tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13126530037461046622024-03-14T08:05:46.834+13:00Writing anywayA reading and writing journalUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger258125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-4134470144071831112020-08-01T05:02:00.065+12:002020-08-06T12:27:55.446+12:00Success!<div>The contract has been sent by the publisher and I have only to sign it. She and I talked on zoom for over an hour, getting on very well. P was by my side and the children were in the room too, listening.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The questions only arose later. I want to tweak it a little, nothing significant. I have not done a thing. I am paralysed. She has been in touch and I told her I needed more time. I could not tell her how completely floored I am by this success. At least it looks like it might be the beginning of success. I have another month before the contract lapses. I may need it.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I am so anxious. I have become sick, nauseous, the kind of feeling you get from eating food which is too rich, something to do with the bile. I cannot eat much, and then only stuff without nutritional value. Tinned tomato soup. Crackers with fake butter. Only peppermint tea because I don't like ordinary tea without milk and I cannot tolerate milk right now. Coffee is out of the question. My lovely doctor said it might be a stone, a gallstone. Apparently I have the classic symptoms.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The blood tests have all come back saying I am A OK. The ultrasound is in a week's time and will probably also say that I am fine. I feel like a fraud. Am I a fraud?<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This acceptance of my work has come as a rude shock. My mind is not used to it. I go through ugly spaces. Paranoia, nothing will come of it, the publisher will not perform, the cover will be ugly, or worse, boring, no one will buy it. Or megalomania, the world will beat a path to my door, Peter Jackson will want to make the movie. I spent two days in bed sleeping or reading about the 1918 flu epidemic. It's a good book, informative, but not cheerful. It is now 4 o'clock in the morning and I am writing because I cannot sleep any more and at this ungodly hour I can't ring anyone. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I would like to call my sister in Israel but it is Shabbat and she won't pick up the phone on Shabbat. Or rather she will pick up the phone because this being NZ, we are ahead of Israel and it is not yet Shabbat there and when she hears it is me, she will say: "Isn't it Shabbat with you now?" and when I say it is, she'll slam the phone down, fast. I have another sister in Holland who is an angel, always kind and helpful, but last time we spoke I said things in the wrong way and now I have to wait for her to forgive me. I have to give her time.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I don't know how to get through this. My friend L who knows about this
situation from the inside said I could ring her, but I'll have to wait for
daylight before I can do that.</div><div><br /></div><div>Some friends wanted to celebrate, meet for lunch, but I could not do it. I am in shock. I need time to get over this. Or maybe just get used to it and get to work, because I have a lot to do before that book is fully fledged and ready to fly.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-18544965653169133252019-05-30T13:21:00.001+12:002019-09-01T13:49:12.732+12:00The compulsion of disgustI am better, though still coughing. This morning I intended to resume my routine of meditation, breakfast and writing, but it was not to be. I was wiping the kitchen bench and the top of the cooker, for they were strewn with crumbs.<br />
<br />
Crumbs?<br />
<br />
The crumbs were alive, they moved, they wriggled! Maggots, white squirming maggots!<br />
Another fell onto the surface as I leant over examining them. It arrived from above: I looked up and backed away: more were dangling from the interstice between the light fitting and the ceiling itself, about to fall. I stood further back, revolted. I didn't want a maggot to fall on me.<br />
<br />
P normally sleeps till late but I went to wake him.<br />
I told him he had to come, come and see, which he did.<br />
He stood in front of the cooker in his dressing gown, his hands in his pockets, observing the maggots. After a while he said: "They're falling at a rate of three a minute."<br />
<br />
We fetched our nice clean white dustpan and white brush and swept up the maggots, tossing them out of the adjacent window. More kept coming.We called our tall son for help.<br />
<br />
He stood on the kitchen ladder and removed the light fitting, while I tutted and fretted below: in a cloud of dust (old insulation foam), among a myriad of blind writhing maggots, the corpse of a rat thudded onto the cooker . The men dealt with it, business like.<br />
As for me, I was not business-like.<br />
<br />
* * *<br />
<br />
It is past midday. We have been cleaning and cleaning. P has taken a long shower. My turn next. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-23185605573850530252019-05-29T16:47:00.000+12:002019-09-01T13:52:45.296+12:00Sick on the sofaI have been too sick for the last two weeks to do any sensible writing. But today is better. Still on the sofa, but able to sit up and type.<br />
<br />
I have been enticed away from Knausgaard and have not finished <i>The End. </i>He mentions writers I have not heard of whom I discover to be giants in their country of origin and I feel obliged to try them out. Have given up on Broch and his <i>Virgil, </i>the language too intemperate for my liking, endless neologisms which irritated in the long run, and the story stalling. I did finish a book by Peter Handke <i>The Moravian Night: A Story, </i>(translated by Krishna Winston, 2016)<i> </i>which is a meander through parts of Eastern Europe, or rather the story of a man who used to write and is telling his friends, during a night on the river Morava, about his meander. Except that the title is not to be taken literally: yes, there are people on a boat moored on the Morava, during the night. But the tale is of the darkness and the disappearance and the horror and pain that happened there over the last century, if not earlier. This dawns on one gradually. I found I had to stay with it until the bitter end, though not sure what was so compelling. I have known people from that area, damaged by their experiences, who have committed acts of evil - vengeance or is it retribution?<br />
<br />
The book has won many prizes. I shall read more Handke if the opportunity presents itself. I tried to resume reading <i>The End</i> but either too much time had gone by or I am still not well enough: I was unwilling to do the work.<br />
<br />
What delights me at the moment is re-reading Colm Toibin's <i>The Master</i>. Whole sentences had stayed in my mind from the first reading, some 12 years ago, and whole scenes too. <br />
<br />
Meanwhile, my editor E has looked at my manuscript and critiqued it and inserted commas everywhere. I am not protesting: this is what I want her to do. She does not like my ending, quite rightly, because it reflects a withholding on my part.<br />
<br />
I chose to end the story when a character we like is intensely alone and suffering. This is the unadorned lot of the exile and refugee, I thought: a reader should not be allowed to believe all ends well, because it does not.<br />
<br />
Though she did not use those words, E may have recognised my punitive intent. I caved in: I have already written material for the ending,which was not included in the MS because it requires more work. I have been sick now for 2 weeks, so things are at a standstill.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-57805747338039085332019-03-24T13:41:00.001+13:002019-05-29T16:03:36.266+12:00The burble of Virgil's mind<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The last volume of <i>The Struggle</i> (by Karl Ove Knausgaard, Harvill Secker, 2018) is titled <i>The End</i>. I am reading it very slowly. It's practically a stand-alone book, even though it's the last in the series. I don't think one needs to have read the previous five volumes to understand this one. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">He roams all over the place. I am reminded of the way Talmudic scholars allow themselves the luxury of tangents: he explores to the right and to the left, wandering off to both sides of the path he is on before going forward, analysing Hitler's <i>Mein Kampf</i> on the one hand and Paul Celan's <i>Death Fugue </i>on the other<i>.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I read at night when I'm tired so I don't read for long and I miss getting a sense of the broader sweep of his writing. I do feel that he writes without restraint, no shyness, no reserve, it is all on the page: I read to celebrate his courage hoping maybe to learn how to do something like that one day, though I do not have his intellect. I shall reread him in due course, I'm already looking forward to it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In the course of his artful rambling, he mentions Hermann Broch, of whom I had never heard. Our wonderful Central Library - closed two days ago because the building has suddenly been deemed unsafe in an earthquake - our wonderful Central Library had duly produced their old (1946) and battered copy of Hermann Broch's <i>The Death of Virgil </i>for me<i>, </i>which I am now reading, alternately wanting to throw it across the room and becoming more and more enamoured of the characters. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Y</span><span style="font-size: large;">et another Jew forced to flee Germany. Broch's book was first published in the US in English rather than German, thanks to Eva Starr Untermeyer, a gifted translator who was also a poet. His language is florid, to say the least, his sentences long, one could say that he indulges in perseveration - same words and terms repeated with slight variations as if they were being examined with care from all possible aspects - and yet. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">A</span><span style="font-size: large;">lmost at random from the middle of p. 54 - the text flowing without a break, without paragraphs, one solid bloc on the paper -</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">'...the square patch of heaven stretched over the court now permitted the stars to be seen again, their breathing light once more visible though occasionally dimmed by the smoke-clouds trailing beneath them, but even these were permeated by the soft, drizzling tone-mist, sharing in the wandering-weaving misty murmur which impregnated the courtyard and shrouded each single thing, objects, odors and tones blended, mounting towards heaven in the stillness of the night...'</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">One has to work one's way through this - what does the 'breathing light' of the stars mean, or a 'drizzling tone-mist'mean? Until Virgil's thoughts become more interesting, such as the moment when, deathly tired, he enters the room which has been allocated to him courtesy of Augustus Caesar, and finds everything perfectly suited to his state of mind and his state of ill-health:</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">'Nothing was lacking, an armchair for contemplation stood near the bay-window and the commode stood in the corner of the room; the luggage was piled up in a way easy to handle, the manuscript-chest was pushed by special order near the bed, everything fitted so neatly, so noiselessly, exactly as an invalid could have desired it, but still this was no longer the beneficence of Augustus, this was just the smooth planning of an irreproachable, fully equipped, royal household, there was no friendship in it.'</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">I understood that the extreme sensitivity and great attention to detail which characterise the previous descriptions are entirely Virgil's. (Another reader would probably have realised this sooner.) This one simple sentence: 'there was no friendship in it' stands alone and strong against all the previous burbling. The burbling is the burbling of Virgil's mind, his on-going response to whatever happens around him, a burbling which, unsurprisingly, is different in quality, more precise, more focussed, more insightful, than that of an ordinary person's mind. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I am hooked. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I want the opportunity to think about the way Broch writes in comparison with Knausgaard. I am only half-way through <i>The End </i>and find myself now immersed in <i>The Death of Virgil. </i>I shall reread what Knausgaard says about Broch, it may help me understand them both better. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-46829727927804861822019-03-24T11:51:00.000+13:002019-09-02T12:49:30.336+12:00StrugglingI have been sending my MS to agents in the UK, and not being successful. No one has given any feedback so no idea why.<br />
<br />
I am reading Knausgaard's <i>My struggle,</i> which is engrossing. I finished Vol 1 <i>A death in the family </i>quickly and moved onto Vol. 2 <i>A man in love. </i>He writes with a kind of abandon, every detail seems to be noted...The style of Emily Perkins' book <i>The Forrests </i>was similar - an intricately chiselled shell, beautiful but empty - lovely language, nothing to say. Ultimately boring.<br />
<br />
Knausgaard is different, first because he writes about himself, his family and his friends with searing honesty, and secondly because the reader is privy to his thoughts about issues which confront every one of us, love, life, death.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-71035284510182583352018-02-06T19:24:00.003+13:002018-10-03T11:17:31.132+13:00The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel VasquezAntonio Yammara is not a nice man. I hardly liked him enough to read the
book again, but I managed to, reading at a slow pace. I got involved in Colombian reality. It was an exciting and at times amusing experience, also an education.<br />
<br />
The translation mostly reads well, as if it were written in the original language, except that now and then - not often -
there are sentences that are bad, sentences which read as if a
word is missing or which made me stumble. As if
Ann McClean had delegated the work to a novice. Until now I had always been impressed.<br />
<br />
I may not have explored this book in as much depth as it merits. My first reading was quick, to get what I think of as the first level of meaning out of the way. I knew nothing of Colombia except for the drug cartel based in Medellin and South American culture as portrayed by Herge in one of his Tintin books. (Nothing of the South American literature I have read seems to contradict what I learnt there.) As a <i>gringa </i>who has never visited South America, let alone
Colombia, I was sure I was bound to miss the subtext unless I made an effort.
And even when making an effort, I believe I missed meaning.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The book's main themes: </b><br />
<br />
Beyond the wonderful opening sentence with the hippopotamus, the early pages announce what this book is about: "The alacrity and dedication which we devote to the damaging exercise of remembering which after all brings nothing good and serves only to hinder our normal functioning," contradicted by the following sentence "...the death of that hippopotamus put an end to an episode of my life that had begun quite a while ago, more or less like someone coming home to close a door carelessly left open." In the long conversation between Maya and Antonio, they agree that it is possible to live without thinking. I suppose that the book reveals what happens when someone begins to think.<br />
<br />
On p. 15, about the relationship between experience and memory - between parentheses: "...we're terrible judges of the present
moment, maybe because the present doesn't actually exist: all is memory,
this sentence that I just wrote is already a memory, this word is a
memory that you, reader, just read."<br />
<br />
At the beginning of section 6, I liked the following sentence: "Adulthood brings with it the pernicious illusion of control.[...] we associate adulthood with autonomy, the sovereign right to determine what happens to us next." And a page later: "It's always somewhat dreadful [sic] [...] when it's another person who reveals to us the slight or complete lack of control that we have over our own experience."<br />
<br />
<b>Structure</b><br />
<br />
In the first three of the five parts Antonio is a man only concerned with himself. He is the One, this is reflected in the titles: <i>One single long shadow, Never One of my dead, The gaze of absent ones</i>. Aura is attracted to him - why is a mystery: "Professor Yammara introduces her to the law." He sees the caricature of himself at a time when he has been rendered impotent. And from then on there develops a search for meaning. Why would someone want to kill Laverde?<br />
<br />
<b>Recurring events and objects</b> <br />
<br />
I liked how some features of the story were repeated - in my view for emphasis - though when I spoke of this to other readers they looked at me as if I were mad. You be the judge: <br />
<br />
Two scarred men, scarred through no fault of their own, three if you include Elaine's father who returned with one leg missing only to disappear from her life.<br />
<br />
Two fathers disappearing, Elaine's father and Ricardo, though Elaine's father never came back - family break-down. <br />
Two beloved little girls, two mother - the goodness of women. <br />
Twice (only) the colour brown in the same location.<br />
Twice the huge penis.<br />
Two sets of grandparents who are ignored - family break-down.<br />
Two instances of shots fired without aiming, one with terrible consequences, one with none <br />
Twice seeing a little girls' expression on the face of an adult woman.<br />
Two green doors - Laverde means the Green One<br />
Listening to the recording twice.<br />
Three air crashes if not more: <i>the sound of things falling</i>.<br />
Two Christs in the church where Elaine and Ricardo get married.<br />
Two haciendas, two gates.<br />
'I understand perfectly,' once Ricardo to Elaine, once Antonio to Maya. Men lying?<br />
<br />
The choice of names: the name Elaine refers to the woman who loved Lancelot and bore Galahad. And it is in fact related to Elena despite the fact that this is denied by Maya. Elena means sun beam.<br />
Aura: may mean breeze, but also light, ie it is similar to Elena's name.<br />
Both are mothers, viewed as a source of warmth and light. <br />
<br />
Leticia: the 1930s war between Peru and Colombia centered on a town named Leticia which is the Southern most town of Columbia. It was originally founded by the Peruvians under the name San Antonio - the same name as our hero - and was later awarded to Colombia in a secret deal between the two countries. Peru tried to annex the city and surrounds in 1932, Colombia sent in the army and the conflict was finally resolved with the help of the League of Nations. This is the war in which Ricardo's pilot grandfather fought.<br />
<br />
I wondered why Maya had been chosen to be a bee-keeper and discovered that there is a famous children's book about <i>Maya the bee, </i>an independent and adventurous bee, loved by the bee colony she belongs to despite her rebellious nature.<br />
<br />
Antonio claims to deny Lutecia's and Aura's existence to contain the contamination of pain and fear. Is this the truth or something he is telling himself? He has begun his relationship with Maya on the basis of a lie, so it has no future though he could easily stay with her: "I understand you completely."Returning to Bogota, he confronts loneliness but it is different from before, he seems at peace now.<br />
<br />
Here is a question: why does Maya call him a user? He says that all the story he read was about him. How can that be?<br />
<br />
<br />
One discovery amused me: Elena visits the church where her 'small almost clandestine wedding' will take place. It is the church of San Francisco of Assisi, which fits with the theme of Ricardo's love of animals. She likes the church because she thinks of silence and noise, of light and darkness, both pairs as she is about to become part of a pair. She looks at the illuminated altar and then discovers the two Christs, one on all fours the other in a cage.<br />
<br />
This is what amused me: the photo I found online revealed that the illuminated altar is huge and completely plastered with gold. This is the altar that the tourists come to see. It does not impact upon Elena: what impresses her is the little Christ in a box behind the metal bars: <i>The saviour of agony, </i>or maybe <i>the agonising saviour </i>would be a better translation. This Christ is miraculous because his hair is supposedly continuously growing. She puts in a coin and the Christ is briefly illuminated. And then "Elaine knew she would be happy all her life." And we discover that her happiness will be brief, just like the flash she saw, that Ricardo is the darkness to her light, the noise to her silence.<br />
<br />
In this portrayal of the limits of personal power, <i>The Sound of Things Falling </i>(2011, 2013) reminded me of Timothy Mo's outstanding novel <i>The Redundancy of Courage</i> (1991) and the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe's classic <i>Things fall apart </i>(1958). This 2013 translation <span class="js-about-module-abstr">won the prestigious 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-75817809558548657052017-01-04T17:36:00.001+13:002019-03-24T14:20:10.488+13:00The giver and the receiverFour stories by Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen<br />
<br />
Re-reading after some years: <i>Shadows on the Grass, </i>published in the 60s (Penguin). The cover illustration is an oil painting by Blixen, of a Somali child who was one of her servants in Kenya. She came to realise that he was a mathematical genius. When he begged to be to sent to school, she 'scraped the money together', She also bought him a typewriter when he asked for it. Many years later, he wrote to thank her and explained that the typewriter gave him a significant advantage when he applied for jobs. He became a judge.<br />
<br />
She wrote in English, a foreign language for her. Are writers for whom English is not the mother tongue more free to write in unusual ways ? (Thinking of the Pakistani/British writer Nadeem Aslam, for instance.)<br />
<br />
Here are the two sentences I most loved:<br />
<br />
The first for the way the structure represents Berkeley Cole's leisurely, round-about journey:<br />
<br />
"On a day in the beginning of the long rains Berkeley Cole came round the farm from up-country, on his way to Nairobi." (p. 69, <i>The Great Gesture</i>)<i>. </i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>
<br />
Also, for being thought-provoking:'<br />
"A gift may be named after both the giver and the receiver, and in this way my inspiration is my own, more even than anything else I possess, and is still the gift of God." (p. 96, <i>Echoes from the Hills). </i><br />
<br />
All along this book, I heard in my mind the deep longing in Meryl Streep's voice at the start of the film <i>Out of Africa: "I had a farm in Africa." </i>Great acting.<i><br /></i><br />
<br />
I have just read Penelope Lively's <i>How it all started, </i>about the unexpected ways in which a person's action can affect others. Clumsy and uncharming in comparison, though Blixen does set the bar rather high.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-18727396790373780652016-05-18T21:53:00.001+12:002017-05-08T12:58:47.812+12:00Lows and highs<br />
Have I mentioned my book group?<br />
<br />
We meet once a month. Our last meeting focus on <i>Illuminations, </i>the story of Hildegard von Bingen, by Mary Sharrat. I had chosen that book myself, confident it was good because it had won a prize. Disappoinment: the known facts revealed about Hildegard were the only attraction. The writing was poor, the author failing to evoke what it means to be a genius in the body of a medieval woman.The prize - the name of which I cannot remember - is awarded to writing in the New Age genre, which describes this book well. It is facile, though many people raved about it.<br />
<br />
Dutch author Cees Nooteboom has written a book I am re-reading called - in the English translation - <i>The Following Story. </i>Having finished it - it is nice and slim - I went back to the beginning, laughing to myself as I realised how much he'd revealed which I only understood at the end. I may have been particularly dense. I believe that he intends for his unwitting reader to embark on a voyage of discovery. I won't reveal more.<br />
<br />
Now in his eighties, Nooteboom has won many respected prizes and continues to write. Some of his articles and books are in the travel genre which he derides in <i>The Following Story</i>. Another feature of his writing is that he kindly provides opportunities for digression - he refers to other authors and their works, to artworks, to places. I find myself following his hints with pleasure. In <i>The Following Story </i>his hero walks through Lisbon and I followed his footsteps (thank you Wikipedia and Google), amused and edified.<br />
<br />
I have also read Niall Williams for the first time and wonder how come I've not heard of him before, nor had anyone else in the book group.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-68017671179676002182016-02-09T11:04:00.000+13:002016-02-09T11:04:55.380+13:00Ecclesiastes was wrong<b>A man in his life</b><br />
<br />
A man doesn't have time in his life<b> </b><br />
to have time for everything.<br />
He doesn't have seasons enough to have<br />
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes<br />
was wrong about that.<br />
<br />
A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,<br />
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,<br />
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,<br />
to make love in war and war in love.<br />
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,<br />
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest<br />
what history<br />
takes years and years to do.<br />
<br />
And his soul is seasoned, his soul<br />
is very professional.<br />
Only his body remains forever<br />
an amateur. It tries and it misses<br />
gets muddled, doesn't learn a thing,<br />
drunk and blind in its pleasures<br />
and its pains.<br />
<br />
He will die as figs die in autumn,<br />
shriveled and full of himself and sweet,<br />
the leaves growing dry on the ground,<br />
the bare branches pointing to the place<br />
where there's time for everything.<br />
<br />
<i>Yehuda Amichai</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-37340945310324370722016-01-04T10:23:00.000+13:002016-01-09T23:23:26.565+13:00Slow release of comic effect: Echenoz's list of Queens of France<br />
Reading Jean Echenoz again. (I'd like to read everything he's written.) This time: <i>Queen's Caprice, </i>a collection of seven short stories. (<i>Caprice de la Reine</i>, Editions de Minuit, 2014).<br />
<br />
One of the stories had a delayed effect on me, like a time-bomb. I read it attentively and at first it made me smile. As time went by, it must have gone to my head, because the more I thought about it, the funnier I found the world. I laughed a lot about everything. People thought that maybe I 'd had too much to drink - but no, only orange juice.<br />
<br />
It isn't a story. It's a list of twenty items: the title says it all - <i>Twenty women in the Jardin du Luxembourg, clockwise. </i>It starts like this, without preamble:<br />
<br />
<i>"Saint Bathilde, Queen of France, holding a manuscript in her left hand, and the left side of her coat in her right hand. Hairstyle: two plaits, tied back. Jewels: necklace with cross. Expression: determined."</i><br />
<br />
Next paragraph, next Queen: you read about her carefully, her posture, her arms and hands, what she's holding, hairstyle, jewels, expression. It rises in crescendo: you're waiting for that last word, you hope for a surprise - but no - this one is 'volontaire' (I was reading it in French - it means 'wilful'.) I reckon there's not much difference between wilful and determined; the third queen is described as 'decidee', which my <i>Petit Larousse </i>confirms also means determined. They're Queens of France, used to power.<br />
<br />
Further down the list, some variation does occur: Marie de Medicis is 'not very friendly'. (I'd say.) Someone else is 'patient', and the final one, Sainte Clotilde, is 'distant'. In two cases, a further qualifier is added at the very end of the paragraph: 'Presence of big breasts'. If you do need to know, they were Jeanne d'Albret ('inspired' - she was a poet) and Anne of Austria: ('pleasant, but dazed' - probably too many children.)<br />
<br />
The breast thing tells you that the observer is a man. OK then, maybe not a man, maybe a 13 year-old boy.<br />
<br />
It made me laugh.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
*** </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The next day, I attended a party in a lovely modern house, art on the walls and canapes served. On one side, windows from floor to ceiling, overlooking the countryside, the lawn outside sloping to bushes, trees beyond and then hills and far away the sea and a glowing pale sky, long whisps of cloud across it. In the middle of the lawn stood a stick with a narrow container attached, the contraption no higher than my knee. I asked the friend in whose house we were what it was: "B's rain gauge. I did ask him if it needed to be there today." she said. I laughed.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It doesn't matter where you put a rain gauge, as long as it is in the open. This one was in the middle of the view, bearing witness to my friend's ability to compromise and her husband's single-mindedness. I laughed so much I cried.After that, I carried on laughing about everything. I had a good time. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-33276404067516838222015-11-04T21:58:00.001+13:002015-11-04T21:58:02.984+13:00Reviewing The Conductor and The Beauty of Humanity MovementA bad attack of flu left me very little energy, needing to retreat to bed every day after only a few hours of mild activity. Besides sleeping, I managed to put in some good reading. Three books by Sarah Quigley, NZ-born author now resident in Berlin, starting with <i>The Conductor</i> (2011, Vintage Book) and today, Camilla Gibb's <i>The Beauty of Humanity Movement </i>(2010, Doubleday). Camilla Gibb is Canadian. Both women have doctorates from Oxford; they're about the same age, I think - mid to late forties. Quigley's D.Phil is in literature and Gibb's in Social Anthropology.<br />
<br />
Their books are cultural <i>tours de force: </i>Quigley's conductor is Russian, a musician, living in Stalin's Leningrad during the siege, Gibb's Vietnamese live in modern-day Hanoi. I have not visited either country, so I may be ill placed to evaluate the veracity of their characters. I found myself trusting what was described which doesn't always happen. All the more so when I realised that Sarah Quigley lived for a while in what used to be East Berlin - not the Soviet Union, but a State similar in its Communist ethos. I wonder whether Camilla Gibb has a Zen connection which helped bring Vietnamese Buddhist culture alive for her.<br />
<br />
<br />
Most of the important characters are male. They proliferate in <i>The Conductor</i> - various friends, teachers, critics. No female voice at all, except for an enchanting chapter dedicated to a girl in love with her wonderful cello. It's a bit like reading <i>Anna Karenina </i>- all those Russian names - though Quigley has done her best to simplify them for us. Gibb is less demanding: she has limited herself to two men and one woman in <i>Beauty.</i> Her woman, Maggie, who grew up in the USA, is much less interesting than either Hung, the wise, humble man who cooks perfect pho, and Tu, the young tourist guide. These are believable men, according to a aman who read this book .<br />
<br />
Quigley writes authoritatively about musi and it was marvellous to be in Shostakovich's mind as he struggled to compose as well as cope with the conflicting demands of his gift and his family. If <i>The Conductor </i>has a fault it lies in the first 100 pages.<i> </i>One has the feeling of wading<i> </i>through somewhat marshy land, hoping for future relief, waiting for the story to acquire a clear dynamic. The characters don't appear very different from each other, being men of a similar age, so that one struggles a little to know whose head one is in. This is not helped by Quigley's tendency to wait to the end of the first paragraph to tell us whose point of view is taken. Having immediately carried on to read two other books by Quigley, <i>Shot </i>(2003, Virago) and <i>After Robert </i>(1999, Penguin), I realise that this slow start and the slight confusion about the characters are a part of her style. I enjoyed all her books. <br />
<br />
Gibb manages transitions in her own particular way - from chapter to chapter and paragraph to paragraph. It is almost amusing to flip the pages and realise that she inserts the POV character's name in the very first sentence - I imagine her going back over her work after the initial drafts and checking that it's there. Gibb's characters are more differentiated - a young man, an old man, a woman, which provides the reader with a track to follow.<br />
<br />
I also liked these books because the characters are introspective, complex and struggling. They struggle like most of us, with complexity, with morality, with their own natures. The writer has approached them with compassion. That compassion awakens a sympathetic chord, at least in this reader.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-2470850493601676872015-09-03T17:52:00.001+12:002015-09-03T17:53:51.113+12:00How to identify a cliche: the end of a dilemmaA cliche is an expression which is overused, and has been shorn of its original impact in the process. How can one judge when meeting an expression for the first time?<br />
<br />
Searching for the words via the search engine of your choice allows an evaluation of the frequency of occurrence.For instance, the words 'technological marvel' - search and pages and <i>pages </i>of references come up.End of dilemma.<br />
<br />
Is this obvious? I searched under 'identifying a cliche' and no one mentioned this method. Could everyone be doing this and not writing about it?<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * </div>
In fact, it is often enough for me to wonder whether I should check, to be practically sure that the expression is a cliche. <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-80997957453661962372015-05-26T18:59:00.003+12:002015-05-26T19:14:22.381+12:00AfricansThe book is called <i>We need new names</i> (Chatto & Windus 2013) by NoViolet Bulawayo, a Zimbabwean woman living in the US. Half the book is Zimbabwe and destitution, half the US, and at the transition point between them is this short short chapter <i>How They Left</i>, which provides a powerful answer to any person wanting to know why some Africans are desperate to live in the West or more generally, what it means to be a refugee.<br />
<b></b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>How they left</i></span></b></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Look at them leaving in droves, the children of the land, just look at them leaving in droves. Those with nothing are crossing borders.Those with hopes are crossing borders. Those with strength are crossing borders, those with ambition are crossing borders, those with loss are crossing borders, those in pain are crossing borders. Moving, running, emigrating, going, deserting, walking, quitting, flying, fleeing – to all over, to countries near and far, to countries unheard of, to countries whose names they cannot pronounce. They are leaving in droves. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>When things fall apart, the children of the land scurry and scatter like birds escaping a burning sky. They flee their own wretched land so their hunger may be pacified in foreign lands, their tears wiped away in strange lands, the wounds of their despair bandaged in faraway lands, their blistered prayers muttered in the darkness of queer lands.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Look at the children of the land leaving in droves, leaving their own land with bleeding wounds on their bodies and shock on their faces and blood in their hearts and hunger in their stomachs and grief in their footsteps. Leaving their mothers and fathers and children behind, leaving their umbilical cords underneath the soil, leaving the bones of their ancestors in the earth, leaving everything that makes them who and what they are, leaving because it is no longer possible to stay. They will never be the same again because you just cannot be the same once you leave behind who and what you are, you just cannot be the same.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Look at them leaving in droves despite knowing they will be welcomed with restraint in those strange lands because they do not belong, knowing they will have to sit on one buttock because they must not sit comfortably lest they be asked to rise and leave, knowing they will speak in dampened whispers because they must not let their voices drown those of the owners of the land, knowing they will have to walk on their toes because they must not leave footprints on the new earth lest they be mistaken for those who want to claim the land as theirs. Look at them leaving in droves, arm in arm with loss and lost, look at them leaving in droves.</i></span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
<br />
<i>Americanah</i> (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013) by Nigerian woman Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is also excellent. Dressing her hair triggers memories and analysis. African hair has its own character which is different from Western or Asian hair. The way is styled or lacks style expresses to some extent one's state of being - I think that's true of anyone anywhere, man or woman.<br />
<br />
<br />
Ifemelu's mother wears her lovely hair long, until she becomes a religious fanatic. When Ifemelu first arrives in the US, her hairstyle expresses her desire to fit in, as she attempts to look like an American. Then she adopts the African fashion of braiding, augmenting, relaxing, which is expensive and harmful to her hair, until the wheel turns again and she allows her hair to just be itself.<br />
<br />
<br />
In Americanah Ifemelu reflects directly on race relations in America via her blog, which is witty and trenchant. The blog's style is viscerally different from the story (where the same issues are less obviously manifest). It muses critically on the state of race relations, on the differences between Africans who migrate to America and Americans born black, on white people's perceptions and behaviours and everyone's misunderstandings. On how little we know about another person's world. "Before I came to America, I didn't know I was black."<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
Both writers invoke a novel from a previous generation which answers the question How the hell did we get to this? Chinua Achebe, also a Nigerian, wrote the beautiful novel <i>Things fall apart</i>, published in 1958. Like Bulawayo, Achebe writes economically. Their books are short, all the more powerful for their brevity.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
<br />
<br />
From still an earlier generation, <i>Cane</i> by Jean Toomey, published in 1923, is a novel "structured around a series of vignettes on the experiences of African Americans" (Wikipedia). In Americanah Ifemelu reads and loves this book. Toomey's writing does not to fit well into existing categories, much like Toomey himself, an American who did not consider himself a Negro, as they were called then. He would say that he descended from seven different races, Black being just one of them. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-20708098123158057872015-05-20T23:47:00.000+12:002015-05-24T21:38:23.283+12:00For the benefit of all, without distinction<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">"In India,
the rain, the tree, the river and the Saint are all regarded as symbols
of selflessness. Rain comes for the benefit of all - humans, nature and
animals equally. The tree offers its shade to all that seek shelter and
yields its sweet fruit even to those who hurl stones at the tree to
knock the fruit down. The river is also there for everyone. The deer
quenches its thirst in the same river as the tiger and a Saint gives his
blessing to all without distinction."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">From a <a href="http://www.yogaindailylife.org.nz/philosophy/karma-yoga" target="_blank">yoga website.</a> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: georgia,palatino; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-3656403582544178932015-05-14T06:47:00.002+12:002015-05-14T07:03:47.975+12:00Don't go back to sleep!<br />
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.<br />
Don't go back to sleep.<br />
You must ask for what you really want<br />
Don't go back to sleep.<br />
People are going back and forth<br />
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch.<br />
The door is round and open.<br />
Don't go back to sleep!<br />
<br />
Jalal ad Din Muhammad Rumi (1207-1273) <br />
From <i>The Essentail Rumi</i>, p. 16. Translated by Coleman Barks<br />
<br />
* *<br />
<br />
Life and death are of supreme importance. <br />
Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost.<br />
Each of us should strive to awaken.<br />
AWAKEN!<br />
Take heed!<br />
Do not squander your time!<br />
<br />
Dogen Zenji (1200-1253)<br />
<i>Evening Gatha </i><br />
<i><br /></i> * * <br />
<br />
Dogen and Rumi were contemporaries.<br />
One in Japan, one in Persia.<br />
How amazing!<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-43141847066340355752015-04-28T23:29:00.001+12:002015-05-14T07:02:04.244+12:00Sarah Arvio, poet<br />
My printer is refusing to print, it says the cartridges are wrong, even though it has worked with those cartridges for a while - why take against them now?<br />
<br />
I don't want to lose what I found via Knopf's poem-a-day free email: a multiple-prize-winning American poet called Sarah Arvio. Here is the beginning of another poem of hers called <i>Animal</i>. My printer's dysfunction has propelled it onto my blog, which I tend to neglect. This Knopfy programme may revive my blog's fortunes. (If interested, sign up to it on their <a href="http://knopfdoubleday.com/imprint/knopf/" target="_blank">website</a>.)<br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">ANIMAL</span></span></i><br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I am very nervous in myself I</span></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">was always nervous as an animal<br />angling for its home and then homing in<br /><br />toward a home but never finding it I<br />was that sort of lost animal although<br />animals are rarely lost we are lost<br /><br />as they are not we are the burrowers<br />in our own dark mud when oh the light and<br />so on not to be dark or obtuse when<br /><br />the light is wonderful this wonder that<br />we should be so dark and lost and the world<br />was designed to be a home for us or</span></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
There is more. You can find it on <a href="http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.co.nz/2011/11/sarah-arvio.html" target="_blank">Brian Brodeur's blog.</a><br />
The poem is followed by an interview where she describes how she writes, literally how it happens.<br />
For those who would like to know. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-33907433919052791522015-03-22T22:27:00.001+13:002015-05-25T09:46:56.997+12:00Overuse syndromeI was curious about <i>It's been said before </i>by American lexicographer Orin Hargreaves. Subtitle:<i> A guide to the use and abuse of cliches, </i>OUP, 2014. I thought I'd educate myself.<br />
<br />
I abandoned it before reaching half-way: cliches are intrinsically boring, and many cliches gathered together are deadly, even though Mr. Hargreaves' comments about them are agreeable and light. I decided to keep the book for reference, though my son pointed out that any expression giving rise to the slightest doubt is best deleted, and obversely, should there be no doubt, the book would not be consulted either.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-72173916201200606942015-01-04T15:14:00.001+13:002015-06-01T11:32:54.794+12:00Rama Burshtein's first filmP and I watched <a href="http://www.sonyclassics.com/fillthevoid/#/reviews" target="_blank"><i>Fill the Void </i></a>last night, an Israeli film about a Chassidic family going through a very difficult time. When it ended, I found myself saying: over and over "It is perfect, just perfect."<br />
<br />
Like the interior of a jewel box, everything in it is beautiful, miniature, rich with feeling and textures. The characters are passionate, intimately portrayed, the discipline of their lives, the constant exercise of patience, modesty and humility. Much of what happens is understated or not expressed openly, and yet present.<br />
<br />
I am particularly interested in the contribution of the Aunt without arms who so resembles her sister, the Mother. We witness a rare quarrel between them, during which the Aunt requests a glass of water, and while they stand face to face by the kitchen sink, the conversation between them shuttles to and fro unimpeded, the Mother holding the glass for the Aunt, who sips through a straw. There is no sense that the Aunt should be grateful nor that she is taking the help she receives for granted. The scene stands in for all the other complicated intimacies of her life, the dressing and undressing, the itching and scratching, the make-up (for both are always made-up, they are beautiful, strong women in their late 40s). No sense of effort, not in the asking for the water, not in the providing of the drink. The Mother completely assumes this burden, it appears to be weightless. It is a model of kindness without condescension, never mentioned between the characters. The Aunt is dependent, physically powerless and yet powerful in her presence as a complete person. She is not married, apparently content with her lot, in contrast to the unmarried women around her who suffer anguished throes about marriage or its elusiveness.<br />
<br />
I loved the colours - a kind of golden glow throughout. Nothing appears cheap or tawdry. A wonderful script. Rama Burshtein, you have made a great film. Thank you!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-73782698022978498262014-08-04T14:36:00.002+12:002015-01-04T15:16:24.236+13:00Love and DarknessThe war between Hamas and Israel is ongoing at the moment, with the poor Palestinians stuck in the middle and Israel and the Jews blamed for all their pain. Anti-Semitism re-emerges from hidden places, a smile on its ugly face.<br />
<br />
Amos Oz is a good companion in these times, because he writes about the pain and the worry of loving. I have re-read his <i>A Tale of Love and Darkness</i> slowly, during these terrible days.<br />
<br />
I must get hold of the book in Hebrew. Time and again I found myself time and again translating the English words into Hebrew, recognising a Biblical lilt or a Zionist tune. Nicholas de Lange is an excellent translator, but still.<br />
<br />
Amos Oz repeats himself. Some repeating feels true, as when he hears the bird singing the first five notes of<br />
Beethoven's <i><u>Fuer Elise</u></i>; at other times the recurrence seems laboured. Has the book been written according to a cyclical structure, where the same things the same people and similar situations keep returning, as in real life, faster and faster as we grow older, and we are given (by whom?) a chance to consider them from slightly different angles each time?<br />
<br />
Much to do with language, its roots and the directions they take, a family obsession.<br />
<br />
One section I loved: on p. 24, as a child of six he is taught 'the facts of life' by his father - how to arrange books on a bookcase - their backs to the world and facing the wall (the way Zen practitioners meditate).<br />
He arranged them according to size, to his father's dismay. His father listed many different ways in which books might be arranged: those were the facts of life - diversity!<br />
<br />
I found that portion thrilling. As a child, Amos Oz did not yearn to become a writer, but to become a book, which may never be completely destroyed, but a copy of which will survive in a bookshop somewhere; I think of the antiquarian bookshop Quilter's, here in Wellington, which is the kind of bookshop where his books might be found.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-29671977655380541692014-04-23T13:31:00.001+12:002014-04-24T23:18:09.283+12:00Watching Sister Wendy<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Sister Wendy was on TV
again, in a documentary on the Arts channel. The interviewer described her as ‘all
glasses and teeth’ – (she has teeth like a rabbit). Her physical
appearance did not prevent her from becoming a household name all over the world, as the presenter of programmes on the history of art. What she looks like is as nothing to the power of her
presentation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The focus of this
documentary was on her life rather than on art works
only. She's no ordinary person. For one thing, she’s very clever: a First from
Oxford - one of the best results ever, in English Lit, studying under Tolkien. Her
religious Order forbade her to mingle or talk to the other students and she sat and studied every night. Socialising was never her forte.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">She taught English and
Latin at a school for 20 years, and has been the Mother Superior of a convent. Now
that she is over 80 years old, she lives in complete seclusion as a hermit and
a ‘Consecrated Virigin’ (whatever that means), in a Carmelite convent in England, separated from the other nuns, at first in a caravan ‘bought
for 60 pounds’, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and parked in a thicket
in a remote part of the grounds, and later, when the caravan ‘fell to pieces’, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in a little prefab, about which she says ‘A bath!
And an inside toilet!’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(</span>Things must have
been pretty rough in the caravan - she also mentions a skylight which leaked). She attends mass
daily, still keeping herself apart: she sits in the belfry. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">She wanted to be a nun
since the age of four, when she had a powerful <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>experience of God’s presence. It just happened
the once, but it was ‘enough to last a life-time”, she says. About her
virginity, she says directly to the camera that she lacks any sexual urge, “It
was always a mystery to me.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She regrets
that giving up sex was so easy: she would have liked the opportunity to sacrifice more for God.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">At times she said
things which resonated so directly with me that I experienced a pang in my
chest (my heart?) and tears came to my eyes. I was moved, I can’t say why. I am
hoping I‘ll understand better what that was about by writing about it. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The first was when she said about the paintings she chose, that here we have "...a great genius illustrating something that Christ experienced or suffered, and trying to make Christ's experience <i>visible</i>" - she sees the paintings as a gateway to spiritual experience. </span><br />
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Piero Della Francesca painted Christ's baptism by St John - Christ is very pale-skinned and blond, and holds his hands prayerfully , but there is a vertical gap between the hands, which are not placed quite symmetrically. And over his head, over St. John's bowl of water and the hand of St John pouring it, there floats a white dove, its wings spread out horizontally, like the purest blessing. I wondered at the space between the hands, what it meant. It is at the centre of the painting, where Christ's heart might be. And then I realised that the space between the hands, the pouring water and the wings above them form the beginning of a cross which is completed by the dove's tail at the very top. The dove appears quite still, though there is a lot happening elsewhere in the painting, with angels on one side and various religious people in the background. It may be that none of them can see the dove. None of them are looking at it. Jesus himself is looking straight ahead, out of the canvas and is unaware of it. </span><br />
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In the film, when this painting was introduced, the dove was initially kept out of the frame. The picture looked complete as it was, Christ's baptism. And after Sister Wendy had commented for a while about other aspects of the work, they showed the dove on her own, filling the screen. We hadn't been aware that she was there beforehand. It gave her added emphasis. I shall not forget the experience.</span><br />
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-28107552281194691972014-01-05T15:17:00.001+13:002015-05-17T07:39:17.392+12:00Not workIt is midday and I got up at 6:30 this morning. I have done yesterday's washing-up, watched the news (no newspaper on Sundays in this house) showered and cleaned the bathroom. Drank several cups of coffee. Talked to my husband who was also up early for once.<br />
<br />
<i>(Displacement, displacement.)</i><br />
<br />
I know that writing this is an avoidance of the real work. I shall keep it short: I borrowed a book of poems from Wellington's Central Library, the only book which contained something by Cesar Vallejo (see my previous post with his poem).<br />
<br />
The title of the book is <i>Staying alive: Real poems for an unreal time</i> (Bloodaxe Books, 2002) edited by Neil Astley. I discover that Neil Astley is the editor for me: I like the poems he has chosen very much. My heart quickens as I read them, all of them. He has gathered the poems up by topic; each section has its own title, a good title, a title about what matters. Each section is introduced by a short editorial which is in small print, as if he was apologising for taking a liberty.<br />
<br />
That text takes my hand and walks me through the poems. I am usually too impatient to read much poetry. With Neil Astley's help, I can do it. I am still busy with it, one cannot read a book like this like a novel, though I almost finding myself doing so. Many hours have gone by and still I am busy with it.<br />
<br />
<i>(Displacement, displacement.) </i><br />
<br />
Lucky that the Vallejo poem is a different one.<br />
<br />
Two NZ poets have been included: Kapka Kassabova, (four poems) and Fleur Adcock (five). There are also many Eastern European poets. Kapka K was born in Bulgaria.<br />
<br />
From the <i>Body and Soul</i> section, here are the first two verses of Kapka Kassabova's <i>The door: anticipation of wisdom</i>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One day you will see clearly:<br />
you've been knocking on a door without a house.<br />
You've been waiting, shivering, yelling<br />
words of badly concealed and excessive hope.<br />
Where you saw a house, there'll just be another side.<br />
<br />
One day you will see clearly:<br />
there is no one on the other side,<br />
except - as ever - the jubilant ocean<br />
which won't shatter<br />
ceramically like a dream<br />
when you and I shatter.</blockquote>
There are four more verses. Three of them start with the words 'But not yet.'<br />
<br />
Now I really must go. It is after 3:00 pm. I have had a short snooze somewhere in the middle of all this time, the better to leap forward<u> now.</u><br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-26020114384703978822014-01-03T11:33:00.001+13:002014-01-03T12:31:08.530+13:00DisplacementYesterday I returned to writing my book. At long last. The chapter about the villain, to be precise. It is turning out to be so hard that I can only see myself writing a single chapter from inside his head. I am not even sure that I can do that. I am trying, No - not good enough - I shall <u>do </u>it.<br />
I have printed out Renee's recommendations for my book, no I <strike>should</strike> <i>shall</i> cross that out, <strike>for my book</strike>, <i>Renee's recommendations for <u>me</u></i>, in an assertive font called Elephant, (black and bold) and stuck them by the screen of my computer where they will attract my attention as soon as it wanders.<br />
I must get the book finished this year. There is nothing to stop me, except myself.<br />
Yesterday a friend came for lunch - no, the truth is that I <i>myself </i>invited her for lunch. I did that. I was<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> writing well, I was
onto something to break the back of this awful chapter which has held me up for so long. I had returned to it at long last and I invented a way out of doing the work: one o’clock was near. I went to the kitchen and opened the
fridge for some reason ( what reason?) and it seemed filthy, so I cleaned the worst of it, indignant at the distraction. I then also cleaned the toilet, scrubbed the bowl, </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">swept the floor.</span> I worked fast and furious, desperately. It seemed hugely important (I know now it was a <i>displacement
activity</i>,<i> </i>but it felt completely urgent and necessary at the time) and instead of being angry with myself, I was furious with poor Diana,
who had no idea what this was about and sat at the table and considered me with her peaceful eyes. She knew exactly what I was feeling, we are old friends, <i>good </i>friends, and she had no idea why I was the way I was, which was something like a not very well restrained cyclone. An inner cyclone and trying to pretend that nothing was happening. </span>I was furious for the time I had spent cleaning. A huge anger which radiated out and contaminated everything no matter how pleasantly I spoke, how often I smiled. Everything offended me. I offended everything. I won't say that I offended Diana, because she does not offend easily. We are usually very fond of each other, but yesterday, when I had fled into my room because I couldn't stay a minute longer eating-and-chatting-when-I-should-be-writing, when I left her with P, and when he had left the room too, she quietly slipped out and tried to run away home. I caught her at the front door and forced her to come back - she is very polite - and the three of us followed the original plan, which was a good one, going for a substantial walk at 3:00 pm to the top of the hill which is near our house, through the bush and up to the top where the wind was blowing, hard. By the time we got back home it was late afternoon and we had been out for two hours. Diana left immediately, poor thing.<br />
<br />
That evening, I went out again, with another friend I am fond of, for another walk, a short one. I was not angry at all by then (why not?). I had not seen her for a long time - which was unusual. Short walks with her used to be part of my routine, part of the way I kept sane, balanced (I hope). <br />
I did no more writing yesterday. P and I were tired. <span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This urge to write is to be respected and worked on. </span>Renee says that I don't write enough.I'll go for a thousand words a day, 6000 a week. No writing on Saturdays. <br />
<br />
I'll finish this chapter before I leave for the Zen retreat, which is in ten days time. Is that reasonable?<br />
I shall shut myself in my room, which is a good place, and write. If I allow any more time, the work will smear itself over too long a period, which is what has happened this last year.<br />
I return on the 20th and then I need to work without abating, without seeing anyone, like a monk on a retreat.<br />
Is that too extreme? I'm afraid I won't last. How to manage the keeping in touch ? Maybe not do it, though I end up weirded out if I haven't spoken to anyone for a while.We might meet friends in a cheap restaurant rather than feed them here. Go to a movie once in two weeks. Keep up the short walks. I shall finish the writing about my grandfather by the end of February, even though we are going away.<br />
<br />
What I have now is not good enough. It is a collection of short stories, rather than a single story I can tell all in one go in a flow.Telling that story is what is to be done, by me.<br />
<br />
Writing this is a displacement activity. Bah!<br />
Get on with it, girl! Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-88784739669969000692013-10-23T22:05:00.000+13:002013-10-23T22:20:20.557+13:00Waking up with sorrow<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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by Naomi Shihab Nye <br />
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Before you know what kindness really is<br />
you must lose things,<br />
feel the future dissolve in a moment<br />
like salt in a weakened broth.<br />
What you held in your hand,<br />
what you counted and carefully saved,<br />
all this must go so you know<br />
how desolate the landscape can be<br />
between the regions of kindness.<br />
How you ride and ride<br />
thinking the bus will never stop,<br />
the passengers eating maize and chicken<br />
will stare out the window forever.<br />
<br />
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,<br />
you must travel where the Indian in the white poncho<br />
lies dead by the side of the road.<br />
You must see how this could be you,<br />
how he was someone<br />
who journeyed through the night with plans<br />
and the simple breath that kept him alive.<br />
<br />
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,<br />
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.<br />
You must wake up with sorrow.<br />
You must speak to it till your voice<br />
catches the thread of all sorrows<br />
and you see the size of the cloth.<br />
<br />
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,<br />
only kindness that ties your shoes<br />
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,<br />
only kindness that raises its head<br />
from the crowd of the world to say<br />
It is I you have been looking for,<br />
and then goes with you everywhere<br />
like a shadow or a friend Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-49587782802716587232013-10-16T10:52:00.001+13:002014-01-03T11:38:15.757+13:00To be usefulfrom <i>The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition</i>, by César Vallejo. <br />
<br />
For several days, I have felt an exuberant, political need<br />
to love, to kiss affection on its two cheeks,<br />
and I have felt from afar a demonstrative<br />
desire, another desire to love, willingly or by force,<br />
whoever hates me, whoever rips up his paper, a little boy,<br />
the woman who cries for the man who was crying,<br />
the king of wine, the slave of water,<br />
whoever hid in his wrath,<br />
whoever sweats, whoever passes, whoever shakes his person in my soul.<br />
And I want, therefore, to adjust<br />
the braid of whoever talks to me; the hair of the soldier;<br />
the light of the great one; the greatness of the little one.<br />
I want to iron directly<br />
a handkerchief for whoever is unable to cry<br />
and, when I am sad or happiness hurts me,<br />
to mend the children and the geniuses.<br />
I want to help the good one become a little bit bad<br />
and I badly need to be seated<br />
on the right-hand of the left-handed, and to respond to the mute,<br />
trying to be useful to him as<br />
I can, and also I want very much<br />
to wash the lame man’s foot,<br />
and to help the nearby one-eyed man sleep. <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1312653003746104662.post-61150695150793705152013-08-26T17:07:00.003+12:002013-08-29T10:47:11.170+12:00Remembering and moving forwardFinished Vargas Llosa's <i>The Feast of the Goat </i>in a day more or less, fascinated by the detail - this corresponds to Renee's telling me to 'write more, more' more' and me understanding a little better what she means, so took something I'd written in the past and inflated it with words, ideas, more detail, and to my surprise found the process satisfying.<br />
<br />
He writes the novel going forward in two different periods in parallel, someone in the present who is visiting San Domingo after a long absence, and who remembers the past for us, and in the past moving forward towards the murder of Trujillo and its consequences.<br />
<br />
I am particularly inspired by the description of Trujillo, the way his thinking is portrayed and the mystery that which we finds link the pieces to each other. The book is strong on atmosphere, the heat, despair and fear are almost palpable.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0