Untitled Blog post

Ever since we started the blog, there was never a post called untitled. Everything was decisively about something. A lot of times, it’s easy to connect the dots, see patterns and decide what they may be.

Yesterday was one of those days when things didn’t seem to connect.

Untitled painting completed on somebody’s special day
Medium: Gouache & Ink

I was reading Brene Brown’s book “The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are.” It was the first time in months I have felt focused. I didn’t realize how much I missed the act of intensely focused on reading.

I am not able to connect the dots between the painting and the book. However two things I understood:
1) Painting is something I will always do. Cannot give it up and it’s developing as time goes (for better or worse, like writing, that doesn’t matter. It is the process, the act of doing that matters.)
2) Worthiness is not based on productivity or status; it is based on being our authentic self who could be vulnerable and afraid of many things.

This is a quote I really liked from the book, her language is simple even though the idea is complex. It is self explanatory.

“We don’t need love and belonging and story-catching from everyone in our lives, but we need it from at least one person. If we have that one person or that small group of confidants, the best way to acknowledge these connections is to acknowledge our worthiness. If we’re working toward relationships based in love, belonging, and story, we have to start in the same place: I am worthy.” (Brown, Page 48)

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

“Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom is undoubtedly one of those books that changed my life. I remember being in a similar state ten years ago when the pessimist in me took over; I felt lost and people had treated me unkindly with harsh words or wrongful actions. So whenever I feel like life is suffocating and I need a good cry, I would read this book. It anchors me and helps me put everything to perspective.

Albom describes his memories of his college professor of whom he revisited after hearing about his terminal illness on Nightline. Every week, he would visit his professor on Tuesdays and talk about the meaning of life until his professor’s passing. Almost every line in the book is quotable since Morrie imparts profound wisdom in simplicity.

This is one of the passages I highlight and read, reread, and memorize in my heart, especially when I go through difficult time.

“Take any emotion- love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I’m going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions- if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them- you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.
“But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.'”
(Page 103-104)

It’s helped me a lot of time although I certainly can’t claim to be the master of letting go. In fact with my personality, it is very hard to let go. But reading it again and again deepens my understanding of his words. I felt like Morrie was talking directly to me and telling me, “it’s okay to feel this way. Don’t run away from it. Embrace it and you will be able to let go.”

Morrie also believed in the power of love.
“Be compassionate,” Morrie whispered. “And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place.”
He took a breath, then added his mantra: “Love each other or die.” (Page 163)
Despite being short of breath and in pain, Morrie did the interview for Nightline. It takes courage and bravery to talk to the world as you suffer physically.

I really think if people were more considerate and compassionate, they would think twice when they say words that are hurtful. When you say negative things, there is a receiving end. It might break that person; not because that person is weak but because you mean a lot to that person and to hear it from someone they treasure dearly is like a stab at vulnerability. We show vulnerability to those who we trust and care about because we believe they also care for us and only have compassion and good intentions for us.

When unkind words are uttered, those views are shattered and the trust or bond is broken.

If we live by Morrie’s mantra, we will be strong enough to continue to love and forgive. I think it would take time which is okay- being open to the possibility is important.

Morrie was right, although he is not with us anymore, the love he had for the world lives on and those of us who have been touched by his life, will always remember him.

Rereading “Sputnik Sweetheart”

I remember when I was younger I had a natural disdain of rewatching shows, rereading books; my reasoning was, since you knew the ending and all that will happen, what was the point? Wouldn’t it be more useful to learn something new, discover a new plot, be exposed to as many unique possibilities as available? Rereading a book a long time after you first read it gives you a different experience, not only because you have forgotten what happened in the book, but also because the “you” that read the book years ago is not the same “you” that’s reading the book now.

At least, for me, that was the experience I had this weekend.

Recommended by a stranger at a Strand bookstore years ago, I was introduced to Haruki Murakami’s “The winded up bird chronicle.” That weekend, I locked myself up in my room and entered another realm. Although there was a lot I didn’t understand, the mystery of the lost wife pulled me through, the character’s loneliness touched my heart, and I didn’t want the book to end, of course it had to end at some point. Naturally I became an avid fan and bought all his translated works; I breezed through them as fast as my mind could comprehend and as fast as my eyes could read, I felt like it reached out to me with a sense of empathy I had not felt anywhere else; I loved the honesty of his characters, the average Joe characters, the bibliophiles, the image of just sitting at a book store and drinking coffee as strange events gathered around the characters, waiting for them to go on mystical journeys where they might end up with strange people, cats, weird worlds- as the characters slowly lost themselves in the chaos just to realize that the chaos was essentially what brought their sanity back and the emptiness of their hearts were filled with an understanding even if the mystery was left unsolved.

The faint image I had of my thoughts when I first read “Sputnik Sweetheart” was, rooting for “K” to find Sumire and confess his love for her. It was a romance novel to me at that time. I loved the wisdom K shared with Sumire.

Rereading it, I was rooting for Sumire to find her true self and to continue her writing. In her struggle of writing, I imagine Murakami, striving to weave the plot so seamlessly while offering a glimpse of the life of a young writer. In the novel, Sumire was given an allowance or stipend from her parents until the age of 28, after then, she will have to survive on her own. Murakami started to write his first novella when he was 28.

At one point, the character Miu of who Sumire is infatuated with, convinces her to work for Miu since what Sumire writes would not fulfill the expectation Sumire has for her writing because of her young age and experience. “At this stage in your life I don’t think you’re going to write anything worthwhile, no matter how much time you put into your novels,” Miu said, calmly, unhesitantly. “You’ve got the talent. I’m sure someday you’ll be an extraordinary writer. I’m not just saying this, I truly believe it. You have that natural ability within you. But now’s not the time. The strength you need to open the door isn’t quite there. Haven’t you ever felt that way?” (Page 37).

Just those lines alone reminded me of why Murakami’s work is so powerful to me. It touches an unspoken and obvious truth relevant to my own experience at any given time; it is the honesty of his feelings that touches the heart. He thought of the line, constructed the line from the semantics to the carefully chosen words flowing through the voice of a fictional character he had chosen, yet is is so visceral and relevant to those of us who struggle to write and find a voice to build a coherent story line, it envelopes you with empathy and makes you forget you are reading a fictional work.

The plot of the story is essentially a retelling of the actual story from our main character K. Using Sumire’s dialogues with K of her recollection of her meeting with Miu of who she falls in love with, K retells the story of the moment Sumire falls in love with Miu which started out with Miu’s confusion of the Soviet Satellite Sputnik with Beatnik which was a literature movement, of their trip to Europe where they ended up in a small Greek island, unheard of on the map, unknown to most of the world, but accessible and real. Sumire’s confession to Miu ended in her disappareance, leaving Miu frantic and not knowing what to do, she contacts K to come to Greece to help her find Sumire. Becasue of his love for Sumire, K goes to Greece without any hesitation.

K finally meets the love of Sumire’s life, Miu. They talk, Miu explains the situation and after a day, goes off to Greece’s main island to find more help in search of Sumire. She confesses to K what actually happened before the night of the disappearance where Sumire is portrayed as a carnal creature who could not hold her desires back and in return is pained by the rejection she feels because of Miu’s incapability to reciprocate her feelings and desires.

Of course, K is able to dig deeper. He finds Sumire’s floppy disk with two stories; she writes of her dream with her mother in it, reaching out to her and disappearing and another story of Miu’s incident from 14 years ago which causes her to lose part of herself in another world.

The story can’t go on without an explanation of Sputnik which was the first Russian satellite. The title could be interpreted simply as first sweetheart (maybe a bit too blatantly simple?).

I can’t really tell you what the novel is about aside from the plot. I think we discover what it means to us as we read along. The plot will not change but what is meaningful to us might change as time passes. This time around when I read it, I understood the meaning of letting go of things that we cling onto just because they are comfortable although they are meaningless(K’s meaningless relationship with his girlfriend which hurts his girlfriend’s son of which he chooses to let go of), the destruction of our insecurities which lead us to become people we are not (Sumire’s 180 degree change in appearance and what she cares about because she has fallen in love with Miu and is willing to do whatever is asked of her), the importance of our ability and willingness to find our true self so we won’t be empty (Miu became an empty shell a year later because she was not able to find the self she had lost 14 years ago and when Sumire offers a sparkle of hope, Sumire too disappeared like Miu’s other self).

There is a lot of possible interpretations and i could be off tangent but those are the things I thought of when I reread “Sputnik Sweetheart.”

The Archivist by Martha Cooley

I finally understand why my friend once told me she flips to the middle and end of a book to determine whether the book speaks to her or not; skimming the first few pages of The Archivist, I thought it would be an interesting and light read. The latter part was very far from the truth.

Separated into three parts, the novel travels through time. Although the voice is first person, it involved two different characters bonded by love but unable to find the grounds for understanding each other during the postwar era when the past was still in the present, felt but denied. The novel deals with extremely heavy topics; religion, post war trauma, insanity, suicides, sanatorium, identity, elusiveness, truth and pain versus lies and comfort.

From the context of the book, it is easy to decipher the level of dedication the author has to the historical details of the setting, from Bud Powell to the politics of its time. The first part is in the perspective of our protagonist Matthias who was the archivist who meticulously archived TS Eliot’s letters to Emily Hale. In the beginning of the novel, he was planning to follow Emily Hale’s decision to release the letters in 2020. A catalyst to his stoic life appeared: the young poet Roberta Spire who was a shadow of his wife, as he reluctantly finds out. They were both a poet, Jewish, strong female characters and were distant from their family. As he draws parallels between his wife and Roberta, he saw Roberta’s perspective as though he was getting a second chance in understanding what had happened to his wife as he had never given Judith a chance to explain. Roberta was able to convey how her religion and her family’s silence of what they had encountered during the war changed her; it created distance and dissonance in the family relationship. Cooley uses the device of two parallel worlds to nudge Matthias to remember what he had avoided and closed a lid on after the death of his wife, Judith.

Memories of the World War II was described and reencountered. The writing of how Spire described her parents who had escaped from Europe and tried to build a new life in America, was written in a beautiful and melancholic way. “Denial is necessary. Kurt and Trudy Spire treated the tangle threads of history and identity as they had always been and would always be separated, two skeins that did not braid. What had happened to them had nothing to do, now that it was over, with the individuals they had become” (P69).

The second part of the novel was in the voice of Judith who had written a journal meant to be read by her psychologist Clay only. Judith’s voice was strong as she mixed poetries from TS Eliot and LeRoi Jones into her language. She was the conscience of the novel who told us how destructive and dangerous silence could be. Her husband, Matthias’ silence was implied as a factor that alienated her from reality and destroyed her slowly as she stayed in the sanatorium. “His is the only silence that has spoken to me. I hear it saying everything. all jumbled like the Torah- a welter of words spilling forth from Matt’s silence like those first burst of light, blinding and unbearable. More than anything else, I hear his silence speak of his unendingly powerless love for me” (P 214). With good intention and love, Matthias tried to not bring up the past that had occurred; everyone who was in that era had war affected them in a way or another. Thinking he was protecting his wife whom he loved, he had chosen silence and just to live life as it laid out for him. Judith understood his good intentions however she needed to understand and talk about it in order to live, in order to go on.

With these heavy topics on hand, Matthias offered a resolution at the end as Roberta tried to run away to the city and Matthias convinced her not to. “We’re all terrified- of possession, connection, belonging to others. Eliot put his finger on it- “Till human voices wake us…” But Roberta, you know as well as I do that we can’t just sit around worrying about drowning. We’ve got to wake up anyway. Even Eliot finally figured that out” (P 311). Running away from the past won’t help the situation, it is truly finding a resolution and learning to open up to people around us which gives the terror a chance to become something else. The past was something that was undeniably horrific, many people were affected but if we were to swim in sorrow, we would not be able to move on.

By the suggestion, Matthias created a bridge between the extremely unbalanced relationship he had with Judith. While he was the one who kept silent about the war, his wife was the one who was living as though it was part of the present. The solution is to not forget the past but make it a part of who we are now and wake up and realize it is the past we would always carry with us.

The Archivist is a very well written book and each part is executed to show the different layers of complexities in the lives of people who were not drafted into the war but living in that era. It is written as a mystery book as we slowly understand why Judith’s psychological state took a turn for the worse; it was through lies her step parents had weaved which she had a feeling was untrue and the horror of finding out the truth about her parents, and the miscarriage she had gone through which caused her anxiety to exacerbate. The reader sympathizes with the tragic character and towards the middle of her journal, you realized she would not be able to leave the sanatorium.

At the end of the story, as an archivists, Matthias decided to destroy the letters TS Eliot had sent to Emily Hale. His decision came from wanting to serve Eliot’s wish. It almost seems to be a way for Matthias to repent for the damage he had done to his wife; he had destroyed her archive when she had told him explicitly she wanted it to be intact. For the first time, he was listening to the decision of the author instead of his own feelings of what would be better for the world or the creator’s work.

Good novel but definitely not a summer beach read. The novel encompasses so much more which is not included in this review. Be prepared to think a lot after reading this novel.

Monkey Business

Early May, my friend invited me to an event in Book Court in Brooklyn. It was about this literary publication with feature stories from lesser known writers in Japan and in the English community.

The writer Toh EnJoe reading his story- I think this writer has a quiet peace to him, his story is full of contemplative curiosity- the story in the book is about a boy and his brother, taking care of an aging grandfather and how they imagine the mobility of an immobile grandfather by capturing the moments in frames and manipulating physical gestures. There’s definitely a lurking sadness but also an optimism displayed in the end which words could not communicate. Trying not to spoil the story.

Volume 4, this is a yearly publication

Signed copy by editors and writers

I rarely go to readings in general because I am far from connected to the literary world although I enjoy reading and analyzing a lot. Blame it on the lack of time, too much to do, lack of concentration, and so forth, but I was impressed with the writers, one especially. When Matthew Sharpe read his 2 stories, they are both one shots, very short stories. It’s humorous as he reads it and it also leaves you hanging and thinking. His stories are also featured in this volume- they ranged from one long paragraph to almost 2 pages long.

I like the talks of how the translator also has to be a writer and translating is also a creative process. It’s the bridging of multiple cultures from different linguistic branches.

Very interesting! I just want to share with you guys. If you don’t have a lot of time or attention span for a novel or novella, give these short stories a try 🙂

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Known as the reclusive author, Donna Tartt published “The Goldflinch” this year which garnered a lot of attention and praises. The patient readers wait roughly a decade for the publication of Tartt’s novel; therefore it is our special gift this year to have a new work by Tartt. To find the root of this celebrity profile, I got the first book she had written; I wanted to trace the root of the praises, of the admiration and talent; “The Secret History” was Tartt’s first novel which was published when she was 28. Just reading the first paragraph of the novel, you will figure out why it was such a big hit in 1992; It’s one of those novels so gripping, you cannot put it down, one paragraph leads you to another, keeping you completely engrossed until you look at the clock and realize it is 2am in the morning and you have work the next day.

The illusion of intimacy of the first person narrative and the reader is hard to ignore; you are listening to the voice of someone who is reminiscing past events. From the first paragraph, murder is evident. Natural response for the reader is conviction; morally, there is never a right reason to murder someone, anyone. The story unravels and you grow more sympathetic to the murderers than the murdered.

The story revolves around a group of friends who is in a exclusive program of Greek studies; the friends are from very different background; most of them affluent. However, our narrator is from a blue collar family so throughout the whole novel he has to hide the facts regarding his family’s financial background. He is excluded from a lot of activities within the group because he is the last to join; trust takes a while to build and his love for Greek is not as intense as theirs; it is his curiosity and desire to fit into an exclusive group that fuel his interest; more so than the subject itself.

The pack leader of the group is Henry- the intellectual and calm, incidentally the wealthiest one also, Camilla and Charles are twins, epitome of beauty, Francis who is vulnerable and sexual, Bunny who has a knack of discovering the secrets people try to hold and uses it to his advantage as he acts like a parasite to those whose secrets he holds. Our narrator seems to be the odd one out because he is actually a very normal guy. The professor Julian is like a saint who the group of friends worship; tales reminiscent of mythology and celebrities surrounded him; teaching a princess, friends with celebrity writers, the stories are endless and he is put on a pedestal by his students.

Obsessed with greek mythology and having too much time and no worries at the tender age of 19s to early 20s, the friends (excluding Bunny and the narrator) performed a ritual based on Greek story of Dionysus who is the god of wine, madness and ecstasy. We never find out the truth of what happened, only in fragments but a fact remains; they kill someone by accident. Found out by Bunny, he threatens the group; the group tries to appease him in the beginning by giving him everything he had wants; money, a grand trip to Italy and anything he asks for. Patience wears thin when it is still not sufficient to please Bunny. The group leader, Henry, devises a plan to kill Bunny. First plan is endearing and a bit funny to show how naive and how young they aree; Henry thinks of gathering poisonous mushrooms to kill Bunny. After much calculation, speculation and too much room for error, he realizes it is not a viable plan and comes up with a much more pragmatic plan; to push Bunny off the cliff as he goes on his hiking trail.

Bunny’s disappearance takes over a week to be discovered. When his parents realize his son is missing, they cause an uproar. It seems as though Bunny’s lack of presence means more than his actual presence. While the whole town is fixated on finding a body, satirically you realize finding the dead body is more important than finding Bunny alive; as though it is a lid just to close off the case.

Aside from Tartt’s ability to weave a wonderful page turning story, her writing is also beautiful.
“White sky. Trees fading at the skyline, the mountains gone. My hands dangled from the cuffs of my jacket as if they weren’t my own. I never got used to the way the horizon there could just erase itself and leave you marooned, adrift, in an incomplete dreamscape that was like a sketch for the world you knew-the outline of a single tree standing in for a grove, lamp-posts and chimneys floating up out of context before the surrounding canvas was filled in-an amenesia-land, a kind of skewed Heaven where the old landmarks were recognizable but spaced too far apart and disarranged, and made terrible by the emptiness around them.” (Page 376).

The imagery painted and meaning behind it could leave me thinking for hours. I can hear the echo of loneliness and the transition of space and time within the paragraph; the feeling of things changing right before you, and all you could do is stand there and watch, wondering what it is that had remained.

I also love the part where the writer realizes the professor who they have worshipped is not as great as they thought he is.
“When I disagreed-strenously-and asked what was wrong with focusing one’s entire attention on only two things, if those two things were Art and Beauty, Laforgue replied: “There is nothing wrong with the love of Beauty. But Beauty-unless she is wed to something more meaningful- is always superficial. It is not that your Julian chooses solely to concentrate on certain, exalted things; it is that he chooses to ignore others equally as important.” (Page 511)
The process of omission to support a view can be dangerous. Like a good story without purpose will just remain a good story; the depth is created by the writer who attributes meaning to it. To love beauty in its shallow context is similar to liking the marketing or packaging of an item that will not do anything for us except be visually striking. It also juxtaposes the story the narrator has weaved for his classmate; big pools and private school in California- it simply mean we all create stories to protect ourselves. A lie is not as simple as just a lie; sometimes we want to believe it is true, but when you delve into it, all that remains is superficiality because it is not true.

There is a lot more to the story which I do not wish to spoil. After reading the book in couple of days, I understand why Donna Tartt is an important writer of our generation; the consistency of the momentum, superb story telling, realistic rendering of the characters and the ideas behind it, makes it obvious why her writing takes so long. It is with a lot of thoughts, outlines and revisions that a piece of work like this can occur; raw emotions is often lacking as Tartt meticulously places the pieces together like the character Henry in the story.

PS- I was also excited when I saw Chip Kidd’s name on the back of the book for cover design. I remember reading his novel “The Cheese Monkeys” which was great fun!

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante

Have I declared how much I love Elena Ferrante recently? I was so disappointed in myself, amidst my busyness; I had neglected preordering her newly translated book which was released in September. The second novel of the Neapolitan trilogy following, “My Brilliant Best Friend,” is “The Story of a New Name.” I picked up the book on Tuesday, finished it on Wednesday and had been in a sort of foggy trance between work, life, and just contemplating about the novel. Like love at its first stage, infatuation, I was waiting for my rational mind to breathe so I can try to put in words what this book was about.

In continuation of the first novel, the scene of the wedding was replayed as emotions are exemplified. Lila was shocked at the betrayal of her husband; it was a harbinger of the disastrous end of their marriage.

Without drama and seemingly ending peacefully, the Lila and her husband went on their honeymoon as our narrator was left on her own with her imagination and routine of life. However, Lila returned to tell her the story of her honeymoon in which she was playing the role of an adult and enduring the physical abuse of a husband she found monstrous. Instead of confronting fate normally, Lila vented her frustration through altruism; she gave to her neighbors in need, which ironically made her the neighborhood’s unsung hero. It seemed as though by sacrificing herself, she gave the sacrifice meanings by helping others.

The temperance of Lila’s beauty was captured by her wedding photo which was displayed in the studio. As a declaration that Lila was his property, her husband took the photo away from the studio. Bask by praises of her beauty, he kept it for himself. Their arch enemy, the Solara, wanted it for the shoe store they co-owned with her husband. Lila fought against it, but eventually relented; it wasn’t a sign of weakness but a sign of clever mischief that she accepted it. She used film strips to create an art piece out of the photo. The significance of this event was to show how headstrong Lila was. She would rather destroy herself, then let others destroy her. She would rather close off the world and disappear than let anyone cage her and control her will. As the store opened, to complete and amplify the destruction she caused, she also has a miscarriage; destruction of the loveless child she could have given birth to.

Our narrator’s life continued to try to juxtapose the life of Lila; when Lila had her extramarital affair with the boy Lena loved, Lena experienced the cruelty of losing her innocence by someone she found repulsive; ironically, it happened in the beach under the starry sky. In a conventionally romantic setting, the scene was ruined; our narrator was ruined by the chasing of the stars. The stars to her were Lila whom she always ran a few steps behind.

Here is a passage in the novel referring to Lila’s diary of her time spent in Ischia, I very much like:
“She talked instead about love and she did so in a surprising way…She described minutely a sensation of imminent death: lack of energy, lethargy, a strong pressure in the middle of her head, as if between the brain and skull there was an air bubble that was continually expanding, the impression that everything was moving in a hurry to leave, that the speed of every movement of persons and things was excessive and hit her, wounded her, caused her physical pain in her stomach and in her eyes.”
(Page 73)

Throughout most of the novel, Lila seems strong and undefeated. The passage from the Lila’s diary which transported us to her world showed us the fears and emotions she had hidden. The emotional depth of the passage is immeasurable but there is a universal statement in it. We know of this lethargy and blindness in which sight is loss and all seem blurry right before us.

Towards the last half of the book, we watch as Lila’s hopefulness turned into despair. Her husband’s violence continued, her love affair continued, in a sequence of unraveling events, she was left pregnant, her young lover left her, she went home, gave birth to her boy, found out her husband had been having an affair and chose his lover over her. She was left with her child whom she loved and a loyal friend who brought her to a town nearby; working in a plant that manufactured sausages. At the end of the novel, Lila was unable to escape the impoverished life; all seemed bleak.

Meanwhile, our narrator finished her university education; was engaged to a scholarly intellectual. On the surface it seemed like Lena and Lila are polar opposites. Upon our narrator’s strenuous journey of finding Lila, she was sadden to see Lila’s living condition, the callouses on her hands, the poverty her child was unable to escape, however there was one thing that had not died in Lila. It is the spark she always carried inside of her; in the evening, she would study with her friend Enzo who had helped with her escape- her cleverness had an outlet in the mathematics he was learning.

The narrator also found out her teacher from elementary school had thought “Blue fairy,” the story Lila had written as a child was her creation. It seemed to imply Lena had stolen the opportunity Lila was supposed to have. Through Lila who she had all sorts of emotions towards, love, hate, jealousy, betrayal, anger, resentment- sometimes one emotions at a time, other times, a convoluted concoction of all emotions, when in reality, it would seemed justified for Lila to have those emotions towards our narrator had she found out the truth.

The novel ends in a bittersweet note when the narrator went to an event for her first novel and she met the man she had loved at one point who is also the father of Lena’s child.

Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman

It had taken me two weeks to finish this novel. “Say her name” by Francisco Goldman is a book which shows the intimate details of the passing of his wife. Besides having to deal with the grief of the loss of the most beloved in a surfing accident, he also had to endure the blame his mother-in-law had casted on him. His memoir recalls the memory of their first encounter, their difficulty with the age difference, the vivid images of his wife he had in his mind always; Goldman skillfully brings his wife to life with anecdotes, direct quotation from her stories, imagery and the quirks and personality he adored so much.

The reason why I had put this book down at one point was because I could not endure it. After the death of his wife, he went on a journey of self destruction where hedonistic feelings were priority. Being the naive romanticist that I am, it destroyed a bit of the initial spontaneous perfect romance I had imagined in my head. I recovered and picked up the book again after I read a New York Times article about how the author as a person is separable from the writer itself (here’s the article in case you’re interested: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/books/review/fallen-idols.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 ). After truly believing that I was able to move on. I was a bit narrow minded, people deal with grief differently. We should not judge.

“I was bowled over, and full of excited curiosity. I really was the kind of person who believed this was the way it happened: at the most unexpected moment you met somebody, there was a magical connection, an instant complicity, and your life changed.” (Page 44)

You could feel the rhythm, the intensity, the moment it had happened which was just an instant when Goldman fell in love with Aura. The sentences are beautifully constructed, words chosen are simple but powerful.

“But it was as if those few glinting memory shards had sheared her neurons in some way that had left her vulnerable to certain stimuli, the way light flickering through trees or flashing behind a barred fence, or even a vividly striped shirt passing on a sidewalk on a sunny day can provide seizures in certain people.” (Page 74).

The connection of a traumatic event of childhood of an abandoned building and the unreliableness of memory is created. Normally, I could not link neurons and striped shirts but the writer seamlessly linked them in the description for the reader to easily envision. Amazingly written.

Heartfelt words Goldman had written for his Aura is beyond sweet and surely moving. I think insecurity is something a lot of us can relate to. If we were to hear these words, one would surely feel more confident and even if the world collapsed, at least we would have those words to fall on.

“You always felt destined for stardom of one kind or another. But the fear that maybe that wasn’t true wouldn’t leave you alone. That you were no more than the classes you’d taken, the schools you’d attended, the books you’d read, the languages you spoke, your scholarships, your master’s thesis on Borges and the English writers, and so on, but nobody unique, with a talent only your own. You were desperate for something that was yours alone. I was yours alone, but that isn’t what you meant.” (Page 276)

The structure of the book is very thoughtful; it’s a round about, giving us glimpses of the couple’s daily life, the space Aura had occupied in the writer’s life, and slowly unraveling to his detailed but at times dubious memories leading to her death. The rawness of details, the unforgiving reality, the financial hardships- there is just so much happening, sometimes you feel like you don’t have space to breathe.

At the end of the novel, the writer finishes his wife’s unfinished story by being a character in her book. Aura had written a story based on an asylum in France, the writer travels to the asylum and describes it. He lives in the story believing he is a character she had written; as a tribute to her unfinished story, he brought her to the setting of her own story. It is in those pages, in the unfinished story she had created that they can somehow meet and share the same thoughts in the same space but different time.

The book has a lot of stories within itself; from Aura’s relationship with her dad to Goldman’s own. I like the juxtapositions; it gives you insight as to why people are the way they turn out to be. The writing and composition is great and well thought out. I like the subplots but sometimes I feel like there are so many subplots, it takes me on a journey to wander sometimes into Goldman’s life and sometimes into Aura’s life, twist and turns. It’s trying to tell so much, one can easily get lost in the stories. Maybe that was the writer’s intentions; a mind could be very convoluted when one is grieving. It’s a very raw and emotional book; even if you were not to cry, you would be near tears.

Q by Evan Mandery

With a simple name like “Q,” it is not difficult to surmise, this is a nickname. At the beginning of the novel, the narrator already makes the statement so strongly that there is no doubt in the world, Q is the love of his life. The chance encounters, the similarities, the interests, even the dissimilarities, made the pair compatible.

Q started off as an exciting, fast paced love story. Anything related to time travel will always have a special bias and liking to me because I secretly obsessed over “Time traveler’s wife” when it first came out (novel not the movie). To me, that is the epitome of a great love story; love that transcends time and the whole idea of meeting your lover when you were 12 and to meet him again to know you’re destined together is very romantic!

A older version of the narrator visits him and tells him he must not marry Q because something tragic, the cause of an unbearable pain and scar later on in their lives would occur. Because the narrator loves Q and wants to avoid the pain for the two of them, he breaks up with her.

Attempting to fill in the void left by the love of his life, narrator obssesses over his carreer and writing.Different versions of the narrator continuously visits him, conjuring different ideas, leading him to fill in different paths in life so he won’t end up like the future self that visits him.

After one million changes, you finally realized the premise of the story. Often times, we wish we could alter the past. The bad decisions we made could have been avoided. The author’s point is, if we change one thing, there may be consequences for another. There is no correct paths; no correct way of living; no such thing as best path to take. We all take chances and make decisions.

Love is essential but ultimately Q is about the journey of life. The alternatives in life, the indecisiveness of our present self, the willingness to believe in destiny and our curiosity about the future, the insecurities we all have and the desire to believe there is one road that would lead us to “ultimate happiness.” Q tells us there is no such thing- it is what we make of it and how we interpret life.

There are paragraphs in Q which are excerpts from the narrator’s writings. I find it hard to relate to and takes me away from the connection I was feeling with the immediate characters. The link is also vague and it causes more of a distraction.

Q seems to only appear in the beginning and ending of the story. Since the novel is named after her, I wish I saw more of her; know her personality and the changes she encounters. The fairy tale ending does not give the satisfaction I had hoped for since I felt like it was a one man show. At the end of the day, it was more about the narrator than Q.

The novel is full of serious topics but I do appreciate how Mandery fills his novel with jokes and knowledge of random things. It does have a Douglas Adam feel to it- from Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy (also one of my all time favorites).

The novel is overall enjoyable, the idea is brilliant and the jokes are funny. Good summer read. And it will be turn into a movie!

The Shadow of The Wind

I had trouble deciding what to post about; after all, it’s the 100th posts of this blog! Not that numbers mean more than its content; however I still wanted to celebrate this huge milestone for this petite blog of ours.

I could be an avid reader from time to time; the book that had got me really excited after five pages and prompted me to buy it from the actual store at retail price when I was a broke college student, was The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron, a Spanish author. The novel is translated (the translator did a great job, not that I know spanish but the fluidly of the sentences and stories prove it all).

The story starts with a bookstore owner telling his son he must not tell anyone of this place he is going to bring him too; apparently it’s a place of forgotten books. The whole novel is a tribute to the love of books intricately weaving mystery stories of history and following the flow of time. The three books are set in parallel universe; sharing characters and a family owned bookstore that spans across generations.

I do not want to spoil the books for anyone. But if you’re out of ideas as what to read, The Shadow of the Wind is very awesome. I like the first two the most The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel’s game. The Angel’s game reminds me of Alan Judd’s The Devil’s Own Work which is also one of my favorite works. Years ago, I lent my copy to a friend and have not seen it.

It is about the art of writing; how the young writer naively sells his soul to the devil to create great works of Art. As an artist, to create art is excruciating; you work with so many uncompromising elements including your artist’s ego. Don’t get me wrong, there are also times when you’re so excited about your project, you’re myopically ecstatic in your own dream land. Those moments are irreplaceable and memorable; a feeling that could barely be described but wonderfully felt.

The last book, The Prisoner of Heaven is about the author of The Angel’s game. Some mysteries are solved and some are not. I am not sure if there will be another after the last book! But I am such a fan, I think if there is a 4th book coming out, I’d definitely get it in a heartbeat.