Ten Thousand Saints
I’m reading a well-reviewed book that was almost impossibly hard to get into that’s got me so riveted I want to forgo my regular life and keep reading it. But now that it’s passed the halfway point it’s dawning upon me that the more I read the closer I’m getting to the end, and I hate endings, the emptiness, the feeling that there’s nothing more, that you’ve got to slowly slog off in a new direction, start all over again.
It’s a hardcover, and I’ve given up on those, send me the e-book in the future, but Daniel Glass sent this to me unsolicited, and it felt like an obligation, but "Unbroken" was so satisfying I decided to give "Ten Thousand Saints" a crack.
Then Felice told me the author went to Middlebury. Nobody goes to Middlebury, it doesn’t incite you to become famous, rather it educates you so you can feel superior to those you come in contact with despite wearing preppy clothes and making a hell of a lot less money.
And this Eleanor Henderson, she did it the way I don’t believe in. She got an MFA, as if someone can teach you how to write, and is a teacher now herself, not risking it all, not doubling down on writing, and her writing isn’t that good, it’s choppy, you’re not quite sure where you’re going, like walking through reeds with a weed whacker, but then there are vignettes that captivate you and you carry on, looking for the next rewarding moment.
Like when they go to the high school party uninvited. Well, they were invited, but by people who didn’t show. Every celebrity claims they were an unpopular nerd in high school but never believe them, it’s a pack of lies. The truly unpopular never escape, they don’t go to Harvard, they lead lives of quiet desperation, getting high just to get by. Like the teenage Teddy and Jude.
But what creeped me out completely, enticed me yet bizarred me, was that "Ten Thousand Saints" was set in Vermont. In Lintonburg. Oh, I knew it was Burlington, but it wasn’t until a hundred pages in that I realized Lintonburg was the same letters yet scrambled. Every other Vermont town was the same, from Middlebury to Vergennes, and the Lake is still Champlain, but for some reason the main locale had to change.
Not that the book transpires solely up north. There’s a huge interlude in the city. Where the author nails the life of the privileged, after all, she did go to Middlebury, she knows about elite educations and trust funds. But paralleling this life of affluent decadence is a sea of straight edge musicians. Balancing the marijuana with vegetarianism.
And then suddenly the pace picked up, the characters were true to their identity, everything fell into place and the book started calling out to me. Lying in bed. Bobby… BOBBY! I’M HERE FOR YOU TO READ ME!
And it’s hard to rationalize casting away the daily obligations to read a novel. It’s not like you get a badge on Facebook, not like you get any reward other than the sensation of feeling alive.
Life is creepy. Did you know that? I thought I could leave my past behind. But I’m reading a book set in Vermont written by an alumnus of my college and she’s talking about sleeping with an ex…
Shit happens. If you’re really rich and powerful, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, it’s more about speeding past taboos than being human. But regular people… They don’t quite finish college, they don’t quite get divorced, they let their health insurance lapse, they struggle, they cope with dope. And inside you’ve still got your hopes and dreams. They’re battered, but not eradicated. They help you soldier on. Because as much as the past haunts you, you want it right there beside you, riding shotgun, it adds context. Hell, that’s what Facebook is all about, reuniting you with your past. And if you’re lucky, you did better than most. And if you didn’t…
So what I’m trying to convey to you is a feeling. Of being alive, part of the continuum, but one step off the grid. That’s what music used to speak to, our alienation, our differences. You listened to the tunes and you felt you weren’t alone. But how can you relate to Katy Perry? Married to a movie star, shooting whipped cream from her titties without a care in the world…maybe young kids can aspire to such a rarefied lifestyle, but become old enough and you know it’s impossible. Katy Perry is unhappy too. But she can’t sing about it, that’s not allowed.
So much is not allowed in society today. You can’t suffer, be in pain, lay out your feelings…you’ve got to be tough, a go-getter, setting the world on fire. Hell, we don’t even believe in compassion, unless you belong to the right church. There’s no safety net, I’m getting mine, screw you. But what if I can’t put on a happy face and fake it?
Our artists used to be truth seekers. Look at the Beatles, that’s why they went to India. And Madonna is a devotee of Kabbalah because being rich and famous is just not enough.
There’s a hole in the soul of America.
But that’s all right, that’s what it feels like to be human.
Reading "Ten Thousand Saints" won’t make you rich. Won’t tell you how to do it. But it makes me feel like I’m not alone. That not everybody wins all the time. We make bad choices, we try to get by.
Then while you’re not watching the sand starts running out of the hourglass and you want to hurry up and do everything but you’re not rich enough, not healthy enough, you become resigned and you die.
That’s the human condition. Someone ought to talk about it.
