Joy

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.

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• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  He thought she had a good shot. A movie musical wouldn’t hurt, either. Maybe Danny Thomas would put her in his next picture. Nothing wrong with pulling a few strings while she was dating his brother. “What time’s your plane, babe?” Jimmy asked. “Last time I checked it was two hours late.” She looked down at the watch Paul had given her for her birthday, a pink-gold Bulova. The tiny hands told her it was almost ten-thirty. “Oops, I’m supposed to be at the airport before noon,” she said, collecting her things and paying for the ice cream soda. Jimmy leaned in to give her a goodbye kiss on her cheek. At the last second she turned her face so his kiss landed on her lips, surprising him. “Mmm…strawberry…” Jimmy said, licking his lips, making Ruby laugh. “Have a good trip, babe, and come back soon.” “You know I will.” Ruby blew him a flirty kiss. Ruby loved to travel. Give her an airline ticket and she’d be on the next plane. She liked staying at hotels, where someone made the bed for her every day and brought her clean towels. Even when the hotels were less than classy, even when they were on the sleazy side, which was often, she still liked being on the road. MiriJust before noon Rusty found Miri still asleep in her bed. She shook her gently. “Come on, honey…get up! Let’s go to an early show at the Elmora.” Miri rolled over but didn’t open her eyes. “Hurry or we’re going to miss it.” Being the only child meant Miri was often her mother’s companion. And if Rusty wanted to go to the movies today, she’d go with her. After all, it was her birthday. Miri threw on dungarees, a turtleneck, a heavy sweater over that and thick white socks. She tied her saddle shoes, ran the toothbrush over her teeth, not bothering to brush up and down the way Dr. Osner had taught her, pulled her hair back sloppily and got into her winter jacket, mittens, red and black striped Rutgers scarf and fuzzy earmuffs. Miri and Rusty walked the mile up to the Elmora Theater. No bright winter sun today. Just gray sky and freezing cold. Until this year Miri could still get into the movies for a quarter, but not anymore. This was both good and bad. Good because she looked older, bad because she had to pay full price for a ticket. She’d be the first of her friends to turn fifteen, the age at which she was sure life would fall into place and at least some of her dreams would come true, starting with the strange enchanted boy from last night’s party. At the concession stand Rusty bought a Milky Way for Miri, not bothering to ask if Miri had had a proper breakfast, which she hadn’t, and a box of Goobers for herself.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  Know thou, that now thou art safe, and under the protection of her, who by her cleare light doth lighten the other gods: wherefore rejoyce and take a convenable countenance to thy white habit, follow the pomp of this devout and honorable procession, to the end that such which be not devout to the Goddes, may see and acknowledge their errour. Behold Lucius, thou art delivered from so great miseries, by the providence of the goddesse Isis, rejoyce therefore and triumph of the victory of fortune; to the end thou maist live more safe and sure, make thy selfe one of this holy order, dedicate thy minde to the Obsequy of our Religion, and take upon thee a voluntary yoake of ministrie: And when thou beginnest to serve and honour the goddes, then thou shalt feele the fruit of thy liberty: After that the great Priest had prophesied in this manner, with often breathings, he made a conclusion of his words: Then I went amongst the company of the rest and followed the procession: everie one of the people knew me, and pointing at me with their fingers, said in this sort: Behold him who is this day transformed into a man by the puissance of the soveraigne goddesse, verily he is blessed and most blessed that hath merited so great grace from heaven, as by the innocencie of his former life, and as it were by a new regeneration is reserved to the obsequie of the goddesse. In the meane season by little and little we approached nigh unto the sea cost, even to that place where I lay the night before being an Asse. There after the images and reliques were orderly disposed, the great Priest compassed about with divers pictures according to the fashion of the Aegyptians, did dedicate and consecrate with certaine prayers a fair ship made very cunningly, and purified the same with a torch, an egge, and sulphur; the saile was of white linnen cloath, whereon was written certaine letters, which testified the navigation to be prosperous, the mast was of a great length, made of a Pine tree, round and very excellent with a shining top, the cabin was covered over with coverings of gold, and all the shippe was made of Citron tree very faire; then all the people as well religious as prophane tooke a great number of Vannes, replenished with odours and pleasant smells and threw them into the sea mingled with milke, untill the ship was filled up with large gifts and prosperous devotions, when as with a pleasant wind it launched out into the deep. But when they had lost the sight of the ship, every man caried againe that he brought, and went toward the temple in like pompe and order as they came to the sea side.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  I was so happy alone and in the woods, away from the dangers posed by other people. At first I wanted to tell someone else how happy I was; I needed a witness. But as the great day revolved slowly above me, as the scarlet tanager flew overhead on his black wings to the distant high trees, as an owl, hidden and remote, sounded a hoot as melancholy as winter, as the leaves, ruffled by the wind, tossed the sun about as though they were princesses at play with a golden ball, as the smell of sweet clover, of bruised sassasfras leaves, of the mulch of last year’s duff flowed over me, as I crushed the hot, sweet blueberries between my teeth and then chewed on an astringent needle from a balsam, as I sensed the descent of the sun and the slow decline of summer—oh, I was free and whole, safe from everyone, as happy as with my books. For I could thrive in the expressive, inhuman realm of nature or the expressive, human realm of books—both worlds so exalted, so guileless—but I felt imperiled by the hidden designs other people were drawing around me. The tender white bells of the flower by the rotting stump, the throbbing distillation of blue in the fringed gentian, the small, bright-green cone of the Scots pine—these were confidences nature placed in me, wordless but as trusting as a dog’s eyes. Or the pure, always comprehensible and sharply delineated thoughts and emotions of characters in fiction—these, too, were signs I could read, as one might read a marionette’s face. But the vague menace of Ralph with his increasingly haggard face, this boy at once pitiable and dangerous, who had already been caught twice this summer attempting to “hypnotize” younger campers and was now in danger of expulsion, who studied me at meals not with curiosity, much less with sympathy, but with crude speculation (Can I get him to do it? Can he relieve me?)—this menace was becoming more and more intense.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  Cork was pretending to be shocked by the innocent improprieties that so excited my stepmother. I could tell Mrs. Cork had palled around with real screwballs, even unwed couples—it was just a sense I had. When I took her out one day in a motorboat alone, she and I happily discussed opera. We cut the motor and drifted. I relaxed and became animated to the point of effeminacy; she relaxed and became coarser. “Oh, my boy,” she promised me in her brogue, “you want to hear fine singing, I’ll play you my John McCormack records, make you weep your damn eyes out of their bloody sockets. That ‘Lucevan le stelle,’ it’ll freeze your balls.” I shrieked with delight—we were conspirators who’d somehow found ourselves stranded together here in a world of unthrillable souls. I dreamed of running off and becoming a great singer; I walked through the woods and vocalized. Tonight we had not yet made our rapport explicit, but I was already wise to her. She had through circumstance ended up not on the La Scala stage but in this American cottage, married to an affable, overweight businessman. Now her job was to ingratiate herself with people who would help her husband in his career (lawyer for industry); she was retaining just enough brogue and temperament to be a “character.” Characters—conventional women with minor eccentricities—flourished in our world, as Mrs. Cork had no doubt observed. But she’d failed to notice that the characters were all old, rich and pedigreed. Newcomers, especially those of moderate means, were expected to form an attractive but featureless chorus behind our few madcap divas. “Time for bed, young fella,” my father said at last. Downstairs I undressed by the colored light of the glass-brick bar and, wearing just a T-shirt and jockey shorts, hurried into the dark dormitory and slipped into my cot. Nights on the lake are cold even in July; the bed had two thick blankets on it that had been aired outside that day and smelled of pine needles. I listened to the grown-ups; the metal vents conducted sound better than heat. Their conversation, which had seemed so lively and sincere when I had witnessed it, now sounded stilted and halting. Lots of fake laughter. Silences became longer and longer. At last everyone said good night and headed upstairs. Another five minutes of moaning pipes, flushing toilets and padding feet. Then long murmured consultations in bed by each couple. Then silence. “You still awake?” Kevin called from his bed. “Yes,” I said. I couldn’t see him in the dark but I could tell his cot was at the other end of the room; Peter was audibly asleep on the cot between. “How old are you?” Kevin asked. “Fifteen. And you?” “Twelve. You ever done it with girls?” “Sure,” I said. I knew I could always tell him about the black prostitute I’d visited. “You?” “Naw.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  I thanked her and I said I hoped I’d see her soon. For a moment it seemed as though it would be the most natural thing to kiss her on those full, soft lips (had I not seen her a moment ago covertly pop some scented thing into her mouth to prepare for just such an inevitability?). Her eyes were veiled with her awareness of her own beauty. I suppose I suddenly liked myself and I could see a light in which I’d be plausible to others. My love for Tommy was shameful, something I was also proud of but tried to hide. This moment with Helen—our tallness on the moon-lashed porch, the cool winds that sent black clouds (lit by gold from within) caravelling past a pirate moon, a coolness that glided through opening fingers that now touched, linked, squeezed, slowly drew apart—this moment made me happy, hopeful. An oppression had been lifted. A long apprenticeship to danger had abruptly ended. After I left her I raced home through the deserted streets laughing and leaping. I sang show tunes and danced and felt as fully alive as someone in a movie (since it was precisely life that was grainy and sepia-tinted, whereas the movies had the audible ping, the habitable color, the embraceable presence of reality). I was more than ready to give up my attraction to men for this marriage to Helen Paper. At last the homosexual phase of my adolescence had drawn to a close. To be sure, I’d continue to love Tommy but as he loved me: fraternally. In my dream the stowaway in the single bunk with me, whom I was trying to keep hidden under a blanket, had miraculously transformed himself into my glorious bride, as the kissed leper in the legend becomes Christ Pantocrator. When I got home my mother was in bed with the lights out. “Honey?” “Yes?” “Come in and talk to me.” “Okay,” I said. “Rub my back, okay?” “Okay,” I said. I sat beside her on the bed. She smelled of bourbon. “How was your date?” “Terrific! I never had such a good time.” “How nice. Is she a nice girl?” “Better than that. She’s charming and sophisticated and intelligent.” “You’re home earlier than I expected. Not so hard. Rub gently. You bruiser. I’m going to call you that: Bruiser. Is she playful? Is she like me? Does she say cute things?” “No, thank God.” “Why do you say that? Is she some sort of egghead?” “Not an egghead. But she’s dignified. She’s straightforward. She says what she means.” “I think girls should be playful. That doesn’t mean dishonest. I’m playful.” “———” “Well, I am. Do you think she likes you?” “How can I tell? It was just a first date.” My fingers lightly stroked her neck to either side of her spine. “I doubt if she’ll want to see me again. Why should she?” “But why not? You’re handsome and intelligent.” “Handsome! With these big nostrils!”

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  Kevin took my hand. He was sitting next to me in the dark. I had scooted forward on the cushion to give the others more room. Now our linked hands were concealed between his leg and mine. Just as I’d almost given up on him with his Vaseline, he placed that hot hand in mine. I could feel the calloused pads on his palm where he’d gripped the bat. Outside, the half-moon sped through the tall pines, spilled out across a glimpse of water, hid behind a billboard, twinkled faintly in the windows of a train, one window still lit and framing the face of a woman crowned by white hair. Dogs barked, then stopped as the trees came quicker and quicker and pushed closer to the winding road. Only here and there could a house light be seen. Now none. We were in the deep forest. The change from scattered farms to dense trees felt like an entry into something chilled and holy, a packed congregation of robed and mitered men whose form of worship is to wait in a tense, century-long silence. Kevin had made me very happy—a gleeful, spiteful happiness. Here we were, right under the noses of these boring old grown-ups, and we were two guys holding hands. Maybe I wouldn’t have to run away. Maybe I could live here among them, act normal, go through the paces—all the while holding the hand of this wonderful kid. Back in the basement, we three undressed under the glaring Ping-Pong light. Peter stumbled out of his clothes, which he left in a puddle on the floor. His shoulders were bony, his waist tiny, his penis a pale blue snail peeping up out of its rounded shell. He mumbled something about the cold sheets and turned his face to the wall. Kevin and I, at either end of the long, narrow room, undressed more deliberately, said nothing and scarcely looked at each other. Lights out. Then the long wait for Peter’s breathing to slow and thicken. The silence was thoughtful, like a pulse heard in an ear pressed to the mattress. Peter said, “Because I don’t want to … squirrel … yeah, but you …” and was gone. Still Kevin waited, and I feared he too had gone to sleep. But no, here he was, floating toward me, the ghost T-shirt on his torso browner from today’s sun. With the Vaseline jar in hand. The cold jelly with its light medicinal odor, which warms quickly to body temperature. As I went in him, he said straight out, as clear as a bell, “That feels really great.” It had never occurrred to me before that sex between two men can please both of them at the same time.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  and if from smoke fire is argued, this forgetfulness clearly proves fault in thy desire otherwhere intent. 14 But now my words shall be naked, so far as shall be meet to discover them to thy rude vision.” Both more refulgent, and with slower steps, the sun was holding the meridian circle, which varies hither and thither as positions vary, 15 when did halt, even as he halts who goes for escort before folk, if he finds aught that is strange or the traces thereof, those seven ladies at the margin of a pale shadow, such as beneath green leaves and dark boughs, the Alp casts over its cool streams. 16 In front of them I seemed to behold Euphrates and Tigris welling up from one spring, and parting like friends that linger. 17 “O light, O glory of human kind, what water is this that here pours forth from one source, and self from self doth wend away?” At such prayer was said to me: “Pray Matilda that she tell it thee”; and here made answer, as he doth who frees him from blame, the fair Lady: “This and other things have been told him by me, 18 and sure am I that Lethe’s water hid them not from him.” And Beatrice: “Haply a greater care that oft bereaves of memory hath dimmed his mind’s eyes. But behold Eunoë, which there flows on; lead him to it, and as thou art wont, requicken his fainting virtue.” As a gentle soul that maketh no excuse, but makes her will of the will of another, soon as it is disclosed by outward sign, so the fair Lady, after I was taken by her, set forth, and so Statius with queenly mien did say: “Come with him.” If, reader I had greater space for writing, I would sing, at least in part, of the sweet draught which never would have sated me; but forasmuch as all the pages ordained for this second canticle are filled, the curb of art no further lets me go. I came back from the most holy waves, born again, even as new trees renewed with new foliage, pure and ready to mount to the stars. 1. Ps. lxxix, beginning: “O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.” 2. Christ’s words to his disciples: “A little while, and ye shall not see me; and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father” (John xvi. 16). 3. See the preceding canto. Dante applies to the Church (corrupted as it was in his time) the words used by John in Rev. xvii. 8: “The beast thou sawest was, and is not.” 4.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  And that Love which first descended to her, singing: Hail, Mary, full of grace now spread his wings before her. The divine canticle was answered from every side by the blest Court, so that every face thereby gathered serenity. “O holy Father, who for my sake acceptest being here below, leaving the sweet place wherein thou sittest by eternal lot, what is that angel who with such delight looketh our Queen in the eyes, enamoured so he seemeth all aflame?” So did I turn again unto his teaching who drew beauty from Mary, as from the sun the morning star. And he to me, “Exultancy and winsomeness as much as there may be in angel or in soul, is all in him; and we would have it so, for he it is who brought down the palm to Mary, when the Son of God willed to load him with our burden.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  coursing and hunting. When night was come, we took cover of the darkness, and brought Thrasyleon’s cage and our forged letters, and presented them to Demochares. When Demochares wonderingly beheld this mighty bear, and saw the timely liberality of Nicanor his friend, he was glad, and commanded his servant to deliver unto us that brought him this joy ten gold crowns, as he had great store in his coffers : then (as the novelty of a thing doth accustom to stir men’s minds to behold the same) many persons came on every side to see this bear, but Thrasyleon (lest they should by curious viewing and prying perceive the truth) ran often upon them to put them in fear, so that they durst not come nigh. Then the people said. with one voice: ‘ Verily Demochares is right happy, in that, after the death of so many beasts, he hath gotten, in spite of fortune, so goodly a bear to supply him afresh.’ He commanded that with great care his servants should put him into the park close by, but I immediately spoke unto him and said: ‘Sir, I pray you, take heed how you put a beast tired with the heat of the sun and with long travel amongst others which (as I hear say) have divers maladies and diseases; let him rather lie in some open place of your house, where the breeze blows through, yea nigh to some water, where he may take air and ease himself, for do not you know that such kind of beasts do greatly delight to couch under shadow of trees and dewy caves, nigh unto pleasant wells and waters?’ Hereby Demo- chares, admonished and remembering how many he had before that perished, was contented that we should put the bear’s cage where we would. More- over we said unto him: ‘ We ourselves are determined to lie all night nigh unto the bear, to look unto him, 169 LUCIUS APULEIUS cavea ista excubare noctes, ut aestus et vexationis incommodo bestiae fatigatae et cibum tempestivum et potum solitum accuratius offeramus. ‘ Nihil in- digemus labore isto vestro ;’ respondit ille * Iam paene tota familia per diutinam consuetudinem nutriendis ursis exercitata est.'

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  There were plenty of volunteers, many of them parents, and they divided the children into groups by age. She and Harriet and two of the mothers took the four- to seven-year-olds and handed out Dixie Cups to get things going. Right away a little girl shouted, “I got Lassie!” She licked the cover of her Dixie Cup clean to show Leah. Another began to cry. “I want Lassie, too.” “Let’s see who you have,” Leah said, wiping the child’s tears. “Go ahead and lick it clean so we can see.” She did and held it up to Leah. “Ooh, you have Natalie Wood!” Leah told her. “You’re lucky because Natalie Wood is a very famous movie star, and look how pretty she is. And you know what? She was a movie star when she was your age.” “I’m six.” “Well, that’s swell. Six is a good age to be.” When Henry arrived with the photographer, who didn’t look old enough to drive, Leah took off her apron, smoothed out her blue dress and reapplied her lipstick. Harriet, who knew Leah and Henry were seeing each other, whispered, “You look good enough to be the photo on a Dixie Cup.” “As good as Lassie?” Leah whispered. “Nobody can compete with Lassie.” Leah laughed, then clapped her hands to get the children’s attention. “Boys and girls,” Leah said. “This is Mr. Henry Ammerman. He’s a reporter for the Elizabeth Daily Post and he’s going to write a story about us.” She liked saying his name out loud. Henry Ammerman. When she did, Henry waved at the children. “And this is Todd Dirkson,” Henry said of the boy photographer. “He’s going to take a picture. Maybe you’ll see it in tomorrow’s paper.” Todd held up his Speed Graphic, so the children could see his camera. Henry and Todd conferred, then suggested they gather around the piano. Leah sat down and began to play the introduction to “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” She motioned for the children to sit on the floor around her. Some were still eating their Dixie Cups with the little wooden spoons, some faces were already smeared with chocolate frosting from the cupcakes. Harriet ran around with a damp cloth trying to wipe their faces clean, knowing the parents would want their children to look their Sunday best in the paper. “All eyes here, please,” Leah said, as she continued to play and sing. “Then one foggy Christmas eve, Santa came to say…” Half of the children sang along with Leah, the other half were more interested in the camera or looking out the windows. Todd clicked while Leah was at her most animated. Henry waited until she’d finished the song, then called, “Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Miss Cohen!” “You’re very welcome, Mr. Ammerman!” “Happy holidays, Miss Cohen!” “Same to you, Mr. Ammerman.” Oh, she really, really liked Henry Ammerman! She might say loved but she was superstitious about using that word too soon.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  My parents were divorced, too! Her body, like mine, was turning into something alien. Black fuzz was sprouting in not-altogether-welcome places, and I was transfixed as Stephanie described her own evolving figure, replete with belly rolls, jiggling “glutes,” and dark pubic hair. My dad still read to me before bed at that age. But as soon as I got my hands on Just as Long as We’re Together , I asked him to stop. Stephanie’s world, filled with crushes, budding breasts, and pre-teen drama, wasn’t one I wanted to share with him. And so that night, I shuffled to his bedroom in pajamas and slippers and announced that I was going to read myself to sleep. I recognized his sadness as I kissed him good night, and I felt it, too. But it was worth it. Blume offered me something nobody else ever had before: a mirror of truth and a portal to some not-so-distant future, all wrapped in a humble paperback. Judy Blume is more famous than she’s ever been since she started writing books for children in the late 1960s. She’s a star who has exploded into a supernova, with multiple film and television projects (A documentary! A movie version of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret ! A Peacock series based on her 1998 novel Summer Sisters !). “The Judy Blume Renaissance is upon us,” the New York Times declared in March 2023. “We Need Judy Blume Now More Than Ever,” an April 2023 headline from the A.V. Club reads. The latter referred to the post-Trump political climate, which has proven particularly favorable for book banners. To parental rights activists, a book like Gender Queer , a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe about adolescent gender dysmorphia, is “grooming,” making it the most-banned title of 2022, according to the American Library Association. All Boys Aren’t Blue , about author George M. Johnson’s experience growing up Black and queer in Plainfield, New Jersey, is “indoctrination” and was banned eighty-six times, per the same list. Republican-led state legislators in Florida, Texas, and Iowa are feverishly removing books from school library shelves, leaving them half-empty. Not since the Reagan years have the attacks on books been so organized, and so vicious. We need Judy Blume now because she understands this moment better than anyone. She is rightly being recognized for all the brave choices she’s made in her long and celebrated career, from talking about periods in Are You There, God? , to having Deenie touch her “special place” in Deenie , to showing an eighteen-year-old losing her virginity—without suffering any hideous consequences—in Forever . Tackling these controversial subjects earned her a dubious honor: she was the country’s most-banned author in the 1980s, back when the Moral Majority was leading the charge against books the way the national right-wing group Moms for Liberty is driving efforts to remove books from school libraries today. Blume is the grande dame of so-called dirty books.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  And, close upon the ending of these words, first rang above us, Let them hope in thee, whereunto all the carols answered; then, from amongst themselves, a light flashed out, in fashion such that if the Crab contained a crystal like it winter would have a month of one unbroken day. 14 And as doth rise and go her way and enter on the dance a joyous virgin, only to do honour to the bride, and not for any failing, 15 so did I see the illumined splendour join the other two, who were wheeling round in such guise as their burning love befitted. There it launched itself into their music and their words; and my Lady held her look upon them just like a bride, silent and unmoving. “This is he who lay upon the breast of our Pelican, and this was he chosen from upon the cross for the great office.” 16 My Lady thus; but no more after than before her words moved she her eyes from their fixed intent. As who doth gaze and strain to see the sun eclipsed a space, who by looking grows bereft of sight; so did I to this last flame till a word came: “Wherefore dost dazzle thee to see that which hath here no place? Earth in the earth my body is, and there it shall be, with the rest, until our number equalleth the eternal purpose. 17 With the two robes in the blessed cloister are the two lights alone which rose; and this thou shalt take back into your world.” 18 At this voice the flamed circle stilled itself, together with the sweet interlacing made by the sound of the threefold breath, as, to avert or weariness or peril, the oars till now smitten upon the water, all pause at a whistle’s sound. Ah! how was I stirred in my mind, turning to look on Beatrice, for that I might not see her, albeit I was nigh to her and in the world of bliss! 1. For first three stanzas, cf. Ecloga, i, and the Ecloga responsiva of Johannes del Virgilio, and Gardner, iii. 2. fleece; keeping up the metaphor of the lamb and the sheepfold. 3. Peter. 4. James, of the “Peter, James and John,” referred to in the Gospels, is James son of Zebedee, and is identified with the James said, by tradition, to have preached the Gospel in Spain, whose most celebrated shrine was at Compostela in Galicia. Cf. Vita Nuova, xli. But the James associated with Peter and John as a “pillar” of the Church in Gal. ii. 9. is “James the Lord’s brother” (Gal. i. 19) mentioned in Acts xv. 13 and elsewhere. It is to him, and not to the son of Zebedee that the Epistle of James has usually been assigned. But Dante forgets or ignores the distinction. 5. James i. 5. 6.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  I asked for another, more elaborate, assignment later the same evening, and she said she would meet me at the corner café at nine, and swore she had never posé un lapin in all her young life. We returned to the same room, and I could not help saying how very pretty she was to which she answered demurely: “Tu es bien gentil de dire ça” and then, noticing what I noticed too in the mirror reflecting our small Eden—the dreadful grimace of clenched-teeth tenderness that distorted my mouth—dutiful little Monique (oh, she had been a nymphet all right!) wanted to know if she should remove the layer of red from her lips avant qu’on se couche in case I planned to kiss her. Of course, I planned it. I let myself go with her more completely than I had with any young lady before, and my last vision that night of long-lashed Monique is touched up with a gaiety that I find seldom associated with any event in my humiliating, sordid, taciturn love life. She looked tremendously pleased with the bonus of fifty I gave her as she trotted out into the April night drizzle with Humbert Humbert lumbering in her narrow wake. Stopping before a window display she said with great gusto: “Je vais m’acheter des bas!” and never may I forget the way her Parisian childish lips exploded on “bas,” pronouncing it with an appetite that all but changed the “a” into a brief buoyant bursting “o” as in “bot.” I had a date with her next day at 2.15 P.M. in my own rooms, but it was less successful, she seemed to have grown less juvenile, more of a woman overnight. A cold I caught from her led me to cancel a fourth assignment, nor was I sorry to break an emotional series that threatened to burden me with heart-rending fantasies and peter out in dull disappointment. So let her remain, sleek, slender Monique, as she was for a minute or two: a delinquent nymphet shining through the matter-of-fact young whore.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  C A N T O V Beatrice, rejoicing in Dante’s progress, explains the supreme gift of Free Will, shared by angels and men and by no other creature. Hence may be deduced the supreme significance of vows, wherein this Free Will, by its own act, sacrifices itself. Wherefore there can be nothing so august as to form a fitting substitute, nor any use of the once consecrated thing so hallowed as to excuse the breaking of the sow. And yet Holy Church grants dispensations. The explanation lies in the distinction between the content of the vow (the specific thing consecrated) and the act of vowing. The vow must in every case be kept, but he who has made it, may, under due authority, sometimes substitute for the specific content of the vow some other, worth half as much again; which last condition precludes any substitute for the complete self-dedication of monastic vows. And he who makes a vow such as God cannot sanction, has in that act already done evil; to keep such a vow is only to deepen his guilt; and, kept or broken, it brings his religion into contempt. Dante’s further questioning is cut short by their ascent to Mercury, which grows brighter at their presence. Here, in the star that scarce asserts itself, but is lost to mortals in the sun’s rays, are the once ambitious souls, that now rejoice in the access of fresh objects of love. They approach Dante, and one of them, with lofty gratulations, offers himself as the vehicle of divine enlightenment. Dante questions him as to his history and the place assigned to him in heaven; whereon the spirit (Justinian) so glows with joy that his outward form is lost in sight. “IF I FLAME on thee in the warmth of love, beyond the measure witnessed upon earth, and so vanquish the power of thine eyes, marvel not; for this proceedeth from perfect vision, which, as it apprehendeth, so doth advance its foot in the apprehended good. Well do I note how in thine intellect already doth reglow the eternal light, which only seen doth ever kindle love; and if aught else seduce your love, naught is it save some vestige of this light, ill understood, that shineth through therein. Thou wouldst know whether with other service reckoning may be paid for broken vow, so great as to secure the soul from process.” So Beatrice began this chant, and, as one who interrupteth not his speech, continued thus the sacred progress: “The greatest gift God of his largess made at the creation, and the most conformed to his own excellence, and which he most prizeth, was the will’s liberty, wherewith creatures intelligent, 1 both all and only, were and are endowed.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  In 1969, she received a phone call from an editor at Reilly & Lee, a Chicago-based publisher that had previously rejected her work. They said they wanted to publish her manuscript for The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo , about second-grader Freddy Dissel, an aggrieved middle child who is sick of wearing his older brother Mike’s hand-me-downs and being told to play nicely with his annoying baby sister, Ellen. When Judy hung up, she raced into the basement where Larry was having a playdate and started tossing the children’s Silly Sand—the sloppy 1970s precursor to today’s wet and pliant kinetic sand—into the air in celebration. “Larry’s mother is crazy!” the friend later told her parents, according to a 1981 Scholastic mini-biography called Judy Blume’s Story . Green Kangaroo , in which Dissel goes from feeling like he will “always be a great big middle nothing” to getting the starring role in the school play (the titular green kangaroo), is not even close to Blume’s best work. But it offers up hints of the humor and empathy that would eventually distinguish her as a writer. Judy was paid $350 (roughly $2,800 today) for the book, and when the mailman—who had grown accustomed to delivering rejections—came by with the check, the pair danced across the lawn together. The publisher matched Judy with an artist, Lois Axeman, who provided the book’s illustrations, though the pair never actually met. Judy dedicated her debut to John, Randy, and Larry. When Green Kangaroo was published in the fall of 1969, her local newspaper, the Central New Jersey Courier News , did a small story on Judy. In an article titled “Mom Keeps Busy Writing Books for Little Children”—Keeps busy! Honestly! —the Scotch Plains resident and former Brownie troop leader shared that she was shopping another short manuscript, about a boy who swallows his brother’s pet turtle, and already had a contract to publish another book, which she had completed in her writing class at NYU. The novel, called Iggie’s House , featured a young protagonist named Winnie Barringer, who sought to befriend her new Black neighbors. “The more I write, the more controversial I’m getting,” Blume told the reporter mischievously, adding that she intended to dedicate her next book to Wyndham. She revealed that Iggie’s House would be published by Prentice Hall, based in nearby Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. What Judy didn’t say was that—when it came to putting her more cutting-edge ideas out into the world—she had found her perfect, fearless shepherd. Chapter Two Kiddie Lit “It was the best $5,000 we ever spent.” There’s one word people use to describe Richard “Dick” Jackson: “charming.” As an editor for major houses like Macmillan and Doubleday, he knew how to work the room at a book party, flatter a sensitive writer’s ego, and make even the stuffiest librarian smile.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  He began: “In this fifth range of the tree which liveth from the summit, and ever beareth fruit, and never sheddeth leaf, are spirits blessed, who below, ere they came unto heaven, were of a great name, so that every Muse would be enriched by them. Wherefore gaze upon the horns of the cross; he whom I shall name shall there do the act which in a cloud its swift flame doth.” I saw a light drawn along the cross at the naming of Joshua, as it was done; nor was the word known to me ere the fact. And at the name of the lofty Maccabee I saw another move, wheeling, and gladness was the lash unto the top. Thus for Charlemagne and for Orlando two more were followed by my keen regard, as the eye followeth its falcon flying. Then drew my sight along that cross William and Rinoardo and the duke Godfrey, and Robert Guiscard. 2 Thereon amongst the other lights, moving and mingling, the soul which had discoursed to me showed me his artist quality among heaven’s singers. I turned to my right side to see in Beatrice my duty, whether by speech or gesture indicated, and I saw her eyes so clear, so joyous, that her semblance surpassed all former usage and the last. And as by feeling more delight in doing well, man from day to day perceiveth that his virtue gaineth ground; so did I perceive that my circling round together with the heaven had increased its arc, 3 seeing this miracle yet more adorned. And such change as cometh in short passage of time over a fair dame, when her countenance unburdeneth shame’s burden, was presented to my eyes, when I turned me, because of the white glow of the temperate sixth star 4 which had received me into it. I saw in that torch of Jove the sparkling of the love which was therein signalling to my eyes our speech. And as birds, risen from the bank, as though rejoicing together o’er their pasture, make themselves now a round, now a long, flock, so within the lights the sacred creatures flying sang, and in their shapings made themselves now D, now I, now L. First singing to their note they moved, then as they made themselves one of these signs, a little space would stay and hold their peace. O goddess Pegasæan, 5 who givest glory unto genius, and renderest it long life, as with thy aid doth it to cities and to realms, make me bright with thyself, that I may throw into relief their figures as I have them in conception; let thy might show in these brief verses. They displayed them then in five times seven vowels and consonants, and I took note of the members, even as they appeared in utterance to me. Diligite justitiam, were the first verb and substantive of all the picturing; qui judicatis terram were the last.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  Her work, her voice, her face are all a comfort to the people who grew up with her, who watched her persevere against her attackers and go on to sell an astonishing ninety million copies of her novels to people around the world. Generations of readers are still rooting for her. Today, in her mid-eighties, she has graciously accepted her laurels and strolled into her role as a living legend. I wanted to write this book to figure out why Judy Blume is still so beloved, when many of her contemporary young adult novelists, like Betty Miles and Norma Klein, have receded into history. I wanted to investigate why just the mention of Blume’s name is enough to break the ice with a stranger and get a serious, otherwise put-together adult woman giggling. Try it: say the name “Judy Blume” to the nearest Gen X or millennial book lover and see what happens. Is it a smile? A fast flush of joy? I’ve seen this look so many times since I started researching Blume’s life and work. A glimmer that floats across the eyes, almost like the person across from me is recalling a former flame. What’s the secret ingredient that makes Judy Blume’s work so potent? The thing at the heart of her writing that makes it so sticky? Her name continues to show up in contemporary pop culture, in movies like Easy A (2010), Ted (2012), and Deadpool (2016). In interviews, Blume is consistent when she says that she wasn’t sitting down at her typewriter trying to be a firebrand; she just wanted to tell honest stories. But in doing so, she created a cohesive, culture-altering vision of modern childhood. In writing about kids from the inside out, she hit on crucial universalities that transcended race, class, and even sexual orientation. Young readers saw themselves in Judy Blume’s novels and felt she gave them permission to be truthful, too. More than truthful—to be complicated . In Blume’s world, children are expansive enough to question their relationships with God one night and then bicker over trivialities with their best friends on the bus the next morning. Middle school crushes are valid, and important! Nice girls are allowed to challenge their parents. They’re even allowed to criticize them. This might not sound like a big deal now, but it was huge when Blume started writing in the late 1960s. Back then, children’s literature clung to the wisdom that mother and father knew best. One of the reasons I loved Just as Long as We’re Together so very much was that it validated my feelings. My parents divorced when I was five. Their split and subsequent remarriages had freaked me out and made me angry, but I held it all in. Unlike me, Stephanie expressed her displeasure with her mom and dad in all kinds of subtle and explicit ways.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  waked and, being greatly afraid, ran unto the dead body with the lamp in my hand, and I uncovered his face and viewed him closely round about; all the parts were there: and immediately came in the wretched matron all blubbered with her witnesses, and threw herself upon the corpse, and eftsoons kissing him, examined his body in the lamplight, and found no part diminished. Then she turned and commanded one Philodespotus, her steward, to pay the good guardian his wages forthwith, which when he had done, he said: ‘ We thank you, gentle young man, for your pains, and verily for your diligence herein we will account you as one of the family.’ “Whereupon I, being joyous of my unhoped gain, and rattling my money in my hand, as I gazed upon its shining colour, did answer : * Nay, madam, I pray you, esteem me as one of your servitors ; and as often as you need my services at any time, I am at your commandment.' «J had not fully declared these words, when as behold, all the servants of the house did eurse the dreadful ominousness of my words, and were assem- bled to drive-me away with all manner of weapons; one buffeted me about the face with hís fists, another thrust his elbows into my shoulders, some struck me in the sides with their hands, some kicked. me, some pulled me by the hair, some tore my garments, and so I was handled amongst them and driven from the house even as the proud young man Adonis who was torn by a boar, or Orpheus the Muses' poet. « When I was come into the next street to recover my spirit, I mused with myself too late mine unwise and unadvised words which I had spoken, whereby I considered that I had deserved much more punish- ment, and that I was worthily beaten for my folly : 89 LUCIUS APULEIUS dignumque me pluribus etiam verberibus fuisse merito consentio, ecce iam ultimum defletus atque conclamatus .processerat mortuus, rituque patrio, utpote unus de optimatibus, pompa funeris publici ductabatur per forum. Occurrit atratus quidam maestus in lacrimis genialem canitiem revellens senex, et manibus ambabus invadens torum, voce contenta quidem sed assiduis singultibus impedita» ‘Per fidem vestram" inquit ‘ Quirites, per pietatem publicam perempto civi subsistite, et extremum facinus in nefariam scelestamque istam feminam severiter vindicate. Haec enim, nec ullus alius, miserum adulescentem, sororis meae filium, in adulteri gratiam et ob praedam hereditariam extinxit veneno. Sic ille senior lamentabiles questus singulis instrepe- bat. Saevire vulgus interdum et facti verisimilitudine ad criminis credulitatem impelli: conclamant ignem, requirunt saxa, parvulos ad exitium mulieris hortan- tur Emeditatis ad haec illa fletibus, quamque sanctissime poterat adiurans cuncta numina, tantum scelus abnuebat. 28 “Ergo igitur senex ille: * Veritatis arbitrium in divinam providentiam reponamus. Zatchlas adest Aegyptius, propheta primarius, qui mecum iamdu- dum grandi praemio pepigit reducere paulisper ab inferis spiritum. corpusque istud postliminio mortis animare’; et cum dicto iuvenem quempiam linteis 90

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  There was one very special rehearsal … my heart, my heart … there was one day in May marked by a lot of gay flurry—it all rolled past, beyond my ken, immune to my memory, and when I saw Lo next, in the late afternoon, balancing on her bike, pressing the palm of her hand to the damp bark of a young birch tree on the edge of our lawn, I was so struck by the radiant tenderness of her smile that for an instant I believed all our troubles gone. “Can you remember,” she said, “what was the name of that hotel, you know [nose puckered], come on, you know—with those white columns and the marble swan in the lobby? Oh, you know [noisy exhalation of breath]—the hotel where you raped me. Okay, skip it. I mean, was it [almost in a whisper] The Enchanted Hunters? Oh, it was? [musingly] Was it?”—and with a yelp of amorous vernal laughter she slapped the glossy bole and tore uphill, to the end of the street, and then rode back, feet at rest on stopped pedals, posture relaxed, one hand dreaming in her print-flowered lap.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  “The effect is to confirm common anxieties, rather than allaying them,” Kirkus wrote, wondering if the story was perhaps intended as “satirical.” As the reviewer noted with more than a shadow of judgment, the novel closed with Margaret getting her first period. On the other hand, the New York Times described it as a “funny, warm and loving book, one that captures the essence of beginning adolescence.” That same day, the Times included Are You There God? in a write-up of the year’s outstanding children’s books. Judy was overjoyed when she saw the paper. “That was the first time I felt ‘I can really do this,’ ” she said in Judy Blume’s Story. “These people are taking me seriously! It’s not just pretend.” Her name was getting out there. She gained a frisson of notoriety in her town. She gifted three copies of Are You There God? to Randy and Larry’s elementary school, but as she’d later tell it, the principal refused to put it in the library. He said that menstruation wasn’t an appropriate topic for kids that age. Then, there was the time the Blumes’ phone rang and Judy picked up. The person on the other end of the line—a woman—asked her if she was the one who wrote the novel. “Yes,” Judy said. “Communist!” the voice shrieked, before quickly hanging up. How bizarre. It was a strange thing to call someone who’d simply written a book about an American middle schooler and her friend group. Wasn’t it? These days, the Right uses a specific set of inflammatory words when it’s accusing someone of exposing children to inappropriate material: “Indoctrination.” “Pedophilia.” “Grooming.” “When I was 17 I discovered one of my younger siblings had been reading Judy Blume drivel at a friend’s house,” a Twitter user posted to their 18,000+ followers on April 16, 2023. “Their behavior became unacceptable. Judy Blume is a groomer.” But in the Vietnam War era of the early 1970s, the shorthand for anything subversive was “communist.” To a certain buttoned-up demographic, Communism was an encroaching political movement that had infected the minds of the American left wing. Loud and freewheeling rock music? Communist. Roll your eyes all you want, but it’s true. Widespread sex education? Definitely communist. Sex education in schools had been around for over half a century, but it was still an ideological battleground. It first cropped up in the 1910s when soldiers started coming home from the front lines of World War I. Many returned with unwanted reunion gifts for their wives, girlfriends, and sexual partners: gonorrhea and syphilis. The spread of venereal disease (as it was termed back then) was so swift and urgent that new, government-backed organizations popped up to deal with it. Billionaire oil-man John D. Rockefeller was a big supporter of sex ed in schools and he funneled money into the cause.