C.H. Lawler's Blog, page 2
January 6, 2018
Forgiveness
Living Among the Dead
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
-Ghandi
On public radio the other morning there was a story about three men who were falsely accused of a crime and spent forty years in jail for it. Their accuser, who says he was coerced into his statement by the police, lived with the weight of his false witness for all that time until he just couldn't bear it anymore. He finally recanted, and the three men were freed. One of the men sat down with their accuser in an interview and forgave him.
"Oh, I forgive you, man," he said. "I'll never forget, but I forgive you. We good now."
Think about that. Forty years, probably your best years, flushed down a prison toilet, irretrievable, irreplaceable.
The two talked in the voices of older men as they discussed the events that occurred when they were younger men, just more than children. The forgiver seemed to be doing much better than the forgiven, whose voice was low, as if he were staggering under a tremendous load and always would be. The forgiver seemed, well, freed.
One of the themes, perhaps the main theme of Living Among the Dead, is, who can be forgiven and what can they be forgiven of? When old Pierre Carriere sits down on his balcony across from the Lafayette Cemetery on Prytania Street and reflects on his life, he has a lot to ponder. And although he is obviously surrounded by people who love him, they have no idea of what he did in his youth, the atrocities and the betrayal. In one entry of his memoirs, he says of a particular incident,
Well, is there?
We were having lunch one day with our son in Seattle. Our waitress had a tattoo on her inner wrist that read, 70 x 7. These four keystrokes are the formula, for those who follow the teachings of Christ, for how many times one is required to forgive his neighbor for an offense. I've heard it explained that this was considered a hypothetical big number back then, the way of saying "a gazillion."
But who of among us even wants to do it once? I suspect that everyone wants forgiveness. Fewer want to forgive.
"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
-Ghandi
On public radio the other morning there was a story about three men who were falsely accused of a crime and spent forty years in jail for it. Their accuser, who says he was coerced into his statement by the police, lived with the weight of his false witness for all that time until he just couldn't bear it anymore. He finally recanted, and the three men were freed. One of the men sat down with their accuser in an interview and forgave him.
"Oh, I forgive you, man," he said. "I'll never forget, but I forgive you. We good now."
Think about that. Forty years, probably your best years, flushed down a prison toilet, irretrievable, irreplaceable.
The two talked in the voices of older men as they discussed the events that occurred when they were younger men, just more than children. The forgiver seemed to be doing much better than the forgiven, whose voice was low, as if he were staggering under a tremendous load and always would be. The forgiver seemed, well, freed.
One of the themes, perhaps the main theme of Living Among the Dead, is, who can be forgiven and what can they be forgiven of? When old Pierre Carriere sits down on his balcony across from the Lafayette Cemetery on Prytania Street and reflects on his life, he has a lot to ponder. And although he is obviously surrounded by people who love him, they have no idea of what he did in his youth, the atrocities and the betrayal. In one entry of his memoirs, he says of a particular incident,
I wish now that I could beg her forgiveness, that poor, broken girl, that girl who I helped break. If St. Peter opens the gates and she is paraded silently before me, mute testimony to what I did, what I participated in. And I see her and I’m denied admission, dismissed to spend eternity in fire, I will have no answer for him and he will close his book with a slap and a scowl. Her face haunts me as I’m sure our faces haunt her, our slack, huffing, smirking faces, her despairing face. Oh dear God, is there any such thing as forgiveness? For one who is truly sorry and has no means to ever make it right again?
Well, is there?
We were having lunch one day with our son in Seattle. Our waitress had a tattoo on her inner wrist that read, 70 x 7. These four keystrokes are the formula, for those who follow the teachings of Christ, for how many times one is required to forgive his neighbor for an offense. I've heard it explained that this was considered a hypothetical big number back then, the way of saying "a gazillion."
But who of among us even wants to do it once? I suspect that everyone wants forgiveness. Fewer want to forgive.
December 30, 2017
My sister Rebecca
I dreamed last night about my sister Rebecca. It was the kind of dream of which nothing is remembered, only a sense of it, a silhouette of something viewed through translucent glass. I don't remember anything of what we did or talked about. I didn't get a good look at her to see what she looked like as an adult, or else I don't remember it. You know how dreams are.
But in the dream, I had the deep and abiding sense that we would have been friends. We would have played together as children. I would have scrutinized her boyfriends. We would have double dated, sometimes. She would have become friends with my wife. Our children would have grown up as cousins. Maybe, maybe.
There's only one problem. I never met her.
She was born in 1961 with Tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart defect, back when the treatment for it was experimental, performed by pioneers like Debakey and Cooley in Houston. I'm told Dr. Cooley operated on her and that she lived for a while. But she died before I was born, in 1962.
Once, my daddy told the story of the trip in the old family Chevrolet from Shreveport to Houston, an only-hope attempt to fix his little girl. He only told it once, as if telling it was so exhausting, it could not be told again. I was much younger then, maybe a teenager, but I remember the frustration of a man who, as a younger man, had a desperately sick child for whom nothing could be done. I believe it marked him for the rest of his life.
But last night in my dream, we were both healthy and whole, my sister and I, grown up and warmed by each other's company. There was laughing and joking, and wine may have been involved. She had a beauty about her, the adult version of my sister, a woman who never was. But in my dream I couldn't see it, I could only feel it. Some dreams are like that. Maybe they're the best ones.
But in the dream, I had the deep and abiding sense that we would have been friends. We would have played together as children. I would have scrutinized her boyfriends. We would have double dated, sometimes. She would have become friends with my wife. Our children would have grown up as cousins. Maybe, maybe.
There's only one problem. I never met her.
She was born in 1961 with Tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart defect, back when the treatment for it was experimental, performed by pioneers like Debakey and Cooley in Houston. I'm told Dr. Cooley operated on her and that she lived for a while. But she died before I was born, in 1962.
Once, my daddy told the story of the trip in the old family Chevrolet from Shreveport to Houston, an only-hope attempt to fix his little girl. He only told it once, as if telling it was so exhausting, it could not be told again. I was much younger then, maybe a teenager, but I remember the frustration of a man who, as a younger man, had a desperately sick child for whom nothing could be done. I believe it marked him for the rest of his life.
But last night in my dream, we were both healthy and whole, my sister and I, grown up and warmed by each other's company. There was laughing and joking, and wine may have been involved. She had a beauty about her, the adult version of my sister, a woman who never was. But in my dream I couldn't see it, I could only feel it. Some dreams are like that. Maybe they're the best ones.
April 24, 2016
Parents
My son Tom quoted this poem to me as I was going off to work one cold winter night. He looked to me and said, "No one ever thanked him."
I didn't know about this poem or Robert Hayden, but Tom had been taught it in school. I immediately thought of my own father, and I wished I could recite it to him. It speaks of things unspoken, of the selflessness of parents, both mothers and fathers. You only realize it when you become one and think, "They could have really hung this over my head."
But they didn't. And most don't, though most could.
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
-Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
So there's a poem about winter Sundays, here on the verge of summer. If I forget to tell you, Happy Mothers' Day and Happy Fathers' Day.
I didn't know about this poem or Robert Hayden, but Tom had been taught it in school. I immediately thought of my own father, and I wished I could recite it to him. It speaks of things unspoken, of the selflessness of parents, both mothers and fathers. You only realize it when you become one and think, "They could have really hung this over my head."
But they didn't. And most don't, though most could.
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
-Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
So there's a poem about winter Sundays, here on the verge of summer. If I forget to tell you, Happy Mothers' Day and Happy Fathers' Day.
April 16, 2016
The Girl on the Train
Good art inspires emotion. The Girl on the Train inspired ickiness, if that's an emotion. This is my second read in a row that had not one sympathetic character in it (the one prior was The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters). Because of that, it was a dismal landscape punctuated by the sound of passing trains.
Hawkins did an acceptable job keeping the three narrative voices separate, which can be a task in a story with multiple narrators. I will say that coming down the homestretch, she had me guessing, but the soliloquy/confession near the end was hackneyed. I didn't need it to know what happened.
The language wasn't particularly poetic, but it carried the story along well enough that I kept listening. (This was my first sojourn into audiobooks.)
People who've battled addiction, especially alcohol, may find this book insightful. I would not recommend this book for people who are battling depression. When the heroine has a drinking problem and trouble telling the truth, the bar for the other characters is set low.
All said, however, I was taken in by the story and had to know how it finished. I liked the book but didn't love it.
Four-star books inspire me. Three-star books are a combination of enjoyed and endured. The Girl on the Train gets three.
Hawkins did an acceptable job keeping the three narrative voices separate, which can be a task in a story with multiple narrators. I will say that coming down the homestretch, she had me guessing, but the soliloquy/confession near the end was hackneyed. I didn't need it to know what happened.
The language wasn't particularly poetic, but it carried the story along well enough that I kept listening. (This was my first sojourn into audiobooks.)
People who've battled addiction, especially alcohol, may find this book insightful. I would not recommend this book for people who are battling depression. When the heroine has a drinking problem and trouble telling the truth, the bar for the other characters is set low.
All said, however, I was taken in by the story and had to know how it finished. I liked the book but didn't love it.
Four-star books inspire me. Three-star books are a combination of enjoyed and endured. The Girl on the Train gets three.
March 26, 2016
Review of The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters is set in London in 1922. Frances Wray and her mother are two women who find their lives emptied of the men that had been in them, through the Great War (Frances' brothers) and the premature death of Frances' father. Because of this, she and her mother are obliged to take in boarders. The Barbers are those people, and thus the tale begins.
The story is slow to develop, but once it does, it moves on breathlessly to a gripping conclusion. Until that point, there's a lot of introspection on the part of Frances, including her thoughts on love:
This is a long book, about six hundred pages. In saying that, I don't see how it could have been made any shorter. The language is undeniably British, which would be either a treat or a chore for an American reader, depending on how much of an Anglophile you are. The story places us squarely in those postwar years in London, with references to lost men, both the ones who didn't come back from France and the ones who came back lost all the same. There is a particularly poignant scene in which the fiancee of one of her deceased brothers comes by for a visit with Frances and her mother, a visit that is a ritual complete with the usual re-reading of his letters:
Then there's the matter of the relationship of two of the characters. I won't give their names so you can discover who they are on your own. Needless to say, however, it's undeniable why Waters has been called "the maestro of tortured lesbian romance." There are several erotically charged encounters, so if those subjects are not your cup of tea, then you may not want to add this one to your reading queue. All in all, however, The Paying Guests is a well-written tale of forbidden love that many would enjoy.
The story is slow to develop, but once it does, it moves on breathlessly to a gripping conclusion. Until that point, there's a lot of introspection on the part of Frances, including her thoughts on love:
"Was that all, she thought bleakly, that love ever was? Something that saved one from loneliness? A sort of insurance policy against not counting?"
This is a long book, about six hundred pages. In saying that, I don't see how it could have been made any shorter. The language is undeniably British, which would be either a treat or a chore for an American reader, depending on how much of an Anglophile you are. The story places us squarely in those postwar years in London, with references to lost men, both the ones who didn't come back from France and the ones who came back lost all the same. There is a particularly poignant scene in which the fiancee of one of her deceased brothers comes by for a visit with Frances and her mother, a visit that is a ritual complete with the usual re-reading of his letters:
"But the turning of the pages and the reading aloud of the letters felt dry this time-like picking through dead leaves."I could almost find myself sitting on the couch with them; it was uncomfortable. Well done, Ms. Waters.
Then there's the matter of the relationship of two of the characters. I won't give their names so you can discover who they are on your own. Needless to say, however, it's undeniable why Waters has been called "the maestro of tortured lesbian romance." There are several erotically charged encounters, so if those subjects are not your cup of tea, then you may not want to add this one to your reading queue. All in all, however, The Paying Guests is a well-written tale of forbidden love that many would enjoy.
March 20, 2016
Belle Cora
How does one go from being the daughter of a New York City merchant to being a San Francisco madam? That is the fundamental question of Belle Cora, a novel by Phillip Margulies.
Belle Cora tells the story herself, beginning with her days as Arabella Godwin and taking us on a harrowing journey filled with wry humor and misfortune, ending up in the days of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The story is told with great skill as one twist leads to another, and the heroine finds herself in the world's oldest profession. She proves to be a woman determined to stand on her own two feet (when not on her back). Her pluck is evident as she warns an accuser,
The language of this book is rich and highly enjoyable. Here's another quote concerning Arabella Godwin's (young Belle Cora's) cousin, part of the righteous, dour clan Arabella finds herself thrown in with:
Belle Cora was one of my two favorite reads of 2015 (the other was Boy's Life by Robert McCammon). If historical fiction is a time machine, then Margulies has built one that hums and purrs. If you like that genre, this is a book for you.
One more quote from Belle Cora :
So make a cup of tea or coffee, climb in Margulies' time machine, and fasten your seatbelt.
Belle Cora tells the story herself, beginning with her days as Arabella Godwin and taking us on a harrowing journey filled with wry humor and misfortune, ending up in the days of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The story is told with great skill as one twist leads to another, and the heroine finds herself in the world's oldest profession. She proves to be a woman determined to stand on her own two feet (when not on her back). Her pluck is evident as she warns an accuser,
"I've stain enough on me to dye you all scarlet for generations. Worldly people would be snickering in the next century."
The language of this book is rich and highly enjoyable. Here's another quote concerning Arabella Godwin's (young Belle Cora's) cousin, part of the righteous, dour clan Arabella finds herself thrown in with:
"Agnes prayed in her usual highly specific fashion, leaving God very little room for initiative, treating Him as a sort of unimaginative factotum who has to be reminded flowers must grow up and rain fall down, and provided with very exact instructions concerning the management of the farm."
Belle Cora was one of my two favorite reads of 2015 (the other was Boy's Life by Robert McCammon). If historical fiction is a time machine, then Margulies has built one that hums and purrs. If you like that genre, this is a book for you.
One more quote from Belle Cora :
"I know you don't mean to do wrong by it, but many a girl has been led to ruin by novels."
So make a cup of tea or coffee, climb in Margulies' time machine, and fasten your seatbelt.
March 13, 2016
In the Lull Between Books
Well, the second book, The Memory of Time, is finished and off to the test-readers to be groomed, stroked, praised, scolded, hammered, pruned, primed, and repainted. In waiting for them to render an opinion, the silence screams “it’s wonderful” or “it’s awful.”
It is, however, the book I wrote and the book I intended to write. I have vowed to never write the same book twice, and I won’t. One of my test-readers, who I know from practicing medicine with him for twenty years, has read it and given it rave reviews. The other test-readers have said they love it so far. I’m waiting to see how they suggest I fine-tune it. Of course, as long as one other person likes it, then it’s a success.
Now it’s on to the next book, which began whispering its identity to me on my morning run around the LSU lakes this morning. It will be set in reconstruction-era Louisiana and involve the original Sam Teague and a carpenter/traiteur named Jesse L’Agneau. The story will be told in the first person by Pete Carrick, a man who has worked for both.
It is, however, the book I wrote and the book I intended to write. I have vowed to never write the same book twice, and I won’t. One of my test-readers, who I know from practicing medicine with him for twenty years, has read it and given it rave reviews. The other test-readers have said they love it so far. I’m waiting to see how they suggest I fine-tune it. Of course, as long as one other person likes it, then it’s a success.
Now it’s on to the next book, which began whispering its identity to me on my morning run around the LSU lakes this morning. It will be set in reconstruction-era Louisiana and involve the original Sam Teague and a carpenter/traiteur named Jesse L’Agneau. The story will be told in the first person by Pete Carrick, a man who has worked for both.
June 5, 2015
Boy's Life
You can tell a good book when you get to the end of it and you are sad to see the characters go. This is such a book. I would recommend this book for anyone who ever spent a single day of their childhood in the South, especially in the Sixties and Seventies. The language is beautiful and wry, and the characters are vivid and rich. The end of the book comes to a boil and makes you race with the characters to the conclusion. There is a measure of the fantastical here and there which some may have trouble with, but I recommend you just go with it. You won't be disappointed if you do.
May 24, 2015
The Saints of Lost Things
You might enjoy The Saints of Lost Things if:
You remember Hurricane Betsy.
You've ever been in love with someone the world told you shouldn't be in love with.
You know how to peel crawfish. Better yet, you know how to boil crawfish.
You've ever known the love of a cur dog.
You know what cane smells like burning in the fall.
You know what cottonseed smells like in the fall.
You've heard the Rosary prayed in French.
You value kindness.
You sang "Saut, Crapaud" in grade school.
You've sat on a bench at The Circle in Oxford.
You know how strange it is to have the power suddenly come back on after it's been off a week or more.
You remember Hurricane Betsy.
You've ever been in love with someone the world told you shouldn't be in love with.
You know how to peel crawfish. Better yet, you know how to boil crawfish.
You've ever known the love of a cur dog.
You know what cane smells like burning in the fall.
You know what cottonseed smells like in the fall.
You've heard the Rosary prayed in French.
You value kindness.
You sang "Saut, Crapaud" in grade school.
You've sat on a bench at The Circle in Oxford.
You know how strange it is to have the power suddenly come back on after it's been off a week or more.
January 19, 2015
The Kind and the Unkind
In The Saints of Lost Things, Tony Keary tells Sammy, "There are only two kinds of people in this world, the Kind and the Unkind."
I believe that's true, and that each of us has to decide which we will be, every single moment of every single day.
What better time to reflect on that than today, Martin Luther King Day. Keary's words remind me of a quote from Dr. King: "I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."
So I hope you have a day filled with kindness, both received and given.
Dr. King would be proud.
I believe that's true, and that each of us has to decide which we will be, every single moment of every single day.
What better time to reflect on that than today, Martin Luther King Day. Keary's words remind me of a quote from Dr. King: "I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."
So I hope you have a day filled with kindness, both received and given.
Dr. King would be proud.
