Antonio Machado: Border of a Dream

I feel conflicted about these poems, though not about this poet.  On the surface, they are the sort of poems that one reads, enjoys, and forgets.  They are largely snapshots, vivid descriptions of isolated scenes, presumably filed with the sympathy of the poet, but that sympathy is largely left presumed.  Taken as a whole, they give the impression of a sonnet without a turn, a haiku without a final line.  The poet is staring, devoted at the landscape of his memory, relating it in crisp detail to the reader, but speaking over his shoulder at us.  He nevers turns to look us in the eye and slap us with the final quatrain, the stinging glare that leaves a mark.  It is a testament and a rebuke that he is still known as "Antonio el Bueno", for his poems are "good", a word that is appropriately general and delible.

Which is slightly puzzling, considering his devotion to literature and philosophy for which one would never feel the word "good" was appropriate.  In particular, Machado's reverence for Miguel de Unamuno would lead one to expect a certain depth in his work.  Clearly the poet did not shy away from--and was in fact obsessed with--major philisophical questions. So where is this probing intellect in his work?  What is he staring at for so long? What is it that he sees, which is so engrossing he barely notices our presence behind him?

This is the question that burns under Machado's verses, and it is this that he ultimately succeeds in conveying.  It is not the clever answer to the question, the startling insight, that remains with us after reading, as it does with some other poets.  It is the lack of an answer, the fact that the poet himself does not know what exactly has transfixed him, nor why.  We tap on the shoulder of his poems to ask, but he does not acknowledge our presence there, let alone answer.  In the face of such a response, the reader has no choice but to calm his heart, stand next to the poet, and stare with him.

Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers

There's a reason I don't read more of these books, and a reson I should read more of these books, and as with most things they are the same reason. 

It's so easy to think these things.  It's so easy to read a book like this, or any of its popsociopsychology ilk, to polish it off in a day or two and get a rush of accomplishment, and to form some thoughts about it--pro or con.  In this particular case, it was exceptionally easy also to meet with the book club that had chosen it and talk freely about the ideas.  So easy.

By the same token, its easy to forget, after reading the book and in the glow of completion, that there's really not much to it.  It's easy to congraulate ourselves as readers as much as Gladwell congratulates himself on his existence, for being studious, awake, and probing.  But within hours, the aure of sophistication has worn off, and the illusion of thought has evaporated. 

This book was so easy.  Easy to read, easy to agree with, and ultimately, easy to forget.