Actually, author season is over for another year. Instead of hunting us, now is the time to put out the salt-lick and spray yourselves for ticks.
Some of you have noticed a shift in tone or content in my new novel, Iodine, and as promised, here is the chance for you to ask/answer questions, offer theories, or talk about your phobias. (I don’t know what you’ll do, for heaven’s sake.) Please be kind to one another: it’s just a novel, life is brief, we’re all in the same itty bitty boat. [Ed. Note: Haven would not actually get in a boat, big or small. She and George Stuteville are both greatly attached to dry land.]
Paul Stukey (Stookey?) said swimming was just a way of staying alive in the water — that he’d do whatever was necessary — pop CO2 cartridges, whatever…
I think he understated it.
One of the things I keep coming back to is the image of Ianthe holding the images of the ultrasounds. (Forgive any errors here, my copy of the book is on loan at this time.) I keep going back and forth on if it’s possible that it was her miscarriage. The reason I think that is because when she is hospitalized, she thinks she has been married for only four months and not four years.
Another way of staying alive without drowning is to keep your face in the air. That’s been my plan for years now and ta da!
Ah, Sock. Good one. I’ll let other people address that first — I know there are plenty of opinions on that scene.
My question would be: What is the question that your Perfect Reader would ask and how would you answer that question? But. I imagine that that is cheating.
A few thoughts:
1. One of the things I loved most about the book was how long it took me to realize what was going on. I suppose that the more astute did not have that problem/privilege. So to the Blog Babies… when did you realize that some instability was at work in our heroine?
2. Not to be too personal, Haven, but your recent experiences make me wonder if you had ever experienced a seizure before you wrote Iodine, as Trace experiences near the end of the book. (Thinking: since your pregnancy was similar to Rebekah’s and this possible connection… you may have to think of your health more when you are writing)
3. You have said that this is possibly your best work. Was this book more difficult to write, both in terms of emotional turmoil and craft?
AlmostClouds, yes, I’ve had seizures in the past, but not for a very long time, and not of the sort that Ianthe experiences. Seizures have a long history in religion and politics, and among mystics. I’ve always been interested in the relationship between brain activity at the basic level and one’s reliability as a narrator, or a viewer, a reporter. That I began having seizures again so close to the book’s publication is just . . . you know, luck.
It was both the hardest book I’ve ever written and the most enjoyable. The research was a massive undertaking, and certainly when I began I had a Grand Theme in mind, one that consisted of half-a-dozen different threads, and each of them had to be woven with absolute consistency. It was also mournful, because I knew the end at the beginning, and there were sections I approached with real dread. But one cannot be an author and a coward. (I have no idea if that’s true.)
Pushing her way to the front of the line, one reader whipped out a list of questions for the author:
1. The chapter titles are clues. Clues to what? I’ve worked on it, I’ve attempted following your hints, but it’s not clear to me. Yet.
2. What was the “reveal” you mentioned several weeks ago about Candy Buck’s trailer?
3. What happened to Candy’s children? When Trace asked Candy “What about Danny Rae and Duane?” Candy “sat very still” and said, “They’re fine now. I took care of them, I made sure. They’re fine now.” Is this tied in with the rusty smears Trace later finds on the walls of the trailer?
4. Candy tells Trace she could “save Billy,” that she “did it twice before [once for Erin and once for Jessie] and survived.” What was Marty threatening and how did Trace succumbing thwart his threat?
5. Is there a way to tell what happens in “real time” and what Trace “imagines”? For example, when Trace writes in her dream journal, is that “imagined”? When her ears begin ringing and her hands are numb, is she “imagining”? The “tall repulsive man with the food-filled beard [and] his wiry-haired companion” at the party — a figment of her imagination?
6. Is there significance to Candy’s maiden name of “Warner”?
7. Is Cleonus the coyote’s name a tribute to your taxidermy friend of nearly the same name?
8. Please connect the dots for me re: the meeting with Cleonus and the rock in Trace’s neck; Jacob finding Trace with the ultrasound screens in her hand; and Trace telling him “This happened to me; you’ve got to take me to Candy’s; I know how to make it stop.” (I realize you may at this point have your head in your hands because I’ve completely missed the point in such a major way, but knowing you need help is 50% of the battle, right?)
Pardon me, Haven can you tell me when Iodine will be available in Australia? I can’t participate in this yet but I look forward to reading this thread once i’ve got my hands on and read Iodine.
Jodi, I like #4. I personally got confused about Billy’s place in the timeline and the references early on to his being “found.” I’ve reread it to see if I could work it out, but so far no such luck. Hopefully Haven can (will) help us out.
and thank you, haven, for doing this and for your answers. we are lucky people.
Amanda, RIGHT?!! When Dusty, in her meth-induced stupor, suggests that Billy’s dead — is he? Was that Billy talking to Trace on the pay phone in the freezing cold? What about the warning letter Trace wrote to Billy about Marty and Loretta knowing where he was, that she forgot to mail? And the ending … Lord, what REALLY happened? Had Billy been dead for five years?
Which brings us to Weeds. He. Breaked. My. Heart. Poor Weeds. How much of his suffering was real? Was that him existing in the farmhouse with Trace? Or is Weeds one of the symbolic black dogs?
Back to you, Amanda.
Jodi:
1. In terms of the chapter titles, begin with the literal meanings and then just follow any threads that make sense. For instance, a ‘nekyia’ is a descent to the Underworld, but not the sort of the Hero’s Journey. It has translations in both Greek and Latin, and is used to describe Christ’s Harrowing of Hell. Imagine what it means in the context of the puzzle in front of you.
2. & 3. The answer to both of these lies in whether you believe Candy exists or ever existed. There is one major clue in their first conversation about that, but if you didn’t see it I’ll tell you what it is.
4. Marty wanted Trace — not Loretta — but Trace ’slipped out of his grasp,’ remember? So who would he threaten in order to make her come home?
5. When Ianthe is in the hospital and her diagnosis is revealed, the neurologist tells Jacob that transglobal/amnesia epilepsy has its own auras, or forewarnings, and that he should learn what his wife’s are. The doctor goes on to say that they typically involve a bell ringing, numbness in the hands or face. We can assume that anything the protagonist experiences when that clue is given is hallucinatory and disassociative.
6. Yes.
7. It’s the other way around.
8. Imagine how difficult — almost impossible — it would be to live independently with such an overwhelming organic illness. Trace/Ianthe uses everything at her disposal to organize the world around her: Freud, Jung, Hillman, literary theory, myth, fairy tales, abduction stories. Let’s say she has a memory from childhood, and it involves a dog, a wolf, a coyote. What are all those animal visitations? Let’s say she has a small knot in her neck, one that even she herself tries to say is nothing, a calcium deposit, because a particular method of organizing — the abduction story — is terrifying to her. In a moment of unbearable extremity, she is no longer able to hide from what she believes to be true most deeply: that she, not just Candy, not just Persephone, was abducted (she fell through a hole in the earth and two hounds fell in after her). She was marked; she was impregnated; she had a child stolen from her. When Cleonus reappears he orders events for her again, as he did when she small. I’m trying to help without saying too much.
Tex, you’re in AUSTRALIA? Give me your address — you can e-mail it to the webmaster by the link — and I’ll send you a copy.
Did Trace need to be rescued so badly that she allowed Jacob to usurp her life? Her nearly-completed degree, her dog, who she was and how she spent her days — all gone, without ever asking him “Why?”. Did she feel that invisible already? Does her name — Trace — give the answer?
Billy is the key to everything.
1. She calls him from a payphone she can never find again.
2. She writes him a letter but there’s no address on the envelope, and she never mails it.
3. She believes she keeps his address and phone number with her at all times, but it isn’t really there.
You can take it from that point.
Jodi, you first have to decide if the protagonist is a person named Ianthe who hallucinates that she has a past as someone named Trace Pennington, or if she’s a woman named Trace Pennington who invents a false identity in order to hide from her past. Either way, what did Jacob really take from her, compared to what he gave her? Did he really take away her dog?
OOOooooooohhhhh … Living amid the corn and death here in Indiana makes one take things too LITERALLY. Maybe Candy’s not REAL?? Oooooohh … you mean, my Favorite Paragraph, the one including the Civil War battlefield?? Is THAT the one with the Major Clue? My brain just unlocked, Haven. Until just now I didn’t “Imagine how difficult — almost impossible — it would be to live independently with such an overwhelming organic illness.”
I’m going to take a quick break. Talk amongst yourselves — I’ll be back shortly.
My friend Tim wants to open a Mexican restaurant called Taco Munch Yourselves.
There you go, Jodi Of The Seven Thousand Hymns.
Haven, This is exciting Beyond Any Singing of It, and I have to re-read and re-think now! THANK YOU for this opportunity!! Sorry for all the exclamation points, but it’s really how I’m feeling. I start teaching middle school tomorrow morning at 7:55 am, and I have to try to Stop Thinking and start sleeping. I’m so looking forward to continuing this discussion tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow … Thanks again, and get some rest yourself.
gah!!! if candy isn’t real it completely negates my point about Billy’s being “found” since it is Candy who says it…
ohohohohoh…. “Trace watched Candy carefully, because this woman – a woman who had come to such straits as this – was the sole repository of Tracy Sue Pennington’s past.”
i hope the quote above speaks to the question of who IS the main character.
re: Jacob… I definitely felt like he was The Great Manipulator but you seem to suggest that I give him a second look. Drat.
i hope the quote above speaks to the question of who IS the main character.
re: Jacob… I definitely felt like he was The Great Manipulator but you seem to suggest that I give him a second look. Drat.
Oh my LORD. I love love love this book…it’s incredible to read and I haven’t a clue what is going on and I don’t care…but I’ve only read it twice and I am on it for a third time now and I have a feeling 20 times is not enough…
hear!hear! kate! i second that emotion.
I believed the Appomattox scene was real, but then I’ve only read Iodine once (and tore through the last half, unwilling to put it down to look anything up, though I have since, talk about threads, talk about a tapestry!). But if Billy’s dead by then, what does Marty have to threaten?
“A conundrum. If he truly believes it and he’s completely sane, it happened. And if he completely believes it and it didn’t happen, he’s crazy. And if it happened, we are all in a bind here, where the aliens are concerned.”
The doctor’s comment about bells ringing being a common trigger had me sitting bolt upright and wishing it weren’t 5am and I could go through the book again for occurrences. She did have that symptom when speaking to Candy.
Also — so striking that Trace calls herself Trace whose alias is Ianthe, until she moves in with Jacob, where the transition to becoming Ianthe seems complete.
Oh how I feel of very little brain in the face of this book.
You really are all quite brilliant.
Amanda: you nailed it. If Billy is dead, Candy isn’t real.
That makes me very nervous, because the scenes with Candy were so incredibly convincing. Except for the whole alien abduction part.
What about Loretta? She seems very unlikely to me. Every time she touches Trace, she gets a blister.
Yes, they were very real.
Also, Loretta communicates with Candy, apparently.
What about that Todd guy in the leather…the one who is bleeding? Another “visitor?”
it makes so much sense looking back, and i cannot wait to reread the book with this information. the clue about the ringing in the ears makes a huge difference.
also, am very interested in page 26 where the animals in her hallucinations are progressively more deadly or dead themselves.. the snake around her neck, the fawn while she makes arrows, a buzzard circling, a calf split open, the hung raccoon, three dogs in the cemetery “looking for my remains” all leading up to the sentence: “Those were all a rehearsal for what came later.”
wow.
I forced myself to save Iodine for my trip-to-the- mountains vacation and oh my lord, it was all I could do to pull myself out of it and interact with my family! I was reminded of being a freshman in college and reading Faulkner’s Sound and Fury and learning to suspend my need to understand everything that was going on and just immerse myself in the story. I’m going to start reading Iodine for the 2nd time tonight and then I will revisit this wonderful blog. I have been so disconcerted for the past 2 days because I had no one to process this incredible book with. Thank you, Haven, for this gift.
Amanda, exactly (about the progression of the animals).
Kate, ask yourself how reliable Trace’s version of Loretta would be, and what is actually known about her.
Beth, thank YOU. Really — this novel is work, and I’m grateful to all of you for taking the time and doing me the honor of reading it.
I am re-reading the scenes with Candy…what*does*it*all*mean?? Why does Candy think she was abducted? What is the significance if she is not real? Is Trace viewing her own abuse manifested in the guise of Candy?
We know that Trace is not reliable at all, obviously, so we can’t really trust the information given…but everything she says about Loretta makes her seem like either a scam artist or another manifestation of insanity. Did Loretta actually abuse her? The events of the book are swirling in my brain…I really haven’t read it enough to really parse it, but I am going back and noticing small things…
Candy is very painful to talk about — for me, I mean. The first time my editor really pushed me to tell her outright, not in literary terms, no ‘it’s in your imagination, Wylie,’ business, the truth about Candy, I couldn’t speak. I feel the same way about Weeds.
What is TRUE is that Candy is Trace’s only friend in the world, and the repository of her history, and that they know everything about one another. And at the very moment Trace becomes most interested in and afraid of various abduction myths, Candy herself announces she has been abducted.
Loretta had a child with violet-colored eyes who had transglobal epilepsy. What do you think she did?
…and the passage where she’s on the dirt floor and Marty on top of her, “once for Erin, once for Jessie” — I confess this made me wonder if they weren’t Trace’s children… (maybe I hallucinated this, as I can’t find it now)
Ok, I get Candy now. It’s completely clear to me.
And yeah, I get Loretta too…
The references to Trace’s herself being a changeling made me think that that was the case with Loretta, too, an abduction.
Hmmmmmmm
Read a page, go back online, click “refresh.” That’s all I’m doing!!
That’s funny, Miss Cake, because I answer a comment, go to another open browser page, read some Go Fug Yourself, come back and hit refresh!
Carrie, those are Dusty’s children. Beloved nieces.
Ok here’s what keeps coming up for me…and maybe it’s because I’m a therapist and have worked in mental health field for so, sooo long, but…could we be talking about dissociative identity disorder? what used to be called multiple personality? There is something about Candy being the “repository of Trace’s history” that makes me think of the splitting off of personalities.
Oh wow, I had never looked at Go Fug Yourself before. Nice to see something like that all nicely organized.
Beth, that is exactly what I was thinking and whythehelldidn’tIthinkofitbeofore??
Beth, that’s certainly one way of describing the situation. Although I believe that what used to be called multiple personality disorder didn’t manifest as An Other Person In The Room with the basically stable identity of the disordered. Our protagonist has a stable personality, if you can accept that. But she is given nothing but an intellect with which to make sense of the world, and so when she’s most in need (or most vulnerable) someone or something arrives and helps her: Candy, Cleonus, Billy, The Man With The Food In His Beard & Toad’s Wild Ride, a dog.
i’ve got one last thought before bed (though, in all honestly, i doubt my employers would notice whether or not i am coherent at work), and my thought isn’t terribly literary. more… bleary.
in THE paragraph on candy you write that she “lacked verisimilitude” and that feels so terribly ironic to me one more than one level. the level that occurs to me tonight is that candy could have been my grandmother… everything about your descriptions of candy and her home rang so crazily true to life. the… stickiness… of candy’s home, the tv, the coffee and cigarettes, the dogs, the filth, the naked, unfocused children… if you had only added a room full of “collector’s edition” dolls and flat diet mountain dew it would be my grandmother’s house exactly.
i could tell you tales!
also arriving to help her: Uncle Eugene. i think.
Ah, but Amanda, she lacked verisimilitude in ONE of Trace’s worlds. She was the final reality in the other. I know how real that trailer was; I’ve been in it, too.
Remember what Uncle Eugene did, besides teach her the truth about bobcats? She scraped her knee on a nail and he put iodine on it.
yes! yes to both those points!
i’m all tingly with the pure beauty of the fact of this post, this book, this discussion. i can’t wait for tomorrow.
Whew, Amanda. God bless you — you’ve made the next year look worth it.
Iodine, my copy, I am sad to say, is somewhere in India even as I write. I gave it to my favorite cousin last Friday who said he wanted something to read on the plane.
So, damn, I have an unreliable memory and my copy of Iodine is in Bombay.
But I told him that in my reading history, I had never seen a book do what Iodine does. I have seen authors control time; I have read from unreliable narrators; I have wrenched plot from dense narrative and description…but I have never, ever, read a book where time, space, and place have been diced up neatly and then placed into blender set on high speed and then have the resultant smoothie thrown against the wall. (Vonnegut did get close, however. Faulkner and Joyce, too)
He said, “Wow, do I really want to attempt this?”
I said, “Maybe not, this book is a pull. Maybe you should just get something Hindu or Buddha-related. Those deities are essentially archetypes. Of course, Iodine is loaded those.”
So my cousin, who just graduated from Stanford, says, “Archetypes? Are you talking Jung or Hillman?”
I said this book makes Jung look like a action figure.
After he left I thought: “Shouldn’t have said that.”
Because I remember finishing it, putting it down, being very puzzled by it, re-reading the ending, going back to certain paragraphs.
Now I may be dancing the electric hubris slide here, but I think I figured it out.
I asked Haven and she kinda, sorta, maybe affirmed my theory in her cryptic way.
But, for me, I couldn’t see through it until I gave up trying to give it a close read. The answer came when I quit looking into the ditches but kept my gaze on the general terrain.
Should I say more?
I will say this. I thought Rita’s clothes were very, very important.
Oh. My. GOD.
I have to stop reading this thread and go re-read Iodine from start to finish. Can I just tell you that it was an amazing and thoroughly captivating read for me, but on a level that is so much more simple that the intricate nuances that are being discussed here. (I came to a similar realization once while watching Monty Python with a theology major who pointed out–through hysterical, gasping laughter–that the way they were conjugating the verbs in that Latin graffiti was what was REALLY funny about the scene.) Sigh.
Miss Haven, you are going to looooooove Lauren Slater’s memoir, Lying. The first chapter is two words: “I exaggerate.” And if that feels too whiff-y of the James Frey disaster, please allow me to lure you in with this: “I have epilepsy. Or I feel I have epilepsy. Or I wish I had epilepsy, so I could find a way of explaining the dirty, spastic glittering place I had in my mother’s heart.”
George, I am laughing like a schoolgirl. You are so bloody smart.
Oh dear…George…please elaborate. The clothes?? Is Rita a lesbian in San Francisco, and if she is, why does that doctor know?
IS THERE A DOCTOR?
Shanna, wow. WOW. You may have heard me mention my mentalist? So we were talking about the dangers of compulsive thinking (for writers — he specializes in writers) and I said to him, “I don’t actually have compulsive thoughts.” But I’m always afraid of lying, so I thought a moment and then said, “Except I’m ceaselessly terrified I’m going to have a seizure.” He said, “Do you have seizures?” And because I’m afraid of lying I said, “I don’t know,” and less than a week later I was in an ambulance. But my mother is guilty of nothing.
Ugh, I wish I had read this book another good three or four times…for some strange reason I scored really well in Reading Comprehension. Maybe because it’s not hard to read one paragraph six times and then answer questions about it. But once? Nope.
No, monkey, I have NOT heard you mention YOUR MENTALIST WHO SPECIALIZES IN WRITERS. (Uh, and I’m going to need all those details. Like…now.)
why? why? why? does this have to start when I am knee deep in preparing for a lecture tomorrow??
ugh.
I have a page one “dot-to-dot” -
Theory:
I think the name “Trace” represents the element of “Iodine” (which is colored violet, as are her eyes in color), and when a human has a deficiency (of iodine) they are “stunted/retarded”; so if Trace has an excess amount of Iodine in her system, would it explain her genuis and her instability/auras/other symptoms of seizures/hallucinations, etc.???
I cannot believe I can’t dive into this right now . . . Will try to catch up tomorrow when I get back in town.
Why do George and I have to work!!!????
(I could have used his help today on the powerpoint thingy-me-jiggy).
You’ll have to go back to the former entry, Boy With Birds, and read about our recent discussion concerning ‘weapons,’ and his reckless, reckless behavior.
I’m unclear about why you people have jobs. Augusten is writing a book on a deadline (I still hear from him all day though), Robert is snowed under, Timmy is working on a huge project, Scott is working on a huge project, only I am avoiding my real job. And I’m not really (CHRISTOPHER), because THIS IS MY JOB after a fashion.
Of course this is your job. And I am almost always here WHILE I am working, because my job almost exclusively involves me sitting on my ass staring at my laptop and clicking, clicking, clicking and occasionally typing. Yay!
clothes are VERY important, goes towards the persona(s) . . . I think.
What I know – I don’t care who was real, I just loved the circling and I am so glad Ianthe/Trace found places and people to offer her sanctuary when she needed it. What an ultimate coping mechanism.
That trailer. I am SHUDDERING, about to pee my pants . . . puke.
But I will try to sleep anyway – hah, me and my thesaurus and Iodine are hitting the sack . . .
I need to figure out a way to get paid to read this blog.
oh. oh my god. george i think i got it. oh dear.
Yes – I am way out of the loop today, due to my self-control, you know . . . and the fact that they freaking electrician working on my studio had my electricity out for 3 1/2 hours this morning . . . way behind . . . should have found somebody’s wireless to syphon off of . . .
Oh dear is right.
AAAAAH I feel like I am so close…just fumbling in the dark and I keep bumping up against things…
GEORGE? Be our light in the darkness!! Tell us your theory, and then Haven the Maven can confirm.
I consider this work time – research don’t you know . . . but then I can’t drag the laptop to appearances, which really gets my invisible panties in a wad!
…could I have the name of your mentalist please? I am in sore need of some explanation.
too early for ultimate theories . . . more agony is necessary
Ok, George email me off list. I’m impatient.
here is what I said on my review – “Iodine is book to be devoured, and yes, endured.”
I meant that in a totally complimentary way, and there was much more to follow, but that is what it felt like to me – birthing.
some Iodine stains just don’t leave
…what really got me about Iodine was place. I have been in Candy’s mobile home. I interviewed her about a terrible buzz in Kokomo, Ind. — a high-pitched whine that only she and a few others could hear. I swear to God, the place Haven described, I was there.
…and I have driven by abandoned farmhouses at night near Oolitic, Ind., just off U.S. 50, where you see a furtive glow of light — scary and inexplicable in a window on the second floor.
…and I know the smell of someone who heats by kerosene.
…and I have heard the smugness and seen the pretension of certain academics in B-list colleges who sought to dazzle middle-class Hoosier kids with their references to Yale
…and the pitiful abandoned dog who snarls at passing bicyclists and is more pained by “You Go Home!!!!” than a kick in the ribs
I had a feeling that Haven took a big dipper and sunk deep in the punch bowl that is rural Indiana where a sumptuous dream or a terrible nightmare is but a matter of interpretation.
Every time I have a baby I throw up a whole bunch.
perfect parallel!
Work-people are all the time gettin up in my business. Like we just had the house painted? And the painters played a boombox constantly. Very nice men, dear as can be, good painters. But sweet creeping savior, fifty times a day the older painter would say to the younger, “Now who’s this?” And I’d be doing my complete silence thing and I’d think, “Foreigner, 1977.” Three point five minutes later the older would ask it again and I”d think, “AAAUUGGHHH. FOGHAT.” And older would say, “Now where’s the man who wrote this song from?” At one point I stepped out on to the porch and said, “Van Morrison is IRISH, Younger Painter Man. Bryan Adams is CANADIAN. Bryan Adams is not RYAN ADAMS, who gets his spaz on if you make the mistake, and the GREAT band that sounds like Foghat but isn’t is BAD COMPANY,” and then I went back to reading the early Quakers.
Haven never ACTUALLY confirmed it and I’m glad of that. So I would be talkin’ outta school. A little mystery is always a good thing. I have no problem with ambiguity.
Ok, that must be what my stomach is doing. I thought it was the Pronto Pup, Gyro, Ski Slushy and Cherry Cobbler Ala Mode I had for dinner (it’s our Fall Festival week.)
It’s not indigestion…it’s IODINE!
haven, i just tried to email you with my thought. i didn’t want to post it here, but i’m not sure the email address i used is valid. hopefully it is b/c ohhhhh myyyyy goodness.
George, if she didn’t confirm it then that is EVEN better. We are supposed to be dishing our theories. Please, be my antacid!
I threw up with all three children and all seven books.
…well, I will go get a copy of it. It sounds like
a thriller! Who is this Man With The Food In His Beard? Has he no shame? Does he dip that beard n hot water and make soooup?
Tell John happy birthday! He should come to Crete one day! Tell him I bought twenty-four ho-made kolaches the other day! No, not all for me, silly republican! I put them out for my co-workers, who fell to with relish. Chewin’, cooin’ ‘n’ sigh’n.
THere were: poppyseed, apricot, cherry and cream cheese. Which would you choose? I wrote up a list of
the characteristics of the kolachoosers of each category…
You know, there is a lot of blog here! Sad, but
I guess any new comments on old posts just sit there in the past…unread! Is there a time-limit on comments?
What have you been reading of late? You probably say so in back posts.
Ask Ma Pedipalp if she ever read “Catseye” by Andre Norton.
M
My husband says I throw up more than any person he has ever met. Maybe it’s a writer thing?
yes, let’s do theories and then Haven can say Hot or Cold . . .
I’m in – just opened a bottle of Primitivo from Capri! Toast!
I’ll just use more concealer under my eyes tomorrow . . .
Between the books and the babies, which was the hardest labor?
….I wrote a brilliant comment about ten minutes ago, and now I don’t see it. darn. my luck
ok I read the thread about the mentalist (fake evil Santa attack, perfectly logical to me). But I still want to know, y’know, about the mentalist. What do you guys DO?
Aaaaugh! I will pray for the deliverance of your comment from blog purgatory, or somethin’.
…naw, we go back and re-read old posts. I do, at least. I have to…to stay up with this crowd! I’m old, you know.
My husband just told me he’s proud of me for being involved in intellectual discussions. If he only knew…
George, Kate, Sher, I am afraid I might be onto what George is thinking??? But I hesitate to post the whole theory… I guess my hint for my IDEA would be to take a previous comment about Trace/Ianthe holding the ultrasound pictures with George’s comment about Rita’s clothes, and, um, also page 191.
This book that we are speaking of, brought me to this blog, and apparently this is the moment I have been waiting for. I feel like I need to be very quiet and just listen, but you need to speak slowly people. This is the book that changed my life and I feel like I am just now figuring out how. My head is spinning and I am so excited I can’t sit still. Please keep asking the hard ones Jodi, and interject when you can George, and the rest of you, so that I can learn something here. And Haven, thank you so much for opening yourself up to this.
last baby was 8 months of bedrest and hospitalizations (5 long ones) . . . thought I would die (but it was boring and I crocheted or puked) . . .
reading Iodine was hours and hours of labor and it is still not fully “birthed” for me.
Matt, I’m weak over here. I’d forgotten that Delonda and I were Pedipalpeses.
I’ve read about 400 collections of poetry (by 400 I mean a bunch), I just finished Darkness Visible, by William Styron. I’m also re-reading The Savage God by A. Alvarez. I loved Joan Silber’s Ideas of Heaven. I’m halfway through Peter Straub’s Shadowland and I’ve just started Dawn Powell’s A Time To Be Born. Also just started a galley of the new Stephen King. But really bushels of poems.
Dear Ms. Cake. It was that brilliant. Just impressionistic. It went something like this:
What really got me about Iodine was place. I have been in Candy’s mobile home. I interviewed her about a terrible buzz in Kokomo, Ind. — a high-pitched whine that only she and a few others could hear. I swear to God, the place Haven described, I was there.
And I have driven by abandoned farmhouses at night near Oolitic, Ind., just off U.S. 50, where you see a furtive glow of light — scary and inexplicable in a window on the second floor.
And I know the smell of someone who heats by kerosene.
And I have heard the smugness and seen the pretension of certain academics in B-list colleges who sought to dazzle middle-class Hoosier kids with their references to Yale
Or the pitiful abandoned dog who snarls at passing bicyclists and is more pained by “You Go Home!!!!” than a kick in the ribs
I had a feeling that Haven took a big dipper and sunk deep in the punch bowl that is rural Indiana where a sumptuous dream or a terrible nightmare is but a matter of interpretation.
also, please someone else hurry up and say this theory out loud because my mind is REEEELING
I say one of the biggest tell-tale clues is on page 13:
“he believes he is telling the truth but he is lying because he doesn’t know the difference, in which case he is not sane in any way . . .
a conundrum . . .
their minds protect them by throwing up a SCREEN MEMORY”
to me this page foreshadows the entire book.
What about page 200??
I hope I’m not in false labor.
I tried reposting my brilliant comment, but the blog won’t take it…guess my secret’s safe with me.
how much do you want for the galley of the new stephen king . . . maybe I will switch to being a writer . . .I like their perks better!
Candy was the sergeant.
george, can i email you? or you me? or haven can just post here whether we are having the same thought?
i am at a.burgess605@gmail.com
Yes, right on Sher. That’s the ticket. That part I understand. But now I am working on the Rita mystery.
yes . . . lost autobiographical details . . . that is good!!!! and the only thing I had flagged on that page!
not that I know what the heck I’m talking about mind you . . . just my theory
one of the most beautiful lines I’ve ever read:
pg. 29
“a girl who rode away from a funeral on a black night mare”
Books are harder than babies, except for the stitches.
Remember how, in the Boy With Birds post, I mentioned how as I wrote the end of Part One of Solace my legs were jumping up and down frantically? That’s what my whole body did writing the first draft of this book. Aaaaand the second. Really, it was one of the worst times of my life but I didn’t realize it — I was just desperately trying to catch lightning in the palm of my hand.
Yes, that, but also what the doctor says about Rita…how the heck would he know?
wow . . . Haven that is amazing, you were a real conduit – thanks for being open enough and strong enough to let it come through . . . we are so lucky and blessed that your editor was responsive to you letting it all hang loose – that must have been invigorating and terrifying at the same time . . .
Thank you, Sher. I love that part, too.
Amanda, I’m quite certain you and George are thinking the same thing. I don’t know what he’s thinking but I think I can guess. I mean, he is George.
And you did, Haven. You definitely did.
kate: is it possible that the dr. is joking? with my current theory of things, that is my assumption.
another tell-tale sign:
pg. 120
“a mnemic trace, as Freud . .. an alteration of my very neurons”
Now, that is something I never thought of.
You women and all your births amaze me. The two most profound experiences in my life were (well, three, really) were being there not just at conception, but when my boys were born. I was once present at a third conception though I had nothing to do with it. I was writing a story about in vitro fertilization and frozen embryo transfer when I actually saw the actual moment through a microscope…it was then and there that I decided DNA was the strongest force on the planet.
thinking like george!!!!!! HOORAY!!!!
the only definition I can find for mnemic is a death metal band from Denmark.
almostclouds…i think we are thinking the same thing. pretty darned amazing, isn’t it?
Shanna, the mentalist sits in a chair and I sit on the couch by the window. He is always dressed impeccably — I mean, bravo, Doctor. I tell him every week how blasted stylish he is. Even his glasses are handsome. And he asks me questions and I answer them, and I ask him questions and sometimes he answers them. This has gone on for quite some time now and I foresee it continuing for years. Recently he admitted that he has given it all, he tries with great fortitude, and doesn’t understand how my mind works. I told him, meh, that’s fine, I don’t either. That’s pretty much it.
George, that is the most incredible part of journalism. I LOVE being in places and getting to see things that I’m unqualified to be involved in. To be allowed to view something of such grave importance and scientific weight would be intense, I am sure.
Yes, I know that death metal band. But death metal bands from Denmark pale in comparison to the ones from Sweden. HAVE MERCY.
george – you would have enjoyed the new show tonight after CSI, it was about cloning. all that DNA . . . wow . . . called 11th hour, very bio-ethical in debates, LOVE that stuff.
I wouldn’t let my husband anywhere but up by my head during the three births, I didn’t want to be there, didn’t want him there, wish I could have crawled into a pile of hay in a barn the way cats do . . . and all he ever said was, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry – poor thing. we were also not into the cutting the cord thing . . . like, gross. and I still don’t think he has seen a live birth, just the baby being put up on the tummy part . . .
amazing indeed. utterly. am on pins and needles even still. i think we took different paths to get here though… for me i needed to look at specific sentences for it to click. but it is staggering.
(PEOPLE: it is nearly 2am and i am supposed to be sitting in a cube in about 6 hours. this is the power of Great Art.)
George, what you saw under the microscope is exactly what it feels like. I mean that.
So, what does that word mean, otherwise??
DAMMIT THROW ME A BONE!
The only thing I can think of is that Trace = Rita, but that is dumb.
Haven, you might like poems by a friend of mine, Ted Kooser. He lives over by Crete.
Haven, what for you are weak? You people all talk about sick and vomit so much.
Eeek- The S.G. – I picked that up once and put it down. Intense, good writing, but the subject matter …och.
You know, at my job, I find out all the houses where suicides have been carried out, in past.
It’s hard not to remember the addresses. Hell, I don’t forget much of anything.
And sooner or later, I’ll see the present occupant of such houses or buildings. I never tell them though.
I usually just smile and say “Hey.” and go on by.
For me, there is not one inch of this town that is not PREGNANT with GHOSTS! Well, stories anyway.
I suppose I could write up a list of such places (suicide grounds)in short order. Teenagers would buy it. Realtors would hate it.
You would be suprised at all what goes on, in any given house. Not all of it is bad. Some of it is funny, actually. And then you run across them again, years later.
Hee hee, I must sound like an intergalactic Marlon Perkins.
I will have to tell you about a new blog I am starting soon. I am gathering material for it. It is to be called “TIMEBUCKET!”
The caps and excitement mark at the end are crucial.
People like a blog title that’s ACTION PACKED dammit!
M
By the way, I think it should be a national custom for people to all agree, that in some set place in a house there would be a jar, and you could leave letters in there for the people who come after you.
nothing was solid in Trace’s life – even her grandmother sat “on a bench someone had crocheted out of cobwebs”
kate…. why so dumb? (page 191, middle)
*Sigh* I know, I know…but I obviously can’t see the forest for the trees or the honey for the bees…
Poor Amanda. No cubes, dearest. Unless it’s a really EXCELLENT cube. My barn is a rectangle.
Sher, childbirth is a freakish nightmare of just utterly vile hellish proportions. I’m still looking for someone to sue.
Two important things:
1. What is the topic of the book Jacob is writing?
2. The poem Gianni steals from Ianthe’s desk is very important.
p.s. When I went through the legal read with S&S, the attorney, who was stepping on my live wire, asked me who wrote that poem and if I’d sought permission to use it. Hand to god.
journalism gave me the ticket to a lot of places I would have never visited
back to Iodine…what really got me was place. I have been in Candy’s mobile home. I interviewed her about a terrible buzz in Kokomo, Ind. — a high-pitched whine that only she and a few others could hear. I swear to God, the place Haven described, I was there.
…and I have driven by abandoned farmhouses at night near Oolitic, Ind., just off U.S. 50, where you see a furtive glow of light — scary and inexplicable in a window on the second floor.
…and I know the smell of someone who heats by kerosene.
…and I have heard the smugness and seen the pretension of certain academics in B-list colleges who sought to dazzle middle-class Hoosier kids with their references to Yale
…and the pitiful abandoned dog who snarls at passing bicyclists and is more pained by “You Go Home!!!!” than a kick in the ribs
I had a feeling that Haven took a big dipper and sunk it deep in the psychological punch bowl where a sumptuous dream or a terrible nightmare is but a matter of interpretation.
yeeees…ahhhh…I’m confused…
Here’s a very quick definition, Kate:
http://www.answers.com/topic/mnemic-trace-memory-trace
Caryl Hayes, are you still here? I hope I’m not riding roughshod over you. I’m trying to be as quiet as you are, in my own noisy way.
Okay, it’s official. As if your writing didn’t completely enslave me. I. adore. you.
People, are you paying attention to this?? There’s a nattily dressed mentalist in the picture. Also a shelf of weasels in the barn, separated by temperament. How can you not fall ass over teakettle for all of that?
Tomorrow I’m leaving for 3 weeks at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, to explore the topic of how memory informs writing. To prepare, I’m reading (for the first time, because I am seriously lowbrow) Proust and W.G. Sebald. I really want to cast them both aside to (re)devour Iodine. By the time I’m ready to parse this thread in earnest, you all will be on to other topics, you fickle bastards. Sigh. Timing is everything.
oh wow, esp. “poem 2″ – The woman is pacing, her heart blisters. She is the most beautiful of three.” – and then on to the parts about the stone
I would like to point out that Amanda asked Kate, “Why so dumb?” and I laughed out loud.
Shanna, I have spent the last 5 years of my life falling ass over teakettle over Ms. Haven. I’m valiantly attempting to stand upright now.
Shanna, LUCKY LUCKY YOU. Proust and W.G. Sebald: are to sigh for. You’ll forget all about me. Except of course you’ll remember, because that is your project.
johnny mnemonic . . .
just had to say that, because I loved that movie and actually helped me grasp (tentatively) a few theories.
For some reason, my brilliant post was rejected here, but accepted over at Boy With Birds…
really, Haven, it feels that way?
and thanks for the answers.com redirect.
Sam and I were talking the other day and I asked him his earliest memory…from there we got to talking about how our memories are organized. It’s weird, but mine are pegged to date. His are attached to experience. Go figure that out.
kate, i think standing upright is sometimes seriously overrated. the view’s great from down here.
I think I explained that wrong, Georgio.
Am I crazy, or did Rita or Ianthe or somebody have a calcified baby?
Och! This computer is beeping at me! Is angry!
Maybe cause I have not read the book!
Or: Maybe it wants me to go do the dishes and go to bed! Six comes early!
Good-night all,
M
She is the most beautiful of three
beautiful sisters, and you have said no
to her after the angels said yes.
What is that small planet, the secret
concealed in her dress?
It is something she swallowed that once
grew but ceased growing. She will carry it
through the orchard, to the seaport, and all
the way home; it is her stone
child. It is your child, turned to stone,
white as winter birch, and on this rock
the angels are building their church.
I think I explained that wrong, Georgio.
Am I crazy, or did Rita or Ianthe or somebody have a calcified baby?
Or an abortion? A miscarriage? Alien abduction?
Goodnight, Matt! See you tomorrow, koolacachee man!
George, I’m going to scoot over to the other post and look for your brilliant comment.
okay, I have promised never to do this again. But I am LMAO. God Haven, How quickly you get it.
Shanna: I would love to do something like that. Is it a writing workshop? If you want a great commentary on Proust and memory, there was a little book published recently called Proust was a Neuroscientist. It discusses how various artists arrived a scientific truths through their work. Fascinating stuff. It rearranged a few of my neurons.
good night folks. i hope everyone will be around in the morning to keep me awake in the Cube o’ Death (of the mind, that is).
your name reminds of Clouds by Joni Mitchell…is there a connection?
seed/baby/stone
rock in neck = baby? huh??
INTERESTING. I popped over to Boy With Birds, came back, and there was George’s brilliant comment HERE, twice. And George, my man, you are so so correct. I’ve said it at readings: no matter what I’m writing, I’m writing about Place. And that Place is always Indiana.
And Matt’s post showed up, too, about his new blog, where the capital letters and the exclamation marks are crucial! This is true of him!
Dorian, what did you promise never to do again? Did it involve tragic ass-removing laughter?
Ok, I think I am going to have to move to the short bus.
Indiana, I understand. Sense of place, absolutely. I know all of those people, and each place mentioned, one way or another.
Sorry if it posted a couple of times…it isn’t showing up from where I sit….
Does anyone want to talk about Colt?
I want to talk about Colt.
But I also want to figure out what you all seem to have down, and I’m operating at 50%!
I’m bailing . . . wine made me sleepy, must catch a ZZZ or two if I can . . .
sorry . . .
seeing three or four comment boxes means I am down for the count…….
can’t wait to hear the revelations . . .
Do talk about Colt.
Night, Sher.
I drank the equivalent of 1.5 Ski Slushees at the Fall Festival…I am not going anywhere.
Haven, I am so busy being quiet that poor Jack WHO SHOULD NOT BE UP knows better than to wake me. I did however go rub his back and now I am playing catch up. George, I put a reading of your birthdate on our yahoo site, please please email me your take on this..carylhayes@yahoo.com. It sounds like bribery but its not.
george, yes, it’s a writing thing. sort of a hybrid between workshop and artist colony, which I’ve done separately but never together. This particular thing is 3 weeks with Honor Moore (poet and memoirist), in conversation about how memory informs writing of all types–fiction, poetry, memoir. it’s a juried selection, mostly subsidized by private donation and the NEA. check it out at: http://www.atlanticcenterforthearts.com. It’s for visual artists, too,sometimes.
These comments are helping, but at the same time I’m frustrated… didn’t realize we’d be discussing this tonight or else my friend Kim wouldn’t have my copy of Iodine. Argh!
(yup, still awake. sweet baby riley wants to play. someone send the sandman her way please.)
my sister mails me a six pack of Doubles and Ski each Christmas!
Haven, I truly didn’t understand Colt. Billy, I got. I think that she thought sleeping with Colt, she could obtain the protection she really wanted/needed. Am I anywhere close?
That sounds about right to me George.
JimShue, John mentioned that Jonah across the street is the same age as Gus (five months older, I think) and he is as articulate as I am, while Gus used to call everything ‘da!’ It gave me a fright. I thought I would have to look at him someday and say, “Baby Augusten, why so dumb?” But he has picked up some STEAM, child. Tonight he said, “Gus one piece, one tiny sushi. Gus have one tiny sushi. One stick. Gus have one stick, Mama have one stick.” (Chopsticks.) Then he speared a rainbow roll, peeled the seaweed off and threw it on the floor. He said, “Frow away, a piece. Tiny piece.” But now that he’s started he talks in his SLEEP. Over the monitor I’ve heard him say, “No wash, Daddy. No bubbles.”
Hmmm. Someone else say something about Colt before I do.
Caryl, do you do astrological readings?!? I adore astrology. Well, obviously — there’s Hazel in The Used World.
Sounds like he was just taking after his momma!
I have these worries myself. Alice is 17 months old and she mostly just says “MaaaaaaaaaM” in a gutteral voice. Occasionally another word will slip out, but mostly that is it. It’s hard not to compare her to Linus. By the time Linus was 18 months old he could say whole sentences like “Look at me Mommy! I’m swimming in a boat!” or “I’m a studmuffin!” At 22 months he responded to a scolding by saying “Don’t be rude momma, don’t be selfish! I was not screaming I was talking!”
Colt…hmmm…Colt. So close and yet so far. How could he not see what was happening?
Ok, the end? Yes, no? Is that why she was on the run?
Gus really could only say ‘da!’ REALLY. John — poor, deluded man — would say, “Did you hear that?!? He said GREEN!”
One of my favorite children EVER, my oldest and dearest friend Beth’s daughter, Sarah, had an Exorcist laugh as a toddler. And she was indeed rather evil. I worshipped her. When she did learn to talk I asked her question after question. Once we were on our way to see Free Willy and I asked how her day went, and this was her answer. She was four. “WELL first my mom puts me in this sweater I HATE and then I comes home from Betsy’s and go outside to my swingset and someone is SITTING ON IT, and I say, ‘GET OFF MY SWING, YOU BITCHES,’ and he did. Then I goes upstairs and there is a WITCH in my room, and I said to her . . . ” At which point Beth changed the subject. Oh, I’d have let that one run on all night, I tell you.
Who is Colt to her?
How old is Gus because Charlie is 30 monthes and I am worried now. As for the astrological readings, I am busy giving out information from The Secret Language of Birthdays, parceling it out if you will like I hold all of the secrets. Kind of fun to have all of the info for once.
hahahahaha
At the beginning of “Little, Big” (sorry, but character names are escaping me) was it Aunt Cloud who made the comment about women being the practitioners of religion? Men, not so much. My theory is that Colt knew what Loretta was doing with Trace at night, but didn’t want to get involved with it either because he didn’t understand or figured that Loretta knew better than him. I have a picture of this family in my head of not being educated and (Loretta especially) being prone to mysticism and the occult. And by occult, I mean the weird little churches that seem to pop up like purple loosestrife in the middle of nowhere all over this state. So Trace’s seizures might be seen as possession by demons. Either way, I can’t imagine a man like Colt, who seems to be singularly focused in his life, understanding either a medical condition or spiritual one.
or i’m just rambling on at almost 3am.
Gus is 28 months. Also he grows but his butt doesn’t. So all of his pants fall down.
Very nice, Jim. I think that is accurate.
Very very good reading, Sock Monkey.
Basically, the blog is applauding you, Jim Shue.
Ok, but are you guys going to indulge your slow-witted friend or not? I’m having some trouble here. I cannot fully dissect this sucker and I’m a little stuck.
I do not want to go to bed. But I will.
Yeesh! Must be something to just letting the insomnia take over. Not true insomnia, I seemed to have reverted back to being an infant with my days and nights backwards. Maybe I was born on the wrong side of the planet.
Riley is 17 months old and just two weeks ago started saying more than mummm mummm mummm, which was a bit disarming considering she has two dads. We finally figured out she was saying not mom but mmmm mmmm when she was hungry or wanted milk.
First real word? Doggie. Ironic because Hudson doesn’t want anything to do with her most of the time unless she’s dropping food to him from the table!
Alice says that too!
Kate, you were at the reading where I explained that the first line of the novel should not be read for shock value, but as a genuine psychiatric confession. At least twice in the book (once with Dr. Scherring and once with Jacob) she claims to be daydreaming, and is asked if she knows the Freudian interpretation of the habit. She says yes, ‘an inability to surrender the family romance.’ Colt is the locus of the family romance, and by romance Freud meant what occurs in the home. That can be gothic, it can be Tolstoy, it can be romance. But the inability to outgrow it creates an illness. The illness also manifests itself in a constant search for ‘home.’ Is this helping?
In Something Wicked This Way Comes, Bradbury writes, “Three a.m. The soul’s midnight.”
Yes…
I think I get that part. What I don’t understand is certain specific events, which perhaps I am not meant to. Rita, especially. The ending…I am assuming it is not a literal event, but a sacrifice she is making to surrender the past once and for all?
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
And I guess I am trying to tie up all the loose ends. This book has so many interconnecting themes…
Charlie was my first baby to say I love you too mom when I say I love you 100 times a day, he did very early. Now its go way, sometimes shut up, all of which I blame on his siblings. He does say sorry mom. And its never mommy, or daddy, or Tommy. He calls his oldest brother Tom, and nobody does that.
Just killing time here guys tell somebody spills the beans and helps a player out. What do Kate and have to do here?
Okay, let me ask you this. Were you in love with Colt, as a reader?
You told me when I was reading it that you were worried that I would put myself in the story – that didn’t happen. But I KNOW those people. Rural Indiana is full of them. I couldn’t get on the bus in Muncie without one of them talking to me – introverted me of all people. I thought I might be on the wrong track by using my experiences to base what/how these characters tick.
I think (and this is just from my own experience) that Trace uses – her mind uses – the abduction stories as ways of coping with trauma in her past/present. I was told once that when there are events that your mind can’t handle, your mind will disconnect and show you the memory from a different perspective – an out of body experience. You become a third person observer to make it less traumatic.
A little bit, yeah. He was mysterious, beautiful, sexy.
And he was practical. How many fathers would teach their daughter to be a crack shot? (yeah, i would) I think he was giving Trace the only tool he knew to protect herself.
Ok, I guess this is my question. As the author, did you have a specific timeline for the events? Do you, yourself, know precisely what is real, exactly what is true and what is false? Is that something we should bother to unravel?
But he seemed to be so stunned when she showed him what she’d achieved through practice “what have I done? what have I done?”
Did I as a reader love Colt? Ass over teakettle.
Right. Colt is (this isn’t all he is, but it matters) a beautiful, desirable, dangerous man. She’s in love with him, as many little girls (ahem) are in love with their fathers, or with Johnny Cash (pardon me). But the object, as one ages, becomes absurd in that light — that’s the definition of sexual health in our culture. What happens if a child is in love with her father, is being traumatized so severely she is, as Jim points out, leaving her body to avoid the trauma, and she never outgrows the initial romance? The fear remains, the passion remains, and she reaches sexual maturity?
So in Jacob, an older man, she finds herself someone to take Colt’s place.
Hell, I did that too! My first boyfriend was 26. I was 16.
JimShue: I am applauding you…and yes, we’ll go for that pint.
Caryl: I answered you off-blog. I cannot believe your kindness for the reading. And I thank you. Last summer I was in Savannah and went to a psychic for a palm reading. Maybe I will talk about it someday.
Haven: Did I love Colt as a reader? I wanted to, but I instantly recognized him as one of those deeply bruised guys who are tough but ineffectual.
Kids…these old bones are getting kinda tired. I am going to hang in here a while longer, but I am going to have to check out.
BTW, I love your story about your daddy and Johnny Cash.
I saw Johnny and June play in Atlanta at June’s record release party for “Press On.” GOOSEBUMPS.
Yes, I know what’s real and what isn’t and what occurred when and where and with whom. And I adored Colt, in part BECAUSE he was stunned at the dying swan dance his ten-year-old performed with a Winchester; he knew what was suggested in the act. It was one of his bright, clear moments, when he wasn’t the man avoiding the truth about what was happening to his daughter, or missing it.
Ok, good, then that means that I am not just grasping at sand. That is my main issue. I am trying to piece together the meaning of the story by uncovering the facts, the actual events. The rest can come later.
Goodnight, King George.
We should all retire, Blog Pups. I mean, Tex is in Australia where it’s YESTERDAY. Or else it’s tomorrow. Either way, the water is going the wrong way down the drain.
Kate: you saw Johnny and June!!! Talk about a love. Next time I’m in Evansville, I am going to come over to your place and wash your windows or mop your floors or something.
George, you have NO idea how bad I need that kind of help!!
Oh Infant Jesus, if I DIDN’T know every single layer of what was real and what wasn’t? Do you know what you’d be holding in your hand? A big mess of crazy between two covers, is what. An unreliable narrator is one thing, but you should ALWAYS be able to trust your author, always.
You know why you are such a great author, Haven Kimmel? Because you are a great person. This world cannot contain you, m’dear. You have my friendship.
Well, that is what I thought…but people keep saying not to worry about it…! But that is EVERYTHING!
There is a mystery to unravel, here!
I feel the same way about you, M. Stuteville. A giant among men.
Group hug!
Kate: you’d be surprised at what my mother taught me. You’ve heard of the book, Iron John by Robert Bly. Well, I could do a sequel called, Ironing John, just to sing the praises of what I can do with starch.
Yes, Cupcake, there is a mystery to unravel and you hold all the clues — you have them all. I’m just acting as Virgil here, guiding Dante through the Inferno.
My mom taught me that sitting on the couch and reading is AWESOME.
Haven and I have darn near the same mother, in some ways.
I don’t know if I even thought about the irony(?) between your past and mine until this moment, but my heart aches if I hear anything by Johnny Cash. We watched “Walk the Line” on our anniversary a couple of years ago and I just sobbed during some songs. Dad was a huge Cash fan.
George, my head just fell back against the couch cushions, I laughed that sort of way. I’m sure I looked like one of those puppet-things connected with elastic string, and when you push a button the whole dog collapses. I was the puppet.
Ok, will I be able to figure this out without a real working knowledge of archetype and Freud and Jung?
J.S., you have no idea how large your dad’s death looms in my mind and heart. I feel as if I saw it all, including the moment you were told. (Yes, I remember your reaction.)
And George, thank you. I truly value your opinion
I kind of want to adopt George, to be my cool uncle.
The novel itself is a working knowledge of Freud, Jung, Hillman, and archetypal interpretations of both psychology and literature. If I did it right.
Great…no college required!
I’ve heard that Brad and Angelina have dibs on George.
Ok, now I’m one of those collapsing puppies!
No college! I did it so you don’t have to!
Ah, but there truly is a reason for everything. I could only see the short term reasons at the time, but the guilt isn’t there anymore.
See what I mean about the puppet thing? My big-ass head is too heavy for my skinny neck anyway. I don’t know how I manage to carry the thing around all the time without snapping like a dadgummed twig.
Jim: there shouldn’t be any guilt. There never should have been.
Um, she said puppies, not puppets
I looked that way as a child…practically like a lollipop. Then I grew a huge ass to balance it all out.
OK So where were you when I was twelve, smarty pants?
I was talking about a Puppy Puppet.
My friend Timmy once said he had no idea hydrocephalic children could live into adulthood.
Or become authors!
When you were twelve I was on my bicycle, hellbent for leather, Josephine! Where do you think I was? I had the wind in my hair and rusty nail holes in my bare feet!
Speaking of hydrocephalics, one of the greatest novels in our sweet old world: SHARPSHOOTER BLUES, by Lewis Nordan. Matt in Nebraska, this is what you should be reading.
LOL! OK. I’m toast. Robbie’s not going to be happy with me in the morning when he has to get Riley up and ready by himself.
There are people who read this blog who haven’t even gotten up yet. Isn’t that WEIRD?
All right, it’s nearly four. Say goodnight, Gracie.
goodnight gracie
Good night Gracie.
Shoot Jim, don’t you know Dr. Pepper is the BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS?
*sigh* Goodnight, y’all.
Oh, just tell Robbie that John gets Gus and Obadiah up and ready by himself EVERY morning. I’m either writing or sleeping — either way, I don’t do that morning business.
Meh, just give me a pot of dark espresso roast
You two were soldiers! George, too! All right, off to bed with all of us.
Yeah, but at some point I have to get up and go to my um “real” job.
And now my leg won’t stop bouncing!
Jim! Go to Bed! Haven’s orders!
yes’m
There’s a quote from Richard Bach’s ILLUSIONS that says, “The image is a dream. The beauty is real. Can you see the difference?”
Here’s the beauty of this, Haven: You are writing about MY LIFE in this book. And everyone else’s, of course. When I step back and draw some broader, more sweeping parallels, it’s getting clearer.
So. Colt. Nearly invisible: in the photo of his childhood with his head turned, in the lives of his family. Named after a model of gun. His beauty is real, his image a dream Trace is having. Beloved by the very person he most betrays. Rambling through his life like almost every man of that type, of that decade, in the great state of Indiana. (My own father put 10,000 miles a year on his Ford Ranger without ever going more than 75 miles from our house.) Creating his children, then leaving them to struggle toward the light like hybrid aliens while he flies off to another planet.
Yes …?
Just reading these comments is making me smarter. Intelligence is leaking through the cosmos courtesy of you folks.
Jodi–if life were cream, your dad would have churned butter. 10,000 miles without going more than 75 miles from your house. What a fabulous observation!
MWAH-HA-HA-hahahaha!!! Jerri!! My dad was a butter-churner of the first order. I’m gonna tell my best friends what you said, ’cause it’s SO FUNNY. Thanks!
I finally had to go to bed last night…dreamed of going to russia where I surprisingly could understand people even though I don’t speak Russian… anyhoo… here are my thoughts this morning. Really they are more like random neuron firings…
Jung believed that dreams had a compensatory function. They can bring us messages from the unconscious (personal or collective) about things we are missing or things we NEED in our waking life. If Candy, Billy, Cleonus, et al, showed up when Trace needed them, they could be thought of as archetypal figures, right? Trace/Ianthe has parasomnia – she walks in her sleep, sleeps with her eyes open, daydreams,has nightmares and dissociative episodes.
And the link Haven provided to the definition of mnemic describes it as a memory TRACE.
Ianthe tells Dr. Cohen she is the youngest of three sisters and the poem says “she is the most beautiful of three beautiful sisters.” It feels as though there is something important there but I can’t quite grasp it.
I’ve just got to read it again, slowly, instead of frantically searching through it for clues. (no easy answers here, huh?)
Well, it is a good thing I am not working today because I just spent over an hour reading this thread. Now I am exhausted and may need to go back to bed.
There is so much useful information here. Thank you everyone.
I think Jodi was the only person to mention how much she was affected by Weeds. I was too. I could hardly sleep and would wake up in a cold sweat worried about him. And then at the end. Oh, my. My beloved dog-puppy (he is 1 1/2 so he is the size of a full grown dog with the brain and maturity still of a puppy), Foster, looks just like I imagined Weeds to look. So, I kept substituting Foster in my sadness for Weeds. But, Weeds made me happy too because I know what holding on to a dog for warmth means. Maybe more emotional warmth than physical warmth even.
It is 10:00 and I have not even taken a shower yet and maybe for all you insomniacs that is ok but as for me, I usually take a shower when I get up at 5:00 so now I am just feeling yucky. So, off to the shower and more reading, thinking and typing later.
Re: Haven’s 12:07 am comment: “Ask yourself how reliable Trace’s version of Loretta would be, and what is acutally known about her” —
Both Loretta and Trace are orphans, “alone in all the world.” We learn this first about Loretta as Trace thinks back to how she ensnared Colt, and later Trace describes herself this way to Jacob. So … did Trace borrow this from the “real” Loretta? Is Trace imagining this as Loretta’s story? Could Trace really have managed to stay overnight in the public records office and re-invent herself as Ianthe Covington? (Why would Colt and Trace stand at the graveside of a child named Ianthe Covington?) This is about IDENTITY … Who is Loretta really? What did Loretta actually “do” to Trace when Trace was a child? Did Loretta really think of Trace as a changeling, or is this Trace’s screen memory? And now might be a good time to consider Haven’s 12:23 am comment, “Loretta had a child with violet-colored eyes who had transglobal epilepsy. What do you think she did?”
Oh man do I feel like I missed a great party last night … very helpful to read all fabulous insights on Iodine … now I know what I’ll be doing again this weekend.
Jodi–I’ve fretted about this all morning. Now I’m just going to comment so I can let it go.
I can’t tell if your response to my silly butter comment is amusement or sarcasm. If I offended you in any way, I apologize. That was not my intent. I was impressed by the observation and could see that truck driving in circles.
Aw, man, Jerri, I SO took your meaning as a FUNNY, truly FUNNY, laugh-out-loud comment. I am SO SORRY if you interpreted it any other way, because I have been enjoying your comment and laughing to myself abou tit all morning. =0( If you only knew me personally, you’d know it’s almost impossible to offend me! And your comment is spot-on about how my dad was!! I’ll buy you a drink, Jerri, and we can laugh together!!! =0)
jodi
Thanks for answering, Jodi. I feel so much better. NOW we’ll laugh together! (and maybe even drink. I’ve got some wine in the fridge.)
i am trying to work through the titles this morning… guessing Caduceus and Pluto (Tertius) are pointing to the same story/stories in greek mythology… and according to Wikipedia Pluto had to spend half of the year in the underworld, and that half become winter… which is pointing me toward the periods of reality vs. hallucination in the protagonist’s life.
that is all i have from the first three chapter titles. i will keep going.
Oneirocritica is the ancient greek text about dream interpretation which contains this thought:
“There is an affinity between all wild animals and our enemies. A wolf signifies a violent enemy…”
wow. this is telling:
“The “eternal girl,” or puella, is a woman who psychologically has remained a young girl, even though chronologically she may be sixty or seventy years of age. She remains a dependent daughter, tending to accept the identity others project upon her. In doing so, she gives over to others her own strength as well as the responsibility for shaping her identity. Quite often she marries a rigidly authoritarian man and becomes the image of woman he wants. Often she looks and acts innocent, helpless, and passive. Or she may rebel, but in her rebellion remains the helpless victim caught in feelings of self-pity, depression, and inertia. In either case, she is not directing her own life.”
“Superstars frequently come into analysis, exhausted from work and in search of relationship. Quite often they feel men are afraid of them because they have achieved so much and are so competent. Also they often compensate for weak fathers who were unable to achieve themselves. I suspect these women are often made into sons by fathers wishing to live vicariously their own unactualized potentialities.”
i found both of those quotes on this page:
http://radmilasuggests.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/the-wounded-woman-by-linda-schierse-leonard/
Noun 1. revenant – a person who returns after a lengthy absence
individual, mortal, person, somebody, someone, soul – a human being; “there was too much for one person to do”
2. revenant – someone who has returned from the dead
ghost – the visible disembodied soul of a dead person
nekyia – a descent into hell. jung believed one had to experience a descent into one’s personal hell in order to become self-actualized (??)
kerberos/cerberus – the hound of hell who watches to make sure spirits can enter and flesh cannot.
and i am curious to find out (if i can) why the guard follows the descent into hell, instead of preceding it.
No idea if this helps or not, but do you know e. e. cummings poem “Puella Mea”? Here are the first few lines.
Harun Omar and Master Hafiz
keep your dead beautiful ladies.
Mine is a little lovelier
than any of your ladies were.
In her perfectest array
my lady, moving in the day,
is a little stranger thing
than crisp Sheba with her king
in the morning wandering.
again from wikipedia:
Carl Jung used the term eros to denote the basic fundamental of feminine psychology: “Women’s psychology is founded on the principal of eros, the great binder and loosener, whereas from ancient times the ruling principal ascribed to men is logos. The concept of eros could be expressed in modern times as psychic relatedness, and that of logos as objective interest.” (CW vol. X, p. 123, pp. 255) This points to his theory of the anima/animus syzygy of the male and female psyches. According to Jung, men possess the anima in their unconscious, and this is a caricature of the feminine eros. It is a part of personal individuation for men to confront their anima, by accepting eros (a trait pushed out of phalocratic society). Also intrinsic to this is the ability to see beyond the projected ego and assimilate this into our conscious being. This is eros, as it is the ‘desire for wholeness,’ which is necessary for us to become in-tune with our selves. By understanding ‘passionate love’ and the ‘desire for wholeness’ as ‘psychic relatedness,’ Jung also demonstrates that the desire for love is a desire for interconnection and interaction with other sentient beings.
Hekate:
Hekate guards the limenoskopos (the doorstep), for she is a goddess of liminality and transition. Of being on and crossing boundaries. This includes not only the boundary between life and death, but any boundaries, such as those between nature and civilization, waking and sleep, sanity and madness, the conscious and the subconscious minds. Indeed, any transition can be said to be her domain. As such she is also goddess of the crossroads, where the paths of one’s life fork and a person must choose which future to embark upon. In ancient times these were believed to be special places where the veil between the worlds was thin and spirits gathered.
Hekate is also the goddess of psychological transformation. Her Underworld is the dark recesses of the human subconscious as well at that of the Cosmos. Many have accused her of sending demons to haunt the thoughts of individuals. What they fail to understand is that the demons are not hers, but their own. By the light of her twin torches Hekate only reveals what is already there. These are things which the person needs to see in order to heal and renew. However, if they are not prepared for the experience of confronting their Shadow then it can truly feel like they are being tormented. Hekate is not motivated by cruelty, nor is she seeking to harm. But her love can be tough love. She will prompt a person to face the things that they must, whether they like it or not.
As Goddess of the Underworld, Hekate is not only the guide to the spirits of the dead, but also the keeper of each individual’s own personal Underworld, the benighted territory of their unconscious mind. She lives within each of our inner worlds, and is there to guide us as we transition from inner to outer realms of consciousness. When accepted, her blessings enrich our lives with vision, healing, inspiration, and magic. She brings light to the darkness and empowers us with creativity, confidence, and strength. However, when we deny her it manifests in our Shadow-Self. She holds the key to both the treasures and terrors of the unconscious mind.
The Shadow Self is something often talked about in modern Witchcraft, but it is a concept that rose in the field of psychology a century ago thanks to the work of Dr. Carl Jung. It can be likened to a prison created within our unconscious mind where we banish those parts of ourselves that we repress, deny, or simply fail to develop. These are often our feelings of fear, insecurity, hate, jealousy, desire, greed, etc… Anything that we try to pretend we do not possess is relegated to this deep pit inside our minds.
from this website:
http://home.comcast.net/~subrosa_florens/witch/hekate.html
back to Oneirocritica, this is also relevant:
A fox indicates that the enemy will not attack openly but will plot underhandedly.
Jodi, good lord, did you ever just describe my dad. My mom sat in one place for 25 years and my dad ran and ran and ran.
And let us all give a big Hail Fellow to Amanda for doing my work for me while I (finally) slept. BRAVISSIMO!
Who said it, Jerri? About Weeds? I can’t begin to tell you what that one cost me.
Wish I could take credit for the Weeds comment, but those were Linda’s heartfelt words, Haven.
I just opened my copy of Iodine again this morning, and it looks like I went mad last night, the pages bent like I was frantically searching for something. And this, the copy I was waiting for Haven to sign when I met her. Amanda, you are doing great work here and while I have nothing to add- I am still being very quiet-I might be catching on.
Amanda, look at what Hillman says about Hekate. There is very little about her that is benevolent but she has enormous power.
The guard (kerberos) follows the soul making the descent rather than preceding it because the guard serves as a marker for the spirit. Persephone was followed by pigs, remember, meaning that at some point she was associated with them at the archetypal level, and at the opening of the Eleusian Mysteries a piglet was sacrificed.
I am not being that quiet, am I? I thought I would lighten up the seriousness of the mood here with some of my low brow humor. In an email message I sent George this morning I said ” This book is like a puzzle. Thanks for giving me a piece.”
And I laughed and laughed and told my husband who just looked at me and shook his head.
Caryl: Priceless! I’m still groggy from lack of sleep (awoke at 8 am) and I feel hung over. But that is funny!
Thats it- after 13 years sober I feel hung over. And giddy. I have not heard back from George so I hope he was laughing too.
Were Ianthe and Rita the same person?
Amanda- yes, thank you for looking up all those chapter titles. My daughter, the Latin queen, had been helping me with those when i finished the book several weeks ago but I did need more information. Very helpful.
Hi folks…had a grand party last night. Invited the wolf and the fox, the pelicans and the stranger in the car who sits outside in the dark, smoking a cigarette, and we sat around visiting with each other until morning gave way. And now I sit in a Starbucks, waiting for a miracle to be performed on my Jeep, and it’s raining on the beach, but it’s ok, it’s all ok. A-ok. And I’m off work today.
…so, where were we? so many posts, so little time…
I apologetically confess I haven’t read Iodine yet, and after reading the comments on this post so far, I am scared and excited to read it…I have vivid multi color dreams and archtypes are in them all the time so this sounds like a book for me! My husband just left me to go on a solo canoe trip with only 2 loving but pretty goofy cocker spaniels for company, so who will I go to for interpretive solace but you all? Let me just say I will go out and buy it on my way home from work today….oohh, I have shivers of anticipation.
…shivers of anticipation…THAT’S exactly how I feel before biting into a Big Mac! Total anticipation. I savor it until the big bite, then I relive it as I chew, and afterward, not a bit of guilt, crumbs either.
Damn hammalamma, I love a Big Mac. But I almost never have one. There you have it: a portrait of restraint and self-governance. So me.
Yes, not a bit of guilt about reading all weekend either instead of doing all the chaos reduction chores that need doing around the house!
Am I the only one who thinks the final events of the novel – with Colt and Billy and Weeds – were true? I did… and then looking back I thought the later years of Trace living alone with this “vision” of Weeds represented her living daily with the heartache/trauma/ugliness of her past. The black dog representative of the blackness of her youth. Which is why I found Jacob’s rule of “No dogs” all the more poignant – like he was asking her to let go of the past and move on. Her diatribe on people who just make a blanket statement of “Not being dog people” is so baffling to her because she cannot imagine living without her damaging past living along right beside her, defining her. When she goes back to the farmhouse towards the end she finds Weeds there, limping along, skin and bones – nearly gone. I took her shooting him was a hopeful note – Trace letting go of her painful past and moving into a healthier future.
Or is this all just way off base and far too simplistic? Reading all this brilliant comments makes me feel unbearably stoopid (and rightly so). I need to do a re-read with all your comments and hints in mind. Will begin this evening.
hillman: the realm of hades has become childhood (from iodine)
LTC, beautiful, beautiful reading.
Amanda — bingo.
LTC, i think i agree with everything you wrote!
I would like to point out that the book is written in such a way that the events at the end could absolutely be true. They may very well be the surest facts we are given.
(also, the pig you mentioned clarifies for me the pig Trace/Ianthe leads out of the house)-
I picked up my Hillman, and here is what I read about daydreams. He quotes Mary Watkins observations of imagination in dreams, in fantasy, in madness etc. While imagining is going on, you are somewhat out of yourself,in another zone. Sometimes the state is no moer than a daydream, a staring, an absence; sometimes the unfolding of an entire furture project;sometimes a hallucinatory terror at night; sometimes an ecstatic vision such as saints enjoyed. there are various intensities-but the more thoroughly engaged you are, the more real the imaginative fantasy, its scenes, its voices, its beings, it feelings and insights. Its reality possesses you and the words “Fantasy,” “imagination,” “Vision,” do not really apply. It feels all to real and important.
It’s all true…what’s in question is the reality (insofar as we know reality)
Haven: there’s a McDonald across the street and it’s calling like a siren…wait, it is a siren! And an ambulance and a fire rescue truck…they must be coming after my Jeep.
heehee! i am getting around my stupid boring JOB by listening to Iodine while I am at work. so glad HAVEN read this one.
Well this just bites it! We’re back on track and now I have to leave for work! Yay me! See everyone back here in 7 hours.
oh-oh…you guys are walking in alleyways I didn’t venture in my reading. Do I have to go to Bombay to retrieve my copy? Where’s a bookstore when you need one?
we know that in every scene in which the protagonist believes billy to be alive, she is hallucinating. so reading the ending as reality seems to be the most appropriate.
George please substitute “true” in my post for “reality”. That’s what I was getting at!
also, we have the progression of death/animals leading to the sentence that this was all preparation for what would come (page 26)… which i definitely thought was pointing to the ending.
and haven said that billy is the key to everything.
the problem is that there is no difference between true and real — not from our vantage point.
I am not going to pretend that I have this figured out. You guys are causing me to question it all.
THANKS!!!!
Haven- on your website, in appearances, it doesn’t have anything after September. Are you done traveling? I’ve given up on you coming to the west coast so I will come to you-anything on the horizon I can plan for?
have to reread the book. i couldn’t put it down either and now i need to go back and take notes. i can’t stop thinking about it and want everyone to read it so i can have people to talk to about it.
cannot express enough how much your work inspires and refreshes.
oh, and, when are you coming back to seattle? we miss you and need you.
Alas, I’m not done traveling, just done traveling for that book. I’m leaving for the Midwest in a few days, where I’ll accept an award. Then I go to Aurora to pick up a piece of taxidermy, then Kat and I might wander down to Evansville (but they’re in opposite directions) then on to Brandon’s in Columbus, Ohio. My poor daughter, she knows not what awaits her.
I think it was just too soon to come back to the West Coast after The Used World tour. Also I’m not their author anymore, so I have no ideas about anything.
I haven’t heard a word of the audio book, but I was so glad I got to read this one.
SarahZ — Seattle is one of my absolute favorite places to read. Love the city, love the bookstore, love the audience.
d-d-d-d-did you say, Evansville?
———-
darn it…now I need to re-read some of Iodine and my copy is a zillion miles away.
I work near Aurora.
this may be obvious, or wrong, but i am going to write it anyway… billy was her protector. he lay in front of her door for a year i think it was, and protected her from the mother. and when she loses him, well, her childhood very much becomes hell, as literally as is possible in this world. was billy her Cerberus?
Any chance you’ll make it to Kansas City, Haven? We have a good independent bookstore–Rainy Day Books on the Kansas side of town.
Amanda, the protagonist comes very close to saying exactly what you’re saying.
I haven’t read in Kansas in a long time but I love the city — I’ve only been on the Kansas side. Lord above I had an interesting cab driver last time I was there. He was a big, hulking, toothless, mountain of a man, and he produced these crazy Marxist pamphlets about the homeless. He himself was a veteran of homelessness. I liked him.
LTC, what is near Aurora? Am I right that it’s about an hour north of Muncie?
Not a thing is near Aurora. Not a single thing. It’s about 2 hours south of Muncie, actually.
Can we talk about moving to Missouri after 28 years in Minneapolis? It’s been an adventure, including big, hulking toothless mountains of men.
It is strange, though, to live among conservatives after years in the Land of Liberals.
Come to KC. We’ll roll out the welcome mat.
Yeah, I’m way good with direction.
I should have said I work”ed” near Aurora, as I have since moved the next state over. Although now I currently work near Aurora… Illinois. (Which is near Naperville, which I know for a fact you have been…)
Um, yes, hi, Haven! Ack, what a strange concept The Internets are, that I can theoretically correspond with you? Ahhh, makes me all eeeep, eeeep.
I’m one of your many, many rabid…I mean to say, avid…fans. So, I have to tell you a) you’re awesomeness incarnate, b) your birthday post for your daughter was magnificent, and c) I cannot yet comment on Iodine, having not read it. Why not, you ask? Well, my relatives know that the fastest way to my heart is to give me a book of yours for Christmas, and I hate to co-opt their fun. I was waiting so anxiously for The Used World, and last Christmas my sister-in-law gave me an autographed copy MADE OUT TO ME! I dropped not-too-subtle hints that she might wish to do the same for Iodine, and my husband assures me that she got the message. Now I have to wait, but I promise, I’ve allocated half of Dec. 25 and the entirety of the 26th, and 27th, if need be.
So, if you remember a blond woman in her early thirties who looks something like Reese Witherspoon at one of your Triangle area signings, asking you to sign a book to Kelley-with-an-E-Y because oh, gosh, she loves your work…then yep, that was my surrogate.
And thanks in advance. I know that reading Iodine will be magical, shift in tone or no.
heehee… just noticed the book has 11 chapters… Jung’s complete cycle plus the beginning of a new cycle.
The sixth-graders in my class have goals for raising their grades this quarter. Kenan is one of these students, who looks just like young Forrest Gump. When Kenan gets excited or embarrassed he blushes a bright pink and hides behind his hands and giggles. He wrote the following, and I think it’s inspirational. (I’m leaving in Kenan’s spelling and grammar.)
I will raise my Grade
I will raise my grade in language arts. I will change it from a B- to an A+. I know I can do it.
I will pay more attention in class. I will keep my eyes on Mrs. Riebersal for the whole two periods. My eyes will not leave her’s.
I will always study before a test or quiz. I will study hard so I can get an A+ on any test or quiz. I will make sure I do.
I will always do my best in class. I will try as much as possible. I will. I will. I will.
~~~~
Kenan hasn’t heard of James Joyce, but his closing certainly has that ring to it.
Kelley-with-an-E-Y, I believe your surrogate was at Quail Ridge. I signed there for more than two hours, it was stunning. I mean I read and answered questions for an hour and THEN signed for two more, and people were incredibly patient about standing in line. So thank your surrogate for me. And welcome — join in any time. This is an amazing bunch — I adore them.
(just for reference, i was the amanda who accidentally made you cry at that particular quail ridge reading)
Oh, I can almost see you! In my brainpan, I mean. What did I cry about? I’m so bustass.
i asked where you find your compassion and you answered about the children of darfur… and that the great tragedy was not that they were dying, but that they knew it.
Amanda, my interest in your Iodine theories led me to click your blog link. Your comments on John McCain made me snort so loudly that I fear I may be fired. Thank you.
haha! HOOORRRAYY! THANKS for that LTC!!!
Amanda, I remember now.
When Scott gets here this evening I’m adding a blog to my blogroll; may I add yours, Cloudy Cloud?
No thank YOU. I didn’t much care for this job anyway.
I would be… intensely honored.
Amanda, CROWN! The Ogdoad, as Jung calls it.
It’s so strange to me to think I have an entire new novel none of you have read. Four of five times I’ve almost referenced it, and then realized only about five people in the world would know what I was talking about.
Jodi, what a sweet child, gah.
three sisters/three women: the woman who gives birth to him, the woman he marries, and the woman who destroys him (p. 86)… Juna, Loretta, Trace.
am still trying to find the more specific/exact point in which the protagonist identifies Billy.
Three beautiful sisters. Their names represented time: what was, what is, what shall be.
Yeah, Kenan’s a keeper. Here’s another genius writing of his: his favorite possession. (Keep in mind he is exactly a young Forrest Gump, running with the braces breaking away from his legs). Spelling is Kenan’s:
My trashcan is important to me. I got the trashcan for my twelth birthday party. I like to throw away my sister’s drawings. I like to pretend it’s a hoop and shoot crumbled paper into it. That is my favorite item I have.
~~~~~
So when you and Hillman remind us that “the realm of Hades has become childhood,” and I see all these funny, creative, laughing children every day at school and know that many of them are living in a realm of Hades, I wonder how another adult can do that to these sweet shining beings, but I see it. Not to Kenan, but to some.
my poetry professor in undergraduate school reminds me of Jacob. and i was in love with him. he was late every year to the first class of the semester because he was always coming back from Spain, where he had family. he had the boniest knees i have ever seen on a person… the stuck out like knife blades underneath his khakis. we spent hours and hours in his office, talking about poetry in our respectively cynical ways and i always arranged to have independent study classes with him so that i could spend more hours there. he was the person who told me that if i WANTED to be an english major, instead of social work, then i SHOULD be an english major. and so the course of my life was changed forever.
Here are some further puzzles. Have any of you figured these out?
Haven said, “Three beautiful sisters. Their names represented time: what was, what is, what shall be.” WHAT ARE THEIR NAMES? Is it as easy as Juna, Loretta, and Trace? Are there further implications I’m missing?
Next: Galway Kinnell told Trace she would be “the biggest surprise of some man’s life.” Matthias told her “You are the biggest surprise of my life.” Significance?
Next: Myka (mica) Holloway. Mica is a glittering mineral, easily separated into layers, resistent to heat and electricity. Myka is a “stone woman” …
Further thoughts?
Next: Jacob Matthias’ book is about MASKS. Hmmm …
Next: what is the significance of Gianni Loria, Jacob’s friend from the English department? Together they find Ianthe’s poem, which (Haven pointed out at 1:57 am) is Important.
the scene after Trace leaves that first class with Jacob, where she locks herself in the bathroom and she makes a sound “like a hare, pierced and claw-tucked against the breast of a hawk” haunts me. and i think that this reaction might be mostly a reaction to her unconscious exposure to the truth and the loss of her protective hallucinations… similar to the panic she feels when she cannot find Weeds.
Jodi, I think the finding of the poem might be one of the major clues to the KEY to the book. Specifically, the text of the poem. Last night Haven specifically copied poem “2.”
Jodi, they are the Horae, the Fates, the Graces, or the Seasons. In addition to any objective correlative in the book.
Excellent about Myka. Yes, a book about Masks.
Oh, now here I must confess: the significance of Galway is his poem The Bear, which if you haven’t read it, you must must, and also I have a deep and crazed love for Galway, and so there is what the bear represents and the bear-skin rug, and the much older man and a puella aeterna.
Hi every one I wished I could have participated I have been violently sick with the flu not sure why
(I swear I was just trying to help that sheep over the fence)
I am just too sick to formulate a question or be part of a discussion right now. I hope I can have a rain check.
Love to all of you
Michael T
In terms of what Hillman says about Hades being the realm of childhood: he is referring more to a therapeutic culture, in which everyone wants to believe that Hell is for Children, and therefore all the darkness of the Unconscious gets cast backward, into our pasts, where we can be ceaselessly victimized.
Beth can help me here, but as a person who has had both seizures and parasomnia, I can tell you that one theory in psychiatry is that parasomnia can have an organic component and can be a mask for trauma. At the time it was the worst for me, I was asked repeatedly about buried childhood trauma, of which I have none. I have written two books about my childhood; many of you have read them; they are as honest as I can be. But no one wanted to believe that I wasn’t repressing something or at least sublimating, because Hades is now the realm of Childhood, even in medicine. Do you see what I mean? I should have been asked about the present.
Haven, I have to ask if you’ll be actually APPEARING when you’re in Indiana, to preface this saddest story ever:
I wrote the date down on the wrong day in my planner, and showed up to Big Hat Books the day after your reading (this after I received a phone call from my best friend saying, “Happy Haven Kimmel day!”). There was a group of people hanging around in the shop when I showed up, giving much deserved praise and giddy with their recollections of the night before. Their faces all simultaneously sagged downward in palpable, collective pity when we realized my mistake.
Also, to everyone in general: your collective brilliance is humbling, and I frequently (like some others, I gather) hesitate to comment for fear I’m missing something. My college education suddenly feels sorely lacking!
Michael T — you gave me a scare. Take care of yourself, drink lots of fluids. Now is probably not the time for a Big Mac, no matter what George says.
Also, I meant to say that I’m unbelievably grateful that this forum has suddenly popped up for me, and the insights you all provide will inspire my second (less hurried!) reading of Iodine.
Lindsay, that is tragic! I’m not doing a public appearance, alas. This is the Indiana Woman of Achievement award, and I don’t know exactly what that means or what I’ve achieved. I mean, seriously. It took me all day to shower. I really had to plan. And then I thought I’d tell Kat that honestly the whole process would be easier for me if I did it in shifts, like my hair one day, legs another. That doesn’t help you much.
Thanks, Haven, for the answers. All these pieces, interwoven … names, multiple philosophies, reality, hallucination. My dear, you are truly a wonder. Don’t think we’re all so busy putting this puzzle together that we’re not amazed by its creator.
By the way, I’m listening to you read IODINE, and it’s opening lots of “locks” that I didn’t find keys to when reading it. At some point I heard you talk about the heat and discomfort of the studio that you endured while recording the book. Could you share that again here?
It always helps to know that someone you admire won’t necessarily judge you for constantly smelling like stale coffee and the faint odor of pretension that tends to hang around coffeehouses. Because really, when you have to be at work at 5am, napping is a far more productive use of free time than showering.
Jodi, it’s difficult to describe how difficult recording an audio book is, even though for all three I’ve done I have had the most rocking engineer in the world, Dick Hodgin. LOVE YOU, DICK HODGIN, EVEN THOUGH YOU DONE ME WRONG WITH THE LOOPED RECORDING OF ME SAYING, ‘Lord, I am unbuttoning my pants, I can hardly breathe.’
The microphone is so sensitive it picks up sounds virtually inaudible to the person sitting at the mike. You could never, ever imagine how many sounds your body is making at any given moment — your throat, your stomach. But it also picks up air movement, so the air-conditioning has to be shut down any time recording is going on, and while that’s miserable in the booth I think it’s even worse at the board, which is huge and gets incredibly hot.
I had to learn to breathe differently, the way singers do, because you inhale away from the microphone and breathe out sentences without inhaling, if possible. I’ve gotten much better at the process, but IODINE was still a week of eight-hour days.
Lindsay, I find myself hard-pressed to judge anyone for anything, as long as they’re kind to animals and children and old folks.
Also Lindsay, in terms of education: I have nothing but praise for the institutions I’ve attended (Ball State, the Earlham School of Religion, North Carolina State), but I think it’s very safe to say that I, like many novelists, am a thorough-going autodidact. Anything is available that way — whatever I want to learn, I learn.
speaking of kind to animals. i have a dilemma and i don’t know enough to know what is acceptable.
i live in an apartment that is roughly 650 square feet. i will confess to having two cats and sometimes i worry that this is not enough space for them. but. my upstairs neighbor has a 65-70 pound bulldog/pitbull mix. the dog lives in a 650 square foot apartment and NEVER gets walked. she will take him out to use the facilities, but never, ever, ever is he taken for walks or runs. there are days when i have seen him locked out on the balcony, which is maybe 6 feet by 4 feet?
is this legal?!?!?! what would you do???
I have to admit that I am PETRIFIED of children, and though I am not unkind, being in the presence of a child reduces me to a tongue tied state not unlike that which I experienced around cute boys as an awkward adolescent. Though recently I’ve been holding semi-regular congress with an infant and it’s going well so far: I like her Friar Tuck hair and have not dropped her, and she smiles at me sometimes, so I think it’s a step in the right direction.
Amanda, while your neighbor’s behavior isn’t stellar, she’ll pay the price for not exercising that breed of dog. And honestly, pit bulls go insane not from inertia but from lack of human contact. They are the most human-dependent breed I’ve ever fostered. Mixed-breed dogs can be very resilient about being left alone, the way some people can survive years in solitary confinement, but pit bulls can be destroyed by loneliness.
Lindsay, children can be scaaaary little creatures. We must just endure. If the hair helps, hold on to that. Not literally, that’s mean.
thanks for the comment, Haven. that significantly sets my mind at ease. i’ve been worried about him.
Please don’t think I meant that as a disparaging comment about my alma mater (the IU part of IUPUI), because I had an amazing time while there (and all the various other institutions from which I did not graduate). I think I am still grappling with some unrealistic expectations about what I am going to become. One of the things I try relentlessly to overcome is a lack of patience for the kind of theoretical knowledge a girl needs to grapple with newer (academic) literature – not because I don’t like it or find it useful, but because I always want to know everything RIGHT NOW.
This discussion here is incredible though, it’s some of what I’ve missed since leaving the classroom, which is still my favorite place in the world.
Haven, I’ve been lurking here for a few weeks. Iodine is the sixth work of yours I’ve read and it may be your best, although my heart’s favorite will always be The Solace of Leaving Early. Each book has left me breathless in one way or another and longing for just one more chapter. I would probably pay to read your grocery lists.
I just re-read Iodine today and am still a) missing the significance of Rita (along with her clothes, her fetus, her departure), b) trying to figure out why Ianthe said she was one of three daughters (truth or part of her fabricated back-story?), and just knowing that I’m missing something crucial. The discussion on this thread has illuminated a few things and made others more mysterious. Help! I’m not up to the mental gymnastics of most of your posters. I have an MBA in Business Administration which is the natural, literary and moral equilavent of being a Philistine. Have mercy. I’m trying to reform.
It’s imperative you all know that H has photographed wandering the neighborhood in her flannel pajamas. And that hat.
A., you’ll know when to worry about that dog. He’s probably fine. But I’m not what William Kohler calls a ‘humaniac.’ I think dogs are dogs, they live in dogness. My recipe for happiness for them is: food, no heartworms, company. That’s pretty much it. Vaccinations.
Lindsay, enjoy being in a classroom while you can. It’s heavenly.
correction
… H has been photographed…
OH LORD, my lovely Dianne, who knows many of my fashion secrets, has joined the fray!
Amy, we need MBAs in Business Administration as much as we need farmers or dentists or any other profession that keeps the world running. Particularly for people like me, who go out in public in pajamas and That Hat. (Dianne MADE the hat, by the way.)
Trace never means she is one of three literal sisters: think of the things categorized in threes. Does that help?
And ATTENTION BLOG ANGELS: I won’t be able to answer questions this intensely once I get back to finishing the Quaker book. So if you want to do another book next, let’s decide on it.
Dianne, I am so sorry about Boo. I wanted to bring you flowers yesterday, but because it was John’s birthday (and there were the boys here making a ruckus) I was occupied all day. But my heart is with you for sure and always.
Haven, before we leave IODINE, could you tell us if there’s anything you tucked into the story that we’ve all overlooked? A hint would be okay, but an outright “This is what it means and why” would be even better. We’ve all earned our three credit hours in archetypal psychology, wouldn’t you say?
I’m still just working on a timeline of actual events.
Are we still doing the Owen Meany discussion? I’m on my second reading now, for prep.
We don’t have to move on — if you want to do another of my books before the Quaker Deluge, I just need to know it so I can re-read it.
This is what it means and why: we should all just LIVE and BE HAPPY.
Kate, I got the impression — well, because someone said it outright — that people would rather do my books while I can answer questions. But we can certainly do Mr. Meany.
Well, hey, who is going to turn an offer like that down?
I just got all three of your other novels out of the library, so I’m prepared whatever is chosen! I read fast.
Also, we need to see this flannel pajama/ THAT HAT picture.
Thanks, Sweet H.
Re hat: it is true I made it in the third grade.
“If the hair helps, hold on to that. Not literally, that’s mean.”
Is that a Barenaked Ladies reference? “But not a real green dress, that’s cruel.”
I have no relationship to the Barenaked Ladies, but I find the coincidence quite amusing.
LTC- my parents live in Naperville. Someone else is up there. which other blog baby is it?
Lindsay- I started college in 1978 and finished in 2005. And, that was just my undergraduate degree. And it was not in English either. ha. I am learning more here than I did in college, well, or maybe ever before. You are smart just to be here! Ok, I guess that makes me smart too. I can say that out loud because I am alone tonight with the dogs and cat. The kids are with their dad and my husband is in Philly visiting his parents. I am pretty sure the dogs think I am smart most of the time. The cat probably doesn’t but then, what cat thinks any human is smart?
Ok, an actual Iodine question. Did Trace ever really shower at the truck stop?
I think it’s safe to say that Trace showered at a truck stop, yes. I myself once showered at a truck stop after one of my babies threw up on me on a road trip, so I know it to be a not-terribly-unusual occurrence.
There really has been so much vomiting on this discussion. Interesting.
No vomiting here. But, never say never because the dogs are eating pig skin chews and the night is still young.
I am new to this blogging thing – is this what you normally do? Discuss books, that is? If so, how truly wonderful and I assume anyone can join in as I have??? I read Owen Meany many years ago and LOVED it and would love to revisit it but for my part am in no hurry to move on from Iodine. In fact my husband is making fun of me because I just went over and brought my laptop to the sofa where we were sitting watching Stargate Atlantis (I confess I’m a sci-fi nut)because I couldn’t stand not seeing what was going on here!
I can’t stop thinking about Candy – what happened to her and her family. that image of her deserted trailer with the rust-colored stains everywhere.
And, Haven, back to the parasomnia for a moment – it’s amazing how trauma, whenever it occurs,repressed or not- can affect us emotionally and physically. I’ve seen some amazing things in my 20 years of practice. Enough to frighten the hell out of me and blow me away with reverence for this body and brain of ours. It’s another reason I am so in awe of you and this book – it’s an amazing look into the mind of someone wounded by (and surviving) childhood abuse.
I am wondering if the stuff about Rita, particularly the fetus, represents the fact that Trace/Ianthe feels robbed by the fact that Jacob does not want to have children. She has had everything she loves most in the world taken from her, and now she has that taken away too.
Beth, I don’t know what we do here, I’m new to this blogging thing, too. I’m following the lead of my commenters. But for the moment, yes, we are discussing books. Also poems. Periodically taxidermy.
I’m back from work… what did I miss?
I think I have most all of it squared away now, except that she has lost 4 years.
I don’t have any good questions to ask that have not already been asked so I am going to retire to the bedroom with the pups to read Iodine again with new eyes. Hopefully not sleepy eyes because I want to add something intelligent to this brilliant discussion in the morning. And since I am totally alone (that is without other people) in this house about once in a purple moon I need to indulge myself in the wonderful sound of silence. Goodnight sweet people.
JimShue, the only thing you missed is me trying to figure out how to run my own website. As soon as I locate a shred of intelligence I’ll add your blog and Amanda’s to my blogroll. Seriously, I’ve been reading a blurb request for the past few hours (it came with the absolute most lovely letter) (and it’s an interesting book) and then I stare at my WordPress dashboard and my eyes glaze over.
Kate, maybe I should point out what guided me through the revision process. As with a child, the narrator can never know more than she can know. Do you see what I mean? In a book that’s told in the first person and a very close-third, you can’t absolutely know more than the protagonist herself knows. You can have theories and opinions, but if she is in the dark about something, you’ll probably be in the dark about it.
Beth, a social worker once told me, “If you can imagine it, it’s happening somewhere in your neighborhood.” This was a woman with thirty years of experience. I was shocked speechless. But I believe her.
Oooh. Technical matters. Better leave themt to the professionals. I can just see it now:
“World Wide Web Crashes – Gifted Novelist to Blame”
“Honestly, I thought I could do it. I’ve been silly enough to think I could do anything in the past and that worked, I just figured this would be a piece of cake (not KateCake).”
I’m SO going to start saying that. “Easy as a piece of Kate Cake.”
Hang on — I’m giving the phrase a rethink.
DAMMIT, I just added my own blog to my blogroll and now can’t remove it.
Um, yeah. Where’s Scott?
I DID IT. Thank you all for your confidence, I couldn’t have done it without you.
Sock, if I can drive a tractor I can surely manage a website, right?
LOL! What can’t you do (besides build decks)? I have to call it a night. Bad day at work. I can see that they are mostly going to be that way now. New path and all. And I’m dead tired.
Love you,
Sock
Haven, I read somewhere in your blog that you and your friend Augusten have a new favorite phrase – “jesus take the wheel.” I loved it so that I have begun saying it frequently myself.
Carrie Underwood!?!? You’re quoting Carrie Underwood? Lord! What has the world come to when my two of my three favorite authors are quoting American Idol winners?
oh but it’s so much more than quoting Carrie Underwood…it’s taking that bit of distorted theology (in my humble opinion) and flipping it on it’s ear
BUT SHE DOESN’T EVEN WATCH TELEVISION!!!!! Ooooh! The irony!
uh oh, my sister the grammar nazi would be mortified that I put an apostrophe in its.
You lost me at Carrie Underwood. Kate, are you any closer here, and if so what would it take to get an email explaining it to this poor tired mother of 5 who is starting to look wild eyed at her family?
Beth is correct and so are you, Sock Monkey. I’ve never heard the song. OOOO but I did see the video for “Before He Cheats,” because Kat showed it to me, and that was excellent.
Jesus take the wheel, indeed.
OK I’ll give you “Before He Cheats”. Robbie is enthralled with her. Guess that’s better than Kelly Pickler.
And when did I become Sock Monkey? I like it!
Sock Monkeys are profound works of art.
Kate, maybe this would help. A friend of mine doesn’t remember her entire fourth grade year. I’m not sure if I should go into details of the trauma she endured, but, her father and brother should have endured Mother Delonda’s “Home Remedy”. If Mother Delonda is reading this, that story still gives me chills all these years later.
Coincidentally, Riley just got a copy of the book “Monkey and Me” She’s still not interested in being read to though.
Linda- I actually live on the South Side.
Which reminds me – Jim Shue, I have been meaning to say how much I like your name. Makes me smile every time I see it.
Not that there’s anything wrong with sock monkeys either. I assume you are from roundabout the same parts?
Elzy Ezekiel Rogers, I’ve got somethin’ to say to you and I’d take it kindly if you’d lie still and listen.
Ok, yes, I think I know exactly what is going on now. Boy, I was really, really over-thinking it!!
I want to hear about Mother Delonda’s home remedy!!
I can’t believe I’m about to become a catch phrase.
Also, I would gladly give you Tuesday for a Big Mac today.
OOH…I remember that!
Chills, I’m telling ya, chills!
Ok, still working it out. Think I am closer.
My son just read the wild eyed comment to my husband and now they all look worried. Kate, help me out here.
Ok, I will take of you Caryl!
Kate is my favorite, I would bring her a Big Mac today if it wouldn’t take me till Tuesday to get there. Do they have In and Out where you all live?
Oh no, no In and Out!! So sad. I have heard magnificent things.
Ok, I know it’s annoying, but it’s true. The crux of the book is what is not there…why does Trace/Ianthe hallucinate the way that she does? What do these things represent?
In-And-Out as a concept? Frightening to me. Very literal.
The burger is in my belly. The burger is IN my belly.
Cupcake: I’m fascinated by real-life unreliable narrators, not just literary ones. I meet them periodically and I find myself wanting to write down the things they say to cover up what they most fear seeing. I knew someone for years who openly lied about scenes I’d been part of, or witnessed, and it made me feel very wobbly — who has the loons enough to lie in front of a witness? But in time I realized that the person wasn’t lying, but rewriting, and very quickly, too. An event occurred: seconds later it was fictionalized in a way that supported an extremely brittle, fragile ego structure.
HA!
I lived with a girl like that for three years. I’ve always wanted to write a book about her.
Have you seen the documentary Gates of Heaven? It’s about a pet cemetery. It’s completely up your alley.
Here’s a quote from Roger Ebert’s Great Movie essay about it. It made me think of this conversation:
“The centerpiece of the film is an extended monologue spoken by a woman named Florence Rasmussen, who sits in the doorway of her home, overlooking the first pet cemetery. William Faulkner or Mark Twain would have wept with joy to have created such words as fall from her mouth, as she tells the camera the story of her life: She paints the details in quick, vivid sketches, and then contradicts every single thing she says.”
haven, do we have a time estimate of how long before the digging into Quaker Girl resumes? i am certainly voting for discussing your books for as long as we are able. i would vote for Solace as the next.
also… am INCREDIBLY honored to be linked! really and truly, very very.
You know my fear of the talkies, but this I will see. For some reason documentaries don’t scare me.
I will resume Quaker Girl pretty shortly after returning from the Midwest, or when Christopher comes after me with an electric prod, whichever happens first. Solace is a good choice — I’ll need to reread it, which is fine with me because I’m in love with Amos.
This is a nice, quiet documentary. I imagine after seeing it you’ll write a book about a pet cemetery.
I can’t wait for Quaker Girl…!!
For days after reading The Solace of Leaving Early I went around telling everyone I knew “you have GOT to read this book.” It was my first Haven Kimmel book to read and I set out to read everything else you had written after. I so am in love with Amos, too.
Two more things and I must go to bed….
On a lark I looked up iodine and slodged through all the stuff about thyroid to find tincture of iodine and one thing I read said it was the best antiseptic, antibiotic and antiviral of all time. I’m I off on a tangent that has no bearing to the book????
and secondly, Haven, do you know of the Quaker pastor and writer Phillip Gulley? If Grace is True is such a wonderful, affirming book. I am very intrigued by Quakerism – is that a word? Look forward to Quaker Girl
What is the significance of the name Warner? All I can think of is Time-Warner.
Oh DUH!! WARNER. LIKE THE ENGLISH WORD.
Beth, yes, I know Phillip Gulley — he’s lovely beyond description. Most American Quakers know of one another because there are so few of us. There’s actually a Wikipedia page of Famous American Quakers and everyone fits on one page.
Yes, Kate, like the English word. You are so adorable.
Whoops, I forgot to address the nature of iodine itself. No, you’re not on the wrong path.
Please do Solace next. Langston is right up there as one of my favorite characters ever. Right after Anna Lee. I would have loved to name Charlie Langston but it was too late,and he is a boy and it wouldn’t have been the same,anyway when I read how Langston got her name and how Anna Lee felt when first seeing her I cried. But Walt, he is the real hero and Amos and those girls..I will stop but I am going to smile for days if we do this book next.
Solace it is then. I’ll start reading it tomorrow.
Iodine…her eyes…cleansing what she sees…
Compassion with the sting of iodine, Leonard Cohen wrote.
Haven,
I just spoke with my contacts over at Viacom, and the horror/bio pic is a go! Shooting has begun! It’s working title is “Dawgmama” – which is allright – but those craven ninnies are getting some things – important details I simply cannot accept – wrong, wronger, wrongest! – perhaps you should have a talk with them. Your last visit over there intimidated them to no end.
Unfortunately this Mr and Mrs Joleena are busy, so it is going to be Phyllis Diller and Harry Dean Stanton
playing You and John after all. I guess we will just have to soldier on.
What is giving me the dry gripes is the scene where you are yelling at John because the nosy health department investigator buried in the back yard is dug up by your “Hell Hounds.” You know – John buries him, passes out on the grass, the dogs dig the body up and are dragging the corpse round the yard, gnawing on it, while that kid is ringing the dinner bell, and about line 189, where lil frenchie is licking John’s face and he says “mmmmm, kissums.” and you say “Dammit, gimmee that shovel!” well, they want to insert BANJO MUSIC!
Also, I distinctly noted the “corpse” was clearly
looking around at what was going on while he was clearly in the background of the shot! They told me “Oh, don’t worry we can edit it out, no problem.” and such bullroar… I suspect these people have klabber for brains.
This will not stand! Also – you might want to have a look at Phyllis’ bathrobe. As it is in nearly every scene and is not right. Also, her slippers were obviously different from one shot to the next. That little bastard DiCapistrano tried handing me the “Oh, it’s a print, who is going to notice?” Again, I suggest you have words with them.
The poster is good – though I suggested that in it your eyes should appear to be glowing. The “Hell Hounds” as well. Damn it all to hell, it is a HORROR
picture! I believe that foreign woman, I believe her name is Linguina, is the one to talk to to get things done there.
Things are fine here. Almost. My pet shoelace Rollo has tangled himself in one of the epaulets on my dickies. A sorry state of affairs.
I have had Dexter install a rather large proto-hamster bottle at my desk here. Thus I can take my grain alcohol and broth at my leisure while keyboarding. Madge is well, and sends her regards.
Best,
Horst.
Horst, GET ME CONTINUITY ON LINE ONE.
Iodine can cause skin lesions…contact with Loretta caused “blisters.”
Loretta was “cleansing” her, but the results of said cleansing left behind a worse mess, instead of dirt a huge, open wound.
My favorite “prop” in a Haven Kimmel novel is the tree in “Solace” – the tree that St. Mary appears to those kids in.
Just for fun, Haven, what kind of tree is it?
Best,
M
I had a proto-hamster but she was recalled. Now I’ve got this empty Habitrail and even the baby won’t play in it.
M — dogwood.
Kate, yep.
Oops. Continuity. My bad.
I didn’t get elected village oaf by accident.
M
M, sadly, I did end up in the office by accident, even though I was certain your shenanigans were going to cost us the election.
Are you offically crazy when you laugh, alone in front of your computer, at something you have no idea the meaning of ie; the above posted comments between M and H that are the stuff of true comic genius.
How could you know…how could you know… that that phrase of all phrases… was shoving to the fore in me mind ALL DAY TODAY. There were no fitting contexts to use it. Still it gibbered and squeaked for attention. I suppose I could have said it to a crazy man who was rubbing down a mail drop that I walked past at lunch… and I didn’t want to be a complete dork in front of your friends and just pop in and say it…Oh, you are a button pusher.
You know, if the writing ever sours, you might want to think about taking up a psychic counseling service on info-TV. Call it “Haven Knows…”
Those three dots at the end are crucial and MUST BE OBSERVED each and every time! No period, no just space where a period might be, but the THREE DOTS!
It makes it mysteriouser! People like that!
By the by, Wordsmith, what is that called – those three dots at the end of a phrase, that imply…
. . . ellipses . . .
If you’d spoken the phrase to the man pushing the mop down the hallway, he would held up his hand in a firm but civilized way, and said, “Let us close the curtain on these events.”
…he would HAVE held up his hand in a firm but civilized way, and said, “Let us close the curtain on these events.”
Hee hee, it is LIFE-AFFIRMING to see a Space-Chief like yourself make mistake!
Hey, I have an Xmas Fun-pac from a few years ago -
I wasn’t sure if you still lived on _________ or not.
That reminds me, I put a lazor pointer in there for Mr. Ob. Would you prefer I take that out? I suppose it could be bad for eyes, like staring at an ellipse.
Best,
M
Caryl, Matt and I have been at this for years. We don’t know what we’re saying, either. Once when I was on a grueling book tour he called and left a message on my cell phone describing the tiger attack on that orange homosexual man in Las Vegas and I was certain he was making the whole thing up. I was sitting in a hotel restaurant in Seattle, weeping with laughter. Later, I was chagrined.
Oh my gosh…That Poor Sigfried! His tragedy becoming a punchline!
It’s so terrible and I’m just HEAVING with laughter, thinking of Matt’s drawl describing the attack. I’m going to hell. Oh my ribs.
Great Caesar’s Ghost! That was Zeigried and/or Roy!
It was on the tee vee! He was wearing an orange pant suit I swear! Did I really do that? Maybe I was drinking…
I forgot all about that and I never forget anything!
Test me if you must! Oh lord that is for embarrassment.
Hee hee, what do you call a guy gets thrown into a pit full of TIGERS?
answer: Claude.
Hee eh.
Oh man, calling people up and leaving a message that Zeig-Roy got clawed by a tiger… how did it come to that… Caryl, I’m sorry you had to hear this…
BUt: what did that tiger dream about that night?
And: who had to clean up the glitter pen?
I keep reading that when a lion or tiger bites somebody, for some physiological reason it doesn’t hurt at all when it happens. The body simply does not acknowlege the pain – simply blocks it. Doesn’t happen. It is later the bites and scratches hurt.
It was in a newspaper interview with Henry Morton Stanley, when he got back from Africa.
Guh-heeza, Haven, now I’m laughing… I remember when you were on Good Morning Sunshine or whatever that show was – who was that famous favorite lady who interviewd you? I think she was mad at you or something. You emailed the night before, and I snuck
out of work for a minute and watched it in a coffee place next door… was that Diane Sawyer? She shaved her head one time cause I wouldn’t go out with her…
NO – it was Connie Chung! You know, speaking of annoying answering machine messages from wingnuts, she wanted me to give her a genius baby! I guess Mr. Maury was no good…
Oh, my.
Matt, you would make an excellent edition to my dish-washing squad. I have people I call to relieve the drudgery in my life.
now fidfiljjjkfffffffffffffffff
dkkeyblkasd;
Oh, that is funny.
I’m sorry, but one time you were talking about Ma Mary crying while watchingdjgkllll that bastard GRelks
marrykl k kjl on The Secret Storm, or whatever it was;lkdd Okay, I’m better I can’t type (LOL) when I am laughing. Gawwd, and I laugh loud too – the dogs are all concerneeeeeeeeeeeed. Meg White? She was getting married on that television program, and you were watching ittttj
losing muschle control… laugh
Okay. At any rate, you finished up this logn-ass statement, flawless as chrome, hell, by the end of it I couldn’t stand the sonofabithc, andyou finish with:
“Greg. To this day, I dislkie him intensely.”
And for like three days I was just laughy and weepy, didn’t matter where I was, thank god I wasn’t at a funeral or a job interview or something.
Matt, it was Katie Couric. KEEP UP. And you have told me the same lie about ‘feeling no pain’ about being attacked by hyenas. And then we go on to have the CHALK-POOPER argument.
Okay. It was Meg Ryan, in one of her first roles, she was getting married on some soap opera, and Ma Mary was weeping. Happy tears, so many happy tears.
I’m better now.
Mmmaat, !!!!! OMG!!! It was Meg Ryan’s character Betsy and she was marrying Steve Andropolous FINALLLY. AHAHAHAHAHA, you kill me.
!!!!!! Oh, I’m crying. All of the Jarvises showed up to watch the wedding with her, my dad, my uncles, everyone. And Mom Mary cried and cried, because Betsy had finally escaped from the clutches of the evil Craig. Craig. I dislike him intensely to this day.
Matt, Matt, Matt.
I have you to blame for a sizable dent in the dashboard of that fiesta…I would start laughing and pound on it like a CHIMP! People in cars beside me were SCARED!
By the way, I found the other day a brochure from the Northwest Academy of Taxidermy. One of my brothers learned that special art by mail from them. It has a section on NOVELTY TAXIDERMY, with the frog quartet and the rabbits out on a promenade.
The supply section is creepyiern a jar of toenails.
Who the hell buys a BRAIN SPOON? Normal people don’t. I don’t.
Anyhow I will photo-copy it sometime and send you one if you want. That gopher piece, the diorama in one of your previous posts damn near crippled my brains for about ten minutes at work the other day. I had to go out on the loading dock and laugh. Fortunately nobody came along and said “What’s so funny.” How the hell do you explain it?
Best,
M
You should see the barn now. That’s all I’ll say. UNTIL ONE OF THEM APPEARS IN A BLOG POST.
Oh my lord, I have no idea what is going on, and it doesn’t matter…
After all the hard work on the Iodine discussion, this is like heaven, I don’t even have to think I am just laughing. The lack of segue, the tangential course of conversation, its brilliant.
Caryl, Matt sent me one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten — it’s out in my barnstudy. A BAG OF BUFFALO FUR. Seriously. It’s in a sandwich bag and sometimes I take it out and make someone I love touch it and there is often screaming like a nine-year-old girl.
My friend Julie used to have a hair collection. I made her this little Victorian decoupage box and she put our friend Jon Berry’s blue hair in it.
Friends like that, they are the best. I have a friend who is phobic to the point of crazy about bandaids, any bandaid whether on her, her kids, she won’t touch one. One day I was washing the dishes and noticed my bandaid had come off, so I got an envelope and put it in, just the bandaid, and mailed it to my girlfriend. She did not speak to me for monthes.
Kate, that is so sweet.
Matt also sent me the red-assed baboon ink pen on the table in my study. You can see the pen on the last picture in the rat post. It’s in a cup of pens in front of the ermine.
Oh, my.
It is slumber-party night and I ahve to go tell them to get to bed. Also I have to get up about 7 and run the dogs. Then go to work.
Steve adndfropoulsdfk I can just see you sitting therssldkfffffffff, sitting there with the whole family watching that. Priceless.
Oh that is rich. Thank You. Goodnight all!
Caryl, I just SPIT ON MY COMPUTER SCREEN.
When Jewel’s poetry collection came out I was working in a bookstore, and every night I would copy one down, type it out on a 3×5 index card, and mail it anonymously to John. He was, naturally, horrified.
Matt will be here all week, people!
Mudpie, do you still have the same e-mail address?
Caryl, I salute your wickedness. I said this before, but my friend Brian has a crippling fear of crickets. I had considered feeding him chocolate covered crickets and not telling him, but my love for him outweighs my evil streak. It’s why I’ll never be cool.
I was actually wondering what that pen was!
Oooh…Baboons..HEEBIE JEEBIES!!
Matt, I’ve been a great audience.
Oh…oh…Jewel…poetry…*convulsing*
Imagine opening an envelope and finding a card with one of those . . . verses on it. He was bewildered. Isolated they just look like jabberwocky. In context they look like jabberwocky. I’m sure he thought he had another stalker — GAH, I’m laughing AGAIN.
Another stalker??
It all makes sense now, this feeling I’ve known you forever. Kate, you will be evil one day, it takes time, but one day the personal joy of imaginning ones friends/spouses reaction will supercede any decency you have left. Early to late 30’s is when this usually happens.
I just had to ask Jack how to spell imaginning.
I’m thirty right now! Ok, I will be on the lookout.
And, Jack didn’t spell it right either!
And I got it wrong again. Imagining?
That’s the one.
Oh my, I need to clear Jacks name, he spelled it right I just couldn’t get type it right.
Sweaty rock stars always have stalkers. His was also an alcoholic, if I remember correctly. I think there were a few, over the years. He used to do a Prince cover with just an acoustic guitar that nearly caused a riot in New Mexico. J, if you read this, don’t even try to deny it. I know for a fact patrons were breaking bottles on the tables.
The smartest people I know CANNOT SPELL. I had this sweet friend, Megan. When we were in the 6th grade she passed me a note. It contained an unfamiliar word. “Onnopoppet.” I stared, and stared. I finally asked her later.
Inappropriate. I kid you not.
My husband just lost 3200 fans on Rock Band, playing My Generation by The Who.
He’s been swearing alot.
ONNOPOPPET. That’s going to be my spy name.
Strangely, I have managed to read 90 pages of the blurb request while playing in this sandbox.
Multi-tasking!
Let’s bump this up to 500 comments.
You just did. Now I’ll get the boss’s attention FOR SURE.
When Jack is not helping me spell he is constantly asking me “what, what?” when I laugh. Onnopoppet is the best word ever, Jack is laughing and is making that his club penguin name.
Imagine how much money you’d make if WordPress allowed Google Ad-Sense.
Penguins are evil. My brother Jeremy has this theory.
It is not the case that penguins tip over and fall on their backs while looking at planes. That’s an urban myth.
I had not heard that, but now I wish it were true.
You know what movie sucked? Happy Feet. It didn’t help that on free movie day they showed the reels out of order.
Haven, this is Jack Hayes, and I just made a penguin on this one game called club penguin and here is its user name and password.
username:ONNOPOPPET
password:haven kimmel
And I made it all just for your children cause I heard you have children!
Hope your children have fun on the penguin!
site: http://www.clubpenguin.com
Jack…why are you UP???
My mom said I could.:D
Jack, you angel, thank you! I’ll show Obadiah in the morning. You know how they call people who stay up late ‘night owls’? I have a real owl that lives above my barn. I hear him every evening and see him most days. It’s great.
Cool, dude! I had to hide in the bathroom to read or do whatever when I was a kid. Or the old flashlight under the covers. But mostly the bathroom.
Haven can you please email me a picture of the owl to this email address?
email adress: fever12345@gmail.com
And if I send you my kaline book will you sign it please?
I’ll send you the picture right now. And yes, I’d be happy to sign your book.
Okay, you should have the e-mail.
Thank you Haven Kimmel.
Also, I want a barn. And a barn owl. And cookies.
You are so welcome.
Where is the address of the place you want me to send the book?Do you get up in the mornings like my mother does’nt.
He is going to bed now- and I swear its only 12:30 here.
D’OH! Time zones.
The time is now 2:42 in Southern Indiana.
I’ll e-mail you the address, Jack. And no, I don’t get up in the mornings like your mother doesn’t.
Haven and Kate, you guys were great and made a nine year olds evening. He is so not watching Baby Mama with me Haven, he is in bed with Charlie, still laughing about Kate wanting cookies. Goodnight, and thanks again for making him feel like one of us.
GOOBA GABBA WE ACCEPT HIM, ONE OF US.
Are you liking Baby Mama? I saw it the other night, and, meh…
Jack and I had some e-mail exchanges and he’s the coolest nine-year-old on the planet.
meh good or meh bad, cause I haven’t gone more than 2 minutes into it yet.
We’ll talk about it tomorrow, I’ll get your opinion Caryl.
Haven, the owl is his screen saver and back ground and he is beaming-or was, he really is in bed now. This was something amazing to him. You have no idea what you have done here, because he knows how much you mean to me, and so he has read your books to be a part of that and now he has emails from you, but you are a super star in our house so he is in awe. I want to bottle up what he is feeling right now and eat it.
okay/ i just woke up in california and saw there wERE OVER 500 posts on the iodine thread and i was thrilled. finally, i thought, i am getting to the bottom of this book.
instead, i’ve just read the whole thread, and i am IN A BOTTLE GRAVE. that’s when youre stepping along and there;’s a hole in the ground, shaped like a bottle, and you can not get out, ever.
OH MY GOD. I TURN MY BACK AND YOU ALL STEP INTO THE NEXT DIMENSION.
JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL.
btw, augusten emailed me that carrie underwoiod video fromhis australian tour and said that he was OBSESSED with it. and that “i’m so ashamed…’ and i laughed for like,an hour. watched it over and over again. i suggest veryon ehave a looky-see. i mean, WHYNOT? it’s not like there;s a syllabus at work.
i happen to know, also, that i am the only person on this thhread who is still awake. because apparently yall stayed up 24 hours straight, while i, for once, led the hours of a nun.
Suzanne–I, for one, missed you last night while you were leading the hours of a nun.
There may be others. In fact, I’m sure there are others.
Haven, Matt reminds me of Puck. Was Matt in any little way even the slightest inspiration for that character? Because I swear as I was reading his first few posts all I could picture in my mind was Puck.
Maybe someday when we discuss Something Rising I can find out.
Oh, and I am not making this up… a coyote just trotted across our front yard, across the street, and up behind the house on the hill across from us. My older dog was having a hissy fit, which she always does when anything (and I do mean anything) moves outside. But this time she was getting really agitated and all the fur on her back was standing straight up. I looked out the window and thought, I have never seen that dog before. He is quite handsome. But then I realized it was not a dog. And we do not live out in the country, mind you, we live in a neighborhood within the city limits of Nashville. But, there are a lot of small woods and some fields in the neighborhood and enough squirrels and chipmunks to keep a coyote fed. It kind of made me shiver because he was not running or walking, but rather trotting. Very strange.
We woke up today in Bozeman to a winter wonderland. Everything is covered in white, and it is coming down hard.
It feels like Christmas.
Haven- one odd note… The next flight after we met you, I started an excellent new book by Fred Vargas (a female Fred, actually). It is called This Night’s Foul Work. It’s a quirky murder mystery, translated from French.
Here is the odd note: throughout the book, the detective would spend time with his baby son, and told metaphorical stories about the case… with ibex as the protagonist and antagonist.
Two doses of ibex in one day!
Hope all is well.
Oh, good people of the Babies Blog. I’m so ashamed. I read ALL 534 posts on Iodine and I am now FAR behind on my thesis of it, so slippery now is my grasp. MAYBE.
What’s odd is, I understand Iodine perfectly, as a multifaceted novel. I love it. It’s amazing. Is that the finish line?
Please TELL ME THAT IS THE FINISH line.
Because otherwise, it’s “check, please!” at the cafe of my intellect.
I mean yes, Iodine’s protagonist is crazy and her life is crammed w/ projections, oddities and downright illusions. But I just take that as the way things ARE, if any of us really were truthful about our life and thoughts and experiences. I mean, “going to college’ is the most far out trip anyone can ever take, it’s an unnatural, unsupervised trip to CrazyVille, with some benefits and some cons. So I get the college thing completely, I mean, of COURSE.
In short: I see it as a psychological thriller of your insides (composited with the insides of others, including aliens) and your life (composited with the lives of unknown others), with exceptionally tricksy and scholarly goodies sprinkled throughout; and exquisite puzzle box of a novel that still makes sense as an unpuzzled novel of literary genius.
I.e.: Two people can have a marriage, and the can have TOTALLY DIFFERENT experiences, memories and realties within that marriage. In fact, one of them can disappear and become fictional. One can split up into 2 or 3 personalities, all of them true and some of them – perhaps – alien. And that’s in real life. So I think Iodine is just reflecting the disparities between what we classify as sane and what we classify as abnormal or “made up.”
How am I doing? I’ll be dammed if I don’t feel like I want a GRADE, now. I do. That’s how much I respect you, and that’s how fucked up I am.
xoxoxoxooxoxox
suzanne finnamore
TO JERRI: that’s very sweet of you. but it eems to me that the joint was JUMPIN and that i’d have been a feather in a hurricane. feather-brained, i suspect.
also – was that you who commented on my new MAN COLLECTING blog post? if so, thank you. it made me see that post as unworthy of me. because, really, the whole post was ABOUT greed, wasnt it? greed and a flippancy that is unbecoming.
Suzanne, not that my opinion matters that much, but I’d say you earned and A+ for that. I sometimes think (and I mean no disrespect to our Haven or her blog babies), in reference to college courses I’ve taken, that people try to make too much out something. Not that this isn’t a complicated and multi-faceted piece of brilliance. It is. And it took a couple of readings, plus hearing Haven speak about it, and reading these postings to make sure that I understand it. I think I do more on a gut level than an intellectual level. And yeah, sometimes I feel like the slow kid, sitting in the back of the class hoping the teacher doesn’t call on me because everything they’ve been saying might as well be in German!
two nights back, for the first time in 12 years in this canyon house of mine? i heard the distinctive howl of coyotes. two, by the sound of it, possibly three. it was 3 am, of course. that’s the witching hour, if you follow that sort of thing, or are born to it.
they are gifted , the coyotes. their howls an ungodly halleluyah. they made me feel i was attending a sacred symphony.
The only “reality” of any situation is the story each participant tells in its aftermath. We are constantly re-inventing our past, because the only “proof” of it is in our memory of it. No two people recall a single event in the same way, and each one is perfectly correct in their recollection.
“The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you Doing? What are you going? Think about these once in a while, and watch your answers change.”
“If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.”
~ Richard Bach, ILLUSIONS
Suzanne,
My starter marriage would probably have worked if we’d had TOTALLY DIFFERENT “realties,” as you pointed out in your 12:10 pm posting:
“Two people can have a marriage, and the can have TOTALLY DIFFERENT experiences, memories and realties …”
Have anyone of you read Paul Anderson’s epic-sized tome of 1376 pages, HUNGER’S BRIDES: A NOVEL OF THE BAROQUE? If you have, what did you think?
Joe From the Plane, don’t you just fine that ODD? I’m absolutely amazed. Also you have quite interesting literary taste. You’ve named what, four books I’ve never heard of?
We still have our air conditioning running in North Carolina. Snow is simply not on the table. So to speak.
Caryl, Jack is a wonder. Plus? We get each other.
Its 11:20 and I just woke up.
It’s 85 degrees in Evansville. We are in the midst of Fall Festival, the second largest street fest in North America, second only to Mardi Gras, and it’s too darn hot for anyone to eat anything deep fried. I want sweaters and nippy air, not sweater running down my cleavage.
As for Iodine, for me I had to understand the sequence of events, separate hard fact from “truth” in order to understand it for me, personally. Once I got that down, HOLY COW. It’s amazing.
Sweater running down my cleavage, not sweat. There, I just made you think of my Cleavage TWICE. There I go again, three times.
SWEAT not SWEATER! JEEZ OH MAN!
Kate, we were up late, go easy on yourself.
Jesus Take the Wheel always finds me driving and shouting at the radio “It’s a METAPHOR! Grab the damned wheel!”
Suzanne, I think you said everything I wasn’t able to articulate earlier. I’m reading Iodine for the second time and thanks to this thread of discussion, I’ve got a far greater understanding of the nuance and complicated choreography of everything in it, but the bottom line is that each and every one of us loved this book, right?
And I loved it at least in part because despite the fact that it’s sometimes bleak and horrifying and all of this crazy shit is happening to Ianthe, and my heart was shattered for her (and for Weeds, and for Colt who I was in love with immediately), it was FAMILIAR.
My memory certainly isn’t as vivid as the images that Haven can paint, but I think it’s been said more than once that so many of us have been in these places and met these people. It isn’t so far fetched for that girl in your English class to be the one who fell over the edge.
I’m tiptoing quietly in here, because I feel a little bit like the “new” kid being paraded in front of the class in the middle of the school year. Also, after having lurked here for the past 10 days or so and seeing how cool and smart everyone else I’m not sure if I’ll be up to snuff or not. Haven, I just finished the book last night…. Wow, I’m bowled over and still trying to wrap my head around everything. My mind is still reeling. I look forward to reading everyones comments and thoughts. In the meantime hello everybody, I’m glad to be here.
Suzanne–about coyotes: I agree about their ungodly halleluyah.
Sitting in a hot tub on the side of a mountain in New Mexico surrounded by the howls coyotes singing the full moon was one of the most holy moments of my life. And, not coincidentally, one of the scariest for this midwestern city dweller.
Lindsay: “It isn’t so far fetched for that girl in your English class to be the one who fell over the edge.”
YES! That’s it exactly.
And, in our own ways, haven’t we all fallen over the edge from time to time?
Scott, welcome, and truly — I’m the one who should be worried about being up to snuff. What a curious phrase, ‘up to snuff.’ God knows where that came from. (I’m tired of looking things up. Imagine that.)
And Suzanne, thank you for your very sane comments about the bottom line.
As far as it being far-fetched that it would be the girl in your English class who fell over the edge? I was that girl in your English class.
Cupcake, sweaters in your cleavage. You slay me.
Okay, so I’ll put up a post in a couple days, maybe three, for the SOLACE discussion? It has to be soon because I’m traveling. By then I should have figured out how to post something on my own. Oh wait, I need to read the book. I DID finish the blurb request book. It only took me until seven this morning.
Heaven knows there is ROOM enough in there. And I’d rather have a sweater than a jumping spider. Yes, I’ve had one of those. Barely recovered.
Kate,why are you so crazy?
~jack~
Jack: !!!!!
Kate, do please address this. It might help me understand why I am so crazy.
???
Oh heavens…how much time do you HAVE??
I blame God. God love him!
I just realized Jack was the one that posted that. Jack, I am so crazy because I realized sometime in my teens that my only defense was a sense of humor. When I stopped taking myself seriously I started having a better time.
Okay,the first thing I told Jack when he woke up was no emailing Haven, she is sleeping. No going on the blog either unless I am on. I just logged back on and looky here, Jack is all up in Kates business. I will make him clean the house now for sure.
Now I have to wonder, does he know what a cleavage is? Won’t happen again ladies unless he is A. invited B.given permission C.typing for me because my hand is broken.
I like crazy cake.
Hi Scott. And, hi Jack (if you are here) My kids are both in high school and both are smart like you. So, I am glad you even have the slightest interest in hanging out with wacky adults like us. You go, guy!
So, is no one going to actually tell me the significance of my seeing an actual live coyote in my front yard this morning? I mean, I live in freakin (sorry Jack) Nashville, Tennessee, not Wyoming or something. Isn’t it a sigh (other than humans pushing animals out of their natural habitats)?
Is anyone else wondering if George got his jeep fixed or if he is still stuck at the beach? I wish I was stuck at the beach. George, I miss you.
I meant sign, not sigh, although I think I did sigh when I realized the dog was actually a coyote.
Jerri and Haven, you said it. I know I have to some extent or another been that girl in someone’s English class (actually, it was probably someone’s religious ethics class, and praise be to the best professor I’ve ever had to grace to encounter for understanding that and becoming my mentor anyway).
It’s both exhilarating and terrifying to plunge into and roam around the unfathomable depths of a human brain, moreso a genius brain.
I love knowing that the innocuous looking dude in line behind you at the grocery store has a million stories waiting to be told.
Okay, all, I have been lurking for quite some time now (which is so unlike me, as you have seen), but I did not feel I could speak of which I did not know. Iodine needs to be read again with, arrayed in front of me, Amanda’s gatherings and George’s and Jodi’s posts and all Haven’s clues, and all the rest of you brilliant blog babies’ readings on this most layered and nuanced of stories. And perhaps Jung and Hillman at the ready, too. There is so much prying up of edges I’ve had hammered down pretty good there for some time, klieg lights in the cellar, something breaking apart — I understand why Jodi (was it Jodi?) said this is the book that changed her life. I’m so grateful for all of your posts, all of your beings. So grateful to you having written this.
Oh my, didn’t we leave George at a Starbucks somewhere yesterday? Linda, no need to censor yourself on Jacks account. Poor boy is being raised by wolves over here. Jack is also not coming on here without permission,and then he will announce himself very loud. There is a significance to your seeing a wolf in Nashville, but we probably need Haven to point it out.
Linda, it might actually be a sign that coyotes are returning to a natural habitat they’d previously lost. Or I’ve just read too much Barbara Kingsolver. I don’t know Tennessee at all, but I assume that at one point or another there were coyotes in the Nashville area.
And I cut and forgot to paste, “holding Suzanne’s quite practical suggestions in mind.” It extends to families too, that Rashomon effect — I can’t talk to my sister about the past, about our parents. We have polar opposite memories of our experience of our family.
coyote, wolf, its all a bit odd in my book.
I believe Jack adds a certain insouciance to this blog, he is devil-may-care in his reflections of having been raised by wolves. Though I am so sorry about your hand, Caryl.
Carrie, my brothers and I are the same way. I am constantly astonished at the three utterly divergent paths laid by the same two people with the same child rearing techniques. Especially as concerns my oldest brother, who is so radically different from myself that sometimes I can’t see for the brilliant light of him.
I’m with Lindsay — every year, the coyotes regenerate in the greenbelt out back and I’ll hear the kits yipping in spring (nothing like it, nothing) and every other year, there is a war against them. Because it’s more important that cats are able to roam free in the suburbs (where there are many highways where cars like to move at a fast clip) than to let the coyotes hold the last 2 mile strip of greenbelt available to them. I see them 10 feet from my window, every other year. Everyone should be so fortunate to have wildness reminding them of where they came from.
I was using the broken hand as an example of when it would be okay for Jack to be here, but I appreciate your concern, and Jack will love to know someone used the word insouciance to describe his being here. Nobody meets and talks to Jack without knowing something real and brilliant is going on in his head. .
I am a lucky mom
“Everyone should be so fortunate to have wildness reminding them of where they came from.”
Cheers to that.
He is a lucky boy to have you for a mother. And I am so glad your broken hand was not literal.
Caryl, you are definitely a lucky mom.
Jack is an insanely lucky kid to have a mom who knows that.
Lindsay, right? The same people, the same techniques, different, very different, results.
Thank you. I feel better now. Coyotes are native to Tennessee (not sure if native is the right word, but you know what I mean) but just not in this neighborhood. OR– maybe they have always been in the woods behind my house keeping very silent, just waiting for the right time to emerge. ooooh shivers.
Carrie- I feel exactly the same way. I am no where near as smart as most of these folks, but I am hoping some of this will seep into the small cracks in my brain and help those cells I still have that are no longer being killed by alcohol. I actually shared in an AA meeting this morning. This meeting is a big one and I have only shared in it once before and I have been going to it for about 5 months now. I think I have gained some courage from all of you.
Linda (every time I try to type your name, I type my own. How lame is that?) I commend you on your sobriety, and I think it’s so awesome that this community that seems to have popped up out of nowhere has given you that kind of courage.
Something I’ve noticed here as long as I’ve been coming (which is far longer than the two weeks or so since I delurked) is that regardless of their brilliance, the people here are unbelievably welcoming and gracious. I am constantly astonished by Haven’s kindness (though I saw that in her memoirs before I even knew this site existed) and the kindness of everyone else here. I don’t think any of us needs to worry about being here.
Good on you, Linda — it’s not easy to get up in front of all those people. And Iodine — LTC’s post of 2:19p yesterday came closest to my reading of the book, but with all the rest of the information in this post, I know my second reading will be so much richer.
I’m off to have a Bach Flower Essences reading! Oh, I do adore having herbalist friends…
Sher- if you come around tonight- my daughter is volunteering at the Southern Festival of Books tomorrow afternoon (Sunday) so I think I will go with her. Have you already been or will you be there tomorrow?
Linda: I have no idea of the significance of the coyote, but a fox sauntered up to the front door of my business a week or so ago. Right in the middle of a busy commercial area, 100 yards from the busiest highway around here.
So, if you figure it out, let us know ASAP.
Hmmm, very mysterious, Jerri.
In terms of the coyotes: all animals are archetypes, when glimpsed that way. For my money they remain archetypal right up until they sink their teeth into your flesh. I’d guess there are tricks abounding this autumn, yes? Flashes of silver, fleet-footed men and children, random objects gone missing, a riddle rolling around in the brain.
On the practical side, never forget that while coyotes are generally shy and aren’t interested in engaging in conversation with us, they are stealthy beyond belief and master predators. There’s a reason farmers and cattlemen and people on horseback hate and fear them.
Here’s a woman for you: last year, here in North Carolina, a woman was getting in to her car at night, and a fox slunk out from underneath it and bit her on the ankle. She reached down, grabbed it by the tail, and swung it like a bat against the side of her car, then took its carcass with her to the hospital. They sent it to animal control and it was determined to have rabies.
Now I happen to adore foxes, but in this particular case I’d have to give the win to the Ass Whoopin Southern Woman.
My mother has a morbid fear of rapists lurking under cars at night, but never, ever has she suggested watching out for slinking foxes.
Yep. The win definitely goes to the AWSW.
IODINE’s Trace is living in Jonah, Indiana, a fictional town in the fictional state of Indiana. (Just checking to see if anyone is still awake …) The biblical Jonah, like Trace, lived in the belly of the beast. That is, in fact, his claim to fame. What happened to Jonah after he was cast up on the shore? What happened to Trace after her epiphany on the final page of IODINE? Miss Haven, that’s one that’s not yet clear to me.
I’d love to hear your explication for Jonah, Indiana, and how you came to name your town for a disobedient Hebrew prophet. (By the way, the Hebrew word “jonah” translates as “dove.”)
Absent evidence to the contrary, we cannot say for certain that the fox did NOT have rape on its mind.
I knew you would put it into perspective Haven. One Easter we brought all of the kids out front for an easter egg hunt, and my brother who is the funniest/craziest person ever, said “look kids, there is a snake wrapped around that rabbit.” Seriously, there was a rabbit being strangled by a snake and the kids screamed, grandmas screamed, and you have to wonder what that meant on EASTER!
Ms. Jodi, did you not just answer all your own questions? No one listened to Jonah — his prophecies were ignored, in the way Cassandra’s were ignored — until he survived being swallowed by the Leviathan. And what better place to put a state university, then in a town named after a prophet no one would listen to?
Caryl, I just snorted unbecomingly. “Look at the snake wrapped around the rabbit” is going to be one of my new favorite phrases.
Ms. Haven, yes, I guess I answered my own question, but you answered MORE poetically and MORE eloquently. Thank you.
Snorting is the least of it. I fear my neighbors are dialing for assistance at this very moment.
They certainly fear for my safety or their own, based on the noises drifting from my windows.
Jonah appears in every novel — it’s the Big Town. So while SOLACE takes place in Haddington, Indiana, the children are taken to the doctor in Jonah. All of THE USED WORLD takes place there.
Yes, Jodi: that’s me. Poetic and elegant. An hour ago I walked in to the kitchen to get some milk and my pants just completely fell down.
Ahhh. I bought The Used World about 2 weeks ago anxious to read it as it but then I got sidetracked with Owen and then again with Iodine. Now it seems I need to re-read Solace before I can read Used. Ugh. Sometimes I wish I had three heads. Ok, I don’t wish that very often, but if I did this would definitely be one of those times.
Haven, once my pants just completely fell down on a sidewalk in the middle of Bloomington.
Haven. Honey. Are these the infamous Airport Pants? Are you still … trying to … wear them? Where do you get these crazy pants? You’re not trying to “sag,” are you, like the cool boys from the ‘hood? Haven??
Jodi, you are hysterically funny. That comment was wonderful.
I’m gonna run with this ball and take up JACOB MATTHIAS, Ianthe’s husband.
St. Matthias was chosen to replace Judas the traitor in the apostolate.
Jacob is from the Hebrew, meaning “heel” or “heel grabber,” in reference to his birth, in which he held the heel of his twin brother Esau. And he gained fame for stealing Esau’s birthright.
Connection to our Dr. Matthias? Or maybe your taxidermied weasel is named Dr. Matthias …?
Amanda,
I’m nuts. And by the way, I love your avatar.
jodi
Haven, I actually have a male cousin named (wait for it) Danny Rae. Son of my Aunt Jerri Lee, deceased local country-and-western singer at local dives. Naming those two brothers Danny Rae and Duane is inalienable evidence (inALIENable!) that you grew up in a Hoosier backwater. The chilling significance of this type of being may be lost on east and west coastal readers, which is both blessing and curse, I suppose.
I am stupified by my husband and father-in-law’s study of their genealogy. In light of where I come from, I’m running hard and fast in the opposite direction, inventing my past in my headlong flight.
“For Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”
Thank GOD someone recognizes how much time I put into names. I too feel that Danny Rae and Duane are just the berries.
Why thank you!
No, these are different pants. Something is amiss.
Haven, Can we talk? About the bottle o’piss that Marty carried around? Where oh where did you unearth that one? By the PUNCH BOWL at the wedding?? Sweet Lord, that’s … I have no words.
More Names. Juna. (Mother of Colt Pennington.) In mythology, wife of — was it Zeus? Ruler of the Universe.
Is Low-REH-tuh another juicy Hoosier-ism?, which I enjoyed as much as WANDA who who have working at the truck stop! Oh, lord. Wanda. Their mothers doomed them both in pinning those names on them. And Loretta’s hair the colour of cantalope mixed with blood. Her maiden name was Vaughan … significance? And did Trace just steal Loretta’s thunder with “I am an orphan in all the world”?
I believe each of them deserve discussion in WS510: Wounded Women in Literature.
The only child molester I ever met peed in a plastic Pepsi bottle. I thought it was an absolutely idyosyncratic element, but somebody at one of my readings knew a man who saved his pee in bottles, and I was like, whoa.
Whoa.
Haven,
Apropos of your love for taxidermy, you might like the sheepskin products from this store in Au Gres, Michigan. I have several of their tibetan lamb neckwarmers, which might be inspirational on a cold winter’s night. The photo of the neckwarmer on the website doesn’t do it justice.
http://www.augressheepfactory.com/P0938.html
Then again, maybe you should find Lands’ End and order some smaller pants.
Hey. Wait a minute. Phillip Wilson. Not like Wilson Phillips, the singing girls?? Dusty Ann’s husband. By the way — Dusty? Only other Dusty I know is Springfield.
Gianni (Johnny) Loria. Like folk-Lore? Or … what? Am I missing something?
Wow, I LOVE that sheepskin business.
Loria is the most common surname in the village from which Gianni claims his family hails.
Phil and Dusty. It’s VERY rural Indiana.
Linda, right?!?
Oh, and Juna is a variant of Janus, by which I mean it’s a Haven Kimmel vowel-switcheroo. Janus, the two-faced god.
More names. If I’ve got this one right, you’re Very Funny and Subtle, Ms. K.
Richard Scherring = Dick Shearing = emasculated!
Todd at the goth party at Myka’s apartment:
tod = death in German
Anastasia LaFramboise = Anastasia Raspberry
Re: the Au Gres Sheep Factory. It’s lovely stuff. They have a booth at the Johnny Appleseed Festival in Fort Wayne every September. If you want to see a clear photo of the tibetan lambskin, let me know and I’ll send you a picture of the ones I have. And how about a steering wheel cover??!
Jodi, A+ as usual.
You know it never gets cold where I live? Rarely, I mean.
Jodi get an A For The Day for sure.
*gets
I am ecstatic about rereading Solace, by the way.
I have long believed, literally, that my one great purpose in life… the thing that makes me happiest in all the world… is discovering something that is brilliant and beautiful and true. Then, once I have discovered it, in