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Monday, January 29th, 2018
...[A]ny Turk who passionately loves a masterpiece from the West which remains unread by his compatriots begins after a while to believe in all sincerity that not only does he love reading the book, but that he has written it himself.
--The Black Book
posted evening of January 29th, 2018: Respond
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Sunday, January 28th, 2018
I decided to make a second try at reading Pamuk's The Black Book. I'm reading Güneli Gün's translation this time. (Thanks for the recommendation go to Badger of the lamented Orbis Quintus and also to Michael McGaha.) It's been a long enough time that I have forgotten the text and the story in all but the very broadest strokes, from time to time I am recognizing a passage. I ought to review my notes from last time. I remember finding it difficult to wade through, and am not having that experience now, which can probably be taken (broadly) as evidence in support of Gün's translation being a better one... I've started trying to read the chapters which are written by Jelal* as if I were in Galip's head, in the course of the story -- I think that is the intent, when for example the narrator says, Working in the taxi's top light, Galip marked Jelal's column all over with numbers, signs, and letters, but he still didn't get anywhere.
The idea is that the reader should carry this image and others like it into reading the next chapter, which will be a column of Jelal's (viz. "The Kiss"). Is this asking much of the reader? I don't think I noticed this pattern last time I read the book.Don't quite understand Galip's thinking that Jelal's columns (which he knows are reprints of old columns) would contain a clue abut Rüya's present whereabouts. (If I'm understanding right that that's why he's poring over the column and marking it up.)
In the middle of reading the previous Jelal column ("The Eye", which I think is one of the columns Galip had borrowed out of his cousin's collection of clips), I had the thought that the older relative (forget now which) who in a previous chapter criticized Jelal's columns as too long had a real point, that that could have been edited pretty brutally without losing much of value.
* Prefer this spelling, which Gün is using, to Celâl; Freely's rendering while accurate made me double-take "selal/jelal" every time I ran across it.
posted morning of January 28th, 2018: 1 response
➳ More posts about Orhan Pamuk
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Tuesday, January 16th, 2018
Cuentista, son tus palabras
El idioma y nada más.
Cuentista, no hay idioma,
Se hace idioma al contar.
Al contar se hace el idioma,
Y al recordar las pasajes contadas
Se oye el relato que nunca
Se ha de volver a narrar.
Cuentista no hay idioma
Sino espuma sobre las aguas.
posted evening of January 16th, 2018: 1 response
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Monday, January 15th, 2018
¡Subiré a nacer contigo, herman@ poeta!
posted afternoon of January 15th, 2018: 1 response
➳ More posts about Pablo Neruda
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Sunday, January 14th, 2018
In the dream it was a sunny morning after a night of heavy rain. Everyone was nervy because of an ancient prophesy: The morning sun sparkling on the waters of River X (which had been dry for all of recorded time -- the river had a name but I've forgotten it) would portend the end of days. So we walked down to and along the bed of the river, at every waystation I was pointing out to my friends how it was dry, nothing to worry about. We passed a concrete embankment with a light rill of water running down it, the sunlight sparkling. Beyond that was an ocean, where none had been before; its vastness was dumbfounding. Thousands were gathered there, standing on the shore, gawking.
posted morning of January 14th, 2018: Respond
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Sunday, January 7th, 2018
posted afternoon of January 7th, 2018: Respond
➳ More posts about Pretty Pictures
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Saturday, January 6th, 2018
- A remake of Yellow Submarine. Keep the soundtrack, new video track.
- This is the next adaptation that should be made of a Pynchon novel:
posted evening of January 6th, 2018: Respond
➳ More posts about Thomas Pynchon
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Monday, January first, 2018
¡Felicidades al año nuevo, herman@s poetas!
posted evening of January first, 2018: Respond
➳ More posts about Writing Projects
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Sunday, December 31st, 2017
Deviant Madonna of the ants,
she listens to their chants,
she catches every glance,
she wants to but she can't...
Is this love? Is this love?
posted afternoon of December 31st, 2017: 1 response
➳ More posts about Projects
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Saturday, December 30th, 2017
So what about a mashup of "In the Penal Colony" and "The Library of Babel"?
"So the prisoner goes on dying his inexorable death, his improbable death. The sentence engraved into his flesh mutates slowly, becomes itself the story, becomes all stories, an encyclopaedia of human knowledge written for all eternities on bodies which will rot away. The executioner turns away from the slaughter, lights a cigarette, walks slowly across the grounds to his barracks."
posted morning of December 30th, 2017: 1 response
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