How (Not) to Make Over Your Husband – Oprah.com

Maybe if I go back to sporting a mustache and tease out my old southern Indiana drawl, I can become the next Dr. Phil. I’ve gotten more reaction from friends and family about this piece that I wrote in about a week half-watching TV on my couch than everything else I’ve written combined, including a master’s thesis I slaved over for a year. It’s sad and frustrating but fun at the same time. It’s the power of Oprah I guess.

I finished The Savage Detectives last week as the second of two Bolano books to gear up for the 2666 group read starting on January 25. It’s divided into three parts: the first told as the journal entries of Juan Garcia Madero, an aspiring poet in 1970s Mexico City who tags along with a group of poets who have revived a movement called “visceral realism,” led by two charismatic pot dealers, Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima. This section ends when Belano, Lima, Garcia Madero, and a prostitute named Lupe disappear north into the Sonora Desert to escape Lupe’s murderous pimp and find the last living visceral realist poet. The long middle section of the book is a series of interviews with people who encounter Belano and Lima after they return and become the Forrest Gumps of the Latin American literary world and beyond over the next 20 years, popping up in Mexico, Spain, France, Israel, and Africa. The third part returns to Garcia Madero’s journals for an account of what happened in Sonora while searching for the lost poet.

This book was a lot of work, not just for the sheer size but the long stretches in the middle section where I had a hard time keeping the various narrators straight or particularly caring about their stories. I was never quite sure what Belano and Lima stood for, other than steadfastly refusing to let anyone else define them. In a way I guess, this uncompromising stance is what led them to such great lengths on their journey to the desert. They stood for being consistent, which come to think of it would serve them well in today’s black/white, for/against culture. Bolano’s writing is sharp and funny, epsecially when describing Garcia Madero’s sexual escapades, and the ending satisfactorily tied up many of the mysteries introduced by the interviews. So I didn’t love The Savage Detectives and I didn’t hate it either, which is probably an accomplishment after 672 pages.

In 2004 when I was in grad school, I took a course called “Marginal Literature in Latin America” that studied representations of marginalized people—indigenous tribes, slaves, women, the poor, children—in Latin American literature. One of the books we read was The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier, set in Haiti during the slave rebellion and the years following as its people struggled to establish a new nation.

I wrote my final paper for the class about the book, on the heels of more terrible news out of Haiti. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had just been forced out of office under threat of an armed rebellion, and President Bush was sending American Marines to Haiti as peacekeepers. My paper was about Carpentier’s portrayal of history and revolution in The Kingdom, and how he used the techniques of magical realism to teach the importance of constant struggle in the face of the nation’s cycle of tragedy.

Going back and reading it nearly six years later, it’s actually rather apt given the terrible things happening there right now. In my money quote from the novel to wrap up the paper, Carpentier wrote about how man can never escape his worldly troubles:

… a man never knows for whom he suffers and hopes. He suffers and hopes and toils for people he will never know, and who, in turn, will suffer and hope and toil for others who will not be happy either, for man always seeks happiness far beyond that which is meted out to him. But man’s greatness consists in the very fact of wanting to be better than he is. In laying duties upon himself.

Of course for Haitians now, wanting to be better simply means finding food, water, and shelter. They don’t need any more lessons about struggle. But that can be a valuable lesson for those of us who want to help them, by giving what you can from that which has been meted out to you.

If you’re looking to learn more about Haiti, I highly recommend The Kingdom of This World, along with The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James, another book about the rebellion I referenced in the paper. And for what it’s worth, here’s my six-year-old paper about the whole thing:

Revolution and The Representation of History in The Kingdom of This World (PDF)

I kept up with the Pacers after I moved to Chicago, even though I still had a soft spot for the Bulls like every other kid who grew up in the Michael Jordan era. You can’t just abandon your team because you move to a new city, close proximity to the United Center or not. But after Ron Artest charged into the crowd in Detroit during a Pacers-Pistons game in 2004 and started the brawl of all sports brawls, I gave up on the NBA. It wasn’t just a scared white man protest of “thugs” taking over the grand old game of John Wooden and Larry Bird. Reggie was gone, the brawl had ruined what had been a promising season for the Pacers, and Artest made me embarrassed to be a fan of my favorite team. Just like it’s hard to start dating again after a bad breakup, it’s hard to keep loving a game when you don’t recognize your favorite team anymore.

In the past few years, I’ve slowly returned to the NBA. I covered the Bulls for Chicago Sports Weekly and even attended their media day in 2007. After standing next to a larger-than-life character like Joakim Noah you can’t help but follow along a little more closely, and Hoosier boy that am, I’m required to enjoy all types of basketball as a birthright. So I’ve been paying more attention to the NBA, not necessarily pulling for the Pacers or Bulls or any other team, but just being a general fan of the game. It’s better that my enjoyment of the league isn’t tied to the fortunes of one team like it is with baseball and football. Once the Cardinals and Colts lose, I’m ruined for the rest of the playoffs. But with the NBA, I just enjoy watching guys like Noah play ball.

We took Carter to his first Bulls game last week. The played the Sacramento Kings, ironically, both former teams of Ron Artest. Carter was as excited as, well, a little boy at his first basketball game. We bought him a T-shirt, ate ice cream, and oohed and aahed at the Bulls’ Jordan-era, theatrical player introductions. The Bulls put on a show in the first half, going up 67-43 at the break and eventually stretching that to a 35-point lead in the third quarter.

The team runs a promotion where every fan gets a free Big Mac at an area McDonald’s if they score 100 points in a game, and I explained to Carter at halftime how it was a sure thing. “They only have to score half as many points as they already have,” I told him. “We’re winning a free Big Mac for sure.”

The Kings had better ideas, and eventually overcame that enormous deficit to stun the Bulls, the second biggest comeback in league history. Carter was as upset as the rest of the crowd as they booed every Bulls turnover, every bad shot by Derrick Rose, and every Sacramento bucket. I suspected he was just imitating their exasperation, groaning and shouting, “Oh no,” but as the game drew to a close he burst into tears.

Debbie and I reassured him that it was okay, you can’t win every game. “I know that,” he said, wiping his nose, “But I really wanted to win a big hamburger.” The Bulls finished with just 98 points, one basket short of our free Big Mac.

I think he understood the part about not always winning, but I suppose the game lets you down in many ways. A Big Mac would have tasted really good after a game like that. We promised to take him back sometime when the Bulls could score 100, but at this point in their 11-17 season and a coaching change looming, I don’t know when that will happen again.

But paltry total aside, I enjoyed reading more this year than I can ever remember. I give most of the credit for that to the Infinite Summer project that prompted me to read and, more importantly, think and write about Infinite Jest, Dracula, and soon Roberto Bolano’s 2666. Participating in that group has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my past year, and I hope it continues.

So, for what it’s worth, the books I read this year:

1. Working, Studs Terkel*
2. Macbeth, William Shakespeare
3. The Best Creative Nonfiction (Vol. 2), Lee Gutkind
4. Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn
5. Granta 104: Fathers
6. Forty Signs of Rain, Kim Stanley Robinson
7. A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago, Ben Hecht
8. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
9. Good Book, David Plotz
10. Create Your Own Economy, Tyler Cowen
11. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
12. Granta 105: Lost and Found
13. Dracula, Bram Stoker
14. The Big Sort, Bill Bishop
15. The Wild Things, Dave Eggers
16. Black Dogs, Ian McEwan
17. The Best Creative Nonfiction (Vol. 3), Lee Gutkind
18. Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell
19. Last Evenings on Earth, Roberto Bolano
20. The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolano

* This makes me a terrible Chicagoan, but I couldn’t finish this. I started reading it right as I went back to work, and reading a bunch of interviews with people talking about how they cope with their crappy jobs while I was coping with going back to a crappy job was just too much to bear. I promise I’ll come back to it.

I don’t think it’s too strong to say that I loved these stories. I read it to prepare for the next Infinite Summer reading of Bolano’s 2666 because I have never read any of his work. I was wary of starting off with a massive novel like 2666 or The Savage Detectives, so this book of stories fit the bill. The writing is superb and compact, and Bolano generates a palpable sense of bemusement with each tale. You feel like you’re sitting at a bar with him in the fading afternoon sunlight while he chain smokes and tells you his stories, almost as if he had to hear them out loud to believe them himself. I particularly enjoyed “Sensina” and “Dentist.” Highly recommended. I’m starting The Savage Detectives next, and hopefully can finish it in time to start 2666 for the new year.

We’ve tried to mitigate the confusion by telling Carter he’s lucky enough to celebrate both, but he’s been asking a lot of questions about what constitutes “celebrating.” Can I go to a Christmas party if I celebrate Hanukkah? (Of course.) Can Grammy (Debbie’s mom) celebrate Christmas if she visits Momo’s (my mom’s) house? (Absolutely). Can Daddy eat Hanukkah food if he celebrates Christmas? (God I hope so).

Carter has homework assignments from preschool once a week, little worksheets for practicing reading, writing sentences, and doing arithmetic. Last week, one assignment asked him to write variations on the sentence, “We play …,” as in “We play baseball” or “We play tag.” He and I cut out pictures from the newspaper, glued them on the sheet, and started to write his sentences below the pictures.

“Okay, this first one is a football player, so we’re going to write ‘We play football’,” I said.

“How do you spell that?” he asked.

“C’mon, you know. The first word is ‘we’. Can you spell ‘we’?”

“W-I-I.”

Carter is still confused about Christmas and Hanukkah. But I think he has the real spirit of the season down pat.

I bought a Kindle version of this book to read on my iPhone after reading the flurry of coverage for Gladwell’s newest book, What the Dog Saw. I read and enjoyed The Tipping Point, and generally enjoy the idea of what Gladwell does, that is, turning conventional wisdom on its head with a mix of reporting and statistical reasoning. But the backlash against his more recent work, especially Steven Pinker’s review of What the Dog Saw and a long takedown by Maureen Tkacik at The Nation, raised the intrigue for reading Outliers.

I have mixed feelings about the book, because while it was a lively and thought-provoking read, it mostly left me depressed. Gladwell’s central argument is that wildly successful, rich and famous people, the professional athletes, rock stars, and business tycoons of the world don’t make it on talent alone. Fame and fortune demands exceptional talent of course, but it also requires the right mix of hard work, advantageous socioeconomic background, skillful parenting, and luck. One of the catchy ideas from the book is the “10,000 Hour Rule,” the idea that to truly master anything, be it music, writing, or computer programming, the aspiring superstar has to put in over 10,000 hours of practice.

This is where I start to despair. I haven’t become rich and famous because I wasn’t born at the right time, didn’t meet the right people, and didn’t stumble into the right situation. But I also haven’t been working hard enough. In a way, a book that Gladwell surely must have intended to be uplifting–every success can be explained if you look closely enough!–can be used as an excuse for failure. It doesn’t help that he closes the book with an epilogue about his family history, thus explaining his own meteoric success. After reading this I wonder if I should just pack it in and run out the clock until it’s time to retire, to somewhere drab, boring, and cold, no doubt.