Allen, TX. One or two a day, mass murders... and 7 scratched at The KENTUCKY Derby... read JOE DRAPE.... he’s out of a job, soon. Avoid church, the concert, the ball game, the laundromat, shopping center, NYSE, the sweet sixteen party, the killing is addictive, like smoking.. kill we must, LSMF/T... walk a mile in a Camel...
I had Tobias Wolff as a guest lecturer once (I actually do have a degree in creative writing, which is useless) and recall he was among the most intensely earnest and intensely intense of all our instructors. But mostly, I remember how he longed for something. He just longed.
I think it was 1988 or 1989 when he came to speak to our group (it wasn't a class as much as a seminar-style group with only 12 of us in it). He was either about to or had just published This Boy's Life, and was talking to us about how his abusive stepfather had been the central theme of his life that he would need to write his way out of. I was not always compos mentis myself at that time, given that I also had come from a wackadoodle family, but even then, I can remember how much pain this guy was in.
Anyway, you know, I have to go back and re-read Bullet in the Brain because all these many years later, I realize how much compassion and pathos what you quoted evidences TW is capable of, which is pretty fucking amazing...the level of forgiveness and kind heartedness he would have to have had as someone who was abused so badly as a child, and who saw his mother being abused and couldn't do anything to stop it...and then to think such kind thoughts about a bully and a brute.
I can only hope to be so forgiving.
Wow.
PS: I couldn't figure out at first where this comment of mine was appearing, so I deleted it from the general thread, if you were given a notification but now the message is gone...it's just moved to here. :)
My God, he was much too sensiive to endure what he did. You know, I had to stop reading Stefan Zweig before bed because his WWII fiction was so sharply accurate the gestalt of it was like feeling weapons. Seriously. Amazing writer. But in such pain. Wow.
Well, Wolff pass on his some of his “inconsolable” quality here. I’ve always suspected the memories I thought most important were not the real ones that were. Now I’m sure of it. Facing death for some poeple awaken what’s important. The story certainly communicates that. Jesus what an experience to have that in the classroom.
I read "Bullet in the Brain" once, then immediately read it again, and then one more time after I read the rest of today's column. The best word I can use for it is "haunting." I can understand the motivation to cry by the end, but I think you have to have had a certain life experience to be able to do so, one that I probably didn't. I have very few memories of my childhood, say, pre-12-years-old, but I know none of them involve a group of friends playing a pick-up game of baseball in a field in the middle of a lazy summer. I don't know why that is except that I too may have had a little bit of Anders in my genes, and probably didn't stop myself, like Anders did, from making that kid say, "they is" again and again, just to hear it.
What I love most about the story is that it makes one think on mortality, a subject most people don't WANT to think about. In addition to that, it makes one review their lives (well, me anyway), and try to figure out what scene from it would be in your last thoughts. But then, it's at that point, that I realize what a whole lot of time I've spent in 65 years just "wasting time." It doesn't really make me fret, because like garbage, one person's timewaster is another person's treasure. I think most everyone would be surprised by what other people do in their lives when no one is watching them. Mostly wasting time. The only mild fear I have is that at the moment of my death, will I have anything to remember? Here, my conclusion is from Rudy Giuliani: "I'll be dead, I won't care."
Even Rudy gets things right every once in a while.
There are things we do that "waste" time, in the conventional sense, but no experience really is a waste, because we learn something from everything, even dumb stuff like, I don't know, watching the Kardashians or whatever.
After reading the short story—which was obviously well written but didn’t move me to tears—and your ode to it—which awed me with its insightfulness—all I can say is that I don’t appreciate good literature as much as I appreciate the appreciation of good literature!
My habit of bursting into tears upon reading certain poems or stories, or listening to certain pieces of music, isn't exactly a superpower. At one of the classes, I had one of the students read a poem to see if I would still cry even if it were read badly. I did. The kids all thought I was nuts. Maybe I am!
Either way, thanks, Earl. I'm with you...a good appreciation is often better than the subject. For example, Nicholson Baker wrote a book called "U & I" about his relationship to the work of Updike that is, IMO, better than anything Updike produced.
I also cry easily upon reading or watching emotional material—Paul Vidi watching an insurance commercial in Analyze This comes to mind—but in my case it’s not about the quality of the writing; it’s that I’m empathetic to the feelings of the people involved.
Several decades ago, I was on a flight to San Francisco when we hit a pocket of turbulence just after dinner had been served. The piece of honeydew melon I had just put into my mouth bounced its way to completely obstruct my windpipe. I gave the man sitting next to me a nudge and the sign for choking (crossed hands around the neck). He ignored me and went on eating. For a moment I started to panic thinking I was going to croak without being able to croak right then and there. A vivid scene popped into my mind of my lifeless body coming down the baggage chute onto the round table conveyor with a morgue tag around my left big toe: “death by an errant piece of melon.” Then I calmed myself down with the thought that as an anesthesiologist I was probably best able to save myself. So I performed the Heimlich maneuver on myself.* The melon moved enough so I could breathe and then fish it out with a finger sweep. No one can tell us what goes through their minds as they die—some of us can relate what we’re thinking as we’re on the precipice of the abyss.
*You can’t Heimlich yourself by throwing yourself over a seat back in an airplane—there’s not enough room. I did it by using my fists in the aisle.
There is no balm for understanding this story. Just torn veils one after another. I can’t tell if my heart is breaking or if it’s growing. I know this will pass, right? 🙏
For me, this interview between Tim Page and Glenn Gould near the end of Glenn's life always brings me to tears. The point where they listen to the opening Aria from The Goldberg Variations recorded as his first album in 1955 (at around 8:50) compared to the final recording of the same piece in 1981...
Here is the link starting just before that comparison:
Lovely.
Why?
Just wonderful. Your sensitivity is a thing of beauty.
Thank you!
Allen, TX. One or two a day, mass murders... and 7 scratched at The KENTUCKY Derby... read JOE DRAPE.... he’s out of a job, soon. Avoid church, the concert, the ball game, the laundromat, shopping center, NYSE, the sweet sixteen party, the killing is addictive, like smoking.. kill we must, LSMF/T... walk a mile in a Camel...
I don't get it, but I want to...?
Haunting.
The pot is ready to boil, which bubble will surface first?
Who and what is applying the heat?
Instead of short stories we can almost live, there are short lives barely lived.
Haunting.
Monopoly... Parker Brothers
I had Tobias Wolff as a guest lecturer once (I actually do have a degree in creative writing, which is useless) and recall he was among the most intensely earnest and intensely intense of all our instructors. But mostly, I remember how he longed for something. He just longed.
Oh, wow, that must have been great. I get that sense, the longing. Isn't longing the heart of all literature?
I think it was 1988 or 1989 when he came to speak to our group (it wasn't a class as much as a seminar-style group with only 12 of us in it). He was either about to or had just published This Boy's Life, and was talking to us about how his abusive stepfather had been the central theme of his life that he would need to write his way out of. I was not always compos mentis myself at that time, given that I also had come from a wackadoodle family, but even then, I can remember how much pain this guy was in.
Anyway, you know, I have to go back and re-read Bullet in the Brain because all these many years later, I realize how much compassion and pathos what you quoted evidences TW is capable of, which is pretty fucking amazing...the level of forgiveness and kind heartedness he would have to have had as someone who was abused so badly as a child, and who saw his mother being abused and couldn't do anything to stop it...and then to think such kind thoughts about a bully and a brute.
I can only hope to be so forgiving.
Wow.
PS: I couldn't figure out at first where this comment of mine was appearing, so I deleted it from the general thread, if you were given a notification but now the message is gone...it's just moved to here. :)
My God, he was much too sensiive to endure what he did. You know, I had to stop reading Stefan Zweig before bed because his WWII fiction was so sharply accurate the gestalt of it was like feeling weapons. Seriously. Amazing writer. But in such pain. Wow.
Yes, that makes sense. I am cautious about what I let into my subconcious before I sleep. What you describe would be unsettling.
Words are units of reality.
Well, Wolff pass on his some of his “inconsolable” quality here. I’ve always suspected the memories I thought most important were not the real ones that were. Now I’m sure of it. Facing death for some poeple awaken what’s important. The story certainly communicates that. Jesus what an experience to have that in the classroom.
Beautifully done omn your part, Greg. Significance resides in the microform, as any good poet knows.
Thanks, Paul. Well put!
Read “bullet in…….” Loved it and yocomments. Glad I subscribe! Billserle.com
Thanks, Bill!
Makes me think that even the last thought you have matters.
Yes! Even if no one will know what it is.
Thank you for sharing this beauty. Yep, tears and joy.
Thanks, Bob!
Impressive and moving analysis of the short story "Bullet in the Brain". It was so very exquisite I subscribed.
Thanks so much, Judy! Very much appreciate you subscribing.
I read "Bullet in the Brain" once, then immediately read it again, and then one more time after I read the rest of today's column. The best word I can use for it is "haunting." I can understand the motivation to cry by the end, but I think you have to have had a certain life experience to be able to do so, one that I probably didn't. I have very few memories of my childhood, say, pre-12-years-old, but I know none of them involve a group of friends playing a pick-up game of baseball in a field in the middle of a lazy summer. I don't know why that is except that I too may have had a little bit of Anders in my genes, and probably didn't stop myself, like Anders did, from making that kid say, "they is" again and again, just to hear it.
What I love most about the story is that it makes one think on mortality, a subject most people don't WANT to think about. In addition to that, it makes one review their lives (well, me anyway), and try to figure out what scene from it would be in your last thoughts. But then, it's at that point, that I realize what a whole lot of time I've spent in 65 years just "wasting time." It doesn't really make me fret, because like garbage, one person's timewaster is another person's treasure. I think most everyone would be surprised by what other people do in their lives when no one is watching them. Mostly wasting time. The only mild fear I have is that at the moment of my death, will I have anything to remember? Here, my conclusion is from Rudy Giuliani: "I'll be dead, I won't care."
Even Rudy gets things right every once in a while.
There are things we do that "waste" time, in the conventional sense, but no experience really is a waste, because we learn something from everything, even dumb stuff like, I don't know, watching the Kardashians or whatever.
After reading the short story—which was obviously well written but didn’t move me to tears—and your ode to it—which awed me with its insightfulness—all I can say is that I don’t appreciate good literature as much as I appreciate the appreciation of good literature!
My habit of bursting into tears upon reading certain poems or stories, or listening to certain pieces of music, isn't exactly a superpower. At one of the classes, I had one of the students read a poem to see if I would still cry even if it were read badly. I did. The kids all thought I was nuts. Maybe I am!
Either way, thanks, Earl. I'm with you...a good appreciation is often better than the subject. For example, Nicholson Baker wrote a book called "U & I" about his relationship to the work of Updike that is, IMO, better than anything Updike produced.
I also cry easily upon reading or watching emotional material—Paul Vidi watching an insurance commercial in Analyze This comes to mind—but in my case it’s not about the quality of the writing; it’s that I’m empathetic to the feelings of the people involved.
Several decades ago, I was on a flight to San Francisco when we hit a pocket of turbulence just after dinner had been served. The piece of honeydew melon I had just put into my mouth bounced its way to completely obstruct my windpipe. I gave the man sitting next to me a nudge and the sign for choking (crossed hands around the neck). He ignored me and went on eating. For a moment I started to panic thinking I was going to croak without being able to croak right then and there. A vivid scene popped into my mind of my lifeless body coming down the baggage chute onto the round table conveyor with a morgue tag around my left big toe: “death by an errant piece of melon.” Then I calmed myself down with the thought that as an anesthesiologist I was probably best able to save myself. So I performed the Heimlich maneuver on myself.* The melon moved enough so I could breathe and then fish it out with a finger sweep. No one can tell us what goes through their minds as they die—some of us can relate what we’re thinking as we’re on the precipice of the abyss.
*You can’t Heimlich yourself by throwing yourself over a seat back in an airplane—there’s not enough room. I did it by using my fists in the aisle.
There is no balm for understanding this story. Just torn veils one after another. I can’t tell if my heart is breaking or if it’s growing. I know this will pass, right? 🙏
For me, this interview between Tim Page and Glenn Gould near the end of Glenn's life always brings me to tears. The point where they listen to the opening Aria from The Goldberg Variations recorded as his first album in 1955 (at around 8:50) compared to the final recording of the same piece in 1981...
Here is the link starting just before that comparison:
https://youtu.be/M1teDQTwtVg?t=397