tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76043290688064227592024-03-11T14:22:45.152-06:00 The BirdcageThe Birdcage M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.comBlogger801125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-56242052466158477162024-03-11T14:21:00.001-06:002024-03-11T14:21:49.303-06:00The International Booker Prize Longlist, 2024<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hello Gentle Reader,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The International Booker Prize
Shortlist for 2024 has released this year’s longlist of thirteen titles each competing
for a coveted spot on the shortlist (which will be announced in April). Of this
year’s longlist, South American writers dominate, with a quarter of the titles
heralding from writers from Peru, Argentia, Brazil and Venezuela, which showcases
a thriving literary scene thriving in the absence of the previous Latin Boom giants
of old, and showcasing the talent of a new generation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Without waiting further, the
following are the thirteen shortlisted writers and their works (in no
particular order):</span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Jenny Erpenbeck – Germany – “Kairos,”<br />
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Rodrigo Blanco Calderón – Venezuela
– “Simpatía,”<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Jente Posthuma – The Netherlands
– “What I’d Rather Not Think About,”<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Domenico Starnone – Italy – “The
House on Via Gemito,”<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Gabriela Wiener – Peru – “Undiscovered,”<br />
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Hwang Sok-yong – (South) Korea
– “Mater 2-10,”<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Selva Almada – Argentina – “Not
a River,”<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Andrey Kurkov – Ukraine – “The
Silver Bone,”<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Veronica Raimo – Italy – “Lost
on Me,”<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Itamar Vieira Junio – Brazil –
“Crooked Plow,”<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ismail Kadare – Albania – “A
Dictator Calls,”<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Urszula Honek – Poland – “White
Nights,”<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ia Genberg – Sweden – “The
Details,”</span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Of the longlisted writers,
Ismail Kadare is the only writer to have won the International Booker Prize in
its previous format, when the prize was awarded biennially and sought to recognize
an author’s entire literary output and career. if Kadare were to take the prize
again with his novel “A Dictator Calls,” he will be the first writer to receive
the prize first (in both formats). In addition to Ismail Kadare, the German
writer, Jenny Erpenbeck is another internationally applauded and recognizable stalwart.
“Kairos,” is described as a bleak portrait of two individuals locked with a
state of intense desire and further cruelty amidst the collapsing and changing
world as the GDR crumbles around them, proving that Jenny Erpenbeck is a master
of capturing the balance between seismic historical shifts, and intimate human
dramas.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is not the first time Hwang
Sok-yong has been nominated for the award either, having been longlisted for
the prize in 2019 with the novel “At Dusk,” which recounts the memoirs of an otherwise
successfully architectural director, reflect on his own participation in the
erasure and rapid development of Korean society, away from its poverty and in
the process the erasure of his own roots. Sok-yong traces contemporary Korean
society through three generations of a railway family in “Mater 2-10,” – from the
Japanese colonialization; through liberation, and its rapid development into
the 21<sup>st</sup> century, the hard scrabble life of ordinary Koreans and
their drive to be free of oppression, as well as a strangely lyrical folktale rising
to a crescendo depicting the sacrifices and indignities endured by the Korean
populace. A showcase of what makes Hwang Sok-yong one of the most important
(South) Korean writers of his generation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Andrey Kurkov finds himself longlisted
with his novel “The Silver Bone,” is a novel praised by critics and readers
alike, as it bubbles with Kurkov’s sense of absurdism and unapologetic use of
the uncanny, made all that more glorious for his historical detail, which
explores the complexities of Eastern Europe, and despite being set in 1919
draws parallel with the current struggles of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Jente
Posthuma’s novel “What I’d Rather Not Think About,” is one of the novels to
watch closely, a beautiful narrative of bitter insight that waltz between melancholy
and humour, of the special relationship between twins, with emphasis on the
ache of loss. The Brazilian writer Itamar Vieira Junio “Crooked Plow,” has been
called one of the most important Brazilian novels of this century, a
combination of both magical and social realism, recounts the lost voices of the
black diaspora and their stories after the abolition of slavery in Brazil,
revealing both the racial and economic inequalities of Brazil in powerful
prose.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Veronica Raimo’s “Lost on Me,”
is a firecracker coming of age novel, exploring the germination of a writer,
whose inventions is her only way in which to emancipate herself from her family’s
neurosis, and seek independence and life outside of the comforts and
constraints of her own homelife. Witty, daring, and highly nostalgic capturing
the palpations of Rome in the 80’s through to the early 21<sup>st</sup> century.
All the while, Ia Genberg’s novel “The Details,” is a fever dream of delirium,
recounting the shards and details, those formulative relationships which define
one’s portrait of their life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It’s an interesting longlist which
blends both defined and established international literary talents with emerging
and new voices and narratives. It’ll be a unique shortlist in turn, at which
point the judges have the unenviable task of reducing the titles to a
concentrated form.</span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thank you For Reading Gentle
Reader<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Take Care<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And As Always<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stay Well Read<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">M. Mary</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">For Further Reading: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/11/latin-american-fiction-booms-again-on-international-booker-prize-longlist"><span style="color: #f1c232;">The Guardian: Latin American fiction ‘booms’ again on International Booker prize longlist</span></a><br /></p>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-53397969523594569252024-02-25T12:08:00.003-07:002024-02-25T12:08:19.720-07:00 – XXV – <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Loss is a private affair, overcrowded with cooing good intentions and superficial sympathies.</span></div>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-10152154119068510072024-02-20T05:06:00.000-07:002024-02-20T05:06:46.453-07:00Transparent Life: Regarding Mr. Bleaney <p> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hello
Gentle Reader,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Few
poets carve through the niceties of window-dressing in a manner as eloquent and
straightforward as Philip Larkin. The poem, “This Be The Verse,” opens with the
line: “They fuck you up, your mum and dad.” Curiosity, be it from shock or
agreeance, compels readers to continue through the poem, while Larkin in his
usual no-nonsense and forthright manner continued to provide his assessment of
the condition of parental failings, as not a singular event but one of routine
fatalistic inheritance. Each generation adding its own signature complex,
imprint and fuckery into the lives of unsuspecting children, as Larkin put it:
“Man hands on misery to man.” Finally concluding with the most logical answer,
which runs contrary to our economic systems and primal urge to reproduce, “Get
out as early as you can,/And don’t have kids yourself.” Philip Larkin is that
staunchly English postwar generation poet. One stripped of all delicate
constitutions and sensibilities. A complete tonic and bitter pill to the
romantics of old, channeling the palpable sense of loss and devastation left
behind in a postwar world. A world whose foundations had forever shifted by
unquantifiable destruction, desolation, and disregard for any previous
precedence of possibility. Girded with an impenetrable sense of the ironic, and
with a cynic’s edge, Larkin surveyed the hardboiled landscape and its people
adrift within ruin, reduced further by rations, and with little in regards to
prospects to look forward to. Philip Larkin rose to prominence with the others
of his generation, who collectively were referred to as: “Angry young men,” a
collective of young British writers from working class and middle-class
backgrounds, who began publishing in the 1950’s. Included in their ranks was
John Osborne, whose play, “Look Back in Anger,” is credited for sparking the
movements prominence and denominating the term; Kingsley Amis, John Braine, and
Alan Sillitoe; while Harold Pinter, Doris Lessing, and Iris Murdoch are
regarded as associates. Each of them balked and raddled their chains and struck
their ire out against the morally bankrupt sociopolitical system of the era.
Philip Larkin much like Kingsley Amis, proved to move beyond what would become
a diminutive product of its time, much as all movements are. Larkin’s poetry
retained both breadth and depth to maneuver beyond the immediate and ruminate
on the eternal. Larkin retained a palpable quality to his work, to the point it
veered on prosaic. Speakers and voices are provided further shape and form. Not
concealed in image or metaphor. Where other poets plucked and planted from
flowerbeds and fields of flowers, Larkin carved his out of concrete.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Often
caricaturized and parodied as a toad, in a tongue and check homage to the poem:
“Toads,” were Philip Larkin takes aim at the misery induced by the drudgery of
work, masterfully captured in the second stanza:</span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> “Six days of the week it soils<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> With its sickening poison –<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Just for paying a few bills!<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> That’s out of proportion.” </span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
while the poem rollicks to a crescendo of rebellion; Larkin deflates and brings
the speaker back down to reality:</span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> “Ah, were I courageous enough<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> To shout Stuff your pension!<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> But I know, all to well, that’s the
stuff<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> That dreams are made on:”</span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">As
the practicalities of life in all their prudent measures, inevitably means
suffrage in the hardscrabble monotony of work and no fortune. Whereby one lives
within their means. Those always imperfect means. It brings to mind that quote
from Herta Müller’s novel “The Appointment,”:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“From here to there it’s all just the
farty sputter of a lantern. And they call that having lived. It’s not worth the
bother of putting on your shoes.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Philip
Larkin’s professional life as a librarian ran in parallel to his work as a
poet, jazz critic, and casual novelist. There are competing theories of whether
or not Larkin held his professional life in serious contempt. Private
correspondence reveals a curmudgeonly tone regarding the nature of work.
Larkin’s poetry provides further evidence to his dismissive opinion on the
nature of work. This theory has of course won out, being cast and certified in
bronzed truth: Larkin viewed the mundane as a chore to endure, not enjoy.
Contrary, however, further records and transactional documents from his
librarianship days, showcase Larkin in a completely different context, one who
enjoyed the routines, structures, and orderliness of daily work. Neither poem
or letter will provide any enlightenment into Larkin’s own personal views of
his professional life and literary endeavours. Its easy to speculate that
without the repetitive schedule of his professional obligations, Larkin’s
authority on observing the quotidian components of a normal life and subsequent
goals of elevating the everyday, would be significantly cheapened and
disingenuous. This echoes the weary complaints of Horace Engdahl, who in an
interview with <i>La Croix</i> in 2014, criticized the professionalization of
writing. Now days, writers are manufactured and fabricated through graduate
degrees and masters of fine arts programs, then entering into a symbiotic waltz
with literary institutions, universities, and write. Gone, Engdahl laments, are
writers engaged with the actual business of life, referencing T.S. Eliots
career as a bank clerk.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
poem “Mr. Bleaney,” is one of elegiac observation of a life of mediocrity which
amounts to nothing, but a bare room in a third-rate bordering house. The
cost-of-living has its economic principles and aesthetics are ranked lower on
the list or concern and approval. Mr. Bleaney’s world is contained within such
meager borders. The inventory of the room leaves little to the imagination, all
the while the current occupant of the room attempts to summon Mr. Bleaney, or
at least come to understand his predecessor’s routine, inner thoughts, and
life, which includes summer holidaying at Frinton-on-sea, and Christmases at
his sisters in Stoke. It becomes apparent that the former resident, Mr.
Bleaney’s life was one so lacking in any sense of life it had been reduced to
seasonal routines and cycles. There is no significant occurrence or growth
within the titular characters life. Nothing remarked as being exceptional or
extraordinary or out of place. Mr. Bleaney’s attempts at gardening are observed
at being equally futile, showcasing a lack of ability to instill the proper
conditions for growth and development. Philip Larkin ends the poem with the
final two stanzas:</span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> “But if he stood and watched the
frigid wind<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Tousling the clouds, lay on the
fusty bed<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Telling himself that this was home,
and grinned<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> And shivered, without shaking off
the dread</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> That how we live measures our own
nature,<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> And at his age having no more to
show<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Than one hired box should make him
pretty sure<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"> He warranted no better, I don’t
know.”</span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
metrics to measure life are clearly applied to Mr. Bleaney, who lived a
transparent life. A complete ghost, who became interred to the structures and
routines of his orderly existence. A man neither in the way or out of the way,
but merely apart of it. Adrift in current. Much like the speaker of “Toads,”
who fantasies about telling his employer to ‘Shove,’ the pension, Mr. Bleaney
is winningly reduced by circumstance and expectation. Those prudent provisions
of life, all the accountancy of what one needs and the transactional exchange
of service or labour to acquire those requirements. The current occupant
questions the lack of material and accomplishments that decorate Mr. Bleaney’s
life, and wonders in turn if this constitutes to a life at all? At no point in
time is Mr. Bleaney remarked as to having any sense of enjoyment or distraction
to partake in. He exists within a complete grey zone. deprived of colour and
void of form. This is Philip Larkin at his most poignant, questioning the fates
and meanings of one’s own life, and the entrapments of living a mediocre life.
Mr. Bleaney cuts a haunting figure, who in Larkins vision removes the
contemplation of the meaning of life away from the ostentatious heights of
philosophical ponderings and theological edicts, and anchors it into the world
through an otherwise shapeless and characterless everyday man, whose entire
life slipped him by, and in its place was an ordered routine and distracted
with the squatting toad work, and obliged in the lack of agency in his life,
never confirming or denying his contentment in his solitary existence.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Philip
Larkin’s poetry can become moored in the mire of cynical pessimism as the
defining doctrine and only authority regarding the notion of realism. Regardless,
Larkin’s poetry does retain a concern for the quotidian details, those
otherwise palpable concerns of life, with all of its daily struggles,
established ruttish routine, immovable social structure, and often soul
crushing realities. Whether or not daily life (or life in general) was but an
exercise in enduring task and chore, or a middlebrow drama in which each of us
were presented with our own scenes and episodes within its never-ending soap
operatic cycles; Larkin proved to be a poet who thought deeply and cared
greatly for the concerns of an existential questioning regarding the meaning to
life; human beings inherent freedom; the physical manifestation of time as both
experience and governing factor; and the ever present reality of death; all the
while lamenting on individuals fated inability to find it, while resigning
themselves to a state of mediocrity. Reading the poem “Mr. Bleaney,” one
particularly mackerel day in February was enough to solicit chills, looking out
into a landscape of varying shades of grey and white with streaks of blue and
clotted cream, accompanied by tuffs of exposed brown freeze-dried grass and
wonder to what extent are you finding yourself neatly wrapped up within the
confines of a mediocre existence, further marked with milestones to signify the
holiday or Christmas dinners with obliging siblings. The case of Mr. Bleaney is
Larkin’s elegy for the nameless, faceless, and shapeless individuals who go
through life in a structured daze; all the while remaining an ominous
forewarning to others to recognize their own life passing them by into a state
of transparency, where the inconsequential, the mediocre, and limited
expectancy becomes the death sentence of good enough and as good as it
gets. </span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thank you for Reading Gentle
Reader<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Take Care<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And As Always<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stay Well Read<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> <br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">M. Mary</span></div>
M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-91745149749256785802024-02-15T20:29:00.010-07:002024-02-17T20:01:44.567-07:00The Housekeeper and the Professor <p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hello Gentle Reader,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Translations of Ogawa Yōko’s
work into English are slim when compared to other languages. What has been
translated, however, has created a sustainable growing interest. Ogawa’s most
recent translated novel “The Memory Police,” became an unintentional relevant
metaphor for the pandemic. A period where the slogan “the new normal,” and “return
to normal,” infiltrated everyday nomenclature, framing individuals’ linguistic relationship
with the events unfolding around them. This of course was a period of public health
measures, mandates, and restrictions; following a cycle of lock downs and easing
of restrictions, then abrupt return to point zero. Throughout the pandemic there
was a continued sense of the world being reduced, redacted, or amputated. Gradually
the concept of normalcy and the individuals own attachment or relationship to
it, was being hollowed out. Inch by inch. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Component by component. It was reduced to a
point where the whole was no longer available, let alone recognizable. In “The
Memory Police,” everyday events, objects, sensations, seasons—an entire
catalogue of reference points—is wormed away by the titular memory police, who
through metaphysical and physical Kafkaesque edicts, reduced the island world. Birds
disappear. Roses become contraband. Perfume evaporates into nothing. The inhabitants
of this world accept the gradual reduction of their lives with complacent
subservience, all the while acknowledging their own self is being erased in the
process. “The Memory Police,” was originally published thirty years ago, and framed
as an allegorical depiction of an authoritarian society subjected to absurd physical
redactions of their world. The novel examined the nature of memory, the art of reminiscence,
the responsibility to remember, and the dangers of forgetting. Ogawa’s “The
Memory Police,” is often juxtaposed against Orwell’s classic “1984,” because its
narrative revolved around a totalitarian state attempting to subjugate an
entire populace to its will, exercising complete control over their lives and
reality.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The two narratives diverge significantly,
however, in both literary intention and execution. Orwell’s novel explores unchecked
political power and the inhumane measures in which authoritarian governments
will take to retain it. The threat of independent thought and language in “1984,”
is the foundation of the novels premise. Big Brother, dominates through a
variety of soft practices, administrative procedures, and physical controls. For
example, the Thought Police manufacture and maintain a cult of personality; while
mass surveillance ensures abject compliance; the Ministry of Truth, disseminates
propaganda, curates historical negation, and destroys any to all information
that runs counter to the states positions or party lines; while the Ministry of
Love takes more physical approach in compliance, through torturing, brainwashing,
interrogating, and if necessary, exterminating dissidence. Orwell’s novel journeys
through the dehumanizing hellscape, proposing the question what does it mean to
live in this kind of society and what are the associated costs and consequences
to resist it? Ogawa Yōko’s “The Memory Police,” never traced or examined the
evils of authoritarian government regimes. The bureaucratic absurdity of the
memory police existed in the periphery a component of the landscape and menacing
shadow circling. Ogawa, fixated the narrative on a small collective of individuals,
who preserve within the oppression of their circumstance. The atmosphere is
intimate and suffocating. A world completely closed off.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Self-contained worlds, liminal
spaces, private interiors, and intimate narratives, is one of the defining features of Ogawa’s
work. In “The Memory Police,” the unnamed island remains severed and cut off from
the rest of the world. In addition to this, the narrator conceals her editor R
in a small room in her house, which is described as being suspended in space. These
otherwise, normal landscapes or scenes, however, are always tilted off kilter. An
atmosphere of dread or menace infiltrates the narratives. A vacant lot is
littered with old appliances, where a boy suffocated to death. An abandoned
post office is full of kiwis. A bakery’s confectionary kingdom is tainted by a
shadow of a woman buying a birthday cake for her dead son. In Ogawa’s fiction
the clean uniform surface of modern conformity society is a superficial façade,
one in which pulled back reveals a grotesque and unacknowledged shadow. The
grotesque does not translate into extreme violence or gore. A turner of subtle,
Ogawa Yōko crafts and curates disquieting inflections tainting or revealing a
shift in a character’s positioning and their interactions with the world that
is slowly growing incomprehensible. Ogawa’s crystalline and placid prose is devoid
of sensationalism and melodramatics, which maintains that Ogawa remains fixated
on the characters perspective and their interaction with a world slowly sinking
into the visceral.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Before the critically
acclaimed publication of “The Memory Police,” in 2019, ten years prior a slim
novel, “The Housekeeper and the Professor,” was published and warmly received
by critics and readers alike. However, “The Housekeeper and the Professor,”
found itself suffering from a poor marketing campaign. The late 2000’s was peak
Murakami Mania with the publication of his long awaited: “1Q84,”, and
publishers have (and remain) eager to capitalize on the next big Japanese literary
export. “The Housekeeper and the Professor,” was adored by the reading public and
critics alike. Yet, the novel was marketed with a lighthearted air, playing up
a narrative that could quite easily become entrapped in kitschy sentimentality
and coated in sweetened saccharine sensibilities. As the novel was marketed as heartwarming
and hallmark oriented, void of more serious literary concerns. Personally, I
kept a safe distance from “The Housekeeper and the Professor,” viewing it
suspicion and disinterest. Similarly, the short story collection “Revenge: Eleven
Dark Tales,” was equally poorly marketed, attempting to pawn off the
interconnected set of short stories as horror stories, which would disappoint
any reader looking for gore, dismemberment, and splattering entertainment. “Revenge,”
instead explored the unacknowledged viscera beneath the complacent surface of polite
society. “The Housekeeper and the Professor,” is not a narrative that has been
excessively sweetened. This is not a novel that could be deemed bubblegum for
the mind. Just as in the “The Memory police,” Ogawa has designed a surrogate
family unite for three characters, who held together by a common thread. In “The
Memory Police,” it’s the subtle resistance to the authorities, by concealing R
who’s capable of retaining and recalling memories, attachments, and sensations
that have since been obliviated. Whereas in “The Housekeeper and the Professor,”
it’s the patterns and subtle intricate beauty of mathematics. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“The Housekeeper and the Professor,”
is narrated by the Housekeeper, a single mother whose past and personal life is
blanched to the point of transparency. An only child raised by a single mother,
her profession is more circumstance and vocation then passionate interest. A single
mother herself, the birth of her son initially caused a fallout between mother
and daughter. The Housekeeper reflects on her own mother’s perseverance at a
casual job, became a venue and event manager. This work ethic and ability to transfigure
difficult circumstances are key survival tactics for a single mother living in
a society where single parenthood is considered a moral failing where mothers
endure relentless discrimination resulting in poverty and social disenfranchisement.
Regardless, the Housekeeper is renowned with her agency for being amicable, agreeable,
and professional, which is why she is dispatched to a client with nine blue
stars listed on their card—any star is a note of a difficult client with
particular needs. The Housekeeper interviews with a woman, who is hiring a housekeeper
for her brother-in-law a brilliant mathematician, who lives in the cottage in
the garden. The catch? Due to an automobile accident, the Professors memory stops
in 1975, and his short-term memory only lasts for eighty minutes:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“It’s as if he has a single, 80-minute videotape inside his head, and
when he records anything new, he has to record over the existing memories.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Aware of his lacking short-term
memory, the Professor has clipped and pinned a variety of notes to his suit, one
specifically reminds him of his lacking memory. Conventional pleasantries are
quickly dismissed. The Professor immediately begins to ask questions regarding shoe
size and telephone number, and showcases his mathematical aptitude for not only
computing but also explaining the theories and equations in practice. When the Professor
learns of that the Housekeeper has a son, he grows insistently concerned for
the boy’s welfare, as he’s provided great autonomy and agency, left at home while
his mother works. The Professor becomes insistent that the Housekeeper bring
her son moving forward, which is in violation of the agencies code of conduct.
The Professor becomes smitten with Housekeeper’s son calling him ‘Root,’ due to
the flatness of his head. The three become a surrogate family, which is woven
through with an appreciation of mathematics and a love of baseball. The remainder
of the novel recounts the episodic encounters, challenges, and trials the
family encounters throughout their daily lives and interactions. Math, however,
is elevated not just as a quirk for the Professor to understand and retreat
into, but becomes the focal point of how he interacts and engages with the
world. His memory may fail him like clockwork, but numbers and equations, their
logic is never changing, remaining a constant point of comfort and security.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It’s an extortionary feat for
a writer to incorporate mathematics with such restrained, grace, and elegant
beauty. The Professor finds comfort in the predictability and pattern recognition
of mathematics. They are natural riddles which are solved, if only to heighten
our understanding of the world. Mathematics and numbers are the foundations and
the scaffolding of the universe and the natural world. Yet, their treatment by
the professor is one akin to a musical or symphonic composition reaching a
harmonic crescendo. Numbers are free from the follies and failures of people,
and in their ordered realm they provide the Professor the means and the escape
to understand the world.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Soon after I began working for the Professor, I realized that he talked
about numbers whenever he was unsure of what to say or do. Numbers were also
his way of reaching out to the world. They were safe, a source of comfort.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As a teacher, the Professor is
the kind of mathematics mentor everyone who has grown up to hate and avoid math
(including myself) has needed. He is a complete 180 to the typical mathematics teacher
who is more interested in sounding off equations and drilling quick
computation. To this day a timed math drill is enough to make me panic. Yet,
the Professor is not interested in the end result or the amount of time it
takes one to linger over a problem, but instead to appreciate the process of
contemplation, understanding the theorem in question, and how mathematics brings
order to a universe which on its surface roils and boils in sustained chaos. He
is far more delighted when the question produces another tangent and another
question. Math becomes a sustained reaction of more questions and possible
answers, but moving ceaselessly forward to heightened levels. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is good reason why
readers fall in love with Ogawa Yōko’s “The Housekeeper and the Professor.” Ogawa
ensnared a trio of mundane characters brought together by chance and
circumstance, and allow their confined space to blossom into an intimate
universe. A simple story of love and friendship transformed and defied the
expectations that it was a novel dripping in sugared mawkish second-hand exaggerated
emotion, when instead it moved beyond the immediate and into the infinite,
contemplating the nature of memory but also the underappreciated poetry and
aesthetic beauty of mathematics and numbers. “The Housekeeper and the
Professor,” is a delicate and sophisticated novel, one which never lingers over
the details but continually expands within the possibilities. Airy would be a
marvelous way to describe this novel, not because of its length or to insinuate
its lacking robust depth or character, but because the language and style is
free of ostentatious posturing. Other writers who might incorporate mathematics
as metaphor or point of interest in their work, would certainly ensure it was a
method to cement and confirm their own cleverness, by shrouding it further in esoteric
complexity. “The Housekeeper and the Professor,” may not convert any to all
suffers of mathematical anxiety to open a math textbook, but it does provide
the context to math’s ability to provide harmony and order to a world,
especially one in which an individual no longer finds themselves instep or in
time with. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">“The Housekeeper and the Professor,” is a masterclass
in understatement that assembles a surprisingly compelling narrative about
three individuals adrift in the world, finding comfort and solace within the infinite
symphonic composition of numbers and the interplay within each other.</span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thank you For Reading Gentle
Reader<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Take Care<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And As Always<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stay Well Read<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">M. Mary </span></div>
M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-4751622059275745842024-02-06T06:41:00.003-07:002024-02-06T06:45:37.948-07:00Food Studies <span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Hello Gentle Reader, <br /><br />Food is a subject that is often conceived and viewed through a utilitarian lens. Food is purposeful. It is a requirement. Common knowledge dictates that basic principles of a survivable existence consist of: clothing, shelter, and food—water is addendum or partner to food. Please note, this is a survivable existence, alluding to an existence of austerity, deprived of comforts and pleasures. The history of food is in turn a history of the human race. From hunting, gathering, and forging, to rustic agricultural settlements, to prevailing feudal systems, and industrialization and so on, food and its production, has been a continual feature of human society. Now more than ever, thanks to international trade, globalization, supply chains and logistical efforts, exotic spices, fruits, and vegetables can be shared around the world. The human palate and plate are no longer segregated into regional and seasonal options, instead its spoiled for choice. Despite this, food insecurity is a rising concern. More and more people are placed in socioeconomic conditions where the basic necessities can no longer be afforded in a hyperinflated world. Shelter has become unaffordable; food is outpricing; while wages are not keeping up to meet the base standards of living. Food, from its production, distribution, consumption and unaffordability, is a key narrative component and metric to the human condition and living conditions throughout history. Despite this, food has never been a subject that I’ve lingered or ruminated over. To reiterate the point, food in my perspective is a subject of utility. <br /><br />Growing up, food was never described or categorized as a cuisine or having culinary allegiances. It was—and I directly quote—fashioned as: “good homestyle cooking.” No frills. Nothing fancy. No fuss. No exceptions. No forays or detours into new territory. The food stayed true to established precedence. My mothers cooking adhered to the cooking of her own childhood, though she made several additions over the years, becoming hallmarks of the menu. Regardless, food was guided by flavour and sustenance. Soups that would chase off the chill. Hearty meals that embraced egalitarian principles and of a good-will welcoming nature. A hallmark of my childhood home dinner table was Sunday roast beef, accompanied by mashed potatoes and gravy, and glazed carrots or mixed vegetables. Other common meals included country fried steak with milk gravy, veal or pork cutlets, perogies and farmers sausage with fried cabbage, macaroni tomatoes and burger (imitation goulash), picnic ham with baked macaroni and cheese, cabbage rolls, and a variety of other casseroles; while chilies and stews were winter hallmarks. Of course, my mother’s signature homemade buns and cinnamon buns, were a well-earned delight everyone looked forward to. Other notable dishes in the repertoire, included Japanese sticky chicken, which consists flour battered drumsticks, pan fried and then backed in a sweet and sour sauce. The meat is absolutely tender melting off the bone. Serve with white rice and a mixed vegetable or fried cabbage and sautéed peppers and onions. You can also substitute the drumsticks for chicken breasts. My mother was also famous for her fried rice, an alchemical rice like goulash, happily incorporating leftover ham, chicken (or turkey), followed by fried bacon and onions, and stir-fried mushrooms, before being mixed together with rice to make a filling one plate dinner. Popular condiments include soy sauce of course, but also a few sprinkles of vinegar. <br /><br />Despite growing up in a household where food was a permanent and abundant fixture, I had no interest or desire or inclination to participate or be a part of the kitchen. Cooking and baking and all other associated synonyms, was viewed as a chore, work, or labour-oriented exercise. No different then vacuuming, sweeping or washing the dishes. Its inherent relation to what was then considered ‘domesticity,’ did not enamor me to it either. I also disagreed with the notion of “good homestyle cooking,” my mother propagated, as her mother had. Homestyle cooking, became the anthem and the slogan which continually signified a small or reduced world. One of limited culture, perspectives, and more frightening, hostile attitudes towards curiosity, cultural interest, or any appreciation for artistic achievements. Homestyle cooking became representational of the otherwise small, narrow, and closed off world that I grew up in. It was a world of limited palate, no taste, and no interest in expansion. The food was routine and repetitive, with a complete lack of interest or sense of culinary theatrics. My mothers’ cookbooks were full of recipes that were routinely overlooked. Some for very good reason, such as tomato aspic. While others carried enchanting curious names such as bubble and squeak or toad in the hole—which were never even glanced at. They were dismissed right from the start based on name alone. I have since personally made bubble and squeak, and have delighted in its simple spiced pleasure, a hodgepodge pancake of mashed potatoes, blanched cabbage, roasted carrots, and onions mixed and fried as one, and served it forth as a side dish with toad in the hole, accompanied by mushroom and onion gravy. My mother praised both; all the while defending her early veto of never cooking either of them. <br /><br />Recipe books may be part of the reason why food is framed within a serviceable context. Afterall recipe books are grimoires of instructions. They lay out the ingredients and subsequent quantities and measurements; provide instructions regarding preparation, mixing, and assembly; then at last cooking requirements, which included temperatures to bake and length of time. Some recipes included recommendations for side dishes or plating for presentation. Not a very exciting read. Nothing that could be called literary. If a new recipe was being tried out, they would be cracked open and referenced. The kitchen in turn would be transformed into a state of chaos, which eventually gave way to a meal. I do not, however, consider writing a recipe or a cookbook the same as food writing. If only, because I perceive cookbook authors and chefs as being more concerned with providing instructional material, not going in lengths regarding historical developments or concerned with introducing literary license or embellishments. This inevitably left me perplexed, wondering what food writing is as a literary mode of expression and exploration. <br /><br />There are of course very famous literary scenes involving food. Marcel Proust’s hallmark madeleine moment, where in lush modernist gilded baroque prose, Proust recounts the act of dipping the pastry into a cup of lime tea, cascades into an overture of memory. The great Scottish poet, Robert ‘Rabbie,’ Burns, wrote a poem: “Address to a Haggis,” and is a famous Scottish poem; which now has its own ceremony commemorated and recited at a Burns Supper on Burns Night (celebrating and honouring the poet’s birthday). There are the poisonous mushroom recipes included in Olga Tokarczuk’s “House of Day, House of Night,” which publishers legally sought to mitigate by advising readers not to indulge in or attempt to cook. Cooking and food also made a subsequent appearance in Doris Lessing’s groundbreaking interior explorative novel, “The Golden Notebook,” where the material acts of life are infused with the psychological complexities of one’s personhood and emotional state: <br /><br /></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“And now the cooking for Michael. I unroll the veal that I remembered to batter out flat this morning; and I roll the pieces in the yellow egg, and the crumbs. I baked crumbs yesterday, and they still smell fresh and dry, in spite of the dampness in the air. I slice mushrooms into cream. I have a pan full of bone-jelly in the ice-box, which I melt and season. And the extra apples I cooked when doing Janet’s lunch, I scoop out of the still warm crackling skin, and sieve the pulp and mix it with thin vanilla’d cream, and beat it until it goes thick; and I pile the mixture back into the apple skins and set them to brown in the oven. All the kitchen is full of good cooking smells; and all at once I am happy, so happy I can feel the warmth of it through my whole body. Then there is a cold feeling in my stomach, and I think: Being happy is a lie, it’s a habit of happiness from moments like these during the last four years. And the happiness vanishes, and I am desperately tired. With the tiredness comes guilt. I know all the forms and variations of this guilt so well that they even bore me. But I have to fight them nevertheless.” </span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />I am also reminded of the peculiar nature of food in Ogawa Yōko’s work, as in the story “Afternoon at the Bakery.” Where in placid prose, Ogawa sketches the complexities of grief a mother feels over her son’s death, while observing a cake decay: <br /><br /></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“First, the cream turned brown and separated from the fat, staining the cellophane wrapper. The strawberries dried out, wrinkling up like the heads of deformed babies. The sponge cake hardened and crumbled, and finally a layer of mold appeared.” </span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />Food takes on a variety of visceral and grotesque forms and appearances throughout Ogawa Yōko’s work. From a woman gorging herself on kiwis, to carrots pulled from the earthen womb in the shape of hands. While in another novella “Pregnancy Diary,” food becomes both obsession and repulsion. In Ogawa’s hands, food is never quite savoury or sweet, but a metaphor and image of the otherwise mundane horrors of domesticity, the torments of feminine expectation, the delirium and break down of existence, and the gradual collapse of one’s psyche, much like the strawberry shortcake rotting on the counter. All wrapped up in prose styled in white confectionary frosting of surrealism, completely deprived of sensationalism. <br /><br />This is still not food writing. Food in these scenes is either mode of narration, metaphor, image, or actionable movement. The concern and nature of the prose is not the subject of food. Food as a subject, however, has occupied the public imagination and adoration for decades now. Especially in the format of television series and competitions. As an individual who views food as a subject of utility, I subscribe to Fran Lebowitz’s perplexed viewpoint regarding the fascination with these shows. Cooking and baking competitions are confounding to me. While I appreciate their ability to showcase a chef or confectioners’ creativity, I do fail to grasp the nuanced points of the matter. Growing up, Julia Child (for instance) was a marvel to watch. But Child’s programing was not competitive in nature. The entire show (The French Chef) was bolstered by the charm and charisma of Julia Child, who invaded the homes of many, usurping TV dinners and prepackaged instant cooking, and changed how food and cooking was to be viewed, not just as a chore, but as a pleasure from conception to creation, and finally to sharing and being amongst great company. I suspect in large part, thanks to Julia Child, fine French cuisine has occupied my thoughts with almost fantasy like quality. Afterall, Child was the one who demystified the legendary complexities of French cuisine for the North American public. The legendary fickle gourmet food became accessible and approachable. Not that it ever found itself served on the kitchen table of my childhood. Still, Julia Child was a chef and cook book author, not necessarily a practitioner of food writing. <br /><br />Dining out is one of those bewildering experiences. Both theatre of the gourmand and the spectacle hell of public ingesting. Dining is best done with good company. Good company and conversation will make a hell of a difference. Not only on the ambience of the establishment but on the food. All minor infractions and disappointments can be overlooked when experienced in good company. Food writing as a literary topic, began to occupy my thoughts in the late summer of last year. I was meeting up with friends at a new local restaurant for a meal and to catch up. The place itself was uninspiring. Another place that could be defined as generic or a devotee of “good homestyle cooking.” The menu consisted of the stalwart staples: a variety of burgers, from typical cheese, to bacon, to mushroom, to the loaded option; sandwiches such as ham and Swiss, club house, turkey bacon, BLT, and brisket (I believe quesadilla was included); followed by the signature entrees such as liver and onions, veal cutlet, lasagna, spaghetti and meatballs, chicken alfredo; a myriad selection of salads, and then a small menu for dessert which included chocolate cake, cheese cake, and a pie (I believe apple). This menu could easily have been repeated at any other eatery across town. I recalled having the brisket sandwich with a side of fries, and thinking to myself: this is all otherwise rather uninspired. The food is repetitive no matter where you went. Diners will routinely and without fail continually find the same menu options, regardless if they were, be it at this greasy spoon or the one three blocks away. I found the state of food in turn sad and underwhelming. It seems I am trapped in a hell styling itself “good homestyle cooking,” and I want to scream. From what I recall of the sandwich in question was what one expected. It was slices of brisket, topped with cheddar cheese, contained between two thick toasted slices of bread topped with a pickle. The waitress recommended dipping into barbeque sauce for extra flavour. The French fries were regular run of the mill deep fried fries. Though I do recall the unsettling feeling of greasiness being attributed to the meal. A sentiment shared by my company, which livened the occasion up, at which point the meal could be overlooked in favour of the conversations facilitated at the table. <br /><br />After this incident I contemplated food as a literary subject. From reminiscing about Julia Child and her legendary editor Judith Jones (who wrote her own cookbook: “The Pleasures of Cooking for One: A Cookbook,”) to discovering essayists who topics of interest were food, which included the poet of the appetites herself, M.F.K Fisher and her British compatriot Elizabeth David. In their hands, food was not a subject of utility and sustenance—fulfillment and nourishment were of course intricate components to their writings, both in a physical sense but also nurturing the metaphysical soul of oneself—it also included ruminations on food within cultural and historical context, via travels, and their own perspectives on food. M.F.K Fisher remains renowned for her book: “How to Cook a Wolf,” which is often described as a survivalist guide to cookery during hardship, rations, and scarcity of resources. “How to Cook a Wolf,” remains a complex piece of work, one which completely refuses to be cook book, war protest, essay, or novel, it remains established as a book of pure literary concern and not necessarily one of cooking concern, one which routine renewed interest is reinspired with when disaster, catastrophe, and tragedy strikes. If anything, “How to Cook a Wolf,” is a testament to the necessity to live, be it purely, sincerely, or simply, the end resolve must be to live. Elizabeth David helped elevate English cooking (often mocked for its own chastising prudish Englishness) beyond the grey austerity, and postwar rationing and become enlivened with herbs and spice of foreign abodes and locales. Both M.F.K Fisher and Elizabeth David, reviewing food within a context beyond practical concerns. Food, dining, and eating was a journey not only in culinary composition, but of personal growth, an expansion of palate and perspective, and an appreciation of other cultures, histories, and people. For M.F.K Fisher, French cuisine was the catalyst that changed her world and understanding of food, far from the milquetoast food that was currently on offer in her childhood California home. Whereas Elizabeth David embraced French provincial cooking and Mediterranean cooking, introducing them to English reading public in turn. <br /><br />As for myself, I’ve picked up the wooden spoon and done battle against the prevailing “good homestyle cooking,” that is the prevailing cooking philosophy of not only today, but of yesterday, and quite possibly tomorrow. I want frills. I want fancy. I want fuss. I want to enjoy good food, food that is different, pleasurable, and completely deprived of the continued philosophy of homestyle cooking. In that regard, the internet is the great equalizer. Recipes galore—though ingredients might be more difficult to come by. Regardless, I’ve expanded my culinary palate and stopped looking at cooking as a bothersome chore. However, make no mistake Gentle Reader, I would not call it a pleasure either. Before cooking came out of necessity. Lately, its more out of interest. Recent conquests included ratatouille, which I had no interest in trying due to a bad experience with aubergine (eggplants), they are bitter and tough. Turns out you just need to understand their preparation. I’ve mastered a Japanese curry, which is a hearty, sweet and extremely flavourful stew that is best served with fluffy white rice. I’ve indulged in quiche Lorraine and a marvelous fresh mustard vinaigrette salad during the summer. Perhaps my most laborious accomplishment though is my tourtière, a truly masterful meat pie, savoury and perfectly spiced. Despite its work, its a decadent dish, whose rewards cannot be overstated. In turn, I’ve also found myself enjoying the company of M.F.K Fisher and Elizabeth David, who were adamant that one should eat well without apology. To them, food is not just a matter of sustenance to be served forth, eaten, digested, rinse and repeat, it’s an act of indulgence, appreciating seasonal ingredients and the transformative power of spices and aromatics, to create lasting dishes and formative relationships. In their regard, food was best enjoyed either as a private affair or with great company. Fisher and David, are enjoyable in their treatment of food, elevating it beyond the didactic, and embracing the lyrical and the contemplative within the culinary, domestic, and kitchen-oriented hemisphere, where one doesn’t just eat what is placed in front of them without comment, thought, or any interest, but instead takes consideration regarding what it is they are consuming, and evaluating the enjoyment of it. <br /><br />Understanding food within a context not just reduced to mere utility has been a delight. Its literary depictions are often imagistic and metaphorical; a springboard in purpose; or actionable material leading to further digressions and explorations. Recipe books are marvelous, but again instructional in nature. They are the grimoires to any kitchen, the necessary workbooks and study material to fashion a dinner or dessert. While, enjoying the food orientated writings of writers such as M.F.K Fisher and Elizabeth David, embrace the nuanced study of food as a subject of the individual and the societal collective. In turn beneath splendid tables spread out with a service of banquet and meal, there lurks a shadow that dodges, follows, and haunts. M.F.K Fisher in particular wrote about appetite’s, from hunger to fulfilment. The act of eating is in turn the act of taking away. The trade off, if you will. The cow is butchered to provide stewing meat; the potato is wretched from the earth to be peeled and boiled; while the oyster be it alive or stewed goes down the throat. Death is the end for us all, so you might as well eat well before the inevitable happens.<br /> <br />Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader<br />Take Care<br />And As Always<br />Stay Well Read<br /> <br />M. Mary <br /><br /> <br />—Post Script—<br /> <br />For readers a little more curious about literary food and recipes pulled from the works of literature, I would recommend the “<a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/eat-your-words/"><span style="color: #f1c232;">Eat Your Words</span></a>,” column archive by Valerie Stivers via The Paris Review. It’s a delightful read. </span>
M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-8599959704100523952024-01-29T17:43:00.004-07:002024-01-29T17:43:47.507-07:00N. Scott Momaday Dies Aged 89<span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Hello Gentle Reader, <br /><br />N. Scott Momaday is often remarked and remembered as a legendary figure and foundational pillar in the Native American Renaissance literary movement, his groundbreaking and trail brazing novel: “House Made of Dawn,” was the first work by a Native American writer to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1969. Originally conceived as a poetry collection, “House Made of Dawn,” shifted and evolved into N. Scott Momaday’s most breathtaking novel, which became a cornerstone for Native American studies and anthologized work. The novel incorporates circular narrative structure, common in native American oral story traditions, while introducing modernist literary techniques such as stream of consciousness, multiple character perspectives, and a disjointed narrative to trace a Native American veterans disaffected return to society in the postwar society, and his gradual spiritual remediation. The novel is complex, defying both expectations of its content, while introducing readers to literary forms and cultures that were previously unknown to them. Most importantly, however, “House Made of Dawn,” encapsulated a prevailing literary theme for N. Scott Momaday, which was self-defining and actualization. These themes were further explored in “The Way to Rainy Mountain,” an impressive literary piece encompassing history, ethnography, folklore, and poetic memoir, tracing Momaday’s Kiowa heritage. Once again, the work encompasses different compositional methods and voices to provide an overlapping understanding of oneself, time, culture and history. “The Way to Rainy Mountain,” is prescribed as rudimentary reading for newcomers to Native American culture, history, and literary composition which again showcases N. Scott Momaday as not just a writer but a keen scholar and academic. Poetry remained N. Scott Momaday’s favourite literary expression, and critics often declared his poetry exceptional and highly original. Subsequent publications broached a hybrid between poetry and prose. As a scholar, N. Scott Momaday became an expert on oral storytelling traditions, delineating the oral storytelling traditions and ritual of passing down knowledge, history, and cultural significance through tales by Native American’s is not inferior to the written or recorded text, but as much its equal if not even superior, for its roots go back thousands upon thousands of years, when language existed within an ephemeral state without material vessel. N. Scott Momaday may be remembered for his debut novel “House Made of Dawn,” and blazing the path for fellow Native American writers such as Joy Harjo, Louise Erdrich, and Thomas King, to enter the mainstream and occupy and be appreciated by the literary masses and establishment; but most importantly, N. Scott Momaday applied literary theory and criticism to traditional modes of storytelling and recitation, enshrining them within a literary establishment, recognizing their merit and cultural significance.</span><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader<br />Take Care<br />And As Always<br />Stay Well Read<br /> <br /><br />M. Mary
</span> </div>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-76105747430510570102024-01-28T09:51:00.000-07:002024-01-28T12:15:00.966-07:00 – XXIV – <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">When dissent is replaced with deference, the soul of society, of human achievement, and ingenuity is lost. Criticism is never pleasant, but it aerates the otherwise stagnant placid soil of mediocrity.</span></div>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-45792086838540215942024-01-18T06:30:00.008-07:002024-02-01T11:04:45.983-07:00A Man’s Place<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hello Gentle Reader,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Annie Ernaux’s literary
language is a focal point of discussion for both readers and critics. Ernaux’s
language operates in complete contrast to her subject matter, which is often
excruciatingly personal, bordering on the voyeuristically testimonial. It is Ernaux’s
literary language which ultimately saves her work from being tarnished or
decreed as tabloid sensationalism and oriented to solicit shock value
reactions. By maintaining a language of neutrality, an otherwise <i>blanche </i>prose
style, Ernaux is able to write candidly about intrapersonal and interpersonal
affairs, including those of an otherwise intensly personal and private nature, be it sexual/extra-martial affairs or botched
abortions. The dissociative tone employed ensures the language is bleached,
starched and ironed. Then processed further and refined into a state where all
the sentimentality, sensationalism, and expressionism are blanched into a state
of colourlessness. This is aptly described as “clinical acuity,” as referenced
in the Swedish Academy’s citation when awarding Annie Ernaux, the Nobel Prize
in Literature. The rendering of exhumed and examined personal experience,
relationships, and observations into a state of placid neutrality are the
hallmarks of Annie Ernaux’s literary career, and are the defining features of
her style and literary language. In describing her literary career, Ernaux
described herself as a personal-ethnographer, and her association with
sociological thought and analysis is deeply rooted in her examinations of the
personal in relation to the greater social narrative, historical positioning and collective memory. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ernaux’s Nobel Lecture is
titled and styled: “I Will Write to Avenge My People,” where Ernaux invokes
Rimbaud both through the prayer and the anthem:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“I am of an inferior race for all eternity.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This affirms Annie Ernaux as
not just a writer of purely literary interest, but a writer of sociological observation,
documentation, analysis and engagement, which inevitably means it will swerve
into political dimensions. Literature and political thought and opinion are not
mutually exclusive. Literature is equal parts weapon, vehicle and tool of political
ideologies. In return, literature is equal critic and agitator, a space of
intellectual inspiration and safe haven of freedom of speech. In short: public
enemy number one, for those who seek to wield unlimited political power. The
words: “I Will Write to Avenge My People,” were first written in a diary of a
young Annie Ernaux, affirming to the author that her literary output will be
intensely focused on the inadequacies, inequalities, and perceived injustices
that were leveraged against her heritage. This clearly can be reviewed in one
of her monumental analysis’s: “A Man’s Place,” a short examination of her
father’s life, including the prescribed social disadvantages that were
leveraged against him and his struggle to alleviate himself of his
circumstances and fashion himself and his subsequent family a better life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What separates Annie Ernaux
from the classic French poet Rimbaud in his statement: “I am of an inferior
race for all eternity,”— is that Ernaux does not employ language as an
imaginative response to transfigure and elevate situations, circumstances, and
experiences into a new reality; instead, Ernaux uses language as the necessary
surgical instruments and implements to dispel the fog and uncertainties of
memory. All the implanted pleasantries and falsities are plucked, pulled, and
weeded out. After surgical removal, begins the process of autopsy, examining
the intricacies of a life deprived of sentimentality and preferable treatment.
All that matters is austere honesty. As Ernaux confess, when first seeking to
write a novel regarding her father as the main character, it ultimately failed
due to the artistic licensing that betrayed the genuine life that her father
lived and experienced. Instead Ernaux concluded, the only way she would be able
to treat her father as a literary subject would be to:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“[…] If I wish to tell the story of life governed be necessity, I have
no right to adopt an artistic approach, or attempt to produce something
“moving” or “gripping.” I shall collate my fathers’ words, tastes and
mannerisms, as well as the main events of his life. In short, all the external
evidence of his existence, an existence which I too shared.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“No lyrical reminisces, no triumphant displays of irony. The neutral way
of writing comes to me naturally. It was the same style I used when I wrote
home telling my parents the latest news.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What follows </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">is a succinct
portrait of a man whose life was incubated in shade, shame, and adversity, and
a quiet singular ambitious goal to rise out of pre-established social classes
and predestined circumstances fitting of the time, and make a respectable life.
Ernaux’s father was born at the turn of the century (1899) to a carter (farm
labourer), who resisted his conditions of his social stature by exerting his
masculinity. To no surprise he was a man of limited education and illiterate,
and would fly into a rage if he found (or caught) his children reading. The
home is described as having an earth floor and thatched roof. What today might
be called a proper rustic cottage. Ernaux’s father was pulled from school at
the age of 12 to begin earning his keep, working on the same farm as his
father. Though the job provided minimal money (at once point described as pocket
change) his position provided lodging and food (he would sleep above the
stables), and his laundry would be done for him once a week. Unlike his own
father, however, Ernaux’s own father was not illiterate. Regardless, pastoral farmhand life
came to an abrupt end as industrialization took hold of the nation and the
first World War I broke out and ended. In this time, he worked in a rope
factory and would meet his future wife:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“When he came back, he never wanted to go
back to “culture.” That’s how he called farming. The other meaning of culture,
the spiritual one, did no good to him.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">What
follows is the definitively personal caught up in the waves of the historical.
The economic fallout of 1929, the Second World War and the post-war economic
boom. Throughout it at all, Ernaux traces her fathers upwelling social
movements, moving out of the social class of indentured farmhand and factory
worker into a property owner and grocer-café owner. Despite elevating himself
into a state of entry level middle class, Ernaux examines how her father’s
early life of <i>culture </i>that is labour oriented work and its lacking
manners and refined language, still dodge him and maintain his anchorage in a
lower social circle. Her father’s work is not without benefit or success, as it
afforded and facilitated Annie Ernaux’s own social upwelling into more sustainable
economic and social classes, while granting her further opportunity to study
and continue her education. Ernaux confirms through her academic aptitude and
excellence is key to moving into gentrified circles. This also becomes a point
of division, which ultimately emancipates herself from her father, who despite
fixing a better life for himself and establishing a foundation for his daughter
to move into more professional careers and obtain a proper bourgeoise marriage,
she is ultimately separated from her father, loosing common ground and a sense
of equality. This can clearly be seen in Annie Ernaux’s first marriage, where
her husband (a man from an established bourgeoise family) does not visit her
family in their small grocery-café in Normandy, as referenced and mulled over in
the biting realization of the polar opposites of their worlds:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“What could a man brought up in
middle-class circles—where people got degrees and cultivated the art of
irony—possibly have to say to <i>honest</i>, <i>hard-working people </i>like my
parents? Although he acknowledged their kindness, in his yes it would never
replace a lively, witty conversation, sadly lacking in their case. In his
family, for instance, if someone broke a glass, one would immediately cry out:
“Touch it not, for it is broken!” a quote from Sully Prudhomme’s poem <i>Le
Vase Brisé</i>).”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In
writing “A Man’s Place,” Annie Ernaux does not remediate her father’s life,
turning it into a literary feast of lyricism or poignant reminisces. It is
however an account of one man’s life from hardship to eventual enjoyment, even
if it takes into considerable suffering and estrangement along the way.
Ernaux’s completely colourless prose is what makes “A Man’s Place,” a
successful review of one’s life. By eschewing sentimentality, forced lyricism,
and creating any fictional review of the life, Ernaux encapsulates her father
as a complex man who rose from an era that is forgotten and limitedly
documented. In one telling anecdote regarding her father’s upbringing, Annie
Ernaux recounts the stark contrast between the vision and world of her father’s
time as described in books to that of his own account:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“When I read Proust or Mauriac, I don’t
think that they write about the time when my father was a child. His
background, it was the Middle Ages.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“A
Man’s Place,” shows Annie Ernaux at her best, her literary endeavour to capture
the sociological and ethnographic of the times, to examine memory without
nostalgia or infused with sentimentality, but provide context, narrative, and
understanding of the times. Writing about her father, provided acute
observation of her father’s life and its trajectory, one that was completely
different and alien to her own, but is also intrinsically woven within her
character, and a part of her personal history, but also a component of the
entire history of French society, but is just conveniently overlooked. In
writing about her father, Annie Ernaux has reconciled the man and the memory
with herself, while bring to light the class divisions and social neglect
within French society, and their realities melting away in the post-war years,
as more and more individuals found further and further opportunity outside of
their working-class upbringing. But the question that lingers afterwards is,
who is left behind?</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thank you For Reading Gentle
Reader<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Take Care<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And As Always<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stay Well Read</span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">M. Mary <o:p></o:p></span></p>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-4923868022151717182024-01-11T06:12:00.010-07:002024-01-11T06:12:40.378-07:00Old Rendering Plant <p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hello Gentle Reader,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Time is experienced and rarely
observable. Its passage is the thread stitched into daily life. While routinely
checked and even brushed against, it’s never explicitly observed with great
intensity. The tick and tocks of clocks ripple through many lives. In unison
they fall back and spring forward. An individual’s relation to time is
impersonable, all the while being the defining and guiding structure of their
lives. No longer just the stitch of order, but the scaffolding of governance,
the conductor of days, the accountancy of the hours and minutes, scrutinizer of
seconds, the auditor of the rhythm of one’s life. Time and age are primordial
components of the material and corporeal universe. Human beings have only
provided it a shape and form beyond the celestial cycle and seasonal nature.
What follows is both adaption, evolution, ingenuity and advancement. The old is
not merely cast off. Not easily erased. Instead, it is readily abandoned. Its
vanguard marches towards new horizons. What’s left behind is ghost and
remnants. Eroded memories of former gilded ages. What immediately springs to
mind is Detroit, the poster child of the post-industrialist and post-capitalist
society as the world entered a new globalized era and domestic defenses and
protective measures were chipped away and sold off or resourced and outsourced
elsewhere (cynically of course, to locales where safety and labour laws were
either non-existent or unenforced). Detroit has become that haunted city of
glory and ruin. Photographic evidence, documentaries, reports, statistics,
everything describes a city in continued and sustained collapse. An apocalyptic
landscape of neglected infrastructure. Abandoned public works. Warehouses
remain as tombstones of echoed emptiness. Homes (once beautiful thriving
communities) are entombed, boarded up, haunted by memories of their past
occupants, now housing squatters and the equal dispossessed and despondent
within their walls. The soul of the city in palliative care. Those otherwise
kind and well-meaning hands prone to fumbles and apologies. This decay. This
concrete rot. This urban decomposition is not exclusive to the cities. Though
remarkable in photographic evidence, conjuring the dark poetic romanticism of
Poe, the capture of that otherwise urban gothic with its broken windows,
water-stained concrete, bright, brilliant, and vulgar graffiti. This stillness
and collapse mark the past and apprehensively looks to the horizon with
uncertainty. The prairies are full of decay and desolation. The difference,
where cities—beautiful urban centres of light and life—exist within their
defined borders and city limits, and as beacons brighten the path and light up
the sky, beckoning for all night time travelers to hither; the prairies are
lost within their own all-consuming expanse. Their endless nihilistic
nothingness of long blue skies and herds of clouds, to grasslands or farmlands
that stretch ever forward and always onward, remaining out of the way not as a
point of exclusivity, but as a mere fact of reality. Out there is the
periphery. Littered amongst the afterthought of the urbane, are buildings and
communities in minor key, collapsing in on themselves. Homes left abandoned.
Gardens overgrown. Business closed up and boarded. Those once great cathedrals
of the prairies (grain elevators) are out of step and out of time. Demolished
and destroyed. Now reduced to memories and afterimages. Further along are barns
and homesteads pock marked amongst the vastness as skeletal remains or fossils.
In their exaggerated German expressionistic poses, they remain. This is also
the world of Wolfgang Hilbig as depicted in his novel “Old Rendering Plant,” an
East German community that exists in various states of industrial and
post-industrial decay, in a communist society that not only facilitates this
decay but orchestrates, engineers, and designs it. The social structure can
only be described as one in routine deterioration.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Before Krasznahorkai László
was dubbed the master of the apocalypse, the title would have easily been
applied to the Wolfgang Hilbig, whose prose is dense as it is darkly lyrical,
an uncontrolled monologue of stream of consciousness prose with a penchant for
metaphor and repetition, refining the imagery into further and further layers,
providing both observations and impressions of a community of no defining
features or character, but one that exists within a state of sustained decline.
Wolfgang Hilbig’s narrator is an unnamed and unidentified man, whose place
within time is never placeable. At first a child left to his own devices
explores further and further into the landscape, into the reaches until its
dark:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“I recalled a brook outside town whose current, strangely shimmering,
sometimes milky, I once followed for miles all autumn or longer, if only hoping
to emerge one day from a territory confined, I’ll admit it at last, by the
bounds of my weariness.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Each exploration, each journey
takes him further and further into the industrial landscape, overgrown with vegetation,
and always darkening upon his return home, where in the facelessness of the
apartment, he makes his excuses for routinely tardy defiance of curfew and
parental parameters. Chided, scolded, and remanded to his room without supper,
his childlike Odessey into the post-industrial landscape continues, taking on
increasingly surreal and vicious form:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“The willows . . . seemed to metamorphose into fantastic creatures, the
spawn of some freakishly fertile subsoil, ugly crippled excrescences that
through their degeneration had come into power and evil.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">All the while the vanished and
the disappeared (speculated to be victims of the Stasi), become a silhouette of
a shadow that routinely flints in and out of the narrators’ recollections. His
family members (faceless and shapeless shadows unto themselves) sit at the
dinner table, listening to the radio rattle on the list of those who have disappeared.
The last fact of their presence and existence being the recitation of their
names, which in one instance form as an incantation for the narrator as they
drift to sleep:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“All this time the name had failed to come, remained missing…all this
time other names murmured away at me, similar, barely distinguishable names,
identical names that bored and sapped me, following me into my dreams to bring
void and vertigo—but I knew they were still there when I woke, studding the
ceiling, fading only for seconds in the darts of light that shot through the
curtains, giving me a second time to fall asleep with sonorous sawing that
scarcely differed from the from the sawing and rasping of the names…rasping
like small but assiduous waves on the shore, trickling up the far-too-large
adult bed in which I lay crosswise and head down in a swaying, spinning voyage
beneath the twilight of letters impossible to dim as, beneath the moon’s
burning baby-face, I drifted out on the empty, watery fields of my dreams:…<i>seeking
Schiller, Frank…Shiller, Franz. . . schiller, Franz Heinrich. . .Schiller,
Franz Otto…Schiller, Friedrich…seeking Schiller, Fritz…Schiller, Gustav…</i>”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">There is no real answer for
the narrator’s childhood sojourns into the landscape. One rationale provided is
childhood fascination with times transition. These threshold moments of the
days when the predefined expire and transfigure into a new entity. This
disembodiment of time fascinates and compels in how it warps the landscape and
changes the perspective. Then of course is the physical exploration for getting
to the matter of the heart of darkness, the wretchedness and labourious bedrock
which secures this otherwise dead society. First forays of course, provide an
inventory of losses or abandonment: an old coal mine; a watermill which
provides refugee for savage Easterners; but finally, the actual old rendering
plant, a hellscape in its own right, encircled in a reputation that immediately
evokes disgust in other residents, the workers of the plant looked upon with
revulsion due to the nature of their work. They are cast out and alienated. The
plant itself spews greased smoke and pollutes the brook. Despite being a
manufacturing facility to render cleaning agents, the workers of the plant are
described as having a particular perfume a scent all their own. As an individual
with no further prospects for further education, our narrator is adrift when it
comes to discussions of his future, his prospect being technical training or apprenticeship,
and instead, as if by rebellion or pure carelessness decides to work in the
rendering plant (Germania II). To lower himself further into the ruin, the
grease smoked air of rendered and reduced animal parts, establishing himself as
an outsider. What follows suit is a monologue and protest, a revolt against the
communist system and the party, and all the workers of the world it supposedly
represents.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Wolfgang Hilbig is a master of
atmosphere, curating and disorienting it. Sentence by long sentence weaves
through this slim novel, twisting and looping back on itself. “Old Rendering
Plant,” is an onion like narrative, continually being peeled and returning to
some dissembled focal point, before branching in another path or falling down
another hole. At the heart of it lies a core rotten, greasy ridden and rendered
into a noxious poison, which ironically produces the required cleaning agents
to maintain the cleanliness of good home and health. Hilbig’s prose easily
eclipses both Krasznahorkai László and Jon Fosse’s, being the forefather and
progenitor, while happily plunging into the darkness of the existential,
finding neither hope nor salvation within its darkness, but merely the parts
worth reduction into the process of repurposing. “Old Rendering Plant,” is not
an easy read, despite its physical length being quite consumable, Wolfgang
Hilbig proves himself to be a master and wielder of the sentence, delighting in
changing the form or disrupting perspective or introducing some new image and
exploring its exaggerated components with frightening detail. I look forward to
re-reading “Old Rendering Plant,” again in the future, and this time sitting
down with the intention of reading it out loud, in order to follow and flow
with the with the narrative, its cadences, its rhymes, and as well as marveling
at Wolfgang Hilbig’s mastery of longwinded sentences, breathtaking in their
extended strokes, the complete opposite to the pointillism of Herta Müller. It
is interesting to wonder, if “Old Rendering Plant,” is allegorical in its
composition? Hilbig of course denied the charge, refuting the claims that it
allegorized or metaphorized the former East German state and the Stasi or the
Holocaust; and while it’s easy to say that allegory is lazy interpretation,
“Old Rendering Plant,” does appear to render and boil down German history from
the Third Reich to the Holocaust to communist East German, as a way of
expunging the past in order to greet the future, with all its grease smoke
filled skies.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thank you For Reading Gentle
Reader<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Take Care<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And As Always<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stay Well Read<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">M. Mary </span></div>
M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-82790213203349744822024-01-04T14:19:00.003-07:002024-01-04T17:56:01.398-07:00The Nobel Prize in Literature Nominations 1973<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hello
Gentle Reader,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In
1973 the Nobel Prize in Literature moved beyond its pre-established borders and
introduced a new continent into its purview, when it was announced that the
Australian writer Patrick White was the years Nobel Laureate in Literature with
the citation:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“For an epic and psychological narrative
art which has introduced a new continent into literature.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is a somewhat tongue and cheek tone to
the citation concerning the part: “[…] which has introduced a new continent
into literature,”— as before receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature, Patrick
White was not popular among Australian readers and citizens. White’s writing was
rooted in established staunch European and English literary traditions, and did
not break any new ground either literary or geographically, but was a consummate
novelist in his own right. Interestingly enough, Patrick White’s debut novel “Happy
Valley,” was never re-issued in his lifetime, having only be reprinted in 2012,
in commemorating White’s centennial birthday. “Happy Valley,” was written while
White was a jackaroo, a job that his parents thought would be suitable to
finally stamp out his sensitives, proclivities, and artistic ambitious for a
career as a writer. In short it failed. White’s initial years as a stockman and
agricultural worker of the land, proved to be dismal and unfulfilling, all the
while establishing that he had neither the grit nor aptitude for the work. “Happy
Valley,” in turn provides the debut of Patrick White’s European sensibilities that
have been thrusted into a harsh and wild landscape that is both unforgiving and
unwelcoming. Written in fragrant modernist style and producing a polyphonic stream-of-consciousness
narrative stream. White made it very clear he was not a writer of egalitarian ideals,
but relished in high culture with no interest in engaging in philistine
merriment that was consumed and disseminated around him. “Happy Valley,” describes
a remote community in the South East corner of Australia, desolate and
beautiful it recounts the hardscape life of the inhabitants of the land, where
everyone has a story regarding loss and loneliness and longing for escape, all
the while being incapable of completely wrenching themselves from it into
emancipation and liberty. Instead through distinct voices and vivid
psychological cadence, Patrick White displays the characters forsake escape and
resign themselves to sorrowful acceptance of their otherwise ordinary lives. “Happy
Valley,” introduces the main concerns of Patrick White’s literary preoccupation
with the extraordinary in the ordinary, depicted in intense psychological character
studies, whereby the characters are imbued with a sense of intuitive and
spiritual understanding of their otherwise pedestrian lives, which inevitably grants
them further insight into their condition, by which language fails to
adequately express their complexities in an external environment and so they
are classified as deranged, eccentric, and delusional and cast out further and
retreat increasingly inward. In this, Patrick White is a consummate psychological
writer, exploring and spelunking ever further into the depths of consciousness and
the interior realms of his characters.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In
his subsequent novels: “The Aunt’s Story,” The Tree of Man,” “Voss,” “The Vivisector,”
and “The Eye of the Storm,” Patrick White became the Australian explorer of the
existential, but was still regarded in his homeland as being one with a European
soul and had forsaken the ruff and tumble straightforward style of postcolonial
Australia, for the complex and difficult modernism as the prevailing literary
fashion of the time. In short, White’s reception in Australia would always be
marked with muted response and remains so. Despite time abroad, returning to
Australia and marveling at its intense geography and landscape instilled within
White a sense of humility. “The Tree of man,” is considered Patrick White’s
defining novel and his breakout success. “The Tree of Man,” places a microscope
and focuses on the lives of the Parker family and their homestead within the
Australian outback. The ordinariness of the everyday is transfigured within heightened
poetic details and exploration of the psychological dimensions, proving that
Patrick White had the European soul which alienated him so from the Australian
literary, all the while recounting and celebrating the majestic beauty of the
Australian landscape. Ordinary existence is never treated as mundane, it is heightened
and exalted within a literary style that is complex and meandering to mimic the
human experience of thought and relation to time. “The Tree of Man,” affirmed
Patrick White as the premiere Australian modernist writer, one whose appreciation
of Greek mythology as allegory, Judaeo-Christian mysticism, Jungian psychological
theories, and a penchant for Joycean complexities and Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness
ensure he was appreciated as a serious writer of high literary calibre.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In
his award ceremony speech, Artur Lundkvist sought to balance out the Swedish
Academy’s citation by both celebrating the introduction of the Australian-Oceanic
continent into the literary pantheon by praising Patrick White’s exploration,
display, and praise of the Australian landscape, by comparing him to great
Australian pictorial artists of the time: Sidney Nolan and Russell Drysdale;
but in turn focused on White’s literary achievements, which are less concerned
with the preoccupations of Australian perspective, and instead are fixated experiences,
perceptions, problems, and living situations which are intensely individualized,
bypassing the provincial or national concerns, and moving into the universal and
existential questioning of the human condition. In short, Artur Lundkvist
praises the contrary insoluble qualities of Patrick White’s literary work, the harmonizing
of the epic and poetic within the otherwise ordinary (albeit alienated/outsider)
life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">As
a Nobel Laureate, Patrick White’s laureateship was less political than his predecessors,
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1970) and Pablo Neruda (1971). This ultimately took the
edge off of the prize to evade another heated debate regarding literary merit
vs political posturing and pandering. The reception of Patrick White’s laureateship
was equally ceremoniously without issue, and the debate within the Swedish
Academy was civil. Of course, this was not the first time Patrick White had
been discussed or nominated. In the year prior he was on the shortlist with winner
Henrich Böll, and future laureates Eugenio Montale (1975) Günter Grass (1999). While
in 1971, Patrick White was included on the shortlist along with W.H Aude, André
Malraux, and Eugenio Montale.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">A
total of 101 writer were nominated for the award in 1973. The shortlist for
1973 was as follows:</span></p>
<p style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Patrick White (Laureate for 1973)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Saul Bellow (would win 1976)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Anthony Burgess<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">William Golding (would win 1983)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Eugenio Montale (would win 1975)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yiannis Ritsos</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">After
the votes had been tallied the Swedish Academy decided on a majority that
Patrick White would be the suitable laurate for the year. Saul Below with five
votes was a close second, and the then Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Karl
Ragnar Gierow, threw his preferable support behind Saul Bellow and Yiannis
Ritsos, who got four votes. Anthony Burgess, William Golding, and Eugenio
Montale each received three votes. Of these three, Eugenio Montale would go on
win the award in 1975 and can be considered the last great Italian poet of the
20<sup>th</sup> century to receive the honour. While, William Golding, the
small British phenomenon of no importance (to quote, Artur Lundkvist) would go
on to receive the award in 1983, and is remembered for his dreary and drab
parabolic novel “The Lord of the Flies.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It
is interesting to see the Greek poet Yiannis Ritsos being discussed. No doubt his
name will crop up again in the subsequent years and a debate come to head
between himself and Odysseus Elytis, both with extremely different poetry
differences. Despite hating being referenced as a ‘political poet,’ Yiannis
Ritsos poetry was renowned for cutting its teeth in the political arena and
discourse, as Ritsos was politically aligned to the left and was a documented Communist
Party member. Unsurprisingly, Ritsos found himself routinely persecuted and
imprisoned for his political allegiances and involvement. In 1975 Yiannis
Ritsos received the Lenin Peace Prize, which the poet famously remarked meant
more to him then the Nobel Prize. Over the 1970’s it is likely that Yiannis
Ritsos will continue to be discussed as a potential laureate and maybe viewed as
an oppositional figure to sunlight infused surrealism of his countrymen Odysseus
Elytis.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Other
notable nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973 included:</span></p>
<p style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Elie Wiesel (32 nominations)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">W.H. Auden (12 nominations)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">André Malraux (8 nominations)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">André Chamson (5 nominations)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Juline Green (5 nominations)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Gyula Illyés (5 nominations)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Vladimir Nabokov (5 nominations)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">It
has become apparent by this time, that the Swedish Academy had confirmed their
resignation to disavow W.H. Auden from being considered any further due to his
advancing age. Auden, in turn died September 29, 1973 at 66 years old, which by
todays standards would still have put him in viable contention. André Malraux
also found himself now firmly seated on the back bench of the Swedish Academy. Interesting
that Elie Wiesel was nominated with such vigor, and while it does not surprise me
that he was nominated, considering his monumental and poignant work “Night.” Wiesel
would go on receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, not only for his literary
production but for his continued humanitarian work. In the case of Vladimir
Nabokov, the Swedish Academy had made their positions on his work very clear,
as they found the work “Lolita,” which they found as immoral and perverse,
which was the exact opposite of Vladimir Nabokov’s intentions when writing the
novel.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nominations
for the 1973 Nobel Prize in literature included many future Nobel Laureates:</span></p>
<p style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Eyvind Johnson (1974)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Harry Martinson (1974)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Vicente Alexiandre (1977)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Odysseus Elytis (1979)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Elias Canetti (1981)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Claude Simon (1985)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Camilo Jose Cela (1989)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nadine Gordimer (1991)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">V.S. Naipaul (2001)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Doris Lessing (2007)</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The
following list of writers were first nominated in 1973, of them, only two nominated writers would </span>receive<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> the award, the Spanish poet Vicente Aleixandre in 1977, and the Yiddish literary master Isaac Bashevis Singer. </span></span></p><div style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Conrad Aiken (died 1973, making him ineligible)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Vicente Aleixandre (1977)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Antonio Aniante<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Miodrag Bulatovic<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Albert Cohen<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Adolfo Costa du Rels<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Indira Devi Dhanrajgir<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Eugen Jebeleanu<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Yasar Kemal<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Zenta Maurina<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Henry Miller<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">John Crow Ransom<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978)<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Pratapnarayan Tandon<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Paul Voivenel<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Martin Wickramasinghe<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Chiang Yee<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Xu You</span></span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
Swedish Academy’s deliberations during the 1973 prize also showcased a
continued conversation regarding the nominations of both Eyvind Johnson and Harry
Martinson, two Swedish writers and members of the Swedish Academy. Precedence
had already been set that the Swedish Academy could award one of its own
members with the prize, as in the case of the moralist Pär Lagerkvist who received
the award in 1951 with minimal controversy. Lagerkvist in turn was a continued
nominator and supporter of both Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson. Artur Lundkvist
previously expressed concerns in the 1972 deliberations of the prize:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“It is not only highly respectable but
almost inevitable that Mr. Lagerkvist, as a former Swedish Nobel laureate
within the Academy, in this way insists on yet another Nobel Prize for an
academy colleague. But in its ultimate consequence it involves the prospect of
recurring rewards to academy members, and that is something that, in my view,
should be avoided. [. . .] My opinion is that one should think very carefully
before awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature to a Swede at all, and that in
the current situation there is a special reason why this does not happen.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 398.25pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In 1973, however, the pressure to consider
a Swedish writer as eligible for the Nobel Prize in Literature had mounted. Then
Chairman of the Nobel Committee and Permanent Secretary Karl Ragnar Gierow,
decided to discuss the topic in length, bypassing the Nobel Committee’s more reserved
silence on the matter as a polite mere non-issue. In 1973, Gierow observed that
there were only three Swedish writers whose work was assessed to meeting the
standard of the Nobel Prize in Literature at the time: Eyvind Johnson, Harry
Martinson and Vilhelm Moberg, writing:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt; tab-stops: 398.25pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Also, on this
year's list of proposals, they assert themselves well. Harry Martinson is not
behind Ritsos in lyrical richness and is more original. Eyvind Johnson and
Vilhelm Moberg measure themselves in epic power with the storytellers, who this
year are in the foreground, this said in full awareness that no one is strictly
measuring themselves against anyone else: there is no reliable and manageable
measuring stick.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 398.25pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Of course, Karl Ragnar Gierow understands
the risks, noting that it could damage the reputation of the Nobel Prize and
the Swedish Academy itself. Yet, the question was not a discussion of pure
literary merit, but a conversation of optics and suitability. Artur Lundkvist
had previously argued against the irreconcilable unsuitability of awarding members
of the Swedish Academy, and while Karl Ragnar Gierow highlights the defining concerns
presented by Lundkvist, he eloquently disregards them, as suitability is not a
defining feature of the Nobel Prize in Literature, but literary merit, at which
trumps all concerns over nationality, religion, political allegiance, race or
another exterior concern. Karl Ragnar Gierow further argued against the
exclusion of association of the academy or direct membership, noting that in
previous years past with the science prizes, laureates from their respective
academy and awarding institutions had also been inducted into laureateship, to
exempt or exclude members of the Swedish Academy was viewed as unreasonable consideration
on the grounds of suitability. Karl Ragnar Gierow continued with almost a
sardonic tone that if the Swedish Academy (who included both a blend of academics
and writers) is to punish and bar its own members from being considered on their
literary ground, it should avoid appointing remarkable literary talent to its
ranks, in order to spare them the voidance and exclusion of never being considered
for the Nobel Prize in Literature, regardless of their literary achievements.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="tab-stops: 398.25pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">One can admire Karl Ragnar Gierow’s perceived
level-headedness as an administrator with the Swedish Academy, both as its
Chairman of the Nobel Committee and as the Permanent Secretary. I think credit
should be given to Gierow for decisively steering the Nobel Prize in Literature
to being a literary award, moving away from literal interpretations of Alfred
Nobel’s will regarding the ambiguity of “an ideal direction,” and instead push
the Swedish Academy to bypass political and ideological fracturing and review candidates
on their basis of their substantial literary production, and reviewed as
individuals of merit, not through the exterior lens of personal quality, be it
nationality, gender, race, religious belief or political association. To further
this point, Karl Ragnar Gierow acknowledged that previous laureates in the
awards history would not be considered great writers, with many being mediocre
decisions in hindsight and are doomed to be forgotten. Despite Karl Ragnar
Gierow’s eloquent rationale and defense of reviewing nominations on an individual
candidate and merit base, the fallout of the shared award in 1974 would have
lasting repercussions and impact on the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Prize in
Literature. 1973 provides a glimpse into the deliberations that would lead into
the following year, which will surely be a rousing debate and discussions, finally
providing the clarity regarding the academy’s decision to grossly overvalue
their position as arbitrators of literary taste, while favouring their own
members.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thank you For Reading Gentle
Reader<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Take Care<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And As Always<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stay Well Read<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">M. Mary</span><br /></p>
M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-56055816345235243222023-12-31T10:59:00.000-07:002023-12-31T10:59:16.844-07:00– XXIII – <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The best advice regarding parties: always make an appearance, or else you risk being talked about.</span></div>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-12571786521474735882023-12-19T06:08:00.000-07:002023-12-19T06:08:00.833-07:00Snowflake Symmetries, Winters Romantics<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hello Gentle Reader,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Winters arrival harks a
paradox of responses, both chilled delight and frost bitten embittered refute.
There’s something soothing about snow in that smothering Stockholm fashion. Its
ability to conceal, completely whiteout landscapes, reducing them to a sheet of
whiteness. Hoarfrost in particular is a beautiful feature of winter. The trees
reduced, gnarled and bared, coronated in the delicate etchings of frost and
snow, an otherwise crystal crown. Frost of any sort is fickle as it is transient.
Though the sun maybe slow to awaken and gradual in its rise during its respite
rest, it inevitably pulls itself from the horizon and despite its distance
shines, leaving the trees with their threadbare pauper appearance. The
emperors’ new clothes are a marvel, though lacking in durability. This year,
winter seemed delayed. An early snap of cold and snow, but it gave way to
unseasonable warmth. Not that many were complaining. Golfing in November is a
rare treat. Still September swirled in temperatures that simmered, while October
thankfully evened everything out with bearable temperatures. Yet, November that
threshold month of winter and the slatestone month of cemetery greyness, defied
precedence and preconceived expectations of what is expected of it, and
remained warm even tepid, while the earth took on the visage of early spring:
brown and molting. All the while lacking the spirit of life and rejoiceful
soulishness of that spritely season. No, in its place remained an otherwise portrait
of the landscape rusted into ruin, in every way scorched earth and parched at
that. As December descended there was trepidation that the trend would
continue. It would have appeared that Christmas would be one of little snow, to
an otherwise scant amount, or worst: a bone-dry brown Christmas. Yet, finally
snow came; not in the typical hollowing and waling of a blistering snowstorm,
but a nightly surprise of sustained and continued shower of snowflakes. During
the duration, the portrait of russet and brown desperation, was baptized in an
indifferent and silent white. The air plated in a metallic aftertaste. Of
course, the science is in too, winter sunsets are superior with their clear
air, cold temperatures, and the positioning of the sun. Regardless, the
defining feature of winter beyond its lengthened shadows; its otherwise plain
austerity; its moonstone skies and mackerel scale clouds; is its snow. The
great whiteout terraforming the land, concealing and burying a world and
creating and reveling in a new one. In all, an empire of sparkle and silence.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">As a child and student in
primary school, I (in addition to my classmates) was informed that each
snowflake on the ground, in a snowbank, or flittering from the sky was singular
and unique, a geometrical marvel of ice crystals which formed in the atmosphere
and continued their metamorphosis until they reached their earthly destination.
As students and children, each of us accepted this fact in the same fashion as
we accepted that the sky was blue, or that the seasons changed. Of course, we
subscribed to the belief that an ancient and immortal jolly saint flew around
the world once a year in a sleigh driven by flying reindeer, delivering
merriment and gifts. Snowflakes being unique and independent in symmetry,
shape, and form was not a stretch of belief. If memory serves correctly, the
lesson concluded with a carefree exercise of making paper snowflakes which
would then be used to decorate the seasons Christmas pageant (or perhaps the
classroom—the utilitarian details have since faded). Interestingly enough, this
informal lesson of snowflakes never mentioned </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">the snowflake savant, Wilson
‘Snowflake’ Bentley, who pioneered the study of atmospheric ice crystal
formation and meteorological photography, specifically that of snowflakes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Wilson
‘Snowflake’ Bentley does not strike one as the most romantic figure. And as a
lifelong bachelor, perhaps he wasn’t. Yet an interesting man with a fascinating
curiosity into the transient and brilliant world of snowflakes. Before Bentley
many naturalists and mathematicians had observed and written about the
geometric complexities and marvels of snowflakes, with some attempting to
sketch these otherwise transient crystals. Bentley, however, became the first
to photograph and capture their inherent and unadulterated beauty, amassing a
collection of 5, 381 photographs showcasing the diversity of snowflake
structures. Not one to be sidelined as the artistic type, Bently maintained
records and recordings of the conditions and storms which formed the snowflakes,
which included the length and duration of the storm, the amount of snowfall,
temperature, wind directions, even the conditions of the sky itself including
time, the suns positioning, intensity, and brightness. Despite this, Bently had
no scientific credentials or contacts and any articles he wrote were denied
publication in any scientific or academic journals and his photographs remained
a secret treasure. One can only imagine the frustration and alienation Bently
was subjected to in his very private pursuit. The neighbours of his farm
outside of Jericho, Vermont found him eccentric at best and weird at worst.
Knowing people of a certain generation and attitude, his devotion to personal
freedom as a bachelor and lack of romance and martial tether would also have
caused a few whispers and discussions. Still, Wilson Bently carried on
photographing and documenting the conditions of his snowflake study, eventually
showing his work to George Perkins, former state entomologist and geologist of
Vermont, turned dean of the natural science department of the University of
Vermont. Perkins assisted Bentley getting some articles and photographs of the
snowflakes published in <i>Appletons' Popular Science Monthly</i>. The Harvard
Mineralogical Museum bought 400 of Wilson Bentley’s photographs and commended
Bentley’s accompanying metrological observations and recordkeeping. A private
obsession gradually became acknowledged as meritable research, and not just
frivolity by an eccentric and artistically struck individual. A flurry of
interest followed with Bentley publishing more articles, facilitating lectures
on the nature of snow crystals, and his photographs were reproduced into prints
and analogue lantern slides to be used for teaching purposes. In collaboration
with George Perkins, Bentley was the first individual to theorize and argue
that each snowflake was geometrically independent and unique, with no two being
the exact same. Despite the influx of activity, interest, publication and
dissemination of his work, Wilson ‘Snowflake’ Bentley did not achieve financial
success and would continue to live and work on the family diary farm with his
brother, while maintaining an intense and enduring fascination with the beauty
of snowflakes, and other meteorological curiosities and phenomena. Wilson
‘Snowflake’ Bentley died December 23, 1931 due to complications caused by
pneumonia. Just before his death, Bentley received a copy of the illustrated
monograph of his work specialising in the study and capture of snowflakes
called “Snow Crystals,” (1931) which contained 2, 500 of Bentley’s photographs.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
story and studious personal obsession of Wilson ‘Snowflake’ Bentley is one of
winter poetry. By being a metrological pioneer in not only studying snowflakes,
but capturing photographic evidence of their singular symmetries and preserving
their otherwise transient existence. Bentley’s own writings on snowflakes moved
between empirical observation and rationale, to ethos with equal delight.
Having described ice crystals as “ice flowers,” and snowflakes as “tiny
miracles of beauty,” Bentley also wrote:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Was ever life history written in
more dainty or fairy-like hieroglyphics,”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">“The snow crystals . . . come to us not
only reveal the wondrous beauty of the minute in Nature, but to teach us that
all earthly beauty is transient and must soon fade away. But though the beauty
of the snow is evanescent, like the beauties of the autumn, as of the evening
sky, it fades but to come again.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Beyond
the capture and study of ice crystals, Wilson Bentley also was the first
American to record raindrop sizes, and is often described as one of the first
cloud physicists. All of which was accomplished from a small dairy farm just
outside of Jericho, Vermont.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The
state of Vermont brings to mind the imaginings of an unspoiled New England
Eden, the one mythologized and so endeared by the eternal and quintessential
American Poet Laureate, Robert Frost, who through colloquial and plain language
pondered existential questions of the individual lost and adrift within an
indifferent universe to both the hardships and joys of mortal existence. One of
Frost’s most famous poems: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” is a complex
poem depicting a lonely traveler during a winter evening at the threshold of
some private woods, which lead to allusions of the peace of death and perhaps
the temptation of suicide, as the speaker contemplates the soft and inviting
darkening woods in a snowy evening; but pushes on as there are obligations and
commitments to hold. As Robert Frost put it best: “the best way out is always
through.” Of course, Robert Frost is only one of the many poets and writers who
have found sanctuary within the charismatic landscape of Vermont. The Soviet
dissident and gulag monk Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn lived in exile in the tiny
village of Cavendish, before returning to a post-Soviet Russia in 1994. Vermont
also held an endearing place for the late October Poet, Louise Glück, whose
famous poetry collection: “The Wild Iris,” celebrates the garden of Vermont
life, its rustic charms and remoteness, while capturing the diversity of
character and personality of its flora. While Plainfield, Vermont proved to be
the inspiration for the collection “A Village Life,” even though the setting
has shifted from the rustic North Eastern New England landscape to one of
brilliant sun and </span>Mediterranean<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> seas and mountains, but the human folly,
regret, and condition is empathetically the same.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">While
the snow has arrived and finds itself endangered by rising temperatures, losing
its virgin whiteness, its youthful cloud-land downy substance to melt and
refreeze in crusted peaks of dirty meringue, I find myself thinking of Wilson
‘Snowflake’ Bentley and his enduring appreciation for snowflakes. His love of
the winter season. Though Canada enjoys to calling itself a northern nation, it
has done nothing too little to develop its northern territories or protect and
safeguard artic sovereignty. Canadian’s love of winter is thin to the point of
borderline bitter; where the Nordic nations have an appreciation and love of
winter, embracing its challenges and revelry, where in spite of its darkness
they light up even further. Bentley’s studies of snowflakes and photographs
have injected a sense of life back into the season, especially since the snow
was overdue in its arrival, and now finds itself existentially threatened.
Despite winter being a harsh season with its bitter cold and darkened skies, it
is not without beauty or wonder as Wilson ‘Snowflake’ Bentley proved with his
photographs and his poetic waxing and waning lectures regard the beauty of
snow, encompassing both the symmetries of snowflakes and the romantics for a
season often denied such pleasures.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Thank
you for Reading Gentle Reader<br /></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Take
Care<br /> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">And
As Always<br /> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Stay
Well Read<br /> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">M.
Mary</span></div>
M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-48726390067273128732023-11-26T18:13:00.004-07:002023-11-26T18:13:32.218-07:00The Booker Prize Winner 2023<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hello
Gentle Reader,<br /> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">This
years Booker Prize winner is Paul Lynch with his novel “The Prophet Song,”
which imagines Ireland falling to a state of authoritarianism, echoing a
general malaise and concern of today, where both sides of the political spectrum
are flirting dangerously with authoritarian methods. The left veering continuously
to inflationary economic policies and enacting stagnate morally smug policies
of positive prejudice and discrimination in order to ban and censor materials
that otherwise contravene these policies of sugared righteousness, all of which
is hate under the guise of tolerance; meanwhile the right has been spurred into
a state of disenfranchised soullessness, now radicalised and reactionary with an
appetite of scorched earth policies. The entre not only lost, but a mythical state.
Paul Lynch’s imagined dystopia teeters precariously on the notion of prescience,
as the recent string of riots and protests in Ireland regarding immigration and
other ‘progressive,’ or ‘woke,’ causes which have become divisive issues.<br /> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
chair of this year’s judges, Esi Edugyan, made a point of clarification
regarding Paul Lynch’s win, highlighting that the decision was not unanimous,
and that the judges deliberated, debated and voted over six hours on Saturday
to come to the comprise and conclusion of Paul Lynch being the winner. Despite
the context of the book being politically charged and capturing what could
otherwise be considered political concerns of the age, the novel Edugyan
clarifies is for its timeless and masterful work of fiction. All of this being
said, however, “The Prophet Song,” is the second politically concerned novel to
receive the Booker Prize in a row, after last years “The Seven Moons of Maali
Almeida,” by Shehan Karunatilaka. Does this mean the Booker Prize is heading
towards establishing political allegiances or promoting social or ideological
concerns? Not necessarily. The lists are carved out by the discussions and
reading tastes and concerns of the panel for the year, based off of the books
nominated.<br /> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Congratulations
are in order for Paul Lynch for this years Booker Prize win.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thank you for Reading Gentle
Reader<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Take Care<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And As Always<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stay Well Read</span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">M. Mary </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-20264449778601620262023-11-26T08:52:00.003-07:002024-01-22T07:48:23.863-07:00– XXII – <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">One of the worst feelings in the world is to never have applied one’s education or their talents, but instead to watch them be squandered and in turn dissipate.</span></div>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-82433961308401924162023-11-17T18:12:00.010-07:002023-11-17T18:12:51.162-07:00Dame A.S. Byatt Dies Aged 87<p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Hello
Gentle Reader,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Dame
A.S. Byatt was one of the most exceptional and extraordinary English language
writers of the second half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. Few writers were
capable of writing with such intellectual authority, while underpinning it with
such pleasures of the craft. Few writers discuss writing in the same vein as Byatt,
who never described writing as a chore or laborious process. Instead, Byatt,
rejoiced and celebrated writing as an activity of the utmost enjoyment. Despite
being a English writer, Dame A.S. Byatt maintained a continental and European approach
and influence to her work, whereby she explored the interplay between reality, myth/folktale/fairy
tale, the active of creativity, history, literature, and interior lives, as intricate
facets of an individuals consciousness and life. Dame Byatt’s work flitted
between the cerebral and intellectually intangible, to the cemented and palpable.
One of A.S. Byatt’s most astonishing achievements, however, is her mastery of
narrative. One can talk of A.S. Byatt’s academic aptitudes and digressions, until
they are blue in the face, but without her generous ability to actually have a
defined narrative, her novels would be dry doorstops, full of brilliant knowledge
and thorough research, but deprived of any literary enjoyment or flare. Throughout
her literary career, A.S. Byatt never remained completely committed or surefooted
in the realistic. Byatt flittered and digressed into the realms of myth and
fairytales, exploring the fantastic and whimsical with a serious air. This is
clearly seen in her short story collection “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye,”
and the titular novella. Readers expecting lighthearted fantastic tropes will
be disappointed, as the novella is a complex display of intertextuality,
showcasing Byatt as being a writer whose pastiche and appropriation of
fantastical elements could be erudite and challenging, with references to folktales
as well as Chaucer and Shakespeare. Other short story collections such as “Angels
& Insects,” continued to showcase and display Byatt’s diverse curiosities
which included the natural and biological science of geology, entomology, and zoology.
Her monumental “Fredrica Quartet,” (“The Virgin in the Garden,” “Still Life,” “Babel
Tower,” and “A Whistling Woman,”) traced the social and imaginative life of
English society during the 1950’s and 1960’s through the lens of a fiery woman,
the titular Fredrica. Not one to be bogged down with histography, mapping out
and referencing key points, Byatt created an elaborately textured quartet full
of symbols and digressions, as Fredrica navigates the frustrating realties of
wanting an aesthetic and imaginative life, but is riddled with the immediate
concerns of daily life. A.S. Byatt’s most famous novel is of course the Booker
Prize winning: “Possession: A Romance,” which is a typical Byattian novel of
ideas. Parading itself as a literary detective novel, “Possession,” is a pastiche
of a variety of literary styles (diary entries, letters, and poetry, the
Victorian style) and recounts two academics in modern day Britian investigating
the previously unknown romance between two fictional Victorian poets. “Possession,”
is a maximalist metafictional histography novel, which not only won the Booker
Prize but was a bestseller. “Possession,” remains A.S. Byatt’s most popular and
well-known novel, her masterpiece as it were. Few novels that followed quite
held up to the sheer imagination, research, and invention of “Possession,”
though Byatt’s last great historical novel “The Children’s Book,” was a purely
marvelous novel and shortlisted for the 2009 Booker Prize. “The Children’s
Book,” was a celebration of the golden age of children’s literature, and was a
marvelous swansong of a novel, whereby Byatt could reconcile both palpable historical
and realistic concerns with the aesthetically interesting and imaginatively
wonderous. “The Children’s Book,” was indeed weighty and full of lush exuberant
prose. A.S. Byatt wrote in “The Children’s Book,” regarding one of the central
figures, Olive Wellwood: “The real world sprouted stories wherever she looked at
it.” So too did A.S. Byatt, who found stories in every life and every event.
Byatt was an intellectual writer, an author of ideas, and while this may have
once been a point of contention at one point, a besmirched snide insult, A.S.
Byatt was able to dust off the lofty arrogance of such notions, and showcased
that intellectual curiosity and erudite understanding could be not only approachable
and engaging but enjoyable. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A.S.
Byatt died at home surrounded by her loved ones. She was 87 years old and
leaves behind a solid and powerful body of work. A truly fantastical postmodern
set of novels and short stories, but also critical studies and analysis, essays
of thought and contemplation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Rest
in Peace A.S. Byatt.</span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thank you for Reading Gentle
Reader<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Take Care<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And As Always<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stay Well Read</span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">M. Mary </span></p><p></p>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-19973549676442744522023-11-09T06:48:00.001-07:002023-11-20T08:22:58.163-07:00Small Things Like These <p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hello Gentle Reader, </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">When a writer is described as
having a ‘economic style,’ or employing an ‘economy of words,’ to their work,
it always rings with an unintended insult. The term economic is draped in dry connotations
of accountancy, with all the recording of debits and credits. A subject
completely deprived of a sense of excitement, glamour, or sparkle, resting
instead on the well-worn tried and true grounds of dependability and practicalities.
While when a writer’s work is described as ‘minimalist,’ it carries similar
connotations, leading prospective readers to summarize or assume the work is
simple, or without flare or linguistic brilliance, and more reminiscent of a
bleached bone, structurally sound and certainly the necessary scaffolding for
biological existence, but completely lacking in essence of life. The notion of
literary addition by subtraction, has always felt like an overused concept.
Hemmingway reductionisms looms and lurks within a variety of literary contexts,
with the continued less is more style being considered the benchmark for
greatness. While Hemmingway had his merits, blending the journalistic language
of reportage with its natural ease and clarity of vision with the artifice of
the literary, its continued proliferation and imitation of form and style as
the yardstick for greatness, has become cliché, overwrought and overdone, to
the point its cheapened and discounted. In a manner similar to anything mass
produced and imitated, its charm and quality depreciates before being refined into
a manufactured manicured commodity. Poets—and more frequently, short story
writers—are often referred to as maestros of the economic literary format, where
subtraction is the format and default state of the short story. Despite
existing in an otherwise terse and acerbic form, the short story is not a
format resting on the butcher’s block waiting to be trimmed, severed, and cut
back. The short story is not a voracious vulture’s soliloquy. The short story
is a form for mastery. It’s not the tadpole of prose; the juvenile scribblers
workbook; or the apprenticeship of the writer. The short story is a form requiring
the technical expertise of a clockmaker, in order to understand the intricacies
and details to propel the narrative forward; while incorporating a jeweler’s
eye for finish and presentation.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Claire Keegan is a virtuoso of
short stories technical brilliance. Keegan knows when to utilize a draughtman’s
touch, etching out a hardedge line bold and defined, and then moving to a faint
shading, ghostly impressions fading into insinuation. The craftsman brilliance
is beautiful, and while the language maintains precision to the point of being
lean, it is by no means the product of a misers’ penny-pinching economic
principles. Keegan knows when to define and when to insinuate; how a striking
image is enough to set the scene without being burdened by details; while being
a writer of immense empathetic capacity, fleshing out characters with human
contrariness. Still, as a writer, Claire Keegan understands the mechanical
operations of narrative and form. Reading Keegan provides textbook examples of
foreshadowing and expertise in tension. Perhaps this is due to Keegan’s own
role as a teacher, where she deconstructs a short story or sentence allowing
her students to pull back the curtains revealing all the gears and pullies at
work maintaining the narrative. Though Claire Keegan is considered a
contemporary master of the Irish Short Story tradition, with her reputation established
with two brutal short story collections “Antarctica,” and “Walk the Blue
Fields,” both were applauded for being harsh and honest tour de forces; Keegan
has proven that her narratives are not limited by form, but are enriched by
them. In a similar manner to a pond, Keegan’s narratives surface area is
intimate in scope, but expands when reflecting the sky and concealing deepening
depths below. The generosity and moral vision of the sky and the lurking
mundane darkness, are two oppositional forces of Keegan’s debut novel “Small
Things Like These,” where Bill Furlong a coal merchant both embraces and
confronts these oppositional realities within his small Irish village, New Ross.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Small Things Like These,” is
set in 1985, and despite being set almost forty years ago, there is a sensation
and feeling that New Ross has yet to enter the modern world. An atmosphere of
raw hardship and pitiless poverty not only shrouds the village, but is a bleak
defining feature. While time is stagnant, whereby one would easily hear with
regular assurance that the villagers adhere to ‘the ol’ ways,’ or ‘live a
traditional life,’ this otherwise conservative attitude have frozen New Ross
into a time capsule. Bill Furlong is a coal merchant, a profession brining to
mind otherwise Dickensian and Victorian sentiments. Though Furlong’s business
is diversified beyond coal (though it’s the bread and butter of winter) and
includes turf, anthracite, slack and logs; in addition to briquettes, kindling
and bottled gas. The novel opens with a beautiful expedited time lapse
describing the golden October trees lost along with the hour of a return to standard
time, and further stripped bare by the unrelenting northern November winds.
Despite owning and running his own business, Bill Furlong’s life is far from
easy, and as winter settles over New Ross, what can be described as the busy
season sets in. Everyday residents place orders for fuel, and Furlong provides
the product. Of course, the product must be weighted, packaged, accounted for,
invoiced, and then delivered. Despite having a natural talent and good head for
business, Furlong is a man not deprived of a rich interior world or bouts of
genuine generosity, having been the recipient of such sincere kindness, which
inevitably afforded him further opportunities. This does not mean Bill
Furlong’s life was not without challenges. The bastard son of an unwed mother,
both mother and child were spared the full retribution of their situation in
part thanks to a wealthy Protestant widow (Mrs. Wilson), who kept Furlong’s
mother as a domestic servant, and provided a warm and welcoming home for both. The
absent father remains a shadowing mark on Furlong’s character, as recounted
when visiting the registry office to obtain his birth certificate the space for
father was filled in with: “unknown,” which the clerk handed over to Furlong
with a knowing smug smirk. As a child Furlong remembers the unknown and absent
father makes him a target, as in the incident when the other boys at his school
covered the back of his coat in spit. Still, childhood inevitably ended, and
Furlong married the practical and stoically sensible Eileen and fathered five
daughters. In essence becoming a respectable man of the community, and is
treated as such. His customers are loyal, and Furlong in turn tries to support
and forgive where he can; as Eileen acknowledges, it is Bill’s business and
tireless work ethic which has allotted them the breathing room to avoid living
on credit and dodging financial ruin and the creditors squeeze. Their financial
independence secures their modest luxuries and life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A shadow exists on the
outskirts of New Ross, the Good Shepherds Convent looms in the distance, being
both a dominating reminder of the church in the everyday life of the residents
of New Ross, and sovereign independent institution of the community, providing
an education for the resident’s girls and daughters, while also operating a
laundry, which everyone sends there linens up to, as it comes back as if new.
Despite the good in its name, and its presentation of being a pinnacle member
of the community, the convent was also notorious with nefarious whispers
discussed regarding the laundry business and the wayward girls it supposedly
saved and employed. When Bill Furlong is to make a delivery to the convent, he
is reminded of an earlier incident, when the heavenly principled institution
found itself slightly exposed. In an inner garden and orchard, Bill Furlong is
confronted by one of the charges of the convent, a poor desperate waif who begs
him to help her escape, if only so she could kill herself, fling herself into
the River Barrow and be done with the whole ordeal. In a manner fitting any man
of good grace, Bill is unobliging of the request, but shares his concerns and
even offers to help mediate a resolve for the young woman, who crumples at the
sight and sound of a nun. It is then and there that Bill Furlong takes stock of
the caricature of Eden. Though the convent strikes a powerful and romantic
image, being compared at one point to the likes of a Christmas card, it lacks
the sentiment of goodwill and peace on earth. Broken glass coronates the tops
of walls, and Furlong grows increasingly suspicious of the locks in all their
formats barring entrance and departure from the grounds. When this event is
brought up to Eileen, she responds with the darkening (though understandable) caution
and stiffening resolve:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“If you want to get on with life, there’s things you have
to ignore, so you can keep on.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Bill inevitably disagrees (and
for good reason) defending the kindness and resolve of the late Mrs. Wilson,
who not only spared his life, but also his mother’s from indentured
incarceration; while their lives were not easy or carefree, it was more
agreeable then the alternative glimpsed in the convent. This early introduction
into the convents harsh realities sets the stage for another climatic confrontation
with the convents open secret, and the nuns, whose supposed Christian good
nature and impeccable and unimpeachable moral resolutions, are not only brought
into question but are found to be bankrupt. The otherwise hallow halls hollowed
out, deprived of good will and charity and replaced with cruelty on an
industrial scale.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“Small Things Like These,” is
Claire Keegan’s debut novel, though it does not read like a debut. Its solid
and sturdy, full of succinct and crystalline language. Keegans understanding of
the technicalities and mechanical operations of narrative and literary form are
on full display in this beautiful novel. Despite being only just over a hundred
pages long, “Small Things Like These,” cannot be described as airy or
insubstantial. It’s a novel of careful shading and insinuation, but also
natural, fixating on tense moments and provide the necessary details to set the
scene and the table. The novel has a rotten dark underbelly to it, and the lack
of modern sensibilities and permeated the novel like a frost, curating the
atmosphere of austerity and life as a test of endurance and penance; but it is
full of enriching warm scenes, such as when the Furlong family makes a
Christmas cake. As for Bill Furlong, he is agreeable and good company. A man
not privy to the stoic marrow and resolve of the Irish, but who offers generosity
without any ulterior motives. Who kindles hope (however small and feathered it
may be), and perhaps slips into sentimentality and yearning when it comes to
his family. The fact that Bill Furlong was the main character and the driving
force of the novel not only propelled the novel to a sense of measured
optimism, but ensured it was not drowning in the tar of a dour vicious
narrative hellbent on not only autopsying the infamous Magdalene Laundries of
Ireland, but making it a blatant hit job. Keegan expertly dissects the church’s
unchecked power, but does not let the examination pull away from the human
elements of the narrative. Instead, Claire Keegan is more subtle, sketching
imagery and scenes to provide the context to the narrative with great success.
“Small Things Like These,” is an absolute gem of a novel, and perhaps can be
read within an hour or two, but I enjoyed savouring it over the course of three
evenings.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thank you for Reading Gentle
Reader<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Take Care<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And As Always<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stay Well Read<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> <br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">M. Mary </span></p>
<br />M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-27591384337134097372023-10-29T11:12:00.011-06:002024-01-22T07:48:48.520-07:00– XXI – <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Sensitivity is the new form of censorship. It is the newest notion in attempt to rid the world of offense. Yet such practitioners of sensitivity editing, reading, and viewing find offense wherever they look. They do the world a disservice. The world is not ideal. It is a mixed bag of stimuli; none of which is exclusively interested in regards to one's tolerance or sense of sensitivity. Children and people need to have frank and open discussions regarding intolerance, not censor material in which they are never exposed to it. The human condition is a varied spectrum of experiences. Not all of which are positive or kind. Exposure, discussions, and understanding them are intricate parts when experiencing them and encountering them, but also in confronting them and processing them.</span></div>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-85851013356778539192023-10-25T05:51:00.000-06:002023-10-25T05:51:03.151-06:00Ananda Devi Wins the 2024 Neustadt International Prize for Literature<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hello Gentle Reader,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Neustadt International
Prize for Literature for 2024 has been awarded to the Mauritian Ananda Devi.
Previous winner of the biennial award include:</span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Francis Ponge (1974)<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Czesław Miłosz (1978)<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Octavio Paz (1982)<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Tomas Transmtromer (1990)<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Kamau Brathwaite (1994)<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Assia Djebar (1996)<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Mia Couto (2014)<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Dubravka Ugrešić (2016)<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ismail Kadare (2020)<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Boubacar Boris Diop (2022)</span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Often referred to as the ‘American
Nobel,’ the biennial award has a reputation for recognizing and awarding great
writers from across the globe who write in a diverse language. Winners of the
award include giants of international reputation (as listed above), while
nominees include other contemporary classic writers as: Doris Lessing, Wole Soyinka,
Mavis Gallant, Carlos Fuentes, Can Xue, and Nirmal Verma. The Neustadt
International Prize for Literature shares a similar literary perspective with
the Nobel Prize in Literature, an eye for global recognition and appreciation
of literary merit, though some may point out that the Neustadt applies a more
global perspective with greater accuracy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Ananda Devi is considered one
of the most important French language writers working today, specially from abroad.
Devi’s bibliography includes novels, poetry, short story, and essays, though
only a fraction has been translated into English so far. The novel “Eve out of
Her Ruins,” is given significant praise and is noted as the best introductory point
for Devi’s work. The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is the first
big name international award that Ananda Devi has won, which may mean an
increase interest in her work and further translations, but this is also a significant
moment in Devi’s career, where international acclaim is now being bestowed upon
her, though Ananda Devi has long been revered in French reading circles.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Congratulations to Annada Devi,
The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is certainly a confirmation
that your work is renowned for its penetrating poetic insight, unflinching
social criticism and overview, and an expert surveyor of the uniquely female
perspective of the human condition.</span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thank you For Reading Gentle
Reader<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Take Care<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And As Always<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stay Well Read</span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">M. Mary<o:p></o:p></span></p>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-36172655972018531932023-10-13T15:05:00.000-06:002023-10-13T15:05:00.405-06:00Louise Glück Dies Aged 80<p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Hello Gentle Reader,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Louise Glück was one of the
most singular and original poets of contemporary English language poetry, a
poet whose work was unified and complete, revolting against the notion of
miscellany or collected scraps. Each of Louise Glück’s poetry had a sense of
concrete or togetherness about them, a sense of unity not just in form, but in
narrative, preoccupation, crafting beautiful poetry collections of marvelous
sequences. Louise Glück was an unapologetic lyrical poet, one who swore no
allegiance to any school, movement, or theory. Glück’s poetry strived for
continued absolute clarity, one which severed and trimmed sentimentality and kitsch
modes of expressions of disingenuity. This clarity was also regarded for its
austerity. Pristine and picked clean, but unmistakably examined and exactingly staged
and displayed. Louise Glück was a poet whose work examined, dissected, cut open
and burrowed into otherwise eternal preoccupations of the human condition but
also of personal matters, such as trauma and intimate relationships either with
parents and siblings, or the dissolution of a marriage. These otherwise
personal narratives had critics referring to Louise Glück as a confessional
poet, but they couldn’t have been more wrong in their categorization. Glück’s
poetry lacks the emotive frills, the titillating exhibitionist strip tease and
final self-immolating cleanse. Louise Glück was far more chameleonic even
impersonable, employing and embodying myths and botanical perspectives to
refract and reflet on the topics in which Glück mulled over; but what was
always enduring was the unmistakable poetic voice, both personal in its intensity,
but crystallinity disseminated without ceremony. A poem often referenced by
critics as having the distinct Glück touch is “All Hallows,” with the placid imagery
of an otherwise rural landscape in autumn. Glück describes the arrival of dusk with
the image of darkening hills and oxen asleep; the fields are picked clean
either by harvest or pestilence; while a toothed moon rises. The poems jagged,
sharpened edges, poke and prick throughout the poem, but soothes in the end,
when a woman extends a hand of golden seeds as offering, calling out into the
darkened evening for the soul. The distinct mournful voice, the jagged and
serrated imagery, are all hallmarks of Louise Glück’s poetry, but take note of
the season, and how landscape and nature are prevalent through the poem. “The
Wild Iris,” is regarded as one of Louise Glück’s masterpieces of poetry, a poetic
cycle that ruminates on the existential dramas of human nature and life through
three very distinct voices, the God, the gardener, and the flowers of the
garden, each one adding their voice to the chorus. The poem “Snowdrops,” is
featured on the Nobel Prize website, but displays Glück’s unique poetic voice embodied
by a fictional character, whereby the titular snowdrops remark with anxious surprise
that they revived and return as winter recedes. Louise Glück is truly the
October Poet, while looking outside as the day is bathed in grey light, the sky
swaddled in impenetrable grey and white clouds, but the trees remain alight and
aflame with a brilliance of autumnal colours of yellow and orange, while roads
and lawns are carpeted in brown leaves, and some trees eager or windswept, have
all but shed their leaves for the season. October is a month of ripeness and
lengthened shadows, but also the last swansong before winters arrival, when the
world comes alight once more, in a moment of renewed ripened life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Sadly, Louise Glück died today
(October 13 2023) at the age of 80. She was a remarkable poet, whose adherence
to personal lyrical form ensured she had a rich and rewarding career, having
won both the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, the National Book Award, and was the United
States Poet Laureate, in 2020 Glück was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Beyond
poetry, Louise Glück was an accomplished professor and lecturer or poetry.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Rest in Peace, Louise Glück.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thank you For Reading Gentle
Reader<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Take Care<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And As Always<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stay Well Read</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">M. Mary <o:p></o:p></span></p>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-37606855383461460522023-10-12T06:28:00.010-06:002024-01-01T18:16:41.671-07:00All the Lovers in the Night <span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Hello Gentle Reader, <br /><br />The decline of social capital and meaningful relationships has risen steadily. Prior to the pandemic, former United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy described loneliness as an emerging epidemic; in 2018 the United Kingdom appointed a minster for loneliness in order to report, manage, and reduce loneliness within the United Kingdom. With the onslaught of the pandemic in 2020 into 2021/22, loneliness was referred to as the shadow pandemic. While individuals participated or complied with mandates or restrictions and other public health orders such as social distancing and self-isolation. Restaurants, bars, theatres, and cinemas closed. Other retail stores either shuttered their doors or remained open in reduced capacities. People stayed home (where they could) and to use the resilient cry to arms, hunkered down. All the while, loneliness spread. Images, footage, stories, and news of the elderly locked up and isolated in their care homes looking out windows, completely severed from their social networks, supports, and safety nets. Further reviews, audits, reports, and inquiries have been damning. Canada, for example, paraded itself as a stellar success when it came to its response the pandemic, but reports have also damned the nation and its provinces for its complete failure and abuse of seniors and elderly who were confined to long term care facilities. The response to their needs was not only inadequate but fragrantly negligent, resulting in numerous deaths and causalities. The physical and health related effects of loneliness continue to be studied, with researchers warning that the effects of loneliness are equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being a chronic alcoholic, and exceeds the health complications related to obesity. Human beings are hard wired biologically to cultivate and participate in intimate activities. The requirement for meaningful social connections is inherently human, but the notion of loneliness has evolved alongside human society, philosophy, political and economic systems, and social structures. For example, one might imagine archaic feudal rural societies as being plagued with loneliness; but this has not been historically proven. To partially quote Karl Marx: "Religion is the opium of people," and certainly during these otherwise feudal dark ages of back braking labour, mundane oppression, and deliberate inequalities, the church became in essence the epicenter of the social life, a place in which to gather and amongst a group take in the word of the lord. Faith in the divine—this otherwise invisible hand—proved to be the tonic and comfort to what would otherwise be described as lonely souls, because despite their physical isolation or remoteness, the notion of God was an ever unseen but constant companion with faith being the tether to this understanding of divine company. Society in turn continued to evolve, and as medicine, science, and new philosophies that rallied against absolute monarchies and the church's complete subjection and monopoly of the world, the individual has been repositioned as the most important being, not the collective that absorbs the individual. Loneliness was no longer solely attributed to trees, roadways, and clouds, people too began to become acquainted with the notion of loneliness. Modernity brought freedom, fueled further by Darwinian applications in socioeconomic principles, and existentialist philosophies have sought to provide the basis for the individual to live their lives emancipated from the church. Yet, loneliness persists with a pestilence proclivity for permeance. <br /><br />Loneliness has become a somewhat ironic byproduct of global interconnectivity, consumerism, and technological dependence. Ideas, narratives, stories, experiences can be shared across the world. People are connecting and re-connecting with people online. But the harsh glare of a computer screen or a phone screen, does little to pacify or replace the need for meaningful social connections. Everywhere, however, people are transfixed by their phones. Bombarded with images of their friends or relatives or co-workers or some celebrity on some great adventure, while their commuting to their job or standing in a fluorescent lit hellscape making themselves a coffee in the breakroom. Doomscrolling is another term that has come to the forefront, whereby people consume as if on loop nothing but depressing, negative, disheartening news. Continually, research shows that there is a lack of meaningful relationships and partnerships forming amongst individuals, and technology is neither replacement or alternative. The celebrated rat race of the postwar boom years in the 1950's has expedited and cultivated conditions where the modern individual is doomed to be atomized and isolated. People's calendars are full of activities and events, but the continue 'go, go, go,' narrative only masks the condition, providing the superficial understanding that they have meaningful interactions, with one participant of a study recounting their early investments and relishing in the on-the-go culture from morning into the night, filling their days with activities from school to extracurricular sports to then volunteering, only to slowly become increasingly exhausted. Then they realized they had no real support or meaningful social connections. Their phone and contact list were full of polite acquaintances but no enduring friendship. In turn solitude, alienation, loneliness have perhaps become more prevalent literary themes over the past decades, as it becomes an increasingly permanent fixture of the human condition. Collectivist cultures such as Japan before did not report many cases of loneliness, but the rise of globalization and consumerism has inevitably worn away the collectivist cushioning from alienation and loneliness. Shut-ins or what are known as: hikikomori, are becoming a prevalent demographic in Japanese society, where individuals do not leave their homes or have any meaningful real world social connections. Furthermore, Japan's population is declining, with a number of single person households on the rise, and almost half of the population has reported to feeling occasional loneliness on a daily basis. It’s a concerning social trend, and should not be confused with the wistful solitary characters of Murakami Haruki as they despondently stroll through their neighborhoods and tripping into a surreal dreamscape. It’s a palpable and realistic concern deprived of flights of fantasy. It was due to Murakami's praise of Kawakami Mieko that I initially was hesitant of reading her. Recently, however, her work has been translated and published with frequent ease into English language, showcasing to an extent a significant departure from the previously dominant surreal and magical realist narratives produced by Murakami. Similar to Ono Masatsugu, Kawakami Mieko is a writer concerned with more immediate social and realistic concerns, though she is less literary than Ono. <br /><br />Loneliness is not the central theme or figure of Kawamai Mieko's novel "All the Lovers in the Night," though it is an apparent reality and state of being. The novel describes a modern woman Irie Fuyuko adrift, completely directionless and aimless, whereby the world zips along past her. Fuyuko is an individual who has seemingly no qualities, no interests, and no life. She is an individual who has come to the conclusion and acceptance that her life will not be very exciting or interesting. The novel introduces her as a simple neutral and beige character. A working professional woman—a copy editor/proof reader—whose almost machine like in her job, capable of working through manuscripts notating errors. At the office her productivity is appreciated, though this is her sole activity, never participating in water cooler chat, conversations, or other social activities. The other women in the office immediately view Irie Fuyuko with disdain. She becomes the focal point of the office gossip, taunts, and other passive aggressive attacks. Irie Fuyuko's character foil is the unapologetic, brash, social, aggressive extravert man-eater Ishikawa Hijiri, who recognizes Irie Fuyuko's productivity and encourages her to become a freelancer, whereby she could most certainly make more money and work from home. This is the life of Irie Fuyuko, a completely blank slate of an individual. She attended and graduated from an average nondescript high school, she had no preferential university or postsecondary ambitions and attended one merely because it was recommended to her. Upon graduation she accepted the first job that was offered to her and then stayed well into her early thirties. Her trajectory in life is best described as unambitious, unassuming, and uninspired coasting. It’s a life lacking in agency or direction. Irie Fuyuko is an amorphous being and individual completely afloat and lost within the world, directionless and perhaps even clueless. Her parents are never mentioned. Though its assuming they were typical middle-class individuals. There is little joy or excitement in her life. She's never left Japan and has no aspirations for traveling. She doesn't give her appearance much thought or concern either. Curating further information to assume that her clothing is generic and equally unassuming, lacking in character or colour. Her birthday is late December around Christmas, which unsurprisingly she celebrates the event alone, but in a rare moment exercises a sense of independence and takes a walk at night and observes the city in all its lights and comings and goings, but also notes people. How they wait for each other in restaurants or train stops; how they walk together or eat together. On one of her nightly walks, Irie Fuyuko is confronted by her own reflection in the mirror: <br /><br /></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“The image of myself that floated to the surface, tinged with blue against a backdrop of the signs, walls, and windows of the nearby buildings, looked absolutely miserable. Not sad, or tired, but the dictionary definition of a miserable person.” </span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />What follows is Irie Fuyuko's slow decent into self-realization and actualization, if on a more destructive basis. In attempt to participate in actual events or activities outside of work, Fuyuko goes to a community centre which offers a variety of different classes from languages, to culinary/cooking/baking, crocheting/knitting, to courses regarding the sciences. What follows suit is an embarrassing and destructive showcase, but also opens the door for hope and redemption, the opportunity for a meaningful social connection with another individual attending the event, a high school science teacher, Mitsutsuka. What follows is a budding relationship between the two. Their meetings awkward and polite revolve around superficial subjects and science, with flashes of odd admissions from Irie Fuyuko, giving her imperceptible character some defining feature. Her joy of lying in bed as a child and pretending to be a lion for example. Of course, Fuyuko's dissatisfaction with her life continues, but cannot be resolved as she has no interest or understanding of how to facilitate improving it. What follows is a slow train wreck, the continued dive into crisis and introspection and misery. Irie Fuyuko's default state of being has always been unrecognized loneliness, suddenly faced with its reality, Fuyuko is lost within its all-consuming depths. The narrative goes the way it's expected to. The novel loses its drive and steam and concludes as natural as it can, with a sense of irresolution, all the while gaining further understanding. At times Kawamai Mieko writes almost glaringly polemic, employing the brash Ishikawa Hijiri to give voice to her opinions and perspectives on societal expectations and constraints, lacking the required subtly to be considered successful to thwart accusations of posturing to the readers. <br /><br />Along with Ono Masatsugu, Murata Sayaka, Kawamai Mieko is a representative of a new wave of Japanese literature, one which showcases writers who are moving away from the incorporeality and disengaged hermetic narratives, and instead moving towards narratives that are socially aware and concerned; they do not shrink or shy away from specifically Japanese elements or cultural references. Kawamai Mieko is a writer renowned in her native Japan as being unapologetically feminist, and these social lenses and perspectives are often stitched and sewn into her narratives, providing commentary on the societal expectations of women in Japan. In this fashion, one of Kawakami's claims to her success is both interviewing and criticizing Murakami Haruki over his otherwise two-dimensional female characters in his work, who rely on heavily male oriented perspectives and characters to define them. <br /><br />"All the Lovers in the Night," is a unique social novel, one with explicit detailing care into the nuances and perspectives of a life completely adrift in a state of anemic alienation. Scenes of passive aggressive office politics are genuine and empathetically relatable, while the descent into misery is a slow burn, and unfortunate to read, often leaving readers wondering at which point their own lives have come to the same epiphanic moment where they realize their own life will not be very exciting. Irie Fuyuko's job as a copy editor is not held out of any enjoyment, satisfaction, or interest in reading or editing. The description of how she works through the manuscripts to Mitsutsuka seemed frightening, where she described the activity with machinist enjoyment, not enjoying what was written, but merely pecking through looking for mistakes and then discarding the work and moving onto the next manuscript like an assembly line. The lack of fulfillment shows a character who has no direction, no interest, no understanding of life. The novels slow vivisection of these social realities and emotions is what makes it a worthy read. Personally, I didn't find Kawamai Mieko's language explicitly lyrical or touching. The prose was clean and starched, which is required in order for it to land its punches and have the necessary impact; though as the aforementioned polemic discussions aside, there were times the novels language slipped into the uncharacteristically quotidian and vernacular. Beyond these initial observations, Kawamai Mieko's novel “All the Lovers in the Night,” is a tonic of a social critique regarding the amorphous apathy of modern life and loneliness as constant companion of the modern individual.</span><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> <br />Thank you for Reading Gentle Reader<br />Take Care<br /> And As Always<br /> Stay Well Read <br /><br />M. Mary </span></div>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-63212982928091465142023-10-06T14:05:00.001-06:002023-10-06T16:56:33.465-06:00Post-Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 Thoughts <p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Hello Gentle Reader,</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This years Nobel Prize in
Literature has been awarded to the Norwegian dramatist and prose writer, Jon Fosse,
who the Swedish Academy praised:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>"For his innovative plays and prose which gives
voice to the unsayable."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Shall it be described as a
tradition now that all subsequent Nobel Prize in Literature announcements will
follow the same formulaic expression that was established in 2019 with the
announcement of the Laureates in Literature for 2018 and 2019. The chiming bell
heralding the appointed hour, those white gold accented doors of the Swedish
Academy opening into the beautiful ballroom with that crisp brilliant October
afternoon light pouring through, where a full house of journalists have congregated
to hear the announcement of this year's Nobel Laureate in Literature. From the
doors emerges the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy (Professor) Mats
Malm, who stands behind a barricade and rattles off the standard pleasantries
before announcing this years Nobel Laureate in Literature. This year, roughly
five or ten minutes before the announcement, a woman (I suspect producer or
event organizer for the Swedish Academy) brief the assembled journalists of the
afternoon's proceedings:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">First – At 1:00pm (CET) Professor Mats Malm will come through the doors
and announce the years winner.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Second – Afterwards Chair of the Nobel Committee Anders Olsson will
provide an overview of the Nobel Laureate.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Third – Finally Chairman of the Nobel Committee Anders Olsson and Nobel
Committee member Anne Swärd will hold a short interview regarding this year's
decision.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The announcement followed the outlined
format with particular Swedish proclivity for procedure. Permanent Secretary
Mats Malm confirmed that by the announcement that he was able to get in touch with
Jon Fosse who was driving en route to the fjord; there was a perceptible ironic
smirk that crossed Mats Malm's face when he said this, as any reader of Fosse
will recognize the trademark fjord as a quintessential Fosseian feature. As for
how Jon Fosse took the news, Mats Malm commented that he was delighted but not
necessarily surprised, as Fosse has been in speculation and tipped as a
contender for a little over a decade now. This concluded Mats Malm's portion of
the afternoon's proceedings. Following, Chairman Anders Olsson made his
scheduled appearance and dryly read his bio-bibliographic sermon regarding Fosse,
and what followed—rather quickly it seemed—was the casual (though concisely
short) interview with Anders Olsson and Anne Swärd, though Olsson managed the
interview in full (at least what was available to be seen during the live
stream). In total the entire procession took roughly a half hour (?) maybe even
less. Certainly, no lingering over the pudding.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In awarding Jon Fosse the
Swedish Academy has finally landed its footing, re-establishing the Nobel Prize
in Literature as a literary award fixated on quality and merit, though leaving it
to fall slightly into the realms of expectation and predictability. That being
said, caution should still be exercised with the Nobel Prize in Literature, as there
are giants of literature who carry a certain expectation that they will be crowned
and coronated with the Nobel, such as the still living Adunis and Ismail Kadare
and recently deceased Milan Kundera and Javiar Marias. As is the case of the
Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, the Swedish Academy has also proven that it plays
a long game and a conservative game at that, having confirmed that Tranströmer
was nominated consistently every year since 1993. Yet, one can't help but imagine
the Swedish Academy sitting there and mumbling to themselves: "too soon,"
every time his name crossed their table. By the time 2011 came along, the decision
became a matter of now or never, due to Tranströmer's poor health and advancing
age, thankfully the Swedish Academy made the right decision. The case and
optics between Tomas Tranströmer and Jon Fosse are very different. As the
Swedish Academy is a Swedish institution, it is aware that it can it be criticized
for being bias towards Swedish language writers. This came to the fore front in
1974 when the Swedish Academy decided to split the award between two Swedish
writers who were also academy members. This award remains a blackened mark on
the awards history, readily available to be pulled out and used against the
Swedish Academy to support a variety of allegations, accusations, and charges,
which includes but not limited to eurocentrism and self-absorption on the brink
of self-gratification. This explains why it took almost two decades for the Swedish
Academy to take the plunge and award Tomas Tranströmer and another eleven years
to announce Jon Fosse, as any Scandinavian writer who is announced as the
winner will inevitably be scrutinized with a heightened degree of viciousness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In awarding Jon Fosse, the
Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy did not evaluate his work beyond
the purely literary. Fosse is a writer who has no sociopolitical motivation. This
is a writer whose singular concern has always been motivated by how the
literary is the medium to discuss existential and elemental concerns of the
human condition, from the eternal anxieties of an indecipherable dread; the
shadow of death in daily life; longing and perplexing questioning reaching out
and contemplating meaning in any universal sense; dashed hopes and thwarted
dreams; questioning the human relationship with the divine; and the absence or
loss as the pit of emptiness and the nodal point of grief as a permeating
feature of existence. The list goes on, forever changing, shifting, and evolving.
These eternal and primordial themes have long stalked human thought and been
the foundations of great literature and will continue to do so. How Jon Fosse treats
these subjects is what makes him unique. Fosse is a writer who is burrowed in language,
for what is literature without the appreciation and understanding of language,
as language is the lodestone and medium of literature. Fosse's literary language
is often described as minimalist, stripped down and repetitive. Jon Fosse's
literary language is deceptively simple for its simple vocabulary and repetitive
nature, but it has a unique rhythm a hypnotic lyrical quality to it that mimics
the deliberate tidal movement of back and forth, push and pull, in and out. The
other typical feature of Fosse's novels and plays is the complete lack of
feature or detail. Characters are often nameless and featureless, representing anonymous
voices in a landscape which has come to define and describe Fosse's reality: shingled
shorelines, pewter skies of dove-coloured clouds, grey (or black) seas endless
and eternal, waves rolling into the beach, docks and piers and boathouses creaking
and bobbing in the currents drifting routines, and small houses where intimate
and yet eternally existential dramas are set to unfold. There are times,
however, when characters are named in Fosse's work, though the names are interchangeable
appearing elsewhere Jon Fosse's bibliography, be it Asle, Alida, Olav, Ales, or
Aliss. Alse in particular is a routine incarnation found throughout Jon Fosse's
work.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Before the Nobel announcement,
Jon Fosse is described as one of the most performed living playwrights around
the world, with productions staged in France and Germany; New York and London,
though, Fosse's dramatic works in the Anglosphere have always been muted or
lukewarmly received at best. Contemplative rambling poetic monologues sprouted
by names anxious characters, set in purgatory landscapes are always a tough
sell for English language spectators. As a dramatist, Jon Fosse is often
considered a heir of both Samuel Beckett and Henrik Ibsen. In a fashion similar
to Samuel Beckett, Jon Fosse has completely abandoned the conventional rules
and forms of drama. Yet, while Beckett paraded and guided the tour through an apocalyptical
absurd existence and showcases languages inability to fully communicate meaning
or apply logic to otherwise surreal existential events creating an almost highbrow
comedy. Jon Fosse's work is rhythmic and hypnotic with the back and forth, back
and forth, with a lacking sense of the comedic absurd while excavating the dreamlike
conundrums. One of Fosse's most performed plays: "I am the Wind," is
often described as a shipwrecked "Waiting for Godot," as two male
characters The One and The Other find themselves shipwrecked adrift in the sea.
Polar opposites, The One is cautious and reluctant to embrace life, tantalized
by the prospect of death being release from the uncertainty of life; The Other
is the social opposite enduring The One's depressiveness, and clinging to the basic
instinct towards life. The English language reviews were not particularly
enthralled, while in turn admitted the work did linger after its performance, a
testament to its exemplary discussions regarding existential ponderings of
cosmic conundrums and baseline existential apprehension. Whereas "A
Summers Day," changes course, moving away from the Beckettian powerplay
between two opposing characters, instead focusing on memory, love, and absence.
The play recounts with an air of nostalgia formed by memory an older woman
looking back on the day her husband goes missing. Time is a key feature and
movement in "A Summers Day," being treated as circuitous, crossing
and crisscrossing a continued repetitive loop. Even in the remembered youth,
with smile and love, the threat of loss and emptiness is at the pit of their
relationship. This same emptiness permeates the daily life and existence of the
older woman, who scries through the past seeking understanding or some sense of
resolution. In Fosse's work, however, resolution is seldom on offer.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Over the past decades there
have been few playwrights awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. While Jon Fosse
remains committed that prose and novels have always been his preferred form,
his dramatic writings have always been discussed first, perhaps because they were
translated faster and produced further, immediately gaining the attention and
piquing the interest of the greater public first. Fosse's plays display his rhythmic
and minimalist language, the rolling, swelling, and receding rhythm, followed
by long pauses, all of which creates an atmosphere and drama founded in irresolution.
Fosse's work are not about action, resolution, climatic display of virtues and
moral grandstanding. Fosse instead leaves his disembodied voices of characters
completely abandoned at sea, lost in the uncertainty and anxiety of their very
existence. Otherwise, mundane moments become amplified by a creeping distress, paralyzing
inaction and stifling resolve. Fosse's works exist within this stasis, this
slow burn of existential dread. In awarding Fosse, the Nobel Prize in
Literature, the Swedish Academy acknowledges his contributions to the dramatic
world with his plays. Despite being heralded as the heir of some of the
greatest playwrights of the 20</span><sup style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Century, such as Samuel Beckett,
Thomas Bernhard, Bertolt Brecht, there is something more singular about Jon Fosse's
dramatic writing that is completely his own, abandoning in essence the playful
nihilism of Beckett or the unrestrained manic vitriolic contempt of Thomas
Bernhard. Fosse's writings have a gnostic incantation quality to them,
continually attempting to articulate some unknown mysticism that could be
divine or some other unknowable force; there's the wavering anxious and hesitant
pauses be it long or short. A real sense of neutrality, with softer edge veering
towards a lukewarm sense of warmth, which would be uncharacteristic of his
predecessors. Fosse does, however, maintain the tradition of routinely
deconstructing and revolting against the conventional forms of the theatre,
ensuring that dramatic writings continue to evolve and thrive in an innovative
sphere of both physical presence but absolute reliance on language. In their
overview of Jon Fosse's work, Anders Olsson, has paid particular attention to Fosse's
dramatic works highlighting key pieces of work: "Nightsongs," "The
Name," "Death Variations," and "Dream of Autumn," and
in their short interview post-announcement, Anders Olsson mentioned that
Fosse's dramatic works are prosaic in form, meaning they can be read
conventionally and not necessarily required to be witnessed or watched.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">When it comes to Jon Fosse's
prose, the Swedish Academy has highlighted his most recent novel (and what is
now described as Fosse's magnum opus) Septology: "The Other Name:
I-II," "I Is Another: III-V," "A New Name: VI-VII," which
for seven volumes, presents its self as a reflective breathless monologue of an
aging painter Asle, but also his doppelganger Asle in the city of Bjørgvin
(Bergen) who is an alcoholic painter. The two Asle's ruminate over the complex
questions of life, love, death, light and shadow, faith and despair. The novel
takes Jon Fosse's signature minimalistic sinuous rhythmic language of crests
and falls as Fosse continues the exploration of the human condition in
metaphysical form. Septology has been described as a transcendental novel, an absolute
masterpiece which continues to confront the perplexing questions that have
daunted and haunted mankind since we first began too cognitively question or
own existence and formed language in order to disseminate this line of
questioning. This seven-volume novel, appears to be that great novel that has been
lurking within Jon Fosse over the decades, slowly being released and accumulating
in his beautifully written novels: "Aliss at the Fire," "Morning
and Evening," "Boathouse," "Melancholy I-II," and the
previously highly acclaimed Trilogy: "Wakefulness," "Olav's
Dream," and "Weariness."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In "Aliss at the
Fire," readers are provided an introduction into how Fosse's language and
prose is hypnotic as it is hallucinatory, but also that circuitous play with
time, as Signe an old woman slips further and further through memories
regarding her missing husband Asle, who one day rows out into the fjord and is
lost. He is neither confirmed or speculated of being dead. He is merely missing.
Asle's permeating absence becomes the void of Signe's life, the very emptiness she
routinely circles around. Lost in memory and speculation, she drifts back five
generations of Asle's family, resting finally on the titular Aliss, who rescues
her infant child from the icy waters of the fjord. Through her own grief, Signe
has summoned the tragedies and legends of Asle's family through the ages in the
same house, on the same fjord. "Aliss at the Fire," showcases Jon
Fosse's circuitous depiction and understanding of time but also his mastery of
brevity (the novel is barely over a hundred pages long). "Aliss at the
Fire," is a masterful work of stream of consciousness narrative, moving
further and further through a families personal and sustained generational
tragedy now crashes ashore at Signe's feat with the loss of her husband.
"Moring and Evening," recounts one man's entire life from his birth until
his death. Once again just over a hundred pages long, an entire life is captured
in one final day where everything is as it always was, but feels different. "Morning
and Evening," is a novel of reductionist beauty, in pristine simple
language. All the while Trilogy: "Wakefulness," "Olav's
Dream," and "Weariness," is a metaphysical romance of ethereal beauty,
with commentary drawing the biblical reference and metaphor of the stranded, searching
and abandoned Asle and pregnant Alida to the equally despondent Joseph and
Mary. Jon Fosse's trilogy is an absolute beautiful work, a set of novella's
detailing the complications of two tragic lives from the brink of despair, shadowed
by a precipitable but unknown darkness, the ache of hope dashed by retribution,
mourning and grief with some remedial action leading the closest one can get to
redemption. Trilogy proves that Jon Fosse is a master of reductionist narratives,
boiling and carving away all the ostentatious fat, leaving crystalline prose
which appreciates and employees' languages painterly mastery, to absorb and slip
through time, memory, and encapsulate and capture the fleetingness of existence
and life.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Jon Fosse is not a writer one
reads for narrative or story or plot. Fosse is a writer one reads for language.
The slow pared down rhythmic language. There is reason why Fosse's prose is
called lyrical, not for their symphonic quality or orchestral technicalities,
but for the parred down rhythm beat, which forces readers to slowdown and
become adrift within its hypnotic repetitive qualities. Through plays, novels, short
stories, and poetry, Fosse proves himself to be a master of language and one of
the most literary concerned Nobel Laureates of recent memory, eschewing the paltry
partisan pageantry of political grandstanding and social naval gazing, but
rather being more concerned with literary concerns, language, and the enduring
element and primordial preoccupations of the human condition and languages
ability to give it some sense of form, or at minimum a sense of articulation,
with no expectation of response or resolution. On the topic of language, Jon
Fosse's literary language is Nynorsk, the minority written language, roughly 10
- 15% of Norwegians use Nynorsk as their written dialect, while the major
Norwegian written dialect is Bokmål. The fact that Fosse employees Nynorsk is a
particular component of his win, with many praising the decision to award a minor
dialect. Furthermore, the Swedish Academy provided comparison between Jon Fosse
and the great Norwegian writer Tarjei Vesaas who also wrote in Nynorsk.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This years Nobel Prize in
Literature is more secure in its decision based on literary merit alone. Jon
Fosse is a giant of literature, one of the most produced, staged, and performed
dramatists in the world, but also one of the most devote literary writers,
whose crystalline prose do not betray the depths beneath the surface. Fosse is
a writer who has an appreciation and understanding of language that goes beyond
utilitarian application, and is an artform unto itself. Fosse is also a writer
of little to no controversy. There are no (if any) indignant "who?"
screeching about. This is a writer of world class quality and appreciation. Jon
Fosse is a writer of purely literary merit, no ulterior motivation. I am absolutely
pleased that Jon Fosse has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. if there is any criticism
to be leveraged against this year's award, it's that the Nobel Prize's citation
is a bit perhaps to literal, or lacking in a quality that is more interesting,
but no one and nothing is perfect. The Swedish Academy may be criticized for
making a safe choice this year, but that does little to eclipse the fact that
Jon Fosse is one of the most important dramatists in the world and one of the
most singularly innovative though highly personalized even introspective prose
writers currently at work.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Very warm congratulations to
Jon Fosse, a very well-deserved Nobel Prize and a very deserving Nobel Laureate.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> <br /></o:p></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thank you for Reading Gentle
Reader<br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Take Care<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And As Always<br /> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Stay Well Read</span></div>
<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">M. Mary </span></p><p></p>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-17568265459573255532023-10-05T05:02:00.008-06:002023-10-05T05:03:31.045-06:00The Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 <p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Hello Gentle Reader, </span></p><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the Norwegian Jon Fosse:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />"For his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />Congratulations are in order for Jon Fosse!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />Thank-you for Reading Gentle Reader<br />Take Care <br />And As Always <br />Stay Well Read</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />M. Mary </span></div>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-55102317051994359342023-10-02T10:58:00.001-06:002023-10-02T10:58:32.496-06:00Remaining & Final Thoughts for the Nobel Prize in Literature 2023<p style="text-align: left;"></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Hello Gentle Reader,</span></p><p></p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Later this week we will learn who this years Nobel Laureate in Literature is, as the Nobel Prize in Medicine was announced today. As September's shadow lingers in the foreground, the seasons are certainly showing a change in demeanour and temperament. Summers brilliance and scorching devil may care attitude is all but abandoned, and while it attempted to prolong itself into the beginning of September, temperatures have slowly decreased, while the air grows crisper, the light clearer. To quote the English philosopher Bernard Williams:<br /><br /></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">"September tries its best to have us forget summer."</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />I am ready to leave summer behind, and forget it. The warm summers of childhood nostalgia and dreams, have all but been replaced by an oppressive authoritarian season that scorches with inquisitor fervor and righteous fury. While autumn, which used to haunt my thoughts as a child, has become a season of resigned dignity, and in turn has become my favourite season. These past few days have brought rain, and though welcomed, one can't help but chide for its overdue arrival. Where was it during this past parched summer? The wet winds have battered branches and rattled the leaves to take up flight and fall in departure. Afterwards, they scrap up and down the street, sometimes in flocks; while other times in desperate solitary sojourns, anguished and alienated please crying out from its weak scattering scratches down the street. Tree lines are a mix of green, yellow, and red. Enthusiastic trees (or merely wind beaten) have shed their leaves and resigned themselves to the oncoming winter reprieve. Now in October the brilliance of the leaves turning will have been lost. Having abandoned their perches, they'll lay scattered on lawns and lost in streets. While the trees transformed into twisted scaffolding frame grey skies through their gnarled bark branches. On clear moonlit nights, the moon will shine through these frames, casting arthritic clawed shadows. At which point, October settles in September's wake.<br /><br />Due to this summer's unrelenting heat and drought, may headlines are employing the words: Disappointing. Poor. Meager. To describe this year's harvest. A recent walk around the city's limits, displayed the fields and crops have all be harvested. Bare stalks are what remains. Fawn and beige shadows of their former golden ocean like self. There is always a sense of expanse to the fields and crops, an endless nothingness just carrying on into the infinitesimal. Now, this otherwise nondescript landscape grows increasingly hollow and empty. The nights bite with a particular foreshadowing to a winter wolf lurking in the north, while meteorologist have begun to announce frost advisories for some communities. Flowers have all but shriveled up. Given way to autumn and dramatically died. They keel over in their wilting withered beds. Except those select few who preserve and hold through. Chrysanthemums and sunflowers are magnificently brilliant. Bold beautiful and resolute. They'll carry on in bouquets and harvest floral arrangements. The world may awaken in Spring, but does not come alive until Autumn. This change in season, with all its delights, paradoxical nuances, and changes in temperament reminds me of the Nobel Laureate in Literature for 2020, Louise Glück, who is the eternal October Poet.<br /><br />Admittedly, when Louise Glück was announced as the Nobel Laureate in Literature for 2020, I was not overjoyed or impressed by the announcement. I was disappointed, with heaping doses of disgruntled annoyance by Glück's award. This discontent was only exacerbated by the Swedish Academy's new announcement format, whereby members of the Nobel Committee of the Swedish Academy, dryly read a lecture to the assembled journalists, afterwards engaging in the most boring question and answer period. Though this could have been easily written off as a component of the Pandemic, this new style of announcement has become the mode of the Swedish Academy moving forward. Over the years, I've come to appreciate Louise Glück's poetry, an appreciation which was not readily on hand during the initial announcement, and was not properly sold by a disengaged Swedish Academy—more specifically wooden Permanent Secretary and charmless chair of the Nobel Committee.<br /><br />Louise Glück was often mistakenly characterized as a confessional poet early on in her career. There is no histrionic striptease with Glück's poetry. No sense of deranged personal indulgence into immolating depravity. Glück's poetry lacks the kindling and the fire in which to burn herself anew. Louise Glück is not quite a phoenix like poet, rising from the ashes in a pyrotechnical display, radiant and revived. Rather, Louise Glück is more a poet of austere investigations where precision is the means in order to extract and display the events and discern meaning. This is often done to the point of being cold. Glück is more comparable to a figure skater with her technicalities in grace and effortless ability to conduct an autopsy on what could described as powerful (even overwhelming) emotions, all the while retaining a detached clinician's perspective in order pull back the layers and get to the heart of the matter. All of which is done in the most exquisite crystalline and clear language. My respect for Louise Glück of course came through her more unified collections of poetry. Often poetry collections are literarily a collection of assortments of poems, equivalent to a box of chocolates. A sampling if you will, to tickle and tease out some enjoyment from every palette and taste. Louise Glück, however, has drafted poetry collections with a sense of unified narrative or sequence, the poetry collection operates as a complete work, not independent stars shining and outshining each other. Glück's comprehensive collections provide her the opportunity to provide narrative and a mixture of voices to 'speak,' within her collections, and in turn converse. The most famous poetry collection "The Wild Iris," where existential ponderings of dramas of life playout through the diverse world of the garden, which is populated by a diverse group of flowers (which are imbued with their own personalities and monologues), the gardener who tends to this earthly realm, and an unknown god looking down upon it all. Subsequent collections followed suit, composing complex symphonic sequences of poetic cycles, employing historical, literary, and mythical narratives in which to comment on otherwise private moments.<br /><br />Over the years, I've grown to appreciate Louise Glück and her poetry, as it is certainly singular in form. There is no poetic allegiance, no adoption or adherence to any other poetic movement or school. The poetry of Louise Glück is independent as it is intimate, private in intensity. The cohesion and overarching narrative of her collections, makes them feel like a complete 'piece,' rather than a scattered collection of fragments or thoughts housed together under one title. As September waltzes into October and autumn colours the leaves with fall, I often find myself gravitating towards Louise Glück's poetry, as after all, Glück is the October Poet. As the days are slow to wake and lengthened shadows cross streets earlier as the days redact further and further into the night, and the light grows distant but clearer, I read and grow increasingly fond of Louise Glück. Austerity is a word, I think few writers and poets would want attributed to their work, but for Glück, I hope she revels in it, as its endearing and complimentary. Glück's poetry is deprived of personal indulgences giving way to sensationalism and cloying sentimentality, all the while refusing to entertain high handed ostentatious peacocking. This is a poetry of expert refinement. The poetry of reaped fields golden and fawn. Of burdened dusks with clouds blood clot red. Yet, also of a twisted ironic sense of hope, of tender kindness, and a biting sense of humour. Louise Glück is a complex and multifaceted poet, whose distinct voice and literary qualities enshrines alongside the other great poets who have been awarded in recent memory. <br /><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">— Darts in the Dark —</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />As with every year, the different Betting Sites have complied a synthesized list of who they think has the best odds at wining the Nobel Prize in Literature. This year's top contenders are perennial favourites, with top spot being reserved for the connoisseur of the surreal and delirious, the fever driven Kafka of Chinese literature, Can Xue. In hot pursuit is the Norwegian master of the hypnotic and rhythmic tidal prose and bleak dramatist, Jon Fosse. Third favourite is the hermetic magician of perception, the cult classic revered introspective master and Australian novelist, Gerald Murnane. Rounding off the betted front runners is the Canadian poet Anne Carson, who has expanded, pulled, twisted, and manipulated the form into surprising and refreshing territory. <br /><br />The second tier of favoured writers—those who are grouped with having 12.0 odds—include prominent and perennial favourites to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, including Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, a titan of contemporary postcolonial African literature; include the dissident Russian writer Ljudmila Ulitskaja; the Romanian spelunker of the surreal Mircea Cărtărescu; and American classic postmodernist and legendary camera-shy Thomas Pynchon. <br /><br />The third tier—those who are grouped with having 15.0 odds—include the industrially prolific Argentinean César Aira; vitriol incarnate and iconoclast, Michel Houellebecq; the Japanese surveyor of modern-day isolation, disconnect, and pop philosopher, Murakami Haruki; baroque sentence composer of obscure renown, Pierre Michon; celebrated and controversial Chilean poet, Raul Zurita; one of the modern masters of the English language, the renowned and famous Salman Rushdie. <br /><br />Other writers who were listed with odds past 15.0, include Jamaica Kincaid, Karl Ove Knausgård, Margaret Atwood, Helle Helle, Ko Un, Elena Poniatowska; Krasznahorkai László, and Homero Aridjis.<br /><br />In all, this year's betting sites have amassed an otherwise 'conservative,' list of names. Writers who at one point in time have been speculated as a potential candidate for the award, with some being considered front runners in years past. Nothing, however, extraordinarily to extract from this year's complied writers, no grains of wisdom or suspicious names—as in the case of 2014, when Patrick Modiano made his first appearance to the betting list and skyrocketed towards the end. The only new name of reasonable on this year's betting list is the Danish writer Helle Helle. Knowing nothing to very little about Helle Helle, I did some looking around. Critically acclaimed and popular in Denmark, Helle Helle has been translated into some 20 languages. Debuting in the early 1990's, Helle Helle gained recognition for her use of language straddling both visual attentiveness and capturing the nuances of everyday speech. At 57 years old, Helle Helle could be considered in the right age range to begin being considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Though having not read Helle Helle yet, I cannot comment on her output or her work. Though her novel "de," (translation: "they,") was nominated for the Nordic Councils Literature Prize in 2019, with an overview of the novel praising further development in Helle Helle's experimentation and exploration of language, with the novel employing the present tense medium exclusively and anonymous narration of a mother and daughter, who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness. Rather than sink into the end, they resolve to continue on with life. In 51 short chapters, Helle Helle recounts the final chapter of their lives. The novel was praised for its handling of the disease and death, which through crystalline prose, the shadow of sorrow and grief remained ever present; but was able to avoid the entrapments of sensationalism and sentimentality, all the while exploring the confines of identity and language. As either mother or daughter is named in the book their identities become interchangeable. "de," is a novel fragility, compassion, life and ultimately death; yet its impact comes from the physical and visual perceptions of language, Helle Helle, relies on describing physical aspects of characters, their actions, movements, and speech to betray their emotional responses and turmoil, rather than illuminate it directly. This surface level iceberg narrative ensures investment and participation from readers to decipher and discern the emotional thoughts of the characters.<br /><br />Elsewhere, names upon names of writers cascade down with a torrent's mania. A Wikipedia placeholder article, leading up to this week's announcement date, has worked diligently to trawl the internet to find enough filler to tide the article until Thursday's announcement. Of course (and rightfully so) the article makes it very clear that despite the Swedish Academy's protocols and bylaws regarding confidentiality and secrecy, numerous international writers are perennially expected and speculated to be considered for the award, at which point the articles proceeds to go into a bombast binge of writers around the world in paragraph format.<br /><br />The list certainly included some persevering perennial candidates such as: the great Syrian poet Adunis, and the Albanian master Ismail Kadare, both writers have been considered in contention for decades now, and yet neither has received the award. How close have they gotten? No one knows at this time, but the persistent pass over by the Swedish Academy will go down as a glaring missed opportunity and mistake. With Milan Kundera's death this past summer, was a startling reminder that the Nobel Prize in Literature is never guaranteed. Regardless the contributions of both Adunis and Ismail Kadare to their respective languages literature and international literature are everlasting at this point. The Nobel Prizes in their entirety are full of glittering honours and dubious awards. It’s a matter of taste and preference. There have been plenty of omitted writers over the past century of the prize's history and plenty of deserving Laureates in turn. It is disappointing to see, however, both Adunis and Ismail Kadare looked over. But the Swedish Academy as an institution is still human at its core. Regardless of its governing bylaws, purpose, and mission, the academy is inevitably prone to engaging in petty squabbles, which ultimately means the Swedish Academy is forced to compromise on laureates and nominees frequently. This may mean that Adunis and Ismail Kadare have often been neglected due to their literary international successes, whereby some members (speculatively of course) may argue that the Nobel Prize would be redundant to authors of such rank and renown, or as in the case of Robert Frost, their now advancing age prove to complicate the award. Both arguments are flimsy at best, but can easily be applied. As the awards archives are opened up, the extent of these otherwise trifling squabbles become more and more apparent. This is exemplified by one academy member Artur Lundkvist, whose very public disagreements were often borderline disgruntled and embittered, with his oppositions to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn well documented—and it should be noted that Lundkvist was adamant supporter/sympathizer of the Soviet Union and communist in every form but name—but his outrage truly came to full show when William Golding received the award in 1983.<br /><br />Despite all the speculation, this year's award has no resounding favour applied to any specific writer. In 2021, Annie Ernaux felt like a confident prediction, but everyone's expectations were dashed when Abdulrazak Gurnah was announced as the Nobel Laureate in Literature. When Ernaux followed last year, it didn't come as a surprise rather just delayed. This year, however, there is no consensus or sense of certainty. While Can Xue is ranked the highest in the betting sites currently, there is a current of apprehension beneath any assurances. First and foremost, Can Xue is a writer of divisive talent. Readers either thoroughly enjoy her increasingly abstract, surreal, and acid infused Kafkaesque narratives, with dedicated appreciation, or, they find them unapproachable and alienating. Articles have pointed out that in China, Can Xue is described as clinically insane. Will a writer who floats between profundity and profanity be to the Swedish Academy's taste? There is no discernible answer until Thursday.<br /><br />What then of Jon Fosse, after all he is one of the most performed playwrights in the world. Fosse's dramatic works are characterized in the same school or category as that of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, though lacking the critical fanfare in the English language. Fosse's theatrical works, however, were not his first love. Plays of bleak shingled shorelines, boats stranded and adrift in black seas, and dramas of anxious apprehension with the threat of someone going to come, all of which is facilitated through Fosse's signature repetitive rhythmic language. Yet, Fosse always considered himself a novelist first and foremost and a dramatist by chance. Fosse's novels are equally renowned for their otherworldly landscapes of bleak fjords, dark houses, unknown towns and villages. Time is fluid mechanic, influenced by memory and dreamscape, allowing temporal shifts in perspective. As with his dramatic pieces, the language of Fosse's prose is equally tidal in pace, rhythmic and hypnotic, like the waves crashing into the shore and receding back out to sea. Though not everyone's cup of tea, there is no denying that Jon Fosse is one of the most important playwrights and influential Norwegian writers currently at work (he is the antithesis to the maximalist Karl Ove Knausgård), but there has been considerable criticism leverage against the Nobel Prize in Literature for having a distinctly Scandinavian bias, which came to a boiling point in 1974—but that's a whole other kettle of fish—when Tomas Tranströmer was announced as the years laureate in 2011, there was considerable grumbling about him being a Swedish poet, despite the fact that Tranströmer was a more then deserving poet, renowned and recognized across the world, reducing their criticism to sour grapes. Still, in 2011, the then Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Peter Englund still commented in attempt to dissuade from preconceived criticism early on by clarifying that it had been almost forty years since a Scandinavian language writer had won the award. These same optics may be applied to Jon Fosse, but again, the Swedish Academy cannot allow a bit of controversy from awarding writers (as it certainly hasn't been a hinderance in the past), and Jon Fosse is more then a worth Nobel Laureate.<br /><br />Despite Can Xue and Jon Fosse being considered the two front runners for this year's award as per the betting sites, there is still a lack of affirmative certainty that either writer will receive this year's award. This merely confirms the reality that regardless of the speculation, the betting, the commenting, and theorizing, we're all throwing darts in the dark, without knowledge of where the board is, let alone if it is even hung up. Everything remains in the dark until the announcement. The announcement of the year's winner provides no further illumination, merely setting the stage for next years speculation. The joy, however, of speculation is not getting it right, its learning about all sorts of writers who can be considered in contention for the Nobel Prize in Literature, writers who without the awards assistance may have gone unread or overlooked. Yet, I am hoping for a complete surprise (as always) a writer of such little renown and translation, but packs a wallop. The kind of writer who can always use with the uplift of the Nobel Prize's prestige, and whose remarkable output has been overshadowed or neglected, and the world is full of those writers. <br /><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">— Personal Preferences —</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />Of all the Nobel Prizes the Nobel Prize in Literature is most likely the most accessible and approachable prize. Medicine, physics, chemistry, and the memorial economics prize require a considerable amount of knowledge and understanding to provide appreciation of the laureates and their subject matter. The Peace Prize is one that courts the most controversy and whose messaging is routinely lost. Literature, however, is something everyone regardless of their tastes or reading preferences can have an opinion on. Most often there is a continued and resounding indignant hooting of who, when it comes to the prize, as critics and commentators react with outrage at yet another writer winning the award who they've never heard of, and continue to lament why this writer or that writer has once again been overlooked or denied. As a matter of personal preference, I would love to see the many writers receive the award, including the under translated writers such as the Icelandic Gyrðir Elíasson or the elusive Eeva Tikka from Finland, whose beautiful novels, stories, and poetry have never made it to English translation, and exist only in a couple of stories here and there on the internet. Then there is the still criminally underrepresented Ogawa Yōko, who despite being prolifically translated and available in French, remains underwhelmingly available in English. There is the precise intricate poetry of the Swiss master Klaus Merz. The emotive harmonizer and pearl of poetry Doris Kareva. The palpable poetry of Agi Mishol, full of humour, life, and grace. <br /><br />Regarding the point of poetry, few poets have won the Nobel Prize in Literature in the past few decades, but the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Swedish Academy have awarded considerable high quality and enduring poets such as: Joseph Brodsky (1987), Octavio Paz (1990), Derek Walcott (1992) Seamus Heaney (1995), Wisława Szymborska (1996), Tomas Tranströmer (2011), and Louise Glück (2020); and while other writers have started their careers in poetry, or written poetry collections such as: Elfriede Jelinek, Harold Pinter, and Herta Müller, their work gain prominence via other mediums. When it comes to poetry, the Nobel Prize often acknowledges great poets and poetry, and the poetry of Klaus Merz, Agi Mishol, and Doris Kareva, are all equally worthy of the prize (at least in my humble opinion). They are each very different poets in form, style, and thematic concern, but like all poets who have the won Nobel Prize in Literature, their poems are of expert craftsmanship, as poetry is a craft that has no room for error or laziness. A poet must be an expert in form from start to finish, followed by excruciating editor and unsentimental reader. To quote Wisława Szymborska with regards to why her output was so small: "I have a waste-paper basket at home." Which is perhaps the most useful item any poet can have, as they must carve the excess, rewrite, reduce, and refine. Poetry is an exacting form, one with little to no forgiveness. Great poetry is recognizable, while poor poetry is glaringly unmistakable. Still, I would not describe myself as a devout poetry reader. Though I enjoy it, consuming vast and large quantities of poetry or entire collections, comes across as an over stimulation, or leaving me with the understanding that something has been missed. Poetry, I find, is best read and contemplated in small quantities in order to appreciate it in its robust fullness. This is perhaps why I enjoy Klaus Merz, there's no ostentatious windbaggery, this is a poet of the immediate burrowing to the heart of the matter with clear epiphanic concision. Whereas Agi Mishol's poetry carries a poetry of lightness and life, the mundane is elevated into empathetic metaphor and discussion, full of both sorrow and humour, very few poets are as enjoyable to read as Agi Mishol, with the lightness of touch echoing beyond the page. A dark horse (at least for now) would be the Scottish poet, Robin Robertson, who has proven that poetry and prose are not mutually exclusive and incompatible, but to forms of equal weight and measure. I think Robin Robertson would be an excellent Nobel Laureate and well deserved, few writers have been able so straddle the river banks between poetry and prose with equal command, and yet Robertson does just that and succeeds in broadening poetry's vision beyond the hermetically dense, and prose to pay greater attention to the internal heartbeat and engineering qualities of language as being not just as a mode of narration, but the intricate structure that requires equal refinement and consideration into the presentation.<br /><br />In the case of the Swedish Academy the current 16 members (the final two will be inducted December this year and participate in the deliberations next year), the entire process is deliberation, debate, argument, concession and compromise. No Nobel Laureate in Literature is unanimously decided upon with the full academy's support, they only have a majority of the support. Though I suspect, some laureates have more support than others. A recent, article mentioned that Murakami Haruki held a 'ghost story,' reading in Tokyo, a week before the Nobel Prize in Literature is set to be announced. Some commentators are considering this to be a campaign maneuver to grab the Swedish Academy's attention. I can't comment on the veracity of that intention (and nor would I, as its tantamount to speculation and conjecture), but it's already been made clear that the academy's deliberations have already begun and are in the final stretch. Any reading or campaign carried out by a writer or their supporters now would an exercise in futility and redundancy. Murakami's ghost story reading and celebration of the classic Japanese writer, Akinari Ueda. During the reading Murakami is reported to have professed his enjoyment of horror narratives (or scary stories) and wanted to write more of them. The fact that its Murakami and his renown for curating ambiguity and opaque reasoning for decisions, leaves the door open for a great deal of theorization. For example, as a writer Murakami Haruki is both praised and criticized for lacking any strong Japanese certainty as a writer, all the while complaining and reveling in his outsider status as a Japanese writer. Murakami's influences have been undeniably English/American literature which includes such as writers as Raymond Chandler, Kurt Vonnegut, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, while (it is my understanding) that Murakami has written his works originally in English and translated the text into Japanese, which would present his unique literary style in that sense. Still, over the past years, Murakami's output has been dogged by lacking quality, to the point that it become a caricature of his earlier career. the novels have recycled the same plot, story, themes to the point there is nothing new to be gained from them. His most recent published novel in Japan I believe is called "The City and Its Uncertain Walls," has received a muted to mix response. If Murakami was ever a contender for the award, I think that ship sailed years ago. His output is not of the same caliber of Kawabata Yasunari or the late Ōe Kenzaburō. Due to the devotion of his fans, Murakami is often pushed to the forefront on this upwelling wave of populist appeal, but the quality is severely lacking. Of course, the Nobel Prize in Literature is one based on debate and compromise, which may raise Murakami's chances, as there have been other writers with equal parts mediocre output who have received the award. It comes down to compromise and concessions within the deliberations. <br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #f1c232; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">— Finish —</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />As Nobel Week has begun, we only have a few more days to wait until the Nobel Prize in Literature announcement is made. Who will win the award? At this point the only certainty is this: no one knows who will win the award. I suspect its going to be a shock, hopefully a surprise (though those can go either way), but ideally, it'll be a new writer to explore and learn about and broaden the reading palette further. At worst it'll be a candidate of questionable merit (much like Murakami Haruki) or in turn a perennial candidate, whose award (however deserving) is utterly boring. Its impossible to discern the Swedish Academy's though process. There is no crystal ball; no tea leaves; no palm reading; no tarot spread; or scrying of the stars, which will provide any divination into the Swedish Academy.<br /><br />Until Thursday Gentle Reader. <br /><br /><br />Thank you for Reading Gentle Reader<br />Take Care<br />And As Always<br />Stay Well Read <br /><br /><br />M. Mary</span></div>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-55165566430301993562023-09-24T19:50:00.003-06:002023-09-24T19:50:39.365-06:00The Booker Prize Shortlist 2023<span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Hello Gentle Reader,<br /> <br />The Booker Prize much like any to all literary prizes has its peaks and valleys. Zeniths and nadirs. Highs and lows. Like any literary award, the judging panel discusses, debates, argues, pettishly resists, and eventually compromises. Some compromises are more eyebrow raising then others. This years Booker Prize Shortlist is one such list:<br /> <br /></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> Sarah Bernstein – "Study for Obedience,"<br /> Jonathan Escoffery – "If I Survive You,"<br /> Paul Harding – "This Other Eden,"<br /> Paul Murray – "The Bee Sting,"<br /> Chetna Maroo – "Western Lane,"<br /> Paul Lynch – "Prophet Song,"</span></blockquote> <span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />The omission of both Sebastian Barry and Tan Twan Eng compromised my first observations of the prizes shortlist. Both of these writers had been nominated before and have been considered favourites in years past. Their omission from this year's shortlist is a surprise. Raising questions of what is considered the measuring stick for literature. This years shortlist carries the airs of the judges trying to be relevant dealing with issues and concerns that could be considered contemporary concerns, with a kind eye towards debut novelists.<br /> <br />Of the shortlist, only Sarah Bernstein has maintained my attention with her dark horse gothic novel "Study for Obedience." While the others, though interesting in their own right and with plenty of merit, fail to (as Marie Kondo would put it) spark joy. <br /><br />Congratulations to this years shortlisted writers.<br /><br />Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader <br />Take Care<br />And As Always<br />Stay Well Read<br /> <br /><br />M. Mary</span>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7604329068806422759.post-8648249092419230252023-09-24T01:17:00.006-06:002024-01-21T09:54:34.871-07:00– XX – <p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">The moment you become unconcerned with everyone else's life; you realize your own has so much more to offer.</span></p>M. Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13829062997679872743noreply@blogger.com0