Dear Jonas,
“B” is for beets, Bolaño fever, Bildungsroman, and for brisk, too, because it is cold outside now. We went into the city today to run an errand and you wore layers of clothes beneath an anorak. As usual, you weren’t displeased with the bulk of the clothing. When I faced you toward the mirror as I folded you into the sling, you mugged big smiles. Only when i wrapped my long black scarf over your face to block the wind did you begin to protest. You like to see where you’re going.
I finished Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives last week, so now I can return to reading Franco Moretti’s The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture. I’m resisting jumping into Bolaño’s 2666, the translation of which just came out last week. I tell myself that the last thing I need is a 912 page detour from the dissertation, especially since I just indulged in a 648 page one; nonetheless, the pull is strong indeed. I suppose if I purchase it now but read the entire thing while we are out of the city at your grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving, I won’t really be disturbing my work. What I mean is that I anyway won’t work on the dissertation while we are away from home, so it would be nice to finish something next week. Maybe if I make it into a challenge, I won’t feel guilty. "Thanksgiving" always makes me feel guilty enough on its own.
Truth be told, I spent almost as much time making a beet salad as I did writing today. We walked to the vegetable shop up on Graham Avenue and picked out the beets and other ingredients. When we came home I rinsed clumps of dirt from their leaves and bulbs. I shaved each beet with a vegetable peeler and chopped them all in the little food processor. I stained my fingers and the corners of my mouth with their juice, and somehow splattered the wooden floor with fuschia droplets, too. Then I washed, chopped and shaved fennel and carrots. I mixed them all together with olive oil and pistachios and we ate it over sautéed kale. I joke to myself that pleasurable exercises like this one illustrate the general rebellion against the Bildungsroman the dissertation is meant to invoke. In other words, if a Bildungsroman is supposed to illustrate its hero’s collaboration with adulthood, my reticence to ever actually finish my dissertation is a small act of discomfort with the fantasy of adulthood my written argument has yet to produce.
Thanksgiving will mark your first visit to the country, and knowing how much you like the noise of the streets and the trains here and dislike the quiet of the parks, I am curious to see how you will react to the silence. I hope the leaves are still on the trees and that you will tolerate a few long walks in your stroller. I am anticipating that you will enjoy the shiny colors and the shadows made by the fireplace. Hopefully you will be able to see the deer that come into the yard at sunset.
