Not a Book Review

"Reviews" are now on this website. Journalism-related stuff, on here.

Even though I won't be posting on this blog anymore, I'm keeping it as a souvenir for now.

Here. A cute cat for you. See you around.

2017 on Goodreads

28/12/17

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

― James Baldwin

I found that quote this year. I think it conveys, with the precision of a surgeon, how I feel about literature. Countless emotions inside an inconsequential atom. And then, that atom, amid the indifference of the universe once beautifully described by Crane, founds a book. And then another book. Perhaps, another atom. And then it escapes after seeing the other atom with a copy of The Alchemist. Fret not, there's another atom waiting somewhere, holding a book by Pessoa.

So! Hello reality; let's talk about this year.

* Disclaimer: This looks kinda nice on my screen, but it's still a work in progress.
** Photo credits: Fernando Pessoa, Marcel Proust, Yukio Mishima, Sylvia Plath, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Rodolfo Walsh, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, New Year cat / CC
Clarice Lispector / via ABC.es
*** 79/80: one book was read twice.

On The Shortness Of Life: De Brevitate Vitae by Seneca

Rating: ★★★★

24/12/17

The problem, Paulinus, is not that we have a short life, but that we waste time.Life is long and there is enough of it for satisfying personal accomplishments if we use our hours well.But when time is squandered in the pursuit of pleasure or vain idleness, when it is spent with no real purpose, the finality of death fast approaches...

That notion is the book. You surely used different ways to rephrase the essence of your thoughts,

Seneca, which are mainly intended to point out that despite our whiny attitude, we have time. The problem is that we don’t use it wisely. I can’t say I didn’t feel slightly guilty while reading those words, as I remembered all the times I just stayed here, lying down on a couch looking at the ceiling, planning things I was never going to say or do or cook or fix. If I express that point of view using those exact words, it might sound like life going to waste. But what if I say “I stayed at home wistfully looking at the whitness of my wall, savoring my fictitious freedom, questioning my own existence and contemplating the futilily of life as I obstinately keep searching for meaning?” A more elegant way to convey the same thing: the waste of time.

On the other hand, what if I actually enjoy that? What if I think that discussing in my head the nature of thinking and the possible consequences of things that I’ll probably never do is, for me, another manifestation of life? I know some people think that staying at home reading is not living life fully. Neither going to the park with your backpack full of books nor hoping for a rainy Sunday since it’s the perfect excuse to stay at home reading and writing and not looking like a dull creature surrounded by coffee and blueberry muffins that taste like heaven. However, the fact that one might be able to find enjoyment in such activities should be enough to avoid regret, right? No, regret is an inherent part of my nature and can’t be avoided by reading nor bungee jumping – it doesn’t matter the degree of passiveness or risk.

I can’t relate to the meaning of your affirmation, which by the way brims over with prejudice. I may not be a fascinating riddle but you can’t know everything about me, pal. I’m aware of the passage of time on a level that could be considered almost unhealthy. Yeah, that’s how I live life.

I hear ya. Although one might wonder, what the on earth is living life? Couch, rollercoaster? Cake or salad? Silence or crowds? Love or complete independence? All? Oh, jeez... none? Choosing nothing is still a choice. What kind of sick, little game is this?

You’re writing and talking to the screen. You're typing exactly what you're thinking. I wish I could say that’s normal. You should leave this paragraph alone. Now.

Thank you, I thought I was ready to grab a sword and become Highlander.

My birthday is next week, please come and say exactly those words, we’ll have a blast. Though your presence might be the real news – and rather unsettling if I’m the only one who can see you. (This review was written before my birthday, actually.)

I don’t think watching videos with cats sleeping or jumping like ninjas should be considered trivia. Neither it’s binge-watching series and sitcoms on Netflix. There’s a lot to learn, even from women who spent 15 years in a bunker.

*high-fives*

The last part sounds familiar; a constant source of disappointment. I think that’s all the help we can provide to the mortal who have the time to read this.

This little chat in the form of a “review” has been pure joy and I’m sure you are now bursting with a contagious can-do spirit, feeling more positive than Enthusiastic Parker. Or maybe you’re looking at the ceiling, immobile, sensing the minutes that will never return, seeing life as a choice between a path that leads to an abyss and another path that leads to, well, another darker abyss – I bet Melodrama Cioran sounds like a peppy cheerleader to you now.

Searching for meaning is philosophical suicide. How does anyone do anything when you understand the fleeting nature of existence? It wasn’t Camus or Sartre. It wasn’t a half-asleep Kierkegaard nor a drunk nihilist, but the point is still valid. You keep going, they said. You just keep writing.

P.S. I feel awkward writing Holiday wishes after this little ode to the shortness of a meaningless life but still, Merry Christmas everyone.

Note: Review written on Nov 2017.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

On liars - Michel de Montaigne

Rating: ★★★★★

24/09/17

How much less companionable than silence is the language of falsehood.
– St Augustine, City of God, XIX, vii; Montaigne cites Pliny from J. L. Vives’ note.

An unpopular essay

We shall now proceed to discuss the nature of lying. Actually, this is a selfish act; it's a way to remind

myself that I need to read Montaigne’s works more often because his writing is extraordinary, folks. And I wanted to say it again. Besides, I haven’t written a non-review for quite some time.

This essay on liars derives from Quintilian’s notion that a liar should have a good memory. With that idea in mind, Montaigne starts pondering the opposite case – something I can relate to. He explains that his lack of memory is often perceived as ingratitude, since if he forgets about something, it must be because it is unimportant to him.

I certainly do forget things easily but I simply do not treat with indifference any charge laid on me by my friends. Let them be satisfied with my misfortune, without turning it into precisely the kind of malice which is the enemy of my natural humour.

As I mentioned on another review, Montaigne’s prose is clear and often humorous. When he starts explaining the drawbacks and benefits of having a bad memory, examples of the latter are: I remember less any insults received - a fortunate man - and Books and places which I look at again always welcome me with a fresh new smile - I’m lucky too. The author also resorts to historical events to illustrate his points of view, which is another treat for the reader since they are not only informative, but also rather amusing at times, considering the solemnity of his century. Complex philosophical meditations interspersed with anecdotes that show a witty sense of humor. That's gold, Jerry.

The concept of memory is the bridge Montaigne provides to start discussing the main theme. After giving an explanation of the distinction between "to tell an untruth" and "to lie", he focuses on the liar per se: the kind of person either makes up the whole story or else disguises and pollutes some source of truth. According to the author:

Lying is an accursed vice. It is only our words which bind us together and make us human. [...] It seems to me that the only faults which we should vigorously attack as soon as they arise and start to develop are lying and, a little below that, stubbornness. Those faults grow up with the children. Once let the tongue acquire the habit of lying and it is astonishing how impossible it is to make it give it up.

Montaigne doesn't delve deeper into the infamous art of deception so, among other things, the essay omits to mention the vast array of methods we are in possession of. A fib, a lie, disinformation, a noble lie, defamation, half-truth, a white lie. My favorite, the barefaced lie: one knows or sense the truth and - fluctuating between calm and eagerness - contemplates the other person's liking for invention.

Some people say it all depends on the context. Some lies are inevitable, since if we all say what goes through our minds, the world would be even more chaotic. In that sense, certain false statements have a diplomatic nature (I know). However, some pieces of fiction involve other feelings; those are the kinds of lies that are usually unnecessary, like expressing love or friendship when one doesn’t mean it. Montaigne doesn’t refer to those samples of wasted time.

My imagination has given me the most vivid memories that never existed. I have a tendency to long for things which never ever happened. Not trying to find a human being unable to lie might be the first attempt to break the habit.

Montaigne’s wit and wisdom are exceptional. There's one gorgeous line that I must reiterate: It is only our words which bind us together and make us human. Deconstructing that statement might offer an entire new panorama.

In any case, if falsehood is your only language, silence is ambiguous; perpetual absence will suffice.

Carta abierta de un escritor a la Junta Militar - Rodolfo Walsh

Rating: A testimony that can't be rated.

24/03/17

March 24, 1976. A dictatorship started ruling Argentina; the era of kidnapping and torturing any enemy of the state had begun. Bodies vanishing into thin air. The following year, writer and journalist Rodolfo Walsh sent a letter (Open Letter From a Writer to the Military Junta) by post to the editorial departments of local newspapers and foreign press correspondents expressing his opinion. The next day, he was kidnapped and never seen again.

El primer aniversario de esta Junta Militar ha motivado un balance de la acción de gobierno en documentos y discursos oficiales, donde lo que ustedes llaman aciertos son errores, los que reconocen como errores son crímenes y lo que omiten son calamidades. [...]

Quince mil desaparecidos, diez mil presos, cuatro mil muertos, decenas de miles de desterrados son la cifra desnuda de ese terror.

Colmadas las cárceles ordinarias, crearon ustedes en las principales guarniciones del país virtuales campos de concentración donde no entra ningún juez, abogado, periodista, observador internacional. El secreto militar de los procedimientos, invocado como necesidad de la investigación, convierte a la mayoría de las detenciones en secuestros que permiten la tortura sin límite y el fusilamiento sin juicio. [...]

Estas son las reflexiones que en el primer aniversario de su infausto gobierno he querido hacer llegar a los miembros de esa Junta, sin esperanza de ser escuchado, con la certeza de ser perseguido, pero fiel al compromiso que asumí hace mucho tiempo de dar testimonio en momentos difíciles.

24 de marzo de 1977

*

The first anniversary of this Military Junta has brought about a year-end review of government operations in the form of official documents and speeches: what you call good decisions are mistakes, what you acknowledge as mistakes are crimes, and what you have left out entirely are disasters. [...]

Fifteen thousand missing, ten thousand prisoners, four thousand dead, tens of thousands in exile: these are the raw numbers of this terror.

Since the ordinary jails were filled to the brim, you created virtual concentration camps in the main garrisons of the country which judges, lawyers, journalists, and international observers, are all forbidden to enter. The military secrecy of what goes on inside, which you cite as a requirement for the purposes of investigation, means that the majority of the arrests turn into kidnappings that in turn allow for torture without limits and execution without trial. [...]

These are the thoughts I wanted to pass on to the members of this Junta on the first anniversary of your ill-fated government, with no hope of being heard, with the certainty of being persecuted, but faithful to the commitment I made a long time ago to bear witness during difficult times.

March 24, 1977

On the Heights of Despair - Emil Cioran

Rating: ★★★

18/02/17

How does one become a pessimist?

By reading your book, pal. You made Schopenhauer look like one of the Teletubbies. It was a I still can’t rate it I think a 3-star rating is a good compromise. Many quotes that pulled on my heartstrings, and many chapters I already forgot, out of immunity to certain thoughts and dislike of overly melodramatic prose. Things that belong to the plane of ideas, naturally, since the kind of life that has been portrayed at times is literally impossible, and impracticable ideas which try to convey intellectual depth and are repeated by others, clinging to such pose as hard as they can because "happy people are all stupid and morality is a disgrace and I want to be consumed by fire and I long for the destruction of the world," too exhausting... And I can't shake off a sense of artificiality.

fortunate thing that I didn’t read this during my impressionable adolescence.

True, if you read this, you're not much of an optimistic, but still. I wholeheartedly agree with the third line of this review.

That being said, these few lines will be engulfed by the beauty of flames and will witness their own amoral destruction from which a proper review will absurdly blossom amid beautiful darkness echoing nothingness...! After restoring my soul with many reruns of Seinfeld.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

** Pre-review. Or final review if I forget...

*** I'll read The Trouble with Being Born anyway; a more mature work, surely.

On Solitude - Michel de Montaigne

Rating: ★★★★

16/06/16

in solis sis tibi turba locis.
[in lonely places, be a crowd unto yourself.]
Tibullus, IV, xiii, 12 (adapted).

It didn't surprise me at all the fact that I was reading the words of a man who lived in the 16th century and mastered completely the art of being timeless. Finding relics of a bygone era which have an enormous influence on our way of thinking has become a fulfilling habit.

There is nothing more unsociable than Man, and nothing more sociable: unsociable by his vice, sociable by his nature.

Even though this essay may border on the extreme, I found some fascinating views on things – that have occupied my mind on countless occasions – which were expressed in a beautiful language brimming with erudition and wit, sophistication and simplicity; a splendid potpourri that turns his prose into something unbelievably modern. A rational blessedness blending in with a philosophical prayer, wistfully looking at life as the writer attempts to discover a new side of its meaning.

Quid terras alio calentes

Sole mutamus? patria quis exul Se quoque fugit?

[Why do we leave for lands warmed by a foreign sun? What fugitive from his own land can flee from himself?]

Horace, Odes, II, xvi, 18–20. (The ideas in general are indebted here to Seneca.)

If you do not first lighten yourself and your soul of the weight of your burdens, moving about will only increase their pressure on you, as a ship’s cargo is less troublesome when lashed in place… It is our own self we have to isolate and take back into possession.

Rupi jam vincula dicas: Nam luctata canis nodum arripit; attamen illi, Cum fugit, a collo trahitur pars longa catenæ.

[‘I have broken my chains,’ you say. But a struggling cur may snap its chain, only to escape with a great length of it fixed to its collar.]

Persius, Satires, V, 158–60.

We take our fetters with us; our freedom is not total: we still turn our gaze towards the things we have left behind; our imagination is full of them.

This is the second essay I read and it was a delight – a welcome change of pace after reading the first one titled “On Sleep” which, ironically, did justice to those words, despite some gleam in the distance.

I will be reading The Complete Essays every now and then so it is not going to be on my currently-reading shelf because it could be there for years and that would be sorely discouraging.

Ratings and quotes will be gathered here.

 * Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

On Sleep and Sleeplessness - Aristotle

Rating: ★★★

13/03/16

Philosophy Made Easy

Introduction

I have always had trouble with sleep. Thoughts are unmanageable, always, but especially at night. I

don't like waking up early (of course, that is what the office expects of me). I hate it, actually. Pure, unadulterated hatred. But I'll definitely be up at 6 o'clock on a Saturday or while being on vacation. Our minds usually play by the rules of cruel irony.

Anyway, when I found this book, I thought it was going to be rather interesting. (“Rather” has left the building.) It was interesting, in some respects. As a lover of philosophy, history and other fields that made me so popular among my peers (?), I usually find this kind of text fascinating in some way or another.

But, enough. Without further ado, the following are some of the main ideas that can be found inside this charming little book.

Part 1

Waking and sleep are present in the same part of an animal and symbolize another of the countless dichotomies inherent in nature, for instance, health and sickness, sight and blindness, Trump and politics, Kardashian and elegance, Xipolitakis and airplanes, among other fine examples of the dual character humanity is in possession of.

In this case, they complement each other, since animals cannot be always sleeping or awake. Aristotle refers to animals that were obviously endued with sense-perception (and he was quite insistent on this matter so there is no way you will be able to forget about this concept, ever), thus plants were never part of the equation for they lack said faculty and therefore cannot wake nor sleep.

Summary:

Sleep ✓

Sleeplessness ✕

Part 2

Aristotle then proceeds to explain the causes of sleep and waking. After giving a recapitulation of several of some of his widely known concepts (that might come back to you from the repressed corner of your mind dedicated to high school memorabilia), he states that sleep is perceived as rest, which is necessary and beneficial. In that sense, its end is the conservation of animals.

Summary:

Sleep ✓

Sleeplessness ✕

Part 3

This is the most delightfully confusing part of the treatise. A heads-up?

The expression “such persons” does not include infants. Otherwise, 15-year-old Becky who leaves your fridge empty and a phone bill of monumental proportions for next month while taking care of your kid sounds like a hell of a babysitter.

Summary:

Sleep ✓

Sleeplessness ✕

Conclusion

It is a shame we can't sue the author for false advertising.

Journal of a Solitude - May Sarton

Rating: ★★★★★
05/01/16

Does anything in nature despair except man?

September 15th

I feel inadequate. I have made an open place, a place for meditation. What if I cannot find myself inside it?

For a long time now, every meeting with another human being has been a collision. I feel too much, sense too much, am exhausted by the reverberations after even the simplest conversation. But the deep collision is and has been with my unregenerate, tormenting, and tormented self. I have written every poem, every novel, for the same purpose—to find out what I think, to know where I stand. I am unable to become what I see.

September 16th

I make the questions.

I also give the answers.

Naturally.

September 17th

It was a strange relationship, for he knew next to nothing about my life, really; yet below all the talk we recognized each other as the same kind. He enjoyed my anger as much as I enjoyed his. Perhaps that was part of it. Deep down there was understanding, not of the facts of our lives so much as of our essential natures.

September 20th

“There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction—every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and excitement at about a million miles an hour.” P.

September 22nd

I am losing the ability to hold a conversation with people. My voice drowns. My mind wanders. I am holding on to those written words, clinging to them like they were the last piece of wood of a fragile boat that the sea swallowed before. I am holding on to that last trace of whatever it is that makes me human.

...but, what are we looking at? A puppy starving for a glance that fearfully walks away after it gets it; overwhelmed, confused. Connections and detachment fight for a place inside conflicted minds, echoing the struggles of those lonesome beasts of the steppes.

September 23rd

It is raining. I sit by the window and start to look at the world I know, where the jasmines and some white lilies briefly live. Nothing compares to the scent of the jasmines, I think. As I repeat that particular thought inside my head, the rest of them start to ramble. Trapped in the inner world as they contemplate what's outside. They blend with reverie and solitude and begin to restlessly create memories. Brand new memories of things that I have never experienced. A sense of nostalgia towards things that were never real. A feeling of loss at what I have never had. Possibilities are endless and I cannot control anything.

Except the presence of those simple jasmines. And how their fragrance make me feel. For I do not want a mere surface of bright colors or unusual forms. I want everything.

Or nothing at all.

September 25th

This room is a place in the world. Here I breathe, I dream, I read, I write. Do I live? I do feel that universal sense of discontent with life that I wish I could shake off at once. Happiness must exist, somewhere. A moment, a day, a year. A book, a place, a song, a person. And then I think—that inevitable activity that haunts us everyday. And then. And then I am not sure if I want to find that happiness and belong to the flock.

Even though I believe that I am already a part of one.

...

But mirrors await. Poetry emerges from every nook. Time, unforgiving time. Time is everything.

Give me a day and I will give you a year of thoughts. With time, I will accept. I will regret. Fortunately or against my wishes, I will also start to forget. I was never able to forget completely. But things become quiet memories. It all starts to lose its brightness. Its warmth. I thought about someone today. Those faintly aloof eyes.

I smiled. A colder memory now.

September 28th

I am an ornery character, often hard to get along with. The things I cannot stand, that make me flare up like a cat making a fat tail, are pretentiousness, smugness, the coarse grain that often shows itself in a turn of phrase. I hate vulgarity, coarseness of soul. I hate small talk with a passionate hatred. ...it is a waste of time to see people who have only a social surface to show. I will make every effort to find out the real person, but if I can't, then I am upset and cross. Time wasted is poison.

September 29th

'How does one grow up?' I asked a friend the other day. There was a slight pause; then she answered, “By thinking.”

The thing I want to control the most.

*

So intimate, so special, so familiar. These journals reminded me of a book I absolutely adore.

A brushstroke of sweet, melancholic poetry on every page. The deafening sounds of a silent introspection. I have found more words to describe the inexplicable, since my own are never enough.

I am accused of disloyalty because I talk about things that many people would keep to themselves...I am not at all discreet about anything that concerns feeling. My business is the analysis of feeling.

May Sarton merged nature with solitude and, as a result, this beautifully crafted book came into existence. Journals filled with her impressions on the natural world, relationships of all sorts, the creative process and the isolation that it inevitably requires, the ebb and flow of her depression, the moments of peace in between.

A walk through the depths of her complex soul has been portrayed with a most exquisite and honest writing.

On Being Ill - Virginia Woolf

Rating: ★★★★
23/12/15

We do not know our souls, let alone the souls of others.

An ode to illness. Another inspiration.

She asks for its presence in literature, as her wit silences desperate voices fighting for her attention.

...how we go down into the pit of death and feel the waters of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and the harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist's arm-chair...

Her passionate lyricism blends in perfectly with the subtle irony of her gifted mind.

Fragile, gifted mind.

...a novel devoted to influenza lacked plot; they would complain that there was no love in it—wrongly however, for illness often takes on the disguise of love, and plays the same odd tricks.

A break from illness. Shall we cover the silence with a party?

No.

It all starts again. The break is over. The burden of reality ceases and a moment of downright existence comes back. Virginia looks around. She looks up. She disconcerts the world while she looks at the sky.

So much consciousness is flooding the room.

The first impression of that extraordinary spectacle is strangely overcoming. Ordinarily to look at the sky for any length of time is impossible.

The last song to illness. We are gazing at the sky as she decides; enough.

A voice comes from a letter.
Over and over again.

In Praise of Shadows - Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

Rating: ★★★★
21/11/15
















The preference of a pensive luster to a shallow brilliance.

My quiet, soothingly minimalistic room seems of no consequence when juxtaposed with the unearthly beauty that Jun'ichirō Tanizaki described in this splendid essay on aesthetics.

A shōji. Lightning. Electric fans. The right heating system. Food. Architecture.

Every detail to avoid the disruption of harmony in a Japanese room.

An almost imperceptible line between an extremely refine taste and the subtlety of irony.

We delight in the mere sight of the delicate glow of fading rays clinging to the surface of a dusky wall, there to live out what little life remains to them. We never tire of the sight, for to us this pale glow and these dim shadows far surpass any ornament. (9)

Inside this book, there is a room that seems enraptured by the sobriety of the different shades of black.

So much space beholding the magnificence of a dim light on a particular spot, barely illuminating the serene twilight that those walls are made of.

Could this book be applied to people? It shouldn't. But that is subject to one's personality. You could be the reserved, darkened room. Except when writing. And that would be fine.

A book on beauty has its share of ugliness; people's skin and supposed degrees of purity.

Above all, an essay that exalts the enigmatic candlelight.

The particular beauty of a candle emanating a delicate brilliance that timidly embellish a silent room. A most idyllic view under its mystical light.

Nothing superfluous. Nothing pretentious. Nothing loud but the silence. A universe in your thoughts. The encounter with yourself under the tenuous radiance of a candle, evoking a somber night, the bright moon a world is gazing at.

Tanizaki observes. Tanizaki fights. Tanizaki misses. Tanizaki regrets.

The sound of the rain playing gently with the dusky light of a candle.

The mind wanders.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.
Japanese room / via bluebu.us
Tatami room / via Kyoto Contemplation
Candle / via Free images

Japanese Made Easy: Revised and Updated - Tazuko Ajiro Monane

Rating: ★★★★
25/09/15

はじめまして。フィレンツェ です。よろしくお願いします。 – Introduction.
ありがとう ございます。 – Thank you.
ごめんなさい – Sorry.
すみません、ほんや は どこですか? – Bookshop!
コーヒーをください。– Asking for all drinks and food you can think of.
その 本 をください。 – Asking for that book. I think.
すみません、病院 は どこですか? – Hospital, just in case.
。。。 が 食べたい です。– I'd like to eat -
じゃ、行きましょう。It just sounds awesome.
大人、一枚。– Tickets.
これはいくらですか？ – How much is that?
領事館 は どこ ですか – Where is the Consulate?
警察 – Police
わかりません。– I don't understand.
お勘定 お願いします。– Check, please.

Yeah... That's pretty much all I need. I would bring my books anyway and colorful pictures to point out. We lose all shame when we want people to understand us.

I have learned some sentence patterns (polite Japanese, mostly), quite helpful for a tourist. I repeat, a tourist. So I cannot even imagine what it would be like if I ever started studying the language seriously, like taking real classes and such. Something I will never do because then comes the sense of obligation. When I know that every Monday or Thursday at 4.00 p.m. I have to get out of my house and attend to class or whatever, to learn what I voluntarily decided to learn, I start seeing it as an obligation, a duty. And I lose encouragement. That stage of my life disappeared when school ended. I enjoy being a self-taught kind of person. I like the freedom that it entails. I like reading and learning things while sitting next to a window, with a big bowl of coffee (or a latte, perhaps some cookies or cake...) on the table by the couch, and my slippers ready to assist me when I have the need of revisiting the coffee maker. I dislike schedules and formalism; I enjoy reading at home. The simplicity of home. Of course, it is more difficult, with a major tendency to mistake because I do not have a teacher here (and I would not have one, either). However, I am always willing to take the risk.

So, I read this book, I wrote on three different notebooks—grammar, notes, culture and vocabulary, examples—, I sighed, I cursed, I forgot, I read again, I sighed some more. My brain was briefly replaced by a giant question mark and later came back; exhausted, with a feeble pulse. Oh, alive, nonetheless! Hiragana tends to do that. Counters tend to do that. I understand the need of three scripts (one that I did not even try to study yet), but why couldn't you just count with the same words, most of the objects of this planet? I mean, in Spanish, no matter the physiognomy, we say one elephant, two tickets, eleven balloons, fifty cats. But no, I got lost, drowned in a deep sea of suffixes. A hitotsu-futatsu-mittsu fan, all the way. Do not make me count fifteen little animals or vegetables because I will not survive. And yes, I know, Spanish is not a walk on feathers, either. All languages have endearing quirks. We have our “sheets” and “slices” but nothing too complicated. Unless you add a million verb forms (the unforgiving subjunctive), gender issues, articles, prepositions, pronunciation (the inexorable letter “R”), dialects, false cognates. Oh, nothing major...

There is some sunshine in this strange adventure. I got used to the sounds (such a delicate music can be found in some syllables), the word order—even though I still struggle with some particles because my memory is not that good. Adjectives are a bit tricky also and the complexity of the system of honorifics stole some tears from my eyes so I will just stay at the safe polite-language zone. But I love it. A tortuous passion. It is a dare. A lovely, melodious and captivating dare. A dare that always leave other people wondering why the hell I am doing this. There is no reasonable answer. Or maybe there is. I read some aspects of their fascinating culture, intriguing habits, rich history, numerous social conventions. All things absorbed my interest and led me to that distant language. Okay, maybe there is not a reasonable answer. A simple “why not?”. I am now starting reading about the Italian language (a homey feeling), but I see German quite appealing too. I feel too awkward speaking in French (when I say awkward I mean stupid) but Russian calls my name. So, why not?

Anyway, I spend many hours of the week reading and rereading, pronouncing words and practicing. It is almost therapeutic. Especially in those places where time feels like a turtle running a marathon while wearing a cast. For instance, at the bank. At any doctor's office. At any government office. All those places where you feel like time stands still, where you see people standing up because they have been called, they have been chosen and yet, you are there, longing for someone to call your name and end this tedious, frustrating, mind-numbing waiting. So, yes, reading helps me remaining a somewhat sane person during those motionless situations. And Japanese was and is a beautiful escape.

And this book gave me some tools to make that escape possible. No, it is not that easy. At least, not for a person whose first contact with the language was a rōmaji "Moonlight Densetsu" at age 11 and that was it.

I bet you didn't see that one coming... Oh, don't judge, I was a kid.

This book is a fine introduction to Japanese. It contains many sentence patterns, the usual verb forms that will allow you to sound human, a lot of vocabulary, notes about many aspects of their culture to help you understand more by giving a little context, activities so you will not immediately forget what you just learned, etc. Its structure is predictably convenient: the book is organized according to the complexity of the study material, one that covers many grounds. It is a clear path. The organization, I mean. As you read, the path will bifurcate until you feel like a weary Minotaur in the middle of a paper labyrinth. It is a constant challenge but Saint Google will be there to assist you. You will need other resources. Beware of rōmaji, a dangerous acquaintance. I cannot give it up.

So no, my friend. Do not be afraid. Grab your pencils and mugs, your notebooks and Kleenex, and dive into this sublime ocean of kana characters.

Dō itashimashite.

El Escritor y sus Fantasmas - Ernesto Sábato

Rating: ★★★★
17/08/15

A writer —and, I believe, generally all persons— must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

- Jorge Luis Borges, Twenty Conversations with Borges, Including a Selection of Poems: Interviews by Roberto Alifano, 1981–1983

All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
- The Beatles, Eleanor Rigby

Some people have said that you cannot feel happiness and be a writer at the same time. That only the feeling of excruciating sadness or gentle yet inexorable melancholy can give you the instruments to write something beyond the ordinary, be it prose or poetry. Apparently, Lord Byron went a little further and added love to the recipe. According to Thomas Medwin in his Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron (1823), “For a man to become a poet (witness Petrarch and Dante), he must be in love, or miserable.” It says nothing about the nature of that love. For you could be in a one-sided love. Love and misery combined... how the human soul is able to endure that, I will never know. But it does.
Anyway, from Byron's approach, love can make you happy. So it is no longer that if you are happy, you only can write self-help books and stuff like that. You could be able to write the literary piece of your life. Or not. Bliss and desolation cannot grant the gift of writing. I know.

However, regarding this book and from the point of view I chose to analyze it, it seems that there is something more profound about what we call melancholic or pessimistic literature. Paraphrasing Tolstoy, maybe it is because happy people are alike and each unhappy people are unhappy in their own way. And our restless minds want to know a little more about the latter.

In this essay, Ernesto Sábato dealt with many ghosts that writers encounter in their lives. He also described many aspects of the creative process, its nature, its sources, themes, philosophical approaches to explain all the aforementioned, literary movements, the existence of a national literature, perspectives on aesthetics and human condition, the matter of originality, the fact that he looks at writing more like a doom rather than an occupation, the eternal debate between subjectivity and objectivity and other movements, comments on several renowned writers... A lot.

There are many reasons that lead a person to write, which diversity does not allow me to mention. However, we can agree that certain emotions prompt us to be in the mood for writing. Later, whether it is good or bad writing, that is another matter.

The sentiment that can move mountains of paper is the conflicted relationship when solitude becomes loneliness. Many times it is wanted, other times is a cause of disquiet. And then you are satisfied because you are calmly alone, and then you are desperate because you feel your humanity fading. And so on. And so on.

Isolation (a writer is well-accustomed to dealing with that) is one of the more powerful sources of literary works in the planet. With surgical precision, it cuts and finds its place in our minds, pinching memories of more accumulated isolation, which leads to the bleak disposition that shapes the day.

Why does it happen?

Why are we like that?

Where do lonely people come from?

Where do we belong?

How can we fix that?

No human being is an island. By writing, we express emotions and empty the mind to go on. But some things cannot be fix easily. Some, cannot be fixed at all.

Weird. Some of Sábato's essays left me pondering and the music I was listening to at that moment, did the rest. The reasons as to why a person would grab a pen or a computer and starts writing are as varied as human reactions. One? The intricate path made of insecurities and tragedy that can take the writer to the creation of a novel, thus, purging himself, at least for a moment.

One of the first things I underlined in this book are the following two sentences.

El principal problema del escritor

Tal vez sea el de evitar la tentacion de juntar palabras para hacer una obra. Dijo Claudel que no fueron las palabras las que hicieron La Odisea, sino al revés. (16)

It might be something like:

The main problem for the writer

Perhaps, to avoid the temptation of putting words together to make a literary work. Claudel said that it wasn't the words the ones that created The Odyssey, but the other way around.

A poetic way of portraying the absence of pressure. The lack of impatience for putting word after word to create something meaningful.

There are many more passages I would like to quote so you can appreciate the exquisite language he uses while conveying his ideas, giving the illusion of an effortless literary process. However, I cannot translate all that. I already heard the author's giggle at my previous naive attempt of translation. So, I will simply leave two more passages in here, asking for forgiveness to my English speaking friends.

De la cosa a la angustia

Lanzado ciegamente a la conquista del mundo externo, preocupado por el solo manejo de las cosas, el hombre terminó por cosificarse él mismo, cayendo al mundo bruto en que rige el ciego determinismo. Empujado por los objetos, títere de la misma circunstancia que había contribuido a crear, el hombre dejó de ser libre, y se volvió tan anónimo e impersonal como sus instrumentos. Ya no vive en el tiempo originario del ser sino en el tiempo de sus propios relojes. Es la caída del ser en el mundo, es la exteriorización y la banalización de su existencia. Ha ganado el mundo pero se ha perdido así mismo.

Hasta que la angustia lo despierta, aunque lo despierte a un universo de pesadilla. Tambaleante y ansioso busca nuevamente el camino de sí mismo, en medio de las tinieblas. Algo le susurra que a pesar de todo es libre o puede serlo, que de cualquier modo él no es equiparable a un engranaje. Y hasta el hecho de descubrirse mortal, la angustiosa convicción de comprender su finitud también de algún modo es reconfortante, porque al fin de cuentas le prueba que es algo distinto a aquel engranaje indiferente y neutro: le demuestra que es un ser humano. Nada más pero nada menos que un hombre. (89)

Tristeza, resentimiento y literatura

Por otra parte, la autenticidad está probada por el hecho de que nuestra mejor literatura es triste, melancólica o pesimista: desde Hernández hasta Borges y Marechal, pasando por Payró,

Lynch, Güiraldes y Arlt. Cada vez que somos profundos, expresamos esa tonalidad de sentimientos. Cada vez que, forzados por teorías o recriminaciones, intentamos ser alegres ofrecemos en nuestros libros un espectáculo tan torpe y apócrifo como cuando un argentino intenta divertirse en una boîte. Como los rusos del siglo pasado, empieza riendo y tomando, y termina llorando y tomando; cuando no concluye rompiendo todo lo que tiene a mano. (136)

All the lonely people, members of an atomized society, belong to the world. Yes. Citizens of the world perhaps developing pulsing creativity trying to find a way of expression. Let it be a resource.

Literature is always an option.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments - David Foster Wallace

Rating: ★★★★
01/03/14

Like most unbearably sad things, it seems incredibly elusive and complex in its causes and simple in its effect: on board the Nadir—especially at night, when all the ship’s structured fun and reassurances and gaiety-noise ceased—I felt despair. The word’s overused and banalified now, despair, but it’s a serious word, and I’m using it seriously. For me it denotes a simple admixture—a weird yearning for death combined with a crushing sense of my own smallness and futility that presents as a fear of death. It’s maybe close to what people call dread or angst. But it’s not these things, quite. It’s more like wanting to die in order to escape the unbearable feeling of becoming aware that I’m small and weak and selfish and going without any doubt at all to die. It’s wanting to jump overboard.

I have many quotes to share. Beautifully written, thought-provoking quotes. Clearly (such a cliche, but it's true), it's not the writer's fault, it's me. I really loved a couple of essays (amazing insights, beautiful language) but I simply couldn't connect with the rest of them. Again, I felt like a complete outsider, something that has happened to me before with other foreign writers. I may be gaining a couple of fervent enemies with this, but I really don't see the point in saying that I loved the whole book when I actually didn't.

So, those almost four stars were given according to what I felt while reading those particular essays (standing ovation to "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction"). They were THAT good.

El Mundo de Ayer - Stefan Zweig

Rating: ★★★★★
31/06/14

...after all, shadows themselves are born of light.

...toda sombra es, al fin y al cabo, hija de la luz.

- Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday/El Mundo de Ayer

There are people that breathe nostalgia every day. They enjoy it, they suffer it. They stare at some object and a million memories come to mind. People, friends, lovers, happiness, regrets. They are usually looking back wishing for the past to become present. For that little part of the world they knew and that it felt much safer than the one they inhabit today.

My nostalgia has a life on its own.

Well. There are many wonderful reviews about this book. I have nothing new to say. So I will simply share some rambling thoughts.

Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) has written a book where the universal sense of loss is omnipresent. What to do when the world you have always known crumbles in front of your eyes due to the acts of other human beings? I cannot imagine facing such cruelty. And then, I can. His writing is too vivid. I was the one remembering the past, enraptured by the feeling of a distant safety. A stateless individual on some strange ground, holding a pack of memories that contrasted so harshly with his present. I have read, I have lived through his words and I have learned.

I have been acquainted with other works by Zweig and his magnificent writing is obviously present in this book that is considered a real masterpiece. His prose, evocative, keen and clear as usual, deals with many issues of a society at the start of the 20th century; some ordinary, some controversial. It also describes his relationship with other relevant figures of his time. There is plenty of the external world and his perspectives.

Through his words, the author gave form to the world he has seen and lived before. Avoiding a detailed recount of his own life, this book portrays the sense of safety of those lost days. He gave his memories enough time to speak for him before he succumbed to a death made out of hopelessness and sealed by his bare hands. The defeated dream of humanity as a whole. A dream stolen by two wars that surpass every attempt of reasoning.

Reading this book was a strange experience. I have lost a lot while I was reading it and I have gained too much after finishing it. We are always returning to where we started, aren't we? Always moving from beginning to middle and vice versa. Our seeming incapacity to learn from our mistakes intoxicates our essence. Most of us are left with a bittersweet confidence in human nature. A naive optimism fighting for survival. For I am writing these nonsensical lines when, in another part of the world, people have fifteen seconds to save their lives from the atrocity of others.

We end up being wandering shadows looking for a safe place. For another soul who can feed or restore our faith in humanity. At least, some of it.

There are people that breathe nostalgia every day. Do not forget to breathe the air of the present. An existence perpetually longing for what has passed cannot see what is coming.

Notes:

-Since I could not find an English edition, I read this book in Spanish. And, in my opinion, this one was a pretty decent translation.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.
Painting: Stefan Zweig, oil on canvas / via flickr

Existentialism Is a Humanism - Jean-Paul Sartre

Rating: ★★★★
29/07/14

Man is nothing other than what he makes of himself.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

If you are interested in Existentialism, this is the book you should dive into. You will find an energetic Sartre defending his views on many subjects. I was immediately drawn to one opinion in particular: existentialism emphasizes what is despicable about the world. I have read that before. Most people apparently want to read about beauty and bliss and puppies and all those things that are part of one side of our reality. Denying the ugliness of the world does not vanish it at all, unfortunately. It is there, in all its glory while you are closing your eyes. Some authors have been labeled as violent freaks, racists or misogynists because they wrote about those issues—about the cruelty and selfishness that also characterizes human beings—as if they were more than mere narrators. Some people mistake honesty with a defense of whatever the awful subject the book deals with. Speaking about it doesn't justify it.

I have already wrote about Sartre's beautiful and accessible writing while reviewing Nausea. This book is no exception. I also found a subtle humor that made the reading experience even more enjoyable.

Those who easily stomach a Zola novel like "The Earth" are sickened when they open an existentialist novel. (19)

I am quite intrigued by that, now.

Sartre felt the need of making a statement in favor of this doctrine. But why do people criticize it? Some because they have read about it and know what it is all about. Others because they have heard about it... And that is much more common than most of us think. We tend to judge what we do not know. And in most cases we do not even bother in getting to know it. We judge and we fear. And we talk. That is why Sartre made and answered the following question: "What, then, is 'existentialism'?" He then started by explaining one of the most important principles of the doctrine: existence precedes essence. That alone might sound confusing, but Sartre's masterful use of metaphors and engaging prose made it all possible.

In a universe where there is not a god, man is born empty without a specific purpose. He creates his own essence while making decisions based on the well-known concept of freedom. A thing every man pursuits but few could handle.

Freedom without God. Without that sense of protection. Because we do feel safe if we are only acting according to something that has been decided before we were born. Every bad consequence would not be our fault. But, in a world sans God, we become a little, lonely dot with nothing above us but stars. And that's a horrifying thought.

The author later affirmed that when man makes a choice, he does not make it just for himself but for all humanity. Those choices reflect on us what we think a man should be. Try not to feel pressured for the great responsibility that represents making choices that concerns all people in the planet.

Choosing to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and nothing can he good for any of us unless it is good for all. (24)

Debatable.

There are certain words that people use to arrive to the conclusion that existentialism is a depressing way to look at the world: anguish, abandonment, despair. They are all related to what the author explained about man's existence in a godless world. A man that is aware of the fact that he is responsible for himself and for the rest of humanity. That kind of responsibility surely creates anguish, but it does not prevent men from acting. As for the abandonment issue, it is not as negative as it sounds. He simply meant that if God does not exist, then we are alone without excuses. We are alone and free. That thought led him to one of the most memorable lines of the book:

That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free: condemned, because he did not create himself, yet nonetheless free, because once cast into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. (29)

Freedom has been defined as the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. From a certain perspective, Sartre made his point. Without God, everything is permissible. However, the freedom (or lack of it) we have to deal with everyday, the freedom that is far away from the abstraction of a concept, that entails earthly matters such as work, people, love, well... that is another issue. The absence of necessity is too rare.

Can a person be happy while knowing that he is free because there is no God but, at the same time, not so free because he is a victim of some system? Just like there are several concepts of freedom, there are many factors that restrict them, making the man feel like a powerless individual immersed in a situation he cannot complain about without being replaced in a heartbeat.

On one hand, we are condemned to be free; on the other, freedom is apparently nothing more than theory, something we experience by convincing ourselves that we are free while being constrained by political or economical factors (Locke explained it with much more precise words).

Yes. There is an answer for every side of the term. We can be free or we can convince ourselves that we are. Birds still sing while they spend their lives in a cage—whether it is because of joy or plea, that is another matter.

There is another interesting passage about signs. We often look for them while going through a difficult situation. Sartre skillfully explained that we are the ones that find a particular meaning in those signs. They may mean something different for everybody; in any case, that meaning is determined by us.

This is what "abandonment" implies: it is we, ourselves, who decide who we are to he. (34)

The last word used to describe existentialism was “despair”. That alone, yes, it does not sound too warm and fuzzy. But add some context to it, and... still, it does not sound good. I had some trouble trying to digest this idea.

It means that we must limit ourselves to reckoning only with those things that depend on our will, or on the set of probabilities that enable action... From the moment that the possibilities I am considering cease to be rigorously engaged by my action, I must no longer take interest in them, for no God or greater design can bend the world and its possibilities to my will. In the final analysis, when Descartes said "Conquer yourself rather than the world," he actually meant the same thing: we should act without hope. (35)

From a practical point of view, the time we spend hoping for a result is time wasted. Sartre encourages us to act. To do something in order to achieve what we want and not to wait for others to do it for us; people or a superior being, whichever the case may be. Reality exists only in action.

By the end of the book, there is a commentary on The Stranger. Do not miss it.

If you are new to Sartre's philosophy, then this remarkable essay would be a perfect introduction.

It is not only a book that sheds some light on the matter and rectifies many misconceptions, but a book that gently encourages you to do some introspection. Shall we?

Okay. Stop for a minute. Breathe. Take a look around. Look back; contemplate your present. Where are you right now? Are you the person you have always wanted to be?

"Get up, take subway, work four hours at the office or plant, eat, take subway, work four hours, eat, sleep—Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday-Friday-Saturday—always the same routine..." (77)

Do you feel free?