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2 . 18 . 21
Now and then when I am absorbed in lists of forthcoming books, whether in the delicious catalogues of university presses (now likely to be digital only, alas) or in the pages of
Publishers Weekly or in some other source of bookish intelligence, a strange thought pops into my head: Books will continue to appear after I am dead. (Perhaps in heaven I will receive a special dispensation. . . .)
In any case, at the moment, I am still here in this fallen but nonetheless beguiling world, still (mostly) in possession of my “faculties.” There are so many books to instruct and divert us, miming Creation itself in their gratuitous abundance.
1 . 8 . 21
After we moved from Pasadena to Wheaton, Illinois, in 1994, for many years my wife, Wendy, made regular trips to visit her family in Northern California, usually in the summer. Sometimes I was able to go too, other times not as in the summer of 2011, when Wendy flew back alone for a visit. On such occasions I often kept scratch-paper handy to jot down odds and ends that I thought she might enjoy when she returned.
The other day, I came across several pages from that summer, almost ten years ago now. Here is the first entry:
Two old men at Starbucks (though probably not much older than we are), one tall and thin, the other mid-sized and stocky with a very red face. The tall one says, “And I TOLD her, ‘just stay in bed,’ but she wouldn’t.” Evidently his wife had been sick, got back up & around too soon. Then he said that when he was a boy, he never understood why his mother worried so much, was always saying to be careful. “Now I understand.” The red-faced m
, edited by Timothy Larsen. The other (my subject here) is small and slim (66 pages, with lots of space between the lines of text):
Mom and Dad in Heaven, by Alf K. Walgermo, illustrated by Øyvind Torseter and translated from the Norwegian by Deborah Dawkin. Here’s how it begins:
Dear God, I went back to school today. It was weird being back in school. So quiet. The boys looked down at their desks. The girls looked at each other. I didn’t know what to say. We played hopscotch on our lunch break without arguing or smiling.
Mom and Dad in Heaven consists of brief paragraphs like this, explicitly or implicitly addressed to God in the voice of Mary, a small girl whose parents have been in an accident. Mary’s father, we gather, was killed instantly; her mother survives for a day or so, and Mary is able to see her briefly in the hospital, brought there by her grandfather; she will be cared for by her grandparents going forward.
12 . 18 . 20
After the death of John le Carré was announced a few days ago, a friend asked me where I thought the creator of George Smiley and the Circus would rank in a generation. I told him I didn’t have the faintest idea. Where does he “rank” now? Most of the younger people I know (“younger” meaning under forty) have never read le Carré; if they know his work at all, it’s via adaptations for TV and movies. As for the critics, they’ve preferred to slot him as a chronicler of “the Cold War,” a term that is at once indispensable and nearly meaningless, so profligate is its misuse. Never mind that many of his books take us well past that era.