Instead of forging ahead with new books for my list of 100, I've been drifting through things I've read 100 times before -- old familiar friend kind of books, that are as easy to read as drinking water because I know what the next sentence is going to be, and the next and the next. Earlier this year I decided I was going to count that type of re-reading (specifically books by B. Pym), but more recently I've changed my mind. Thus last month Brideshead Revisited didn't count even though I read it cover to cover, because I've read it so many times before. (Note: one way you can tell you have read something a lot is when you can read it backwards, last chapter to first, with no comprehension issues.)
A few days ago, feeling too feverish to read anything new, I plucked Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson off my bookshelf. This is not one of her Gothic/haunted house stories, it is a book about her homelife with her husband and children, in the 1940s and 50s, written for laughs. (She was the precursor to Erma Bombeck. And Stephen King, actually -- he considers her a major influence. Can you imagine anyone today being both Erma Bombeck and Stephen King?) Anyway, the book is soooo funny. But I never realized before (not having had children the 18 or so times I had read the book previously) that in fact it is not funny, it is horrible.
I could give endless examples. Here are some from a long scene about a summer morning.
"...Laurie began to chuckle maliciously. I saw that he was putting Jannie's red sandals on his own feet, reflected briefly and bitterly on the theory that seven-year-olds have good days and bad days, and said briskly, "Just for that, you can put Jannie's shoes on her feet, and buckle them for her, too."
I knew immediately what he was going to do, and, with speed, I made a strong tactical retreat downstairs before I could see him do it...."
"I turned around. Jannie was balancing the fruit juice glasses one on top of another. Laurie was making a train of knives and forks. Sally finished with her bottle abruptly and threw it on the floor.
"It's hot," my husband remarked. He sat down at the table, rescued a knife and fork from Laurie and a glass of fruit juice from Jannie. "Why do you let the children play with things on the table?" he asked. "Don't they have enough toys of their own?"
I did not feel equal to answering..."
"...Jannie teetered backward in her chair, Laurie crashed into her, and they both went over, Jannie's plate, with egg, moving gracefully off the table after them.
"Can I have my candy now?" Jannie asked me, looking up hopefully from the floor. "Laurie did it."
My children are two and a half while hers were 7, 4, and 1 at the time, but somehow there's no real difference.
Shirley Jackson was such an interesting writer. I've just requested a biography of her from the library. I know that she was a heavy smoker, alcoholic, and very overweight, that she died of a heart attack when she was only 48.
But I think what never really struck me about her before is that she was a transplanted Californian who got married in her mid-20s to a New York Jewish intellectual (Stanley Edgar Hyman, who at the time was the Big Name in the family and now is essentially forgotten except as her husband) and then over the next 11 years they had 4 children. So while she was writing her amazing books -- The Haunting of Hill House is my favorite, but We Have Always Lived in the Castle is highly thought of too and then of course there's that short story, "The Lottery" -- she was also doing all the work of raising four children and running the household. And what she is saying, in Life Among the Savages, is that being a housewife when you're actually supposed to be something else (in her case, a writer) is so so so hard.
I would love to read a feminist analysis of this book. There's a lovely section about the birth of her third child. When she checks into the hospital the reception desk clerk asks her occupation.
"Writer," I said.
"Housewife," she said.
"Writer," I said.
"I'll just put down housewife," she said.
...
"Husband's name?" she said. "Address? Occupation?"
"Just put down housewife," I said..."
Something I read somewhere said that she was a devoted mother and her kids all loved her, even though she didn't keep a very clean house, wrote books like this about them, etc. That reassures me. Life Among the Savages is full of very sweet descriptions of things her kids do, not just awful things, but very weird and lovely things too. And it gives a very clear picture of how the weird and lovely things occur smack in the middle of the awful things, giving you no more than a moment to focus on the weird and lovely, before you have to go back to dealing with the awful.
One more quote, because I can't resist. This is from a section about trying to take the older 2 kids shopping for clothes:
"We got out of the bus, apologizing, and reached the sidewalk without trouble -- quite an accomplishment, with the doll carriage, Linda [one of Jannie's imaginary daughters], and Laurie, who remembered his manners at the last minute, and ran back from the sidewalk to hold the door for me after I had already gotten out, leaving Jannie alone and disconsolate, so that she started sadly down the street alone pushing her carriage, with the crowd separating to make a path for her, and one or two old ladies turning to smile and tell one another that she was sweet, and cute, and adorable.
By the time Laurie and I, shouting, had caught up, Jannie and the doll carriage were almost inextricably caught in a revolving door."
How does anyone ever make it through their children's childhood?
I'm realizing that I'm too tired to do this subject justice, and the codeine cough syrup is kicking in again, so I will stop. I still have a very puzzling illness -- fever, cough, dizziness, and now a weird sort of sweating. It made the day go by quickly though, because I had no sense of time. I would look up from the computer and find 3 hours had gone by just like that. Normally I get bored when I'm home with the twins all day and I have to keep thinking of more things to do, but not today. No, today I was on their schedule, or lack thereof. When they requested a new puzzle, I brought it down. They reminded me about snack time. When Baby A got tired, he lay down on the floor next to my computer chair and took a nap. Baby B went off to make the puzzle by himself, and when he got tired, he lay down on the floor next to the puzzle table and took a nap. No need for any nap drives.
And for that I am grateful, since I had no business being on a highway today. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
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