Hitting The Links: 8/11/24
This one's got Sunday thoughts on the Pope's letter about literature, an impromptu run, a TON of great links, and what it means to listen to someone
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Lit-en Up, Francis
I was planning to write about writing environments, both physical and mental, but I came across something extraordinary and — to me — strange yesterday and want to share it with you.
On Bluesky, Benjamin Dreyer shared Pope Francis’ letter on The Role of Literature In Formation from July. I looked away from the Yankees game to start reading it on my iPad, and found myself compelled to read to the end without a break, or clicking another tab, checking email, etc.
He writes about the importance of reading literature & poetry, ostensibly for the priesthood, but also for other pastoral workers & in fact all Christians. I figured the piece would devolve into lifehacks like “here are 7 ways that reading more literature will help you connect with your congregation,” but there’s none of that. Even the bits on becoming a better human being carry nuances about the immanent world and crises not just of the secular world but in the hearts of believers.
He writes about the importance of learning to listen to other people, of trying to see through their eyes, and he does it without privileging his or the church’s status. And he quotes Proust, Borges, Eliot, C.S. Lewis, Cocteau, and Paul Celan in the process.
He cites the tragedians as his faves, and brings in a number of pre-Christian writers and texts, but as far as recommendations go, no reading lists at the end! Instead, he writes,
“Naturally, I am not asking you to read the same things that I did. Everyone will find books that speak to their own lives and become authentic companions for their journey. There is nothing more counterproductive than reading something out of a sense of duty, making considerable effort simply because others have said it is essential. On the contrary, while always being open to guidance, we should select our reading with an open mind, a willingness to be surprised, a certain flexibility and readiness to learn, trying to discover what we need at every point of our lives.”
Sure, there are things to quibble about, like a focus on realistic fiction, and maybe there are theological components or hints that evade me (as a lapsed Jew), and of course you may have a whole raft of issues with the Catholic Church, but I’m all in on the notion that reading more widely can make us better people, not in terms of moral education, but in our learning to see how other people see the world and live in it, and in expanding our world through language. He writes throughout about the mysteries of the world, the uncertainties, the need to embrace those as essential parts of the human condition, rather than something to be fixed.
The whole piece is worth reading, but here’s a little something near the end:
“The literary word is a word that sets language in motion, liberates and purifies it. Ultimately, it opens that word to even greater expressive and expansive vistas. It opens our human words to welcome the Word that is already present in human speech, not when it sees itself as knowledge that is already full, definitive and complete, but when it becomes a listening and expectation of the One who comes to make all things new (cf. Rev 21:5).” [Again, theological ramifications notwithstanding.]
Now, none of this is to say I’m swayed by the religious side of the Pope’s message. That said, I’m in the midst of a particularly fraught section of the last book of My Struggle by Knausgaard right now, where the narrator of the past 3,000 pages is struggling to explain his disaffection with the world, and it sure seems to resonate. (This is a hundred pages or so after his long deep reading of a poem by Paul Celan, a quote from whom closes out the Pope’s letter.)
Recalling a scene with his toddler son, Karl Ove writes, “Why did the sight of a cruise ship send a shiver down my spine? What was it that made me think it so sublime?” Pages later, he writes, “When we closed the door on religion, we closed the door on something inside ourselves as well. Not only did the holy vanish from our lives, all the powerful emotions associated with it vanished too.” More on that below.
(I wrestle with these pages at night, bordering on sleep, and like Penelope unravel it all the next day, coming to them fresh again but perhaps with some memory of what came before. The book will be over ‘soon’, and understanding who I was before and am after will be a challenge.)
I am, of course, not doing justice to any of this, in my addled Sunday morning way, so I hope you’ll take the time to read the Pope’s letter, and maybe let me know what you think of it. (I’ve got a comments section for a reason, people.)
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And now, let’s hit the links!
Links & Such
Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Anita Kunz • Shalom Auslander • Maurice Vellekoop • Laura Beers • Robert Pranzatelli • Bob Fingerman • Swan Huntley • Stan Mack • Jim Moske
RIP Walter Arlen . . . RIP Lorenza de’ Medici . . . RIP Connie Chiume . . . RIP . . . Susan Wojcicki . . . RIP Howie Cohen . . .
Now THAT’S an awesome “if I win the lottery” story.
“We’re redneck enough to be fat, but smart enough to do something about it.”
New short story from Caleb Crain in The New Yorker!
Guest-columnists are a superstitious and cowardly lot.
Anahid Nersessian wrote about Simone Leigh’s sculptures in NYRB.
Maybe these zombie pharmacies would do better if they sold Zombie-Paxlovid or something.
Rebecca Mead profiles Gillian Anderson.
We watched the Celine Dion doc this week, about how Stiff-Person Syndrome (SPS) has derailed her life & her ability to sing. It’s got a horrifying scene where she has a seizure after struggling through a recording session, so if you’re triggered by “medical trauma,” avoid that part, because it’s harrowing (and frighteningly honest) to watch. I’ve never listened to her stuff — I’ve seen clips and SNL parodies — but it’s gotta be awful to have the thing you’re put on his planet for taken away from you. (Which reminds me of that Dickinson poem I quoted in the midweek newsletter about the slowness of decline.)
A new comic from Leslie Stein (2016, 2021, 2023) is always a joy.
And TWO new comics from Summer Pierre! Double-joy!
And E.S. Glenn’s got a gag strip on Comics Kingdom!? It’s a comics cavalcade!
Current/Recent Reading
Still Life at Eighty: A Memoir - Nicholas Delbanco
Blurry - Dash Shaw
“I could have knelt, put my hands together and directed trembling prayers and lamentations to God, Our Father, but I was living in the wrong age, for when I looked up toward the sky all I saw was a vast and empty space. And when I looked around me I saw a society we had fully and completely organized to lull us all to sleep, to make us think about something else, to entertain us. The quick and easy, the soft and comfy, that was what we wanted, and it was what we got. The only remaining space where life was taken seriously was art. In art I looked only for such fullness of being. Beauty and fullness of being. On occasion I found it, and when I did it consumed me, yet the experience led to nothing, was perhaps nothing but the projections of an overtense soul, little lightning flashes in the darkness of the mind.”
—Karl Ove Knausgaard (tr. Don Bartlett, Martin Aitken), My Struggle: Book 6 (as mentioned, this recent reading ties into the Pope’s letter quite a bit) (also, I’m on page 686, so only ~550 pages to go!)
Sound Body, Fractured Mind
If I get in weights today, I’ll have finished a 5-day weights-yoga cycle, which makes me feel good, even though my shoulder’s in rough shape most mornings. I haven’t gotten back to running with The Guys though, because of Reasons, but I did call an audible this morning and ran 3.3mi. solo through the hills of my neighborhood, because it was finally (somewhat) cool & dry. SPOILER: either it or I didn’t stay cool & dry for long (maybe neither). I’m starting to get my weigh back down below my upper threshold, which is important in my head.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode + art & Instax pix, and on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, & sure maybe a little profundity or something.
Put me on a slow movin’ / Parliamentary hackin’ bandwagon,
Gil, Thanks for the link to the Pope's take on the usefulness of literature, definitely not something I would have stumbled upon in my own reading. As Catholics go, they don't come more lapsed than me, but I am continually surprised and delighted by this man's deep humanity and Jesuit learning. Bravo!