chuck Palahniuk

It's annoying hearing people praise Palahniuk to the skies when I hardly doubt he deserves it at all. That is not to say that I cannot see why Palahniuk has his little fan club. His writing is popular and readable, his plots are smart in a very contemporary way, and he's managed to capture the perfect way of playing to the whims of a society that's desperate to be sick, no thanks to modern psychology. However, his writing hasn't evolved and none of his plots are surprising or intelligent. He's good at churning out cheap gimmicks badly disguised as "good" writing. Shock tactics worked when we were kids so why are reasonably smart adults calling him god? It truly bothers me that there are enough people buying his books to make him commercially successful because that will only motivate him to write more plots according to this idiot-proof formula. Oh, the irony! Anyone can integrate ironic black humour or cynicism within their stories but to do it well or intelligently? That is where he fails to deliver. Smart, check. Talent, no check. Perhaps it's comforting to go back to an author so familiar and recognizable but I hardly think it gives us credit as intelligent, discerning readers. I understand why he is so appreciated but I don't necessarily agree or sympathize.

a suitable book

Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy, while it sat on my bookshelf, looked as intimidating as a book could be but it really is such a sensitively written story. I am only ninety pages in with a thousand to go but I doubt this is such a problem.

And to what do I owe the pleasure of this indulgence? Because I started and finished an essay on Blade Runner today.. about six hours of on-off spurts of genius into a Microsoft document. Ahh.. never has a Saturday felt so productive since the start of this new semester :)

school blues

I have a presentation tomorrow on Shelley's Hymn To Intellectual Beauty, an essay next week on either one of these two movies: Casablanca or Blade Runner; tomorrow's Monday brings the sixth week of school. There are projects due soon which my groups haven't begun on (we don't even have each other's cell numbers yet). Every time I close my eyes to blink or sleep, a few days slip away. I don't know where my time is going yet all I can think of right now on this beautiful drizzling Sunday morning is going to the library and reading comics for the rest of the day. Perhaps I'll bring my laptop along so I can con myself into doing some real work.

hello

It has been another unexpected hiatus and I have neglected this spot again. A quick update..

I was recently done with Frankenstein. There was a lot of reading on buses, between classes, before bed but it was really worth it. One of the things that astounds me about the text is the complex layering of the narration; it's a subtle (or not so much, depending on how important you feel the layering contributes to the text) experimentation in consistency. Imagine, for those of you who have read it, hearing a story that has passed through many lips before you even begun reading it. In the microcosmic framework - limited here specifically to the world of Frankenstein -, there is the author, Mary Shelly (1) who writes about Walton's (2) publication of a series of letters he wrote to his sister, Margaret (3) about his journeys. He meets Victor Frankenstein (4) who takes over the narration by way of telling a story about his monstrous creation (5), who, in some part of the tale tells a story. I am sure that upon returning to the text, I will be able to find more examples but I should suppose these will suffice for now. An early metafictional novel? I won't pretend to know much about the gothic genre or theories about metafiction, although I do know a little but unfortunately not enough to speak intelligently about them. Alas, the only things I can speak coherently about are but my intriguings that come to me separate from theories or philosophies. And so - interesting, isn't it, that such a compelling tale can come through at least 5 narrators; and more amazing is that this happens all so carefully and quietly so that it is unnoticed; the text is conscious of bearing the weight of at least four other people - and this is what I like most about it.

This morning in the bus to school, I delightedly read Anton Chekov's The Upheaval. Unable to conflate my feelings about the story into a neat package, I ended up concluding that it was one half funny-outrageous and the other half, for the lack of a better word, sad. It captured a tiny moment in time when a man, overcome by embarrassment and surprise, confesses as though at a Catholic church, to his governess, flushing at his crime even while the words pour out, as though forcibly, through his lips. His manner and speech are almost comical if we don't remember the governess' intense feelings of betrayal from earlier on. Needless to say, it was wonderful and I loved it.

I just thought I should write something here; it's been quite some time.

Work's been keeping me very busy. I have little time for anything else. I've also become some sort of an alcoholic (?), but not quite. I just enjoy my liquor more than I ever used to, especially the milk-based liqueurs. Yummy. And cocktails. Having bartenders for friends is a really good deal. I've also recently developed an acute appreciation of house and trance-like music. There's this one song I cannot get out of my head but I have no idea who sang it so I can't even download it...

I think it's been pretty obvious that I've started on a comic craze recently. I read Gaiman's 1602 about 2 weeks ago. It was good, I liked how he redeveloped the characters in a different setting. Loved the art. But I just didn't appreciate how the best that the writer of an acclaimed contemporary comic genre, the writer of crazy-ass Sandman, could come up with was a Save-The-World plot. That was such a huge let down. No complexities, no multiple layers. Plenty of espionage and politics but the 'end of the world' thing was just not cutting it for me. I still like Gaiman though.

A few weeks back, I was reading the first few pages of Alan Moore's "Watchman" and I really enjoyed it. I've been putting off buying it for some time now. I probably shall do so tomorrow or on Monday. I have DVD's due tomorrow to return to the library@esplanade too.

Modules list for the new academic year 07/08 will be out on Monday. I am pretty excited to know what's going to be offered. If I qualify for honours, I'll probably do something on comics. It feels good to have something specific to work towards other than a mundane, boring BA.

I have decided to put _Dune_ aside until further notice. It's not that it's boring or badly written.. I've been reading it regularly and yet I'm nowhere near the end, which is extremely frustrating. So. I've moved on to _Kim_ and another Gaiman comic recommendation I bought last week from Kinokuniya.

I'm currently juggling between The Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman and Dune. Oh man, it is exasperating me to no end that the latter doesn't seem to finish. I mean it's well-written and all but I've been reading it since the start of the month and I'm still not done? Maybe all this means I should stop having so many late nights. I quite miss the way my room looks during sunset and chilling out infront of the telly, channel surfing and drinking milk.

excitedness

I got Seth's _A Suitable Boy_ at a steal for $6, in perfect condition too!

dune

Dune is so good. It's taking me forever to get through it but I'm glad for the never-ending feeling.

Mr. Punch

Mr. Punch denies the conventions of the literary tradition in its very title - 'tragical comedy' instead of 'tragicomedy', as it is usually known. Immediately, I got the feeling that Gaiman is trying to make comics into a literary field of its own without the usual embellishments and fancy extrapolating that comes with literature as we know it today. There is depth and weight to what he has to say in his comics and I don't think the issue is whether he does it well (some parts of Mr. Punch came off as a bit contrived but when seen in the framework of the visual and emotional aesthetics that Gaiman & McKean were trying to achieve, I think it balanced out pretty well), but rather how he does it. Mr. Punch is the best example of this. It is a simple plot and could well be substituted for any other plot, but the execution of story; his use of symbolism, the idea of a theater, an immoral, mad stage puppet - a non-being - at the plot center; shifts in the direction of reminiscing; using space and time (both literally and figuratively: for the reader and the microcosm of experience within the book itself) to tell a story.. all these are ideas laden and rich with meaning and depth, left there to be picked out and understood. Gaiman drops hints only insofar as writing the story itself - apart from that, all the work is left to the reader, which is what I really like about the story and McKean's art direction. It's like a juicy fruit, a fat grape, James' giant peach - so much can be made out of it.

punch

Fendi, a bartender from work, turned out to be a comic fan. We swapped comics: the first three issues of Fables for Mr. Punch. The art looks great and I can't wait to get started.

It's frustrating me to no end that I can't read Dune at one go or at least for periods longer than lousy 15-minute train-ride stretches.

I was pleasantly surprised when I learnt last night that two of my co-workers are into Neil Gaiman as well. I'd never have guessed. Whether this is a sign of gross assumption or Gaiman's supreme penetration into the masses, I don't know. But I am very happy I found out. Sharing an affinity for books, and especially authors, and possessing the ability to discuss however vaguely or intelligently about books/literature always always scores brownie points with me. :D

American Gods

I was hesitant about picking up Gaiman's novel, that I am ready to admit. It is a bad habit.. I tend to approach books with a certain idea of what they should be without really knowing anything about it and base my decision to read on that entirely misinformed (or noninformed) preconceived notion. I've recently been in the mood for classics - Peter Pan, Wuthering Heights, Crime and Punishment - so when I bought (or rather, Anil, my wonderfully generous boyfriend, bought) American Gods purely on a whim, I was not sure if I should keep it or return it to the bookshop. I'd never been a fan of the suspense/thriller genre and seeing a short appraisal from Stephen King on the back-cover of the book was ready to throw me off. I am now only 200 pages or so into American Gods and so glad that I didn't allow my stupid pretentious ideas to stop me from reading it. It is an engaging and well-written book and deals - albeit shallowly - with a host of ancient/contemporary "gods" in all senses of the word. It is fun to read, there is always a little bit of interesting information, some chance adventure, that keeps the story moving forward. There are some interesting themes that are brought up - the most obvious ones being the idea of a 'god', good vs evil, etc, but these weren't explored to their full potential. How do I put this? Okay, imagine the story as a huge pool with clean water and lots of fun water games that's about three-feet deep. But Gaiman is cute, very very cute, so I forgive him for constructing a lousy pool. Besides The Sandman makes up for it, I suppose.

red bull in a green field

I've had little energy or drive to write about the books I've recently read or acquired because the new job takes a lot out of me. I work 9 hours with little smoke breaks, carrying heavy plates to fussy customers during dinner hours and then, when the restaurant closes and the club opens, I take orders from fussy customers who can't spare an ounce of courtesy or a penny in tips. It's really quite depressing to see how unforgiving the world has gotten in the past two years.

Wuthering Heights was fantastic, I enjoyed it so very much. I've also completed Angela Carter's The Magic Toyshop which somewhat turned out to fulfill certain expectations and then some. Interesting Gothic elements; Carter, it seems, has a preoccupation with Biblical characters - Melanie, the story's protagonist, is compared through several allusions to Eve. One particularly striking image occurs early in the novel; she is naked and sitting on an apple tree, a budding prepubescent body, just about to enter womanhood yet just not, in a middle of a dark, ominous garden with the nighttime closing in. A powerful image it was, a fallen Eve seeking redemption in a fallen garden, between heaven and earth. When Aunt Margaret appeared, she was described as being surrounded by a yellow, shinning light - an obvious Jesus figure. I like how the images were obvious yet not corny. Carter has an eloquence with striking images that she delivers fluidly.

I've started, just only, on Neil Gaiman's American Gods. I've never read any Gaiman before so this shall be my first foray into contemporary literature after a while. I got Gaiman because I've recently been infected, thanks to Jammi and Debbie, with the graphic novel virus, which I am gullible enough to carry around but, unfortunately, too poor to do anything about it. The job pays in another 2 weeks.

I recently traded my brand new copy of Porno (Irvine Welsh), which I never got around to reading, for two books: Salman Rushdie's Shame and Rudyard Kipling's Kim. The first because, apparently, it is comparable to Midnight's Children - and in my opinion automatically gives the novel massive potential. The second because I've always wanted to read it after watching the MGM film adaptation with my father as a child.

Anil offered to buy me the entire Sandman series which I turned down. I've realized the errors of my ways, I've paid my dues, and I think the offer still stands for next month. I want to get Fables as well, especially 1001 Nights of Snowfall. I like it when characters from public domains are taken out of their roles and put into another story. I've seen this before but it was always lousily done (like in school plays, prose, etc); Fables, however, looks wonderful. Plus, I've also heard many other wonderful things about it.

What's next?

Wuthering Heights is one - if not the - of the best novel(s) I've read in 2007 thus far. I loved the writing, loved the characters, loved the story, loved the time I spent reading it (it reached 2 hours nonstop at one point, and I have the attention span of a mosquito so this really says something), and I am quite sorry that it had to finish.

Now I'm spoilt for choice - what do I read next? Work starts in a little over an hour at 5pm and I have 20 minutes to occupy my time with in the train. I am dreadfully early, though, no thanks to my frantic nerves and the building stack of anticipation in every little one of them.

I've a host of books to choose from and only fifteen minutes to make my decision! (panic)

friday five

1. What is your all time favorite book?
"All-time" questions only make sense if they are posed to a dying man. I have hardly lived, barely started, so I can only answer for now. I really enjoyed Rushdie's Midnight Children and Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Balzac's treatment of Old Goriot was very eloquently done. Authors that I respect and admire are Kafka, Dostoevsky, Camus and Shakespeare.

2. What is your all time favorite movie?
It changes all the time because I have only recently begun my film education. For now, I really like Kurosawa's Ikiru. I remember falling in love with the visual aesthetics of Wong Kar Wai's films, especially In the Mood For Love. I could watch that again and again.

3. What are you reading right now?
Something I should have read a long time ago: Wuthering Heights.

4. What is your favorite show on tv?
Frasier, Seinfeld, Mythbusters, Friends (for nostalgia)

5. What is the last movie you saw in the theater?
I think it was 300? I really want to watch 28 Days/Weeks Later and Sunshine.

Solaris: Sci-fi and the 'Other'

I've read two sci-fi novels this year that dealt with human contact and the limits of human knowledge, a theme I can only assume that is at the heart of much science fiction writing. Incidentally (or maybe not so), both novels - Roadside Picnic (Strugatsky) and Solaris (Lem) - were adapted by Andrei Tarkovsky.

A few days ago, I finally completed Stanislaw Lem's Solaris. It was a relatively difficult read for two reasons. One, it frightened me, the pussy that I am. I couldn't read the book post-sundown, especially towards the later hours of the night, because the idea of waking up and finding a physical manifestation of a long-forgotten memory in my room, staring at me, was just.. crazy. After a while, I soon forgot the reason for fright and allowed the fear to descend into an abnormal irrationality ("Oh no, there is someone behind me, right now.. a presence in the room.. a.. ghost"). I've been told, not very encouragingly, that if I watched Tarkovsky's adaptation of the novel, I'd piss in my pants. The second problem has to do with the text containing rich details pertaining to physics and science in general. It can be said to have developed the argument that the text was heading towards but I felt it could have been done in lesser words and much, much less density. Of course, I will readily admit that Problem#2 could very easily be due to my incompetence as a reader. But the details make reading tedious and slow, and if one is able to grasp the gist of the message without having to go through pages of semi-futuristic ramblings on science, then there is a good reason why it should not even be there.

Solaris is a planet body of water - an intelligent ocean, if you must. Kris Kelvin, the human protagonist, arrives at a space station called Prometheus that has been constructed for the purpose of establishing contact with the intelligent life-form. A few hours, almost a day, upon arriving at the space station, Kelvin wakes up to find a woman who looks exactly like his dead wife sitting on the edge of his bed. She behaves almost exactly like her, has the same habits as her, talks like her. Only she is not her. The other scientists aboard the ship have their own ghosts to deal with as well.

I like that the book deals with questions like truth, and how one negotiates the content of truth. Is the replica of his wife really his wife or another woman? What are the markers of identity? What is the truth content of such an encounter?

Then there is a question of limitations that I am more interested in: the "intelligent" ocean, an ocean with a conscience, that is able to replicate people or things by probing into memory, and the scientists' ability to understand only insofar as they are able to anthropomorphize. Why should understanding Solaris the planetary-system become a test for humans? A quote from the book is, "...it was not simply a question penetrating Solarist civilization, it was essentially a test of ourselves, of the limits of human knowledge". To a large degree, this is what the book - and majority of science fiction, I think - is about: the limits of human knowledge. Where a constructed cognition ends and a vast sea of mystery begins, a mystery we can hardly hope to understand. Man's attempt to force his breed of understanding upon what is ultimately unknowing and unknowable. Human laws, after all, are not cosmic laws. What we understand is, perhaps, not how it is meant to be understood (think Truth, capital T). I understand that human laws are enabling as well - within our microcosm, we try to understand what we can - but therein lies the paradox: how far can meaning be ascertained before one realizes that he's stretching taut the fabric that allows meaning-making to function?

We can only hypothesize, and that too only so far. There are limits, tangible and real, no matter how many new words or theories or ideas science comes up with. Perhaps it is the new-age-ish student of arts in me speaking, but there is a time it stops and instead of trying to force a particular brand understanding, one should be an open channel and allow cosmic understanding, no matter how mysterious or unexplainable - for, perhaps, it will continuously elude human comprehension - to flow though.

CAVE

I want this:



Isn't it beautiful? Sakura Adachi, Japanese born designer, made this wonderful bookcase which is a private reading room in itself. Books can be stacked on both sides. Can you imagine an extended version of this for the lazier readers (like me) who prefer sleeping with their books? Cushions on both sides, a small while futon and the transformation is complete. It'll be like reading on a cloud. Or under one. Fluffy comfort. This is the best bookcase in the world.

More at http://www.sakurah.net/ (I can't link it because my update-page isn't functioning very well)

we call this metacomic

There's metafiction and then there's...

A Cry for Help (of sorts)

I am not so sure if I need saving proper but I'll say this anyway:

Help.

I haven't been able to stop buying books. Now, they aren't many and they come back to my room only one at a time, which doesn't appear very threatening but bear in mind, however, that I have cultivated over time an irresistible urge, an urge I haven't been able to suppress no matter how hard I try - something like bees to honey (or flies to rubbish): I keep buying 'em books. I started on my spree with Dostoevsky's Short Stories. A few days before that, Jammi showed up at my place with Peter Pan. Since then, I've purchased Solaris and Wuthering Heights. Meanwhile, I've been making lists, serious lists, mind you. I'll do away with Barth for the moment - I'm not in a PoMo mood, what with the weather and all being so cold and gloomy (yes, it matters).

So let us begin with how Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales looks enticing - and I do mean that quite literally: the font on the cover is delightful! But seriously, I've heard many good things about Carter and I think it's time I checked her out myself. That's one. Two, I'm thinking of getting Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy. I remember many years ago, my sister had this book on her shelf. I suppose a vague memory of my father ranting about Seth's brilliance had spurned me to ask her if she'd read it. When she replied in the negative, I presumed, quite naturally, that it would remain on her bookshelf for a long time to come. After all, one does not throw away an epic. As you would imagine, I turned out to be quite mistaken. By the time I was properly interested in post-colonial Indian literature, I'd forgotten about Seth's novel, so when I was reminded last night, I was, needless to say, very keen on reading it. That's two. Three, Dune. I've read countless reviews on this and heard even more wonderful things about it but I have only one fear: that I might get confused with too much going on. But no, that won't stop me from reading at least the first installation of the series.

I am frightened at myself for wanting so much. It seems awfully presumptuous to think I would be able to finish everything (including the unread books on my shelf) and enjoy it simultaneously.

Podcast: How to Disappear Completely

Finally, the long-dreaded and much abhorred Biology paper was completed about 6 hours ago. The two hours of answering multiple choice questions made me realize a couple of things. One, that glossaries and indexes are grossly underrated. Two, that 'pseudopod', a term I first came across when introduced to horror fiction podcast, has its roots in biology. This, of course, turned me off for the briefest moment but not before surprising me so much that I chuckled to myself, desk #166, in a hall of 800 students. Biology - I sit here with my small glass of low fat milk and I toast to you: never again, never again.

Anyway, I've recently been hooked on to an audiobook titled "How to Disappear Completely" by Myke Bartlett. Ignore the obvious pop culture reference in the title (I'm not sure if it was intended but English band Radiohead produced a song with the same title in their Kid A album) because this book, aside from being set in the same country, has nothing to do with it. Ignore, also, the promotional cover (left) because there are good reasons to listen to the reading of this book.

I'm only at my fourth chapter now so if the rest of the book turns out to be crap, you can't blame me. I will, however, state my intentions for posting this: Kilbey Salmon and London. Now, I know that this is a work of fiction and that, by default, makes Kilbey (a character of Bartlett's) fictional as well. But you really have to hear Bartlett's voice. Oooh, he sounds like honey melting slowly over the surface of smooth things, he glides and trickles like rich golden drops of goodness. And Kilbey's smooth badboy ruffian character (etched out pretty nicely, actually - well in Chapter 3, anyway) together with this impeccable reading voice has close to done me in. Not to forget, I've a strong predisposition for London settings - the griminess of the city, its expanse and coldness, dirty alleys and danger, junkie fixes and drug dealers and decadence; the architecture and shiny beautiful buildings and the stories behind every stranger's every look. These aren't terribly good reasons, I know, but there's something about the city.. an alluring mix of romanticism juxtaposed with harsh reality that one rarely comes across. Yes, I've an extremely soft spot for London. That being said, I really don't know if I'm hooked onto this podiobook because it's well-written although a case can be made for that - it certainly is gripping, it moves at a good pace, I suppose (only because I'm no expert on this) fans of the thriller/suspense genre would appreciate it - but more than anything else, I am enjoying Kilbey's oozing-with-sex personality/voice and the London setting; all extras are a bonus.

How to Disappear Completely by Myke Bartlett @ Podiobooks.com

Peter Pan

Caroline Mytinger's sketch of Peter Pan is the closest web source I could find to my idea of him - ruffled curly hair and eyes full of kisses stolen from Mrs Darling's lips.

What a lovely, lovely story. How I long to be one of the Darling children (and I think we all do) and take flight from this reality.

As a character, Peter resists definition. One can only point out the discrepancies in his personality. Peter is innocent, yes; he doesn't understand or know that Tink, Wendy and Tiger Lily want romantic love from him. This idea, it appears, of romance, is completely lost on Peter. Perhaps it is inaccurate to say he is ignorant or does not understand; the sense one gets is that such an idea does not even exist to Peter, that is he above and beyond concepts that hint at any definite morality (the assumption is that Peter is innocent because he does not understand like, love, or attraction, and by implication, does not understand sex nor the need for it, which, therefore makes him innocent, i.e. GOOD). In the final chapter, upon realizing that Wendy has grown up, he cries - I think - not because of unrequited love or any of that mainland rubbish but because the sublime experience of childhood, the time of flight of imagination (both literal and otherwise), has passed for Wendy, and he mourns this loss on her behalf. Yet, despite this innocence (see parenthesis above), Peter kills swiftly and, just as easily, 'forgets them after'. Wendy is aghast at this and tries to make him stop. She does this by inventing a game where he does nothing all day except sit on his stool and go for walks to improve his health, but he soon gets bored. He is youth and joy, the embodiment of a Platonic child with strange mixes of mischief, purity and amorality.

snacks and short stories

The weather recently has been terribly unpredictable. Shaz calls it schizophrenic and in doing so, reminded me of my initial one-sided disagreement with it early on in the year. It bothered me that every time I went out, I wouldn't know if it was going to rain or shine - but that's just the magic of it. Out of the blue, a distant a rumble, then an overcast sky and the heavens open to pour out this wonderful, gloomy weather. Just perfect for a shadowy room and light from a single lamp. And a book. And crackers.

My father bought me Jacob's Cream Onion crackers this morning while I was at school. The fridge is chock full with Magnum ice-cream and chocolate bars (Crunchie, my favourite!).

A few weeks ago, I was looking through the bookshop on campus and saw this title: "The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky"; these include 'Notes from the Underground', which I've been desperate to lay my hands on ever since I was introduced to the Russian author. For several weeks, I flirted with the idea of buying the text (I'm an extremely indecisive buyer. One minute, I'd have made up my mind to get it - "I must, I absolutely totally must!" - and then - "Maybe I can guilt trip Anil into getting it for me.." or "Maybe I should go to the library instead" - and I vacillate fiercely between these two opposites), and again today, when I went to buy Cranberry juice and 'accidentally' detoured to the literature section. I picked it up, suppressed any other thought, and now I am sitting with it in my bedroom while the rain pours outside. I would like to say that I will resist the urge to read it before my exams end on the 3 May, but alas, I have no such discipline.

Stainslaw Lem's Solaris was available as well - it was the last copy - but there was a grumpy lady who made such a scene about the pages being weathered and yellow (and she was standing next to me, enquiring about another book which I presume she complained just as much about) that I left without purchasing it. Well, good thing too. The universe is insisting that I budget. Until then, I can only dream:

Stainslaw Lem - Solaris
Tolstoy - War and Peace
John Barth - Chimera
Dostoevsky - The Idiot
H.P. Lovecraft - Collection of Stories
Frank Herbert -Dune series (this I'll probably get from the library)

..and several others. I have three months; that's a pretty long time to a college student.

Hofmannsthal's evening ballad

Sunday, I discovered a gem laying in wait in my paper tray (yes, I am a student with a paper tray; it allows me to collect all my mess and junk in a specific, neat corner only to (ironically) make space for more book clutter on the desk). It was a poem by Hugo Von Hofsmannthal titled Ballade Des Ausseren Lebens (translated: Ballad of Outer Life), followed by a translation and a paragraph on the poetic use of the word "evening", written by A.O. Jaszi . The book is called "The Poem Itself," edited by Burnshaw, in the Penguin collection (1960).

(1) And the children grow up with deep eyes (2) Who know of nothing, grow up and die, (3) And all people go their ways. (4) And the bitter fruits become sweet (5) And fall down at night like dead birds (6) And lie a few days and spoil. (7) And always the wind blows, and again and again (8) We hear and speak many words (9) And feel [the] pleasure and weariness of our limbs. (10) And streets run through the grass, and places (11) Are here and there, full of torches, trees, ponds, (12) And menacing ones and death-like withered ones... (13) Why are these raised up? and resemble (14) Each other never? and are countlessly many? (15) Why do laughing, crying, and turning pale alternate? (16) Of what use is all this to us and all these games (17) Who are (after all) great and eternally lonely (18) And, wandering, never seek any goals? (19) Of what use is it to have seen so many such things? (20) And nevertheless he says much who says "evening", (21) A word from which deep meaning and sadness run (22) Like heavy honey from the hollow comb.

Jaszi continues below on the poet's use of the word "evening", the use of which brings beauty and unity to the poem.

The word "evening" is a container-word - not of denotation but of emotion, of emotion composed of all the feelings, of depth and sadness and sweetness; of the emotion transcendent. To say "evening" therefore means to write poetry...Hofmannsthal's ballad can be called dreary and decadent only if the words that compose it are understood as being carriers of a life content. But when the words are understood poetically, they convey quite a different meaning. Every word here, every and, every dead bird, every tiredness of limb, must be read as a poetic word...As such it is a bearer of poetic delight - of depth, sadness, sweetness. Every word in this ballad is poetry, for every word says "evening", or, to quote St. John of the Cross, is full of "the knowledge of the evening."

Whether our knowledge of the poetic evening contributes to this or vice versa is hard to say.. perhaps it is a constant exchange that bears no fruit in either. Like a juicy peach that must be consumed immediately without thinking of its passage into your hands even while subconsciously appreciating (and thanking) the journey without which consumption would not have been possible. I read this poem and the exposition on the use of "evening" at night (as it were, most of my studying takes place post-sundown), and it turned out to be a very apt time for it seemed my senses were heightened and my appreciation for the poem came not intellectually but emotionally.

Podcast: Alice In Wonderland

Last night, whilst reading under a bright table lamp and in between midnight smoke breaks and short bursts of conversation on MSN, Jamila introduced me to the wonderful world of podcasting. Prior to last night, I was only mildly interested - that is to say, interested only enough to know something about it without doing anything about it - but in the span of a few decisive minutes, a transformation took place and I became a podcast lover. Podcasts are an amazing new trajectory in literature. Jammi said, interestingly, that the wonder of podcasting lies in the idea of storytelling reverting back to its original form. I cannot agree with her more; before print and mass production, there were voices and memory. Stories, then, were fluid and fluxing, (and even some poetry begs to be read aloud to be best appreciated; unfortunately, this is lost on most people; the aural aesthetics of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry is one such example; I recommend reading "As Kingfishers Catch Fire") and emotions expressed not silently in our heads as we read now with our mind-voice but tangibly and audibly, passing down from mouth to mouth, voice to voice, until finally being immortalized in print.

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
- Jefferson Airplane, White Rabbit

Alice In Wonderland is indisputably one of my all-time favourite stories. What an acid trip it is! A delight to read and an even greater delight to listen to. Natasha Lee Lewis does a wonderful job of reading the story - one chapter a month, and by the time she's done, "everyone will be a year older".

Podcast here.
And if you want to read along (because that's how you like to roll), there's an online text at The Online Literature Library.

The Art of Crime and Punishment

If only he could have grasped all the difficulties of his situation, its whole desperation, its hideousness and absurdity, and understood how many obstacles and, perhaps, crimes he might have to overcome and commit in order to get out of there and get back home, it is quite possible that he would have left it all and turned himself in, and this not even out of fear for himself, but solely out of horror and revulsion for what he had done.
- Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

What is the genius of Crime and Punishment? Undoubtedly, it bends well to produce results to the conventional literary tools of criticism: there is irony, satire, individualization, social theory. All of these make a book great, given, of course, that it is, above all, well-written. But the art of Crime and Punishment goes above and beyond that. It is a feeling one gets when reading the novel, of fear, of obsession, of truth, that has been novelized so explicitly yet sublimely that it is difficult to stop and say about any emotion, "Here, right here is the genius". It is beyond realizing the extent of Dostoevsky's imagination, for how do you call what is real and penetrable the work of imagination? Imagination should be a thing of fancy and lofty idea(l)s, like a house of cards made of clouds; it is fantasy. But Dostoevsky does not imagine - he merely captures the purity of emotion and translates it into the fiction of a young former student, Raskolnikov. That is the sense I get no matter how many times I read Crime and Punishment; how can Raskolnikov be an evil man? His psychology has been traced at every step and turn of thought, and articulated with such precision that he appears normal. He is normal, apart from experiencing an intensity of emotions that are, presumably, the results of suppressed guilt and dividing opposites.

And there is something almost fantastical and surreal about Sonya's love for him. The harlot serves as an instrument for divinity, the pure harlot redeems an anguished convict. There is little more one can say about this strange but perfect relationship without delving into technicalities which automatically ruin the sublimity and pathos that comes out of every meeting between these two. I have asked myself this question many times: why Sonya, what about her? and I suppose (because I cannot be sure, such is the vacillation that this text inspired in me) it is her impossibly beautiful character, her ultimate goodness, her purely instinctive sacrifice, her quiet, shy yet knowing demeanor, pale skin and big eyes, her abject poverty. It is a beautiful mix.

Have you ever felt so overwhelmingly sleepy or tired that your eyes glaze over words, blur them into continuous sentences; your body refuses to move even when your mind knows and understands inertia; speaking is a chore, a great skill, an eloquence that might, just might, return after rest? Yet Dostoevsky remains before you as ever before, the page ears outline numerous bent-into triangles and Marmeladov says drunkenly and despairingly, "And what if there is no one else, if there is nowhere else to go! It is necessary that every man have at least somewhere to go. For there are times when one absolutely must go at least somewhere!" and there is a prostitute with a pure soul who falls in love and devotion with a tormented murderer.

Life, all of life, in a jumble of words.