kiss a cloud

When we feel less sharply

Posted on 13 May 2013 | 4 responses

The next day, when I was sober, I thought again about the three of us, and about time’s many paradoxes. For instance: that when we are young and sensitive, we are also at our most hurtful; whereas when the blood begins to slow, when we feel less sharply, when we are more armoured and have learnt how to bear hurt, we tread more carefully. (98)

Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that’s something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we’re just stuck with what we’ve got. We’re on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn’t it? And also—if this isn’t too grand a word—our tragedy. (103)

When you’re young—when I was young—you want your emotions to be like the ones you read about in books. You want them to overturn your life, create and define a new reality. Later, I think, you want them to do something milder, something more practical: you want them to support your life as it is and has become. You want them to tell you that things are OK. And is there anything wrong with that? (110)

Quotes from The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. A beautiful, beautiful book. One of the most haunting I’ve read in a long time. It reminded me of Brooklyn by Colm Toibin and On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, only this was by far the most heartbreaking. This little book is a life lesson everyone needs. Read it, please.

Manderley on my mind

Posted on 10 May 2013 | 9 responses

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me.

Strange how I know these opening lines by heart and yet I had only read Daphne du Maurier’s most famous Rebecca last night.

The unnamed narrator, a shy, inferior young woman from a humble background, marries into a wealthy and prominent family. Her move into the glorious Manderley, her new home, is fraught with much drama and mystery. The husband’s first wife, Rebecca, had only died a year before and her memory is still very much a presence in the house. Rebecca’s servants, Rebecca’s things, Rebecca’s way of doing things about the house remain, such as her usual lunch and dinner menus or where her favourite flowers were to be placed. Everyone’s adoration for the beautiful Rebecca, perfect in every way—clever, lovable, graceful, and fun—strangle the new Mrs de Winter’s hopes, taint her happiness, and strain her young marriage.

It is just as well I, the reader, only hear of Rebecca this and Rebecca that, stressing her importance. She garners the title to the book and every page trumpets her name, while the new Mrs de Winter only gains a couple of allusions to her name. Who is central to the story, really? Is it Rebecca or the kindly, obscure—almost invisible—narrator? While Rebecca is but a ghost by the time I get to know her, du Maurier purposefully strings her up with such life.

My sympathy lies where it should. With which Mrs de Winter, you say?

Read the book, I dare you. Lay in bed, under the covers, safe from the thunder ringing outside, and stay up till the morning, head heavy because you couldn’t put the book down. Do that, as you did in your younger days, when you had no responsibilities, just books to escape to whenever you wanted.

I get now why Rebecca is so popular. The woman’s ultimate book escape. I knew I had a penchant for gothic romances in little snatches but didn’t realise until now that I needed a whole section of it in my library, I do.

So still thinking about Rebecca. I would have liked to have known more about life after Manderley. Is there a reprise? I like to imagine what the young woman’s name might’ve been. Her husband Maxim thought it a rather fetching one. Her name, this young woman, as mysterious as Rebecca herself, though very different from her. I wonder.

The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas

Posted on 12 January 2013 | 30 responses

I’m beginning to regret this book. Not that it bores me, I have nothing to do and, really, putting together a few meager chapters for that other world is always a task that distracts me from eternity a little. But the book is tedious, it has the smell of the grave about it; it has a certain cadaveric contraction about it, a serious fault, insignificant to boot because the main defect of this book is you, reader. You’re in a hurry to grow old and the book moves slowly. You love direct and continuous narration, a regular and fluid style, and this book and my style are like drunkards, they stagger left and right, they walk and stop, mumble, yell, cackle, shake their fists at the sky, stumble, and fall . . . (111)

It must be said, however, that this book is written with apathy, with the apathy of a man now freed of the brevity of the century, a supinely philosophical work, of an unequal philosophy, now austere, now playful, something that neither builds nor destroys, neither inflames nor cools, and, yet, it is more than a pastime and less than an apostolate. (11)

As described, above, by the most unique of all narrators—a corpse—the book is such. Like a drunkard, staggering, cackling, stumbling. Playful, philosophical. Being readers in the modern world, we may be used to such daring theatrics in writing style, but thinking of how this book was written in the 19th century, it must have been quite the creative feat.

The hero recounts his life not in old age, where he might’ve been pensive and reflective, but from the void and nothingness after which his life has ended, and where his narrative reflects a detached air, which results in a rather comical one.

I am not exactly a writer who is dead but a dead man who is a writer. . . (7)

I was a handsome young fellow, handsome and bold, who was entering life in boots and spurs, a whip in his hand and blood in his veins, mounted on a nervous, robust, swift steed, like the steeds in ancient ballads . . . (33)

Ironically, he lived a rather passionate life, though heavily in the love realm, but he never lets us forget that he is dead. The reader gets reminded often. He describes himself as the most honest anyone can get, not being tied down by the scruples that come with society.

Perhaps I’m startling the reader with the frankness with which I’m exposing and emphasizing my mediocrity. Be aware that frankness is the prime virtue of a dead man. In life the gaze of public opinion, the contrast of interests, the struggle of greed all oblige people to keep quiet about their dirty linen, to disguise the rips and stitches, not to extend to the world the revelations they make to their conscience. And the best part of the obligation comes when, by deceiving others, a man deceives himself, because in such a case he saves himself vexation, which is a painful feeling, and hypocrisy, which is a vile vice. But in death, what a difference! What a release! What freedom! Oh, how people can shake off their coverings, leave their spangles in the gutter, unbutton themselves, unpaint themselves, undecorate themselves, confess flatly what they were and what they’ve stopped being! Because, in short, there aren’t any more neighbors or friends or enemies or acquaintances or strangers. There’s no more audience. The gaze of public opinion, that sharp and judgmental gaze, loses its virtue the moment we tread the territory of death. I’m not saying that it doesn’t reach here and examine and judge us, but we don’t care about the examination or the judgment. My dear living gentlemen and ladies, there’s nothing as incommensurable as the disdain of the deceased. (52)

The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas has a lot of depth but it’s a light, fun read. It feels very contemporary, too, though it was written in the 1800s. The book is intelligent and quirky and, most impressively, laughs at itself. Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis should be the one to turn to for anyone looking towards sampling a bit of Brazilian literature.

My brain was a stage on which plays of all kinds were presented: sacred dramas, austere, scrupulous, elegant comedies, wild farces, short skits, buffoonery, pandemonium, sensitive soul, a hodgepodge of things and people in which you could see everything, from the rose of Smyrna to the rue in your own backyard, from Cleopatra’s magnificent bed to the corner of the beach where the beggar shivers in his sleep.  (66)

And I’ll leave you with sound advise.

Uninstructed reader, if you don’t keep the letters from your youth, you won’t get to know the philosophy of old pages someday, you won’t enjoy the pleasure of seeing yourself from a distance, in the shadows, with a three-cornered hat, seven-league boots, and a long Assyrian beard, dancing to the sound of Anachreonic pipes. Keep the letters of your youth! (161)

Translated from the Portuguese by Gregory Rabassa. (He did a grand job.) I read this for Stu’s Advent in Brazil, for which I’m a month late.

The Old Curiosity Shop, January, and the new year

Posted on 2 January 2013 | 31 responses

Oh these holidays! why will they leave us some regret? why cannot we push them back, only a week or two in our memories, so as to put them at once at that convenient distance whence they may be regarded either with a calm indifference or a pleasant effort of recollection? why will they hang about us, like the flavour of yesterday’s wine, suggestive of headaches and lassitude, and those good intentions for the future, which, under the earth, form the everlasting pavement of a large estate, and, upon it, usually endure until dinner-time or thereabouts? (296)

A happy new year to you. With all the busy-ness about the holidays, I scarcely had time to read. I wasn’t able to finish The Old Curiosity Shop in time for Caroline‘s and Delia‘s Dickens in December, but I did finish it today. It’s the most long-winded Dickens I have read, yet still enjoyable. I have learned that with Dickens there’s never any point in wanting to hurry up to find out what happens. The only thing to do is settle back and allow the author to meander and entertain with a crop of other characters and other minor plots. A tale of good vs. evil with an impossibly selfless heroine and a stereotypical grotesque villain, The Old Curiosity Shop is your average Dickens rollercoaster, in good order. Not my favourite of his, though, and I’ll tell you why. The wordiness is rather off-putting if you are not a Dickens fan or if you’re an impatient reader. I was able to look past that because I’ve gained much love for his verbose sentimentalities. In fact, I cannot wait to read another soon, as conflicting as that may seem.

A new year, another promising start. I again resolve to read more than I acquire. I resolve to read more from the shelves at home than from the stores. I resolve to read at least one non-fiction a month. Better if two. I resolve to read books by Filipino writers again, as I’ve neglected to these recent years. I resolve to cut down my TBR pile to half, at least, by the end of the year.

My reading list for January include: The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, inspired by Stu; Dusk (Po-on) by Philippine novelist Francisco Sionil Jose, which I’m reading with a group of other Filipino readers bent on reading more Filipiniana this year; The Briefcase by Hiromi Kawakami for Tony’s January in Japan; and a couple of non-fiction titles.

Looking forward to an even richer reading year this 2013. Mine and yours. Happy new year.

*Edit to add: I also hope to read this month The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart for Amanda’s Classic Children’s Literature Challenge.

On the eve of long voyages

Posted on 20 December 2012 | 11 responses

Why is it that we can better bear to part in spirit than in body, and while we have the fortitude to act farewell have not the nerve to say it? On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years, friends who are tenderly attached will separate with the usual look, the usual pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow, while each well knows that it is but a poor feint to save the pain of uttering that one word, and that the meeting will never be. Should possibilities be worse to bear than certainties? We do not shun our dying friends; the not having distinctly taken leave of one among them, whom we left in all kindness and affection, will often embitter the whole remainder of a life. (113)

Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop

Alias Grace

Posted on 12 December 2012 | 27 responses

Mary said I might be very young, and as ignorant as an egg, but I was bright as a new penny, and the difference between stupid and ignorant was that ignorant could learn. (172)

Certainly in the eight books by Margaret Atwood that I have read, there’s a consistent, drilling monotonous voice. I would describe it as a sharp, bitter tone, but would fail to point out exactly how it’s so. This often leads me to receive her books less favourably though I might think them brilliant. This time around I think I’ve finally put a finger on it. It’s that her sentences are seriously curt and abrupt. I don’t know how else to explain it except that there’re no shrill, high notes of excitement, even in scenes of outrage. There’s always the sober, solemn, heavy period, so exacting. No question marks, no exclamation points, no flying. (This is only a slight issue I have with her tone, otherwise she’s an excellent writer.)

But, about Alias Grace, it’s another fulfilling read. Historical fiction based on true events that happened in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Grace Marks, a sixteen-year-old servant girl, and her fellow servant James McDermott, were convicted of murdering their employer and his housekeeper in 1843. Atwood gives Grace a voice by allowing her to tell her personal story beginning from her childhood up until the crime, although Grace is an unreliable narrator and we never know if she’s lying or making things up. Most people were divided against whether Grace took a major role in the murder or whether she was only forced to be an accessory. In turn, Atwood makes the reader sympathetic towards her, but at the same time suspicious of her.

Alias Grace is a romance and a mystery and a searing character study. The story is tethered on the brink of great discoveries in the field of psychology. A certain psychologist, Dr. Jordan, is the one coaxing her voice out. This unlikely relationship between doctor and patient is at the core of it. From their encounters we are introduced to Grace’s harrowing childhood, losing her mother and her best friend both, a firsthand witness to their death at a tender age; overcoming hardships that children are not supposed to experience that early and without the moral support of a family.

Mrs. Burt kissed me goodbye, and wished me well, and despite her fat mottled face and her smell of smoked fish I was glad of it, because in this world you have to take your bits and ends of kindness where you can find them, as they do not grow on trees. (150)

I usually kept a firm enough grip on my feelings, yet there is something depressing to the spirits about a birthday, especially when alone; and I turned into the orchard, and sat down with my back against one of the big old stumps that were left over from the forest when it was cleared. The birds were singing around me, but I reflected that the very birds were strangers to me, for I did not even know their names; and that seemed to me the saddest of all, and the tears began to roll down my cheeks; and I did not dry them, but indulged myself in weeping for several minutes. (302)

I don’t know if the real Grace Marks was this lonely. What I know is that someone who was able to do something horrific as what she and McDermott did, in some or many ways, has pains deeper than they seem to convey and wanting much inner joy than they can ever hope to get.

Any murder in real life can seem unreal, like something that only happens in books, and here is proof that, indeed, reality is stranger than fiction.

When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else. (345-346)

(Advent with Atwood hosted by Yvann, Alex, Iris, and Ana.)

This blog is four years old

Posted on 4 December 2012 | 33 responses

I totally forgot.
Yesterday this blog turned four years old.
Plus today my marriage turned thirteen.
In a few days I will be thirty-eight.
And my youngest son turns five.
And then Christmas.
December is a really big time around these parts.
Which means: that’s a load of books hubby needs to get me.
(I hope he reads this.)

Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust

Posted on 4 December 2012 | 47 responses

“The trouble with him, the trouble with all of us, is that we have no outer life, only an inner one, and that by necessity.” (15)

Reading Miss Lonelyhearts & The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West put me in a sad mood. These are two very depressing Great Depression stories but written quite beautifully. Both are ironic and darkly comedic. Both are tragedies. Both satirical. Both contemptuous to commercialism. Both mystical, spiritual, sinister, bitter. Intense. I saw West’s characters struggling helplessly to cope. I wanted to scoop them up from the pages and shake them up and help them. I felt their desperation. Hollowness. Hopelessness.

Miss Lonelyhearts tells of a man fighting to unburden himself of depression. He tries everything: staring at life boldly, looking to religion, nurturing hatred in his heart, being maniacal, being spiteful, being soft and enlightened, retreating inside himself, tugging at another’s sleeve with a cry for help, etc. The Day of the Locust is a sad cast of characters trying to make it in Hollywood. Gritty streets, vaudeville stunts, the works. There’s a character named Homer Simpson which I’m convinced inspired Matt Groening’s Homer from The Simpsons.

That it is raining today isn’t any help, but thankfully West’s illuminated writing shines through in this black, bleak, exaggerated little book. That is to say, I really, really think it was brilliant although it made me sad.

It is hard to laugh at the need for beauty and romance, no matter how tasteless, even horrible, the results of that are. But it is easy to sigh. Few things are sadder than the truly monstrous. (61)

Norwegian Wood

Posted on 30 November 2012 | 24 responses

I have a really soft spot for literature littered with musical references, clichéd or not, I don’t care. There’s a lot of that in here, in Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, obvious enough from the title itself. Musicians I love, too, like Miles Davis and John Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix. But particularly The Beatles. Their songs I grew up with. My father played them all the time when I was but a toddler well into my early teens, when we still had the old record player, especially in the mornings. We would wake up to Do You Want to Know a Secret or I’ll Follow the Sun or Girl wafting loudly through the house. I miss those days, though I play them all the time, too, now that I’m grown and have kids of my own. My 10-year-old especially likes Hey Jude and I’ve probably told him a thousand times the story behind that song.

I have a soft spot, too, for Japanese literature. However, I had never had that special connection with Haruki Murakami like so many other readers have. I liked him well enough but would pick Mishima or Kawabata or Oe over him any day. But after Norwegian Wood, I’m a little—no, a lot—changed. I have a lot more regard for him now and suddenly eager to read more. At least, more of this kind of stuff. I don’t mean to say he’s a better writer here. Only that, since books are an especially personal experience, that this particular one struck a very deep chord within me. I mean that this is a very personal book. Maybe this is the reason why it’s pretty well-loved in general.

We often describe great books as being excellent for their unsentimentality, but there are times we need books that touch on the sentimental because we are creatures of feeling and it doesn’t make sense to forego that part of us while all the time wanting things to appeal to just our minds.

So. I really loved this book. And I feel kind of silly because it’s essentially a young person’s book. It speaks of first loves and pop culture and things I felt important or not important as a teenager, even a twenty-something. In this way, it’s a kind of The Catcher in the Rye, more profound if read when young. Only this is an R-rated version. But then what’s true is these feelings have been and will always be part of me. Norwegian Wood was like a trip down memory lane. A book of nostalgia. And that was what made it very relatable to my 37-year-old self. The same age as Toru as he begins the story, looking back, triggered by the song Norwegian Wood.

On another note, I find this book really important because it deals with suicide, a very real Japanese social issue. That’s just one thing, but there are so many other things here. I focused a lot on the strangeness of family dynamics here, which isn’t clearly evident on the surface. If you’re at all curious, do read this book. It’s a weird kind of beauty, but a real one, especially when reading it while listening to The Beatles which gives you that perfect hint of nostalgia. And when it’s cold or when it’s snowing, like earlier today while I was reading.

Death exists . . . and we go on living and breathing it into our lungs like fine dust. (30)

Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life. . . By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be, it was only one of the truths we had to learn. What I learned . . . was this: no truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning. (361)

*     *     *

To those who’ve read this book, a few impressions. It may sound weird but I particularly related to the character of Naoko. I’ve often been like her when I was younger. Not to the extreme that was depicted in the book, but so many things about her. Nothing in particular concerning events, just general things.

I found Midori really pushy. While her animated personality does provide a strong contrast and balance to Naoko’s solemnity, which is understandable, I just disliked how insensitive she was to Toru. How selfish and childish. But she is just a child, after all, forced to grow up taking care of sick parents, so I did try to understand her.

Did anybody else feel the same or was it just me? I felt like Toru and Reiko defiled Naoko’s memory so easily right after the “happy” funeral they gave her. I do understand what that meant for them. A sort of release from the past. Still.

Also, my younger self is in love with Toru. Like Bellezza, I would like to go through his literary list sometime. Reread The Great Gatsby, and discover others like Beneath the Wheel by Herman Hesse. Plus many others.

I would really like to read more stories by Murakami that are similar to this. I understand this is a bit of a departure from his normal style, so I don’t know if he has other stories that would be able to give me this same sense of beauty that this book imparts. Do you have any recommendations? Or is this the only one? I really hope not.

I’ll be watching the 2010 film as soon as I can, hopefully this weekend. I would’ve watched it as soon as I set the book down this afternoon but wanted to watch it with hubby. We both like sentimental Asian love stories. Soap-opera-like, like Meteor Garden, if anyone has seen that series. Really sappy but we loved it v. much, thank you.

Translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin. I read this along with Bellezza and company for the Japanese Literature Challenge 6.

The Idiot

Posted on 21 November 2012 | 11 responses

“Better be unhappy and know the truth, than be happy and live like a fool.” (496)

So many things. So many things about this novel, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot. That it is very dramatic and quite histrionic. Extremely theatrical to the point of feeling like I was watching a play instead of reading a novel. I was talking earlier about passion in Russian novels and there’s no want of that in here. Definitely romance and passion. And obsession—delirious, raging, hysterical. Frantic emotions within turbulent characters. Yet in the midst of it all, the good prince. Or the idiot, as they like to call him.

The Idiot is a very Christian novel, I think. There are a few episodes wherein dialogues do take on faith and morality, but the really evident depiction of it is in the hero himself, Prince Myshkin, so absolute in goodness. A type of Christ, if you will, as Dostoyevsky himself made him to be.

Prince Myshkin is initially considered an idiot because of his epileptic fits, but as the story progresses we see that it is actually his purity and innocence that makes him an idiot in people’s eyes. In fact, he is much more brilliant and enlightened than most other people and is able to perceive clearly others’ characters and actions in such a profound way as to confound the common man.

One of Myshkin’s striking characteristics was the extraordinary näiveté of the attention, with which he always listened to anything that interested him, and of the answers he gave when anyone asked him questions. His face, and even his attitude, somehow reflected that näiveté, that good faith, unsuspicious of mockery or humour. (320)

Myshkin is a forgiver. He forgives those who have done him wrong and who’ve deceived him. All the same, he knows that these people are deceiving him and he allows it. He is patient and kind to those who hate him. He is immune even to lustful thoughts concerning the women he loves. These very qualities that we seem—ideally—to value in society, in fact, are the very qualities society laughs upon. By placing Myshkin in the centre of a sinning, unapologetic society, similar not just to Russian society of the time but also to the modern society of the present time, Dostoyevsky succeeds in showing us how unforgiving society can be towards a totally forgiving man.

It’s kind of sad to actually think about this. I know for a fact, based on experience, that “niceness” is frowned upon, considered uninteresting, spiritless. On the other hand, meanness is often attributed to being spunky and full of character. This novel definitely gave me much to think about.

“All that is natural: men are created to torment one another.” (376)

Moreover, Myshkin is likened to that of “the poor knight,” Don Quixote, who so innocently goes about, leaving everyone around him in a mess, a trail of chaos. I see Myshkin as in a sort of bubble of light, unaffected by everything going on and yet more sensitive to those than anyone else. The rest of humanity in shambles, emotionally, mentally, physically, even, and Myshkin remains pure, for the most part, at least.

While the novel’s plot can sometimes seem senseless and meandering, the ideas and philosophical ramblings contained within the conversations gave me so much more than I expected of this book. Prince Myshkin’s goodness, ironically the source of much intrigue, certainly hit a note. He’s an unforgettable character. Dostoyevsky himself said of this novel, “My intention is to portray a truly beautiful soul.” That he did.

“Listen! I know it’s not right to talk. Better set an example, better to begin. . . . I have already begun . . . and—and–can one really be unhappy? Oh, what does my grief, what does my sorrow matter if I can be happy? Do you know I don’t know how one can walk by a tree and not be happy at the sight of it? How can one talk to a man and not be happy in loving him! Oh, it’s only that I’m not able to express it. . . . And what beautiful things there are at every step, that even the most hopeless man must feel to be beautiful! Look at a child! Look at God’s sunrise! Look at the grass, how it grows! Look at the eyes that gaze at you and love you!” (527-528)

More passages here, here, here, and here. This edition translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett, which I liked enough. Though I’d like to read it again in the Pevear and Volokhonsky next time.

We are poor and hungry as dogs

Posted on 21 November 2012 | 1 response

More excerpts from Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, translated by Constance Garnett.

There are people whom it is difficult to describe completely in their typical and characteristic aspect. These are the people who are usually called “ordinary,” “the majority,” and who do actually make up the vast majority of mankind. Authors for the most part attempt in their tales and novels to select and represent vividly and artistically types rarely met with in actual life in their entirety, though they are nevertheless almost more real than real life itself. . .  Yet the question remains! What is an author to do with ordinary people, absolutely “ordinary,” and how can he put them before readers so as to make them at all interesting? It is impossible to leave them out of fiction altogether, for commonplace people are at every moment the chief and essential links in the chain of human affairs; if we leave them out, we lose all semblance of truth. (439-440)

“I couldn’t endure the scurrying, bustling people, everlastingly dreary, worried and preoccupied, flitting to and fro about me on the pavement. Why their everlasting gloom, uneasiness, and bustle, their everlasting sullen spite (for they are spiteful, spiteful, spiteful). Whose fault is it that they are miserable and don’t know how to live, though they’ve sixty years of life before them? Why did Zarnitzyn lef himself die of hunger when he had sixty years of life before him? And each one points to his rags, his toil-worn hands, and cries savagely: ‘We toil like cattle, we labour, we are poor and hungry as dogs! Others don’t toil, and don’t labour, and they are rich!’ (The everlasting story!)” (373-374)

“There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one’s idea for thirty-five years; there’s something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you for ever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps, the most important of your ideas.” (375)

“It’s life that matters, nothing but life—the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all.” (375)

Not the thing

Posted on 19 November 2012 | No responses

“And it’s not the thing for people of the best society to be too much interested in literature.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot, p. 241

Prince Myshkin’s party discussing Don Quixote and Pushkin. Fun.

The heart is the great thing

Posted on 17 November 2012 | 8 responses

“They say I am queer, prince, but I can tell what people are like. For the heart is the great thing, and the rest is all nonsense. One must have sense, too, of course . . . perhaps sense is the great thing really. Don’t smile, Aglaia, I am not contradicting myself: a fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart. It’s an old truth. I am a fool with a heart and no sense, and you are a fool with sense and no heart, and so we are both unhappy and miserable.” (75)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

I know I am a fool with a heart and no sense. But I’m not unhappy and miserable. Which are you?

Bright sunshine, blue sky, and the terrible stillness

Posted on 17 November 2012 | 27 responses

“At the beginning, quite at the beginning, I had, and I used to become very restless. I was continually thinking of the life I would lead. I wanted to know what life had in store for me. I was particularly restless at some moments. You know there are such moments, especially in solitude. There was a small waterfall there; it fell from a height on the mountain, such a tiny thread, almost perpendicular—foaming, white and splashing. Though it fell from a great height it didn’t seem so high; it was the third of a mile away, but it only looked about fifty paces. I used to like listening to the sound of it at night. At such moments I was sometimes overcome with great restlessness; sometimes too at midday I wandered on the mountains, and stood alone halfway up a mountain surrounded by great ancient resinous pine trees; on the crest of the rock an old mediæval castle in ruins; our little village far, far below, scarcely visible; bright sunshine, blue sky, and the terrible stillness. At such times I felt something was drawing me away, and I kept fancying that if I walked straight on, far, far away and reached that line where sky and earth meet, there I should find the key to the mystery, there I should see a new life a thousand times richer and more turbulent than ours. I dreamed of some great town like Naples, full of palaces, noise, roar, life. And I dreamed of all sorts of things, indeed. But afterwards I fancied one might find a wealth of life even in prison.” (54)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

A thousand times richer and more turbulent than ours. That Dostoyevsky’s adorable idiot, Prince Myshkin, mentions life’s turbulence side by side with life’s richness. I rather believe there’s a connection. A turbulent life may not always be rich, but it may surely lead to one if given the chance to settle and sink in.

Seven things

Posted on 15 November 2012 | 29 responses

What do you think of literary prizes? Good idea or bad?

Definitely good. There are gazillions of books out there and it would be quite impossible to choose were it not for a lot of help by other readers, including the readers who judge these awards who read tons of current books each year. I do understand there are so many more brilliant books outside of the nominees and the winners but then they do help point out authors worthy of a try. Even if I didn’t connect with every author I’ve tried, I still have discovered many of my favourites this way. (My love affair with these lists began with James Kelman’s How Late it Was, How Late, the 1994 Booker Prize winner.) Life is too short to wade through hundreds of books just to get at a good one, which is why I’m ever indebted to these literary prizes for doing much of the hard work. I understand it can seem limiting to some, but to me they’re useful for as long as I continue to be adventurous and conscientious in seeking out other works, other authors.

If you could write any sort of book, what would you write?

Hm. If I could write. At first epics come to mind, of the sort Moby-Dick and One Hundred Years of Solitude are made of. Or something really brilliant like Life a User’s Manual or The Name of the Rose. But on second thought, I believe I’d like to write a kind of book that’s simpler and that’s centered on life as art. The best depiction of which is Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids. Yes, that would probably be it. Not a memoir of my life, as it isn’t as colourful as hers, but fiction that exudes the atmosphere and gentility and beauty of her prose. You can tell by reading her that she lives and breathes art. In music, mostly, but in all other forms as well.

Although, if we were to talk nonfiction, my dream would really be to write a scholarly yet accessible and helpful book on eschatology. The Bible and the end times, apocalypse, that stuff. I know, it sounds weird coming from me, but that is my not-so-secret obsession apart from literature which I rarely ever talk about here.

Describe your ideal home library.

Three walls of books, with a huge, low window somewhere. The fourth wall, red bricks, a fireplace, cramped with artwork in different embellished frames. A comfy but very pretty vintage couch or two. A vintage armchair or two. An ottoman or two. A chandelier. Vintage lamps. A gorgeous rug. A desk, a tree. Yes, a tree! Colours would be greys and blues and creamy whites, peppered with rich jewel tones, in blues and purples and greens and yellows and reds. I am getting so carried away now. But yes, that is my dream library, thank you. Add to that a scenic view outside of the window, tall pine trees and foggy skies. Heavenly.

Name two new authors whose work you think will last the test of time, and explain your choices.

While I mostly read either old or dead writers, whose works have stood the test of time, I do have a few young and modern favourites. On top of the list are Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss, aptly husband and wife. They’re both very current and their writings perfectly evoke the energy of our world today. They’re both so very talented and so brilliant. Their voices are young and their styles experimental, yet their words are polished and mature. Their writing doesn’t exude smugness, despite the genius. Rather, genteel. But also: passionate and exuberant. So many things at the same time, and only the wonderful things. They both write with humour, in perfect touches, and at the same time they write with such feeling and heart. They both make me laugh and cry. The perfect balance in affecting the reader both ways. I believe they’re here to last.

Which books do you hope to get for Christmas?

My wish list is overflowing but if I had to choose the ones I really want to read soon: Lust, Caution by Eileen Chang. The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco. A whole bunch of Javier Mariases. Yukio Mishima’s Sea of Fertility tetralogy. A collection of haiku by Basho. The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. Collected stories of Gogol. Collected stories of Chekhov. Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata. Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton. Some Alice Munro. Lucky if I even get one of these, no one ever thinks to give me books anymore. Except my kids, who understand. And they don’t have the means.

What’s the last book you did not finish and why?

Mr. Muo’s Travelling Couch by Dai Sijie because the protagonist was awful and I didn’t care about him nor his story at all. I was just disgusted by him. A shame because Dai Sijie’s writing wasn’t bad at all.

Would you accept 20 books that were absolutely perfect for you and dependably brilliant reads if they were also the last 20 books you could ever acquire?

No, never! Because who can live with only 20 books more? That’s like telling us to stop thinking or eating or breathing. I’d like to believe that for every 20 perfect books for me, there are a hundred more.

Thanks to Bellezza for tagging me with The Liebster Award. Now my turn to tag seven people. This award, after all, is for letting others discover other blogs. So tagging Mee, BIP, Nicola, ds, Vasilly, Lu, and Isabella. I’d love to hear your answers in a post of your own or here in the comments, only if you feel like it. Anyone else reading this, I’d love to hear your answers as well. Here are my questions:

1. What propelled your love affair with books—any particular title or a moment?
2. Which fictional character would you like to be friends with and why?
3. Do you write your name on your books or use bookplates?
4. What was your favourite book read this year?
5. If you could read in another language, which language would you choose?
6. Name a book that made you both laugh and cry.
7. Share with us your favourite poem?

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