Books: November

Books read:
The English Patient by Michael Ondaajte
Some Poems & Songs of Tagore

Books bought:
Travelling Mercies by Anne Lamott

I had been meaning to read The English Patient for about fifteen years. It's among my favorite movies and I'd heard that Ondaajte is an incredible writer. It's true. The book focuses less on the Patient and his affair with Africa, and more on the villa in Italy. Kip emerges as the novel's hero. Ondaajte's voyage into the spirit of the sapper, the poetry of bomb disassembly, made this worth reading. Here's my favorite excerpt, about problem-solving:

"In twelve days, working at the Directorate of Scientific Research, they came up with the answer. Ignore the fuze entirely. Ignore the first principle, which until then was 'defuse the bomb.' It was brilliant. They were all laughing and applauding and hugging each other in the officers' mess. They didn't have a clue what the alternative was, but they knew in the abstract they were right. The problem would not be solved by embracing it."

My reading consists mostly of cases, novels, baseball trade rumors, Modern Love, and mass emails. What these documents have in common is nuanced language, trickery, deception. Each word is crafted to mean different things to different people, to evade responsibility, to compel something. Rarely do I read a word that doesn't solicit something from its reader. My writing is the same- I am doing this now.

Tagore is different. The songs are simple. They are about devotion. The words love. They love because they give, asking nothing in return. That is love:

May each turn of fortune
Bring its own fulfillment.
May your endurance enhance
With each voice of dissent.
Forgive all,
And be happy.
May peace descend on you
Like nectar from heaven.
Be happy always,
With joy in life.