Gotham Diary:
Hallelujah
Sunday, 2 January 2011
Will was here today — his father brought him up for a visit — and here’s what I wish I had a photograph of: when it came time to go, I took his hand and walked him into the bedroom, where Kathleen was taking a nap, so that he could say goodbye to Darney (as she is to him). As we crossed below the bed’s footboard, Will’s left arm shot up. It was as though he were dying to answer the teacher’s question, but there was also a touch of revival-meeting hallelujah. I knew what he was trying to tell me, thanks to a tip from his mother: Will has a settled preference for being held by his left hand, the one that I wasn’t holding. I complied immediately; but I thought how interesting it is that Will’s media arsenal doesn’t include vocalization. The sounds that he makes — and he’s becoming quite a singer — are for his own enjoyment. I wonder what he makes of us, the grandparents who talk more or less incessantly. Or do I: he probably knows that we’re enjoying ourselves, too.
(On the elevator, coming or going I forget which, a group of women noticed Will’s eyelashes, which are preposterously long, just as Peter O’Toole’s eyes are preposterously blue. There are predatory insects that would kill to have Will’s eyelashes for antennae.)
The Sunday after the holidays — is the feeling of letdown inevitable or, as Kathleen puts it, is it a “really don’t want to go back to work tomorrow” state of mind? I certainly don’t want to go back to work — and I’m my own boss! The first couple of weeks, if not the first few months of the New Year are going to be difficult, largely because I’m hugely unhappy with WordPress, the platform on which this Web log is produced. For a long time, I was used to being unhappy with WordPress, but when I began to meditate changes (improvements) for the New Year, I saw that we must part, WordPress and I. Four years ago, I broke up with MovableType. Now I’m thinking of breaking up with blogging itself, and reverting to my happy old ways of rolling out a Web site. But enough about housekeeping. (Thursday is my birthday; I am almost sixty-two years older than my grandson.)
The other day, at Crawford Doyle, I spied The Empty Family, a new collection of short stories by Colm TóibÃn. I hadn’t heard a thing about it, probably because Ms NOLA is out of town for the holidays. Wednesday was the 29th of last year, and I read most of the book in 2010, but the copyright notice dates the book to January 2011, so I have really been living in the future these latter days. Three stories stand out — although before I say another word I have to confess that I did not re-read “The Colour of Shadows,” which appeared in The New Yorker a while back. I skipped over it and went straight to “The Street,” which is more of a short novella than a long short story. Imagine Brooklyn, only set among the Pakistani community of Barcelona instead of the Irish community of King’s County, and with a young gay man in the spotlight. Was it written before or after the novel? Also striking: “The New Spain,” in which a lapsed Communist returns to her native Catalonia after the death of Franco and, basically, gives her family the finger. (I don’t even want to think about where TóibÃn got the chained refrigerator bit.) There’s also a lovely story, “The Pearl Fishers,” in which the narrator is as vinegary as the author. I’ll save my thoughts about the “graphic sex” in The Empty Family for a reading note. Note to Migs: I’m sending you a copy, and you (and the author) know why!
My friend JRParis wrote a lovely valedictory for 2010 that matches TóibÃn’s gift for melting appeal. Jean lists a few of the things that he did last year, but even more things that he didn’t do. Near the end, a calamity that always strikes me as American, even though it killed Camus: one of Jean’s friends died in an automobile accident. That’s all that he says about it, and his late friend’s name is the only one in the entry. In the hands of a lesser writer, one might be annoyed, but Jean prompted me to mount a very discreet roadside  memorial to Francis Grossmann; if I don’t know anything about the dead man himself, I will remember his name, and who but a gifted writer can make anybody do that?
Kathleen is finishing up Guns, Germs, and Steel. “I’m loving this book,” she says. I told her she would — how many years ago? But her curiosity was piqued when Ryan saw it on a bookshelf in the blue room and mentioned it as a book that Megan really ought to read. The next time I read something that I think my wife would like, I’ll have to figure out a way to get Ryan to recommend it to his! (There’s a crazy Golden Bowl vibe humming there that I’m not going to explore!) Kathleen’s next book: The Help. I am very proud of having recognized Kathryn Stockett’s book as a deserving best-seller when a pre-publication copy was sent to me; the Manhattan publishing mafia has still refused to do justice to this wonderful novel.
A few weeks ago, Will started pointing at things. Sometimes he means: “I know what that that is,” but for the most part he’s telling us that he wants got get closer to (ie possess)Â something. I had a little game with him today of pointing back. This delighted him. He stretched forward and pretended to bite my index finger. Meta Meta Meta!