My Brilliant Friend

It has been over a fortnight now since I read this book by Elena Ferrante. I read it through quickly, but then couldn't get it out of my head.  Still understanding how I feel about the book. Do I like it? Too raw, too close, too much ruffling of guarded emotions, yet, yet, yet, I knew I felt like I needed the next one, immediately.  However, other things came up, and I haven’t got around to getting hold of the second book, and now, the distance of time has dulled my love-hate emotions for the book. Yet, there is this delightful feeling of expectancy, of knowing that there are a couple of books out there which I can dip in when I want to and dial into that engaging roller-coaster of a reading experience.

I am a late arrival to the Neapolitan novels. Everyone seems to have read them. And of course, there is the show. It is the story of two girls, two friends growing up in Italy in 1950s. The first book in the series deals with early life and adolescent years leaving us at a point where one of the friends get married.

It is a different world. A different life. It is one of the points of view that one doesn’t read about much because people living those lives perhaps don’t get the time to write it down, or are not people of letters. Their lives are full, intense. Even David Copperfield’s life seems a far cry from the daily lives of these folks in Naples. The story is from the point of view of someone who has not had a privileged life, or privileged upbringing, or even exposure to privilege (the way DC has), and yet, they grow up and write this account.

It is not just that the material means are little. It is the dichotomy. The struggles of life would perhaps resonate with so many of the girls growing up in developing countries even now, 70 years down the line, who traverse two different worlds in their early lives. The age-old, traditional, paternal world of home, where family, women’s roles, women’s opportunities are still rooted in ancient ages, and then the other world of modern education exposing them to ideas, books, thoughts, and people and exposing them to lifestyle, culture, of what they return to every night. It is interesting, to grow up like that.

In a sense, it reminds me of the autobiographical writings of Simone De Beauvoir and Doris Lessing (the two writings I read last year, the first books of each of their memoirs) where the authors are growing through the same years as Lila and Elena. Girls growing up in different parts of the world, last century, going to school, living at home, relating with their families, siblings and friends, relating with others’ expectations and their own expectations of themselves.

I am touching upon the book’s characters, but the book is not about Lila or about Elena, it is about their friendship, their lives together. And it is enjoyable. But perhaps where my thoughts linger most after reading are always on the lives lived by those characters where my mind imagines itself in their shoes living their lives.

I enjoy reading about the books other people read, about things they are learning, and about the hardwork they are putting in. It warms my heart to see honest effort. It might sound strange, but the best loved passages in the book are where Elena balances her work at school with her home, and with discipline and will decides to work early in the morning and late at night to ensure that she stays on course for next classes. Things like these make me wonder that perhaps people who have less are the most driven and motivated. And perhaps having less is a blessing in disguise.

Then there is the brilliant Lila. After brilliantly pursuing excellence in whatever she does, she goes on to read and master what she reads. One can almost understand and identify with Elena's fascination with Lila. What it perhaps refers to is the unattainable, the slightly out of reach, the out of bounds, but just enough to fascinate, to be desired, knowing that you fall short, like someone in a Zeno's paradox, you'll never reach the desired, just keep getting closer, and left with that feeling of incompleteness to that extent.

Oh the vulnerabilities of being human, of growing up, of caring, of feeling, of knowing too well. Of having what you wish to be always in sight, and yet, knowing that you can not be that. The cruelty of knowing, of seeing more than what can keep you blissful, ignorance is bliss and all that. Of seeing everything in its raw shape, and then sitting, heartbroken.

Another reason why this touches so is growing up where I grew up, I have witnessed some of the heartbreak. Not personally, but so many instances around me. Where I grew up was more privileged than the girls from Naples, but still, middle class, the social construct, of taking care of home (people and times were not rich enough for modern luxuries of gadgets or money-bought luxuries of external help), and the general question of how much do you need to study given that one is a female.  After a point, what's the point? Personally, I and a few of my friends have been fortunate, but we come from changing times. We were some of the more fortunate ones, while people around me and families around me still believed in the way things used to be - the traditional, the way society had existed for ages and ages. Then there's this thing about not knowing. When one does not know, one doesn't struggle. It is only when one sees or thinks that there is another way that discontent arises. And with it, the struggle. When you grow up a particular way, the other way is always going to create battles inside you.

That explains some of my love-hate relationship with such fiction. Also the reason I do not enjoy fiction set in India. It is too close for comfort, guess too confrontational. It is a reminder to so much more, of unfairness. It calls to mind things forgotten and may be, forgotten for the better. Gets unpleasant.

So much for the ranting post. I am quite fascinated by the book. I know I’ll seek out the next one at the earliest opportunity, so more, then.

The Salmon Of Doubt

Talking about Science Fiction, I felt like revisiting this post sitting in my drafts for a while now.  I picked up Douglas Adam's The Salmon of Doubt earlier in the year. I didn't get to finish reading it, and I don't have with me any more so I doubt I'll close this one. But I do have a collection of quotes, which I intend to put up here.

There are certain authors who delight you with the lightness of their touch. There is Douglas Adams, and there is Bill Bryson. For both, their love or joy of their pursuits shines through in their writing, passing on to you in form of good cheer and joie de vivre. 

The Salmon of Doubt is a posthumous collection of writings by Douglas Adams, classified under the heads of Life, Universe and Everything. It has autobiographical sketches, essays, interviews and notes on books, and a partly completed Dirk Gently novel. The book is interspersed with brilliant morsels from his writing. I read most of it except the unfinished Dirk Gently novel. I do not know whether I wish to read it (the novel). Not what the author wanted to share perhaps.

Here, perhaps, it is worth quoting what Douglas Adams says of PG Wodehouse. It will pretty much convey what one can say of him,

"Shakespeare? Milton? Keats? How can I possibly mention the author of Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkins and Pigs Have Wings in the same breath as these men? He's just not serious!

He doesn't need to be serious. He's better than that. He's up in the stratosphere of what the human mind can do, above tragedy and strenuous thought, where you will find Bach, Mozart, Einstein, Feynman and Louis Armstrong, in the reams of pure, creative playfulness."

I think 'creative playfulness' is what defines his work too.

This is him introducing himself:

"I just want to mention one thing, which is completely meaningless, but I am terribly proud of - I was born in Cambridge in 1952 and my initials are DNA!"

His thoughts on perspective and the way we see the world. He is writing in late 90s, when the world was very different. But like some of the uncanny sci-fi writers (read Arthur Clarke), he is spot on stuff  - the way cloud computing, the way internet has changed, about online advertising.

Here's him talking about Online Magazines (note, this is in 1995). After discussing an advertiser paid online magazine method,

"That's one model of how online magazine work, and it is, of course, absolutely free to readers. There's another that will probably arrive as soon as it becomes possible to move virtual cash around the Internet, and that will involve readers being billed tiny amounts of money for the opportunity to read popular Webpages. Much less than you would, for instance regularly spend on your regular newspapers and magazines because you wouldn't be paying for all the trees that have to be pulped, the vans that have to be fueled, and the marketing people whose job it is to tell you how brilliant they are. The reader's money goes straight to the writer, with a proportion to the publisher of the Web site, and all the wood can stay in the forests, the oil can stay in the ground, and all the marketing people can stay out of the Groucho Club and let decent folk get to the bar.

Why doesn't all the money go to the writer, I hear you (and indeed myself) asking. Well, maybe it will if he's happy just to drop his words into the digital ocean in the hope that someone out there will find them. But like any ocean, the digital ones has streams and eddies and currents, and publishers will quickly have a role finding good material to draw into those currents where readers will naturally be streaming through looking for stuff, which is more or less what they do at the moment. The difference will lie in the responsiveness of the market, the speed with which those streams will shift and surge, and the way in which power and control will shift to those who are actually contributing something useful rather than just having lunch.

The thing we leave out of the model is, essentially just a lot of dead wood."

- Wired, 1995

The joy is in  his way of looking at things. The conclusions he draws, what he takes away.

About Comedy, and a way the world has changed:

"The thing that hit be like a thunderbolt... was that comedy was a medium in which extremely intelligent people could express things that simply couldn't be expressed any other way... 

Creative excitement has gone elsewhere - to science and technology: new ways of seeing things, new understandings of the universe, continual new revelations about how life works, how we think, how we perceive, how we communicate.

Where, thirty years ago, we used to start up rock-bands, we now start up start-ups and experiment with new ways of communicating with each other and playing with the information we exchange. And one idea fails, there is another, better one right behind it, and another and another, cascading fast as rock albums used to in the sixties." 

On coding:

"Whatever complexities a computer produces - modeling wind turbulence, modeling economies or the way light dances in the eye of an imaginary dinosaur - it all grows out of simple lines of code that start with adding one and one, testing the result, and then doing it again. Being able to watch complexity blossom out of this primitive simplicity is one of the great marvels of our age, greater even than watching man walk on the moon."

And on how to see the world. The macroscopic, and the microscopic.

"There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away, and think this to be normal, is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspectives tend to be. "

"The other thing that comes out of that vision of the universe is that it turns out to be composed almost entirely, and rather worryingly, of nothing.  Wherever you look there is nothing, with occasional tiny, tiny little specks of rock or light.  But nevertheless, by watching the way these tiny little specks behave in the vast nothingness, we begin to divine certain principles, certain laws, like gravity and so forth.  So that was, if you like, the macroscopic view of the universe, which came from the first age of sand. " 

"The next age of sand is the microscopic one.  We put glass lenses into microscopes and started to look down at the microscopic view of the universe.  Then we began to understand that when we get down to the subatomic level, the solid world we live in also consists, again rather worryingly, of almost nothing and that wherever we do find something it turns out not to be actually something, but only the probability that there may be something there." 

From "Is there an Artificial God?" Complete text of this here. 

This, above is one of my favorite bits. About infinities within and infinities without.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

I read this one by Philip K. Dick yesterday. Short book. Over in a few hours. Have found science fiction after a while. Although there are days when I really crave sci-fi, at times just to get a perspective and distance from things and thoughts at hand.

I enjoy sci-fi by Arthur C. Clarke. And for his lightness, brightness and joy - Douglas Adams. Happy to re-read Space Odyssey and Hitchhiker any day. And of what I've read from Isaac Asimov, I've mostly enjoyed. I haven't read Ursula K. Le Guin's fiction, just a bit of non-fiction, keen to read Left Hand of Darkness. I haven't read a lot by Philip K. Dick. I tried Ubik, but couldn't get far in. I'll try reading The Man in High Castle at some point.

'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' is a 1968 novel by Philip K. Dick. Short book. Quick read.  The internet tells me that the book inspired Blade Runner, the 1982 movie. It is set in a future where Earth has become quite inhospitable, has much fewer people after World War Terminus, most having emigrated away from Earth, and there is a lot of dust, abandoned, unoccupied dwellings, and kipple. What is kipple? The un-ordered, the mess, the disintegration of everything organised, the chaos, the entropy. Eventually kipple is meant to push out everything which is non-kipple and take over what remains of Earth. Many animals are extinct, it is a world without birds, and to keep up with the Joneses, people are expected to take care of real animals - the animals you own become the signifier of your wealth/ place in society. And hence, there is a thriving industry of fake, electric animals. In this set up, there are androids (hard to distinguish from humans, and often not aware themselves that they are androids) and the perpetual question of how good AI can get, and then there is the protagonist whose job is to retire/kill rogue Androids.

So far, so good. The story then unfolds over two days, with a thriller like chase sequence.

With sci-fi, the joy is in the construct, the imagination, the new set-up and how thoroughly authors can think and thrash out a new reality. Beyond that, how the story unfolds and how well the author can hold you varies from book to book and author to author. This one, I read it through for the story, but not a fan.

The way I see it, there are perhaps two kinds of science fiction. One is the fast-paced novel, where a lot goes in to set it up, the imaginary world with its own problems, but then the way the protagonists behave reads like thriller. And then there are the more ironic, satiric, or questioning the absurd by putting the sci-fi construct on them - where authors choose to comment on and examine the modern realities and social questions through this new lens or framework offered by imaginary fiction. Such examination reveals new angles and throws light on aspects not commonly perceived - take 1984, or Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Handmaid's Tale or some of Doris Lessing's fiction, or for that matter, The Glass Bead Game. Both kind of sci-fi take the same path initially - the detailed set up, the displacement of the reader from the current existing realities before the road forks, and one path goes down the thriller route, and the other, literature.

The book at hand I feel goes down the thriller path. Though I must say that it held me better than the other cold book I am reading (The Unconsoled) where the real is perhaps more alien than a world with humans who wonder whether they are androids.

Charles Dickens

I am new to Charles Dickens as a reader. But one can't grow up in this age and time without the idea of Dickens. As a child, I would have read a lot of his stories in abridged version, and doubtless watched countless movies and shows which might have been inspired from Dicken’s plotlines or characters which are drawn perhaps directly from his books. But by themselves, except for reading 'Great Expectations' a couple of years ago, I hadn’t a chance to read Dickens. So I picked up ‘Bleak House’ after trying to understand from online forums which one is the best, and then immediately followed it with ‘David Copperfield’. Quite long reads. DC goes on for some 800 tightly packed pages. I read 'Bleak House' on phone/ipad, and 'David Copperfield' on the deadtree version I have which comes with an introductory essay and Dickens own plan for chapters.

I have little to say about these books. I enjoyed going through the drama. They contain the joys of the story and narrative. Reading them non-stop had a binge quality to them. Little to think after reading. Because things pretty much resolve themselves neatly through the books. Plotlines coincide conveniently. And Dickens closes each and every open end for you. So very little to reflect or wonder about as you close the book. In that sense, easy reads.

(I must add here that 'David Copperfield' was a spur of the moment choice while I was struggling through Ishiguro’s ‘The Unconsoled’. My mind clutched quickly to Dicken’s narrative clarity. Will go back to 'The Unconsoled' soon. Having recently looked up the internet around the book, I find I am not the only one to digress.)

Back to Dickens. 'Bleak House' is about a disputed will, and its ramifications on different people where the eventual costs eat up the estate, and about Esther – a child born out of wedlock and the course her life takes. 'David Copperfield' is an autobiographical narrative of DC’s life, from a fatherless birth, to a fairy-tale-esque bad stepfather, eventually an orphan who grows up to become a writer, and the key characters shaping him – episodes inspired from Dickens’ life.

Apart from the joy of the story, one of the other things that engaged me was the portrayal of London and Britain of Dickens' time. Being able to contemplate other times, other cultures is one of the key pleasures of reading. I have grown up in a culture which is different from Britain's, hence not fully equipped in the cultural sub-text or shorthand for the way life that happens in Dickens' London (mid-late nineteenth century), and its social mores and protocols.   The books serve as a commentary on the society of that times. Too far removed from our time and age to have a social context right now. (Such as some of the issues around women- although there is a long way to go yet, one would think that a fair bit has been covered from Dickens’ times).

The other thing with his books is the character cast. The plot and drama aside, one comes away with a memory of all these sharply defined portrayals. Both books have a huge array of characters, all with some defining characteristics. Memorable for the extremes in their behaviour. Be it Mrs Jellyby and Mr Skimpole in 'Bleak House' or Mr. Micawbre and Uriah Heep in 'David Copperfield'. May be they are memorable for the caricature-ish quality to them – sharpened and sharpened on one extreme or dimension of their personality. The interesting thing is that most characters in his books stay very true to their definition. Unlike life. One can perhaps pick them out from their dialogue even if you don’t know who was talking. Each one has these few identifiable traits. The complexity, if any,  is not in the characters per se, it is in the number of them, and the scope and the length of the books.

It was interesting to read them one after the other.  Bleak House is a mix of narrative styles – first person in Esther’s narrative and a general author narration. Rounds up everything nicely. But DC is  first person. And is quite a reflection on how first person narratives work. The world view is the narrator’s. People are good or bad basis how they behave vis-à-vis the narrator. Interesting dilemma for the author. The narrator should see and still don't see too soon. 

There are still quite a few Dickens books I wish to read. And of course so much else I wish to read. It took me some time getting through these two. One can just wonder at how he wrote these for the serialised versions. (there is a bit in David Copperfield about his hard work, determination and perseverance, about how he goes through stuff one after the other and just keeps at it - which might have autobiographical reference). Seems like he spent time (1) making a plan and outline of chapters and (2) then just saw them through. Easy for people to do 1. Guess it is the 2 that determines where one lands.

Reading update

The year has been progressing slow in terms of books read. Meanwhile, I have saved on my phone a thousand beautiful essays and stories. Saved to be savoured peacefully. Some really long essays. And a few short stories. Some short articles, and some books. And then, when I have a stretch of time available or desire to lose myself in a story, I shake my phone like a mint case and read the one that falls out the top. So that's what I've been doing. Savoring mints. Mints don't get counted on this blog. Only completed books make it to the recent reads page.

And I remind myself again that books read is not the right metric. It is a good general indicator, but not the correct measure. The correct measure would be a bit more subjective. Such as how I feel about my reading? Am I exploring more? Am I reflecting, and taking the time to write about what I read? Am I enjoying the process?

The answers change so much through the year, if not the questions themselves over time. And that, that exactly is the right metric. Am I growing and changing?



Bending Time

Sometimes, going through old notes I find so many reading lists and things worth exploring. It is a bit of despairing feeling. There'll never be time enough to read what all I wish to read. Unless I learn to bend time. I am hoping that one of the books I read will teach me how to do that.

And then this afternoon, I found another way to bend time meanwhile. Listening after a long time to some songs that I used to listen to non stop years ago, I was back in time. Everything that song evoked was rich in color - present in my mind and thoughts. Was I transported back in time, or was the time bent and brought to re-exist around me?

Aren't such stuff, such music, fragrances, good writing, art, tunnels or warps in time? Enter here, read this, listen to this music, smell this, and voila, bend the time. Over and over again.

So may be, no need to despair. Sometimes, one instance is deeper than the average depth of rest of the lifetime, and perhaps that is the linear programming function to solve for. Maximize intensities of moments. Maximize collecting these time bending experiences. Everything else, the average, the mediocre, the never-ending lists, there is no limit. What one cannot conquer in distance, perhaps one tries to conquer in depth?




Memoirs and other Personal Non Fiction

I am currently reading quite a few: Simone De Beauvoir's The Prime of Life, Doris Lessing's Walking in the Shade (both part two of their respective memoirs. I read both their first parts last year). Even though I am making little progress, and I'm not even sure whether I'll finish them soon, I am enjoying alternating between them. And then, in similar vein was the book of short stories by Edith Wharton which again seems drawn from something close in her life. Every once a while, one of the characters is a writer, and the settings and scenes are very unique, and perhaps depict the perpetual question that the author tries to answer - of perusal of art vs living of a life.

It pretty much continues on last year's theme of reading autobiographies, personal essays and memoirs. One of the other reasons I realize I enjoy these writings is because they open up ways of seeing. Life as closely observed by other people who carry with them powers of superb expression. The way they see the world, it is not explicitly mentioned at times. But it gets revealed in turns of phrases, by what they take for granted, and by what surprises them. Things so close to them. It can be fascinating this way to get under their skin and look at world the way they look at it. You come away richer for perspective, and wiser for someone's deep thoughts.

The rewards of such readings are then in the process. One can read quickly, or one can dwell, take time out every few minutes to note down their thoughts and the meta that opens up in your head. That makes progress slow. With other things, it just means a few pages a day. But aren't they very rewarding pages?

**

And yet, because of that, because of the way they take their lives so seriously, and whatever they are upto so seriously, a heaviness gradually creeps in, making it difficult to go on and on. The spillover is sometimes quite sad and negative, and can weigh you down. For such times, standing out in sharp contrast to these two memoirs is the posthumously collected writings of Douglas Adams (The Salmon of Doubt). I enjoy Doris Lessing and Simone De Beauvoir, but Adams, and another of my current exploration (Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue) shine with joy and cheer. Sometimes, that is what one needs to lift up the day.

**

Apart from these, there are a few other open explorations.One of them is Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet. I have been getting in and out of it for over a year now. Everything I read there, I feel like quoting or noting down. Reading it sequentially, I sometimes reach stretches that  pull me down a bit, gazing into the nothingness and finding, nothing - making me spill over around me. I close it then.  And that little helps the book's progress. 

Still, since I touched upon it, I'll quote one bit:

Passage 11
(Litany)

“We never know self-realization.
We are two abysses – a well staring at the sky.”

The Thirty-Nine Steps

John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps features in so many all-time book lists, that when I came across this book, I picked it up without thinking. The first thought is that perhaps people read this book in their teens, and hence what they take away is different from reading it later in life.

In the dedication page, the author writes to Thomas Arthur Nelson:

"You and I have long cherished an affection for that elementary type of tale which Americans call the 'dime novel' and which we know as the 'shocker' - the romance where the incidents defy the probabilities, and march just inside the borders of the possible. During an illness last winter I exhausted my store of these aids to cheerfulness, and was driven to write one for myself. "

This pretty much sums up how I think about the book. It is fun, cheerful, a quick, gliding read. But that is what it is.

Here, in Richard Hannay, we have a protagonist who seeks adventure, and finds it gift wrapped. The book is set in the months before WWI, and the protagonist tries to stop some particular event, details of which somehow I do not understand completely. It is much more about the chase, and reads like a movie. No wonder so many times it has been adapted to or inspired, film version.

I seem to have read quite a few books in this category of London, terror and spy/agent fiction.  This one comes soon Conrad's The Secret Agent and Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday in my recent reads. Not really any anarchists here. But the chase is similar to The Man who was Thursday. Although so much more logical and sensible and of this world than Chesterton's. Unlike The Secret Agent which dealt more with the politics of it all, and which belongs to a different genre altogether, this one sits in the spy thriller category, albeit with more lightness and humour, and bigness or horrors of the impending WWI is just referred to, and the dark powers reduced to three gentlemen who play the antagonists here.

Not fair to compare it like this. It is a good quick read that holds your attention completely when you read it, but soon after leaves you with very little to report.

Still, I do have a couple of things I would like to note from the book. First one is on acting:

"I remember an old scout in Rhodesia, who had done many queer things in his day, once telling me that the secret of playing a part was to think yourself into it. You could never keep it up, he said unless you could manage to convince yourself that you were it."

And secondly, an interesting observation by the author on hiding in plain sight.

"If a man could get into perfectly different surroundings from those in which he had first been observed, and this is important - really play up to this surrounding,  and behave as if he had never been out of them, he would puzzle the cleverest detectives on earth.... A fool tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is different"

These two go in my list of stuff that help 'seeing'. Perceiving, observing and seeing. Stuff that makes living intense and life, rich.

Edith Wharton's The Muse's Tragedy and Other Stories

Although well-known for her novels, Edith Wharton wrote a lot of short stories during her life. The twenty stories in this collection are from late 1800s to early 1900s. Spanning from early in her career to later in life when she was well-known, widely-read novelist. It is a collection culled from a few other collections I believe.

Where her popular novels are mostly based in old New York society, for these stories, the setting and society is quite varied. Part of the set have one of the protagonists as an aspiring or published writer. A few are ghost or supernatural stories. Some more are about tired marriages. And the rest are in the same vein of New York society and as The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. (I have read one, yet to read the other).

The point of short stories is experimentation I guess. There are all these people, some of them not really courageous enough to be written into full-length novels. And stories can be an interesting way of dealing with them summarily. I guess for novels, the setting - the time and society play an important part. For stories, where the problem at hand is quite momentary in time, the range explored can be varied. And that is where I find this collection very rich, and took my time working through it - the number of different characters and their so different lives and their problems. I find the range much wider in these 20 stories than some of the other short story collections I've read.

In this book, I best enjoyed the stories where one of the parties is an aspiring or published writer and trying to write. They seem drawn close from the author's own experiences and ring truer and more authentic. I quite enjoyed the title story - The Muse's Tragedy. (A reminder to read James' The Aspern Papers). And another story that quite touched me was "Autres Temps ..." dealing with the protagonists worries and anxiety which she realizes are not ill-founded although everyone around her tries to convince her otherwise. I am sure with the way society and its veneer works, Wharton's un-layering of that veneer with different characters leads to as many interesting episodes.

I couldn't see the resolution in ghost or supernatural stories. (but then I have read little in that genre, and don't have much to compare them with). I find them strange. I enjoy and love science fiction, but this is different - the supernatural bits I find intriguing. Not a fan. They made me wonder about how one comes up with such ideas. Not really a ghost story, but in similar vein was  'The Journey' which I found quite troubling. This one, and some of the other ghost stories read more like nightmares.

As to the book and its pace, I was slow given each story was quite unique in setting and characters, and required a bit of imagination warming up. Add to that, I found some of the writing a bit tedious.  (I say this, because I find myself holding  Buchan's The Thirty Nine Steps in my hands at the moment, for which I don't have to do much to read. I simply glide.) With Wharton's book, it was a bit of work in some of the stories in the early pages. (As she mentions in Xingu, one has to wade through it) But then they pick up pace, and you wish to see them through.

But her way of thinking and observing, I loved it and noted down parts (mostly, where she deals with perception, and ways of looking and considering).  How people 'feel' their way in conversation, and how it is difficult in one-sided written correspondence. And I think it is from things like this that is where I draw value from books I read. Language itself can be a delight. But the thought, and observation, and what the novelist chooses to tell you irrespective of the smoothness or tediousness of prose is what stays on.

Overall, I enjoyed the collection, and hope to make time to read Ethan Frome, if not The Age of Innocence soon.

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

I read Snow Country a few weeks ago. And since then, I have been reading stuff quite far and away from Snow Country and the world of Shimamura and Komako. Hence, this post tries to cover a bit of distance, in time, as well as in my thoughts.

Although it is difficult to access my thoughts from the time of reading, I do have some notes which I'll work through. I like coming back to these posts about the books I liked and found interesting even though reading older posts can invariably draw my attention to all the errors I make. I wish I could write perfect posts. It is a fleeting balance, this striving for the elusive perfect post, living with perpetual drafts, or, to live with the fact that there'll be errors. What then happens is that once I get a broad enough post covering most of what I wish to say, I hit publish. And then, over time, I can get at least the errors in thinking cleaned up, if not all the grammatical ones.

Back to Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata. I stumbled across this book during a recent second-hand book sale. The joy of such book sales is in stumbling across things that you would not normally look for, or aisles you would normally not walk down. Most of the time, the books are clubbed randomly, and the chances of you picking up something new are higher than the usual familiar places to get books.

So with this discovery too. My first read from Kawabata. Yasunari Kawabata was the first Japanese recipient of Nobel for Literature in 1968 (the next was Kazuo Ishiguro recently). In fact, Kawabata acknowledges in his Nobel Banquet speech, that he was the first Oriental recipient after Rabindra Nath Tagore, 55 years before him. Understandably, translations make their way slowly.  He was awarded the prize "for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind." Snow Country, which kept evolving through his life (talk about people unhappy with their own writing, or striving for a better way to express what they wish to express), was one of the contributing reasons for the prize.

The book opens up through a tunnel in Japanese snow mountains. And although Shimamura (the protagonist) keeps leaving the place, and heading back to Tokyo, the book stays there, in snow country. White landscape, clean, and fresh, as Komako (the other main character in the book). When the book opens, Komako is a yet to be Geisha. As Shimamura notices in the book, she goes from being a good girl, to a good woman. There is an ideal image that Shimamura seems to be seeking -clean and fresh, untainted feeling -  initially in Komako, and then as reflected in Yoko. And there is this recurring theme throughout the book of "wasted effort" or "wasted life".  Komako's pursuits, Komako's love, Komako's life, her strivings, all "wasted effort".

But what stood out was in the way that all of them, all the characters, accept their role, their place, and continue with their lives in zen-like ways. In-spite of their 'wasted efforts'.  It was interesting to see this view point after the all consuming emotion of Werther in The Sorrows of Young Werther.  In Snow Country, there is similar unrequited love,  similar gaping holes in hearts, but there is restraint, there is acceptance.

I am not sure I understand the book completely. I liked reading it though. I find it lyrical, poetic in things said, and left unsaid. There is a lot of beauty in the book - in seeing the way light and image is reflected in moving train and the landscape outside, in singing voice, in people, in the silvery grass. Beauty in its sparseness, refrain, fragmentary impressions of the lives of its characters. It provides the cues and then leaves you to imagine and build up the landscape in your mind evoking the snow country, the mountains in different seasons, the beauty of the place. Rustic, old country ways. Peaceful lives.

May be, I do not get the book fully because I don't think I understand the cultural nuances completely. Where rest of the world seems relatively homogeneous, Japan seems to stand out. It seems a magical, different place, with different nuances. Strange, fairy-tale like.Whenever I read about Japan, I find the imagery beautiful, somehow other-worldly, transcendental, and yet, find it difficult to completely reconcile with the way family life, place of women in society works.

While reading this one, I kept thinking of the other books which recreate that fairy-tale strangeness. There is little that I have read on Japan. A couple of books by Kazuo Ishiguro. I haven't read much from Murakami. Just Kafka on the shore. And his NF/personal book on running. And more recently, this short story, Cream. (Set in Kobe. Quite interesting as well as inspiring. Here is the story link). I have read Pico Iyer's "The Lady and the Monk". He recreates the Japan as seen by an outsider. And then David Mitchell. Both people who have not grown up in Japan, but have found, time, love and space to write about it, and to convey its magic. Where The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet was the beginning of modernization, most of the other reads are based in relatively modern times. And then, a little bit of Japan of TV and movies. I recently watched a show called "Midnight Diner" which is a series of short stories anchored around a Tokyo diner and its master.

Perhaps when one reads from a culture far away, one is looking at a multicolored picture with a slightly impaired vision band, and hence one is bound to miss out on seeing completely what is being portrayed. 

However I do understand the refrain of "wasted effort".  And yet again, seen from a high enough, or far enough vantage point, all our lives and all humanity is a wasted effort. But isn't it the continuous series of "wasted effort" that make life interesting?

**

PS: This week's New Yorker (Feb 10, 2019) published this interview with Haruki Murakami. Worth a read. It refers to the magic of Japan.

2018 | Yearly wrap

2018 was a good reading year. Glad on two counts - (a) I read more non fiction and (b) I wrote a little bit more, making it one of the better years for this blog. 

In my reading, there was fair bit of non fiction (referred as NF below), close to half the books, mostly personal NF. Not as many Short Stories (SS) as I would have liked. Just 4 collections (and there is this Mansfield collection with unread bits on incomplete stories not added here). Very little science fiction. (SF, Just a couple of books). A few translated books (not as many as I thought I normally read). This was also the year when I discovered Elizabeth Von Arnim, read a lot from Katherine Mansfield, and came across the essays of Stephen Jay Gould. Read a bit of autobiographical/ memoir writing from different people across different times and cultures. And finally read Vanity Fair, Portrait of a Lady and Jane Eyre. Finished my first Turgenev. And could get around to reading Svetlana Alexievich. This was also the year when I gave myself a few no-fiction months.

Following is the list of books that I read in 2018 from my 'recent reads' page. Not as many as 2017 (when I was lucky to read over 50), but I loved most of what I read. 

For the following, the order is sequential: No.1 on the list read in January, last on the list most recent. The links lead to related post on this blog.

1. Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth (or Mary Annette) Von Arnim ****
2. In Light of India by Octavio Paz (NF/ sort of personal essay) *****
3. Very Good, Jeeves! by PG Wodehouse (SS) ***
4. Winter Tales by Isak Dinesen (SS) ****
5. The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth Von Arnim *** (iphone reader)
6. The Benefactress by Elizabeth Von Arnim ** (iphone reader)
7. Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard *** (NF/ personal essays)
8. Vera by Elizabeth Von Arnim ** (iphone reader)
9. Elementals by AS Byatt **** (SS)
10. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard **** (NF/personal essays)
11. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte *** (iphone reader)
12. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray ** (iphone reader)
13. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte ** (iphone reader)
14. Villette by Charlotte Bronte *** (iphone reader)
15. Memoirs of a Nun by Denis Diderot **
16. 2061: Odyssey Three by Arthur C. Clarke *** (SF)
17. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone De Beauvoir **** (NF)
18. The Abundance by Annie Dillard **** (NF/ essay collection)
19. Shakespeare by Bill Bryson *** (NF/ Eminent Lives)
20. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James **** 
21. Notes from a Big Country by Bill Bryson ** (NF)
22. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev *** 
23. Winter by Karl Ove Knausgaard ** (NF/ personal essays)
24. Jacob's Room is Full of Books (a year of reading) by Susan Hill ** (NF/ personal/ memoir?)
25. The Richness of Life - The Essential Stephen Jay Gould by Stephen Jay Gould **** (NF)
26. Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich *** (NF)
27. Under My Skin by Doris Lessing *** (NF | Autobiography)
28. Pierre and Jean by Guy de Maupassant *** (How should I rate a book when I don't like it as much, but it is not the book's fault. It is a well written story - and like all Maupassant stories, is a reading delight. It is just that I don't like the way people behave in it. Anyhow, these are my personal ratings. It falls more in three, and since I have avoided half points, books that are between two and three often get rated two or three basis my mood or my whim on the day I think)
29. 3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (SF) kindle ** 
30. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (phone) ***
31. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell (NF | Memoir) phone ***
32. From Silk to Silicon by Jeffrey E. Garten **** (NF)
33. The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale by Joseph Conrad ****
34. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim ** phone
35. The Folded Clock, A Diary by Heidi Julavits *** (Diary/ personal /NF)
36. The Golden Thread - how fabric changed history by Kassia St Clair *** (NF)
37. Artful by Ali Smith **** (NF/F?)
38. This Craft of Verse by Jorge Luis Borges (NF) *****
39. Evening in Paradise - More Stories by Lucia Berlin (SS) ****
40. The Man Who was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton **

Apart from what's on the list, I explored and opened a lot more. And perhaps took away something from each one of them. At the end of the day, it is not the number that's relevant but what I come away with from the year.

For me, one of the big book-blog realization this year was that the thought-space you can access and unlock while reading a book, or fresh out of a book somehow magically disappears after a while. Difficult to retrieve those emotions or recreate the same magic even on an immediate re-read. Even as I am reading, the more moments of recording the thoughts, the more I have to say about the book. After the book ends, trying to relive the experience can sometimes be difficult. I do have the overall thoughts and impressions. But while reading, while bobbing on the stream of thoughts that the book triggers, if I write them down, it goes with the flow, perhaps just a pause to hover and examine before I row forward. A few rightly placed moments and I can express and save those transitory thoughts.

Wouldn't call this an epiphany, but a gradually unraveling thought, which has been in the making but not articulated or set in definite terms. Pretty much goes with other stuff in life too. And makes me wonder whether those who keep detailed diaries and journals of life as it flows through them, remember more or live more intensely? By recording as much as you can. You can perhaps click pictures which so many of us do so much more now. But what about the thought chain? From where things start and where they land, the chain is so unique. Each one of them. Illuminating different parts of memory and your inner landscape as the thoughts pass through them train like. When you write them down, you get the access key for future use. Makes little sense when I write it here like this. But what I wish to note and remember is that I am better off writing as I read, rather than not writing.

What next?

For 2019, no major reading plans or goals. Although I do hope that for books that start a conversation in the head, they get a little bit of that jotting down and recording on this blog.

To 2019, and to more reading.

"The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe

"The Sorrows of Young Werther" has been on my reading list for some time now, referred in many of my other recent readings. I have had the Gutenberg version saved on my phone, but for one reason or another, never got around to it until I came across this translation by Bayard Quincy Morgan (Alma Classics) and saw the physical dimensions of this book. It is a small, 135 page book, more like a novella. And it is a pretty engaging read from the first letter itself.

First published in 1774, in German, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, this book is regarded as one of its kind. See below from the introduction:

"Werther is the first German novelette (a form in which German writers have excelled), the first German epistolary novel and the first German work of any kind to make both its author and his country's literature internationally known."

The book has been translated a lot many times since its first publication. Perhaps a fitting place to add a bit about translations. Some books are ideally read in their own language. But there, I'm quite impaired, knowing nothing beyond two languages. They also say about certain books that it is better to read them in translation than not read them at all. And I guess I find it easier to subscribe to this philosophy. I enjoy stories from different times and countries, which means I read a lot of translated books. Choosing and finding a good translation can be difficult for the more famous works. A bit of google, a look at sources you trust, and you get a fair guidance. At the end of the day, availability and access rule what translation I end up reading.

Werther is set in epistolary form - letters by Werther to his friend (mostly), one way, responses not shared in the book. A new term that I learnt, epistolary novels: novels written  as series of documents. I have tried to read Clarissa (the other famous epistolary novel) in the past with little progress. And last year I read Diderot's Memoirs of a Nun  - the epistolary prank by Denis Diderot.

Spoilers ahead.

The book is about Werther falling in love with Lotte, who is engaged to another. And the eventual absorption and annihilation of Werther. You see the unrequited love (or would one call it a crush in modern times?), developing letter by letter. Knowingly our protagonist walks into trouble and that doesn't end well for him. It can't be helped, but if addressed, and handled with a tough will, it could easily have been otherwise. But then, there won't be a story to be told. 

May be it is how it comes across in translation, may be it is since these are letters to a friend, I find Werther quite self-absorbed and a shade arrogant, considering only himself in the whole equation (not even Lotte in the way things play out and affect her). To that end, his love is not the selfless love but a sort of unhealthy, selfish absorption. I find his way of looking at the world convoluted - he chooses to see what he wishes to see (which, agreed, most of us do most of the time).  At times, there are moments in his letters when you see an old, wise soul shining through (see some quotes below), but most of the time, Werther behaves like a spoiled child. There is a tone of complaint, a sort of whining throughout his letters. It is just the impression that I get. May be, this is the author's way of portraying the protagonist. May be, the times have changed and what was ok 250 years ago might be considered wrong today. 

I wonder whether Werther's problem was just a matter of finding another occupation? May be I am simplifying matters.  But I believe, that had Werther found a better occupation, and distance from what had captured his heart, mind and imagination, there would have been a Werther living for longer. If only he had removed himself from the scene. Given himself distance and time away from Lotte, time enough to find other interests to occupy his thoughts and mind, there'll be something else vying for his attentions, perhaps pulling Lotte's thoughts to the right proportion instead of the way they envelope and consume his psyche. May be, then there would have been the pain of lost love that he would have lived with, but hopefully, with time, its edges would have been dulled. In the book too, once Werther finds employment away from Lotte, there is less talk about his thoughts on Lotte, more about other troubles in his life. And the reason he continues to stay unhappy in the clerical job is more to do with the general tedium of life, and ennui and difficulties of living and bonding, which, short of a worthy pursuit or purpose, makes life dull for one and all. And Werther, tired of this tedium,  rediscovers his worthy pursuit in Lotte. A path which eventually keeps curving back in, in smaller and smaller circles, leaving no other space or option for him, then to subsumed by the abyss his life becomes without Lotte.

That, is a point of view on the protagonist, not the book. The point that the author is making is reminding us that what Werther pursues is worthy of pursuit. Given the meaning or non-meaning of life, any pursuit is worthy of the pursuer depending on how much value one assigns to stuff. It is like beauty, in the eyes of beholder. Yet, going by the more practical, the more mundane, or what Brodsky calls, tedious way of our lives, the loss of Werther's life was avoidable. Yes, it proves a point, but a big cost for proving a point. And yet again, Werther is not really concerned with the practical, or the mundane. He just wishes to be valued for his heart (following, him talking about a friend he is staying with):

"he prizes my intelligence and my talents more than he does this heart, which is after all my sole pride, which is the only source of everything I have, of all my force, all my bliss and all my misery. Oh, anyone can know what I know - only I possess my heart."

Despite knowing where it was going, I was saddened and moved by the ending. 

**


The flowing prose feels very different than most of the modern, clipped, sparse prose. Perhaps the sentimentality and emotional extravagance has something to do with the times this book was written in.  One can perhaps see Werther in Julien Sorel (The Red and the Black by Stendhal), and oddly, Gatsby.


**

There are a few quotes from the book which I find interesting. Recording them here.

"...I have found again, my dear fellow that misunderstandings and lethargy produce more wrong in the world than deceit and malice do. At least the two latter are certainly rarer."

On expressing how you feel:

"ah, could you express all that again, could you breathe onto paper that which lives in you so fully, so warmly, that it could become the reflection of your soul as your soul is the mirror of infinite God!"

On people, and his thoughts on working for living (which so much more of the humanity does now. Talk about landed gentry and the commonfolks. Most of the world is common folks now).

"If you ask me what the people here are like, I must tell you, "Like people everywhere!" Uniformity marks the human race. Most of them spend the greater part of their time in working for a living, the scanty freedom that is left to them burdens them so that they seek every means of getting rid of it. O fate of man!"

On life,

"That the life of man is only a dream has seemed to be so to many before now, and I too always carry this feeling about with me." 

**

One gets to wonder about letter writing. When people wrote on typewriter or longhand, they would have to fully form their sentences and thoughts. Make their fragmentary notes elsewhere. I have written and received a lot of longhand letters from penfriends before emails changed communication for ever. It was a pleasure, waiting expectantly for the postman. And rambling on in longhand. Not the way I do now, going all over the screen, adding, editing, changing the sentences, paragraphs, grouping this or that. Even for this post. When you do not have a word processor, there is so little forgiveness in the system. You have to be articulate and think through what you wish to say before you say it. But I find the word processors better. If writing is a process of discovery for your thoughts, then we live in good times of word processors. Borrowing a borrowed quote from An Exaltation of Larks beginning essay, where James Lipton is quoting W.H. Auden quoting a child who says:

"How can I know what I think 'til I see what I say?"

Exploring: "An Exaltation of Larks"

I currently have a few open, exploratory reads around poetry, language and words. One of them is "An Exaltation of Larks - The Ultimate Edition (More than 1000 terms)" by James Lipton.

The author bio page mentions that “James Lipton is an author, playwright, lyricist, director, choreographer and producer.” First published in 1968, my edition (1993), this book is a result of his efforts and obsession of over two decades. The book lists and showcases terms of venery (hunting). Or nouns of multitude. Or words that describe a group. Most of the terms originated as hunting terms and eventually, over time, coinage of new terms to represent a collection of items in other fields too. What we call collective nouns, or group nouns. Perhaps quite familiar with some of them, but many are quite outlandish to the modern ear. The book tries to list these terms exhaustively (hence the ultimate edition) or to the extent possible they can be collected in one place, with some very beautiful illustrations. 

This is not a book to be read cover to cover, but to be dipped in for the pleasures of language. For browsing and exploring.  If reading itself is a long, wide road, this book is a very interesting detour or sidebar with delightful, shiny presents of beautiful words packed rich with context and history strewn around everywhere. 

As the author mentions, these terms can be divided in broadly six categories (although he refrains from doing so through the book), those six categories being (1) Onomatopoeia (e.g., a murmuration of starlings), (2) Characteristic (e.g., a leap of leopards), (3) Appearance (e.g., a knot of toads), (4) Habitats (e.g., a shoal of bass), (5) Comment (e.g., a richness of martens) and interestingly, (6) Error (e.g., school of fish, which was originally meant as shoal of fish). 

The introductory essay at the beginning of the book was one of the most interesting reads for me so far in this new year.  It deals with the story of how the book came about. And how English language itself has been so open and pliable, absorbing words from other languages and cultures. In the opening paragraph, the author fittingly quotes Arthur Conan Doyle's Sir John Buttesthorn (Sir Nigel) talking about the importance of the "terms of the craft, lest you should make some blunder at table" referring to hunting which was the key pursuit of the landed and the rich, and in which craft these terms originated. They got supplemented over time with more terms, as English language itself expanded and mushroomed with other influences. Here's the author summarizing the expansion of the English language: 

"And with each new wave of traders or invaders came new semantic blood, new ideas and new ways of expressing them. The narrow, languid brook of the Celtic tongue suddenly acquires a powerful tributary as the splendid geometry of the Latin language burst into it, bringing such lofty sounds and concepts as intellect, fortune, philosophy, education, victory, gratitude. From 449 on, the blunt, intensely expressive monosyllables of the Anglo-Saxons joined the swelling stream, giving us the names of the strong, central elements of our lives: God, earth, sun, sea, win, lose, live, love and die. Then, in the eleventh century, with the Norman Conquest, a great warm gush of French sonorities - emotion, pity, peace, devotion, romance - swelled the torrent to a flood-tide that burst its banks, spreading out in broad, loamy deltas black with the rich silt of WORDS."

The essay eventually becomes a call to action. For precision. For the right word for the right thing. A sort of defence of using the right word, rather than trying to replace it with a simpler word or something that can be understood by the common denominator. There is an argument to be made in favor of effective communication and common denominator, but there is beauty and an inherent pleasure in finding the right and precise word, and poetry too, when a lot can be packed in a few perfect words and phrases. 

On a related note, precision in language is what Joseph Brodsky advised as well for in his commencement address at University of Michigan in 1988. He said:

" Now and in the time to be, I think it will pay for you to zero in on being precise with your language. Try to build and treat your vocabulary the way you are to treat your checking account. Pay every attention to it and try to increase your earnings. The purpose here is not to boost your bedroom eloquence or your professional success — although those, too, can be consequences — nor is it to turn you into parlor sophisticates. The purpose is to enable you to articulate yourselves as fully and precisely as possible; in a word, the purpose is your balance. For the accumulation of things not spelled out, not properly articulated, may result in neurosis. On a daily basis, a lot is happening to one’s psyche; the mode of one’s expression, however, often remains the same. Articulation lags behind experience."

The rest of the address is worth a re-read anytime I believe. And more so in current times. It can be found in his essay collection, On Grief and Reason (Speech at the Stadium). Or on the internet, here.

I find this study of words, and roots fascinating. I haven’t done much of it in the past. But looking at the history of words, seeing how they have traveled, and where they have eventually reached is interesting. History of words can be proxy for history of cultures and civilizations as well. 

I am fluent in just two languages (Hindi and English), and both these languages in their own way carry a lot of influence and history. The way schools teach Latin in the Western world, people in India grow up learning Sanskrit, and its grammar. With Sanskrit, I am familiar, not fluent. Familiar enough that I can guess or figure out which words in Hindi are derived from Sanskrit and which ones from Urdu, and which from other European languages. Isn't it fascinating? This history of a people reflected through assimilation in its language. Each such loaded word can be a glimpse into history - a moment of pause and wonder. 

Poetry, and poetic phrases is another such source of pleasing phrases and combination of words. Poets have a much sharper sense of words and there imagery than prose writers. They use packed, high RoI, high impact words. Few words loaded with rich meaning.  (I have Leonard Cohen playing in the background as I am writing this, encountered after a while. And a lot of rediscovered poetry is dissolving in the air around me).

I am enjoying these reads - the joy of discovery, and where it is taking me. And I am also collecting a lot of new words. It is an engaging pursuit, this collecting of words. Writing them down, speaking them aloud. Trying to make them my own. This hunting of words to tame them. A pursuit worthy of a term of venery itself.

'The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare' by G.K. Chesterton

Not my cup of tea. Quite enjoyed the opening bits and the promise and the set-up, but somewhere mid-way in the book, as it dawned on me what is happening and where the book is eventually headed, the feeling turned to chagrin, bewilderment (not in a good way), disappointment, with me going 'really?', and eventually, wtf?

But then this is an allegorical novel. It is what you read in it.

I got nudged towards Chesterton from Borges poetry lectures. And although I like the paradoxical aphorisms or quotable quotes or the general idea of the paradoxical discussions, I do not get this specific book. 

The book began like another of my recent reads, 'The Secret Agent' by Joseph Conrad. The same backdrop of London of broadly the same period (?) and the anarchists. But it is just the takeoff that is similar. After a bit, 'The Man...' falls off the cliff somewhere.  The book borders at the edge of reality; call it surreal, or magic realism or absurd realism or what some people call it: a metaphysical detective story.

(Just an alert here, the following discussion might feel like spoiler to some people.)

This book's purpose is lost to me. Leaving me a bit miffed. At myself? On not being able to understand the point. Or not being able to see what perhaps others see in it. Instead of leaving it as such and not writing about it anymore, however, here I am wondering why am I unable to appreciate the work? What am I missing? The paradox?

May be it is because I am not able to get all his allusions or what he meant to say. A google search will bring across innumerable pages on Chesterton and Christianity. And as per the internet and people better read on Chesterton, this one is the more secular of his novels. My personal familiarity or understanding of Christian symbolism is very limited. Limited to what one has seen and read. Although all my schooling has been in a Catholic school (and the routine of daily morning prayer assembly, lunch prayers, carols through December, nativity scene, the story of Jesus Christ and of course, Christmas) , I understand some things, but I have not really studied Christianity or the Bible, for that matter. 

Secondly, I really do not see things the same way. I understand and respect that every religion has its symbolism and belief system but then it is not an implicit general assumption for a book unless the book is presented as Gospel or religious fiction. There are secular works, there are indifferent works, there are even religious works which say as much, but this one was an implicit religious work (if there is such a genre). I feel there are ways and means of discussing faith without regarding it as given as the sky above us. And here, as I write this, I doubt myself again. What do I know? Most of my reading has been limited to what now I would call secular or indifferent books. But I have mostly stayed away from books that leave no debate. Since then I feel that the point of reading is lost. Who can write gospel truths in these times? Where there is no inherent doubt, questioning or at least an acceptance or acknowledgement or humility that really no-one knows what is and what is not, the writing loses the exploratory magic that most writing is, and becomes extremely narrow and didactic. 

For me perhaps the most important reason of this eventual creeping disenchantment was the plot and the non-resolution. The massive set-up of all the different anarchist agents and their Supreme Council. Followed by a lot of mad chase and shuffle, and illogical sequences. And still, one doesn't end up any wiser and nothing really gets resolved. Why go through that sort of trouble, to do what? Aren't the energies of all the people involved (all the relevant characters in the book) spent somewhere else better. And where do all the real anarchists go? In the end, is it just a discussion on Sabbath and how the days of week came by? But then only so much of the world holds that notion. I respect faith and I believe that everyone is entitled to their beliefs. I feel this way, shortchanged or miffed, is because I feel I read a religious novel thinking it was some paradoxical mystery.  

Enough said. May be, I need to reflect a little bit more and revisit the rushed through final pages of the book to understand what the author is getting at. Or maybe the best Chesterton is poems and quotes and reflections on life without getting into the religious domain which of course as a topic carries edge and root of an argument. 

Not sure if I want to watch the movie. Mostly not. 

**

As an irrelevant aside, whenever I looked at the title of the book 'Man who was Thursday', my mind, the random associations it keeps, kept reminding me of 'Man who sold the world'. So much so, throughout the book, and even while writing this post, the song has been playing in my head. And come to think of it, what you hear in the lyrics is not too far removed from the book. 

No matter the nightmare was not enjoyable. We can still save the day, listen to Nirvana playing David Bowie's 'Man Who Sold the World' here. And I am copying-pasting the lyrics from the internet here:

The Man Who Sold the World (by David Bowie)

We passed upon the stair
We spoke of was and when
Although I wasn't there
He said I was his friend
Which came as a surprise
I spoke into his eyes
I thought you died alone
A long long time ago

Oh no, not me
We never lost control
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world 

I laughed and shook his hand
And made my way back home
I searched for form and land
For years and years I roamed
I gazed a gazeless stare
We walked a million hills
I must have died alone
A long, long time ago

Who knows?
Not me
I never lost control
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world

Who knows?
Not me
We never lost control
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world

'This Craft of Verse' by Jorge Luis Borges

Another lucky find.

This book is a collection or transcript of lectures by Jorge Luis Borges, given in English at Harvard in late 60s (Norton Lectures). These lectures were in tape form, apparently lost and recently rediscovered, and then printed in the year 2000 in a book form. 

I have had a copy each of the collected fictions and non-fictions of Jorge Luis Borges for years now. But I have not been able to complete either of them. I have finished off parts of these books, books by themselves; however, not the complete collections yet. There are areas where I still find myself stuck. This one, hence, counts as my first Borges, sort of.

After reading a lot of Borges in translation, it is nice to hear his thoughts directly in English. And, it is a short book. What I like is where it takes me. One can read it quickly. Then one re-reads. And then one looks up all the references and poets. And all that takes a bit of time. Time well spent, nothing I complain of. For instance, Borges mentions 'Chestertonian mood', and calls it the very best mood to be in. And I haven't read anything by Chesterton. So after reading all the one-liners and quotes I could easily find online, I am now pretty deep in "The Man Who was Thursday". (As I write this, I am in the final third of the novel). Or all those poem fragments and poets you come across. They all demand a google looking up and then the thread can extend and extend, until you trace back your steps. Like, for some reason, through the web, I found myself reading Ithaca by Cavafy, and then found myself re-reading Brodsky's essay on Cavafy (Pendulum's Song from his collection, Less than One), and then wishing to read more from both Cavafy and Brodsky.

I haven't read a lot of poetry. Just a little bit. And mostly poems that I have revisited often. Some poems reveal what they hold soon. Some take a lot of patience and time, or certain moods when their meaning or what you take away from them becomes apparent. And at times, once the meaning becomes apparent, some poems can form the background music of life itself for months on end; call it a particular poem phase. (I recall my recent Four Quartets phase. That poem has so much in it. One can spend a lifetime dipping in and out and still take something from it). I am still a beginner in terms of understanding poetry.  At the moment, I have a couple of other books next to me which have poetry for beginners kind of titles. But who better to hold your hand as you stare into this new world, than Borges himself.

There is a humility in the book which makes it and him endearing. And then there is this philosophy or ways of looking at life that are interspersed throughout the book. As much about the mechanics of verse - from metaphor to word music, as it soon becomes a larger, deeper, way of looking at life itself. I'll best convey this by directly quoting from the book.

Consider the following from his discussion on Metaphor where he discusses the last stanza from Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening". The initial part is an analysis, a discussion on what is happening in these lines. Like any other lecture. But where he takes the discussion, and what you come away with, perhaps very few people are able to convey in such unassuming, simple manner. One feels lucky and privileged to be able to have access to or to come across such thoughts.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

These lines are so perfect that we hardly think of a trick. Yet, unhappily, all literature is made of tricks, and those tricks get - in the long run - found out. And then the reader tires of them. But in this case the trick is so unobtrusive that I feel rather ashamed of myself for calling it a trick (I call it this merely for want of a better word). Because Frost has attempted something very daring here. We gave the same line repeated word for word, twice over, yet the sense is different. "And miles to go before I sleep": this is merely physical; - the miles and miles in space, in New England, and "sleep" means "go to sleep". The second time - "And miles to go before I sleep" - we are made to feel that the miles are not only in space but in time, and that "sleep" means "die" or "rest". Had the poet said so in so many words, he would have been far less effective. Because, as I understand it, anything suggested is far more effective than anything laid down. Perhaps the human mind has a tendency to deny a statement. Remember what Emerson said: Arguments convince nobody. They convince nobody because they are presented as arguments. Then we look at them, we weigh them, we turn them over, and we decide against them.

But when something is merely said or - better still - hinted at, there is a kind of hospitality in our imagination. We are ready to accept it.

 

And later in the book, another reference to the same stanza:

Perhaps I am doing no good for us by pointing this out. Perhaps the pleasure lies not in our translating "miles" into "years" and "sleep" into "death", but rather in feeling the implication.

Through the book, you also get to hear his view on not just the craft of verse, but that of prose too, and how to consider them or appreciate them. And it is a great new perspective (for me). Take the following example. In his lecture on "the telling of the tale" and singing of verse, he reconsiders epic, and that if it can be done, it should be done. Here is him talking about modern epic. 

I have been thinking about the subject only rather late in life; and besides, I do not think I could attempt the epic (though I might have worked in two or three lines of epic). This is for younger men to do. And I hope they will do it, because of course we all feel that the novel is somehow breaking down. Think of the chief novels of our time - say, Joyce's Ulysses. We are told thousands of things about the two characters, yet we do not know them. We have a better knowledge of characters in Dante or Shakespeare, who come to us - who live and die - in a few sentences. We do not know thousands of circumstances about them, but we do know them intimately. That, of course, is far more important.

He talks about himself in the final chapter, called "A Poet's Creed". Here, he is talking about listening to his father reading Keats, from his "Ode to a Nightingale".

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn.

I thought I knew all about words, all about language (when one is child one feels that one knows many things), but those words came as a revelation to me. Of course, I did not understand them. How could I understand those lines about birds' - about animals' - being somehow eternal, timeless, because they live in the present? We are mortal because we live in the past and in the future - because we remember a time when we did not exist, and foresee a time when we shall be dead. Those verses came to me because of their music. I had thought of language as being a way of saying things, of uttering complaints, of saying that one was glad, or sad, and so on. Yet when I heard those lines (and I have been hearing them, in a sense, ever since), I knew that language could also be a music and a passion. And thus was poetry revealed to me.

(My underline). It is what he takes away from those lines. And what makes poetry so interesting. What one takes away depends so much on how deeply one thinks, and how one sees things. This is as much about the art of seeing. Such beautiful stuff!

What I take away - that I should live in the moment more often.

An awesome read. A book for keeps and for sharing.

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This was one of those few books, where by reading aloud often from, I have hooked K on to it as well. And he is reading it now.

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See what I found on google: a recording of Borges giving these lectures. Find them here. 

'Evening in Paradise - More Stories' by Lucia Berlin

I picked up Lucia Berlin on a whim. I was on the look-out for a new, fun read for a short trip, preferably engaging short stories which one can dip in and out of. Now, one of the libraries I visit has a very interesting way to classify books, they put stickers somewhere close to the lower edge of the book spines with colors and images of the genre, with the key to those sticker signs always stuck somewhere close-by - like romance, sci-fi, mystery, short stories. Instead of going through the book names and author names, when in the mood to stumble across something new, one can just glance or scan through the shelves for the genre one is looking for.  I can always carry a list and search the database, but more often than not, I am disappointed since what I seek, I often do not find there. Hence, this approach to serendipity. 

And see where it got me! While scanning the shelves for unread 'Short Stories', I came up on this new book by Lucia Berlin. (New, as in this is a 2018 book, collected posthumously. The author died in 2004). I read the foreword: 'The Story is the Thing', by Mark Berlin, Lucia Berlin's eldest son, who passed away in 2005. Quickly googled her, and got the book home. The title 'An Evening in Paradise - More Stories' suggests that this is perhaps a follow on version, and I need to read what is not here too. Which is 'A Manual for Cleaning Women and other stories'.*

Her short stories are very vivid. As Mark Berlin says, 'Ma wrote true stories'. I didn't understand the significance of that statement until 4 or 5 stories deep in the book, I went to the last pages to read a note on Lucia Berlin, and found echoes of the author's life in the stories. It is not true stories of other people. It is true story of her life. May be not the same characters, or the places, may be different names, different professions, but the thread, or the life recounted in those stories through other characters as instruments, was author's own. Written perhaps as independent episodes, one off short stories, collected here in sequence, making this book very autobiographical. Except perhaps one story (An Evening in Paradise), where we don't see her in any protagonist, all other stories take her life's backdrop.

It is a very interesting and full life that she had. A mother at a very young age, she married thrice, and lived in different places - in the US itself different places, and then outside in Mexico, in South America. As Mark Berlin notes, perhaps never in the same place for a year. And the stories take you to all those places. And they are told from the vantage point of the author at those different ages. The initial two stories have the protagonist at six or seven years old. Moving into early teens, and then first husband, and so on.

Not sure why but the analogy that comes to my mind is that of caramelised onions. if the facts of her life were raw onions, what you have is flavor enhanced, caramelized onions. Delectable. A bit at a time, and savour some more in a bit.

The writing is very engaging. Vivid, colorful. But still sparse, essentials only. No dwelling for long on what she's going through. Perhaps the reader has to do the dwelling on.

How do I feel about the writing? I am no expert, but going by who and what she evoked in my head. Very much like Katherine Mansfield. Just that she wrote of NZ and Europe. And Lucia Berlin writes of herself, and the places she lived in. Also, somehow, kept thinking of Jennifer Egan, and her 'A Visit from the Goon Squad'. Or the Pakistan of Daniyal Mueenuddin's  'In Other Rooms, Other Wonders'. Stories of lives in current times, but still, quite different from the average life. Books I read and then immediately wanted to read more from the author. Really engaging read!

Now hoping to soon find 'A Manual of Cleaning Women and Other Stories', and have queued up my Instapaper reading list with all things Lucia Berlin. And Ali Smith too. And Borges. And so much more.



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*May be I didn't find this book on the shelves. My memory deceives me. May be it was displayed in the New Books section. After all this is Nov 2018 release. They can't put it up already in the shelves. But then, how does it matter, the story is the thing.