Prison Lit.

“All men should strive to learn before they die
What they are running from, and to, and why.”
James Thurber 1956

Bonnie Q., are you okay out there in the land of mudslide, fire and earthquake? You know how we worry.

Hi Maggie, and thanks for reading the blog.

Chemo thoughts on a windswept day:

The dread of death and the overwhelmingness of life, that tragic dichotomy of being we strive to ignore, to neatly compartmentalize, manifests itself most concurrently in that moment when one’s mortality is made concrete, the moment of diagnosis, the close of the real. The collision of mortal dread and life’s absurdity and fragility produces a chain of recognitions that are otherwise impossible, unthinkable, and unimaginable. Why, because abstraction is the balm of denial. It’s not me this is happening to, it’s that gaunt, bald woman crossing the street with her walker. And then it’s you with the swollen lymph glands and night sweats.

Letter to a loved one:

Dear Trainee Tessier:

I hope they’ve let you outside. It’s a beautiful day. Sumo is sitting in the sun on my bed as I write this. I had a couple of specific questions and some literary information I wanted to discuss. Specifically, what’s the food like? Where do they have you bunked and what friends have you made? What are the “trainers” like? When you say chop wood, do you mean with an axe? Is PT (physical training) a part of the regimen? Do you march? Do you sing as you march/run? What will they allow you to read, and do they have a library?

I wanted to tell you a bit about the literary genre of prison literature. Probably the earliest example is Plato’s 5th century B.C. description (The Crito) of Socrates’ last days in jail. His crime against the state was corrupting the city’s youth with his radical moral and political philosophies. His friends pleaded with him to escape, but always a man of his principles, he refused. For Socrates the only opinion that matters is not that of the majority, but rather that of the individual who seeks and knows the truth. The truth should always be the basis of human action. Wise counsel methinks, but sometimes hard to follow. In 524 A.D., Boethius, jailed by the Romans for heresy, wrote The Consolation of Philosophy. Following Socrates/Plato, Boethius believed that wisdom is worth nothing if it does not console. I would say, Sarah, that knowledge is not inherently good, nor does it make you a better person. What it does is foster an independence of mind that can lead to sounder judgments about the world around us. Many of Cervantes ideas for Don Quixote (1605) came from his experience as a galley slave between 1575 and 1580. Sir Walter Raleigh compiled his History of the World while in a prison chamber in the Tower of London. John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) while in jail. Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German while incarcerated at Wartburg Castle.

Of more interest to you, I’m sure, would be some of the prison literature contemporary to the Twentieth Century. I think you would enjoy reading Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), a short novel based on his own experience while imprisoned in the Soviet Gulags. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1964), which you’ve probably read, is the story of a man, born Malcolm Little in 1925, the son of a Baptist preacher, who became a hustler, “uneducated, unskilled at anything honorable.” Jailed, where he learned to read and write by starting with the dictionary, he became a Black Muslim. He would later found the Organization of Afro-American Unity. In 1970 the letters of George Jackson, written from a prison cell would be published as Soledad Brother one year before his murder in prison. A good source for these kinds of texts is Angela Y. Davis’ 1971 collection of writings, If They Come in the Morning, by and about prisoners, including herself.

Enough of that. Your dear brother, Russell, is doing well. Did you know your presence on this earth has helped me today? You’ve given me a reason to do some research, take time to write, and provided a welcomed distraction from dwelling on my burning butthole (a side effect of the chemo). Thank you my dear daughter.

Love - Dad