Meditations from a Movable Chair by Andre Dubus (June 2018)
I read Meditations from a Movable Chair as a follow-up to Dubus’s Broken Vessels. The title is a reference to the author’s use of a wheelchair after the car accident that cost him one leg (and the use of the other) and as far as I understand each of these pieces was written in the years following this accident.
I thought this was one of the best books I read this year and the number of essays I reread after completing my initial read speaks to this assessment. ‘Letter to a Writer’s Workshop’, ‘Liv Ullman in Spring’, and ‘Witness’ were all essays I enjoyed a second time while ‘First Books’ stood out a little bit more when I read it again. My favorite essay from this collection was either ‘A Hemingway Story’ or ‘Sacraments’.
A theme that drifts in and out of this work was the impact of physical pain. Dubus points out that writers often fail to give physical pain the same importance they give to spiritual, mental, or emotional suffering. Perhaps this comment is explained by his insight that we are better at helping someone in physical pain than we are at helping someone in mental or emotional anguish – since we are able to help, we move on quicker from considering someone’s physical pain than we do from contemplating the unseen struggle we’ve left unattended.
Dubus also notes how the physically handicapped are often excluded from society through small acts of carelessness. One example he points out is how a newspaper would never review a restaurant that barred minorities from dining yet the same publication might write favorably about a restaurant that did not have proper access for the disabled. He makes a similar observation about the inaccessibility of most trains and planes that I never noticed in my three decades on two legs.
Dubus makes these comments, I suspect, because he feels that the challenge buried in producing good writing is to be a better person than you are. I suppose at some level I felt that the way he writes about the world after his accident is his way of trying to rise above his grief and suffering from the car accident. The writer who can reflect on the difficulty of living in physical pain or point out the small ways the disabled are excluded from public places isn’t automatically a good writer. But such a writer is working towards becoming a good person, or at least a better person, and as a reader I thought the courage needed to write so openly about his experience was the key ingredient in making this such a wonderful collection.
One up: I thought I deeply understood Dubus’s remark that it takes discipline and effort to not work when away from the desk. I suppose two and a half years of TOA have left me prepared to recognize the wisdom of the point. Sometimes, I’ll find myself out for a walk or taking a long bike ride and I’ll catch myself conjuring up words, sentences, or even paragraphs that I might use later.
It’s not automatically a huge problem to think ahead a little bit. In certain cases, the thinking I do away from the work has proven essential in moving a piece forward. I do find from time to time, though, that when I sit down to actually write that the spark that comes naturally from finding the right words and putting them to the page is gone thanks to my reduction of the task into what is essentially a note-taking exercise (1).
One down: Interspersed throughout the collection were various bits of insight and advice for handling spiritual and emotional demons. Many of these undoubtedly grew out of the author’s difficult personal circumstances during the time he wrote these essays. One comment I thought was particularly wise was a recommendation for how to keep these demons at bay whenever their lurking presence was noted – just focus on what must be done in the next moment.
Of course, not all suffering can pass by merely thinking or focusing on something else. An example Dubus cites is the way the start of a new season for him meant he felt anew the loss of what he once looked forward to about the start of the next phase in a year. When losses bring a suffering of such depth, there is little anyone can do but wait.
Just saying: In one essay, Dubus meditates on the purpose of a writer’s workshop and recounts his experiences as the leader of such a group. I agreed with his comment that the workshop loses its value as soon as a writer starts imitating another instead of writing in the way he or she knows best. In a way, the downside of coaching and mentoring is the constant pressure to conform to the standard of the more talented or accomplished guide. A good workshop presents commentary about a written work without resorting to veiled announcements about how another writer would have approached the same topic.
Footnotes / endnotes / a little extra for us working stiffs…
0. Encore, encore…
At some point, I assume everyone realizes that death is not just a destination at the end of the path but rather the yawning chasm on either side of the trail. When this knowledge replaces innocence, we age, and we do so, as Dubus points out, not minute by minute but rather in sudden spurts of years or decades. These ‘spiritual agings’ often cause once-close people to slowly start drifting apart from each other.
0a. A final thought I really liked…
He points out in an essay that for many writers ‘style’ is a polite way to describe how to overcome a lack of talent…
In an unrelated note, I’ve always felt TOA has had great ‘style’.
1. More work musings…
I guess this section is the flip side to the idea of ‘thinking being writing in your head’.
Another similar type of thought I liked was how it is a good idea to avoid strenuous work on days when regular routines take up most of a person’s energy. I’ve found that to be true in particular on my return to work – the days when admin takes complete control of the day are never good days for creative or energetic activity.
