short journal entry on The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien's claim in "On the Rainy River" (the fourth chapter of The Things They Carried)that going to the war was an act of cowardice is paradoxical, but it's also his claim to make. Physical courage is not the only species of courage; moral courage is often less concrete but may be as fundamental, as essential, to the survival of the self as physical courage is. How many memoirists 'go there'? Of course The Things They Carried isn't a memoir. But then why is Tim O'Brien such a major character in it, both as platoon member and, much more, as self-conscious narrator? Suppose one took "Tim O'Brien" out of the book. Then it could no longer be the story of his keeping Timmy alive; and it would miss the particular kind of authenticity (as well as the particular kind of story-telling) that it now "performs," as some of my younger college-schooled friends say. Every time I read this book, I want to write about it, much more than this post implies.

public images

According to William Rhoden ( NYT Feb. 21), it is folly to believe in "manufactured images" based on sports marketing. Who could disagree? But not every public image is inauthentic. We sometimes believe, as millions did with Tiger, in a public figure as being genuine in his or her respect for a profession, even for politics, or for a sport. In this sense I still believe, for instance, in Rafa Nadal, in Kim Clijsters, in Paul Farmer, in Meryl Streep. I believe in golfers like Graeme McDowell (NYT March 6) who call penalties on themselves when they could almost certainly get away with a technical infraction. I believe in Derek Jeter even though I'm not much of a baseball fan. Tiger himself may well have lived up to that standard on the golf course.
We can also believe in such figures as adhering to normal if not elevated standards of good faith in private behavior as well as in their professional sphere. We can even hope that their private standards are higher than that: Roberto Clemente, Arthur Ashe. In this sense too I believe in Nadal, Clijsters, Farmer, Streep. "Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,/Yet grace must still look so."
Rhoden seems to say that since everyone is fallible, it is naive or hypocritical or both to believe in anyone in this sense. I may be as unwilling as Rhoden to believe again in Tiger (or in John Edwards and many others) in this sense. But to make that deep recoil a universal principle is a form of refusing to care because one may be hurt. That way lies the desert. It's not the only available habitat for people in general, nor for sports fans.

While I'm Falling

I have found Laura Moriarty's writing convincing and moving since I first encountered it in a personal essay she read aloud at Exeter in the fall of 2001, a piece that I continue to cherish and that I think of together with Scott Sanders' "The Inheritance of Tools" and Chang-Rae Lee's "Coming Home Again." Since then I've read her first novel, The Center of Everything, which I loved and will read again, and now While I'm Falling, whose characters I half expect to meet sometime.
While I'm Falling is in one way very narrow in scope: it is the story mainly of a college student, Veronica, whose parents have just divorced, and secondarily of the student's mother, Natalie. The setting, in Kansas, has a radius of perhaps fifteen miles. But in another way the story conveys intimations of universality. Grace Paley said she wanted her characters to have "the open destiny of life," and Moriarty's characters share this with them. Life in her stories is uncertain and fluid; but its vicissitudes allow for recoveries as well as disasters. The outcomes of every kind all seem equally probable. As I read I sense no agenda besides truth. I swear I would recognize Veronica and Natalie if I met them on the street, and I would be glad to see them.

King Corn

Last night I got to see the whole of King Corn and to hear Ian Cheney respond to questions about it. Previously I had seen an abridged version and heard Curt Ellis do Q&A. Nothing but pleasure in both events.
It's wonderful as a piece of film-making and makes me want to see their other work. (Go to www.wickedelicate.com.)And it also pushes back against our contemporary political culture, so full of misrepresentations and acrimony. In King Corn there are two major interviews with people whose views are antithetical to Ian and Curt's--but the interviewees are treated respectfully, even empathically. Not only does this
aspect of the film make it deeper and more humane; it also makes it more persuasive. I'm tempted to show it to my students in relation to their choice of rhetorical strategies. Another achievement of King Corn is that even though it is topical and explores public issues that are hugely consequential, it is never shrill and always immensely entertaining. It's playful, for God's sake.

read this book

Timothy Tyson's Blood Done Sign My Name (2004) has been well recognized among American historians and was well reviewed, but I hadn't heard of it til my daughter Anya gave it to me for Christmas. I finished it tonight.
One of the extraordinary things about this book is the voice in which Tyson chose to write it, which makes me want to speak more personally than I normally would in even an informal review; but first--
his book is a personal history, a family history, a community history (of Oxford, NC, in 1970,disclosing the antecedents and consequences of a racial murder), a state history (esp. 1898-1980), and a reflection on national history as it has been shaped by slavery and white supremacy. It is powerful conceptually, thematically, linguistically, and philosophically; and it is unpretentious to boot. It's both original and brave--professionally speaking it would have been safer to write in a more orthodox mode. But its personal voice is both appealing and, I finally saw, indispensable. In that way it reminds me of Kenji Yoshino's Covering, another remarkable work that most people would have done a different way (and so would have been unable to do).
The book begins with a day in 1970 when Tyson, then ten, is told by a neighbor that his (the neighbor's) father and brothers have just killed a ... black man. (The other boy uses the inevitable, dehumanizing term in the context; Tyson uses real names throughout.) The book unravels the story factually and emblematically.
When I was a graduate student at Cornell in this period (1967-1970), no one was murdered on campus, but there were guns whose relevance was racial, as a famous Newsweek cover photo showed (in one light). It's been a long time, but Tyson's book has stirred the memories. I'll see if I can write about them (separately). Whether or not I can do that, I gratefully salute Timothy Tyson.