JOHN FANTE

"John Fante is one of the great unheralded voices in American fiction" (The Face). Too true, so I'll do a bit of heralding here. I read the "Bandini" books (Wait Until Spring, Bandini; Ask the Dust , and The Road to Los Angeles ) in quick succession, having stumbled upon them by chance. They were such a treat, I couldn't read them quickly enough. Fante evidently adheres to that singularly wise piece of advice to the budding writer - that is, to "write what you know". He was born in Colorado in 1909 to an immigrant Italian bricklayer father and an extremely religious mother, and his early years were spent in poverty

Perhaps he's not a Hemmingway or Faulkner, but his writing is so immediate, fresh and convincing. One could not accuse him of versatility though. His stories are always told from the perspective of a second-generation Italian-American teenager, living in poverty in the Great Depression, with dreams of escape dominating his life. This character is often naive and capable of taking things literally, but the first-person narrative really is his great strength - if you enjoy, or even if you just admire J D Salinger, then investigate John Fante, his work is better. 1933 Was a Bad Year (I've just finished it) is his most moving story. Here's a passage about the uselessness of prayer (Catholicism is another strong theme):

Her prayers - the peeling of thousands of rosary beeds through thousands of days on her knees in the locked bedroom. There were lumps on her kneecaps telling of it.
She eased quietly behind me and I felt her cold fingers through my hair, and ther her hands palming my mushroom ears.
'Don't', I said, squirming away.
'Wear the stocking. And keep praying.'
The remedy for protruding ears, as suggested by the Potenzese, was the wearing of a woman's stocking over your head at night. It worked fine until you removed the stocking. Then the ears sprang out again.
'I've learned to live with my ears, Mama. Will you please try to do the same?'
'But have you tried the Blessed Mother? Try her for a month. If she can make cripples walk, look how easy for her to..'
'Shut up!' I screamed. 'Leave me along, leave my ears alone!'
She stared, wounded, large-eyed, and without a word she turned and walked quietly back to the bedroom, her troubled spirit dragging after her like a tattered wedding veil.
I was sorry I had screamed at her, I hated myself, but the idea of praying to the mother of God to flatten my ears, since her son had made them stick out in the first place, seemed like plain madness. Prayer! What good was it? What had it done for her? My father beside her in bed every night, listening to the click of her rosary, finding her on her knees, shivering in the cold, what the hell are you doing down there, come to bed for Christ's sake before you freeze to death, her prayers a snapping whip at his ass, reminding him of his worthlessness, his wife like a child writing letters to Santa Claus, collapsing from life into the arms of God, of St Teresa, of the Virgin Mary. Oh, my mother was a good woman, a noble woman, she never cheated or lied or deceived or ever spoke an unkind word. She scrubbed floors and hung out huge bundles of laundry and ironed by the hour, she cooked and sewed and swept and smiled bravely at hard times. God's victim, my father's victim, her children's victim, she walked about with the wounds of Christ in her hands and feet, a crown of thorns about her head. Her suffering was unbearable to watch, so that I wished she'd say oh shit, or fuck it Peter, or piss on you Bettina. I longed for the day of revolt when she would break a wine jug over my father's head, smack Bettina in the mouth or beat us children with a stick. But she punished us instead with Our Fathers and Hail Marys, she strangled us with a string of rosary beads.
Prayer. Oh, prayers! Oh, the reaching out into nothingness for small favours like a pair of shoes, or miracles like adding six inches to my height so I could develop a really fast ball. Years of prayers - and what was the result? I had even stopped measuring myself against the bedroom wall. The futility of it! If St Francis of Assisi, one of the princes of the Chruch, was only five feet tall, then what chance had I of reaching six feet? Hell, it was a total waste of time, a gnashing of teeth in the wilderness.

TEMP JOB

An average job last week at a firm of chartered surveyors. Stout and formidable Marj showed me around on the first day and it took no time to see that she’s the doyen of administration, with an intricate and historical understanding of everything going on. I couldn’t help noticing her desk, which was completely covered in junk. She had endless post-it notes, corny posters (‘We, the unknowing, doing the impossible, for the ungrateful’), pots of drawing pins and paperclips, hand cream, tissues, photographs of loved ones, three different placemat coasters, a corporate calendar, headphones, pottery ducks walking across the top of her computer monitor, etc. It was more of a mantelpiece than a desk. A 2004 Cliff Richard calendar which I didn’t notice at first, hung from the partition board behind her computer monitor… as though she had coyly displayed it somewhere slightly out-of-view.

She was a nice-enough woman but determined that I should have no ‘downtime’. She sent this message to the department, ‘Plymouth Rock will be working here for the next week as we are short-staffed. As temps are expensive, please keep her busy ”. On the first day she kept walking over and enquiring, with a couple of nervous blinks, whether I had enough to do.

By coincidence, I phoned Ticketmaster a couple of weeks ago and was surprised to discover that Cliff has his own hotline. The pre-recorded message ran: “For Cliff Richard, press [1], for Glastonbury, press [2], for all other enquiries, hold the line”. Amazing.

I was there just long enough to catch a glimpse of the people and how they made fun of each other. A staid, sensible chap was universally referred to as ‘David Beige’ when he wasn’t around.

JUNKIE

It started innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then to loosen up. Inevitably, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I began to think alone - ‘to relax’ - I told myself, but soon enough I was thinking all the time.

I began to think on the job. I know that thinking and employment don’t mix, but I couldn’t stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking ‘What is it exactly we are doing here?’

Things weren’t going so great at home, either. One evening I turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. Soon, I had a reputation as a heavy thinker. One day the boss called me in. He said, “I like you, and it hurts me to say it, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don’t stop thinking on the job, we’ll have to let you go”.

I came home early that day. “Darling”, I confessed, “I’ve been thinking”. “I know you’ve been thinking” she said “and I want a divorce. “You think as much as college professors, and college professors don’t make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won’t have any money!”. “That’s a faulty syllogism” I said impatiently. She began to cry.
“I’ve had enough. I’m heading for the library” I snarled and stomped out of the door.

I headed for the library in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the car park and ran to the big glass doors… they didn’t open. The library was closed. To this day, I believe a higher power was looking out for me that night. As I sank to the ground, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. “Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?” it asked. It came from the Thinker’s Anonymous poster, which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker.

I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was “Porky’s”. Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting. I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home.

BLOGGING

Posting irrelevant, unconnected, and occasionally personal messages on the Internet is a strange and probably egocentric thing to do. It's a perfect ‘Internet’ thing, because all human life is there - (just like eBay, in fact, where you can find men’s shoes; collectible tin soldiers from esoteric combats; fridge magnets; new cars masquerading as ‘unwanted prizes’, etc). According to a newspaper, one million people will keep a blog by the end of 2004. The piece goes on to say that: “The typical blog is written by a teenage girl who uses it twice a month to update her friends and classmates on happenings in her life”.

I’ve browsed through blogs like the one mentioned by the newspaper and nearly all of them are poorly written accounts of mundane non-events, “Is Kevin going ice-skating?” “Today I bought a new blouse”. Having said that, I don’t consider my own messages of especial interest to others (if a piece of writing has no specific reader in mind, or no readership at all, is it really a 'message’?), yet it keeps me amused - especially at work. I can’t think of a context more relevant than blogging for this: ‘Everyone is a bore to someone. The thing to avoid is being a bore to oneself.’

Only one person is aware I’m doing this, but I like it that way. There are no graphics/pictures/hyperlinks here, and I like the idea that this is the electronic equivalent of a heavy, un-illustrated book on a low shelf in a public library. Luminous sunlight, pouring through high windows and cutting through the silence, would reveal a thick layer of dust on top of this particular blog which languishes, unchosen, like a wallflower… (ahh).

TWO + TWO = TEN

With apologies to Jane Austen, "'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a Sylvia Plath paperback, must be in want of a husband".

At least according to the banner headlines at the top of my blog. Since posting my previous message on Sylvia Plath, adverts have appeared promoting services that will supposedly allow me to 'find a husband' at 'speed dating' events!

THE DEATH & LIFE OF SYLVIA PLATH, by RONALD HAYMAN

Just finished reading the above biog of Sylvia Plath and it was excellent! The author is clearly very fond of Sylvia, who struck me as being a pain on only a couple of occasions. Among the more interesting/trivial facts to emerge:

Attending a discussion in the pub, when one of her lecturers was talking about Shakespeare, she was tempted to ask whether he’d be her father.

She and Ted regularly held séances using a home-made Ouija board. They called up spirits called Colossus and Pan. They contacted Pan most often, believing he could help them fill in coupons for the football pools.

Early in the marriage, Ted created stories for her about Snatchcraftington, a wizard who looked like a stalk of rhubarb.

Her father died during Sylvia’s childhood and her mother was thereafter self-denying in all matters, particularly regarding money. As well as being devastated by the loss of her father, Sylvia was also concerned for her mother’s happiness and hard work. The mother – never particularly happy or relaxed – did not shield her own vulnerability from the young Sylvia. This meant that Sylvia (the elder of two children) was not enabled to feel happy or carefree in this remaining parent’s care. She felt burdened with feelings of responsibility. Thus, the seeds of the adult Sylvia’s neurosis were sewn.

Sylvia documented her life in exhaustive detail from the age of 11, via her diaries.

Ted hypnotised Sylvia during her first labour to help her cope with pain of it. Ted’s second wife, Assia, also committed suicide by gassing herself.

While lying in bed after having her appendix out, she thinks her head, lying between pillow and sheet, is “like an eye between two lids that won’t shut”.

On returning to the house she shared with Ted (he wasn't present), when she knew he was having an affair, she went to Hughes’s desk and scraped it with a knife, skimming off the residue of dandruff, dead skin, fingernail clippings, stray hairs etc. She also took letters and poems from his bin and desk. She then took these to the garden and burnt them. This was a magic ritual she made up after consulting one of Ted’s books on witchcraft.

WET EVENING IN APRIL

The birds sang in the wet trees
And as I listened to them it was a hundred years from now
And I was dead and someone else was listening to them
But I was glad I had recorded for him
The melancholy

Patrick Kavanagh (1906-67)

DAWN CHORUS (again)

Why do birds sing?
To advertise themselves to potential mates and also to deter rivals from their territory, thereby avoiding the need for physical fights. The dawn chorus reaches a peak in May and June when migrant birds arrive.

Onset/duration
The sky starts to get lighter an hour before sunrise and the chorus begins when it is still dark – continuing for up to two hours.

Conditions
Humidity enhances sound transmission, and rain may not depress the chorus. At very early hours the air is still, which allows sound to carry further.

Participants
It is assumed that unmated birds sing the most, but newly-mated birds behave like unmated males in the morning. They sing very loudly until the female appears. As soon as the hen is around, the cock suddenly stops singing.

Early starters: The Songthrush, Robin and Blackbird are thought to rise earlier because they have large eyes. Common to all three is the earthworm. Earthworms live in burrows under the ground and feed on dead leaves and animals, which they bring down to their burrows from the surface. They dislike heat and sun, sometimes coming to the surface only at night. They leave their burrows when it rains as it is easier to move over wet grass. It is advantageous for birds that feed on earthworms to rise while the worms are still on the ground rather than beneath it. The Skylark, usually the first bird to sing, is a ground-feeding bird that cannot dig worms out of the ground. It therefore rises when earthworms are most accessible. The times that birds rise also depends on light. These birds have evolved to rise early (in the dark) and must have large eyes to forage by.
Late starters: Warblers, Chiffchaffs, Wrens, etc have smaller eyes; they feed on insects rather than earthworms. However, because most insects are not active at dawn (because of cooler temperatures), there is little incentive for these birds to rise early, which is probably why thy do not join in the chorus until later.

Type of song
By whispering the syllables/phrases of a bird, it is possible to mimic the song. The song of the yellowhammer sounds like ‘A little bit of bread and NO CHEESE’; the woodpigeon’s song sounds like ‘Take TWO cows taffy’ [surely, ‘twit twoo’?!]

Thanks to Michael Demidecki

LATERAL THINKING (earlier this week)

An important ‘director’-type at a temp job requests two cups of tea – one for him and another for his colleague. Five minutes later I knock on the door and walk straight in. They are discussing papers spread across the desk. The director breaks off conversation to address me and says, expectantly, “We were hoping for yesterday’s standard".

With apologetic tone I reply “Sorry, but I don't have a copy of yesterday's Evening Standard”. Reading their faces and realising my mistake, I add quickly “But I’ve got two cups of tea”, then hurry out of the room. Goodness knows what they’re thinking.

In this context there was no reason to refer to the previous day’s paper, so why the misunderstanding? It’s possible to feel acutely self-conscious in these situations, but this was only part of the reason. The director is Scottish. He has a lovely Edinburgh accent and he emphasised the first syllable of 'standard', ie "yesterday's STANdard", suggesting that ‘standard’ was the key information in the sentence. As he was referring to the quality of the tea, the more natural intonation would have been ‘YESterday’s standard’.

Realising where I'd gone wrong, there was, however, no way to put things right. If I’d explained the nuances of intonation in, (say), three sentences or less, they'd have thought me even weirder. I've learnt to my cost that referring to one's internal governing logic is an ill-advised way to explain a tangential remark - it only gets you in deeper. Too late then. Nothing for it but to scuttle away.

DAWN CHORUS

"In April, a male bird barely has time to yawn and stretch before he must start to fill the airwaves with his song. It's an important and urgent chore, and no sleepy male bird can afford to be silent or drowned out. A bird's spring fortunes can rest on these vocal efforts at daybreak.

The dawn chorus is rarely heard and appreciated in its fullness. In theory, it's easy to rise in the pre-dawn darkness and hear a procession of birds singing for an hour or so - blackbirds and robins first, then woodpigeons, great tits and wrens. But few people bother. They hear the sounds from their beds but seldom get up to listen. It's a pity, because the dawn chorus can be overwhelming, even in the gaden. It's more like a competition: weighty with consequence and full of intrigue.

The reasons for song - the continual reminder to peers of territorial ownership and advertisement to females - are well-understood. But the timing of the peak of song is not so well understood. Sound travels better at dawn than later in the day, making this a good time to make a public statement (certainly better than competing with suburban traffic and lawnmowers). Also, dawn is a poor time to feed; the half-light makes searching difficult, and insect prey is inactive in the cold. So, if there's nothing better to do, why not sing and remind your neighbours that you're there? [following on here, if this is the case then why not at midnight, or 2am?]

Another thoery for the dawn peak is to do with tension between the sexes. Female birds don't sing, but many lay eggs at dawn. When they have finished, they are at their most fertile, equiring sperm as soon as possible to fertilise a further egg. Intoxicated by this need, they are particularly vulnerable to advances by any male - not just their mate's. So, to protect his paternity, the male rises early and floods his mate's consciousness with song from the moment she wakes up, telling her he is available, hearty, and ready for copulation as soon as she leaves the nest."

(Dominic Couzens)

DIFFERENT TEMP JOB

For the sake of giving balanced accounts and not complaining too often (this blog shouldn't be a forum for that), I'm recording my thoughts on a woman I worked alongside for a few days. She was 50, with two daughters - recent Cambridge grads - and a husband about to retire. She'd been made redundant from a grander job but was happy doing this one, knowing it was beneath her, as the pay was good and it was local. She was always smiling and reassuring (on one occasion, when I lost a call in the process of transferring it to the wrong person, "It doesn't matter, don't worry! If it's important they'll call back").

Doing these jobs with an enquiring mind, it's tempting to seek out ways of amusing myself. Yes, I know it's bad. I worked at this woman's computer for the three days (the computer she would have used if I weren't there). Every few hours, a "you've got mail" message arrived. Sometimes I clicked "no", I didn't want to read it, but sometimes opted to if it was quiet. Messages to/from her daughters and husband, with whom she'd been with for 25+ years, are now seared into my concsiousness. Here are some:

'Hi Love. I'm probably going to be late - struggling to get finished. See you later. Hubbs'
'Alright love. Take care and don't work too hard.
"Love, I see you are having next Monday off - have you any plans?"
"I have no plans - except to craft something nice for tea. It would be my pleasure to take you to Marlborough. Love, Hubbs"

Some of us (bitter? cynical?) would scoff at such a relationship and make fun of it, suggesting these are 'sad'/boring/etc people. Personally, I was charmed and impressed by this woman's kindness, intelligence and by the good relationships surrounding her.

There are cheerless people in steady relationships, and people who appear happy but who get nowhere in relationships. The thing is, an outsider can never tell what goes on within the 'unit' of a couple. I had a rare (prying) glimpse at the tone and spirit of communication between a long-term couple. How many 50-somethings can boast a marriage of decades' duration that is still filled with love? It's an anomaly. There's no real 'point' to this post - only that, in a small and unremarkable office, I stumbled upon a lovely woman who was extremely happy and kindhearted towards me. At risk of sounding melodramatic, she was inspiring.