Chopping onions, cooking ourselves
Monday, March 9th, 2009“If I had the chance to inform US policy I would advise that agreeing to feed the weak to the strong means sooner or later we will have to cook ourselves.” —Uzma Aslam Khan
Two spots of bright in a week in which I’ve otherwise found myself glum (considering the dark economy, the incomprehensible numbers of dollars to be cut from school budgets already pared by decades of skewed priorities, the way some things don’t seem to be changing fast enough or likely to change at all—how are we going to invade Afghanistan and rescue the world economy at the same time? how long? how long?)
One: Uzma Aslam Khan, whose novel The Geometry of God we’re bringing out in September, has launched—no, let’s scratch the military metaphors; let’s just scratch them—has stirred up two strengthening tonics for us who are weak in her interview on World Pulse and her essay about the Swat Valley and the Taliban. I was glad Uzma introduced us to both these organizations—World Pulse, which covers “global issues through the eyes of women,” and the World Can’t Wait, “which organizes people living in the United States to repudiate and stop the fascist direction initiated by the Bush regime.” And glad for the clarity and vision she distills in her words.
Two: The current issue of the Massachusetts Review is a special issue devoted to Grace Paley, of whom Vivian Gornick once wrote, perfectly: “People love life more because of her writing.” I’ve never before read a literary journal from start to finish; Paley’s particular mix of generosity, humor, steely vision, and freeing outrage is still, it turns out, just what I need.
“In a fury of tears and disgust, he wrote on the near blacktop in pink flamingo chalk—in letters fifteen feet high, so the entire Saturday walking world could see—WOULD YOU BURN A CHILD? and under it, a little taller, the red reply, WHEN NECESSARY.
And I think that is exactly when events turned me around… directed out of that sexy playground by my children’s heartfelt brains, I thought more and more and every day about the world.” —from “Faith in a Tree” by Grace Paley
—Pam
