Wanna Hear a Quote?

I’ve always liked to read, of course. That’s a given, by my pedigree. But I’ve never survived off of literature like this year. If we’re brazen enough to count guidebooks and Hardy Boy books the total’s 25, but here are the 20 main reads this year, chronologically.

On the Road
Frankenstein
Lajos M., Aged 42 (The only Hungarian book I read…)
The Human Story (A rather traditional history of the world)
War and Peace
Dracula
Khrushchev Remembers (autobiography)
Prodigal Summer (Kingsolver)
Waldheim and Austria (A boring Austrian prime minister/UN secretary general)
(General) Lee after the War
Cat’s Cradle (Vonnegut)
Population: 485 (Perry’s Northwoods Wisconsin Volunteer Firefighter Stories)
The Quiet American (Greene's Diplomatic intrigue in early Vietnam)
The Affair of Gabrielle Russier (boring story of a lambasted French teacher)
Under the Tuscan Sun (Italian travel/renovation journal)
Slaughterhouse Five (Vonnegut)
The Poisonwood Bible (Kingsolver)
Bless the Beasts and Children (Swarthout)
This Side of Paradise (Fitzgerald)
Gorbachev (1986 biography)

A range from classic non-fiction to completely random books pulled off of the one shelf of English books in the school. A pretty heavy international flavor, many inspired by traveling. Best Five? War and Peace. Frankenstein. Poisonwood. Paradise. Slaughterhouse.

And of course I wrote enough to fill two more books.

The whole way through Transylvania in the fall, I would turn to Liz and offer my treasured brown journal like a bible of sorts. "Hey, Liz, wanna hear a quote?" I would ask, to the inevitable no. But I think it's worth sharing them, because these are the words from those pages that resonated with me, more than any others. As if some of the very thoughts and feelings I harbored, here in my own little world, were transposed onto that page. So I lifted them. Scribbled them in the leather book of all things important. The thoughts I thought, as told by others this past year:

"…a traveler’s life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyment. His feelings are forever on the stretch; and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties." Dr. Frankenstein

"And I don’t have any other complaints, either. I don’t complain about nothing. ‘Cause at least I’m home." – Lajos M., former Soviet P.O.W.

"His despair was all the more bitter because he felt that his own weakness was the cause of his own unhappiness." Count Rostov, War and Peace

"But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one; men know him not – and to know not is to care not for." Dracula’s Jonathan Harker

"If there were anyone to talk to I could bear it, but there is no one…I fear I am myself the only living soul within the place." Dracula’s Jonathan Harker

"Americans…are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places in can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier." Cat’s Cradle.

"When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed." Cat’s Cradle

"Every great man is a plain, average man before he takes the step which makes him great." Khrushchev Remembers.

"Motion wed itself to freedom, and from that day forward, I incubated a stray-dog jones for the road. It is a quasi-religious thing, in which the pilgrimage is religion, and movement is that purest form of worship…To this day, my two favorite things in the world are solitude and motion. I’ve found them in the next county, in a semi crossing the Nevada state line, on a Hungarian train, and on a bus approaching the Guatemalan border." Michael Perry, Population: 485.

"Most trips have an underlying quest. We’re looking for something. What? Fun, escape, adventure – but then what?" Under the Tuscan Sun.

"If the first handful of dough is consecrated, the whole mass is, and if the root of a tree is consecrated, so are its branches. If some of the branches have broken off, and you who were only a wild olive shoot have been grafted in, and made to share the richness of the olive’s root, you must not look down upon the branches. Remember that you do not support the root; the root supports you" (302). Romans, Chapter 10, courtesy of Kingsolver, Poisonwood Bible.

But even more than any of those quotes, one phrase has permeated my thought process, and these web pages, at an almost alarming rate. Vonnegut. Slaughterhouse Five.

So it goes.

By unofficial count, I’ve peppered these (web) pages with that little seasoning of a phrase more than a dozen times over the last two months. It’s a phrase that sounds nice when you’re telling a story, sure, but what does it mean that it has come to litter my stories so regularly? It says a little something about a stay in Hungary.

You can call it destiny or you can call it randomness, but there’s no good reason why I wound up in Heves, of all the places in this world. There are a couple reasons for Hungary, of course. It’s not as scary as some parts of the world, but more interesting than others. I visited once and liked it, and I have a Hungarian friend. The program was easy to find and join, and Mary Rose is from Fond du Lac.
But Heves? Absolutely no reason I’m here and Chad, for example, is in Szolnok. No reason to pick Heves over Sarkard, straight out of a brainless hat. For better or worse , I wound up here, in this particular spot. I didn’t really control it. It doesn’t seem like any one did.

Jeremy. Heves. So it goes.

There are lots of funny phenomenon anytime you live somewhere else as a foreigner, especially when you’re an American living in Hungary. Blatant tonguing at train stations. DJs in the school lobby. Cow intestines in a pot that people eat from. Sometimes it's best not to understand. Just shake your head, put a silly grin on your face and go "Huh, this is like a foreign country or something."

Hungary's unique. You're not in control. You can't change it. So it goes.

And when all the uniqueness catches up with you, and you realize that you have no idea what your role in all this madness is, or how to get back to a situation where you're in control, one of the best strategies seems to be just standing there. Understanding that you don’t understand everything is especially easy in a foreign country. The world is happening, even if you just stand motionless. What to do when pulled over in Bosnia? Just stand there. It's called "negotiating." What to do if an entire class is missing from their classroom? Just stand there. It's called "wondering." What to do if you can't figure out the different cuts of meat? Just stand there. It's called "selecting." Wait and see.

If you just stand there, something good will happen. So it goes.

But at the same time, if you hang out with Hungarians long enough, you'll be depressed into a mindset of predetermination. Born in Heves? Well, shit you're gonna be staying there because it's obviously impossible to do anything to improve you standing in life -- even if you have two masters degrees like Peter -- other than making your fence look nicer. There's an inherent, and unfortunate, inability to change the immediateness of your surroundings, short of escaping, in the (stereotypical) Hungarian mindset.

That's why they kill themselves, I guess. So it goes.

Destiny. Randomness. Acceptance of non-understanding. Willingness to flow with the way of the world. Okay-edness with your lot in life.

So it goes.