And a happy new year to all.
Alas, holidays are over.  Okay, everyone, back to work.  Seriously.
I’m again at my library, finding that my favorite carrel by the great big windows is exceptionally COLD.  Less that two feet away, it’s 23 degrees fahrenheit out there (-5 Celsius, for you Europeans).
What this place needs is a fireplace to sit beside.  Yeah. And a cat!
I’d bundle up, but bundling up does rather immobilize one. And I’m already stiff and achy from sitting immobile all day at the DayJob.
Yes, I still have the DayJob! Plans are afoot —  but for the time being, yes, still there, grumble grumble…
I’ve just finished reading John Haines’ book The Stars, The Snow, The Fire, which I discovered when I pulled it off the shelf for a random quote last month.
I found it fascinating, in so many ways — I love wilderness, and solitude, and deep thought, and any place that has clear open skies above, and the book does have all of that.  And Haines was a poet, so his memoir is often poetic, but always clear and immediate.
I find I like him least when he is being intentionally philosophical, and best when he lets the landscape, events and characters  speak for themselves.  If you present something clearly enough, the implications will communicate themselves, and you needn’t channel the reader toward some specific conclusion.   And more often than not, that’s how Haines manages his essays; I think he’s especially brilliant at it.
But one thing I found particularly interesting, and unexpected, Â was the near-total absence of women.
Now, I do not complain about this.  I bring it up merely as an aside. It’s a simple fact of the time and place about which Haines was writing.  But I felt as though I were being given a window into a world not otherwise open to me.
A world of hunting, trapping, building cabins by hand.  Hunkering down for the winter, waiting for the sun to return.  Listening for the ice to break.  Trekking miles down the mountainside for an evening’s visit to the nearest roadhouse, there to listen to the laconic conversation of the most grizzled of old-timers…
Certainly a woman can do all that, and almost certainly they are doing it — now.  But the time covered by Haines’ memoir is from the late 1940’s to the late 60’s.  For the most part, these men saw only other men, for months on end — that is, when they saw another human being at all.
But I believe: bring a woman into the picture, and the men would have acted differently; stories would have unfolded in a different way; and the whole social dynamic would have altered.
In fact, I get the sense that  the solitude itself would have been a different solitude, if this world had been shared by an equal number of women.
Of course… perhaps it was.   Haines mentions women only glancingly — but is that because (as seems to have been comunicated to me) they were mostly absent?   Or did the author, a product of his times, consider them and their stories irrelevant?
I don’t know.  I can’t tell from the book.
But again, I’m not complaining about the absence of women;Â but it does render this an alien landscape, which I cannot help but find fascinating.
Well. No random quote today, as I’ve spent my blogtime talking about John Haines.
I really, deeply enjoyed this book.
January 6th, 2013 at 2:52 pm
Fingers crossed that you are soon able to write full-time! I just resigned from the day-job, and will be writing full time myself starting this week. Luckily I have a nice gig writing finance and investing articles that will augment my wife’s income, but it’s super-scary making the jump away from a guaranteed paycheck (and benefits) to relative unknown.
I’ll be sending super-positive thoughts your way daily. Can’t wait to get my hands on your next book (or whatever you’re keeping under wraps.) Here’s to a new year of pursuing your passions!
-jh
January 6th, 2013 at 3:19 pm
Hey, I’m sending positive thoughts your way, too! But unless one is an actual telepath, thoughts stay pretty much in one’s own head… This is why we invented writing. So, thanks for the words of encourangement.
However, actual clicks are another thing altogether — so I went over to Motley Fool, and checked out some of your articles.
I especially liked Death! Gold! Excitement! Calm Down and Get Boring if You Want to Get Rich.
Because I’ve known some people whose idea of investing is: “BUY! NO, SELL!! RIGHT NOW! No, wait for it, wait for it, wait — YES! NOW! BUY! No, I meant SELL! NOW! Too late. Wait… NOW! YES!! Okay, wait, here it comes… BUY!”
Seriously, I got all itchy just talking to them. Plus: they were really boring people.
Some of them did get rich. Briefly. And then, not.
Anyway, I hope my click helped your hit-count.
January 8th, 2013 at 1:44 am
Wow! Totally feeling my fanboy kicking in! Rosemary Kirstein read something I GOT PAID TO WRITE! BECAUSE SHE WANTED TO!
Click-count be damned. You just made my day, lady. Actually, my week, maybe longer.
January 8th, 2013 at 6:08 am
My pleasure!
January 10th, 2013 at 9:28 am
I have to admit I’ve been hoping, intrusively, that some previously unknown great-aunt of yours would pass away and leave you a large legacy, allowing you to write full time…
As another day-job-quitter, I hope your plans proceed to your satisfaction. (I took up translation and discovered that a handful of part-time jobs add up to at least one full-time one, unfortunately, but in the unlikely event that you ever need something translated from the Japanese, I will be honored to oblige.)
All the best.
January 11th, 2013 at 6:09 pm
Huimang —
Ooh, I find myself wishing I did have something I wanted translated from the Japanese. Because, it would be extremely cool to be able to say, “No problem — I’ll just run it past Huimang!”
Oh, well… perhaps someday I (or someone) will stumble across a review of my books from a Japanese website.
January 12th, 2013 at 2:35 am
You’re very kind! The offer stands.