Here.
Book Review: Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
I’ve (finally!) posted my review of Nabokov’s Lolita, over at The Book Book.
It certainly made for a discomfiting read, on some levels. Anyone with a niece or daughter, as young as the title character or simply once that young — and, I’d bet, any one who herself was once that young — will find in its pages plenty to squirm over.
And yet, there are all those other levels: the annoyingly hard-to-resist charms of the voice of the narrator, the protagonist, Lolita’s stepfather (and abuser) Humbert; the lavish stylistic flourishes; the mounting tensions — leading first to the central “Will he or won’t he?” answer and, later, finally “…will he really kill? kill whom?”
Of course I’m writing here as a guy — a middle-aged guy, at that — and maybe this alone invalidates all my disclaimers to the contrary. But I have to admit that even while being most horrified, I could also feel a little frisson of titillation from time to time. This was especially true early in the book, before the “Will he or won’t be?” question got its (maybe inevitable) answer. It was like inspecting close-up the carapace of what looks from a distance like a beautiful beetle: the ugly hairs and horrible eyes jump out at you, and you almost can’t wait to back off again. It’s a grotesque parody, in a way — a Bruegel‘s-eye-view of infatuation.
(Of course the publisher knows and is quite willing to trade on, to toy with this. Just look at that cover from the book’s 50th-anniversary edition. Do you see the horrors of pedophilia there? I don’t, either.)
Anyway, obviously there’s a lot to feel ambivalent about. If you don’t mind ambivalence and messy morality, love language, and of course haven’t read Lolita, you might want to give it a try. Just don’t be surprised if, like me, you can’t imagine yourself ever reading the book again — and being grateful to have read it once.
One Fine Day
[Video: time-lapse film of an entire year in a wooded area, over “One Fine Day,” by David Byrne and Brian Eno (lyrics in the note at the end of this post)]
From whiskey river:
The Storm
Now through the white orchard my little dog
romps, breaking the new snow
with wild feet.
Running here running there, excited,
hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins
until the white snow is written upon
in large, exuberant letters,
a long sentence, expressing
the pleasures of the body in this world.Oh, I could not have said it better
myself.
(Mary Oliver [source])
…and:
Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. Life is now, every moment, no matter if the world be full of death. Death triumphs only in the service of life.
(Henry Miller [source])
[Read more…]
Real-Life Monologue (Anthropomorphism Edition)
[For information about this photo, which doesn’t precisely relate to the post,
see the note at the bottom.]
The scene: A suburban home in northern Florida, USA. He is trying to get the household denizens out the door promptly in the morning. He has walked and scooped up after The Pooch. He has fed The Pooch; He has fed The Cat. He has prepared the snacks/lunches which He and She will need during their respective workdays. The Pooch, at the gate to the kitchen, tosses her paper plate in the air, signaling breakfast done-age and, hence, ordering a second course. He ignores her. He sets out the various daily medications which He and She take. The Pooch barks. He ignores her. He brings the newspaper in. The Pooch noses her empty plate around on the tile floor. He ignores her. He gets His water bottle from the refrigerator. The Pooch barks again.
He (to The Pooch): Jesus Christ, all right already, I hear you! You think you’re the only person in the house?!?
_________________________
About the photo: We have a wet bar in the living room, and after we get home from work at the end of the day one or the other of us will usually go there to make a drink. We stock the bottles of sweet-and-smoky-smelling liquids in a cabinet below the sink, as you can see at the right of this photo. About eight of every ten times we do this, The Pooch comes to her water bowl to drink, as shown (here wearing her red Team Woof hoodie). This completely cracks us up.
Tucson Shooting and a/b
No politics or ruminations or jokes or YouTube clips or, well, much of anything to say at this point except to extend best wishes for a speedy recovery to our friend “Ashleigh Burrows,” who styles herself in comments here as “a/b.” She was apparently one of those injured in yesterday’s shooting in Tucson. According to another RAMH favorite, Nance, a/b was hit by three bullets, which did not hit any organs but did shatter her hip. She’s awaiting surgery on Wednesday, as we understand it.
Quite possibly she likewise awaits — almost as eagerly — the arrival of an Internet-connected keyboard, so she can say something pithy about the whole experience.
If you get a chance, stop by at The Burrow and wish her well.
[Thanks again, Nance!]
[Update 2010-01-12: Comments are now closed on this post.]
____________________
P.S. In a slightly not-quite-macabre coincidence, at the time I learned about a/b I’d already begun reading this article at the NY Times — about what happens to your cyberself after your earthly one moves on. May be something to think about, if you haven’t already.
What Are You Getting At?
[Image: “Mean,” 2007, brass sign by Danish artist Kasper Sonne. (Original here.)]
From whiskey river:
Dew Light
Now in the blessed days of more and less
when the news about time is that each day
there is less of it I know none of that
as I walk out through the early garden
only the day and I are here with no
before or after and the dew looks up
without a number or a present age
(W. S. Merwin [source])
…and:
As I go clowning my sentimental way into eternity, wrestling with all my problems of estrangement and communion, sincerity and simulation, ambition and acquiescence, I shuttle between worrying whether I matter at all and whether anything else matters but me.
(Stephen Fry, from Moab Is My Washpot)
…and:
Can we have the aspiration to identify more and more with our ability to recognize what we’re doing instead of always identifying with our mistakes? This is the spirit of delighting in what we see rather than despairing in what we see. It’s the spirit of letting compassionate self-reflection build confidence rather than becoming a cause for depression.
(Pema Chödrön, from Taking the Leap)
“Why Do You Like to Write?”
Writers don’t talk about this question too much. Much more fun and entertaining, after all, to complain about the difficulties and pains; who doesn’t like people to feel sorry for them? But the quote below (with my emphasis added) excerpts an answer from Jon Fosse, at the Poetry International Web (sorta awkwardly translated by May-Brit Akerholt, in my opinion, in comma-spliced and run-on form):
…when I write something I feel is well written, something new has come into the world, something that wasn’t there before, I have, as it were created existence, and this, the joy of writing people and stories, yes, whole universes no one knew about, not even I, before I had written them, surprises me, and gives me joy. No one knew about this, not before I wrote it. And where does it come from? I’ve no idea, because it is new to me as well. I probably hadn’t thought about it before. Writing, good writing, will therefore always be a place where something unknown, something which didn’t exist before, is given existence. And that, writing as a state where something, yes in a sense even a whole new universe, is created and given a kind of existence for the first time, is perhaps what I enjoy most about writing. A whole new universe comes into being every time you write well. Because all good texts, yes poems too, are in a certain sense a new universe, which did not exist before, but which is created in good writing.
I’ll add: for me, one of the great joys of reading good writing lies in experiencing, vicariously, the writer’s delight at the moment something unexpected happened on the page or screen. I think I sense this sort of exclamation-point moment in books and other “formal” writing, but I’ve also seen it between the lines in casual text: text messages and chat sessions, one-off blog posts, and yes, even some Facebook status updates and Twitter posts.*
___________________________
* Sorry, Froog. :)
Midweek Music Break
The Low Anthem, performing a haunting “Ghost Woman Blues”:
As far as I can tell, for this song they’ve (slightly) reworked the song by that name written by one George Carter, in 1929. Not many sites list its lyrics, either, but I did find a couple of versions that go (approximately!) like this:
Ghost Woman Blues
(George Carter)On my way home by that lonesome graveyard,
On my way home by that lonesome graveyard,
A ghost jumped out… she was young.Wasn’t no ghost at all. Someone asked for a ride.
Wasn’t no ghost at all. Someone asked for a ride.
She said “Boy, come here. Take me to your room.”My ghost woman, man, she sure do keep me thin.
My ghost woman, man, she sure do keep me thin.
She spend all my money I make on the L&N.I ain’t no lamp, but my wick is burning low.
I ain’t no lamp, but my wick is burning low.
Come and trim my wick, before it refuse to glow.
(I don’t know, but assume, that “the L&N” refers to the Louisville & Nashville Railroad.)
Holidays — Bloody, Cutthroat Holidays
[Note: I don’t know any of the people in the above image (click on it to see it where I first did, in its original form). I found this Santa quite unnerving, though.]
The RAMH regular who goes by the handle “whaddayamean” commented yesterday on a post from back in November. She referred there to a game called a Yankee Swap, which I gather to be the same one enjoyed by The Missus’s family for many years. Down here, though, it’s called the “Dirty Santa” gift exchange.
The idea is that everyone attending a holiday get-together brings a wrapped gift. But you don’t know who will get your gift; indeed, you might even wind up with it yourself.
All the gifts are piled in the center of the room, and everyone draws a number from a hat or bowl. Then you go around the room, in numerical order, as follows:
Aside: in the instructions below, I’ll drop for readability’s sake my usual obsessively gender-neutral practice of s/he-ing all the pronouns. It was starting to make even me crazy.
Player #1 picks any gift at all from the pile, and opens it. Everyone oohs and aahs, or laughs, and then things get really interesting…
#2 may also pick a gift from among those remaining in the pile. In this case, play moves to #3. But #2 may choose instead to “steal” the gift which #1 opened. In this case, #1 returns to the pile of gifts, and opens another.
Okay, now it’s #3’s turn. She may pick from the pile (you’re seeing a pattern, right?). OR, if desired, she may steal either #1’s gift, OR #2’s. The stealee can now steal someone else’s gift, or return to the dwindling mound of gifts for a fresh one. And so on, and so on.
As with any good game, some caveats are in place to keep things (haha) civilized:
- No one can immediately steal back something which someone stole from her. She can, however, steal it back later. (For example, on #2’s turn above, if 2 steals from 1, 1 has ONLY the option of selecting a new gift. But if 3 then steals from 1, the latter is free to take back whatever 2 stole from him.) (You’re following this, right?)
- No gift can be claimed by more than three owners: the third person who acquires it (even if she has stolen it back) keeps it, for good.
- After all gifts have been opened from the pile, player #1 can then force someone to trade gifts with him.
- Finally, at least around here, they cap the value of each gift: it can’t have cost more than $15.
Part of the fun of the whole thing, for me anyhow, is actually acquiring the gift to bring. You can go practical — bringing a kitchen implement or set of screwdrivers, for instance. Or you can go wacky or enigmatic. (One year, I brought a carved wooden hand, a sort of ornament or decor item, which stood on the wrist. It didn’t do anything. It just stood there.) Or you can opt for the fun approach — bringing a game or childhood toy, even if none of the participants are children.
The Fluttering of Things Going ‘Round (and Sometimes Away, and Sometimes Back)
[Video: La Fée des Grèves, or The Fairy of the Surf, a 1909 silent film by Louis Feuillade, dubbed “film’s first fairy tale” by the Film: Ab Initio blog]
From whiskey river:
A Blessing For Absence
May you know that absence is full of tender presence
And that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.
May the absences in your life be full of eternal echo
May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere which holds
The presences that have left your life.
May you be generous in your embrace of loss.
May the sore of your grief turn into a well of seamless presence.
May your compassion reach out to the ones we never hear from.
May you have the courage to speak out for the excluded ones.
May you become the gracious and passionate subject of your own life.
May you not disrespect your mystery through brittle words or false belonging.
May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and twilight are one and may your longing inhabit its deepest dreams within the shelter of the Great Belonging.
(John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes)
…and:
Today on the way home, it snows. Big, soft caressing flakes fall onto our skin like cold moths; the air fills with feathers.
(Margaret Atwood, from Cat’s Eye [source])
…and:
Days begin and end in the dead of night.
They are not shaped long, in the manner
of things which lead to
ends — arrow, road, a person’s life on earth.
They are shaped
round, in the manner of things eternal and stable —
sun, world, God.
Civilization tries to persuade us we are going towards
something, a distant goal. We have forgotten that our only
goal is to
live, to live each and
every day, and that if we live each and
every day, our true goal is achieved. All civilized people
see the day
beginning at dawn or a little after or a long time after or
whatever time their work begins; this they lengthen
according to
their work, during what they call “all day long;” and end it
when they close their eyes. It is they who say
the days are long.
On the contrary, the days are round.
(Jean Giono, from Rondeur Des Jours [source])
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