Disappointment

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 65 of 189 · 20 per page

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  After the first street riot, or its after math, one witnessed in Paris, one took a new attitude toward the Paris paving stones, and toward the cafe tables and chairs, and toward the Parisians, indeed, who showed no signs, at such moments, of being among the earth's most cerebral or civilized peopl e. Paris hotels had never heard of central heat ing or hot baths or showers or clean towels and sheets or ham and eggs; their attitude toward electricity was demonic-once one had seen what they thought of as wiring one wondered why the city had not, long ago, vanished in flame; and it soon became clear that Paris hospitals had never heard of Pasteur. Once, in short, one found oneself divested of all the things that one had fled from, one wondered how people, meaning, above all, oneself , could possibly do without them. And yet one did, of course, and in the beginning, and spo radically, thereafter, found these privations a subject for mirth. One soon ceased expecting to be warm in one's hotel room, and read and worked in the cafes. The French, at least insof ar as student hotels are concerned, do not appear to understand the idea of a social visit. They expect one's callers to be vastly more intimate, if not utilitarian, than that, and much prefer that they register and spend the night. This aspect of Parisian lif e would seem vastly to simplify matters, but this, alas, is not the case. It merely makes it all but impossible to invite anyone to your hotel room. Americans do not cease to be Puritans when they have crossed the ocean; French girls, on the other hand, contrary to legend, tend, preponderantly, to be the marrying kind; thus, it was not long before we brave voyagers rather felt that we had been turned loose in a fair in which there was not a damn thing we could buy, and still less that we could sell. And I think that when we began to be frightened in Paris, to feel baffled and betrayed, it was because we had failed, after all, somehow, and once again, to make the longed-for, mag ical human contact. It was on this connection with another human being that we had felt that our lives and our work depended. It had failed at home. We had thought we knew 666 OTH ER ES SAYS why. Everyone at home was too dry and too frightened, mer cilessly pinned beneath the thumb of the Puritan God. Yet, here we were, surrounded by quite beautiful and sensual peo ple, who did not, however, appear to find us beautiful or sen sual.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  Now, I talked to many Southern liberals who were doing their best to bring integration about in the South, but met scarcely a single 208 NOBODY KN OWS MY NAME Southerner who did not weep for the passing of the old order. They were perfectly sincere, too, and, within their limits, they were right. They pointed out how Negroes and whites in the South had loved each other, they recounted to me tales of devotion and heroism which the old order had produced, and which, now, would never come again. But the old black men I looked at down there-those same black men that the Southern liberal had loved; for whom, until now, the South ern lib eral-and not only the libe ral-has been willing to undergo great inconvenience and danger-they were not weeping. Men do not like to be protected, it emasculates them. This is what black men know, it is the reality they have lived with; it is what white men do not want to know. It is not a pretty thing to be a father and be ulti mately dependent on the power and kindness of some other man for the well being of your house. But what this evasion of the Negro's humanity has done to the nation is not so well known. The really striking thing, for me, in the South was this dreadful paradox, that the black men were stronger than the white. I do not know how they did it, but it certainly has something to do with that as yet unwritten history of the Negro woman. What it comes to, finally, is that the nation has spent a large part of its time and energy looking away from one of the principal facts of its lif e. This failure to look reality in the face diminishes a nation as it diminishes a person, and it can only be described as un manly. And in exactly the same way that the South imagines that it "knows" the Negro, the North imagines that it has set him free. Both camps arc deluded. Human freedom is a com plex, difficult-and private- thing. If we can liken lif e, for a moment, to a furnace, then freedom is the fire which burns away illusion. Any honest examination of the national lif e proves how far we arc from the standard of human freedom with which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achievements must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person. If we arc not capable of this examination, we may yet become one of the most distin guished and monumental fail ures in the history of nations. 7.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  But, "In revenge I vowed to make the Arab revolt the engine of its own success, as well as hand-maid to our Egyp tian campaign: and vowed to lead it so madly in the final victory that expediency should counsel to the Powers a fair settlement of the Arabs' moral claims.") The film begins with a long, overhead shot of a motorcycle in a sunlit square. A khaki-clad man appears and begins fool ing around with the motorcycle: walks off, comes back. A closer shot reveals that he is trying to get the motorcycle started. He starts it, gets on it, and we ride with him through the English countryside, on a sunny day. For those who know that Lawrence died in a motorcycle accident, the film is be ginning at the end of Lawrence's life: later on, we may ask ourselves why. The motorcycle goes off the road, crashes. We are then present at Lawrence's funeral, a very impressive one, treated to vehemently conflicting views of him-emanating fr om the military-and the film begins. Since the Empire must be kept in the background-and yet, always be present, hence the overwhelming music-the great burden of this film is on the shoulders of Lawrence, played CHAPTER TWO 539 by Peter O'Toole. But the star of the film is the desert: the vast, technicolored backdrop of the desert meant to invest with splendor a stammering tale. For, this overwhelming desert, though it exists geographi cally, and was actually filmed by an actual camera crew, sent there for that purpose, is put to a use which is as far fr om reality as are most of the people we encounter in it. The least real of these people is Lawrence himself. This is not O'Toole's fault: but so grave an adventure can scarcely be ascribed to the vagaries and idealism of a single man. Lawrence's courage and steadfastness are given as admirable, because hard-won here, the film, unconsciously, rather patronizes Lawrence; his complexities are barely-or, rather, perhaps, endlessly-hinted at, that is to say never illuminated. His rapport with the Arabs is of great use to the British, whose attitude toward him, otherwise, is, at best, ambivalent. The film takes the view that he was a valiant, maverick, nai\'e and headstrong, brutally broken in battle, and betrayed, less by his country than by his inability to confront-as do his superiors-the hard facts of life: the hard facts of life, in this case, referring, principally, to the limits and exigencies of power. And it would appear to be true that Lawrence's concept of power existed almost entirely on a messianic level-indeed, on a level far more complex and painful than that-but it is almost impos sible to pursue this speculation within the confines described by the film.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  And yet-he was leaning against the ref rigerator, rather as though he had his back to the wall, ready to take on all comers. Norman has a trick, at least with me, of watching, some what ironically, as you stand on the edge of the crowd around him, waiting for his attention. I suppose this ought to be ex asperating, but in fact I find it rather endearing, because it is so transparent and because he gets such a bang out of being the center of attention. So do I, of course, at least some of the time. We talked, bantered, a little tensely, made the usual, doomed effort to bring each other up to date on what we had been doing. I did not want to talk about my novel, which was only just beginning to seem to take shape, and, therefore, did not dare ask him if he were working on a novel. He seemed very pleased to see me, and I was pleased to see him, but I also had the feeling that he had made up his mind about me, adversely, in some way. It was as though he were saying, Okay, so now I know who you are, baby. I was taking a boat in a few days, and I asked him to call me. "Oh, no," he said, grinning, and thrusting that forefinger at me, "you call me." "That's fair enough," I said, and I left the party and went on back to Paris. While I was out of the count ry, Norman published Advertisements for Myself, which presently crossed THE BL ACK BOY LO OK S AT THE WH ITE BOY 281 the ocean to the apartment of James Jones. Bill Styron was also in Paris at that time, and one evening the three of us sat in Jim's living room, reading aloud, in a kind of drunken, masochistic fascination, Norman's judgment of our personal ities and our work. Actual ly, I came off best, I suppose; there was less about me, and it was less venomous. But the con descension infur iated me; also, to tell the truth, my feelings were hurt . I felt that if that was the way Norman felt about me, he should have told me so. He had said that I was inca pable of sayi ng "F-- you" to the reader. My first temptation was to send him a cablegram which would disabuse him of that notion, at least insofar as one reader was concerned. But then I thought, No, I would be cool about it, and fail to react as he so clearly wanted me to. Also, I must say, his judgment of myself seemed so wide of the mark and so childish that it was hard to stay angry.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  June 15, 1925: Odd—though perfectly natural—how going away disconnects one from life. Everything has gone on at such a pace. Sandy painting his pictures, & clearly more or less living with the effusive Otto—and this puts me in a strange position. The paintings themselves I do not understand, & have been thinking about over this week, when I’ve seen him often. Their colours are unnatural, & their subjects are peculiarly distorted; but above all they are large. It is not a largeness I can claim to like, or even believe in. Their largeness is the largeness of Sandy’s own gestures, of his drinking, of his fantastical filthy talk—it is not the largeness of large pictures. He has an extraordinary study of Otto, naked to the waist, seen from somewhere right down on the ground, so that he towers up above, his chin turned heroically, all the features exaggerated almost into brutality. It’s larger than life-size. It’s ridiculous, I can’t help myself feeling. But I know that that might be because Otto is himself ridiculous. S. is so absorbed in him, so greedily goes on about him, that I feel his thoughts are not really with me any more. His manner is wilder than ever, but beneath it all there is restraint & even boredom between us. About Africa, about everything that has happened to me, he shows no curiosity. I fear he even finds me a dull dog. June 18, 1925: On Friday I had a meeting with Sir Arthur Cavill—early evening at the Reform, whisky-and-soda, talk about nothing in particular. He appeared almost embarrassed to touch on the purely routine matters we were supposed to discuss. I liked him—austere, detached at first, fastidiously bachelorly—& was not surprised when keen feelings flashed under the surface of his conversation. At the end, after many formalities, he talked briefly about Meroe, & the first time he had seen the pyramids there. It was as if both of us, lightly warmed with drink, suddenly felt our spirits freed. For a moment we were very far away from Pall Mall, & though little was said we shared an exalted almost tender glance. June 23, 1925: Last night a bizarre encounter. I was at Sandy’s studio in the afternoon when without a word he & Otto tore off their clothes & clambered on to the roof. I sat around reading about Lawrence of Arabia and Queen Marie of Rumania in the Times Literary Supplement until I had mustered the insouciance to join them. They are brown as what—Corsicans?—all over, but of course I need not have felt ashamed. Otto seemed to respect me more when he saw how sunburned I was. ‘We must go to the Tropics,’ he said to Sandy, ‘and run around like the darkies.’

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  Children can survive without money or security or safety or things: but they are lost if they cannot find a loving example, for only this example can give them a touchstone for their lives. Thus far and no further: this is what the father must say to the child. If the child is not told where the limits are, he will spend the rest of his lif e trying to discover them. For the child who is not told where the limits are knows, though he may not know he knows it, that no one cares enough about him to prepare him for his journey. This, I think, has something to do with the phenomenon, unprecedented in the world, of the ageless American boy; it has something to do with our desperate adulation of simplicity and youth-how bitterly betrayed one must have been in one's youth to suppose that it is a virtue to remain simple or to remain young!- and it also helps to explicate, to my mind at least, some of the stunning purposes to which Americans have put the imprecise science of psychi atry. I have known people in genuine trouble, who somehow managed to live with their trouble; and I cannot but compare these people ex-jun kies and jail - birds, sons of German Nazis, sons of Span ish generals, sons of Southern racists, blues singers and black matrons-with that fluid horde, in my professional and quasi professional contacts, whose only real trouble is inertia, who work at the most disgraceful jobs in order to pay, for the luxury of someone else's attention, twenty-f ive dollars an hour. To my black and toughened, Puritan conscience, it seems an absolute scandal; and, again, this peculiar self indulgence certainly has a dreadful effect on their children, whom they are quite unable to raise. And they cannot raise them because they have opted for the one commodity which is absolutely beyond human reach: safety.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  How I got myself out of this fix doesn't concern us here-1 simply walked out, taking my original script with me-but the adventure remained very painfully in my mind, and, indeed, was to shed a certain light for me on the adventure occurring through the American looking-glass. Lady Sings the Blues is related to the black American expe rience in about the same way, and to the same extent that Princess Grace Kelly is related to the Irish potato famine: by courtesy. The film pretends to be based on Billie Holi day's autobiography, and, indeed, Billie's book may make a very fine film one day: a day, however, which I no longer expect to live long enough to see. The film that has been made is 554 THE DE VIL FIND S WO RK impeccably put together, with an irreproachable professional polish, and has one or two nice moments. It has absolutely nothing to do with Billie, or with jazz, or any other kind of music, or the risks of an artist, or American lif e, or black lif e, or narcotics, or the narcotics laws, or clubs, or managers, or policemen, or despair, or love. The script is as empty as a banana peel, and as treacherous. It is scarcely possible to think of a black American actor who has not been misused: not one has ever been seriously challenged to deliver the best that is in him. The most pow erful examples of this cowardice and waste arc the careers of Paul Robeson and Ethel Waters. If they had ever been allowed really to hit their stride, they might immeasurably have raised the lc\·el of cinema and theater in this country. Their effect would have been, at least, to challenge the stultifyingly pre dictable tics of such overrated figures as Miss Helen Hayes, for example, and lif e, as one performer can sometimes elicit it from another, might more frequently have illumin ated our stage and screen. It is pointless, however, to pursue this, and personally painful: Mr. Robeson is declining, in obscurity, and Miss Waters is singing in Billy Graham's choir. They might have been treated with more respect by the country to which they gave so much. But, then, we had to send telegrams to the Mayor of New York City, asking him to call off the cops who surrounded Billie's bedside-looking for heroin in her icc cream-and let the Lady die in peace. What the black actor has managed to give arc moments indelible moments, created, miraculously, beyond the confines of the script: hints of reality, smuggled like contraband into a maudlin tale, and with enough force, if unleashed, to shatter the talc to fragments. The f.1cc of Ginger Rogers, for example, in Tales of Manhatta n, is something to be placed in a dish, and eaten with a spoon-possibly a long one.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  It is a question we are inclined to dismiss with jeers: that old stum But the question has not been answered and the failure is significant. These novels have in common a subterranean assumption, unspoken by the emancipated, but living in our culture and apparently shared by the novelis ts themselves: the assumption that whiteness is a kind of salvation and that blackness is a kind of death. Beneath this assumption, like the dark, fantastic sub- plots on which these books rely, are the centuries of fear and desire and hatred and shame that are pecul iarly the prov ince of the Puritan Anglo-Saxon and which have made the oppression of black by white a more complicated reality than these novels indicate. The exploration of this reality may yet produce a very powerful literature; we are, in the meantime, confronted with a phenomenon not even remotely literary, which is only one more aspect of an enduring inability to face the truth. Commmtary, April 19+8 Lockridge: (The American Myth) I. THE BOOK AS SYM PTOM IN his lifetime Ross Lockridge, Jr., came across a great many words and in Raintree County he has set down every one of them. It fi>ll ows from this that his reading was prodigious: apparently almost every vol ume of American history ever pub lished and most of the best (and much of the mediocre) writing of past epochs and our own: Shakespeare, Donne, Wolf e, Whitman, Joyce, Dos Passos. He heard-and remem bered-almost every folk song, ballad and doggerel verse which can be called American; he accepted, with a really re markable zest, all of the best American sentiments and prac tically listed all of the old, familiar aims and concepts. His book is as American, as banal and brave and cheerful as The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which, in fact, it resembles to an appalling degree; and, since Raintree County is not nearly so concise it is a good deal more difficult to get through without gagging. Mr. Lockridge, then, is concerned with America. The jacket states reverently that he has attempted no less than a complete embodiment of the American Myth : an heroic undertaking indeed! His people are as invincibly American as the Fourth of July and it takes them 1066 pages to celebrate; everything that happens to them takes place in a fragrant, booming be nevolent confusion called the Republic. The Hero is John WycklitT Shawnessy, who is something of a cross between Lin col n, Mickey Rooney, Van Johnson and Shakespeare, with much in his makeup of the Sht'opshire Lad; though he does not, of course, ever allow himself such suicidal excesses of gloom. He and the book have moments that are genuine enough; perhaps the book's best moments are those con cerned with Johnny's childhood. In spite of the fact that Mr.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  Nor can I claim that reading Madeleine has caused me to re-evaluate his fiction (though I care more now for 1he Immoralist than I did when I read it several years ago); it has only made me feel that such a re-evaluation must be made. For, whatever Gide's shortcomings may have been, few writers of our time can equal his devotion to a very high ideal. It seems to me now that the two things which contributed most heavily to my dislike ofGide-or, rather, to the discom fort he caused me to feel-were his Protestantism and his ho mosexuality. It was clear to me that he had not got over his Protestantism and that he had not come to terms with his nature. (For I believed at one time-rather oddly, considering the examples by which I was surrounded, to say nothing of the spectacle I myself presented-that people did "get over" their earliest impressions and that "coming to terms" with oneself simply demanded a slightly more protracted stiffening of the will.) It was his Protestantism, I felt, which made him so pious, which invested all of his work with the air of an endless winter, and which made it so difficult for me to care what happened to any of his people. And his homosexuality, I felt, was his own affair which he ought to have kept hidden fr om us, or, if he needed to be so explicit, he ought at least to have managed to be a little more scientific-whatever, in the domain of morals, that word may mean-less illogical, less romantic. He ought to have leaned less heavily on the examples of dead, great men, of vanished cultures, and he ought certainly to have known that the 231 2 3 2 NOBODY KNOWS MY NAME examples provided by natural history do not go far toward illuminating the physical, psychological and moral complexi ties fa ced by men. If he were going to talk about homosex uality at all, he ought, in a word, to have sounded a little less disturbed. This is not the place and I am certainly not the man to assess the work of Andre Gide. Moreover, I confess that a great deal of what I fe lt concerning his work I still feel. And that argument, fo r example, as to whether or not homosex uality is natural seems to me completely pointless-pointless because I really do not see what difference the answer makes. It seems clear, in any case, at least in the world we know, that no matter what encyclopedias of physiological and scientific knowledge are brought to bear the answer never can be Yes.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  This, notwithstanding that the avowed aim of the American protest novel is to bring greater freedom to the oppressed. They are forgiven, on the strength of these good intentions, whatever violence they do to language, whatever excessive de mands they make of credibility. It is, indeed, considered the sign of a fr ivolity so intense as to approach decadence to sug gest that these books are both badly written and wildly im probable. One is told to put first things first, the good of society coming before niceties of style or characterization. Even if this were incontestable-for what exactly is the "good" of society?-it argues an insuperable confusion, since literature and sociology are not one and the same; it is im possible to discuss them as if they were. Our passion for categorization, life neatly fitted into pegs, has led to an unforeseen, paradoxical distress; confusion, a breakdown of meaning. Those categories which were meant to define and control the world for us have boomeranged us into chaos; in which limbo we whirl, clutching the straws of our definitions. The "protest" novel, so far fr om being disturbing, is an ac cepted and comforting aspect of the American scene, ramit)r ing that framework we believe to be so necessary. Whatever unsettling questions are raised are evanescent, titillating; re mote, for this has nothing to do with us, it is safely ensconced in the social arena, where, indeed, it has nothing to do with anyone, so that finally we receive a very definite thrill of virtue fr om the fact that we are reading such a book at all. T his report from the pit reassures us of its reality and its darkn ess and of our own salvation; and "As long as such books arc 16 NOTES OF A NATIVE SON being published," an American liberal once said to me, "everything will be all right." But unless one's ideal of society is a race of neatly analyzed, hard-\\"orking ciphers, one can hardly claim for the protest novels the lofty purpose they claim for themselves or share the present optimism concerning them. They emerge for what they arc: a mirror of our confusion, dishonesty, panic, trapped and immobilized in the sunlit prison of the American dream. They arc fantasies, connecting nowhere with reality, senti mental; in exactly the same sense that such movies as The Best Ycm-s of Our Lives or the works of Mr. James M. Cain arc fantasies. Beneath the dazzling pyrotechnics of these current operas one may still discern, as the controlling force, the in tense theological preoccupations of Mrs.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I walked to the far end of the room, where the washbasins were, and looking in the mirror above them, commanded a view back along the whole enfilade of urinals and cabins to the door. I would only allow a minute or so for the Arab boy, if he hadn’t come by then I would go, perhaps follow him to wherever he had gone, if he was still in sight. I affected to look at myself in the mirror, ran a hand over my short fair hair, did catch myself looking terribly excited, a gash of pink along my cheekbones, my mouth tense. There were footsteps on the stairs outside, but slow and heavy, and accompanied by short-winded singing, wordless and baritonal. Clearly not my boy. Disappointment was mixed, I realised, with a kind of relief, and I ran my hands unconsciously under the taps, switching quickly between the cold and the very hot hot. An elderly man had appeared behind me and, still tootling away in a manner that suggested all was right with the world, advanced to the urinals where he stood leaning forward, propping himself with a hand that grasped the copper pipe in front of him, and smiling sociably to the disgruntled looking fellow on his right. I turned round in search of the towel, and as I yanked it down and it gave out its reluctant click, the elderly newcomer said ‘Oh deary me’ in a speculative sort of way, and half fell forward, still gripping the pipe, while his feet, taking the stress from the new angle, slewed round and across the raised step on which he and the others were standing. Now half turned towards me, he lost his footing completely and slid down heavily, his head coming to rest on the porcelain buttress at the side of the stall, while his substantial, tweed-clad figure sprawled across the damp tile floor. From his fly, his surprisingly long, silky penis still protruded. He wore a self-chastising expression, as if he had just realised he had forgotten to do something very important. There was a slight foam about his lips, his facial expression became strangely fixed, his cheeks genuinely bluish in colour. The man who had been at the adjacent place said ‘Oh my Christ’ and hurried out. All along the rank of urinals there was a hasty doing-up of flies, and faces that spoke both of concern and of a sense that they had been caught, turned in my direction.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  Chapman had a medium build, curly hair, and glasses that suggested he didn’t mind looking like someone who spent time reading and studying. I’d met prosecutors who dressed and presented like they would rather be out hunting ducks than running a law office, but Chapman was professional and courteous and approached me with a pleasant demeanor. I was intrigued that he would immediately give voice to the concerns of other people in law enforcement and was initially encouraged that he meant for us to have a candid conversation free of distractions and posturing. “Well, I appreciate that,” I said. “I’m very concerned about this McMillian case. I’ve read the record, and to be honest I have serious doubts about his guilt and the reliability of this conviction.” “Well, this was a big case, there’s no doubt about that. You do understand that I didn’t have anything to do with the prosecution, don’t you?” “Yes, I do.” “This was one of the most outrageous crimes in Monroe County history, and your client made a lot of people here extremely angry. People are still angry, Mr. Stevenson. There’s not enough bad that can happen to Walter McMillian for some of them.” This was a disappointing beginning—he seemed completely convinced of Walter’s guilt. But I pressed on. “Well, it was an outrageous, tragic crime, so anger is understandable,” I replied. “But it doesn’t accomplish anything to convict the wrong person. Whether Mr. McMillian has done anything wrong is what the trial should resolve. If the trial is unfair, or if witnesses have given false testimony, then we can’t really know whether he’s guilty or not.” “Well, you may be the only person right now who thinks the trial was unfair. Like I said, I wasn’t involved in the prosecution.” I was becoming frustrated, and Chapman probably saw me shift in my seat. I thought about the dozens of black people I’d met who had complained bitterly about Walter’s prosecution, and I was starting to see Chapman as either naive or willfully indifferent—or worse. I tried unsuccessfully not to let my disappointment show. “I’m not the only person with questions about this case, Mr. Chapman. There’s a whole community of people, some of whom claim to have been with Walter McMillian miles away when the crime was committed, who believe in his innocence. There are people for whom he’s worked who are absolutely convinced that he did not commit this crime.” “I’ve talked to some of those people,” Chapman responded, “and they can only have uninformed opinions. They don’t have facts. Look, I can tell you right now that nobody cares who slept with Karen Kelly. There is evidence that implicates Walter McMillian for this murder, and my job is to defend this conviction.” He was becoming more argumentative, and his voice was rising. The calm and curious look he had initially given me was shifting into anger and disgust.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  The lawyers made their arguments, the jury retired, and less than three hours later they filed back into the courtroom. Stone-faced, one by one, they pronounced Walter McMillian guilty. Chapter Four [image file=image_rsrc32N.jpg] The Old Rugged CrossIn February 1989, Eva Ansley and I opened our new nonprofit law center in Tuscaloosa, dedicated to providing free, quality legal services to condemned men and women on death row in Alabama. We never thought it would be easy, but it turned out to be even harder than we had expected. In the first few months of operation our first director resigned, the University of Alabama School of Law where we had set up the office withdrew their support and promise of office space, and we discovered just how hard it was to find lawyers to come to Alabama and do full-time death penalty work for less than $25,000 a year. Obstacles were multiplying rapidly. We were denied funding from the state legislature, which we needed to get federal matching dollars. After several disheartening meetings with our board, it had become clear that we had no support in the state for the project. State bar leaders were committed to seeing our operation succeed—some because they felt it was unacceptable that condemned prisoners could not obtain legal assistance, others because they wanted more executions at a faster pace and felt that the absence of counsel was slowing them down—but we now realized that we would have to do it on our own and raise the money ourselves. Eva and I regrouped and decided to start again in Montgomery, the state capital. The project would eventually be named the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI). I found a small building near downtown Montgomery, and in the summer of 1989 we signed a lease. The building was a good start: a rented two-story Greek Revival house built in 1882, near the historic district called “Old Alabama Town.” It was painted yellow and had a charming porch that made it feel open and welcoming—a nice contrast from the daunting courtrooms, institutional waiting rooms, and prison walls that defined so much of the lives of our clients’ family members. The office was cold in the winter, it was almost impossible to keep squirrels out of the attic, and there wasn’t enough electricity to run the copier and a coffeepot at the same time without blowing a fuse. But from the start it felt like a home and a place to work—and given the hours we would spend there, it was always a little of both.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  Law enforcement officers generally have no personal resources to pay damages to victims of misconduct, so the city, county, or agency that employs them is typically the target of any civil action that seeks compensation. That’s why we had sought relief from Monroe County for the misconduct of its sheriff. The county took the position that even though the sheriff’s jurisdiction is limited to the county, he’s elected by people only in the county, and he’s paid by the county, he’s not an employee of the county. The county sheriff was an employee of the State of Alabama, the county claimed. State governments are broadly shielded from recovery for their employees’ misconduct unless the employee works for an agency that can be sued. If Tate was a state officer, Monroe County would have no liability for his misconduct and no recovery would be possible from the State of Alabama. Unfortunately for Walter, the Supreme Court ruled that county sheriffs in Alabama are state officers, again in a close 5–4 decision, which limited our ability to recover damages for the most egregious misconduct in Walter’s case. We ultimately reached settlement with all parties, but I was disappointed that we couldn’t get more for Walter. Adding insult to injury, Tate went on to be re-elected sheriff, and he remains in office today; he has been sheriff continuously for more than twenty-five years. — While the money wasn’t as much as we would have liked, it did allow Walter to restart his logging business. He loved getting back into the woods and cutting timber. He told me that it was working from morning until night, being outdoors, that made him feel normal again. Then one afternoon, tragedy struck. He was cutting a tree when a branch dislodged and struck him, breaking his neck. It was a serious injury that left Walter in very poor condition for several weeks. He didn’t have a lot of care available, so he came to live with me in Montgomery for several months until he recovered. He eventually regained his mobility, although the injury put an end to his ability to cut trees and perform difficult landscape work. I marveled at how he seemed to take it in stride. “I’ll figure out something else to do when I get back on my feet,” he told me. After a few months, he went back to Monroe County and started collecting car parts for resale. He owned the plot of land where he’d put his trailer and had become convinced, on the advice of some friends, that he could generate income with a junk business—collecting discarded vehicles and car parts and reselling them. The work was less physically demanding than logging and allowed him to be outdoors.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  As I talked to these fathers, I confess that I was shocked by the fact that no one seemed aware of or expressed concern over the hardships being endured by their children regarding the divorce, not being supported in higher education, and the serious consequences for their future economic well-being. Mothers for the most part were worried about the future and tried to contribute money for college. But only a few made the kind of incomes where they could really help, especially when they had more than one child. Others took second or third mortgages on their homes to pay tuition. In none of these families did one or both parents gather around the kitchen table to discuss college and other future plans with their high school—aged children. Those kinds of conversations—what are you planning to do in a career, where do you want to go to school, what do you want to study—were commonplace in comparison group families. Even among the very troubled intact families, young people were provided with funds for college. It was simply a given. I also saw the same kind of commitment in families of very modest means. One father who drove a cab for a living sat down with his sixteen-year-old son and said, “Mike, you are going to college and we will help you.” The boy was moved beyond words. But many children of divorce were not told by their dads, even wealthy ones, that there would be money to help them attend college. And the children were afraid to ask. I remember a lecture that I gave on this subject to law students at Berkeley. When I finished, a young woman in her mid-twenties approached me. “Professor,” she said, “you have just given what to me is the most important lecture of my life.” I was taken aback. “How so?” “I never thought I had the right to even ask my dad for support.” I couldn’t believe my ears. A student at one of the most prestigious law schools in the country felt so removed from her father that she could not ask his help? The story has a sequel. Later she told me that after class that very day she called him and discussed her needs. He was grumpy and argued with her, maintaining that he was no longer legally obligated to support her, but he finally agreed to provide her with the financial help that she needed. One of the interesting trends in American culture over the last ten years has been the growth of the men’s movement in which men acknowledge their important roles as fathers and protectors of their families. However, in none of the many publications by the fathers’ groups are fathers urged to support their children in college. Rather, they are encouraged in these publications to spend time with young children.

• From Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition (2004)

  232 Lecture 33: Giovanni Boccaccio Scholars have long noticed a kind of insecurity in Boccaccio. Why? He was illegitimate. He lived in dramatically challenging and changing times. New classes of readers had to be cultivated. He was unsure of his fame. Although Boccaccio wrote Italian works throughout his life, the early ones, from the Neapolitan period, laid down some themes and tendencies that marked all of his work. Let us consider a few of them. In Diana’ s Hunt, Boccaccio took up a challenge of Dante in the Vita nuova to name the 60 most beautiful women of Florence. The women gather in a valley, bathe in a river, and go hunting. Diana urges them to sacri fi ce their catch to her and remain chaste. The women protest and appeal to Venus, who appears and wins the women to herself. She changes the animals into handsome men and love ensues—captured in dolce stil nuovo. The Teseida responded to Dante’s challenge (in On the Eloquence of the Vernacular) that no one had written a martial epic in Italian. The work treats the deeds of Theseus. It is written in 12 books, with the same number of lines as the Aeneid. It is based on ancient tales, French models, and sheer invention. Chaucer’s knight told this tale. Filostrato (“struck down by love”) is an unhappy tale of Troy. Troiolo falls in love with Creseida, the captive daughter of the soothsayer Calchas. In an exchange of prisoners, Calchas asks for his daughter back. Creseida then falls in love with Diomede, and when Troiolo learns this, he plans his revenge on Diomede. Achilles kills Troiolo, and the story ends with a moralizing sermon on the fi ckleness of love and lovers. Chaucer told this tale in his Troilus and Creysede. On returning to Florence, Boccaccio wrote Fiammetta. Lady Fiammetta (“Little Flame” = hot stuff) has a dull but decent husband and a captivating lover. Her lover proves fi ckle, and Fiammetta is disappointed. Fiammetta marks the fi rst time since Ovid that a sad love story is told from the woman’s point of view; many call this the fi rst psychological novel. Boccaccio wrote Latin works throughout his life but produced his incontestably greatest ones in his last years. The Genealogy of the Pagan Gods was begun circa 1355, completed circa 1360, and touched up until

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  I remember that Saturday when that girl was killed because ambulances and police started racing up the street. It went on for like thirty minutes. I’d been working in town for a couple of years and had never seen anything like it.” “You were working on the Saturday morning that Ronda Morrison was killed?” “Yes, sir, with Bill Hooks from about eight in the morning till we closed after lunch, after all them ambulances went by our shop. It was probably close to eleven when the sirens started. Bill was working on a car in the shop with me. There ain’t but one way out the store; he never left the entire morning. If he said he drove by the cleaners when that girl was killed, he’s lying.” One of the most frustrating things about reading Walter’s trial record had been that the State’s witnesses—Ralph Myers, Bill Hooks, and Joe Hightower—were so obviously not believable. Their testimony was laughably inconsistent and completely lacking in credibility. Myers’s account of his role in the crime—Walter kidnapping him to drive him to the crime scene and then dropping him off afterward—never made any sense. Hooks, a critical witness against McMillian, wasn’t persuasive or reliable in the transcript—he just repeated the same story he’d given the police about driving by the cleaners at the time of the crime. His response to every line of questioning was to repeat over and over again that he saw Walter McMillian walk out of the store with a bag, get into his “low-rider” truck, and get driven away by a white man. He could not answer any of Chestnut’s questions about what else he saw that day or what he was doing in the area. He just kept repeating that he saw McMillian at the cleaners. But the state needed Hooks’s testimony. My plan had been to immediately appeal Walter’s conviction to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. The State had done so little to prove Walter’s guilt that there weren’t a lot of legal issues to appeal, but the evidence against him was so unpersuasive that I was hopeful the court might overturn the conviction simply because it was so unreliable. Once the case was on direct appeal, no new evidence would be considered. The time for filing a motion for a new trial in the trial court—the last chance to introduce new facts before an appeal begins—had already expired. Chestnut and Boynton, Walter’s lawyers for the initial trial, had filed a motion before withdrawing, and Judge Key had quickly denied it.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  Then they called together all their friends, and thus it was concluded: one said, that I should be closed in a stable and never worke, but continually to be fedde and fatted with fine and chosen barly and beanes and good littour, howbeit another prevailed, who wishing my liberty, perswaded them that it was better for me to runne in the fields amongst the lascivious horses and mares, whereby I might engender some mules for my Mistresse: then he that had in charge to keepe the horse, was called for, and I was delivered unto him with great care, insomuch that I was right pleasant and joyous, because I hoped that I should carry no more fardels nor burthens, moreover I thought that when I should thus be at liberty, in the spring time of the yeere when the meddows and fields were greene, I should find some roses in some place, whereby I was fully perswaded that if my Master and Mistresse did render to me so many thanks and honours being an Asse, they would much more reward me being turned into a man: but when he (to whom the charge of me was so straightly committed) had brought me a good way distant from the City, I perceived no delicate meates nor no liberty which I should have, but by and by his covetous wife and most cursed queane made me a mill Asse, and (beating me with a cudgill full of knots) would wring bread for her selfe and her husband out of my skinne. Yet was she not contented to weary me and make me a drudge with carriage and grinding of her owne corne, but I was hired of her neighbours to beare their sackes likewise, howbeit shee would not give me such meate as I should have, nor sufficient to sustaine my life withall, for the barly which I ground for mine owne dinner she would sell to the Inhabitants by. And after that I had laboured all day, she would set before me at night a little filthy branne, nothing cleane but full of stones. Being in this calamity, yet fortune worked me other torments, for on a day I was let loose into the fields to pasture, by the commandement of my master.

• From Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition (2004)

  149 Augustine Lecture 24 Welcome back to Lecture 24, this fi nal lecture of Part II. In this fi nal lecture, we’re going to look at the works of Augustine, one of the most important philosophers, theologians, and authors in the Western tradition. A urelius Augustinus (St. Augustine) is one of the most important philosophers, theologians, and authors in the Western tradition, whose work is permeated with classical in fl uences and modes of thought. Born in Thagaste (in modern Algeria) on November 13, A.D. 354, Augustine was the son of middle-class parents. His father, Patricius, was a pagan, and his mother, Monica, was a Christian. Monica exposed Augustine to Christian ideas from his earliest years. Augustine was educated in his native town of Thagaste and in Madaurus and Carthage and was allowed a good bit of freedom in his personal life. His education included training in rhetorical techniques and classical literature. He greatly loved Latin literature but did not like Greek. His fi rst reaction to the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament was disappointment; he considered them inferior as literature. For more than 10 years, he lived with a woman whom he met in Carthage and with whom he had a son. After fi nishing his education, Augustine worked as a teacher of rhetoric in Africa and Italy. He taught fi rst in Carthage, then in Milan. He resigned in 386 because of ill health. In 387, Augustine was baptized by St. Ambrose. He was ordained in 391 and became bishop of Hippo in 396. He died in 430. After his conversion, Augustine no longer taught rhetoric, but he put his classical training to good use in his own writing. His two greatest works are The Confessions and The City of God. At 19, Augustine read Cicero’s “Hortensius” and experienced the fi rst of three “conversion experiences.” The other two would lead him fi rst to the Gnostic religion Manichaeism and, fi nally, to Christianity. The fi rst step in Augustine’s spiritual development was his “conversion to philosophy,”

• From Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition (2004)

  299 Miguel de Cervantes Lecture 46 Cervantes, who lived from 1547 to 1616, is the most famous writer in Spanish history. Don Quixote, Cervantes’s story of a knight of shreds and patches who embarks on a long series of adventures together with his horse Rocinante and his squire Sancho Panza, is the most famous work of Spanish literature. A s a new type of realistic fi ction, Don Quixote is often considered to be the fi rst novel. Whether or not that designation is accurate, there’s no question that it is the most important text for the subsequent history of the novel. At the same time, Don Quixote looks backward to the world of chivalric romance and is considered both an imitation and a parody of this form. We will look at Don Quixote, then, as a work standing between two worlds and examine selected portions as a way of talking about the unique position of this text. Don Quixote is, of course, known fi rst of all for its original and unforgettable characters, especially Don Quixote himself and his companion, Sancho Panza. But we will try to do justice to some of the other magisterial themes in the work: the interpenetration between real and imagined worlds, sanity and insanity, art and life. We will also look at Don Quixote as a discourse on both creativity and values. Cervantes was in fl uenced by the writings of Erasmus. Don Quixote and The Praise of Folly exhibit similar literary techniques. Erasmus and other humanist writers were interested in church reform and were quite critical of institutional practices. Cervantes lived during the Counter-Reformation and continued the humanistic spirit of inquiry in a time of conformity. His interludes and farces contain social criticism in the spirit of Erasmus. Youthful experiences prepared Cervantes for a writing career that began in middle age. Cervantes joined the army, fought, was wounded, and was held prisoner in an Algerian jail. With the defeat of the Spanish Armada, he experienced disillusionment about heroism.