Finished No Country for Old Men--strangely dissatisfied with the ending. It felt disconnected. I love the book so much, but I felt that McCarthy's ending was slightly tacked on. In itself, the ending is brilliant and suddenly puts the title of the book into perspective but in relation to the rest of the book, it feels weak and powerless, and like it has lost its heart.
This answers my previous question on why the need for the monologue of the sheriff, it gave the book a kind of balance in the beginning and served as the emotional foundation--but by the end it just felt like ranting of a sad nostalgic old man--nostalgic for a past--perhaps simpler and more decent. It's not that the longing for the decent past was not apparent in the beginning, but it served as a balance to the kind of violence and the high action plot that was unfolding.
When the violence and the plot is gone--all we are left with is the sad old narrator--it actually diminishes its meaning and its impact. Frankly it felt a little too indulgent to me, given how lean the rest of the book has been. It was just unforgiving all the way through the story until it suddenly became a sentimental remonstration on the state of the country--and the sadness of the older generation.
I feel that a whole chunk of that could have been taken and the book would still have been great--but what do I know--afterall, I do not feel the sadness of McCarthy's generation--perhaps the end would have brought tears to my eyes if I was of his time, but who knows. Afterall, I can only read as who I am and McCarthy writes as who he is. But one can't help but see some truth in McCarthy's coments--this is indeed no country for old men, but I don't know if there ever is one anywhere in this world.
By: Nippy | Sunday, February 27, 2011 at 11:11 AM | | 
They say that it will snow tomorrow. In San Francisco, can you guys imagine? I'm so excited. I've never seen real snow before--the kind that comes down from the sky!! I'm so excited. But then, knowing how accurate weather predictions are, it probably wouldn't happen, but still. Snow in San francisco...wouldn't that be something...
By: Nippy | Friday, February 25, 2011 at 11:35 AM | |
Num Num! I don't know when you'll ev-an-tually read this, but I don't make you out to sound so terrible do I? You are right, I do sound like a sad whiner on this blog, so I will make it a point to also blog when things are good and write happy entries instead of making this a moping ground. Although I have to say that it is hard because I tend to write here only when I'm feeling down. Most other times, I'm out doing things or writing my other story, but when I'm in a bad mood. This place is the first place I turn to to indulge in my sadness. (squeezing tears out)
Anyway, I will make sure not to only have passing Mr-Johnson notes on you, and try to write about the good times as well as the bad. Although, I'm sure you already know this about me, I'm forgetful of the good things much more quickly than I hang on to the bad...But still, I will make a mental note. No more Mr Johnson notes on Lee, and hey write some happy entries once in a while!
By: Nippy | Wednesday, February 23, 2011 at 4:02 AM | |
Tonight, I don't have the heart to write. The story I've been working on is shit. Honestly. 72 pages of crap, and I have completely no idea where it is going. And I feel so lonely. I've always felt that I don't have a stable emotional core. My sister was just telling me about it this morning--about people who would suddenly lose touch of an image of themselves. I just thank the greater powers for the people around me who are stable. I cling to them like creepers and try to get support from them.
Talking to my mum the other day, I told her that sometimes I can understand why people would want to kill themselves. She agreed. I am like her in that way, our tendency is to fall into depression. But I am always thankful for the people around me. I find it strange and contradictory how I pride myself on loving solitude, but am in actuality so weak emotionally. But I will never kill myself, that is just too damn easy. Death is cheap. It is in living that we are called to the true test of our faith.
I have come to realize that so many things I once valued are cheap. Talent for example is bull. There is no such thing really. I wish I didn't grow up on a diet that fed me this illusion. Love at first sight is another. I don't believe in either one of these things. Recently, I saw a review for McCathy's works. One of them said something along the line of : McCarthy is born to write. This is bull. I wish people would stop sprouting nonsense like that. It is more hard work and passion than anything else. I wish people would stop talking about talent--for God's sake. There is no such thing. Passion, yes. Talent. No.
And love at first sight--don't even make me laugh. There are people I have felt genuine connection to from the very beginning. But that feeling is not to be mistaken for love. Love. It is not something that springs on you like a thunderbolt. It is also hard work. It grows day after day. I have always felt that love is like a tug of war. It takes the effort of two. The moment one person lets go, that is pretty much the end. And I am willing to work for it. I am willing to give what it takes. Love is not a straight path. But I will follow it whereever it leads me.
This is pretty much what I've come to learn--that anything that matters in life, anything, will call for your hard work. It will ask you to give. And I will give all that I've got, even if it's not nearly good enough. I will give it. Because this is what I have come to believe--that anything that is worth anything comes with a price, but that price is always something that you can give. If it matters enough you will give. You just have to open your heart and give it. So I will keep writing my 72 pages of crap.
I don't even hope that something good will come of it. Because to me it is worth it. It is worth 72 pages of crap. It is worth it.
By: Nippy | Sunday, February 20, 2011 at 2:43 PM | |
Borders announced their bankruptcy today. And as if to rub it in, I ended up going there and sitting down reading their brand new books for free while waiting for Lee. Me and the countless others I saw sitting around reading are probably the reason for Borders' tanking.
Got through another 100 pages of No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy--such precise, power and gripping writing. These amazing characters that literally seized my breath. I love Cormac McCarthy, but I hate him.
I learnt the power of cutting and economy.
Cut out all that is not important to the story. McCarthy is never afraid to do these bold skips--things don't necessarily have to transit smoothly from scene to scene. It actually makes the story gripping.
His writing and storytellling is so tight.
I wish I could write like McCarthy, but I never will. I know this because we were walking on Market street when I saw a dead rat, I squealed. I admire the raw and viscous grittiness of McCarthy's world, but I am too much of a priss really to write like him.
By: Nippy | Friday, February 18, 2011 at 2:51 PM | |
Reading the Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy, and if there's one thing McCarthy has taught me is his bold cuts from character to character. He is not afraid of doing a bold cut that moves from one point of view to another. This kind of quick cutting has a kind of dynamicism perfect for his kind of story, and it is very very cinematic. But of course, one would necessarily write in the third person for this to make sense. Can this be done in the first person and not be cheesy? I don't know, but I don't like the idea because what it risks is what I want to talk about next--a kind of unity, consistency that keeps the world of a book genuine and tight.
I have been turning this thought over and over in my head: That all the best novels have this consistency, a kind of unity of artistic logic. It is the unity of a kind of world presented by the writer. It is the unity of a fictional world--for Cormac McCarthy it is a kind of unstated violence and a ravished sense of life--beautiful but violent--throbbing beneath the surface in the world of his fiction. Even the beauty described in the story is violent. It is the tone, but it is more than that, it is the heart that the fictional world is founded on.
For example:
" In spring the mountain went violent green, billowing low under the sky. It never came slowly. One morning it would just suddenly be there and the air rank with the smell of it.
Or this:
"He had found some peaches, although the orchard went to ruin twenty years before when the fruit had come so thick and no one to pick it that at night the overborne brnaches cracking sounded in the valley like distant storms raging. The old man remembered it that way, for he was a lover of storms."
Labels: Writing Lessons on BART
By: Nippy | Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 9:13 AM | |
Elephant
To see an elephant in your dream, indicates that you need to be more patient or more understanding of others. Or perhaps there is a memory that you are holding on to for too long. You need to let go of the past. The elephant is also a symbol of power, strength, faithfulness and intellect. Alternatively, the elephant's introverted personality may be a reflection of your own personality. In particular, if you see a white elephant, then it symbolizes royalty.
To dream that you are riding an elephant, indicates that you are in control of your unconscious and aspects that you were once afraid of.
To dream that you are afraid of the elephant, suggests that there is an enormous problem that you are afraid to confront.
To dream that you are an elephant, suggests that you need to make your opinions and views known. You need to be more vocal and voice your ideas. Express yourself. Alternatively, dreaming that you are an elephant may be reflective of your conservative views. The elephant is the symbol of the United States Republican party. Perhaps you are sharing the same views as the Republican party.
The last line is random.
But seriously,
I have been distrubed by my dream last night.
I dreamt of wild elephants on a boat. I put them in a bottle and was trying to keep all the bottles from hitting one another and breaking in a shopping cart.
When I picked up the bottle with the elephants inside, I realized I had killed them by filling the bottle with water. I was so afraid I dropped the bottle into the sea.
Weird. But I'm still disturbed.
Elephants. Since when are you the new elevators.
By: Nippy | Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at 1:10 PM | |
I was walking to the Powell Bart station with my co-worker when I heard someone exclaim: OH SHIT!
I turned around and there was a bum holding a bill, I couldn't see how much it was, but he was going: HELL YEAH! Bum joy. I love it.
By: Nippy | Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 11:13 AM | |
Yesterday was interesting, because two things happened to me that I haven't experienced in the longest. The first was the quiet sense of contentment, of feeling love for a place. For the four years since I've been here, I have very rare felt love for the city. It is dynamic, it is interesting, but never the gentle feeling of beauty that sometimes washes over me as I stand on the balcony in Kembagang watching the sunset, feeling the warm tiles cool from the afternoon heat on my bare feet, watching the tree tops glow like flames, and hearing the birds call as I listen to the stir frying of the woks of my neighbor, watching the distant lighted windows of homes I have wondered about. I truly loved Lengkong Tiga, and I truly loved the city as I looked out from my balcony.
But I have never felt love for San Francisco. There is just a numb association. Nothing in the city moved me in the slightest, until yesterday. I was walking on California street after work. The sky was setting. It is that clear blue that fades into a dark blue and then black. It is my favorite hour of the day, just as the first lights are lit. It was not cold, but breezy. I was walking to meet up with Lee for a movie on Van Ness. I walked up hill, past the Farimount hotel--grand and imposing. Between two tall buildings, the blue sky stuck out like a cut out, and there was a lone star framed inside the narrow strait. And there was Grace Cathedral. I took a detour and went inside. I saw the picture of John Donne, lighted candles, and the giant domed arches that made me think of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. When I went outside again, I was on a hilltop overlooking the entire bay and the bridge and the lights twinkling in the distance looked just like candle lit offerings. It was just one of those rare moments, when I feel connected to the city, to the random strangers on the streets. For that half an hour I was happy.
Then, Lee was late.
The story is familiar from that point on, but that is not a rarity, so I won't discuss it here. But the movie we watched, Blue Valentine made me cry so much that I had a headache by the end, and had to sit in the bathroom for five minutes until I could compose myself again. This has only happened to me one other time. It was in Singapore, watching a movie adapted from one of Murakami's stories, and I hid in the bathroom and cried before I went out. Yikang, the friend whom I was with, suspected nothing.
Perhaps I will talk about what the movie made me think, made me feel, so other time. But for now, I just want to bask in these two grand feelings that I haven't had in while. Being moved by the world around me. Being touched by someone else's creation and feeling joy in just being alive.
Perhaps, I will go jogging today.
By: Nippy | Sunday, February 06, 2011 at 1:27 AM | |
Browsing in the library led me to a translated version of Mian Mian's
candy. The book put me into a depressed state. Mian Mian's prose is the kind of prose that is wild, dark, and sexy--it stems from her wild experiences as a youth--it has a dark seductive quality to it that deeply attracts me but makes me feel like shit because I know I can never write that way. I am just not that kind of writer and I do not have such experiences. Nor do I have the wild passionate emotional center of the reckless who throws all caution to the wind. I can only write about the ordinary.
It made me realize I have grown old without the madness of reckless love, not that I would have chosen otherwise. I am who I am, and I will remain true to my past. But if a writer can only write the way he/she can, then perhaps I moan not being mad enough when I was younger. It is silly of me, I know. Both my sister and Lee says so.
Yes, the book is immature, the wild experiences thoughtless and stupid. The voice of the narrator is of one who understands nothing about love, but everything about obsession, manipulation and other intense emotions of being young and wild. But it is nonetheless beautiful--it is the bruised kind of beauty I will never know because that is not who I am. I cannot live without consequences. I do not believe in that kind of life. I do not believe in that kind of world.
But there are people who live dangerously and recklessly and love the same way. And I envy that.
Perhaps, my calling then, is to live the way I do, to love the way I do. Because after all, there is more to passion than bursts of madness, of intensity. Passion can also be gentle, it can also run deep, it can also be the quiet constant that powers the person I am and all that I believe in.
By: Nippy | Wednesday, February 02, 2011 at 1:42 AM | |
