Book Report: Notes on an Execution

19. Danya Kukafka, Notes on an Execution (2021) (8/23/21)

This is not a thriller, though it is about a serial killer—but we know from the start who he is, and gradually we learn why he did what he did, including, perhaps, on a more existential level. It's really something of a character study—multiply. The killer, for one, as well as his mother, who abandoned him at age four, for urgent reasons; his wife's twin sister; and the homicide detective who tracks him down, who also happened to be in foster care with him as a teenager. And also the four victims: they are characters too, though their lives were cut short. The way they all intertwine brings an emotional complexity to the story.

The book is structured in such a way as to keep the reader's interest. It begins "now," twelve hours before Ansel Packer, inmate 999631, is scheduled to die by lethal injection. In this section we are given a few clues to stories that will be fully developed much later on, though for the moment they are simply puzzles: who is Blue, and why did she write him a letter? what is the Blue House? We then move to 1973 and his mother, Lavender's story. Over to Ansel, with ten hours to go, and again back, to 1984 and Saffy—the detective, but now she's a teenager, smitten with but then repulsed by Ansel. Eight hours to go, and then 1990 and Hazel, the day she first met Ansel, who would become her sister's husband—and eventually, killer. And so forth: the chapters alternately count down to zero and Ansel's execution, and detail, at various points in time, a few of the women who knew him and continue to think about him, for various reasons. 

I found the writing to be excellent, and the emotional resonance strong. Throughout the story, Ansel refers to his "theory," which is basically that we all, always, have multiple (infinite) choices available, and depending on what we choose, that's how our life will play out. Though of course he's wrong. Some aspects of our lives are set in motion well before we're even born, or are spinning certain inevitabilities off on the sidelines somewhere, until the moment we engage. It's nice to think we have control, but as this story itself demonstrates, it's just not the case. One thing, too often, simply leads to another. 

Kukafka writes, "There is a universe out there, made up of girls and women, stranded by a fiction we insist upon repeating. I wrote this book to give them a chance to exist beyond the men who steal the narrative. The story of the serial killer is bigger than the bodies he leaves behind—it encompasses an infinite web, an elaborate tangle of predominantly female trauma and endurance. There is a question lurking in the dark corners of that weary tale. I wrote this novel because I needed to ask. I needed to look. I am tired of seeing Ted Bundy's face. This is a book for the women who survive."

Her story works in this regard to a degree. But it also belongs to Ansel, who isn't presented as evil and monstrous so much as abandoned and hapless, a desperate misfit. I couldn't help but feel some sympathy for him, even despite the awful things he did. And the book ends with brief imaginings of what might have been, for the women he killed. Always that haunting wondering: what would their lives have become?

Book Report: Trust

18. Hernan Diaz, Trust (2022) (8/18/23)

A few years ago I read Hernan Diaz's first book, In the Distance, and was blown away. It's a fascinating work of fiction about the American west, almost a tall tale, but with a nuanced footing in reality. So I was excited when he published a second book—which then went on to co-win the Pulitzer, together with Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead. (In the Distance was itself short-listed for the prize: not a bad track record so far.) 

Trust is very different from that first book, though both are historical fiction set in the US. Trust is told in four parts: a short novel, titled Bonds, about a New York financier and his wife; the start/rough notes of a memoir by the real-life person on whom the novel's protagonist was based; the story of the making of that memoir, by a young woman who was hired by the financier—another memoir, in fact, which also goes into her background as the daughter of an Italian anarchist; and finally, diary entries by the financier's wife, from a sanatorium in Switzerland. This woman, arguably, is at the heart of the entire book, though she is also dead throughout it.

Diaz is some writer. I really enjoyed how he played with genre, from the purplish prose of the novel to the impatience of the memoir notes, to the diary entries at the end. The third section is the longest, and it helps keep the book from becoming claustrophobic, taking a step back from the financier's household and business dealings. The Panics of 1893 and 1907 and the stock market crash of 1929 all figure in, but so do emotional yearnings (or disconnects) and displacements of various sorts. 

It's difficult to summarize this book without giving too much away. And although so much of the writing is masterful, I didn't flag any passages, so won't quote anything here. I liked this book very much—but it didn't have the same impact as his first one, which really did knock my socks off. Well, let's see what he comes up with for book #3. I'll be waiting eagerly.

Camille T. Dungy, poet

I am following a very short online course on meditation and writing led by someone I stumbled onto (on FB, of course), Nadia Colburn. It involves sitting very briefly (5 minutes), then she reads a poem as a prompt, and then you write, again very briefly. Altogether it's 15 minutes, something I know I'm capable of. Well, "following": I've been getting the emails the past five days, but did I actually check them out? No. Not until today, when I'm trying to do several of them, before they disappear. (Things do not stay on the internet forever.) And today's poem (session #2) is one I want to remember, so what better way than to share it here?

Characteristics of Life

     A fifth of animals without backbones could be at risk of extinction, say scientists.
     —BBC Nature News

Ask me if I speak for the snail and I will tell you
I speak for the snail.
                      speak of underneathedness
and the welcome of mosses,
                                   of life that springs up,
little lives that pull back and wait for a moment.

I speak for the damselfly, water skeet, mollusk,
the caterpillar, the beetle, the spider, the ant.
                                               I speak
from the time before spinelessness was frowned upon.

Ask me if I speak for the moon jelly. I will tell you
                     one thing today and another tomorrow
     and I will be as consistent as anything alive
on this earth.

                     I move as the currents move, with the breezes.
What part of your nature drives you? You, in your cubicle
ought to understand me. I filter and filter and filter all day.

Ask me if I speak for the nautilus and I will be silent
as the nautilus shell on a shelf. I can be beautiful
and useless if that's all you know to ask of me.

Ask me what I know of longing and I will speak distances
      between meadows of night-blooming flowers.
                                                I will speak
                   the impossible hope of the firefly.

                                       You with the candle
burning and only one chair at your table must understand
      such wordless desire.

                        To say it is mindless is missing the point.

Camille T. Dungy 

(The poem she read for the first session was Mary Oliver's "Praying," which I'd also like to remember and reread, but for now, a link will suffice. And now, back to session #2 and the actual writing practice.)

Book Report: You Must Change Your Life

17. Rachel Corbett, You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin (2016) (8/14/23)

The phrase "You must change your life," which is the final line of Rilke's poem "The Archaic Torso of Apollo," always intrigues me. It is a noble quest, especially if by "change" one means do better, become more comfortable in your skin.

Given the evidence of this book, maybe Rilke (1875–1926) succeeded, to the extent it's even possible. He accomplished so much, and died, arguably, at peace, though despite much torment during his lifetime.

As for Rodin (1840–1916), he went from sublime success, after a self-made coming-up, to a rather difficult end, largely because the world kept changing around him. As it does.

I enjoyed this book, and learned a lot. I had not known anything about either of these men's lives, especially not that they had known each other: Rilke came to the older sculptor as a disciple, became his friend, then his secretary, before a falling out or two, the last one final. Many other famous individuals—Tolstoy, Nijinsky, Freud, Cézanne, Balthus—feature, as well as the various women in both men's lives (who, not surprisingly, got a bum deal). Paris is, arguably, also a character in the book, with all its changes over the decades covered.

I only marked one passage (simply because I got lazy), an early one about Rodin as an aspiring young artist. He found a drawing teacher, Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, "who would first correct, then truly open, Rodin's eyes." The "correction" refers to Lecoq's discovery that Rodin was extremely nearsighted. But more important was the professor's assignment to his students to go to the Louvre and simply observe the paintings. "They were told not to sketch them, but to truly memorize their proportions, patterns and colors," then, later, reproduce them from memory.

It was in many ways a traditional, mathematical approach to form and dimension that was in line with the curriculum at the Grande École [the fine arts school, to which Rodin applied but was turned down]. But Lecoq had a different goal in mind. He believed young artists ought to master the fundamentals of form only so that they might one day break them. "Art is essentially individual," he said. The purpose of the memorization exercises was actually to allow the artists time to acknowledge their reactions to a picture as its properties unfolded to them. Did a gently arched line produce feelings of serenity? Did a densely wound shadow evoke anxiety? Did certain colors trigger memories? Once artists could name these associations they could then begin to harden their own pooling sensations into external forms of their making. Ultimately, Lecoq's modern method encouraged artists to draw things not strictly as they appeared, but as they felt and seemed. Emotion and substance became one. 

The book begins with Rodin and ends with Rilke. It is a dual biography, but one comes to know Rilke better over its course—as the young man trying to answer the question "How should one live?" For Rodin, the answer to that was simply "Travailler, toujours travailler," and although Rilke took that advice to heart, he also seemed to know there was more to it than that. As he says of the protagonist of his (semi-autobiographical) novel The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, "I am learning to see. I don't know why, but all enters into me more deeply and nothing remains at the level where once it used to cease." 

Today

I've started a 12-week online writing workshop, about (I think) the lyric essay. This first week, it's all about noticing, looking. Not assessing or interpreting. Just seeing. Here are five brief moments from my day. I am really struck that today delivered up such lovely, memorable images. If only you take the time (the moment) to pay attention. (Though of course, photos help.)

~~~~~~~~~~~

The hand laid on the ribs of the sleeping old dog. The throb of his heart.

The sun, filtered through overcast sky, glints over the uneven surface of the singing bowl.

Peeling wooden white house, white blinds pulled down, a metal sculpture of swirling leaves, and the small sign filling a pane of glass: No Soliciting. See Dog for Details.

The dull, secure snap as the arms are clipped into the unfolded wheelchair.

Seven patrons at Juice ’n’ Java: two women having a brisk conversation, five sitting scattered and solo, heads bent. As three young women come in the door, the two stand up, sling purses over shoulders, depart.

The naked ladies are springing from the ground, tall, pliant, beet red stems piercing the taupe skirt of last year's dried leaves. The ends bulge. The tallest has burst into flower, bright pink, two others about to.

A lovely stranger

The other day our friend Brian was visiting from LA, and our friend Geoff came down from Santa Cruz, and as part of our general hanging out, we decided to go for a walk. I chose (channeled by Milo) an easy hike in Fort Ord, the former army base (1917–94), to the grave of Comanche, the last ceremonial horse there (d. 1993). Brian was especially pleased to discover this locals-only sort of place (though he was perhaps even more especially impressed by the copious amounts of vibrant poison oak round about). 

As we pulled up near the grave, we saw a couple of horses—which explained the horse trailer in the parking area. We said hello to the two women, and then set about taking pictures of ourselves at the gravesite. But then, I don't remember how now, it came up that one of the women was the daughter of the man—Sgt. Allan MacDonald—who had owned and eventually buried Comanche (who, btw, was a mare). And we set about having a really nice conversation. 

Her name was Jane, and her horse's, Wizard. We didn't catch (ask) the name of the second woman, but her horse was Sophie, and Sophie was very interested in our Milo—kept inching ever closer. Jane told us her story as an "army brat," living in various places around the US (Oklahoma, Virginia) and in Japan, but eventually ending up in Monterey when her dad retired. She comes regularly to tend Comanche's grave. Most recently, she put up some new American flags, and she stained the little wooden headstone. 

After all these years of coming out to visit Comanche, it was such a treat to just run into Jane with all her stories. I love it when history comes alive.