The Guardian has an interesting feature: 'Books that changed me'. It's the kind of thing that is bound to draw a response because everyone nowadays wants to reveal something about themselves-in a blog, a tweet, a letter-Good God! Do those things still exist?-a comment, etc., etc. The Spanish Inquisition has been internalized.
A book that has had a radical influence on your life, or completely changed your view about some issue or the other. I suppose the ideal candidate here would be someone who hated Muslims or gay people or 'westerners' and then came to see them as, well, just as human beings, warts and all. What was the Pope reading, you wonder, when he made his recent statement about "not judging" the spirituality of gay people?
For me I don't think there has been any Ur-text, some fundamental book or experience or prism through which I might see other books. Instead, it's been, er..books (plural), each with some sort of incremental effect (you suppose) in some unspecified direction. Arendt's The Human Condition helped you make some sense of the world; Peter Brown's Augustine was an entry into a different world. Apart from that the best books you've read have only been stumbled upon in recent years. but when you were eighteen, say, didn't you think the world of Siddhrtha and Knulp? When you were twenty five didn't you think a lot of the perennials (Schuon, Burckhardt, Lings?). And then later, Marquez's 100 Years, or Kadare's Broken April? Who knows, in five years time you may go off Salter's Light Years as well.
There's something terribly suspect about your infidelities, your lack of constancy. A deep character flaw that makes you think 'the first' is a radiant apparition of some kind of truth, some doorway into understanding, only to be followed by a slow and dark realization that it is probably only a heavy shadow of it. Why does the first always give way to second spaces, perceived or imagined or hoped for?
It's all a gimmick, of course, all a diversion-a beautiful and sometimes incessant, necessary diversion-but, still,...
After reading a short story you sometimes feel short changed.
Didn't Carver say: once it's over, close the book and return to life? And there was this line from Gombrowicz's dairy (not read), something like: " Yes, Borges was immersed in literature. I, on the other hand, was immersed in life." The word, the act. Your old Jewish hat.
About a prehistoric painting
on a rock in the Sahara:
a dark swimming figure
in an old river which is young
---Transtromer.
Is there a first line, then, ask the Guardians. A first line that hooked you, drew you in, sunk you, opened you up, turned you around, displaced your gaze to a hitherto unregarded detail. A word that blossomed in the desert?
You half-remember, recall vaguely some plain words, a name perhaps. Your first words were always botched, faltering, said with no greatness of soul, but only a stutter...er..
And where are you from?
Originally?
A book that has had a radical influence on your life, or completely changed your view about some issue or the other. I suppose the ideal candidate here would be someone who hated Muslims or gay people or 'westerners' and then came to see them as, well, just as human beings, warts and all. What was the Pope reading, you wonder, when he made his recent statement about "not judging" the spirituality of gay people?
For me I don't think there has been any Ur-text, some fundamental book or experience or prism through which I might see other books. Instead, it's been, er..books (plural), each with some sort of incremental effect (you suppose) in some unspecified direction. Arendt's The Human Condition helped you make some sense of the world; Peter Brown's Augustine was an entry into a different world. Apart from that the best books you've read have only been stumbled upon in recent years. but when you were eighteen, say, didn't you think the world of Siddhrtha and Knulp? When you were twenty five didn't you think a lot of the perennials (Schuon, Burckhardt, Lings?). And then later, Marquez's 100 Years, or Kadare's Broken April? Who knows, in five years time you may go off Salter's Light Years as well.
There's something terribly suspect about your infidelities, your lack of constancy. A deep character flaw that makes you think 'the first' is a radiant apparition of some kind of truth, some doorway into understanding, only to be followed by a slow and dark realization that it is probably only a heavy shadow of it. Why does the first always give way to second spaces, perceived or imagined or hoped for?
It's all a gimmick, of course, all a diversion-a beautiful and sometimes incessant, necessary diversion-but, still,...
After reading a short story you sometimes feel short changed.
Didn't Carver say: once it's over, close the book and return to life? And there was this line from Gombrowicz's dairy (not read), something like: " Yes, Borges was immersed in literature. I, on the other hand, was immersed in life." The word, the act. Your old Jewish hat.
About a prehistoric painting
on a rock in the Sahara:
a dark swimming figure
in an old river which is young
---Transtromer.
Is there a first line, then, ask the Guardians. A first line that hooked you, drew you in, sunk you, opened you up, turned you around, displaced your gaze to a hitherto unregarded detail. A word that blossomed in the desert?
You half-remember, recall vaguely some plain words, a name perhaps. Your first words were always botched, faltering, said with no greatness of soul, but only a stutter...er..
And where are you from?
Originally?
6 comments:
Hello, anon.
I'm still trying to work out who you may be. It's so difficult with so few clues. A nose would have helped!
:-)
Best wishes,
b.
Which of the anons? Anyway, please shoot me an email and I'll let you know. Meanwhile though, I find it somewhat amusing that no Pakistani writer made your list. Too bad!
Best regards,
Er..I don't know how to break this to you anon, but an e-mail would require an e-mail address!
:-)
Why "amusing", though? Most of the contemporary stuff (in English) seems like a lot of pretentious crap. But, yes, I suppose it is sad that I haven't read Manto or any of the classics (just on pure literary merit). But then again, I don't associate myself with Pakistan or the brothers and I really don't see the need to read along the lines of identity in any case.
Best,
b.
" Amusing" because, quite often, you sound entirely...er...-how should we go about it without scraping egos, offending, or labeling?- Eastern European, despite being too harsh on those 2 Bulgarians. There we go...I volunteered a wider umbrella for your against identity.
Otherwise, interesting writing.
Eastern European?
rofl :-0
Jesus, there's a first! I've been told I look like a Russian cartoon character, an Italian pimp, and a Spanish peasant but...
But hang on, I still don't get you (please excuse my thickness here, anon)...why would an East European be interested in Pakistani literature?
Maybe everyone' s right; after all it is possible to be all of the above with eastern European propensities on the side(for fear of saying recurrent mannerisms). Still, enjoyable writing.
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