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READIN
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
How little they must have known him, to address him and speak of him in this way. They take advantage of his death, his feet and hands are bound. They call him a despoiled lily, a lily like a girl stricken by typhoid fever, and use the adjective gentle. Such banality, dear God. Since gentle means noble, chivalrous, gallant, elegant, pleasing, and ubane, which of these would the poet have chosen as he lay in his Christian bed in the Hospital of São Luís. May the gods grant that it be pleasing, for with death one should lose only life.
Starting The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis so soon after I finished The Cave I am really noticing something about Saramago's pacing; the last half of the book really pulls you along in a rush, where the first half is much slower and more open to stopping, starting, jumping back to a few pages previous. I think I have had similar experiences with Blindness and Seeing, as well.
Meanwhile the guest returns to the reception desk, somewhat out of breath after all that effort. He takes the pen and enters the essential details about himself in the register of arrivals, so that it might be known who he claims to be, in the appropriate box on the lined page. Name, Ricardo Reis, age, forty-eight, place of birth, Oporto, marital status, bachelor, profession, doctor, last place of residence, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, whence he has arrived aboard the Highland Brigade. It reads like the beginning of a confession, an intimate autobiography, all that is hidden is contained in these handwritten lines, the only problem is to interpret them.
The three books I have read so far by Saramago are all quite recent; now I am going back much further, to 1986's Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, one of the earliest of his major works. But it is instantly recognizable as the work of the same author based on his distinctive style and on his manner of expression -- I can't picture the construction "so that it might be known who he claims to be" coming out precisely that way from any other author's pen. This book is not translated by Margaret Jull Costa but by Giovanni Pontiero -- the similarity of voice gives me confidence in the abilities of both translators.
I see Saramago's habit of deconstructing commonplace expressions coming through here, although the two examples I've noted in the opening pages -- "pay the fare" and another that I'm not finding now -- are not arresting in the way that I've found his later work. This book is set explicitly in Portugal, in Lisbon, unlike the anonymous countries and cities of his later books. I find that I have no preconceived image of Portugal! So I guess I will acquire one here.
Oh! I see now that Blindness was also translated by Pontiero; I had forgotten.
I read to the end of McGaha's Autobiographies of Orhan Pamuk today -- it is a good book and I think especially useful to the non-Turkish reader (i.e. myself) approaching Pamuk's books for the second time, to clarify cultural and historical references that might otherwise be lost. Does a really good job of drawing out common threads in Pamuk's books which the disparity of voices and styles can obscure. In short -- I would strongly recommend it if you have read all or most of Pamuk's novels to date and are thinking about rereading them. It also makes brief reference to the forthcoming Museum of Innocence, which will be translated by Erdağ Göknar -- in his application for a grant to do the translation, Göknar says,
the protagonist "comes from an upper-class Instanbul family who, after two failed relationships, goes on an obsessive journey in search of places and objects that remind him of his lost loves and that, once assembled, constitute the bulk of a museum of his obsessions"
which is more than I had heard about the content of the book before now.
McGaha ends by saying,
Orhan Pamuk is only fifty-five years old and is at the peak of his creative powers. There is every reason to believe that his best work still lies ahead of him. I look forward to reading his novels for many years to come.
which -- Wow! What a lovely thought! I can't wait for Museum of Innocence. (Which not that it means anything, but I'm finding kind of charming the parallelism between its title and Robyn Hitchcock's song, "Museum of Sex".)
Note: apparently Göknar's application did not pan out; Freely is doing the translation, which will be published in October '09.
The BBC documentaries about Stax records which Chris mentioned yesterday are not available to US web surfers; but you can watch the the Stax '67 tour of Norway on YouTube, albeit broken up into ten-minute chunks and subject to slow downloading. Use the playlist to watch all 6 in order.
posted afternoon of August second, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about The Blues
Ellen and I are clearing out dead stuff and overly grown stuff from the fern and forsythia garden on the side of the house, about the state of which the bitchy neighbor has been complaining and which, if the truth be told, is getting a little long in the tooth.
Me: Did you see that vine with the pretty blue flowers? I hadn't noticed that before.
Ellen: No...
Me: It was right over here -- (looks around) Huh, now I don't see it. (A little later, looking under a fern and seeing a bit of plant with a flower attached) See, like this! I could have sworn there were a lot of them over here!
Ellen: Oh yeah, those are weeds. I usually pull them, they're pretty invasive.
(And this afternoon, the neighbor thanked us and apologized for complaining about it. Nice! Back on good terms.)
posted morning of August second, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about The garden
So it seems like Robyn Hitchcock has written some of the soundtrack for an as-yet-unmade movie about the life of Brian Epstein. He sang two songs from it at the Turning Point show; the first one especially is beautiful, and catchy as hell. The lyrics do not seem to be on the web yet, so here is a quick transcription (the titles are my own, just taken from the choruses; I don't know what Robyn calls these tunes):
This is from a forthcoming movie about the life of Brian Epstein, which hasn't been made yet; but it's been written. Not sure if it's in "development" or "turn-around"...
Knock yourself out yesterday, tomorrow will be fine
It's all for the best you say, somewhere down the line
Everything is fine, Everything is mine.
Pharoah's tomb is empty now, you can crawl right in
Bandage up your sin, bandage up your grin
Oh I, am in a hurry for the sky
Yeah I, am in a hurry for the sky
You can easily confuse, money with success
Success is always relative, money's absolute
Money is acute, money be my girl* -- Yes...
Oh I, am in a hurry for the sky
Yeah I, am in a hurry for the sky
Number 2 said to number 1, you fix us up oh we've finished son
Number 3 said to number 2, I wish I could trade boots with you
Number 4 said to number 5, How does it feel to be eaten alive?
Number 5 said,
I, am not an integrated guy,
Yes I, am in a hurry for the sky
Hurry, for, the, sky...
* On the record it is "money in your dress". Not sure if this was heard right in the live version.
Tryptizol, Librium, Carbitol
Here's another song from the Brian Epstein saga; in this one, Brian's getting near the end, and he has a cocktail* that sustains him:
Ah, I feel so close in my head,
I feel so close to my bed;
You've got me spinning around.
I, feel like a big chandelier,
Could crash any time around here;
You've got me spinning around.
When, the world revolves around you,
And then you revolve too...
You've got me spinning around.
Tryptizol is a brand name for Amitriptyline, an antidepressant.
Librium is a brand name for Chlordiazepoxide, a sedative.
Carbitol is a brand name for 2-(2-Ethoxyethoxy)ethanol, a solvent used in mixing drugs; it was named as the cause of death in the coroner's report on Mr. Epstein's death.
"Dot, Slash" -- "dot " is the end of the sentence, "slash" is the end of the line -- basic units of prose and of poetry. The idea is to talk about confusion and excitement generated by the missing end -- where you are expecting to hear the sentence or line end, and the artist draws it out. Properly done this can focus your attention, make you anxious, pull you in.
Also, the artist can generate interest by delaying the beginning of the line -- in singing anyway; I'm not sure there's any way to extend this form to the written word.
McGaha's observations about My Name is Red mostly just reinforce my own thoughts about that book, so not a lot worth posting about this chapter. He included a couple of details in his summary that I totally don't remember and may not have gotten when I was reading the book, like the Erzurumis strangling the storyteller, and the storyteller's chapters dividing the book into sections; good stuff to look for when rereading. A great line:
Pamuk has said he had so much fun writing My Name is Red that his "inner modernist" kept wagging his finger and reminding him that he was a serious writer and needed to be intellectual and literary.
Also I found really interesting, McGaha's discussion of how My Name is Red is similar to, and opposite to, The Black Book.
Caroline Winter's column on the majuscule first-person pronoun (which appears only in English) is about 30% interesting, 70% silly; uncommonly good for the Times "On Language" column. I'm mainly linking because it contains the lovely word "majuscule".
We're going out tonight to see Gonzo -- how exciting!
The BBC documentaries about Stax records which Chris 
