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| 0374217645
| 9780374217648
| 0374217645
| 4.04
| 7,533
| 1892
| Aug 01, 1971
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really liked it
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“But what really matters is not what you believe but the faith and conviction with which you believe…” Johan Nilsen Nagel arrives in a small, coastal N “But what really matters is not what you believe but the faith and conviction with which you believe…” Johan Nilsen Nagel arrives in a small, coastal Norwegian town bearing a fur coat in summer, a yellow suit, and a violin case without a violin. He deliberately leaves out telegrams on his table that give the impression he is quite rich. He later claims they are false, but the reader is already suspicious that subterfuge and deliberate lying are part of whatever game he is playing. Who is he, really? And what possible motivation does he have in being so odd? Why can’t he act like a normal person? What is his aim? He professes that he has fallen head over heels in love with Dagny, despite the fact that she is engaged to an officer in the Navy. He is not dissuaded by her protests that he must desist. She is intrigued by him, even after she starts to unravel his lies. She has certainly never met anyone like him, and even though she knows he is an unreliable narrator of his own life, she can’t help but continue to think about him. He is messing with her head. Then, he abruptly starts chasing after a woman who would be considered an old maid; certainly, she is many years older than Nagel. This definitely makes me uneasy because I have already discovered that I can’t trust his character. I fear he will lift her up only to drop her unceremoniously after his attention wanders somewhere else. Can he play the violin? What is that about? He makes friends with a midget who is forced to do tricks for a few øre. Nagel has surreptitiously attempted to help several disadvantaged people in town, going to great, elaborate links to give them money without them knowing how this windfall found them, and the midget is no exception. Did I mention that Nagel carries a vial of prussic acid around with him all the time? An insurance policy in case life becomes too overwhelming, a reassurance that he will never be trapped. I kept getting a Werther feel off this novel and wondering if our friend Nagel is heading towards a self-inflicted, dramatic ending. The whole novel is very puzzling. The book was published in Norway in 1892, but was not published in English until 1971. The Farrar, Straus, and Giroux first edition that I read has a cover that reminds me of the Herman Hesse books published about the same time by the same publisher. I associate Hesse with the 1960s and 1970s, even though he was writing many decades before that. Trying to see this book through a 1970s lens doesn’t work, but also trying to place this novel in the 1890s is almost impossible. He was certainly forward thinking, especially in presenting psychology in fiction, and some would say he was writing the first modern novels. I lean more towards that he was an uncle of the modern novel. He certainly had influence on several generations of writers. Like many of our historical figures, Knut Hamsun does not live up to the high ideals we would like our heroes or our influencers to be. He was a Nazi sympathizer during the war, and fearing that the British would invade Norway, he rooted rather publicly for the Germans to invade first. He was seen frequently in the company of high ranking Nazi officials, including Adolf Hitler. When he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, he gave his award to Joseph Goebbels *bone rattling shudder*. During his trial after the war, he pleaded ignorance. Ignorance? Maybe anglophobia, or maybe his distaste for the lack of discipline he was seeing in the world. We can come up with half a dozen better reasons, but ignorance is not something I would ever accuse such a man as Hamsun of suffering from. He is quite possibly Norway’s greatest novelist. I can only imagine the pain that Norwegian intellectuals feel to have such a negative association with such a great contributor to literature. We want our influencers to be beyond reproach, but rarely do they hold up to deep scrutiny. We are dismantling statues in the US, and I completely agree with taking down the Confederate “heroes” because most of those statues were put up for the wrong reason in the first place. They were erected in the 1960s as a response to the Civil Rights Movement. Now there is trending hashtag #cancelhamilton and mutters about removing him from the $10 because he owned slaves. To be more precise he didn’t own slaves, he married into the wealthy, slave owning family, the Schuylers. He did participate in the slave trade by buying and selling slaves for his in-laws. He certainly benefited from slavery. He is flawed as were most of the founding fathers. He is one of only three founding fathers who did not own slaves, but the musical Hamilton does inflate his abolitionist stance. This review isn’t about Hamilton, but about Hamsun. I make the association between the two men simply because they have both been evaluated and revaluated through the lens of history and been found wanting. I start to squirm a bit in my seat when I hear about the possibility of Hamilton being eradicated from our history. I’ve always respected the fact that he came from nothing and made something of himself. There are statues to Knut Hamsun, of course. Should they be taken down because of his Nazi associations, or should they remain because of his contribution to literature? Do we judge people by their worst characteristics or by their best? Do we judge people only by their worst day? History should be studied for the people who got it right as well as the people who got it wrong. Trying to whitewash history is a dangerous game. What a great point of discussion over a few pints on whether Hamsun’s literature has proven to be a greater contribution to the betterment of mankind than his association with the Nazis has been a detriment. In Mysteries, there are certainly no signs of Fascism or any of their guiding principles. Should Hamiton’s contributions to the formation of the United States be ignored? Do I have to unwatch and unenjoy Hamilton? If we take Hamilton down for his connection with slavery, where does it stop? Do we take down Jefferson as well, or how about the father of our country, George Washington? We certainly should be finding those historical people who exhibited principles more in line with our modern sensibilities, but we just can’t sidestep the contributions of the slave owners in the formation of our country. They are there at every step, warts and all. It is frustrating that such men did so little to end slavery. Think if Jefferson and his writing cronies had shown the proper moxie to end slavery with the writing of the Constitution in 1789? This is such an odd book with progressive ideas. I would certainly hate to see it and Hamsun’s other best books ignored by readers because of his “ignorance” with the Nazies. I’ve decided I will read Pan, Hunger, and Victoria, which along with Mysteries are considered his best books. Can we venerate Hamsun as a novelist and condemn him as a Nazi? If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/ ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 16, 2020
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Jul 18, 2020
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Jul 16, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 1082195618
| 9781082195617
| 1082195618
| 4.44
| 9
| 2019
| Nov 12, 2019
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it was amazing
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”Before we get properly acquainted please allow me to introduce myself: My name is Thaddeus C. Noble and I currently reside in an unfinished stone tow
”Before we get properly acquainted please allow me to introduce myself: My name is Thaddeus C. Noble and I currently reside in an unfinished stone tower, on the otherwise uninhabited island somewhere along the North Atlantic coast of the United States of America. Although, when I say that the island is uninhabited it is not strictly true. Besides the ever present sea, I do have a companion. He is a jet black Raven that I perhaps for obvious reasons named Poe.” In the dead of night, Thaddeus has a hood thrown over his head. He is bound and bundled off without a by-your-leave from his captors. He awakes to find himself on an island with the aforementioned bird, a well stocked pantry, a stack of bottles, and no indication as to why he has been placed in captivity upon these rocky shores. While exploring the island he finds a pool of a heavy liquid that is not water but seems to be a living entity with the texture of liquid silk. While immersed in this pool, he dreams, or does he really see the truth? The blending of his mundane life and these fantastical stories becomes the story of his life. He soon puts the bottles to use. He pens missives of his plight and relates stories that his feverious imagination believes to be true. He places these letters into the bottles, seals them with wax, and flings them out in the ocean in the hopes that someone will someday read them. Thaddeus is, by his own admission, an ordinary man, certainly not a rich man or a man who will be missed. He walks through life as gray as the sidewalks he trudges upon. He even avoids the bawdy house, located so conveniently at the end of his employer’s block, though someone so devoid of human contact would certainly benefit from even the purchased caresses of a demimondaine. ”Not that he didn’t have the urge. As a matter of fact, the young soft skinned girls looking down on the street from the upper windows, scanning the street with vacant eyes, looking for something or other to occupy their weary minds, were quite frequently unwitting but amenable companions in his nightly fantasies. However, the main reason he didn’t go was because he was deeply afraid that none of the girls would notice him, and although he was used to an exceptional high level of abandon, he nevertheless feared that the spurning or avoidance of a girl of easy virtue would exceed the amount of rejection he could bear.” Of course, what someone needs to explain to Thaddeus is these girls of easy virtue will never ignore him, especially with a fistful of proffered cash. So the question remains, why would someone kidnap such a nondescript man and go to all the trouble of Robinson Crusoeing him? And why won’t the damn bird talk to him? Thaddeus knows he can talk. He knows he can understand him, but Poe steadfastly refuses to converse with him. With what Thaddeus is seeing while immersed in the pool, he would relish the ability to chat with someone, even a raven, about what exactly he is seeing. Thank goodness the whale talks to him, but the whale seems decidedly less informed than what Thaddeus knows Poe can tell him. Poe could be the key to understanding everything. Wait, a talking whale? Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that. You’ll start to believe this reviewer has become as barmy as Ahab. As far as the bird, if I were Thaddeus I might start to consider what raven soup will taste like with maybe a side salad of wild lettuce. I have known Lars Boye Jerlach for a number of years. I harass him. He harasses me. He takes time out of his busy schedule to read some of my desultory attempts at writing. He loves words. If words were a prostitute, he would lavish all of his money on her. If words were cake, he would be corpulent. If words were Scotch, he’d be a drunk. He is, without a doubt, a Sesquipedalian. Before everyone burns up the internet googling the word, I will supply the definition. A sesquipedalian is described as someone or something that overuses big words, like a philosophy professor. I take exception with the concept of the word “overuses” though. In an age of diminishing vocabulary, I must say it is refreshing to find myself luxuriating in the opulence of words, many of which have nearly disappeared from our vocabulary. I did have to blow the dust off of a few of these words before the meaning became clear, but after reading several recent novels that failed to challenge my knowledge of vocabulary, I was enjoying and, yes, occasionally laughing at the audacity of Jerlach to use some of these words like... nugatory or how about tintinnabulated? If you are feeling anxiety at the thought of wrestling with words, strangle that thought, murder that thought, become a serial killer of such thoughts. Don’t allow such fears to make you miss a good story. Nay more than that, you will miss an experience. So use your fingers to tweezer a few messages from the depths of Thaddeus’s bottles, and if you live on the coast of New England, peer out across the horizon and wonder...where could he be? ”Even the darkness at night is poriferous, like our memory. Enough to allow just a passable amount of light for us to see things that we would rather were kept buried in the impenetrable layers of the cold blackish mud of the river Styx.” Word of Warning! Do tie a stout cord about yourself before venturing into The Poriferous Darkness. I've heard there are readers who have become lost and are now hurling their own bottled missives into the ocean with the hope that one of us will read them. I challenged Lars to a thumb war, and fortunately, for a Viking, he has weak thumbs. After much cursing and copious swillings of cheap ale, he shook off his misgivings and decided to answer my questions. Jeffrey D. Keeten: Your books revolve around an ancient and now nearly extinct form of communication. We have a generation or two of people who have never written or received a letter. Certainly, because people were writing letters without autocorrect, more consideration, more pondering was given to what they were going to write before they ever set pen to paper. Letters have been of such historical importance to scholarship that one wonders if generations in the future will know less about us than our ancestors. Our digital communications are so disposable it is hard to imagine that they will be available for future historians. Are we living in what will prove to be a lost age of communication? Lars Boye Jerlach: I think about this all the time, especially in lieu of the younger generation mainly communicating in the language of icons, snapchat, and emojis. However, I’m also aware that we historically have passed information in hieroglyphs, sanskrit, runes, and other forms of imagery that in many ways mirrors contemporary iconography. If you look at the paintings in the Lascaux Cave that basically depicts simple forms from the world around the people who painted them, they are not too different from a contemporary approach to utilizing simple understandable images in communication. There’s always a danger that we historically will look back at this age as the era of lost communication, but I have faith in the inherent power of the written word, and I believe that future generations will be able to decipher and understand where we are coming from, although they might have a much depleted “traditional” information to draw upon. JDK: I think of your books as the Letters trilogy because missives play a major part in the plots of each book. Do you have a more spicy or interesting title for the trilogy? And is this going to remain a trilogy or do you plan to add more volumes to this particular body of work? LBJ: Although I never intended for the independent novels to be read consecutively, and thus have never really thought about a combined title, you are certainly not the only reader who thinks about this body of work as a trilogy. Besides the structural and formal use of letters that obviously connects the novels, there are several references in the later books that decidedly point to characters and/ or situations in the earlier novels that hopefully bring a self-referential and introspective feel to the entire body of work. At this point I’m not sure that I will add more volumes to this particular body of work, but as my mind often wanders along very similar lines of enquiry I am keeping my options open. JDK: You work with a small cast of characters, which really helps focus the plot. I have so many characters coming and going in my writing you would think I was Balzac, so I do envy your ability to keep such a tight control on your character list.This small cast also contributes to a general feeling of loneliness. You might be only second to Anita Brookner in your exploration of isolation and people who don't fit in easily to normal society. Where does all this loneliness in your work come from? LBJ: The subject of loneliness in literature is so profound and complex that it is difficult to address in just a couple of sentences, but I have obviously been influenced by writers in history who have so successfully introduced the concept of loneliness in their work. Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Herman Melville's Ahab, Franz Kafka’s Joseph K, Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way, Ernest Hemingway's Old Man of the Sea, and many existentialist writers, such as Sartre, De Beauvoir, and Camus, have all impacted the way I think about this issue. I have come to think of my characters' inherent loneliness as an intermittent literary loneliness as well as a poetic situational loneliness. I believe that a certain amount of loneliness is of great use to writers, musicians, artists, thinkers, and other creatives, and that there must be a newfound tolerance for not only being alone, but for the sense of solitude that brings a greater understanding of self to the surface. JDK: Is English your second or third language? Your command of the English language reminds me of Joseph Conrad, who learned English in his twenties and yet left an indelible imprint on the English language. I have this image of you with your OED open on your desk with a magnifying glass dangling on a chain around your neck. I frequently found myself smiling when I would run across one of your more obscure words. I enjoy being challenged by your word choices, but when I was going through college, the mantra was, if there is an easier word...use it. Most of the books being published now feel like they have been written at an eighth grade reading level. You obviously reject the notion of easier is better, and by choosing these more obscure words you leave the seasoning in your sentences. Talk to me about the way you go about selecting words? LBJ:Though it is my second language, I exclusively read and write in English. I completely understand that I’m swimming against the continuous stream of easy reads, but I fundamentally reject the notion that easier is better. I probably think about the word use in the same way a painter thinks about slight differences in color or a musician thinks about nuances in tonality. I believe a single word can be an incredibly powerful tool when used selectively, and I think a lot about the structure of sentences and how each word fits within the context when I write. JDK: I have this silver Hopi bolo tie of the man in the maze. The cover of The Poriferous Darkness reminds me of that same motif. I think your choice is perfect to reflect the theme of the book. I guess you didn't hear that orange is the new black. :-) Symbolism is important in your books, so how much did you agonize over the design? LBJ:Someone once mentioned that orange is the new black, but I didn’t believe them, or rather I chose to ignore it…… As with the other novels, I forwarded a brief synopsis to my designer Kyle Fletcher. He designed the cover art with very little additional input from me, so I really didn’t agonize over the design at all. I completely trust his discerning eye, and in my opinion he has perfected the link between the cover and the content in all three books. JDK: What is next for Lars Boye Jerlach the writer? When can we expect a new book from you, and what type of book will it be? I have a lot of other irons in the fire at the moment, and I honestly haven’t had the time to sit down and think about my next steps. I will obviously continue to write, but at this stage I can’t really tell you what is next for me. Perhaps I’ll try my hand at something completely different, but I have a strange feeling that when I start writing again, it’s going to be in the same vein as the other novels. I somehow seem unable to resist the temptation of pursuing scenarios of enforced loneliness, so who knows? The next book could quite possibly involve an astronaut… If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 23, 2019
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Dec 31, 2019
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Dec 05, 2019
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Paperback
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| 1975746120
| 9781975746124
| 1975746120
| 3.91
| 32
| Nov 01, 2017
| Nov 01, 2017
|
it was amazing
|
”All you know and everything you will come to know will inevitably become part of your internal fabric. No matter what decisions you make; good, bad o
”All you know and everything you will come to know will inevitably become part of your internal fabric. No matter what decisions you make; good, bad or insouciant, will shape your life much like a river cuts into the landscape. One thought is a fraction of all thoughts and one action is a fraction of all actions. The river broadens and narrows, curves and straightens, flattens and deepens but it’s always coming and always going. It deposits and redistributes everything you know and everything you need.” Ambrosius is a gravedigger. An unusual profession and, as it turns out, a lonely profession. The mourners do not want to see him as his very presence reminds them that he will very shortly be scooping shovelfuls of soil on their recently departed beloved. It isn’t like someone will say, “Oh no, we are short one for dinner. Let's invite the gravedigger” (personally I’d find Ambrosius fascinating). Although from our perspective Ambrosius is a lonely man, he doesn’t seem to be adversely affected by being so. Lars Boye Jerlach’s protagonist for his first novel, The Somnambulist’s Dreams, is a lighthouse keeper who also has a lonely profession. I decided to ask the author about this lonely parallel between his two characters. Jeffrey Keeten: In The Somnambulist's Dream, you had a protagonist who was a lighthouse keeper, and now in your new book When All the Days have Gone, you have a gravedigger as your protagonist. Both are in situations where they spend a great deal of time alone. They both are stimulated by letters left by a predecessor. So talk to me about the impact of being alone on the plotting of your novels? Lars Boye Jerlach: "I believe I think about the idea of solitude/ loneliness a lot, not necessarily from personal experience, but more as a philosophical/ existential question of being. Deep down, I believe we are all alone, but that most of us have learned to either hide our solitude from others or live with others in our shared solitude. However, solitude/ loneliness is not only about being alone. I believe it’s a deeper, internal process and one that requires an internal exploration, a kind of forced mental labor, which can be uncomfortable, even sometimes excruciating. However, if you work hard enough, it does tend to become one of the most important relationships anybody ever has, the relationship one has with oneself." I also wanted to explore the fact that Jerlach writes about these seemingly simple lives. By their choice of professions, they have eliminated a lot of the social aspects that the rest of us have to deal with every day. Jeffrey Keeten: Your protagonists in both of your novels live relatively simple lives. I get the impression that you, too, would rather live in a simpler time or have a simpler life. Are you projecting those desires onto your writing? Lars Boye Jerlach: "I believe there's an urge in everyone to somehow simplify their lives and to find relatively uncomplicated meaning in the chaos.....hence the prevalence for religiosity or indeed other non-theocratic belief systems. While I believe that there is really no 'simpler' time or even a simpler life, as the complexity of existence is entirely dependent on the internalization and analysis of the intellectual output, I do readily admit that I project my own enervated desires onto my writing. The inherent problem is that simplicity very often equals complexity, i.e: what qualifies as an empty space? The question seems simple enough, and yet it's very difficult to answer." Ambrosius finds some letters, left by his predecessor, that have a profound effect upon him. He can’t stop thinking about them, nor can he stop reading them. The letters are not only surreal but so strangely personal, as if Ambrosius has become part of the narrative. The letter writer meets a succubus in the course of his adventures, and in an odd parallel, a strange young girl named Veronica appears in the graveyard and starts up a conversation with Ambrosius. ”Her long raven black hair was held back by a broad white hair band revealing a face that was as flawless and expressionless as a Venetian mask. So meticulously placed were the dark symmetrical eyebrows over her large dark eyes: that it looked as if they had been artificially constructed. Her small straight nose sat over her full lips, that even in the faint light gleamed like they had been recently painted. There was a slight iridescent glow to her pale, slightly translucent skin that made me think about sculptural works in marble and I was suddenly curious if she might also be cool to the touch.” There are a lot of unnatural aspects to her, like being able to read the thoughts of a nearby cat, but she is so sane in her insanity that she is another puzzle for Ambrosius to ponder. She is so wise and erudite in her responses that it is hard to associate the mind with the body. This, of course, prompted another question for the writer. JK:You have a succubus in your story, creating some sexual havoc, but you also have a precocious "girl" named Veronica, who is intriguing, beautiful, scary, and certainly confusing. There are a few overtones of Lolita as your protagonist scrambles to sort out the juxtaposition between her appearance and the wisdom enhanced conversations that are well beyond her years. Tell more about the evolution of this character and the relationship of you as a writer to the characters you create. LBJ:"I deliberately wanted to create a series of adjacent characters that weren't necessarily bound by time, history, or place, but at the same time were interconnected conceptually and could merge with each other to create a more holistic narrative. I am, therefore, happy to hear your confusion with regards to the protagonist's relationship with the girl, who does indeed have a strong and calculated similarity with the succubus. Although 'Lolita' was not in the forefront of my mind when I started writing, I definitely began portraying 'Veronica' as enigmatically fluid to enhance the juxtaposition between her appearance and her conversational talent, but also to more succinctly link to the alluring succubus. When I begin writing, I generally have a pretty firm idea for each of the individual characters. I do, however, allow for the natural fluidity of the writing process to guide their development, and it's only natural that my characters grow as I write, and sometimes get themselves involved in unexpected scenarios. Though I often think I have a fairly clear idea of the individual and his or her traits, there were certainly some unanticipated surprises that arose when I wrote, “When all the days have gone,” and there's no question that I had to allow for a bit of flexibility in the narrative to appropriately accommodate the rather complex development of some of the characters. I knew from the beginning that Veronica would be a critical character and that she would flow in and out of the narrative throughout the novel, so I intentionally attempted to make her mysterious, enigmatic, alluring, intelligent, and wise to deem her unforgettable. As contrived as it sounds, I also attempt to give my characters enough time and room to breathe on the page so that they develop their individuality both naturally and fluidly. It is, as you well know, a very fine balance, and one that I'm still attempting to perfect." ”Although I hadn’t had any imprudent thoughts, her gaze nonetheless made me uncomfortable and I didn’t know how to respond to her gaze other than returning a somewhat strained smile.” Who is she exactly? What is she? Intelligence is always an attractive trait in a woman/girl/succubus, although, as we all know, intelligence is not a box that needs to be checked as an attractive trait regarding a succubus. By design they are everything you desire. Jerlach certainly explores a lot of ancient philosophical thought. Is the table really there sort of thing, but he wraps it all in this mystical tale that brings new life, new meaning to what we try to understand about our lives. JK:You wrap mysticism around classical philosophical thoughts in your books. It can seem like an odd pairing, but both deal with what is real and what is not real. One may have more respect than the other in academic circles, but I get the impression that you, in your search for greater understanding, have embraced both mysticism and philosophy equally. For you, what is the definition of real? LBJ: "The question about what is real and imagined is obviously one of the driving forces in writing the novel and in building the structure of the narrative. I believe my interest in mysticism can easily be seen as standing in contrast to the rationalist view under which one could argue that reason alone is considered evidence for the truth or falsity of some propositions. However, I am of the belief that anything you experience or reflect on, whether it be fantasy, imagined, dreamt, or tangible, past, present, or future, becomes an intrinsic part of the fabric of your individual reality. So in a sense, everything you have ever experienced and will come to experience, therefore, has to be regarded as real." There is one last aspect of this novel that I found very intriguing. Ambrosius is trapped in his house in a snowstorm. Every time he feels the call of nature, he has to shovel his way to the outhouse. The snow is up to the windowsills and continues adding more inches of fresh snow every day. He is a man who notices the way a blue sky looks differently from the bottom of a grave, or the beauty in a dead mouse, or the yellow designs left in the snow by a cat. JK: One of the things I really liked in this book was Ambrosius's ability to see beauty in the mundane, dead rodents, cat pee stains in the snow, etc. I, too, have always tried to notice more than just the things we are supposed to notice as we gallop through life. I have a feeling you are the same way. Share about how those unusual things that others may not bother to notice influence your writing and your art? LBJ "Although I think we all have a tendency to observe the world around us as “the bigger picture,” it's probably somewhat unique that some people seem to pay closer attention to the smaller details in our daily life. I have quite a few friends who're artists/ writers/ other creatives, and it seems as if nearly all of us have an urge to highlight the insignificant so to make it significant. All the images, sounds, smells, touches we collate throughout our lives, no matter how small, are all just tiny fragments that together create the much larger, more complex whole. Although I am like everyone else, who most often look at 'the bigger picture' world around us, I am aware that I tend to be automatically drawn to the unobserved even when I'm not trying, so when I write about Ambrosius's tendencies, a lot of them come from my own personal experiences. I believe that the aggregate of qualities in the very small, often unnoticed, things are what gives the most unexpected pleasure to the senses and, therefore, exalts the mind and the spirit." I want to thank Lars Boye Jerlach for graciously answering my questions. As you can see, this short novel, 220 pages, is full of grand ideas and explores the relationship that we all have with the world around us. Some of what happens to us is not readily explainable, and I think we have to learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. What is real? What is surreal? Is one more substantial than the other? I can’t imagine any reader walking away from reading this book without being inspired to look at the world around them with a more discerning eye. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at: https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 20, 2017
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Oct 22, 2017
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Oct 20, 2017
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Paperback
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| 0802110932
| 9780802110930
| 0802110932
| 3.69
| 3,094
| Mar 03, 1989
| Apr 28, 1989
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really liked it
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”That’s why I’m happy I’m famous for what I’m so famous for. Being gorgeous, I mean. It helps me believe in myself and not worry that I’m just a bunch
”That’s why I’m happy I’m famous for what I’m so famous for. Being gorgeous, I mean. It helps me believe in myself and not worry that I’m just a bunch of blue tubes inside a skin wrapper, which is what everyone actually is. I am gorgeous. That’s not a brag. I can tell. People tell me so. I’m also friendly and sweet and naive except I do tend to talk way too much and I lie all the time. But you have to tell lies when somebody is judging you every minute. You have to cover yourself up with some kind of camouflage, even if that means bullshitting yourself. I do, in any case. Dennis Cooper had a reputation in the 1980s and early 1990s of being an edgy, existentialist, controversial writer who shined a bright unflinching light on gay subculture issues. His books were passed around between my friends like an illicit drug. I remember reading Frisk, which is the second book in the quintet of novels based around George Miles. I’d always intended to read the Miles series, but somehow the years passed by, and Cooper didn’t come up on my radar as often. His style reminds me of William S. Burroughs, but also given the lack of engagement of the characters, the boredom, and the reckless behavior they embrace to try and feel...something, I am also reminded of Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero. The quote I begin this review was said by a character named David, but he was almost a twin to the equally gorgeous George Miles. There is a passivity tinged with melancholy that defines all of these characters, but George is the most compliant of them all. His friends use him for whatever they want and when they tire of him they toss him aside like a used kleenex. He doesn’t seem to care. Even when his mother dies he struggles to define his lack of emotion. ”It’s strange I’m not sad about Mom. I guess it took such a long time I felt everything I could feel already. I wish I hadn’t been there, but I’m glad the last person she looked at was me. She really loved me once. Likewise, I guess.” I had a young man working for me in the bookstore in San Francisco who was exotic and Arabic and very popular with his group of gay friends. We were working the late shift one night. We could hear the Chinese Karaoke across the street every time someone opened the door to enter the bookstore. He talked to me about the fact that he was expected to have sex with any of his friends who wanted him. He was tired of feeling so used, but at the same time he didn’t want to be excommunicated from the group for refusing to provide intimacy. I was taken aback, but realized he was talking to me about a situation I had no basis to judge it by. For me it was easy to say you need to find new friends, but at the same time I knew it was far from being that simple. Situations that came up in this book reminded me of that conversation that night. It made me wonder if the young man did find a way to break free from what really was a bondage of friendship. I certainly hoped he never reached the level of complacency that the young men in this book reached. Where sex was just something to do to kill an hour. Most of the time they are actually thinking about screwing someone else while they are screwing George. One boy admits to George: ”I hope you understand that I’m a much better artist than I am a person.” Things really start to spiral out of control when George meets up with some 40 something men who prey on High School age males and have unnatural dangerous appetites to achieve their pleasure. George remains compliant no matter how painful or how weird their requests became. He wanted to feel more alive and his visits to see them were the only thing in this life that he looked forward to. This story is told from the standpoint of several different young men and also from the perspective of the older males as well. Too much money, too much time, and most alarming a growing despondency that their lives will ever really mean anything definitely left me feeling uneasy. I grew up in the 1980s and the high consumption of money, drugs, and sex was truly a hedonistic time in our history. There was a decided shift in values and an over emphasis in fashion, style, attractiveness, expensive cars, credit cards, and pleasure. The work hard and play hard concept that you see portrayed on the show Mad Man was put on steroids. Having what we want doesn’t seem to make us better human beings. Dennis Cooper is unflinching in his expose of the lifestyles being led by this privileged group of young gay males. They don’t know what they are looking for or even what they should be looking for. Their parents are busy and barely pay any attention to them. They are rudderless in a sea of dangerous creatures. Cooper doesn’t discuss AIDS in this book. I will be curious to see if the disease casts a long shadow over other books in the George Miles series. Cooper tells a story that needs to be told and though his books never hit the bestseller list the stark compelling writing gained him a following that went well beyond just the gay community. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 26, 2017
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Feb 26, 2017
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Feb 26, 2017
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Hardcover
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| 0692746609
| 9780692746608
| 0692746609
| 3.73
| 123
| Aug 23, 2016
| Aug 23, 2016
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it was amazing
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”’Time is never waiting,’ the raven said.’It’s script-less and senseless. It’s never hanging around for anyone to catch up. You are dancing an eternal
”’Time is never waiting,’ the raven said.’It’s script-less and senseless. It’s never hanging around for anyone to catch up. You are dancing an eternal waltz to the sound of your own beating heart. When the music stops, time has already moved on.’” Being a lighthouse keeper is a lonely job. A job that is very similar in many ways to being a fire lookout in a National Forest. Edward Abbey did that job for a few seasons, mainly because he couldn’t hold down a real job and wanted time to write. I can’t remember the last time I spent a full day alone. Sometimes I’m alone for an hour or maybe half a day, but always with the knowledge that I will be soon joined by other human beings. My brief moments of aloneness are not loneliness. A lighthouse keeper or a fire lookout might be in an area where the next closest person is fifty miles away or a hundred miles away. I can enjoy my brief moments of being alone, even relish them, but for a lighthouse keeper, the weight of being alone and knowing that it might be days or weeks or even months before they see another person can do strange things to his mind. Then there are guys, like Jack Torrance from The Shining, who even with their wife and son with them descend into madness without the daily interactions of people to rebalance their equilibrium of proper decorum. Well, he might have had some help finding the road signs that led him to crazy town. I prefer gentle madness, like the type experienced by Enoch Soule in this story, than the Jack Torrance…Here’s Jack with an Axe...way of dealing with madness. Of course, I may be casting unnecessary aspersions at Soule, for the question of whether he is insane or simply a man with a contemplative mind are up for interpretation. Soule is having strange dreams. I’ve mined my dreams for pieces of stories. Sometimes I’ve dreamed whole novels only to watch them evaporate like a snapchat photo before I can even fully appreciate the rosy hue of nipples or capture the sun dappled riverbank or see the dark shapes beyond the dust motes hanging suspended in a barnyard window. I’ve had strange dreams, foolish dreams, and dreams that woke me up with cold shivers that had me fumbling for a pen and a piece of paper so I could jot a few notes of what I’ve seen. Not only does Soule remember his dreams, but he writes them down. Not only does he dream his dreams, but he steps into them. He becomes someone else, someone different every time. When the new lighthouse keeper arrives, he, of course, as all of us do, makes the place his own. In the course of this settling in, he finds a manuscript titled: The Dreams of Enoch S. Soule. The days are long, and the nights are longer, and soon he is looking forward to the time every day he can spend reading these seemingly deranged writings of a man who is experiencing dreams that would make the most sane among us wonder if Poe’s raven has perched permanently in the halls of our remaining sanity. Loneliness can lead to many things: existential dreams, brilliant novels, self-reflection, and madness. Can dreams be caught like a petulant virus from those who dream them? Can madness pass through the inked words of the insane? Are you ceasing to exist even as you read this review? If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 23, 2017
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Jan 24, 2017
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Jan 23, 2017
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Paperback
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| 1590177177
| 9781590177174
| 1590177177
| 3.99
| 3,208
| 1956
| Aug 26, 2016
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really liked it
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”The fact is, it seems, that the most you can hope is to be a little less, in the end, the creature you were in the beginning, and the middle.” Samuel
”The fact is, it seems, that the most you can hope is to be a little less, in the end, the creature you were in the beginning, and the middle.” Samuel Beckett from Molloy, quoted from the intro by Esther Allen. Don Diego de Zama is going mad. Paranoia is a cloak that he swings around his shoulders like a beast of burden. It weighs him down and leaves cracks in his mind for depression, dementia, and hopelessness to grow roots. He has been sent to this far flung outpost in Asunción. He assures us it it to further his career in the government, but after I get to know him a little better, I start to think that the reason he has been sent to this backwater is for the same reason that people get sent to a posting in Siberia or Antarctica. They have royally FUBARed some situation or really, really pissed someone off. Don Diego de Zama believes, though: “The past was a small notebook, much scribbled upon, that I had somehow mislaid.” He has conflicts with his co-workers. They are all conspiring against him. He must be vigilant at all times, or they will destroy him. He doesn’t mingle well with others, which is partly why his paranoia has free rein to roam through all the rooms of his mind. His acquaintances plan an excursion to the local brothel. He is the only one to abstain, not because he is prudish or because he is devoted to his wife who lives back in Buenos Aires. It is because he doesn’t believe as a man of white Spaniard descent that he should be fornicating with those of the mocha, bronzed, dusky, tawny, sepia, or dark chocolate skin. By taking such a public stance on this belief, he also passes judgment on those who do. Of course, I don’t quite believe him. He is really more afraid of catching an STD. He would rather be seen as a racist than let people know what he is really afraid of. This is 1790, so racism is not uncommon. It is just rather uncommon that a white man would refuse to stick his willie in a woman because of the color of her skin. Zama is horny. He hasn’t seen his long suffering wife (you’ll think of her in those terms as well), Marta, for a long time. I say suffering wife, but maybe she felt some relief when he was posted to the middle of nowhere, as well. It is hard not to think that anyone who is around him for very long isn’t able to smell the lit fuse of the powder keg he has become. There are few women in town who meet his lust worthy criteria, except for married women. With the extra obstacle of a husband, it only makes the seduction that much more interesting. ”No man, I told myself, disdains the prospect of illicit love. It is a game, a game of dangers and satisfactions. If victory is his, then he has won his mock trial and prevailed over society, that unwelcome duenna, while an interested third party looks on.” He believes that all he has to do is make his intentions clear and women are supposed to fall at his feet, but as we all know, women want to be wooed. He soon finds that women don’t do what he wants them to do when he wants them to do it. Even when he does get what he wants, it is as if he is the sacrifice. ”She kissed me as if to inflict wounds upon me. She kissed me infinitely. With those kisses she took all my strength.” There is a bit of Franz Kafka. ”I was always a great smoker. One night I fell asleep, cigar in mouth. I woke up, afraid to wake up, as if I already knew. A bat wing had grown out of me. Disgusted, I groped in the darkness it was a woman with dark skin and I was saying I love her. They took me to jail.” There is a lot of French Existentialism in the book. There are many moments when Zama can act to make his life better or help someone else; and yet, he remains frozen in place, unable to do anything. He is best as a spectator and is always justifying to his inner consciousness why he did not react appropriately to situations involving mercy or common courtesy. This book, now that it is available in English for the first time, will definitely join the ranks of The Stranger and Nausea Now, what puts the extra mustard on this book is Antonio Di Benedetto was arrested and tortured during Argentina’s Dirty War, which occurred from 1976-1983. He was frogmarched out to be shot numerous times only to be reprieved at the last moment. ”Death, then. My death, chosen by me. I mused that death was not a thing to enjoy, though going to one’s death could be, as a desired act, an act of will, of my will. To wait for it no longer. To hound it down, grow intimate with it.” Di Benedetto’s idol, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, suffered a similar fate at the age of twenty-eight, and fortunately, he was also spared at the last moment. There is certainly crime and punishment within the pages of this book. Zama has the same number of things go right and wrong for him as others do, but his madness kept him obsessively pouring the ashes of the perceived slights through his fingers, looking for one more glimmer of flame to keep the fire of discontent lit. Di Benedetto was interested in showing life as genuinely as possible. It is interesting that he picked a man descending into madness to show us his truth. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 28, 2016
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Aug 29, 2016
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Aug 28, 2016
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Paperback
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| 1564781402
| 9781564781406
| 1564781402
| 3.78
| 317
| 1936
| Sep 01, 1996
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really liked it
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[image]
Raymond Queneau In the 1920s Raymond Queneau went to Paris for his final days of formal education. He kept a detailed journal of his time th [image] Raymond Queneau In the 1920s Raymond Queneau went to Paris for his final days of formal education. He kept a detailed journal of his time there and in 1936 he wrote this autobiographical novel based on those years as a student in Paris. Times had changed. In 1936 the threat of imminent war hung over Europe, and so even though he was writing about relatively carefree student days in Paris the tinge of the times he was experiencing in 1936 had an influence on the novel. Calling the 1920s The Last Days I think definitely indicates the state of mind of not only Queneau, but the French people in general. They were starting to understand that the The War to End all Wars was going to be indicated with a roman numeral very soon. Monsieur Brabbant and Monsier Tolut are standing together watching it rain. They are of the older generation represented in this novel. Both could be considered con men, but of different stripes. Brabbant is intent on achieving the big score by hook or by crook. Tolut is mired in guilt for all the years he taught school children geography and yet didn't know a blessed thing about the subject. "You'd think it was oil, wouldn't you? Personally, I don't call this weather, I call it oil." "What d'you expect--its been like this ever since the war. The shells have played havoc with the seasons. Think back to the prewar Octobers. There was real rain, then. And the sun, where there was sun, it was real sun. Whereas these days it's all mixed up--the dishcloths with the napkins and Christmas with Midsummer. These days there's nothing to tell you when to wear your overcoat or when to leave it off." Vincent Tuquedenne our hero and the character representing the young Raymond Queneau arrives in Paris. He is very serious about reading, but not very serious about his studies. When Vincent Tuquedenne got off the Le Havre train he was shy, an individualist, an anarchist and an atheist. He didn't wear glasses he was shortsighted, and he was letting his hair grow in order to display his opinions. All this had come to him from reading books, a lot of books, an enormous amount of books. Vincent has friends, but he does not seek them out. He doesn't mind people he just prefers books. His head is permanently clouded with ideas and his friends misinterpret his impression of them. And Turquedenne? Oh him! We don't see him much these days. We only meet him by chance. And then he looks down on us from the heights of his grandeur. No kidding. We are only poor unfortunate medical students, whereas he reads Saint Thomas in Latin and knows which way up to look at a cubist painting. It's obvious; you can see why he despises us. In truth, Turquedenne has his own issues. He can't get laid. He doesn't seem to understand the concept of wooing. He feels that romantic love is a cosmic event where his presence is all that is necessary for a woman to fall into his arms. He also inexplicably fails his first exams. Alfred is by far my favorite character in the book. He is a waiter who has spent an enormous amount of time conceiving a system involving the planets that will allow him to successfully retrieve his family money that was squandered at the race track by his father. He does provide help to the slippery Monsieur Brabbant also know as Martin-Martin. Whenever Brabbant dreams a new scheme he races over to Alfred for guidance. The older generations, as they begin to attend the funerals of their contemporaries, naturally, become obsessed with dying and the afterlife. Queneau uses their maudlin state of mind to explore what comes next. Let me tell you, monsieur, that while hell may perhaps exist heaven certainly does not exist. That's very sad, what you've just said. Sad but true. I wonder how you came to think such things. My whole life has led me think that. What if I was mistaken though? What if, on the other hand, my whole life...You think it exists, heaven? I'm asking you as man to man, I'm asking you for an honest answer. It doesn't exist. The novel explores the generational rift exposing the thorns of the older generation and the uncertainty of the younger generation. This novel can be read on many different levels. You can read it as a novel of philosophical ideas or you can read it as a pleasant autobiographical novel of a bright young man coming of age in Paris. I can tell the book will gain weight with each reread. It has certainly inspired me to read more Raymond Queneau. I also find the pictures that Queneau had taken below to be...intriguing. [image] If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 27, 2012
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Jun 02, 2012
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May 27, 2012
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Paperback
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