The fabrication of causal connections

The Pleasure of My Company - Steve Martin (Hyperion, 2003)

A novella, set in early 2000s Santa Monica, about a young man with fairly debilitating OCD. And the ways in which his compulsions block him from the world, and how he tries to find a way back in.

There are parts of this novel that are truly lovely. Daniel is a sweet kid, albeit a strange one, and as narrator connects pretty well with the reader. I sympathized each time the OCD led to behavior that disconnected him from other people. Oh, and thank goodness for a portrayal of the disorder that isn't about compulsive neatness and handwashing. Daniel can only cross the street at perfectly aligned driveways (no curbs) and must always have lights on with a combined wattage (?) totaling 1125. He can tell you the day of the week for any given date (this is a trait I've always associated with autism, and in generally I wonder about the comorbidity of the two) and is generally amazing with numbers and letters.

I'd here like to go off on a tangent about the role of rituals to ward off anxiety. If the lights always add up to 1125 then... what? Or what is comforting about the compulsive need to check and check and check again that the door is locked? And how much do we play these games on a broader social scale? Where is the dividing line where what is socially acceptable (or even desirable) becomes disordered?

But enough of that, because my thoughts are inchoate. Back to the book. Daniel slowly negotiates new relationships with his most debilitating compulsions mostly by putting himself in a situation where he has no choice. And most especially by taking care of a small child. Then everything wraps up in an ending that is way too pat, but still sweet, for all that.

Inside magical thinking

An Invisible Sign of My Own - Aimee Bender (Doubleday, 2000)

For me, Bender's novel was alternately a zoomingly fast read, and almost unreadable. This world was too terrifying to me, perhaps because of how much I recognized it. Mona is 20, and an elementary school math teacher. Set the unlikeliness of this aside. Because there's plenty more weird where that came from.

She's fixated on numbers, and their significance. She has help in this from her high school math teacher neighbor turned hardware store owner. He wears numbers around his neck corresponding to his mood - often very low. She sees numbers appear in people's yards, that just happen to herald the age of a resident within who is about to die. When these show up again in the novel, the dread I felt as I waited for Bender to prove the causality untrue was unbearable. I recognize these superstitions, these intuited "meanings," these compulsions. Because I haven't even told you about all the compulsions.

I finished the book a week ago, and have been playing around with some of the themes in my head ever since. They aren't easy. We find clues and significance in coincidence. We believe we have the power to shape outcomes with our thoughts and actions. We believe that if we shout our fears and stay fixated on them, they cannot come to pass. (Or, that at the very least we will court the faceoff and get it over with.) We bind things that make us feel good and connected with things that make us feel sick and alone.

Or do we? I found the actions of the characters to be (generally) exaggerated versions of the ways our own neuroses manifest. But does spotlighting these thoughts and behaviors diminish their power, or merely feed it. I'm still not sure.

Oh dear

A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon (Vintage Contemporaries, 2006)


Reading this book was either a fantastic idea or a kinda terrible one, I'm not sure which. Haddon is the The Curious Incident of the dog in the Night-Time author - and this was a book that I liked less than everyone around me. Which meant I hemmed and hawed about this one. But amid all the ways I get distracted from my bookshelf, I'm really trying to make an effort to clear out those shelves and make room for something new. So here we go.

It's your typical dysfunctional British family, I think. Dad's retired and trying to figure out what to do with himself, Mum is working in a shop (and that's not all), and the kids are both in bumpy relationships. Katie decides to get married, and this makes everyone crazy, b/c the man in question is considered a working-class dolt, more or less. Except "makes everyone crazy" brings me to pause, because the bigger story in this book - for me at least - is whether or not George (Dad) is indeed going mad.

One day coming out of the shower, he sees a rash of sorts on his hip, and immediately diagnoses himself with cancer and undergoes an ever-escalating set of measures to distract himself from the question, to avoid getting it looked at, to get it treated (maybe) by a doctor, to keep it hidden, to tell everyone, etc. In short, George's condition looks quite a bit like mine. Which made him as a character particularly touching. And infuriating.

He makes lists, he passes out, he makes decisions that run the gamut from "sure, I can understand that" to "God no, please someone stop his brain right now." What's sort of fun though, although "fun" is probably the wrong word (although the book is funny too, don't get me wrong), is that his family members are each engaged in the same sort of mental gymnastics. Which makes me think that maybe I'm not alone. On the other hand, they also have no time or space for sympathy for his plight, which pushes right up against the reassurance of my last sentence. Sigh.

And here, a fairly spot-on description of one of the (many) mental processes that accompany this kind of panic attack: "He assumed ... that he was going to suffer some kind of organ failure. It seemed inconceivable that the human body could survive the pressure created by that kind of sustained panic without something rupturing or ceasing to function."

But on the other hand, the whole book isn't one prolonged exposure to the howling fantods (oh and go here for more). It's also several lovely moments of self-realization, self-delusion, and joining and rejoining of bonds between family/lovers/etc. Like this happy little moment: "We're just the little people on top of the cake. Weddings are about families. You and me, we've got the rest of our lives together." And not to give too much away, but George.... I think he's going to be okay.

Tree of Life

Healing Myths, Healing Magic - Donald M. Epstein (Amber-Allen, 2000)


I'm still processing my way through this book, so I don't know that I have anything coherent to say yet. In brief, Epstein touches on one of my favorite philosophical points, which is (although he would say it differently) that we construct narratives and "truths" that shape our lives based on societally-based myths that we accept. Or even if we don't accept them per se, in some way we have fully digested them. As he says, "our culture and its stories largely determine the manner in which we experience the world and our place in it." I personally believe there is a lot of power in the collected constructions that our society holds, and in a good way. I don't think he'd disagree, but it can definitely hinder our ability to live authentically and heal and all sorts of good things.

So, he sets about exploding many of our cultural myths about healing, tackling social, biomedical, religious, and New Age ones in course. For each, he offers a "magical" incantation, a way of reframing healing and our role in it.

Except (almost) all of them are incredibly difficult for me. In part because a lot of the myths privilege intellect and an "I can think my way around and out of this" attitude. Even if that's not the core of the myth itself, in order to let go of it, you sort of have to be able to accept that intellect often hinders healing more than it helps. And that is unbelievably difficult for me. I feel like maybe I need to spend some time with Yoda.

Anyway, so that's where I'm sitting right now, "influenced by all we have been, all that we have done, all that we have believed, and all that we have interacted with," trying to find meaning for me. Or rather, trying to let go of the desire to *find* meaning.

Addressing the void

Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death - Irvin D. Yalom (Jossey-Bass, 2008)


One nice thing about having a blog which few (if any!) read is that I can be fairly forthcoming when it comes to self-disclosure. So I can tell you that this book was recommended to me recently as I've been going through a struggle with anxiety that has taken the form - in part - of death panic.

It seems so banal somehow to state "I'm afraid of dying" and so I've perhaps had a difficult time doing that. And my reluctance to just say it gives the fear more power. In this fear, I must realize, I am far from alone. Which is one of the many helpful takeaways from Yalom's work.

Oddly, as I start to try to describe the book, I find it slipping away from me. I'm not sure why that is. But let me try to reel it back in. Yalom explores the prevalence of death anxiety, and ways in which he has found the words of past thinkers helpful. He uses copious examples from his own work as a therapist. He challenges us to consider what about death terrifies us, and in what ways we can find comfort in confrontation.

I was also struck by his emphasis on connection. It's a theme that I've come back to again and again in my life, particularly in challenging times, and in this book I almost felt as though my focus was being validated.

This is almost useless as a book review, so let me try to sum up my reading experience. I struggled at times with this book, finding myself alternately receptive to its message and entirely the opposite. I argued with it, and raged over the places where it seemed to be speaking to someone entirely other than myself. I even found myself wishing for more spirituality, although Yalom very eloquently explains his reasons for the omission. And yet, these experiences enriched the book, because they forced me to ask myself why I reacted so strongly. For an introspective reader, this book offers ample food for thought, and certainly a dose of comfort.

Cue Anxiety

Anxiety is actually a pretty good topic for a chick lit novel, as it Aurelie Sheehan's The Anxiety of Everyday Objects, which is almost not quite chick lit. But still is. I mean, it's important for the protagonist to be lovably neurotic, right? And what says lovable neurosis better than anxiety? (This is what I tell myself.)

Anyhow, TAOEO is the title of Winona's movie project, which she dreams about while working as a legal secretary. This is what it means: "Do you ever look at a sign and you think it says something different than it really does? Like the sign says TURN AHEAD and you read it as TURN AROUND, and you feel as if it's a personal message just for you?" [... questions from love interest, including whether this is magical realism or surrealism] "It doesn't have a name. That's part of the anxiety."

I liked this theme, but I never thought it got played to its full potential. I also never really understood Winona's infatuation with new attorney Sandy, who is beautiful and takes Winona out for a facial and as a result is somehow magical. Or something.

Perhaps the best way to put it is that I wanted to like this book more than I did. Which isn't exactly to say that I didn't like it. Maybe I just wanted a little more.