Book Notes: Wolf at the Table by Adam Rapp

~ Clarissa ~ Leave a comment

I wanted to read something recent, and Wolf at the Table is that, having been published only a couple of months ago. The novel is about Myra and Alec, siblings from a large Catholic family. There are other siblings but they are accidental to the story of Myra’s incapacity first to notice that her brother is a serial killer and then to do something to stop him. The universe sends her innumerable signals about what’s going on but she’s too weak and indifferent to take action.

To keep the plot going, Rapp uses every favorite trick of American novelists which makes the novel sound like a parody at regular intervals. There are heiresses eager to throw themselves at every passing loser, rapey Catholic priests, amazing job opportunities and marriage prospects strewn around the path of a doped-up paranoid schizophrenic, and a whole lot of baseball. Rapp writes well but excludes from much of the story the only character who is not completely pathetic. Everybody else is so weak, bumbling and immoral that the character who’s a serial killer almost looks good in comparison. He, at least, has some agency and isn’t just floating around aimlessly.

What I’m sure the author did not intend is the novel’s depiction of the degeneration of a hard-working, religious, and Republican-voting family with many children. The siblings depart from their religious roots and become either antisocial / criminal or sad / pathetic. All they can produce among them by way of progeny is one psychotic son. Who, in turn, produces another psychotic child. The only sibling of the bunch who seems to have a normal life married a rich Jew. But that’s the character we hear very little about because the novel concentrates on the death of Catholicism and its aftermath.

Slow Progress

~ Clarissa ~ 9 Comments

Once again, a visitor comes to my office, sees this:

and joyfully exclaims, “Ah, you teach Russian!”

It took three statements to the effect that I’m a professor of Spanish to get the fellow off the topic of when my imaginary Russian courses are scheduled next Fall.

On the positive side, he’s placing the flag in the right geographic region, so that’s progress.

Interesting Discussions

~ Clarissa ~ Leave a comment

Now that Klara is older, we spend deeply enjoyable hours talking about outfits, accessories and what goes best with which item of clothing. I can’t describe the feeling, people.

Shyness Attack

~ Clarissa ~ 1 Comment

I was experiencing extreme feelings of shyness at the need to contact one of the writers discussed in my book. After spending months tying myself in knots over the extreme discomfort of having to reach out, the author himself reached out to me with massive amounts of compliments to the book.

Nobody believes that I’m shy. My own daughter laughs in my face when I mention it.

The Cicada Infestation

~ Clarissa ~ 6 Comments

This year’s cicada infestation in the Midwest is shocking. There’s a tree next to Klara’s school that cicadas really like, and the noise they make is like nothing I’ve heard before. It’s so loud that I can understand how a person can go crazy if forced to listen to it for some time.

Usually, you only hear cicadas. I had no idea what they even looked like until this year. But now sidewalks are strewn with them.

It’s a great nuisance.

Where Are the Vandals?

~ Clarissa ~ 19 Comments

No riots or vandalism in the wake of the Trump verdict, eh?

We’ve heard so much that MAGAs are the biggest terrorist threat to the country, yet they aren’t doing anything remotely as destructive as the ongoing pro-Palestinian riots or the BLM riots of several years ago. Actually, they aren’t doing anything destructive at all. People peacefully express their opinions and donate to their candidate’s campaign.

It’s a striking difference from their opponents.

A Criminal Justice Fail

~ Clarissa ~ 19 Comments

Hey, before you complain about the American justice system, you need to know that within 24 hours this week two different courts in two different parts of Spain absolved child rapists based on the argument that child rape is normal in the rapists’ culture. The need for cultural sensitivity to “a vulnerable population” was cited as justification. Strangely, it never occurred to anybody to consider the raped girls a vulnerable population.

Here’s the link. It’s in Spanish but you’ll get the gist with Google Translate.

Back from Captivity

~ Clarissa ~ 11 Comments

If you still had any illusions about the UN and the Red Cross, you’d lose them if you observe their actions in Ukraine.

This is Maryana before and after captivity:

She was finally exchanged yesterday but she can’t return to her native city of Mariupol. It doesn’t exist anymore.

This is a video of Maryana talking to her mother for the first time since she was released:

The Shroom Q&A

~ Clarissa ~ 4 Comments

I don’t have any interesting tips, to be honest. If anybody on here does, please chime in. I make a lot of stews, and I usually simply drop the mushrooms in without any extra prep.

For instance, for lunch today I made split peas with carrots, spinach, and lion’s mane mushrooms.

I tore them up in my hands and just plonked them in. They are good when you don’t want to use meat, and a package of one large and two medium costs $5 around here. This package lasts me for 3 meals (although Klara doesn’t eat mushrooms). People say they taste like crab meat but I don’t really see the likeness.

Lion’s mane is tender to the touch, so I added it at the end of the cooking process. With shiitakes, on the other hand, I’d put them first because they are tough and take forever.

I’m seeing the mushroom dude again tomorrow and I’ll buy some unusual mushrooms. I’ll post the recipe of what I do with them. In the meantime, if anybody has any suggestions or tips, please share.

Q&A: Arestovych Developments

~ Clarissa ~ 2 Comments

This is a great question I had a burning desire to answer but I never know if anybody would be interested, so thank you for giving me a chance to delve into this subject.

Arestovych became a target of a massive online hate campaign when he misspoke in the aftermath of one of the most horrific airstrikes by Russia against the city of Dnipro. People are traumatized and emotions fly high, so he had to resign from his government position as a result of this clumsy wording he chose. I was at a live event with him 10 minutes before he misspoke and he was offering psychological help to a woman (not me) in a terrible personal situation. He dragged her out of her awful mental state at a significant personal cost. I saw it, and I’ll never stop admiring a person who would go out like this for a complete stranger.

Arestovych was absolutely wiped out after that event and as a result he misspoke, which cost him his career. Yet he never mentioned that woman to explain what happened. Again, nothing but deep admiration is what I feel towards such extraordinary self-restraint and truly Christian charity. (Arestovych is deeply religious).

What happened when the wave of anger over his comments was unleashed is that he never closed himself up as self-defense. There was a lot of macho posturing in this as he kept repeating that he’s completely immune to the opinions of strangers. But he’s not immune. Nobody is. He’s walking wounded and it will take time to recover. He’s been fumbling since then, making more missteps but I’m the last person to judge a fellow for losing his footing after such events.

On the positive side, he’s been in the US for some time now, meeting with conservative politicians and thinkers (e.g. Jordan Peterson whom he deeply respects). Now he’s finally bringing to Ukrainian audiences a serious, meaningful and reliable analysis of what’s happening in the US. This is invaluable and long overdue given that there hasn’t been much change in the understanding of the West since we discussed it in Soviet kitchens behind the Iron Curtain.