28 Lessons We’ve Learned from Pride and Prejudice

January 28, 2015 / J. F. Riordan

Today is the 202nd anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen’s masterpiece, Pride and Prejudice. I doubt, when she wrote it, that she expected it to endure for two centuries, and I wonder how many of our contemporaries realize how perfectly modern–and perfectly biting–its humor is. If you haven’t read it, now’s the time.

Here’s to Pride and Prejudice. May it long endure.

Bas Bleu Bluestocking Salon

January 28 marks the anniversary of Pride and Prejudice’s publication in 1813, a cultural milestone that almost never was thanks to a dismissive publisher who rejected Jane Austen’s manuscript First Impressions in 1797. Sixteen years later, Thomas Egerton bought the rights to Pride and Prejudice for just £110…and the rest, as they say, is literary history. So today, the twenty-eighth day of January, in honor of P&P’s birthday, Bas Bleu is sharing our list of twenty-eight life lessons we learned from Miss Austen, Lizzie Bennet, Mr. Darcy, and, yes, even Mr. Wickham.

View original post 314 more words

January Island

January 26, 2015 / J. F. Riordan / 4 Comments

Greetings from North of the Tension Line. Our days are simple here. I get up in the dark, drink coffee and write for a few hours. Then the dogs and I go for a long walk. We come back and I write some more. Sometimes I procrastinate and then I write. I have lunch. Then I write some more. In the afternoons we go for another long walk. Usually at night we just hang out and go to bed ridiculously early.

The dogs are happy. I am happy, if a bit lonely. The good news is that sequel is coming along nicely.

The Big Question

January 20, 2015 / J. F. Riordan / 1 Comment

I am beginning to sense a pattern. I’ve been on the book club circuit recently and it has been great fun to have total strangers engaged with my characters, asking about them and why they do the things they do. Readers have come to own my story. It’s theirs now as much as it is mine, and they want to engage with it. Some people have theories, and I listen to these with great interest because they often surprise me. There are also certain questions people ask routinely, and the answers to these questions have become a bit routine, as well. People want to know what Elisabeth sees in Roger. They ask about Roger’s mental health. They love Rocco. They pretty much all hate Stella and want her killed, and many people comment on developing cravings for scotch.

But there is one question–the one I get most–that I have no routine response to: What happened to Robert?

I believe that this is the kind of question that a reader must resolve alone, and I have steadfastly remained silent, even though the sequel to North of the Tension Line is nearly finished.

This is driving one of my friends crazy. In a bid to draw me out she recently sent me an article from the Washington Post with a map of all the goats in the United States.

There was just one question accompanying the link: Is he here???

The Nostalgia of Crows

January 19, 2015 / J. F. Riordan / 2 Comments

I am a crow lover.

I had never seen a crow until I moved to Wisconsin in my childhood, and I remember being astonished at how big they were. I first noticed them in the spring when their big, clumsy fledglings would fall off their perches onto their beaks, and would make odd, baby caws that were laughably unbeautiful. But their parents were sleek and affectionate, and they seemed to be large families of mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles.

We fed them. My mother would leave them meat scraps and suet. They would gather in the early mornings and winter evenings, circling overhead and calling. It was rare to see one alone. Most often, though, they would travel in pairs. Nordic myth says that they were the messengers of the god, Odin, and they always seem to carry both mystery and omen.

When I grew older my brother gave me a crow call, and I would use it to summon them. They almost always responded, and we would carry on conversations in a language that consisted on my side merely of imitation. I can’t say what was intended on their side.

Crows are very intelligent. I remember reading somewhere that there was a man who somehow rescued a baby crow, and from that day on, the entire flock (technically, I believe, a murder of crows) would greet him in his car every day as he entered his subdivision, and escort him to the main road when he left. They always remembered his heroism, although, perhaps, it was a tribute that not everyone would appreciate.

Somehow, bleak winter days–the days with neither sun nor snow–seem like crow days, and today was one of those days. As I was hurrying in from my car to a meeting, I heard in the distance the rough song of crows, and it flashed me back to my childhood, ambling home from school through the snow, cawing and calling to the birds who seemed to know me.

I realized at once how much I have missed them, and I have resolved to go back to carrying my crow call in my pocket.

Night Crow
When I saw that clumsy crow
Flap from a wasted tree,
A shape in the mind rose up:
Over the gulfs of dream
Flew a tremendous bird
further and further away,
Into a moonless black,
Deep in the brain, far back.

(That great man) Theodore Roethke

Full Wolf Moon

January 4, 2015 / J. F. Riordan / 1 Comment

Tonight is the first full moon of the year, known among Native Americans as the Full Wolf Moon. It is named for the hungry wolves who would gather in midwinter at the edges of the villages and howl for food.

Or maybe it’s just a beautiful legend.

My own wolves are curled up on the couch in front of a roaring fire while the snow falls outside. It’s a much more comfortable location in sub-zero temperatures.

I see you never

December 30, 2014 / J. F. Riordan / 6 Comments

There is a short story by Ray Bradbury–an underrated master of American literature–that I read long ago. In it, Mr. Ramirez, an illegal immigrant, and tenant of Mrs. O’Brian, is being taken away to be deported. He is a good man, and she likes him, but she is unable to help him in the face of the law. At the last moment, desperately, he cries out to her, “Oh, Mrs. O’Brian! I see you never! I see you never!” After he is gone, the woman starts to go on with her interrupted dinner, when she suddenly puts down her knife and fork, painfully struck by the realization that she will never see Mr. Ramirez again.

In winding up the details of my late mother’s estate there are large griefs and small ones. Each time I come back from her house I am spent from the turmoil of emotion. There are so many things to do: the paperwork, the bills, the wrapping, the packing, and the decisions about what remnants of my parents lives to keep and what to abandon. It is heavy work. I never liked the house itself, but the finality of each step of the parting beats on the walls of my heart.

The house will be sold tomorrow, so I was there yesterday to meet the movers. The mailman, whom I have known for decades, was on his way to deliver a package across the street, and he stopped to talk. He is a kind man, always smiling, and he delivered mail to me in my own small house when I lived in that town, as well as to my parents. I haven’t lived on his route for many years, but when we see each other we exchange pleasantries. He is, as a friend of mine likes to say, one of my life’s cast of characters. He doesn’t have a major part, but he has played in many small pleasant scenes, and his cheerful interactions have given me some of the happy little ordinary moments of everyday life.

Our conversation was light, and he enquired about the house. As we parted we shook hands for the first and only time, and I said to him something I don’t think I’ve ever said to anyone before: I will probably never see you again. I had to turn away quickly to hide my feelings.

The finality broke hard, and I cried all the way up to the house.

I don’t even know his name.

Joys of the Season

December 22, 2014 / J. F. Riordan / 2 Comments

Dear Secret Santa:

First, I want to thank you for reading my blog. I need all the readers I can get.

Second, I want to thank you for the package of Chuckles I found in my mailbox yesterday morning. My husband handed me the envelope which he had opened accidentally, and recognized who the gift must be for. The message inside said: Merry Christmas from your Secret Santa.

I was in the middle of vacuuming out the car so human beings could sit in the back without acquiring full coats of fur, but I opened the package and ate them immediately. Green one first; red one last, all in the proper order. They were slightly frozen and chewier than usual. Delicious.

It was a lovely surprise, Santa. I am grateful.

My love to you, whoever you are.

And, of course, Merry Christmas!

Old friends

December 15, 2014 / J. F. Riordan / 1 Comment

My late mother had a good friend whom she admired greatly. Blanche will be 108 years old in February, and she still lives alone in her own house. She gets her hair done weekly, dresses beautifully, and is generally in good health.

A year or so ago I stopped by to deliver my mother’s birthday gift to Blanche while my mother–then 90–waited in the car. I spoke to Blanche and to her daughter, and, accustomed to my mother’s deafness, used my opera singer voice.
“You don’t have to yell at me,” said Blanche, with great dignity. “I am not deaf.”
“I’m sorry. My mother is,” I said apologetically.
“I know,” said Blanche.

I picked up my mother’s mail this week, and in the piles of junk mail and solicitations for donations for every charitable cause imaginable, I found a Christmas card from Blanche, signed in a firm, lovely hand.
Somehow, in my mother’s small town, the news of her death six months ago had not reached Blanche, and it had not occurred to me to call her personally.

I will have to write a note this week. I dread bearing the news that will reduce the small circle of contemporaries for this remarkable old lady. (If contemporary is the right word. At 91, my mother could have been her daughter.) My mother used to say how hard it was when all your friends were gone. How lonely. Blanche is accustomed to death, no doubt, but each loss must surely add up, and one hesitates to add weight to so many years.

I am wondering if I should wait until after Christmas, but perhaps that would be a form of selfishness.

It’s difficult to know. But probably sooner is better.

The intricacies of the casual conversation

December 14, 2014 / J. F. Riordan / 2 Comments

I am on a first name basis with the people at our local hardware store. I am there sporadically but often, and they have patiently–and without one note of patronization–advised me on various topics ranging from the correct size of a wall anchor to replacing an outlet. They greet me like an old friend when I come in, and this minor element of small town life cheers me.
The frequency of my visits has increased recently for various reasons, so our conversations have taken on a serial quality, generally picking up where we left off. I was standing at the register this week piling up my purchases. “Will this be all?” I was asked politely. I struggled perfunctorily with myself and lost.
“And a package of Chuckles.”
Chuckles are a candy I know from my childhood, rarely seen anymore, at least in the midwest. They are an oblong package of five flat squares of gum drop style candy, with little ridges shaped into them, and coated with a crystal layer of sugar. They are always laid out in the same order: red, yellow, black, orange, green. I’m not sure when the hardware store started carrying them. But I first started noticing them this summer, when I was making frequent visits for items to prepare my late mother’s house for sale.
After our business was finished, I stood chatting, and opened up my package of Chuckles as I did so. Watching me, the owner said:
“You know, no one who buys those can ever leave the store without opening the package.”
“Really?”
“There’s something about their connection to childhood, I think. It’s powerful.” She paused for a moment, recollecting. “One guy who comes in stands at the counter to eat them so he can throw away the package here and his wife won’t know.”
“Maybe it’s better as a guilty pleasure.”
“So many things are.”
There was a moment of silence as I ate the first Chuckle.
“Which is your favorite?” the owner wanted to know. She pointed to the clerk. “He never eats the orange ones.”
“Really?” I was aghast. Orange is one of the best flavors.
“I find the orange ones hidden behind the counter.” She looked sideways at her assistant.
The clerk was not in the least abashed. “I start to eat them, and then forget about them.”
“You have to eat them in order,” I said.”It’s a cardinal rule.”
This interested them, and they both looked at me.
“You must be right about the childhood thing. I’ve been eating them this way since I was small. Green first. And then each flavor in order. Because the best one is the red one, and you have to save the best for last.”
As I thought about this piece of childish philosophy, I suddenly realized that it was more complicated, and I hadn’t been aware of it until this moment. I spoke slowly as my awareness of the process unfolded from my subconscious.
“And you can’t bite them right away. You have to let them melt in your mouth until all the sugar is gone, and then you bite into the little ridges very carefully. Then you can chew the pieces. But it’s better if you let them slowly melt in your mouth.”
“It’s a childhood ritual,” commented the clerk.
I nodded, thinking about the oddities of the mind, and how this leftover from my very early life could still be, unconsciously, part of my behavior. Another customer walked in, and we all went on with our day.
Somehow the conversation came up with my friend later on.
She listened, and then she said:
“How long have you been doing this?”
“All my life.”
“No. I mean eating the Chuckles. You don’t eat candy.”
I thought about it.
“I don’t know. All summer, I guess. I’m not used to eating sugar and they make me feel terrible afterward, but I can’t resist. It’s weirdly comforting.”
“So you’re eating a childhood candy, using a childhood ritual, as you work on fixing up your late mother’s house. You don’t need a degree in psychology to understand what’s going on here.”
“I guess not.”
Hardware stores are interesting places. I’ve always thought so.