David Albahari, Dies Aged 75

Hello Gentle Reader,
 
It seems odd to think that Calgary, Alberta, Canada would be the home of any writer. The city is renowned for only a handful of characteristics, which the city often revels in with a sense of pride. One of them is its unapologetic cowboy-cum-redneck culture, complete with the Stampede Rodeo, the greatest outdoor show on earth(!). The other a staunch investment in oil & gas companies, which fuel Alberta's economy—literally. Calgary is a city renowned for its high rolling booms and its crippling busts. Throughout it all the city never apologies, though it often finds itself the butt of Canada's jokes, being the redneck centre of the country, loud as it is brash. Calgary is not necessarily renowned for its vibrant literary culture or support for the written word. Yet, from 1994 until 2012 the Serbian writer, David Albahari called Calgary home, where he continued to write (in Serbian) and publish, but also translate English language writers into Serbian. Albahari left the then Yugoslavia for Canada in 1994 as the country began to tear itself apart in an ethnic war. The Yugoslav Wars remains a contentious subject in Eastern Europe, where lives, families, and cities were destroyed in the wars unrelenting hatred. War crimes were rampant and justice has been meagrely distributed in the region. Ethnic tensions remain. During his time in exile, David Albahari wrote three novels "Snow Man," "Bait," and "Darkness," which became known as the "Canadian Circle Novels," these novels traced how place and history impacted an individual's identity and their relationship with the world. In "Snow Man," Albahari ruminates on the difference between the state of refugee and those who've entered exile. Refugee's find community in their transience and displacement. Exiled individuals have no community and are often alienated further in their displacement. Despite having a position at a university, the exiled writer and main character of "Snow Man," is faced with the overwhelming task of starting life over; the conceited self-assured opinions and puffery of academia; students who are indoctrinated and careless of the world outside of their purview. The sheer overpowering reality threatens to consume and destroy him. The saviour? Orange juice. Simple as it is, the juice provided relief and the necessary material to preserve, but also calm his anxieties, as the exiled-writer is reminded of his homeland and the care of it takes to cultivate oranges. The novel is written in one long paragraph and is rather postmodern in its continued looping effects, creating a hypnotic and breathless work. "Tsing," is one David Albahari's more devasting novels. A multilayered meditation on one's father, "Tsing," was written after Albahari's father died, and in postmodern fashion, David Albahari seeks to move through the process via writing. What follows is an accumulation of a text that is elegant as it is raw in emotion; elliptical as it is startling, David Albahari wrote that digressive narratives can be compact and engaging. "Leeches," is a sardonic, brutal, and once again marvelous novel. Once again readers should be prepared for a postmodern breathless paragraph, as the narrator a single man, columnist for a Belgrade newspaper, and avid pot smoker and casual philosopher, finds himself thrust into the world of conspiracy theories, secret societies, and the underground where reality is always off kilter. "Leeches," was praised for being a postmodern and cerebral adventure, from one of Eastern Europe's finest. David Albahari was one of Europe's finest writers, a first-class postmodernist who could grapple with the fragmented cerebral strangeness of reality, but also testified on the difficulties of exile, the desolate and alienation of homesickness, and what a loss of home—that special landscape—does to one's identity, and their memories. A truly remarkable writer.
 
Rest in Peace, David Albahari.
 
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary

– XVIII –

The problem with insistent inclusion is it ironically perpetrates exclusion. What I find most frightening and damaging, is the righteous indignation some take with excluding others, as if somehow its penance for generational or historical injustices. Society and people can only move forward through generosity in spirit towards each other, not through the perpetration of the same intolerance in a new form. We do better because it is the virtuous act. Not to sate the emptiness of vengeance.

Martin Walser, Dies Aged 96

Hello Gentle Reader,
 
Postwar German literature is made up some of the greatest writers of the 20^th Century who grappled with moral wasteland left behind by Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, made further complicated by the divide of the state into West and East Germany. These writers which included: Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, and W.G. Sebald, reckoned with history, memory, moral responsibility, guilt and regret. It had become clear that German literature would be the medium in which the atrocities of the war would be confronted, remembered, discussed and reckoned with. Among these venerated giants was another, Martin Walser, who never achieved the same international recognition as his contemporaries, yet was equally dedicated to memory as moral responsibility. As a writer, Martin Walser was renowned for caricaturizing the perceived idyll of the provincial life, criticizing the conservative middle class. Throughout his novels, Walser probed the internal struggles of the German individual in the postwar period. Walser's novel: "The Gadarene Club," satirized the economic boom of the postwar in West Germany, the so-called Economic Miracle, while his most famous novel: "A Runaway Horse," is a comedy of two middle aged friends reacquainted once again; their relationship divulges into a power struggle and midlife crisis, between two men who still struggle to figure life out through very different means and perspectives. Martin Walser was not above controversy, having won the 1998 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, Walser commented on the unrelenting shame and regret forced upon Germans due to the Nazi's war crimes and holocaust. Walser lamented that this continued propagation would inevitably cheapen any sense of remorse and sentiment by Germans as being nothing more then lip service, having lost its potency and sincerity. Further criticism would be leveraged against the writer, when his novel "Death of a Critic," was criticized for containing antisemitic imagery. Despite these controversies, Martin Walser continued to write and was appreciated by his readers for his discussions regarding individual failure against the backdrop of societal expectations.
 
Rest in Peace Martin Walser.
 
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary

As Viewed in Colour

Hello Gentle Reader,
 
Colour will always be one of the most prominent sensory stimulant and guiding force of perception. It is the constant. The continued. The consistent. The never ending. It enriches and surrounds the world. All the while evading definition. Colour is amorphous and indefinable, it exists in reflections and refractions of light on a spectrum of mutability and vibrancy. With every adjustment of the light; enrichment or redaction of pigmentation; a new character, persona, and personality comes into existence. Colour is the ultimate shimmering pool of genesis. An infinitesimal ocean of emotions, characters, and perspectives, shifting, shimmering, and changing in a whirling endlessness, waiting to be extracted and distilled. Meaning in all its vague and indefinable measures and metrics, is an inherently human application. Everything exists in a state of indifference; it is humanity that applies significance to anything beyond its immediate existence. We see this routinely in colour, as each shade and tint imbue moments and situations with their own flare, their own personality. This inevitably is influenced by multiple factors, including human perception, social structures, and overarching cultural applications. White in western cultures has become associative with purity, innocence, chastity, charity and grace. The blushing bride in white, is a common image of white personified. In other cultures, specifically Asian ones, white is a colour of death, mourning, and grief. Han Kang's "The White Book," becomes a treatise and meditation on both the shade white, but also a quasi-testament and pseudo-memoir of Kang's older sister who prematurely died two hours after childbirth. Throughout "The White Book," Han Kang inventories and categorizes different white objects: rice, sugar cubes, swaddling bands, snow, moon, and salt, among other white objects or phenomena. Poetically each white article becomes the catalyst for Kang to trace and narrate the brief life of her older sister, and how her death and the fallout of grief would be woven into her own upbringing and life. Life is fluttering and fleeting; a feathered thing both winged and wounded, wrapped in white through and through. White is that primordial shade who shimmers into variations but retains its essence, one of contrary and competing attributes. From unadulterated purity to bleached sterility; possibility and potential to loss and absence. For all its expansiveness there is redaction. White is the clinicians shade, disinfected for all examinations and autopsies, but always having that feeling for postmortem, the perpetual afterwards. If one is looking to inject life and character into anything, it must be with colour. What kind of character, what kind of perspective, and what notion of life, is completely dependent on colour.
 
 "The Paris Review," had a marvelous column from a few years back called: "Hue's Hue," written by the informative and marvelous Katy Kelleher. Each column provided a detailed analysis, overview, and influence of a specific colour, capturing the cultural significance, literary impact, artistic history, and all the other whirling impressions all colours possess. The column is further enriched by the fact that Katy Kelleher takes absolute interest and fascination with each colour she examines, swathing through the stereotypical components of colour analysis. These are not columns discussing the rudimentary: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet—Kelleher, has far too much originality to bother with the generic and general. Instead, Kelleher positions her analysis towards the specific, the beautiful, the mercurial, the peripheral. Her columns analyzed such specific colours and shades as in the case of Scheele's Green that colour of toxic imitation, which is rumoured to have killed Napoleon in his exile in Saint Helena, due to the colour having a foundation in arsenic, which bled from the walls in the humidity and was ultimately inhaled by the former French leader, poisoning him to death. Through each column, Katy Kelleher is provided a colour and sets sail, exploring and traversing each shades diverse place within the human experience and imagination. These columns are insightful, beautiful and intriguing. The colour russet is imbued with a whole new life and sense after reading Kelleher's column, which present russet as an austere puritanical shade of red. If there ever was a colour that embodied the no frills and not bothered perspective, russet does so whole heartedly. It’s the liveliest colour of a limited palette that is aptly described as depressing. Kelleher points out the life of a peasant was never glamorous. While those fortunate enough to have a spot at court and live in gentrified poverty were privileged enough to obtain fine fabrics and colours and peacock their splendors, the majority of the populace were expected to adorn themselves with more chaste and austere clothing. As Kelleher wrote embroidery was deemed unseemly—or unvirtuous—as was any colour or pigment that would betray or promote any lightness of mind to inspire anything other than physical, mental and spiritual suffering, as is the way in which one is expected to worship God, by reenacting the suffering of Christ. In other words, farewell to the brightness of yellow; the soothing properties of blue; the regality of violet; and the voluptuousness sensuality of reds. Peasants were expected to be cloaked in the drab and dreary threads of grey, brown, and black, the most suitable—and more likely, most available—pigment readily available for peasants to wrap themselves in, and commence the drudgery that was their life. Russet was the only exception, the only hint of colour beyond the gravely dour uniform that was expected of them. Russet has not been treated as a luxurious colour, rather it's filled with the connotations of being austere and severe, grim in the mouth, reminiscent of the end of October, when all of autumn's leaves have fallen and the last candles in the jack-o'-lanterns fadeout into the night with November waiting in the morning like a gravestone at the end of the funeral march.
 
If it were not for Katy Kelleher and her column "Hue's Hue," I would never have learned the name of a colour that has fascinated me and made me inarticulate with every attempt at describing it: Eau de Nil (water of the Nile). It is an elegant and elusive green, pale as a green phantoms whisper, but no were close to a saccharine pastel of an Easter frog. Eau de Nil is graceful and vaporous, abandoning the principles of green being a grounded and earthly stable colour, instead embracing the light and insinuative. Without Katy Kelleher I would never have had the proper name for such a subtle shade of green, which has been poorly defined by others as seafoam green (to mercurial, an aerated aqua product of violent rolling waves and raging skies that produced Aphrodite), mint green (though not as cloyingly sweet as a sugared pastel, it is clinical in application, being both sterile and discomforting), and verdigris (though another colour I've grown fond of, it remains in a category all its own of metropolitan grandeur, of aged cities in a perpetual state of impermanence and metamorphosis, never static in being, but perpetually becoming). Having read all of Katy Kelleher's columns over the series, the only disappointment is the fact that the series has ended, as Kelleher's thorough analysis and deep dive into every particular shade and colour she chose to write about was always informative as it was engaging. When (and I suppose if) I ever settle down into a house that I can comfortably and merrily declare is my own notion of home, I intend to incorporate and deploy the colour Eau de Nil, embracing the ethereal elegance and mystery the colour radiates. After reading Katy Kelleher column "Hue's Hue," one begins to contemplate the colour of the world with more insight and curiosity, approaching the vibrancy of the world with a sense of wonder and awe, not overlooking it as a component of the landscape.
 
The complexity of colour on environment is not a new concept to human society. Interior designers and architects have become conductors of colours, composing harmony and symphony within interior spaces, showcasing both utilitarian durability, but also curating a feast of aesthetics. In the short story "The Way You Might Break a Finger," Amanda Michalopoulou (translated by Peter Constantine) wrote:
 
            "One has to be contemplating suicide to paint a room brown."
 
Brown truly is one of the most unappealing paint colours. I should think if an individual is seeking to incorporate brown into their home, it is far more advantageous to do so via millwork and wood accessories and accents. Beautiful hardwood floors; timeless wood furniture. Brown carpet, extensive wood paneling, and brown paint, creates a home not only deprived of colour, but occupants desperate for it. Having lived in homes painted in a variety of shades of taupe, beige, ochre, and unapologetic brown, there was always a longing and immediate desire to inject something dramatic, something bold. Living in a world drenched and encased in brown is a cavernous experience. Brown is this ultimate colour of despair. Its not grounding its burying. White as a monochromatic colour scheme is much the same way. Bleached sterile and lifeless. When looking for resale value and quick turnaround, realtors advise their clients to paint in neutrals. This is why homeowners are quick to whiteout themselves from the space. All that remains is a blank canvas for the future homeowner to envision the space as their own. Grey is the ultimate neutral. Often described as the accountants colour, an assured colour of accuracy and stability. This shade has neither allegiance or ideology. It lacks the sterility of white, the absorption of black, and the consuming cavernous of brown. Over the past decade, grey has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts. It’s a colour that has been both celebrated and incorporated into the interiors. It’s a shade that is compatible and welcoming to a variety of highlights and colours. Despite its successes, apparently grey is falling to the wayside. A shade that is described as the colour and mascot representing fiscal responsibility, financial prudence and austerity measures, is as exciting as a shade defined as clean, clinical, and unassuming. Grey maybe more accessible and versatile, like all the other neutrals and shades it lacks a sense of soul and spice.
 
In turn black was a favoured colour of two renowned historical and legendary widows: Catherine de Medici and Queen Victoria; both women were astute politicians and complete powerhouses in their roles. Catherine de Medici was a dynasty maker, who had to fill the role of stability as the men and kings around her proved to be incompetent and juvenile, they had no political acumen or steadiness in health, thought, or ability in order to accomplish greatness. Coldness and reptilian political talent aside, Catherine de Medici truly loved her husband King Henry II, even though he was infantile and incompetent, who routinely retreated to the skirts of Diane de Poitiers—who's official court colours were black and white, both to recognize mourning for her late husband, but also a play on the facets of the moon, harking to her name derived from the Roman goddess of the moon and hunt). As for Queen Victoria, she is often remembered and stylized as the toadish frumpy monarch who was lost in the throes of grief after the death of her beloved Prince Albert, and in turn consoled herself with food. Before Queen Victoria draped herself in black and presided over the Victorian Era with melancholy and wallow, she was known as quite the spitfire with emboldened stances and opinions, she was both honest and obstinate, but more importantly completely independent, despite her upbringing seeking to stifle and reduce her character to a state of dependency. The bridal tradition of the white wedding dress is rooted in Queen Victoria, who chose the unadulterated shade to represent her chastity, virginity and purity when entering the marriage with Prince Albert.
 
The literary world exists in an abundant world of colour in turn. Streaks of colour emerge from the monochromatic sepia landscapes and grisaille skies of Patrick Modiano's novels, taking shape and form in the most ubiquitous of places: a yellow coat; a blue ether bottle; a phosphorescent green light from the radio. The character Little Jewel brings to mind a pale nondescript green, a peridot who had been polished and marketed as a fraudulent emerald. The ambiguous and ever so implacable Jacqueline (in all incarnations) remains preserved in mist of etherized blue, impressionistic and perceptible while remaining distant and out of reach. Orhan Pamuk is a visual writer, his descriptions of Istanbul—both sweeping exteriors and personal interiors—are vivid and dynamic. Pamuk's appreciation of colour is clearly seen throughout his novels, but is obviously clear in "My Name is Red," where the pigment itself narrates a chapter, wistfully mediating on what it means to be a colour. Red is a divisive colour. Alfred Hitchcock once described it as jolly. Politically it's been applied as a brander, leaving behind a scandalous scarlet letter to designate someone as a communist, as red was the ideologies favourite colour, easy to market and immediately identifiable (as black is to fascism). Though as Herta Müller noted the entire colour palette was grey. Grey on grey. Red is also the characteristic uniform of the titular Handmaids of "The Handmaids Tale." Those cloaks of red paired with the white bonnets, are designed to be distinguishing and alienating.  
 
The world is saturated in colour and all the endless pairings. It is the soundtrack and landscape to how people interact with the world. Colour has been used to categorize people, as Katy Kelleher noted regarding the mandated uniform colours peasants were expected to wear; or symbolic gestures of allegiance and ideological preferences; to an expectation being worn to symbolize one's own chastity for marriage or their bereavement in grief. Even to think on colour for too long will inevitably lead one moving in different directions of thought. A thought on pink, sweetly saturated and cavity inducing to insincerity and a sense of plasticity, will ease up on the criticism of the overly frivolous colour, to appreciate the gentleness of cherry blossoms, brief and transient, which harkens to the thoughts of P.L. Travers and her Chelsea neighborhood, London terraced house with its clean white brick exterior contrasted with the gentle pink door. Its hard to imagine the writer, amateur anthropologist, and folklorist being fond of such a whimsical and frilly colour. White is the blank canvas individuals are born. Colour is life. All the mess and chaos of life. Inevitably, black is the end, the absorption of all colour and the great equalizer. Still, I look forward to embracing the colours of the world. As summer rages on, its punishing yellows and reds, greens wilting to brown. I look forward to the reprieve of winter. The overcast moonstone white skies veined with grey. Evenings dusted in mauve. The coldness of blue stinging in the air.
 
Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary
 
 
For Further Reading: 

Katy Kelleher's "Hue's Hue Archives," at the Paris Review 

Amanda Michalopoulou's short story: "The Way YouMight Break a Finger," from Words Without Borders

Milan Kundera Dies Aged 94

Hello Gentle Reader,
 
Milan Kundera is and was one of the most important European writers of the last century. A giant of international literature, Kundera was unanimously praised as being one of the most important and influential Czech writers of the Post-War Era, which included fellow countrymen: Bohumil Hrabal, Václav Havel, and Ivan Klima. Kundera's novels are full of tragicomic characters, biting satire, and a sense of playfulness in every sense of the word, while rooting themselves into deep philosophical debates and discussions. This is clearly seen in his best-known novel: "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," which remains his most recognizable novel. Born in Brno, a city in eastern Czechia, to a comfortable middle-class family. His father was a renowned musicologist and pianist, which became great influences on Milan Kundera himself, who in turn learned to play piano while gaining an apprenticeship in both musicology as a study and musical composition. Music remained an influential force on Kundera's literary output. Yet, Kundera's early life were marked by political upheaval and violent confrontations. Like many of his generation, Kundera came of age during violence, during the Second World War and the Nazi Germany's invasion and subsequent occupation of the then Czechoslovakia.  In his youth, as is almost expected or a rite of passage, Milan Kundera joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In University, Kundera studied literature and aestheticism before transferring to film studies and studied directing and script writing. This was the first time in which Kundera would have a mediocre brush with ideological conformity, when he was expelled from the Communist Party along with fellow writer Jan Trefulka, for anti-party activities. This experience became the inspiration and premise for Kundera's novel: "The Joke," and Trefulka's novel: "Happiness Rained on Them." Kundera would later be reinstated into the party, and expelled again in the 1970s. Though not directly involved with the Prague Spring, Milan Kundera was sympathetic to the movement, while being somewhat apologist for the Soviet Union as it invaded then Czechoslovakia to squash the uprising. During this time, Kundera openly debated in the papers with Václav Havel, remaining true to his opinions that reformed communism can still be achieved, and attempting to encourage optimism for a Prague Autumn. Kundera, ultimately was forced to abandon his position, when the oppression became more blatant, which for Kundera took a particular nasty turn, including being dismissed for his academic positions; his novel "The Joke," banned from publication and consumption, while Kundera was sanctioned from any further publishing activities. Then came the more routine harassments, interrogations, and surveillance. In 1975, Milan Kundera left then communist Czechoslovakia for France. Ultimately being expelled from the party and stripped of his Czechoslovak citizenship, and a difficult and uncomfortable relationship with the country, even in the post-soviet landscape, where Kundera remained a complicated figure. As a writer, however, Milan Kundera is considered one of the best. His novels were deliriously funny as they were tragic; while Kundera's literary language was considered full body, and the writer showed a greater (and successful) interest with language, over conventional static descriptive prose writing. Kundera's cinematic language focused on the essential components of characters, providing readers with enough information to complete the development and imagination of the character. As for Kundera's literary themes, they are universal while being completely singular. At first there was the theme of the duality and contrary realities of life under an authoritarian government, where a sense of Kafkaesque confusion is set to abound. Other thematic and philosophical queries included identity and the nature of exile, disillusionment as a state of being, guilt and runcination, and personal responsibility; but also, life that exists beyond the social and artistic confines, all the while celebrating the otherwise pleasures of an unextraordinary life. Throughout the last three decades, Milan Kundera was considered a perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. One of the most important Czech writers of his generation, it was seen as expected that Kundera would receive the acknowledgement. Yet, in a manner similar to that of Tolstoy and Joyce, Milan Kundera would never receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which in all fairness, does not discredit or diminish Kundera, but will ensure his legacy remains not only on his quality of his literary work, but also of being a writer on a continually growing list of the Nobel's: missed opportunities.
 
Rest in Peace, Milan Kundera. Heaven knows its well deserved.
 
Thank you for reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary  

The Gnome's Gospel

Hello Gentle Reader,
 
It should be noted: I do not like garden gnomes. As a child, I found these garden watchmen to be creepy. Now I find their predesigned charm of whimsy to be manufactured and kitsch. Any garden with any gnome population provokes a snap assessment, whereby the homeowner and gardener is diagnosed with questionable taste. All of which leaves myself with an intrapersonal diagnosis of 'casual snobbery,' and my mother's voice in the back of mind echoing: "you were raised better than that." Of course, not all share my casual snobbery. A neighbourhood eccentric—who I am sure enjoys a rich interior life—is a gnome aficionado, and has turned their patch of grass into a sanctuary for the promotion, conservation and preservation of garden gnomes in the suburbs. One may almost be mistaken that the gnomes are about to participate in a propagation program, and will be reintroduced into their natural habitats, all within the parameters of public parks, in those confidential and shady areas; the illusionary woodland. Oh yes, all those Dinkledewburry's, Fnorbitt's, Nicknocktock's, Thornybunn's, Starbell's, Perseposies, Thistlewhistle, Rascaldales, stalking, wondering, skulking, and standing guard freely in abandon in the public parks, pathways, and urban greenspaces. They will hobble their homes with a bric-a-brac eye and scavengers' necessity. Their stacked rock cottages with moss roofs. Hollowed-out tree stumps are a favorite; scrap together a pitched roof, a plank of wood (even a rock) will function as a door. Bridges are a popular residential destination, by creeks, rivers, or irrigation canals, they'll construct a platform and secure it to the embankment, tunneling into the side. Ponds are prime real estate, where they will build their boathouses, as reeds and cattails are in abundance, meaning materials are too; by weaving, hammering, and plastering with mud they'll craft themselves damp leaky waterfront home. Others will slap together a hovel of twigs and branches, pebbles and rocks, and top it off with a hasty thatched roof. In a pinch though, a burrow, hole, or den will be sufficient enough for them, as long as they previous inhabitant has vacated. Out there, they will live in secret. The faint flicker of their customary lamps casting ghostly light in abandoned nighttime groves; glow beneath bridges, cubed and shattered in the rippling water; call out from distant shores, ethereal and alien; emanating from the ground enticing curiosity and caution.
 
I would never have paid so much time to these seasonal garden residents, if it weren't for reading Olga Tokarczuk's interview in The Paris Review (The Art of Fiction No. 258). In the interview, Tokarczuk mentioned the conflict of being raised and taught that helping others was an honorable pursuit, which she found herself at odds with, as she enjoys independent and private pursuits of the introverted nature. She summarized this conflict with a childhood book—which shook her childhood understanding of the world—about a gnome who enjoys being alone, participating in singular pursuits: reading, writing, puttering around his home. The gnome, however, is routinely bothered by other inhabitants of the forest, the ants, the grasshopper, et cetera, who knock on his door requesting his assistance. Naturally as a solitary creature, the gnome grows agitated and bristles at the intrusion, telling the interlopers to go away and leave him in his peace. After calming down and reflecting, by guilt and shame for a lack of civic attitude, the gnome resolves to help the ants with their dilemma and the grasshoppers with their problems. Olga Tokarczuk concluded the analogy of the solitary gnome and his guilt into altruistic action, summarizes her own duality with regards to facilitating civic and humanistic support, while retaining her independent introverted self. This left me wondering about the resident gnomes down the street, squashed in their little refuge. If gnomes are so solitary, they must not appreciate their current overcrowded accommodations. How they long for meadow, grove, field, hill, forest, cave, creek, or lake. They must yearn for the state of alone. Instead, they crowd around each other, with their lamp, hoe, shovel, wheelbarrow, pale, and watering can. They are on each other's toes. In their spaces. Resenting each other has become a communal pastime. Their combined rage sits amongst them like a fire, whereby they mutter curses amongst each other, casting them with casual malice, hoping they will land on their intended victim. How envious they must be of the traveling gnomes, like the one in the saccharine but marvelous French film Amélie (2001), where the titular character takes her cold and reclusive father's garden gnome, and with the assistance of a flight attendant friend, releases it into the world, returning photos home to her father. This gnome is the surrogate of the father, who is relinquished into the world of traveling, as the Amélie's father no longer has the ambition to rouse himself to do so, despite his yearning. The act of gnomes traveling, became such a cultural phenomenon unto itself, now referred to as 'gnoming.'
 
The story of the gnome, however, is a curious tale remembered by Olga Tokarczuk, who remains one of the most original and innovative contemporary writers. No one writes quite in the same vein as Tokarczuk, with such an eccentric enjoyment for the possible; an archaeological and anthropological interest in the esoteric and their enduring influences on human culture, social traditions, adopted religious practices, and early theories in psychology. Curiosity and exploration are the defining features of Tokarczuk's writing. She once remarked that as a child she envisioned herself as a scientist. No surprise, as Marie Curie remains a national treasure and venerated figure in Poland, and rightfully so. The pull between the literary and the scientific is another defining paradox that Tokarczuk would need to reconcile with herself. Much like the gnome enjoying its solitary existence, it too was provoked to resolve its own introverted principles and provide assistance to others. So too did Tokarczuk. who once again was forced to remediate the division between the ephemeral literary and palpable science. An early introduction to Sigmund Freud's "Beyond the Pleasure Principle," made an everlasting impression on the writer, who found Freud's proposed theories regarding a hidden network of systems and symbols and their interpretation to understanding the world fascinating. This of course sent Tokarczuk to study psychology in university, which to an extent was a disappointment (at least from what I am able to gather). Rather, then being the subject of psychoanalysis and the abstruse dive into the unconscious via dreamscapes, it was a behaviorist's school. Studies concerned deductive reasoning; labs of mice and rats; reactionary responses; Pavlov's dogs, and the like. Still, the academic background in psychology only sharpened Tokarczuk's scientific mind, it also provides her an acute insight into the mechanics of human behaviour, both the biological inheritance as well as the social condition. Tokarczuk's later studies and readings in the Jungian school, however, are more her inkling, and have a recognizable influence in her work.
 
Olga Tokarczuk is a windswept writer. One who is easily swept away either in the gales or rivers of exploration. Reality is continually in flux. A state of impermanence and transience. There are of course the static components to reality, but even they are transmutable and manipulated by human ingenuity or engineering. Be it mountains, gravity, or genetics. How individuals interact and perceive reality is how reality becomes more malleable. Of course, different individuals will perceive reality differently; in turn societies and cultures perceive and interact with reality in a completely different fashion, establishing traditions and festivities to curate a cohesive social structure. Jung's analytical theories proposed an intricate symbiotic system existing between both the individuals unconscious and the collective unconscious, which establishes a sense of community through traditions, symbols, idolizations, tribalistic markers, in addition to any and all practices engaged in honouring and celebrating them. In essence the private life and the public life, a duality of existence. Jung furthered this by quartering an individual into archetypes. A measure which has routinely been expanded on and replicated in the field of characterization and personality. "Primeval and Other Times," is one of Olga Tokarczuk's most enchanting and effecting novels. Primeval is a bell jar of a community existing in the centre of Poland; populated by archetypal characters. The novel charts the course of the community over eighty years. Myth and history cycle through each other, shifting and shaping reality for the inhabitants of the village. The structure is marvelously crafted, a beautiful collection of episodes and vignettes, providing snapshots and glimpses into the lives of the inhabitants of Primeval. Each character's life and perception, provides another layer, a new angle, further information to a collective narrative-cum-consciousness. "Primeval and Other Times," was Tokarczuk's experiment at applying the Beauchêne method to the novel, and just as the skull finds itself disassembled, so to does the novel, but what remains is a diorama providing a full body overview of the narrative. A kaleidoscope of perspectives and experiences, creating a paradoxical fragmented mosaic, but still unified novel. Tokarczuk's more chimeric novels "House of Day, House of Night," and "Flights," were not deconstructing and examining individual narratives in relation to the collective; they are star maps. Constellations and miscellany of experiences, ideas, ruminations, anecdotes, esoteric treaties, forgotten histories, folklore, mythic wellsprings, travelogues, recipes and medical examinations. These novels replicate the world, in their endless stimuli, the varying degrees of perception, the cruelty of memory both individually and collectively, and in Tokarczuk's capacity, she casts the light onto them, be it the folklore saint Wilgefortis or the journey of Chopin's heart. Reading Olga Tokarczuk is not destination oriented. It is not a singular purpose driven narrative. No fellowship or crusade. It is an expedition into the unknown. Cast adrift, readers are left to float and flow in the gyrating currents of Tokarczuk expansive and unrestrained literary curiosity.
 
I am still no fan of garden gnomes. Their red conical hats; airbrushed rosy cheeks; lifeless fabricated factory eyes. The anecdote of the gnome in the forest as told by Tokarczuk: solitary and secluded, is when the gnome is at peace. Not abandoned by the world, but not intruded by it. It’s a dream one can easily step into. It's reminiscent of my fairytales and storybooks from one's own childhood. Be it the lush watercolour landscapes of Peter Rabbit & Co; or Cicely Mary Barker's flower fairies. It's no wonder as a child, I was criticized for being a silly heart; a twiddler of time; cloud watcher; wasteful dreamer. Reality as it is presented, can be feckless and humdrum. An escape is always required. Who hasn't fantasied about being an eccentric witch living in the backcountry and woods, alone amongst the trees, residing in some quaint cottage, windmill, or watermill? Yet, just like the gnome, the outside world inevitably comes knocking. For Olga Tokarczuk this was a sundering realization that an individual can harbour two opposing values and perspectives simultaneously. In this case the yearning for introversion, solitude and peace; while on the other, the demands of civic responsibility, humanistic principles, and altruistic generosity. These internal oppositions do not tear individuals apart, merely enrich their existence. For Olga Tokarczuk the Nobel Prize in Literature reconciles and consoles these contrary forces. The prize acknowledges Tokarczuk's writing (a product of private enjoyment) while affirming its humanistic and wide-reaching angle, becoming a component of the greater human narrative. Perhaps that is the gnome's gospel: you can always remove yourself from the world, but the world will inevitably come find you.
 
Thank you for Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary