On Books

This year there has been just one post on afterthoughts on books. It is not for the lack of reading. On the contrary, this has been a very good year for books. But to have some afterthoughts one needs to wait for a sufficient amount of time and see if one has any thoughts on the book. Sometimes it is difficult to even recollect the plot of the book. But with age this is becoming a rare occurrence. Lets just say one has become more discerning in choosing what to read. There is no pressure to read something just because the entire world and their aunt is reading it. In fact, that is often a good reason to give the book a miss.

Then there are those books that are never far, within reach by the bedside, and alive in the mind. A cursory but perceptive glance at the blog will yield the favored authors, if not the names of some of the books themselves. There have been times when one has found it easier to give up on a friendship than give up on any of these books. In any case, if a person does not appreciate ‘To the Lighthouse’ at a young age then it holds very little hope for any kind of meaningful relationship in the any kind of future.

Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father’s breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it.

One vividly recollects that strange emotion that gripped the heart when one came upon this sentence on the first page of the book itself. An emotion so rare that one can still find no words to express it. It was akin to something felt a few years ago on reading the first lines of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’,

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

And it takes one all the way back to the first day of summer vacations when, as a young girl, one read the words, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.*” The same indescribable emotion gripped the heart and one had to, but naturally, stay up all night to find out more about Manderley and the dream. That too was a good year for books.

Then there are those other books that may never get mentioned on the blog but hold a similar grip on the heart.

The much battered but even much better loved ‘The Art of Looking Sideways’ would feature close to the top of the list of books you wish you had if you were shipwrecked on a deserted island. The book is a peek into the inner workings of a super creative mind. It demonstrates the basic truth about creativity– it is a way of life. And yes, it subsumes everything; the eyes, the ears, the hands and the imagination all align in the pursuit of creative excellence. The mouth too has a role to play. It keeps silent for if one is creatively inclined there is no need at all to shout so from the rooftops.

‘The Art of Looking Sideways’ was one’s first and most formative education in visual intelligence. Some years later when well past midnight one sent Darth Vader shopping for books, the depth and impact of that education was realized.

Another is ‘The Way We Live’, though it may not figure on the above mentioned list. For it is very heavy and if one is given such a huge weight allowance then one could carry a few more paperbacks and feel that much less lonesome on the deserted island. But ever since it has been a part of the family 'The Way We Live' has taken the place of what people refer to as ‘comfort food’. Especially on days when one is inclined to say to the world at large,

Society, you're a crazy breed.

I hope you're not lonely, without me.**

Ironic as it may seem but looking at pictures of the way we live actually makes one empathize with one’s fellow beings. Every image in the book breathes. Every object in every room– its colour, shape, place, and use– holds up a mirror to people’s most intrinsic ideas, beliefs and hopes. Every year, as one gains newer perspectives into life, the stories behind the images too evolve, and one begins to see a bit differently. Perhaps even a bit better. Therein lies the comfort.

And then sometimes when society is being way too crazy one simply reaches out to Saki. And that’s how the light gets in.

*From Rebecca a novel by Daphne du Maurier

**Society a song by Eddie Vedder (Into the Wild)

To the Lighthouse a novel by Virginia Woolf

One Hundred Years of Solitude a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher

The Way We Live by Standford Cliff, Photographs by Gilles De Chabaneix

Afterthoughts on Books: part 16

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.*

"So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say."*

A young woman's life can be divided into two stages; her life before and her life after she has read 'A Room of One's Own'. More so if she has vague illusions about being a writer. Also if she doesn't mind being branded a highbrow (which is just another word for uncool) by 21st Century society, where Sex and the City shows how far we have come as women. And free speech is the most prized possession of those who have nothing to say. Those who are afraid to speak their mind.

In a letter to her friend G. Lowes Dickinson, Virginia Woolf explained the reasons for 'A Room of One's Own': ''I wanted to encourage the young women - they seem to get fearfully depressed.''** That was 1929. It still works in 2011.

70 years ago on this day Virginia Woolf took her own life. She lives not just in her books but in our minds.

PS I always have one of her books or essays on my bedside table. For some it is P. G. Wodehouse for others, Virginia Woolf. That's the way it is. I often walked the streets of London waiting to come upon a scene from Street Haunting. Sometimes when I am alone I read some random paragraph wishing I was accompanied by Tom Waits. Or Patti Smith. Often when life seems disgusting I am rescued by the beauty of flowers, the antics of birds, or a perfectly constructed sentence by Virginia Woolf. Not necessarily in that order. I don't keep a picture of hers. Roddy Doyle's rule number one (from ten rules of writing) works well: "Do not place a photograph of your ­favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide". And in over two years I have mentioned her only five times. This being the sixth.
These are random facts. Somewhat interesting. But is it the truth? If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.*

* from A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf.
**from an introduction to A Room of One's Own by Mary Gordon.

Thursday

It is already Thursday! There is much to be done. Things to do– lists, yes there are multiples of them in a futile attempt to arrive at the best possible way to do everything in the least possible time. Prioritise. How can one do that? Wont it mean placing greater value on

one thing over the others? But they are all things that need doing, and each on completion will lead to a certain sense of fulfillment and other things to do. The choice isn’t simply between vanilla and strawberry. Though you may argue even that isn’t so simple sometimes.

Then there is the rain. It has been raining continuously for two days. How can one do anything but watch it rain? A river flows beneath the parked cars. Wouldn’t one like to find out where it goes? Shouldn’t that be on one of the lists? The sparrows are settling down in the balcony. There is much to “chee chee” about before they are all comfortable; organized according to their pecking order. Then silent and still they will watch the worst of the rain pass by. Time to pick
up the camera. But for the light.

And then while sorting through all these sensory impulses one looks back at the screen and there is Patti Smith reading from The Waves by Virginia Woolf. After replaying it three times one goes on to hear Dancing Barefoot because that’s how the mind works. Then the book Street Haunting is picked up and after reading a few lines from the first essay one starts to recollect the gulls swirling around the dome of St Peter’s at 10:30 at night. Such poetry. And one instantly whispers, “Send a philosopher to London; please God no poet!”*

A truck carrying construction waste blows its horn. Somewhere a house of cards collapses. Is this the butterfly effect?

Coming back to the desk and everything else it encapsulates one catches sight of the work to be done. And the lists. Multiples of them. Ah! But it is only Thursday.

*Heinrich Heine. More about this soon.
You can watch Patti Smith's performance here.
Or read Street Haunting– the complete essay here. Go on try it. It's only Thursday.

The perils of indignation.

You read a totally irrelevant comment on some link posted somewhere in the World Wide Web and feel a need to react. The fact that the author of the comment is a simple-minded moron so self-absorbed in his (yes, it had to be the male species) insignificant little existence that he rushes where angels fear to tread and ends up defending something that is not even being attacked. He may choose to worship false gods and chase hollow ideals but why does he feel the need to impose his stupidity on everyone? What makes him think that he is so smart that he can challenge well-established facts? And with every word typed one grows angrier and ones thoughts build up to add to the raging bonfire and everything is on the verge of burning to ashes.

But then just in the nick of time one recollects Virginia Woolf and is reminded of the perils of writing in indignation. As she notes when discussing the fate of women writers in general and Charlotte Bronte in particular, “She will never get her genius expressed whole and entire. She will write in a rage where she should write calmly. She will write foolishly where she should write wisely. She will write of herself where she should write of her characters. She is at war with her lot. How could she help but die young, cramped and thwarted?” All characteristics exhibited in the opening paragraph.

So instead one does the sensible thing and picks up A Room of One’s Own and makes peace by accepting the fact that “Life for both sexes—and I look at them, shouldering their way along the pavement—is arduous, difficult, a perpetual struggle. It calls for gigantic courage and strength. More than anything, perhaps, creatures of illusion that we are, it calls for confidence in oneself.”

After all has been said

Sometimes after you have finished reading a book, as you put it down while the last few words are floating through your mind another thought bursts forth and every other thought gets extinguished. ‘All that needs to be said has been said’. A strange mix of ecstasy and melancholy grips the heart. And you wonder how and why do people still go on writing. Dream of being poets and authors, think they have anything new or fresh to add to the countless reams published and read ever since humans started giving words to their thoughts.

I recently experienced this emotion after finishing Orlando. Actually after the first 20 odd pages itself I was stuck by the abovementioned thought. Only to immediately be stuck by another that this experience was neither unusual nor unprecedented. I myself have felt so innumerable times. After reading Steinbeck’s words, “Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.” Or Calvino’s, “Memory’s images, once they are fixed in words, are erased,” Polo said. “Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little.” Or Saint-Exupery’s, “Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures — in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together.”

Not to belabour the point I stop at just three random examples. Even as another thought crosses my mind for someone having nothing new to add already 276 words have been expended. Not to mention these.

(Afterthoughts on books: part 4)

To the Lighthouse

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929)

As we parted, not knowing if or when we’ll meet again, I slipped into your hands Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Perhaps because I hoped Lily Briscoe would be there, as always in the end, to shed light on at least your vision, if not mine. After the last goodbye you instantly flew away to your world of dreams while I slowly walked back to reality.

Some six months later we met again at some obscure halfway. You began by casually dismissing Ms. Woolf as “different” and then proceeded to decimate me with words. Your hopelessly inadequate words, sagging beneath the burden of venom and blind rage, tried to soar across the abyss. But alas, failed miserably. For, I could look straight to the lighthouse standing under the bright sun on a golden, cloudless day. And you could never free yourself from your darkening chamber of words, just words and their seductive echo.

So, now even after all these months, whenever I look to the lighthouse thinking, “About life, about death; about (sometimes even) Mrs Ramsay” I wonder how hard it would have been for you to simply say, “I did not like the book.”

(Afterthoughts on books: part 1)

On winter

Winter has come. The woods turned pink and then brown as the hills undressed behind Emily’s town. Sending all her birds away she contemplates living and dying- the common right of Toads and Men. Even as steely brooms of snow and wind sweep the empty streets.

Haunting the wintry streets of London Virginia retrieves an adventure. And a lead pencil. Even as she leaves behind footprints into the heart of the forest that is the mind of fellow beasts called men.

On a cold December morning Leonard writes an elegy, whispers a final hallelujah and leaves without signing his masterpiece. Even before one can ask who is calling.

While John sets out into the winter of our discontent as the fog closes Salinas valley from the rest of the world. Even as half obscured visions of Sweet Thursday with Mack and the boys persist.

And all the while I stand here, on this side of the Arno watching Primavera scatter flowers across the Tuscan hills. And they say winter has just begun.