OK, I Didn’t Remember

OK, I didn’t remember that D’Arcy proposes to Elizabeth about halfway through Pride and Prejudice. And what a terrible proposal it is! At this point, you can’t say that Elizabeth’s view of the man is tainted by prejudice: he really is a jerk here, and she justly turns him down.

And, OK, so I didn’t remember that D’Arcy was such a jerk at first! In my memory, D’Arcy had legitimate concerns about some of the people in Elizabeth’s neighborhood, concerns about which, however, he was unable to speak, and so Elizabeth mistook his reticence for coldness and pride. But, no, he’s something of a misanthrope at first. So why do so many women see him as the ultimate romantic male character in fiction? Well, partly because he looks so good once he cleans up at the end. But also because from the first he declares that his ideal woman uses her mind and reads, thus complementing and justifying every girl who reads the book.

OK, so I didn’t remember that Elizabeth shows her intellect and strength at the end of the book by being so cheeky! Her conversation with Lady de Burgh, who informs Elizabeth that she has heard that she (Elizabeth) and D’Arcy are to be married, is hilarious and amazing. Females are supposed to be quiet . . . unless they have money, but Elizabeth refuses to take any of Lady de Burgh’s bait and professes her independence of body, mind, and will loudly and forcefully. And then that ending! Where Elizabeth alone of everyone he has ever known dares to tease D’Arcy. She knows more than even he himself knows that he will love this treatment because it shows a razing of the artificial walls of their code-bound society, a demolition necessary before any lasting, satisfying, spiritual intimacy is possible.

This I remember: Jane Austen never gets old.

Riding the (Rough) Rails

I’ve loved reading and relished devouring books for as long as I can remember, which is to say since I was three years old. (I remember very clearly asking my dad for help with the word “gambol” in a Little Golden Book of Disney’s Bambi.) So I find it very easy to prioritize my reading plan in my leisure time of every day. Or at least I should find it easy. Two major problems gradually slow my favorite pastime: my eyesight is steadily getting worse in ways that glasses don’t fix, and my mind is growing ever louder with thoughts and memories and memories of thoughts and thoughts about memories.

I’ve discovered two things that help with the second problem: reading while walking and plane rides. I’ve commented in these posts several times about the way walking helps: the regular, rhythmic footsteps absorbing almost all the excess attention so that the part of my mind that feels like the steering wheel can stay pointed toward the words on the page. It works so well, I try to walk and read every day. Plane rides, on the other hand, cost too much to form part of a daily routine, so I haven’t said much – if anything – about them here.

Today I’m here to report something even better: train rides. My wife and I have taken the train from St. Louis to Spokane to see our son and grandkids, and wow! did I ever get a lot of reading done. Where did the buzzing flurry of distracting thoughts go? Did the clicks and bumps of the wheels on the track – frequent, strong, and loud on Amtrak even if lacking any hint of the measured lilt of walking – consume all the peripheral focus? I don’t know. But I finished one book and read two more all in two days. I haven’t read so much in so little time since I was twelve ingesting one Tarzan book after another in the basement.

Interestingly, one of the books I read on the train was a tale of the ape-man: Tarzan and the Lost Empire. Yes, ludicrous. But I’m having a good time reliving those basement days. I’m painfully aware now, though, of the multitudinous problems with Burroughs’s writing, and the fun can turn to tedium when I take five, six, and seven days to read one of these crazy novels. So it was especially good to read this all in one day.

The other book I read entirely while on the train was Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. This fascinating memoir goes back and forth between the heartbreaking and the hilarious, and I don’t think I would have tired of it if I had taken seven or even seventeen days to finish it instead of one. But I have to say that if Angelou knows why the caged bird sings, she hasn’t successfully imparted that science to me. She ends, abruptly it seemed to me, by simply saying that she chooses to be joyful no matter how bad the world is. So, yes, the caged bird does in fact sing; I just felt disappointment in not receiving the explanation the title apparently promises. It seems that her baby brought her to her happy perspective, but is she saying that the childless can have no joy?

How much can I complain, though? I have no good, comprehensive ending today, either. And the circumstances are very similar: the train ride ended where my grandchildren live, and those two bring me a joy that words can’t fully explain.