twist of fate

Road not taken.
Twist of fate.

How do we get to things? What are the things we would have missed, if we had made a different choice? Made an argument instead of giving in? Or vice versa?

Several days ago, typing a blog post, wrote about Robert Penn Warren's novel, "All The King's Men." Then remembered how I came to read it -- and almost didn't. Junior year, high school. My class of 18, in English, each student was required to pick a book from a list, read it, and take a test on it. Each student had to have a different book -- no two or more could have the same book.

Well I thought, think everyone thought, books were all signed-up-for and spoken-for, one each per person in the class. I selected, and read, "The Winter Of Our Discontent," finishing four or five days before the tests were to be taken. Somehow it was discovered that another girl -- Classmate T -- had the same book.

Not good.

She immediately -- and effectively -- lobbied me to pick a different one and read that & take test because, she said, "I don't like to read, and my mom read "The Winter of our Discontent" for me, because she does like to read, and she's going to tell me what it's about before the test. But she's never going to have time to read another book and explain it to me by Friday!"
!
Untroubled by ethics, Classmate T was just -- Making Arrangements.

What did I do? Did I protest? Did I refuse? Did I say, You should read the book yourself instead of your mom? No no no.
I picked another book and read it by Friday & took the test on that one instead of on "Winter."
And the alternative book I selected at the last minute was -- "All The King's Men," the best book I ever read.

(Almost hate to say one book is the Best One, because so many books [or movies or music or whatever] are good for different reasons, but -- "What's the best novel you ever read?" / gun-to-my-head, I'd pick "All The King's...")

And -- ironic. Had I not been "forced" (Classmate T was extremely "forceful" -- after all, she was a cheerleader!) to pick another novel in the home stretch before the test, I might never have experienced that book at all. Today it might be one of the classics I say I'll "get to, sometime."

And my life would be different. And not better.

There's a school of thought which says I should have "stood up for myself" in that situation. But I didn't. Classmate T had more social clout than I had.
When I think about it, however, if a student who had less social clout than me had come to me with same problem, I'd have done the same thing. Out of empathy, to be nice, and because it was possible, and not that difficult, for me to -- "read-another-book-before-Friday."

What do we learn from this?
Never stand up for yourself, that way you will experience some of the richest cultural offerings. - ?

Always stand up for yourself, thereby avoiding overexposure to great literature. - ?

I think it's "Pick your battles." Or, Discussions.

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[excerpt from the book -- in Chapter 1]
(("Willie" is the politician starting out who doesn't have power yet, but will later be governor.))
> > > So I was sitting in the back room of Slade's place, one hot morning in June or July, back in 1922, waiting for Alex Michel to turn up and listening to the silence in the back room of Slade's place. ...
Willie sat down and laid his gray felt hat on the marble top in front of him. The edges of the brim crinkled and waved up all around off the marble like a piecrust before grandma trims it. Willie just sat there behind his hat and his blue-striped Christmas tie and waited, with his hands laid in his lap.

Slade came in from the front, and said, "Beer?"
"All around," Mr. Duffy ordered.
"Not for me, thank you kindly," Willie said.
"All around," Mr. Duffy ordered again, with a wave of the hand that had the diamond ring.
"Not for me, thank you kindly," Willie said.

Mr. Duffy, with some surprise and no trace of pleasure, turned his gaze upon Willie, who seemed unaware of the significance of the event, sitting upright in his little chair behind the hat and the tie. Then Mr. Duffy looked up at Slade, and jerking his head toward Willie, said, "Aw, give him some beer."
"No, thanks," Willie said, with no more emotion than you would put into the multiplication table.
"Too strong for you?" Mr. Duffy demanded.
"No," Willie replied, "but no thank you."

"Maybe the school-teacher don't let him drink nuthen," Alex offered.
"Lucy don't favor drinking," Willie said quietly. "For a fact."
"What she don't know don't hurt her," Mr. Duffy said.
"Git him some beer," Alex said to Slade.
"All around," Mr. Duffy repeated, with the air of closing an issue.

Slade looked at Alex and he looked at Mr. Duffy and he looked at Willie. He flicked his towel halfheartedly in the direction of a cruising fly, and said: "I sells beer to them as wants it. I ain't making nobody drink it."

Perhaps that was the moment when Slade made his fortune.

[All The King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren.

Copyright 1946. Harcourt, Inc. Orlando Austin New York

San Diego Toronto London]

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