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Sylvia's on the back (October 2005)

READIN

Jeremy's journal

It must have been a long time before men thought of giving a common name to the manifold objects of their senses, and of placing themselves in opposition to them.

Novalis


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Friday, July 20th, 2012

🦋 Let's Listen to

David Byrne and the Mysterians.

posted morning of July 20th, 2012: Respond
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Wednesday, July 18th, 2012

'Unnecessary complication? I don't think so. An expansion. Like breathing. Breathe in, breathe out. Expand, contract. The rhythm of life. You have it in you to be a fuller person, Paul, larger and more expansive, but you won't allow it. I urge you: don't cut short these thought-trains of yours. Follow them through to their end. Your thoughts and your feelings. Follow them through and you will grow with them. What was it that the American poet fellow said? There weaves always a fictive covering from something to something. My memory is going. I become vaguer with each passing day. A pity. Hence this little lesson I am trying to teach you. He finds her by the riverside, sitting on a bench, clustered around by ducks that she seems to be feeding – it may be simple, as an account, its simplicity may even beguile one, but it is not good enough. It does not bring me to life. Bringing me to life may not be important to you, but it has the drawback of not bringing you to life either. Or the ducks, for that matter, if you prefer not to have me at the centre of the picture. Bring these humble ducks to life and they will bring you to life, I promise. Bring Marijana to life, if it must be Marijana, and she will bring you to life. It is as elementary as that. But please, as a favour to me, please stop dithering. I do not know how much longer I can support my present mode of existence.'
Slow Man is a much, much weirder book than Elizabeth Costello. I found it just spell-binding to watch the growth of intimacy between her and her character, after her shocking introduction midway through. The first half of the book had a couple of faults I thought in terms of pacing and tone; but they were more than made up for by the latter half. Indeed the second half made those missteps part of the story.

Coetzee's books about Costello are as much about the craft of writing, I think, as about anything else. Here Costello, midway through a story that is threatening not to go anywhere interesting, inserts herself into the story's reality and tries to involve her characters in creating themselves and their stories; she is not ultimately successful*, she cannot woo Paul out of his shell, the story of his recuperation will just be the story of him living out his days, slow, uneventful. It makes for about as weird a bit of metafiction as I can imagine, and a fascinating read.

*(And it occurs to me here that what I said about Goldberg: Variations absolutely does not apply to this book.)

posted evening of July 18th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Slow Man

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

🦋 working title

As I was writing the other day in the voice of Maximiliano Josner Ávala -- one who has been working on his project a good deal longer than I on mine -- and I felt again, strongly, how strange it seemed that he did not have a title for it, a proper name, or indeed a clear sense of what it was. My sense of what my project is is becoming a little clearer each day -- clear first of all that I should just describe this activity as "writing a book" and leave it at that, with the blog archives open to the curious; and herewith, a working title for the book I'm writing about Ávala and his grandfather, and the grandson's translator: It will be called "This Silent House" for the time being, after a line from the son's journals.

posted evening of July 17th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about This Silent House

Monday, July 16th, 2012

🦋 La casa callada se llena de voces.

(from the journals of Maximiliano Josner Ávala: Jan. 14, 1903)

This silent house is filled with voices. I fear I've made little progress this year, indeed I am beginning to worry that the project as a whole is misconceived. An encouraging letter from Arroncoyo, his enthusiasm for the project buoys my spirit. Concerned that I am not the philosopher he has built me up to be. I'll have to go into town tomorrow and buy some paper from Calixto López.

...

It is clear to me that the divinity in man is his perception of the passage of time: perceiving and feeling this elapsation around him is the closest he can approach to the Godhead. I am having trouble framing this in an analytical fashion though, as anything more than just an impression...

I cannot escape the din of my grandfather's and my father's family's voices in the walls of this house. I shall take some flowers to Carolina's grave tomorrow.

posted evening of July 16th, 2012: 1 response
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🦋 Elizabeth Costello and the White King

‘Answer me, Paul. Say something.’

It is like a sea beating against his skull. Indeed, for all he knows he could already be lost overboard, tugged to and fro by the currents of the deep. The slap of water that will in time strip his bones of the last sliver of flesh. Pearls of his eyes; coral of his bones.

Elizabeth Costello is my hero for the way she transforms Slow Man with her entrance. That is all I have to say about it right now because I just read that bit not two hours ago, still no idea quite where Coetzee is headed with this, but that chapter was an absolute masterpiece, a revelation. (Thanks Jorge for the recommendation -- it is a good first sentence.)

posted evening of July 16th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about J.M. Coetzee

Sunday, July 15th, 2012

🦋 We change the language by what we say.

Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino, y nada más;
caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino,
sino estelas en la mar.

Wanderer, these your steps
Make up the path, and nothing more;
Wanderer, there is no path:
You make the path by walking.
By walking you make the path,
And turning back your gaze you see
The wilderness you'll never cross again.
Wanderer, there is no path:
Just wake upon the sea.

Antonio Machado:
"Proverbios y cantares" #29

A-and omg, be sure to cf. the 8th Lesson of the maestro de Tarca. Thanks Leilani for the lovely restatement of Machado's classic line. Se hace el lenguaje al hablar.

posted afternoon of July 15th, 2012: 4 responses
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Saturday, July 14th, 2012

🦋 Let's Listen to

Flesh Cartoons.

posted evening of July 14th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Robyn Hitchcock -- gig notes

🦋 El otoño del patriarca: olvidar vivir

Strange -- the first impression I am getting from Aaron Bady's essay on García Márquez (well besides noting his really extraordinary observation about Von Humboldt’s Personal Narrative) (and well, besides the insistent impulse that it be linked to in the same breath as to Juan Gabriel Vásquez' essay on literary influence and misunderstandings) is that it ought to be rendered in Spanish, that it could make really pleasant reading in Spanish. Some initial fumblings below the fold.

posted evening of July 14th, 2012: 1 response
➳ More posts about Translation

Thursday, July 12th, 2012

🦋 Fishing

Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish, you have lost a valuable business opportunity.

Give a man a fish, he'll be totally weirded out.

Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach him to corner the market on fish, and be thankful for the small acts of philanthropy he may perform while depriving most of the world of fish.

Let's listen to Arrested Development.

posted evening of July 12th, 2012: Respond

🦋 Peter's Voice

I haven't really written much narrative (that I can recall) in the first person voice. Let's give this a try. Peter seems like a good place to start with the first person, being as he is at least roughly modeled after myself.

(The plan as it now stands is, write fragments as they come to me. Revise and post at READIN those that seem worth while. Wait and see, see if anything is coming together. And if not, well, I'm having fun with the fragments and the revisions...)

posted evening of July 12th, 2012: 11 responses
➳ More posts about Projects

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