. Spinning .

This has happened to me before, where I decide that it’s time to make a statement on something going on in the story and so make up a post, then pick up the book and find my thoughts pretty much confirmed.

On my previous post about the real reason Gogol is feeling so adamantly against his name, I’d picked up a thought more along the lines of a cultural clash that he is undergoing. In this next section, there is more going on that makes the conflict more evident. For one, Gogol is enamored with a girl named Ruth who he knows his parents aren’t willing to accept with open arms. Then he attends a lecture, one of his cousins being a member of the panel, on the subject of what they call “ABCD” or “American-born confused deshi” which brings the plight of someone like Gogol to light. His problems as an Indian in America is not the same as his parents’, as they relate to the old country whereas he relates to the new. His name merely brings what Gogol sees more as confliction rather than confusion to a more constant state.

The concept of the novel is, again, the changes that a person goes through when being transplanted into a different culture, as are Ashima and Ashoke, or being raised between cultures, as is Gogol.

The problem of his name, the family or familiar name versus a real or outside name, the decision to name him Gogol under the pressure of hospital rules when he was born, the decision to give him a real name of Nikhil when he started kindergarten, and Gogol’s refusal to accept that name at the time all seem to have settled into a comfort of sorts until Gogol reaches high school and is faced with the real Gogol in literature class. It seems to upset him more than it should, and even he is aware that while he’s expecting people to relate the discussion to him, they do not. Just as no one has teased him on his name as he’d expected.

Even when his father presents him with a book of Gogol’s work on his fourteenth birthday, Gogol responds as considerately as he can, knowing that it means something to his father, but his emotional response is again, overreaction in a negative way. When he gets to college, he legally changes his name to Nikhil.

It does surprise me that he appears to be so strongly adverse to the name of Gogol, since its really been generally accepted by his friends and never a source of intentional embarrassment or bullying. However, I think I see more than an emotional response to the name. I would say it’s more a rejection of the traditions that he has always been involved in on holidays, yet not a daily part of his routine. He is allowed to dress, eat, enjoy more American based living, and there is perhaps a confusion between the worlds. When the family returns to India for visits, Gogol and his sister do not feel the ties that his parents do. For them, their being raised in American ways make them American.

The other thing that I would think is more a part of Gogol’s rebellion against his name is his natural teenage inclination to assert himself. Changing his name is a big step to establish that separation of child and man, traditions that are not felt are being replaced by determining his identity.

In my senior year of high school, I changed the spelling of my name to include an extra n: Susann.  That lasted a few months but forevermore, my year book, my diploma, several awards, are all in a name I just needed to try out.

Gogol notices the difference between Gogol and Nikhil. There is more going on here than a name change.

Since the focus of this novel appears to be the conflict between tradition and acceptance of a new way of life for immigrants, I found this notion interesting:

To predict his future path in life, Gogol is offered a plate holding a clump of cold Cambridge soil dug up from the backyard, a ballpoint pen, and a dollar bill, to see if he will be a landowner, scholar, or businessman. Most children will grab at one of them, sometimes all of them, but Gogol touches nothing. He shows no interest in the plate, instead turning away, briefly burying his face in his honorary uncle’s shoulder.

“Put the money in his hand!” someone in the group calls out. “An American boy must be rich!”

“No!” his father protests. “The pen. Gogol, take the pen.”  (p. 40)

I’m backtracking here only because I’ve come upon another similar scenario, when the rice ceremony, celebration of a baby’s first introduction to solid food, repeats itself with Gogol’s new little sister.

She plays with the dirt they’ve dug up from the yard and threatens to put the dollar bill into her mouth. “This one,” one of the guests remarks, “this is the true American.”  (p. 63)

It is here where the reader would be affected by his or her own background, as an American or non-American, and if an American, likely of what generation. I’m relatively new, being a second generation born American, my grandparents having come over from Europe in the early part of the twentieth century, around the time of World War I. I’m not sure of their reason for making the move, but I suspect it was for a new life of opportunity that was being touted as the American Dream.

I must admit I’m put off a bit by the foregoing passages only in that it seems to define Americans as only interested in money. I don’t find that to be true. The opportunity that most immigrants seek, and I’m sure Ashoke and Ashima and their friends as well, is to be able to earn a good living and have things they could not have in their own countries. It’s the opportunity, not the money. I think this is one of the most misunderstood elements of the American way of life and of Americans.

In this story, Ashoke who is himself a lover of books and a university professor, urges Gogal to take the pen that assumes scholarship. He alone seems to see the value in the choice that would not offer just personal satisfaction, but would lead to creating an opportunity for financial gain as well. One of the first things the couple does when Ashoke is hired is save and buy a house and car.

Work that earns income translates into shelter, food, education. The medium used to translate one into the another is money. Are we not to aspire to having a nice home? Enjoyable, healthy food? As much of an education as we can afford or gain ourselves through reading and acquiring knowledge? Then what’s the problem?

This isn’t a very deep novel, there are no hidden meanings, no metaphors to pick up in delight. But it is a very intimate story of culture differences and the longing for traditions and values that can be transplanted but are not quite the same in a new land. The main ingredient missing, for Ashima, is family. While Ashoke has coped with the changes in a different manner, becoming more of an island that is self sufficient. This has perhaps come from his injuries in the train wreck as a youth and the resulting long rehabilitation that was spent in a loneliness, even as he was well taken care of by his family. The shock of the accident, the realization that a gentleman he had briefly come to know had instantly died, the loss of his treasured book, may have prepared him better, taught him not to hold onto things as they can be taken away.

The losses are more clearly felt by Ashima, even as she makes friends, enters motherhood, gets used to Cambridge. Each ritual is still clouded by the missing mother and father, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. The third person narrator deftly describes much of the Indian dress, rites, dishes, and yet makes them easily understood without heavy detail. The voice is neutral, even as it describes Ashima’s worries, her loneliness, her giving birth, and at this point in the story, the telephone call that brings the bad news of the sudden death of her father back home.

“He told you something you’re not telling me. Tell me, what did he say?”

He continues to shake his head, and then he reaches across to her side of the bed and presses her hand so tightly that it is slightly painful. He presses her to the bed, lying on top of her, his face to one side, his body suddenly trembling. He holds her this way for so long that she begins to wonder if he is going to turn off the light and caress her. Instead, he tells her what Rana told him a few minutes ago, what Rana couldn’t bear to tell his sister, over the telephone, himself; that her father died yesterday evening, of a heart attack, playing patience on his bed.  (p. 45)

Thrilled that I finally got back into reading stories longer than flash fiction, and flush with success on Conrad’s short Heart of Darkness, I looked through my bookcases to find something that would be entertaining and fairly easy reading.

I’ve been wanting to read this novel by Jhumpa Lahiri for a while. It’s one of many “must-reads” that are not really listed as classics because they’re too recent. It’s a New York Times Bestseller, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, so I’ve every reason to believe that I’m likely just reading a classic years before its time.

The writing is simple yet lovely. The story, very human and real. Ashima and Ashoke are a young Bengali couple who have married and moved to America, living in Boston. Ashima is young and intelligent, grateful that her arranged marriage at least provided her with a man who was not too much older than her. As the story opens, Ashima is just going into the first labor stages. We are backtracked to discover her history and that of Ashoke and discover a bit more about them that establishes their characters and reveals some inner fears that lead up to the focus of this story, choosing the name of their newborn son.

We learn that when Ashoke was young, he was involved in a very serious train wreck that left him in rehabilitation for a long time. We also find that he is a lover of books, and at the time of the accident, he was reading his favorite story, “The Overcoat,” by Gogol. A man whom he’d conversed with had died in the wreck as had many others. The trauma haunts him for a long time, into his adult life. With the birth of his son, the name takes on a different meaning as the young couple must come up with a name for the baby before he’s allowed to be released.

The writing is fine, delicate without being flowery, and Lahiri distributes much information in an entertaining and interesting manner. One of my favorite passages is this, when Ashoke first holds his son:

Being rescued from that shattered train had been the first miracle of his life. But here, now, reposing in his arms, weighing next to nothing but changing everything, is the second. (p. 24)

Cripes, I don’t know. After finishing this I went back to the front of the book to glance through 50 pages of accolades for Conrad by such notables as Hemingway, Trilling, Woolf, Forster. Somehow I think I’ve missed something in my own reading of this novel.

Yes, the writing was good, in my humble estimation, but was it outstanding? I didn’t think so. There were at least six or seven different mentions of “heart of darkness” or some semblance of it, that I can’t imagine any other title being chosen for this book. The social implications of the story have changed drastically over the century but do still hold value as historical commentary as well as insight into human nature as well.

The concept of the narration being taken over by one of the characters as he tells the story is unusual and works well, as it gives the reader a more rounded picture of the storyteller, Marlow, than could have been gained by restricting this to a first person narrative alone.

Here’s where I might have a problem and why I didn’t catch half the depth of story and meaning that the other comments lay out. The references to Kurtz throughout the books gives us dribs and drabs of insight into the man who Marlow is looking forward to meeting. However, when he finally does meet him, it is so brief, so distant, with such little actual dialogue but made up more of the movings of a very sick man who is still holding onto his little kingdom, that I didn’t really grasp that this was the main focus of the story. Yes, I did get the fact that Kurtz is both loved and hated, that he was both a wonder and an evil man, that the change is all due to his placement in the wilds of Africa, and that Conrad is giving us a glimpse into the nature of man’s interaction with man on both a savage and sophisticated level. But I didn’t grant Kurtz the importance that I evidently should have, focusing instead on Marlow and reading the changes he was undergoing rather than the example of Kurtz.

Why? For two reasons. First, I don’t personally take anyone’s word as anything more than opinion on someone else. I spent the whole book waiting for Kurtz to reveal himself. He barely did, then he died. Secondly, for me, when you start a book out with five or so men gathered together and one begins to tell a story in such a way that it is like unburdening his soul, then I looked to him to provide the drama, the changes to character, the story, as I would look to any I considered the protagonist. While Marlow was obviously affected by the whole adventure, I’m still not quite sure why he was so affected by Kurtz. It seemed almost a man-crush, such as the Russian harlequin definitely had on Kurtz.

I’m glad I did get to read this classic. Was it good? Yes. Was it great? I’m not so sure, despite the high praise from Hemingway et al.

A nice and neat example here:

(…) and, as if by enchantment, streams of human beings–of naked human beings–with spears in their hands, with bows, with shield, with wild glances and savage movements, were poured into the clearing by the dark-faced and pensive forest.  (p.74)

Though I questioned the “poured” connection to a face, it is a feasible reference if one considers the mouth, and a spew of words, or vomit, or whatever. I rather liked the concept particularly of the “dark-faced and pensive forest,” as Conrad has already established the forest (jungle?) as having a heart, thus anthropomorphism of the setting is becoming a metaphor for an evil being.

Conrad nicely ties this back in a few paragraphs later:

(…) and almost at the same time I noticed that the crowd of savages was vanishing without any perceptible movement of retreat, as if the forest that had ejected these beings so suddenly had drawn them in again as the breath is drawn in a long aspiration.

Conrad surprised me in the middle of Marlow’s stream of dialogue with this scene, in which Marlow has finally reached Kurtz’s station, but instead of being met by Kurtz, is met by a young man dressed in harlequin-patched suit and who apparently has nursed Kurtz through several illnesses, but reveals the evil, hard, side of the trader even as he defends and idolizes him. As Marlow learns much about Kurtz that reveals a much different image of the man, he idly looks at the station through a pair of binoculars.

You remember I told you I had been struck at the distance by certain attempts at ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the place. Now I had suddenly a nearer view, and its first result was to make me throw my head back as if before a blow. Then I went carefully from post to post with my class, and I saw my mistake. These round knobs were not ornamental by symbolic; they were expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbing–food for thought and also for the vultures if there had been any looking down from the sky; but at all events for such ants as were industrious enough to ascend the pole. They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house.  (p. 71)

Human heads. And as the young man explains, the unfortunates are those who Kurtz had considered rebellious.

While I’m not quite sure why this novel was classified as a must-read in classic literature, I suspect that it is for the insider view of a culture that most people of the more civilized world had no concept of, that wild and dark arena where the Africans had been brought out of as slaves, were looked upon as savages, where people still referred to them as “niggers” with no malicious intent. Where indeed, Kurtz, a most civilized European, has become a savage man.

Well, maybe not narrative sequence exactly, but a gap in the flow that sent me back several times to check if pages were stuck together and I’d missed something. Now I often read while watching TV or thinking about something else so that I’ve upon occasion stopped to realize that something doesn’t make sense because while I’ve read every word, I’ve not absorbed any of it, or been aware of what I was reading. Sort of like driving automatically without thinking about steering.

But this was in the middle of an action scene (the first, really), in Section 2, where Marlow is caught in a fog and then in a narrow passageway with the steamboat and is attacked by natives on shore. Then, all of a sudden, the object of his extreme curiosity, the trader, Kurtz, is being discussed as if Marlow has already met him. So I went back a few times, thinking perhaps two pages were stuck together and my mind seamlessly filled in the gap without concentrating.

No such thing. This is the way Conrad has written it and while I understand completely that since Marlowe is telling a story, he has every right to jump around in his thoughts. His spiel about Kurtz here is actually an afterthought brought about by the sudden danger of the situation and the death of his steerman, a native who was at least loyal as he was simple in his position. It is perhaps, then, a more natural and realistic dialogue then had he stuck point to point with a timeline. After all, all stories told in past tense have established a history, the end of the telling is merely choice.

Okay, so here’s an image that Conrad presents most eloquently:

The sun was low; and leaning forward side by side, they seemed to be tugging painfully uphill their two ridiculous shadows of unequal length, that trailed behind them slowly over the tall grass without bending a single blade.  (pg. 41)

I’m not sure whether it’s my deep immersion in the flash fiction/short story world by both writing and reading this genre, but I’ve had a very hard time for over a year to stick with and breeze through any novels. It’s true, I don’t really breeze through anything I read, since I read for pleasure as well as learning and seek meaning and appreciation of writing styles from anything I read. Just can’t seem to follow more than a couple pages at a time with longer stories or novel-length fiction, and I hope I haven’t ruined my abilities to enjoy the pleasure of novels by seeking immediate gratification and basing my reading on the different style.

That said, I still found it a bit tiresome to read something that appears to go on for pages what I feel could have been said in a sentence. Joseph Conrad’s style of writing is excellent, and yet it’s gotten tedious to me.

There’s the unusual setup of the group of men sitting around a ship at night while one of them begins to tell his story of his recent journey to captain a ship down in Africa. The opening scenario is quite nice, with the men being described as “The Lawyer, the Accountant, the Director,” which in a single word, compartmentalizes these gentlemen versus the character called Marlow–who will be the narrator of the story to be told to these others. The book also starts out in first person, the narrator being among the listeners, and Marlowe’s story, also first person, is then crafted through the use of quotation marks and goes on for chapters before being occasionally brought back to the present scenario of the men listening to the story.

Talk about Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn brouhaha with the word “nigger,” this book as well liberally uses it, since the setting is in the late nineteenth century and slavery has just been overcome, yet in Africa, the cruelty and abuse continued far from the reach of civilization. The word itself, as spoken by Marlow, is not really an expression of racism but rather a commonly accepted designation of black men. Marlow himself seems to be shocked by the ill treatment of the Africans who are being used as carriers into the interior of Africa by the wealthy traders. Marlow seems to have a need to get this story out, yet he finds himself telling his companions in the darkness of night cover. In truth, the narrator appears to perhaps be the only one listening as the others may have fallen asleep.

There are some interesting characters that Conrad brings into the adventure, and he draws them so well. In fact, the character of a white trader named Kurtz is someone that dribbles into the flow of the story long before Marlow has bet him.

I believe that the value of this book, aside from Conrad’s fine writing, may well be in the secrets that seeped out into the reading world from the base of Africa, where a different system of social intercourse and equality still reigned.

The third section of this book starts with a poem and these opening lines:

two lines of horizon

ornament letters plastic sign

What better way to describe a journey taken by bus, by train, by car, where the land scape moves by as you’re sitting still? Rushing by, needing to be absorbed by the eyes in consecutive blips and transmitted to the brain to be all sorted out.

In These Laws of Space and Time, the journey is once again told within the characters’ action. Who has not wondered about that stranger sleeping next to you, his head nearly on your shoulder as you watch cities, countries fly by. But there is always a thread of common ground that we hold between us and even in the few minutes of journey that’s shared, it is found.

Dorothee’s constant awareness of time and space as they pertain to place in this book shows up here, in The Buddha, the Dharma & the Sangha:

Towns are made of h0uses and streets. To get from one place to another, you either walk, or take a car. Rivers are crossed by bridges. Streets connect to other streets that connect to other towns. That is what I learned when I was a child.

And then proceeds to have her illusions tested when crossings are instead made by boat only. Here too, misconceptions of dangers both in place and in time are forewarned. The traveler must adjust to new languages but also to traditions and things that are locally known. Ginger tea may not be ginger tea as we know it.

The best thing about these stories and poems are the manner in which Dorothee selects what she writes about. It’s not a vision of environment and scenery, but rather the constant that visits the new and discovers what is different, and what is the same.

World traveler, artist, writer, designer, entrepreneur, all these hats that Dorothee Lang wears are just as common to each of the pieces here as the innate humanness of mankind. Each of the pieces have been published elsewhere and brought together in this collection that stands as a tribute to the curious traveler.

In the final pages, Dorothee gives us insight into the process of putting together this collection, and it is surely as interesting as the journeys themselves. The sorting, the selection, the tying in of place, space, and time through organizational threads is a wonder of art in itself.

in transit may be purchased through Blue Print Press.

(Photo courtesy of Dorothee Lang)

Always on top of my pile of “to reads,” this small book of stories of travels has been teasing me for a few months now. Unfortunately, my reading has lately been limited to online short stories at Fictionaut, at 52/250, and other small literary communities and journals. One of this year’s goals is to get back into reading books–real books, whether from my overflowing bookshelves or via Kindle for Mac.

Dorothee Lang is the editor of Blue Print Review where she’s graciously published a few of my stories and images, as well as Daily sPress where she reviews small press publications and publishes at Blue Print Press. Her work in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and art and photography has been widely published in many literary journals. She is listed in the Electronic Literature Directory for early work in new media form. Via emails, she’s become more of a friend. Living in Germany, we’re a distance away. There is one other difference between us that’s obvious: Dorothee travels, has knowledge of foreign places that I’ve only read about. in transit comes out of that understanding of living and traveling in places that may or may not ever become “home.”

The opening page of the book is a listing called “being in transit >>>” that really is a poem:

(being in transit >>>)

is an art in itself

is easy

is good for drivers

is the ruin of all happines

The list goes on, but what I believe she is saying here is that it is what it becomes for the traveler, if in compliance with the purpose, or if it does not indeed answer the question raised by the motion.

The small book is divided into four sections: Germany, Europe, USA, and Asia. Each has a few poems or stories inspired by an itinerary of the journeys. There are leaps in time as each makes its impression. Dorothee’s writing (the book is in English, Dorothee is fluent in both German and English) is clear and precise, yet brings in the mood via her choice of words:

There is still an hour of time left when we arrive back at the Alexanderplatz, but most of the others are there already too. We are sitting on the steps of a fountain guarded by stone snakes, waiting for the bus to arrive, to take us back to our hotel in the Westside. Overhyped and dazed, we pull the unused bills of Ostmark from our pockets and start to turn them into planes, into boats that drown in the snake fountain.

Dorothee takes on subsequent trips to different parts of Germany, and there is a thread of distance of time as well as of space. At one point she visits a museum where she recognizes a particular work of Donald Judd that she has seen before though she hadn’t been to this place. The resulting conversation with a museum attendant brings in once again the element of spaces, of how one looks at things, of how one’s perspective changes over time.

While the section on Germany was written mainly in first person, the next on Europe goes into third. Pool Sides, set in Spain in 2004, is a feeling. Reflection, simple setting but so much deeper in meaning. The last paragraph, where the character returns to the pool in the early evening, says much:

The shadows of the palm trees are stretching from the one side of the pool to the other now. Soon they will disappear all together. She makes a mental note to buy the music she heard in the afternoon. Yet there, in the fading light of the sun, she can neither remember the song, nor the thing she hoped to find there.

In Harlequin, set in France in 2006, Dorothee reveals a relationship through dialogue of a couple on vacation. Through detail, through the wondering over a gecko being alive or fake, the two characters are exposed.

The final offering in this section, Hotel Universe, is an exquisite drawing of lines and people via avenues and streets, the texture of roadways and the crossing of daily lives.

Next: The U.S. and Asia

(Photo courtesy of Dorothee Lang)

…there was a time when I was posting an average of 4 posts a day for years. Reading books one after another and sharing my reactions, even dropping the book to grab the laptop for a special phrase that just got me. I haven’t read a book in months–started several, but none finished.

No excuses, it’s not like I haven’t been reading. Probably an average of 50 short stories a week on Fictionaut (though I haven’t had a chance to keep up the last several weeks) and 52/250, a weekly theme-based series where we all write a flash piece. (Check out this week’s issue–I have a story called Regardless, but the title art is something I worked up in Photoshop.)

I’ve been working on lots of projects, hypertext and traditional short story form, a textbook, and artwork. Rejections aren’t as devastating when acceptances roll in sometimes too. It’s been a tremendously successful (or what I consider successful!) year and I suppose that brings confidence to keep at it.

I’ve been learning new things to expand my writing and graphics into the new media field little by little. I know I’d learn a lot faster if I took classes but this picking folks’ brains and struggling through on my own does bring its own sense of accomplishment.

But yes, I do need to continue my pursuit of fine literature and will be adding some more posts here as I finally get back into gear.

Finally got back to a bit of reading this weekend and I started with something tiny–micro, in fact–but huge in literary excellence.

Dorothee Lang is an editor, publisher, artist, and writer. She wears all her many hats when she travels and turns the experiences of her journeys into something like this. Transition is “a micro collection of stories + poems” as Dorothee describes it. I might tend to call it a collection of poetry. From the opening piece, Silver, we have:

And she kept dreaming of huge cities filled with streets filled with houses filled with colors and shadows.

The language between poetry and story is what bridges the gap of genre. What would differentiate them is the intricate placement and relative sparsity of words that Lang uses in her poems. headed is a poem that moves quickly, lines and directions pointing us through it, as stanzas themselves are arranged in carefully thought-out visual form.

The Sun She, The Moon He fairly sings to the reader. It is a vision of the world as seen through a small space of a window, but as with all of Dorothee’s work, there’s so much more beneath the surface.

The longest piece is the final one, a short story called Exchange Rates that hints of magical realism, of traveling in foreign places, of the differences in culture while man’s nature remains the same within us all.

There are more works included in this fantastic little collection. Oddly enough, while I sat reading it in the comfort of my own living room, I could see it as a great little book to take on a short trip. The pieces are just long enough, just short enough, to invite reading in short and thoughtful bits of time. The images last beyond the reading, when one would look up and think on the words as new things pass by in the windows. It’s a book about travel. It’s a book about being home.

Dorothee’s book can be obtained at her Blue Print Press site, where other fine publications are available, including her longer work, In Transit (which I’ll be reading and reviewing very soon), and work by Nora Nadjarian, and Michael K. White.

Transition is fine writing about moments caught in time. It is a lovely little journey between here and there.