Another Blip On Your Radar

Greetings from the grey and drizzly Northeastern United States. I'm in my (pre-)orientation and living in temporary housing. I writes this from the Campus Center, one of the only buildings with wi-fi (my Eathernet cable is packed). It's been kind of a rocky transition. I tend to go from excitement to Holy-shit-what-have-I-done in about a minute. Hopefully I'll get over it when I move into my actual housing and can surround myself with familiar things.

On the upside, my school is in a very cute little town that boasts nine bookstores for a population of 30,000! (To compare: my hometown of +180,000 has three). So far, I've visited five of them. I didn't actually intend to -- really -- but they're all within a few blocks of one another. Some were so-so, but the two used bookstores were fantastic. I found Thomas Bernhard's Concrete and Gert Hofmann's The Parable of the Blind in one of them.

Because of all the stress, I had to put Zeno's Conscience aside for now. I went through a period of a few days where I couldn't read anything, but one night I couldn't sleep and cracked open Concrete. I've been going slowly (not much time, and I feel guilty for reading when I know it's important to socialize), but I'm really enjoying it. The honesty and complete lack of sentimentality appeal to me right now.

And just a random addendum: my pre-orientation is filled with a majority of prospective science and math majors. I'm just a wee bit out of place! So I've taken to telling people that I'm planning to major in something "totally useless."

And no one else has finished Mountains Beyond Mountians.

"Cooling Time"

I'm all packed. I'm ready to go. We're leaving for the airport in less than seven hours.

My orientations are going to be busy, so any posting will be sparse.

This is also my 100th post. I really wish I'd prepared something for it (I do want it to be something more than an away message!).

I was going to quote from my favorite Denise Levertov poem, "Relearning the Alphabet"....but I packed the book. And then I thought I'd quote from Rilke, but he's packed, too. So I'm going to quote from C.D. Wright's prose poem, Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil. It's appropriate, since I met Wright last year....when looking at colleges. I'd love to say that we had a deep, witty, luminous discussion, but I was extremely shy and said almost nothing to her. She probably thought I was an idiot. Oh, well -- I'm not going to that school. Anyway, Cooling Time
is an extended meditation (prose poem?) on poetry. I should have had her sign it....

Without further ado:

Poetry is not like, it is the very lining of the inner life. Poetry is both made and made available wherever there are leaks in the cultural works. There are any number of leaks, for the monolith is structurally unsound, but you have to keep vigilant for signs of weakness, the coming labefaction, and have a vision to carry you through, however makeshift your circumstances. You hae to put one word in front of the other as if it were your last.

Hopefully I'll be back among the bloggers shortly. Wish me luck.

Neither Here Nor There

Periodically, I go through author-phases. In general, I try to vary my reading, but sometimes I get stuck on an author and I have to read several of his or her books before I'm ready to try something new. (You can probably guess the latest one. A certain long-winded Frenchman, perhaps?)

Recently, Kate wrote about signpost and formative books. Formative books are those that leave an emotional or psychological impact, and signpost books, an aesthetic one. I spent a lot of time thinking about which books were signposts or formative for me, which in and of itself was not easy to sort out. Some books could be both. But I realized that most of the authors I'd binged on were neither. It's not that I hadn't enjoyed these authors -- to the contrary -- but for some reason they usually don't fit under either heading.

I'm sure I'll write more about formative and signpost books later on, but I wanted to give those definition-less authors their own space. All are from some point in the last four years.

Simone de Beauvoir. I can't even remember how I discovered her, but at one point I tried to read all of her novels (and didn't succeed). I began with The Woman Destroyed, three novellas, then read All Men Are Mortal, and then She Came to Stay. I was definitely too naive for that last one (it's about a love triangle, based on her and Sartre's relationship with one of his students), and it was my last. I was bored by it, and after that my little crush was over. (Now, though, I want to read The Mandarins and some of her nonfiction).

Thomas Hardy. This was a short one. Tess of the d'Urbervilles was assigned for Brit Lit class, and I finished it early. I liked it, so I read a little about Hardy. He quit writing novels after the public expressed moral indignation over Jude the Obscure -- that was enough to get me to read it, and I liked it more than Tess. Immediately after finishing it, I ran out and bought The Mayor of Casterbridge, but I ran out of steam and never finished it.

Philip Roth. I don't remember what made me pick him up, either -- just that I bought The Ghost Writer instead of Rabbit, Run. (After reading the latter, I stand by that decision). I was very taken with the playfulness and the theme of art having consequences for the artist. I read the rest of the Zuckerman trilogy and then, because I'd developed a soft spot for Zuck, I moved on to the American trilogy. I liked American Pastoral and I Married a Communist, but the love was soured by The Human Stain. I just didn't like it. I dutifully read Everyman when it came out, but otherwise I've had no inclination to return to his books. For now.

Those are the main ones, and I could throw in a couple more -- W. Somerset Maugham, for one.

Despite having been uncharacteristically faithful to them, I still wouldn't say that any of these writers are necessarily signpost or formtive authors. (The glaring exception being Proust, who is both). I could probably argue for American Pastoral as a signpost, but in the scheme of things I don't think it is one.

For me, the most important books seem to be the only ones I've read of a given author. I would count Mrs. Dalloway among my signpost books, but I have yet to read more of Woolf's fiction. Nabokov's Despair is another (I did read Lolita, but that was before Despair, and I was too young to really get it). It's strange, but it's almost as if I can't handle too much of the books that truly change. Or resistant? Or worried that the impression will fade, to be replaced by other books?

I think that the signpost and the formative books are those that take the things you love and the ideas that challenge you to an extreme degree, which is part of their power (in addition to the aesthetics, the timing, etc). But even if the above authors didn't radically overhaul my life in some way, they were still important for me as a reader. The time spent with them was not wasted.

A Little More on Translation

One of my former teachers always tried to incorporate some strain of 20th century French philosophy into his classes (this is the same one who gave me Rilke's novel). He wasn't very successful in the classroom (everything wound up sounding alike), but talking with him one on one about those ideas was fascinating. (I don't remember the substance of the conversations, just the being-fascinated part). At some point I tried to read several of the thinkers he loved, or at least read about them: Sartre, Blanchot, Derrida. I read The Age of Reason, but the sheer size of Being and Nothingness scared me off. I also tried Of Grammatology, but couldn't make it farther than the preface. And I could never find Blanchot anywhere.

Today, however, I wandered into the university library near my house to browse and found that they not only carried Blanchot, but carried several of his works. I didn't expect to have a choice. (They also had one of Gert Hofmann's novels, which I snatched up as well, but that's another story).

On the back copy of one of the books, Friendship, I noticed something about Walter Benjamin's "The Task of the Translator" (quoted in part earlier). That was excuse enough for me. (I couldn't have invented a better one!) I brought the book(s) home and read that essay first. So, after that long-winded digression, here is Blanchot's response:

This statement or claim is dangerously seductive. It implies that each language could become all other languages, or at least move without harm in all sorts of new directions; it assumes that the translator will find enough resources in the work to be translated and enough authority in himself to provoke this sudden mutation; finally, it assumes a translation free and innovative to such an extent that it will be capable of a greater verbal and syntactic literality, which would, in the end, make translation useless.

The Many Truths and the Many Lies

There's a very welcome humor and lightness to the opening pages of Zeno's Conscience (formerly translated as The Confessions of Zeno). From the preface by Zeno's doctor:

I am publishing [this autobiography] in revenge, and I hope he is displeased. I want him to know, however, that I am prepared to share with him the lavish profits I expect to make from this publication, on condition that he resume his treatment. He seemed so curious about himself! If he only knew the countless surprises he might enjoy from discussing the many truths and the many lies he has assembled here!...

And from Zeno's Preamble:

Recall my infancy? Hardly. Poor baby! I can't even find a way to warn you, now living in your own infancy, how important it is to remember it, for the benefit of your intelligence and your health. When will you discover that it would be a good idea to memorize your life, even the large part of it that will revolt you?

(I'd also like to note that today's profusion of posts (and lack of proofreading) is a kind of nervous tic. Please bear with me. Or better yet, ignore me for a week...)

Expurgating

Anyone who's read my posts has probably noticed that I'm not exactly practical. Hence the number of books squirrled away in my bags. But today even I realized that this was too much. I went through my things and removed somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of my books. Which was no small chore, considering I'd wrapped them up in clothes and hidden them all over. Unpacked, re-packed. But actually, I feel more comfortable with the fewer books, because I know that these are the ones that I'm most likely to read. (And for the rest, there's UPS if needed).

Also, I might, ah, forget Mountains Beyond Mountains. These things do happen....

Please Stop Preaching. Please?

Nick Hornby has inspired me to come out of the closet. I may blog about Proust and Mann and Roubaud, but it's all a facade. When I log off Blogger, I run to my secret stash of Dan Browns, Nora Robertses, and back issues of Cosmopolitan. And I read them while watching reruns of The OC and stuffing myself with Americn embassy cheeseburgers.

Seriously though, like everyone else picking this up, I find this 'how to read' directive really patronizing.

There's a line in the editorial that reminds me of the discussions about aesthetics vs. life that have been making the rounds lately. Hornby writes, "Sometimes, yes, I read to find things out - as I get older, I feel my ignorance weighing more heavily on me. I want to know what it's like to be him or her, to live there or then." My view is: it's not going to get you any closer, because it is fiction. I put myself firmly in the camp that believes that fiction isn't about teaching or learning anything.

(A disclaimer: I'm better at stating what I don't believe about art than at articulating what I do think.)

Hornby claims that books that are clearly written are not 'better' than others, but the way he writes about them says otherwise (more consumers buy bestsellers, etc). For instance:

I am not particularly interested in language. Or rather, I am interested in what language can do for me, and I spend many hours each day trying to ensure that my prose is as simple as it can possibly be.

Personally, I've become much more interested in these writerly, self-reflexive books. Sure, part of reading is entertainment, but those 'opaque' novels are different. Again, I'm having a hard time articulating how -- it's a sense of mystery, the pursuit of meaning. I like seeing the skeleton of the fiction exposed, and I like books that make me think about why I read and why I write. Because, to be honest, these two things are obsessions and I don't know why.

What I meant to get at in this post is that although I like these kinds of books, I don't think I'd necessarily limit myself to them. Also, I would have missed out on so much had I just given up at a 'boring' part. Sometimes the slog is worth it.

Instead of Concluding Remarks

The world stretches out before us, fraught with answers and we cannot find our tongues.

I keep trying to write about The Great Fire of London, and I keep deleting what I’ve written. And every time I write more than a few lines, I have to throw in a lot of qualifications -- well, not really, kind of, I think, maybe – just to reinforce my uncertainty. Each time I try to comment on some aspect of the book, I either a) use the delete key extensively or b) am tempted to quote without explanation.

But I think that quoting is the best way to articulate what I can’t write on my own. There are two in particular.

There exists, in these clashes and fissures, in the rift between constraints, something besides a strategy of narration. For this is how the fall of the riddle is made manifest. The fall of the riddle into mystery, one of the genetic links between project and novel, is laid bare in the central images of the fiction, a transposition and degradation of the very image of the project.

And:

(17) There are two palindromic languages; and I am in neither, at all times; translating
(16) As in a palindrome where no one line is the true mirror of the other.
(15) At the start, I came out of the dream, announcing a twofold language, as in a palindrome, which backwards and forwards says the same thing, but differently.

I originally wanted to say something along the lines of: “The book starts from the premise of failure, but by the end that doesn’t feel right.” But failure is key, is the beginning. I think the words “transposition” and “translation” best approximate what I meant: even with the abandonment and destruction of the Project and the novel, I want to say that something of their essence – the mystery, the riddle – has been preserved. Not preserved – translated into this new context. In doing so, something new has been created “in the rift between constraints.”

I’m sorry, but I need to use another quote (crutch). Roubaud writes, “The totality of the project recounted in the novel was kept obscure by this intertwining; it told nothing. [….]
The illumination, nevertheless, would still require an effort on the reader’s part, a quest for meaning.” Nothing told, and meaning? I’m still questing. So many books “reveal” their meanings by telling them outright. I knew that on some level, but I’ve only just realize how used to that I am.

Obscurely

Roubaud:

There is yet another, different order of difficulty: namely, that a so-called formal reading doesn’t answer the so-called essential question of poetry, to which poetry answers in itself, to which no answer can really be given from an “outside” perspective. The question isn’t “What is poetry?” but rather “Why poetry?” Mathematics provides no answer. And if poetry does (and I think that poetry’s response to this question is contained in poetry itself) it answers like Merlin: obscurely, and in the future tense.

The Immediate Aftermath

I've just finished Roubaud's The Great Fire of London, and I'll have more to say on it in a little while. I found myself amazed at what Roubaud managed to do with form and with his assertions about what his novel and Project might have been; I shouldn't have been quite so surprised, but I didn't realize how it fit together as a whole.

Near the end of the book, Roubaud reveals that The Great Fire, with its many branches, is actually a branch of an even larger work. If The Great Fire is a microcosm of the whole, I can't even imagine what the rest must be like. I went onto the Dalkey Archive Press website (the publishers of this volume) and found that the sequel is called La Boucle -- and it hasn't been translated, as far as I can tell. Does anyone know otherwise?

Giveaway #2

Yesterday's books go to....

Michael Martone - Dorothy W.

• "Reading, almost as much as breathing, is our essential function" -- Alberto Manguel

Book by Book - Stefanie

• "I have sometimes dreamt that when the Day of Judgement dawns and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards--their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable marble--the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy when he sees us coming with our books under our arms, "Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them, They have loved reading." --Virginia Woolf.

Earthly Signs - Kate S.

• "To read well is an act of dynamic receptivity that creates a profound sense of exchange, and I like being on both ends of it." --Mary Gaitskill
  

Congratulations, and I'll be emailing you later about contact and such.

[Update]

I'm taking down today's contest as I had no takers. Poor, homeless books. Too much at once, I guess.

Dueling Translations

In The Great Fire of London, Roubaud writes of translations:

The translator himself looks at his reflection in the other language, sees himself differently, and does not come back the same; the other languages change you, like living in a foreign idiom. [....]

I didn't want to abolish these distances, but rather to emphasize them, leave them with something that would not be eliminated, their identity.

And a little while later, when thinking about this in relation to the troubadours (ie, translating not only across languages but across time):

But I dream nevertheless of something else: the coexistence in the text, whether in verse or nonmetrical narrative, of an extremely contemporary language (that could be written today) and a no-less extreme archaic flavor, leaving the fractures of the centuries visible, audible, in an unapologetic immediacy.

On the other hand, in "The Task of the Translator," Walter Benjamin writes that a "real translation is transparent [....] [it] allows the pure language, as though reinforced by its own medium, to shine upon the original all the more fully." I'm not entirely sure what he means by "pure language," but he writes that it can be achieved by a literal rendering of words and syntax. (Reminding me, rightly or wrongly, of Nabokov's literalist approach to translating Eugene Onegin)

If I am not mistaken, the two approaches are similar: both want to preserve something intrinsic to the original. But the latter approach is more about the "essence":

for the sake of pure language, a free translation bases the test on its own language. It is the task of the translator to rlease in his own language that pure language which is under the spell of another, to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his re-creation of that work.

So which approach is preferable? If you're monolingual like me*, how do you approach a foreign work?

(Of course, this is a dilemma mostly for older works or 'classics': much of contemporary foreign lit is lucky to get one English edition).

I once asked a teacher this, and she replied, "Whichever is easiest to understand." But doesn't that risk losing something of the original? But even if that risk is present, how do you know? For instance, ReadingProust.com has a page of 'dueling madeleines' -- the traditional Moncrieff translation side by side with the new Davis (Penguin) rendering. The Davis reads more smoothly, but is it closer to Proust?

Or is it more desirable to have something rendered in the 'pure' language? I am having a hard time accepting that literature needs to be 'liberated' from its linguistic trappings. Language is such an important part of the experience of a book; for many writers, it's the most important. Does the idea of pure language impinge on the territory of the artist, or is pure language the artist's medium?

Is there such a thing as pure language?

More questions than answers.

*(I fit the old joke: What do you call someone who speaks two languages? --Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks only one language? --American.)

Housebroken Books in Need of Good Homes

I apologize for letting this blog sit unattended lately. (I've definitely missed posting). I spent yesterday packing. As it turns out, I have fewer clothes than I thought (guess where my money goes?), so I was able to pack more books than I'd intended. I didn't realize that they'd fit so perfectly in there -- wrapped in shirts and skirts, between folds, tucked into spare corners -- but I'll definitely be well stocked. I didn't count, but there were definitely more than 20 in there.

I also cleaned out my car and found a lot of books. I've been accumulating Advanced Reader's Copies since I began at the bookstore last June, but most of them never made it past the back seat. I've selected some of them, along with some other books from my shelves, and I'm going to try to give some away every day until Wednesday (or Thursday, but that will depend on how busy I am).

So, if you're interested, leave a comment (make sure your email is available) or email me. I've set up an email account for this blog: bluestockingism@gmail.com. In your comment, be sure to rank the books in order of preference (yes, you get a choice).

Today's books are:

• Earthly Signs - Marina Tsvetaeva's Moscow diaries, 1917-1922
• ARC of Book by Book - Michael Dirda
• LBC finalist Michael Martone - Michael Martone

If you'd like to enter for one of these books, find your favorite quote about writing or books and leave it in a comment/email. Winner of this round will be announced tomorrow, as will the next books up for giveaway.

One more thing: I have a textbook, Religious Traditions of the World, that is also in need of a good home, but I didn't feel right putting this with the others as it has a little highlighting and underlining and some of the pages are warped. It's a good reference book (the primary focus is history and culture), and where else will you find a free textbook? (Well, I didn't think that anyone would be interested in Calculus of a Single Variable....). If you'd rather have that, let me know (I'll keep it separate from the contest).

The Intent of Meaning (Roubaud, part two)

I spent some time reading Walter Benjamin today. The opening of his essay, “The Task of the Translator,” reminded me strongly of Roubaud, although I don’t know that they necessarily make sense together (which is why I feel the need to write about them). Benjamin writes:

Not only is any reference to a certain public or its representatives misleading, but even the concept of an “ideal” receiver is detrimental in the theoretical consideration of art, since all it posits is the existence and nature of man as such. Art, in the same way, posits man’s physical and spiritual existence, but in none of its works is it concerned with his response. [….]

For what does a literary work “say”? What does it communicate? It “tells” very little to those who understand it.

Part of the connection comes from the fact that Roubaud occasionally addresses the ‘general reader.’ But rather than catering to this reader, he simply warns the reader about his methods and emphasizes that “what I tell you is true, in the very order in which you discover it.” When Roubaud wrote this (first chapter) he still had no idea whether this third incarnation of The Great Fire of London would ever see the light of day, much less publication. This uncertainty gave him the freedom to write as he wished as opposed to constraining his form for readability. The asides to the reader are not apologies or justifications. They’re matter-of-fact, and the reader is free to do as he pleases: “Consequently, I invite you to read me in such a way. And whether you wish to or not, the shadow of this affirmation will stretch over your reading.” It’s more about the text than about the reader. (Although I have to wonder: why address the reader at all?)

Another aspect of the connection comes from Benjamin’s question – ‘what does a literary work “say”?’ And the response – ‘very little.’ This is rings true with regards to The Great Fire of London. There’s really no plot (it’s not about the historical event), no moral; the writing is an intimately personal exercise rather than an attempt to enlighten or impress. And Roubaud writes that any narrative ‘telling’ is of secondary importance; rather,

there is a predominance of formal meaning over any other mode of meaning, and particularly over what is ordinarily designated by the word. [….]

The fact remains that the intent of meaning exists, that just about everything I’ve written fits its pattern, and the formal intent is even more essentially present to the extent that by its very nature it casts a shadow over (almost) every advancing line.

The intent of meaning – as opposed to the communication of it, or the preaching of it.

Today, a book like this would be hailed as ‘ambitious’ and ‘experimental.’ But I like the understatement of the ‘intent of meaning.’ The Great Fire may be both of those things (I’m not crazy about either term), but it is so in a very unostentatious, unassuming way.

The Same Topic

Gunter Grass' 'confession' of a few days ago neither surprised me nor left me indignant. I haven't read Grass (although the affair reminded me that The Tin Drum is sitting in a stack of books somewhere), but I disagree with those who called for his Nobel to be revoked (it won't be) -- supposedly, that prize is about literature. Remember? Yes, I understand the outrage, but I think the whole thing has really been blown out of proportion. (Also, according to The Literary Saloon, this information has been publically available for years.)

Yes, maybe I'll feel differently if I read Grass, but if we're going to get into the im/morality of public figures, aren't there some better topics for discussion out there?

Signandsight offers a a good article that prettymuch sums up how I feel:

A class reunion of old German intellectuals who feel chronically inclined or obliged to enlighten us on the same topic: Hitler and me.

Please, no more confessions! Are there no other topics? Where are the voices on the current political and moral issues? It's time for this country to finally liberate itself from the self-reflections of its onion-skinned Nazi discourse, for it to avert its gaze from its own navel and to the larger world. It's time for the lessons of history, preached a hundred times, to finally be applied to the politics of the 21st century before they only – recalling Walser – generate more blind aggression. It's shameful that within three days, the Grass affair has elicted more statements and morally-grounded positions from German writers and thinkers than the war in Northern Israel and southern Lebanon did in the 33 days prior.

"Suspension of disbelief"

Roubaud on his skepticism, which he compares Coleridge's term, "willing suspension of disbelief":

The skeptical world is a world of the incredible that can be entered only in brief fragments of demarcated time, in which the impossibility of accepting that things and worlds exist will be suspended between parentheses. And the world of the novel is penetrated similarly; the world of the great novels imposes its force of conviction, not in its capacity as an exact replica or revelation of a world that might be our own, but because by immersing ourselves within it we gradually yield our consent to the fact--though with an inner conviction that we remain masters of this choice--that every life is on the whole improbable.

Just an Update

I'm having technical issues with Blogger. Readers have been able to access my posts, but I personally can't see them on the main page (or new comments, even when notified via email). So if I'm slow(er) in responding and writing, this is one of the reasons.

I've begun seriously packing and acquiring things, which is keeping me busy (but there's always time to read). An assortment of winter clothes arrived today, including a parka and boots, two items I have never owned before. It's....strange. I also received a letter from my house/dorm student-leaders, which listed things to bring -- one of which was something along the lines of 'a favorite book.' The letter also cautioned: 'Don't bring every book you own.' Well, being young is all about making mistakes, right?

I physically sorted through all of my books and thought seriously about my selections. Yes, I still have a lot -- by anyone's standards -- but fewer than before (under 20!) (right now).

I decided to bring a few books that I've already read, just for familiarity's sake. Those books are: Rilke's Selected Poems (tr. S. Mitchell), Levertov's Selected Poems, Plath's Collected Poems, and -- of course -- Swann's Way (I am debating over Within a Budding Grove. You know, just in case).

The rest are from my TBR books. Authors I consider nonnegotiable are: Celine, Celan, Handke, Bernhard, Kafka, and Proust. (More Proust? Yes, Edmund White's biography and On Art and Literature.)

And finally, authors up for consideration are: Broch, Maugham, Sebald, Woolf, Hamsun, Stendhal, and Percy. I have a feeling most of those will be upgraded to 'nonnegotiable' in another 10 minutes or so (especially Woolf (I considered bringing Mrs. Dalloway, and still might), Sebald, and Hamsun).

Now that I've worn myself out with all of these practical considerations, I'm going to spend some quality time with The Great Fire of London.

Labels Escape Me (Roubaud, part one)

There are so many facets of The Great Fire of London I’d like to write about. If I called it a novel earlier, I now see that that was a mistake. It's a...I don't know. Roubaud's subtitle is best: "A Story with Interpolations and Bifurcations."

As I wrote earlier, the book stems from Roubaud’s failure to create his Project (a poetry project) and his imagined novel, The Great Fire of London. But this book is more than an attempt to explicate what those might have been – it’s also a series of fragments, of contemplations and meditations. Not only that, but it has insertions. (Notes in the text point to interpolations or bifurcations, which appear in appendices after the story proper. They are tangents, additional meditations or explanations.)

The real impetus to this final incarnation of The Great Fire was the death of Roubaud’s wife, Alix. Writing these fragments, having a routine – these keep the grief at bay, at least for a time.

Lately I’ve noticed several books that mix autobiography with fiction – Sebald’s works, The Film Explainer, and now The Great Fire of London. That’s nothing new; lots of authors fictionalize their own experiences and turn them into novels. The aforementioned books, however, seem to stand closer to ‘fact’ than fiction, at least content-wise. Or, it’s not so much that they are closer to fact than any other kind of book, but that they are more open and more self-conscious about it. It’s like looking at a watch with the face removed: they don’t bother – or bother very little – with the fictional façade or framework.

Roubaud’s er, book is exceptionally self-conscious about how it differs from a traditional novel (in particular, the novel that The Great Fire of London might have been). (He says somewhere – I wish I’d taken notes – that readers are inherently skeptical about truth in literature, and more and more I find that this is dead-on). For example, he distinguishes between ‘novel-prose’ and the ‘prose of memory:’

This is why, where genuine novel-prose adds and selects (drastically) voices, anecdotes, and gestures to sustain the progression of its sentences, paragraphs, chapters, the prose of memory stops and starts almost with each element (sentences, paragraphs, chapters; paragraphs especially) in the daily insular life of its composition. For contemplation cannot aim to convince the reader, nor lead him off into the labyrinth of the tale. It offers nothing.

The form of the text itself is subject to memory. From one of the interpolations:

Contrary to all custom and novelistic wisdom, I don’t obliterate these breaks in continuity. Quite the opposite: I draw attention to them. [….]

[T]he moment itself, in this light, can’t be subjected to a unifying vision that exceeds and caps it, being something exterior to the text; no, it is merely the outgrowth of a seed – its initial sentence.

Memory, and the way it shapes form – this is one of the primary concerns of The Great Fire of London. Roubaud states at the beginning that the book’s mystery is not in its content, but in its ‘formal meaning.’ And it is this latter aspect that slowly unravels over the course of the book. It’s actually the most fascinating part of the book (for me): that exploration of the why of the writing, and the why of the form. But that’s a topic for another post.

"A library is always expanding"

From Jacques Roubaud's The Great Fire of London:

The fact is that a library is always expanding; from the "big bang" of one's first book up until its owner dies. A library can't really dwindle, or be emptied of a part of its substance, then start growing again. At least, not without mortal danger. Each one of the books it incorporates at one moment or another of its existence becomes equally indispensable, even if it will never be read again. A minimal pruning is in order at times, perhaps, but such action is conceivable only in the context of a general strategy of growth. If I maintain the image of the body, the books a library loses are nail clippings, fallen hair. But I find an even more appropriate comparison with plant life: a forest, perhaps, or a garden. You are surrounded by a living being. You yourself belong to this being.

Another Book Meme

This is Litlove's book meme:

1. First book to leave a lasting impression?
--Probably Alice Hoffman's Here On Earth. I read it when I was 12 or 13 and fell in love with the style and the feel of the book. It really stayed with me long after the reading and left me craving more of her writing. In addition to reading more of her books, I'd often go back and reread passages I loved.

2. Which author would you most like to be?
--Hmm...maybe Simone de Beauvoir. I love that she had such an unconventional relationship with Sartre, and that she always kept her freedom. And it wouldn't hurt to be such a wonderful writer and thinker!

3. Name the book that has most made you want to visit a place?
--Nicholas and Alexandra (Robert K. Massie's biography of the last Romanovs) made me want to visit Russia -- inimitable Moscow, cosmopolitan Petersburg, the rural countryside with its villages, and the vast expanses of Siberia. Of course, the book really made me want to see not Russia, but the Russia of that time. It's still a beautiful dream.

4. Which contemporary author will still be read in 100 years time?
--This is one of those questions that makes me wish I'd read more contemporary work. Although you've never read enough, have you? I think Philip Roth would be a good bet.

5. Which book would you recommend to a teenager reluctant to try 'literature'?
--That's a lot of pressure! Maybe Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, because it resembles the mystery genre (at first) enough for comfort. I'm going to cheat and also suggest Dostoevsky, just because he's such a powerful writer. I have not read Notes from the Underground, which is probably the best place to start, but I loved Crime and Punishment.

6. Name your best recent literary discovery?
--Best? Gulp! I'll go with the first one who came to mind: Thomas Bernhard. Correction took the novel in a direction I'd never experienced before.

7. Which author's fictional world would you most like to live in?
--Honestly? I have no idea how to answer this question.

8. Name your favorite poet?
--Rilke. Also Levertov, and Plath...

9. What's the best non-fiction title you've read this year?
--Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. Devastating.

10. Which author do you think is much better than his/her reputation?
--I don't know. Jonathan Franzen gets a lot of crap, but I think that The Corrections was a really good book. I say this tentatively, because I have mixed feelings about his other work, but I think he gets a bad rap because of certain....er, PR gaffes.

On an unrelated note, I'd like to announce that I'm lifting my book-moratorium a week early.

Back...for a while

After a long day of travel, I'm back at home for a little while. I spent the plane ride reading the book I blogged about yesterday, which is Jacques Roubaud's The Great Fire of London. As much as I don't like flying and airport security, it was a huge plus to be stuck in a seat next to my sleeping brother with nothing but a book. And a very thought-provoking book at that. I'll have plenty more to say about it once I've had more coffee!

The next several days are going to be cluttered with preparing for college. I've decided to pack lightly and acquire things as needed, but even so there's a lot that I need to get -- along the lines of cold-weather clothes. (I was amusing my mother by asking questions like, "How do you know when winter starts? When do you need boots?" The answers were much simpler than I thought they would be (obviously) but I'm quite clueless once the temperature drops below 55).

And I'm going to be dealing with The Book Issue, one of my highest priorities (yes, some would argue that long-sleeved shirts are more important than books, but I disagree). Some students from the class ahead of me have advised not to bring too many books. After careful consideration (3-5 seconds), I've decided to ignore this advice. So the selection process begins. In between these deliberations, I'll make some time to get close-toed shoes....

Voluntary Memory; Or, a Teaser

The book I've just started reading* opens with some thoughts on memory. In this writing enterprise, each paragraph

should therefore be a new beginning, soon enough decomposed by the light of day, and as oblique as the daylight itself. [....]

For all practical purposes this process involves, in fact, destruction. I've devoted myself to the enterprise of destroying my memory [....] I've lost it without even forgetting it; because, of course, it simultaneouslybecame impossible to forget: [....] It is here, it exists, and is dead. [....]

I reread these sentences, I am here. But nevertheless, in a sense, nothing is left. For what remains--and something always does--is an induced recollection. [....] The prose, this prose, becomes the source of my recollections. One by one it replaces them. It aspires to being my only memory [....] a power of destruction more radical than forgetfulness.

(Beautiful.)

I started thinking about how different this undertaking is from Proust (for whom the "memory of the intelligence" was inferior), but then the two began to seem similar. Proust wrote to give meaning to his memories, to recreate the emotions and meanings he found in the world. This book takes the opposite path: voluntary memory. These memories are effectively rewritten, and thus destroyed: "What will remain will be this narration; interlaced with night, its awful silence; where I hope, by means of accumulation and perseverance, to achieve, if only unintentionally, my end."

Both authors dwell on their own failed attempts to write the masterworks they'd envisioned. But this failure is one of the chief concerns (so far!) of this second book: "By way of attempting to explain (and simultaneously determine for myself) what it will be, I must first tell what it might have been." And yet, that failure seems liberating -- for both writers. Failure makes the new start, the new work possible.

*Still waiting to see if I can stick with it; so far, looks promising.

Two Views: Bluestockings

From BasBleu.com:

Always ladies, never pedants, they regarded life with intelligence and common sense, formed their own opinions, followed their own tastes; and accomplished something towards the ideal of a gay and frank comradeship with brilliant and learned men.

--R. Brimley Johnson

And, more cynically....

The Blues, that tender tribe, who sigh o’er sonnets
And with the pages of the last Review
Line the interior of their heads or bonnets,
Advanced in all their azure’s highest hue.
They talked bad French of Spanish and upon its
Late authors asked him for a hint or two.
And which was softest, Russian or Castilian,
And whether in his travels he saw Ilion.

--Lord Byron

Speaking of earnest female pedantry, I leave for school in two weeks. Yikes.

Halted Reading

My day was mostly taken up with touristy excursions, which I normally don't like, but really enjoyed today. (My pictures aren't uploaded yet, but terragalleria.com has some images of what I saw here, here, and here.) Not only were the sights wonderful, but they left me tired and receptive to reading again. Yesterday was one of those terrible days where I couldn't stick with anything I tried -- and I didn't try the book that I've been most wanting to read since it arrived on my doorstep a few weeks ago. It's a daunting book to begin, and my beginnings haven't led me anywhere since The Film Explainer. I'm going to test the waters with it tonight or tomorrow, but I'll see how it goes before talking about it. All I'll say is that it is pictured in this post. :)

(I really hope I can get into it before Saturday, when I have to fly home. I'm not worried about flying so much as I'm not looking forward to the inevitable airport chaos....)

I got about 2/3 of the way into Musil before I had to stop. It wasn't that I didn't like the book -- actually, it's very thought-provoking. But some stressors earlier in the week distracted me during my reading; I reached page 100 a couple of days ago and realized I had already forgotten much of what had happened. So I'm going to chalk it up to bad timing and save it for later. I know it'll be something I'll really like when I can devote my full attention to it.

So my last reflections on Musil -- for the time being! -- are going to be very general. Penguin bills the book as "a devastating parable about the abuse of power" and points to a "cult of pitiless masculine strength" that culminates in the Great War and then fascism. I'm going to be straight with my glaring bias: I don't like parable. That's not entirely true; I have no problem with parable when it works within a novel, but I don't like a novel that is nothing more than parable. I find it too preachy; it makes me resistant to whatever the book is trying to get across. (One of the reasons I hated The Alchemist). I suspected when I picked the book up that the back copy was more marketing than a description of the text, and my reading confirmed that. It was an effort to make it more palatable (saleable).

It is completely incorrect, though, to reduce Torless to that. It's much more complex, even for such a slim book (154 pages). Yes, it can be read as 'prophetic': War! Destruction! Collapse! Fascism! Blind obediance! Merciless killing! Senseless violence! All of it predicted, right here! Not really. (Does the blurb 'prophetic' ever really mean anything?)

Sure, you can read proto-fascist tendencies in the dynamics of the boys' institute (and the boys are ruthless with one another, as far as I read). But to read it as a parable or as history is really to miss the point: these are essentially human dynamics. Power struggles are not unique to politics. Interpersonal relationships -- even with those to whom we are closest -- are often about control or power. The violent extremes of Torless are probably not the norm (I hope not), but don't we always want to know where we stand in a relationship? Don't we wonder what to conceal, what to reveal, etc? Torless is not so much a parable as a psychological excavation.

As I was writing the previous paragraph, I began to worry that I was generalizing too much, making the novel too much....a parable. My point was to do the opposite. Archetypes really aren't for Musil. And I think that's what will bring me back to the book, when I'm ready.

I'd also like to note that I do feel a little strange rambling on about a book I haven't finished yet.

On Chekhov: Complications, Complications

[The discussion of Chekhov's "The Lady with the Little Dog" began today at A Curious Singularity. Already, several different approaches to the story have been posted -- be sure to check it out!]

(Cross-posted at A Curious Singularity):

Like the previous bloggers, I was troubled by Gurov's misogyny and Anna's 'innocence' but won over by the story itself. The story felt more like a string of vignettes of crucial points in these characters' lives rather than the traditional beginning-middle-end structure. But these sketches of the affair are probably more illuminating than the other approach would be; I think the latter might be bogged down by the need to move the plot along. In "The Lady with the Little Dog," Chekhov gives us the most essential moments, and the most mysterious.

At her blog, Danielle looked for reasons why Chekhov is considered such a master. She provided some excellent information, including this extract from William Boyd's essay on the short story: "Chekhov saw and understood that life is godless, random and absurd, that all history is the history of unintended consequences." Random, unintended consequences. Up until the story's opening, Gurov has led a consequence-free life: his marriage is inconsequential and a matter of convenience, his various conquests last only as long as his interest in them. The affair with Anna Sergeyevna seems to be the first event in his life to carry any weight. (Although part of me has to wonder: if Anna hadn't terminated their initial affair so abruptly, would he have just lost interest and gone on with life as usual?) Anna is very aware that their affair will have consequences, but Gurov is caught completely off-guard.

After reading the story, I felt that Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna are drawn together not by force of their personalities, or even sexual passion, but by timing. Anna goes to Yalta feigning illness, as she is unhappy in her marriage; Gurov is bored with his life in Moscow. Gurov is also "twice her age" -- and I don't want to trot out the tired midlife-crisis-cliche, but I do think that this plays a role here. Near the end of the story, Gurov becomes aware of his mortality, and of the fact that his life has been "pointless business affairs and perpetual conversations -- always on the same theme." This affair, this double life, shows him the alternative to the life he's chosen. After so long on the path of least resistance, he's found something entirely different, something "complicated and difficult" -- and although it will be hard, it's the promise of a new beginning. The story ends with that glimpse of a beginning, and I have to believe that, for all its complications, it's an infinitely more preferable existence.

Two Thoughts from Musil: Third Try

This is my third attempt at this post – very frustrating. I brought my old PC on my trip, not realizing I’d been completely spoiled by my new MacBook. Crashing? Firefox suddenly closing without warning? I’d forgotten. So this post is going to be a pale, pale version of the first two. The first one was good, I assure you.

I haven’t read much lately (more traveling, less sleeping), but the little Torless I have read is food for thought.

The novel opens with Torless’ arrival at a boys’ academy. At first, he experiences a profound homesickness, and lonesomeness for his parents. But Musil is not one for sentimentality:

the thought of his parents became a mere pretext for generating within himself that egoistic suffering which enfolded him in its voluptuous pride [….]

The disappearance of his yearning did not bring with it any long-awaited contentment, but left a void in the soul of young Torless. [….]

But now it was over, and that source of a first superior bliss had made itself known to him only by running dry.

I love that precision. Musil hated what he perceived to be the ‘unthinking emotion’ of the Romantics. Like Proust (him again! always…), he is never content to merely describe a feeling – he has to analyze it, dig deeper, find out where it comes from. And its origins usually aren’t flattering. (Is it a sign of cynicism that I like this approach?) I’m sure there’s more of this to come.

The above passage also raises a question brought up on Litlove and Stefanie’s respective blogs: what is the connection between art and suffering? Why is it that suffering (be it mental, physical, or emotional) is so often key to self-awareness? Is it essential or overemphasized? Are there alternative paths? Also, as with Proust, loss is key to awakening.

Another passage I wanted to bring up, on reading and early writing:

That reading re-emerges, half-digested, through the fingertips [….]: things which are inherently ridiculous, but which have an inestimable value for the soundness of a young person’s development. For these associations and borrowed emotions, coming as they do from outside, carry young people over the dangerously spongy spiritual ground of the years during which one must signify something to oneself, while one is still too incomplete really to signify anything at all.

This just resonates with me. How much bad writing have I produced when tiptoeing that ‘dangerously spongy spiritual ground’? (This is probably one of the reasons I don’t like rereading my earlier posts) Borrowed emotions they may be, but that reading is essential to development, to the solidifying of the personality. And, I would argue, so is its byproduct: all of that embarrassing writing. I think Philip Roth referred to early writing somewhere as ‘apprentice work’ – mimicking the voice and borrowing the emotions of the authors one loves.

Those early readings hold one together one until one is coherent enough to ‘signify something to oneself,’ or at least to start looking for significance.

Treasure Trove

I'm just starting Musil's The Confusions of Young Torless. The epigraph, a quote from Maeterlinck:

As soon as we put something into words, we devalue it in a strange way. We think we have plunged into the depths of the abyss, and when we return to the surface the drop of water on our pale fingertips no longer resembles the sea from which it comes. We delude ourselves that we have discovered a wonderful treasure trove, and when we return to the light of day we find that we have brought back only false stones and shards of glass; and yet the treasure goes on glimmering in the dark, unaltered.

Inexplicable

My vacation thusfar can be summed up as follows: family, books, food. Blogs, too. I've discovered comfortable chairs perfect for reading, not too far from the pool. Very relaxing.

I spent yesterday and today reading Gert Hofmann's The Film Explainer. As much as I'd like to get into a lengthy, thought-provoking discussion of the book, I'm not sure I can (at least not now). It's one of those books that is so much an experience rather than a basis for analysis. It feels so perfectly complete, so self-contained, that I don't know what my writing could possibly offer.

A brief summary, for the curious: The Film Explainer is a 'fictionalized memoir' of Gert Hofmann's maternal grandfather, Karl Hofmann, an explainer of silent films during the rise of the 'talkies.' Karl considers himself an artist; his explanations, his art. Art -- especially cinema -- and imagination are his truths, and 'reality' a 'lie.' The coming of the sound-film, however, makes his job obsolete, and he gets into a fight with his (Jewish) boss. He loses his job, and eventually joins the Nazi party.

This is Germany of the 1930s, with all of its political and economic implications. But whereas some books might take up the broader subjects of Nazism and life prior to and during the war, The Film Explainer is very much a personal story on a more human scale. Nazism is important insofar as it affects the characters' lives. Even when Karl Hofmann joins the Nazi party, film is still the supreme reality, his chief concern. Art first, then life. Given the premise above, the plot could be ripe with intrigue, power plays, meditations on the Holocaust, etc, but Hofmann's focus always remains on the grandfather. Part of the book's power is in its understatement -- which may be why I'm still grappling with how write this entry.

This passage is still one of the freshest in my mind, and can say more than I can:

Really, I ought to take all of the material about Grandfather and Grandmother and Mother and all the other dead people, put it all together and spread it out on a table and, this is what my sense of order tells me, give it some form, so that it amounts to something. [....] But as with all my other 'inventions' (my wife) and the other 'imperishables' (my ironic youngest daughter, Susi): lack of enthusiasm, lack of ideas, the depression of the summer months, the autumn months, the winter months, the hopelessly congested southbound motorway, making a quick getaway impossible, plus headaches, shortage of breath....

It captures the feel of the book. The grandson, the grandfather: give it some form, so that it amounts to something. I love that.

As much as I'd like to explain and excite interest in this particular form, I think that that passage does it best. It's such an exquisite book. The best I can do, I think, is draw attention to it, and hope someone picks it up. Maybe they can explain it better, or at least understand why it makes me ramble so.

Women as Lovers, part two

After finishing Women as Lovers, I don't have a whole lot to add to yesterday's post. That the novel "doesn't have much good to say about love or marriage or sex or babies" both misses the point and is the point. It misses the point because Jelinek is not concerned with women's issues in the same way that so many so-called 'chick lit' authors are (note: I don't know if I really subscribe to that term, I'm just using it for the sake of convinience). Superficially, Jelinek's plot resembles the stereotypical chick-lit plot: women set their hearts on men for a number of reasons, go to great lengths to win them over, get married, have babies, deal with their new situations. Both are about women trying to find happiness. But the stereotypical chick-lit plot (again, please excuse the gross overgeneralizations) deals with how women find meaning or deal with cultural expectations. For Jelinek, this is really moot. How is obvious; how is the same for all of these women. What's important is not showing how women live in this system, but how ridiculous and destructive that system is. The merits or shortcomings of Paula and Brigitte's respective partners are also irrelevant, because these women do not have the luxury of choosing their own fates.

And that's why I also say that that the novel "doesn't have much good to say" is the point. Why make nice about a system in which power and dignity are so perverted not only between the sexes, but between the classes? It isn't that women are "shallow, covetous creatures;" it's that wanting to better themselves makes them seem shallow and covetous. And why pretend that all women who try their best to win men and gain some security (and both Paula and Brigitte use prettymuch the same strategy) will wind up happy? And while happiness might be the ultimate, ideal reward, it isn't the main goal, but merely a freakish side effect. The real goal in all of this is to secure some kind of future, and to be considered a human being, a part of society rather than a drain on it. The smallest dignity -- that's the goal. Isn't it obvious that this dynamic will sometimes end in destruction?

It isn't that life is pointless, it's that fate is random and unpredictable. And in such a society, the deck is stacked against working-class women like Paula and Brigitte. Women play Russian Roulette for these small stakes. They stand to gain small victories, but they stand to lose more.

Women as Commodities Lovers

I've already dipped into my vacation stack -- what a surprise. I am about halfway through with Elfriede Jelinek's Women as Lovers, which I mentioned last week during a semi-rant about a lousy review. As I suspected, the PW review has nothing to do with the actual book. It's actually a very funny book -- in that dry, biting, satirical sort of way. The Nobel Foundation cited the "musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels" in their presentation; I wasn't really sure what they meant by that, but it was clear as soon as the novel began:

do you know this BEAUTIFUL land with its valleys and hills?
in the distance it is bounded by beautiful mountains.
it has a horizon, which is something many lands do not have.

(Those aren't typos: sentences begin in lower case, as do proper names.) The description blending with the sarcasm and satire -- and what's really interesting is that she does it in a way that's reminiscent of government propaganda (the UK review mentioned this). At best, it's the language of tourists' pamphlets ('Visit our BEAUTIFUL lands!'); at worst, it echoes Stalinist slogans ('Life has become better, comrades!'). Actually, that latter slogan was the first thing that popped into my head when I read those lines (especially that last bit about the horizon).

The central women of the story, Brigitte and Paula, are both looking for love and marriage, but in a way that is almost identical to free-market capitalism. Women are commodities, replacable; men are finite and "future is a luxury [for women]. there's not much of it about." Existence doesn't really merit the term 'life' for women; they have to hope that a man will be able to provide it: "heinz has a future, brigitte does not even have a present." Men and women are Machiavellian with one another; they treat relationships like investments--you put something in only if you think you'll get a greater return. (Jelinek has long been affiliated with one of Austria's communist parties) And there's one word that nearly always merits capital letters: MINE.

Yes, as I describe it, it sounds bleak, but the way Jelinek writes relieves the horror of the women's situations. Her skill with voice makes the novel enjoyable, even playful at times. The pleasure and play, however, coexist with constant darkness.

Shame, PW. Shame.

Irrelevant Notice, With Picture

I'm leaving for vacation tomorrow morning (a trip in honor of my grandfather's 80th birthday), but I'm bringing my computer, so reading and posting will most likely just continue as usual. I haven't had this blog long enough to need a break from it. It doesn't feel like work to me; I enjoy writing it. [Sorry if that didn't make sense before. --Ed.]

I've noticed that most bloggers are realistic about what they can read on a vacation and pack their books accordingly. I am not one of them.



(Not pictured: Chekhov. And possibly Fitzgerald; haven't made up my mind there.)

My strategy, as you can see, is to figure out the maximum number of books it would be reasonable to bring, and then multiply by two or three.

Actually, compared to a trip I took last year (for a shorter amount of time), this is packing light....

Required Reading, Part One

I've just finished Slaughterhouse-Five, the first of my vague reading project. My opinion hasn't changed much since yesterday. I liked parts of it, and I liked the general sentiment behind the book, but as literature it left me indifferent.

The premise--besides the senseless firebombing of Dresden--is that World War II was not fought by heroes, but by 'babies' -- war is anything but glorious. Vonnegut was preaching to the choir, but I still appreciate the emphasis on the 'Children's Crusade' aspect. The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, also has some interesting ideas about time. Time has come 'unstuck' for him: he drifts in and out of different periods of his life without warning. He's also abducted by aliens (not a spoiler) who have a different conception of time: rather than being a succession of moments, all of time just is: "All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. [....] It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever." Unfortunately, I didn't really like the alien conceit that went with it.

The story is peppered with little parables, ostensibly written by Kilgore Trout, a little-known science fiction novelist. For instance, Trout says, "You think money grows on trees?" -- and we get this aside:

Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.

So it goes.

My judgment is still a little cluttered; I am glad I read it, although more for those cultural reasons. But indifferent otherwise. Now I'm ready for some great prose.

Cultural Baggage

I'm nearly halfway through with Slaughterhouse-Five; I'm going slowly because I'm not reading it in a consistent way, but picking it up when I think of it. I like it, or parts of it. One of my good friends (on whom I regularly foist my own reading recommendations) has told me repeatedly that it's an 'amazing' book, brilliant, etc. Actually, everyone says that about this book. Which has probably distorted my expectations, and my reading.

I've been thinking about this in relation to the movie The Squid and the Whale. It's a movie about divorce and family dynamics, very good and very sad. The father, Bernard, is a writer (or was a writer -- hasn't published anything in many years), and always rattles off his opinions to his older son Walt, who swallows them and regurgitates them as his own ideas. At one point, Walt tells a girl he's interested in to read Kafka, although in truth he's never read any himself. Later, they have an exchange to this effect:

Girl: I read The Metamorphosis. [Asks him about his interpretation of the ending, says she couldn't figure it out.]
Walt: Yes, it's very Kafkaesque.
Girl: Well, yeah. [pause] Because it was written by Franz Kafka.
[awkward silence]

What weird mental gymnastics brought this book and this film together? Well--to my mind--both have to do with preconceived notions. So many books (and films, and ideas, and politics....) have picked up epigrams and cultural associations that, although true or interesting in one way or another, at one time or another, really just obscure the work. It's impossible for me to read Vonnegut without constantly analyzing myself in relation to the book's acclaim. I think, I've read A about Slaughterhouse-Five; is this an example of A or is it more of X? I also second guess my own reactions to the book: I'm not crazy about Y--but everyone loves this book, so I must have missed the point.

It's a pain. Maybe when I post some more on the book itself I'll be able to flesh out my own opinion, but right now I'm still on my fence.

In contrast, with Bernhard (and now Benjamin), I had others' opinions at my disposal, but they were easy to shake off during the actual reading. There's a long introductory essay on Bernhard here, but I chose to ignore it until after I'd finished the book. Likewise, I didn't read Amazon customer reviews until afterwards, either. That way, I could use them to clarify what I'd read, to illuminate it in new ways -- rather than using them as a guide to reading.

It's probably impossible with many books, but I think my favorite way to approach a book is by starting out in darkness like that. In the mean time, I'll have to crawl under a rock with Slaughterhouse and hope that the artificial darkness will filter out some of the cultural noise.