"Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity"

I find it intriguing  that two of my favorite books that I have read recently are "The Sun Also Rises"(Hemingway) and "The Moon is Down"(Steinbeck). Isn't that the truth with me though? Literature, day in, day out; morning and evening.

While I was stuck writing confined blogs about "who I am" the whole month of January,  in my personal time I was going on a classic literature binge (one of the many privileges of living alone). I read so much modern fiction in college, lots of Piccoult, Gilbert, Gruen, and never even thought about Twain, Steinbeck, Homer, Hemingway, and Wilde.

"Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read." -Mark Twain

It wasn't until I re-read Homers, "The Odyssey" as an adult, that I became enamored with the writing style. Now, I had previously read this book twice; once as a freshman in high school, and then again as a sophomore in college. Both times, I enjoyed the book, but I never appreciated it. But once the classroom setting was gone, and there was no pressure about being tested on the material, I was able to really get into it.  My conclusion? The classroom kills classics.

As much as I love the fictional story of "the classics", I love thinking about the authors mental journey as they wrote the story infused with their own personal experiences. "The Moon is Down" is a perfect example of this: Written in 1942 as a work of propaganda to assist the Allied war effort, Steinbeck came under some criticism for portraying the Germans (the conquerors were not actually identified as German in the book itself) too sympathetically, in contrast to the more virulent and crude propaganda that tried to demonize them. Steinbeck gave the enemies a face. He gave them emotions, and showed them as people, and not monsters.  After the war, the work was more universally praised when it became apparent that it had greatly encouraged the resistance in Nazi-occupied countries. The Moon is Down exhibits Steinbeck's skill in characterization and psychological sensitivity. Without question, its is a work of propaganda, but I think it stands as a substantive piece of literature in its own right. The work leaves readers with an important idea to chew on:  What is the nature of propaganda itself, how can it be defined? Is it a particular genre or is its categorization as propaganda determined by its intent?

I wish I had more "geeky" friends who I could discuss these ideas with. It makes me miss school in that regard. First and foremost, I love literature, but second of all I love discussing literature. This is why I have committed to going back and auditing one literature class a term. I don't care about the credit, I care about the passion. 

Here is a random list of some of the classics I have grown to love more and more every time I read them:

Steinbeck:

 East of Eden

Pastures of Heaven

The Moon is Down

Travels with Charley

The Winter of Our Discontent

Hemingway:

For Whom the Bell Tolls

The Old Man and the Sea

The Sun Also Rises 

Twain: 

Diaries of Adam and Eve

Letters from the Earth

 

"When you re-read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before.  You see more in you than there was before."-Clifton Fadiman

Timshel

"The Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not...But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest."

Sure enough, it is 130 am and I cant sleep. I have tried it all, I watched a movie, listened to music, and finally picked up a book. Thanks to todays conversation with Jared and our text quote messages from EOE, I decided to thumb through my copy and skim the pages. Though my copy is riddled with pencil marks and bobby pins, only one page in the book has its corner perfectly creased. I opened to the page and looking back at me was the quote:

"It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it."

And damnit, I cried.

I am a loyal person. If I make a promise, I try my hardest to come through with it. I have made a promise to my job. I have made a promise to the students that I will work my ass off to raise them scholarship money so that they can continue in their education and have one less thing to worry about. There really wasn't much say for employees when the job descriptions were re-written- we were essentially told that we would fill into these positions, and we signed our names next to the X's. I have learned something about myself throughout this process. I learned that I have the ability not to regret; but resent. I resent the 'promotion'. But here is what I do know--I wont quit. No chance in hell.

When talking to Jared on the phone it is easy for us to day dream and plan our next big adventure. I can't say how much of it is true on his end, I don't know if he would ever grab my hand and launch into some unknown travel adventure. But ladies and gentlemen-trust me when I say that I would do it. I just cant do it right now.

As we do on most nights, Jared and I got onto the topic of adventures (shocking. I know) He outright said "Quit your job and lets run the fuck away" My reply? "How far can we go?" Baja,Mexico: The Sea of Cortez was the place for us. All I asked him was to "give me till June." His reply to this stung like hell. He said "I don't believe you. Not even a little."

I interpreted that as him feeling like I was all talk, and that I wouldn't ever do something like that. I am doing all that I can right now, and maybe that's me flying to CO for the weekend, but its the best I can do right now without breaking a promise to my job. Last week when I sent him the blog link for my list of places I wanted to go to. His reply was spot on. "I love it. Now you have to decide what you're going to do with it. You could "wait until the time is right". You could avoid it out of fear, be it based on money, transportation, supplies, and what-have-you. You could choose to sit and let it fester, coming back to it from time to time with false hopes and inspirations. These are what most people would do. But you're not most people. You're not even some of the people. You're one person; Melissa Fucking Carlin. Let your actions follow your aspirations."

Funny thing is--I am not scared. Not at all. I fact I am wickedly confident. Most people don't have the balls to walk out of a job, or walk away from their comfort zone, but that gut adrenaline gets me high. But when it all comes down to it at the end of the day, I would feel like a coward if I broke my promise to my responsibilities.

γιατί όχι is the tattoo that I wear on my wrist. It means "why not". It was my first tatt and I got it the day before I left Athens, as a reminder to myself to go with my gut, and to roll with the adventures, just as I had done my whole time in Europe. To be honest with you--I feel like I am not living up to my tattoo any more.

I cant tell if I love or hate the fact that a person like Jared has become a part of my life. I cant tell if I love or hate the fact that I laugh at every stupid text, and sit humbled in awe when we swap quotes from literary icons. What I can tell you though is that my gut loves it. My mind is stimulated once again, my "filter" for my thoughts has a chance to relax, and my spirit is awake. I feel energized and excited. With that said, this is not entirely thanks to him, a lot of it stems from living at home again, and having an incredible support network. I think a part of me is scared by that he has rattled me, and opened my eyes. I have never met someone so god damn accepting of every single one of my flaws.

I am dying to get to Colorado for the weekend. I am dying to take a break from the harsh reality of a 9-5. And good lord I hope that someday I really can pack my shit and hit the road. I say wholeheartedly that there is nothing else I would rather do. I feel like this post has turned a little teenage angst-y, so I will take this moment to point out the fact that I recognize that I am not all talk, and that I too wish I wasn't locked into a job, but it is where I am at in my life right now; And frankly I think it is where I am supposed to be right now. I will have my adventure someday, and I will start crossing off my list of places and adventures--But for the moment, I will find peace in the fact that I am blessed to have a job, blessed to have a family who supports me in all my wild ideas, and friends who inspire me. Maybe I'm not out exploring right this instant, but man, really-how could I ever complain?

Thank you Steinbeck

"Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite… A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then—the glory—so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man’s importance in the world can be measured by the quantity and number of his glories.

In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics,and
even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God. This in my time is the danger. There is great tension in the world,tension toward a breaking point,and men are unhappy and confused.

At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask myself these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?

Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of
extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man… It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most
valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual…. If the glory can be killed, we are lost"

-John Steinbeck, East of Eden.