"Ae Fond Farewell": Looking back at reading in 2017
January 1, 2018 November 6, 2018 / jpbohannon	/ Leave a comment
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
I cannot think of a year to which I am more ready to say "fareweel." As I wrote to a friend recently, it has been a bizarre and exhausting twelve months. And too often, it seemed that the constant barrage of news and reactions took time away from the pleasure of reading–so much of my reading was taking the form of newspapers and blogs, tweets and news crawls.
And yet, it ended up being a relatively good year. Not counting the books I need to read for work–things like Shakespeare, Huxley, Atwood, and Ellison–it has been productive.
In breaking down my "for pleasure" reading, I completed
22 works of fiction
15 works of nonfiction
7 collections of poetry.
I have read 22 male authors and 22 female authors. And more than half of what I read was by non-American writers.
It was a good year for writing. Among the fiction, there were many, many memorable works: from veterans like Ali Smith and Michael Chabon to new discoveries like the Irish writers Catriona Lally (Eggshells) and Jess Kidd (Himself); new discoveries in poetry included Dylan Krieger (Giving Godhead) and Rebecca Lindenberg (Love, An Index); and the range of subjects in non-fiction is inexhaustible and enlightening.
If I had to choose three (which I don't, but … )
Laurent Binet's The 7th Function of Language is a fun "murder mystery" involving the philosophical stars of the late 20th century. (Many of whom are still living.) The actual death of Roland Barthes, who was killed by a laundry van, is determined to be NOT AN ACCIDENT and the suspects include everyone from Mitterrand to Foucault, from Umberto Eco to Noam Chomsky. It is a bold and nervy novel that merges the modern detective story with outrageous flights into semiotics.
George Saunders' experimental novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, features over a hundred characters, all but one of them who are dead. Lincoln's son has died and the residents of the cemetery where he rests try to ease his transition to the other side and compete with each other for the boy's favor. Meanwhile, the grieving president continues to visit. It is an extraordinary, emotional and satisfying read.
And finally, The Nix by Nathan Hill. I don't remember how I found this novel, but I am glad I did. Hill is like a Zelig in his uncanny ability to capture the reality of certain, disparate scenes: the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention; patrol duty during the second Iraq War; teaching college in the 2010s; the brain functions of an addicted gamer. These set pieces are mesmerizing and propel the story to its complicated and enlightening ending. Dealing with self-realization, maternal bonds, political manipulation, war, the classical musical world, gaming, and academic integrity, Hill seems to have bitten off far too much. But he brings it all together to serve up one extraordinary and satisfying novel.
My readings in non-fiction were not purposeful, but often connected in a string of related ideas. Early in the year I read the wonderful, The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs by Elaine Scillonian. What started out as a food piece for the New York Times ended up to be much, much more–a wonderful peek into a Parisian street and neighborhood that has resisted progress and gentrification and tourism, and which continues in much of its uniqueness and tradition.
Scillonian's book then led me to Lauren Elkin's FLÂNEUSE: Women Walk the City. It is an entertaining and erudite discussion of women –particularly writers and artists and herself– walking in world cities, though with a concentration in Paris. I am grateful for its introducing me to the marvelous artist Sophia Calle, whose one amusing art work involved walking around Venice while following a strange man. (It also introduced me to Georges Sand, of whom I knew very little. Two of her enormous novels sit next to my bed, waiting for 2018.)
It is only natural to go from the "entertaining and erudite" musings of The Flaneuse to perhaps America's finest intellect, Rebecca Solnit, whose "invisible cities" books have given me much enjoyment in the past. This year I turned to her Field Guide to Getting Lost, a wonderful meditation on the usefulness and growth achieved in being lost somewhere. Like all of Solnit's work, the main thesis is simply a jumping off point for all sorts of insights and reflections.
Undoubtedly, it's been a tough year around the world. But at least there was a raft of books–too many to list here–to help me navigate the rough seas. I am looking forward to 2018.
Book Review: Broken Umbrellas and Ennui: Shyness and Dignity by Dag Solstad
July 6, 2016 July 8, 2016 / jpbohannon	/ 2 Comments
"Broken Umbrella" illustration 2016 by jpbohannon
Dag Solstad, a novelist and playwright, has won numerous prizes for his writing, including the prestigious Nordic Prize for Literature. He is the only author to have recived the Norwegian Literary Critics Award three times. This is the first English translation of his work. Solstad lives in both Oslo and Berlin.
Back Cover copy of Shyness and Dignity by Dag Solstad
And most of us have never heard of him.
In general, we Americans are very ignorant of writers in other languages. It is not our fault (despite our staunch embrace of our mono-lingualism). American publishing houses take very few chances with translated works. Of course, there are exceptions. Publishing houses such as Europa Editions, Graywolf Press, and Vintage have been steadfast in bringing forth translated novels. And every so often they catch on. Elena Ferrante is a phenomenon; Jo Nesbo continues to thrill; and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series was a publishing behemoth. But in general, we are isolationists when it comes to reading.
To wit, Shyness and Dignity, Solstad's first novel to be translated into English, was published in Norway in 1996 and in the States in 2006. It was his first novel translated into English–thirty-seven years after his first book came out in 1969.
(One would think that his books covering each of the FIFA World Cups from 1982 on would have introduced him to Americans. But then again, we as a nation are just beginning to watch soccer; obsessive reading about it is probably a bit down the road.)
And so we have Shyness and Dignity. (As of now, there are three novels translated: Shyness and Dignity, Professor Andersen's Night, and Novel 11, Book 18.)
Elias Rukla is a middle-aged teacher, teaching Norwegian Literature in a National high-school in Oslo. He is frustrated by his work, has lost belief in the relevance of what he professes, and feels useless in the new educational arena. One day, after his last class, a class in which he felt he was being particularly trenchant, in which for the first time in a while he believed he had said something original, something worthwhile, and in which at his greatest moment of insight, he was interrupted by the bored groan of one of his students, Elias left the building for the day.
It was raining, he was prepared, but his umbrella would not open. Another moment of frustration. Many attempts at opening it escalated into a battle. He sliced his hands with the umbrella ribs, threw the umbrella on the ground and began jumping on it. As students gathered around to watch their teacher wrestle with this inanimate object, he lashed out, calling one tall blond student a "fat snout" and a "damned bitch."
At that moment, he realized his career was over.
This scene is actually a very small part of the novel. The opening frame, if you will. As he wanders the streets of Oslo, considering the irreparable consequences of his actions, he thinks of how he would tell his wife.
And then he thinks of how he had met her. And then he thinks of the friend who had introduced them. And then he thinks of what he and she and the friend had once been and had now become.
It is a story of hopes unrealized, optimism and activism dampened, and life soullessly borne.
We follow Elias through his graduate school days and his fascination with a young philosophy student who is the darling of both his peers and his professors. Not only is Johan Corneliussen a prodigy in philosophy–particularly Kantian philosophy–but he is a prodigy in life. As Elias explains:
Johan Corneliussen moved without difficulty from ice hockey to Kant, from interest in advertising posters to the Frankfurt school of philosophy, from rock 'n' roll to classical music. Operettas and Arne Nordheim … Music, ice hockey, literature, film, soccer, advertising, politics, skating.
It was this total immersion into life–so different from the shy and insecure Elias Rukla–that was Corneliussen's attraction. And Rukla became his shadow, inseparable friend, partaking in it all and basking in the reflected adulation that was directed towards his companion.
As we follow the college students through their various interests and politics, their associates and lovers, we also see the crumbling of young certainties. Except that Elias retains his much further into life.
It is struggle with his umbrella that brought about this realization that all has changed, his career, his wife, his beliefs, his interests.
And with this meandering journey homeward, he has reviewed his entire life up to this very moment, this moment when he feared what he would say to his wife. All had changed and he was just realizing it now.
Solstad's novel is an examination into what makes us act, what compromises we make, and what indignities we are willing to bear. It is an internal examination, not of conscience, but of consciousness. It is a somewhat dreary look at the dampening of hope, the degrading of cultural literacy, the momentum of capitalism. Solstad's sentences are long and meandering, walking through a paragraph much the way the Elias walks through the streets of Oslo, but each one is perfect.
Each one brings us a few steps closer to the destination that Elias must ultimately reach.
Quote #60: "Everybody's queer… ." Eileen Myles
May 1, 2016 May 1, 2016 / jpbohannon	/ 1 Comment
"Everybody's Queer" illustration 2016 jpbohannon
"Everybody's queer–everybody's wrongly shaped for a culture that requires conformity."
Eileen Myles, as quoted in "To Be a Poet" by Emily Witt
The New York Times T Magazine, April 17, 2016
Series: The Deadly Sins–Gluttony
March 11, 2015 March 7, 2015 / jpbohannon	/ Leave a comment
"Consumerism is the new Gluttony"
photo-collage 2015 by jpbohannon
"He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have." ― Socrates
"The things you own end up owning you." — Tyler Durden, Fight Club
Quote #42: "There are three things all wise men fear…"
May 27, 2014 May 27, 2014 / jpbohannon	/ 3 Comments
Gentle man on a moonless night.
Illustration 2014 jpbohannon
"There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man." – Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear
Emerson, the Transparent Eye, and photos on my iPhone
Illustration of Emerson's "Transparent Eyeball" that accompanied the essay "Nature"
In his essay "Nature," Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said:
"I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part of God."
I know of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "transparent eyeball" and his essay "Nature," but it is not my area of expertise. (Although I confess, it is the illustration that accompanied the "transparent eyeball" passage in Emerson's essay "Nature" that I recall most readily. It is a wonderful illustration.)
If I remember correctly, in "Nature," Emerson is propounding a way of looking at the Universe in general and Nature in particular. It is Emerson's "transcendental" way of finding communion with a divine being through observing the "scripture" that is Nature.
But lately I have been thinking of the "transparent eyeball" in a different way.
On a Monday in mid-April, I was reading a piece by a woman named Yoon Soo Lim. In it, she mentioned that she had taken up a challenge of keeping a photo journal , in which one photograph was uploaded each day of the year. The site was called blipfoto.
I didn't think much of it, until my walk home through the city. I started seeing possible "photo ops" everywhere: a funky display in an art gallery, a shadowy alley with a latticework of fire-escapes, a graphic advertisement for a boxing studio. I had become an "eye" and had begun seeing things that I passed every single day and had never seen, or at least never paid much attention to.
Fog Rolling In
2014 jpbohannon
I took up the photo challenge myself. And it has changed the way I look at things.
Doors on N. 4th Street
No longer do I walk aimlessly from the bus to my door, from the street to the train station, from my desk to the cafeteria. I walk now with a purpose…the purpose of seeing.
Sculpture at Market East Train Station
I am not sure why, but this leaves me feeling very alive. I feel that I am "seeing deliberately"—a term that echoes Emerson's disciple Thoreau who advised us all to "live deliberately." I am excited to see things, to find things, to re-discover things that had been invisible for so long, behind the cloak of daily routine.
And I am having fun with it.
Quote #33: The highest point of philosophy…
February 23, 2014 February 21, 2014 / jpbohannon	/ Leave a comment
Glad Day, or Dance of Albion by William Blake, c. 1804
"The highest point of philosophy is to be both wise and simple; this is the angelic life."
John Chrysostom (c. 347-407)
Quote #30: John Cage on the meaning of life
December 19, 2013 December 19, 2013 / jpbohannon	/ Leave a comment
"No why. Just here."
Quote #27: Allen Ginsberg, "Follow your inner moonlight…"
November 17, 2013 November 17, 2013 / jpbohannon	/ 3 Comments
"Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide your madness." Allen Ginsberg
Quote of the week #25: Thoreau's Thanksgiving
October 20, 2013 October 19, 2013 / jpbohannon	/ Leave a comment
"I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how one can be with nothing definite–only a sense of existence."
Henry David Thoreau (letter to Harrison Blake, 1856)