Sugar Street

Hello Gentle Reader

Nothing in this world is safe from the passage of time. It can be something extraordinary beautiful though as well. The tree one plants when they are just a young child. Through the ages, it grows bigger and bigger. It becomes something, of a majestic beauty. I remember, when I was younger, helping my parents plant a lilac bush. Of course it meant nothing to me, back then. But as both I and the lilac bush had grown, there was a sense of attachment to both the lilac bush. However years upon years later, the lilac bush died. Such is the passage of time. It is a cruel part of nature, which begrudgingly does its duty; or sadistically carries out its duty, without question or complaints at all, and perhaps finds its enjoyment in its duty to nature. Though perhaps this is all personification. Personification is nothing, more than just giving personality and human characteristics otherwise inanimate objects or parts of nature. It’s more or less a poet’s trait of the trade. Yet it is a good way to personify an enemy or a foe, with metaphorical traits, in order to find something wrong with it, and allow for a sense of anger to be released at.

Ageing is part of life. It is something no one has control over. Everything ages. Animals, plants (though we do not necessarily see it), humans the world itself. It all ages. No one can stop the prospect of ageing itself. Though human beings have found ways to cosmetically cover up the signs or at least the results of ageing with the cunning use of Botox and other surgical procedures. Yet ageing is something that causes great fear in people. Not just the superficial fear of narcissism and vanity but rather the fear, of something far greater then ageing itself.

As one ages, they become a mere ghost of what they once were. How many times have I looked through the old photo albums, and thought to myself, how horrible life and ageing has treated me. At times the grey around the temples, that begin to slowly spread through my hair like silver dignified crown of wisdom and dignity that comes with age – yet once it slowly began to take its place throughout my hair, and goatee that came with old age, it no longer gave one that sense of dignity or superiority or even made one look all that much more wiser. It became a malaise and malady of time itself. Realization through looking through the old photographs, one can see that surely I have become nothing more than just an old ghost of myself. Being younger and looking through the photographs of my grandparents, I used to wonder who the handsome people where in the photographs and the pretty ladies. Now realization was that they were my grandparents. What kind of curse had befallen them was all my younger self could ask. Yet now as I too have aged, there is no curse. No curse at all. It is just part of life.

Yet ageing and the realization that we all die – who knows when the first thought of death itself comes to existence in the mind of people in their earlier days, is recounted in a philosophical aspect by the film director Darren Aronofsky when discussing his film “The Fountain,” he remarked on both the fear of death and how it makes one human and the biblical aspect of the Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge and how they pertain to the human experience of both life and death and the fear of death itself and how it pertains to life. Without the fear of death or death itself or the knowledge of death human beings would not be human beings at all, but rather on par with God. In many aspects the realization of death makes us human. It is scary in many ways. The unknown of what is after – if anything; is really rather horrifying.
“It was sad to watch a family age. It was hard to see his father, who had been so forceful and mighty, grow weak. His mother was wasting away and disappearing into old age. He was having to witness Aisha's disintegration and downfall. The atmosphere of the house was charged with misery and death.”

Is what the soul searching Kamal proclaims in this book. Throughout the trilogy the reader, watches a family from the year nineteen ninteen (1919) and the start of the Egyptian Revolution against its colonial parents of England, to the year ninteen-forty four (1944) with the ending of “Sugar Street,” and the start of World War II. Throughout this three volume (trilogy) of a simple ordinary Egyptian family, who are struck by the very conflicts of life itself, and are wrapped up in the political engagements of their time.

When we first met this family they were obviously a little odd to me, because of my western concept of family. Yet, throughout it all, one comes to find some emotional bonds with this fictional Egyptian family. Aisha the dreamy beautiful one. One comes to find, themselves sharing in those dreams of hers. There was Khadija whose critical and sarcastic personality mad her appear gruffer, and a bit thick skinned and much harder to deal with then her beautiful sister Aisha; yet throughout it all, as a reader one finds themselves, finding her own emotional soft underbelly. There was Fahmy the tragic idealist who wanted the best of his family, and of life itself. His tragic love for his neighbour’s daughter; and he himself picked up the cause of the Egyptian revolution. Yasin, hedonistic and making larger mistakes then he himself almost can handle at times; shows one how to have a good time with life, and find the enjoyment of company of friends and liquor. Kamal the soul searching, and very confused youngest one of all family, is the one who finds himself, in the most peculiar situations, unsure where he stands with himself, and life itself, and Egyptian society as a whole. His philosophical musings cause him great pains, and stunt his enjoyment of life itself and ostracizes him at times from his family who cannot begin to comprehend his pain and inability to try and grasp their earthly pleasures and simplicities of married life, and companionship of family. Amina a dutiful house wife, who loves her family and her husband – the master of the household himself, as much as she loves and fears God the almighty himself. Her gentle compassion and delicate nature of a song bird make her sympathetic and empathetic character, which one comes to recognize and enjoy with – to the point where one almost feels like she welcomes them in to the coffee hour, to sit and enjoy the conversation. Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad the patriarch and tyrant of this household, after times can cause great fear in the heart and soul of a person like an earthquakes trembling can cause great horrors into the daily routine of life itself. He is both a giant of authority and a friend that one comes to find is not as scary and horrifying as he lets others believe he is. Even in the ending book, one can certainly find a sense of companion with such a great man himself, who inspired fear in his family and yet, towards the end has inspired compassion and companionship in them as well.

Yet now with “Sugar Street,” Naguib Mahfouz has opened his family chronicle of Egyptian society and Cairo, to a newer generation. However Aisha experienced a grief that only her mother could understand and yet the shock and anger of the death of her children Uthma and Muhammed in the previous novel, and her husband subsequent passing as well. All of that has left Aisha a former shadow of herself. Her grief taking more of a place on her face and body that her once beautiful, body had once been something behold and inspired awe and shock in others. The only ones that stay the same, are Yasin and Khadija, perhaps Khadija has even changed a bit. Her tongue now lashing and whipping, with criticism. Her two sons al-Muni'm and Ahmad take the brunt of her beatings. Yasin’s son Ridwan is the most peculiar of all the characters or the grandchildren of the book. He is his favourite of his grandfather and the son of Yasin, but his taste for earthly pleasures is more abstinent to non-existent at all. Na'ima’s (the last child of Aisha’s) role in this novel is a brief, before she too meets her untimely demise.

Throughout this novel, the transition of the first novel to its end through this three volume trilogy has been a rather uncomfortable ride. The hope, the beauty and the sense of peace, and just an ordinary family wrapped up in extraordinary events, has taken its final ride. From the beginning we find a family leaving in their languor of peace and normalcy. However everything changes when the Egyptian revolution begins. Without a hint of knowledge of the on coming events, the family is forced to take up their arms, with their fellow countrymen. Yet in this time, they are also overcome with a strike to their household, and the beginning of the end follows.

The second novel, opens up with the family dynamics changing considerably. Both Aisha and Khadija live away from home. The once famous coffee hour is now in shambles. Yasin also over an intense argument with Amina. Kamal finds himself finding both love and heartbreak through his admiration, for a friend’s sister. This leads to heart break and the friendship falls through. Then once again grief is to befall through the family. All this however, goes through Egypt’s continuing political issues. In the end, throughout his novels Naguib Mahfouz writes of a strange and alien country that does its best to fight against the governing power, and yet cannot help but quarrel amongst itself. Muslim Brethren and Communists, walk among the streets. Everyone demands independence, but none are sure what it is.

The Arab Spring, that had happened these past years or so, has been something that follows in the vein of what Naguib Mahfouz has written about in these three novels. Egypt was the start, and even now the violence and the protest continues. Videos are shown all over, the news, and internet, of the problems that are coming from the Middle East, and North Africa. Just the other day while briefly skimming over the news I saw, a video of a Egyptian woman being beaten and dragged in the streets. Her short torn revealing her entire upper torso but her breasts covered with a bra. The outrage that many callers had expressed on the news summed up my own anger. Yet I still changed the channel. However, as I had remarked in my journal while reading this, and the current events that continue to unfold in Egypt and other countries, made me remarks, that through the past (almost) century has all but continued. Egypt has received its independence from the English Empire, but it still is at war with itself and its own government.

With this novel – the shortest of the entire trilogy; Naguib Mahfouz does not abruptly end the novel or the family. He rounds it off, as they will continue to live and move through their lives, as they always have. One has become an Islamic Fundamental, another has become a communist. Kamal still soul searches. Yasin continues his earthly pleasures. In the end Naguib Mahfouz ends the trilogy, and allows for the dice to fall as they may – as the saying goes.

It is not the best of the novels – the first one “Palace Walk,” was – but it still is nice to find out the end fate of all the characters. The less detail in this novel, allows it to move at a much quicker pace, but the rich characters that Naguib Mahfouz had created. Perhaps if “The Cairo Trilogy,” had been expanded a bit or even if “Sugar Street,” had been expanded then perhaps, the characters and their individual dramas and adventures would eventually become more apparent rather than the brief skim over their lives. In the end though it feels good though to get the entire trilogy done. Yet I wonder, what Naguib Mahfouz would think of the current Egyptian and Middle Eastern and North African’s call for democracy equality and freedom. What would he make of it I wonder? Unfortunately though I’ll most likely never know. However, I am sure his heart would fill with pride, and his mind would hope that the country moved to the intended goal that had been its motivation for so long.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*

Matter

Hello Gentle Reader

When one looks up at the night sky, they see those twinkling lights. Far off and distant, those twinkling lights are stars. Looking up, from so far below, one cannot help but feel so insignificant by lying down and looking all the way up. Past the shadowy tops of the trees. Overhead the chimney, puffing out smoke. Above the other roofs and the houses, there lays the stars. In an ominous primordial stew of nothing – a great void of nihilistic, aimless objects. That is space. Yet there is something, quite beautiful in thought of space. Who could forget the moon landing? When the first animal and first man were sent to space? All of those occurrences, were the first time that mankind was finally starting to realize its potential. The knowledge of the V2 Missile of Nazi Germany must have been quite frightening, to learn that it was the first object (manmade) to official make it into space. Certainly the human races, desire, and absolute goal of understanding what is unknown – be it space, or the very depths of the ocean; there is a demand, and a desire – a desire I am sure fuelled by fear, to get out there. To get out there, and demand to be out there, and discover what is out there.

Yet there is still something romantic about the vastness and the human races, inability to comprehend the entire scope of what is out there – or even the entire universe itself. What about this concept of a ‘multi-verse,’ this to me is rather boring. It just is for whatever reason. I do not find any concept of a ‘multi-verse,’ all that intriguing or interesting. In fact if anything at all, I’d be more interested in the concept of if space is up or down, or what shape is the universe?

Yet for a while, there I had a desire or a real craving for science fiction. While at work, I would occasionally pop into the science fiction section and for a brief few minutes. I’d look through the titles. Nothing of course sounded even slightly interesting. There were of course H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and Hugo Gernsback – who all three are often popularly called “The Father of Science Fiction,” – though in my opinion – seeing as I live from a post-colonial English speaking country, with a constitutional monarchy – H.G. Wells is often referred to as a the “Father of Science Fiction.” Though all three of the authors had pioneered the science fiction genre in their novels, and short stories.

There were other novels as well. “Robopocalypse,” by Daniel H. Wilson, which had an interesting cover, but it just didn’t really fly up my alley. There were others there as well. China Mieville’s new novel “Embassytown,” and some other mass market paperbound novels, that looked both unappealing and were more or less likely to be unappealing in any way or form for me. Then I found Iain M Banks, and his novel “Matter.” I know who Iain Banks was – author of “The Wasp Factory,” “Song of Stone,” “Dead Air,” “The Bridge,” among other interesting novels that were literary but also flirting with genre conventions as well. So I decided to give on one of his science fiction novels a chance. The front cover of the novel says it’s a “Culture Novel.” So before we continue on with a review of the novel “Matter,” it is time for some background information.

The best way to summarize what the “Culture,” is it’s an interstellar society, which follows the political ideologies of anarchism, socialism, and is also utopian. Picture a giant place of space (at least this is how I pictured it) with different planets, and what not, and all those different life forms, that identify itself, as part of the “Culture.” The “Culture,” itself is limitless, and has eliminated any concept of possession. So all the limitless, wealth, technology and anything and everything else, is free. The entire “Culture,” is Egalitarian – meaning its society is all equal. It does not use any military force unless necessary and usually to protect others.

That is the “Culture,” in a nut shell.

The entire novel of “Matter,” on the surface is a tale of three siblings, two sons and a daughter, from a “Shellworld,” (from my understanding a ‘artificial,’ world, made up shells or levels) that is not part of the “Culture,” and is rather low-technological. In fact steam powered technology has just come into existence on the planet. Yet even though this planet – or rather more specifically this level of the planet Sarl, is aware of the other more advanced civilizations that watch over them, and exist. However, these civilizations like Sarl, hare prevented from having any contact with the other more developed civilizations like the “Culture.” Which explains why steam-powered technology just came into existence? Which makes more sense; because why a civilization aware of other would more advanced and more mature civilizations not have the same technology. But because these civilizations can only be aware of each other, and not actually interact with each other, each one must mature and grown on their own. However with anything, there are exceptions. One of the three siblings (the daughter Djan Seriy Anaplian) was sent to live in the “Culture.” However by the time the novel actually starts, Anaplian has joined a branch of the “Culture,” titled “Special Circumstances,” which in my opinion is a lot like a spy agency or an intelligence service. More or less “Special Circumstances,” deals with the concept of the “Culture,” meddling or influencing and making other civilizations and other things its business.

The novel starts however with the death of the King of Sarl, and the report that one of the princes (Anaplian is the princess – daughter of the king) Ferbin, has also been killed. Ferbin however did not meet an untimely end, and is still at large. The youngest sibling Oramen, is too young to inherit the throne, and so the kingdom is left in the hands and leadership of a Regent.

The entire novel may or may not be summarized now as this – Ferbin is a live, whose life is marked, and is being hunted. He goes in search of help. Anaplian travels home, and Oramen learns the dangers of an intriguing court, and the game he himself is playing by soon being a king.

That of course once again is the plot on a very superficial level. To be quite honest, a five hundred and ninety-three page, novel should go past such a superficial level of a plot – which it does.

However, this book for me was not a considerable enjoyable one. First and foremost I am not a veteran science fiction reader. The names, the civilizations and species, they all seem so odd to me. Every culture and every civilization bears in mind some very basic concepts. All those concepts and all those faults, always lead back to what the authors know best. The only civilization they know best, the only sentient being they know – human. All the species (sentient ones) always seem a bit too human. Now of course, science fiction can easily be summed up, as quite frankly a metaphor for the human condition, using different civilizations or the future, modeled on the present situation of the world. Which is true, the worlds present situation can easily be put into the future. Stem-cell research, can be seen in some science fiction novel, as the gateway to getting rid of disease, and almost annihilating the concept of death. The building up of nuclear weapons, and suddenly the emanate consequences of the destruction of the world – by a nuclear holocaust, leads the survivors (or those that can afford it) to head out to space and colonize a planet or planets that can sustain life – only to do it all over again. They can become parables, to the extent of certain behaviours and outlooks not changed, and how they can become, more serious problems in the future. A totalitarian government soon takes over a country or a state, at the meddling of another country or foreign power – all in the name of good or whatever. The increase of globalization, has lead to the increase of information and transport of goods, but has intertwined the governments, and economies and causing the world to be on very shaky ground when handling resources from unstable countries. That is the strengths of science fiction – if done correctly.

Iain Banks does do well with the globalization and the interfering with the affairs of others, with his novel “Matter,” and the human traits of power and the need for power, and overzealous ambition, and the need for war – and warmongering in some cases. However certain parts do bother me. The artificially intelligent spacecrafts for example that have some odd names – or more like sentences for names; like “we do it my way,” or whatever. I didn’t quite grasp the concept of that. It just seemed odd to me. Why not name the ship a normal name or something like that. I assume the names of these ships, were intended to be funny, however I personally find them tedious and annoying. The other aspect is the triteness, of certain areas. The Oct’s weird way of speaking that was incomprehensible and just felt like it was there to take up space on a page. Then there was the insect creatures (I think they were insect creatures) that used pheromones to talk as well, again it felt annoying to me.

Then there came the aspect of sex changes. Why would something go from being a man to a woman to back to a man, to then going to being something of a ball or whatever it was or is? That made even less sense to me. I realize that some people are transgender, and that they are the wrong gender, which is one thing, however without any real psychological depth into the changing of one’s structure, of any kind just felt odd to me. Then again I do realize that some people do change parts of their bodies. They get tattoos; they pierce their ears, or eyebrows, lips tongues, or whatever. But to this extent it just felt superficial and rather hedonistic (even though that such aesthetic body modifications are rather hedonistic and superficial) without any psychological output though it just felt out of place, or rather unnecessary.

Though there were clever little plots. The way Holse presents arguments to his ‘master,’ Ferbin, were rather interesting to read. The glossary at the back (after discovering it) was a great help in some ways, but a bit more detail on what the “world god,” was would have been helpful, and a bit more detail on the species, and other important facts would have been nice, and would have helped shape less confusion.

In the end though my science fiction fill is over, and quenched, and certainly there does not come a feeling or desire to go back there for a while. At least not for any of this “space opera,” stuff. Maybe in the future some time I’ll give Samuel R Delany’s science fiction a go but that would be about it.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*

City of Glass

Hello Gentle Reader

The whodunit of the mystery fiction is something of quite popularity. Who could forget Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) set in Las Vegas, then Miami, and then New York. The way the scientific facts of how to solve a crime, are done, became something of great interest to everyone. Soon everyone saw everything, of how a crime can be solved. They saw how fingerprints can make a difference. How a simple strand of hair can become evidence, and solve a crime. How all the evidence can eventually cause the killer to then, confess to the crime that they had. Though of course, it became common knowledge after a while, that this was just fictional of course. That a crime cannot be solved in such a short time. In fact, hair analysis is costly and is usually not the most preferred way to find DNA. Yet still, families everywhere, sat with their dinners at the television, watching the bright colours, and the scientific methods of how blood is analyzed, how murders are caught, and how justice is served. But the fun part was between commercial breaks, everyone was trying to figure out who committed the murder. But before Crime Scene Investigation: Las Vegas; Miami, and New York – there was Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and of course there was C. Auguste Dupin, the ((arguably) first detective of the ((arguably) first detective story by Edgar Allan Poe.

A Nobel Laureate in Literature T.S. Eliot called Wilkie Collins novel “The Moonstone,” “the fist, longest, and the best of the modern English Detective novels . . . in a genre invent by Collins not by Poe.” But the Golden Age of the Gentleman Detective novel, changed to the Private Eye novel, championed by Raymond Chandler with his private investigator Philip Marlowe. Of course from there, the detective novel and stories evolved into police procedurals and the psychological thriller that Patricia Highsmith herself, championed with her shadowy world, of moral ambiguity especially with her anti-hero Tom Ripley. From there the great detective and the crimes committed by men and women; had shifted and turned into great different novels, over the years. “The Name of the Rose, “ by Umberto Eco features William of Baskerville (“The Hound of the Baskervilles anyone?) who is a Catholic (specifically Franciscan) Friar, and takes on the job of solving the murder case. For the younger readers there always was “The Hardy Boys,” and “Nancy Drew,” who solved mysteries.

It should not come to a surprise that before I got into the great literature – I started to read classics when I was young; that I read some mystery and crime fiction. The thrill of reading the chase, how the case was solved – and of course the fun of trying to solve it one’s self, was the great fun of the detective fiction. But when I discovered Michael Slade, the pen name of a few authors – Jay Clarke, John Banks, Lee Clarke, Richard Covell, and Rebecca Clarke; however Jay Clarke is the predominate author of the team. With his novels “Swastika,” “Deaths Door,” “Burnt Bones,” and others – with their brutal violence, and interesting perspective into the psychological horror of the criminally insane mind, I found a group of books that I thought would be possible to love forever. However eventually they too, proved to be following the same formula, which eventually lead to the abandonment of even Michael Slade.

“City of Glass,” by Paul Auster – the first novel in his “New York Trilogy,” felt like a, homage to the detective novel and the genre that through the years and the ages, has evolved and become something of its own character. Even the way the book was written. The minimalist surface details of the day to day mundane routine had the same aspect of the character Daniel Quinn. A routine, that after careful observation are acutely in place for the main character to avoid grief over his loss of his wife and son. Daniel Quinn the main character of this novel, is a writer. He writes under a pseudonym William Wilson.

Daniel Quinn, in his earlier years had written poetry and other works of literature, but now under the pseudonym of William Wilson, he writes detective fiction, with his fictional detective Max Work. The death of his son and wife, is what caused the change from Daniel Quinn’s serious literary output to, that of a writer who writes under a pseudonym, producing a detective novel once a year, for finical reason.

As by chance and coincidence, late at night the phone rings to Daniel Quinn’s home, and he answers the phone. On the other, the person asks to speak to the private investigator Paul Auster. Daniel Quinn, can only tell them, that they have the wrong number. But the caller is persistent in their pursuits of wanting to talk to Paul Auster. This continues time after time, and eventually out of curiosity – and slight irony Daniel Quinn takes the identity of Paul Auster, and decides to become a private investigator, and agrees to the appointment and to meet his client.

Upon meeting his appointment – the Stillman’s, Daniel Quinn, meets some odd characters. Virginia Stillman, is a beautiful woman, and immediately arouses sexual longing in Daniel Quinn playing the charade of Paul Auster. Quinn then meets, Peter Stillman. An odd character if anything, who speaks absolute nonsense in a monologue, about his father, a deeply deranged man, and his absence and isolation from human society and human contact other than his father, who after his wife’s death, decided to prove some deranged theory of language with an experiment with his son. It becomes apparent then Peter Stillman, the senior, is being released from an asylum for the criminally insane. It then becomes Quinn’s – or who they believe as Paul Auster; duty to protect Peter Stillman, the junior.

What happens next is a surreal and confusing twist and turns of philosophical puzzles and the nature of language and the linguistic zeal and the theory of the pure language that Adam and Eve, had spoken in the Garden of Eden, that Paul Stillman, the senior, wished to show existed with his cruel experiment with his son, which later turned him into a feral child. While reading Peter Stillman’s theory of language and his experiment that issued social isolation of his son, reminded me of a feral child known as “Genie.” For the first thirteen years of her life, this child “Genie,” was isolated from the rest of the world, by her parents. Restrained to a toilet training chair, and indications express that she was beaten whenever she made noise. Through the critical stages of her childhood she never learned to speak. However in nineteen-seventy, November the fourth, Genie was discovered – the social worker who first saw her thought she the child was six or seven years old. Her father committed suicide after he discovered that Genie had been rescued. After her rescue Genie was placed in the care of the state, doctors and scientists tried to get the young child to talk. But their efforts proved to be a success in some areas, but after a while, she could no longer go on. Genie eventually lost funding for the project, and she was placed in numerous foster homes. It’s become known that she has since relapsed into her earlier state of a coping mechanism, and chooses silence, after the beatings and harsh treatment of the foster homes. Her current whereabouts and now current name have not been disclosed.
But the feral child that is more or less alluded to in this novel is the feral child Victor of Aveyron.

Days of trailing Peter Stillman senior lead to nothing – and after slowly confronting the man, does Quinn learn much about the Peter Stillman. However, when he loses Stillman one day Quinn begins a decent into madness. He finds Paul Auster – but Auster is not private detective at all, but rather a writer as well, who is familiar with Quinn’s earlier work – his poetry to be more specific. However, Auster proves to have everything that Quinn wished he had. A wife and a child. Quinn leaves in worst shape then he came there too.

What happens next is the slow psychological downfall of a man whose psyche was not all there in the beginning. Quinn’s precious routine, is soon falling apart. Unable to cope with the thought of letting Peter Stillman the junior die or get hurt by his father, Quinn takes extraordinary and insane measures to make sure he has complete watch over his clients. What ensures are surreal events. Quinn learns numerous aspects of the case, and eventually finds his entire life has fallen apart around him.

The ending leaves one with quite a twist and a sense of an empty ending. A wondering of what happened. What had one just experienced? It leaves one feeling a bit empty at times, with the thought of what had just been through with the main character. It was unsettling and the ending hit quite the punch at the end.

However there were some problems in my opinion with the novel. It sat a lot of the time heavily on a very minimalist style, which can give the prose a very lifeless feel to it. There were not a lot of descriptive scenes. It almost felt like everyone should know their way around New York, which after a while felt a bit like a pity. I wish there were some landscape descriptions of the apartments, and the surrounding city, it would give a much better feel to the place. Because of the way it was written, it often felt a bit cold, and a bit lifeless. But the twist and the turns, and the layering of reality and identity was good.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*

Black Swan Green

Hello Gentle Reader

(Seeing as it is leap year, and the extra day of February, I thought I'd post a blog on this day to mark the special event.)

Youth and adolescence. Even childhood. Looking back at them, there never really was a place for it, even back then. When one is there, one is quickly trying to flee from it. One is quickly trying to achieve adulthood. In adolescence, there comes those moments, where one dips their toes in the pools of what it means to be in the adult world. Cigarette’s, beer and other assortment of alcohol. First kisses, first orgasm, first ‘other,’ hair. The bodily changes and developments. Its a quintessential time. Though in the end its still a four walled prison. It’s a panopticon of a complex. One is being observed and yet they are not entirely aware that they are being observed. Its like being placed in a petri dish. Being observed and watched. Always being poked and prodded. Changes happened right, left and center. Yet you dare not speak about the awkward ‘developments,’ that are happening to your body. Then comes the even more awkward body talk that some parents have, or that some doctors take it upon themselves. It never has escaped my ears, that when a few young woman or girls had got their first period, they immediately ran to their doctor. Who explained that what had happened was not some mortal wound or some morbidly death like function that was going to kill them and that they were going to survive. It was all natural. Part of one of the many and lovely changes that happens to a young person’s body. Some even go as far, as trying to reference it with a flower. They simply say that they are like a flower getting ready to bloom. If that’s the case, then all those pretty flowers, deserve the reward from being so ugly and from suffering the awkwardness of development itself. The pimples. The greasy face. Everything it was all quite a disgusting site to look at. Yet life just goes on as normal.

Then come the differences in the family structure. If anyone has an older sibling, then the awkward or strange changes, are quite something to observe. That is, it is before you yourself are placed in the petri dish to be observed, like some amoebae. Its quite a site to see. Yet life itself is always quite a site to see.

“Black Swan Green,” by David Mitchell is different then his other novels like “Cloud Atlas,” or even “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.” “Cloud Atlas,” was full of metaphysical action and adventure. It was both otherworldly and worldly. Historical and futuristic. It, itself was the epiphany and the greatest example of a paradox. From the sea faring journal, to the testament and interview of a genetically cloned slave who works in a McDonaldesque fast food restaurant in some Asian country in the near future, to a man who has an accidental spill in a old folks home, to the Hawaiian islands after the end of the world. To a journalist who wishes to stop the plot of nuclear disaster. It’s full of adventure and it is full of the otherworldly place that his characters inhabit.

“The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet,” itself is a historical fiction, on the isolated place of Japan and its continual isolation, and its reclusive inhabitants, who everything that is not one of them as a outsider, and will never be welcomed into their own depths of their own culture. Its an interesting and metaphysical tale with certain odds and ends of the supernatural that take place within the novel itself. Cannibalism and the act of immortality itself is one of them; that and the fact that monks rape nuns. Its all rather skin crawling sensation.
Yet “Black Swan Green,” is entirely different. It’s pastoresque in many ways. The setting is Worcestershire and the Malvern countryside. It concerns a stammering thirteen-year old boy by the name of Jason Taylor; who like his creator is a man whose first and surname could equally be two first names; and also grew up in Worcestershire and the Malvern countryside. Even more peculiar is the fact that both David Mitchell the author and Jason Taylor both suffering from a stammer. Is it peculiar that I suspect that both David Mitchell and his character Jason Taylor are born in the same month of January? But those are the only noted autobiographical elements that both the character and the creator share with each other. At least from my knowledge. It is interesting that David Mitchell’s fourth book is usually the debut book of many wanna-be authors. Yet on a personal note, it’s nice that David Mitchell, decided to save this little gem for his fourth book. It’s a different taste and a different flavour then “Cloud Atlas.” It certainly shows the authors versatility with style as well as with language and the characters way of speaking.

I think it is rather appropriate to describe David Mitchell as a ventriloquist author. A man who can write in different styles, and different subject matter, with his own obvious writing idiosyncrasies – honestly we still need to know that he is the author; yet he can still pull it off rather well. Sometimes, it can be a bit much. From “Cloud Atlas,” from the section or novella titled:

“Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After,” was well written in its speech but at the same time, it was annoying. Many times I thought to myself, what kind of primitive prime ape talks like this. Kind of makes one wonder, how fast we can resort to our own “natural,” behaviors when everything is gone. When technology is gone, when everything is gone. It’s still an interesting though.

What can be most interesting though, is that David Mitchell’s a accomplished ventriloquist of an author. Pitch perfect at it. Its ironic at times, that he himself has a stammer problem – a speech disorder more or less. Perhaps this speech disorder, allows David Mitchell, to really comprehend the different aspects of speech and how people speak. Speech itself becomes something more of a finger print after a while, or an iris of a person. Unique solely to the person. Because of David Mitchell’s unique speech problem, it may allow him to have a closer understanding to speech, and to words and letters themselves, because he himself would have to feel everyone quickly in his mind before, deciding to use them.

“Black Swan Green,” allows for some interesting prospects into the mind of a thirteen year old, through the thirteen chapters that chronicle a year in his life. Each chapter reads not like an episode but stories that happen in the month of that action. Throughout the year, one learns to see some of the really interesting characters that come and go throughout, the year. There is Julia Jason Taylor’s older sister, who at first is quite a big sister, often referring to her younger brother as the ‘Thing.’ There are his parents, his father a man who in my opinion w hose entire life has fall on broken dreams. He is some corporate goonie for some large grocery chain called “Greenland,” (not the country) and his entire life revoles around that company that demands so much of him. Throughout the years that he himself lived in the village of Black Swan Green, he admits to his son that he has meant to take his children to the Goose Fair, an’ yet work always appeared to have gotten in the way. There is his mother, isn’t she an interesting character. She herself, like most wives has a feeling of competition, with others in ‘suburbia,’ to have a nice garden, and a beautiful kitchen. Then there is Uncle Brian and Aunt Alice and there three kids Alex, Hugo and Nigel. Nigel a smart mathematically inclined child. Hugo an athletic person, who also has a bit of a charming facade on the surface, towers adults, but in the end is just a hedonistic and often strange little one as well. A crooner or casa nova with girls, in his school, and often seen as a cool guy. Then there is Alex, a computer geek – before computer geeks were even in existence.

There come others as well, who appear in the novel. Some of whom are connected to other novels by David Mitchell. Eva van Crommelynck is the daughter of the composer of the sextet of “Cloud Atlas,” as does Gwendolyn Bendincks from “Cloud Atlas,” also makes an appearance. As unfriendly and cruel with a smile and a chatty mouth of teeth.

Yet there are other parts of this novel that are just as interesting as the rest of the work. The entire place of Worcestershire becomes quite a place of interest and wonder. There is a house isolated in the woods, that is inhabited by some senile old witch. A ghost boy who skates on the lake of ice in the winter. Who could forget the wonders of the gypsies’ who have parked themselves in the quarry for a camp, that caused quite the panic. “Greeland,” (not the country) begins to resemble Bluebeard’s chamber. Yet real time or past real time, events take place like the Falkland’s War, but that is a brief mention as well – and does not stir as much in the concept of excitement, but something that just happened in the period that the book is set in.
What David Mitchell writes about though is a grounded novel of youth, coming of age, secrets (Jason Taylor is Eliot Bolivar a poet), family – its a novel of first everything from kisses with a girl, cigarette’s, and standing up for oneself. Its full of wise aphorisms like the nature of boys and their social workings:

“It's all ranks, being a boy, like the army.”

Among many other oddly philosophical musings that a young man could come up with. But it’s a splendid novel. A novel that is reminiscent of everyone’s childhood in some way or another. Whether or not your childhood was urban or rural – there are those moments that everyone first experiences, and they themselves become universal.

David Mitchell once again delivers with another enjoyable novel.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
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The Short Story Review No. X

“A Pet Dog’s Safe Birthing,” by Yasunari Kawabata Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-sixty eight – From “Palm-of-the-Hand Stories.”

Animals – pets, they were all around me in my younger days. The family always had a pet dog. It started with a chocolate cocker spaniel, and then a blonde one – who by memory we picked because, she was the cute little puppy cowering underneath the table, not wanting to come out and play and have attention like her brothers and sisters. Then in the same period we had that blonde cocker spaniel we came into contact with a Siberian husky crossed with something else. People do not like when they say a husky is chaos on four paws. A few years later, we got two cats. One had to go away because we did not get him neutered, and he kept spraying. The other one was given to us, and he was fully neutered, not to mention fat and lazy. In the same period a few years later, after the blonde cocker spaniels, death, we got another cocker spaniel. A black little one, whose shy and asocial attitude, is something that we all laugh at. Eventually the husky died a few years after the black cocker spaniel came into her life. However in their short time, together they certainly were partners in their chaotic crimes together. A few years later, a feisty almost non-compliment and manic grey cat had entered our lives. He tormented the older fat and lazy cat and even put a bit a bit of spring back in his step. Then something happened to the older cat, he disappeared, and the mystery is still unresolved and not the most pleasant conversation to have. Now there is still the slightly mellowed manic cat, and a very fat and a very lazy cat who is more interested in food and sleep then exploring the outdoors like the other one. But there have always been animals in my lives. They were the lullabies at night that lulled me to sleep, as they barked without reason or warning in the middle of those cold winter nights. The cows of nearby farmer’s fields were something to look at, and be amazed at when I was younger. The great horned owl that haunted the town one summer when I was younger. Not to mention the countless other animals that have passed through my life. The stray cats, which wander the streets like vagrants, but rather then ask for scraps for food they, glare angrily from their posts, or from the chinks in which they hide. The unseen coyotes in the farmer’s fields, their howls in the autumn and in the winter, were something that could make your hair stand up on end. Those shapeless predators were my first thought of fear, and what lurks outside the safety of the light of the town. The river not far from where I grew up, offered another natural place where in the right moments nature could be briefly be spotted. There was that time that, I saw a beaver’s dam. There was the time that the husky came running back to us one time around, when she lost a fight with a porcupine. These experiences have all been wonderful and haunting to me. I’ve never really thought about how fortunate I was to see, what I have, and have been blessed with nature, and all its splendid beauties and animals it has allowed me to see.

I’ve never been (depending on how you look at it) blessed or cursed with the fact of having to witness a dogs birthing. However, they are complicated matters, from what I have heard. But with birth of any kind, I have learned over the years, they can be very complicated. Yasunari Kawabata’s stories, tell us about the preciousness of life – all life including animals; and opens up with the more rotten parts of life, where during the childbirth the animal has died, or the kittens or the pups die as well. It’s rotten luck or chance. I know people who have gotten so distraught over the matter, do their best to console their pets. They tell me they lay the poor dead pup down for the mom to nudge, and kiss, and say her final goodbye to the pup. It’s a terrible scene full of melancholy and futility. A feeling of what was the point in the end? Yet one looks at the bright side in the end, and they can visibly see that there are however many pups still alive.

Yasunari Kawabata writes with this story, the difficult births and the miracles of the safe births. The sweetness of the small meows that breathe life into the room and sing joy throughout the house. Then of course when they are puppies they have personality and are very playful, and we are quicker to forgive those nasty little puppy teeth that they use so free willingly. Then they grow older, and mature and mellow, and become great companions, for walks, and for late night movies, and for waking you up in the morning to inform you that it is time to let them go outside.

This story rang true to the heart of my pet lover side. Though the discussion and anatomical descriptions of birth were less then appeasing. It would have been nicer if there were less of those. Never seen a birth, never want to – be it human or animal; and I never was a medicine student and do not plan on it either. Yet it is a story for anyone who has loved a dog from the moment they were puppies to the moments, that they are the cantankerous old peculiar beast who has earned their life and their laziness as they have gotten older.
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“The Monologue of Isabel Watching it Rain in Macondo,” by Gabriel García Márquez the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-eighty two – From “Leaf Storm: and Other Stories.”

When I first read the title of this story I knew, I wanted to read it so bad. But I restrained myself. I knew first and foremost that there are other stories that need to be read before that. Though back in December, on a snowy night, and after a frustrating day’s work of dealing with the Christmas shoppers stressed out to the max with their annoyances of the season itself, I decided to do something. On a whim. Laying on the sofa, the dull light bulbs in over head, sending their glow all around the room, I picked “Leaf Storm: and Other Stories,” by Gabriel García Márquez the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-eighty two and read it and my usual quick scanning pace. At first I didn’t even feel like I had read it at all, and placed it back on my pile of short story collections, and just lay on the sofa, watching television. The people moving from frame to frame, they held meaningless conversations to me. I took my glasses off, covered up in a blanket and closed my eyes. At that moment I felt like that poor cow in the story trapped in the mud. Its head hung in shame, and weighted down by the embarrassment of the rain falling over head, only causing for more build to build up, and the texture of the place to become more a sticky glue. The weight of the day’s events had weighed heavy on me. The fact of the matter was, that the people, themselves were the Indian’s throwing sticks at me – the cow. I could not give a reasonable answer why the book was not released yet. I did understand that yes it was Christmas, but no I could not change the fact of the reality, that the book was not released yet.

That was the first time, that I can name personally that the restrained that I had placed upon myself, were broken. Today though was the first time since that day, which the story has been read by my eyes again. It took hold though this time. First and foremost, the concept of magical realisms time distortion can be seen. In this story time is not a solidly built structure. It’s more like water or mud or the runny clay of the story. It flows, it moves, and sometimes you get stuck in it. Isbel herself gets lost in time. She begins to recount how and when the rain started. But eventually her concept of time – and even her grasp on reality begins to drift away, and wash away like the water down the street or had become drowned like the trees or the flowers in the story. Such an example can be seen when Isbel is awakened by her mother’s voice from some deep thoughts when her mother tells her that she is going to catch pneumonia. It is then does she first realize that the house has flooded.

“…I heard my mother’s voice warning me from her room that I might catch pneumonia. Only then did I realize that the water was up to my ankles, that the house was flooded, the floor covered by a think surface of viscous, dead water.”

Gabriel García Márquez is also known for his visual writing capabilities; which allows for a great sense of imagery to take place, in his wonderfully phantasmagoric hallucinations, that are Gabriel García Márquez’s stories. Touch, intuitions, the senses of smell, taste, sight and hearing are all brought for by his stories. It does not matter if they have any connection with the characters, at all, but there is that sense that they are part of the imagery of the background. The earthly smell of the soft soil or clay, like a toothless gaping mouth can suck your foot in; or the cleansing smell of the rain, pouring down on the earth, rich with moisture and nutrients to the parched lips of the ground.

“At noon the reverberation of the earth stopped and a smell of turned earth, of awakened and renovated vegetation mingled with the cool and healthful odour of the rain in the rosemary.”

The distortion of time, the dream like qualities, and then all of a sudden the cliff hanger, might drive some readers crazy. Other might wonder if Isbel was an ever a sound narrator in the first place. Did she ever appear all that reliable? Her sense of reality was fading, and she did appear lost at times in herself. Then again, fantasy and reality in a Márquez piece of work go hand in hand. She certainly does fall into awkward situations. Talking with her husband who is not there, when she turns around, or the last bit where she remarks that she is dead. One begins to question if she is alive or if she has ever been sound of mind, and was ever at all a reliable narrator. The question is true, and valid, but it is up to the reader to decide if she is or is not. Though any psychoanalyst or psychologist would certainly say that she is not in her right mind.
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“Waiting for Winter,” by Antonio Tabucchi – From “Little Misunderstandings of No Importance.”

In his authors note Antonio Tabucchi shows himself as a very modest author whose modesty and appears practically on the verge of shyness. He remarks himself, that he wished Henry James wrote “Waiting for Winter.” Guilty and in need to confess, I shall admit that, the stories of Henry James, have never been read by these eyes. It does not matter though if Henry James wrote this story or if it were Antonio Tabucchi; who has ended up in the end to write this story. Even though these eyes have yet to take in Henry James, and this mind has not processed the words, and what is to be formed from his writing, Antonio Tabucchi does not need to fear, or be so modest or shy about the success of this story that he has given the reader – or at least the pleasure of this reader.

“Waiting for Winter,” is the tale of a widow who recounts and describes the later hours of her husband’s death, and his death – a man of letters. The entire story is what, seems to be forming as a truth with this collection, is that all the stories here have the small misunderstandings of no importance in them, and yet these slight changes or misunderstandings, are what make the difference in these stories. They change life in just the smallest of ways. Yet the story itself as also remarked in the note about ambiguity and obscurity can also be seen.

The best way to look at this story – and in theory all of Antonio Tabucchi’s stories; is that they are ice bergs. What one reads, is just the tip of the ice berg. The rest is a unfulfilled world of meaning, just waiting to be discovered, by the reader, upon holding ones breath and taking a dive into the chilly waters below, to discover the beauty and magnificence of the subtle meaning of the writer.

An accomplished story of a widow though, who does her best to accept the fact that her husband is dead, and also deal with the commodity that her death leaves behind, for her to pick up the pieces. There’s the discussion of his journal to be published. Perhaps his poetry? Further reflection may lead to it best to publish his plays; and yet his journal does appear to be the most appropriate to publish now after his death. As people in their mourning over the man of letters, they will surely pick up the journal and hold it close, and pretend or act like they know the man they have lost. A man they hold dear in their hearts. The kind of man though they may not have known personally, well was known enough that at times he felt like one could sit down and have coffee with him – or the shadowy ghost of himself. The entire business though of his death, and acting upon it, as a new marketing plans to market the book after his death, all appear to have no one else’s feelings or emotional state in mind, other than their own desire to make money. The widow herself though is the epiphany of strength throughout the entire funeral procession, and the business that seems to creep up on her as she tries and does her best, to deal with the entire matters at hand.

My apologies at hand for this review appear so awkward, and feeling a bit forced. Its early morning, of coffee and yawns from a terrible night sleep. The story itself was read last night, and now it appears to have escaped my minds grasp this early morning.

Memory serves correct in this case. Everything word was carefully mulled over. The texture, the sound, the feel, the taste, everything was carefully considered in its choice, before being used. A ten page story does not have time to waste around filling the edges with a bit of filler and fat. Antonio Tabucchi’s story is lean and avoids all filler and fat. Focusing simply and easily on the first and foremost on the character, and the atmosphere and avoiding all melodramatic sentimentalism or melodramatic writing. For no reason at all the main character does not break down and start weeping. The widow at all does not all of a sudden cry out and ask herself why now, or why has it happened to her. He remarks on the nauseating flowers, and the nausea of the entire situation, but all funerals are a funereal and sombre nightmares or dreams, that one cannot happen but feel that this is just not happening.

The only issue that I found was not in the writing of Antonio Tabucchi but just a small mistake most likely done on the translator’s part. The mistake was when the German man was speaking, briefly it was noted he had spoken in German at the beginning, and then briefly it was noted that he spoke in French, and then it was changed back to German. But it is simply a misunderstanding on a minutiae detail and is a misunderstanding of simple no importance.
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“(Summer) A Saturday of Sun, Sand, and Sleep,” by Italo Calvino – From “Marcovaldo or The Seasons in The City”

If there has ever been a literary fictional character that has the worst luck, and admires (and also wishes to harvest nature) it most certainly must be the black comedic, Marcovaldo whose misadventures and get rich quick schemes, always fail, and usually in a comedic sense they allow for a sardonic smile on the readers face.

Yet there are complexities with Italo Calvino’s little tales here. They are short, but not quick to the point, nor are they moral fables, teaching us a lesson in ethics and doing the right thing in life, or the golden rule or anything like that really. In these stories, one can clearly see the war being waged on the natural between, the urban and the rural. With this story in particular Italo Calvino describes the (folk medicine) sand treatment that Marcovaldo’s doctor had prescribed to him. Bringing his feisty and rambunctious children along to the beach he has them burry him in the sand. However the beach is populated by the urban and industrial equipment of construction works. Cranes, dump trucks, bulldozers and all sorts of other equipment sit along the beach, beginning the new landscaping and proving once again that mankind and progress engine of the urban world, cannot be held back at all. But Marcovaldo could easily prove that such thought process, is never going to work. Had he not learned from the mushrooms, how deceitful nature could be? The attack of the wasps taught him that nature’s sting is more painful and mighty then that of a prick of a sword.

Yet this makes me wonder after reading a few of Italo Calvino’s stories from this collection “Marcovaldo or The Seasons in The City,” what is Italo Calvin’s purpose with this set of collection. Obviously he has crafted some stories of entertainment, but what is his true meaning or purpose behind these stories. Is Italo Calvino in a sardonic and comedic way remarking on the absurdities of city life? Italo Calvino does not appear to have any sympathies for his character, yet he uses him as an awkward ambassador, of the man whose life is more enjoyed or brought forth in the greatest of lights, by being with nature. Farming, or working at a vineyard or anything that deals with nature itself. Yet the main character finds himself, in the stank oil and grease smell of a industrial workshop. A place of smoke, fire, sparks, tools, and the cacophonous sound of metal scrapping against metal.

Yet even if Marcovaldo, is an ambassador of the natural world and the urban world he is not very good at it. He shows his own selfishness, when trying to harvest woodcock and ends up with an underfed grey pigeon trapped to the roof. Not to mention this go around when he attempts at doing something for his health, and decides to get some sand treatment, he ends up drifting away and catapulting into a river of people; who like himself went to escape the hot Saturday sun.

To call Marcovaldo a poor pitiful proletarian would not be right. His suffering is not something, which eventually leads him to some self-righteous act of changing the social order. No Marcovaldo may share some traits of the proletarian class, but he himself, does not seek or have the idolized communist ideals. He’s the poor man unable to enjoy nature to its fullest, like others. Instead he must find nature in other areas. Though nature often in a sardonic act of irritation often takes its vengeance out on him for disrupting or getting to close or being overtly selfish in all matters that do not pertain to him at all.

If anything Italo Calvino has created some interesting entertaining stories, which do not lament the crippling and overpowering of nature and the natural world, but shows how both the urban world that can both live side by side peacefully and yet like warring neighbours they take small jabs at each other whenever have they chance, and it is in those jabs that Italo Calvino finds humour and entertainment.
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“In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried,” by Amy Hempel – From “The Collected Stories,” by Amy Hempel – Section: “Reasons to Live.”

There is no anthology that Amy Hempel has been placed in that, “In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried,” was the chosen ambassador to represent her work. There is very little to say about this story introductory wise. It’s one of the most anthologized stories of the last quarter of the twentieth century. It was one of Amy Hempel’s first stories, written during her time as a student of Gordon Lish; and if memory serves correct as well, the shaping of the story came around from an assignment. The assignment was to write about their worst secret. The following product of that assignment is Amy Hempel’s famous story: “In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried.” It sounds rather trite, and riddled with the melodramatic cliché’s of the ‘troubled artist, finds inspiration in their greatest pain and agony of the past.’ However I shall assure you otherwise. As trite as it sounds and most likely is on how the story came to be, it is not some mediocre melodramatic and bathetic story at all.

It is emotionally charging of a tale for sure. What makes it an emotional charging story is exactly what makes one think it’s a written cliché! The fact is however, knowing this is a painful moment, and very personal moment for the author makes it a emotional charged story, filled with the language of grief.

It is a story that rings true to the core to all of us as readers, and as human beings who have emotional lives, and feel those feelings, for what they are. The entire spectrum is open to us all. Happiness, mellowness, sadness, anger, grief – the richness of it all, is for everyone to enjoy. Part of the emotions and the emotional attachment that grows between character and reader, is something that most authors intend to give their work more of an emotional impact. However, stories are not always given that luxury of having a larger format for the reader and the character to connect and to bond with each other, over a period of time, that the book takes place. Stories are much different. They do not have the luxury of giving the reader, time to bond and to connect with the characters, like a novel or a book series would allow. However stories can offer a fragment’s of the characters life.

The write of a story needs to make very important choices, before writing the story. The focus of the story is one of them, how to get that emotional gain or if they want to completely ignore it and try something different, and how to achieve the end goal. The intended effect, that lasting impression that will last with the reader. Some stories start in the middle and move backwards briefly then finish it up by moving forwards. Others focus on a specific and precise moment. They focus on the emotional landscape of the characters and then work the epiphany of the characters, and leave the rest for the reader to make sense of. Other use minute details, in a seemingly random order, but what happens after careful scrutiny and patience, is a puzzle of words, and moments or fragments that lead up to tell the story. Others use, relative subjects and themes and subject matter that allow for us to sympathize and empathize with the characters. Such subject matter can be from anything – from the consumerist shallow petty moments like finding that perfect dress for the prom; to the moments that one is faced with some very difficult decisions, such as the realization of our own mortality and the mortality of those around us. This is what Amy Hempel has done with “In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried,” dealing with the grief and the human situations in which we are all forced to deal with: the loss of siblings, parents, grandparents, family members, children and friends all unexpectedly or not. It is a situation we are all forced to deal with or will have to confront sometime during our life time.

Ms. Amy Hempel caught the feeling of the hospital perfectly, and the necessary and etiquette induced reaction that one must accommodate the one who is ill and or dying but more importantly it is attempt to normalize the situation and or completely refuse the existence of the situation all together. However throughout it all though Amy Hempel does not try and steer the reader’s emotions. She writes with a cold subjective stand point, and yet it is an emotional story based on our individual responses to the story itself. Hempel writes about the loss of youth and uses very simple sentences to pack that punch: “men we used to think we wanted to sleep with.” Among other comments. However the real clincher is that little dark secret that each of us hopes we won’t become us in such a situation. “In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried,” is not just about the dying friend, and what one does for them and that it’s just not enough; it’s about not wanting to have done enough for the dying. That sense, that this is not ones concern anymore, or never was in the first place. It is an incredibly personal story, and deals with something that most readers can relate to on one level or another.
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“Freehand,” by Ersi Sotiropoulos – “From Landscape with Dog,”

This is the first story – or to be more accurate and precise, the first time I have ever read anything by the Greek author Ersi Sotiropoulos. Thinking about Greece now brings to mind, a country that has now paying its dues for its lack of resources, and its life of credit. The languish lifestyle, that they lived, has now come to an end. The government is on the needle end of toppling over. Suicide in the last report that had met my eyes had risen to forty percent and violence and has increased to a full complete one-hundred percent. The pristine country that once left me with such awe now fills me with despair and fear. Where once the great human Greek gods sat perched on Mount Olympus, and the philosophical and political thinking of Athens, not to mention the brute strength of Sparta, had eagerly been something that my curious childhood mind devoured now has become some warped nightmare. Sometimes, while sitting on the sofa or laying in bed, I think to myself, which the country is going to fall into the Mediterranean Sea. That it’s going to just be sucked up in to the depths of the sea, because of the weight of the uncertainty of the country’s future, that the only reasonable or humane motion the gods could do is just let it be swallowed in the estuary gob of the sea.
Ersi Sotiropoulos is an avant-garde writer – though in my opinion one of the most readable avant-garde writers that I have had the pleasure of reading. She was born in nineteen-fifty three, and studied philosophy and cultural anthropology in Florence Italy, and went on to work at the Greek embassy in Rome Italy.

“Freehand,” is a subtle story. It is not adequate to call the story strange or peculiar in any means. It is just a wonderful story, which is filled with that quiet hum of life itself. The Greece (I assume Greek) that is presented in this story is much different than the current and present state of the country. It is a story that concerns some philosophical questions and two people who love each other. It’s full of mundane events and that special order and practical way of life. There are there are the characters own personalities, who clash and mingle. Their souls intertwine with each other and yet the sutures that tie them together often unlace themselves as well.

Through naked prose and simplicity of writing, with great imagery – some many lines stand out. Lingering on the very edges of my mind form the story; the writer has accomplished to show a great depth of writing in just a few pages and vivid and grand images.

There are moments, of philosophical musings, in these naked prose. The musings of the face of being the mirror of the soul. Yet when a man who is only known by his name Giacometti, begins to draw a face, it always turns out looking like a skull. Is it easy to just push that aside as just simple imagery with no real importance. Poetics with no driving force, behind it – yet like the cow itself who exists not because one see’s it but exists because it exists whether or not you see it or not.

The conclusion of the story if one could call it a conclusion at all – feels more like a dead end, or a epiphany or a sense of understanding, but beneath it all the story is far from over – even though the words end, there is still a feeling that story continues. Maybe it does, in other ways then what we as a reader know it does or not. It is not an abrupt ending nor does it just end in a petering out way either. It just ends. The words just stop at the perfect ending image. That is it and that is all.

“Her voice was colo[u]rless, with a tinge of disappointment.”

That is just one of the lines, which leaves one with the impression, of the story. A small indent, left on the skin. A lasting tingle of ticklish pleasure, as someone who has just traced ones naval gently with their finger nail. Those small moments of pleasure, make the skin of one’s body prickle with goose flesh, and yet it still feels warm, with the nostalgia.

The prose of Ersi Sotiropoulos is reminiscent of the Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt, in his paintings. This story especially left that indent upon me, of a quiet viewing of those paintings.


This blog is dedicated to my friend Samuel

The Sound of the Mountain

Hello Gentle Reader

I have read so many Japanese authors. From Yukio Mishima to Natsuo Kirino – with Haruki Murakami in between the two; and also gave Kenzaburo Oe, a try as well. Each author writes about the Japanese country. Two have seen the World Wars, and another one – along with the two that saw the World Wars, had witnessed the disgrace and fall of the Japanese Empire. Each one describes the Japan that they know. When I read “Real World,” by Natsuo Kirino I had discovered the Japan that I know was the present day one. The one of the cramming for school exams, to the point you’re about ready to pass out, or you start coughing up blood, and you overdose on caffeine. There are the polluting warnings everywhere – warning that the air contains a high amount of particles, in the air that could cause respiratory system damage. What was shown in the general sense of the work by Natsuo Kirino was apathy. There was that sense that nothing good was coming out of working hard, and that all you had in life was that you had to work hard and that was it. The moment that you were born you were groomed to be whatever it is that was decided for you. And the only way to get there was by working hard and cramming. Haruki Murakami’s work was and usually is rather surreal. The world that his characters inhabit is like our own and yet different. Something is amiss – aloof; the mundane is more extraordinary then the extraordinary itself. There is a general sense of alienation. The characters are cut off from the world around them. The people that walk by are little more than shadows, in an absolute void. Yet throughout this alienation and isolation, there are extraordinary moments. Talking cats, leeches that rain from the sky, a well that can swallow your dreams, television sets that can take you from reality and into the televised alternative dimension – and yet in the end (as a friend described it) everyone goes home, listens to jazz music and eats ramen noodles. The Japan of Kenzaburo Oe, is rather different. It’s an ambiguous and enigmatic place. It is a place that does not make sense. Oe’s fiction is rather personalized to the point of (forgive me for I am about to sin) being selfish. His writing about his son Hikari is often personalized and often repeat themselves in every novel that he writes, where a handicapped or brain damaged child – usually a son; comes up. In this respect Kenzaburo Oe, is exercising himself in these stories – often called ‘the idiot boy,’ stories. His first and award winning novel “Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids,” deal with his childhood home, and the barbaric nature of the human race – kind of like William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies.” Yet the Japan that Kenzaburo Oe, writes about shows his own ambivalent attitude towards his own country. Yukio Mishima’s country is however far different then the left and liberal leanings that Kenzaburo Oe’s are – both Mishima and Oe are on the different sides of the political scale; that is just know by most readers of these two authors or by people who have an interest in Japanese literature. Yukio Mishima’s Japan was much different. It is a world that had been disgraced following the defeat of World War II, and the kind of loss of purpose that followed Japans defeat in World War II. Yukio Mishima’s writing is characterized by a sense of nihilistic feeling and disgust for the honour of Japan, and the infection of westernization that is influencing his country – however Yukio Mishima a descendant of a samurai family, believed in the power and divinity of the empire. However in the end Yukio Mishima left his country he beloved and committed ritual suicide, when his coup had failed.

Yasunari Kawabata is different than all of the other above authors. He began writing before the Second World War. He has not seen what Japan has become today. He does not have an imbecile child. His politics where never really shown in his writing. Yasunari Kawabata has written about a traditional and beautiful Japan. A Japan that is participating in the world, as a whole in the twentieth century, however is still strictly its own country. It participants in the Imperial Age, and is a world player. However it is strictly its own country. However throughout time there can certainly be a different shift in his work. He gradually begins to incorporate certain elements of history – which at the time were most likely contemporary events. If one looks at “Snow Country,” by Yasunari Kawabata, and then at “The Sound of the Mountain,” there are small subtle changes in how certain details are presented. For one, in “Snow Country,” there (from my memory) was no real discussion of the war even hint of ‘the war.’ There was no discussion of American soldiers or any tourists whatsoever. However with “The Sound of the Mountain,” there do come these changes. There are American soldiers on a train, a westerner on the train who cannot speak Japanese. Yet throughout the novel Yasunari Kawabata keeps them all at a distance. They are just details. They have no real characterization and are not painted with any political brush. They are simply described as if they were a tree or a flower – meaningless and just part of the scenery. But this change does not affect the novel; it certainly shows the changing landscape of Japan after their defeat. However as if a twist of irony, it was during this time that Japan began exporting its culture – those monster movies, cartoons and Japanese styled comic books have becoming something of an interest throughout the years; in this time as well with Japan being opened up and able to export their culture novelists like Yasunari Kawabata (the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-sixty eight and first Japanese Nobel Prize winner in Literature) and Yukio Mishima (a protégé of sorts to Yasunari Kawabata) to become literary pheromone’s outside their country – which probably led to Yasunari Kawabata being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Personally speaking, it is not really right to call “The Sound of the Mountain,” a family chronicle. The events of the novel do center on an aging patriarch Shingo and his family and his views of the events that happen through on out. A master of the psychological novel, and exploring the psyche of his characters through the external world around them, and providing the external world with metaphors of their own thoughts and perspectives. A good example would be when Shingo walks around by the sunflowers, and they remind him of heads, and he wishes he could just dismember his own head from his body and take it for a cleaning – the main character is having memory lapses, as well as experience or rather hearing strange noises that only he can hear; such as the rumbling of the mountain that awakes him in the night and he decides is a omen of death.

Shingo’s daily routines do not change, but he begins to question his relationship with everyone in his family. His daughter Fusako is divorced from her husband (her parents had arranged that marriage). It in itself turns out to be a failure. His son Shuichi is having an affair with another woman. He and his wife Kikuko have yet to produce a child. Shingo begins to wonder if his poor behaviour as a father and not being a loving husband has played a part in his family’s dysfunction. Shingo loved his wife’s Yasuko’s younger sister. However she died as a young woman, and so it could be summarized that Shingo had settled with the second best, with Yasuko. Even Kikuko causes some erotic feelings to arise inside of Shingo. It can plainly be seen as well, in how he treats her, almost fatherly. Kikuko also showers, Shingo with love, and takes care of him and helps around the house.

The novel is much different than “Snow Country,” in many ways. Yet each one shares similarities. “Snow Country,” started off as a short story and eventually became a novel. “The Sound of the Mountain,” the chapters appear like short stories – little satellites or moons orbiting around the larger novel itself. Each one adding a different characteristic to the novel itself.

It is a wonderful novel, written in the grace and the beauty that I have learned to love and respect of Yasunari Kawabata. But it is also ambiguous and lucid. That is just something though that one expects to find when reading Yasunari Kawabata – he was part of the art movement with Riichi Yokomitsu, and other writers, titled Shinkankakuha which has been translated as “neo-impressionism,” but that is incorrect of what it actually was. It’s really more about “new sensations(list).” It is modernist, and Kawabata uses very poetic and lyrical prose full of metaphors and dreams to really move a story that may or not be there at all. However he probed the mind of his characters, and showed the external world as a world just like the internal world of their psyches.

“The Sound of the Mountain,” is a very mature work. It has all of the typical writing styles of Yasunari Kawabata; but also shows him miniaturizing life moments in brief chapters. There is the psychological probing, a sense of melancholy and a desire of nostalgia and there certainly are some regrets as well. Everyday Shingo is faced with his own mistakes – the mistakes of his son and his daughter. His son’s infidelity, his daughters divorce – and the despair that his daughter-in-law feels towards her husband and his affair. Even worst though is when his son asks him the question itself that Shingo himself wrestles with:

‘“I’ve been thinking a little,” muttered Shuichi. “About Father’s life.”
“About my life?”
“Oh, nothing very definite. But if I had to summarize my speculations, I suppose they would go something like this: has Father been a success or a failure?”’

There will be no denying it, if anything Shingo had failed miserably with his children’s lives, and being at the age of sixty-two there is very little he could do rectify the mistakes that he has done. These are the guilt’s that he himself is forced to live with. He also realizes that his own mortality is coming up to its expiry date.

This novel is a powerful meditation on family, life, aging, death/dying. Though the images and the perceptions of the mountain, the birds flying, one of Teru’s puppies, the insects and the sounds they produce in the summer evenings, the cherry tree in the back garden, or even the two pine tree’s he see’s every morning on his way to work – they all provide new sensations and meanings and images for Shingo. Each one mapping his own psyche and his musings of family, ageing, mortality, companionship, and love.


Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*

M. Mary

P.S. Gentle Reader: the previous blog "Unforunate News," should have been published Wednesday February 8th of 2012 but unforunatly I had it saved, as a draft. I apologize for the confusion.

Unfortunate News

Hello Gentle Reader

It has recently come to my attention that the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-ninety six, Wislawa Szymborska had passed away on February 1st of 2012. A lifelong smoker, she passed away peacefully in her sleep, from lung cancer. It is a heavy blow to the culture of Poland, as the most beloved Poet of the country has passed away. May her grieving family and friends, remember the great poet, who had made such a difference in her country, and had written such memorable poems.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*

Sehnsucht

Hello Gentle Reader

Have you ever watched the television – which is a redundant and stupid question that has no grounds; and carefully watched rather closely at the lips of the people? Have you watched their lips – the voice is there, and its moving towards their lips; yet the words that you hear just do not fit with the lips that are moving right around on the face. The way they say their ‘O’s,’ just do not fit with their lips. They look they’re about to say a ‘B,’ or an ‘A,’ or some other word but not the ‘O,’ of the word that they just said. When they say ‘Oh,’ it looks like they are saying ‘Ah,’ but not ‘Oh.’ That sense of misplacement, or not being quite instep or in tune with oneself, or the work in which they are doing – this is how it could best be described of the current trend in American Literature. At least according to a few people – who may or may not be of any importance to anyone, but the few people around them.

Alexander Nazaryan is a writer and accordingly to the internet, a teacher as well. He has published articles in places like “The New York Times,” “Village Voice,” “Salon,” and “The New Republic,” and is currently completing a novel titled “Golden Youth,” about Russian organized crime in Brooklyn. He wrote an article, for “Salon,” in two thousand and eleven – last year actually – not even a year ago, just a few months ago really – it was written on October third of two thousand and eleven – three days before the Nobel Prize for Literature was announced and was awarded to the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer. It was about the insularity and narcissistic writing of American writers of today’s age, which is best characterized for its absorbance in mass culture and nostalgia for its writing.

Alexander Nazaryan states quite profoundly in his article, that the entitled sense of whining that America deserves a Nobel Prize in Literature since two thousand and eight, when Horace Engdahl called America’s literature too “insular and isolated,” and had profoundly stated that Europe is “the centre of the literary world,” and the constant self-pity that they have not won a Nobel Prize for Literature since nineteen-ninety three is not justified in the least bit. However Alexander Nazaryan also pointed out that, the outrage over the Prize’s political statements with winners like (2004) Elfriede Jelinek and (2005) Harold Pinter, were not justified either, in their liberal left leanings in the George W. Bush era of American history. However he still defends the Swedish Academy for not awarding the Nobel Prize for Literature, in recent years to an American author. The last American born male to win the Nobel Prize for Literature was in nineteen-sixty two to John Steinbeck – and to a male American author was back in nineteen-eight seven to Joseph Brodsky whose real tradition of writing was the experience of writing of the emerge of a Soviet Union dissident.

However the author of the article, does state though, that America is to blame for their own inability to deserve the Nobel Prize for Literature. There is no author in the current time or age, which is writing outside of the Cold War Era, twentieth century tradition or nineteen-century tradition. There is no need for gun slinging westerns, the family chronicle of the drama, or the hermetic precincts of Jewish rivalry. The late David Foster Wallace, probably the only author that may or may not have had a chance in his would be later years, to win the Prize, had predicated with precedence the current crisis that is facing American literature, in his review of John Updike’s novel “Towards the End of Time,” David Foster Wallace states the problem of postwar American Literature with the following statement that can be generally acquired to all great male American writers (Thomas Pychon, Philip Roth, and Don DeLillo):

“The very world around them, as beautifully as they see and describe it, seems to exist for them only insofar as it evokes impressions and associations and emotions inside the self.”

In other words this great American tradition of writing purely about what one knows is all one can do and most importantly write about. If one puts it that way Fran Lebowitz puts up the best argument against it for writing about what you know period. People have far too much self-esteem these days and these same people are all writing about what they know. What they know is not of particular interest to anyone.

For example I could write a five hundred to seven hundred page novel about what I know – which is the following. It would be a fictional memoir, about a boy who has a normal childhood, grows to be a teenager and has all the teenage problems that come with puberty and low self-esteem or rather low esteem for others. The coming to adulthood and the working of menial jobs, and then a stable job and then the recession, the menial jobs again, hardship that befalls from it, and then the subsequent death. I’ll write about all the relationships, fill the prose with some stream of consciousness writing, some interior monologues, some dry humour and with lush descriptions of the world and the emotional landscape of the world.

That is neither a book worth reading, nor is it a book worth writing. What impact was that book to have on someone throughout the world? What importance would such a book have on someone in Germany, Japan, France, the UK or South Africa have in such a book – what importance would it have on someone in Canada?

This concept of write what you know (which I have championed at times, also makes me a hypocrite). However some authors make this work for them. Herta Muller the Nobel Laureate of Literature in two thousand and nine, writes about her experience of the communist dictatorship in Romania run and headed by Nicolae Ceauşescu and overshadowed by the Soviet Union. It’s a frank discussion of the terrible regime and the deaths, the darkness, and the shadows of the past that have haunted her – a collective grief from her father’s SS days, to her own decision to write against the dictatorship and the harassment that had come from refusing to work with the secret police. How is this different then Philip Roth’s work or Thomas Pychon – it discusses history and the politics of an era and participates in the dialogue of world literature in a political format.

Other authors like William S Borroughs, Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway – they have experienced something. Whatever it maybe they had seen the world at large – they had travelled, participated in war, watched the civil war, went on the hunt for drugs, road tripped – these were all aspects of their lives, that they had experienced and knew how to write about what they knew, but what they knew was not insular, it was not narcissistic and self-absorbed. It participated in the world as a dialogue and literature and books being the words.

That is what the Nobel Prize for Literature is – it is the first step in the world participating in the dialogue of world literature, and the books of the Nobel Laureates are the underlined and distinguished ambassadors, who are using literature as the words, and are making the dialogue as the world of literature happen. Yet America acts as if it is an island stranded by itself in a sea of nothing, and that its voice, is the only voice that matters. However America can change that, and then deserve the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Right now American literature is a recycling past cultures and fashion trends, and becoming nothing then self-absorbed in this repetitive use of times, and the same themes used over and over again, in just saying the same old message. America needs to move past the nineteenth century, twentieth century and come into the twenty first century and explore and make new voices, and innovate.

Sehnsucht is a German word that is best described by C.S. Lewis (an author I have little respect for) as a: “insatiable longing,” for something that one is not quite sure what. The word Sehnsucht is best described for current theme in American literature – it is longing and lamenting about the time that has been past, and wishes to emulate the writing of past masters. Yet it has all been said and all been done before. The family saga, the Jewish immigrant narrative, the Cold War paranoia novel, the pop culture pastiche of other works, has passed. It is time for the work to move on and become something new. Something that opens another door like the previous authors had done.

Hopefully America will stop making the shape of their mouth as if to say a ‘O,’ and out comes an ‘A,’ – as if they work their work starts lining up properly again. There work becomes something new, and better. The time of America’s Sehnsucht for the past, and past works, is over. America needs to stand up and write more than just about what they know. Put the mirror down and look out the window.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*

(If you are interested in reading the original article by Alexander Nazaryan please click on the following link:

http://www.salon.com/writer/alexander_nazaryan/

Thank-you again Gentle Reader.)

There but for the

Hello Gentle Reader

There are people, in all our lives – perhaps to be more specific: there are people, in all our childhoods that touch us. They are usually older – we look up to them. They appear to be from a different world; they usually are. Yet there is still something about them. Something different. Something that just cannot be quite pinned or pointed out in any specific matter. Though through the years, they have become little faded photographs. Around the edges are a bit discoloured – like someone was dipping them in tea or coffee, like it were a biscuit. The faces, have faded – they have deteriorated slightly into the obscure world of pixilation; causing the photo to become grainy and old. This is what memory is like the father you go back, thinking about such things. However the emotions are just as raw and still feel real. Whoever it was – it was a friend’s older brother or a friend; when I was learning to roller skate, there was a bit of a hill that slowly curved and I was having issues turning with the slow curving and narrowing sidewalk and the brother quickly skated up and allowed me to fall into him as we were falling – I’ll never forget that odd feeling of trepidation and awkward relief at being caught. Reading the last few pages of Ali Smith’s latest novel “There but for the,” had let loose those feelings, and those memories, all simmered to the surface again as Brooke and Miles Garth, talked. The way they talked at ease with each other. The wonderful cleverness they had enjoyed each other’s company was just something that reminded me of those odd moments.

Ali Smith’s new novel had caused quite the controversy. Its snub from the Booker Prize of two-thousand and eleven, for not making it even on the long list, was an outrage! This novel became the Booker Prize of two-thousand and eleven’s worst nightmare, for it was constantly brought up in the crisis of the debate of “readability over quality.” It was named one of the best books of two thousand and eleven along with Alan Hollinghurst’s new novel “The Strangers Child.” Even I named it one of the best books of two-thousand and eleven – not that my opinion means anything.

It is a playful novel; which usually sounds like in my head, a rather boring or self-centered novel that is being overly complicated, or ridiculous. However Ali Smith’s new novel is quite the contrary to the stereotypical playful novel. Even though the summary or the blurb about this book would give one the impression that it is otherwise following that stereotypical pattern, of a playful self-centered novel. When first reading about this book – which would have most likely never come under my radar, if it was not for the Booker Prize snub; I thought to myself when reading the blurb about a man who decides to lock himself into a guest bedroom after a dinner party, and decides not to leave, was a rather strange book – and yet continuing to read the blurb it gets even stranger. The person whose guest bedroom he has commandeered, starts selling merchandise, about the man who has locked himself in her guest bedroom. Immediately I thought to myself, it was no wonder the Booker Prize had snubbed this book.

From that point on, I did not bother to give the book another thought. With the Christmas season, around the, the store was busy. Yet traversing the aisles, I immediately was struck by a book, which had gone unnoticed before. It was white, with the look of green grid paper on the cover. In the middle of the green grid paper, was a outlined door in pen. Complete with the design of the door itself. The rest of the book was white. Accept for the authors name on top in black bold letters, and the bottom in a pea soup green colour was the title “There but for the,” looking up at the top showed the author “Ali Smith.” It was the cover that grabbed me. This odd picture of a door, on green graph paper – it was lovely shade of green as well, reminiscent of a hospital room coloured green – except it look nicer on the book. It was not under any sign stating “Best books of 2011,” nor was it on a table that had a sign stating any new releases. No sticker on it stating that it was a Booker Prize snub. Nothing, just a book, like every other book, sitting on a shelf with to no importance at all. I ignored the book again. I really did not care for a book that was playful.

Time went on, and on. I passed the book every so often. I picked it up. Flipped through it. Eventually I decided to buy it. With a store employee discount as well as a store credit and the fact was that I only ended up paying a dollar and fifty nine cents for the book, what harm could it do. Besides the fact that I had also made it one of the best books of two thousand and eleven and it was deserving to have been read and reviewed.

First reading of the novels were odd. The sentences did not seem to fit quite right. Some of the sentences had a coma at the end of the sentence with an odd word at the end of them. Not odd as in peculiar word, that would certainly stand out in the sentence because of its meaning. No just generic words that could fit in any sentence. Such sentences were odd to me. The way that the word ‘that,’ had appeared at the end of a sentence with a coma in front of it, kept pulling the metaphorical chain around my neck. Causing great annoyance. However I got over these little pot holes in the road of this novel, and tried not to think of them that much when they decided to appear.

One of the largest shocks of this book was how it works. The premise of a man, who locks himself in a room, in a stranger’s house, during a dinner part, and a cult of celebrity that surrounds these entire abnormal events, is just odd. Yet it works. It works for its purpose. The thought of reading this book at first was: “Really we are so culturally and creatively stagnant and sterile, that we have to right about some ‘reality,’ celebrity?” However it’s not quite like that. Of course the premise of this book would let you believe that, but no it is quite the opposite indeed. The act of Miles Garth, locking himself in the Mister and Misses Lee’s guest bedroom, connects four people – well three people anyway; from their own distracted and broken lives.

There first of these people is a Scottish woman by the name of Anna. She won a writing contest, among other people from all over the United Kingdom, and has gone a Europe wide trip. There as a young seventeen-year old she meets the then seventeen year old Miles. Anna felt alienated and isolated from the group on the trip as well. Though upon meeting Miles things start to change. They continued to send each other little notes and postcards even after the trip. It is purely by coincidence that Anna is discovered by the Miss Lee, who finds her name in Miles cell phone which he left down stairs a long with and in his jacket; he wore at the dinner party. It is from that point on that Anna remembers that fateful summer and she remembers the enigmatic man behind the door.

There is Mark Palmer, an elderly gay man, who first meets Miles, and is the one that brought him to the dinner party that he did not want to attend. His dead mother Faye Palmer lives inside of his head – and often likes to tell clever little rhymes.

There is May Young, a senior woman who is dethatched from the world around her that she refuses to speak. Yet her connection to Miles is the oddest and perhaps the least enjoyable of this book, is that Miles comes and reads to her.

Then there is perhaps one of the more interesting characters of this entire book at the end. Brook, a nine and soon ten year old little girl, who was at the dinner party – though not quite expected to be there; and witnesses the following outcome of the twisting bizarre tale of Mister Miles Garth, and his celebrity as Milo; and her keep delivering notes underneath the door way for Miles Garth to read, while he sits in the guest bedroom, doing nothing at all that interesting – so she makes it her job to make sure that he reads something interesting.

In all Ali Smith created an interesting piece of work, which does not probe the psychology of Miles as I had first thought it would, but instead searches the people that are connected to him, and how his actions have the ripple effect and cause slight disturbances of waves and memories, in the general lives of others.

Ali Smith also uses language in this story. Which has always been something odd to me, when people discuss language in writing. All writing has the use of language. This has always baffled me. What on earth were people talking about when they were saying that the language of a book is interesting? Ali Smith’s book, for example is written in the English Language. For me that is it that is all. But it is how she uses the language that makes it slightly interesting. Such as the following excerpt near the end:

“Brooke looked up from her piece of paper and watched them throwing the words for birds and flowers and Hollywood actors at each other like they were throwing little rocks wrapped as presents.”

There many occasions of writing like that though. I still remember the discussion at the dinner party about ‘google,’ itself:

“Google is so strange. It promises everything, but everything isn’t there. You type in the words for what you need, and what you need becomes superfluous in an instant, shadowed instantaneously by the things you really need, and none of them answerable by Google. . . Sure, there’s a certain charm to being able to look up and watch Eartha Kitt singing Old Fashioned Millionaire in 1957 at three in the morning or Hayley Mills singing a song about femininity from an old Disney film. but the charm is a kind of deception about a whole new way of feeling lonely, a semblance of plenitude but really a new level of Dante’s inferno, a zombie-filled cemetery of spurious clues, beauty, pathos, pain . . . More and more, the pressing human dilemma: how to walk a clean path between obscenities.”

It’s a strange novel as well. But it is interesting novel it how it is written. Not necessarily overtly clever or too playful – but enough to be unique in its own right.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
As well as a welcome and hello to another follower to the blog The Black Cat!