It’s wonderful to laugh till your stomach hurts and your eyes water, but it’s so goddamn rare.
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It recently occurred to me that I’ve been quite the asshole to a few nice people. Candid letters are in order, that’s all I can do—might not even apologize, but gestures count, right? ’Cause well, if you didn’t know already, I am a bit of a sociopath.
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Stravinsky has made me realize music is best felt with eyes closed in darkness, and with the intermittent light of a cigarette cherry. The remarkable precision—damned psychologist I’d say!
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I refuse to fight, or rather, I’ve realized I cannot fight it anymore; there’s no point, ironic eh? I give in, hope the wretched sub/unconscious follows.
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I recently identified ‘sunshine’ as my favorite word; ‘almost’ would be a distant second.
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Why are books so expensive, dead authors in particular—why must their books be expensive? Goddamn vultures of the literary world. The word must be propagated, not restricted.
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There was a time when I could be considered sympathetic to the feminist sentiment (perhaps even the cause?), but now I think feminists are stupid, even more stupid than urban pseudo-Marxists (mind you, I say ists not isms; although it could be extended).
As for the slutwalks, they ought to be titillating; otherwise, it’s not being literal enough (although symbolism should be limited to literature).
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I might not ever learn French (Baudelaire and Rimbaud), or German (Kafka and Goethe), or Russian (Dostoyevsky), or Bengali (Tagore), but at some point of my life, I intend to learn Sanskrit (Mahabharat, Puranas, Kalidas, Vedas, etc.).
Also, oil painting, music theory, violin and piano, some singular martial art, and at least once, try and discard my scepticism and delve into esoteric ideas—meditation, magic, ritual, etc.
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I give up on modern philosophy; I can neither handle it, nor tolerate it. Hair-splitting abstractions and endless jargon-filled bullshitting and dissections; I guess I’m not a scholar after all. But then I need not bother, not when there’s so much more to read instead. Things I know, things I can easily comprehend, and things I believe in.
But Psychology is interesting even if it seems all about dream-interpretation or generalized truths—vague connections—shooting arrows in the dark can be fun?
Freud: so succinct, eloquent, logical, and self-assured; sometimes cocaine decisions work.
Lacan: crazy enlightening bastard, need to read more of him.
Jung would have been fun to talk to, admire him especially ’cause he accepts the arbitrary nature and limitations of his art—yes, the way I see it, it’s more of an art than a science. But then of course, I’m still hung up on the old masters—I’m sure things have changed by now, have they?
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It’s getting too much—quite funny in a way—I’m actually flipping through books in my dreams. Obscure books that I faintly know the names of and vague lines I read in them (seem as real as always); I can actually feel my lips mumbling out the words, and they seem eloquent—if only I could remember—need a dream recorder.
And yesterday, maybe it was the mosquito coil, but I had some crazy dreams. One of them being inside a labyrinthine library where I wander about, fishing out tomes by authors such as Jack Cirouac and Willem Chaucer.
I wonder what a psychologist might say....
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Words come easier—exact ones, or else apt strings.
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Jesting Pilate by Aldous Huxley: way too much information in that head, too many opinions—gets carried away at times, but who doesn’t? Following the threads of logic—remarkably assured in his vacillations, musing-amusing over fresh experiences—speaks his mind—objective subjectivity in speculation; overwhelming breadth of knowledge and grasp, interminable scope.
Delicate irony and intrigue—subtle genius sense of humour. Outsider observations, valuable when coming from an erudite polymath like Huxley—art, music, drugs, literature, spirit, and so on. Definitely one of the best books I have ever read.
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Not a great novel, but Joyce’s genius is undeniable—shines through in some sentences, phrases, and connections, ones that simply blow you away, especially the last chapter for its unique profundity and mode.
The idiomatic style gives me assurance but mustn’t get carried away.
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After a recent (third so far) attempt at The Wasteland, I finally began to understand it—get its essence, a bit of the vision. I had dismissed it off as deliberately obscured; while that may be true, I realized I’m no better. But really, what an elaborate poem.
But TS Eliot was quite the self-assured and opinionated bugger. Mind you, he wasn’t talking shit, but the way he talks, you can’t help but smile and shake your head sometimes.
I guess it was the time; would be fun to pluck him out and plonk him down into our postmodernist asshole of a world.
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Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? One can only fall in love with her (from the idea one gets about her). Selfish and unfair, but as a reader I can only say her misery proved beneficial to the greater cause of humanity and literature.
From a few of her Cambridge letters, I figure it’d have been wonderful to have her as a teacher.
Mrs. Dalloway: The connections, the plan, the associations—sheer genius, profundity dealt with in such matter-of-fact fashion. She writes like a woman (duh, she’s got to, she was a woman), but in her case, it is a compliment, not a mere fact or a jibe.
And what a nice ending: “It is Clarissa, he said. / For there she was.”
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Every time I read something by Tagore, I’m further convinced that he is the only individual India could categorically be proud of. The knowledge and erudition, the assured spirit; the way he consolidates all of it into such simple profundity, wonderful. It’s clear from his words that he did find some answers; a palpable contentment, it’s quite clear, and something one cannot dismiss off.
One could disagree with him; I do, but I never want to—his worldview is so simple, true, and beautiful, that you want to believe in everything he says—a most inspiring character.
He seems to know everything, seems the one person who could really teach me something enriching and valuable, something abstract and yet entirely useful—a wonderful and unique balance he strikes. The knowledge of the world and of his own individual self, and his mastery over these; a beautiful mind indeed.
Gitanjali: Supremely beautiful and profound, but save for the few poems that weren’t as lofty and spiritual as the rest, I couldn’t appreciate it much—just couldn’t muster the association (that’s what fuels poetry right?)—too much ugly uncertainty in the head to be able to find relief in such verse. I could say it might be irrelevant in our times, but I know that’s not true. Again, I wish I could believe in what he talks about, but I cannot.
Quite a few Donne-esque sentiments—not as interesting or clever, but much more beautiful.
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The Prophet by Khalil Gibran: After a long time I was moved enough to make annotations in a book that wasn’t part of the course. A most beautiful book, profound lyrical treatise on Man and Spirit, but again, personally I couldn’t appreciate it altogether—too rooted to the perverse and material.
And well, the vain convoluted abstractions and deliberately ambiguous profundity characteristic of a ‘prophetic’ tone, the typical religious deceptions and oxymoronic conceits got on my nerves after a while. No wonder it appealed to drug-addled hippies; too spiritual for me, but the beauty was undeniable.
Of course, Gibran cannot be criticized, for the aphoristic nature is essential to the structure and vision, and talking of vision, what a glorious towering one.
Perhaps this was only a book, wonder what Gibran truly felt. Wouldn’t mind reading the complete trilogy and maybe more.
Nietzsche would have had fun though.
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Animal Farm: The only other book apart from Lolita to leave me utterly humbled, sheer genius! Another perfect novel (which Lolita wasn’t, but with regard to that one, the imperfections added a certain charm); few lines stand out in particular, but that’s the genius—simple and flowing—a comprehensive coherent perfect whole.
For a while, I actually wasn’t able to look at a dog/donkey/pig in the same way as before. Someone please make a movie out of it (if there isn’t one already, is there?), it’ll be fun to watch.
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Lord of the Flies: A book that really lived up to its hype. Being a lazy and fastidious reader, I seldom read books in one go; this happened to be one of those exceptions. The simplicity, the implications, and the vision—the dead pilot for instance—another perfect novel—terrifying, succinct, acute; psychology is observation.
So many themes packed in, natural and logical; a brilliant allegory (if you choose to focus on that aspect) at par with Animal Farm. In fact, if you think about it, they are the perfect foils to each other with mirroring themes.
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Narziss and Goldmund: no great quotes, but a unified smooth whole—scheme, plot, structure; almost (?) a perfect novel. Must read more of Hesse.
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It has been said before: nothing beats Mahabharat! Finally read C. Rajagopalachari’s version; simple, contrived, but at least one gets the story—imagine the breadth of profundity of the original, sends a shiver down the spine just to think of it.
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Intimacy: I can finally appreciate Sartre. The Wall reflected the Camus connection, and I loved Erostratus for the Dostoyevskian tone, but The Room—that’s the one, what a love story (again, a parallel could be drawn to Septimus and Rezia in Mrs. Dalloway).
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One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Nothing great, but a very good novel indeed. Maybe because I saw the movie first—kinda ruins it—’cause like with Audrey Hepburn in Tifanny’s, I just couldn’t shake off Nicholson’s mug every time I thought of McMurphy. But a wonderful ending—ends justify all?
