There's a false note to Dennis Johnson's Train Dreams that makes me deeply sad, profoundly regretful that I actually spent money on this book when i could have given it to charity (these are the types of consideration I often mull over in these bleak days away from home). The first bit is okay: terse, condensed, worked over like a flat piece of metal, but then it loses the plot because it tries to breeze through time. How can a novella or short story do that without appearing untrue? So, his romance with Gladys is, given their courtship and her death is covered in a few pages, almost comical and replete with cliches, like a series of notes or points that have to be made, before they can be crossed off. Shoddy.
~~~
Yesterday, at a wedding out in the back of beyond. Got lost, as usual. Strange how when the sky is really dark a place that is utterly familiar almost becomes another city. The quality of light is the quality of our understanding. I wonder if this disorientation isn't but a sign of something else, some deeper malaise in my life? At the wedding, which we made just as they were signing the documents, there was-and yeah, this is going to surprise the secular/atheist fundamentalists who have stumbled across this blog-a lovely recitation of some Qur'anic verses by the mullah. As always, no-one has much of an idea of what is being said, but there's something satisfying about hearing solemn words repeated in a slow, ancient way, a kind of remembering and binding to previous generations. Set words, and probably the same intonation, over all these years. Couldn't help but be moved by it all as I thought how many couples over the years had sat listening to the same words, their hearts full of the same hopes..and no-one knows how anything is going to turn out, what fate will bring them. Not the smiling uncles, the proud fathers, the aunties showing off their jewelry, the bored photographers, the younger girls who wonder when their turn will come...not a single one of them.
And since most of the family is broken by fighting and pettiness, I find myself the sole male representative of this side of the family. Haven't got a clue what to say and I've forgotten the envelope for the money. Where's Ubo when you need him!
~~~
Earlier in the day, not thinking ahead of the wedding and the great food that would be available I stuffed myself with two almond croissants-which I ate in the dark of the two-storied car park, munched down along with some piping hot milky tea. Peaceful, absent minded bliss among the vacant spaces and muffled sounds. Pure grey insulation. Was going to buy some cinnamon rolls, but for some odd reason resisted. Old age, I guess. Wiser and older?
~~~
Yesterday, at a wedding out in the back of beyond. Got lost, as usual. Strange how when the sky is really dark a place that is utterly familiar almost becomes another city. The quality of light is the quality of our understanding. I wonder if this disorientation isn't but a sign of something else, some deeper malaise in my life? At the wedding, which we made just as they were signing the documents, there was-and yeah, this is going to surprise the secular/atheist fundamentalists who have stumbled across this blog-a lovely recitation of some Qur'anic verses by the mullah. As always, no-one has much of an idea of what is being said, but there's something satisfying about hearing solemn words repeated in a slow, ancient way, a kind of remembering and binding to previous generations. Set words, and probably the same intonation, over all these years. Couldn't help but be moved by it all as I thought how many couples over the years had sat listening to the same words, their hearts full of the same hopes..and no-one knows how anything is going to turn out, what fate will bring them. Not the smiling uncles, the proud fathers, the aunties showing off their jewelry, the bored photographers, the younger girls who wonder when their turn will come...not a single one of them.
And since most of the family is broken by fighting and pettiness, I find myself the sole male representative of this side of the family. Haven't got a clue what to say and I've forgotten the envelope for the money. Where's Ubo when you need him!
~~~
Earlier in the day, not thinking ahead of the wedding and the great food that would be available I stuffed myself with two almond croissants-which I ate in the dark of the two-storied car park, munched down along with some piping hot milky tea. Peaceful, absent minded bliss among the vacant spaces and muffled sounds. Pure grey insulation. Was going to buy some cinnamon rolls, but for some odd reason resisted. Old age, I guess. Wiser and older?
2 comments:
what does "to breeze through time" mean, how can a book try to do this?
do you give money in envelopes to wedding over there??? astonishing, there is the same custom here.
you also get easily disoriented and lose your way? haha you can't be worse than me, though - i pass by my house (or even appartment door in the building), forgetting that it is there, almost weekly, i think, then i realize it after a few hundred meters or when i am standing confused in front of a where i can't get in, and then i realize it is not my appartment :-)
by describing events and the emotions attached to them in a minimal way..like a series of points.
money in envelopes is probably very old and very common in lots of places. was just reading about it somewhere, actually. can't remember where. probably lewis hyde.
isn't that dangerous? no, i think i am worse than you. yesterday went to the supermarket and instead of giving the man at the exit gate the ticket i got at the entrance i gave him the receipt for the groceries. he ran after me and i had to eat humble pie.
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