Archive for October, 2008
Crises Of Confidence And Suicide Salarymen
Thus The Weekend
This is how I spent my weekend. Apart from a rather strange interruption that took up half of Saturday, I played a lot of FIFA 09, having a lot of fun with my created pro, who is now the captain of the Republic of Ireland. (After getting only two call-ups, in fact.)
I also did homework. I talked to people and probably mildly offended them when we couldn’t reach points of agreement. By that time, some response for homework had come in and I had apparently done a good job, which I suppose goes in the way of gratification since these group work things are matters of responsibility and positive feedback makes you feel not completely worthless.
Over the two nights, I dreamt of my romance, which has since died, of course, and (since I’m writing this on Sunday night) I think I’ll complete a hat-trick by dreaming of her again tonight.
Meanwhile, I’ve picked up the slack on Singapura and have been trying to find some focal point for it. So far it’s all either been fragments or broad ideas. I need something to anchor it. I’ve yet to find it.
At one point, I went back to some texts I love. I ended up suffering badly because sometimes, when you read something, you become instantly conscious of how terrible what you’re writing is. This is a frequent crisis that shows up every now and then. Sometimes you think no one is doing what you’re doing and you ought to have a good strong case for believing that you’re making something groundbreaking. Other times, you think no one is doing what you’re doing because it’s stupid. After all, none of the masters you (and others) revere do these silly things. You’re alone because you’re the clown in the fancy suit and everyone’s just laughing because that’s what they’re supposed to do.
But I can deal with those crises of confidence. It wouldn’t be the first time, surely.
Also, my sister dropped by yesterday. She took my MGS4 and I took her Uncharted. While this was happening, my PS3 stopped detecting my computer as a media server, which made me a bit sad.
Oh yes, and my dad has stopped working and is on a month of leave.
Of course I did other things, but that ought to give you a rough idea of how the weekend went by. Just like every other weekend. Also quite unlike every other weekend.
I’ve Been Playing
This. [via Armor Games] The term ‘karōshi’ is the one used to describe the sudden deaths of people who are overworked. This usually occurs because of heart failure or some other stress-related consequence.
On the other hand, the music is fantastic, and the last few stages are rather creative.
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Visions And Vanities
Karma
There is this strange, almost karmic coincidence that I always experience. This is the way it happens: death of romance, birth of idea. That’s right. Death of romance, birth of idea.
In some unusual, sudden, and cold way, the lights just got punched out yesterday and I felt extremely alone. Not sad, mind you. Almost not sad at all, in fact. And in recognising things, or perhaps accepting them, I consolidated the broad vision for my writing. Actually, consolidated is probably a terrible choice of word, since it’s all blurry, but I’m convinced that something clicked into place, if that makes sense.
The River happened this way too. In the aftermath of some rather cruel event, I made the biggest connections and conceived some of the most significant elements.
Perhaps in failing to sort myself out, I manage to sort out my stories. Morbid, sure, but that seems to be the way of things.
In any case, I’m just keen on moving things forward for now. The work is my first obligation, my last defence, and my deepest mystery and singular truth. So I’ll stick with it, and see where it takes me.
National Book Award
Here are the finalists. [via The Elegant Variation]
Lonely GTA
I think I’m destined to abandon my GTA IV again, having started up FIFA 09 all the time in these past couple of days. I was supposed to practise, but I’ve found more fun in doing the Be A Pro things and trying to pretend I’m a precocious teenager destined to play some legendary football.
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The White Tiger Wins The Man Booker Prize
The result of this year’s Man Booker prize has been announced, going to Aravind Adiga’s debut novel The White Tiger. [via Man Booker Prize news]
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Sleepy Time Time
Sleep Debt?
I was very sleepy for the whole of yesterday. I have no idea why. When I finally got a seat on the train while I was on my way back home, I tried reading a few more pages of Darkmans, but I started to have double vision. And then I surrendered and just slept on the train (almost missing my stop).
I shouldn’t sit on the train. It always induces drowsiness.
In any case, it’s not like I hadn’t been sleeping enough, so this is something of a minor irritant.
Big Plans!
Which I cannot tell you about! But my long-term writing plans! are doing great! And things are looking so very nice now!
Change Of Pace
I bought FIFA 09 yesterday, having been a long-time Winning Eleven fan. I’ve heard good things so I thought that it might be a good idea to see what’s on the other side of the fence. And besides, they mess up Winning Eleven every now and then, and I’m not sure they’ve got a good idea of the way forward.
Even if it doesn’t work out, I’m sure it’ll be playable. And I’ll go back to Winning Eleven next year if I’m really not satisfied.
School Blues
The worst part of the school experience is not the time when you’re rushing to beat the deadlines. It’s when you know the deadlines are approaching, but for some reason can’t (bring yourself to) do what you’re supposed to be working on. I’m experiencing that now. It’s the sort of thing that makes you tingle with that tiny morsel of dread. Just enough to disturb you and give you bad dreams, but not enough to make you panic and do something useful.
And the exams are coming. Looming over the horizon like evil mythical creatures.
But to be fair, this semester has been rather interesting, with the social dynamics developing a bit given the time we’ve spent together. And I’ve been meeting a couple of new people, so it’s all been interesting.
Long Day
And another long day today. Grr.
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Slow Connections
Strange
I’m having intermittent connection problems that I think can be attributed to my provider, but it’s been going on for a few days now and I haven’t been asking.
In particular, this place has been ridiculously slow, which spoils the blogging mood a bit. Just as well, since I don’t have too much to say except that the new week is beginning and it could be a terrible week, or a very special one. We shall find out along the way.
Timewasting
In between reading articles and lab manuals, I’ve been playing this. [via Fantastic Contraption]
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Book Recommendation: The Savage Detectives
In Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives, we read about Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano, two members of the visceral realist literary movement. Never once do we step into their minds. Instead, we can only watch from the eyes of others as the two youths, the two savage detectives hurl caution to the wind in the pursuit of their dreams. They are poets, that much must be taken seriously. Yet, the measure of their talents is never clear. It is not supposed to be. We are never meant to step into their shoes, know their thoughts, hear their internal voices.
The semi-autobiographical novel (in the sense that Arturo Belano’s life does in fact parallel Bolaño’s own) proceeds to cover the years from the Seventies to the Nineties, switching between a diary style and an interview or testimonial style that involves a cast of a dozen or two. The technical mastery here is evident. Not only is it an exercise in precision (given such a large cast of characters), the general tone is also a thing of beauty. It is often colloquial and undecorated, never at any moment perched at some lofty literary level and yet a marvellous thing to read.
It is through the masterful employment of tonal devices that Bolaño manages to conjure an epic tale that is at once humorous and sad. It is a tale of the brashness and stubbornness of youth, but also of its fragility and beauty. Is it about poetry? Is it about art? Perhaps, but more importantly, it is through art that we see these human aspects. It is youth that drives Lima and Belano, destroys them, and makes them again.
That it so closely mirrors Bolaño’s life delivers perhaps the novel’s most powerful image. Bolaño (and thus Belano) presumably looked at the prose form with some measure of disdain. In the end, the writer and his character, poets to the death, end up writing stories. Yet it is an extraordinary story, this, vast and proud and poignant.
In the end, The Savage Detectives is at the same time a novel that is a very human and affecting affair, and yet also a sprawling and tragic heroic epic.
I enjoyed myself tremendously reading the book over the week, and thought that you might want to give it a shot too, if you haven’t already. You might want to note that the work is pretty long, but it certainly goes down easily with the fantastic translation by Natasha Wimmer. I don’t think there’s a reason to be intimidated by its size.
As I closed the book on the bus yesterday, having watched the strange quest of Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano unfold with such interest over days, it occurred to me that, in spite of the great number of perspectives, we never actually see the world through the eyes of the titular detectives. Yet, detectives are watchers, observers, witnesses of the grand and awful truths oblivious to the rest of us; and as the world watches Lima and Belano, they too watch the world. One can only wonder, then, where that grand and awful truth lies.
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Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio Wins Nobel Prize
Early post today as the news comes in on the Nobel Prize in Literature winner for this year. And the prize goes to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio. [via Nobelprize.org] I’m sure congratulations coming from this place won’t mean very much, but all the same, congrats, sir.
I must admit that I don’t actually know his work at all. He hasn’t been very vigorously translated as far as I know, though I guess that will certainly change now. Wiki tells me that:
In 1994 a survey conducted by the French literary magazine Lire showed that 13% of the readers considered him to be the greatest living French language writer.
From what I gather, his early work is more experimental and tormented, and (based on that alone) I’m rather intrigued. In any case, I’m sure we’ll see mass paperbacks coming out pretty soon so I’ll make it a point to have a go at his work.
In the meantime, maybe someone can drop a comment and tell me more about him. Would appreciate it very much.
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