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Sunday, March 16th, 2008
...this eye was there to ease my passage into this "metaphysical experiment", which I would later decide bore the hallmarks of a dream; it was there, above all, to be my guide.Utter silence. I knew at once that the experiment on which I was about to embark had something to do with that thing my profession had taken away from me and everything to do with that emptiness I felt inside me. A man's nightmares are never so real as when he's starved of sleep! But this was not a nightmare; it was sharper, clearer, almost mathematical in its precision. I know I'm empty inside. This was what I was thinking... the thought lingered. Inside it was an open door; I walked toward it, and like the English girl who followed a rabbit through a gap in the hedge, I soon found myself falling into a new world.
... What I created first was not the eye, first I created Him, the man I wished to be. It was He -- the man I wished to be -- who stepped back to cast His stifling and terrifying gaze upon me.
I am wondering about Celâl. At first The Black Book seemed to be mainly about Galip, with Celâl a minor side character, present (or "not present") for comic effect. But his essays are really starting to resonate.
posted evening of March 16th, 2008: Respond
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That fantastic epigraph I quoted, that Pamuk uses for the head of Chapter 1 of The Black Book, turns out to come from inside the book, from a column of Celâl's (specifically, Chapter 8, "The Three Musketeers"). Oops -- now I feel a little embarrassed about searching for the source of this marvelous line. Pamuk has been playing tricks on me again! I don't think I have seen this from any other author, the way he uses epigraphs and even dedications that are internal to the book. Kind of makes my head spin.
posted evening of March 16th, 2008: Respond
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Saturday, March 8th, 2008
Never use epigraphs -- they kill the mystery in the work!
-- Adli
If that's how it has to die, go ahead and kill it; then kill the false prophets who sold you on the mystery in the first place!
-- Bahti
This morning I started reading The Black Book, by Orhan Pamuk -- and as I read the first pages I had the immediate sensation of having come home. Now the context for this is having felt really strongly drawn into the writing in Snow and My Name is Red, and digging Other Colors to the point of identifying the speaker of the words as myself; and then being less impressed by The New Life and The White Castle. Now this book is definitely holding out promise of having been written by the mature Pamuk, the one who entrances me utterly. (It was written before The New Life, which surprises me a little.) What really struck me was the intensity of my reaction -- the palpable shock of recognition I felt starting from the very first sentence. ("Rüya* was lying facedown on the bed, lost to the sweet warm darkness beneath the billowing folds of the blue-checked quilt.") I've only even known who this guy is for less than a year but I've apparently given him lease on a substantial portion of my cerebral cortex. Not too much organized yet to say about this particular book, I'm just starting it; but it does seem worth noting that the switching back and forth between first person and third person narration is so smooth and natural, it took me a few paragraphs to even figure out it had happened, the first couple of times he did it. Subtly beautiful. It took longer to figure out what was going on with Chapter Two, which is a column written by the narrator's cousin, but once I had gotten that it was good. Pamuk seems to be anticipating me -- when I have a question about some detail of the plot it seems to be getting answered within 2 or 3 pages of where it arises. It's just really hard to resist giving a long quote. Here is a bit from the first page: Languid with sleep, Galip gazed at his wife's head: Rüya's chin was nestling in the down pillow. The wondrous sights playing in her mind gave her an unearthly glow that pulled him toward her even as it suffused him with fear. Memory, Celâl had once written in a column, is a garden. Rüya's gardens, Rüya's gardens... Galip thought. Don't think, don't think, it will make you jealous! But as he gazed at his wife's forehead, he still let himself think.He longed to stroll among the willows, acacias, and sun-drenched climbing roses of the walled garden where Rüya had taken refuge, shutting the doors behind her. But he was indecently afraid of the faces he might find there: Well, hello! So you're a regular here too, are you? It was not the already identified apparitions he most dreaded but the insinuating male shadows he could never have anticipated: Excuse me, brother, when exactly did you run into my wife, or were you introduced?... And it goes on from there -- this seductive prose (in Maureen Freely's translation, and hooray! for Maureen Freely, say I) won't let me go. Freely has also written an afterword to the novel, which gives some historical context to the events of the story, and talks about her process of translating Turkish.
 *Rüya is the name of Pamuk's daughter, in addition to this character's name; when Sylvia was looking over my shoulder this morning she said "Rüya, like in 'off the floor'!" "Off the floor" is a game Pamuk and his daughter play in the essay "When Rüya is Sad", and which Sylvia has appropriated for her own.
posted evening of March 8th, 2008: Respond
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Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
...And I would be the proudest of wives, whispered his wife, slithering closer to him, as if touched by the magic wand of a rare brand of lust, a mixture of carnal desire and political enthusiasm, but her husband, conscious of the gravity of the hour and making his the harsh words of the poet, Why do you grovel before my rough boots? / Why do you loosen your perfumed hairs / and treacherously open your soft arms? / I am nothing but a man with coarse hands / and a cold heart / and if, in order to pass, / I had to trample you underfoot / then, as you well know, I would trample you underfoot, abruptly threw off the bedclothes and said, I'm going to my study to keep an eye on developments, you go back to sleep, rest. I am wondering who "the poet" is -- is this piece taken from a poem that exists outside Seeing? I notice that Margaret Jull Costa, translator of this book, spoke about translating Saramago at the occasion of his receiving the Nobel prize; a transcript is available online.  Later: well I sent Ms. Costa a letter c/o the publisher, inquiring about the source. Fingers crossed! I have not tried to contact a translator like this before. (Was going to ask Ms. Holbrook about the frontspiece to The White Castle, but the book ended up leaving me cold enough that I did not bother.)
posted evening of February 27th, 2008: 1 response
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They weren't conspirators, they were simply afraid.
The first half of Seeing is different from the rest of these two books in that it is not tightly focused on particular characters -- the events being related take place at large in the city. This portion of the book strikes me as broad political satire, and here is where the highest frequency of really hilarious punch-lines is to be found. Mixed naturally with frightening images like the detainees being interrogated about their conversations on election day. Saramago's punch-lines hit especially hard because of the rhythm of his voice -- the way he strings sentences together can become hypnotic, so as I'm reading along it's like listening to a chant recited -- then the punch-line breaks into that and snaps me out of the sing-song, and I laugh.
posted evening of February 27th, 2008: Respond
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I finished both books that I took along with me to read on the beach; each was in its own particular way, a satisfying, affecting read, and I want to post some of the notes I kept about them, particularly about Saramago's Seeing. This will take a few days to get done -- the notes are not in a particularly readable format right now but it's my hope that I can coax them into one. I want to retract my earlier suggestion that you ought to read Seeing whether or not you have read Blindness; I think that the two books are at their best when read in sequence and that while you could enjoy either one of them by itself, that would take away a bit from the great beauty of the pair. I was thinking while I read about various ways of arguing for one book or the other as the better of the two -- they are different from one another in such a way as to invite that kind of argument I think -- but in the end the only thing to say is that they complement and perfect each other. There is also a lot to say about Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go -- and that is the book that I find myself emailing and calling people to recommend -- I don't know how much of it I will be able to get down on paper before I read the book a second time. This book just sucked me in -- I found it completely impossible to put it down and take notes on what I was reading. I can't remember the last time I read a book that so strongly fit the term "page-turner".
posted evening of February 27th, 2008: 2 responses
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Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Taking two books along this week: Seeing and Never Let Me Go. As noted below, I won't be blogging; but I am hoping to take notes the old-fashioned way, and compose some good posts on my return.
posted morning of February 17th, 2008: Respond
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Friday, February 15th, 2008
In the interview yesterday (which features good humor and some real insight) Robyn recommends Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go as "a gently devastating book." I had not heard of the book before but now I'm thinking it looks really interesting. -- Here is an interview with Ishiguro and some readings from the book. Onto the queue it goes!
posted evening of February 15th, 2008: Respond
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Saramago's Seeing is a terrific (or depending on how you feel about black humor, "horrible") book to be reading during the election year. I'm pretty sure, based just on the first chapter, that I would recommend it to Americans in 2008 before Blindness -- which I would certainly recommend, it's just not timely in the same way. It doesn't seem (so far) like knowledge of the previous book is vital to understanding this one.
posted morning of February 15th, 2008: Respond
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Monday, February 11th, 2008
One thing I spent a lot of time wondering about while I was reading Blindness was, how is Saramago going to end this story? It seemed like it would be really difficult to pull off without being either corny or dull, or both. Saramago came through, I'm glad to say, and managed to make what could easily have been a rote, formulaic ending vital. The doctor's wife's moment of doubt and fear in the final paragraph will blow your mind -- it is the whole book contained in a few sentences. Saramago has a later book called Seeing, which I bought in December when I bought Blindness, intrigued by the similar titles -- it turns out the first few pages of that are printed in the end of this edition of Blindness -- it is another story featuring some of the same characters, and with reference to this one. How exciting! That will be my next read, assuming I can figure out where I put it down, which was predictably not "on the bookcase". (Woo-hoo! Found it!)
posted evening of February 11th, 2008: Respond
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