The Age of Will

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Maya Angelou’s voice clearly comes through in this wonderful cookbook. She shares stories and recipes, both of which are delicious.

The recipes are mostly out of my class–but they sound wonderful. I loved reading the stories and the recipes. In fact, I sat down as soon as I got this book and read it straight through. I enjoy her stories, and these were homey and comforting.

In short, one of the best “cookbooks” I’ve ever read.

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This book purports to be a “guide through the American status system” but it is a guide to the author’s prejudices.

The author divides Americans into several classes starting with “Top out-of-sight” going through “bottom out-of-sight.” The author speaks of upper-class as unable to think, middle-class as pretentious, and his disdain for the lower-classes is apparent each time he mentions “proles” (his word for the lower-classes). He obviously considers himself “Class X,” which is the only class he likes: they have no class orientation, but make fun of all the other classes.

Some of the information is interesting and recognizable, but most of the book reflects the author’s dissatisfaction with class. He may consider himself class X, but he’s obviously middle-class and obsessed with class distinctions. Don’t bother to read this unless you, too, are a middle-class pretender to class X.

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Hopping a freight from Los Angeles to San Francisco, Kerouac meets an old bum hopping the freights. He shares food and wine with the man and is reminded of a line from the Diamond Sutra, ‘Practice charity without holding in mind any conceptions about charity, for charity after all is just a word.” Kerouac and the bum talk and share thoughts during the ride. The bum whips out a tiny slip of paper with a prayer by Saint Teresa on it. Kerouac realizes that he is among a larger group of people searching for purpose, searching for meaning. He considers himself a religious wanderer.

Japhy is a spiritual guide to Kerouac. He meets him at Berkley. Japhy spends his time studying and learning what interests him. Japhy introduces Kerouac to the mountains and mountain climbing. The solitude and clarity of thought one finds after the physical exertion of climbing and communion with nature.

Japhy’s simple love of nature influences Kerouac to spend more time alone and with nature. He spends several months at his families home living on the porch and spending countless hours in the woods meditating.

Sometimes in the woods I’d just sit and stare at things themselves, trying to divine the secret of existence anyway. I’d stare at the holy yellow long bowing weeds that faced my grass sitmat. . . It was eerie. I’d fall asleep and dream the words “By this teaching the earth came to an end,” and I’d dream of my Ma nodding solemnly with her whole head, umph, and eyes closed. What did I care about all the irking hurts and tedious wronks of the world, the human bones are but vain lines dawdling, the whole universe a blank mold of stars. “I am Bhikku Blank Rat!” I dreamed.

What did I care about the squawk of the little very self which wanders everywhere? I was dealing in outblownness, cut-off-ness, snipped, blownoutness, putoutness, turned-off-ness, nothing-happens-ness, gone-ness, gone-out-ness, the snapped link, nir, link, vana, snap! “The dust of my thoughts collected into a globe,” I thought, “in this ageless solitude,” I thought and really smiled, because I was seeing the white light everywhere everything at last.

Kerouac rails against the popular theme of the time, that the new American counter-culture interest in Buddhism requires a distrust or dislike of other popular religions.

Kerouac shares with his readers the search, the struggle to make sense of our existence and our reality. He brings to the page the common mans thoughts as he explores and searches not for answers, but for ever larger questions that will allow us to see beyond and evolve beyond our corporal selves.

And in keeping with Japhy’s habit of always getting down on one knee and delivering a little prayer to the camp we left, to the one in the Sierra, and the others in the Marin, and the little prayer of gratitude he had delivered to Sean’s shack the day he sailed away, as I was hiking down the mountain with my pack I turned and knelt on the trail and said “Thank you, shack.” Then I added “Blah,” with a little grin, because I knew that shack and that mountain would understand what that meant, and turned and went on down the trail back to this world.

Kerouac writes with a clean honesty and friendly conversational style. His easy going writing style makes everything he writes seem personal and exposed, letting us catch glimpses of the author behind the words.

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As an alternate world, Thursday Next’s world has to be one of the best ever. In her world, literary police carry guns and arrest people. Literature is taken very seriously and Thursday is one of the literary police. Her jobs are generally not too dangerous, but the current job is an exception: She has to stop a madman from destroying Jane Eyre!

The book is an introduction to Thursday’s world, which takes a great deal of introducing as it is so different from the world we live in. We learn that Thursday’s brother was killed in a war which is long over in our world, Thursday’s uncle is an inventor of wonderful things, and Thursday’s dad is/was a member of the chrono police. The book is full of literary reference, many of which I am sure I missed. (It makes me long for a classical education, something not found in suburban St. Louis Missouri public schools!) I loved this book, as it was smart, funny, and not too pretentious!

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The biography of a brilliant mathematician, A Beautiful Mind is not only fascinating but extremely well written. John Nash is a mathematician whose brilliance is matched by illness, specifically schizophrenia. When his illness takes over, his life changes dramatically. And in turn, he is changed by his illness.

Although the book is nothing like the movie (with very few exceptions), it does a much better job of conveying the extremes involved in Nash’s life. A brilliant, and arrogant, man who becomes ill but is still brilliant. On the other hand, a life full of promise becomes a living hell, which Nash eventually overcomes.

The writing is wonderful, and the author pulled me in from the prologue. I was amazed by the math (although I didn’t understand all of it) and awed by the power of Nash’s illness. This is far and away the best biography I’ve ever read. Highly recommended!

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Richard Leo had a good life. He had graduated college, was starting a career, living with his girlfriend in New York.  But it wasn’t what he wanted out of life.  So after much soul-searching, he sells everything, grabs the girlfriend and heads to Alaska.

With no previous experience, they manage to survive in Alaska and eventually build a home in a remote section of wilderness.

Richard tells his story with honest self-effacing humor and charming wit.  He seems to have a never ending supply of optimism.

Even if you don’t read the whole book, you should at least read the last chapter which starts:

It’s impossible to live in isolation and not reach toward the rest of life.

Lonely people long.  Saints pray.

The rest of life can be other people or God or the land where animals look for or provide food.

I can’t judge which is more worthy to reach out toward.

It’s all requisite and, with a moment’s reflection, surrounding.

True isolation is, ultimately, a feeling of being disconnected.

A wilderness homestead can certainly seem, to conventional perspectives, isolated.

But for me it is connected to so much of the rest of life that I can’t feel lonely.
When I stomp out across the tundra in pursuit of game or firewood, I am very much aware that the reasons for my excursions are identical to those that motivated our ancestors from the time the Ice Age required an immediate link to the animals and to the gods who sustain us all.

Edges of the Earth is a well written and gripping story that I strongly recommend.