READIN: as of February 03, 2018

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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.

Saturday, February third, 2018

when it clicks: Orhan Pamuk is the author who taught me to identify with his narrator! (A lesson which has turned out to be really valuable in general as a way of reading.) This is exactly the story that he's telling about Galip's experience in The Black Book.

posted morning of February third, 2018: Respond
➳ More posts about The Black Book

Monday, January 29th, 2018

🦋 #tagyourself #itsme

...[A]ny Turk who passionately loves a masterpiece from the West which remains unread by his compatriots begins after a while to believe in all sincerity that not only does he love reading the book, but that he has written it himself.

--The Black Book

posted evening of January 29th, 2018: Respond
➳ More posts about Orhan Pamuk

Sunday, January 28th, 2018

🦋 Galip / Jelal

I decided to make a second try at reading Pamuk's The Black Book. I'm reading GÃ¼neli GÃ¼n's translation this time. (Thanks for the recommendation go to Badger of the lamented Orbis Quintus and also to Michael McGaha.)

It's been a long enough time that I have forgotten the text and the story in all but the very broadest strokes, from time to time I am recognizing a passage. I ought to review my notes from last time. I remember finding it difficult to wade through, and am not having that experience now, which can probably be taken (broadly) as evidence in support of GÃ¼n's translation being a better one...

I've started trying to read the chapters which are written by Jelal* as if I were in Galip's head, in the course of the story -- I think that is the intent, when for example the narrator says,

Working in the taxi's top light, Galip marked Jelal's column all over with numbers, signs, and letters, but he still didn't get anywhere.

The idea is that the reader should carry this image and others like it into reading the next chapter, which will be a column of Jelal's (viz. "The Kiss"). Is this asking much of the reader? I don't think I noticed this pattern last time I read the book.

Don't quite understand Galip's thinking that Jelal's columns (which he knows are reprints of old columns) would contain a clue abut RÃ¼ya's present whereabouts. (If I'm understanding right that that's why he's poring over the column and marking it up.)

In the middle of reading the previous Jelal column ("The Eye", which I think is one of the columns Galip had borrowed out of his cousin's collection of clips), I had the thought that the older relative (forget now which) who in a previous chapter criticized Jelal's columns as too long had a real point, that that could have been edited pretty brutally without losing much of value.

* Prefer this spelling, which GÃ¼n is using, to CelÃ¢l; Freely's rendering while accurate made me double-take "selal/jelal" every time I ran across it.

posted morning of January 28th, 2018: 1 response
➳ More posts about Readings

Tuesday, January 16th, 2018

🦋 Â¡Hagamos idioma!

Cuentista, son tus palabras
El idioma y nada mÃ¡s.
Cuentista, no hay idioma,
Se hace idioma al contar.
Al contar se hace el idioma,
Y al recordar las pasajes contadas
Se oye el relato que nunca
Se ha de volver a narrar.
Cuentista no hay idioma
Sino espuma sobre las aguas.

posted evening of January 16th, 2018: 1 response
➳ More posts about Poetry

Monday, January 15th, 2018

🦋 las alturas de Machu Picchu

Â¡SubirÃ© a nacer contigo, herman@ poeta!

posted afternoon of January 15th, 2018: 1 response
➳ More posts about Pablo Neruda

Sunday, January 14th, 2018

🦋 Prophesy: Laura's dream

In the dream it was a sunny morning after a night of heavy rain. Everyone was nervy because of an ancient prophesy: The morning sun sparkling on the waters of River X (which had been dry for all of recorded time -- the river had a name but I've forgotten it) would portend the end of days. So we walked down to and along the bed of the river, at every waystation I was pointing out to my friends how it was dry, nothing to worry about. We passed a concrete embankment with a light rill of water running down it, the sunlight sparkling. Beyond that was an ocean, where none had been before; its vastness was dumbfounding. Thousands were gathered there, standing on the shore, gawking.