Speaker 0 00:00:01 You are listening to right on radio on cafe 90.3 and streaming live on the web at KPI I'm Louisa old tonight on right on radio. Andy Harborview will be working with Mindy grilling, a member of the Minnesota house of representatives for 20 years to discuss the book, her book, fix what you can. She helped found the nation's first state mental health caucus, which successfully lobbied for a significant increase in Minnesota's mental health funding. She has served on state and national boards of the national Alliance on mental illness and is on the university of Minnesota psychiatry community advisory council, and on Josh Webber in the last part of the hour, Ian Graham, Lisa, and I will be doing a reading from James Joyce's the dead and have a conversation about 12th night or epiphany Eve. We'll talk about its cultural significance while it's not as common as it once was and why we should still have it all this more. So stay tuned to write our radio. <inaudible>.
Speaker 1 00:01:13 Hi, this is Annie Harvey, a welcoming Mindy grayling here too, right on radio. She's the author of fix what you can a work of nonfiction, uh, about her experience with Schizoaffective disorder in her family. And additionally on the larger American, uh, political scale. Um, Mindy, can you hear me okay.
Speaker 2 00:01:32 I can hear you just fine. And by the way, it's grayling it rhymes with smiling. I always like to see.
Speaker 1 00:01:37 Oh, I love that. Thank you. Um, great. Well, Mindy grilling is right here with us. I appreciate as someone else with a weird last name, I appreciate hearing that. Um, so, uh, if you could just give us a little introduction to the book, the project, just tell us a little bit about it and, uh, if you could read maybe a page or so from the book, uh, as an introduction, that would be wonderful.
Speaker 2 00:02:03 Okay. Actually, I didn't don't have the book right here. Do you want, I can get one?
Speaker 1 00:02:08 No worries. You could just tell us a little bit about it. Don't worry about it at all.
Speaker 2 00:02:13 Okay. Sorry about that. Oh, the book stands 20 years and it starts when our son first is becoming ill. And when he's diagnosed with schizophrenia first and then Schizoaffective disorder, which is a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. And then, um, I take us through the years when, um, he's doing, um, pretty poorly at times. And then other times really well, it's kind of a roller coaster. And I include a lot about my work in the legislature. I'm like most normal families, I'm lucky to be serving in the legislature. So I could go to the Minnesota house of representatives every time we ran into a snake and do something about it. So that was something I felt really good about because I didn't feel really good at all about what was going on at home with our son getting sicker and sicker and then some stability for a time.
Speaker 2 00:03:13 And then due to, um, a med stop medication that he was on stopping, working for him, he got allergic to it and also is he's always had trouble with using drugs, but that got worse as time went on, when his meds weren't covering his symptoms, he decided to try using drugs to feel better. And then we had some disastrous years when he was victimized and also when he committed some crimes and we ended up in, in the judiciary system instead of the mental health system, that's kind of a theme in the book too, that we need to have a better mental health system. So, so many people like our son don't end up in, um, in a criminal court instead of a hospital when they're really sick.
Speaker 1 00:04:01 Yes. Uh, thank you so much for that great summary and for pulling out a lot of the key themes of the book, I think this book is a really, really powerful Testament to what, uh, what can be possible if people are given, um, for example, jobs and communities, rather than just more and more incarceration, um, to dive kind of right into the topic of, uh, working with mental illness and working around mental illness. Uh, you mentioned in the books preface that Jim who's your son, um, and who lives with Schizoaffective disorder, took multiple passes of the book as an editor and as a content advisor, um, were there contributions or corrections he made that kind of surprised you or changed your mind about how you perceived a given thing?
Speaker 2 00:04:46 One thing that he really, um, he had hard upon that made me feel good actually in some ways was he said, um, he realized just how much his father and I and his sister suffered a line with him with his, you know, when you are suffering with something like a serious mental illness are to realize what else is going on in the world, because you're suffering so much that he had empathy for us. And then, um, in talking with him, you know, there were many parts that I was writing about, especially at the beginning where I just wanted to shake him or weave because reef is anger, then anger. And, um, sometimes we were just so mad at him, really. We were mad at his illness, but in discussing it, when he was looking through the chapters, then we had that. I had more empathy for him because he wasn't doing those things that seem to mean to us on purpose.
Speaker 2 00:05:50 He was thinking he had to do them because of his delusion. So we all just ended up with a more understanding and other things. He, he was, he corrected some facts and, and also commented a lot on the quality of my writing. He wouldn't grade the chapters, you know, and that was how he felt, how interesting he thought the chapters were and how well they flowed. So it was really a lot of fun and a bonding experience really for our whole family. Eventually my husband read the book, our daughter is an editor and she certainly edited and, and read the manuscript too. So it was a family thing. Um, but Jim was the most crucial because if he hadn't agreed to some of the more graphic passages, I would, we had to think hard about including them. But he really, even though he didn't like all those spots and he felt that they were very negative about his life. He also wanted to help others.
Speaker 1 00:06:53 Oh, that's, that's so wonderful. And it sounds like your family was able to create a really synergistic way to tell this story where it wasn't someone really fully capitalizing on it, but more of a, more of a communal creation and experience. Um, good way to put it. Thank you to which I'd love to add. Um, it was very clear to me as I read this book, um, that like, of course, there's the act of living with a mental illness and, um, telling your own story, but then there's what you are doing in this book, which is, um, living near and working to protect someone, living with a mental illness. Um, and there's kind of there in which you touched on a lot in your last answer already a balance between, um, allowing the person living with the mental illness to speak for themselves. Um, but also, uh, acknowledging that that's not your life and that's not your experience and you're adjacent to it and connected to it, but, uh, it's not quite yours. Um, Oh, as you were writing on this project, how did you determine your voices role in this mental health narrative?
Speaker 2 00:08:00 That's a really good question because that evolved it out. You know, mostly just writing down the facts, you know, it's a big job at the beginning just to get everything straight. You know, what happened? When did it happen? Where did it happen? Who was there? Yeah. And so by I had, I had actually three professional editors in addition to beta readers, like my daughter, who is a professional editor and some others. Um, but the ones I actually paid to help, um, uh, kept after me for not including my feelings enough. I was just pretty things as if I were a, a journalist and, but was I really there? And so they would be very critical if I was writing about some very dramatic or tragic scene. And I didn't explain to the reader, I didn't let the reader in to how I was feeling. So I really had, that was my biggest struggle too, to share how it was feeling. I'm just really not a person who wants to tell everybody exactly how bad I am feeling if I'm feeling really bad, but hiding. That is the only way I learned, um, to get the reader emotionally involved. And I want it to do that because I wanted people to internalize the story and feel just like I do that. Something has to change here,
Speaker 1 00:09:31 Especially with the, a story that's so centered around mental health and mental illness. There are those conflicts where, um, the suffering, the people has creates great friction with society. And I think that it's important that as someone who's adjacent to it, that you wrote this with honesty and with saying that these parts were hard, which was probably hard to admit and talk about as someone who also really loves this person who's suffering. So, um, I just, I, I thought that was a thing I wanted to mention and a thing I enjoyed. Um,
Speaker 2 00:10:02 Thank you. And thank you for reading the whole book then amended.
Speaker 1 00:10:08 Oh yeah. I got all the way through to find out, um, minimal spoilers for those who haven't read it yet. Uh, it doesn't end up in a neat, shiny book, um,
Speaker 2 00:10:19 That doesn't usually happen with serious mental illness.
Speaker 1 00:10:22 No. Um, on that topic actually, um, you make it pretty clear in the book that there is not in our current society, a cut and dry solution to the challenges of having a severe mental illness. And, um, therefore we get an ending that doesn't end in a joyful, beautiful castle. Um, what was your process as you chose a story arc for this book and kind of decided where to end?
Speaker 2 00:10:49 Well, that evolved too, but I did not even really know what a story arc was till I took classes at the last literary center and learned about, you know, books having beginnings and then the action heightens and then it relaxes and heightens and relaxes and chapters have to have those arcs too. So, um, so I really had to think about that, but I wanted to start out, um, with a bang. So I did that when Jim started out with a serious car accident that he caused, and then I just took the chapters that I'd been writing actually for five years with my writing group and put them into somewhat of a chronological order. But since you've read the book, you know, it doesn't completely follow that. There's a little bit of going back and forth. And then when I got around to, um, wanting to conclude as a couple of years, things were just happening and I would go to my writing group and I would say, I'm getting such, you know, it's tragic, but it's good material for my book and for the arc of that book.
Speaker 2 00:12:00 Um, so I certainly can't end right now and I wasn't really waiting for a happy ending, but I would have liked that. I had one person who read my book, who knows a lot about literature, who said, people aren't going to like it. If it doesn't have a happy ending. And that's how people like books to end them really struggled with that, wanting a happy ending. Um, but finally someone suggested reading Pauline boss's book, ambiguous loss, and that was the best I could do was to kind of sum things up where each person was at the end of the book and how we all felt ambiguous about, about all of our losses, including Jim and nothing ever quite gets resolved. That's what ambiguous loss is. So like the ended it like that, but I am happy to say, had I waited six months or the past year Jim is doing so well right now, it's a, phrenia, you know, you just don't know where that could be another year from now, but right now, if I waited one more year, we could have had a happier ending. I said that I have two friends who are authors that have written books about their own family members with illnesses. And, um, they ended with happy endings. They struggled to get those happy endings or children are doing worse than Jim. So there you go.
Speaker 1 00:13:26 Yeah. Um, I have a very different experience with mental illness. I'm I have clinical depression. So like to me, honestly, finishing the book and having it be like, well, this is, this is kind of forever. And sometimes it's going to be great and sometimes it's going to be awful like that. I felt very seen by that because I had the realization a few years ago where it's like this isn't really going to end in any like, finality way. Like I can make things better and I can make things more livable, but there's not, there's not always that like the end in script, um, as someone, yourself who has more experience, uh, or at least I would assume has more experienced per what you said before writing legislation than writing memoir. Um, talk about kind of, uh, the legislation you mentioned, writing in the book and then kind of trying to transition that narrative and transition those thoughts into, um, uh, like a long family memoir for a large audience.
Speaker 2 00:14:27 Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you for sharing about your mental illness. That's exactly what one of the, less than the big lessons that I'm trying to get across in this book is that if we all share our stories, then everyone will know how common mental illness is. And then maybe we can have a critical mass and we can do do more about it. But as far as the legislature goes, um, I initially it wasn't even going to include the legislature, but my writing group. And I convinced me that that was where I had a niche. You know, lots of people could write about their illnesses, but not everyone could write about the legislature. So I ha I had to struggle to do that because that was a place that I thought I had left and I kind of closed doors and wanted to just write this, but it turned out to be very cathartic too, because I realized then, which I hadn't really, I realized when I was living at that one.
Speaker 2 00:15:25 That's where I found my comfort all along was being able to do something, as I said at the beginning, um, you know, everybody isn't that lucky. So I could be in the swamp at home with everything going wrong or Jim being in a medical facility. And no one listening to me, even though I'm the one that raised him. And some often he wanted me involved, but the mental health community isn't open always to families, especially if someone gets older. So I could go to the legislature and actually take out my frustration and do some good. So then I'll help caucus that you mentioned at the beginning. Um, that was my way of gathering my friends in the legislature. And, um, when you have, when you're talking mental illness, you have friends in both the Democrat and Republican party and people from all over the state, just like, um, anything, when you really start talking about it, there's more commonalities than, than there are differences.
Speaker 2 00:16:29 If people are trying to be partisan. And so mental illness is certainly an issue that should not be partisan. So we could work together and different people resonated more with some issues than others. But you know, one of the things that really resonated with Republicans and Democrats, and certainly me and I'm a Democrat is, um, the, the importance of work or people with mental illness. A lot of, um, people historically realized that it was good for people to work. And the old state hospitals, people worked in the kitchen on the farm and everything. And there was, um, a movement where it was considered cruel and unusual punishment to have people working in places like that and not being paid. But so then the upshot was, they got rid of the work altogether. And then they've got to be thinking that maybe people with mental illness shouldn't work at all.
Speaker 2 00:17:26 It was too much stress, but it's clearly, um, our experience. And there's lots of research actually that shows work where people with mental illness, like anyone else, um, increases your self esteem, how you feel about yourself, your reason to get up in the morning structure in the day. A lot of people now with the COVID situation, I realizing it's very disorienting and unsettling when you don't have your regular routines, or if you can't go to work or you can't be around other people. And so, um, that's one of the things that we legislators could agree on bipartisan late. The one issue that was, um, that kind of fractured the mental health community didn't fracture, the legislators, they got it. And that was the idea of getting help for people who didn't realize they were sick, was an issue that we ran into. And it was a controversial piece of legislation because the patients' rights groups or civil liberties groups, but legislators, because they could see how I was suffering and how other legislative families who shared their stories were suffering when they couldn't do anything.
Speaker 2 00:18:46 And the person didn't know they were sick and they were getting worse and worse. I think society is passing that issue, um, on to a more normal solution nowadays than we were before, because there's more visibility that huge problems happen. If people don't get help and they're seriously ill. But when I was first working on that, that was a fracturing issue, but legislators, um, seem to get it. And we were able to pass lots of legislation. So I could do a story arc though with, especially that civil commitment legislation, where we couldn't get a hearing, there was groups that were opposed to it stifled the bill. And gradually, as people became informed and legislators heard from constituents, the story arc there was successful. And then that led into, well, we can't just do that. It's not a panacea. You have to have a whole mental health system with a continuum of services and legislators of all stripes and all around the state came forward and helped with that. And I'm happy to say that is continuing on. Now. There's lots of legislators plugged into the mental health issue and the need for affordable housing and employment and all the things that go with it. So that is a really successful story arc compared to, um, any individual story like the grind lanes and how Jim is doing.
Speaker 1 00:20:15 Yeah, for sure. I think that, um, I just want to commend quickly how well in the book you depict both, um, Jim's how, how much better Jim is feeling when he's plugged into a community and into a daily structure and things like that. Um, I think the book did a really good job of, um, showing what that looks like on a day-to-day basis, even though it didn't take up wild amounts of real estate in the book. And I think that it's really valuable to have that positive example in the world. Um, I'm just showing what that's like. Um, and then additionally, um, I'm glad you ended up including the stuff about the legislature because it, um, it added such a good compliment to, um, your character in the book in that you were trying to think about and process and solve this situation in multiple areas of your life.
Speaker 1 00:21:07 And you were never, you were never taking it and turning it off and putting it out of your mind per se, as much as you were, uh, rolling it into different scenarios. Um, and I thought that was something that made this book really interesting because mental illness is often political. And I liked that you're trying to make it less political by bringing it into these things, but that the act of having a family member who's experiencing that in this country, um, in the way our country is right now, it's a little political. So, um, yeah, uh, kind of rolling on that theme, um, with that victory and increasing, um, Minnesota's mental illness funding under your belt and the stuff you've done with, uh, the national Alliance on mental illness and the university of Minnesota. Um, it kind of feels to me like this book, um, could fit in the larger umbrella or universe of mental illness, advocacy goals. Um, and I was just wondering, uh, both when you were starting this project and now do you consider it more, that way more of a family story, or like neither of those in a particularly binary way?
Speaker 2 00:22:15 Well, I kind of did the family story as a mode to the advocacy. Um, you know, I have, I just read a book recently about Ella, or actually it was written by Eleanor Roosevelt, one of her autobiography books. And she said in that book that when she wanted to do action on a problem, what could actually move her the most to action was finding somebody who was living that problem, just one person and then talk to them. And then she could understand it from that one person's point of view, that one story, and then she could move on to action. Um, you know, legislators are so barraged with facts and figures and, you know, you hear from hundreds of people, but actually what will really stop the show in a legislative hearing is just one person's speaking from the heart about their personal situation. All of a sudden legislators will stop looking in their phones or shuffling through their papers, and then there's some listening and going on.
Speaker 2 00:23:24 And so I wanted this to just be one story. I didn't want to include the facts and figures. There is a study guide that goes with it if, if it's being used in a college class, um, which it is being used in some Concordia university is actually using it with lots of professors and students and using the study guide. But, um, but I wanted, um, just this one story and then, um, but then my hidden goal or my maybe not so hidden, cause you got it quite clearly here is for action. And I did serve on the national and state NAMI board, as you said. And currently I'm the president of my County NAMI NAMI Ramsey County. And so we are actually lobbying the County to do some things that would help the mental health system. So I'm now active at that level. I also worked with my two state legislators, my Senator and representative just last week, we were on a zoom call talking about some legislation to decriminalize the mental health system. Um, so there's always things you can do. There's so many things that could use fixing in the mental health system. There's something there to, it almost anybody's interest, but that's always been my life plan for this book is to enable me to talk about mental illness more as like I did when I was in the legislature and to help legislators who were there to help with the local level and gotten involved in some national things as a result of this book, which is even exceeding the goal that I had.
Speaker 1 00:25:05 That's so wonderful. It's really great to just think about this book as being another tool in the world, um, trying to decriminalize mental illness and giving people a really detailed and compassionate look about what they're criminalizing when they criminalize mental illness and what they're providing someone instead of a more direct form of help. Um, and kind of running with that momentum. I just want to ask you one last question as we wrap up here. Um, do you have any advice for people who might be interested in writing a mental illness story of their own or of a loved one?
Speaker 2 00:25:39 Well, I would say if, if you live in Minnesota, head to the left literary center and the comfortable place in your state, and then also, um, journal, because that helped me more than anything. When I started writing was that I've always been a journaler. So I kept a diary when I was young. I burned all those after I had older, some of my kids wouldn't read them, but once I got sick, I, um, I started keeping a spiral notebook, just writing down, um, the things I wanted to remember about where he was and the numbers of the doctors and all of that. But then I very quickly started pouring my heart into those pages and how I felt. And I also included even some direct quotes of things. Jim said things. I said, things our family member said, or doctors or case manager said, and that was like a gold mine when I went to write. So anyone interested journal, because that will trigger your memory and your creative juices, and then just be willing, always to tell your story, because bottling this up, doesn't help you, doesn't help your family member. Certainly doesn't help improve the mental health system.
Speaker 1 00:27:00 Well, thank you so much. Uh, I think everyone now has a reason to journal whether it's because they can make an amazing book someday or because they can make a great bonfire. Um, but, but this has been such a wonderful interview. It's really been a joy to have you on the show. And I'm sorry to let you go. Thank you so much for coming here.
Speaker 2 00:27:19 Thank you, Annie. Thanks for reading the book and being such a great interview.
Speaker 1 00:27:23 Thank you very much. Um, it's been great and take care. Have a good night.
Speaker 2 00:27:28 All right. You too.
Speaker 3 00:27:31 Welcome back everyone. This is a right on radio. I'm one of your co-hosts Josh Weber and here in studio with us is our resident Joyce Sian researcher in Graham. Leask
Speaker 4 00:27:42 Hello? Good to be. Haven't been here for several weeks. It's good to be here in a different capacity, not hosting, but talking to you, just having a brief conversation. Yeah. I'm going to have a chat about a little Christmas
Speaker 3 00:27:54 Christmas, and I know, uh, you asked me a couple weeks ago about the, do this conversation revolving around this time of year, the 12th night.
Speaker 4 00:28:02 Well, what's interesting is every year everybody's got a pet peeve. When you think of Christmas and we sing the song the 12 days of Christmas and Partridge in a pear tree and yada yada yada and every, and everybody around here, at least not everybody, but most people around here. I look in my back alley than South Minneapolis. And, uh, the day after Christmas, half the houses have put their Christmas tree outside and there's this beautiful Christmas tree sitting out by the garbage. And of course the whole point of Christmas is 12 days. And it goes through epiphany, which is the 6th of January. And, um, I had people to do whatever they want. Of course, who cares, but I don't know if it's the Christmas season and, um, for many centuries, 12th night is really important night in the Christmas calendar. It's the last night of Christmas, 12th night is when you have your party, uh, your last party, which is what we're going to talk about a little bit tonight with James.
Speaker 4 00:29:09 Joyce's wonderful short story, the dead, we're going to chat about that. And you're going to read some something from it, which will be fun to have you read it in your lovely voice. Um, but it, it was always a, you know, a smashing time of, uh, of the Christmas period when he take down the decorations and the actually turned out the lights on the tree, or of course back when the story happened, if there was a tree, um, you would, uh, take out the candles, unlike the candles, take all apart, you take Christmas apart on the last day of Christmas. And it used to be a thought that if you missed it, you were going to get the rest of the air is really rotten luck. You know, so ridiculous superstition, but at the same time, I don't know sticks with me because as a kid, I was always talking about, you're going to get bad luck this year. If you don't honor the 12th night of Christmas, which after all is epiphany. And that's when the baby Christ is born. And when the three wise men come to see him and, uh, the story by Joyce doesn't really deal so much with, with all of that deals with much more. I run organic and literary systems, but the story takes place on epiphany last over Christmas, and what the Irish in many English call, little Christmas, and I've heard it used here too little Christmas, the last night of Christmas, the 12th night,
Speaker 3 00:30:41 You know, and something, I didn't really realize just how relevant this really is, but the literal device that Joyce uses and double NERS and especially at the dead epiphany is a driving force for that. Absolutely. The short story of the dead expresses the paralysis of epiphany Joyce's character feels when Gabriel Conroy is standing, I guess has revelation about a past lover. His wife has its whole night. He's been lusting after her and realizes that this whole night she's been comparing him to this other individual who's been gone for a very long time.
Speaker 4 00:31:10 Well, what happens in the story is, is that they go to 12th night in all innocence in, um, a typical, um, sort of upper middle class 12th night party, which is a little boy I, I attended, um, before my, uh, insane parents, uh, imploded. And there was some of those kinds of things where people will really dress up for it. We a great, big, huge dinner, a great big board, you know, in several different joints to carve neat music singing and, um, dancing, if there was room and all sorts of things like that. It was literally the celebration of the end of Christmas, the celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus, and some kind of, uh, families were more religious than others. And, um, it is a Tiffany. And what happens in the story of the dead, which is one of my favorite short stories ever out of the thousands that I've read since getting interested in literature, the character of Gabriel has this epiphany that changes the position that he's in, in his life.
Speaker 4 00:32:19 And it, it, it, it doesn't happen to his, his wife Gretta that she begins to think about her lost love as it were a fellow called Michael Furey. Who's probably only about he's only about 17 and is sickly and comes to throw stones at her before she leaves for a convent. It's not going to be a nun, but she has a lot of our schools would do. She'd retire to a condom for certain period of time. And he catches his death of cold from that and dies. And, um, all the way through this story, Gabriel has been setting up who is being, being set up by the author. And I don't know that it's Gabriel is necessarily the, the, the Joyce, um, counterpart is maybe partly, but certainly in this jealousy at the end of the story, he was very jealous, man, Joyce, um, and indeed, uh, Nora barnacle, his wife was from, uh, the West of Ireland.
Speaker 4 00:33:22 And, um, that's certainly part of the story, but Joyce, wasn't really a Gabriel and he wa he wasn't tall and heavy like this. Like the character would go to he wasn't pompous and this character is quite pompous without even meaning to be. And he's very good natured, but he's also very class conscious, very, very pompous as he's called in the story. He's, he's kind of a West Britain he's sort of on the side of the, the English. And this is before this, um, a change in the country where they were the Irish, uh, at least the Southern counties are given independence by the British, or, um, in fact they forced independence from the British, but the epiphany part of this happens after she's heard a song by a very famous singer by the name of, uh, Darcy. And he thinks the partial part of a song, this boy, Michael Furey used to sing, and it, it just catches her.
Speaker 4 00:34:21 And it, it ruins a night epiphany for her too. She's got this middle-class life wonderful life really, and it catches her and you don't see what's inside. It's typical. Wonderful, absolutely brilliant show. Don't tell by Joyce, the craftsman, you don't see insider, unless she can tell you a little bit, which she does at the end of the story. And he, doesn't the character Gabriel, who has most of the story. He doesn't twig through what's going on with her, not at all. And he starts to look at her. She sees that she's beautiful. It's the end of the night. He's so happy to be her husband. And he starts feeling quite Amerson, uh, and it's quite carefully, beautifully written how he feels this surge of, uh, sexual desire for her. Um, and it all comes crashing down when he gets her back to the hotel and feels the, um, feels he needs to have an entrance into, you know, sort of beginning to make love to her and asks her what she's thinking. Big mistake. She tells him when he tells him the story of Michael theory, and that's the epiphany in the story. It turns his life upside down, and it probably grows him up if nothing else. But one of the things that the reason I said all that is you're going to read a passage. I think, from, from his speech and in it, you will see a tremendous foreshadowing of what I just mentioned.
Speaker 3 00:36:00 And from here, we'll segue to the reading. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, new generation has grown up in our midst, a generation actuated by new ideas and new principles. It is serious and enthusiastic for these new ideas and this enthusiasm, even when it is misdirected, it is, I believe in the main sincere, but we are living in a skeptical. And if I may use the phrase, a thought tormented age, and sometimes I fear that this new generation educated or hyper educated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humor, which belonged to an older day, listening tonight, the names of all those great singers of the past. It seemed to me, I must confess that we are living in a less spacious age though. D those days might without exaggeration be called spacious days. And they're gone beyond recall, let us hope.
Speaker 3 00:36:59 At least that a gathering such as this, we shall speak of them with pride and affection, still cherish in our hearts, the memory of those dead and gone great ones whose fame, the world will not willing to let die here, here, send Mr. Brown loudly, but yet continue to Gabriel his voice falling into a sober influxion. They're always in gatherings, such as this sad or thoughts that were occurring to our minds. Thoughts of the past of youth of changes of abs and faces that we miss here tonight, our path through life is strewn with many such sad memories and where we to brood upon them. Always, we cannot find the heart to Guam bravely with our work among the living. We have all of us living duties and living affections, which claim and rightly claim are strenuous endeavors. Therefore, I will not linger on the past.
Speaker 3 00:37:53 I will not let any gloomy moralizing intrude upon us here tonight. Here we are gathered together for a brief moment from the bustle and rush of our everyday routine. We are met here as friends in the spirit of good fellowship as colleagues also to a certain extent in the true spirit of camaraderie and as the guests of what I shall call them, the three graces of Dublin musical world, the table burst into applause and laughter at this illusion on Julia vainly asked each of her neighbors intern at Dell, her what Gabriel had said. He says, we have three graces on chili acid, Mary Jane, Angela didn't understand, but she looked up smiling, Gabrielle who continued in the same vein.
Speaker 4 00:38:34 See, that's, what's so interesting about that as you read it is that he, he he's walking right into this psychological buzz sore at the end of the story, because he's talking about the dead and talking about, we let's not look into the past and the cost, that's exactly what his wife ends up doing and what he is forced to do and is driven back into it. And the end of the last few lines of the story, which I'll read in my English Jackson, which I'm not going to try and do an RSX cause they, they always accuse me of sounding partly like Donnie hall and partly like Dublin. So I'm not even going to try it. But, um, the last part of the novel, the, um, short story, or it might be call it a novella is him reacting to what he's learned, what we talked about earlier and contrasts with what you've just read.
Speaker 4 00:39:29 There's no longer this, um, wonderful there's optimism, optimism, and the rest of it. A few light taps upon the pain made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow. Again, he watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark falling obliquely against the lamp light. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right. Snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain on the treeless Hills, the fallings and falling softly upon the bog of Allen and further westward softly falling into the dark mutinous Shalon. Why use it was falling too upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the Hill where Michael Furey lay buried it, lay sickly, drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones on the Spears of the little Kate on the, on the barren thorns, his soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling like the descent of their last end upon all the living and the dead. And that's a famous ending to the story, which, um, seems to, uh, abide for every literary person that wants to have anything to do with 12 night nor apifany. So that's how the whole thing connects.
Speaker 4 00:41:07 Yeah. Excuse me. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:41:11 I was kind of curious, when did you first encounter the dead at, what was your first moment, I guess, a literary, was this a literary epiphany for you to discover?
Speaker 4 00:41:20 Oh, absolutely. Yes. Uh, I think it, um, uh, real briefly, a lot of people listening would all older, the old generation, I suppose, would know who Chester Anderson was, uh, unfortunately deceased now, but he was, um, I studied under him at university of Minnesota when I was an undergraduate. And, uh, he was absolutely marvelous lecturer and he brought this story alive. It was a, it was a sort of one-year course in, in Joyce. And I took all of that and, uh, with him and the way that he brought forth, the concept of what little Christmas was, uh, was extraordinary and the way he read it, he could do it harsh accidents. He was a Midwesterner, a minister, the Sultan, and, uh, but he was in love with Ireland and he could do the accent very well. And he'd read the whole story to you as part of the class one whole class.
Speaker 4 00:42:16 Do you want me to read the whole thing takes, you know, a full class period and, um, to read, follow along, listen, and to be able to see all the nuances of what was taking place underneath the surface with Joyce across men, who much prefers to show you what's going on and tell you directly what's going on. Little things like in the beginning of the story, uh, Gabriel comes in, he's very, he's very well-dressed and there's a made that he, um, knew when she was a little girl holding a rag doll and he notices notices that she's grown up now, which gives you a little hint that he's, he's got an eye for, um, the feminine form. Should we say he notices her figure and how strong in life she is. And he says, I don't suppose it will be very long before I'm attending a wedding.
Speaker 4 00:43:10 And she turns over her shoulder and says, not basically, that's not likely all the, all the men want from you with something, what they can get out of you and nothing else. And it ruins his night. And, um, I had never thought about anything like that. And I never thought about having my night ruined by, um, a woman saying something honest like that. And you watch how this character is, is so sensitive. He's noticing everything. And, um, th this story, the dad is, was one of the first times when I really got hold of the concept of that depth, that an author confined, um, through using the fictional form, uh, to teach us things. It was, it was so eye-opening, and also the jealousy at the end of the, it comes in at the end of the book, the heartbreaking, um, head spinning sense of all the woman I love has once loved someone else.
Speaker 4 00:44:16 Um, I think all human beings are capable of that, but especially men and especially men who are a little naive, uh, it cause you to know that the woman that you love, Oh, the person that you love, um, has been intimate with somebody else. And he, he spinning at these companies turned around this character from a place of great generosity and love of the moment as you out of Eve, into lying in bed and thinking about going westward, which essentially means time for me to start going into the darkness time for me to enter the, the Valley of death. You know, it's, it's very morose at the end of this, which is not always what you'd expect from little Christmas, little Christmas, supposed to be fairly joyful time. So to answer your question, it completely moved me as, um, as a man and as a person studying literature. And later on, of course, as somebody who then taught literature and now as a publisher,
Speaker 3 00:45:25 This makes me kind of wonder then when you, in the past, in years past, you would do readings of the dead for different people around the season, around this time, what were their reactions to it? If they hadn't heard it before?
Speaker 4 00:45:37 That was interesting. I, I don't do it anymore, but, um, at my house we'd have a gathering of some of my students and, and, uh, uh, partly at the best there of Chester Anson, my old professor, one of my favorite professors, he kind of buys, example taught me how to teach one of the things he would always do, um, would to bring his students to his house. And, uh, you know, it was wonderful and, uh, everybody would come and they'd bring spout. Everybody was welcome. And all he had to do was bring something to drink and he'd supply the food. And it was fantastic. So I started to do that later on when, when I got older and got into a position of authority in that way and started to teach. And then many of my friends, some of them had been graduate students with me at the U and, uh, we all get together what everybody loved Joyce.
Speaker 4 00:46:30 And then we had a piano and my ex wife would play the bang out things on the piano. We do exactly what happened in the story, except for perhaps the highfalutin speeches and the fancy clothes. We're all students and or, or, you know, young teachers, young graduate student, graduate students. And the rest of it is that we didn't have any money, but, uh, but I would read, I would read the whole story, or most of it I'd read the relevant parts and often would read that passage that you just read, not as well as you did. Um, but I stopped doing it because nobody really cares about 12th night anymore. Epiphany thing is really dissipating and going away. And I noticed that rereading the story for our work tonight. Uh,
Speaker 3 00:47:27 Everything felt really different to me with a story. I really, a
Speaker 4 00:47:30 Hundreds of times, not hundreds, probably 50 times in my life. And it was still completely new reading it again. And especially the part about things fading that he has in the end of the speech and how it's important to try and keep things remembered as long as you can, because Chester Anderson is fading. He's gone, nobody remembers him and I will go and Oakland remember me and they'll be, remember the stories that, that I would tell or the soiree nights when I'd read that. And nobody would really know what remember those wonderful, you know, Weinfeld nights of laughter and teasing and all those kinds of things taking place. And, uh, the, the story to a great extent is there just to remind you of your mortality and that nothing really lasts and everything gets covered in snow. And that's the point of the snow falling on everything. So, yeah,
Speaker 3 00:48:23 I don't know why, but I was kind of the reason I asked you this. Cause I wonder as a culture at large, towards the end of year into the new year, we're always fixated on the future and rebirth and rejuvenation, I think is something we want to better ourselves. We don't want to dwell on the past. And I think epiphany is the whole purpose behind it is revelation of reflecting on something about yourself that maybe you don't want to deal with. And I think that's almost a, an anathema to everything that we're trying to do. So I think it's a good thing to remember.
Speaker 4 00:48:48 I agree. And it's always puzzled me that the stories are not more upbeat. I suspect that he probably wrote a version of it that was more upbeat and then decided being him. But Joyce, that, um, no, that's not good enough for a literary fellow like me and I'm going to make it miserable. Um, so I got to admit, we, I don't think most of us would agree. We prefer miserable stories, the uplifting ones, don't we? I mean, because they teach us more. Yeah. That was truthfully address for me to have this chance to sit down with you and talk, talk about this. And we don't get through the work that we do. They don't get a chance often to really dig into great literature. It was exhilarating to get back into it and to reread the story and to, uh, find a better word is discover the newness in it and to reread things that you love, reread things that you think you've read and you haven't stayed up with them.
Speaker 4 00:49:48 They change as you get older, you know, read that your favorite book that you say, Oh, that was my favorite. And he read it 10 years ago. Read it again. You won't remember any of it, you know, and I studied this thing up, the ying-yang and the Ulysses and several of these things. I reread them again and they're brand new, you know, I brain just cannot hold what I, what I sort of think it can hold if I stand away from old. Did you have you read, um, Dickens's Pickwick papers. Yeah. I read that. Now do a test on it. You'll get nothing. It's it's all gone. I read it again. And it's it's best. Remember the books that you loved, cause those are the ones to read again. Cause you loved when you read them. And that's a good reminder that there's probably still something there for you to try it again.
Speaker 0 00:50:40 I think on that note, it's a really good place to rest it off. The dead is very still alive. I think
Speaker 4 00:50:45 I hope so and good reading of the, uh, of the, uh, speech.
Speaker 0 00:50:50 Thank you. And now with this <inaudible> you were listening to right on radio on cafe 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Webber. I want to thank our guests tonight, Mindy grayling, plus our listeners who make this show possible without your support and donations cafe would not be possible. You can find more news and info about right on radio at cafe.org/program/right on radio. Plus listen to recent episodes on our recently launched podcast found on Spotify, iTunes, and anywhere podcasts can be found. Now stay tuned to <inaudible> Minnesota.
