books

Michiko Kakutani's review of Joseph O'Neill's Netherland makes me want to stroll the streets of this city that I love so much (not now, it's cold and rainy), though not necessarily in search of the kind of companion O'Neill's protagonist finds. I'd rather read about losing oneself in depression and finding oneself with unsavory characters and shady business ventures than actually experience it for myself, and perhaps reading about it is one way of staving off the temptation to slip into a world like that, because it is tempting, one thinks to oneself, reading the opening passages of the novel, identifying with the feeling of one's relationship with another person being misunderstood, with how tiresome it is to have to explain oneself, to put it into words. Even all the descriptions of cricket - a sport I know almost nothing about - seem, from the first few pages I was able to read, essential to understanding how the narrator feels about New York, about the Old World and the New, about community, about living in the city, about living in different cities. I'll add it to that indescribably long list of books I want to read.

A book which was recommended to me by a very dear friend recently, and which I read immediately, was The Boy in Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne. There were things I liked about the book and things I didn't particularly care for, some of which may be simply matters of personal taste, I suppose. Long story as short as I can make it (*spoilers abounding*), a nine-year-old German boy named Bruno moves with his family from Berlin to Oświęcim (Auschwitz) when his commandant father is transferred there by Hitler ("the Fury"), and in his naive boredom, Bruno goes exploring along a very long fence and meets another nine-year-old boy - the boy in striped pyjamas - named Shmuel on the other side of that fence. They meet almost every day for a year, and then Shmuel brings Bruno a set of striped pyjamas so he can disguise himself and help Shmuel look for his father in the camp. They get caught up in a march, the march goes into a room, "chaos" follows, and Bruno is never seen again.

I liked the plot, and I liked that the reader knows more than the protagonist. And obviously the book isn't aimed at me, it's aimed at a teenaged audience, but I thought the main character not knowing more than he did was a little over the top. But that may have been the point, I totally get that, that we're meant to feel really uncomfortable with the fact that he just never catches on despite repeated clues, but it made me wonder whether he wasn't immature for nine or not very bright. I get that he's sheltered and on the offensive's side (a victim would better know what was going on, perhaps?), but several of the things that are conspicuously omitted - like the word used by several adults to refer to the Jews, or the correct pronunciation of Auschwitz (although I did think "Out With" was clever at the beginning), or what he witnesses when the family's waiter spills something on a young lieutenant at dinner - made me feel less sympathetic toward him. I guess it made me judge him, probably more than I should have, though certainly not enough that the ending was acceptable, that he somehow deserved to die or anything. But it made me feel like he wasn't trying to understand what was going on around him, as one description of the book suggested.

Similarly, I wondered how Shmuel didn't know more than he did. How did he not know where the people were going when they went, that they were being killed? People were being shot out in the open, it's not like they were only going to the incinerator, and a nine-year-old in Auschwitz would have been a lot hipper to what was going on than a nine-year-old on the outside, certainly, I mean, just from what I remember of Survival in Auschwitz, it seems that a kid would have been a part of the whole bartering system that sprang up as a means of survival in the camps, would have had to get in on the game, to fend for themselves, even a child such as Shmuel who was with his father and grandfather. Also, style-wise, though I am ordinarily a fan of repetition, I didn't care for how Boyne uses repetition here. The whole "mouth in the shape of an O" thing was especially grating, and some of the Britishisms (though I don't have a problem with Britishisms in general, of course) seemed entirely out of place since the main characters are German.

I don't know, I can only imagine how difficult it is to write a holocaust book for kids, but I read Night by Elie Wiesel when I was twelve, in school, as did the entire class, and while Night is completely horrific (there are certain images I will never get out of my head), I think that it is impossible to not portray that time as horrific, and The Boy in Striped Pyjamas seemed to gloss over too many things for my taste. Honestly, I felt that it was unrealistic to the point of inaccuracy. The characters seemed kind of flat, even considering we're looking at them through Bruno's eyes - his sister goes from playing with dolls to fawning over the lieutenant (who paid a little too much attention to her, if you ask me, for such an age difference and the fact that he is a child playing a man's role, trying to be seen as older by the adults around him) to poring over the newspaper and keeping track of troop movements on a map, and I just didn't believe it.

So overall I didn't particularly care for it, but it did have its redeeming qualities, the doctor/waiter, the maid, the distance between what we know and what Bruno doesn't - but I think I would have liked a little more clarity at the end, even with Bruno and Shmuel being swept up into a march that leads them to the gas chamber, I wanted a clearer message, something other than the wry "nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age," that seemed like a cop-out to me. What exactly couldn't happen again? Or could? Or is? Children getting caught up in war? Children connecting despite being on opposite sides of a fence, metaphorical or otherwise? Senselessness and human stupidity? Okay, sure, but I just feel like the author is winking at me, and I don't feel like it's an appropriate topic to wink about. We're expected to have far more information than the book provides, and I think it invites us to backshadow (see Michael Andre Bernstein's Foregone Conclusions), to read the events as if they had to have happened or as if those involved should have known better, to judge the characters, and if it went a few steps further and tried to make the reader aware of the fact that they were judging when they shouldn't be, that would be entirely different, but I just don't think it gets to that point.

Currently I'm read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, which is pretty fantastic, and next up is The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno. I should probably be reading more Russian lit in preparation for my trip to Petersburg, by I got sort of stuck on a particularly uninteresting Mandelstam selection in the anthology I was muddling my way through. Some of it is breathtaking, don't get me wrong, but some of it I just don't care for. Some of the poetry especially, I'm sure it is absolutely beautiful in Russian, but it loses something. And, of course, considering that I think I want to study translation, being continually reminded that something inherent to the art is lost when it is filtered into another tongue is disheartening, to say the very least. It also makes me want to keep studying languages, though, so there's that.

And this is completely random, but I'm listening to it at the moment, so I'll say that Claude Debussy's "Clair de lune" is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.

preparing

I'm starting to really get excited about going to Petersburg. I got an email from the program yesterday and have since read the schedule of events, and I've been reading about the various places I'm going to go, the people that we'll be talking about. And I've come across this lovely article about the journal Kabinet and the Freud museum called: "Sigmund Freud's Cabinet of Dreams" in St. Petersburg - Heike Wegner (Vienna) and Victor Mazin (St. Petersburg) on the first Russian Freud Museum. Loveliness.

Okay, I've just learned something very cool: tonight the Empire State Building will be lit purple and white in honor of NYU's 2008 graduating class. And guess who that includes. Me. That's completely awesome. Several of my friends, too, of course, I don't mean to be selfish, but tonight the Empire State Building will be lit for us. This is why we come to New York.

preparing

I'm starting to really get excited about going to Petersburg. I got an email from the program today and have read the schedule of events, and am reading about the various places I'm going to go, the people that we'll be talking about. And I've come across this lovely article about the journal Kabinet and the Freud museum called: "Sigmund Freud's Cabinet of Dreams" in St. Petersburg - Heike Wegner (Vienna) and Victor Mazin (St. Petersburg) on the first Russian Freud Museum.
Loveliness.

Iron Man

The other night at work, some of my coworkers were talking about Iron Man - either how good it was or how badly they wanted to see it - and when they asked me if I had seen it yet, I said, "I don't even know what that is." They were horrified, naturally, but I never read comic books, so there is a whole (Marvel) universe out there that I know almost nothing about. I'm okay with that. I don't feel as if I've been missing out.

That being said, the next night I was invited to the movies, and as soon as I said yes, I was informed that I would not have a say in what we saw. That was also fine with me. It was even more fine after the movie because I really enjoyed it. It wasn't all that violent considering the genre, and it was critical of the killing of innocent people, but death is the fastest way to get rid of the bad guy(s), so what can ya do? I also liked the complication of who the good guys and the bad guys were, the ambiguous attitude the audience is supposed to have about the military.

When we were leaving the theater, we were wondering why so many people were staying for the credits (like 60% of the full theater), and of course we found out afterward. (I found the scene online very quickly just now, of course.) I like the idea that they are connecting several movies together, while clearly making a sequel or two. Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr were amazing, and I look forward to their next one.

Scotland pictures, etc.

Whew. It's amazing how exhausted I've been the last few weeks. I feel completely outside of myself, or maybe too far inside myself, like I'm watching myself go about my daily life, wondering how to do things, how to talk to people, trying to keep everything straight. I feel like I've forgotten everything, how to do things, how to speak. I need to be learning a little Russian before my trip (32 days!) but I seem to have lost all of the very little Spanish, French, and German I have spent so much time studying - English is causing me problems. I'm assuming this feeling will go away, this being unable to form sentences. It kind of has to. I'll keep practicing.

So Scotland. Scotland was completely gorgeous. Words can't express (not that I know how to use them right now), and pictures cannot by any stretch of the imagination capture just how jaw-droppingly amazing, awe-inspiring, unbelievable... When I was in England a few years ago, we went to Stonehenge, and driving up to it, it was constructed in such a way that makes it appear even bigger than it already is, and it's so impressive, no matter how many pictures you've seen of it, no matter how many tourists visit it each year, no matter that it's fenced off - it's simply massive and impressive, and you can't help but feel the age of it, how long it's been there before you, how much longer it will last, this sense of history and unknowability. Take that feeling, but remove the human element. Stonehenge was built, nobody knows who by, but it was built. Driving through the highlands of Scotland, these mountains that used to be volcanoes, and lochs, and moorland, I was continuously struck by how old it all felt, you look at these snow-capped mountains and you can see where the melting snow has been cutting deep rifts for more time than I can possibly conceive of, and it's so beautiful, and it was like having the chance to glimpse a process that has nothing to do with me, this earth shaping itself over so many millions of years.

But of course you can't remove the human element, we're all over the place, and we were driving let's not forget, my pictures were taken from lay-bys, I was able to take pictures of this place, there were villages and farms all over, and I am not qualified to say anything about the impact of human activity on those very mountains that I felt existed independent of my regard, so please don't litter, do reduce waste, stop buying things you don't need, buy local seasonal produce, etc.

That being said, spring was everywhere, lambs frolicking in every field, and the weather was fantastic, big fluffy clouds. I'll post a few pictures, but - and I am completely serious about this - go yourself, people. These pictures mean more to me than they ever will to anyone else because I was there. And I'm totally going back.

This first one is a loch on the way to Isle of Skye from St Andrews.

2. near Kiltrock, Isle of Skye (Kiltrock is actually the cliffs in the background)
3. Loch Ness?

4, 5, 6. mountains near Fort William
7. St Andrews
I have a bunch more of St Andrews, mostly at night, so I have a lot of duplicate scenes taken using the various settings of my new camera - some of which are kind of frightening, the light being so completely unnatural. It's really a beautiful town, and yes the golf course is nice, but it's also home to the number four university in the UK, which is why I was there visiting my friend who is studying there.

So next on the agenda is Russia, but first I think I may escape the city once again to go visit the fam. Escape the city? What am I saying? I love this city! And it's a beautiful day to enjoy it. Happy mothers day!

uninvited guests

I think instead of getting caught up, I'm putting myself farther and farther behind, but c'est la vie. I say that because I'm thinking that I still want to put up some pictures from Scotland, and I'd like to say something about going back to my job (which is weird!) and being done with my thesis (which is weirder!), but at the moment I feel the need to explore a rather unusual incident (for me) that occurred today. Keep in mind that I was still in my pajamas and that my pajama pants are patterned in purple martinis.

My roommate and I were chatting over headlines (mocking them) and emails and things, and the doorbell rang, but very quietly, so I asked if it had rung and then, after a moment or two, decided I should probably see if anyone was actually at the door because it might be a package or something. It was not. I open the door and a woman peaks around the corner and says, "Oh, I thought you weren't home," as if we're old friends, and she says something about the "problems" with gas and food lately, rice in particular, adding that we hear a lot of back and forth, and what are we to make of this, and finally she asks "what do you think the solution is?"

Here we pause for a moment.

"I have no idea," I say.

Another pause. Somehow my response has caught her off guard.

She then pulls a book from her side, unzips it, and tells me she is turning to Jeremiah, which she seems to do, and reads a verse or two, I'm not sure really, I had already stopped listening, I would rather read than be read to, and she concludes that the answer to the "problems" has been here all along, that the "problems" originated in people's independence from "God." People can't end war, she said, because people caused war and are trying to end it without God's help, she said. I smiled. "I'd like to give you a pamphlet," she says, opening her bag. "No, thank you," I say, adding a sincere "have a nice day," because I genuinely hope she does, and that she does so away from my front door. How did she get inside the building, I wonder.

I have several responses to this. I'll try to be brief. I have other things to do, after all. In no particular order: 1. wars are often grounded in religion; 2. I live in Brooklyn and don't drive; 3. I am well enough off that rising food prices affect me very, very little; 4. the ambiguity of language is such that her description of the political climate was even more nonsensical than the debate surrounding the issues itself; and 5. what was the goal of this visit?

Where do I begin? Considering time constraints, I'm just for the moment going to say that, as I sit here in my mass-produced, name brand loungewear, drinking my coffee with organic evaporated cane juice, typing on my brand new laptop which is connected to cheap and secure wireless internet, preparing to get ready for my job at a high-end restaurant in midtown Manhattan, which I will get to via safe and reliable public transportation, and after which I will have more cash in my pocket than a substantial percentage of the earth's population are paid in a month, and having recently completed a master's degree in humanities at a private university, I find it completely absurd that this woman comes to my door on a Monday afternoon to tell me that the answer to these problems with gas and rice - which have very little bearing on my day-to-day life because I live in an affluent area of the world - is and has been readily apparent if only I would read it on what I can only imagine to be completely disposable, nonrecycled, single sheet of trifolded paper with hokey illustrations and quotes suited for the interpretation the compiler wishes to invoke. No, thanks.

How about, instead, perhaps, we face up to the contradiction of a religion that simultaneously advocates tolerance of others and war against those dissimilar from ourselves, one that claims to be welcoming and is at the same time exclusionary (I have yet to find a religion that does not do these things). How about we realize that none of these concepts are inextricably linked, that belief in any one religious system does not end war or hunger, and that not subscribing to an organized religion does not necessarily create war or hunger, nor does it prevent the eradication of war or hunger. The solution to "the gas problem," Madam, cannot be found in your book for the simple reason that gasoline has only been manufactured for a little longer than a century and the passage you are reading was written over two millennia ago. The book of Jeremiah most certainly does not anticipate the modern dependence on a limited supply of combustible material that fuels SUVs, the trucks and other means of shipping mass produced luxury goods from one part of the world to another, and wars far enough away from us that we don't have to think about them every second of every day because they are not on our doorstep - you are. So, no, thank you, I do not want your pamphlet, and I will not agree with you, whatever it was that you were saying, because I will be reading and thinking for myself today, as usual, thank you very much.

taking a break

One of these days I will have enough energy to get this thing back up and running, but at the moment I'm completely exhausted. I don't know if it's the jetlag, or a thesis hangover - it's certainly not a real hangover, I was in bed by 12:30 last night - but I feel like I could sleep for a year. But there are so many things to do! I have mental energy and no physical energy. What's up with that?

Maybe it's the weather. What happened to spring?

One of these days I will get caught up. Right?