Luck and Courage
I read both fiction and nonfiction. I love to escape into stories, made-up or real-life. I’m particularly a fan of the memoir (which really should come as no surprise given that a lot of these “musings” are intensely autobiographical in nature). So, here I am to report that I’ve just finished reading a particularly compelling one (memoir, that is).
I became acquainted with author Alice Sebold when I read her first novel The Lovely Bones. Although the book, a bestseller, was published in 2002, I probably picked it up around 2005 or so. Bones is the tale of a 14-year-old girl who has been raped and murdered – and who narrates the entire story from her vantage point beyond the grave: in heaven.
I remember thinking: this is an interesting approach.
For whatever reason, I found this novel to be totally intriguing: though certainly in a dark way. The book was anything but a “quick-read” for me.
On a trip to our local Borders store, just recently, I discovered that Sebold had written another book prior to Bones. In 1999, she published a memoir entitled Lucky (as in “lucky to be alive”). This work is a first-person account of her rape: a tragic event that happened on the last day of her freshman year at Syracuse University. The story includes a chronicle of her eventual identification (a few months later) of the rapist; the subsequent trial and conviction; and the progress of her life in the aftermath. The narrative also provides such details as: the status of her relationships with family and other men; her issues with heroin addiction; the gradual awakening to, and acceptance of, her post-traumatic stress syndrome; and the practically unbelievable development when one of her college roommates is raped, on Alice’s own bed, a couple of years later.
So, you’re probably asking: why is this is a story I’d be interested in? What could possibly make this book worth my time?
Good questions.
Just let me say that Sebold is an excellent story-teller. Although this is a very difficult topic to discuss, she pulls it off with incredible sensitivity and skill. And even though it’s autobiography, which goes into excruciatingly-gory detail, especially with the rape scene at the beginning of the book, it rather reads like a novel. I was completely drawn into her narrative. Wondering what will happen next…how will she find her way through this devastation…how can she put herself back together?
Naturally, Sebold’s life has had many twists and turns because of this crime. That she found the strength to look in the mirror, step back, and try to explain, to us, what she sees – well, this speaks to me of a person of incredible courage.
I am truly inspired by her ability to communicate through the written word, and her willingness to expose herself to the world in this way.
For me: as I write, I aspire to similar courageousness. I believe that it is through stories about the human condition that we learn more about ourselves. And that the lessons these stories offer, help us to live with our pain.
May 4, 1970
Although it’s been 38 years now, I can’t seem to forget this day.
This is excerpted from the Eau Claire (Wisconsin) Leader-Telegram, May 4, 1970…
Non-Silent Minority Opposes New Thrust
To the Editor:
I [must protest] the decision, announced by President Nixon on April 30, to deploy American ground and air combat troops into neutralist Cambodia. This [action … further compounds mistakes] … [already made] by this and previous administrations …
I truly am unable to comprehend how the American people [are able to] tolerate such irresponsibility [on the part of our national leadership] …
American young men are dying in Vietnam, and now Cambodia. For what?
[If] the South Vietnamese people are determined to be free of Communist aggression, they themselves are the ones who must rally forces to fight and defend their land.
[Our presence] in Southeast Asia is unconstitutional … we are engaged in a large scale war operation without a formal declaration of war. [Surely this is a] mockery of the document upon which our form of government was established … !
[Are] not the “brave young men,” including reluctant inductees, dying needlessly [in a part of the world where we have no legitimate business]? I [believe] this [to be] the case and cannot agree with the President’s decision to expand the war efforts in Southeast Asia for any reason or for any length of time. Mr. Nixon, you must bring all the American troops home immediately and call a halt to this immoral, unjust and unconstitutional fiasco.
Respectfully, from one of the non-silent minority,
PEACE
James C. Arnold
Of course, also on this day (from the New York Times)…
4 Kent State Students Killed by Troops
Kent, Ohio, May 4 -- Four students at Kent State University, two of them women, were shot to death this afternoon by a volley of National Guard gunfire. At least 8 other students were wounded.
The burst of gunfire came about 20 minutes after the guardsmen broke up a noon rally on the Commons, a grassy campus gathering spot, by lobbing tear gas at a crowd of about 1,000 young people…
For the full text of the article, click here.
See also, the official May 4 website; and for an academic discussion of the day’s events, read The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy by Jerry M. Lewis and Thomas R. Hensley.
Soundtrack Suggestion
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We’re finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.
(“Ohio” – Neil Young)
I Love Being Published
[This article appeared on page G-39of today’s 96 Hours Magazine of the San Francisco Chronicle.]
Flickr Pickr: Jim Arnold
Charles Howard
Thursday, April 10, 2008
TechnoMonk:: Jim Arnold, known as technomonk on Flickr, is an academic dean at a junior college in the North Bay. Although his day job is administrative, he says his true passions are photography and writing. There is no higher calling than “artist,” he says. Arnold has been photo-documenting the world around him since the mid-1970s, and for a few years he made his living doing event photography. He says he used manual-focus 35mm equipment longer than anybody he knows, but finally embraced the digital world in 2004. “When anybody asks me what kind of photography I do, I just say that I’m a wandering documentary photographer ... and then point them to my Flickr site.”
Want us to pick your flickr picture? On the photo-sharing Web site www.flickr.com, tag your images “SFChronicle 96Hrs.” If we like it, we’ll run it here. We especially like Bay Area images and local photographers. To view the 96 Hours gallery of flickr picks, go to sfgate.com/96Hours. For more great Bay Area photography, check out Frederic Larson's “Mystical Photography” on sfgate.com.
- Charles Howard, choward@sfchronicle.com
