Jazztown

I've never been to New Orleans, nor ever wanted to go--I'm not into music or seafood (I'm pretty sure you couldn't pay me to eat a crawfish), I don't like partying or crowds, and I hate hot weather. So The Big Easy was never someplace I dreamed of going, though I guess I always imagined that I might end up there for some reason, someday.

I'm about halfway through 1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose. It's sweet and sad and poignant, and while a lot of the "spirit of the city" stories are really about human resilience, with a New Orleans flavor, there is a great deal of the idea of New Orleans here, a lot about what makes it a special, strange, glamorous, wild place. Aside from the loss of life and property, it's clear that Rose is really traumatized by the loss of place, by the fact that something that existed as such a solid and real thing--the very world--can cease to exist as we know it, can become something entirely different, less hospitable, unreal. It reminds me forcibly how much of human history is a string of events like this, and how insulated from the reality of nature we generally are. I believe that my house will be standing tomorrow, but in so many ways, anything can happen.

No matter how grim the material, though, for the first third of the book, the predominant tone is one of bewilderment, confusion, and pleading. The last few essays, though, have taken on a stronger tone of anger and impotent rage, with an overtone of growing hysteria. It's getting strange, more disconcerting, and more difficult to read. Which is funny because, as a commenter noted the other day, the columns are not in chronological order. I think I'm doing all right with that, though, because, although they don't tell a direct narrative, they do have a steadily developing tone.

Unfortunately, it's developing in an emotionally tricky direction. If I could renew the book, I'd probably put it on the back burner for a few days, because I have a hard time keeping the desperate emotions in the books I'm reading from taking me over. But the library waitlist is going to keep me going, and I think, while it'll be hard, it'll be closer to the emotional experience that something like this ought to be--immersive, hard, but true.