Thee More by Lapham: Migration, Home, and Discovery

  Lapham’s Quarterly 14-3: Migration (April-May 2022). A very timely collection, now that migrations will become the new normal. Not that they’re really new: One could label our species homo peregrinus, since wandering has been hominid behaviour as far back as archeology and paleontology can tell. For us modern hominids it’s species-specific behaviour. But so is territoriality, hence the conflicts caused when we wander into land already claimed by other humans. That’s why writing about it is very ancient.
     Migration may be freely chosen or forced. Either way, it causes home-sickness. We mourn the place we came from. But we can’t go home again, because the time we’ve spent elsewhere ensures that we and home have changed. Return is usually impossible for the exile. The excerpts from migrants’ and exiles’ writings range from melancholic nostalgia to optimistic hope for a better or at least tolerable future. The urge to explore prompts much individual and some group migration. People who do this write high-spirited and often self-aggrandising accounts.
     The accounts of flight from war, natural disaster, and political oppression are harrowing. The German word for those who flee their homelands is Flüchtling, “flightling”, which could be a good Anglo-Saxon word. Instead we use the French “refugee”. So German speakers are reminded that such migrants flee from peril, while English speakers think of them as seeking safety. Language has subtle effects.
     Recommended. Subscriptions to Lapham’s Quarterly are available on their website. ****

Lapham’s Quarterly 10-1: Home (2017) The human homing instinct is as strong as the urge to wander. In the end, we wander until we come home. Home may be what we left or what we find. It signifies safety and comfort. “Home is where they have to take you in,” Robert Frost wrote. Home is where we have family and the extended family we call our tribe. “A house is not a home,” says anonymous, that composer of random wisdom.  “Home is where the heart is,” anonymous says again.
     Yes, home is defined by our feelings. It’s not a place, but a deep attachment to a place. Happy are they who can carry their homes with them, for they will never be strangers in a strange land. But most of us leave home one way or another, and thus home is inextricably tied to wandering. Life is a journey, we say. Away from home and back again.
     Another fine anthology. ****

 Lapham’s Quarterly 10-2: Discovery (2017) Not as focussed as the other collections, because “discovery” is a rather nebulous concept. Or rather, a very wide-ranging one. It covers everything from what explorers discover to what each of us finds out about oneself. Besides, what’s a discovery for some is ancient knowledge for others. For the child, every day brings new discoveries. For the elder, every day confirms what’s been discovered long ago.
     Nevertheless, some interesting bits about what drives the search, and of the difficulties and delights of finding things out, especially the unexpected. I think that as long as we can experience the curiosity of the child, life will be a pleasure, despite the annoying pains and creaky joints of old age. ****

Munro: The Moons of Jupiter (1982)

 

Alice Munro. The Moons of Jupiter (1982) Munro’s short stories could be called micro-novels. She gives us not only a whole character but a whole life. How does she do it? It looks like magic. It is magic, if by “magic” we mean the control of our attention so that we see what the magician wants us to see. The magician (to paraphrase Teller) takes advantage of our ability to process data swiftly and efficiently by leaving out unnecessary details or small changes in stimuli. We see what we expect to see. We see what the brain insists must be there, even when we know it’s not. Hence the illusion, and the pleasurable surprise at our inability to see it any other way. Fiction uses the same technique, whatever the medium. We know only what the author decides we should know.
    Munro does this very well. She drops a detail here and an aside there, and we pick up on these cues to fill in the gaps that the short-story form inevitably leaves. The result is that we see the story exactly as Munro wants us to see it. And what does she want us to see? That people are damaged by others and by themselves, but somehow manage to survive, and sometimes to thrive. She’s ruthless in showing us how stupid, thoughtless, and malevolent decisions prevent the happiness that we seek, and how some unexpected felicity creates those moments of joy that keep us hoping for the best. She presents people as they are, and as they see themselves, and how the tension between those realities bends their paths in unexpected but inevitable directions.
    I always enjoy reading one of her collections, but on some level they leave me exhausted. Recommended. ****

The End of the Reich: Two accounts of the Götterdämmerung

 Anton Joachimsthaler. The Last Days of Hitler (1995, translated 1996). James Lucas. Last Days of the Reich (1986) Bound together in one volume, these are written by amateur historians.
     Joachimsthaler is bent on disproving the apparently wide-spread notion that Hitler didn’t die in the bunker on 30 April 1945, but escaped to South America, and that the corpse burnt in the Reichstag garden was that of a double. He has taken the trouble of chasing down all available documentation, which is more than enough to show that Hitler did in fact shoot himself. He also shows that Stalin, for reasons only partly explained by his desire for favourable propaganda, ordered the record to be obfuscated. It may be Stalin really believed that Hitler escaped. Besides, he had already made plans to annex East Germany and other nations as a buffer between Soviet Russia and Western Europe.
     Lucas, disturbed by what he saw when in action in Carinthia (Austria) in April and May 1945, assembled an account of the military (and some political) events of April and May 1945. He apparently wanted to publicise the fact that in the days leading up to the final capitulations a good deal of very bad stuff happened, including the repatriation of partisans to Yugoslavia, where they were murdered; the desperate last stands of SS units with civilians caught in the cross fire; and the flight of Volksdeutsche from Silesia and elsewhere, many of whom died or were murdered along the way.
     About the only take away for me was confirmation that the western Allies’ willingness to let Stalin take Berlin was a mistake that caused a great deal of misery. Interesting for anyone obsessed with World War 2, and nice examples of the difference between amateur and professional history. Worth reading if you find it. **½

Mortimer and Friends (Murderers and Other Friends, 1994)

 

John Mortimer. Murderers and Other Friends (1994) Part two of Mortimer’s intermittent autobiography. Charming, humane, with occasional flashes of rage at injustice and stupidity. I enjoyed this re-read. Mother gave me the book for a birthday; she enjoyed Mortimer and Rumpole as much as I did. (So did all the family).
     Highly recommended, partly because it also portrays a time and Zeitgeist that’s now long past, partly because Mortimer understands the difference between law and justice very well, and partly because he’s just very good company. He’s a raconteur, he can make any event interesting and often a reason to reflect about what makes life worth living. If you could push Mortimer to pontificate, he might say something about good company, a loving family, satisfying work, and perhaps jousting at windmills in the sure and certain hope that some of them would prove to be giants worth slaying. Recommended. ****

Dogs aren't quite human: Fifteen Dogs (Alexis 2015)

 

Andre Alexis. Fifteen Dogs. (2015) Apollo and Hermes idly discuss a puzzle: If dogs could be self-aware like humans, would they be just as miserable as humans? Apollo thinks they’ll be even more unhappy, Hermes disagrees, so of course they have to conduct an experiment. They give fifteen dogs in a veterinary clinic the gift of self-awareness (mislabelled “human intelligence” by Alexis, who commits the common error of assuming that intelligence requires some kind of sentience). The gods also grant language, which enables the dogs to disagree about the value and purpose of their new abilities. That leads to conflict, murder, banishments and self-exile, politics, and poetry, among other things.
     This story proceeds in a ruthlessly matter-of-fact way. Alexis uses his knowledge of canine psychology to extrapolate plausible behaviours, and adds a few bits of anthropomorphic personality to create something of a plot. The result is a book that I read at almost one sitting. There’s a map of Toronto to help the reader to follow the dogs’ the travels and travails. Highly recommended. ****

Wexford and the secretive corpse: A Sleeping Life (1978)

 

Ruth Rendell. A Sleeping Life. (1978) A woman’s body found on a path isn’t much of a surprise, but one without any identification is an annoyance. Her handbag contains only keys and some cash. However, Wexford discovers her identity fairly quickly. What takes time is filling in the details of her life. Frustrating gaps and inconsistencies prevent a clear idea of who murdered her and why. Wexford stumbles on the solution when he hears a chance remark about eonism (that’s a spoiler). An alert reader will likely not need that clue, however.
     A satisfying Wexford. ***

Ursula Bloom on Stratford (re-read)

 

Ursula Bloom. A Rosemary for Stratford-on-Avon (1966) My copy was given to me by my mother, who received it from my uncle Paul Morgan. They grew up in Stratford–on-Avon, which enabled them both to add marginal notes.
     Ursula Bloom lived near Stratford as a child, and takes a proprietary interest. Much of her book is about Marie Corelli, who moved to Stratford towards the end of her career, apparently believing that she would be welcomed, respected, and lionised in such a literary shrine. She was, at first, but her quarrelsome nature soon antagonised the town.
     Bloom, who had a fair success as a novelist, writes her remembrance like a novel, with much invented dialogue between the worthies of the Town. That makes for amusing reading, but tends to create a rather confusing mix of attitudes and emphases. Bloom also romanticises the country town; this is nothing like the Stratford I remember, which was a determined market town with a hard-nosed attitude towards the tourism business that Shakespeare's Birthplace attracted. (Its other major industry was Flowers Brewery, which made real ale until it was acquired by one of the multi-nationals that now dominate that craft.) There’s no question that Corelli was a difficult person who overestimated both her talent and her eminence. But Bloom’s manner and tone, and the almost complete absence of quotations from contemporary sources, make me suspicious. A note by U.P. states that the book infuriated Uncle Peter (my great-uncle), and I’m not surprised. (Uncle Peter was a for a while assistant librarian at the Memorial Theatre.)
     An oddity, but a keeper because of the family connections. **