Political Act of an Introvert

Donald J. Trump has been President of the United States for a little over two weeks now, and I’m still struggling with how I should respond to that news. On Election Night, when it became clear what we had elected, I lost sleep trying to figure out an appropriate response. I thought of contributing money to different causes, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, or Planned Parenthood. I thought of supporting the free press by getting a subscription to the New York Times, or the Washington Post. I haven’t done either of those things yet, but the Trump presidency is still young. I’m keeping my powder dry.

I didn’t think at all about participating in any marches or protests, but that’s the first thing that I’ve actually committed to do. I’ll be marching on April 22^nd, which is also Earth Day, as part of the March for Science.

Pigs, Fools, and Socrates: "Ruined by Reading: A Life in Books" - Lynne Sharon Schwartz

This year, I’m trying to be more intentional in engaging people about the books we’re reading. I’m asking for reading recommendations, and joining them in conversation about makes a book enjoyable enough to want to share it with others. My goal is to read, deeply and attentively, fifty book recommendations while in my 50’s. (It would be wonderful if I could read fifty in one year, but that seems unlikely, given the realities and demands of life right now.) Even though this book wasn’t one of the books that a friend recommended, it made a perfect work to read early in the “50 at 50 Project”, as I’ve come to think of it.

Actually, I don’t recall how this book came to be on my reading list, but it has been there a long time. Maybe someone really did recommend it to me, and I’ve forgotten the details. Perhaps I came across it on the shelves of a bookstore back in the late 90’s, though it doesn’t seem like a book that would have spent much time in stores, to be honest. It seems like the kind of book with a limited appeal, but many small, beautiful things don’t catch the attention and imagination of the masses.

Not Your Father's Poetry - Nine Horses, by Billy Collins

If you have the common misconception that poetry is only for eggheads, that it is impossibly complex, and that it has nothing to say to you, have I got the poet for you. Meet Billy Collins, who writes some of the most engaging and accessible poetry being written today.

If you have the common misconception that poetry, if paired with the adjective “accessible”, is inane, sing-song, and shallow, have I got the poet for you. Meet Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate, Distinguished Professor of English at Lehman College, and winner of dozens of awards and honors for his work. His poetry has been included in the Advanced Placement examinations given to high school students annually, marking it as culturally and academically significant.

The Democracy of Reading

There couldn’t have been a better book to begin my 50 at 50 Project, where I read fifty books recommended to me by fifty different people, than The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. My goals for the 50 at 50 Project are to read books that I wouldn’t have otherwise, and to engage people in a conversation about books that they enjoy, and both of these goals are major themes in TGLAPPPS.

My wife and I met at a book group, which started as a group of people talking almost exclusively about books, and grew to incorporate more social elements, including food and friendship. Reading and talking about challenging books was a great way to get past the small talk and really know how and what people thought. In fact, we got to know each other very deeply, but skipped right past some of the biographical details that often seem essential. One person had been attending the group for over a year before we ever learned that she had a daughter. I remember telling people, after I’d been a part of the group for a couple of years, “I don’t even know for sure how many children John has, but I know what he would say in response to this passage from Nietzsche.”

Aging with Lear

By my best estimate, I’ve read King Lear six or seven times. I read it for the first time in my early twenties, before I married and had children, and my assessment of Lear at that time in my life was that of a young man who hadn’t been forced to look hard at himself and his weaknesses. I didn’t see what Lear and I had in common, though with my latest reading, certain uncomfortable aspects of Lear’s personality resonated in a way that they didn’t twenty-plus years ago.

In my first reading of King Lear, I took Lear’s defense of himself at face value. Lear exclaims in the middle of the play, “I am a man / more sinned against than sinning.” (Act 3, Scene 2, lines 59-60). By this point in the play, Lear’s two older daughters, despite their proclamations of love in the first scene, have shown their teeth, and have driven their father and his handful of followers out into a storm with no shelter. Lear’s famous line from the middle of the storm sounds defensive. He’s willing to admit on some level that he has sinned, but his failings are not as great as the failings of others.

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Tolstoy, Beethoven, and Why I Write about What I Read

I think I’ve read Tolstoy's “The Kreutzer Sonata” before, but I have only the vaguest memory of the arc of the story. In fact, I’m about halfway through a second reading, and I’m amazed and ashamed at how little it resonates with me at all. I’ve been at it for a few days, and still haven’t gotten to the part of the story that I would have described a week ago if I’d been called upon to describe the story. A week ago, I would have summarized the story by saying that a married man gets jealous when his wife plays Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata (a piece for violin and piano) with someone else, and that the man’s jealousy is unfounded.