Rediscovering the Joy of Books

Week 2: Ellen Meloy (EM) steals the spotlight

Ellen Meloy: The Anthropology of Turquoise

By definition, we don’t know what we will find when we begin an experiment, however, there are usually hopes dancing around the edges waving their hands to get our attention. In this experiment in reading, I hoped for a more stable memory of what I read, a deeper understanding that might come from the interleaving of five unrelated books, and maybe even a smattering of wisdom.

I really didn’t expect the burst of energy and delight that came with this second week of readings and journaling about the readings. Nor was I prepared to find myself guffawing through a supposedly serious book from an esteemed nature writer.

Surprised by guffawing and conversations, I swear these authors are skiing some of the same trails. Here’s a reminder of the books involved and their pub dates. Maybe on the next round, I should choose a wider range of time frames.

5 Book Reading Experiment

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The Reading Experiment: Week 2 … 5 books interleaved

Highlights from Ellen Meloy’s book:

>> A hiccup … a surprise that shifts my reaction

>> Not a forced march … who’s making these rules?

>> RIFs … word jazz syncopating around a theme

>> Metaphors … revealing the inner life of common things

>> Rabbit holes … curiosity is your muse calling

>> Questions … the conversations begin

>> TINK … a new rating scale

» A hiccup. I’m not sure authors can be trusted.

I can’t speak badly about EM (Ellen Meloy) because she is deceased, but her book threw me a corkscrew. Here we were driving across the desert, on roads I’ve travelled enough to recognize her motel stops; her mission: swim across the Mojave. She reconstructs the child’s-eye truth about motels in a rainless, pass-through land … there’s only two kinds: ones with pools; ones without. She was a child hostage to the without kind; now she was going to make up for lost pools.

Ellen had filled me with awe and anticipation in chapter one as she word-painted the slickrock and remembered her dead brother as she paint-painted the landscape with his artist’s kit, trying to explode colors.

Suddenly she’s ten and we’re in a station wagon with her three brothers, her nervous, pool-hating mother and fancy-turn-making father. Her job is watching out for the Quigleys (a family of four) trailing behind her brother’s full-sized pet horse in its full-sized trailer that made it very hard to see the Quigleys in their miniature car. WAIT … !

I go back to the blurbs on the back cover. No one mentions the Quigleys. Reviewers say, “vision quest,” or “profound.” They rave about “incandescence” and “grief and passion.” Finally one blurber says, “comic philosopher,” and I relax. It wasn’t just me laughing out loud. Relieved, I go back to the trip which weaves between now and a reimagined then.

Somewhere along the way, after an adventure in a snake-vomit swamp, one brother hooked the pet horse trailer to the Quigleys’ car and, while the family turned toward Arizona, the Quigleys turned right toward Nevada and were gone. Only one brother cried.

» Not a forced march. Who’s in charge here?

Most of my planned reading segments average about 10-15 pages. The second one for EM, though, ran 44 pages … way too many for this fledgling deep-reader. I tried to rush it, be responsible, stick to the schedule, but I literally couldn’t; fast-reading her words was like a gravity-bound-being trying to tiptoe across flypaper.

Finally, it dawned on me that this was what deep-reading was all about … having a conversation with an author who has just one more story to tell, one more memory that might connect with one of my own. There was no way to skim across the slow magic on these pages.

Since the scheduled chapter couldn’t be “done” in the prescribed one-day setting, I gave it two … and that brought an insight which made me laugh. This wasn’t me breaking the rules (set by me) … this was the essence of deep reading: allowing time for words and ideas to make connections with my own internal thoughts, ideas, and memories. This book was not “grokkable;” deep reading is the antithesis of grokking.

»RIFs … surfing word waves

Somewhere along my life freeway of reading, I learned to leap tall RIFs as mere obstacles to the plot line. I’m not sure RIFs are common to all writers, however, they seem to be showing up in these five almost randomly chosen books. Deep reading means I actually must read the RIFs along the way … and, wow, what fun to be caught up in those whirlpools of word energy.

EM is definitely a RIF writer. I’ve started noting RIFs when I find them and, in this one chapter, I marked about twenty different RIF passages on subjects as diverse as left over porn videos, Las Vegas, and chuckwallas.

? Have RIFs fallen out of favor in our speed reading, books-as-body-count mindset world?

»Metaphors … revealing unseen connections

There is something about metaphors that walk on the weird side. EM shovels them into her writing like coal into a hungry boiler. “Station wagon as big as a cocktail lounge,” “well-oiled ferret,” “Gospels of Wrath,” “kava-kava happy,” “like tepid, airborne limeade,” “breasts heaving like berserk Wonder bread” (you had to be there). Just when you think there are no fresh metaphors left, a writer like EM comes up with “cedars shaped like suppositories.”

I love metaphors but my brain doesn’t seem to make those kinds of leaps that take EM from trees to medicine cabinets. Maybe I need a course in brain yoga.

>> Rabbit holes … gifts from the gods of curiosity

Sometimes a writer piques your curiosity enough to spin you out of the text in order to explore an underground tunnel you’ve never noticed before. You can almost feel your brain coming to a hard halt, demanding more light. That’s your muse opening a door … treasure the invitation. Here’s one of the rabbit holes EM sent me down:

Iowa Picnics

A delightful aspect of deep reading is the permission to follow any rabbit hole that appears … almost a mandate to do so. EM offered me Iowa Picnics, gatherings of California immigrants from Iowa, first held in 1900 in Pasadena. Long Beach was once dubbed “Iowa by the sea.” By the 1940s, the picnic crowd was estimated at 100,000. Who knew Iowa had such a hold on us?

Iowa Picnic

»Questions … the mother lode

I find myself writing a lot of questions in the journal … questions the authors ask and questions that occur to me as I read. These feel like conversation starters between the author and myself.

For instance, EM mentions the “goddess of eternal renewal” in connection with Xiuhtecuhli, Prince of Turquoise. I wondered who that goddess of eternal renewal might be. An online search revealed some goddesses close to that idea of eternal renewal; however, none were exact. So, it leaves me with this question:

• What, exactly does “eternal renewal” mean and who would be its goddess?

>> TINK … a new rating scale

As I move from one book to the next, it feels like I’m becoming more sensitive to their different styles and approaches … as well as, what makes an impression on me. I began to look for a rating system that fit my particular approach and came up with TINK … Things I Never Knew. Most books throw pebbles into the Grand Canyon of my ignorance so I still need how to use this as a ratings guide.

All in all, the first two weeks have been fun and energizing, and I’m happy with the choices.