Attacks in Oslo and Utøya

It is very difficult to comprehend what happened today in Oslo. The city went from peace and order to horror and chaos in the space of a few minutes, and it is awful to see the destruction on the news. Also the horrific shootings of teenagers on the island of Utøya. My husband and I are on vacation in Amsterdam and are watching BBC news closely for new updates. I am also checking Facebook and internet news to stay updated. Family and friends are safe and that is good to know. Our hearts go out to the families who have lost loved ones in these attacks. We are tired--with that incredible fatigue that comes from trying to absorb such shocking news. My gut reacted just like it did after 9/11--with shock, sadness, disbelief, anger, rage--all sorts of feelings. I know we will experience many different feelings over the next few days.

A new poem

On my way back from Ireland, the first sentence of this poem was already forming itself in my mind. It's hard not to feel awe when you find yourself in the presence of literary greats, as I did when I visited the William Butler Yeats exhibition at the National Library of Ireland. But I found myself inspired by so much more--so much of it just an intuitive response to a country that is rich in so many ways, in the ways that count, at least to me. 

I Walk in the Shadows of Giants

I walk in the shadows of giants

Stand in the splendor of kings

Mute in the presence of tyrants

Lost in the halls that sing

I roam the passage that beckons

Ancient the call that keens

Lithe is the fairy that reckons

Spirit remains unseen

I fly in the temple of sinners

Eat at the tables of saints

Join with the forces of winners

Scarce are the jabs and the feints

I reel in the smoke of the fire

That burns in the halls of the kings

Fly in the face of ire

Sail with the lords of the rings

I forage the future of time

Divine with the rod of the druids

All things about me sublime

All things about me are fluid

I stand in the shadows of giants

Walk in the presence of lights

Far out upon the horizon

Dancing about me like sprites

I speak in the tongues of the ancients

Keen with the songs of the dead

Free my soul from the dungeons

Of fear, of death, and of dread

copyright Paula M De Angelis

July 2011

A children's poem by Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson, of Treasure Island and Kidnapped fame, also wrote children's poetry. This poem was read to us as children and also sung to us--I believe there was an LP recording of his poems set to music. It was impossible not to imagine soaring out over the fields on a swing as we listened to these words. 

The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

River and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown--

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

from ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses’

A poem by Anne Elizabeth Fennell De Angelis

This cheerful poem was written by my mother in 1967 for her son who was seven years old at that time. My mother, like me, had an affinity for all things poetic. Both she and my father read a lot of poetry and passed on their love of poetry and literature to their children. What we did not know as children was that my mother also wrote poetry, albeit not much, but she wrote when she could as we later discovered. She did share a few of her poems with us, but she was very reserved about her talents in that area. Her life as mother and wife was the life from which she drew her inspiration. She was a real fan of children's literature. As I remember, she loved the poems for children written by Robert Louis Stevenson in his 'A Child's Garden of Verses', and this poem reminds me of his poetical style.
 

Dinosaurs in my Dishpan

I’ve got dinosaurs in my dishpan

Lions and tigers too

Lots of soldiers and sailors

A regular little boy zoo

All of them part of an army

Fighting an unknown foe

Climbing the walls of a castle

Or sliding around in the snow

Sometimes they’re part of the navy

Loading each gun with a shot

Then they’re out on a race track

Riding along at a trot

What a wonderful imagination

Fills the mind of a little boy

He can move a man or a mountain

Just by pushing around a toy

When the enemy is defeated

And the battle becomes extinct

Boy deserts his playthings

In my dishpan in the sink

So I pick up what’s left of the army

Rescue the dinosaurs too

Put them away in the toy box

Home for my little boy’s zoo

Written by Anne Elizabeth Fennell De Angelis

1967

Summer moon over Oslo

Just thought I'd share a couple of photos I took last night of an extraordinary summer moon over Oslo. The clouds kept passing over it and creating such interesting shadow effects. Yesterday was a gorgeous day in Oslo, sunny and warm. Perfect for a long bicycle trip, which is exactly what I ended up taking. Love being out on my bike, together with the warm breeze and the sun beating down. Nothing beats that feeling of being outdoors and being active.

Today is the opposite of yesterday--rainy, chilly, the wind is blowing, and nothing about today reminds me of summer. How unstable the weather is from day to day. I know from friends and family in New York that the weather is unstable there as well. So what is going on in the world? Is this all part of global warming? Or are these just fluke years in an otherwise fairly stable weather pattern in the context of a century or two? Whatever it is, I just want one summer to be a long uninterrupted stream of warm sunny weather punctuated by a short thunderstorm or two (but no more). Like what I remember from my childhood in New York. I never remember that we had so much rain.

Keeping up and catching up

I’ve been doing a lot of catch-up reading since I started vacation—a pile of magazines waiting to be read that have been sitting on my living room table waiting to be read for the past two months, maybe more. I am finally making a dent in the pile. Most of them are Time magazines, and what I’ve rediscovered is the pleasure of reading really good writing. Surprisingly, I’m hooked on the column of their economy writer--Rana Foroohar, the assistant managing editor in charge of economics and business who writes The Curious Capitalist column, and Fareed Zakaria, the editor-at-large who writes some really interesting essays about world politics and economics. They manage to make the American and global economic messes not only interesting from a historical standpoint, but understandable. God knows we need more writers like them, writers with a historical perspective. I also bought a recent Scientific American, which I haven’t read for years. It too was surprisingly interesting with its cover story about quantum mechanics—‘Living in a Quantum World’. Did I understand what I read? Yes, I actually did, even though I couldn’t really parrot it back to you in an intelligible fashion. But when I read the article, I had my ‘a-ha’ moments and then I know I’m in the presence of a good writer and an articulate teacher. When I actually begin to understand the meaning of the Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment, that is a little miracle, considering that the derivation of some of the equations underlying this experiment was one of three final exam questions in my college inorganic chemistry class. Most of the class failed the exam, including yours truly. This is the paradoxical thought experiment that asks the question--is the cat is alive or dead (quantum states)—in other words, when is the cat alive and when is it dead and when are these separate quantum states? The answer may depend on an earlier random event. Could I have written a similar article? No, and luckily I don’t have to. But I consider myself lucky just to be able to understand it a little bit now, after years of working in science.

I used to have more magazine and newspaper subscriptions than I do currently, to The New Yorker and to the Financial Times among others.  I had to give them both up; I just couldn’t keep up with the weekly and daily issues, respectively, even though I really did love The New Yorker stories and poems and cultural updates. Hope springs eternal, as the saying goes. I always thought I would have more time than I actually had to keep up with the weekly issues. I found out that you cannot prioritize everything and that for me to fit in all the things I want to do, writing, reading, working, reading for work, consultant work, time for family, a social life, etc. that I couldn’t do it all and I couldn’t read it all. I couldn’t keep up and in the end I couldn’t catch up either. The sad thing was that both The New Yorker and the Financial Times were delivered punctually. I never had to complain about late deliveries or no delivery.

The biggest myth that has been foisted upon us these past two decades is that we can do it all and have it all—pack it all into eighteen waking hours of each day. We can’t. We have to choose, we must choose, we must prioritize. We don’t like to admit that, but it’s true. No wonder we complain about high stress levels. If we don’t end up learning to (grudgingly) prioritize, we risk running ourselves ragged in an effort to keep up. And then all we end up doing is playing catch up. I’m giving up my membership to my health club for much the same reason. I am never there and I am paying a fee each month for the privilege of possibly attending the gym. Another myth shattered—that I will carve time out of my busy schedule to train. The thing I like best these days is to not be stuck indoors in a gym in order to train. I want to be outside breathing fresh air, running, biking or walking and taking in the scenery at the same time. I want to feel free, the freedom that comes from being outside in nature. I want that more and more these days. But when I am actually indoors, I want to be reading something good, something interesting, not wasting time watching TV. That aspect of my life I’ve actually changed. I have given up most of my TV watching. Do I miss it? No. So that’s progress. The rest of it will come with time. I am learning to prefer silence to mindless chatter. Good silence, the kind that makes you reflect on your life—both the practical and spiritual—and gives you the time to get to know yourself and to figure out what you really want from this life. I was told yesterday by an elderly woman I know and respect how much I’ve changed just this past six months. She hadn’t seen me since January, and meant that I no longer derived my identity via my work. She’s right. I don’t. I am happy because I have given up that heavy burden. I am ‘just me’ now, for all that’s worth.

So this is what vacation is good for too, not just for recharging the batteries, but for giving us the time to reflect on our lives and on what we want from our lives. Free time makes me appreciate silence, reflection, peace and quiet, relaxation, the art of ‘just being’, and the virtue of gratitude. We are lucky to have the time to reflect on our lives and lucky to be able to take some vacation. I’m focusing on ‘thank you’ these days. It’s a good way to start each day.  As Meister Eckhart said “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”

Dublin views

Riverdance at The Gaiety Theatre

Flower market

A Dublin street with very old row houses

Wall art

Blowing bubbles on Grafton Street

The Old Storehouse bar and restaurant in Temple Bar area

The Yeats exhibition at the National Library of Ireland

Oscar Wilde statue in Merrion Square park

Just being

It’s not taking me too much time to get used to the idea of having a month off from work. Years ago, I would never have taken such a long vacation from work. The idea did not appeal to me at all. Now, having large blocks of time off from work is what appeals to me the most. How we change as we get older. Or is it the circumstances of work that change us? Is it that we realize that there is no real point in giving up most of our waking lives to workplaces that do not really notice our loyalty or dedication? You could be there for sixty hours a week or for forty hours a week and the workplace won’t notice or reward you. Or it will reward you regardless—meaning that you and all the other members of your union will be rewarded equally, with a three percent pay raise, and you might get an extra percentage point if your bosses think you did a good job. But unless you’re completely hopeless, everyone will get the extra percentage point, so it doesn’t really ‘count’. These days, it’s all fine with me. After a pretty disappointing and sad work year, I’ve accepted what I thought I never could accept—my limitations—and I’m fine with that. I’ve let go of my unrealistic expectations concerning my career future without resigning myself to the fact that it had to be this way. I chose this path I’m on now; no one chose it for me. I’ve accepted my limitations and I’m happy. I’m not a top scientist, I’m not a union leader or even a board member, I’m not a group leader, and I’m not really marketable to the work world at large anymore. I am a good person, a kind person, and I am a good boss. The people who’ve worked for me tell me that. It’s finally getting through to me. I was a good leader to those I had responsibility for mentoring a few years ago. I did the best job I knew how to do. I was available for my team and I worked hard with them and for them. I wanted them to succeed. And they have, just not in my sphere anymore. They’re on their own, making their own way, as it should be. And me, I’ve let go of my desires to want to keep them around me, to keep my team intact, to ‘grow’ a group. It was hard, it was sad, sometimes it felt like it was impossible to let go. But I did. Want to know something? I’m happy. I’m happy just being me. I like who I am. Kindness and compassion are at a premium in my profession; I'm glad I have both. 

Just being. It’s a nice expression. Peaceful, soothing, like listening to water gurgling in a running brook or listening to birds chirping and talking to each other. I find that I so look forward to the sounds of nature now—be it the birds, or cats, or dogs, or even insects. They are ‘just being’—just being themselves, chirping, meowing, barking or buzzing. They do what they do to the best of their ability, yet they are unconscious of their ‘being’. We are conscious of it, and we can choose to ‘just be’. We can choose to slow our minds down, to empty them, to fill them with peace and happiness, to shut out unhappiness and negativity (foisted upon us by others who want to dump on us, possibly because they want others to be miserable like they are). The media are great at the latter. Not a day goes by without them reporting a story that is bound to irritate, provoke or otherwise depress us. Whenever I see a ‘nice’ story, I gravitate toward it now. They are so few and far between. Sometimes I forget that the world is actually an ok place—that there are not murderers around every street corner, or terrorists at every airport, or robbers waiting to mug me at every turn. Does it mean I should not be careful? No. It just means that I can be careful and still have a smile on my face when I greet the world at large.

I look forward to ‘just being’ during my vacation. By that I mean, having no work expectations, no pressure, no stress, no grant or article deadlines, no phone calls, and no work emails. My free time will be spent reading, writing, taking pictures, walking, biking, cooking, boating, traveling, and visiting family and friends. Not a bad way to spend four weeks. We have a lot planned, but it’s all fun and it’s all good. And my attitude toward vacation and free time tells me that I won’t have a problem retiring early when that time comes. I will ‘let go’ of more and more with each passing year. I have a tendency to be that way—to see things coming and to try and be a bit preemptive, so that I know that I am ‘choosing’ my path. From here on in, that’s my path—to choose my path. And I am choosing to ‘just be’ in this world, in my world, in my life.

A New Yorker in Dublin

So many impressions of Ireland and of Dublin—here are a few. The Irish are an unpretentious folk, friendly, with a pleasant sense of humor. It actually felt 'familiar' to be there, because it reminded me of some of the residential areas around New York City--the Irish neighborhoods. Not surprising since the Irish who immigrated to the USA settled in and around the city. I felt as though I fit in with the culture and that didn’t surprise me either, because I grew up in the New York City area and because my mother was of Irish ancestry (as well as of English and Scottish ancestry). The people don’t seem to get too excited or stressed or angry. I cannot remember that we heard much yelling or cursing or that we saw angry people yelling or screaming at the world around them. There were a few beggars who sat in the streets hoping for some change. I ate Irish food each night—fish and chips, bangers and mash (pork sausages and mashed potatoes—delicious), and Irish stew. Didn’t get a chance to sample shepherd’s pie, but my mother used to make that and Irish stew as a matter of course especially during the cold winter months. So I knew what to expect and I wasn’t disappointed. And the beer was good. I am not a beer drinker, but I enjoyed the Guinness beer and the tour of the brewery that makes it.

We made our way to two interesting library exhibitions: the first was about the famous Irish poet William Butler Yeats (my favorite poet)--‘ The Life and Works of William Butler Yeats’ that took place at the National Library of Ireland http://www.nli.ie/en/udlist/current-exhibitions.aspx?article=adb6ce52-1f52-4a33-882c-685dedd0fb9d and http://www.nli.ie/yeats/ (virtual tour). It was a fascinating collection of his manuscripts, photo albums and books and told the story of his life in an effective and moving way. The second exhibition was The Book of Kells at Trinity College library, with a trip at the end of the tour to the second floor of the library to visit the Long Room—a fantastic room lined with marble busts of ancient philosophers, writers and medical scientists as well as with ancient books from floor to ceiling, of course off-limits to the public. The Book of Kells was fascinating—an amazing book put together by scribes and illustrators and holy men. I have a new appreciation for libraries and the incredible work that goes into creating these exhibitions. They do such a good job.

We also enjoyed the Temple Bar area in the evening with its many pubs with live music and dancing. We spent one evening at The Old Storehouse and enjoyed a good meal and live music—a duo—a young female violinist and a male guitarist. The woman sang and the two of them were terrific, performing traditional Irish folk songs as well as some American songs. Many of the singers in the different pubs seemed to have a fascination with Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen. I really enjoyed the Irish folk songs, e.g. Wild Rover comes to mind, a classic song that seemed to be a real crowd-pleaser; the public clapped and sang along as though they knew the song by heart, which they probably did.

Dubliners are not much different than other Western Europeans when it comes to walking on city sidewalks; there is only a halfhearted attempt at staying to one side of the sidewalk in an orderly fashion. Pedestrians spread out all over. You bump into them when you meet them. Everyone says excuse me and all that, but it would be easier to walk if there were ‘lanes’ like if we were driving cars on the highway. But it isn’t much better in Manhattan, except that people tend to be a bit more proactive in terms of moving to the right side of the sidewalk when they see folk coming. Dubliners also flock to cafes and outdoor restaurants to enjoy the lovely sunny weather when it arrives (sporadically), just like Oslo city dwellers. Of course there were a lot of tourists there now at this time of year, but a good number of them were Irish (we could hear the accent), in addition to the French and Italian visitors.

I will be posting some Dublin photos in upcoming posts. It is a lovely city with interesting storefronts and clever names for its many shops and pubs, as well as versatile architecture—very old or modern. Both seem to work. I’m glad I got to see the city, and I know already I will be going back.

Pangur Bán--an eighth century poem written by an Irish monk

I and Pangur Bán, my cat
'Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill will,
He too plies his simple skill.

'Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way:
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

(Written by an eighth-century Irish monk--name unknown. English translation by Robin Flower)

I read this poem for the first time when we visited The Book of Kells exhibition at the Trinity College library. It spoke to me as a lot of poetry does. I could just see in my mind's eye, the monk toiling away in the darkness while his cat hunted mice. The monk could have been working on one of the books of Kells, transcribing or illustrating them. And then the symbolic last sentence, 'Turning darkness into light'. There is so much that he says in this one little sentence--isn't this the whole basis of religion and our belief in a supreme being? That if we accept God into our lives, that this God turns our darkness into light? But I also think about this monk's place and time in history--the medieval times. Dark times. Perhaps he understood his role in turning the minds of his fellowmen toward the light; he perhaps understood his small and simple role in history. It must have been a profound moment for him when he wrote this--a kind of simple divine inspiration. 

A great Irish pub song---Wild Rover

I've been a wild rover for many's the year,

and I spent all me money on whiskey and beer.

And now I'm returning with gold in great store,

and I never will play the wild rover no more.

(Chorus):

And it's no, nay, never! No, nay, never, no more,

will I play the wild rover. No (nay) never no more!

I went to an alehouse I used to frequent,

and I told the landlady me money was spent.

I asked her for credit, she answered me "nay,

such a custom as yours I could have any day".

(Chorus)

I pulled from me pocket a handful of gold,

and on the round table it glittered and rolled.

She said "I have whiskeys and wines of the best,

and the words that I told you were only in jest".

(Chorus)

I'll have none of your whiskeys nor fine Spanish wines,

For your words show you clearly as no friend of mine.

There's others most willing to open a door,

To a man coming home from a far distant shore.

(Chorus)

I'll go home to me parents, confess what I've done,

and I'll ask them to pardon their prodigal son.

And if they forgive me as oft times before,

I never will play the wild rover no more.

(Chorus)

----------------------------

It’s not clear who wrote the song, but it’s a lot of fun to sing along to, and in every pub we visited in Dublin in the Temple Bar area, there were singers performing this song. It seems to be a great crowd-pleaser. 

Vacation time

Here it is July already. Vacation time. Plans and things to look forward to. I will be in Dublin Ireland for the next few days—A New Yorker in Dublin. I hope that the hotel has wi-fi so that I can connect to the net and write when the mood strikes me. I hope I get inspired to write by the country itself—Ireland, the home of WB Yeats, my favorite poet. I won’t get a chance to visit County Sligo, where he lived for most of his adult life, at least not on this trip. But he was born and educated in Dublin, and there is a Yeats exhibition this coming week, so I will at least get a chance to see that. I will be traveling with my friend Gisele, and we usually manage to pack a lot of sightseeing into a few days, merely by walking around the cities we visit. We’ve walked a fair amount around Paris and have really gotten to know the city. Amsterdam is another city I will be visiting this summer together with my husband. We’ve both been there before but only for a couple of days. This time we’ll spend a few more days there. We were hoping to visit the famous Keukenhof tulip park, but apparently it is closed after the spring exhibition. I’ve been there once before in April 1998 and it was just an amazing place to see, with all of the different tulip arrangements. A pity that we won’t be able to see it now when we’re there. Next time…….

And then in August I will be A New Yorker in New York for a week or so—my annual trip to NY to visit friends and family. Lots of events planned, as always, get-togethers, shopping, sightseeing, etc. My schedule is usually packed and I like it that way. Summer vacation here we come. 

What Meister Eckhart Said

·         If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. 

·         Do exactly what you would do if you felt most secure. 

·         All God wants of man is a peaceful heart. 

·         He who would be serene and pure needs but one thing, detachment. 

·         Every creature is a word of God. 

·         God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being made and let God be God in you. 

·         God is at home, it's we who have gone out for a walk. 

·         Man goes far away or near but God never goes far-off; he is always standing close at hand, and even if he cannot stay within he goes no further than the door. 

·         Only the hand that erases can write the true thing. 

·         The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me. 

·         The more we have the less we own. 

·         The outward man is the swinging door; the inner man is the still hinge. 

·         The outward work will never be puny if the inward work is great. 

·         The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake. 

·         To be full of things is to be empty of God. To be empty of things is to be full of God. 

·         Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us. 

·         What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love. 

·         What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action. 

·         When you are thwarted, it is your own attitude that is out of order. 

·         Words derive their power from the original word. 

·         You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion. 

Saying goodbye to Fru Østbakken

On June 5th of last year, I wrote a post about Fru Østbakken (http://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com/2010/06/fru-stbakken.html), who in her 94th year had moved into a nursing home temporarily to recover from a small stroke. She was eventually moved to Grunerløkka nursing home in the early autumn and it was there she lived, in a small room with some of her furniture, paintings, and belongings about her, until she died last week (June 14^th) at the age of 95. My husband and I attended her funeral service, which was held this past Wednesday in the basement chapel of the nursing home. The service was well-attended by her extended family and a few of her neighbors; she had no children of her own and her husband pre-deceased her in 1993. Most of the elderly ladies who lived in the same co-op development whom she socialized with have passed on or are themselves living in nursing homes now. So there has been a real changing of the guard not only at work but also in the co-op development where we live. One of the neighbors who attended the service together with us, an older man of 70, commented on this—how strange it felt to see this happening. He meant that when he looked around, he knew no one anymore. Everyone he knew has either moved away or passed on, and he will also be moving away, to Germany, at the end of the month. It is a strange feeling to watch the years pass and to see this happen. I agree with him. But there is no stopping the progression of time; it is also very strange to think that someday, God willing, we will also reach 70 and maybe even 80 or 90 years of age. It must be strange to know that most of life lies behind you, in the past, and that there is nothing you can do to stop the flow of years, that brings you to your own passing. The realization that one is a mortal being is a gradual process. Though we know when we are younger that we will not live forever, it is not ‘real’ in the same way as it is when you hit middle or old age. I remember that with my mother, who sometimes commented on it but who mostly avoided the topic. Fru Østbakken talked a little about what it meant to foresee her own death when I visited her before Christmas. She was ready to die, even though she was afraid to die. She meant that she had lived a long good life. The priest who led the service also commented on this. I think she was more afraid of not knowing when her death would happen, what it would involve, or how much pain or suffering it might involve, and so on. When we visited her a few weeks ago, her doctor had essentially informed her that it could happen at any time. She had advanced colorectal cancer and it had apparently spread, so that it was only a matter of time.

I write about her now because I look up to her and admire her courage. This life we live is a mystery, but death is also a mystery. No one has managed to explain why we age and pass on. Scientists study aging, and they have their theories with some underlying data as to how we age (e.g. telomere shortening that leads to cell aging), but why this should be the case, that we build a life on this earth that we must let go of at some point, remains an unknown. It is not for nothing that you realize at some point that life becomes about how to let go of things gracefully. Not an easy task. It is not easy to say goodbye, not easy to let go, not easy to deny our will and our desires. I have realized that truly living life is a paradox—one lives best when one knows that one will not live forever. In that way, you will not take life and loved ones for granted, when you know that seconds, hours, days, and weeks become years and decades and that time passes and that the present is what we have—to make good memories together with those we love. So I say rest in peace to Fru Østbakken; I know she would tell us to live life and to enjoy ourselves. She embraced her life each day; her will to keep going was impressive and if given a choice, she would have remained in her apartment, at home, until the end, but she was not able to afford what it would have cost to have made that possible—live-in care. So she was pragmatic. She understood this and accepted her lot. That was very characteristic of her—she was pragmatic and accepting. I hope she has found the peace that she deserves. 

The Martian Chronicles and Solaris

I have been a fan of science fiction since I was a teenager, probably from the time I first read The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. I also read Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Illustrated Man and Fahrenheit 451, and enjoyed them all. Bradbury is a thought-provoking and outstanding sci-fi writer (90 years old and still with us), and his books have a haunting quality about them. You don’t forget them easily. I don’t recall all of the stories in The Martian Chronicles in detail, just that there were certain parts that were quite scary in that what was suggested was considerably terrifying. You just knew that something terrible was going to happen to some of the earthlings who made it to Mars, and it did (the third expedition was liquidated by the Martians who posed as dead family members such that the deluded (and lonely) crew ended up just giving in to the delusions). The following passage from the chapter ‘April 2000: The Third Expedition’ is an example of the type of terror Bradbury could instill in his readers: “And wouldn’t it be horrible and terrifying to discover that all of this was part of some great clever plan by the Martians to divide and conquer us, and kill us? Sometime during the night, perhaps my brother here on this bed will change form, melt, shift and become another thing, a terrible thing, a Martian. It would be very simple for him to just turn over in bed and put a knife into my heart……..His hands were shaking under the covers. His body was cold. Suddenly it was not a theory. Suddenly he was very afraid……..Carefully he lifted the covers, rolled them back. He slipped from bed and was walking softly across the room when his brother’s voice said, ‘Where are you going?’…...’For a drink of water’. ‘But you’re not thirsty’. ‘Yes, yes, I am’. ‘No, you’re not’. Captain John Black broke and ran across the room. He screamed. He screamed twice. He never reached the door”.

This was all Bradbury wrote about the actual murder of Captain John Black and the massacres of the crew of the third expedition. You knew that murders were occurring in the rest of the Martian houses who had crew members staying with them because they were the ‘families’ of these crew members, but Bradbury didn’t have to elaborate at all about them, because it was left to our imaginations to figure out what was happening to them all. Superb sci-fi horror in a category all its own.

I was reminded of Bradbury recently because I just finished the sci-fi novel Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. It too deals with the theme of aliens who 'present' themselves to a space crew by taking on the forms of people familiar to them. In this case, the crew is living in a space station that orbits the planet Solaris. However, these aliens do not kill the crew members. The book was first published in 1961 (eleven years after The Martian Chronicles) but has a very modern feel to it, mostly because Lem’s writing is timeless and wonderful. Like Bradbury, he is a terrific storyteller. But Lem goes one step further—some of his descriptions of the ocean and the planet Solaris are pure poetry—beautiful and colorful and suggestive of eternity, melancholy, emptiness and loneliness. It is as though Lem tried to describe the eternal using a very crude language—English—and found that it was just not possible to completely convey all that he wanted to communicate. And when reading his descriptions of the planet, you know that he hit a linguistic wall of sorts. There have been at least two movies made based upon the book (I have written about the one I have seen—Solaris from 2002 directed by Steven Soderbergh—in an earlier post); neither of them as far as I understand attempted in any way to present the planet as  Lem described. Why, I don’t know. It would have been fascinating to have seen some CGI effects depicting the mimoids, symmetriads and asymmetriads. The book’s description of these Solaris creations is mesmerizing. A living planet/ocean, and a space station that was not able to communicate with this ocean in any way that made sense to the humans onboard. And yet, Solaris was able to probe their minds, ‘read’ each of them and provide them with ‘visitors’—alien creatures that resembled people in their past lives about which the scientists on board the space station harbored secret feelings of guilt. For the main character, Kris Kelvin, the alien creature who ‘visits’ him is his wife Rheya, who committed suicide early on in their marriage after he had walked out on her. In a rather complicated twist, the aliens themselves do not understand why they have been ‘sent’ to the crew members, who feel guilty both about wanting to be free of them and about wanting to be with them, at least in Kelvin’s case. Once Rheya understands what she is now and who she was to Kelvin in his past (real) life, she wants to free him via her destruction. It is not a happy book, rather a very thought-provoking one, not only because of the interactions between Kris and his visitor Rheya, but also because of the attempts to explain the nature of the ocean surrounding Solaris and the attempts to communicate with it. Lem seems to have wanted to insert his view of God at that time into the narrative as well. Kris asks the other crew member, Snow, whether he believes in God. Kris explains “It isn’t that simple. I don’t mean the traditional God of Earth religion……----do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an imperfect god?……..I’m not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creatures, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first……And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat……This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot…….That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not redemption, who saves nothing, fulfils no purpose---a god who simply is”.

It is an amazing and haunting book, in the same way as The Martian Chronicles, and well worth reading. I was sorry to finish it, because it left me wanting more. That is the mark of an excellent storyteller.