"Tell the truth, Lila."

Background

I've been listening to The Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante. Each novel is ~500 pages. Ferrante has completely enthralled me with her series. I could easily blog about it everyday. See my response to the first novel in the series, My Brilliant Friend here.

Occasionally, there are scenes in the book that I must read. Here is one. It is from the fourth novel titled The Story of the Lost Child. 

Excerpt

“Tell the truth, Lila.”

“The truth.”

I pressed her, often I provoked her, and she reacted but never to the point of losing control and
letting go.

It occurred to me that it was now a linguistic question. She resorted to Italian as if to a barrier; I tried to push her toward dialect, our language of candor. But while her Italian was translated from dialect, my dialect was increasingly translated from Italian, and we both spoke a false language. She needed to explode, lose control of the words. I wanted her to say in the authentic Neapolitan of our childhood: What the fuck do you want, Lenù, I’m like this because I lost my daughter, and maybe she’s alive, maybe she’s dead, but I can’t bear either of those possibilities, because if she’s alive she’s alive far away from me, she’s in a place where horrible things are happening to her, which I see clearly, I see them all day and all night as if they were happening right before my eyes; but if she’s dead I’m dead, too, dead here inside, a death more unbearable than real death, which is death without feeling, while this death forces you to feel everything, every day, to wake up, wash, dress, eat and drink, work, talk to you who don’t understand or won’t understand, to you who even if I just see you, all set, fresh from the hairdresser, with your daughters who do well in school, who always do everything perfectly, who aren’t spoiled even by this place of shit, which, rather, seems to do them good—makes them even more confident, even more arrogant, even more sure they have the right to take everything—all this makes me more furious than I already was: so go, go, leave me in peace, Tina would have been better than all of you, and instead they took her, and I can’t bear it anymore. 

I would have liked to lead her into a conversation like that, jumbled, intoxicated. I felt that if she made up her mind she would extract from the tangled mass of her brain words of that sort. But it didn’t happen. In fact, as I think back, in that phase she was less aggressive than in other periods of our story. Maybe the outburst I hoped for was made up of my own feelings, which therefore hindered me from seeing the situation clearly and made Lila even more elusive. Sometimes I wondered if she had in her mind something unutterable that I wasn’t even capable of imagining. (pages 362-363)

Spoiler Free Analysis

Lenu is the narrator. She wants Lila to open up. Lila is the "Brilliant Friend" from the title of the first novel. The opening pages describe how Lenu is telling the story of their lives and friendship, which started when they were children.

"Tell the truth." A combative phase. Lenu wants Lila to explode. Lila doesn't. The reflective narrator Lenu sees how her aggressiveness may have created the opposite response from Lila. 

Their language is a barrier to truth. The characters are thinking in different languages, Lenu Italian, Lila dialect. They are speaking different languages, Lenu dialect, Lila Italian. both translating. This brings them further from the truth and further from Lenu's goal. The language is a symbol for how distant the characters have traveled, figuratively and metaphorically, from each other.  

Lenu imagines a powerful response. She shifts the narrative from her reflection to the response and perspective she was hoping to get from Lila. In her reflective state, Lenu remembers that Lila is capable of thoughts that Lenu, herself, cannot imagine. Solidifying the greatest barrier between Lenu and Lila, the greatest barrier between Lenu and the truth.

Spoiler Analysis

The series is constantly shifting everything (moods, emotions, attitudes, varying qualities, etc) between Lenu and Lila. Both Lila and Lenu come off as the smarter, wiser, neurotic, selfish, loving, manipulative, naive, and so forth character. The story is told by Lenu, so readers have to trust Lenu to tell the truth. How much of these shifts are shifts in Lenu. 

Then, the author Ferrante, does something brilliant (Ferrante is the ultimate brilliant friend). Lila tells Lenu to never write about her, Lila. Lenu questions Lila. Lila threatens to know and destroy anything Lenu writes about her. The older narrator, Lenu, hints that Lila could be secretly editing, revising, and changing the story that Lenu started writing; the story us, readers, are reading. Damn! Later in the series, Lenu more overtly repeats this suspicion

By the time readers get to the except above, the suspicion and likelihood that Lila is involved in telling the story is high. We can now read "Tell the truth, Lila," as a direct message to Lila from Lenu. Leun may be telling and directing Lila to take over this section of the story.

Lenu is a novelist in the story. Her novels are her life. Characters in the story get upset with her because her novels are too real. Another layer is added. Tell the truth, Lenu!

Conclusion

I really look forward to rereading this series!

I don't want the story to end, it probably will today for me. But, more than any other story, this story has an extremely high reread appeal.

I think I'll reread a chapter a day next year.

Essays to Read

This will be a running list of mine. Here are the first essays on my hit list. The order will be as I add and read them. Some of the essays I've read, but I need to reread.

I occasionally hear or see references to influential essays, and, of course, I always say I'm going to read those later. But, of course, I rarely do and, more likely, forgive about the essay altogether.

For now on, I will stop and update my list here. Hopefully, this list will remind and motivate me to read the essays. I'll make some type of response for each essay. Links in the To Read section will be for the essay's text. Links in the Read and Recommend or Do Not Recommend will be to my reviews.

To Read/Reread

"The Use of Knowledge in Society" by Friedrich A. Hayek (1945)
"Essays on Bentham and Coleridge" by John Stuart Mill
"Civilization" by John Stuart Mill

"Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1841)

"The Second Sex" (Introduction) by Simone de Beauvoir (1949)

"We Should All Be Feminists" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2012)

"Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin (1955)

"Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau (1849)

Read and Recommend

"WHY THE ARTS ARE NOT PROGRESSIVE" by William Hazlitt

"The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus (1942)  

Read and Do Not Recommend

Why the Arts Are Not Progressive (Essay Review)

Here is my first essay review for the essay "WHY THE ARTS ARE NOT PROGRESSIVE" by William Hazlitt.

Overall I agree with the main idea. Art, unlike other scientific and technological areas, do not progress with time. 

I'm not sure I accept the supporting claims and ideas that Hazlitt uses to defend his main idea.

Specifically, he suggests that geniuses create new art forms and that determine the peak of the art. Hazlitt uses examples of art that I'm not qualified to comment on. I don't know anything about sculpture or painting. I know literature well for a high school English teacher, but I don't know Shakespeare that well. I started a lecture series on Shakespeare by Harold Bloom last night. My daughter and I have been reading the Shakespeare Can Be Fun series by Lois Burdett. It is a lot of fun. The three book we have are all written in rhyming verses. So I'm not finished learning Shakespeare yet.

Bloom makes some very strong claims about Shakespeare. It's difficult to judge these claims because Shakespeare takes a lot of work to read and understand. This barrier of entry to Shakespeare makes me suspicious of Bloom and thus the same applies to Hazlitt.

I see the barrier to Shakespeare, and potentially other art forms that require a significant amount of front loading, as a possible brainwashing phase.

As I mentioned, I'm not very well read in Shakespeare. I took a lower level college literature course on Shakespeare's later work. I really liked the class and learned a lot. Then I taught Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet as an English teacher. That's about it. I don't see Shakespeare as the GOAT. I never read Shakespeare on my own until I started with Burdett's series.

I know I don't have the background to fully engage in Shakespeare without a structured course and or guide. But then I wonder how much that structure and guidance is reinforcing the greatness claim.

Is Shakespeare truly the greatest, or is the idea contagious. The more you try to understand why Shakespeare is the greatest the more likely you'll believe he is the greatest.

Don't get me wrong. Even I can see Shakespeare is great. His use of language alone proves his greatness. His productivity supports it. His range of writing speaks for itself: poems to comedies to tragedies. But the greatest? I don't know. How much time do I have to spend before I can tell? How much time do I have to spend before I get brainwashed?

I recommend the essay.

Once a Runner by John L. Parker, Jr. (Running Fiction Review)

This is my fourth review in The Running Fiction Challenge.

Review

Weeks ago, before bed, I read 20-30 pages of the novel. I thought I was interested in continuing, but, here I am, weeks later, and my bookmark is on page 48. I have zero desire to read anymore of the novel. 

The opening descriptions and writing turned me off. But that isn't why I stopped reading. Below is the opening two paragraphs of the novel. Sample the first chapter here.

"THE NIGHT JOGGERS were out as usual.

The young man could see dim figures on the track even in this pale light, slowly pounding round and round the most infinite of footpaths. There would be, he knew, plump, determined-looking women slogging along while fleshy knees quivered. They would occasionally brush damp hair fiercely from their eyes and dream of certain cruel and smiling emcees: bikinis, ribbon-cuttings, and the like. And then, of course, tennis with white-toothed males, wild tangos in the moonlight."

Luckily, the novel mostly abandons this type of writing. 

The story is about a college runner. The first chapters are the start of a new season and school year. The main characters go for a run and the story picks up. The dynamics of the runners are fun. The competition and masculinity capture a time and place.

Overall, the story and characters aren't engaging enough to keep me reading.

In Once a Runner's defense, I started listening to Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend. Ferrante's characters and writing are so good. It seems unimaginable to revert back to reading anything like Once a Runner.

If I spend more time in the story, I'll update my review.

Join the challenge below.

Most Popular Running Fiction Challenge

The following books are the most rated running fiction on goodreads.com, as of 6 July 2024. Goodreads readers can vote here for the best running fiction. The books are in order by total ratings. I've added more specific genres and brief spoiler free descriptions of each novel.

1. *Forrest Gump by Winston Groom - historical running fiction. The novel isn't specifically focused on running throughout, but many chapters feature Forrest's physical running as important aspects of the narrative. (68,999 ratings)

2. The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen - young adult running fiction. The story chronicles a high school 400m runner's physical and emotional journey of recovery and how running remains a central part of her life. (30,771 ratings)

3. Once a Runner by John L. Parker Jr. - running fiction. The novel is regarded as one of the most iconic novels about running. Its entire narrative is centered around the sport, both literally and metaphorically. Centering around the life of a competitive runner who vividly captures the intensity of training, the experience of racing, and the subculture of competitive running. (15,114 ratings)

4. Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron - historical running fiction. A novel that centers around running, both as a literal sport and as a metaphor for survival, identity, and hope. The novel is set in Rwanda during the years leading up to and during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. (7,104 ratings)

5. The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner by Alan Sillitoe - running fiction. Once again, running is a central role, both literally and metaphorically. The story explores themes of personal rebellion, social class, and individuality, with running serving as a powerful symbol for the protagonist’s inner life and resistance against societal expectations. (6,686 ratings)

* Novel might be demoted due to not being enough about running 

Honorable Ineligible Mentions

• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by novelist Haruki Murakami - memoir, not fiction. (171,386) 
• The Running Man by Stephen King - dystopian fiction. There is a lot of running and some overlap between running qualities like endurance and stamina, but the sport or recreational activity of running is absent. The Running Man is really about survival, society, and oppression. (137, 820 ratings)
• The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J. Walker - dystopian fiction. Running plays a minor role both literally, but a larger key element of the story’s structure and themes metaphorically. And running makes for a good title, but it is not a "running novel" in the sense of being about the sport or activity of running. (14,848 ratings)

My Reviews

I'll be review each of the novels here on my blog. I'd love any and all feedback. Leave a comment. Here are reviews I've done so far:

• The End of the World Running Club
• Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron
• The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen
• Once a Runner by John L. Parker, Jr. 

Life Without Anything But Life

From Elena Ferrante’s 2012 novel The Story of a New Name, English translation by Ann Goldstein. This is the second novel in the Neapolitan Novels. See my review of the first novel here.

“Have you ever been to the theater?”

“A few times.”

“Did you like it?”

“It was all right.”

“I’ve never been, but I’ve seen it on television.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“I know, but better than nothing.”

And at that point she took out of her bag the book I had given her, the volume of Beckett’s plays, and showed it to him.

“Have you read this?”

Nino took the book, examined it, admitted uneasily, “No.”

“So there is something you haven’t read.”

“Yes.”

“You should read it.”

Lila began to talk to us about the book. To my surprise she was very deliberate, she talked the way she used to, choosing the words so as to make us see people and things, and also the emotion she gave them, portraying them anew keeping them there, present, alive. She said that we didn’t have to wait for nuclear war, in the book it was as if it had already happened. She told us at length about a woman named Winnie who at a certain point announced, another happy day, and she herself declaimed the phrase, becoming so upset that, in uttering it, her voice trembled slightly: another happy day, words that were insupportable, because nothing, nothing, she explained, in Winnie’s life, nothing in her gestures, nothing in her head, was happy, not that day or the preceding days. But, she added, the biggest impression had been made on her by a Dan Rooney. Dan Rooney, she said, is blind but he’s not bitter about it, because he believes that life is better without sight, and in fact he wonders whether, if one became deaf and mute, life would not be still more life, life without anything but life.

“Why did you like it?” Nino asked.

“I don’t know yet if I liked it.”

“But it made you curious.”

“It made me think. What does it mean that life is more life without sight, without hearing, even without words?”

“Maybe it’s just a gimmick.”

“No, what gimmick. There’s a thing here that suggests a thousand others, it’s not a gimmick.”

 

I loved this scene. 

There is so much to say here. The idea about life being more life with less senses is very interesting by itself, let alone how it relates to the characters in the story.

Samuel Beckett is a powerful allusion. I'll admit I've never read or watched any of Beckett, but I'm interested now because of Ferrante.

The dialogue is direct and focuses on the point. It allows the main ideas to stand out. It allows a curious and or well read reader to explore the connections being made with Beckett.

The book, a metaphor, becomes a desired object. Ironically, the book was originally given because it wasn't desired. The undesirable becomes desired. So many layers and connections here.

In Happy Days (the play refereed to in the scene above), the character Winnie is unhappy and struggling to keep up positive perspective. In the play, Winnie is buried in sand.

The characters in the scene above are on the beach. They've been spending their summer on the beach. Who is getting buried in the sand? Who is struggling to hide their unhappiness? Who might learn that life is more life with less senses?

Books which have influenced me most

I was searching MR for biographies and or nonfiction books on Shakespeare, I found this post. I'll follow my gut too.

These are not my favorite or the best books I've read although four of the books are among my all time favorite books. 

These are in order of when I read them. You can see which ones have had more influence by the fact that I've written about them on my blog.

1. It's Not About the Bike- one of the first books I read. I reread multiple times, even in 2024 more here and here. it gave me a false belief about the world that had a big influence on me.
   
2. Jarhead : A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battle- helped me overcome some of my young and dumb masculinity.
3. Into the Wild- huge impact on me. I wanted to be like McCandless. I say a lot more here as to why I did and do love this book.
4. Tuesday with Morrie- huge impact on me wanting to be a good and better person. Love for all. I wrote more about it here and here too.
5. Siddhartha- I've this book every year, since I first read it. Huge influence. Why I reread over and over here. A sample of how much I read, think, and write about Siddhartha is here.
   
6. War and Peace- proved I had the ability to read and understand real books. Read more here.
   
7. Gilgamesh- Timeless story that really captures what people like to call human nature.
8. The Man Who Wasn't There: Investigations into the Strange New Science of the Self- gave a broader understanding of the human mind.
9. Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy- got me very interested in economics.
   
10. Big Business- along with economics, makes a strong argument for big business. Really changed the way I see and blame problems on businesses.
    

I Was Wrong (Baseball Cards)

In a previous post, I made a claim about baseball cards, read here. 

Over the last few weeks, I saw graphs like the following below, 

I saw the flat lines and then the spikes around the pandemic, and I assumed these cards weren't worthy investments, maybe even not keeping up with inflation. Of course, the starting point matters. As we will see below.

Comparison

For my initial comparison. I used the data available to me from PSA's website. The site tracks and posts sales of their graded cards. 

I used Rickey Henderson, 1980 Topps #482, PSA 7 graded cards. I plotted all the sales data from PSA. I inserted all the S&P 500 weekly stock prices from Google Finance, and I downloaded the monthly inflation data from Federal Reserve Economic Data. 

Then I created a new table and chart, see below or click here.

This shocked me!

Nominalized Values from May 2013 to October 2024

*Nominalized means to convert. 

I converted all the initial vales to $100 to get the easiest visual comparison. If one purchased $100 worth of S&P 500, US Dollars, and Rickey Henderson rookie cards in May 2013, the baseball cards would be the best investment as of October 2024.

Since May of 2013, Rickey Henderson's rookie card has out perform the S&P 500!

This is the opposite of what I expected. I don't have the data set provided in the first graph above, so I wasn't able to compare back to 2005. When I do, it's going to look different. 

Nominalized Values from Jan 2020 to October 2024

I followed the same process as above. The Rickey Henderson 1980 Topps 482 does less well when comparing starting in Jan 2020. But, still, it does well. Far better than I would have guessed. 

For most of 1980 Topps 482's existence, it would have been a phenominal investment. It's hard to say what will happen going forward, see prediction below.

Next 

I want to compare two more rare, valuable cards like Mickey Mantle, 1951 Bowman #253, and Reggie Jackson, 1969 Topps #260. I also want to compare an extremely common card from the peak of overproduction, Ken Griffey Jr., 1989 Upper Deck #1.

Coming soon.

More Predictions

My last prediction was terrible. I think this one will be close. I already know that Griffey Jr's rookie card (RC) is less valuable than when I collected in the 1990s. Grading was just getting started as I stopped collection, so grading might tell a slightly different story.

Similar to my previous post's prediction, Mickey Mantle's RC should increase its value the most over time, being the best investment of the four cards mentioned above. The Reggie Jackson RC should be the second best investment, due to its relative scarcity, and Rickey Henderson's rookie card should be third of the four cards. Fourth, Ken Griffey Jr.’s RC, due to its abundances, should be competing with inflation as a bad investment for collectors.

Collectors today didn't grow up watching Mickey Mantle play, so he doesn't have the bias that many collectors have with Jackson, Henderson, and Griffey. Collectors in their 50-70s are going to remember watching and owning Jackson's cards when Jackson played baseball. Collectors in their 40-60s will remember watching and owning Henderson. Collects 30s and older are most likely going to have collected Griffey.

I'll still keep my previous concern. As collector get older and die, I'm not sure younger collectors will be filling their shoes with demands for the 1980s baseball cards. The scarcity and legacy of the 1950-60s cards should keep the demand high for the collectors coming of age. But the 1980s? I don't know. There are a lot of those cards...

Topps 1980 #482

My Background

My family recently moved and we got a nice profit on the sale of our house. A close friend strongly encouraged me to spend a couple thousand and splurge on myself. Splurging to me sounds wasteful, so I was very reluctant. I considered buying a new bicycle, but I like my current one. My cousin has a frig in her garage that is covered in baseball cards. I've been wanting to do something similar. A couple weeks ago, I went online to buy a bunch of cheap baseball cards to make something artistic or fun. I thought it might be cool to use all Rickey Henderson rookie cards. This is a card I almost bought a couple times, but never did. Rickey Henderson was my favorite baseball player as a kid. I probably have 100s of his cards, hopefully, in my bedroom at my parents house. I look forward to retrieving them on my next trip home. To my surprise, Rickey Henderson's rookie card is expensive!

Introduction

Rickey Henerdson's rookie card, 1980 Topps #482, is the most valuable baseball card of the 1980s.  On August 24th, 2024, a gem mint PSA 10, the highest graded rating from PSA, sold for $180,000 at a Heritage Auction.

The 1980s mark the shift in mass producing baseball cards. In 1980, Topps was the only major card company that produced a set of baseball cards (there are some smaller obscure sets from 1980). In 1981, Fleer and Donruss joined Topps in the baseball card market. By 1989, there were six major brands of baseball cards: Topps, Fleer, Donruss, Score, Upper Deck, and Bowman. Topps has not released official numbers of printed cards from the 1980s, but several sources online suggest the 1980 prints were in the millions. Estimates for the 1989 cohorts put each company printing in the 2-5 million range. The late 1980s and early 1990s marked the peak years of overproduction. If you grew up in the early 1990s, you'll remember how many more cards shops there were. You'll remember sports cards were everywhere. Grocery stores were some of the best places to buy cards. People were opening businesses so they could buy cards whole sale and by the boxes. It was a wild time.

Let's compare Ken Griffey Jr. (KGJ), peak overproduction, with Rickey Henderson (RH), beginning of mass production. 

KGJ's, a rookie in 1989, represents the opposite of RH, a rookie in 1980. The KGJ has six RCs, one from each card brand. RH has 1, Topps #482. 1989 was the first year of Upper Deck. KGJ, the number draft pick, was giving the first card, #1, of the set. Upper Deck printed less cards than the other brands and was considered a more premium card company. KGJ 1989 Upper Deck #1 (RC) is another one of the most popular and valuable cards of the 1980s. Considering KGJ has 6 different RCs, there are over ten times more KGJ RCs between 15-25 million prints, than RH RC, 1-2 million prints.

KGJ has a lot more supply. There is another key difference: time. 

PSA is the top grading company. Results of PSA sales show that KGJ is more popular (more demand) than RH, but due to the difference in supply, RH's cards are a lot more valuable than KGJ. See Mickey Mantle below for an even more extreme comparison. The links have more data.

RH's RC, 1980 Topps #482, has 25 gem mint PSA 10 graded cards out of 38,810 cards graded by PSA. 

 

KGJ's best RC, 1989 Upper Deck #1, has 4,179 gem mint PSA 10 grading out of 110, 584 graded cards by PSA.

Let's compare with one of the most iconic baseball card, Mickey Mantle's (MM) RC, 1951 Bowan #253, has 1 gem mint PSA 10 grading, and 9 mint PSA 9 grading, out of 2,5778 total grades. A mint PSA 9 sold for over $3,000,000 in 2022. 

 

One more to bridge the gap between MM and RH. Reggie Jackson's (RJ) RC, 1969 Topps #260, also has 1 gem mint PSA 10 graded card, with 42 mint PSA 9 grades. There are a total of 11,552 cards graded by PSA. The RJ RC sold for over $1,000,000 in 2021.

All four of these players are popular all time great hall of fame outfielders.

More to Come

I got a friend, who is a data scientist, who seems to be interested enough to help me. We're going to start by investigate RH's 1980 Topps #482.

I suspect RH RC is a bad long term investment. I'm around middle age and have disposable income to spend on expensive piece of cardboard. I think I'm a perfect example of a growing demand for RH RCs and sports cards from the 80s and 90s in general. As my collecting peers grow old and die, will there be enough young collectors coming up to keep the demand for these baseball cards? I think for Mantle yes. RH maybe. KGJ no way.

My initial feeling is that baseball cards, trading cards and collectibles in general, are "too" volatile to seriously consider as investments. People should only spend disposable income and the activity of buying/collecting should be largely entertainment. Trading, short term buying and selling, is probably the most profitable activity in sports cards.

I suspect cards might not even keep up with inflation (I'm sure there is research already on this). I'm curious how RH RC performs compared with stocks, other investments, and art.

I'm curious to explore when or at what price do most of the know cards come out and get graded and or sold? I don't expect many, if any, new gem mint Mantle RCs to pop up. KGJ on the other hand could have 100s-1000s still hiding. And Henderson? I suspect the RH card is more like the Mantle card than the KGJ card. There must be 1000s of RH RCs in basements, attics, and garages, but how many are in mint or gem mint condition? How many collectors are sitting on gem mints waiting for the right price to grade and sell theirs?

I want to see how basic economics principles predict and explain Rickey Henderson's RC over time. I'm going to make a prediction at the end for 1, 5, and 20 years in the future. It'll be interesting to see how I do.