In September I finished four books. In October I only managed to finish two
books, and one was a slim volume of poetry.
There was just too much else to read, too much in the news cycle to try
to comprehend. And a fair amount of
canvassing and time spent managing some aspects of the life of elderly relatives.
At the synagogue, we recently finished this book, collectively:
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| This photo only shows half of the torah scroll. |
This is the tradition on Simchat Torah. First we dance around joyously with the Torah scrolls (in their covers). Then one of the Torah scrolls is unrolled all the way. It goes across the entire sanctuary, and requires the participation of lots of people to hold it. Then Rabbi reads the end of Deuteronomy, runs across the sanctuary to Genesis, and reads the beginning of the Torah. Then he rolls it up so that it is set at the beginning again. This process is joyful, but it also gives me an appreciation for the invention of the book (with pages) as opposed to a scroll.
The first lines are
When God began to create heaven and earth — the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water — God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
Rabbi said that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..." is not a good translation. The translation he prefers gives more of a feeling of continuity.
Here are the first lines of the books I finished in Sep and Oct, followed by the titles.
Book 1
The cross and the lynching tree are separated
by nearly 2,000 years. One is the universal symbol of Christian faith; the
other is the quintessential symbol of black oppression in America.
Book 2
Big Moccasin Gap
Gate City is more than four hundred miles
from Arlington, down the long spine of mountains that marks Virginia’s western
border.
Book 3
I saw you once. I saw you
and you noticed me because you caught me looking at you, seeing you. Back and forth, back and forth. Good-looking women do that. Lock eyes, then look one another up and down.
Book 4
My mother and I drove east across the
flatlands, along the vast floor of an ancient sea. We had come to West Texas to
spend Thanksgiving in the national park where my mother worked as a ranger
during the years when I formed my first childhood memories—images of wooded
canyons and stone mountains rising up from the earth, the sound of wind
whipping across low desert hills, the warmth of the sun beating down upon
endless scrublands.
Book 5 – full disclosure – did not finish this one
Chapter 1: Jojo
I like to think I know what death is. I like
to think that it’s something I could look at straight.
Book 6
Ove is fifty-nine.
He drives a Saab. He’s the kind of man who points at people he
doesn’t like the look of, as if they were burglars and his forefinger a
policeman’s flashlight.
Book 7
To the Fig Tree on 9th and
Christian
Tumbling through the
city in my
mind without once
looking up
the racket in
the lugwork probably
rehearsing some
stupid thing I
said or did
some crime or
other the city they
say is a lonely
place until yes
the sound of sweeping
and a woman
yes with a
broom beneath
which you are now
too the canopy
of a fig its
arms pulling the
September sun to it
…
The titles and authors revealed:
Book 1
The Cross and the Lynching Tree, by
James Cone.
Theology.
Excerpts:
Until we can see the cross and the lynching
tree together, until we can identify Christ with a “recrucified” black body
hanging from a lynching tree, there can be no genuine understanding of
Christian identity in America, and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of
slavery and white supremacy.
What I studied in graduate school ignored
white supremacy and black resistance against it, as if they had nothing to do
with the Christian gospel and the discipline of theology. Silence on both white
supremacy and the black struggle against racial segregation made me angry with
a fiery rage that had to find expression. How could any theologian explain the
meaning of Christian identity in America and fail to engage white supremacy,
its primary negation?
Book 2
Born Fighting by Jim
Webb.
History of/apologetics for “Scots-Irish
culture” in the United States. Good
writing; disagree completely with the thesis.
I have to stop here and say that I was
reading these two books (Born Fighting and The Cross and the Lynching Tree) at the same time, which was a great way to produce
intellectual whiplash. I hope to find
time to tell you more about these books. But there is an election in two days, and
there’s too much to do.
Book 3
Lady in the Lake, by Laura
Lippman. © 2019.
I did not like any of the characters. Certainly did not like the main character,
Maddie Schwartz – she was shallow and self-serving. But the writing was good and after about 100 pages
I settled in to enjoy the narrative style which alternated between 3rd person
omniscient, and then first-person as told by a minor character in the preceding
chapter. The book takes place in
Baltimore in 1966. Ironically, the
residential street I grew up on is mentioned!
Book 4
The Line Becomes a River, by
Francisco Cantu. © 2018.
The author served as a border guard from 2008
to 2012. He left that job to get an
advanced degree. This book gave me a lot
to think about. I recommend it.
Book 5
Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn
Ward. © 2017. Excellent writing, but I could not
finish.
Book 6
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik
Backman, translated by Henning Koch. ©
2014. Funny and poignant. We read it for book club.
Book 7
catalog of unabashed gratitude by
Ross Gay. © 2015 (University of
Pittsburgh Press). Poetry.
This poet does not much believe in the
period. Each poem is pretty much one
long run-on sentence, and this style propels the reader through each poem like
the Niagara River rushing to its destiny at the falls. That’s not necessarily bad, for poetry, but
at first it was shocking to me. It was nearly impossible to find a stopping
place for my quote of the “first lines” above.
I do not claim to understand each poem, but I
read this more as I read the book of Revelation (the Bible). The reading technique is to just read the
words and soak in the images and feelings.
Ross Gay’s poems in this volume include a lot of fruit and sweetness,
and above all else, motion.
