Hello Gentle Reader
Peter Englund The Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy the same academy that awards the Nobel Prize for Literature, has posted on his blog the exciting news. Forty-six of the two hundred and ten people that have been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature are new nominations. Peter Englund goes on to say that: “An usually high number of former Nobel Laureates have exercised their nomination right.” This is exciting news! What former Laureates have nominated? Who have they nominated? Could Doris Lessing nominate Alice Munro? Perhaps Kenzaburo Oe the Japanese Nobel Laureate in Literature has nominated his good friend and Chinese Kafka Mo Yan. Maybe Orhan Pamuk has nominated his own influence of Margaret Atwood. Maybe Herta Müller has nominated Liao Yiwu, which would be a political statement. A breed of literary giants, have passed away this year, and will continue to in the coming years. This year alone we have lost some of the most amazing authors, such as Antonio Tabucchi, Carlos Fuentes, and Wisława Szymborska a Nobel Laureate herself.
Haruki Murakami the Japanese novelist and short story writer is once again the name passed around popularly. Ladbrokes ranks him with a chance of 10/1. Following the Japanese novelist of surreal tales is the Chinese Kafka Mo Yan with the chances of 12/1 and the Danish author Cees Nooteboom with the same chance of 12/1. Syrian poet Adonis and South Korean poet Ko Un along with Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare share the same rank of 14/1. Next comes, Dacia Maraini an Italian writer who was also nominated for the Man Booker International Prize of two-thousand and eleven sits along with American authors Philip Roth and Cormac McCarthy as well as Israeli author Amos Oz. Alice Munro the Canadian Short Story writer and Grandmother of Canadian literature as well as the contemporary equivalent of Anton Chekov according to Cynthia Ozick, sits at 20/1, along with other authors like Les Murray a Australian poet, as well as two novelists from Africa (maybe Former Nobel Laureate and first Africa Nobel Laureate in Literature Wole Soyinka had a hand in these nominations) Ngugi wa Thiog'o whose fantastical and political works lead him to exile; and the Grandfather of all African contemporary literature Chinua Achebe is also nominated, at 20/1. Also interestingly enough two Spanish authors sit at the odds of 20/1 Enrique Vila-Matas whose novel “Bartleby And Company,” looks very enjoyable as well as “Never Any End To Paris,” also appears very enjoyable and his new novel “Dublinesque,” appears promising. The other Spanish novelist who is coming to my attention for the first time though, is Eduardo Mendoza Garriga. Both these authors have a unique place in this race because a Spanish author has not won since Camilo Jose Cela in nineteen-eighty nine. Both of these novelists are lovely changes and are the character flaws of Camilo Jose Cela, who had more modernist tendencies whereas these two have more postmodernist tendencies.
Moving down the list one comes across Umberto Eco the perennial on the list. His work of that juxtapose, mesh, chop, blend, and puree high literary thought with semiotic philosophy, and makes it enjoyable with the form of a popular or low brow style of work of fiction. Following him is the young Romanian novelist Mircea Cartarescu. Following them is another American postmodern author Don DeLillo whose novella “Cosmopolis,” was turned into a film by the Canadian director David Cronenberg. Following them is the Somali novelist Nurridin Farah. Peter Nadas a Hungarian author also follows in hot pursuit. Then comes the nomination and the continual name that always makes my skin burn with a sense of trespassing anger. The very mention of the person on the list as well as a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature that almost defiles the sacrosanct nature of the prize itself – Bob Dylan also comes in at 33/1. Continuing on down there is Ian McEwan at the odds of 50/1. The popular British author who like Martin Amis and Julian Barnes is considered a good ol’boy of English letters, finds himself in the middle. But he has company with Margaret Atwood, as well as the two time Booker Prize winning author Peter Carey whose novel “The Chemistry of Tears,” did not make it on the Booker Prize Long list. Dissident poet and the forefront Poet of the Misty Poet movement in China Bei Dao also sits at 50/1. Portuguese novelist and medical doctor Antonio Lobo Antunes is also at 50/1.
Heading further down the list one can see a very peculiar name pop up. Ursula Le Guin’s name has appeared at the list at 66/1. Though the chances are not great, it is interesting. For the reason that most of Le Guin’s output has been what would be considered genre fiction. However what makes Le Guin so interesting in regards to genre fiction is well is that she is not what one would consider a tolkienesque author. There may not be large quests or saving the world. Instead Ursula Le Guin uses day to day transactions in order to create a common place in an otherwise fantasy or science fiction surrounding. Anthropological, sociological, psychological and gender themes are always at an, abundance. Le Guin uses day to day living as the means that connects individuals together as well as individuals to physical reality and the world around them. Her science fiction is not littered with light speed travel or works of humans at an advanced rate – at least not yet. The world is similar yet very noticeably different. However Ursula le Guin is one of those interesting authors that has appeared so far. Her influence is far reaching. From Neil Gaiman and China Melville to Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell – whose novel “Cloud Atlas,” that has been in production into a film and on October 26th will be released as a film; let’s see how that turns out.
Other Authors at 66/1 chance include the cerebral author of works of historical and interesting fiction Dame A.S. Byatt and the Italian author who traced the Danube through its cultural and literary history, and turbulent history all together, to create his bestselling piece of work “Danube.” Look for that review coming soon. The magical realist African writer and Booker Prize winning author Ben Orki is also at the same amount of chances. Another perennial favourite has dropped a lot this year at 66/1 odds is Milan Kundera.
Finally the list is wrapped with the honourable mentions of:
Booker Prize winning author Julian Barnes starts the list of the odds of 100/1. Avant-garde German author Ulrich Holbein who has still yet to be translated into English(!) but has also won the Kassel Literary Prize, for 2012. The Norwegian playwright and novelist Jon Fosse also has the odds of 100/1. American author Paul Auster is also a notable mention. French author who is still far too young to win the prize Jonathan Littell, is however the first American born author to win Frances most prestigious prize the Prix Goncourt.
Peter Handke is the one that made me raise my eyes at his odds at 100/1. Yes his politics are not in the norm with the Swedish Academy, but his work is amazing. He is the elephant in the room, and the author has stretched the limits of the novel in the contemporary literature, as well as pushed the form of the Drama like Beckett, like no other writer has. This is what makes me sad to see the author so far down on the list when she should be near the top. He is deserving of the honour.
Anne Carson’s notable mention is surprising in two ways. First she was mentioned, and I do not meant that in a negative or insulting way. Anne Carson is a poet. But not just a poet, she is a classicist. That means she is a scholar or an intellectual who holds with high regard the values and merits of classical antiquity. Even now her new book “Antigonick,” is a translation of classicist poets and other writers. This time she tackles Sophokles and has made the experience both textual and a visual experience, with drawings by Bianca Stone. The second reason why this surprises me is Anne Carson is a very experimental poet. A very experimental writer. The form of her work as a whole pushes the envelope. “Nox,” for example is an accordion physically. It pushed the boundaries of the book, and was an artistic achievement in its own right, both as a poem/poetry dedicated to her brother but also as a multimedia project. Her work is often grounded in a very small niche. Very small. Tucked away at the very small corner of a bookstore, where the treasures are found or become baffling riddles. But Anne Carson also pushes the boundaries of poetry in its traditional sense. It is certainly not your typical English poetry of pastoral sheep in Arcadia, or some dark gothic poem which is better left up in the garrets or someone’s attic, because of its hermetic nature, being something that the author and the author alone can understand, after making it so densely difficult and packed full of images that do not connect or symbols whose meanings are varied and far in between. The works of Carson can be approachable to a degree, as well as difficult to a degree again. They become intimate with the reader, in their discussions, of heart break in an, otherwise commonplace world. There is no attempt at transcending but a sense of understanding. But in the end because she is a poet and because she can often push aside the traditional sense of the word form, and her interest in the classicist age of antiquity it is odd that she is mentioned. However I had thought if she were to be mentioned she would have better odds then this.
Other notable appearances are:
Olga Tokarczuk
Victor Pelevin
Shyam Selvadurai
Louise Gluck
Peter Peterson
Well it has started Gentle Reader. Let the games begin. Let the betting begin. The speculation, and the interesting thought, let new authors be discovered. It is a bit early in my opinion to start the betting but I think it’s going to be an interesting Literary season.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
Thursday, 23 August 2012
The Short Story Review No. XIV
“Any Where Out of This World,” by Antonio Tabucchi – From “Little Misunderstandings of No Importance,”
In his introduction, of this short story collection, Antonio Tabucchi had lamented how on certain stories, he had wished that other authors had written them. Such as “Waiting for Winter,” in which he wished that Henry James had written it instead of himself. With “Any Where Out of This World,” Antonio Tabucchi laments the fact with great modesty borderlining shyness, that he wishes Charles Baudelaire one of the greatest French poets, who had little success in his own life time, had written it in the style he had written “Le Spleen de Paris.” The work itself comprises of fifty one short prose poems. It was published posthumously in the year eighteen sixty nine, by his sister. It has been reported, that Charles Baudelaire had said that he read Aloysius Bertrand’s “Gaspard de la nuit,” which is considered to be the first concept and example of prose poetry; which Baudelaire had read twenty one times. Though Baudelaire was inspired by Bertrand, he decided to use contemporary Parisian life as the background for this work, rather than medieval work which was the subject of Bertrand’s “Gaspard de la nuit.”
Charles Baudelaire had described the work as: “These are the flowers of evil again, but with more freedom, much more detail, and much more mockery.” “Les Fleurs du mal,” or “The Flowers of Evil,” caused quite a stir on its initial publication. Both the publisher and Charles Baudelaire were prosecuted under the laws of the Second Empire, with its insult to public decency. Six of the poems alone were supressed and were not uncensored and banned until nineteen forty nine. These six poems were “Lesbos,” “Femmes damnés,”/”Women Doomed,” “Lethe,” “To Her Who is Too Gay,” “The Jewels,” “The Vampires Metamorphoses.” Victor Hugo on reading this book, was so impressed that he called it a “new shudder, and a new thrill.”
There a few notable works in “Paris Spleen,” one of them being “Let us beat up the poor,” in which Baudelaire makes a parable about the economic and social equality: no one is entitled to it. In the end it belongs to those who can win it and keep it. This is a quick distinction between Baudelaire and Tabucchi. Whereas Baudelaire is cynical to the extreme, mixing his bitterness with a gallows humour and sarcastic philosophy, that speaks about how society itself is doomed to devour itself and the individual and then implode on itself in which Baudelaire would lament in elegiac fashion of the mess that would need to be cleaned up. Tabucchi on the other hand, has a sense of positive understanding of the human condition. Rather than take anything just at its face value, Tabucchi is willing to look further and see the possibilities, and see that all men are capable of great deeds, and even equality of an economic and social scale, at least in some respects. Though there is no denying Baudelaire’s claim, of the dream of it truly possibly being fulfilled would never actually happen, to its idealized form by Marxists.
“At One in the Morning,” Baudelaire sets this prose poem up like a diary entry. Making a run down of the day to day events; and comes to the conclusion that he lives in a society full of hypocrites. This in some ways explains his concept of “modern and abstract living.” Where his (and everyone else’s) individual self becomes “blurred . . . by a hypocrisy and perverseness which progressively undermine the difference between the self and others.” In the end even Baudelaire himself was not immune to his own cynical criticism.
“Paris Spleen,” does not deal with the actual organ of the body. Which looks like a sea creature in the chasm of the body. Best described as a worm of a coloured maggot happily snuggled in the body and festering and devouring the poor carcass from the inside out. Though not a vital organ the Spleen itself does play a very peculiar and interesting role in the human body and most of all vertebrae animals. It recycles and removes old red blood cells, and holds storage of blood in case of hemorrhagic shock. No instead of discussing the Spleen of Paris (which I can assure you it most likely does not have) Baudelaire uses the spleen as a metaphor for: “melancholy with no apparent cause, characterized by disgust with everything.” In most ways Baudelaire’s attitude in general and yet this contributed to him being a great poet.
Antonio Tabucchi’s short story “Anywhere Out of This World,” takes on the definition of the spleen, with some slight adjustments. He is certainly melancholic if anything, but for the most part there is no real sense of disgust for everything. In fact there is not even a sense of dysthymia with the narrator. If anything he is quite content with himself. He does not feel a sense of spleen towards anyone. His life is banal, and rather normal if anything. He works, and in the beginning of this story is contemplating enjoying a film. Though he admits that an intellectual and experimental film by novelist and filmmaker Marguerite Duras will most likely not be up his alley. Which on a personal note it is not something I could possibly comment on because I have never watched a Marguerite Duras film before. However while he continues to read the paper, he makes observations of the world around him. A bus that crashed into a shop, because the driver and operator of the vehicle that had crashed had a heart attack. These little actions and observations are what make the story what it is. It is what make the story grounded in reality. It is grounded in the banal and the common day. Where every day tragedies just happen, and are dealt with a sense of pity, but not really any sense of rage or sympathy. Empathy can only happen when the tragedy has finally made it to such a cataclysmic disaster. However in such cases that reality is soon replaced with rage and questioning anger. It is not until the end of the newspaper and until the end of the story that one really does get to see the narrator’s melancholic expression and the nervous shake of his world where in the personal adds there is an add with the title: “Any Where Out of This World.” This message and personal ad reminds the narrator of a recent loss, and in some ways cuts open his own spleen, shattering the previous world thought.
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“The Exterminator,” by Ersi Sotiropoulos – From: “Landscape with Dog: and Other Stories,”
Ersi Sotiropoulos stories of recent in this collection are getting shorter. Shorter, but with the same subject matter with far less detail in the exploration then some of the previous stories that have come before it. “The Exterminator,” is a story about a woman who is also an aspiring writer, and has decided to go out onto an island, and rent a house for the summer with the intended goal of writing a novel. All of this is to be done in solitude. Isolation is the key the aspiring author wishes to finally make as a writer. She works on a fictionalized biography of two English artists, who create art together as if they were a single person, rather than two individuals who composing a piece of art work in collaboration. However there art work in the end becomes something disgusting, and Ersi Sotiropoulos uses the visceral and grotesque images as a way to sum up the very existence of human beings and the life of the general population of people:
“She had almost finished the first draft of her book when she got stuck on a single line. ‘“We eat, we spit, we urinate, we defecate,”’ one of the artists had said during an interview, and she wasn’t sure if she should take it literally or as somewhat cynical metaphor for the cycle of life. The fact that their final series had involved photographs of urine and sperm samples, magnifies under a microscope, supported the second supposition but wasn’t enough to resolve her doubts. She had seen the photographs; some of them showed fascinating shapes, exquisitely simple and original, like Paleolithic cave drawings. It was astonishing how much beauty there could be in strangers’ revolting urine and sperm; she shivered in her chair at the thought, and new, more complex interpretations raced through her mind. She rose and was pacing rapidly up and down the room, trying to assess these new ideas, made dizzy by the possibilities opening up before her, when she noticed an equally beautiful shape, abstract and minimalist, on the floor in the hall. It took her five minutes to figure out it was a pile of mouse droppings.”
The mice and the cockroaches of this short story are the nasty little creatures. The nightmares in which the narrator and aspiring author must confront. The very scum of the animal world. The pests. The scavengers of the home distress her. They too become symbols of the human condition. Whereas Gregor in Kafka’s metamorphosis and his transformation was a transcending act that showed the human races impoverishment in human psychology, in regards to the changing of circumstances – for example being transformed into a cockroach. In the case of Gregor Kafka redefines the act of mercy and the acts of justice, not to mention what is human and humane. Gregor being reduced to the mere miniscule form of a pest a lowly inferior creature to the human shows the injustice of life. Even though Gregor has been reduced to the physical form of a cockroach he is in the end, in mind and being human. In doing so Gregor shows the reader what a real human is. He is a complex individual. He hates and detests his daily job; yet realizes that it is a necessity to his life and to his family’s well-being. He has hopes and dreams. Wishes to be responsible and to relate to people in general. However Gregor is transformed into his hideous new body. He becomes a cockroach, in all physical manifestations. A symbolic punishment for his inability to stand up for his own needs and individuality, in the face of the tyranny and need to take care of his family, who now detest him and his new physical form. Unwilling to accept the new form, they quickly lose sight of humane treatment and quickly detest him as if he were a cockroach. Gregor and his unusual condition becomes a symbol of man’s conformity. A loss of individuality, free will, and the constant dirge of the human condition. Even when Kafka turns his character Gregor into an insect, the furthest creature from an actual human being, Kafka retains the fact, the very sole fact that Gregor even in his new condition and repulsive body is human. This allows him to transcend the boundaries of what it means to be human. In his new form, Gregor learns compassion, mercy but also suffering. As his family – the ones that once loved and depended on him now turn cruel. His father smacks him with the newspaper for one, and causing damage and pain. In Ersi Sotiropoulos pests become nothing more than what they are. Stuck in corporeality, they are nothing more than pests. No symbolism of god, or of human races insignificance or almost god like power.
In the end they are simply taken at face value. They are not known as if anything else. However when the exterminator comes a long, to get rid of such creatures, our writer comes face to face with the reality that she herself has already depicted in the above passage. That as human beings, there is nothing special about them. They are born, they live, they age, they die. There is no poetic sensuality. No philosophical hidden meaning, that leads to a profound sense of discovery of what it means to a human being let alone what it means to exist. In that concept Ersi Sotiropoulos almost mocks the hopeful dreams of the writer. Her attempt at using two artists in her fictional biography, and their work, to provide and understanding of human existence and life in general and its riddle, leads to the conclusion. Which shows that Ersi Sotiropoulos prefers to ask open ended questions, and allows the reader to find interpretation and grey shaded answers, to be preferred.
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“Sleeping Beauty and The Airplane,” by Gabriel García Márquez the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-eighty two – From “Strange Pilgrims: and Other Stories,”
Gabriel García Márquez’s writing career has reportedly ended, because of dementia. It had been my understanding that the Nobel winning author, had retired from writing. Then it was reported that the author had the writing itch once again, and was going to finish his autobiography and a new novel reportedly titled “We’ll Meet in August,” which is also from my understanding finished, but a release date has yet to be announced. However it appears that Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s writing career has finally ended, not by his choice however. It has been theorized by his brother that his dementia has been brought on by the treatment he received for lymphatic cancer that had brought the author to near death, earlier. It is a sad, realization. Another great author who, for generations of readers a like, and recognized around the world of one of the greatest authors of world literature. One of the most popular authors of the Nobel Prize for Literature back in nineteen-eighty two, Gabriel Garcia Márquez had brought Latin America to the world stage and a forefront of world literature. Which makes the tragedy of the author losing his memory, rather severe. The author himself has become an icon of Latin America, and its literature. Becoming something of a child’s favourite grandfather, with the exception that his grandchildren are entire continents, and he is loved and adored because he helped instill a sense of pride in their culture and traditions.
Gabriel García Márquez had proven to the people of Latin America, South America, and the Caribbean along with other authors like Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Jorge Luis Borges, and Julio Cortazar helped create the Latin American boom, and showed the world and literary world that this part of the world was not some backwater place of septic culture that has been colonized and forced to change. However these writers proved otherwise. They show their part of the world as a place of magic and mystery. Though political turmoil is evident in their culture, with violence, kidnappings, revolutions, rebellions, and dictators all populate these works. Yet they exist alongside angels, ghosts, holy miracles and other such works of magic.
“Sleeping Beauty and The Airplane,” is about the most beautiful woman the narrator has ever seen or encountered. It’s evident and clear, with its own self-mocking pleasure that the story was influenced by Yasunari Kawabata (a fellow Nobel Laureate) and his short story “House of the Sleeping Beauties,” about older bourgeoisie Japanese men who go, and lay with younger beautiful woman who sleep – and are most likely drugged. The story is a subtle prose that with refinement, show sexual desire is a flirtatious act with death. Which is much more different then this current erotica trend of superficial sexual intimacy rather than probing any deeper as such authors have done before them. Though I suppose smut is smut, and pornographic pieces of work have always been something that people would want to read. The realization and concept that other share in their own fantasies and need to make them public, has always been like an act of voyeurism. But it can never compare to the sensual and more shaded novels like Yasunari Kawabata, Jane Austen and others. This short story follows the same path as Yasunari Kawabata, but with less philosophical depth.
There is a word in French called “La Douleur Exquise,” is a word that describes that heart wrenching pain that one cannot have. For some woman in today’s world that would be the ‘grey,’ man from the mommy pornography book. The same word can be described for the narrator and the sleeping beauty, who rides the airplane. She sleeps for the entire trip from Paris to New York, the narrator then admires the beauty from affair, but there is the gentle heartache of the narrator, who looks and watches the sleeping beauty and can do nothing but watch. The realization that she will not have him and that he cannot have her, only allows him to look at her with adoration.
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“Melody,” by Bei Dao – From: “The Waves: and Other Stories,”
There was a line in this short story that said, in a frank way; that all marriage is, is a step in life. No different then birth, growing up or aging or dying. It is just a part of life that one does if they choose to. Under the communist dictatorship of The People’s Republic of China, it becomes a bureaucratic and legal process, run by the government. With this story Bei Dao (I speculate) creates a metaphor for Communism in China and Communism in general. Much like Gao Xingjian’s play “The Bus Stop,” was a metaphor or analogy for the promises of the Communist Party to the Chinese people that never came. Much as the ominous bus like the shadowy Gadot never comes, but is expected.
The same can be said with “Melody,” by Bei Dao. With it, a marriage is not working out. Though it is just going to have to do. The first scene in this short story is the wife, has gone out and bought lemon toilet water – as the author put it so eloquently. Translated in layman’s terms its perfume; or more specifically it is cologne as it is a gift for the husband. A heavier drinker and a miserable drunk at that. The contemplation of how fights and making up after them, the initial awkwardness of blame placed on one individual who at first thought they would be the better person by buying the gift and admitting their mistake. What ends however with this couple is what is expected. A bribery of insincerity is tossed to the ground. Shattered and displayed for all to see, the confrontation fueled by past agitations, and misadventures as well as disagreements become weapons. Used to pinch and snare the other, in a trap of their own filthy sense of being. Yet what only happens in the end is just physical destruction. Anyone who has truly lived knows full well the physical sensation of picking up an object. Just any object. It just happened to be in the way. It just happened not to work. It was the last straw to be picked. It is tossed. Beaten and smashed. Placed in a state of no recognition. Any recovery of what has lost already welcomed into oblivion. What follows is exhaustion. Inebriated by exhausted and a faded adrenaline, and the smoldering coals of a anger far from dead, caused one to retreat away from the current situation. Retreating away from the stage without even taking a bow one is forced to depart from the stage. Curtains drawn. The audience on the other side of the walls think to themselves, what entertainment. At least it’s not us.
From there of crawling into one’s own sense of regret and anger – as well as one’s own complicated sense of guilt about the damages they too have partaken in. Further frustrating an already complicated situation. Which is then justified by blaming it on the other. “If they had not pushed me.” “If she had not said that.” “If he would just do something.” It is these justifications. These reasons, these approvals that one gives their own actions, by reasoning that the action themselves were simply caused by the others own words, and actions. This allows for at least a shaky sense of palliation. A shallow satisfaction.
How does this compare though to China and the Chinese people, and the Communist Party of China? The marriage that the two characters find themselves in, is not working. However it has its reasons, that the two decide to put up with each other: Housing. They both have married for the simple fact of housing. As the main character meets and see’s others she begins to see the reasons or anchors that keep the marriages intake. For one it is a child. Such a common reason. Unhappiness for a ‘couple,’ is abound, and what ties them together in their holy matrimony and unhappy life together. While thinking not of their own needs, but that of a third party (in this case a child) they had thought best to stay together to provide the illusion of a home life. To offer the sense of family ties and home and union. When in reality they have done nothing but in the end to ruin the child’s life. For in the long run the child eventually begins to perceive and make out the proposed illusion. In the end all parties loose. The child discovers that the whole reason that the parents had stayed in their miserable relationship was because that they had them to think of. This in the end makes the child feel guilty. Everyone loses.
Other reasons are abound, as the main character in this story tells the reader. For example she stays with her husband simply because of housing. The old couple simply stay together because of its routine. Which is also an adequate description of life. Life happens. We stay in horrible situations, because the unknown or the alternative looks far more bleak then the current situation. When I heard the description of the old couple, who do the same routine, and must stay together out of sheer fact of routine it made me think of the story as itself an adequate description for life, but also as an adequate description of China and its one party system and how it survives. We all get trapped in the repetitive cycles of life. We all get trapped in the understanding of routine and understand that, the comforts are not something we want to give up.
Other people are better off. Other people appear happy. Other people have more freedoms, happy families. It always comes down to other people. The mirrors and the comparisons of the people to our own situation always leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. The walls all of a sudden look like they are covered in mould. There is a strange smell in the house – the smell of mildew. The food in the fridge has rotten. The fruit on the cupboard is not ripe yet. The bills are stacking up. A light bulb burns. All these events. All these small moments of dreadful failure, eventually begin to add up. They begin to become mocking malicious smiles. Giggling at your own failed life. Stuck in a rut. The continual routine. Over and over again. Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow is going to be a better day. Tomorrow turns out to be the same as today.
This whether or not intended, what lead me to think of this story not as an attack on China’s Communist Party but rather sympathetic understanding of the Chinese people. Why they accept the conditions of their lives. Why they accept the minimal wage of their factory job. Why the fear the government – or at least respect them, out a sense of ominous understanding, of the consequences. In the end there is only a handful of Bei Dao, Herta Müller’s, and so many others. If there wasn’t then the world would not have fallen and dictatorships would not be still in practice. However if the world was full of them, we would not be able to recognize their courage.
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“Everyone’s Right,” by Peter Stamm – From: “In Strange Gardens: and Other Stories,”
“Publishers Weekly,” states it clearly about Peter Stamm’s writing style. “Stamm derives his narrative power from absence and void.” When discussing his grim novel “Unformed Landscape,” by the Swish-German author they state they compare it to these stories, and derive the following conclusion: “this collection of 20 something short stories features an ill-assortment of emotionally shallow characters moving through similarly textureless landscapes. “ This conclusion hits the nail on the head – as the saying goes. For Peter Stamm there is no difference between people. From Manhattan, New York City to the wilderness of some unidentified country on a river canoeing trip there is no difference between the characters. Each one’s life is extraordinary in their own right. Yet on the opposite side of the spectrum the extraordinary becomes the banal. A zoo keeper who feeds a lion, the act of seeing one of nature’s amazing creatures feast and dine on the carcass of some poor unfortunate other creature, simply becomes routine after a while. A person who lives under a dictatorship, and learns how to flee, dissolve into the cement walls, become a motionless statue simply becomes a reality – not a nightmare. A person who lives in a crowded world where violence is apparent and runs rampant like a uncontrolled disease simply witnesses murder and gang violence as a fact of life, not as something abnormal. Peter Stamm recognizes. He understands the elusiveness of people. The enigmatic and abstract behavioral patterns of individuals. Why a woman for example, and a man who have a strictly platonic relationship based on a past encounter where one confesses his love, and the other shoots him down, and she can place her hands in his groin. These acts themselves to a complete stranger – and in this case as a the reader, one is the stranger – they are out of place. Shattered and fragmented slivers of glass mixed amongst the beach, on an over cast sky, on a cool November day when a ocean breeze kicks in cold ocean waves.
One thing that is noticeable after a while is how Peter Stamm uses weather as a backdrop. How the weather is more than just some simple scenic backdrop like that of a photograph. When the weather turns for the worst, in this short story about people who go on a canoeing trip – camping trip is probably a more adequate description; it becomes symbolic in its scenic description. Whe4n the rain starts to pour and both the characters are forced to huddle up together, and share the last bit of reserves of food that they have, and the rain outside become such a blanket and a curtain of water, that one is unable to see the rest of the world. It is in this scene that one gathers the closeness of two individuals. The feeling of warmth and heat; isolation, alienation and seclusion. Under Peter Stamm’s cool gaze it does not become something of untouched romantic love, but rather in the end it becomes something that is described, as simply that.
Peter Stamm, at times however does become a bit of something stereotypical of something of a German author. His prose is emotional detached. Extremely natural is the way to go. His characters are shallow, and are more of puppets on strings, to whom Stamm can grow bored with and toss back in to the trunk; hang on the branch of a tree; or toss and let the river take them drifting along down the river. With intense brooding light green eyes that shimmer with the greenness of a fresh river with the cool autumn on the horizon and the first deserters of the leaves already falling in, he at times even has the appearance of the stereotypical Swiss-German author. However Peter Stamm is his own author, his own individual. His prose is bare and natural. Dry and depicts the banalities of life. Showing people for what they are.
Failed dreams, failed goals, lives gone astray. Peter Stamm writes about the lives of characters during periods in their lives, depicting the life before the “shit hits the fan,” or life happens and he displays life after life happens or “shit hits the fan.” Stamm’s prose are like small stones in by the river shore. They are small and unassuming. Quiet in their appearances and do not stand out. Though in an ironic twist of events they are diamonds in the rough. They do not glitter though. They are not full of gold or fool’s gold to give the one appearance of a lustrous prose. They are individual pebbles unique in their own right. One may have a sedimentary like appearance. The next a metamorphic. Each one unique4 in their own right; as well as a treasure to be held. Some skip across the water. Other sink fast. Some are placed in the pocket and can weight one down, as they walk out to the void. Others are picked up, examined and absent mindedly dropped and forgotten.
This is the beauty of his prose. The neutrality and cold precision of his own eyes, and focus on the characters in an emotional constipated landscape. It is this reason they themselves are emotional enigmas, or emotionally shallow and awkward. Why their gestures and their actions almost appear out of place. Why they may be so jaded, or why they do the things they do. In the end they themselves don’t truly think too much about them. They just do. Their hormones get the better of them, or their impulses do. But to say that their emotions get the better of them is a statement far from true, because the author himself avoids sentimentality and sensationalism, by allowing his characters to become emotionally stunted. In the process they become wooden but also allow for some interesting insight. On a personal note I’d like to give Peter Stamm’s more longer prose a try and see how it compares.
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“A journey with the cows,” by Italo Calvino – From “Marcovaldo: or The Seasons in the City,”
Already summer is ending. The days have become longer. Shadows creep along the ground farther. The beginning of autumn can be felt in the air. It stirs the leaves. Causing them to turn red, orange, yellow and eventually brown. Where once was green is now turning to gold. Golden fields of barley, wheat and canola. Pumpkins grow large orange and round, perfect for pumpkin pie. The air becomes crisp. The light slowly turns from a golden haze at dusk, becomes crisper and clear. The world is able to see through eyes unclouded. Whereas in the summer the heat, cause illusions waves in the air, and pollution becomes large grey blue hazy clouds, that hang over the horizon and the city. In winter the clouds are low, and white, where the sky and the earth tend to almost touch each other. But the light is grey. The nights are unbearably dark. However in some odd way the air inside the homes further down the road become more festive. Brightly coloured lights can be seen decorating houses. Pine tree’s (if they are real) fills a home with the smell of mint sap. Than the panic stricken with the consumerist by now, get this now, great present for this person or that person. The attitude of I want and I need to get, is unmistakable at that same time. But on that special day, it all changes. The house is full of a celebratory feeling. The very traditions of each household become sacrosanct, though not conservative or boring in routine. Each time it’s a new adventure with a roughed out concept. There will always be the smell of a warm cooking turkey dinner. The feeling of togetherness and fraternity as well as family bonds are never stronger it seems than in Christmas. Maybe it’s because everyone is trapped in a house together. Spring is muddy and dirty. The windowpanes get covered in condensation and dripping with water, that slithers and scurries down the glass. Yet the earth smells fresh. Rejuvenated and clean. After the raining months have passed and the sun comes out, the world starts to green up again. Flowers bud and blossom. Tree’s become thick and full of leaves. It is this time that barbeque season starts, and when summer truly begins. Each season Italo Calvino writes about with such, amazement and wonder. The natural world is beautiful and wonderful, and full of delights. Marcovaldo the poor uneducated and rather unskilled proletariat, is the man who though dues the grunt labour. However his ear and his eyes are trained to the natural world around him. No matter how small or large, Marcovaldo sees it.
However Marcovaldo is a bit of a disillusioned character. He has a great admiration and love for the natural world. That being said he is not a man who sees the reality of the natural world. This can plainly be seen when Michelino goes off with the cows, which are being herded through the city one hot summer evening, to go and graze up in the alpine mountains. Marcovaldo does worry about his son, though he thinks the journey itself and the end result will be fantastic. He imagines his son lazing around the meadows with the grazing cows. He pictures him under a fir tree, a piece of grass hanging out of his mouth whistling. Marcovaldo almost feels a sense of envy with his son, as he is stuck in the sweltering oven of the city. Moving away constantly in his continual manual labour, only to return home, and deal with his children and his hysterical wife who always thinks about her son, who is up in the mountains, and who she is dreadfully missing.
However when his son returns, it becomes clear that life was not some pastoral dream. It was hard work on a different line. Anyone who has grown up on a farm or an acreage will tell its hard work. Yes there are moments of such enjoyment that they will last a life time, but those moments are earned, and are rewards for hard work. Cow needs to be milked. Fields need to be tended. Gardens need to be watered and weeded. Plants need to be taken care of. Animals need to be fed. Repairs may need to be made. It is a hard life, but it is also a good life. A life of rewards and skills learned. A hard and good work ethic is instilled into the character of a person. On a personal note, I never grew up on a farm or an acreage. Though in many ways I was fortunate enough (in some ways) to have grown up in a small town. Where it was located was close to a river, and a provincial park. So nature’s beauty was never far away. Of course there was always a sense of isolation. Which always made trips to the city exciting and adventurous – except only for so long.
This story resonated with me personally, because of the connection of the cows, have with my own hometown. Their cries in the summer night echoing with that of the coyotes. Their languid lazy looking eyes, always with a sense of contempt for their lives, and for the ones that will eat them eventually. But also the gentle nature of cows. Just the memory of walking by them when I was younger, and how you could touch them if they were close to the fence. Their fat bellies swollen. Their patience immense and almost never ending. This one of the stories that shows Italo Calvino at his best.
In his introduction, of this short story collection, Antonio Tabucchi had lamented how on certain stories, he had wished that other authors had written them. Such as “Waiting for Winter,” in which he wished that Henry James had written it instead of himself. With “Any Where Out of This World,” Antonio Tabucchi laments the fact with great modesty borderlining shyness, that he wishes Charles Baudelaire one of the greatest French poets, who had little success in his own life time, had written it in the style he had written “Le Spleen de Paris.” The work itself comprises of fifty one short prose poems. It was published posthumously in the year eighteen sixty nine, by his sister. It has been reported, that Charles Baudelaire had said that he read Aloysius Bertrand’s “Gaspard de la nuit,” which is considered to be the first concept and example of prose poetry; which Baudelaire had read twenty one times. Though Baudelaire was inspired by Bertrand, he decided to use contemporary Parisian life as the background for this work, rather than medieval work which was the subject of Bertrand’s “Gaspard de la nuit.”
Charles Baudelaire had described the work as: “These are the flowers of evil again, but with more freedom, much more detail, and much more mockery.” “Les Fleurs du mal,” or “The Flowers of Evil,” caused quite a stir on its initial publication. Both the publisher and Charles Baudelaire were prosecuted under the laws of the Second Empire, with its insult to public decency. Six of the poems alone were supressed and were not uncensored and banned until nineteen forty nine. These six poems were “Lesbos,” “Femmes damnés,”/”Women Doomed,” “Lethe,” “To Her Who is Too Gay,” “The Jewels,” “The Vampires Metamorphoses.” Victor Hugo on reading this book, was so impressed that he called it a “new shudder, and a new thrill.”
There a few notable works in “Paris Spleen,” one of them being “Let us beat up the poor,” in which Baudelaire makes a parable about the economic and social equality: no one is entitled to it. In the end it belongs to those who can win it and keep it. This is a quick distinction between Baudelaire and Tabucchi. Whereas Baudelaire is cynical to the extreme, mixing his bitterness with a gallows humour and sarcastic philosophy, that speaks about how society itself is doomed to devour itself and the individual and then implode on itself in which Baudelaire would lament in elegiac fashion of the mess that would need to be cleaned up. Tabucchi on the other hand, has a sense of positive understanding of the human condition. Rather than take anything just at its face value, Tabucchi is willing to look further and see the possibilities, and see that all men are capable of great deeds, and even equality of an economic and social scale, at least in some respects. Though there is no denying Baudelaire’s claim, of the dream of it truly possibly being fulfilled would never actually happen, to its idealized form by Marxists.
“At One in the Morning,” Baudelaire sets this prose poem up like a diary entry. Making a run down of the day to day events; and comes to the conclusion that he lives in a society full of hypocrites. This in some ways explains his concept of “modern and abstract living.” Where his (and everyone else’s) individual self becomes “blurred . . . by a hypocrisy and perverseness which progressively undermine the difference between the self and others.” In the end even Baudelaire himself was not immune to his own cynical criticism.
“Paris Spleen,” does not deal with the actual organ of the body. Which looks like a sea creature in the chasm of the body. Best described as a worm of a coloured maggot happily snuggled in the body and festering and devouring the poor carcass from the inside out. Though not a vital organ the Spleen itself does play a very peculiar and interesting role in the human body and most of all vertebrae animals. It recycles and removes old red blood cells, and holds storage of blood in case of hemorrhagic shock. No instead of discussing the Spleen of Paris (which I can assure you it most likely does not have) Baudelaire uses the spleen as a metaphor for: “melancholy with no apparent cause, characterized by disgust with everything.” In most ways Baudelaire’s attitude in general and yet this contributed to him being a great poet.
Antonio Tabucchi’s short story “Anywhere Out of This World,” takes on the definition of the spleen, with some slight adjustments. He is certainly melancholic if anything, but for the most part there is no real sense of disgust for everything. In fact there is not even a sense of dysthymia with the narrator. If anything he is quite content with himself. He does not feel a sense of spleen towards anyone. His life is banal, and rather normal if anything. He works, and in the beginning of this story is contemplating enjoying a film. Though he admits that an intellectual and experimental film by novelist and filmmaker Marguerite Duras will most likely not be up his alley. Which on a personal note it is not something I could possibly comment on because I have never watched a Marguerite Duras film before. However while he continues to read the paper, he makes observations of the world around him. A bus that crashed into a shop, because the driver and operator of the vehicle that had crashed had a heart attack. These little actions and observations are what make the story what it is. It is what make the story grounded in reality. It is grounded in the banal and the common day. Where every day tragedies just happen, and are dealt with a sense of pity, but not really any sense of rage or sympathy. Empathy can only happen when the tragedy has finally made it to such a cataclysmic disaster. However in such cases that reality is soon replaced with rage and questioning anger. It is not until the end of the newspaper and until the end of the story that one really does get to see the narrator’s melancholic expression and the nervous shake of his world where in the personal adds there is an add with the title: “Any Where Out of This World.” This message and personal ad reminds the narrator of a recent loss, and in some ways cuts open his own spleen, shattering the previous world thought.
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“The Exterminator,” by Ersi Sotiropoulos – From: “Landscape with Dog: and Other Stories,”
Ersi Sotiropoulos stories of recent in this collection are getting shorter. Shorter, but with the same subject matter with far less detail in the exploration then some of the previous stories that have come before it. “The Exterminator,” is a story about a woman who is also an aspiring writer, and has decided to go out onto an island, and rent a house for the summer with the intended goal of writing a novel. All of this is to be done in solitude. Isolation is the key the aspiring author wishes to finally make as a writer. She works on a fictionalized biography of two English artists, who create art together as if they were a single person, rather than two individuals who composing a piece of art work in collaboration. However there art work in the end becomes something disgusting, and Ersi Sotiropoulos uses the visceral and grotesque images as a way to sum up the very existence of human beings and the life of the general population of people:
“She had almost finished the first draft of her book when she got stuck on a single line. ‘“We eat, we spit, we urinate, we defecate,”’ one of the artists had said during an interview, and she wasn’t sure if she should take it literally or as somewhat cynical metaphor for the cycle of life. The fact that their final series had involved photographs of urine and sperm samples, magnifies under a microscope, supported the second supposition but wasn’t enough to resolve her doubts. She had seen the photographs; some of them showed fascinating shapes, exquisitely simple and original, like Paleolithic cave drawings. It was astonishing how much beauty there could be in strangers’ revolting urine and sperm; she shivered in her chair at the thought, and new, more complex interpretations raced through her mind. She rose and was pacing rapidly up and down the room, trying to assess these new ideas, made dizzy by the possibilities opening up before her, when she noticed an equally beautiful shape, abstract and minimalist, on the floor in the hall. It took her five minutes to figure out it was a pile of mouse droppings.”
The mice and the cockroaches of this short story are the nasty little creatures. The nightmares in which the narrator and aspiring author must confront. The very scum of the animal world. The pests. The scavengers of the home distress her. They too become symbols of the human condition. Whereas Gregor in Kafka’s metamorphosis and his transformation was a transcending act that showed the human races impoverishment in human psychology, in regards to the changing of circumstances – for example being transformed into a cockroach. In the case of Gregor Kafka redefines the act of mercy and the acts of justice, not to mention what is human and humane. Gregor being reduced to the mere miniscule form of a pest a lowly inferior creature to the human shows the injustice of life. Even though Gregor has been reduced to the physical form of a cockroach he is in the end, in mind and being human. In doing so Gregor shows the reader what a real human is. He is a complex individual. He hates and detests his daily job; yet realizes that it is a necessity to his life and to his family’s well-being. He has hopes and dreams. Wishes to be responsible and to relate to people in general. However Gregor is transformed into his hideous new body. He becomes a cockroach, in all physical manifestations. A symbolic punishment for his inability to stand up for his own needs and individuality, in the face of the tyranny and need to take care of his family, who now detest him and his new physical form. Unwilling to accept the new form, they quickly lose sight of humane treatment and quickly detest him as if he were a cockroach. Gregor and his unusual condition becomes a symbol of man’s conformity. A loss of individuality, free will, and the constant dirge of the human condition. Even when Kafka turns his character Gregor into an insect, the furthest creature from an actual human being, Kafka retains the fact, the very sole fact that Gregor even in his new condition and repulsive body is human. This allows him to transcend the boundaries of what it means to be human. In his new form, Gregor learns compassion, mercy but also suffering. As his family – the ones that once loved and depended on him now turn cruel. His father smacks him with the newspaper for one, and causing damage and pain. In Ersi Sotiropoulos pests become nothing more than what they are. Stuck in corporeality, they are nothing more than pests. No symbolism of god, or of human races insignificance or almost god like power.
In the end they are simply taken at face value. They are not known as if anything else. However when the exterminator comes a long, to get rid of such creatures, our writer comes face to face with the reality that she herself has already depicted in the above passage. That as human beings, there is nothing special about them. They are born, they live, they age, they die. There is no poetic sensuality. No philosophical hidden meaning, that leads to a profound sense of discovery of what it means to a human being let alone what it means to exist. In that concept Ersi Sotiropoulos almost mocks the hopeful dreams of the writer. Her attempt at using two artists in her fictional biography, and their work, to provide and understanding of human existence and life in general and its riddle, leads to the conclusion. Which shows that Ersi Sotiropoulos prefers to ask open ended questions, and allows the reader to find interpretation and grey shaded answers, to be preferred.
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“Sleeping Beauty and The Airplane,” by Gabriel García Márquez the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-eighty two – From “Strange Pilgrims: and Other Stories,”
Gabriel García Márquez’s writing career has reportedly ended, because of dementia. It had been my understanding that the Nobel winning author, had retired from writing. Then it was reported that the author had the writing itch once again, and was going to finish his autobiography and a new novel reportedly titled “We’ll Meet in August,” which is also from my understanding finished, but a release date has yet to be announced. However it appears that Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s writing career has finally ended, not by his choice however. It has been theorized by his brother that his dementia has been brought on by the treatment he received for lymphatic cancer that had brought the author to near death, earlier. It is a sad, realization. Another great author who, for generations of readers a like, and recognized around the world of one of the greatest authors of world literature. One of the most popular authors of the Nobel Prize for Literature back in nineteen-eighty two, Gabriel Garcia Márquez had brought Latin America to the world stage and a forefront of world literature. Which makes the tragedy of the author losing his memory, rather severe. The author himself has become an icon of Latin America, and its literature. Becoming something of a child’s favourite grandfather, with the exception that his grandchildren are entire continents, and he is loved and adored because he helped instill a sense of pride in their culture and traditions.
Gabriel García Márquez had proven to the people of Latin America, South America, and the Caribbean along with other authors like Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, Jorge Luis Borges, and Julio Cortazar helped create the Latin American boom, and showed the world and literary world that this part of the world was not some backwater place of septic culture that has been colonized and forced to change. However these writers proved otherwise. They show their part of the world as a place of magic and mystery. Though political turmoil is evident in their culture, with violence, kidnappings, revolutions, rebellions, and dictators all populate these works. Yet they exist alongside angels, ghosts, holy miracles and other such works of magic.
“Sleeping Beauty and The Airplane,” is about the most beautiful woman the narrator has ever seen or encountered. It’s evident and clear, with its own self-mocking pleasure that the story was influenced by Yasunari Kawabata (a fellow Nobel Laureate) and his short story “House of the Sleeping Beauties,” about older bourgeoisie Japanese men who go, and lay with younger beautiful woman who sleep – and are most likely drugged. The story is a subtle prose that with refinement, show sexual desire is a flirtatious act with death. Which is much more different then this current erotica trend of superficial sexual intimacy rather than probing any deeper as such authors have done before them. Though I suppose smut is smut, and pornographic pieces of work have always been something that people would want to read. The realization and concept that other share in their own fantasies and need to make them public, has always been like an act of voyeurism. But it can never compare to the sensual and more shaded novels like Yasunari Kawabata, Jane Austen and others. This short story follows the same path as Yasunari Kawabata, but with less philosophical depth.
There is a word in French called “La Douleur Exquise,” is a word that describes that heart wrenching pain that one cannot have. For some woman in today’s world that would be the ‘grey,’ man from the mommy pornography book. The same word can be described for the narrator and the sleeping beauty, who rides the airplane. She sleeps for the entire trip from Paris to New York, the narrator then admires the beauty from affair, but there is the gentle heartache of the narrator, who looks and watches the sleeping beauty and can do nothing but watch. The realization that she will not have him and that he cannot have her, only allows him to look at her with adoration.
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“Melody,” by Bei Dao – From: “The Waves: and Other Stories,”
There was a line in this short story that said, in a frank way; that all marriage is, is a step in life. No different then birth, growing up or aging or dying. It is just a part of life that one does if they choose to. Under the communist dictatorship of The People’s Republic of China, it becomes a bureaucratic and legal process, run by the government. With this story Bei Dao (I speculate) creates a metaphor for Communism in China and Communism in general. Much like Gao Xingjian’s play “The Bus Stop,” was a metaphor or analogy for the promises of the Communist Party to the Chinese people that never came. Much as the ominous bus like the shadowy Gadot never comes, but is expected.
The same can be said with “Melody,” by Bei Dao. With it, a marriage is not working out. Though it is just going to have to do. The first scene in this short story is the wife, has gone out and bought lemon toilet water – as the author put it so eloquently. Translated in layman’s terms its perfume; or more specifically it is cologne as it is a gift for the husband. A heavier drinker and a miserable drunk at that. The contemplation of how fights and making up after them, the initial awkwardness of blame placed on one individual who at first thought they would be the better person by buying the gift and admitting their mistake. What ends however with this couple is what is expected. A bribery of insincerity is tossed to the ground. Shattered and displayed for all to see, the confrontation fueled by past agitations, and misadventures as well as disagreements become weapons. Used to pinch and snare the other, in a trap of their own filthy sense of being. Yet what only happens in the end is just physical destruction. Anyone who has truly lived knows full well the physical sensation of picking up an object. Just any object. It just happened to be in the way. It just happened not to work. It was the last straw to be picked. It is tossed. Beaten and smashed. Placed in a state of no recognition. Any recovery of what has lost already welcomed into oblivion. What follows is exhaustion. Inebriated by exhausted and a faded adrenaline, and the smoldering coals of a anger far from dead, caused one to retreat away from the current situation. Retreating away from the stage without even taking a bow one is forced to depart from the stage. Curtains drawn. The audience on the other side of the walls think to themselves, what entertainment. At least it’s not us.
From there of crawling into one’s own sense of regret and anger – as well as one’s own complicated sense of guilt about the damages they too have partaken in. Further frustrating an already complicated situation. Which is then justified by blaming it on the other. “If they had not pushed me.” “If she had not said that.” “If he would just do something.” It is these justifications. These reasons, these approvals that one gives their own actions, by reasoning that the action themselves were simply caused by the others own words, and actions. This allows for at least a shaky sense of palliation. A shallow satisfaction.
How does this compare though to China and the Chinese people, and the Communist Party of China? The marriage that the two characters find themselves in, is not working. However it has its reasons, that the two decide to put up with each other: Housing. They both have married for the simple fact of housing. As the main character meets and see’s others she begins to see the reasons or anchors that keep the marriages intake. For one it is a child. Such a common reason. Unhappiness for a ‘couple,’ is abound, and what ties them together in their holy matrimony and unhappy life together. While thinking not of their own needs, but that of a third party (in this case a child) they had thought best to stay together to provide the illusion of a home life. To offer the sense of family ties and home and union. When in reality they have done nothing but in the end to ruin the child’s life. For in the long run the child eventually begins to perceive and make out the proposed illusion. In the end all parties loose. The child discovers that the whole reason that the parents had stayed in their miserable relationship was because that they had them to think of. This in the end makes the child feel guilty. Everyone loses.
Other reasons are abound, as the main character in this story tells the reader. For example she stays with her husband simply because of housing. The old couple simply stay together because of its routine. Which is also an adequate description of life. Life happens. We stay in horrible situations, because the unknown or the alternative looks far more bleak then the current situation. When I heard the description of the old couple, who do the same routine, and must stay together out of sheer fact of routine it made me think of the story as itself an adequate description for life, but also as an adequate description of China and its one party system and how it survives. We all get trapped in the repetitive cycles of life. We all get trapped in the understanding of routine and understand that, the comforts are not something we want to give up.
Other people are better off. Other people appear happy. Other people have more freedoms, happy families. It always comes down to other people. The mirrors and the comparisons of the people to our own situation always leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. The walls all of a sudden look like they are covered in mould. There is a strange smell in the house – the smell of mildew. The food in the fridge has rotten. The fruit on the cupboard is not ripe yet. The bills are stacking up. A light bulb burns. All these events. All these small moments of dreadful failure, eventually begin to add up. They begin to become mocking malicious smiles. Giggling at your own failed life. Stuck in a rut. The continual routine. Over and over again. Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow is going to be a better day. Tomorrow turns out to be the same as today.
This whether or not intended, what lead me to think of this story not as an attack on China’s Communist Party but rather sympathetic understanding of the Chinese people. Why they accept the conditions of their lives. Why they accept the minimal wage of their factory job. Why the fear the government – or at least respect them, out a sense of ominous understanding, of the consequences. In the end there is only a handful of Bei Dao, Herta Müller’s, and so many others. If there wasn’t then the world would not have fallen and dictatorships would not be still in practice. However if the world was full of them, we would not be able to recognize their courage.
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“Everyone’s Right,” by Peter Stamm – From: “In Strange Gardens: and Other Stories,”
“Publishers Weekly,” states it clearly about Peter Stamm’s writing style. “Stamm derives his narrative power from absence and void.” When discussing his grim novel “Unformed Landscape,” by the Swish-German author they state they compare it to these stories, and derive the following conclusion: “this collection of 20 something short stories features an ill-assortment of emotionally shallow characters moving through similarly textureless landscapes. “ This conclusion hits the nail on the head – as the saying goes. For Peter Stamm there is no difference between people. From Manhattan, New York City to the wilderness of some unidentified country on a river canoeing trip there is no difference between the characters. Each one’s life is extraordinary in their own right. Yet on the opposite side of the spectrum the extraordinary becomes the banal. A zoo keeper who feeds a lion, the act of seeing one of nature’s amazing creatures feast and dine on the carcass of some poor unfortunate other creature, simply becomes routine after a while. A person who lives under a dictatorship, and learns how to flee, dissolve into the cement walls, become a motionless statue simply becomes a reality – not a nightmare. A person who lives in a crowded world where violence is apparent and runs rampant like a uncontrolled disease simply witnesses murder and gang violence as a fact of life, not as something abnormal. Peter Stamm recognizes. He understands the elusiveness of people. The enigmatic and abstract behavioral patterns of individuals. Why a woman for example, and a man who have a strictly platonic relationship based on a past encounter where one confesses his love, and the other shoots him down, and she can place her hands in his groin. These acts themselves to a complete stranger – and in this case as a the reader, one is the stranger – they are out of place. Shattered and fragmented slivers of glass mixed amongst the beach, on an over cast sky, on a cool November day when a ocean breeze kicks in cold ocean waves.
One thing that is noticeable after a while is how Peter Stamm uses weather as a backdrop. How the weather is more than just some simple scenic backdrop like that of a photograph. When the weather turns for the worst, in this short story about people who go on a canoeing trip – camping trip is probably a more adequate description; it becomes symbolic in its scenic description. Whe4n the rain starts to pour and both the characters are forced to huddle up together, and share the last bit of reserves of food that they have, and the rain outside become such a blanket and a curtain of water, that one is unable to see the rest of the world. It is in this scene that one gathers the closeness of two individuals. The feeling of warmth and heat; isolation, alienation and seclusion. Under Peter Stamm’s cool gaze it does not become something of untouched romantic love, but rather in the end it becomes something that is described, as simply that.
Peter Stamm, at times however does become a bit of something stereotypical of something of a German author. His prose is emotional detached. Extremely natural is the way to go. His characters are shallow, and are more of puppets on strings, to whom Stamm can grow bored with and toss back in to the trunk; hang on the branch of a tree; or toss and let the river take them drifting along down the river. With intense brooding light green eyes that shimmer with the greenness of a fresh river with the cool autumn on the horizon and the first deserters of the leaves already falling in, he at times even has the appearance of the stereotypical Swiss-German author. However Peter Stamm is his own author, his own individual. His prose is bare and natural. Dry and depicts the banalities of life. Showing people for what they are.
Failed dreams, failed goals, lives gone astray. Peter Stamm writes about the lives of characters during periods in their lives, depicting the life before the “shit hits the fan,” or life happens and he displays life after life happens or “shit hits the fan.” Stamm’s prose are like small stones in by the river shore. They are small and unassuming. Quiet in their appearances and do not stand out. Though in an ironic twist of events they are diamonds in the rough. They do not glitter though. They are not full of gold or fool’s gold to give the one appearance of a lustrous prose. They are individual pebbles unique in their own right. One may have a sedimentary like appearance. The next a metamorphic. Each one unique4 in their own right; as well as a treasure to be held. Some skip across the water. Other sink fast. Some are placed in the pocket and can weight one down, as they walk out to the void. Others are picked up, examined and absent mindedly dropped and forgotten.
This is the beauty of his prose. The neutrality and cold precision of his own eyes, and focus on the characters in an emotional constipated landscape. It is this reason they themselves are emotional enigmas, or emotionally shallow and awkward. Why their gestures and their actions almost appear out of place. Why they may be so jaded, or why they do the things they do. In the end they themselves don’t truly think too much about them. They just do. Their hormones get the better of them, or their impulses do. But to say that their emotions get the better of them is a statement far from true, because the author himself avoids sentimentality and sensationalism, by allowing his characters to become emotionally stunted. In the process they become wooden but also allow for some interesting insight. On a personal note I’d like to give Peter Stamm’s more longer prose a try and see how it compares.
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“A journey with the cows,” by Italo Calvino – From “Marcovaldo: or The Seasons in the City,”
Already summer is ending. The days have become longer. Shadows creep along the ground farther. The beginning of autumn can be felt in the air. It stirs the leaves. Causing them to turn red, orange, yellow and eventually brown. Where once was green is now turning to gold. Golden fields of barley, wheat and canola. Pumpkins grow large orange and round, perfect for pumpkin pie. The air becomes crisp. The light slowly turns from a golden haze at dusk, becomes crisper and clear. The world is able to see through eyes unclouded. Whereas in the summer the heat, cause illusions waves in the air, and pollution becomes large grey blue hazy clouds, that hang over the horizon and the city. In winter the clouds are low, and white, where the sky and the earth tend to almost touch each other. But the light is grey. The nights are unbearably dark. However in some odd way the air inside the homes further down the road become more festive. Brightly coloured lights can be seen decorating houses. Pine tree’s (if they are real) fills a home with the smell of mint sap. Than the panic stricken with the consumerist by now, get this now, great present for this person or that person. The attitude of I want and I need to get, is unmistakable at that same time. But on that special day, it all changes. The house is full of a celebratory feeling. The very traditions of each household become sacrosanct, though not conservative or boring in routine. Each time it’s a new adventure with a roughed out concept. There will always be the smell of a warm cooking turkey dinner. The feeling of togetherness and fraternity as well as family bonds are never stronger it seems than in Christmas. Maybe it’s because everyone is trapped in a house together. Spring is muddy and dirty. The windowpanes get covered in condensation and dripping with water, that slithers and scurries down the glass. Yet the earth smells fresh. Rejuvenated and clean. After the raining months have passed and the sun comes out, the world starts to green up again. Flowers bud and blossom. Tree’s become thick and full of leaves. It is this time that barbeque season starts, and when summer truly begins. Each season Italo Calvino writes about with such, amazement and wonder. The natural world is beautiful and wonderful, and full of delights. Marcovaldo the poor uneducated and rather unskilled proletariat, is the man who though dues the grunt labour. However his ear and his eyes are trained to the natural world around him. No matter how small or large, Marcovaldo sees it.
However Marcovaldo is a bit of a disillusioned character. He has a great admiration and love for the natural world. That being said he is not a man who sees the reality of the natural world. This can plainly be seen when Michelino goes off with the cows, which are being herded through the city one hot summer evening, to go and graze up in the alpine mountains. Marcovaldo does worry about his son, though he thinks the journey itself and the end result will be fantastic. He imagines his son lazing around the meadows with the grazing cows. He pictures him under a fir tree, a piece of grass hanging out of his mouth whistling. Marcovaldo almost feels a sense of envy with his son, as he is stuck in the sweltering oven of the city. Moving away constantly in his continual manual labour, only to return home, and deal with his children and his hysterical wife who always thinks about her son, who is up in the mountains, and who she is dreadfully missing.
However when his son returns, it becomes clear that life was not some pastoral dream. It was hard work on a different line. Anyone who has grown up on a farm or an acreage will tell its hard work. Yes there are moments of such enjoyment that they will last a life time, but those moments are earned, and are rewards for hard work. Cow needs to be milked. Fields need to be tended. Gardens need to be watered and weeded. Plants need to be taken care of. Animals need to be fed. Repairs may need to be made. It is a hard life, but it is also a good life. A life of rewards and skills learned. A hard and good work ethic is instilled into the character of a person. On a personal note, I never grew up on a farm or an acreage. Though in many ways I was fortunate enough (in some ways) to have grown up in a small town. Where it was located was close to a river, and a provincial park. So nature’s beauty was never far away. Of course there was always a sense of isolation. Which always made trips to the city exciting and adventurous – except only for so long.
This story resonated with me personally, because of the connection of the cows, have with my own hometown. Their cries in the summer night echoing with that of the coyotes. Their languid lazy looking eyes, always with a sense of contempt for their lives, and for the ones that will eat them eventually. But also the gentle nature of cows. Just the memory of walking by them when I was younger, and how you could touch them if they were close to the fence. Their fat bellies swollen. Their patience immense and almost never ending. This one of the stories that shows Italo Calvino at his best.
Wednesday, 22 August 2012
The Short Story Review No. XIV Introduction
Hello Gentle Reader
Last month saw the suspension of “The Short Story Review,” because of my schedule getting so hectic and more close in and time and space becoming all that more difficult to squeeze in time read all the stories and give them an honest and proper review. For that reason the “Short Story Review,” saw its suspension. It is my sincerest apologizes for the abrupt decision.
The German Book Prize long list has been announced. The shortlist will be announced in September. I will not reproduce the long listed author or titles. As the shortlisted is announced, the award and the authors get more interesting, until then however one needs to be patient. The prize is awarded every year at the Frankfurt Book Festival – the largest book trade fair, in the world. The first three days themselves are exclusively reserved for trade visitors (aka) businesses. The last two days are open to the general public. This, itself leads me to wonder, why there are less translations from German into English? Where are the German Books! I have been cordially waiting for Kathrin Schmidt’s “Du stirbst nicht,” or “You’re Not Going to Die,” which won the German Book Prize in 2009. Then there is Melinda Nadj Abonji the Swiss author who won the prize in 2010 for her novel “Falcons without Falconers.” As well as many other authors and their novels shortlisted for the authors:
Marlene Streeruwitz – “The Huntress,”
Judith Zander – “Things We Said Today,”
Rainer Merkel – “Light Years Away,”
Clements J Setz – “The Frequencies,”
Jan Brandt – “Against the World,”
Patience like the sand in an hour glass eventually runs out. With no word about the future or even the possibility of these works being translated into English, it leaves one with the appearance of being a grain of sand stuck in the middle of past and present. This leaves me both annoyed and wondering. Always pondering the hope of reading them; or leaving me with the possibility and urge to learn German and by the books and read them in their native tongue.
Continuing in the same vein in the discussion of the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, which has been awarded to such authors as Herman Hesse, Chinua Achebe, Péter Esterházy and others has been awarded to Liao Yiwu, the dissident author who had fled his native communist country and is now residing in Germany, where he was greeted with much enthusiasm by Nobel Laureate in Literature Herta Müller. This is a far cry for China and the Chinese government as it was back in 2009 when it was the guest of honour with the motto “Tradition and Innovation.” This of course was a controversial event, and now that Liao Yiwu has won the prize, and been the first Chinese writer to win the Prize, there is certainly a controversy in China that is brewing. Maybe it’s the Frankfurt Book Fair, making a statement on the mistake of inviting China to the Book Fair as a guest of honour, realizing now they’re human rights record. This year’s guest of honour though is interesting. It is New Zealand with the motto “While You Were Sleeping.” Hopefully some great authors from New Zealand are highlighted. Future guests of honour have also been named for 2013 and 2014 Brazil and Finland respectively.
This Literary Season sounds and looks interesting. The Liao Yiwu has won the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, which will make the Communist party of China grind their teeth. The Booker Prize Longlist so far look’s interesting and promising. With great works, by authors renowned, popular, as well as new faces. It is actually Will Self’s first time being on the Booker Prize Longlist, and it might be promising for author with his novel “Umbrella,” which continually sounds interesting – however it is not published in Canada until January of 2013! Hopefully thought author has decided to lose the continual use of polysyllabic words. New Zeeland the quiet country in the Oceanic Continent, who is usually quiet and placid in its quiet existence, has finally been given some due credit.
Who knows what the Booker Prize Shortlist will be. Or what the German Book Prize Shortlist will behold. Does one even dare try to gamble on the Nobel Prize for Literature? It appears to be an exciting season. Here’s hoping it is.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
Last month saw the suspension of “The Short Story Review,” because of my schedule getting so hectic and more close in and time and space becoming all that more difficult to squeeze in time read all the stories and give them an honest and proper review. For that reason the “Short Story Review,” saw its suspension. It is my sincerest apologizes for the abrupt decision.
The German Book Prize long list has been announced. The shortlist will be announced in September. I will not reproduce the long listed author or titles. As the shortlisted is announced, the award and the authors get more interesting, until then however one needs to be patient. The prize is awarded every year at the Frankfurt Book Festival – the largest book trade fair, in the world. The first three days themselves are exclusively reserved for trade visitors (aka) businesses. The last two days are open to the general public. This, itself leads me to wonder, why there are less translations from German into English? Where are the German Books! I have been cordially waiting for Kathrin Schmidt’s “Du stirbst nicht,” or “You’re Not Going to Die,” which won the German Book Prize in 2009. Then there is Melinda Nadj Abonji the Swiss author who won the prize in 2010 for her novel “Falcons without Falconers.” As well as many other authors and their novels shortlisted for the authors:
Marlene Streeruwitz – “The Huntress,”
Judith Zander – “Things We Said Today,”
Rainer Merkel – “Light Years Away,”
Clements J Setz – “The Frequencies,”
Jan Brandt – “Against the World,”
Patience like the sand in an hour glass eventually runs out. With no word about the future or even the possibility of these works being translated into English, it leaves one with the appearance of being a grain of sand stuck in the middle of past and present. This leaves me both annoyed and wondering. Always pondering the hope of reading them; or leaving me with the possibility and urge to learn German and by the books and read them in their native tongue.
Continuing in the same vein in the discussion of the Frankfurt Book Fair, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, which has been awarded to such authors as Herman Hesse, Chinua Achebe, Péter Esterházy and others has been awarded to Liao Yiwu, the dissident author who had fled his native communist country and is now residing in Germany, where he was greeted with much enthusiasm by Nobel Laureate in Literature Herta Müller. This is a far cry for China and the Chinese government as it was back in 2009 when it was the guest of honour with the motto “Tradition and Innovation.” This of course was a controversial event, and now that Liao Yiwu has won the prize, and been the first Chinese writer to win the Prize, there is certainly a controversy in China that is brewing. Maybe it’s the Frankfurt Book Fair, making a statement on the mistake of inviting China to the Book Fair as a guest of honour, realizing now they’re human rights record. This year’s guest of honour though is interesting. It is New Zealand with the motto “While You Were Sleeping.” Hopefully some great authors from New Zealand are highlighted. Future guests of honour have also been named for 2013 and 2014 Brazil and Finland respectively.
This Literary Season sounds and looks interesting. The Liao Yiwu has won the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, which will make the Communist party of China grind their teeth. The Booker Prize Longlist so far look’s interesting and promising. With great works, by authors renowned, popular, as well as new faces. It is actually Will Self’s first time being on the Booker Prize Longlist, and it might be promising for author with his novel “Umbrella,” which continually sounds interesting – however it is not published in Canada until January of 2013! Hopefully thought author has decided to lose the continual use of polysyllabic words. New Zeeland the quiet country in the Oceanic Continent, who is usually quiet and placid in its quiet existence, has finally been given some due credit.
Who knows what the Booker Prize Shortlist will be. Or what the German Book Prize Shortlist will behold. Does one even dare try to gamble on the Nobel Prize for Literature? It appears to be an exciting season. Here’s hoping it is.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
Thursday, 16 August 2012
I am not a Film Person . . . But
Hello Gentle Reader
I am not a film person. A good movie is difficult to find these days. Comparing the Swedish “The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo,” with the Hollywood version of “The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo,” was a fifty/fifty both ways. The Hollywood version was a bit more glamorized and certainly had produced the thriller material that the book itself possess. That being said the Swedish version had stripped the book good with its grittier version. It felt minimalist on many accounts. Take the backdrops. Take the scenery at face value. There was no bright lighting. It all felt low key and low budget. This allowed for the world of the novel to be portrayed in the grey gritty light, of the Nordic countries. Noomi Rapace the Swedish actress that played Lisbeth Salander, looked the part so well. Rooney Mara who played the English version of Lisbeth also played her very well. Though had the appearance of a person posing or trying to be a Gothic person, rather than who actually was. In other words she should have kept the eyebrows for sure. Though I applaud her for going as far as actually getting her nipple pierced for the role. However in the end the both were good in their own ways. Personally I haven’t read the books. Not sure yet if I even want to. Stieg Larsson’s radical political views are and continue to be a large turn off for me. Though applause to him for taking up his own beliefs. He was a revolutionary socialist, and a man who stood by those views. He travelled to Eritrea, where in nineteen-seventy seven, he trained a group of Eritrean People’s Liberation Front Guerilla’s – what makes this most extraordinary? Those who he trained were woman. However the work had to be abandoned, after a kidney disease. From then on until nineteen-ninety nine Stieg Larsson worked as a graphic designer for one of Sweden’s largest news agencies. However when not at his day job, Stieg Larson was investigating and researching the far-right political movements in his homeland of Sweden and the racist and white supremacist organizations that had infested it – or at least had come to call the country a home base. This was instrumental in its documentation. However it is upon these grounds and his forming of Expo in nineteen-ninety five, had left him with living under death threats, because of his political views and the political enemies that had become the staple of his life. His most famous run ins and battles were with the political party Sweden Democrats. In the end Stieg Larsson died at the age of fifty years of age, November two thousand and four, from a heart attack, after he climbed seven flights of stairs because the lift wasn’t working. There had been speculation that the heart attack was induced. These speculations were proven false, and merely gossip and rumours, caused by the speculation of the authors political enemies and the death threats that he had experienced. In the end, both films did the books justice. However in the end neither one could truly grasp or deal with the authors political views and ideologies. Where he stands on woman’s rights, and the reasons why. Stieg Larson at the age of fifteen was helpless as he witnessed a gang rape of a girl. This lead to his abhorrence of violence, and his views on women and violence against them; which caused him to brand himself a feminist. The violence portrayed then in the books is not a violence that is displayed for a sense of graphic depiction of sadism in any sexual sensation. Nor is it on display for entertainment purposes. Stieg Larsson presents the vulnerability of woman, and their sex (but also their scorn and vengeance) and how it is appalling, and how helpless that one truly is when they are overcome and in the most intimate moments violated. It’s not some shock value writing. With it, Stieg Larsson is seeking forgiveness from himself for not being able to save that girl. With it he allows for her to get her own brand of justice.
George Moore was an Irish novelist. Probably best known for portraying the beginning of the artistic movement Impressionism. His novel “Confessions of a Young Man,” autobiographical allowed for the author to share his experiences in Paris in the eighteen-seventies and eighties, when he attempted and failed miserably to study art. This book allowed him to express in a naturalist style, and its depiction of Bohemian life of the Paris back then. It is also noted for its attack against the hypocrisy of the then Victorian England, which is now day romanticized on for its gothic and repressed sexuality – that for some odd reason gives people the sense of erotic kinkiness going on; personally Queen Victoria did not appear like much of a ‘experimental,’ woman. She appears more like an emotional constipated woman, with a repressed sexuality and someone who say duty first and any sense of personal pleasure of enjoyment as repugnant and often took a monastery routine and ritual to life. George Moore as a writer is often seen as a outsider in both Irish and British literature, but nonetheless he was a precursor to Literary Modernism that would take place in the early twentieth century. He was a great influence on the future Irish writer James Joyce. His work “Hail and Farewell,” infuriated friends, and was enjoyed by readers. In the end George Moore never really received any recognition as a writer. Not like his predecessor James Joyce, nor like his own literary influence Emile Zola. In the end George Moore died, and did not leave his then a accumulated fortune of eight thousand pounds to his now estranged brother.
Yet there has been a slight more interest into Moore’s work, since the release of a film that is based on one of Moore’s Novella’s. “The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs,” was a short novel written by George Moore. In his naturalist style, and containing his disdain of Victorian era morality and stuffy class system, as well as the clerical interference with life of Irish people – “The Untitled Field,” dealt specifically with the interference of the clergy with peasant life in Ireland. “The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs,” deals with the inequality of men and women in nineteen century Ireland. Albert Nobbs is the main character of this short novel, a well-mannered quiet man, who lives a solidary existence while working at a hotel. He serves the guests well. Mr. Nobbs also saves up his money in order to one day buy a shop; a tobacconists shop. What makes Mr. Nobbs so strange and so interesting, and a blasphemous character in nineteenth century Ireland, is that he is a cross dresser. He is in reality a woman. In order to make a sustaining life at best without being married, and without being a spinster Albert Nobbs, must now play the charade of a man.
Do not fret though Gentle Reader, this is not some gay movie or a movie about lesbian love or transgender politics or anything like that. It is a movie that surpasses these superficialities. It is a movie about identity. The main character Albert Nobbs has lost his identity, as a woman and has become simply Albert. There is nothing more to him. He has fallen into a trap. His life has become so routine that the lie and the mask has become his life and his face. George Moore also portrays the harsh realities of nineteen century Ireland. The rigid Victorian morality that has spread like typhoid fever into every home, and every person’s life. The clergy jumping about like fleas. Opening up religiously public services – orphanages and religious hospitals. In this naturalist style which will always be doomed in having some form of pessimistic overlap, because it sees the human condition, as something that is predestined. Fatalist until the end. Human beings never change the course of action, of their life. All decisions, and all actions will always lead to the same ending: death. It is in these respects that the naturalist writer is grounded in a sense of realistic pessimism.
One should thank Glen Close for bringing this film to the big screen. The actress herself had played the titular role in nineteen-eighty two, during a stage production of the novella. From then on she tried for fifteen years to turn the novella into a film production. It had a close break back in the early two thousands, with Istvan Szabo as the director. However financing fell apart. However seeing how close the goal came to fruit, Glen Close did not give up. Now it is made, and Glen Close co-authored the film with the author John Banville, and was director by Rodrigo García, the son of Nobel Laureate in Literature Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Life is full of small coincidences. However if you are looking for a great film, with some very interesting cinematography, and wonderful acting this is a good movie. One just needs to get past the superficial details. It’s not a discussion of transgender people, or lesbian love. It’s about living a lie that finally becomes the truth.
The last film that I had enjoyed as of recently was what would now be called a period piece, about a period in recent history. The cold war could not be called a real war. But it was a moment in history in which the threat of communism and nuclear war was the fear of all suburban American’s living a middle class life dream – which in today’s world, is on the decline, because of the recession. But now with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and fall of Russian Communism and cold war politics, one can now look back on it as a time of biting the bullet.
John le Carre is the author of numerous books of espionage fiction. Last year alone in two thousand and eleven he was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize, though the author himself had asked that his name be removed from the shortlist. In which the American author Philip Roth had won.
“Tinker Tailor Solider Spy,” is the critically acclaimed novel and now film, which depicts the deceit of the Cold War Era. This is not some Iain Fleming James Bond piece. There are no gadgets, no seductive woman. George Smiley played expertly by Gary Oldman, is a middle aged man. He is not some young stud (no that’s Peter played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy who plays Ricki Tarr) who is out fighting communism, jumping out of airplane or helicopters. Instead George Smiley is out to uncover the mole that is at the top of British Intelligence. The film is played with expert attention to detail. The very way a shot or scene is set up, presents a very interesting world. When Ricki Tarr watches Soviet Agents, and a presumed couple Irina and Boris; the windows are all open and display the comings and goings. In the room next to the two, a couple can be seen engaging in an act called fucking. When Peter is in the records, the scene shows the entire records department cut into different squares. There is always the feeling that all the mechanisms can be found out so easily. That one’s life is open. Anyone might be peering in. The film itself could be classified as classic noir. Not an action film. Its suspense is built on the characters actions, and the characters responses to their own mind games that they are playing. Always wondering if their own treachery to the other is found. Paranoia is found throughout.
John le Carre himself worked for the British Intelligence service himself. It is not something that he himself hides. Iain Flemming the author and creator of James Bond had also been part of the British Intelligence Service during World War II. Why is it that these two men have seen the world of intelligence collection in two different lights? If one looks closely Iain Fleming see’s the world as an action packed adventure. A game more or less. Where morally true people who have to do some more immoral activities at times for the greater good are seen as debonair. If one wants to get right down to it I think that the time periods that both John le Carre and Iain Flemming were entirely different. After the Second World War, there was a great sense of pride for the British and American and Soviet people. Though their trust in each other did not last long. For in no time flat, America and the Soviet Union soon grew suspicious of each other. But Iain Flemming had been on the winning side when he participated in the War. He had beaten the great evil of Hitler, and the Nazi ideology. Great Brittan had showed her resilience to the London Blizt. People got up and rebuilt their homes. Had a pint of beer laughed, and cooperated with each other. The fallen men were honoured as heroes. It was a battle and a war that the British people could be proud of. It is that allowed Iain Flemming to feel a sense of pride, in his own job when he worked for the government. This allowed for him to write the James Bond novels, of morally high people doing some more immoral activities were perceived as alright because they were communist or bad people. One cannot win a war by reasoning with the unreasonable. One must give a swift kick in the ass.
John le Carre on the other hand, worked during the Cold War. When Eastern Europe was full of Soviet Satellite states. The Space Age was in full swing – something Hitler himself had dreamed of doing; and his Nazi scientists were now continuing to refine and progress towards putting a man on the moon, and creating some very interesting and eloquent but also dangerous technology. John le Carre interviewed/interrogated defectors from East Germany, in his beginning career stages. He knew of the horrors of what was going on, on the other side of the wall. But his job’s duties and responsibilities also increased as time went on. Le Carre began to run agents, continue with interrogations, tap and tape phone lines as well as effect break in’s. He later left the service to dedicate himself to write full time. But it certainly can be said that John le Carre was quite sure of the morally ambiguous line of work that his character(s) were doing. The action is more personal rather than political – no Queen and Country here. There is almost an existential appearance to his work. John le Carre provides honesty towards the dubious life of a spy. Its inadequate and almost speculative work. One cannot say it’s moral; yet one can say it is necessary in today’s world. As long as there are people who wish to oppress and oppose, and enforce and force their opinions or ideologies or religions, or commit acts of terrorism be it state sponsored or independent, there will always be a need for human intelligence. John le Carre simply provides a honest depiction of it. In the end a wonderful film, certainly I recommend it.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
I am not a film person. A good movie is difficult to find these days. Comparing the Swedish “The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo,” with the Hollywood version of “The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo,” was a fifty/fifty both ways. The Hollywood version was a bit more glamorized and certainly had produced the thriller material that the book itself possess. That being said the Swedish version had stripped the book good with its grittier version. It felt minimalist on many accounts. Take the backdrops. Take the scenery at face value. There was no bright lighting. It all felt low key and low budget. This allowed for the world of the novel to be portrayed in the grey gritty light, of the Nordic countries. Noomi Rapace the Swedish actress that played Lisbeth Salander, looked the part so well. Rooney Mara who played the English version of Lisbeth also played her very well. Though had the appearance of a person posing or trying to be a Gothic person, rather than who actually was. In other words she should have kept the eyebrows for sure. Though I applaud her for going as far as actually getting her nipple pierced for the role. However in the end the both were good in their own ways. Personally I haven’t read the books. Not sure yet if I even want to. Stieg Larsson’s radical political views are and continue to be a large turn off for me. Though applause to him for taking up his own beliefs. He was a revolutionary socialist, and a man who stood by those views. He travelled to Eritrea, where in nineteen-seventy seven, he trained a group of Eritrean People’s Liberation Front Guerilla’s – what makes this most extraordinary? Those who he trained were woman. However the work had to be abandoned, after a kidney disease. From then on until nineteen-ninety nine Stieg Larsson worked as a graphic designer for one of Sweden’s largest news agencies. However when not at his day job, Stieg Larson was investigating and researching the far-right political movements in his homeland of Sweden and the racist and white supremacist organizations that had infested it – or at least had come to call the country a home base. This was instrumental in its documentation. However it is upon these grounds and his forming of Expo in nineteen-ninety five, had left him with living under death threats, because of his political views and the political enemies that had become the staple of his life. His most famous run ins and battles were with the political party Sweden Democrats. In the end Stieg Larsson died at the age of fifty years of age, November two thousand and four, from a heart attack, after he climbed seven flights of stairs because the lift wasn’t working. There had been speculation that the heart attack was induced. These speculations were proven false, and merely gossip and rumours, caused by the speculation of the authors political enemies and the death threats that he had experienced. In the end, both films did the books justice. However in the end neither one could truly grasp or deal with the authors political views and ideologies. Where he stands on woman’s rights, and the reasons why. Stieg Larson at the age of fifteen was helpless as he witnessed a gang rape of a girl. This lead to his abhorrence of violence, and his views on women and violence against them; which caused him to brand himself a feminist. The violence portrayed then in the books is not a violence that is displayed for a sense of graphic depiction of sadism in any sexual sensation. Nor is it on display for entertainment purposes. Stieg Larsson presents the vulnerability of woman, and their sex (but also their scorn and vengeance) and how it is appalling, and how helpless that one truly is when they are overcome and in the most intimate moments violated. It’s not some shock value writing. With it, Stieg Larsson is seeking forgiveness from himself for not being able to save that girl. With it he allows for her to get her own brand of justice.
George Moore was an Irish novelist. Probably best known for portraying the beginning of the artistic movement Impressionism. His novel “Confessions of a Young Man,” autobiographical allowed for the author to share his experiences in Paris in the eighteen-seventies and eighties, when he attempted and failed miserably to study art. This book allowed him to express in a naturalist style, and its depiction of Bohemian life of the Paris back then. It is also noted for its attack against the hypocrisy of the then Victorian England, which is now day romanticized on for its gothic and repressed sexuality – that for some odd reason gives people the sense of erotic kinkiness going on; personally Queen Victoria did not appear like much of a ‘experimental,’ woman. She appears more like an emotional constipated woman, with a repressed sexuality and someone who say duty first and any sense of personal pleasure of enjoyment as repugnant and often took a monastery routine and ritual to life. George Moore as a writer is often seen as a outsider in both Irish and British literature, but nonetheless he was a precursor to Literary Modernism that would take place in the early twentieth century. He was a great influence on the future Irish writer James Joyce. His work “Hail and Farewell,” infuriated friends, and was enjoyed by readers. In the end George Moore never really received any recognition as a writer. Not like his predecessor James Joyce, nor like his own literary influence Emile Zola. In the end George Moore died, and did not leave his then a accumulated fortune of eight thousand pounds to his now estranged brother.
Yet there has been a slight more interest into Moore’s work, since the release of a film that is based on one of Moore’s Novella’s. “The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs,” was a short novel written by George Moore. In his naturalist style, and containing his disdain of Victorian era morality and stuffy class system, as well as the clerical interference with life of Irish people – “The Untitled Field,” dealt specifically with the interference of the clergy with peasant life in Ireland. “The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs,” deals with the inequality of men and women in nineteen century Ireland. Albert Nobbs is the main character of this short novel, a well-mannered quiet man, who lives a solidary existence while working at a hotel. He serves the guests well. Mr. Nobbs also saves up his money in order to one day buy a shop; a tobacconists shop. What makes Mr. Nobbs so strange and so interesting, and a blasphemous character in nineteenth century Ireland, is that he is a cross dresser. He is in reality a woman. In order to make a sustaining life at best without being married, and without being a spinster Albert Nobbs, must now play the charade of a man.
Do not fret though Gentle Reader, this is not some gay movie or a movie about lesbian love or transgender politics or anything like that. It is a movie that surpasses these superficialities. It is a movie about identity. The main character Albert Nobbs has lost his identity, as a woman and has become simply Albert. There is nothing more to him. He has fallen into a trap. His life has become so routine that the lie and the mask has become his life and his face. George Moore also portrays the harsh realities of nineteen century Ireland. The rigid Victorian morality that has spread like typhoid fever into every home, and every person’s life. The clergy jumping about like fleas. Opening up religiously public services – orphanages and religious hospitals. In this naturalist style which will always be doomed in having some form of pessimistic overlap, because it sees the human condition, as something that is predestined. Fatalist until the end. Human beings never change the course of action, of their life. All decisions, and all actions will always lead to the same ending: death. It is in these respects that the naturalist writer is grounded in a sense of realistic pessimism.
One should thank Glen Close for bringing this film to the big screen. The actress herself had played the titular role in nineteen-eighty two, during a stage production of the novella. From then on she tried for fifteen years to turn the novella into a film production. It had a close break back in the early two thousands, with Istvan Szabo as the director. However financing fell apart. However seeing how close the goal came to fruit, Glen Close did not give up. Now it is made, and Glen Close co-authored the film with the author John Banville, and was director by Rodrigo García, the son of Nobel Laureate in Literature Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Life is full of small coincidences. However if you are looking for a great film, with some very interesting cinematography, and wonderful acting this is a good movie. One just needs to get past the superficial details. It’s not a discussion of transgender people, or lesbian love. It’s about living a lie that finally becomes the truth.
The last film that I had enjoyed as of recently was what would now be called a period piece, about a period in recent history. The cold war could not be called a real war. But it was a moment in history in which the threat of communism and nuclear war was the fear of all suburban American’s living a middle class life dream – which in today’s world, is on the decline, because of the recession. But now with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and fall of Russian Communism and cold war politics, one can now look back on it as a time of biting the bullet.
John le Carre is the author of numerous books of espionage fiction. Last year alone in two thousand and eleven he was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize, though the author himself had asked that his name be removed from the shortlist. In which the American author Philip Roth had won.
“Tinker Tailor Solider Spy,” is the critically acclaimed novel and now film, which depicts the deceit of the Cold War Era. This is not some Iain Fleming James Bond piece. There are no gadgets, no seductive woman. George Smiley played expertly by Gary Oldman, is a middle aged man. He is not some young stud (no that’s Peter played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy who plays Ricki Tarr) who is out fighting communism, jumping out of airplane or helicopters. Instead George Smiley is out to uncover the mole that is at the top of British Intelligence. The film is played with expert attention to detail. The very way a shot or scene is set up, presents a very interesting world. When Ricki Tarr watches Soviet Agents, and a presumed couple Irina and Boris; the windows are all open and display the comings and goings. In the room next to the two, a couple can be seen engaging in an act called fucking. When Peter is in the records, the scene shows the entire records department cut into different squares. There is always the feeling that all the mechanisms can be found out so easily. That one’s life is open. Anyone might be peering in. The film itself could be classified as classic noir. Not an action film. Its suspense is built on the characters actions, and the characters responses to their own mind games that they are playing. Always wondering if their own treachery to the other is found. Paranoia is found throughout.
John le Carre himself worked for the British Intelligence service himself. It is not something that he himself hides. Iain Flemming the author and creator of James Bond had also been part of the British Intelligence Service during World War II. Why is it that these two men have seen the world of intelligence collection in two different lights? If one looks closely Iain Fleming see’s the world as an action packed adventure. A game more or less. Where morally true people who have to do some more immoral activities at times for the greater good are seen as debonair. If one wants to get right down to it I think that the time periods that both John le Carre and Iain Flemming were entirely different. After the Second World War, there was a great sense of pride for the British and American and Soviet people. Though their trust in each other did not last long. For in no time flat, America and the Soviet Union soon grew suspicious of each other. But Iain Flemming had been on the winning side when he participated in the War. He had beaten the great evil of Hitler, and the Nazi ideology. Great Brittan had showed her resilience to the London Blizt. People got up and rebuilt their homes. Had a pint of beer laughed, and cooperated with each other. The fallen men were honoured as heroes. It was a battle and a war that the British people could be proud of. It is that allowed Iain Flemming to feel a sense of pride, in his own job when he worked for the government. This allowed for him to write the James Bond novels, of morally high people doing some more immoral activities were perceived as alright because they were communist or bad people. One cannot win a war by reasoning with the unreasonable. One must give a swift kick in the ass.
John le Carre on the other hand, worked during the Cold War. When Eastern Europe was full of Soviet Satellite states. The Space Age was in full swing – something Hitler himself had dreamed of doing; and his Nazi scientists were now continuing to refine and progress towards putting a man on the moon, and creating some very interesting and eloquent but also dangerous technology. John le Carre interviewed/interrogated defectors from East Germany, in his beginning career stages. He knew of the horrors of what was going on, on the other side of the wall. But his job’s duties and responsibilities also increased as time went on. Le Carre began to run agents, continue with interrogations, tap and tape phone lines as well as effect break in’s. He later left the service to dedicate himself to write full time. But it certainly can be said that John le Carre was quite sure of the morally ambiguous line of work that his character(s) were doing. The action is more personal rather than political – no Queen and Country here. There is almost an existential appearance to his work. John le Carre provides honesty towards the dubious life of a spy. Its inadequate and almost speculative work. One cannot say it’s moral; yet one can say it is necessary in today’s world. As long as there are people who wish to oppress and oppose, and enforce and force their opinions or ideologies or religions, or commit acts of terrorism be it state sponsored or independent, there will always be a need for human intelligence. John le Carre simply provides a honest depiction of it. In the end a wonderful film, certainly I recommend it.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
Thursday, 9 August 2012
In Literary News
Hello Gentle Reader
Summer has come and now it is departing. The nights and evenings grow longer. A slight triumph for the preceding events that will happen. Soon the world grows colder. The plants appear to be dying. The earth grows hard. Water freezes. The sky becomes low and the clouds appear to devour even the horizon. At times when the mood strikes and a mood of contemplation strikes me, I wonder what the first human beings must have thought about it. The changing seasons. When summer and spring had faded into remenates of memories. What had the first intelligent human beings thought? Just stepping outside of the primordial soup, in which they languished with such ignorance. What they must have thought about the plants shedding their leaves. Already accustomed to the way the natural world, and their part in it. As the ground grew cold and a slight chill in the air nipped their skin. Had the earth appeared, less beautiful and wonderful – slowly it was falling into the clutches of winter, and it appeared to gain the concept that the world itself was dying and ending. What a horrible scene it must have been. People could barely scratch a living to survive on as it was. Now their demise was surely looking in them in the face, as a reflection on an ice covered pond. Most of them may have died. Though somehow the human race has always had a sense of resilience that counter-balances out its own ignorance and stupidity. How fast had they learned what they needed to do in order to survive. They were already well aware, that they needed, eat and drink in order to survive. They were well aware of mating process and rituals, as instincts had guided their mechanisms in that area. Maternal knowledge knew how to take care of the child. However, they soon learned how to advance quick enough in order to survive. Though I still wonder, how long had they had to suffer? How many had to die in order for a doable solution was discovered? This time of year, every time, there is a feeling in my stomach. A fluttering of nerves. Anxiety creeping up from the deepest chinks of my body. Slowly flooding and pouring into my whole body. I love autumn. The coolness of the weather, the enjoyable feeling of harvest and celebration. Yet all it still makes my stomach flutter. My body giddy with a slight sense of dread and excitement. I wonder if this natural clock hidden in my body comes from my own primeval ancestors who could barely distinguish rock as a tool or as a weapon. From a helpful instrument in catching food or to a insidious murderous device.
“The Guardian,” newspaper in England in their culture section devoted to books, has an article on their website about writers and walking. When I first read the headline “Path to Enlightment: how walking inspires writers,” my first thought went to an author who is well known for his books about psychogeoraphy is Iain Sinclair. His work the author of “London Orbital,” “Ghost Milk,” “Hackney That Rose-Red Empire,” “Downriver,” and other such books. Each one traces the geography of an area. Each one observes the traces of how the geography shapes and influences the characteristics and personalities of people who witness those areas. Environment is surely something that is also important to the shaping of a character. Its influences, vibrates within the very being of individuals. Yet walking is one of the grand aspects of life, and of living. Tracing old haunts and visiting old ghosts of memory of childhood long sine past. The article traces such authors as Rousseau and Wordsworth – romantic individualists. The authors were not just walking in the physical world that surrounded them. They were walking into their own inner world. The place where the Genesis of their work had just begun. These authors are dreamers. People who use the form of walking as a form of meditation. They thought, they contemplated. They questioned. The swing of the arms. The rhythm and rhyme of the breath. The beating of the heart. Step by step. Forwards and onwards. Moving to not a particular physical destination but the act of motion and moving was a form of meditation. The world unwinds and unravels at the seams. One finally is able to see the loose and frayed bits of thread holding the seams of the world together. The world fades out of the picture. The thoughts use the surrounding landscape like a projector screen. Viewing and shifting. Edited by the individual. The beauty does not become a profound metaphor, or an ironic aphorism. It is just there. Deprived of meaning. Devoid of any sense of extraordinary sense of wonder. But it is not destitute of beauty.
I don’t think that walking makes a great writer. However that being said it is a nice way to air ones thoughts out and think about what they are writing. Such great writers have walked. Traversing the world and in doing so allows them to diverse their own world. Alienating them away from others, yet allow some deep sense of meaning of their own work and ability to portray that to others. Even to this day their work strikes a chord. Walking is nothing special. Walking is part of life. We walk in the malls. We walk at work. We walk at home. Up and down the stairs. The act itself is a human ability. An action taken for granted. However it is still the most wonderful way to spend a lazy day, just strolling or walking, being lost in ones thoughts with no purpose in mind.
These days are always full of a sense of being purpose driven. However at times just strolling being whimsical is always a nice cure for the sense of being over pressured. To this day I still plan on walking through different places of the world. Stroll through Parisian streets, gawk and stare with macabre admiration at the Paris Catacombs; walk through the German Black Forest. See the world, as it should be seen. Through eyes without a purpose. Without a feeling that each step needs to be taken. To get back on the bus and travel to the next tourist destination. Personally I’d much prefer to explore and to feel, explore everything at my own pace, rather then forced and pushed to the next destination. Sounds rather stressful and not very relaxing.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
Summer has come and now it is departing. The nights and evenings grow longer. A slight triumph for the preceding events that will happen. Soon the world grows colder. The plants appear to be dying. The earth grows hard. Water freezes. The sky becomes low and the clouds appear to devour even the horizon. At times when the mood strikes and a mood of contemplation strikes me, I wonder what the first human beings must have thought about it. The changing seasons. When summer and spring had faded into remenates of memories. What had the first intelligent human beings thought? Just stepping outside of the primordial soup, in which they languished with such ignorance. What they must have thought about the plants shedding their leaves. Already accustomed to the way the natural world, and their part in it. As the ground grew cold and a slight chill in the air nipped their skin. Had the earth appeared, less beautiful and wonderful – slowly it was falling into the clutches of winter, and it appeared to gain the concept that the world itself was dying and ending. What a horrible scene it must have been. People could barely scratch a living to survive on as it was. Now their demise was surely looking in them in the face, as a reflection on an ice covered pond. Most of them may have died. Though somehow the human race has always had a sense of resilience that counter-balances out its own ignorance and stupidity. How fast had they learned what they needed to do in order to survive. They were already well aware, that they needed, eat and drink in order to survive. They were well aware of mating process and rituals, as instincts had guided their mechanisms in that area. Maternal knowledge knew how to take care of the child. However, they soon learned how to advance quick enough in order to survive. Though I still wonder, how long had they had to suffer? How many had to die in order for a doable solution was discovered? This time of year, every time, there is a feeling in my stomach. A fluttering of nerves. Anxiety creeping up from the deepest chinks of my body. Slowly flooding and pouring into my whole body. I love autumn. The coolness of the weather, the enjoyable feeling of harvest and celebration. Yet all it still makes my stomach flutter. My body giddy with a slight sense of dread and excitement. I wonder if this natural clock hidden in my body comes from my own primeval ancestors who could barely distinguish rock as a tool or as a weapon. From a helpful instrument in catching food or to a insidious murderous device.
“The Guardian,” newspaper in England in their culture section devoted to books, has an article on their website about writers and walking. When I first read the headline “Path to Enlightment: how walking inspires writers,” my first thought went to an author who is well known for his books about psychogeoraphy is Iain Sinclair. His work the author of “London Orbital,” “Ghost Milk,” “Hackney That Rose-Red Empire,” “Downriver,” and other such books. Each one traces the geography of an area. Each one observes the traces of how the geography shapes and influences the characteristics and personalities of people who witness those areas. Environment is surely something that is also important to the shaping of a character. Its influences, vibrates within the very being of individuals. Yet walking is one of the grand aspects of life, and of living. Tracing old haunts and visiting old ghosts of memory of childhood long sine past. The article traces such authors as Rousseau and Wordsworth – romantic individualists. The authors were not just walking in the physical world that surrounded them. They were walking into their own inner world. The place where the Genesis of their work had just begun. These authors are dreamers. People who use the form of walking as a form of meditation. They thought, they contemplated. They questioned. The swing of the arms. The rhythm and rhyme of the breath. The beating of the heart. Step by step. Forwards and onwards. Moving to not a particular physical destination but the act of motion and moving was a form of meditation. The world unwinds and unravels at the seams. One finally is able to see the loose and frayed bits of thread holding the seams of the world together. The world fades out of the picture. The thoughts use the surrounding landscape like a projector screen. Viewing and shifting. Edited by the individual. The beauty does not become a profound metaphor, or an ironic aphorism. It is just there. Deprived of meaning. Devoid of any sense of extraordinary sense of wonder. But it is not destitute of beauty.
I don’t think that walking makes a great writer. However that being said it is a nice way to air ones thoughts out and think about what they are writing. Such great writers have walked. Traversing the world and in doing so allows them to diverse their own world. Alienating them away from others, yet allow some deep sense of meaning of their own work and ability to portray that to others. Even to this day their work strikes a chord. Walking is nothing special. Walking is part of life. We walk in the malls. We walk at work. We walk at home. Up and down the stairs. The act itself is a human ability. An action taken for granted. However it is still the most wonderful way to spend a lazy day, just strolling or walking, being lost in ones thoughts with no purpose in mind.
These days are always full of a sense of being purpose driven. However at times just strolling being whimsical is always a nice cure for the sense of being over pressured. To this day I still plan on walking through different places of the world. Stroll through Parisian streets, gawk and stare with macabre admiration at the Paris Catacombs; walk through the German Black Forest. See the world, as it should be seen. Through eyes without a purpose. Without a feeling that each step needs to be taken. To get back on the bus and travel to the next tourist destination. Personally I’d much prefer to explore and to feel, explore everything at my own pace, rather then forced and pushed to the next destination. Sounds rather stressful and not very relaxing.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
Thursday, 2 August 2012
The Locked Room
Hello Gentle Reader
The locked room mystery is part of the collective elements that make up the wide array of detective fiction. The locked room mystery itself is usually the concept of a crime – usually impossible to commit, or rather that it appears that the crime under the circumstances was impossible to commit. The crime scene itself, usually involves a space in which the suspect or the murder could not have entered or left – just like a locked room. Of course this is all at first encounters. Eventually the protagonist or the detective, fueled by rational thought and a need to figure out how this uniquely dangerous puzzle and crime had been committed, is pushed to solving the crime. Debunking the concept that the murder or crime, in itself was impossible to commit. The most modern example of the concept of the locked room mystery would perhaps be found in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” The story itself begins with the premise of the double murder of mother and daughter. The mother’s throat badly slit that her head is barely attached to the rest of the body, while her daughter was strangled and her now lifeless corpse stuffed up a chimney. However what becomes interesting is that the murder was committed, on the fourth floor, in an inaccessible room – which had been locked from the inside. Already the reader knows that the impossible then has been committed. A murder had taken place, in an inaccessible area because the door was locked from the inside. Not to mention that the witnesses themselves prove both contradictory and rather unhelpful. However the detective of the fiction starts pointing out that the murder had been committed, and what ensures is perhaps one of those absurd moments of the short story itself. The detective Dupin, discovers a hair not human in the least bit, and concludes that the witnesses heard a strange language – but in fact was not any human language. Dupin then places an advertisement in the newspaper about the possibility of a missing “ourang-outang,” when a sailor responds Duplin reveals how the murder had happened. The ape had escaped the ward and custody of the sailor, with his straight razor, climbed up the lightning rod that lead into the first believed inaccessible quarters of the scene of the murder. There the ape tried to shave the poor woman as it had learned by imitating the sailor. However in the end, the animal slit the woman’s throat. In a fury it strangled the daughter and out of fear of the sailors whip, it stuffed the body into the chimney. The sailor aware of both deeds panicked and fled the scene. This is considered the first modern example of the detective story, and therefore is the first example of the locked room mystery.
Many such novels have followed in its footsteps. Wilkie Collins novels “The Moonstone,” and “The Woman in White,” the first being considered the first detective novel. However Israel Zangwill’s seminal work “The Big Bow Mystery,” which showed and has become the hallmark of any detective fiction – misdirection. The red herring itself has been used in all detective fiction since its creation. The concept of misdirecting the reader, into another frame of thought or string them along to believe that another character or suspect is far guiltier then, they really are, allowing for the real perpetrator to sneak away or to incidentally expose him or herself, to which they make out a long speech or monologue or the detective/protagonist does; explaining everything in the dramatic climax. The reason for the murder, the motive, and how the act of murder itself was committed. Just like Duplin explained in the rational, way that the orangutan had committed the murders, and the placement of the body in the chimney and the slit throat of the other victim were all but mere accidents, and based off of instinctual behaviour. In the end it all comes up in a neatly tied parcel; but the real game is trying to figure it out yourself.
All three novels of “The New York Trilogy,” by Paul Auster, have a certain dealings with identity. All of the characters, from “City of Glass,” to “Ghosts,” and now to “The Locked Room,” have dealt with identity. The characters give up everything. Their homes, their possessions, their very lives. They then enter a state of nothingness. There the protagonists either reconnect with the rest of the world, or they fail to do so, and disappear for good, their existence and identity lost forever.
At the beginning of this novel the reader learns that the narrator’s best friend Fanshawe has gone missing. After Fanshawe goes missing even he starts thinking that he would be better being himself, then he himself was. Which is why he left the instructions for his wife, to inform him of his decision to let his childhood friend, his manuscripts, and to have him publish them. Which happens, and of course the books turn out to be a success in their own rights. Which than leads to some readers to think, that the narrator himself wrote Fanshawe’s books, and that Fanshawe himself was never real in the first place. This itself, then leads me as a reader of “The Locked Room,” makes me wonder if these theories and rumours themselves are true and that maybe they are right that the main character is Fanshawe. The moment the main character of “The Locked Room,” begins his reminisce of his missing and presumed dead friend Fanshawe, it becomes clear that the narrator of this novel, is not entirely comfortable with his own identity or his own body, and that he himself would rather be Fanshawe. Of course everyone at one point in time of their life – or still does; would rather have certain traits of another, but still while reading the past two novels, of two characters who have very subjective and very questionable problems with identity, I could not help but feel like I was spotting a problem early on.
The evidence was starting to pile up against the narrator. He previously had written novel(s) and they were unsuccessful. However he has garnered some success with some articles he has written. So why not create a new character a pseudonym that eventually takes on a life of its own, and then kill it off or make it go missing, discover the manuscripts to poems, plays and novels, and then make the money off of the success of them.
At times the thought reminded me of the success of some writers like Roberto Bolaño, who died at the age of fifty from liver failure. Part of his early death and the novels that he was able to produce in that time period the most recent “The Third Reich,” have lead him to become some literary legend. Another noted writer and artist would be the less known and reclusive man Henry Darger, whose single spaced fantasy novel, is one of the longest piece of works ever written, with fifteen thousand, one-hundred and forty five pages of material. So the thought that the narrator created some alter ego, to gain success for writing some novels, and then forcing his wife, into falling in pursuit with this as well, and letting her believe that he needs to do this and she is not to interrupt this experiment – felt like something that Paul Auster himself and his characters and novel would be capable of.
“Every life is inexplicable, I kept telling myself. No matter how many facts are told, no matter how many details are given, the essential thing resists telling…..We imagine the real story inside the words, and to do this we substitute ourselves for the person in the story, pretending that we can understand him because we understand ourselves. This is a deception.”
The novel itself the last of this trilogy on the surface is a realist plot. Where “Ghosts,” (my favourite) was allegorical, and “City of Glass,” felt like a case study into the abyss of insanity. Where as “The Locked Room,” is more realist in plot, but it still gives one the feeling that they are a tea bag and that author is slowly dunking one into the abyss and nothingness of insanity and the unclear motives of the characters themselves. In the end with my expectations, for what I was going to read had been subverted, by the author and his playful of making me guess the actions of the characters themselves.
In the end it felt good to get the trilogy done, and I was impressed in the end with what Paul Auster had written. At times the prose felt flat, and simply not very deep in what they were discussing or writing about – as if there was not enough psychological depth placed into the characters themselves, and that at times their actions, and their movements felt more like a description of a child playing with dolls, and moving the dolls up and down the streets or up and down the hallways of a doll house. Yet the metafictional playfulness and postmodern writing techniques in the end were playful and fun, and showed the possibility of what fiction can do.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
The locked room mystery is part of the collective elements that make up the wide array of detective fiction. The locked room mystery itself is usually the concept of a crime – usually impossible to commit, or rather that it appears that the crime under the circumstances was impossible to commit. The crime scene itself, usually involves a space in which the suspect or the murder could not have entered or left – just like a locked room. Of course this is all at first encounters. Eventually the protagonist or the detective, fueled by rational thought and a need to figure out how this uniquely dangerous puzzle and crime had been committed, is pushed to solving the crime. Debunking the concept that the murder or crime, in itself was impossible to commit. The most modern example of the concept of the locked room mystery would perhaps be found in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” The story itself begins with the premise of the double murder of mother and daughter. The mother’s throat badly slit that her head is barely attached to the rest of the body, while her daughter was strangled and her now lifeless corpse stuffed up a chimney. However what becomes interesting is that the murder was committed, on the fourth floor, in an inaccessible room – which had been locked from the inside. Already the reader knows that the impossible then has been committed. A murder had taken place, in an inaccessible area because the door was locked from the inside. Not to mention that the witnesses themselves prove both contradictory and rather unhelpful. However the detective of the fiction starts pointing out that the murder had been committed, and what ensures is perhaps one of those absurd moments of the short story itself. The detective Dupin, discovers a hair not human in the least bit, and concludes that the witnesses heard a strange language – but in fact was not any human language. Dupin then places an advertisement in the newspaper about the possibility of a missing “ourang-outang,” when a sailor responds Duplin reveals how the murder had happened. The ape had escaped the ward and custody of the sailor, with his straight razor, climbed up the lightning rod that lead into the first believed inaccessible quarters of the scene of the murder. There the ape tried to shave the poor woman as it had learned by imitating the sailor. However in the end, the animal slit the woman’s throat. In a fury it strangled the daughter and out of fear of the sailors whip, it stuffed the body into the chimney. The sailor aware of both deeds panicked and fled the scene. This is considered the first modern example of the detective story, and therefore is the first example of the locked room mystery.
Many such novels have followed in its footsteps. Wilkie Collins novels “The Moonstone,” and “The Woman in White,” the first being considered the first detective novel. However Israel Zangwill’s seminal work “The Big Bow Mystery,” which showed and has become the hallmark of any detective fiction – misdirection. The red herring itself has been used in all detective fiction since its creation. The concept of misdirecting the reader, into another frame of thought or string them along to believe that another character or suspect is far guiltier then, they really are, allowing for the real perpetrator to sneak away or to incidentally expose him or herself, to which they make out a long speech or monologue or the detective/protagonist does; explaining everything in the dramatic climax. The reason for the murder, the motive, and how the act of murder itself was committed. Just like Duplin explained in the rational, way that the orangutan had committed the murders, and the placement of the body in the chimney and the slit throat of the other victim were all but mere accidents, and based off of instinctual behaviour. In the end it all comes up in a neatly tied parcel; but the real game is trying to figure it out yourself.
All three novels of “The New York Trilogy,” by Paul Auster, have a certain dealings with identity. All of the characters, from “City of Glass,” to “Ghosts,” and now to “The Locked Room,” have dealt with identity. The characters give up everything. Their homes, their possessions, their very lives. They then enter a state of nothingness. There the protagonists either reconnect with the rest of the world, or they fail to do so, and disappear for good, their existence and identity lost forever.
At the beginning of this novel the reader learns that the narrator’s best friend Fanshawe has gone missing. After Fanshawe goes missing even he starts thinking that he would be better being himself, then he himself was. Which is why he left the instructions for his wife, to inform him of his decision to let his childhood friend, his manuscripts, and to have him publish them. Which happens, and of course the books turn out to be a success in their own rights. Which than leads to some readers to think, that the narrator himself wrote Fanshawe’s books, and that Fanshawe himself was never real in the first place. This itself, then leads me as a reader of “The Locked Room,” makes me wonder if these theories and rumours themselves are true and that maybe they are right that the main character is Fanshawe. The moment the main character of “The Locked Room,” begins his reminisce of his missing and presumed dead friend Fanshawe, it becomes clear that the narrator of this novel, is not entirely comfortable with his own identity or his own body, and that he himself would rather be Fanshawe. Of course everyone at one point in time of their life – or still does; would rather have certain traits of another, but still while reading the past two novels, of two characters who have very subjective and very questionable problems with identity, I could not help but feel like I was spotting a problem early on.
The evidence was starting to pile up against the narrator. He previously had written novel(s) and they were unsuccessful. However he has garnered some success with some articles he has written. So why not create a new character a pseudonym that eventually takes on a life of its own, and then kill it off or make it go missing, discover the manuscripts to poems, plays and novels, and then make the money off of the success of them.
At times the thought reminded me of the success of some writers like Roberto Bolaño, who died at the age of fifty from liver failure. Part of his early death and the novels that he was able to produce in that time period the most recent “The Third Reich,” have lead him to become some literary legend. Another noted writer and artist would be the less known and reclusive man Henry Darger, whose single spaced fantasy novel, is one of the longest piece of works ever written, with fifteen thousand, one-hundred and forty five pages of material. So the thought that the narrator created some alter ego, to gain success for writing some novels, and then forcing his wife, into falling in pursuit with this as well, and letting her believe that he needs to do this and she is not to interrupt this experiment – felt like something that Paul Auster himself and his characters and novel would be capable of.
“Every life is inexplicable, I kept telling myself. No matter how many facts are told, no matter how many details are given, the essential thing resists telling…..We imagine the real story inside the words, and to do this we substitute ourselves for the person in the story, pretending that we can understand him because we understand ourselves. This is a deception.”
The novel itself the last of this trilogy on the surface is a realist plot. Where “Ghosts,” (my favourite) was allegorical, and “City of Glass,” felt like a case study into the abyss of insanity. Where as “The Locked Room,” is more realist in plot, but it still gives one the feeling that they are a tea bag and that author is slowly dunking one into the abyss and nothingness of insanity and the unclear motives of the characters themselves. In the end with my expectations, for what I was going to read had been subverted, by the author and his playful of making me guess the actions of the characters themselves.
In the end it felt good to get the trilogy done, and I was impressed in the end with what Paul Auster had written. At times the prose felt flat, and simply not very deep in what they were discussing or writing about – as if there was not enough psychological depth placed into the characters themselves, and that at times their actions, and their movements felt more like a description of a child playing with dolls, and moving the dolls up and down the streets or up and down the hallways of a doll house. Yet the metafictional playfulness and postmodern writing techniques in the end were playful and fun, and showed the possibility of what fiction can do.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Gore Vidal Dead
Hello Gentle Reader
We have lost many good authors this year. From Wisława Szymborska of Poland, and Antonio Tabucchi of Italy/Portugal, to Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, and down to Ray Bradbury a science fiction, horror, and fantasy author of America, it has been a year of losing some immense talent in the literary field, and world. Now Liberal America’s Literati, have lost one of their own. At the age of eighty-six Gore Vidal was outspoken in politics and culture. He was an author and a writer, and very politically outspoken. Who could forget his famous feuds, one being with the overly ideal to the point of utopian thinking as well indoctrinated conservative American commentator William Buckley, who died in two-thousand and eight, with their televised feud, and “Esquire,” controversy settled in two thousand and three – well at least superficially. Who could forget a young Gore Vidal and Truman Capote’s long lasting feud for life, had entertained spectators for the duration of Capote’s life, in which in the end Vidal had responded with “a good career move”. Vidal however continued to live, and life went on as usual for him. More feuds were made; and more fans were accumulated. Political activism was taken up, to more extreme’s further eclipsing his literary career. Gore Vidal in nineteen-sixty ran for congress. Though Vidal lost his bid, he had won the most votes than any other democrat in the last fifty years in the 29th congressional district in upstate New York. In his last decade or so, Gore Vidal took center stage for his political outspokenness once again, and his political pamphlets, where he criticized the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan – much as he did for Vietnam. Old friends even looked at the author with surprise and uncertainty. An old friend Christopher Hitchens who also passed away not that long ago, had even put his back on Gore Vidal because politics had wedged a chasm between the two of them, and their friendship. Now dead from complications from pneumonia, Gore Vidal will be remembered as a political author and activist. Who stood by his ideals and his opinions until the end.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
We have lost many good authors this year. From Wisława Szymborska of Poland, and Antonio Tabucchi of Italy/Portugal, to Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, and down to Ray Bradbury a science fiction, horror, and fantasy author of America, it has been a year of losing some immense talent in the literary field, and world. Now Liberal America’s Literati, have lost one of their own. At the age of eighty-six Gore Vidal was outspoken in politics and culture. He was an author and a writer, and very politically outspoken. Who could forget his famous feuds, one being with the overly ideal to the point of utopian thinking as well indoctrinated conservative American commentator William Buckley, who died in two-thousand and eight, with their televised feud, and “Esquire,” controversy settled in two thousand and three – well at least superficially. Who could forget a young Gore Vidal and Truman Capote’s long lasting feud for life, had entertained spectators for the duration of Capote’s life, in which in the end Vidal had responded with “a good career move”. Vidal however continued to live, and life went on as usual for him. More feuds were made; and more fans were accumulated. Political activism was taken up, to more extreme’s further eclipsing his literary career. Gore Vidal in nineteen-sixty ran for congress. Though Vidal lost his bid, he had won the most votes than any other democrat in the last fifty years in the 29th congressional district in upstate New York. In his last decade or so, Gore Vidal took center stage for his political outspokenness once again, and his political pamphlets, where he criticized the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan – much as he did for Vietnam. Old friends even looked at the author with surprise and uncertainty. An old friend Christopher Hitchens who also passed away not that long ago, had even put his back on Gore Vidal because politics had wedged a chasm between the two of them, and their friendship. Now dead from complications from pneumonia, Gore Vidal will be remembered as a political author and activist. Who stood by his ideals and his opinions until the end.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
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