Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick FlynnMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
A book about a father, about Flynn's relationship with his father, even though his father is rarely present in the story, certainly never fully present. Flynn is experimental, edgy, philosophical, but still maintains a narrative arc, a comprehensible story. I like this balance. The title itself announces his edginess, his unwillingness to simply write the story down Oprah style (and there is a big payout when the reader learns the origins of the title). The chapter called "Same again" is not narrative yet is central to the narrative. It is a poetyic list of drinking terms which goes on for four page "The usual I say. Blood of Christ I say. Essence. Spirit. Medicine. A hint. A taste. A bump. A snort..." The list reads both as a meditation and confession of the devastating impact of hard drinking on his father and on the author himself.
And: I'm predestined to engage and enjoy the strained father-son relationship story, most certainly because I have as yet to figure out my relationship with my own father. He both abhors and loves is homeless, crazy father. Can't stay far enough away but can't stay completely away and is haunted by him at every turn, especially when Nick starts to work in a homeless shelter. At one point his father tells him, "You are me." Paradoxically, he can neither fully find nor completely escape his father; maybe he can't fully escape him *because* he can't actually find him. And with supreme irony NICK Flynn writes an actual book about his father to fulfill? supplant? compete? render? the mystical, non-existent book his father, Jonathon, has "written" and talked about his entire life.
A favorite quotes comes in the the "aftermath," certainly non-standard Q and A at the end, where he answers the question "Was writing the book cathartic for you?":
"Whatever happens clings to us like barnacles on the hull of a ship, slowing us slightly, both uglifying and giving us texture."
I'm with him here: this is ALL that's left when we burrow deeply into the mess we call life.
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2 comments:
Interesting post, CI. I'm reading a book called "Home," by Marilynne Robinson, which also has the paternal relationship as a central theme. I have had my own difficulties "finding" my father. Until we started hiking together, about 15 years ago, we had virtually nothing in common. Even now, we really only share a love of wildflowers and trail mix, but it's something. It's a connection. But why is it so important? Why do we care so much? Back to the "you are me" thing?
I've meant to read Home. Wild flowers and trail mix might actually be more than we can expect. I too have the outdoors with my father but he is crippled up now and can't hike around much; still he takes us on jeep rides, points out deer and elk. In his world there is connection though not through words.
And why do we care? As Flynn suggests, and maybe you are too, it's the narcissitic pardox--many of us are both in love with and abhorred by the image of our father, an image that is us and simply can't be us.
Sorry for this indulgence but the most poignant quote (for me) about fathers comes from the movie, Smoke Signals--the passage both enthralls and haunts me:
"How do we forgive our fathers? Maybe in a dream. Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us too often, or forever, when we were little? Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage, or making us nervous because there never seemed to be any rage there at all? Do we forgive our fathers for marrying, or not marrying, our mothers? Or divorcing, or not divorcing, our mothers? And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness? Shall we forgive them for pushing, or leaning? For shutting doors or speaking through walls? For never speaking, or never being silent? Do we forgive our fathers in our age, or in theirs? Or in their deaths, saying it to them or not saying it. If we forgive our fathers, what is left?"
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