I have to confess that I'm not at all sure about this one. I don't know anything about Nathan Hill, and all I know about Wellness came from a single book review. The reviewed lived thus book...but hey, in the review of Blue Lard, THAT reviewed loved IT. But it's 608 pages long & it's due in 18 days (and no renewals), so if I want to read it for free, the time to start is now, the place to start is here.
So...about 34 pages per day, then. And I'm still inching my way through Opera as Hypermedium, which also can't be renewed, but is not due until 5/18/2024, so I don't have to worry about that one.
Enough said. Hello, Nathan Hill. How ya doin'?
Day 1 (DDRD 2,350) April 7, 2024
Read to page 41. But I'm going back for more. Just wanted to pause to note a couple of things.
A few pages in: "Loneliness... holds him like a buttonhole." (5) Well that's quite good, ennit?
And here's a word that was new to me:
craquelure
a network of fine cracks or crackles on the surface of a painting, caused chiefly by shrinkage of paint film or varnish.
Like this:
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| Public Domain |
To be honest, I didn't even know there WAS a word for that.
Thus far this is looking like a love story. But it's kind of corkscrewing into my soul. Remembering that first thrill when you see somebody you're attracted to. The uncertainty that precedes the first kiss, the first intimate, uncertain touch, the first time making love. And at the same time the dash of ice water in my face: I'll never know any of those things again. I've kissed my last kiss--and, alas, with a woman I didn't even like very much. I've touched my last intimate touch, made love for the last time. From here on out, however long that may be, it's just me. Like a road through the desert. And, to be honest, that's what I want now. I've been disappointed, deceived, and hurt more times than I thought I could endure, and pursuing further romantic relationships has all the appeal of entering the Colosseum for a date with a ravenous lion.
But I vividly remember those first uncertain days of falling in love. And that is what Wellness has been "about" for these first 41 pages.
Now I'm going to read a little more.
Oh wow. Chapter 2, twenty years later, things have changed. Substantially. 😭 "Nobody knows baby where love goes, But when it goes it’s gone gone." (Bruce Sprinsteen, "When You're Alone."
Turns out a little more was a lot more. Read to page 101. Things have shifted considerably. What was a sweet & odd falling in love story is now a frustrating story about what happens to love...perhaps inevitably. Which I suppose is comforting in a way. If love just naturally tends to deteriorate and rot with age, then that's unfortunate, but not indicative of personal failure. "Throw a rock against the road and it breaks into pieces."
That's how it goes, tough shit, motherfucker. 👶 wanna 🍼?
Day 2 (DDRD 2,351) April 8, 2024
Read to page 174. So a 73 page day. And I actually would like to read some more. I've got so far ahead of my goal on his that if I only read 28 pages a day I'd still finish by the due date. I doubt that I'd be able to hold myself to 28 pages a day, though. That's kind if thrilling in and if itself, ennit?
It's not a proFOUND book, but it does do a good job...well, Nathan Hill does a good job...of creating real moments. Of love found. Of love diminished. Of the difficulty of dealing with a toddler. Yeah. Maybe I will read just a little more.
Speaking of...as Elizabeth tries to deal with her difficult toddler, the text becomes peppered with references to scientific journal articles pertinent to her various struggles. I thought that was pretty funny, but thought it would be even funnier if the articles were real. So I Googled one of them — Laible and Thompson, 2002 — and lo and behold:
And because they're cool like that, I was able to locate and download this piece from the LFPL. I'm going to have a read of that, but first...A little more Wellness, I think.
Day 3 (DDRD 2,352) April 9, 2024
Read to page 209...35 pages...which I only note because I've had almost no reading time today. That's how easy it is to slip through this book.
"His psyche eagerly deformed reality to avoid that which it found intolerable." (189)
And that, my friend, is the whole ball if wax, isn't it? It's why women turn the men they left into objects of hate (and vice versa, no doubt). It's why people cling to their love for an execrable man like Trump. It's why we are all essentially living in our own little hermetically sealed worlds.
Hill spends some time on the Alvan Fisher painting, The Prairie on Fire, which looks like this:
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| Public Domain |
All books should be annotated. Hill...or Jack, I suppose, thinks, This is a painting by a man who'd never seen the prairie, based on a novel by a man who'd never seen the prairie.
Read to page 238.
Day 4 (DDRD 2,353) April 10, 2024
Read to page 301. Waitaminute...how's that possible? I did wake up 2:30 Amish and read a few pages before going back to sleep, then dud a little reading this morning, but 63 pages? That surprises me. (Still going to read dome more, though.)
"...people have a very strong need to explain the world in ways that make them feel better, or safer, or more powerful, or more well liked, or more more in control, but not necessarily in ways that are true. Alas, the truth is of very low importance, psychologically speaking." (244)
A more nuanced version of the "deform reality" quote (☝) from page 189.
Dr. Sanborne tells Elizabeth that love is "an expansion of the self. It's when the boundaries of the self spread out to include someone else, and what used to be them now becomes you." (245)
Which resonates with me. And explains why the end of a relationship is so awful...at least for me. If you believe what Sanborne says here, then the ending if a relationship is the truncating of the self...like an amputation. Without anesthesia. With a dull saw. Yep, that stings a mite.
A big topic in the last hundred pages or do has been the ramifications of Bad Parenting. Which makes me examine my own parenting, and makes me think about specific moments when I've failed them in one way or another.
😓😢😯😕😕
At the bottom of page 308, I had to stop and do a library search for Rothko. One of the things I found was a documentary, available through hoopla, narrated by Rothko's son. So I stopped to watch that.
In one scene they were unpacking Rothko paintings and transporting then to different rooms in the museum, setting up an exhibition. I caught a glimpse of a cart which seemed to have a cup of coffee on it, which I thought was funny and irreverent, so I zoomed in.
And ended up with a lovely painting, don't you think?
Anyway...I enjoyed the documentary...and the music, which I'm pretty sure was by Morton Feldman. I think I'll watch it again tonight after I get a little stoned on Delta-8. I want to see if I can fall into one of those paintings.
Later...
Didn't rewatch the movie.
Did get stoned.
Am.
But get this: I read to page 338. That's 100 pages today!
And I'd actually like to read more, but....
Am.
Day 5 (DDRD 2,354) April 11, 2024
Read to page 443. That's 105 pages! And it's too long to quote, but page 369 really kicks ass.
"It was the ritual that was important - the acupuncturist's thorough examination, the couple's elaborate date, the mother's comforting home remedy, the ceremonial mixing of the absinthe. It was in these observances that the placebo effect activated and materialized: the transubstantiation of belief into reality, of story into truth, a metaphor made flesh." (363)
Which might be a good argument for allowing ritual to be a part of our lives...and maybe explains why I'm so enamored with old school Catholic church services (incense, organ, choir).
Day 6 (DDRD 2,355) April 12, 2024
Read to page 500. A mere 57 pages, but I'm probably going back go back for more once I get a little dad business done. And lookee there: only a tad more than a hundred pages to go!
"If you cling too hard to what you want to see, you miss what's really there." (496)
Day 7 (DDRD 2,356) April 13, 2024
Read to page 608 = The End. And quite a satisfying book it was...as you'd probably guess from the fact that my goal was 34 pages per day, but I ended up at 87 pages per day.
Okay. Time for The Nix, I think.
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages
(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages
(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages
(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages
(17) The Worlds of Jazz 13 days, 279 pages
(18) To Be or Not...to Bop 14 days, 571 pages
(19) Kind of Blue 4 days, 224 pages
(20) Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and his Masterpiece: 5 days, 256 pages
(21) Miles: The Autobiography 16 days, 445 pages
(21) A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album: 8 days, 287 pages
(22) Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest 8 days, 304 pages
(23) Living With Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings 11 days 325 pages
(25) Oliver Twist 16 days, 542 pages
(26) Nicholas Nickleby 27 days, 1,045 pages
(27) The Old Curiosity Shop 22 days, 753 pages
(28) Barnaby Rudge 24 days, 866 pages
(30) Martin Chuzzlewit 32 days, 1,045 pages
(31) American Notes 10 days, 324 pages
(32) Pictures From Italy 7 days, 211 pages
(33) Christmas Stories Volume I 10 days, 456 pages
(34) Christmas Stories Volume II 15 days, 472 pages
(1) Miscellaneous Papers Volume II 28 days (don't count, while reading BH), 494 pages
(2) Bleak House 37 days, 1,098 pages
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