A Belle Jarred

Several Tuesdays ago was book club night and on the docket was Syliva Plath’s The Bell Jar. Without wanting to be dramatic, I knew this type of book had the potential to make or break our little group, which was only on its third meeting. Would we be able to handle the heavy themes of this classic? I was pretty sure we would.

It took a couple bottles of wine, but the four of us debunked our current society’s view of medication, gender, the mentally ill & social class. It was enjoyable and at times personal, but now I do believe we’re able to take on just about anything--so long as it doesn‘t bore us.

The Bell Jar is Sylvia Plath's most renowned novel, although the author was well known for her poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize for The Collected Poems in 1962, the year before her death.

Before reading the novel I was completely unfamiliar with what a bell jar is, in either the metaphysical nor literal senses. It's the type of metaphor that hangs about--everyone knows the lead character is experiencing intense heaviness, so why ask what it means? The actual reference of the term “bell jar” was largely avoided in our discussion, allowing each member to take its meaning in her own way.

Not until late in the novel, when Esther Greenwood has been institutionalized after a suicide attempt, does the lead character agonize in anticipation of the “descending of the bell jar.” Much earlier in the book, Esther is given a tour by her suitor, who is a promising chap in the medical field. Esther is shocked and mesmerized when she comes across a still-born infant pickled in a jar. To me, the still-born human preserved in infancy is a lasting image that I connect with the metaphor of a bell jar.

While a bell jar in the real world can be a display covering for such items as old clocks or taxidermy, it more pertains to a vacuum in a glass case used for scientific experiments. Scientists have made use of this type of fixture to study sound. If a clock is set on alarm, its sound will decay since the air is so stagnant. I take this as a fitting description to someone suffering from depression--the air around you doesn’t move, there is no music, only stillness.

Much of the image of the bell jar relates to innocence. I’d heard the song “Ingenue,” by Atoms for Peace, many times but in reading the lyrics I found a reference to Bell Jar. Then I saw the video, which features a dancer beautifully mimicking Thom Yorke’s awkward movements. How significant is this reference to a bell jar, I wondered?

The Ingenue is a stock character in film, literature and theater who is innocent and virginal. There is sometimes a romantic side-story, and that male might be innocent as well. This theme ties into the Bell Jar, and many other stories, particularly as it relates to Esther’s desire to lose her virginity. When she finally does, her body reacts to the point of hemorrhaging. It’s as if her innocence is a liability even after it’s gone.

Although I didn’t feel it was completely apparent Esther would head down the path of mental illness, neither was I completely surprised. I've often thought of the difficulties for women in our sociey, the fact they are supposed to simultaneously hold their family together and be competitive in the job market. It can be difficult to engage with the normal things in this environment.

I play video games from an age where the purpose of too many game was to save the princess. In these games, the gender lines are pretty clear. Needless to say, those types of plotlines don’t interest me too much. But what do I do instead? Play football games where the women make a cameo at halftime to push their pom-poms together.

What if The Bell Jar had featured a man? It would have been the crass Jack Nicholson of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. That guy could do whatever he wanted to do, it didn't matter. Sure, he didn't live till the end (spoiler!), but one got the sense he was his own person throughout. Esther Greenwood was not so lucky.

If gender has so much to do with those who suffer under the bell jar, then we have to connect that to the fact that under society's present structure, whatever that may be, it is society's members who make life difficult for the others.

Finding your own Tipping Point

Book Response: Malcom Gladwell's Tipping Point

"We like to think of ourselves as autonomous and inner-directed, that who we are and how we act is something permanently set by our genes and our temperament. But if you add up the examples...they amount to a very different conclusion about what it means to be human."

Gladwell believes that within the human race there are people with special capabilities. These talented people are needed to create epidemics of all kinds, whether it be spreading diseases or fashion trends. The general population, who on the average day seem unlikely to change their minds or behavior, will change when these special people--Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen--are at work.

The Tipping Point theory attempts to explain epidemics in social, non-magical terms. Gladwell shows an appreciation for diversity; we are not all the same, and some of us play vital roles in products or trends that "stick." My value for diversity was satisfied when I read this. So there is a rhyme and reason to the way some things catch fire, while others fizzle within a short time! The problem I faced, as I read on, is that I am not one of those talented people.

The theory is far from a control-the-masses idea. Gladwell is not saying most of us go along for the ride while a few significant people really run the show. I'll admit I sometimes willingly become caught up in something incredibly popular. I saw the midnight premier of "The Hunger Games" back in March, and dispite a theater filled with teenagers giggling awkwardly I enjoyed being the intoxicating excitment. Gladwell believes it's the "stickiness" of a message or product which accounts for its popularity being pushed over the edge.

Gladwell's theory helped dispell my tendency to idealize the successful. Like many my age I adored and grew up on Sesame Street, but Gladwell credits the creators of Blue's Clues for building on the former show's success while avoiding its inadequacies. As endearing as Sesame Street is and was, in tests the latter show has proven to help its audience learn the target skills. Despite my emotional attachment to the monsters from the street, the tests show Blue's Clues found away to be "stickier" than its parent. There was a rhyme and reason to its popularity.

Recently I was recruited to be a core member of a local start-up business in the field of fitness and nutrition. I was wooed not because of my large social circle, my stockpile of information, or my retail persuasiveness--I can claim none of these. I was welcomed to the team because I am positive, determined, and one hell of a latte crafter. I am fortunate that the company owners are in fact a Connector, a Maven and a Salesman. Like a nose tackle in a 3-4 defense, I have the unsexy role of "holding the point" while the stars of the show make plays.

I take it back. I'm Bruce Lee, using the inertia of others toward my own successful ends.

Author Bio: heavenly thoughts on Randy Alcorn

This afternoon I enjoyed a wonderful meal of salad and Provino's pizza with my parents and grandparents. We polished off our main course and over dessert grandpa told us about the novel he recently finished by Randy Alcorn, a Christian author who specializes in the eternal. Our conversation soon spun into an "I wonder what heaven's going to be like" speculation where everyone more or less defends what he or she believes. I'll be honest, it was pretty heavy stuff for my grandparent's breakfast nook table.

Randy Alcorn has become a best-selling author by speculating on the after-life from a Christian perspective. The consensus is that Alcorn spent 25 years researching his book, Heaven. What followed is, according to my grandpa, a detailed description of heaven, including explanations of its social and cosmological workings. All Alcorn's concepts are derived from scripture, with certain "narrative" liberties taken.

Alcorn is an American Protestant minister and founder of Eternal Perspectives Ministry, which serves those without physical and spiritual protection. He was also one of 150 religious leaders to sign the Manhattan Declaration: a Call of Christian Conscience. This document is a pro-life, traditional marriage sanction. Similarly Alcorn's description of heaven is largely based on traditional views of the Christian heaven.

I've been trying to crack the code of the Christian market for a little while now. Why is there a chain Christian bookstore next to the largest mall in Tennessee, but nowhere else in Chattanooga--and believe me, I'd know--is there a bookstore for any other literary genre? At a recent visit to Lifeway Christian Bookstores I left my last stop, the CDs, and looked to my left before getting to the door. There were displays of Christian wedding paraphenalia, stationary, nic-nacs--everything short of a turn-style of greek fish bumper stickers. Lifeway obviously has found a market in the Southern Christian lifestyle.

When I was young it was easy to read a book with eternal implications. I gobbled up Frank Peretti's Cooper Adventure Series, entertained by their Indiana Jones-like antics, but also because his presentation of the supernatural gave my spine a pleasant chill. Through the medium of fiction, Christian writers have found success presenting the eternal in ways that is linked to suspense, mystery, destiny.
Heaven is a very popular topic in Christian literature today, but it's not only Christians who are fascinated by the idea of heaven. Many of us suspect the afterlife will either consist of all the purist things we can think of, or all the darkest and most disgusting. What makes such a speculation perpetually popular is it can never be solved. There are those who share near-death experiences, but they often sound more like a wonderful dream or horrible nightmare than an actual experience of the afterlife. The only way to know what happens in the next life is to go there. And at that point, will we even care?

Anticipation is the key for heaven's intrigue. Heaven provides a reward to undergo life's troubles and gives them purpose. It's something to look forward to, for those who are into streets of gold. What I believe to be equally fascinating, and equally unsolvable, is the question of where we were before conception? Inconveniantly, the Bible has little to say about it. Perhaps I've found the material for my first novel.

Author Bio: Lovecraft in Unexpected Places

Sometimes a name fits a person or object like a glove. Take for instance the German word for team, as in soccer team. To my foreign ears, Mannschaft connotes a group of men banding together to perform an operation of great violence or skill; overhauling a submarine, for instance. Fitting, right? 

For a few years now I’ve associated the name “Lovecraft” with one of the classical names of early science fiction. I mistakenly categorized HP Lovecraft into the company of the visionary HG Wells, the prophetic Jules Verne, the ground-breaking Isaac Asimov. But not only was Lovecraft American born, unlike these three writers, he was more eclectic in his fiction writing.

Because I first heard the name mentioned in a college course studying 19^th century ghost stories, I ought to have taken the hint Lovecraft was in the business of writing horror. But to me the name spoke of a grand voyage taken by fantastical creatures to a rainbow galaxy, so how was I to suspect otherwise?

I finally took the hint on a visit last weekend to Barnes and Noble, when waiting for me in the atrium was a collection of HP Lovecraft of Hebrew Scriptural proportions. Having no shame when it comes to public displays of affection with a codex, with two hands I tenderly took the book from its place on the quick-sell rack and flipped its pages lovingly. Only then did I understand this book was a collection of horror fiction. Rainbow galaxy indeed.

But nobody had to know of my little blunder, did they? So I entered the store with my head held high, taking in the wonder of books and living in the endorphin rush. HP Lovecraft was no longer a writer of the cosmic but of corpses, which explained my inability to find him at our giant used Books and CDs store in the science fiction section, no matter how often I walked the genre aisle.

As you've probably guessed by now, or perhaps already know, Lovecraft writes horror as well as science fiction, and--what's this?--fantasy to boot. What a loveable craft this man was blessed with.

And so, at the book store, I moved on to fondling other merchandise, namely the two last books of a certain American essayist my wife and I lack for our collection. At first I couldn’t locate an aisle named "essays," mistakenly scouring the generously stocked World War II history section twice over. The self-search computer was jammed as luck would have it, so this English major swallowed his pride once again and lined up at the customer help desk, where out of the corner of my eye was the missing aisle. Patiently awaiting my audience by the conveniently placed steps to the coffee bar.

For a fascinating discourse on Lovecraft's life and mythos:
http://www.crackle.com/c/Lovecraft_Fear_Of_The_Unknown

Author's Bio: Ann Voskamp, excerpt interview World Magazine, July 2012

World Magazine recently published their "book" issue which includes a slew of book reviews and interviews with Christian authors. Thanks go to Grandpa Ashlock for putting a couple of its articles into my hands.

In an excerpted interview with Ann Voskamp from an earlier World issue, the author cites organization, reading, and "waiting on the Lord" as important aspects of her writer's life.

I can see why organization would be important for Voskamp. She lives on a farm, she's a mother of six, and she homeschools some of those six. "I stayed up late for too long and wrote a book." She humbly refers to best-seller One Thousand Gifts. Needless to say, I'm impressed.

Voskamp finds reading theology is helpful in making it "for the kitchen sink." Breaking down theology can be a difficult task, especially in the company of CS Lewis and John Piper, two of her favorites.

Her breaking down spiritual concepts finds its way onto her web journal, whose tagline, "because God has burning bushes everywhere" I find to be a vivid message, filled with hope and belief in promises. Even in the company of a burning bush in Exodus, Moses was hesitant to follow God's order to lead his people, but eventually Moses did so with humility.

Voskamp's unique poetic flair sets her apart in the popular genre of spiritual testimony. Joe Bunting writes in his blog her deft ability to "drop her article" to construct a jarring image. For example, reading "pick it up and watch it sink into sink" sticks out more than saying "the sink," which we are trained to look for.

 Not every author can expect to find themselves successfully on the map like Voskamp. But adding your flair goes a long way toward making you stick out, as does knowing your limits. By "waiting on the Lord," Voskamp wills herself to work hard but chooses to not take full credit for her success.

Some have muses, others a faith, and I guess most of subscribe to a combination thereof for our inspiration.