Life in General

Sunday Scribblings-Punishment and Reward

I don't believe in punishment - either in the cosmic or the personal sense. I don't subscribe to the notion that something in the univserse will strike me with a lightning bolt if I defy its mandates. I don't believe that any bad luck that befalls me is because I didn't go to church last Sunday, or because I swore seven times yesterday, or even because I took home a couple of pads of sticky notes from my office. Conversely, I don't feel I'll be rewarded just because I spent some extra time helping an elderly neighbor with her Christmas cards, or took an afternoon off work to take my mom Christmas shopping and out to dinner. I have always subscribed to the adage that you can "catch more flies with honey than vinegar." I think it's true in parenting, in dog training, and in dealing with most human beings. If you reward the behavior you want to encourage, you'll be more successful (not to mention happier!) than if you're constantly punishing behavior that's wrong. How much more peaceful would life be if people operated on that principle?

I do believe that "what goes around comes around." In the ever spinning cycle of earth and life, there are difficult times and wonderful times. Sometimes, we can help bring one or the other to pass, sometimes it's totally out of our control. One of my favorite verses in the Bible says it perfectly..."To every thing, there is a season, and a time and purpose under heaven." (For those who aren't familiar with the Christian Bible, a group called the Byrd's sang about it in the sixties in a song called Turn, Turn, Turn.)

Sometimes, when life is hard, its difficult not to cry out "What did I do to deserve this?" It's hard to accept that in all of life, bad things happen, especially when it seems your life is filled with more bad than good. There is purpose in all of life's vicissitudes - we learn and grow during those tough times. When I'm going through one of those rough places, those times in life when I'm turning toward the dark side, I ask myself "what is the lesson? what is it I'm supposed to learn?" Although the answer may not be immediately apparent, it usually comes clear to me at some point. And therein lies my reward. for more thoughts on this topic, go here

Third Day Book Club - Winter's Bone

In the musical groups I belong to, we sometimes program pieces of music we refer to as "just for us," meaning they're slightly different from the majority of "audience pleasers" we usually offer. They have chords sprinkled throughout that make chills run down our spine, or fascinating rhythm combinations that send our hearts racing while we play. The composers have a unique way with harmony or mixed meter that the trained musician can appreciate on a deeper level than the casual listener. Similarly, at least for me, Winter's Bone, Daniel Woodrells's compact and rough edged novel, is a "writer's book." Like those composers I referred to, Woodrell has a superior, edgy, way with words and sentence structure that makes his work particularly compelling to someone studying the craft of writing. Woodrell has been highly praised for his ability to write "taut and lyrical prose," and this is certainly not an exaggeration. We're introduced to Ree Dolly, the 16 year old protagonist of the novel, as she stands on her front stoop in the Ozark mountains on a cold winter morning, wearing a sleeveless yellow sundress and her Mamaw's black overcoat. She "smelled the frosty wet in the looming clouds, thought of her shadowed kitchen and lean cupboard, looked to the scant woodpile, shuddered." In this collection of sentence fragments, Woodrell lays bare the scenery, the mindset, and the emotional and financial situation of his character. The book abounds with perfectly crafted sentences and images like this, that do double or even triple duty in setting mood, defining character, and moving the action along. Woodrell also has a mighty flair for metaphor, describing an automotive junk yard as "trophies for bad luck from many eras spread crumpled downhill beyond sight," and Ree's shotgun as feeling "like an unspent lightning bolt in her hands."

Ree's story is one of fierce pride, determination, and loyalty. Attempting to locate her runaway, "crack burning" father - dead or alive - so that her family won't lose their home in his defaulted bail, Ree endures everything from lewd remaks to a savage beating that nearly kills her body if not her soul. Yet she perseveres, set on preserving all that's left of her family's heritage for her addled mother and two small brothers. If she can't manage to save their home and land, she knows that not only will she "never have only her own concerns to tote," she will "never have her own concerns" at all.

Woodrell deploy's Ree's journey in less than 200 pages. In the hands of this masterful storyteller, the plot moves as swiftly as Ree's combat booted feet through the familiar backroads and woodlands of her Ozark mountain home. Since I just completed a short novel in the NaNoWriMo contest, it was especially interesting to me to see how skillfully Woodrell told Ree's story with such brevity.

All that being said, Winter's Bone is not a novel I would ordinarily read for pleasure. It's mean, dangerous, and brutal, and it made me angry more often than not. It was sometimes almost too painful to read, and I think that's why I found myself focusing so intently on Woodrell's method - the heart (and gut!) wrenching details of the story were more intense than I could handle.

If you're looking for a entertaining novel with sympathetic characters you can identify with, Winter's Bone is not your cup of tea. However, if a well crafted, fast-paced story with a fearless and hard edged young heroine who is willing to risk it all for her family sounds more your style, than this novel will not disappoint.

*For more impressions on Winter's Bone, visit Paris Parfait, who is hosting this month's gathering of The Third Day Book Club.

Whew

That's all I can say about this week. It's been a series of nonstop disasters, nothing life threatening, but some more serious than others. We were supposed to be at our home in Florida today, visting our kids and enjoying the near-perfect mid seventy degree temperatures. Thanks to all the calamities this week, we had to cancel the trip and are now "basking" in a combination of wind/sleet/snow that's blowing into its second day. However...its Friday, things have returned to some semblance of normal, and I'm feeling grateful~

~for 40 minutes in Borders this morning, sipping coffee, writing in a brand new Moleskine, and reading Winter's Bone~

~Awake, a new CD from Josh Groban, especially Don't Give Up, my favorite song to replay (and replay, and replay, especially this week) ~

~that I finished my novel for NaNoWriMo before the beginning of this week from hell~

~three more days with no work, since my office is in total disarray thanks to a major renovation project~

~that I have not come down (knock wood!) with the nasty intestinal flu that's making the rounds, landing my mother in law in the hospital earlier this week~ ~as always, these two:

don't you love Magic's "leaf beard"?