I moved from Canada to the USA in my early 20’s, before I really thought much about politics or what to call myself. In Canada there are multiple political parties and provincial politics, in particular, was always a quagmire that I never ventured far into. Since I’ve lived in the Bay Area for almost 20 years I have a skewed vantage point of life in general and politics in particular. I know that the rest of the country is not like we are around these parts. I don’t like labels but I can safely say that I am both a liberal and an agnostic. Both of these things put me into a distinct minority in this country, but because of my location and my ability to keep my mouth shut whenever religion or politics comes up, I manage to avoid the wrath of others for the most part.

I’ve been thinking a lot about labels lately. It doesn’t make sense to me that in this country you are supposed to choose between Democrat and Republican (if you want to make a difference, otherwise you are relegated to the Green Party and others on the fringe). I don’t agree with things on both sides, so I guess it’s a good thing I can’t vote. If you want to regale me for living in a country I refuse to become a citizen of, go right ahead. I pay my taxes just like the next person, but I steadfastly refuse to renounce allegiance to my birth country. The USA is the only industrialized nation that doesn’t allow for dual citizenship outside of birth rights. The government allows it with a wink and a nod, but doesn’t recommend it, partly because it could cause a problem if your two countries ended up at war with each other -- you could be drafted into military service of both. I suspect this situation wasn’t contemplated between the USA and Canada but there aren’t separate rules for countries the USA is friendly with.

We’re DINKS. I’m too old to be a YUPPIE but I used to be one. I’m on the cusp of Baby Boomer and Generation X. I’m married and divorced; a daughter, sister, niece, aunt, granddaughter, stepmom and stepgrandmother. I’m a consultant, a dog owner, a budding equestrienne and both a Francophile and an Anglophile. I’m a dichotomy. Like most people, one label just isn’t going to cut it. I try to remember that when I encounter someone who seems to be from a different planet.

I’m also a blogger, small b, small time. Because I’m not one of the Really Cool Kids, I had no idea that this year’s BlogHer conference is this weekend, right in my own backyard. Yes, I know there are plenty of non-gender-defined Blogger conferences, and don’t throw things at me, but I have to say it irks me a little that women bloggers feel they need to exclude men in order to have a meaningful discussion about their craft. Having said that, I know I need to branch out and include more male bloggers in my blogroll. I started with a hard core base of infertility bloggers, and we all know that we find other blogs through the blogs we regularly read, so it makes sense that I would end up with mostly estrogen on my Bloglines. I am starting to find I’m missing the male perspective on life in my reading. If anyone has any good links for me I’d love to get them.