Everyman by Philip Roth, a photo tip, and an itchy lizard

Everyman by Philip Roth
Copyright 2006
Vintage Fiction
182 pages

"You can weather anything," Phoebe was telling him, "even if the trust is violated, if it's owned up to. Then you become life partners in a different way, but it's still possible to remain partners. But lying - lying is cheap, contemptible control over the other person. It's watching the other person act on incomplete information - in other words, humiliating herself."

How he wished she could scald him in that lava now.

It wasn't till I finished the book Everyman that I realized I had no idea whether or not the protagonist had a name. Did he? Or was he "Everyman" in the sense of not even having a name, just an unnamed person, someone who could be any person you've known or avoided or loved, possibly ending in pain? I flipped back through the book and found no indication that I'd overlooked his moniker, but I can't be certain. It's hard to believe that didn't jump out at me.

To be honest, there isn't anything about the book that's particularly memorable or wonderful. Everyman is a book about aging, regret, loss, and loneliness.

Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.

It's the story of one man who has made many mistakes and now - with his health failing him, about to enter the hospital for the 7th time in 7 years - confronts the reality that even if he has stayed young inside, he can never again repeat those same mistakes - chiefly, the error of not hanging onto the one, steady woman who truly cared. Now, nobody is interested in the gray-haired, wrinkled, declining old man who is left on his own and who has determined that the recreation he looked forward to for so many years hasn't fulfilled him at all in his retirement.

I know I saw a review of this book somewhere. Who else has recently read it? I can't find the review! I remember seeing the word "terrifying". While I didn't find it terrifying, there's no doubt that the trials of old age are clearly delineated: loss of health, decline in appearance, loneliness - especially for those who have made mistakes that generated rifts between the aged and their loved ones - difficulty finding a purpose or even a reason to keep going . . . horrors. Okay, maybe it is a bit terrifying. If the author had a purpose, I think it might be to say, "Stop, now. Evaluate your life and treat those you love with care, so that when your time comes you'll have fewer regrets." It's also possible that Roth meant to show how our scattered American families almost ensure isolation for the elderly.

But, it's pretty dull and definitely a total downer. I'll read more Philip Roth because I do think his writing has a comfortable flow. Everyman is the kind of book you can whip through in a few hours (assuming your head isn't pounding, which mine was). I wouldn't call it a "masterpiece" (as did Joseph O'Neill of The Atlantic Monthly, in one of the cover blurbs), but I think the author made some very astute observations about issues troubling the elderly and that he has a grasp of language that makes the book very readable. I'm going to put it on my "recommended" list because I don't think it's so awful that it's worth going out of your way to avoid, but be advised that the subject matter is pretty depressing.

3/5 - decent writing, blah story

Photo Tip of the Week:

Since it's Friday . . . it's photo tip time!!! Only one tip, today, and it's a simple one. But, I believe it's very important:

Ignore the naysayers. By that, I mean that you should be willing to experiment and don't let people tell you not to bother trying to capture an image that grabs your interest. Here's my example - and, please bear in mind that this is not necessarily a fabulous photo, but one that tells the story:

This is one of the first photos I took - snapped with my little Kodak Instamatic while on vacation. The back of the photo says, "Signiture Rock, Geurnsey, Wyoming". Obviously, I didn't know how to spell at the age of 9. Beyond that, the story behind this photo has always stuck with me. A brand new camera went with me on vacation in 1972. We drove to Wyoming and walked along deep crevices worn into the sandstone by wagon wheels during the massive movement of settlers to the American West, the so-called "Trail of Tears".

This particular "rock" (a former cliff?) was covered with inscriptions - names, initials, dates - and surrounded by a chain-link fence. I love history and so did my mother and father. We all walked around in awe, reading the inscriptions carved into the rock. And, then I decided to take a photo.

"That won't work," everyone said. "Don't bother. You won't be able to photograph that. The fence will get in the way."

Ignoring my entire family, I poked the lens through an opening in the fence and snapped - one photo and only one. When the picture came back, I was triumphant. It worked! Even my preternaturally optimistic father had discouraged me, but he raised his eyebrows and admitted that he was wrong when he told me not to try. The photo captured just a tiny bit of the rock, but it was enough to show how travelers carved their names and the date they passed through (some actually included the month and day - many, simply the year) into the sandstone.

There's obviously plenty of great advice worth listening to or reading, but that lesson has stuck with me. Never let anyone tell you not to bother trying. Even your mistakes can teach you something about photography, so go ahead . . . snap photos of things that interest you and ignore anyone who tells you not to try.

Book-wise:

The RIP stack is growing. Just this afternoon, a book about haunted castles arrived in my mailbox. Wahoo! I hope to post a list of RIP Challenge books, soon.

I visited the library, early this week, to return some CDs and peruse the sale corner. While there, I found a book copyrighted in 1977 - a bit abused, but with the perfect theme for this week: Blizzard. Ha. I snatched that sucker up and I'm enjoying it immensely. What could be more fun than to read about a vicious snowstorm (blamed, of course, on the Soviets - everything was apparently their fault, in the 70's) when it's baking outside?

Oh, maybe sweating to take a photo of a tiny, itchy little lizard hatchling - another lousy photo, but he was down inside the monkey grass and it was so darned hot that I only stayed outside for a few minutes before deciding it was heat stroke vs. the perfect flaky lizard photo:

This must be a recently hatched lizard - even newer than the others I've photographed, because he was a mere 1" long in the body, not even 1/4" in width. He was itching like crazy, poor thing. When he was too far down in the monkey grass to even attempt to photograph, I still watched him scratching and nipping at the skin peeling off his back. What an utterly fascinating thing to observe.

Off to read. Wishing all of you a delightful weekend.

Bookfool

I forgot to say I remembered, photo tips, and a visitor

I confess. I'm slow, very slow. But, I didn't forget!!! Sci Fi Chick, Gentle Reader, and Bonnie (in an order I no longer remember) all tagged me for the Blogging Tips Meme. And, since I was poky, it has literally exploded into a huge monster of a list - 142 tips, if you go to the source. 142 tips would take waaaay too much space so, I'm going skipster. I had some ideas, but I'll save them for later. Call me Little Miss Party Pooper. I do love being tagged, I want you all to know. Many thanks to all three of you for thinking of me!

So, no blogging tips. I do, however, have a couple of lovely tomato photos to share. I can just see you bouncing up and down in your computer chairs.

You can see that it finally rained!! Wahoo! Not for long, mind you, but we'll take what we get. Here's the same tomato from a different angle, a few minutes earlier:

Why on earth did I post two different photos of the same little green tomato? I'm glad you asked. I just happened to walk outside shortly after the rain (it was nasty out there, by the way - the heat, the humidity . . . ugh) to take photos of the tomatoes because I observed that the lighting was good. And, then it occurred to me that I haven't posted the photo tips I promised and this was a perfect example of an excellent lesson. The forthcoming photo tips were intended to start the odd "Photo Tip Friday" post, but then I got hijacked by my husband and it turned miraculously into Saturday, overnight. Sometimes you just can't rely on having the time to blog, darn it. So, you get Photo Tip Saturday, at least this time around.

Photo tips of the week:

1. Lighting is everything. You probably already knew that, but in case you didn't . . . there you go. Obviously, the light changes all day long with the movement of the sun. Lotus expressed interest in knowing how best to take photos of flowers in her own garden. And, this is what I do - I watch the light. It's best to have a full day to go in and out, observing how the light hits your flowers (or, in this case, tomatoes) throughout the day. Do take the camera along to play, of course. If you can set aside a weekend day to occasionally go outside to check how the sun is hitting them - and, of course, sometimes you don't have till the weekend before they wilt, so sooner is better - do so. Otherwise, just keep an eye on what you want to photograph as you come and go.

Professionals, I've found, seem to all have their favorite lighting, although most everyone agrees that the softer morning and evening light is best for scenic photography because side light casts attractive shadows and eliminates the harsh glare of mid-day light. But, there are occasions that direct lighting is best. Overcast, "cloudy-bright" light (meaning it's overcast, but not heavily - there's lots of soft, even light on cloudy-bright days) is especially terrific for portraits. I used to deliberately take my kids out to photograph them on cloudy-bright days. But, it's also great for flower photography because you don't have to worry as much about a digital camera's light filter over-reacting, the shadowed lighting causing one part of a flower to be overexposed and washed-out, while another part is perfectly exposed or too dark.

Sometimes, direct lighting is actually terrific. Take this flower photo, for example:

This was taking mid-day, when the light was harsh but spread almost perfectly across the flower. This next one, however, was taken when the sun was low, late in the day, and lit up the petals with a lovely glow.

2. Walk around and look at your subject from different angles to check background colors. Look at those two tomato photos, again, and you'll see that the lighting is just a touch different but the backgrounds are completely changed. All I did was shift my angle a bit to change the background from dark to light.

Now, in my case, I often use a long telephoto lens and the joy of a long lens is a blurring of the background; the disadvantage is that most people really need a tripod while using a long lens, hand-held. I have extraordinarily steady hands and there are still times I can't get away with hand-held telephoto photography, but I like the muted background effect. I think most people will tell you it's best to use a short lens and a macro setting for flower photography, if you've got one. You will definitely get a clearer photo with a shorter, fixed focal-length lens than with a telephoto.

If you own a point-and-shoot camera, the best thing to do is read your manual and find out what the best setting for close-up photography is (most have at least 4 standard settings), as well as the optimal shooting distance and then watch that light.

**End photo tips**

And, now, on to the visitor. Youngest son and I spent yesterday in Jackson, shopping and eating out, followed by a trip to the theater in Clinton to view The Bourne Ultimatum - which is so action-packed, I came out of it with a stiff neck from sitting on the edge of my seat. I'm pretty sure I didn't get a lot of oxygen, either, because I was holding my breath most of the way through. Boy, talk about extreme. Jason Bourne is the perfect example of superhuman Hollywood action guy, in this movie. I liked it, though. There's a reason they wreck cars and then have the hero walk away. We like to think it could happen, that it's possible to actually walk away from a car that has gone backwards off a roof or to jump off a high-rise building into the water and survive, don't we? Sorry, just getting philosophical about action movies.

So, we walked out the door around 10:00 to head out for the day and I discovered the kiddo had left his trombone in the trunk. We unlocked the car and climbed in, but then I said, "You know, I'm pretty sure we don't want to haul that trombone around. We need room for cat litter." So, we both hopped out, walked to the house to carry the trombone inside, and saw this visitor in the bricks directly beside our front door:
Well, hey there, little fella! Yes, naturally Bookfool and her son became ridiculously excited. I ran for the camera. Kiddo peered at the snake's pretty coloring. The snake pretended to be invisible and hung there, immobile. The moment we backed the car out of the driveway, we saw him slinking down the wall. Funny. For those who don't know, you can usually tell whether a snake is venomous or non-venomous by the shape of his head. Venomous snakes have triangular heads; the cheeky-looking pouches that give them that shape are filled with venom, you see. While the non-venomous ones have have slimmer heads, some call them "spoon-shaped". There are exceptions, such as the coral snake. It's a good idea to know your snakes if you plan to photograph them when they show up by your front door.

Reading-wise:

I finished Taking the Plunge by Stacie Lewis, last night. It's an Estella review book, so watch for a review of that one to appear in the September issue of Estella's Revenge.

Currently reads not yet added to my sidebar are Lesley Castle (a small Hesperus Press book with two novellas and the very silly "A History of England") by Jane Austen and Vineland by Thomas Pynchon. Both are incredibly fun for entirely different reasons.

Recently walked in the door:
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (thank you, Amy!!)
Villa Air-Bel by Rosemary Sullivan
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Fifty Acres and a Poodle by Jeanne Marie Laskas (thanks to Les for the recommendation!!)
Wild Swans by Jung Chang
Barefoot by Elin Hildenbrand (thank you, Barbara!!)

Most of those came from Paperback Swap, apart from the ones Amy and Barbara sent. Paperback Swap is so cool. All but one of the PBS books were recommended by bloggers, so if you see a title you've recently reviewed, you've probably influenced me.

Shameless impulse purchase:
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene (I love Graham Greene)

Kiddo goes back to school next Wednesday! Oh, my gosh! It's too early for school (but not for cool weather - I'd be happy to take an early cool front, no problem). Where does the time go?

Hope everyone's having a terrific weekend! Hope to catch up on blog-hopping, soon. Smiles all around.

Bookfool with green tomatoes and snake on the side