Tag: writers

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Seeing Small

Everyone in my family has a favorite moment from the girls on Klickitat Street.

For Mom, it will forever be the image of a kindergarten teacher saying “Sit here for the present,” and a young girl spending all day wondering what her present will be.

For me, it’s the inevitable confusion of directions while trying to drive to an appointment. “Do I turn left?” “Right.” (Turns right) “MOTHER! You were supposed to turn left!”

For Heather, it’s the image of a young force of nature sullenly declaring “I am TOO a merry sunshine!”

For all these and a thousand more, we have Beverly Cleary to thank. Even if we can no longer do so in person.

For those who missed the news, the beloved children’s author and one-time librarian died recently at the did-I-really-type-that age of 104. She left behind shelves full of stories and more than a few autographed cards from retired library card catalogs. But if there’s just one thing that carries her legacy, it has to be the stories of Ramona Quimby and her family.

It’s not just that the stories are funny or touching or familiar, though they’re all of that with a hard-boiled egg on top. It’s that Clearly had one of the rarest gifts that an adult can have – the ability to truly remember how a child sees the world.

It’s harder than you think.

Oh, we chuckle at the amusing things children say or shake our head exasperatedly at the strange things they do. These days we even make internet memes out of the most striking ones. But what so many of us forget is that to a child, these moments are neither amusing nor thoughtless. They come from thoughts that are just as rational as any adult’s – it’s just that the reason is based on much less experience and very different assumptions and priorities.

So to a Ramona, it makes perfect sense to lock the dog in the bathroom for stealing your cookie. After all, misbehaving kids get sent to their room, right?

In a Ramona world, it’s a reasonable conclusion that the national anthem’s verse about “the dawnzer lee light,” must mean some kind of lamp. After all, “dawnzer” isn’t any stranger than any other word the grownups use.

And when a favorite teacher tells you to go home until you can behave, it might as well be the end of the world. After all, if you were that bad, why should she ever forgive you?

That understanding of life from the smaller side of the street is one huge reason why Cleary’s stories have endured. And it’s a lesson of basic empathy that’s still needed, not just when dealing with children but with adults as well.

Which is why I’m gratified every time I find someone else who can see with Cleary’s eyes.

My wife Heather speaks “child” better than any adult I know. When she’s confronted with a child making a big deal over a small thing, she never lets her amusement show in her eyes – however tempting it may be. To them, she knows, it’s serious.

A nurse we met recently had to deal with our protesting, struggling Missy who was NOT eager to be poked with a vaccine needle, however important it might be. At a time when it would have been easy to be impatient and move to the next appointment, she met Missy with friendliness and understanding. (And some impressive arm speed.) To Missy, she knew, it was frightening.

When all of us meet all of us, it’s not always easy to understand, even when we’ve been there ourselves. Not easy – but oh, so essential.

The books are done. The lessons remain. May we retain them well.

In a world where so much is veiled in confusion, there’s still a need to see Cleary.

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A Word Out of Place

Who can forget the climax of “Gone With the Wind” when Rhett turned to Scarlett and shockingly, unforgettably told her “My dear, I don’t give a darn?”

Or the pages of Shelby Foote’s “The Civil War” where William T. Sherman warns that “War is heck?”

And of course, there’s that shocking background refrain in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” where one of the “Chronics” in the asylum can’t say anything but “Fff ….” Come to think of it, I guess he never gets to say much of anything.

At least, that may be the case with a new app called Clean Reader that’s advertised to remove all the profanity from an e-book. The app can be set to Clean, Cleaner, Squeaky Clean or Off, depending on how many swear words a reader feels like tolerating; censored words receive a blue dot and a suggested substitute for those that tap the deletion.

It’s not the first time that something like this has been tried, of course. Go back to the 19th century and you find Thomas Bowdler’s cleaned-up edition of Shakespeare, where Opehlia drowns accidentally and Lady Macbeth screams “Out, crimson spot!” (And yes, this is where the word bowdlerization comes from.) Film buffs can point instead at CleanFlicks, a company which re-edited movies to remove offensive content until a judge told them to stop.

The difference here, of course, is that there’s a certain amount of reader control. Instead of buying an adulterated copy, the customer buys the same book as everyone else and then chooses whether to filter it. That’s led some to defend the app: “It’s my book and my business, right?”

There’s some truth to that. But there’s also a catch. Two catches, really.

Yes, you can do with your book whatever you want. If you choose to right now, you can take any book you own and go through it with a black marker to remove anything. That’s not new, either. Thomas Jefferson once took that approach to his copy of the Gospels, literally trimming out any reference to miracles or the supernatural.

But that’s where you run into Catch No. 1: markers don’t work so well on the mind. Even when you let something line out the profanity for you, the word isn’t gone. Every time a reader hits the deleted or substituted word, the act simply calls attention to what used to be there, unless the reader is either innocent or quite young.

And then there’s Catch No. 2, brought up by a friend: if you don’t trust an author to use the right words, why are you reading him or her in the first place?

One of the glories – and yes, sometimes, one of the dangers – of the written word is that it’s a telepathic act. By staring at words on a page, you can know what a writer was thinking, no matter how much time has passed since the thought. At any time, a reader can dive into the ideas of Mark Twain, J.D. Salinger or Maya Angelou, touching them mind-to-mind until the book is closed.

But the words matter. Twain once said that the difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug. They’re tools, chosen to evoke a desired effect.

Change the word, and you change the effect. You no longer have a clear window into the author’s mind, but only an approximation.

It’s true, not every author uses profanity, just like not every painter uses teal or violet. The ones that do have a reason. If the excuse seems weak, that’s a perfectly valid reason to read a different book or even a different author. Nobody reads everything, nobody has to read anything.

But what you do choose to read – don’t hold back. Read it. Without screens. Without modification. Find your way into that mind, even the uncomfortable parts, and see what you discover.

You may love it. You may hate it. But you’ll know because you’ve read the book, instead of almost the book.

And missing that opportunity would be a darned shame.

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Never Silent

I’ve started and stopped this column about half a dozen times so far. I doubt I’m alone. Some things, some events are just hard to wrap your mind around.

And when it comes to the murders at Charlie Hebdo, that may just be an understatement.

Understand, I’m used to people who don’t get freedom of the press. Especially this week. This week seemed to abound with folks who flunked Civics 101, reaching its peak in County Councilman Kirby Delauter of Maryland, who became a figure of national ridicule for telling a reporter to never publish his name without his permission or he’d sue. In response, the paper’s next editorial not only used his name in virtually every sentence, it used the first letter of each paragraph to spell out K-I-R-B-Y D-E-L-A-U-T-E-R.

It seemed like a perfect time to smile, laugh and remember a few basic truths. To get silly in a good cause.

Then the news out of Paris came. And it stopped being funny anymore.

I had never heard of Charlie Hebdo before the attacks. I know the type, though. Satire always carries an edge, ready to skewer the sacrosanct and roast the untouchable, whether with the neatness of a rapier thrust or the messy vigor of a chainsaw.

It’s meant to shock people, often to make them step back and think. And it invariably makes enemies. Among reporters, there’s a saying that if you never offend anyone, you’re not in journalism, you’re in public relations. That goes double in satire, where targets are mocked deliberately and openly in a day’s work.

This time, the laughs were answered with blood.

For anyone who creates, this is the fundamental fear. And it’s one that can be fatal in more senses than just the obvious.

When ideas carry punishment, something important dies. When saying the wrong thing can get you fired, arrested, or even killed, the fences start to go up. The bravest fight on, perhaps, but most simply keep their heads down and watch their step. And self-censorship is the most insidious kind of all.

Kill one artist and a hundred more quietly die with her.

I’m aware that calling Charlie an “artist” may be a bit much for some, like putting Mad Magazine in the ring with Pablo Picasso. But freedom of expression and the press doesn’t just protect the elegant. It guards the crude, the irreverent, even the outright repulsive. The problem with saying “No, not him,” is that everyone has a “not him”; protecting those is the surest way to ensure it doesn’t become a “No, not you” someday.

All of which can sound awfully abstract when gunfire starts to ring in the streets. But it matters. Now, more than ever.

Now, a world has to show that fear will not win.

Not by declaring wars, or announcing new laws, or the dozens of things that societies often reach for in the wake of a murderous attack. But by continuing to speak. To laugh. To shout. To risk offense. To show that our voices will not be silenced, that our ideas will not be locked in a drawer and forgotten.

In a way, it’s Kirby Delauter all over again. How do you respond to a demand for silence? Speak even louder.

Delauter, of course, is still a civilized man. He apologized and withdrew his words. I doubt we’ll get the same courtesy from the Charlie shooters or those like them. But that doesn’t matter. The tactics remain the same. Hold the line. Stand the ground. And never let the walls rise.

This is about all of us, polite or obnoxious, French or American, left or right or center. This is about an idea, even a dream.

And it does not die here.