This week, my students and I read Edward Hoagland’s essay “The Courage of Turtles.“. I love Hoagland’s writing (if not turtles, in particular) because it is so descriptive. My students seemed to appreciate for that reason, too.

What divided my classes a bit about the essay was the end. Hoagland spends a few hundred words describing turtles – the various kinds, the ones he owns, where he finds them, how they can die easily in captivity – basically, the first section of the essay is an ode de la turtle. But at the end of the piece, it takes a turn (at most good essays do) and becomes much darker. Hoagland tells us about how he bought a turtle in Manhattan, thinking it would make a good pet, only to discover it was a Diamondback that preferred brackish water, not fresh water. At home, the turtle is “morose” and “spent his days thumping interminably against the baseboards.” Out of exasperation, Hoagland decides to carry the turtle to the Hudson and set it free. After he tosses the turtle into the water, he realizes the animals is “afraid” and realizes “that I must have done the wrong thing.” The turtle couldn’t survive in the rough water.

The final line of the essay is what we debated in class – “But since, short of diving in after him, there was nothing I could do, I walked away.” Some of my students thought Hoagland cruel to walk away; some thought he had no real choice in the matter. My interpretation rests on one phrase in that line – “short of diving in after him.” These six words tell me that Hoagland knows he had a choice, albeit a dangerous one, and that he feels bad about himself for making the choice he did. This phrase allows me to feel sympathy for the writer while still grieving the turtle. And since the entire essay is about Hoagland’s feelings for these animals, I find this last line to be quite fitting and masterful.

Hoagland’s last line shows, I think, the power of one phrase. Think how different that line would be if he just said, “There was nothing I could do; I walked away.” That’s the line of a heartless fellow.

Sometimes a simply set of words – in an essay (and in life) – can make a world of difference in how the people around us experience our stories. Our honest, aware sentiments wrought well in words can alter a perception monumentally.

Unless like one student, your love for turtles overwhelms all else, and well, then, what’s a writer to do.

– Diamondback Terrapin

Filed by Andi at 5:30 am under Book Recommendations, Teaching Triumphs and Travails, Written and Wrought
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When I got my new set of classes this semester, I was asked to take on a literature class, and while I love literature, it’s been a while since I taught it. I thought I was up to the challenge and signed on. I’m so glad I did because this particular school allows professors to use smaller works – novels, short story collections, individual plays or poetry works – to teach rather than the standard “ginormous” anthologies many schools use. So I chose five books – How to Read Poetry Like a Professor by Thomas Foster, American Ground by William Langewiesche, The Book of Luminous Things edited by Czeslaw Milosz, Flash Fiction Forward by James Thomas & Robert Shapard, and Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett. I want a course that uses creative nonfiction as an equal genre to poetry and fiction, and I hope this set of texts bears that out.

The first book we’ll be reading is Patchett’s, and I had never read the book (the curse of a short hiring timeline is sometimes having to pick texts unread), so I started right in with the reading. Then, I couldn’t stop. This memoir is perhaps the most beautiful, tragic, simple, and gorgeous memoir I’ve ever read.

The book tells the story of the friendship between Patchett and Lucy Grealy, author of The Autobiography of a Face. Patchett describes their friendship of most than twenty years and takes herself (with us in two) through the pain and edged beauty of their love for one another. Patchett is able to convey their friendship honestly without “sweetening up” or demonizing Lucy or herself. As readers, we are able to see each woman as complex, flawed, and sincere in their love for one another.

The fact that the women are both writers gave this story another layer of power and import for me, and the book informed my idea of writerly friendships, the nature of love, and the power of relationship in general. I am profoundly changed by this book in the way that great writing shifts things subtly but substantially in our souls. I only wish I could read it again for the first time.

– Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett

Filed by Andi at 5:22 am under Book Recommendations, Teaching Triumphs and Travails
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Last night, I was at an orientation for my new teaching job. As usual, I was early, so I got my agenda and (dreaded) nametag, settled into a chair, and started to read. I have slipped in this habit of reading in the gaps of time in my day, but it’s a pattern I’d like to readopt.

In high school, I’d read between class, devouring a few pages of Frankenstein before English started or making my way through a novel before Calculus. I used books as a way to fill the spaces between things, and I not only read a lot of books this way, but this pattern also helped keep me out of trouble. I wasn’t a kid prone to trouble – goodie-two-shoes really fit me – but I am a woman prone to worry and, honestly, nosiness. I get involved in the problems of others by overhearing conversations, or I get wrapped up in my own concerns in unhealthy, unintentional ways. Reading keeps me focused on something meaningful.

I had this lesson yesterday as I waited for a doctor’s appointment. It had been almost an hour, and I was getting frustrated. I did have a book (Ann Patchett’s Truth and Beauty) with me, and that helped me stay busy. As my frustration started to build, I noticed that a copy of the Desiderata was hanging on the wall above the examination table. It has been years since I read that poem, so I stood up and gave it a look. These lines jumped out to me –

But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Talk about a well-placed poster. I thought about the words, took comfort, and went back to my book. A little grace extended, again, through reading.

So today, as I teach my first classes of the semester, I will carry my book close by as a way to keep me busy while I wait for class to start, as a way to fill my time between classes, as a way to keep perspective in my day.

– by Mark Kennedy

Filed by Andi at 5:47 am under Book Recommendations, Teaching Triumphs and Travails, Written and Wrought
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Last night, I was really enjoying Ann Patchett’s memoir Beauty and Truth as I dozed off in bed, and it got me thinking about why I love good books so much. Nothing in the world – and I think I really do mean nothing – gives me as much pleasure as a really good book. So here are the top ten reasons I love them.

10. They give me a place to go that is outside of myself. When my life seems too much with me, or when I need a break from thinking through something, books allow me moments of escape. They require my attention more than TV, and they grip me more than any movie could.

9. They introduce me to people and places I may never meet or visit. I think of Barry Lopez’s essay on road kill in his book About a Life. I am certain I will never take a road trip where I stop to bury or at least move aside every animal killed by a car because I feel such compassion for them. Or Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert; it’s unlikely that I’ll have the time or cash to travel to Italy, then India, then Bali, but I went with her when she did it.

8. They remind me that sometimes there are actual products that come from hard work. So much of life is about relationships – in my personal life, in teaching – and while relationships can be highly rewarding and wonderful, they don’t usually produce a product. With a book, I can actually see the work that a writer has put in, and I find that very inspiring.

7. My ideas of what humanity should be are shaped by books. From the Bible, to The Chronicles of Narnia, to Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, to Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies, books are the way I most easily and privately bear witness to what is glorious and painful about humanity. They set my gauge for what people could be and what I should be (or what I should not become).

6. Some of my best friends are people (and animals) I’ve met in books. Peter in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Charles Wallace inA Wrinkle in Time. Asher in Chaim Potok’s My name is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev. (Interestingly, the characters that came easiest to mind where young males. I”ll have to ponder that one.)

5. I love the smell and weight of pages in my hand. That’s it. I just love it.

4. Books give me the chance to study craft and style almost without noticing. As I’ve said, I learned almost everything I know about writing from reading books, and I didn’t read to learn how to write. Most of the learning came through simple observation and emulation.

3. I love the lessons that books can teach me. This is different than books with morals, like The Left Behind Series; I really hate those. But books that can show me some insight about humanity stir something in me. I think of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany or the essays in JoAnn Beard’s collection The Boys of My Youth.

2. The feeling of accomplishment and, sometimes, of deep sadness when a book is finished keeps me seeking that thrill again and again.

1. C.S. Lewis once said, “We read to know we’re not alone.” Well, that’s the core isn’t it.

– C.S. Lewis

Filed by Andi at 6:10 am under Book Recommendations, Teaching Triumphs and Travails, Written and Wrought
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Aliens. Inhabited bodies. Post-apocalyptic earth. There are themes I usually appreciate in movies, but not really in books. In fact, when I started reading Meyer’s The Host in book form, I quit after the first chapter. It just wasn’t something I thought I could get invested in.

But with the help of CDs and lots of commuting, I’m definitely into the book. Maybe it’s that there’s a more passive activity involved in listening than there is in reading or maybe it’s that I just needed to get past my preconceived notions about sci-fi-esque books, but whatever it is, I’m really enjoying this read.

The basic plot is that a race of aliens has taken over most of earth by inhabiting human bodies. In most cases, these “take-overs” put away the host’s spirits, but for host Melanie and her alien inhabitor Wanderer, this doesn’t happen. Instead, Melanie and Wanderer end up inhabiting the same mind and body. This dual identity leads them to learn a great deal about each other and brings them into some very emotional and dangerous situations.

There’s a lot to consider from a social and literary perspective in this book. Ideas about colonialism, about identity, about the nature of humanity, about communal social structures. If I taught a higher-level literature course someday, I might think about using this text because of these themes but also because the story is compelling (not as teeny-bopper-ish as Twilight – though I did love those – but equally well-paced) and the characters complex and interesting.

I’m only half-way through the book – it’s a long one – but it’s making me look forward to long car rides. That’s really nice. In fact, I’m eager to get back in the car and listen again. Need to know what happens to Wanderer and Melanie.

Anyone else read this? What did you think?

– The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Filed by Andi at 7:46 am under Book Recommendations, Written and Wrought
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