Arthur Phillips and the American Worldview

(Long) After the Fact: A look at Arthur Phillips' first novel


On Arthur Phillips’ website, the following pivotal passage is included in the synopsis of Prague, his first novel:

What does it mean to fret about your fledgling career when the man across the table was tortured by two different regimes? How does your short, uneventful life compare to the lives of those who actually resisted, fought, and died? What does your angst mean in a city still pocked with bullet holes from war and crushed rebellion?

These words are placed in the mouths of the novel’s principal characters, a group of twentysomething American expatriates who seek adventure and understanding in the newly freed Eastern bloc. And what struck me in reading the passage was that this outsized narrative covering a year’s time in 1990-91 Budapest is remarkable ten years after its publication not only for its wit, style, and poignancy, but also for its portrayal of a world in which very little has changed. Emerging from the novel, one could easily see young Americans today in post-revolutionary Tunisia or Egypt asking exactly the same questions and arriving at exactly the same non-answers.

In other words, the story resonates. But that resonance comes not only from the moment in history the story captures, but also from the author’s seemingly effortless command of his art. Each sitting takes the reader on a gliding ride through imagery and emotion that is vivid, at times piercing, but always easy to digest. Even the massive interlude Phillips injects in Part Two is completely painless, and in fact invigorating. Here we are treated to hundreds of years of Hungarian history given as backstory for one of the novel’s few aged characters, a device that illuminates the character, takes us on a exhilarating flight, and lays a solid foundation for the remainder of the story.

As it turns out, I have once again let a book sit on the shelf for much too long. Phillips has delivered four novels since Prague, all to great critical acclaim. But I figure arriving at the party late is much preferred to not arriving at all.

Aestheticism v. Daniel Woodrell

James Wood, in How Fiction Works, talks about “aestheticism,” using as one of his examples a passage from John Updike’s Terrorist. In the passage, Updike’s young protagonist, the high-school–aged Muslim American Ahmad, walks down a street. We are in his thoughts as he ponders a recent growth spurt, then Updike suddenly takes over and launches into his own authorial exploration of Islamic theology, his exquisite lyrical prose replacing the direct rhythms of the young man’s thoughts.

One of the wonderful things about Wood’s little book is that it beautifully articulates thoughts we have already had, and in this case, he is articulating what has been my recent tendency to acknowledge and disparage aestheticism in many of the books and stories I’ve been reading. This will sometimes lead to my reading passages to my wife, absurdly embellishing them in the reading, laughing, and rolling my eyes.

It was my intention at the start of this post to find just such a flowery passage in Daniel Woodrell’s 2006 novel, Winter’s Bone, and to reprint it here for comical contrasting against the hillfolk dialog sprinkled elsewhere in the novel. But what I found instead were passages of description that, while certainly stretching the distance between themselves and the drawling Ozark Mountain dialog, do not break that distance. The tether is taut, but sill intact.

Here, the protagonist, Ree Dolly, is walking back from squirrel-hunting on family land with her brothers, two young boys she cares for as a mother:

The sun was taller though light had not yet broken through to the ground. The path was narrow and iced on the north slope. These rough acres were Bromont acres and they’d never been razed for timber, so the biggest old trees in the area stood on this ground. Magically fat and towering oak trees with limbs grown into pleasingly akimbo swirls were common. Hickory, sycamore, and all the rest prospered as well. (pg. 105)

While this is remarkable writing (phrases like “pleasingly akimbo swirls” could even be called magical), what is most amazing is how it stands in harmony with the very real speech of Ozark Mountain youths found in dialog like this, on the very next page:

Harold said, “Ree, are these for fryin’ or for stewin’?”

“Which way do you like best?”

Both boys said, “Fried!”

“Okey-doke. Fried, then. With biscuits, maybe, if we got the makin’s, and spang dripped on top, too. But, first thing is, we got to clean ‘em. Sonny, you fetch the skinnin’ board. I think it’s still leanin’ on the side of the shed back there. Harold, you go for the knife—you know which one I want.”

The one I ain’t s’posed to never touch.”

“Bring it to me.” (pg. 106)

I’m sure those comical passages are in there and just not presenting themselves at the moment, but I think it’s safe to say that by and large, Woodrell has succeeded wildly in writing as his Ozark Mountain family and neighbors spoke, and in either recapturing or inventing the words and rhythms of the most eloquent of those family and neighbors for use in his exposition. The result—despite the sniggering of a sometimes pretentious Californian—is not only stylish writing, but easy reading.

Movember - Shameless Plug for Donations

Okay gang, October is behind us, which means it's time to get the pink off the football fields, shift the focus to the men, and start growing some facial hair! (Word: We strongly encourage ongoing support for breast cancer and women's health causes throughout the year, so always do what you can.)

This MOvember, I've joined a team of colleagues from Cisco to support the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Livestrong by growing moustaches for men's health. Go to the Deucerman's MoBro Page and do the following: 1. Watch the day-to-day progress of my pathetic liphair struggling to the surface, and 2. Kick in some scratch! We have a set a stretch goal for our Movember Team, the MoMigos, of $250 Million, so we obviously need every penny you can spare. So ask yourself: Does that kid really need those braces? Does Grandpa really need that knee replacement? Does Grandma really need that hip replacement? I mean, God gave us chairs and couches, right?!

Okay, enough goofing. Let's get serious for a minute:

The Problem 

• Based on rates from 2005-2007, 1 in 6 men born today will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetimes.
• Based data from the same period, nearly 3% of men will die from prostate cancer.

The Solution

• The Prostate Cancer Foundation has funded more than 1,500 programs at nearly 200 research centers in 12 countries.
• Movember and Livestrong are teaming up to offer free, confidential navigation resources to any man affected by any cancer at any age.
• In 2010, over 64,500 US Mo Bros and Mo Sistas got on board with Movember, raising $7.5 million USD.

So give us a hand. Go to the Deucerman's MoBro Page and make whatever donation you can.

In the Market for a New Lawnmower

My response to the person who showered the Occupy Wall Street protesters with copies of this little missive.

Dear Person,

Thank you for your missive. It was very revealing. A minor edit and a message to you: To the list of things you would sell, you forgot a few: your mother, your children’s future, your country…down the river…just to name a few. And that doesn’t make you vicious. It makes you a greedy coward and a traitor. And yes, occupiers didn’t take to the streets when the markets rose. Congratulations. You pulled the wool over our eyes. There were those, people smarter than you, who tried to warn us, but we didn’t listen. And the occupiers’ message to you now is, that isn’t going to happen again.

Now let’s clear a few more things up: The markets you manipulate are not “just like gambling.” What you guys don’t get is that Wall Street is not a casino, it is a system designed to capitalize good ideas, not make a pack of punk-ass bitches like you rich. (And no, capitalized debt obligations, derivatives, and mortgage-backed securities do not qualify as “good ideas.”) The other thing you don’t get—well, actually, you do (see below)—is that in a democracy, that system is dependent on the people. If it does things the people don’t like, the people will either change it or shut its ass down. Welcome to your nightmare.

And no, you’re not going to take employment away from any occupiers, for two reasons. First, most of them aren't employed, thanks to you. And second, those who are employed are doing things that will find no value whatsoever in your snakelike acumen for “positions” and “gambling.” In case you need a primer, that’s how the market works: you ain’t a software engineer, you ain’t a physics lecturer, you ain’t a social worker or an occupational therapist or an electrician or a structural engineer, so ain’t nobody going to hire you to do those things. I don’t know what cloud of self-delusion led you to believe that the occupiers were mowing lawns, because I can tell you, any occupiers who are mowing lawns or making sandwiches are only doing so because their college degrees aren’t dong them any good in a system where punk-ass bitches like you suck up all the capital that is meant to fuel ideas, innovation, and the American future. So no, you won’t be taking anyone’s jobs, because clearly, you are incapable of teaching third-graders.

(And by the way, your time is near. I’d suggest you start looking for lawns to mow.)

And that car of yours? It never should have cost $85K in the first place. And the occupiers aren’t going to “create jobs” that depend on your 35% tip. They’re going to rebuild the system, and then they're going to create vocations, and those vocations are going to drive stronger, steadier, and more stable economic growth than any of your ingenious collateralized debt obligations ever could have.

But of course, you know all this, because you took the time to craft this little missive, give it to your admin to copy, and climb onto the roof to throw it down. And why would you do that? Why on earth would a snake like you do that, an asp, a cobra, a python like you, who could have spent that time “making” what, $50K, $100K, screw it, a million dollars, let’s say? The message of your missive is clear, my friend: you are afraid. You are quaking and pissing yourself like a crackhead right now, which is why you think you need an 85,000-dollar tank to protect you from all those baaaad people out there.

Word, dude: You don’t. They’re just people trying to make a better world.

Josh Rolnick and Treasured Elements

Josh Rolnick is certainly an accomplished young writer: Winner of the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize and the Florida Review Editor’s Choice Prize, nominated for a Pushcart, Iowa grad, and an impressive list of publication credits. He has also “lived around:” Raised in the East and educated in the Midwest, he spent two years here in the Bay Area and has had stints in places as far-flung as Jerusalem and London. Hearing him read and talk about writing, and reading his penetrating new collection Pulp and Paper, one learns quickly that in all those places, Josh Rolnick was listening. Watching and listening, the two primary skills a writer must possess.

Take this tidbit, from the story "Funnyboy." Here, a grieving father is in the midst of recollecting the memory of his young son Richie, who has been tragically killed:

Quick quiz: What is the name of the light stripe that separates an earthworm’s head from its tail? Time’s up. It’s called the clitellum. Do you know how I know that? Of course you don’t. My son taught me that. He also taught me that, when nightcrawlers are cut in half, they don’t die. They regenerate.

Imagine that. Losing half of yourself and becoming whole again.

There is a thing that crawls in the dirt and eats shit that can do that.

This searing, ironic first-person portrayal of an angry grieving father captivated me from the first lines of this piece, and so I asked Josh about it. Did this voice appear organically, did it just emerge from among the loaves and fishes of his psyche, or did he have a lengthy, painstaking struggle to conjure it? His response was that he is certainly a writer who writes a lot of drafts, and “Funnyboy” was no exception. A piece that had its genesis in a story he’d heard in New York of a man who had been found laying dead on a sidewalk, “Funnyboy” had gone through many transformations in its journey to publication. But as it turns out, the one thing about the piece that was there from the start was indeed that voice. It was one of the key elements, in fact, that had given the story life and kept it alive through its many incarnations.

I personally found this to be a wonderful lesson, particularly for writers who have podmates and/or writing-group colleagues bleeding all over their pages: Even as we hold fast to treasured elements in a piece—a voice, a setting, a particular character’s particular flaw—we must also consider virtually everything else to be negotiable, if not expendable. The well-meaning commentary of our readers often intensifies our struggle, I find, to recognize those elements that hold special meaning for us, those germs of thought and emotion outside the “murder your darlings” rubric that impelled us to put pen to paper in the first place.

Some other observations on Pulp and Paper:

• The treatment of time in the very short piece “Carousel” is subtle and sublime and would serve as an excellent example for teaching this critical element of story. Finishing the piece, we’re left with a resonant mystery: have we just witnessed the death of a character, or a hallucination portending his death, or something else entirely? Really lovely.
• Rolnick achieves a superb balance between vivid description of the physical world and extended expositions of the emotional. He tells us this is, again, the result of doing lots of drafts, of reworking and reworking until the balance is right for the story. The key to that, of course, is patience, so it’s not surprising that early on, when he was at Iowa, Josh had gotten a stone imprinted with the Chinese character for patience, and that this stone adorns his writing table to this day.

Finale – Death Ride 2011

The big day, Death Ride 2011 on Saturday July 9th, was a struggle, but ultimately a success. Our starting peloton was me, my wife Caroline (Carol), Bill Wilson, Ann Togasaki (the Annimal), Robert Bley (Bob), and Ryan Moore, Bill’s cousin. We all rose at 3:30 a.m. in our rented house in Meyers and fueled up with a breakfast of huevadillas, cereal, coffee, and juice, as well as lots of sunscreen and chamois butter. We then loaded up the machines and headed out at just before 4:30. Arriving at Turtle Rock Park in plenty of time for our planned 5:30 start, we actually mounted the machines closer to 5:15 and headed up to the park for a quick natural break. Ablutions completed, we had a surprise as Carol managed to snap the left temple off her Oakley sunglasses. Unfazed, the Annimal took command of the situation and within a minute had the temple snapped back into place, and we were off.

Monitor Pass

After riding pretty much together from Turtle Rock through Markleeville and to the start of the West Monitor Pass climb, we quickly splintered as Bob, Ryan, and the Annimal went up the road. As Bill, Carol and I settled into a comfortable pace for the climb, surrounded all along by the thousands of other riders on the pass, we were surprised to see a neighboring rider break his chain—a huge coincidence because it happened at just about the same place on the climb where the Annimal broke her chain back in 2008. She, however, was fortunate enough to have been chatting up a fellow rider who happened to have both a chain tool and the skill to use it. As a result, her chain was fixed within 20 minutes and she was back on the road. This young guy, on the other hand, seemed quite at a loss, and we had no facilities to be of assistance.

Continuing on in breaking daylight, we saw the sun emerge and then reached the top of the climb, where we reconnoitered at the summit monument and celebrated the first of the five passes complete. We then settled in for the 10-mile descent into the high desert below. At the bottom, we rode past the rest stop and availed ourselves of some of Bill’s “local knowledge:” the clean rest rooms at the fire station just past the rest stop, which allowed us to avoid the long lines that had accumulated at the rest stop porta-potties. Our water bottles refilled at the rest stop, the climb back up the East Monitor was long as always, but in the nice cool weather (a marked contrast to the 100+ degree temps Carol and I had faced there just 6 days before), it was entirely tolerable. Once again, we reconnoitered at the monument at the top for a celebration, this time of the second of our five passes.



Ebbet’s Pass

At this point, Bob and Ryan had pretty much separated themselves from the rest of us, and Bill and Ann were riding up the road from Carol and me, but not far enough that we didn’t reunite at each rest stop. After the fast descent to the bottom of West Monitor, Ann, Bill, Carol, and I got back together, took a quick natural break at the rest stop there, then took advantage of the next bit of local knowledge, the Silver Creek Campground. Here, we took a break to remove shoes, fuel up, fill water bottles, reapply the “butter baby,” and avail ourselves of the clean campground rest rooms. Back on the road, we settled into our usual pattern – Bill and the Annimal up the road, Carol and me pounding out a steady rhythm further back – until we reached the beautiful, wooded top of East Ebbet’s Pass, waterfalls crashing all around us. At this point, all were feeling strong, so we made just a short stop at the top of Ebbet’s before descending down the back side to the west.

Starting in Hermit Valley, at the bottom of West Ebbet’s Pass, the 60+ miles of tough riding was beginning to take its toll. There, we found Bob with his feet in the snow, but seemingly fresh as a daisy nonetheless. Carol and I were desperately feeling the need for real food at this point, but no juicy steaks in sight, so we settled for bananas, potato chips, and small cans of V-8. Bob headed up the road first, followed by Ann and Bill, who couldn’t wait any longer, and then Carol and me a few minutes later. Up the West Ebbet’s climb, Carol was making noises about being unable to make it, but with one simple admonition of “Just be sure (before you stop on the hill),” she hung in there and made the top. There, we found Bill suffering from hot foot and making noises about stopping at the truck at Turtle Rock park (he didn’t mean it). With a plan to meet up at the Centerville Flat rest stop at Wolf Creek, near the bottom, we launched into the very technical East Ebbet’s descent. Along the way, we encountered a med-evac helicopter at Kinney Reservoir, pulling a crashed rider out. I then went up the road from Carol and encountered Ryan, who had been having severe cramping problems and had had to walk much of the way up West Ebbet’s. After a quick chat, he rocketed ahead again down the descent and was part of our rendezvous group at Wolf Creek.

Markleeville / Turtle Rock Grade

After another quick break that included as much food as we could find (including a nice Cup o’ Noodles for me), we remounted and beat the wind with a nice paceline for several miles out of the canyon toward Markleeville. From Markleeville, the short climb to Turtle Rock Park tested the legs, but our goal now was to hit the 4:00 cut-off time at Woodfords, just a few miles up the road from the park. There, we would have 100 miles and over 12,000 vertical feet under our belts, but more than 25 miles more ahead of us, including the nasty Woodfords-to-Pickett’s Junction climb.

A hammer through the canyon got us to Woodfords well within the cut-off, and that rest stop, clearly the best on the DR route, was a sight for sore eyes. First, you ride your bike right in under a rain shower provided by a young volunteer on a ladder, then a bike valet parks your bike for you while another young volunteer tops off your water bottles and returns them to the bike. All you have to do is step off and enjoy a snack, a soda, and a stretch. Alas, however, they – like all the rest stops before them – had run out of Coca Cola before we got there: motivation to go faster if we’re ever crazy enough to do this again.

Woodfords to Pickett’s Junction

At this point, the real Death Ride begins. Bill paced us for several miles up the grade out of Woodfords, but eventually had to pick up his pace and pull away. As I led Carol up the 7-mile, 7% grade toward Pickett’s Junction, she was again making noises about not being able to finish, and who could blame her. This is a bitch of a climb, with heavy traffic, a tiny shoulder on the road, and the heat of the day weighing you down. We made it to Pickett’s Junction, however, well within the 5:15 p.m. cut-off time and took a rest and some more nourishment before mounting the final climb up Carson Pass. My dad and stepmother, coincidentally, were in the Tahoe area for the weekend, and I had made what turned out to be the precise prediction that we would arrive in Hope Valley (just beyond the Pickett’s Junction rest stop) between 5:00 and 5:30. This is a gorgeous little valley, with an idyllic stream running through, that was the point where Carol and Ann’s friend Paul waited for us to pass through back in 2008. I rode out of the rest stop ahead of the group, and voila, there Dad and Marjorie were, hanging at the corner, cameras in hand, with their friends Mike and Hilary. It was a high point for me, and very inspiring at a critical point in the ride, to visit with them for 10 minutes or so while the others rested some more, then rode out and continued right past us (no time for visiting for them!)

Carson Pass and the Run for Home

Bill and the Annimal again paced Carol up the road for a few miles, until I was able to catch up. At that point, I did not pace her up the rest of the Carson Pass climb, but rather followed behind as the little Energizer Bunny hit a rhythm and slammed up that sucker, clearly anxious to be off her damn bike. She zipped by dozens of other riders, some laboring up the climb, some surrendering by the side of the road, and I followed. Unfortunately, we passed Ryan along the way, walking his bike again as his cramping leg muscles had again abandoned him. He would eventually give up about a mile from the top to grab a SAG Wagon back to Turtle Rock. We continued on, however, and were rewarded just one turn from the top, where Bill waited for us so that all three of us could cross the line at the top of Carson together. That was another huge highlight.

At the top, we celebrated our completion of all 5 passes, fueled up again, signed the massive Death Ride 5-pass finishers poster, and waited for Ryan. Watching the large numbers of riders who would bail out of the ride at the top of Carson, friends and relatives waiting there with cars onto which they could load their bikes, Carol began to waver again, considering a SAG Wagon back to Turtle Rock. This notion was, of course, soundly rejected by the rest of us, who assured her she would regret not having finished every mile of the ride. She acquiesced, and when Ryan didn’t arrive and the weather started to get a bit cool, we donned arm warmers and jackets for the Carson descent and the run for home. Bill and the Annimal, both fearlessly fast descenders, blasted out ahead of Carol and me, as we took our time and stayed safe in our exhausted state. Laboring each time the road turned uphill even a little – as one tends to do at the end of a century ride – we nonetheless kept up our steady rhythm and rode up to the truck just before 7:30 p.m., relieved and joyous at completing DR 2011 in just under 14 hours.



Post-Ride Celebration

The Israeli Army – Amnon, Mark, Zack, Udi, Guy, and Roz – had finished well ahead of us and were waiting for us to arrive at a post-ride celebration they were hosting at their rented house just a few miles up the road in Markleeville. Despite our late arrival, at nearly 8 p.m., our gracious hosts treated us to one of the finest Châteauneuf de Papes I have ever tasted, as well as chips and salsa, grilled steak, prawns, chicken, franks, and pork, and salad. New friends were made as we shared tales of our various exploits on the roads of Alpine County, and we called it a night at around 10 p.m. Many thanks to Bill and Bob for transporting us all safely back to the rented house in Meyers, where we tamped down pumping adrenalin and managed a solid night of rewarding sleep.

The Data

My data shows what happens when you forget to turn your bike computer off when you take it off your bike. (No, I did not ride 155 miles, but we did drive about 26 miles or so after we completed the ride, all of which is figured into my data. I also did not ride my bike at 60.9 mph.) I include a link to Carol’s Garmin data to add a little sanity.

7/9/2011 - Death Ride – Bruce’s Computer

7/9/2011 - Death Ride – Carol’s Computer

Part 5 – Death Ride Tapering IV

The final day before the big ride had us all, except Caroline, trooping back up to Markleeville for one last quick look at the DR 2011 start. From Markleeville, we rode out along the Carson River and up the early miles of Ebbet’s Pass. My goal was to put in 20 miles, no more, and that’s essentially what we did:

7/8/2011 – Death Ride Taper IV – Ebbet's Pass Scenic Byway

Paceline practice coming back down from Ebbet’s Pass went well until Bill and Bob decided 22 mph in a stiff headwind wasn’t good enough and kicked it up to 26 mph+. That’s when I said to the Annimal, “This is a stiff wind, and I’d rather not be in it, but I don’t need to go that fast.” Her answer: “I can’t go that fast!” (She was lying.) Anyway, the boys had their fun, and we made it back in one piece.

Ryan, Bill’s wife’s cousin’s husband (cousin-in-law??) arrived in the afternoon to round out our 6-person peloton. Great guy, the youngest in our group by a few years, but with the oldest bike: an aging but workable Giant. With the whole peloton in the house, the afternoon and evening before the big day included carbo-loading on spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread (and just a few drops of Chardonnay) and a viewing of just half of “Taladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.” The idea here being, watch a slapstick movie and grab as many funny lines as you can to throw out at your fellow riders in the middle of the nastiest, most relentless bit of the steepest hills, get 'em to crack up, get yourself to crack up, see who falls off bikes (no one ever does--a commentary on the state of American humor). After all that, it was sleep—what little we could get, in some cases—before the 3:30 wake-up call for DR 2011.