We want to be remembered

This is a quote from the book Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

Quote by Emily St. John Mandel, “First we only want to be seen, but once we’re seen, that’s not enough anymore. After that, we wanted to be remembered.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

Station Eleven – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Set in the days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor’s early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor’s first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.

Copyright © 2015 by Emily St. John Mandel.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

Adulthood’s full of ghosts

Excerpt from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Photo by 戸山 神奈 on Unsplash

This is an excerpt from the book Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

“These people you coach, do they ever actually change? I mean in any kind of lasting, notable way?”

He hesitated. This was actually something he’d wondered about.

“They change their behaviors,” he said, “some of them. Often people will simply have no idea that they’re perceived as needing improvement in a certain area, but then they see the report…”

She nodded. “You differentiate between changing people and changing behaviors, then.”

“Of course.”

“Here’s the thing,” Dahlia said. “I’ll bet you can coach Dan, and probably he’ll exhibit a turnaround of sorts, he’ll improve in concrete areas, but eh’ll still be a joyless bastard.”

“A joyless…”

“No, wait, don’t write that down. Let me rephrase that. Okay, let’s say he’ll change a little, probably if you coach him, but he’ll still be a successful-but-unhappy person who works until nine p.m. every night because he’s got a terrible marriage and doesn’t want to go home, and don’t ask how I know that, everyone knows when you’ve got a terrible marriage, it’s like having bad breath, you get close enough to a person and it’s obvious. And you know, I’m reaching here, but I’m talking about someone who just seems like he wishes he’d done something different with his life, I mean really actually almost anything—is this too much?”

“No. Please, go on.”

“Okay, I love my job, and I’m not just saying that because my boss is going to see my interview comments, which by the way I don’t believe he won’t be able to tell who said what, anonymous or not. But anyway, I look around sometimes and I think—this will maybe sound weird—it’s like the corporate world’s full of ghosts. And actually, let me revise that, my parents are in academia so I’ve had front-row seats for that horror show, I know academia’s no different, so maybe a fairer way of putting this would be to say that adulthood’s full of ghosts.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure I quite—”

“I’m talking about these people who’ve ended up in one life instead of another and they are just so disappointed. Do you know what I mean? They’ve done what’s expected of them. They want to do something different but it’s impossible now, there’s a mortgage, kids, whatever, they’re trapped. Dan’s like that.”

“You don’t think he likes his job, then.”

“Correct,” she said, “but I don’t think he even realizes it. You probably encounter people like him all the time. High-functioning sleepwalkers, essentially.”

What was it in this statement that made Clark want to weep? He was nodding, taking down as much as he could. “Do you think he’d describe himself as unhappy in his work?”

“No,” Dahlia said, “because I think people like him think work is supposed to be drudgery punctuated by very occasional moments of happiness, but when I say happiness, I mostly mean distraction. You know what I mean?”

”No, please elaborate.”

“Okay, say you go into the break room,” she said, “and a couple people you like are there, say someone’s telling a funny story, you laugh a little, you feel included, everyone’s so funny, you go back to your desk with a sort of, I don’t know, I guess afterglow would be the word? You go back to your desk with an afterglow, but then by four or five o’clock the day’s just turned into yet another day, and you go on like that, looking forward to five o’clock and then the weekend and then your two or three annual weeks of paid vacation time, day in day out, and that’s what happens to your life.”

“Right,” Clark said. He was filled in that moment with an inexpressible longing. The previous day eh’d gone into the break room and spent five minutes laughing at a colleague’s impression of a Daily Show bit.

“That’s what passes for a life, I should say. That’s what passes for happiness, for most people. Guys like Dan, they’re like sleepwalkers,” she said, “and nothing ever jolts them awake.”

He go through the rest of the interview, shook her hand, walked out through the vaulted lobby of the Graybar Building to Lexington Avenue. The air was cold but he longed to be outside, away from other people. He took a long and circuitous route, veering two avenues east to the relative quiet of Second Avenue.

He was thinking of the book, and thinking of what Dahlia had said about sleepwalking, and a strange thought came to him: had Arther seen that Clark was sleepwalking? Would this be in the letters to V? Because he had been sleepwalking Clark realized, moving half-asleep through the motions of his life for a while now, years; not specifically unhappy, but when had he last found real joy in his work? When was the last time he’d been truly moved by anything? When had he last felt awe or inspiration? He wished he could somehow go back and find the iPhone people whom he’d jostled on the sidewalk earlier, apologize to them—I’m sorry, I’ve just realized that I’m as minimally present in this world as you are, I had no right to judge—and also he wanted to call every target of every 360° report and apologize to them too, because it’s an awful thing to appear in someone else’s report, he saw that now, it’s an awful thing to be the target.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Station Eleven – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Set in the days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time—from the actor’s early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains—this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor’s first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet.

Copyright © 2015 by Emily St. John Mandel.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

Long ago the white man come with bibles…

This is a quote from the play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga.

Quote by George Ryga, “My uncle was Dan Joe…He was dyin’ and he said to me, ‘Long ago the white man come with Bibles to talk to my people, who had the land. They talk for hundred years…then we had all the Bibles, an’ the white man had our land…’ “

Have you read this play? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

If you’re interested, you can read an excerpt from the book here.

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe – Summary

Here is the play summary from StoryGraph:

Rita Joe is a Native girl who leaves the reservation for the city, only to die on skid row as a victim of white men’s violence and paternalistic attitudes towards First Nations peoples. As perhaps the best-known contemporary Canadian play and a poetic drama of enormous theatrical power, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe had a major influence in awakening consciousness to the “Indian problem” both in whites and Natives themselves.

Cast of five women and 15 men. With a preface by Chief Dan George.

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe premiered November 23, 1967 at the Vancouver Playhouse.

Copyright © 1970 by George Ryga.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

First Woman’s garden

Excerpt from Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King

Photo by Florian GIORGIO | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the book Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King.

First Woman’s garden. That good woman makes a garden and she lives there with Ahdamn. I don’t know where he comes from. Things like that happen, you know.

So there is that garden. And there is First Woman and Ahdamn. And everything is perfect. And everything is beautiful. And everything is boring.

So First Woman goes walking around with her head in the clouds, looking in the sky for things that are bent and need fixing. So she doesn’t see that tree. So that tree doesn’t see her. So they bump into each other.

Pardon me, says that Tree, maybe you would like something to eat.

That would be nice, says First Woman, and all sorts of good things to eat fall out of that Tree. Apples fall out. Melons fall out. Bananas fall out. Hot dogs. Fry bread, corn, potatoes. Pizza. Extra-crispy fried chicken.

Thank you, says First Woman, and she picks up all that food and brings it back to Ahdamn.

Talking trees! Talking trees! says that GOD. What kind of world is this?

“Did someone say food?” says Coyote.

“Sit down,” I says. “Boy, this story is going to take a long time.”

So that good woman brings all that food back to Ahdamn. Ahdamn is busy. He is naming everything.

You are a microwave oven, Ahdamn tells the Elk.

Nope, says that Elk. Try again.

You are a garage sale, Ahdamn tells the Bear.

We got to get you some glasses, says the Bear.

You are a telephone book, Ahdamn tells the Cedar Tree.

You’re getting closer, says the Cedar Tree.

You are a cheeseburger, Ahdamn tells Old Coyote.

It must be tie for lunch, says Old Coyote.

Never mind that, First Woman tells Ahdamn. Here is something to eat.

Wait a minute, says that GOD. That’s my garden. That’s my stuff.

“Don’t talk to me,” I says. “You better talk to First Woman.”

You bet I will, says that GOD.

So. There is that garden. And there is First Woman and Ahdamn. And there are the animals and the plants and all their relations. And there is all that food.

“Boy,” says Coyote, “that food certainly smells good.”

They can’t eat my stuff, says that GOD. And that one jumps into the garden.

Oh, oh, says First Woman when she sees that GOD land in her garden. Just when we were getting things organized.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Green Grass, Running Water – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

King’s auspicious debut novel, Medicine River ( LJ 8/90), garnered critical acclaim and popular success (including being transformed into a TV movie). This encore, a genially wild tale with a serious heart, confirms the author’s prowess. It involves the creation of a creation story, the mission of four ancient Indians, and the comparatively realistic doings of 40-year-old-adolescent Lionel Red Dog, unfazable cleaning woman Babo, and various memorable Blackfoot and others in scenic Alberta. Clever verbal motifs not only connect the stories but add fun visual themes, including missing cars and a ubiquitous Western movie. In the end, everyone is thrown together by an earthquake at white human-made Parliament Lake, compliments of the four old Indians and the loopy trickster Coyote. Smart and entertaining, this novel deserves a big audience.

Copyright © 1993 by Thomas King.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

A trial of Rita Joe

Excerpt from The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga

Photo by JJ Ying | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe by George Ryga.

Magistrate – I ask you for the last time, Rita Joe… Do you want a lawyer?

Rita – (defiantly) What for?…I can take care of myself

Magistrate – The charge against you this morning is prostitution. Why did you not return to your people as you said you would?

(The light on the backstage dies. Rita Joe stands before the Magistrate and the Policeman. She is contained in a pool of light before them.)

Rita – (nervous, with despair) I tried… I tried…

(The Magistrate settles back into his chair and takes a folder from his desk, which he opens and studies.)

Magistrate – Special Constable Eric Wilson has submitted a statement to the effect that on June 18th he and Special Constable Schneider approached you on Fourth Avenue at nine-forty in the evening…

Policeman – We were impersonating two deck-hands newly arrived in the city…

Magistrate – You were arrested an hour later on charges of prostitution.

(The Magistrate holds the folder threateningly and looks down at her. Rita Joe is defiant.)

Rita – That’s a goddamned lie!

Magistrate – (sternly, gesturing to the Policeman) This is a police statement. Surely you don’t think a mistake was made?

Rita – (peering into the light above her, shuddering) Everything in this room is like ice…How can you stay alive working here? …I’m so hungry I want to throw up…

Magistrate – You have heard the statement, Rita Joe…Do you deny it?

Rita – I was going home, trying to find the highway…I knew those two were cops the moment I saw them…I told them to go f…fly a kite! They got sore then an’ started pushing me around…

Magistrate – (patiently now, waving down the objection of the Policeman) Go on.

Rita – They followed me around until a third cop drove up. An’ then they arrest me.

Magistrate – Arrested you…Nothing else?

Rita – They stuffed five dollar bills in my pockets when they had me in the car… I ask you, mister, when are they gonna charge cops like that with contributing to…

Policeman – Your Worship…

Magistrate – (irritably, indicating the folder on the table before him) Now it’s your word against this! You need references…People who know you…who will come to court to substantiate what you say…today! That is the process of legal argument!

Rita – Can I bum a cigarette someplace?

Magistrate – No. You can’t smoke in court.

(The Policeman smiles and exits.)

Rita – Then give me a bed to sleep on, or is the sun gonna rise an’ rise until it burns a hole in my head?

(Guitar music cues softly in the background.)

Have you read this play? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe – Summary

Here is the play summary from StoryGraph:

Rita Joe is a Native girl who leaves the reservation for the city, only to die on skid row as a victim of white men’s violence and paternalistic attitudes towards First Nations peoples. As perhaps the best-known contemporary Canadian play and a poetic drama of enormous theatrical power, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe had a major influence in awakening consciousness to the “Indian problem” both in whites and Natives themselves.

Cast of five women and 15 men. With a preface by Chief Dan George.

The Ecstasy of Rita Joe premiered November 23, 1967 at the Vancouver Playhouse.

Copyright © 1970 by George Ryga.

You can find more details here on Goodreads and on StoryGraph.

Uncle Leroy’s Big Idea (Part 2)

Photo by David Thielen | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the book Indians on Vacation by Thomas King.

If you missed it, you can read part one of this passage here.

When Bernie tells the story of Uncle Leroy, she closes her eyes so she can see the story, whole and complete. “I told you it wasn’t much of a house, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“And that all the paint had been stripped off by the weather?”

“You told us that too.”

“And that Leroy had had a little too much to drink?”

Bernie would always pause at this point to let the tension build.

“So, Leroy’s big idea,” she’d begin again, after the proper amount of time had passed, “was that he would paint the Indian agent’s house. But he didn’t have any paint. And nobody else on the reserve had any paint, either. I’m guessing you can see the problem.”

“No paint.”

“So Leroy had to improvise.”

Just the word “improvise” would set Bernie off, and she’d begin laughing. And we’d have to wait until she stopped.

“In those days, there was a store in Cardston run by this Mormon family. They sold all sorts of used stuff, household and farming. Some of it was okay, and some of it was garbage, and if you didn’t know the different, the Mormons weren’t going to tell you.

“So, after Leroy sobered up, he rode over to Cardston to that store and bought an old milk pail, one of those zinc things with a wood piece for a handle. It was a sorry sight, that bucket. There was a story in the newspapers not long ago about a woman who collects junk like that.”

“Now they’re called antiques,” Mimi told her mother.

“So, Leroy took his junk antique and filled it with fresh cow flops. He mixed in some water, stirred it all up until it was brown and pasty, and went to work. He wasn’t sloppy either. He took his time and painted every inch of the house with cow poop. From a distance, it didn’t look bad at all. And as long as you were upwind, you didn’t notice the smell.”

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Indians on Vacation – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Meet Bird and Mimi in this brilliant new novel from one of Canada’s foremost authors. Inspired by a handful of old postcards sent by Uncle Leroy nearly a hundred years earlier, Bird and Mimi attempt to trace Mimi’s long-lost uncle and the family medicine bundle he took with him to Europe.

By turns witty, sly and poignant, this is the unforgettable tale of one couple’s holiday trip to Europe, where their wanderings through its famous capitals reveal a complicated history, both personal and political.

Copyright © 2020 by Thomas King.

More details on Goodreads can be found here.

Uncle Leroy’s Big Idea (Part 1)

Photo by David Thielen | Accessed on Unsplash.com

This is an excerpt from the book Indians on Vacation by Thomas King.

At some point in the story of Uncle Leroy and the Crow bundle, Bernie would touch on the drinking.

“Leroy was no drunk,” she would say, “but he did drink. And Mr. Nelson or Wilson was one of those born-againers. Man thought he could talk to god when he was really just mumbling to himself. Drinking, according to Mr. Indian agent, led to singing, and singing led to dancing. Man would have banned laughing. Would have made smiling a hanging offence.

“One year, this Wilson or Nelson organized a sports day at the same time as the Sun Dance, to try to lure people away from Belly Buttes. And he ordered the buffalo tongues mutilated, so that the women couldn’t use them in the ceremony.”

“You never knew the man,” Mimi reminded her mother. “You weren’t even born yet.”

“Stories don’t die. Stories stay alive so long as they’re told.”

Bernie would make another pot of coffee and break out the special chocolate-covered cookies as she worked her way to the heart of the matter.

“There was this bootlegger from around Missoula. Donald somebody. Like the duck. Drug dealer. Back then it was alcohol. Today it’s other stuff. So, Donald the Duck would bring his booze onto the reserve, and Leroy would find him or he would find Leroy. Didn’t much matter. The result was always the same. Leroy would get drunk, and when he got drunk, he would do something stupid.”

“This is where Uncle Leroy paints the guy’s house?”

“Stop getting ahead of the story. I raised you better than that.”

Sometimes Bernie would tell the story quick, and sometimes she would draw it out.

“Like I said, in those days, you had to have a pass to leave the reserve. Signed by the agent. Leroy didn’t pay much attention to that rule, and every time he left the reserve without a pass, that agent would try to have him arrested. And every time Leroy asked that agent for a pass to leave the reserve, Nelson or Wilson would turn him down.”

Even if you didn’t know the story, you knew that this kind of a situation was bound to go bad at some point.

“Nelson or Wilson had a house. Government issue. It wasn’t a big house. The roof leaked a little, and it didn’t have no better insulation than a plastic sack. It was painted white, but that didn’t last long. Cold winters and hard winds stripped the paint away until there was nothing left but the wood. You need me to draw you a picture?”

“Nope. I can see it.”

“So this one time, Donald the Duck brought his wagonload of booze onto the reserve, and before long, Leroy found him. And not long after that, Leroy got his big idea.”

You can read part two of this story here and learn more about Uncle Leroy’s big idea.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!

Indians on Vacation – Summary

Here is the book summary from Goodreads:

Meet Bird and Mimi in this brilliant new novel from one of Canada’s foremost authors. Inspired by a handful of old postcards sent by Uncle Leroy nearly a hundred years earlier, Bird and Mimi attempt to trace Mimi’s long-lost uncle and the family medicine bundle he took with him to Europe.

By turns witty, sly and poignant, this is the unforgettable tale of one couple’s holiday trip to Europe, where their wanderings through its famous capitals reveal a complicated history, both personal and political.

Copyright © 2020 by Thomas King.

More details on Goodreads can be found here.

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