Knausgaard

Reading Knausgaard. His essays, 'In The Land of the Cyclops'. Again and again when I read him, this about him: the meditative prose. Drawing in, and then plenty of departure points for thoughts to take off. A sort of soothing rhythm of the writing. The sentences keep flowing one after the another, not in a rush, but slowly, quietly. Like his collection, Winter and Autumn. I am yet to read the other two (Spring, Summer). I couldn't take up part three of 'My Struggle'. It felt too close to life, and generally my reading time is also a little bit of reflective time, if it pushes in or plates up the same day-to -day again with all its practical concerns or the surface noise, somehow I get caught up in it and do not find the reflective doors or channels. Just a matter of mood. Sometimes when I am feeling more upbeat, secure, generally on top of world, perhaps I can attempt it. Anyhow, the point was that the essays seem to be at a slight distance. The essay gives a structure, a particular subject which becomes the board from where and to which the discussion keeps coming in and looping out. And all the pleasures of the Knausgaard sentences are there. 

As some writings are like verb, a state, a space of its own, where you not only see what the writer says, but somehow it is so opening, or inviting to open up yourself that you spend a lot of time on the same pages, reading, thinking, imagining. Because there are so many tangents that shoot out of these pages. And one has to, has to trace a few. Those are the delights of any reading, and here, there seem to be heaps. It takes longer to read, but then the time reading those pages is so rich.

I began to read these essays in sequence, but somehow the painting essays didn't hold me so I skipped ahead to ones which have more of a reader in them. And I can read almost anywhere and the prose opens up warmly to hold you. The ones on Northern Lights, the one on Submission, the one called 'Idiots of the Cosmos'... it is not even about the subject but more about the tangents. That what he thinks about the moon, the universe and how perhaps life appears to those living in long days and long nights, that somewhere I too have felt something similar, is one little thing, but that there are things like this spread throughout the book. And each of these is a treasure. One needs to pause and consider it. Contemplate it. See it well from the almost multiple angles it opens...light bouncing off willy nilly from so many angles and surfaces. 

So, keen to keep reading it. And perhaps revisit. Prose like this, which is a state, a verb, less like a book, more an invitation to a show. Or an event everytime one reads those sentences. Delighted.

**

I wrote this a few days ago. Then I got off Knausgaard and haven't found my way back in. Somehow, it is like this with his writing. Quite surrounded by it, and then on consideration, or as it seeps deeper, perhaps what stays is little - that is the thing with writing that is verb. I don't know, somehow when there is too much of a person or a person's surface in their writing, the seeping in process is strange. There is tug, a push and pull between your likes and the person you encounter through this reading. And generally, in such a tug, the generous souls find their way deeper, or people who can do that dance with self and yet not a self - the personal yet the classical, I don't know how to put it. Those who can talk about the self and yet leave the self out of it. Here I have in mind DFW and his generosity. Somehow, as the writing makes it way to deeper levels, it needs to stand by itself, strong in its truth, its largesse, its uplifting or enriching or elevating capacities. 

Perhaps that is why I enjoy Knausgaard while reading him, for all the doors and tangents it opens. But in terms of staying or lingering or the reaching deep, it is just different, it is a lot of surface. It is just the kind of writing, and little to do with the person. The writing which is a theater, a state, verb and then there is writing which can hold its own at all depths. 

Slow reader

This strife with oneself. There seems to be an ocean to be read, and then one's span, or scoop size, a page at a time. When one reads slowly, wanderingly, digressingly, taking off at every suitable departure point for a tangent, one often lands in these conversations with self. About how and what to read. The aspirations are very high, but at the same time, one reads slowly, perhaps a few pages a day. 

One would think that even at that pace, one could read a lot as long as there is discipline. Should the discipline be allowed into the digressions too? I think not. Then perhaps a better question is what is the objective? Is it the number of books or pages or is it the quality of thoughts during the reading time, or where a page of written words can take you? And the funny thing is there is no good way to measure that. Except perhaps a sense of contentment that a few pages are enough. The mind's chasing of numbers, this other conversation about non measurable contentment - it is like holding your own on the beach at the edge of waves coming in and going out, slowly the ground seems to shift, your feet sink and you know not the ground that you stand on. Then you keep reminding yourself of the objective often. That is, shifting your feet in the sand again and again to find firm footing. Reminding yourself again of the bit about contentment. The objective is perhaps that hour or two with words is beautiful, is full of tangents perhaps or a nice story or a deep thought that opens something inside you. This random measure of pages read or books covered, a lifetime is small perhaps to what one would like to read, especially at the slow pace. And not because of that, but because what you read for - sometimes a paragraph is enough, sometimes a page is good. And contentment helps. Else it is a random conversation with self. And you carry on some endless pursuit chasing pages. Perhaps not to read if you see a FOMO creeping up. 

My thoughts at the moment after a particularly random conversation with self. Let's see if this is solid ground or shifting sands. Check on these again sometime soon. And to reflect on the non-measure of a slow reader.

**

When I was younger, the Literature text books were a curated thing, a few essays, short stories, extracts, poems. One was to read everything deeply, over and over again, getting familiar with the text. Then one grows up, and encounters this ocean alone. As in, the whole world and all its books are there. How do you pick? Classics perhaps is one good place to begin. Book Lists. Nobel prize winners. Guidance from other readers perhaps who have read a lot. And then sometimes one likes an author, and tries to read as much from them. The list keeps getting longer. What I perhaps mean to say that the way one read for school, over and over again until the meanings surrender, as they say, it changes as one grows up and reads for pleasure. Still, there are some writings that are like that. That require me to pause, and read again and again, trying to imprint it on my mind, perhaps noting it down on paper, perhaps just reading it again, and yet again. One doesn't move much forward that way, but one reaches a satiety or contentment which somehow chasing numbers doesn't get one.

Perhaps this truce with oneself, that slow reading is perhaps the way to be. That it matters not that there is the ocean out there. A few pearls that find their way to your reading time are plenty. 

It is a learning. A slow process. Something to imbibe. Because time and again I find myself in this conversation with self, about the slowness of my reading and the vastness of the aspiration. 

**

Then this essay found its way to me. 'On reading to oneself' from the Habitations of the word by William H Gass. It can be found here (pg 216). This one is one of those which require rereading often, in the hope that some of it would imprint on the mind.

A sentence that I carry with me - ' to be a paragon of appreciation'. The larger paragraph in which it appears is here below:

But the educated and careful tongue will taste and discriminate this particular stew from every other. Tasting is a dialectical process in which one proceeds from general to specific similarities, but this can be accomplished only through a series of differentiations. Antonymical tasting (which also sounds disgusting) ultimately "identified: this dish, not only as pure stew, but as Brunswick strw, and knows whether it was done in Creole style or not, and then finally it recognizes, in this plater's present version of the recipe, that the squirrels were fat and gray and came from Mississippi where they fed on elderberries and acorns of the swamp oak. One grasps an act, an object, an idea, a sentence, synthetically, simply by feeling or receiving its full effect - in the case of the stew that means its complete, unique taste. I need not be able to name the ingredients; I need not be able to describe how the dish was prepared; but I should be a paragon of appreciation. This quality, because it is the experience of differentiation within a context of comparison, cannot be captured in concepts, cannot be expressed in words. Analytical tasting has a different aim. It desires to discover what went into the dish; it reconstructs the recipe, and recreates the method of its preparation. It moves from effects to causes.