Looking back… from Max, #65: The two things I want are interesting language and genuine feeling. And one other thing: Years and years ago I knew a very wise woman who was tremendously accomplished and who had excelled at many things, a lifetime achievement for anybody else, and I asked what was her goal now? And she didn’t hesitate for a second. ‘To love deeply.’ — Amy Hempel, Paris Review Interview, The Art of Fiction No. 176 ~~~ I was in my study, had fallen asleep while reading. Am all about the Saturday afternoon nap. Camille yells as they’re coming up the stairs, “Hey You, we’re back and we want to go to dinner!” I roused. She and Amber had made a late run to the Del Mar Farmers Market. When they get to the doorway and peek in they could see that I had been asleep, book open and face down on my lap, my glasses all askew, the doofus coming to, “Oh look,” Camille says, turning to Amber, and they both smile, “Get up Old Man, we want to take you to dinner, maybe a movie.” My entire life, the grand and glorious: dinner and a movie; and these two, they seemed up to something, mischief in the air. They were wanting to go to the Secret, our fav restaurant now, a marvelous mom and pop on Camino Del Mar, quaint, only outdoor, partly-covered seating, 15 tables at the most. “Hells Yes! This old man is rarin’ to go,” and I jumped up, defying age and gravity, went into Quasimodo mode, danced, “Oh, me ladies,” nearly tripped, bounded herky-jerky toward them, got them laughing, as I chased them down the stairs. They had it their mind to sip and savor, then catch the film Your Sister’s Sister. Love these two. We’re so going to miss Amber, but she’ll just have to come North. We’ll give her the Northwest tours, time to explore, Oregon wine tasting, Pinot Noir country, both of them lovers of the Pinot. ~~~ I had begun reading Amy Hempel’s The Collected Stories, had gotten through Rick Moody’s introduction “On Amy Hempel” before dozing off, and Jesus H. Christ, a whirlwind of thought and feeling. This, from Moody: “I was exhibiting symptoms of boredom and impatience with most of the masculine examples of contemporary fiction. I couldn’t sympathize, finally, with Ford and McInerney characters. I had never punched another man, nor shot a bird from the sky, nor had I fact-checked among the coke-snorting glitterati. And these narratives by male writers seemed to require complicity with their larger-than-life protagonists. Then came the Hempel collection.” Moody’s words clicked for me, and when he gets to the end of the intro, he goes off arguing that Hempel knows as well as any writer of the past “the tendency of human beings to do much better at dreaming than living.” He imagines Hempel trying to explain where her stories come from, admitting she’d “deflect away the sad fact that some questions are simply unanswerable. The best we can do is try to keep on living and to take pleasure where it is available, especially, for example, in the pleasure of language…. It’s all about the sentences.” apartinthemidstof/current-probe-goad/2012/7/5/65-a-gift.html
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 11:57:49 +0000
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