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I spent a lot of time with the final section of T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland,” titled “What the Thunder Said,” in my undergraduate days. I wrote a paper on it, and then some. I felt I didn’t understand it and planked together rough-hewn interpretations, gilded with fustian window dressing, even as I crouched in a kind of inward intellectual shame. I could feel the shape of its angst — its unraveling, its negotiation with apocalypse, its splintering half-gasp — but had no context to pin it to. I hated that sensation when I was younger. I remember driving between Aspen and Snowmass while on summer break when I was 13, straining to make any sense of Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, and coming up dry. I felt like a rubber brain: words bouncing, richocheting, right off of me, leaving only the lightest dimple.
I did not yet know that reading can also be an emotional, instinctual undertaking. That the intellectual is only one pole of the teepee. Did I like its sound and shape? Did the words draw out quicksilver images from my inner well? Did I find myself inexplicably drawn to a line, to a character, to a single paragraph?
Because those, too, are legitimate readings, and arguably more yielding than the hunt for the morals and themes that my teachers sent me out with the lanterns after.
We write to find out what’s inside. Do we read for the same? Each book a new road inward? A way of stress-testing our boundaries, interests, desires, standards?
(Why do you read?)
Last week, Mr. Magpie pointed out my ongoing, reflexive reach for guilt. I should have done x better; I feel badly I didn’t do y. Perhaps I will strike the word “should” from my vocabulary? (I have more or less successfully banished “but” from my personal lexicon in favor of the generative and non-interrupting “and.” Should feels like a round next target.) His observation has colored a lot of my thinking this week, including my re-visiting of “What the Thunder Said” this morning:
Twenty years later, I look at the poem on the page, and I don’t care as much about its crumbling catastrophizing.
Mainly, I want to tell my younger me: trust yourself. In your readings, in your ways of being. The compass is there, and always has been. Turns out there is no one “right” way to read the thunder: yours, too, is correct.
Post-Scripts.
+One of my favorite books I’ve read this year.
+Summer beach reads: 2024 edition.
Shopping Break.
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+I’m going to see Caroline Chambers speak in DC next month! I am so excited. Is anyone else a fangirl? Her new cookbook came out recently!
+Speaking of cookbooks, Landon has made a few fabulous dishes out of this Chinese cookbook recently. My mouth is watering just thinking about the spicy sesame paste noodles he made for lunch this week. (More of our favorite cookbooks here.)
+Just ordered these fun ikat print pants. (Julia Amory has offered us 15% off with code JEN-15 OMG!) I really wanted the ikat shorts, but they sold out in my size before I could grab. (How CHIC does JA look styling them with a striped sweater here?! She’s in Minnow. This VB stripe would also be cute, and is currently on sale for under $175.)
+Speaking of Minnow: how cute is this striped dress for your little one? Minnow consistently makes my favorite clothes for my kids. Soft, comfortable, wearable, with a slight preppy edge. Something my daughter and I can both agree on. She’s been living in this set! My recent Minnow order here.
+This gingham Juliet Dunn is calling my name…I LOVE these airy dresses for peak summer. Like wearing nothing. Emese Gormley was also just raving about this silhouette (20% off with YOUROCK) as a cover-up: it’s OSFA but she insists has a great fit! Also available in a fiery red here.
+Celine sunnies, ON SALE! I’ve seen these IRL (my girlfriend owns them) and they aren’t as sparkly as they look on site. FUN! These squared mint green ones are also on sale. I’m holding out hope these will still be in stock when I get access to the Nordstrom sale today (I’m writing this in advance; all my picks here.)
+An Amazon order I’m very excited to receive: these trendy Alaia-inspired flats; this Bottega-esque bag in the unusual kiwi green; this hair clip; this beginner’s birding book; and this anti-humidity hair product (ordered in the travel size to test before committing).
+Hooked on these exfoliating pads, especially in the summertime when I feel like I’m constantly caked in SPF and sweat (sorry, but it’s true). I was genuinely sad I forgot to pack a few in a baggie for Aspen given all the dirt / nature we were in. I found myself craving them! YSE has given us 15% off with code JEN-15. You will love them. Also just started using their SPF primer. I love this product category — I also really love RMS’ formula.
+Frank and Eileen brought back its Patrick popover in GREAT new colors. I own in the white and wore it a ton as a top layer in Aspen – it’s great over athleisure (love the casual / rugby-shirt-esque dropped shoulder) or paired with jeans for a twist on the tee-and-jeans look.
+Saks came out with a take on my “magic platforms” (I’ve been wearing mine all summer!) and their version costs $126.
+The Ancient Greek jellies are in stock here!
+I know it’s hard to think about winter/fall right now (it’s currently 93 and 10000% humidity in D.C.), but G. Label just brought back this belted cardigan that I absolutely lived in last winter. Versatile. Great with jeans and a tee, or over a dress…!
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down…
I love your writing, Jen. Sometimes I think my affection for Eliot is some hopelessly antiquated and useless fixation and then I realize it doesn’t matter. He opens our souls in a way. So yes, the Fisher King sleeps, London Bridge stands foolishly in the American desert, the very conditions of the world make the wasteland apt. But there is that glimmer—the boat responding gaily, the glimmer of water and memory, the sublime moment of a shared poem. (These fragments I haves shored against my ruins).
You reminded me this morning as I read your post that “ the end if our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time-“
This is why I read your blog—you move marvelously between the sublime and ordinary. Thank you!
And now, on to the Nordstrom sale!
Gosh – thank you so much for the tremendous compliment. And I can firmly say that reading — of any kind, but especially of Eliot! — is far from useless! Roads inward! Love that quote you shared, too. The image struck me so powerfully — the way we come back after a good read and know our inner selves just a little better, like feeling more at home in a new apartment.
xx
Please let us know how you like the WOW spray and the purse from your Amazon order. Eyeing them both myself!
Will do, of course! Both arrived yesterday. Immediately tore into the WOW spray and really like the way it does not weigh down my hair (my chief concern) or make it look greasy / product-y. Waking up the second day, I feel like it’s lost a little polish? But that could be because of the heat. Will report back after further testing.
xx
I just read “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins for the first time, and it pairs so well with this post! Here it is:
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
WOW! Thanks for sharing this! “Torture a confession out of it” — !!
xx