Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Cigar Smoke


Fruition has arrived and in a fecund time, laced by my errant fascination with Messers Waugh, Greene and Huxley.

Relentless Repose

Such a strange evening with minimal page-turning. I awoke steeped in spirit but the day has threatened. I hope to finish such enjoying the Waugh and a cigar. Waugh is delicious, such a departure from the hyper-detail of a James or Trollope; a slanting rain of snark befills the page. The novel has shifted its weight from the wartime ennui of his Sword trilogy to recovering itself in a Oxford manner, recalling to my own backwards eye the better parts of William Boyd. Strange to recognize the progenitor in the tyro.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Spider Bite Better

Seasonal sinus shit and other matters snowballed for a few days, though it was nothing that the Cup and serious introspection could decode, if only a breakneck insomniac manner, compliments of the Polar calendar and a book titled Saturday. My reading had been steeped in dread for some time, much ado about Hitler and the Gulag which growls in the night, I found such to be quite essential, a near baseline of sorts and then I read those two novels by Murakami, how disparate that experience proved! It was only afterwards, still reeling from the literary equivalent of Souljacker, that the day began with the Word and it was oddly Ian McEwan, someone I didn't care much for after reading Amsterdam. I did hear him quite often in the wake of Saturday being published, but alas, I didn't think I would have the time. You know, I was clipped quite precisely by all the subversive hype surrounding Atonement and yet I have never read a page even as I found a copy for two scratched quarters. Approximately half of the way into the book I imagine that it would be one of my favorite of all time, alas by the closing cover I found it quite good, though not great or any other stellar superlative -- either by starlight or Israelite. Let us think about the protagonist Henry and fate as a neurosuregon, how he's a reading a bio of Darwin that another English woman shoved into my own hands a few years back, why does something so taut and so real, require melodrama and that accursed device of forgiveness? Ed has since pronounced his fondness for Atonement and I will keep that in mind for a future plunge, though presently, following a conversation with Joel I have returned to Waugh for Brideshead Revisited.

Friday, June 23, 2006

I am sick

Two days in the gruelling heat counter-balanced with time in near polar AC has left me done as the proverbial dog. I came home around noon and slept, been swallowing meds and manged to read the final 200 pages of the Murakami.

Ed's posting on the bike blog has mad eme think a great deal these past few days.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Swift Transitions

Nietzsche meets Joe Strummer somewhere along the story boards, I haven't yet inked the particulars. I have managed to adjust to the workthroes, damn, as a rule, I love my job. I did read the story of Ali Baba from the Arabian Nights last night along with my wife. I then read 40 pages of the Wilt book nad you have to admire the effort: always 100, but in this case, the author. He vainly fashions together a stream-of-consciousness narrative through the vicissitudes of game action. one which does become riveting when you consider that Wilt scored the final 21 points in like eight minutes and change.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Thermals

What team does Nietzsche play for, was a jest in the London Times recently, as the author felt that a broach, however epidermal, of German letters was needed to understand pathos and competitive zeal of this particular Cup. While I can barely tether a sneer at such shortcomings, I must burrow into a confessional aspect of my own recent reading. As I noted in my recent homage to Freedarko blogging, rife with images – even of a brewery – I have followed the minor key joy of South of the Border and have plunged headfirst in Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. It must be noted that nearly one hundred pages into the bulky yet sleek beast, one is jarred by its ontology, its strata as a cyber-punk novel. I must admit to being uncomfortable with such and I would likely have reshelved the book if I wasn’t so damned high on Haruki after that subtle gesture. I have never been drawn to sci-fi in any form except the post-apocalyptic digressions of Mitchell and Houellebecq. One must, however, grasp the fable for its searing poetry, Murakami follows the effaced detail of the noir novel and assembles something monstrous and ultimately unsettling in its sublime humanity.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Back to Reading


After a spell of inconsistancy, my holiday rejoined the world of reading as I dove headfirst into South of the Border, West of the Sun by Murakami (bottom photo). I read it in about five hours: two in the evening and the remainder after babysitting Tim Eads. The title refers to a Nat King Cole song and a term for Russian Fatalism (as Nitezsche termed it). It is within the realists mode for Haruki this time, much like Norwegian Wood and his journalistic efforts. There are no samurai within.



Is it an uncanny coincidence or not, perhaps Murakami's predilection for jazz, reading and beer led him to own a jazz club - task which nearly killed him, perhaps it is his identification with the marginalized nerd that has endeared him so to my own taste. Perhaps it was that I first broached his pages in 2001 with my future wife, perhaps it is all this, the World Cup and a fodness for calimari which has unsheathed this melange of a posting.



I am 25 pages into Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

A Stillness Chipped

Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence; tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence. George Santayana

The pomp and triumph of he World Cup have made reading difficult. I did finish the possibility of an Island last weekend. I thought the reviewer who likened it more to Tournier than the traditional Camus-associations was much more in the right postal code. It is also remarkable that I believe I found the science fictional aspects of the novel more engaging that the contemporary denouement, that said, I found the likening of a comic as philosopher reminiscent of Roth's Professor of Desire.

I toted around the slim volume of Garcia Marquez's Memories of My Melancholy Whores for a few days to various sites for football, the title elcitied interest from the pervs in every retinue. I finally devoted a hour after cycling yesterday to this minor victory. I agree with my wife that it establishes a trust with the reader by stopping short of consummation.

I now feel at a loss as where to go next. I have the pressing business of the Burton, both of them actually. I remain uncertain.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Teutonic Couplings

Much as Joel opined on samizdat about an unrealized project from Zadie Smith and the late Tristan Egolf, I have thought about what might have transpired had Thomas Mann answered the door when Charlie Parker, chronically stoned in the wake of the Mooch, buzzed by his California exile. Questions of Bartok and Buddenbrooks collapse into transubstantional possibilities. I remain aloof and yet reposed: I am on holiday, Go Angola!

Monday, June 05, 2006

where Wagner fears to soar

This past week I have pushed ahead through Mann's stellar Doktor Faustus, enjoying its contemplative orbits and its grand supersturctures of language, but, much like Magic Mountain, it can be exhausting. The air is thinnner in direct proportion to the challeneg of concepts and the characters are revealed ever so slowly. It has been quite a treat.

I was also able to carve out a good run at the Burton, though I didn't resume such over the weekend. Instead I picked up After The Quake a collection of stories by Murakami about the Kobe disaster of 1995. I am no fan of stories but cher Haruki is a maestro, blending sensative characters into a tapestry that one could fathom converging in a novel to be, a panorama of not only contemporary Japan but the entire human crawl.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Cold roses on sultry (or solitary) nights

My impasses is likely the agenbite of inwit; there is little to say when the weight of others words leaves a turn inward, a queasy quest for advertisement. Hopefully the sabbath will soar per a canvas of a week's reading.