Sue Parman

Thoughts on Niall Williams, "Four Letters of Love" 

A clever book beautifully written. Four letters: the letters written by Nicholas to Isabelle that never reach her; also "Love," four letters. In the Afterward the author says his book is like no other book in the Irish canon. If I were to identify the genre, I'd name it RoGodasy; the exploration of the meaning of God as a romantic fantasy. I usually stay away from literature whose plot points pivot on religious tenets, but I rather liked this God and am willing to grant Him capital letters and, lacking a satisfying generic pronoun ("Them" is too plural), masculine identity. I imagine Him in his roiling immensity perplexed by human stupidity as He offers the greatest of His gifts: passionate, unyielding, soul-scraping, totally consuming love: for art (Nicholas's father); for music (Isabelle's brother Sean); for poetry (Isabelle's father); for another person. Most of love goes wrong, partial, unfulfilled, misplaced in human life (Nicholas's father and mother, Isabelle's father and mother, Isabelle and her husband), and when we throw ourselves full-heartedly into it (Nicholas's father into his art, Sean into his music), we find ourselves on the precipice of the divine, far from human land; the joy, the immensity, the appearance of madness. So it is fitting that the most successful of human pairings (Nicholas with Isabelle) is the least described. We catch glimpses, but the light is too bright to see clearly. We are only told at the end that their love and union is inevitable, even though it breaks the presumably God-written rules of the sanctity of marriage. The Four Letters of Love reaches for the idea of an immensity that surpasses human understanding vs. the rules of an entrenched patriarchy; God vs. god.

Omri Boehm, Radical Universalism: Beyond Identity. Review in the NYTBR, January 25, 2026.  "…centrists…have been so enthralled by the concept of 'rights' that they have neglected the concept of 'duty.' Universalism, properly understood, doesn't just rest on some minimal understanding of the 'right' to act in your own 'interest,' In fact, he argues, universalism entails a duty that sometimes requires people to act against their interests." "Recognizing our duty to one another will be a hard sell in a world where we have been encouraged to think only about our own convenience and interests." "The result has been a culture that teaches us to worship force, despise compassion and nurture only 'our unappeasable appetite.'" Thus schools are afraid to teach in case they offend someone's interests, and DEI goes down in flames (when a white man successfully sues a medical school saying he was denied entry because of affirmative action, society neglects its duty to address the history of slavery). I'm surprised men aren't suing women to have every sperm in their body given access to women's bodies. Schools should be teaching facts, even if they offend; and they should be examining the moral consequences of certain actions as seen in the light of all humanity. Trump is a symptom, a consequence, of the utter neglect of duty.

I'm reading Adam Moss, The Work of Art.  The author Michael Cunningham in his college days was interested in both art and writing. In his art classes he became discouraged, not because he was less talented than his fellow students but because he was less interested. Others would draw a picture, find fault with it, and then start again, endlessly enthusiastic to go on ("Like they never got tired of trying to paint"). Cunningham discovered that same passion in writing ("And I started writing and realized that I felt that way about writing."). It's not so much talent, he said, as interest. "I don't know if I've ever in all these years lost that fundamental interest in the proposition: here's ink, paper, words in a dictionary." (p. 59)

Without interest, we don't do the work. Interest keeps us going, draws us into the labyrinth. These days I'm much more systematic about channeling my interest. I sit with my coffee in the early morning, notebook and favorite pen in hand, listening for the rustle of story ideas. It begins with thinking about something else (why I like a book I've just read, a line in a magazine, a scene, a picture, a place); then something catches my attention. I feel a quiver like a fly in a web. I write without trying to see it clearly; just writing, letting things fall on the page as I listen. Slowly a scene, a setting, a voice, an idea; something sets off in a direction. I follow, stop and let it rest, come back to it and find it stronger. I begin writing scenes, dialog, not hurrying it, not trying to make something of it; letting it grow. Then at a certain point I feel I can begin to write a story. I stop, begin somewhere else, let it rest, start again. Each time the shape becomes a little clearer. I don't start typing until it takes on solid form in a notebook. The notebooks are full of stops and starts. When I finally start typing, I sometimes go back to the notebooks for certain phrases or scenes, but mostly by this time the pages are just debris. The mulch from which the Golem comes.

An Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine blog that explores more ideas about the relevance of anthropology to mystery writing:   "The Anthropologist and the Mystery Writer: The Theory of Limited Good" (blog, EQMM), https://somethingisgoingtohappen.net/2024/09/26/the-anthropologist-and-the-mystery-writer-the-theory-of-limited-good-by-sue-parman/

"Gannets and Ghouls," a short story published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine in September/October 2024, uses gannet-hunting in the Faroe Islands and myths of dreygurs to explore the ties that bind.

A blog published by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine: "The Anthropologist and the Mystery Writer: The Structure of Secrets," https://somethingisgoingtohappen.net/2024/08/22/the-anthropologist-and-the-mystery-writer-the-structure-of-secrets-by-sue-parman/ describes the importance of secrets in maintaining the boundaries of a closely knit crofting community in the Scottish Outer Hebrides even when the secrets include murder.

I'm entering into the phase of life when it's easy to do too much of something (too much standing/walking/eating/sleeping), which triggers a problem, which has a solution (less standing/not too much walking/moderate eating/moderate sleeping) that has to be delicately calibrated. The end of life is like the narrowing of a ridge. I am a Ridge Walker negotiating an increasingly thinning edge.

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL

In August I disappear

so my birthday can't find me.

It will rub its nose in the scent of my years

and howl on my trail

but I've learned a few tricks.

I shoot out all the lights,

forcefeed the cat with cloves,

sneak garlic to the fanged canaries.

I eat all the cherries.

I erase my reflection in the mirror,

pound iron stakes into the dresser,

throw out the French lingerie.

And most of all I block my ears

against the birthday song, against all songs

that remind me that as I grow older, so do you.

You walk closer to the edge than I do.

I hadn't realized how steep the trail is,

how far up we've come.

The ledge narrows as I speak

and I hear the sound of drums.

I play to rearrange the furniture of my mind. My latest efforts to stir the pot: juxtapose art and words in "Daily Quote." 

While wandering through Umberto Eco's book on Ugliness I came across his reference to the "Hisperic Aesthetic."  How did I never hear about this before?  It explains so much—from James Joyce to British linguistic snobbery.  And how ironic:  "Hisperic" (medieval Latin variety of Hespericus, western/Latin or urbane, also possible wordplay on Hibernia and Hesperides from which we get Hebrides) implies opposites of central and outlier, center and margin.  The Book of Kells:  word play and visual play.  To be Celtic, nonclassical and irregularly knotted.  Leave the Romans to their sunlit symmetry.  English was born in a swamp.  Metaphors be with you.

After being told "You can't get there from here," I made my way by bread van and human kindness from the island of Lewis and Harris in the Scottish Outer Hebrides to the island of Berneray, a tale just declared the Grand Prize winner and gold award in Travelers' Tales Eighteenth Annual Solas Awards. Thanks to my friends and family, here and in Scotland, and to Travelers' Tales for their celebration of travel, which to me is the best form of education available in this complex world.

https://travelerstales.com/you-cant-get-there-from-here/

Sir Ravenmore hopped into my consciousness a few days ago and has been colonizing my thoughts. I'm waiting to see what he does next.