William Gass - Middle C

The faculty had some dogged enthusiasms, but they were really not well informed; how could they be when the administration’s expectations were as low as their own, and they worked for salaries that an organ-grinder’s monkey would refuse. The Salvation Army had a better stock of books; he could not afford to buy even the texts Augsburg’s instructors assigned anyway; and there was no library worthy of the name in the dinkyville where he and his mother lived. Nevertheless, he could not continue careening from author to author, book to book, subject to subject, and period to period, especially — what was most confusing — bouncing from work to work and composer to composer like a golf ball in a parking lot. He had recently dragged himself through These Twain and A Laodicean without realizing that Arnold Bennett was minor and Mr. Hardy’s A Laodicean obscure. When at last he had puzzled out the meaning of this awkward title, a project that had taken far more time and effort than it should, its significance seemed clear enough; however, it was the length of the line of relations involved that surprised and admonished him: a wealthy city in ancient Asia Minor named for the wife of the second of thirteen kings, Laodicea was chastised in Revelation (which he made a note to read) for its lack of commitment to Christianity, the city’s name appropriate to the charge because the water in its aqueduct, unlike the hot springs that fed nearby Hierapolis, was lukewarm or tepid; hence Hardy’s use of it to describe his heroine’s inability to choose between a modern man of good sense and a suitor who represented the romance of the past — condo or castle were the alternatives. In the end, she accepts the former while still wishing the latter were the former. Joey felt the novel did not live up to its author’s massive reputation; however, he was also impressed by the vast areas of ignorance that were not likely to be rumored, Joey was still so young, nevertheless gaps that were not likely to be removed or even reduced. Saint Paul had apparently written a letter to the Laodiceans, although now the letter was lost, and in a.d. 60 an earthquake had shaken the city, but not its pride, for it had refused Roman help in rebuilding. Was this sketchy bit of information relevant to the events of the novel, because the question of whether a castle should be rebuilt or replaced was central to it? Joey had played the piece, but he had not heard all the notes.

Because it was a school presumably built to teach and to observe the tenets of the Lutheran branch of Protestantism, Augsburg Community College was a quiet, placid, unassuming snare for the unwary; a snare for the unwary because its Lutherans did not believe they were merely a branch with its bark but the roots of true belief itself, the trunk the twigs the leaves as well — the earth that held the tree, the water its roots drank, the sun that fed its leaves, the air that trembled them; it was a snare for the unwary because it was more than a cause, it was the corrective of the cause, the righting of a course gone awry, a cleanser for a soul that had soiled itself, a savior of the Savior; it was a snare for the unwary because it was a church that opposed the power of the church, a clergy that resisted the powers of the clergy, a group that dissolved groups into holier members; it was a snare to snare the wary as well as the innocent, to entrap both informed and tenured dupes and naïve unprepared waifs and bumbling chumps like Joey, because they might believe that fellow Lutherans were as one — united — in their love of God and that the church and its clergy would find it quite impossible to be tyrannical, vengeful, obsessed, nitpicky, and absurd, when in fact there was no one Lutherans hated more than Luther, other Lutherans, and themselves, who once had been unwary, who had since been duped, and now were snared.

Members of the Catholic church in town, into which his mother now and then wandered, were accustomed to the sounds made by their ill-tempered organ and to the complaints of their bad-tempered organist; however, when Mr. Tippet fell ill they wondered of Miriam whether her son, Joseph, so well named, might be available to play at a few of their services. They recognized that he had schoolboy duties at Augsburg, but perhaps, for the short while they envisioned Mr. Tippet to be incapacitated, her son could squeeze in some hymns for them. They would be grateful for Joseph’s help and could pay him with gratitude and a sum just short of insulting.

Joey was happy for this excuse to visit his mother, whose cooking had improved remarkably since he had started attending Augsburg. On Sunday evening she would serve him gedünstetes Kraut to which she would add grated apple and Würstelbraten , each slice shot through with rounds of sausage, a dish she liked because it extended the service of the beef. Then they would talk about old times if Joey was unable to steer her away, about the food she fancied from her childhood, such as Steirisches Schöpsernes , a mutton stew served by her mom with horseradish and plenty of potatoes, but now and then there would be events at school he could introduce to their conversation, and lately some chaff concerning the row of white ageratum that had suddenly appeared in a line along their front walk. Miriam had chiseled out a furrow with a screwdriver, thrown in some of her birthday seeds, and to the amaze of her eyes saw plants pop into view.

This surprise, he told her, reminded him of one he’d just had with a Thomas Hardy novel that he had read with some pleasure to be sure but not without suffering a number of disappointments along the way. However, certain facts about its composition had come to light with a similar bright suddenness: namely that Hardy was ill in bed — in a town called Tooting — wonderful name — no, no, it was Upper Tooting — he was ill in bed with a urinary infection — he was sometimes almost delirious — he was ill in bed in Upper Tooting dictating the first draft to his wife — well, Hardy was actually lying on an inclined plane with his head lower than his pelvis the whole time — the whole time was almost six months — compelled to complete the book despite his pain because he felt bound to honor the date for its publication in Atlantic Monthly —a magazine, did Miriam know? called Atlantic because it came out simultaneously in New York and London. Naturally, the novel would have its ups and downs. It was remarkable it had gotten written at all — well, dictated, then revised. Moreover, he had learned that Henry James — was Miriam familiar? — had also dictated some of his last works to a typist — his novels were serialized, too — though James wasn’t in anything like the same pain, just getting on and disappointed by the world …

Miriam did not see any connection between Joey’s tussle with Thomas Hardy and the delight given her by ageratum popping up in a nice regimental line along their walk — or her walk now — who would have guessed? She was even a little tiffy about it. The packets had turned up in a drawer just as her need to plant their seeds somewhere had accidentally appeared. She was a bit ashamed of so whimsical an impulse and remembered her implement with good humor — a screwdriver, who would have guessed? — yet here they were — these little button-shaped flowers — as if stolen from a nosegay. One plant, which hardly interrupted the run of white, was — well — purple, she guessed, a black sheep.

Joey found it quite amazing that a man should lie on a board for weeks, even months, making up a novel in his head; it wasn’t like music, which always signaled the next step to take and stuck to your memory as naturally as taffy to the teeth. Miriam had just shoved the dirt back over the seeds with the side of her foot and then stepped on the place to tamp it down. Joey thought that maybe he’d read Far from the Madding Crowd next — didn’t Hardy choose strange titles? — and such descriptive names, too, so appropriate as to be odd — quaint to a fault — he’d looked into this novel about the crowd, leafing about a little, and seen Mr. Oak mentioned, Farmers Boldwood and Poorgrass, Bathsheba in front of Everdene. Could you take Boldwood and Poorgrass seriously? Miriam had been very encouraged by her success with the trim; it was more fun than she’d expected, and she planned to put in more — at other edges — since Joey had given her only seeds from short plants.