What with one thing and another, it has been difficult to settle into a pattern of reading. I seem to have regressed as a reader; either I’m consumed by a book and drop everything else while I finish it, or I’m not consumed, and the book may never get read past the first thirty pages. If I weren’t aware of my own delusional tendencies, I’d say that I’ve been good lately about buying books, ie not buying them. And perhaps I’ve slowed down a bit. But I could go without buying another book this year and never get near the bottom of my pile.

This morning, more in desperation than anything else, I fished out a slim volume from the more recent strata of acquisitions, Philip Pullman’s The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. Not only did it promise to be a quick read, but Dot McCleary, who recommended it to me at Crawford Doyle, has asked me at least once what I thought of it, and I’ve been embarrassed to admit that I haven’t gotten to it. Pullman’s conceit is that Mary gave birth to twins, one of whom grew up to be Jesus, the radical preacher and example of virtue, while the other became the Christ, the founder of the insitutional church that Pullman abominartes, as does his Jesus, whose prayers in Gethsemane implore the Lord God, if He exists, to prevent the rise of precisely the sort of organization that came to be headquartered at the Vatican. Christ is not really a scoundrel; but he believes more in justice than in mercy, and he eagerly colludes with an angel’s request to write down Jesus’s words as they ought to have been, not as they really were.  This gives Pullman an opportunity to “correct” a number of famous parables and anecdotes — most shockingly, the story of Mary and Martha. I can’t wait to finish the book, which I’d be doing right now if I weren’t writing about it here, which gives you some idea of my warped priorities.

Alice Munro had a story in last week’s New Yorker, but I didn’t get to it until last night, when I saved it for bedtime. Which was perfect, because when I finished it, I didn’t want to read anything else; I was ready to turn out the lights and let my mind drift among the four young people, two of whom appear in middle age at the end. Although there is nothing in the least bit ornate about the story, I couldn’t help thinking of a courtly dance, or at least a pas de quatre in a grand ballet, in which the lovers are mismatched.

In the early summer, Royce got on  a bus and went to visit Grace on her parents’ farm. The bus had to pass the down where Avie lived, and by chance from his window he saw Avie, standing on the sidewalk of the main street, talking to somebody. She as full of animation, whipping her hair back wen the wind blew it in her face. He remembered that she had quit college just before her exams. Hugo had graduated and got a job teaching high school in some northern town, where she was to join him and marry him.

Grace had told Royce that Avie had had a bad scare, and it had caused her to come to this decision. Then it had turned out to be all right — she wasn’t pregnant — but she had decided she might as well go ahead anyway.

Avie didn’t look like anybody trapped by a scare. She looked carefree, and in in immensely good spirits — prettier, more vivid, than he ever remembered seeing her.

He had an urge to get off the bus and not get on again. But, of course, that would land him in more trouble than even he could contemplatge. Avie was sashaying across the street in front of the bus now anyway, disappearing into a store.

Getting off the bus, as the story works out, would have landed Royce and Avie in what, in retrospect, certainly looks like a better chance at happiness. But that is how Munro holds us: she makes us feel those might-have-been blues as poignantly as if the missed chance had been our own. 

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011 at 7:19 pm.