My father died on the afternoon of June 9, 2011. His passing will change how I live in the world, though I am not sure how, and may not really know for certain until I approach my own death. I wanted to pause this summer morning to remember him by remembering the books I was reading in June 2011. My father loved to read and always had a book nearby (the same is even more true of my mother) and he read widely. My own library has many books that he passed on to me, from teen adventure books from the time of WW2 - The Sacred Scimitar by William Dixon Bell (1938) and The Haunted Hanger by Van Powell (1922), to religious texts (last year I read the copy of Thomas a Kempis The Imitation of Christ that was given to him by a teacher in 1947), to many books on sailing and seamanship.
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson and the
古今和歌集 Kokinwakashu edited by 紀 貫之 Ki no Tsurauki
These are two of four major reading projects this year (the other two being a renewed study of renga and a deep dive into The Psalms). Both were begun early in the year (January for Dickinson and March for the Kokinshu) and are likely to continue through the end of the summer. Both are helping me to think about my father, his life, and his passing.
769 (Johnson Numbering)
One and One – are One –
Two – be finished using –
Well enough for schools –
But for minor choosing –
Life – just – Or Death
Or the everlasting –
More – would be too vast
For the Soul’s comprising
Mothertalk by Mary and Roy Kiyooka edited by Daphne Marlatt
Roy Kiyooka has shaped my imagination from the late 70s when I first read Stoned Gloves and then The Fountainebleau Dream Machine. He was a trickster and elder when I moved to Vancouver in the late 1980s. This book of his mother’s memoirs was one of his last projects, and was in fact completed after his death by Daphne Marlatt (another Vancouver poet worth reading and rereading). I am looking for more copies as I would each of my kids to have this in their own libraries. My Amazon review is here.
Disavowals (Aveux non Avenues) by Claude Cahun translated by Susan de Muth & Agnes Lhermitte
I found this in the damaged section of the MIT Press Bookstore in Cambridge MA in May. A fascinating book on the construction and deconstruction of self and gender from the late 1920s. This book was being written in the years just before my father was born. One can lose oneself in Cahun’s photomontages.
Split Image by Robert Parker
When I am in Boston I like to unwind by reading a Robert Parker novel. At this best in the 1990s these books are easy to read, like drinking a glass of water, and take you into the city. Parker started to write his Spenser novels about the time I entered university, so reading them in chronological order has reminded me of many parts of my own life. This one is a Jesse Stone novel, and not Parker’s best, but at least it has some sailboats in it.
Gifts by Ursula K. LeGuin
I have read the Earthsea Books many times. The Annals of the Western Shore (Gifts, Voices, Powers) is a slower and more meditative work but shares the theme of life choices. In Gifts the protagonists have to understand what their gifts are and how to use them. It sometimes seems to me that a big part of the work of one’s life is to understand what work one is meant to do and to have the courage to do it.
Jeff Wall – Picture for Women by David Campney and Gordon Matta-Clark – Conical Intersect by Bruce Jenkins
I am a big fan of Afterall’s One Work series and living in Vancouver Jeff Wall’s shadow is large. The Campney book gives some good entry points to think about the work, especially its self reference and construction. Matta-Clark’s Paris project Conical Intersect is haunting. The world opens in cracks that close again. Sometimes we can help to open them. Sometimes we can remember them. See …
The Best Practice: How the New Quality Movement is Transforming Medicine by Charles Kenny
Another reading theme for 2011 is healthcare and healthcare reform, especially in the US. This has nothing to do with the care given to my father, his palliative care was extraordinary. He died at home, holding my mother’s hand, with three of his children and one of his grandchildren beside him. This was possible because of who he was as himself and how he had lived his life, and the years of support he and my mother have given their extended family. This book tells the story of how the ideas from quality management have come into the healthcare system. There is a lot to learn here.
How Round Is Your Circle? Where Engineering and Mathematics Meet by John Bryant and Chris Sangwin
My father was an engineer all his life and was good at making things – bridges of course, but he once said that anyone who can build a bridge should be able to figure out how to make a dress, and indeed, he did make dresses for my parents. He also taught me how to use a slide rule (I have forgotten) and how to do quick calculations of course and drift while sailing. This book is an enchanting exploration of where math, the physical world, and building stuff come together. In the real world, lines are thick, it is not easy to draw a straight line, and sometimes we need to have circles and squares with equivalent areas. This book opens up all sorts of interesting math by making physical models of mathematical ‘objects’. And it has a great chapter on slide rules.
Icefields by Thomas Wharton
Shortly after my father’s funeral Yoshie and I together with her sister and a close friend visited Banff and went up the Icefield Parkway and walked on the Athabasca Glacier. This revelatory novel is set here. The language captures the beauty and fear of the ice, its changes, and how Jasper itself has changed over the years. My parents had their honeymoon in this area back in 1958.
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Thank you Dad, for the books, the love of reading, and the passion to connect reading to life and action.
