READIN

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Jeremy — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:01:24 -0600

I get home from the Spanish-language meetup this evening -- I mostly listened, talked a little bit -- and find a new post up on Saramago's blog, starting out "To write is to translate. It will always be, even when we're writing in our own language." The rest of it's a little beyond my meagre translating abilities, but interesting stuff.

Reading The History of the Siege of Lisbon tonight, I found another reference to the Blindness epigraph --

... Nonsense, I've simply done a little reading, I've amused or educated myself little by little, discovering the difference between looking and seeing, between seeing and observing, ...

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Sex and Siege

Jeremy — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:40:45 -0600

We know that Mogueime has no such thoughts, he travels by a more straightforward route, whether death comes late or Ouroana comes soon, between the hour of her arrival and the hour of his departure there will be life, but the thought is also much too complicated, so let us resign ourselves to not knowing what Mogueime really thinks, let us turn to the apparent clarity of actions, which are translated thoughts, although in the passage from the latter to the former, certain things are always lost or added, which means that, in the final analysis, we know as little about what we do as about what we think.

I am not sure what to make of this: in the narration of Raimundo's book, Saramago makes reference to several different battlefield sex scenes -- e.g. the Portuguese troops raping and beheading Moorish women at Santar�m; the prostitutes who offer their services to the troops next to the Portuguese army's cemetery; Mogueime's lust for Ouroana, the concubine of the crusader Heinrich. In each of these cases we see Raimundo identify more or less explicitly with the subjects of his writing; and particularly in the first case it is appalling. I haven't quite seen yet what the linkage is between this and Raimundo's love for Maria Sara, who could be concisely and pretty accurately termed "his muse" -- there was an indication near the beginning of the story that his previous sexual experiences had been generally with prostitutes, also it has been brought forth repeatedly that he has no military background and is guessing as to what things are like in war -- and clearly suggested that he has no experience with love and is guessing as to how that works as well.

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(of interest)

Jeremy — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:49:03 -0600

At A Supposedly Fun Blog, Ezra Klein and several other smart young bloggers are reading Infinite Jest -- SEK cautiously supports this enterprise but has some questions. Ben Wolfson is also reading it.

(of interest)

Jeremy — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:46:24 -0600

Ellen writes a short piece for Barista Kids on dealing with kids and boredom.

Boredom is disengagement. Being aware of your own disengagement is a powerful thing. It poses all kinds of interesting questions. Do you need to feel engaged every second? What can you do if you want to feel connected?