"The Stranger In The Woods"

A simpler life: part 4
   Knowing that our book club was reading "The Man Who Quit Money", a librarian friend suggested that I read "The Stranger in the Woods"- another true story.
    I was repelled by this book when I first started it, because this man, Christopher Knight, lived his solitary life by stealing.  He lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, beginning at age 20, never speaking to one person.
  However, I am glad that I continued because it is a most interesting portrayal of a hermit, a person who does not want to interact with anyone anytime, but is closely connected to nature.
"He knows the season, intimately, its every gradation.  He knows the moon, a sliver less than half tonight, wanning."

   The author of this book, Michael Finkel, did great research on solitary living.  Not just a simpler life, but a solitary life.  He tried to help the reader understand not only Christopher Knight but this important question: "What makes a good life?"

"People have sought out solitary existences at all times across all cultures, some revered, and some despised".
  Would you believe that our desire to be alone may be partly genetic?  The author read a study about brain chemicals called 'pituitary peptide oxytocin' and 'vasopressin', describing how the presence or absence of these chemicals explains why some people need and want more or fewer interpersonal relationships.  Now that's interesting, don't you think?

  The author gives 3 reasons for withdrawal from society: pilgrims, protesters, and pursuers.
Pilgrims are religious hermits believing that seclusion leads to spiritual awakening.  There are 4 million in India.
Protesters are disillusioned with the world- wars, environmental destruction, evil people, etc. There are 1 million protester hermits in Japan at present rejecting Japan's present culture.
Pursuers are writers, painters, scientists, and philosophers (like Thoreau) "Not till we have lost the world do we begin to find ourselves".

As interesting as this is, it still doesn't describe "The Stranger In The Woods".  The missing piece for me was the fact that, when he was no longer able to live in the woods, he was believed to have either autism or schizoid personality.  Sadly, he had great difficulty living back in society.  All he wanted in life was to live and die in the woods.  What does make a good life?

Mark Sundeen

Mark Sundeen

   A simpler life: part 3
   After reading "The Man Who Quit Money" c2011, I was interested in learning more about the author, Mark Sundeen.
  His next book "The Unsettlers" c2017, revealed some of Mark's interest in a simpler life: "The comfortable life is a slippery slope toward the consumer life.  I wanted fewer bills, fewer rules, less stuff and more freedom.  Our brand of capitalism has laid waste to our land, our homes, and not the least of all, our souls".
  Although, at 41,  he married a woman who had been raised by hippies in a simple life, she realized that she wanted more of what the world had to offer - an education for a start. Mark realized that, although he was attracted to the ideals, he was repelled by the hardships.  And so, he decided to write a book about this topic and searched out couples that were leading lives of 'radical simplicity'.

  The first couple that he wrote about, fascinated me.  Ethan and Sarah arrived by train in Missouri, unpacked their bikes and rode to a farm that they had bought sight unseen.  Oh, yes, Sarah was 5 months pregnant.
  In order to raise a family with no money, no electricity, no insurance, they developed a community devoted to non-violent social change.  They became Quakers and became "The Possibility Alliance".  They realized that society had encouraged people to be 'individual', so living as a community required different skills.  But the group also created the security that usually comes from money in the bank.
  I was fascinated by their tremendous work ethic as well as their devotion to social change.  They had weekly meetings to express joys and challenges.  
   Their 3 inward goals were simplicity, self-transformation, and celebration.  Their outward goals were service and non-violent activism.  Wow!  They were organized!  But they loved to have fun also.  They began each day with an hour of meditation, prayer or yoga.  They were on a mission to change the world but began with themselves.
  
  The other stories did not interest me very much.  One couple lived in Detroit and bought up land in run-down sections of the city to build gardens.  Their focus was on eating locally grown, organic food.

   Another couple in Montana had electricity but no computers or cellphones.  They also did organic gardening.  They lived in a teepee but built a boathouse with a flush toilet and hot shower. Their business was called "Lifeline Produce".

  It appears that there is a trend back to farming, and this book mentions many other books that are written on the subject.

"The Man Who Quit Money" by Mark Sundeen

A simpler life: part 2

    "The Man Who Quit Money" is the true story of Daniel Suelo, born in 1961 into a fundamentalist Christian home in Colorado.  At college in Boulder, he struggled with the tenets of his parents' religion, and began reading the scriptures of all world faiths, while visiting a different church each week.
   He worked in a hospital for awhile as a phlebotomist (drawing blood).  He also worked for the Peace Corp in Ecuador. Actually, as he wandered, he picked up many different types of work. 
    But Daniel was very concerned about the environment.  He spent 3 months sitting in a tree to save it from being cut down. He lived 20 years in Moab, Utah, connecting with other like-minded wanderers.  He made some money by house-sitting and other odd jobs.

Daniel Suelo

    In 2000, he decided to live without money.  He was very concerned about his ecological footprint and decided to "use what is freely given or discarded and what is already present and already running".  So he lived in a cave while foraging for food on the land and in the dumpsters.
  Suelo's story parallels Thoreau in that they both were very deep thinkers, and although Suelo wrote a great deal, none of that writing has been published, although he does have a website and a blog. (He uses the computers at a library).
   Although Suelo worked on many jobs- Alaskan trawler, food kitchens, women's shelters, he never accepted money.  In fact, when publishers wanted to have his story written, he refused any pay. He was willing to give his story but wanted the books to be given away.  The publisher ended up agreeing to give away some copies, not all.
  The author went into way too much detail in some parts of the book (such as the pages on the U.S. monetary system and the difference between premillennialists and postmillennialists in his fundamentalist upbringing).
  But I tried to put together the pieces in order to understand this man, Daniel Suelo, who lived in a cave and ate other people's discarded food.  I believe that he was basically trying to solve life's mysteries.  His search was spiritual, as well as ecological.
  Daniel was one of many back-to-the landers.  And we will pursue this movement further in the next blog.

"Walden" by Henry David Thoreau

   A simpler life: part 1
"Walden" by Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau lived from 1817-1864, a Harvard-educated young man who built a shack in the woods, near Concord Massachusetts and lived there for two years.  What makes his writing interesting and important is his contemplation of life.  He was a philosopher and poet, but also a naturalist. The book has not been out of print since 1854.

  
The best thing about this book is the quotes:
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

  
 This is the only picture that I can find of Thoreau.  

The themes in this book are significant in every age. There are times when the complexities of life can overwhelm us and his simpler existence seems appealing.
What can we learn from him?
1.) appreciation of solitude- Quote: "I love to be alone.  I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude". 
2.) appreciation of nature- Quote: "Our eyes contemplate with admiration and transmit to the soul the wonderful and varied spectacle of this universe.  The night veils, without doubt, a part of this glorious creation; but day comes to reveal to us this great work, which extends from earth even into the plains of the ether".
3.) appreciation of literature- Quote: "Reading is a noble intellectual exercise, not that which lulls us as a luxury and suffers the nobler faculties to sleep the while, but what we have to stand on tip-toe to read and devote our most alert and wakeful hours to".
4.) appreciation of life- Quote: "This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore".

I love the title of this book.  It reflects the importance of water-Walden's pond.  Water is the focal point.  Thoreau thought of water as "liquid joy and happiness".

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation".  Thoreau thought the world's values were topsy-turvy.  He marched to a different drummer and others have heard echoes of that sound.  We will look for this echo in the life of Daniel Suelo in "The Man Who Quit Money".  

Falling down the rabbit hole

   In Annie Spence's book "Dear Fahrenheit 451", she talks about... 

falling down the rabbit hole: books that lead to more books.

"Sometimes, a book can take you on a journey far beyond the story itself.  Sometimes, one thing leads to another....."
   Has that ever happened to you, dear reader of my blog?

   I started preparing to lead a discussion of "The Man Who Quit Money".  After the massive consumerism of Christmas, I was attracted by 'a simpler life' and discovered that the author had written another book following that theme, so I read "The Unsettlers".  Now I was really into 'radical simplicity', learning about living 'off the grid'.  Not that I am willing to give up indoor plumbing and a warm bed, but then I found "Off the Grid Homes" where they have comfort, but use the environment to advantage rather than depleting the resources.

  Issues such as global warming, ozone depletion, and acid rain are discussed with possible solutions.  In this book, "Off The Grid Homes", there are beautiful photos of six homes using alternative technology for generating and conserving energy.  Being 'off the grid' can still be comfortable, but, wow, it is complicated.  This book talks about 'sustainable living'- more to my liking, but not my understanding.  I believe my friend Gayle and her husband have used some of this technology in building their spectacularly comfortable home.  I do like comfort, but I would like a closer relationship to nature. Because I love the sky, I have fantasized about a house with a clear dome so that I could always see the whole sky.
   However, Daniel Suelo, "The Man Who Quit Money" would obviously never live in any of these fabulous homes.  He wanted to be free to live where and how he wished to live.  Is that possible in this day?  His book is called "A Walden for the 21st century".
  So, I plan to write a series of blogs on living a simpler life.  And we will start with Thoreau.

"Dear Fahrenheit 451"

   The subtitle of this book is: "Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks".  The author, Annie Spence, has spent ten years as a public librarian in the American midwest.
  This book is filled with short letters to a wide variety of books, expressing the author's love or dislike for each individual book.  The book is advertized as "a celebration of reading".  It has short, snappy chapters- one for each of her book choices.  And so, in response, I write my letter to her book:


Dear book,
  This is really weird, writing a letter to a book, that writes letters to books.  But I was a librarian and now I'm a book club lady and I know many of the books that are the object of your letters.
   I was delighted that you wrote to "Yertle the Turtle", talking about the moms and tots at the park, where a mom had you tucked into her bag.  There was an interesting letter to "The Hobbit", suggesting that he smoke some pipe-weed and hang out more with other hobbits.  I recognized lots of popular books as well as obscure ones. You wrote to "Penguin Roget's College Thesaurus in Dictionary Form", apologizing for not appreciating it more. You refused to buy "The Twilight Series" when you saw it at a yard sale, because it takes up most of teen's prime leisure-reading years. And I loved when you said you were going to kick "Fifty Shades of Grey" to the curb.
    I wanted to love you because 'books about books' are delightful and you are so creative!  
  Your choices are disparate and I had anticipated that you would use delicious words like that.
   But...can we talk?  What is with the potty mouth?????  You are a cute little book that lives  in a beautiful, cozy library- not down the street in the pub!  Your lewd, crude, rude language ruined you for me.  I will be returning you to the library and hiding you in some obscure corner so that no more readers have to put up with your squalid and odious language.
        
                          Straighten up and fly right!
                          Book Club lady
P.S. I appreciated the list of reading suggestions at the back.  But, even there....your mouth!  Please learn some words that don't start with" f"...or "sh"...  Thank you!

"The Golden House" by Salman Rushdie

 "On the day of the new president's inauguration, when we worried that he might be murdered as he walked hand in hand with his exceptional wife among the cheering crowds, and when so many of us were close to economic ruin in the aftermath of the bursting of the mortgage bubble, and when Isis was still an Egyptian mother-goddess, an uncrowned seventy-something king from a faraway country arrived in New York City with his three motherless sons to take possession of the palace of his exile, behaving as if nothing was wrong with the country or the world or his own story."

  This is the first sentence of "The Golden House"- long and convoluted but it really introduces the novel beautifully.  And lets you know that the sentences will be long and convoluted.
  And so, this "uncrowned seventy-something king from a faraway country" is the focus of this novel- along with his three motherless sons.
  The novel is full of foreshadowing- mostly sinister comments at the end of a chapter.

Charles Dickens

   The story is told through the eyes of Renee, a neighbour who is using this family as a subject for his next movie.
  What I learned about Rushdie's writing:
He can write fabulous sentences!
He lapses into 'stream of consciousness' and loves to go on tangents about fable, myth, and movies. 
His favourite author is Charles Dickens, who captured his own time and place- England 1800's, with exquisite detail. Rushdie aspired to do the same thing for New York from 2008 to 2016.  For these reasons, I found the book fascinating and challenging.
And here is a photo of Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie FRSL (Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature)

"Something is Always on Fire" by Measha Brueggergosman

   I was ready for something light to read over Christmas and found this biography.  I had seen Measha on Canada Reads- first in 2004 and later in 2017.  She is an opera singer and she opened the Scotiabank Giller Prize Ceremony in Toronto this year.   I didn't recognize her at first and realized that she had lost a lot of weight.  I knew there must be a story there.

   Her book begins in 2009 with open-heart surgery.  Yes, there was a story there.

   She had been molested twice before the age of 10.  As a result of being bullied, she had a complicated relationship to her body and also to food. By 28, she weighed 350-370 pounds.  She paid no attention to this. "Opera singing has a tradition of big voices in big packages".  Her career was doing well and her husband loved her unconditionally.  From denial, she turned to obsession, eventually having bariatric surgery, followed by joining Bikram yoga.  She lost 150 pounds.

   Measha had decided that she wanted to take a leadership course in yoga.  It was an intensive, 9-week course in hot yoga in Las Vegas- practicing twice a day in 42 degree heat for 90 minutes, plus learning anatomy and history in three languages.
  Although Measha had realized from a very young age, that she would spend her life singing, she needed to find the right education as well as private teachers, and later it was important to get managers and agents, that could help to mold her career.  I didn't realize that there were so many genres of music and she was interested in more than one.
  She had great success with her singing career but always struggled to keep a balance of career and family.  She lost twin babies and went on a 10-day silent retreat to work through her grief, rising at 4:30 every morning and retiring at 9:30- no talking, no reading or writing or any form of technology.  Meditating for 9 hours and 45 minutes each day.
  Towards the end of the book, she talks openly about the lovers that she has had (while married),  admitting that she is selfish and uncompromising.  She describes her husband in glowing terms but had been separated a few times and expected the marriage would not survive.  She wrote, 'It never occurred to me to be faithful".  I find that hard to believe.  Both her father and brother were Baptist ministers and she grew up in the church.
   This is just what I don't understand about memoirs.  Everybody, but everybody now knows all your inner secrets. What motivates people to tell the world every stupid thing that they ever did?  It is now a public record- for children, grandchildren, etc., etc.
  And...she admits that she had never read a memoir!

I will end with her quote:
"Here's the thing: either you write an imperfect book that is done, or you write a perfect book that never materializes.  You can be messy and classy.  You cannot be wise without making a ton of stupid mistakes, it's impossible.  I just sat down and said, "This is the book that I'm writing". I worked very hard to make sure that I could stand by it".
  

"Slaughterhouse Five"

   Grandson David has studied philosophy and is a fan of Nietzsche.  I had asked him about Nietzsche's theory of eternal return when I was trying to read "The Unbearable Lightness of Being".
  Perhaps something from that discussion made him think that I would be interested in this book that he had just read.  He offered me his copy.  And these pictures tell you what I thought of the cover.

The plot:
   Billy Bishop was born in New York state in 1922, became an optometrist, spent time in the army in World War II, married, had children, was in a plane crash, was kidnapped by aliens- but certainly not in this order - or any order that I could find.
   Billy Bishop traveled in time.  
  When he was captured by aliens, he was taken to their planet named Tralfamadore, where he learned that "all moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist."
   Billy Bishop was "unstuck in time", traveling between periods of his life, unable to control where he would land. Can you see my problem with this book?
   However, I really tried to suspend all rational thinking and just go with the flow as much as possible.  When Billy first experienced time-shifting, he was able to see his entire life, from beginning to end.  I have to admit there were parts of the plot that interested me, but it is certainly out of my reading comfort.
   I found several other covers that I would have preferred.
   There actually are many themes that are explored in this novel. Anti-war is the one aspect that caught the attention of college students.  The subtitle is "The Children's Crusade" because the soldiers in W.W.II were SO young.  The bombing of Dresden was actually experienced by the author.

   
   This cover shows that the book has won many awards, as a book and as a film.
   But, it has also been banned and is still being banned.