The first part of Barbara Kingsolver’s essay High Tide in Tucson is perfect. It’s the kind of essay you can read over and over again and discover some new truth each time. Somehow the story of Buster the crab, an accidental stowaway from a seaside vacation, becomes Kingsolver’s story, and our story. The gentle anthropomorphization of Buster is funny, and his disorientation is relatable:
The largest, knottiest whelk had begun to move around. First it extended one long red talon of a leg, tap-tap-tapping like a blind man’s cane. Then came half a dozen more red legs, plus a pair of eyes on stalks, and a purple claw that snapped open and shut in a way that could not mean We Come in Friendship.
Who could blame this creature? It had fallen asleep to the sound of the Caribbean tide and awakened on a coffee table in Tucson, Arizona, where the nearest standing water source of any real account was the municipal sewage-treatment plant.
Poor Buster! But who hasn’t awakened one morning hopelessly confused, whether because of traveling or moving or too much alcohol? But Buster makes do in his new home, where he is spoiled with a variety of shells and moldy cottage cheese. But Buster becomes manic-depressive when it’s high tide on his home shores—apparently, at least, because Kingsolver can’t come up with any other explanation, and it’s certainly an appealing one. Because who doesn’t try to hang on to the Caribbean tide they’ve just left?
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The rest of Kingsolver’s essays are hit-or-miss. She’s a lovely writer with a gift for description, but sometimes her metaphors are forced or overwrought. She also has a tendency to wear her politics on her sleeve, sometimes with what I perceived as a smug superiority, and although I don’t necessarily disagree with her, this habit starts to grate while reading essay after essay. But what an interesting life she’s had, one that has surely contributed to her politics—from a small town in Kentucky to Africa to the Canary Islands to Tucson and probably lots of other places in between. She’s been a concert pianist and biologist and a member of the all-author Rock Bottom Remainders band (alongside Dave Barry and Stephen King). Her essays draw from these landscapes and the life lessons they imparted, sometimes beautifully, sometimes so thick with adjectives that you’re left choking. But read the title essay—that’s where the really good stuff is.
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current book: Nearly done with The Land of Laughs (thanks, Ryan!). It reminds me a bit of Paul Auster’s Book of Illusions in that both are very compelling reads, each about a man who is obsessed with an artist. In the case of The Land of Laughs, the artist is an author of fantastical kids’ books as well as some fantastic and horrifying realities…
current music: Rocked out to my totally gay running mix during yesterday’s run. I needed that Kylie Minogue during that last half-mile, I’m telling you.
current socks: Tomorrow I will be sporting my St. Patrick’s Day socks, those which only get worn once a year. If you haven’t seen them, you are really missing out: a garish scene laid out in bright green and metallic gold thread involving leprechauns, rainbows, and pots of gold. Really, how often is it that socks come with their own narrative?
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