Feb Miscellanea

We all know I have not been writing much, but… I have been reading quite a bit.  So instead of writing about how I’m not writing, I think I will share some of what I have been reading.  (These are not going to be book reviews.  Follow the links or wikipedia the authors if you want to know more about these works.)  Let’s begin. 

Book-wise, I finally finished David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews With Hideous Men – a collection of short stories that I began on my flights out to California and back in January.  If you are looking for some edgy, disturbingly insightful material written both ingeniously and more than just a little irritatingly, this may be the book for you.  My reaction is a sort of ‘wow, that’s really brilliant, but enough with the abbreviating and the footnotes already.’  And how in the world has John Krasinski turned this into a film? 

I also took a couple of days and read the finally-published (against the great author’s expressed wishes) fragments of Vladimir Nabokov’s The Original of Laura.  While I find the punch-out-and-rearrange index cards a bit gimmicky, the actual material is amazing.  For a Nabokov fanatic, being able to see his handwritten words, his margin notes, scratched-out lines and first thoughts is breathtaking.  The book is not even close to being complete… in fact, it does not really contain a cohesive narrative, though you can see where it was going to some degree… but if Nabokov had been able to complete his final novel, it would have been tremendous and complex.  I put the book down feeling sad, exhilarated and teased.  In a very good way. 

Now I am one and a half novellas into Edith Grossman’s translation of Álvaro Mutis’s The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll.  Thoroughly enjoyable thus far, though I guess we’ll see how I feel about things 500 pages later.  I discovered this gem by way of  Okay.  I thought I’d discovered Mutis at The Millions blog, but apparently I was mistaken.  Perhaps it was The Rumpus or HTML Giant.  Anyway, I recommend all three for some good online literary discourse.  I’ve added all sorts of things to my Amazon wish list because of them.  I recommend combing through the blogosphere and making some discoveries of your own.  While I languish in the creative doldrums, at least I can surround myself with the masterful creations of others. 

In closing, and in honor of the upcoming Valentine’s Day weekend, how about a love poem (of sorts)?  This is "Cascando" by Samuel Beckett (which I found by way of Kate Zambreno’s blog, whose commentary on Beckett’s poem and love and loss I will not even try to compete with here).  Mit liebe,

1.

why not merely the despaired of

occasion of

wordshed

is it not better abort than be barren

the hours after you are gone are so leaden

they will always start dragging too soon

the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want

bringing up the bones the old loves

sockets filled once with eyes like yours

all always is it better too soon than never

the black want splashing their faces

saying again nine days never floated the loved

nor nine months

nor nine lives

2.

saying again

if you do not teach me I shall not learn

saying again there is a last

even of last times

last times of begging

last times of loving

of knowing not knowing pretending

a last even of last times of saying

if you do not love me I shall not be loved

if I do not love you I shall not love

the churn of stale words in the heart again

love love love thud of the old plunger

pestling the unalterable

whey of words

terrified again

of not loving

of loving and not you

of being loved and not by you

of knowing not knowing pretending

pretending

I and all the others that will love you

if they love you

3.

 

 

unless they love you

Is that not gorgeous?