I really suspect that I have some kind of obsessive complex--I keep dwelling on things. It's crazy that I still think about things that have happened so long ago--I get tired of myself. Blame it on the study of history, this obsession with the past and the dreaded what if question. THERE IS NO BLOODY WHAT IF IN THIS WORLD--just can't seem to get a grip on this reality.
Anyway, on an entirely different note, I am re-reading Murakami's The Wind-up bird chronicle. I remember receiving it in the mail from Yikang. He always sends me such wonderful things. Being very superficial, I loved the book right away because of the cover, and that nice sooth texture of cover. I like running my fingers over the book. Oh, I am shivering in delight just thinking of the cover's texture. Touching it is thrilling in a very strange way. Ok, back to the discussion: the book was such a good read. At times it did seem to go off on tangents, but they are lovely wonderful wanderings within the book and nothing was ruined, although lots of things were unexplained. This time, I am reading it again, to look at what Murakami does to make this book so good. Although I think that a big part of the credit goes to Jay Rubin, the translator. He must have done a spectacular job rendering the story into such a beautiful form in English. There are way too many bad translations of poetries from Chinese and Japanese into English. Even Mangas are often destroyed in the process, but Rubin, I must say makes the book read like a master piece.
Even just the first chapter, right away, I am intrigued. The spaghetti, the mysterious phone call, the ten minutes. But his techique is more than simply intrigue. He uses wonderful sounds, smell, texture. He doesn't just describe, he creates this Murakami world and it is hard not to be drawn into it. The voice is wonderful--quirky in a way that is not alienating. And the word "Al dente". Another bout of shivering with delight. Every single thread that Murakami will follow to weave the story is already planted in the very first chapter.
I am so excited about looking at this book closely, not ot mention stroking the cover over the course of my re-reading. I don't sound like a pervert do I? My sister, my mum, and Lee seem to think that I have a serious potential to become a weirdo. The sad thing is that, I think so too.
By: Nippy | Sunday, May 30, 2010 at 11:57 AM | | 
After a tired day, nothing makes me smile like Simon and Garfunkel.
By: Nippy | Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 1:56 PM | |
Always, I feel this pull between the desire to be simple and the desire to be complex. I find it insulting when Lee calls me simple, yet I don't think it was meant as insult. And it is true, that in writing and in life, I appreciate the simple over the complicated. But still, the charm of complication cannot be denied. I look at someone else's poem and I think-- God, I'll never be able to write that way-- they have such deep complicated thoughts and associations. I trap myself into feeling plain stupid and very inadequate. But, I think that is the state of our world; it's that simplicity is seen as less than the complicated. We all yearn for complicated lives. We want drama, we want devastation. But perhaps, that is simply because nothing has ever happened to us, our generation. We have been through no wars, no poverty. Of course there will always be our own individual internal struggles, but as a generation, our psyche is not impacted by suffering. Perhaps, that is why we long for some kind of complication. If not in life, we create them, quite happily. And in literature, we expect the same. The vogue has been that of pyro-tecniques in literature. We want to be entertained. Because, unlike previous generations, we have no great enemies other than boredom.
I don't believe that we don't have good writers. I just feel that there is nothing very much worth saying most of the time, but we force ourselves to express. I don't agree with the trend of American literature today--the equation of the cultural and political as good, thought-provoking literature. Amy Tan has been done to the death. And the issues always seem to surround race, identity and culture. It goes on and on about this same issue to the death, even as they begin to lose significance for a very new generation. People who have grown up watching Hollywood movies during Chinese New Year and who see no conflict between the two. Cultural tension is a dying topic, and it is getting harder to take the topic seriously without making it into some kind of a parody of genuine cultural experiences. Cultural literature like that is fast becoming a kind of fantasy read for people who believe that they are genuine getting a taste of someone else's cultural experience. But then, what else can we ask for. We have nothing to talk about but ourselves. We can only look back at our ancestors--at least they suffered. And the fact that they did, gives us the right to use it as our own as source material. But I think, more and more this irks me. It all seems very ingenuine. Yes, our lives are boring dead pools and we are selfish, self indulgent brats, but that is essential the truth of our generation. I don't know that pretending to have something important to say about where we come from is a solution.
Perhaps, then embracing this ennui of the 21st century? Can meaningful writing be made out of such
deadish,
un-deep material? And is it possible to still pretend that good literature does not entertain but makes people think. Can it do both? These are all questions that I have. And i don't pretend to have any answers. All I know is that, for me at least, I am a simple person and my writing is, as a result, simple. But I've got to stop falling into the mental trap that tells me that simple is bad. Because if simplicity is my truth, it is much better for me to embrace it than to scorn it. And the last thing I want is for me to go running after some complicated form or structure that doesn't even come from me.
By: Nippy | Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 4:13 PM | |
Lee is a realist. He can't seem to wrap his mind around metaphors. Well, maybe it's not a thing about him not understanding, maybe he just doesn't like them. We were talking about Tim O'Brien's book--the part about the baby buffalo that we both read in class, and he made fun of it so badly, that I don't think I can read the passage in the future without thinking of "aliens zapping people's skin off".
I guess what i wanted to say is that there are different kinds of readers out there. And, I'm still mad that Lee ruined Tim O'Brien for me--hopefully not permanently. I still think that Tim O'Brien is a fantastic writer and I believe I will still be moved by his writing. But what I found out is that metaphors can be silly if a reader misses the point. They are literary tools, but I guess everything that asks a reader to make connection for themslves always poses a risk. And that there is nothing as devastating as when someone makes fun of that loose connection. Because, then everything just becomes quite silly.
I have to read the passage again, because I found that when Lee challenged me to tell him what the baby buffalo is a metaphor for, I couldn't answer. Damn!
By: Nippy | Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 3:03 PM | |
There are always these bouts of inferiority and envy. It is amazing, people we meet, quite accidentally. I sat next to this girl in my horticulture class. All semester, we never spoke. She has always struck me as quaint, but humorous and she has that vibe of generous souls. We happened to talk today. She writes. And boy does she write beautifully. I just went online, I read her poems. They are published by Watchword press, and they are beautiful , fluid ballet of the English language. I am more than impressed. Always, when I am confronted by sch beautiful writing, the mean, narrow, selfish part of me that makes me envious and insecure fades away. All I can do is to sit drunk in that writing.
Her name is Britta Austin and here is the page to go to if you would like a taste of beautiful language and a world so unique that only she can spin, out of her typewriter on 3 by 5 notecards and through her eyes, of a child, a poet, and a person open to the richness of the world and all that it can offer.
http://www.watchwordpress.org/notecards.pdf
By: Nippy | Thursday, May 20, 2010 at 1:47 PM | |
If our future journeys are to be little different from flashes of light, with no interim landscape and no interim thought, I think we will have lost the whole good of journeying and will have succumbed to a mere preoccupation with getting there.
E.B White, The Railroad
The beauty of reading writers like E.B White is that he puts things you've always felt into tangible words, encapsulating that vague feeling you've always felt in the back of your mind and bringing it into actual existence as a fully formed thought. Thank you.
By: Nippy | Monday, May 17, 2010 at 2:04 PM | |
A few hours to spare before work, so here I am writing and procrastinating instead of doing work that needs to be done by Wednesday. Seems like there is an inverse relationship to how much work gets done and how urgent it is. I tend to avoid doing things when they are urgent. But who can blame me, I hate stress and getting stressed out, I get too nervous. Yeah yeah, I know what you guys are going to say. But I have to admit there is something quite thrilling about deadlines and rushing to meet them. Haha here's a new theory--procrastinators are really thrill seekers.
No really, I'm just bored. I think I've finally stopped my moping. I notice that I blog more when I'm in a mop-ish mood. Maybe that's why writers are always so melancholy. I imagine someone trying to cheer the depressive, suicidal writers up, and they fly into a fury "You are interrupting with my creative mood."
Don't know what's going to happen to me in the coming few months. I am getting very tired of city College. I am definitely going to take a break from writing lab. I have also signed up for a writing class at Berkeley extension. Compared to the classes at city, these extension classes are really really expensive. So I'm just going to try one class out and see how it goes. I also have thoughts of taking more journalism classes at City. To be quite practical, creative writing is not going to make me a living. And if I want to write for a living, maybe I should consider journalism. Only thing is, I am completely unfamiliar with journalism and I am quite aware that they are completely different kinds of writing, and the expectations are altogether different. But either way, I see no harm in learning more about writing.
I am planning to go up to Oregon this summer and see if it's a place I would like to move to. Lee, of course, keeps telling me how dull Portland is. I don't know, I always feel that I can't trust Lee's advice because he always has his agendas. But I appreciate his suggesting Seattle. I feel that Lee is just a city-lover. He has a really negative view of the suburban, but I love a more quiet regular life. I really don't think the city is that great.
But I am looking forward to the summer, and to the changes that would follow in fall.
You know, sometimes I feel that this itch to move is passed on from my parents. We get restless in places, and I don't get attached to places like others do. I have no sense of "Home" or that i have found my place in the world. But that too, is a kind of freedom, I guess.
By: Nippy | Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 1:49 AM | |
I’ve found that the darker the
drama the more you need to
search for the comedy. If you
don’t let the audience off the
hook occasionally to laugh when
you want them to, you’ll find
them roaring with laughter during
moments you didn’t intend.
One of the endearing features of
the human race is that we can’t
generally keep serious for long.
Be thankful for it. If we could
we’d probably have become
extinct long ago.
AYCKBOURN ON COMEDY
Tired of my moping. Even my co-workers at the writing lab are asking me what's wrong. All right. I'm officially sick of myself. The weather's so nice lately. I'm going to do something nice for myself once summer comes--there'll be no school. And I can go somewhere far away. Maybe Maui. Maybe Peru. Somewhere exotic. I just wish I was rich then I can go anywhere and not have to worry about a thing. Wouldn't that be lovely.
Saw a fantastic play last night. Called "Round and Round the Garden", it was written by Alan Ayckbourn-- called Moliere of the Middle Class by his critics. I watched part of the Norman Conquest Trilogy last night. Ayckbourn wrote the same evening with the same characters and plot in three separate plays each a stand alone work in three different settings. I saw the one--as suggested in the title--set in the garden. It was hilarious. I always think there is something admirable about comedy writers. They are always the more frank and honest of writers. Besides, I think it takes much more ot make someone laugh than to make them cry. As always the academic snobs don't think much of Ayckbourn because they much prefer the political, social, anything that they can sink their critical teeth into to analyze. Comedy--blah, they can't wrap their minds about that--they are too high minded for humor of course. Especially since Ayckbourn is so popular. It is assumed, of course, that the popular things are trashy and most people have bad taste.
Lately, I think literary criticism just pure bs. They leech off creative hard work and they feel it their sacred duty to differentiate high art from low. All the while forgetting that people need to be entertained. It's just part of the human condition. Of course this is very low minded of me, but I think I am going to scream if I have to ever read Lacan, Derrida or any of those philosophers. I used to think they were so cool--they lost their appeal quite a while back.
Maybe I'm turning American--people here don't like abstract thoughts. And every single book on writing I have read reiterates the importance of the concrete. This is of course, simply the American preference in the way they read. For God's sake, they dare criticize Julio Cortazar for putting philosophical thoughts in his work. (hello, he's Argentinian.) Everything has to be easy and acessible, concrete and we are not disrupt the continous dream of fiction for the readers--right. Except there are more types of readers out there than simply Americans. What can I say, Americans.
By: Nippy | Friday, May 07, 2010 at 7:07 AM | |
I just need to write these thoughts down somewhere before they burst. I have been thinking the whole of last night. About a lot of things. Where I want to go from here, what I want to do, and Lee. I feel that I have reached this place in my life where I have to make good decisions because everything I decide will have significance for what follows after. I didn't use to feel this way. I don't know if it's age or it's just the fact that I have come to this fork in the road where I must choose. I want to do things for myself, things that matter in the long run.
So I did not get accepted into the schools I want and I doubt that I will attend State even if they did accept me because that is the easiest simplest solution and I am such a lazy person. I will stay in my comfort zone for as long as I can. I will avoid the tough and ugly things for as long as I can. I will delay, I will wait, I will pretend that everything is okay. Then once in a while, I will have these clear moments of panic. What the hell am I doing--then I wouldn't have an answer. It depresses me, mostly because I feel that I haven't been honest with myself.
Lee thinks it's a biological thing. He tells me: Notice how it happens monthly--perhaps, that has something to do with it too, but these concerns feel real--he thinks I am just complaining, that most of the time I am fine, so these are just moments, kinks in a machine that we can quite safely ignore. But I go along with things most of the time, these worries, these feelings just bubbles beneath.
To be perfectly honest, I have always felt that our relationship has been based on need--his need of me and my willingness to be needed. Sometimes, that can feel like an anchor--the need to be needed--maybe a lot of parents hang on to that because it confirms someone's existence. I believe that I do love and care for Lee, I just don't believe that this relationship is one that will help me grow and find myself in true and deep ways.
And I have problems verbalizing that and making this feeling understood. I talk to him on the phone and he is quick to reassure me that everything is okay. He wants me to consider moving in with him, but I think the best thing for me to do is to leave and go somewhere else.
I have been counting on getting accepted into one of the schools so I can finally go away and figure it out, because I didn't want to do the hard thing. I am afraid of hurting feelings--his and my own. He needs to grow up and so do I. I feel that we hang on to each other mostly because we are afraid of so many things.
And I am still afraid. I don't think it's even a matter of conquering fear or any of that. I think it's really an issue of me being honest and true to myself instead of someone else. I foresee so many problems if I really do choose to move in with him, but mostly I think that I am not being true to myself. Call it selfishness, but that is the last person I will betray.
I need to move away, or at least do something else for a while. The problem is how to make this need and this feeling understood. How do I tell him that what I need is this search. I wish I had someone who would be my companion along the way, (don't we all) but then sometimes, we come to this fork in the road and one person says this way the other says that--it is the place where no compromise is good, only solid decisions--either one person capitulates or they go on their own way.
By: Nippy | Tuesday, May 04, 2010 at 12:46 AM | |
I want to hurry to write down everything before I forget, because I was such an idiot--forgot papers, even though I had a pen. ( I did write some stuff down on scraps of paper though) I also forgot to bring my book so I didn't actually get a chance to read E.B White among the pine trees at the campsite. It was....( quite speechless) just plain awesome! The snow-covered ground, the lakes, the black creeks, every thing is so beautiful. Sigh.... * See, see that's my problem, just can't express my thoughts well, especially when I'm excited. My face is all red right now and my hair still smells like firesmoke. Oh well. Maybe everything will sink in later and if I'm in the mood, maybe I'll write about it then. And now, there's that film noir paper I better finish, because it's due tomorrow.
(I already typed out the things I wrote out just in case I lose those scraps.)
By: Nippy | Monday, May 03, 2010 at 9:29 AM | |
