How Great Thou Art

“I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that somber city – and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.”

― Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March

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Dear Kate,

Thank you for ordering the used copy of The Adventures of Augie March I asked for, in pristine condition the U.S. website says, as it was since 1953.  In your land of plenty, it's cheaper than and just as easy to buy great used books as to get a hit of dirty weed, and these, if I am an American, would be the very words of my thanksgiving prayer.

The words above in the quote are the book's first, the Genesis of America, In the beginning...Call me Ishmael...My name is Ruth...there, in the grand tradition of the "Great American Novel."  Do you know them, the "Great American novel(s)"?  (Yes, Augie March is there.)

Why great?  What America?  Neither necessary, a (dead) white man's game we say, cancel Shakespeare too.  MAGA makes us quiver.  It's a big topic, and it's gonna be a long day for me, so here I am leaving you I hope with enough to live on - to clean up after, a self-proclaimed Great Spot-cleaner that you are.

Last night you opened up my Augie March and took a picture of what you read, sent to me and said this is "not your genre."   You are a Great American; don't you know how great thou art?

In Canada, we - if we come around to accept even an idea of it, might have a list of "the best Canadian novels," if one must insist - and that one is a rare one.  Go ask your Canadian friends to name even one Canadian novel, good or bad or whatever, just one, and - here's my bet, you will get a Margaret Atwood title, one that they haven't even read.  (Aren't you a Canadian too?  Now, my question for you...)  The point is, there is no search for the "Great Canadian Novel."  There's no need for it.  We don't talk about that.  We play hockey.

"And this is what mere humanity always does. It's made up of these inventors or artists, millions and millions of them, each in his own way trying to recruit other people to play a supporting role and sustain him in his make-believe. The great chiefs and leaders recruit the greatest number, and that's what their power is. There's one image that gets out in front to lead the rest and can impose its claim to being genuine with more force than others, or one voice enlarged to thunder is heard above the others. Then a huge invention, which is the invention maybe of the world itself, and of nature, becomes the actual world - with cities, factories, public buildings, railroads, armies, dams, prisons, and movies - becomes the actuality. That’s the struggle of humanity, to recruit others to your version of what’s real. Then even the flowers and the moss on the stones become the moss and the flowers of a version."

I don't skate.

Yours, Alex