http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/145765241683/shame-and-wonder-essays-by-david-sear...

Burned Again by Blurbs

In my mind the only activity better than abandoning the reading of this book would be me writing about the whys and wherefores of my sudden flight. In addition, of course, I am factoring in the fight quotient as rarely do I have nothing left to say in any thoughtful argument. Shame and Wonder by David Searcy did begin with some promise with the very first essay collected here. And it happened, as the story goes, to be the first one he ever wrote. But from then on it was tiresome reading about this vastness of space, his cerebral idiosyncrasies, his girlfriend Nancy and her sketchbook with no previous frame of reference for where she even came from. I’d like to think his ex-wife better fodder. But I do I love a great personality entering the picture. The problem with putting yourself and loved ones into your work however is the risk that nobody will like you. Or too many will find your character a bit too much for embarking on a book-length relationship. I am already pretty sure I do not like David, or his girlfriend Nancy, and even if a few essays down the road there would have been a chance I might find something redeeming in them both is simply not in the cards for me. I am already reading [b:Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy And Her World|125844|Writing Dangerously Mary McCarthy And Her World|Carol Brightman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1391897237s/125844.jpg|121209], a painfully boring autobiography about [a:Mary McCarthy|7305|Mary McCarthy|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1254084720p2/7305.jpg], and I intend on finishing it even it it damages me permanently. I also have [b:Don Quixote|3835|Don Quixote|Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1407710790s/3835.jpg|121842] going at the same time and it is proving to be a bit unbelievable and too silly of a knight-errant adventure for me. But reading the essays by Searcy was supposed to be fun and interesting. He had been compared by his blurb-writing buddies to [a:Geoff Dyer|2279|Geoff Dyer|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1327272389p2/2279.jpg], [a:John Jeremiah Sullivan|22899|John Jeremiah Sullivan|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1321052260p2/22899.jpg], and quite ludicrously even the name of [a:W. G. Sebald|14982514|W. G. Sebald|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] was evoked to my now-unforgiving consternation resulting in this literary diatribe. I am so exhausted by these jacket blurbs lying to us and promising works that have little chance of succeeding their lofty ideals. They must think we’re stupid readers and want to believe anything, and often I expect they are right. Always, I am seriously looking for an essayist like Geoff Dyer. Hell, I even look for Geoff Dyer in Geoff Dyer because these days I feel even he has gone missing in most of his latest work. But to invoke Sebald in a wish to sell more copies to us fools has gone a bit too far in my estimation. The only relationship I can find to W.G. Sebald is Searcy’s position on my book shelf sitting right beside him. At least until I can get the damn thing sold. Chances are another fool, like me, is born. ( )

Shame and Wonder by David Searcy is a highly recommended collection of twenty-one essays that seek connections between wildly different things and ideas.

In this well written collection, Searcy discovers connections between wildly different subjects and while recalling past events. He is observant, honest, and engaging as he shares his recollections and his often meandering thoughts that are all somehow now interconnected with the event or memory. Many of these essays bring to mind a discussion between friends, where one topic meanders onto another, but there is a connection in the overall theme.

Contents:

The Hudson River School: Searcy learns of a rancher who used a tape of his infant daughter's cries to lure in and ambush the coyotes who had been killing his lambs.

El Camino Doloroso: An ordinary truck is transformed into a custom car, but sold after an unfortunate accident.

Mad Science: Remembering "dorky" kids in the 50's who made real models/machines that worked, like a seismograph out of a record player or, more impressively, rockets.

A Futuristic Writing Desk: Thoughts while hiking/climbing on and around the 400 foot high granite Enchanted Rock near Fredericksberg, Texas.

Sexy Girls Near Dallas: While looking online for a new car an ad pops up.

Didelphis Nuncius: A recollection of moving his son and two daughters to a new neighborhood after a divorce and Rocky the dog's skill and proclivity for killing possums.

The Depth of Baseball Sadness: Reflecting on his childhood in the 50's when it was a requirement for boys to know how to play baseball, Searcy realizes it was a skill he lacked.

Santa in Anatolia: Searcy visits Turkey where the legends of Saint Nicholas originated.

How to Color the Grass: Searcy notes how there is a first time to discover everything as a child as he recalls being taken outside to draw the playground at school.

Science Fictions #1: Reflections on electron microscopy and those who conceived and build the instruments.

Science Fictions #2 (for C.W.): The 100 acre Trinity River Bottoms Homeless Park and Astronomical Observatory is discussed.

Science Fictions #3: A friend, Bob (poet Robert Trammell), goes to live under Mary Kay's Pink Cadillac.

Nameless: What artist Doug MacWithey left behind after his death and the tragedy of a Jewish tightrope walker crushed in a fall in Corsicana, Tex., in 1884.

On Watching the Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan Documentary About Lewis and Clark on PBS: musings on the show.

Love in Space: Understanding space as a seven-year-old in the 50's.

An Enchanted Tree near Fredericksburg: Contemplating the oak tree that was growing on the top Enchanted Rock, Searcy's reflects on the hearts people carved into the bark.

Cereal Prizes: Reminiscing about the prizes found in cereal boxes.

Paper Airplane Fundamentals: A proper thinking person in this world needs to know how to make a functional paper airplane.

Three Cartoons: Krazy Kat, December 18, 1918; Koko's Earth Control, animated, 1928; Uncle Scrooge Comics #6, 1954.

Always Shall Have Been: Remembering an incursion into the hilly, lightly forested, empty realm of a ravine in a city while toting weapons, homemade double pea-shooters.

Still-Life Painting: While cleaning out a storage shed with twenty years of stuff, a small painting done by Searcy's mother is found.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Random House for review purposes.


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Fragments of Observations and Speculations

In a child’s world, the tiniest details are massively important. The magnificence of a dragonfly is nothing compared to the lattice work in its wing. This book comes close to that ethos. It is a collection of reminiscences, some of them stories, some just meanderings and some just observations. They are often more detailed than required, but not quite childlike. More nostalgic than significant. They are without drama and without consequence. Some are lengthy wanderings and some are barely a page.

Having read an entire book of them, I have come away with no memories, no highlights, no impact. There isn’t one that is outstanding to recommend. They are all fragments of a life of observation and speculation. They are feelings of frozen moments. They just end, and another presents itself. You feel David Searcy searching his memory banks for something to reminisce over. They are the good old days of discovery for an adolescent in the 60s, from prizes in cereal boxes to comic books (but no TV!)

Our brains store memories by association, and his associations come out unedited. He freely swings back and forth with memories suggesting themselves to him in mid description of something else. His verb tenses run the gamut even within the same paragraph. This is not so much story telling as a trip.

David Wineberg ( )