word versus image

I have to be honest: I still believe the word to be more powerful than the image. Maybe, in our age, the opposite seems more believable. I say: never believe in convenience! The opposite may (also) be true. And there is a new power the word is being invested with as we look upon what’s happening: people don’t really read, they don’t think in proper appreciation of what text can do for them. Language and words are being underestimated, we see it well. As we speak, we understand. That is frighteningly little already. Shockingly, diminishing ever more, and not gradually but in a torrent. The new power stems from there. The depreciated quantity in a backlash: the striking word - revenge against the pose. The image is convention, its dominance tyranny. Each icon turns out a hydra and words into a guerrilla of reason and humanity. And we remember…
I perceive of the world as textual, not a pictorial screening before my eyes and in my mind. If tomorrow I turned blind the world would still continue to make its customary sense to me. So I don’t just watch. I read. That’s a way of engaging, of interacting and reciprocity. Colour isn’t a visual property exclusively and text is happening all the time, all around us, enveloping us – it really is us, think of it! Better read well…

Meet the angry man

Yes, Philip Roth is at it again, you guessed it. With his latest novel, “Indignation”, he continues doing what he always does: pitting ignorance against pride and vanity. If that should sound like the set-up for some US presidential election to you, you’re most probably right. In fact, it reminds me of the set-up of almost every US presidential election you could think of, no? Anyway, here is an opportunity to have another encounter with an American literary eminence and a most prolific and important writer, a voice I would never want to miss. With this new one he returns to the States as they appear to have been working back in 1951 during the Korean War. Whatever the general mind-set might have been back then – and things may not always appear prettier in retrospect – people sure were no different from us nowadays. Accordingly, “Indignation” revolves around (err, you guessed it?) a blow job, and thus is meant for the advanced connoisseur, certainly.

Philip Roth has put forward an impressive string of solid works in recent years, ever since his American Trilogy commenced with “American Pastoral” in 1997, and seems to me he is becoming ever more the augur of conventionalism and the self-righteous – and a fool is he who thinks this was an American sickness only. If you should feel like this topic has been all but exhausted already and nothing more can come of it, think again. I found myself surprised after reading, at how swiftly Philip Roth manages to evoke an era of more than half a century back with just the first twenty opening pages or so. For sure, he does use a lot of stereotypes in describing mid-century New England Jewish life and campus lore, but avoids being simplistic. The judgemental tone of the narrator speaking to us from beyond the grave (once again), obviously is never his own and intelligently makes for the master’s well known and very recognizable brand of irony.

Most astonishing to me, though, is the very fact that he credibly keeps up and gradually refines his anger, novel to novel. There is something endearingly nostalgic about it, and quite American too, which appeals to our best political and social instincts, I should hope. With so much change hovering in the air of late, one can only wish for the kind of far-sightedness, which is mindful of our human fallibility, to rule public discourse and guide decision-making in the future. I don’t want to spoil your reading pleasure, but this I must say: when you’ve finished “Indignation”, you are bound to experience in your mind how the rest of recent history from there, 1968 through the cultural transformations of the 80s and Clinton years, all the way up to president-elect 44, unfolds a not so bleak picture of civilizing progress. American thought and pragmatism have come a long way, and some things actually have improved. Liberalization is necessary as is thawing after a harsh winter and it looks like we have quite a bit of climate change ahead of us. For those of you interested in placing yourself in context and a literature unafraid of commitment – here is a recommended read for you!

(pic©Houghton Mifflin)

Another dent

Everybody wants to get something done, realize a vision, gain recognition, build a record and, eventually, leave a legacy behind. Only few succeed. That’s why we honour them; and that’s what we have awards for, the Main Prizes and colossal accolades for lifetime achievement and the like. Surely, where literature is concerned, no other recognition holds the immortalizing power that the Nobel Prize can bestow and it might be a blessing as much as a curse for some among the elect as henceforward we begin to somehow think them in marble. But, luckily, not all the laureates are dead; certainly alive when designated. Being humans (almost) like the rest of us, they are also fallible, even in their field.

Now, for a very long time I’ve been an avid reader of Günter Grass’s works. His style of writing, his historically based narratives, have inspired and influenced me greatly and in terms of developing my own literary understanding I owe him a lot. In short, he is one of my heroes, so to speak. Really goes without saying, then, that I just instantly bought his latest book when it was published last month. It is the second part of his autobiography in fiction and a follow-up to “Peeling the Onion” of 2006, called “Die Box”/”The Box”. As is the nature of such accounting, it is very personal for the most part. Only, it so much focuses on family matters – and decidedly less outer world factuality or atmosphere filtering in than was the case with the previous one – that one cannot avoid the question of asking just how relevant it is. For me, this doesn’t seem to be the biggest problem here, though. He has given copious and probing renditions of post-war German society in his great novels before, more eloquently so than any other German writer has done in his generation, and done it brilliantly; his sentences are profoundly worked-through in most memorable language, and every yarn or fable spun to lasting effect (for those who care to listen, or read). What saddens me so about “Die Box” is the fact that it is a mere shadow of his former narrative vigour and scope. It sounds, and is, repetitive, but without generating any additional insight in the process, I’m afraid.

For Grass enthusiasts it should still be worth reading and in no way can this late piece take away anything from his achievements. I simply like to hear his voice on paper again. Even so, this one is not a great work by a great literary master, whereas “Peeling the Onion” in my estimation ranks as a fine example in the rich history of European memo fiction and biographical writing, an important testimony of an important time. So, I’ll read on…

(pic©Florian K.)

A disappointment

It has been a while, in fact, too long, since last I posted something on the topic of literature up here. There are many reasons for this holdup, all of them very complicated, unpardonable and nothing but excuses. So, no more on that; it’s a past. Earlier this month, I attended a reading of young Thai-American writer Rattawut Lacharoensap at our Internationales Literaturfestival Berlin. I had first encountered him and his work two years ago at exactly the same venue and had been quite intrigued by his refreshing debut collection of short stories, “Sightseeing” (review here). Naturally, I was excited to see what he’s up to next. And he was really courageous, I must say, for reading from a manuscript in the making, his long-awaited fist novel “End of Siam”, slated for publication around May of next year. That I found impressing.

But then, the reading as such, my first impression of the text, those opening passages that are meant to get us into the body of the entire thing – frankly, I couldn’t help but be disappointed by what I heard. Of course, the man himself was charming as ever, spirited, and he seemed at ease with his temporary hometown of Berlin. But as far as having a literary appointment with a new talent goes, my expectations weren’t met. Apparently, the book is about the male protagonist’s childhood years and adolescence followed over the course of some 20 years and it starts out in a Thai village setting and a fitting domestic account. There are some memorable scenes that tell of the boy’s intimate relationship with his (single) mother. I thought most of the descriptions well-done, but unrefined, without much resonance and stale. The pace was TV-ish and the narrator’s point of view omniscient, which doesn’t have to be consistently so (for that I would have to have read the whole novel, obviously), and the approach is not technically invalid per se. But there were some characterizations and internal commentary that are just too explicit, leaving no space for the reader to make up their own minds; to me, this is a typical shortcoming in many young story-tellers of whatever medium, and when there is too little artistic distance to the subject matter.

In any case, this can be nothing more but a first-first and no final judgment. I might still want to read the work in full when it comes out. All I can say at this point is that I’m – disappointed, a bit. And that may as well be my own mistake in part, for – as I said – those expectations? They were mine to begin with!

(pic©aaww.org)

lookahead 2008

Firstly, I wish everyone in here a truly happy New Year!
It has been decided by unanimous vote that 2008 will be a devastatingly good year, a year to remember for all the right reasons, so let yourself be transported into the future!
And as it will happen anyway, here’s just a quick reminder of what proto-ymagon will remain committed to no matter what:

Germany-Singapore exchange in the visual arts, film first and foremost. There’s the premiere edition of the Asian Hot Shots Festival Berlin in the offing (more on that shortly), there’s the 58^th Berlinale from 7^th through to 17^th of February, and in April it will be the Singapore International Film Festival (21^st SIFF April 4 -14) for me to attend. So, there is plenty, and that’s a good thing actually!

In literature, we still (im)patiently await the first novel by Rattawut Lapchaorensap, tentatively titled “The End of Siam”, while Gao Xingjian’s “The Case for Literature” (here) and that epic “Journey to the West” keep sitting squarely on my list. Also, there is a new Cambridge Companion to Don DeLillo slated for publication in May (here), but it is quite expensive…

In film, anticipation is high for many a reason (see the above), as I am sure something new by the likes of Miike Takashi (Sukiyaki Western Django) or Jia Zhang-ke (Ciqing shidai/The Age of Tattoo) should make its way to here, sooner or later. For Singapore, well, after it’s been a record-breaking 2007 there is a lot to be expected on this front, I bet! As always, I’ll keep you informed on these matters and am looking forward to hearing from you. Let’s restart!

(pic©www.mcoscillator.com)

Falling Man

It's already been a while now since the new novel by American Master Don DeLillo, “Falling Man”, has been published by Scribner, and naturally reading it instantly was all but compulsory, a privilege. I have taken my time with it, thinking about the work's content and import, the writing as such. Yet still, I haven't been able to make up my mind in all clarity about this one, not to any satisfactory degree. So for the time being I'll give you what half-digested thoughts and impressions this very touching piece of literature has left me with so far. And much of what is there is open for future revision and added insights, will remain so for quite some time, I guess.

First findings:

Lianne and Keith, to me they are like two distinct bodies hit by something hard on that day, September 11^th of 2001. Depending on their differing matter density and inner structure, their sense and understanding of self, their life disposition, the effect varies greatly: the softer one will be rocked to the core and her very foundation, and although her days may reverberate from many aftershocks for quite a while, the impact will eventually be absorbed. Whereas the less flexible, manly entity may very well be shattered by it and find himself irreversibly damaged for life. Strange to me in this context the following observation: that oftentimes DeLillo's invented characters are so bottom-line representative of something larger, a more encompassing type, I can hardly remember them by their names.

All in all “Falling Man” is written with a deceptive beauty, which even for a DeLillo novel is well worth mentioning as one of the most integral virtues this book is distinguished by, placing it in the context of his entire oeuvre somewhere between “Underworld” and “The Body Artist” - though it doesn't reach either one of these in terms of general literary achievement, I reckon. His language is undoubtedly unparalleled by anyone writing in English today and at times treats you to a staccato of enlightenment that is simply breathtaking and affords you to sit back, let the words sink in with their resounding voice – and re-read the whole passage.
The kind of detailed, almost spectral observations you encounter in the text can be gripping like little else DeLillo has produced so far, and they are affecting and deeply human. Dialogue is terse, charged with sound more real than any copy (“simulacrum”) of the real that you can find with any other writer. And this, too, has long since become a trademark of his, which he is widely, and rightfully recognized for. What's more, is the fact that with “Falling Man” all its binding power lies with exactly this, the astounding quality and precision of its lyrical prose. Structure for once seems a marginal component. To me the book is rather a listening into the protagonists and the times and their unease, as opposed to a spelling out what was and became of it. Fascinating to see how it evokes a distinct atmosphere that was really, ominously felt six years ago, even here, in Europe. It is literally as close to the event as you can possibly get, and yet, at the same time, it also features an inbuilt distance, an abstraction or overriding awareness if you will, like bruised skin healing.

But this is also the point where any serious reviewer shouldn't fail to acknowledge the fact that he hasn't gotten away from the text yet, something I shall hereby admit to, and freely. Other than that however, I insist that “Falling Man” is indeed a great piece of writing – I wouldn't call it a masterpiece; not by DeLillo's standards that is. It is good to see how this author who has already profoundly taken root in our reading public's collective mind, who has long ago established himself as a towering figure in contemporary literature and is a guiding influence to so many younger generation writers, how somebody that “established” doesn't shy away from challenging himself in his capacity and authority as a chronicler of his age and its conditions just so uncompromisingly: by taking on fully a topic, a motif, 9/11, which like no other bared one naked truth lying at the heart and centre of his writing. This is a daring endeavor and inspires a lot of respect, just as it reinforces the necessity to face up to the more hurtful instances of life – by writing about them, by telling them out, in a sense. To which ongoing process this one by all accounts clearly is a valid contribution.

Though I have my difficulties determining just how good “Falling Man” really is, I truly think it high time for Mr. DeLillo to be awarded the Nobel Prize finally this year. So, we're in for some waiting for that phone call from Sweden I'd say, and let it be for “Underworld” or his life's contribution to the art of Literature!

I'm not quite finished with this book, I feel, I will have to think about it some more. Meanwhile I'd be happy to get further clues from you, further insights and opinions, OK? And in case you haven't gotten your copy yet: the ideal opportunity to make up for this comes right here (hier).

(pic©Scribner)

ATD/Rue du Départ – a supranational idea

Here now is the last installment of that account of mine I have been treating you to here (pt.1), here (pt.2), here (pt.3) and here (pt.4), bringing the summary of “Against The Day” to its swift conclusion – and let that be the wrap to an astonishingly tight 1.3 kilo volume.

The ultimate spoiler:

... And then all these intricately interwoven story-lines get spun a-further, or peter out, or softly twist a little – or else simply continue to be more or less contingent as they have been all along...

Married during the wartime years, Kit and Dally eventually break up again, her living in Paris and seeing Clive Crouchmas, while he assigns himself to service in the Ukraine.

The family of Reef, Yashmeen and little Ljubica cross the Atlantic and settle down up in the northwestern remoteness of the US together with Frank, Stray and Jesse, making a harmonious colony of exiles in their own country, and growing in number.

With the extra-terrestrial help of the Chums, Professor Vanderjuice or just a benevolent convergence of world-lines at one specific point in time, Kit gets transported to Paris again and may be seen there reunited with Dally for good, and dancing.

A supranational state of skyfarers we see, sailing toward grace, at last. - Finis

To give this at least some sparse patches of analytical comment to make for the “review” this poses for, here is my pen-ultimate verdict on the work's quality and standing.

For my part, I'll stick to it that indeed “Gravity's Rainbow” remains Pynchon's most outstanding, most important and for that matter simply his best work to date. Nevertheless, “Against The Day” proves beyond doubt that he is still very much ahead of the game, when compared to most of what some of the more elaborately hailed writers of the day usually come up with. Sure, there is not much in terms of literary innovation to be found in this one, the narrative fragmentation and excessive liberties he takes in creating a coherence by his own standards are pretty much on record by now. But let's be fair here, what do you expect any well established writer in their seventies to do other than constantly contribute to exactly that same area of public discourse they've chosen to be their genuine field of interest, insight and, ultimately, wisdom hard-won? What we can without any reserve acknowledge Pynchon to have achieved with this one, is to have added one more solid and sparkling piece of beautifully designed and crafted literature to his legacy. Just like his fellow American Greats of our time, namely DeLillo and Roth, have done with their latest writings, he has focused on perfecting his own style and unique voice, and in my view has succeeded in pushing the boundaries in that sense by no small margin.
To sum it up shortly, there is just so much to be discovered and enjoyed in “Against The Day”, beginning with the hilarious band of the “Chums of Chance” seemingly taken directly from some 19th century boys-adventure novel, up to (but not ending with) these very intense and true-to-life moments of painstakingly precise observation of a human soul in self-inflicted agony, like there is to be found time and time again in the portraits of the Traverse family in particular, that my sole advise to you can be no other than to simply recommend you to read it for yourself. It is worth your time, believe me. And to say so of some book of 1000 plus pages speaks for itself, I would guess!

(pics©The Penguin Press)

ATD/Against the Day – the culmination of the inevitable

On it goes – my account (spoiler!) of what, mostly, on the surface of things actually takes place in this, the fourth massive chapter of Pynchon's “Against The Day”, the respective summaries of which you can revisit here (pt.1), here (pt.2) and here (pt.3).

Cyprian Latewood is being recruited as an agent for Whitehall (the British) by Derrick Theign. When sent to Vienna on some assignment, he encounters his old Cambridge co-alumni Yashmeen, who, as always, is under some carefully under-defined threat from multiple powers having her under surveillance and hoping to either learn from her about her father's whereabouts, or to make some use of her rumored psychic gifts. Cyprian then returns to Venice to meet up with Theign and ask him to help in an effort to rescue Yash.

Next, Scarsdale Vibe and Foley, Kit and Reef in the company of Ruperta Chirpington-Groin, as well as Dally and Hunter Panhallow, all come flocking into Venice. Kit and Reef with the help and local knowledge of Dally, prepare for an assassination attempt on Vibe - but have to helplessly stand by as they are being outdone and deprived of that very opportunity, when Anarchist-Futurist painter Tancredi takes the shot first, fails his target and is gunned down mercilessly instead. Consequentially, the two Traverse brothers have to flee and part ways, with Kit off to Trieste and on to Inner Asia as originally intended, thus leaving one life's love, Dahlia, behind.

Kit finally arrives in Kashgar just south of the Taklamakan, where he meets Colonel Auberon Halfcourt, Yashmeen's British foster-father, who in this time of conspicuous scheming and looming disaster, and not knowing anything about Shambala to begin with, is only bent on getting out of there to re-establish some sort of ties with his desired step-daughter Yashmeen. Accordingly, Kit is sent on to journey farther East and to probe into the matter of some mysterious “Coming of the Other”, which rumor has it holds some promise of deliverance from whatever collapse appears to be upon the Western Powers engaged in this region.

In order to do so, Kit sets out on his mission by passing through the Prophet's Gate and on to some spiritual journey quite un-American. Out there in the soul-forsaken wilderness and monotony of taiga, he and his party witness the Tunguska Event of 1908, that giant meteorite explosion in Siberia, whose overwhelming destructive force shatters and obliterates all thinkable logic and interest that sent him here in the first place, so that struck by riddance, he finally sees himself somehow, with no more goal to pursue, no plan to follow, set free at last.

The respective crews of Inconvenience and Bolschai'a Igra meet at the site of the Tunguska Event, Ground Zero of these pivotal times, to discuss the strange occurrence from which point onwards all history appears to be fractionally, decisively stained forever: an announcement of what is to befall mankind, reverberating through the lives of each we've come to know and the many unnamed.

Uproar on all fronts as Cyprian is ordered to go to Bosnia in the midst of the Balkan crisis gathering momentum, and to leave Yashmeen behind in Trieste, frighteningly prone to the doubtful protection his allegiance with Whitehall may provide, while the Anglo-Russian entente and Habsburgian opposition thereto cast an equivocal light at best (not just) on Theign's loyalties. As we see Cyps journeying to Sarajevo, Yash is having an affair with Vlado, the contact he left her with.

Cyprian on his mission to Bosnia, allegedly to rescue some spy from revolving and backfiring powers, learns that it is in fact his instead he better tried his hand at rescuing; in doing which, and barely surviving a life-threateningly harsh winter hiding in the mountains, he unexpectedly comes to grasp, if not fully understand, the marvel of simply being alive.

Reef encounters Yashmeen in Venice and saves her; though he is not able to do the same for Vlado, who gets captured by Theign and whoever his party are at that time. Setting the balance straight for once, Vlado's people take their revenge on Theign by eliminating, by torturing him to death.

Carnisalve in Venice: Reef, Yashmeen and Cyprian in living out the real, the “secret life of masks”, opt for carnal deliverance, even forgiveness imaginable at least, if not attainable – and there is comfort enough. Their threesome of mutual bliss however proves, as it must, to be temporary in nature as it cannot persist where (real) love comes into play, attaching Cyprian to Reef and getting Yashmeen pregnant.

Dahlia Rideout accompanies Hunter Panhallow to London, where she takes up her former modeling and stand-in routine, before being signed on by Lew Basnight to spy on her mentor, Clive Crouchmas, the prolific arms dealer involved with many Powers, notably the Germans. As he leaves for Constantinople to arrange for transactions pertaining to the delicate task of some obscure Q-weapon's acquisition from Japanese sources, Dally goes along in pursuit of her assigned mission. En route to the Bosphorus however she finds herself fatefully reunited with Kit again at Szeged, where they instantly decide to go into hiding together and lavishly spend their days with each other, thus the better staying out of the way of Crouchmas, who by then, having found out that he had been spied on by her all this time, seeks her mischief.

We see Frank recovering in Casas Grandes from a bullet wound incurred in some anti-revolutionist skirmish in Mexico, and encountering brief episodes of bliss while in the assembled company of Stray, Ewball Oust, El Espinero and a girl named Wren, soul-searching, as it turns out, soul-saving for his own sake and uncertain good.

In Yz-les-Bains the party of Reef, Cyprian and Yashmeen join a camp of international Anarchists and learn about their intention to prevent the Renfrew/Werfner-born idea of a poison-gas pipeline across the Balkans from materalizing, to prevent in effect an all-out European war from happening and servicing nothing but Capitalist interest. Setting out for the Balkan Peninsula on such mission, where but in the most pastoral of villages, the so-called “Village of Roses”, should they find the heinous installation, Riemann's Interdikt, in this twilight of European history? Find it alright, but it turns out the weapon is quite different in nature than previously assumed, more to do with some massive, lethally toxic emission of light, a literal “phosgene” barrier directed, aimed against nobody could tell whom exactly. In all this, Yashmeen gives birth to a baby girl, names her Ljubica.

Inevitably, with Europe's suicidal hour approaching, the four of them find themselves deeply immersed in its many shadows, as the first consequence of which Cyprian recognizes his last chance of transfiguration and decides to stay behind in the Balkan Range as a novice in an Orphic monastery, while secondly, the remaining family-to-be tries to thread their own path of rescue through the raging melee of that war just begun. Eventually they reach safety from the world that is in Corfu, stay the winter and on into spring, where presently, and with the “Compassionate”, the Chums as well looking on, they meet up with Auberon Halfcourt and his fiancée Umeki Tsurigane.

Stray, making her way back up north again into Colorado together with Ewball Oust, finds Reef's and Frank's and Kit's mother Mayva on housekeeping duty in the Oust mansion, the good caretaker spirit of that orderly, civilized family haven.

In Mexico, Frank gets entangled in the ongoing ebb and flow of re-revolutionist battlefield fortunes, engineering railroad bomb raids and counter-attacks, before leaving it all behind to head down south instead and join Günther von Quassel as chief engineer at his coffee plantation. But with political scales eventually tipping the wrong side, Frank gets out of Mexico and up back to Colorado, where he meets up with Ewb and Stray and her son Jesse in the coal miners' city of Walsenburg at last, still in it for the little man's cause.

After sitting through winter in a strikers' tent camp, besieged by militia and all brands of gunmen, they are finally forced to take the last possible exit, virtually, during the terminal raid on the camp, and they separate, performing the by now customary routine of putting on civilian life's hardship on the one hand, while Frank on the other, probably equally desperate side of history unfolding, takes to the path of resistance once more.

Back with the Chums of Chance, the crew of Inconvenience, we join their ascend-descend to Antichthon's surface, the Other World that has become – and a battlefield it is, scarred by the Great War's deadly trenches. Counterfly's escape (and that of all the other boys as well, of course) is to catch up with the Bolshai'a Igra now flying under a new name and on a different mission, and to assign themselves to do cargo and personnel airlifts when and where they are needed to bring some temporary relief.

Next, after some opposing winds fatefully gave rise to the opportunity for all of the crew to team up with a bunch of girl Aetheronauts, imparting them with a state of balance if not completeness, they arrive in the US. There, in L.A., Hollywood alright, Chick runs into his father “Dick”, and is introduced by him to no other than old Merle Rideout and his comrade-in-applied-science, Roswell, thus getting to know their quite extraordinary optical device or projector, which allows them to redeem the photographic still of any given picture to as much of the potential full of its life as the frame can hold: engineering a nexus of light and time!

Staying in the business, this time in L.A., Lew Basnight gets hired to look into some unresolved murder case, to which he applies Merle's and Roswell's peculiar time-picturing machine so he can meet with one of the presumed victims – only to learn that by settling in into the kind of second generation Anarchist refuge Hollywood has become, she has also taken the liberty of letting the system be as it is, no re-negotiating proper fate as far as she is concerned, but a crashing exit instead.
While on the opposite end of reality's spectrum, the homicidal perpetrator, Deuce Kindred, who has been living alongside his wife Lake in a state of subdued, of hushed panic, but on parallel tracks, is finally brought to justice by the police.

And now I shall leave it it there for you to digest or comment on as you wish, as this has turned out rather lengthy, I admit; and no more meta-fabulation for the time being. I will come back to this later as I get ready for the final stage in this reading journey that so far has been worth every minute of it! Hope you come back here, too.

(pics©www.pynchonwiki.com)

my list of best DeLillo works to date

1. Underworld (1997)
2. The Body Artist (2001)
3. The Names (1982)
4. Libra (1988)
5. White Noise (1985)
   
6. Ratner's Star (1976)
7. Mao II (1991)
8. Cosmopolis (2003)
9. Players (1977)
10. End Zone (1972)
    

ATD/Bilocations – confusing dimensions and powers

To resume the reading-in-progress assessment of Thomas Pynchon's new novel "Against The Day" begun herein earlier (see pt.1 here and pt.2 here), this is now the sum-up of that work's third part, "Bilocations". No new introductory remarks are called for, I assume, as the main guiding aspects and auspices of literary concern to be levelled at this piece of writing in particular, remain the same as before. Note that this section title's indication of the very tempting ability to be at two different places at the same time, has to be read as a continuation of that previous major conceit of "doubling", which has been applied on a plethora of existential levels in "Iceland Spar".

So, here goes: (spoiler!)

Just like at every junction before, we start off by witnessing the Chums of Chance first, this time as (map in hand) they search for the lost city of Shambala as is their mission, travelling under-sand through the deserts of Inner Asia. They are however prematurely dislodged by their host craft, the Saksaul, after some "disturbances", yet just in time so as not to share its tragic fate of getting in the way of the many opposing World Powers' combating forces, vying for strategic dominance in this region.

Merle Rideout arrives at Candlebrow where he teams up with Roswell and joins in the development of some workable time-traveling device, something to do with the nature of light relative to time.

Frank meets his mother Mayva in Cripple Creek to see for himself how she's coping with living on her own and gets in effect exempted by her from being bound to finishing the last of that family business, though for all the latently obvious bitterness at play here, Frank appears to be quite incapable of accepting the blessings of worldly redemption and to let go of his self-pernicious course - staying, it seems, in the family line and, consequentially, firmly in the business. He stumbles off back south again...

Deuce and Lake live out their intentionally blind-folded conspiration, that high (or low) drama of absolution sought after and retribution unpaid, called a marriage, where in jointly developing their intertwined pasts into an irresolvable destiny, the very task of facing each other, literally, has become the ultimate penitence - with forgiveness being persistently held at arm's length.

Yashmeen Halfcourt, herself a mathematician, leaves Cambridge (Renfrew!) for Göttingen (Werfner!) to scrupulously pursue her study of the still unsolved Riemann Zeta conjecture there, leaving Lew Basnight and Neville and Nigel behind, as well as the Grand Cohen, the TWIT and White Hall, who are all keeping an eye on her, for different but incidentally converging interests of their own.

Dally Rideout with her "family" and Kit (Christopher) Traverse find themselves traveling on board the same ship over to Europe. Despite their all but romantic encounter they are fatefully made to part ways midocean as the Stupendica all of a sudden splits up and changes course, which miraculous transmutation finds Kit on board its parallel identity, battleship "Emperor Maximilian", and taken into duty there, while Dally continues on her route to end her voyage at Trieste. Kit for his part debarks at Agadir, hires on to a German trailer and tries to labour his way up north toward his original destination. Arriving in Ostend he joins in with a group of young Anarchists, the European, the somewhat more decadent brand of that same persuasion known from the kind of American travails his family history tells such a compelling tale of. There in Belgium he gets involved in all kinds of impossibly flamboyant schemes and their respective agents, ranging from such unlikely schools as mathematics, Absinthe or mayonnaise, all of them conspiring or unintentionally collaborating in one or more ways to turn into adventures, so fantastic indeed, as would leave even James Bond to better think twice before getting himself drawn into. Luckily and against all odds, he eventually manages to escape to (relative) safety.

Finally he leaves Ostend and its enchanting Quarternioneers' World Conference acquaintance Umeki Tsurigame, whom before parting he entrusts with care-taking of some much sought-after apparatus, accidentally come into his possession, that apparently engineers the dubious quality of doubly refracting and emitting (sic!) possible as well as impossible vectors of light and time, effectively turning it into a kind of Q-weapon of potentially world-annihilating power, something better not to fall into the wrong hands.

On tour through Italy with the Zombinis, Dally feels Venice to be her one, true home, and she decides to stay on by herself, where she meets time-stranded painter Hunter Panhallow in search of redemption, some way of restoring chaos to order or forestalling the first altogether. In the city with him and standing in as his model, she gets to know his colleague-in-arts Tancredi and the up and coming school of the Futurists he is attached to, their art and accompanying vision, which of course includes the visualization of time and passage.

Over time, Kit has finally made it to Göttingen, where he meets Yashmeen and catches a first glimpse of the unsettling possibility that the currently prevailing crisis in mathematics, with opposing factions arguing in favor of or equally passionately against the fundamentally antagonist approaches of vectorism and pure, "real" mathematics to solving the Zeta function and thereby defining the interminable on either scale, micro or macro, in actuality were nothing but a reflection of the oncoming political crisis then threateningly encroaching on Europe and the entire world, probably even strangely connected, if not altogether identical with it, being some kind of flipside thereto. Eventually he falls for Yashmeen, unanswered, as she leaves Göttingen only a short while later - not without first (but almost uncomprehendingly so) laying the foundation to what would in effect grow into the famed solution of the Riemann problem she had been so desperately in search of.

Lew Basnight back in London gets informed about a copy of the secret map to Shambala apparently being in the possession of one Lamont Replevin, some suspicious dealer of antiquities.

Next, Kit is forced to leave Göttingen and relinquish his mathematical studies there, as Scarsdale Vibe cuts off his funding and seems to be intent upon having him eliminated altogether. Thus, for an alternative, Kit takes over an assignment by the TWIT to inquire into the whereabouts of Yashmeen's father, Algernon Halfcourt, to secure and report back on his reputed record of the mysterious events at Shambala.

In Mexico, Frank together with Ewball Oust and Wolf Tone engages in weapons trafficking across the US border and in doing so unexpectedly runs into Stray at El Paso. And no word of Reef yet, who over in Europe is doing tunnelling work in the Alps, in exile from his own destiny, it seems, or trying to flee it, not easy to decide, when he is eventually haunted to avenge his father, as a visitation of sorts manifests itself into the real opportunity to have a go (or a shot rather) at Scarsdale Vibe in Venice. Running into Kit in Switzerland first, the two brothers quickly team up to turning this prospect into a joint resolution. In consequence of which plan they are once more to part ways, Kit and Yashmeen, as she for her part has to follow instructions by the T.W.I.T. ordering her back to London.

In London meanwhile, Lew Basnight has to face the sobering discovery that known to his employer, the Grand Cohen and the T.W.I.T., Renfrew and Werfner are in fact one and the “same” bilocated, split up or refracted person, working out its own inner antagonism as two agents (or in the guises of such) for opposing world powers vying for dominance over or, if that were not to be, alternatively, destruction of the strategically important Balkan, conceiving of some new monstrous weapon, a trap-pipeline of poison gas. Being unwholesomely reminded of a very similar situation not too long ago back in the US, of him being put to use in somebody else's plans, unknown, unexplained to him , beyond his grasp or maybe, even, beyond the reality of this world altogether, he decides to leave it all behind him and move on separately.

Now at this point where part three comes to its fitting conclusion I don't want to treat you to any additional lengths of analysis here, only add, if you don't mind, one or two observations of mine, hopefully worthy of being added:

In my estimation, certainly the Wild West episodes are the most accessible ones, partly due to the tableau of characters given here, who more than has to be deemed customary with Pynchon actually work as representations of real living people, fairly complete with emotional display and all, and with identifiable, credible speech patterns to go along with it, that make for readable, enjoyable dialog, so much so in fact, one feels tempted to call them “authentic voices”. Well, almost.

Nevertheless, I feel this portion to be just slightly less scrupulously written than the preceding one, less forcefully trimmed to precisely that degree of Pynchon-logic, which in essence is this very entertaining trigger-play of counter-referencing and inimitable association-leaps so typical of him as to make it his very own trademark in writing style. This may in part be owed to the fact that the eponymous metaphor of bilocation, the ability of being two or more places at a time, doesn't serve to bring anything new into the equation that is being literally performed, if not solved, in here. To me part three is very much an extension of part two - which doesn't sound too bad after all, for again you are given all the valuable enjoyment of the English language being performed on with nothing short of grandiosity.

Finally, what crossed my mind, which by nature is always looking for ways of trans-lation, is the tempting question of how a film version of all this would have to be like? Well, pretty close to Miyazaki Hayao, I would say, one of my favorites anyway, and just look at the “Chums of Charms” signet at the top of this post, now, ain't that Laputa or isn't it? Try imagine this all in real film – or try do this, how about it?

Stay tuned for more!

(pics©www.pynchonwiki.com)

my list of one possible shortcut to German Literature

(in chronological order)

1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers/The Sorrows of Young Werther (1787)
2. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Faust. Der Tragödie erster Theil/Faust. A Tragedy Part One (1797)
3. Friedrich Schiller: Wilhelm Tell/William Tell (1804)
4. Theodor Fontane: Effie Briest (1895)
5. Thomas Mann: Buddenbrooks. Verfall einer Familie/Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)
6. Hermann Hesse: Unterm Rad/Beneath the Wheel (1906)
7. Erich Maria Remarque: Im Westen nichts Neues/All Quiet on the Western Front (1929)
8. Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder/Mother Courage and Her Children (1941)
9. Günter Grass: Die Blechtrommel/The Tin Drum (1959)
10. Christa Wolf: Nachdenken über Christa T./The Quest for Christa T. (1968)
    

unfortunately not yet available in English: Ralf Rothmann: Junges Licht (2004)

In Praise of Books

Getting myself organized – well, that somewhat Herculean task past weekend included setting up a new floor-to-ceiling shelf and my stack of books in order, establishing what with time and some patience could develop into some veritable library of my own. After all, it is my main working tool, my collection, and seeing it put to some degree of systematic arrangement helps considerably. This is however not supposed to be some idle talk on things of merely private concern. The entire procedure brought back to me once again just how treasurable books really are. And apart from all that, having them around makes it so much more MY home, I wouldn’t want to miss it.

Here’s my credo to go along with this: Everyone should own at least two books, the one to cherish, the other to critically measure it against.
Just think: as we blog, there are literally millions of people in this world, kids growing up, without this one simple luxury…

(pic©Etienne Girardet)

Perspectives on the year ahead

As I am trying to become more organized and get more things done in 2007, I am already assessing the vista of what's to come. Here now is my previewing of some of the dots on my radar in the fields of literature and film alike. I'll give you the news in all this, undigested and raw as they come, hope you don't mind. So it'd be best if you read this as an update on some of proto-ymagon's most prominent topics as well.

Here goes:

• Pynchon's ATD is still looming large on my current agenda and sure to be around for some time; reading any such work must be a slow process and is such grandiose fun, I'd have to be downright mad to not take my due time for it

• then it is the new novel by Norman Mailer, “The Castle in the Forest”, is scheduled for publication on January 23^rd already (and you can pre-order it here); summary announces it as being a fictional account of Adolf Hitler's boyhood and defining troubles of growing up, which despite the many advance doubts I may entertain and an all but ambiguous gutt-feeling about such an undertaking, quite obviously is a must-read for one as myself

• Yale University Press will publish an anthology of essays by Gao Xingjian, March 5^th (and you can pre-order it here), where I couldn't confirm yet whether this collection, “The Case for Literature”, in fact is the very same project the Nobel Laureate spoke of in September last year; that was supposed to be a reworked edition of a series of lectures he gave on themes of aesthetics at the Collège de France – we'll see

• next in line should be no other but the Great Master's, Don DeLillo's new one, of course, “Falling Man”, set to be out by June 5^th (and you can pre-order this one here); slim sneaks indicate that it is now finally his frontal telling of some unfathomable occurrence not too much unlike those of 9/11, and for any DeLillo cognoscente out there this sure means telling a lot, alright

• last not least amid the persistent literary tide washing the shores of my still-too-narrow mindscape, I shall expect to see Rattawut Lapcharoensap's first novel making landfall, or its highly anticipated debut rather, somewhere in the latter half of 2007; no details yet, but I'll keep you informed.

Japanese films I'm watching out for are:

• the well-hyped and almost inevitable fantasy epic “Dororo”, which already premiered in Tokyo (not exactly my preferred kind of movie, but anyway)

• Kon Satoshi's new anime and said-to-be masterpiece “Paprika”, allegedly venturing deeply into the subconscious (no confirmed release date for Germany, yet)

• Tsukamoto Shinja's “Nightmare Detective”, starring the unlikely pairing of Matsuda Ryuhei and Ando Masanobu (well, the title says it all, and likewise there's been no release date confirmed for Germany so far)

• and of course, the new Miike, “Sukiyaki Western Django” (which I already gave you some details on here), which currently is in post-production.

Further highlights on my watchlist:

• Kim Ki-duk's “Shi gan”/”Time”, which will premiere in Germany... well, when will it, I wonder?

• anything new by Royston Tan, who seems to be up for shooting another short film first, before probably turning the mid-length documentary “Sin Sai Hong” into a full-blown 1hr version and finally setting to begin work on his next feature film, “132”, maybe by the second half of 2007?

• and now, there is (Singapore production company) Originasian's first feature length film, “Becoming Royston”, directed by Nicholas Chee, which I have personally grown very fond of and can't wait to see, but hopefully will, shortly, as it is currently in the very last stages of post production; I will definitely give you more details on this one in not too far a future.

As you can see for yourselves, there is quite a lot in the offing and this should more than likely make for an interesting year, indeed. In addition to this, there is the 57^th Berlinale (International Film Festival Berlin, February 8^th – 18^th), the 6^th Cineasia in Cologne (March 28^th – April 1^st) and the 20^th SIFF (Singapore International Film Festival, April 18^th – April 30^th), which I will report on for you here at proto-ymagon.
And, sure thing, “ymagon” is supposed to make some considerable headway, too. So, stay tuned!

my list of literary heroes

1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany
2. Don DeLillo, USA
3. Kawabata Yasunari, Japan
4. James Joyce, Ireland
5. Thomas Mann, Germany
6. Mishima Yukio, Japan
7. André Gide, France
8. Günter Grass, Germany
9. Gao Xingjian, China
10. Thomas Pynchon, USA

ATD/Iceland Spar – a twofold look at the workings of World Capitalism

I never thought I would write about calcites in here but seems that with Pynchon you always have to brace yourself for the unexpected, even the unknown or unknowable at times. So, here we go, as this is supposed to be my (much delayed, I admit) report on the second part of this literary giant's new, massive novel “Against The Day”.

Iceland Spar, the second part's title, is actually a quite common calcite (CaCO₃), whose peculiar optic quality of doubly refracting light distinguishes it in the most ingenious way to figure in this text as medium in effect, to evoke ever new and surprising uses of all that pertains to phenomena of chirality, both in more technical, physical applications and in ways more figurative or outright para-scientific in meaning. You will come across instances of doubling and yin-yang style counter-balancing in most every single episode and I shall leave it to you to discover the sheer joy this brings to the reading experience for yourself. Just be prepared for never taking things for what they seem to be on first appearance in here, but always keep expecting some complementary agent lurking around the next corner (or page for that matter). This being said, I think it best to just give you an outline of what actually takes place as the story-lines progress or happily go around in circles, for this is something not all too easy to always tell right away.

Here goes: (spoiler!)

It all starts off with the Chums of Chance failing in their mission to intercept the Vormance expedition, hindered in doing so by their own ineptitude just as much as by their sinister counterpart, the Czarist airship Bolshai'a Igra. As a consequence thereof, the ship brings unknowingly home to New York from cruising the Northern polar regions some up till then dormant evil in the guise of Insurrection and Pagan Revenge, unleashes the beast and in doing so sets loose the indomitable spirit of Insubordination itself, some anachronistic or atavistic incorporation of terror to the system, causing havoc and cataclysmic destruction in its wake.

Kit Traverse gets a first glimpse into the abyss of wealth's power to corrupt, yet somehow, for the time being and despite his young age, manages to stay clear of its charms and to assign his services to the kingdom of reason instead, to science and its seeming detachedness in the form of vectorism and its appeal.

Lew Basnight finally falls for the Anarchists' cause, if only out of his utter and eventually unbearable disenfranchisement with the workings and machinations of power playing him for a fool by using him for unknown but certainly dubious causes.

Webb Traverse, aka “The Kieselguhr Kid”, eventually meets his end at the hands of famed villains Sloat Fresno and Deuce Kindred, double-agents of the forces he so bravely, so vainly fought as much as he worked to the effect of bringing judgment down on himself in the form of deserved if not tragic doom - little man's forever loosing-end in the all but mythical relationship between abuser and abused. Which incident has both his eldest sons, Reiff and Frank, caught and suspended between taking up a married man's quiet, residential life, in Reiff's case with Estrella (Stray) Briggs, or tending to that other “family business”, unfinished in the customary sense of the Wild West, of taking revenge for his father's cold-blooded murder. Traveling down this latter road as can't be helped, obviously, Reiff comes to pick up the double-identity as “The Kieselguhr Kid”, thus living on his deceased father's legacy of trying to bomb into existence working man's justice in this world, at last.

Lew Basnight meanwhile exchanges the many disillusions of the New World for the venerable Old Europe, Britain's own shores, as he takes on an assignment as psychic detective in London for some very under-cover agency of questionable design, to immerse himself somehow in that vast and potentially disastrous battle between (not only) scientists Renfrew and Werfner, eventually being send on a mission to Göttingen, Germany, in order to do so.

In what has to be described as some curious intermezzo, or scherzo rather, the Chums are witnessed again, as they take ground leave in Venice for a short while, before being sent on to their next mission, this time, to recover some legendary and lost, Iceland Spar encrypted map of an ancient secret route to Inner Asia and its many riches, not setting course to that end however, without causing some considerable and irreparable damage to the city first, by bringing the Campanile crashing down – unintentionally so, of course, or do they really?

With intentions even more down-to-earth, so to say, but certainly all her own, Lake Traverse, late Webb's only daughter, marries no other than Deuce, her father's unscrupulous killer, and gives herself over without any constraints known of, while her younger brother Frank, after nothing more is being heard of Reiff, thinks it his turn to avenge his family's disgrace by pursuing the still at large assassinators, who themselves decide to part ways. Frank however takes to Telluride in his search, where he meets Merle Rideout and gets to know his daughter Dahlia, who's soon off to NYC, the very same direction at least, as Frank is to find out only later, which Deuce has chosen to travel in next.

We hear of Kit, the youngest Traverse offspring, who at the expenses of his old father's employing mining corporation's owner Scarsdale Vibe studies in Yale, but has learned to suspect his very mentor of having had ordered the assassination of Webb at the time. Unwilling to keep with the original plan, which saw him eventually become Vibe's heir and thus involved with all the capitalist scheming he stands for, Kit arranges with the help of Professor Vanderjuice to travel abroad, to Göttingen as a matter of fact, to further pursue his studies of mathematics and vectorism over there.

Dahlia Rideout in New York, by seeking to start a career in showbiz, unexpectedly sees herself reunited after all these years with Erlys, her (life-)long sought after run-away mother, by now wife and assistant to magician Zombini as well as mother of some couple-three children. Together, as a family, they set off to go to Venice, where Zombini hopes to obtain one perfect specimen of those famed Iceland Spar lenses or mirrors, in his case to be applied for de-refracting purposes to mend the outcomes of one of his more daring and as of yet bothersomely, dangerously irreversible feats.

Next, Reef Traverse, who's still in the business of impersonating and keeping alive the phantom of “The Kieselguhr Kid” by moving across the country and setting of some sticks of dynamite here and there, after failing to take revenge on his father's murderers Deuce and Sloat, tries to settle for good and for life with Stray and their son Jesse, but forces once provoked won't let him be. So, once more condemned to be forever drifting, he goes to Denver, posing for an Englishman, where finally he teams up with fellow anarchists, Irish Wolfe Tone and Flaco, the latter of whom he departs to Europe with. All the while in something like a drug reverie, Frank manages to eliminate Sloat Kindred in some obscure village in Old Mexiko.

Finally, it is time again for the Chums of Chance, to take us aboard the Inconvenience to witness what turns out to be an all too predictably vain attempt of theirs to escape their tiresome assignments, which are handed down to them by the upper Hierarchy ever so erratically and condescendingly. Where this mind-boggling maneuver that includes the use of some ill-conceived time-traveling machine is bound to fail, they end up instead, being handed over exactly the one map of that olden Venetian route into Inner Asia they were to find, and next they know, is they're in for their follow-up task, namely, to leave for the town of Bukhara - and await further orders there.

So much for the summary; now if you don't mind, let me have a short word on the literary dimension to all this. With regards to any poetical paradigm underlying the text, any post-modern strategy applied, it seems quite obvious to me that Pynchon is well beyond that. To resort to any such simple devices as some spotlighted breach in the traditionally afforded continuum of fictionality is a method long since passed over and left behind by this author and not him alone for the sheer demureness such a notion of tradition implies. No, what Pynchon (and not for the first time in ATD) brings to bear on his writing instead is a flagrant dismissal, yes, an unadorned disregard for whatever right to dominion over any kind of narrative and its objectives the helm of fictional consistency might claim to hold, being as it is, utterly unwilling to buy into any concept of literature, which requires the author to convincingly deceive the reader. This is a task he unapologetically leaves to him, the reader alone, to work out on himself if he be so inclined.

Regardless of what some critics have written, I reckon ATD to be a massive masterpiece of this still young 21^st century of ours. “Gravity's Rainbow” remains his outstanding oevre of truly historic proportions and literary importance, but even so, ATD may be just his finest piece of writing so far.
Its relevance lies with its para-dogmatic precision (yes: precision) of Pynchon's carefully crafted circumscription or, more literally, parable of our times. Pages 150-155 may very well be the best rendition in words of the events of 9-11 to this day.
The many turbulences we face nowadays, Pynchon makes a more than eloquent statement to these ends, takes terrorism for what it is, an equilibrium of sorts, but a sick one. He portrays the purposefully neglected underbelly to the might of possession, the counter-reason that absurdly, fittingly, makes a hell lot of sense. And so it does, too, ATD i.e.

I will get back to you with more on this, meanwhile here's my preliminary recommendation: Read it!

(pics©www.pynchonwiki.com)

my list of defining reading-experiences

(in chronological order)

1. Child of the Morning (Pauline Gedge)
2. Homo Faber (Max Frisch)
3. Faust, der Tragödie erster Theil/Faust, der Tragödie zweiter Theil / Faust Parts I & II (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
4. Alles Leben ist Problemlösen / All Life is Problem Solving (Karl R. Popper)
5. The Tempest (William Shakespeare)
6. The Counterfeiters (Andre Gide)
7. The Sound of the Mountain (Kawabata Yasunari)
8. Underworld (Don DeLillo)
9. Ulysses (James Joyce)
10. Mare Foecunditatis / 'The Sea of Fertility' tetralogy (Mishima Yukio)

Why write?

Last weekend I attended the TV recording of another episode of “Literatur im Foyer”, this time with German author Alexander Kluge and sociologist Oskar Negt presenting and being interviewed on their latest books. As it turned out this was a real disappointment, an excessively dull and sorry event, which I tried my best to get at the bottom of over the course of the following days. Not that both these venerable men in their 70s had nothing profound to say, or that they were lackluster in giving their respective opinions and worthy insights, they sure lived up to any such expectations. To me it was rather the absence of something else, something that was disturbingly missing in their statements and which I was irritatingly unable to put a name to at first.

Thinking back over the discourse as it ran, I now have come to understand that what struck me as just so odd, was the acute impression that whatever they had to say, or however intelligently crafted their lines of argumentation were, they didn't seem to be working on their issues any more. For all I could tell, they figured they had come to the full of their scope of possible conclusions in writing about the human condition and affairs of grappling with the consequences of today's globalized capitalist economy and the strains and pressures that exerts and puts us under. There was something strangely but decidedly “dead” about all their efforts, more like a final word of assertion, than an inspiring fresh take on an old problem.

I'm not sure if you can follow me in this, but I would very much like to spare you any of the obsolete details and give you my preliminary conclusion to this episode instead:
I think it is right and necessary to try make a point about something in any piece of meaningful writing. But for any text to qualify as literature, something more than just one idea or point of reference is needed. There simply has to be a certain degree of ineradicable wonder, unresolved mystery and resonating amazement going along with it. If you think you know all there is to know about your topic, if you feel like you have asked all the questions and everything has revealed itself to you in plain, lucid disclosure, well, you probably shouldn't be writing about it. At least not fiction, I reckon. In my opinion, there is no point in writing fictionally about something you fully understand, or is there?

my list of best novels ever read

1. Ulysses (James Joyce)
2. Underworld (Don DeLillo)
3. Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
4. Der Zauberberg / Magic Mountain (Thomas Mann)
5. Die Leiden des jungen Werthers / The Sorrows of Young Werther (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
6. Mare Foecunditatis / 'The Sea of Fertility' tetralogy (Mishima Yukio)
7. Gravity's Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon)
8. Genji-monogatari / The Tale of Genji (Murasaki Shikibu)
9. The Counterfeiters (Andre Gide)
10. Thousand Cranes (Kawabata Yasunari)

A truckload full of Pynchonite

Here's my keeping track of this landmark reading experience I'm currently embarked on in dedicating a whole lot of my time to that new novel by Thomas R. Pynchon, “Against The Day” - and enjoying it, in fact. As I've promised previously, I shall try my best in getting together something that may not exactly fit to the word “review” but will give you perhaps some idea what this massive volume is about, if it actually lives up to expectations and what to me seems most deserving of further attention in it. The result will be as much a review-in-progress as taking on ATD is in itself a process, first and foremost, something transitory and tentative by the very nature of his writing, and just as much so as such an approach is respectful of my own limited capacity in terms of “understanding”. Which is fair enough.

Now, this comes as I've finished through with the books first part, “The Light Over the Ranges” and will therefore give nothing more than a first, and not necessarily correct, juggling into place of some of the works prevalent accords as they present themselves by way of this introductory first part.

Setting out to read any big Pynchon, and certainly this one, requires some truly giantific mind-set to begin with. Don't let yourself be scared off by the well known truism that any Pynchon is difficult to read. Sure it is, but dictionary at hand and one eye on the extremely useful Pynchon Wiki (which is another friendly link to proto-ymagon and you'll get there here) will help you along - and open up the manifold riches of this novel's delicately woven texture for you.

We start out with being introduced to the “Chums of Chance”, the semi-fictional crew of the airship “The Inconvenience” at the site of the Chicago World Fair in 1893. Commander Randolph St. Cosmo, Lindsey Noseworth, Miles Blundell, Chick Counterfly and Darby Suckling, plus the erudite, sentient dog Pugnax, whom you might take for an offspring of that legendary LED from “Mason & Dixon”, enter the White City for providing surveillance services to the terror-threatened exhibition, as well as taking us (and some additional passengers) from here on up into the text. In the course of their perambulations about the fair on their ground-leave, we encounter any variety of curious personages and some of the core characters. Among these there is one Merle Rideout, a photographer who single-handedly raised his daughter Dahlia virtually all across the West's (not-so) pastoral landscape, after his wife Erlys ran off with famed magician Zombini the Mysterious. As is detective Lew Basnight, who on the occasion of Austro-Hungarian K&K Crown-Prince Franz-Ferdinand's visit to the exhibition is assigned the task of looking after him and who later, being in the private investigation sector while at the same time gradually growing sympathetic to the anarchists' movement of the day, gets aboard the Chum's airship.
In following the life trail of Merle Rideout over the years up to 1900, we run into Webb Traverse, a hard-working, exploited miner turned anarchist, who carries out bomb-raids on the hated plutocracy's infrastructure and sadly, but typically gets ever more estranged to his own family and kin during the process of living this double-life.
His son Kit however gets taken in as one of Dr.Tesla's boys and thus assigned to one of this Serb electro-magnetician's spectacular high-voltage experiments, the latest of which, and as of yet only rumored about, looms so promising-threateningly large on the day's horizon in aiming at establishing a world-wide system of free power, as to trigger a dubiously funded planetary counter-operation, to be spear-headed by Professor Vanderjuice, whom the Chums happen to know from previous assignments and run into at the before-mentioned World Fair.

Major themes that in ever changing guises run all through ATD's labyrinthine composition of meta-frames, sub- and embedded sub-sub-plots are, of course, the entire range of various gradations of science-magic, the ominous in its often-times all to common manifestations of your everyday capitalist statehood, the ambivalent and prone-to-conflict relationship between mainstream society and its fringes, the marginal, the outcasts and the suspicious, redeeming loner, and, certainly neither last nor least, the never-ending, doubly refracted love-hate condition of power versus terror, order versus anarchy, the known versus the imponderable and paranoia's many doomed agents.

So far two characteristics of ATD strike me as particularly worthy of acknowledgment, namely the excessive, at times exuberant beauty (and also languor) of his writing, which I suspect has further developed and taken on additional layers of refinement since Pynchon's last novel, certainly since “Gravity's Rainbow”. And secondly, and not especially typical of Pynchon, there is some marvelously intense, real character building in here, particularly where he relates Webb's trials and tribulations, his convincingly plain yet endearing life-story.

And on top of this, you'll find plenty of that very special Pynchon brand of writing humor. For nothing more than just one small example thereof, he offers you what in my estimation is surely the best in practical wisdom: “You can't de-roast a turkey, or unmix a failed sauce...” - the best that is, since DeLillo proclaimed that “you can't dig half a hole”!
He is his old hilarious self, he is. And this is only one reason why ATD makes for such an amazing, rewarding if not outright revealing read.

I'll move on from here and shall come back with more, soon.

(pic©The Penguin Press)

Rattawut Lapcharoensap wins AAWW Fiction Award 2006

28-year-old New York-based author Rattawut Lapcharoensap from Thailand has been officially named as recipient of this year’s prize for fiction by the Asian American Writers Workshop (AAWW) for his début collection of short stories “Sightseeing” (have a look at my review here).

Congratulations, Rattawut! Now that's what I call a well-deserved recognition for once. Cheers!
In what will be already the 9th such annual event, the AAWW is “recognizing excellence in Asian American literature [...] awarding the best in Asian American fiction, poetry, and nonfiction of 2005”. The ceremony will take place on Monday, December 4th; you'll find all further details here.

Rattawut is currently working on his first novel, expected for publication no sooner than by late 2007. I’ll keep you updated.

(pic©June Glasson)