Down and out in Rotterdam

Ideas, meaning and a mind in motion

Category: Literature

  • Buikgriep

    Na een lichte buikgriep, of was het een verdomde voedselinfectie? Ik had zaterdag buiten de deur gegeten, ben ik weer op de been. Dinsdagen werk ik halve dagen en ga ik vaak naar de stad. Ik heb al twee dagen nauwelijks iets voedzaams gegeten dus ik nam de metro. Waarom is roken op de terrassen nog steeds niet verboden? Ik zit bij de Coffee Company en ik zit aan de lattè met havermelk. Ik snap dat de hipsters die er werken ook roken, want dat blijft hip, gek genoeg, want zuivel is wel echt not done, dat kan je dus niet meer maken anno 2022, maar iemand kanker geven op een terras met je stinksigaret dat is nog niet uit de mode. Ik voel me dus iets beter. Fysiek zwak zijn maakt dat je ook geen energie hebt om te piekeren.

    Dan besef je ineens weer hoe kwetsbaar je als mens bent als je een virus te pakken hebt en je lijf er van van slag is. Als je voeding nodig hebt voor energie, maar niks binnen kunt houden. Dan sterf je dus gewoon in het wild. Gelukkig leef ik niet in het wild en kon ik soep van mijn moeder krijgen en wat bouillon.

    Ik ben bezig met lezen in ‘Island’ van Aldous Huxley, zijn laatste werk (1962). Na het herlezen van zijn ‘Brave New World’ en mijn algehele dystopische stemming dacht ik laat ik nog wat doorpakken uit zijn Ouvre. Had ik dat maar niet gedaan. Hij schrijft gelukkig geen dikke boeken en dat spreekt voor een schrijver – als het goed is kan het ook in weinig woorden – maar hij is gewoon geen goede roman schrijver. Huxley is van de ideeën en essays, in ‘Brave New World’ kwam dat goed samen (ook dat leest niet echt lekker), maar Island is dodelijk saai.

  • The 6th of December

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    Winter has started and I am busy with my favorite pastime, a long sit in an espresso bar, anonymous among the crowd, observing, thinking, writing and being. I’ve got Lana del Rey on repeat, and I can hear the stir of the many people around me. I can quietly observe as I am seated in a comfortable brown leather armchair with my back to the wall, facing the crowd.

    I’ve been sitting like this for a while, initially busy with an attempt to write a review of Isaiah Berlin’s essays on Russia in the penguin classic edition ‘Russian Thinkers’, but as all to often happens, I lost my concentration, train of thought and general courage halfway.

    Again my thoughts are scattered and it annoys me that I can hardly keep any of them together for a sufficient amount of time. So I am writing this post instead. A general autobiographical post is better served by scattered thoughts than a serious review on a serious thinker like Isaiah Berlin, who I am glad to have discovered.

    Across from me I see many people busy on their laptops. One guy is seemingly busy designing some architectural plans on his. I am just pretending to be busy. How I sometimes wish I had learned some practical trade…

    And I see women. Always the main object of my desire, apart from books. Winter is no season to be single. Spring and summer are the seasons best suited for a single life, not winter. Winter is meant to be spent inside, huddled together under a blanket with a hot beverage and romantic thoughts and family.

    It’s no shame to admit these thoughts and feelings. I never particularly felt this way when I was younger. I had no fond memories of our own winter family holidays and I couldn’t understand those memories of others. But I guess that’s what getting older does to you. Life is not to be lived out alone, and winter is harsh on lonely people; my heart goes out to them this winter.

    Then Robert Walser’s short story ‘The walk’ came to mind. I just finished reading his little gem. Robert Walser was lonely most of his life. From his short bio on the back of the book;

    Robert Walser (1878-1956) lived his life in small rooms and stayed his final 23 years in a psych ward. He liked going on long walks and writing and despised fame.

    ‘The walk’ is just that, a description of one of his many walks, his thoughts and the people and scenes he encounters. Most memorable to me are the final pages which I want to translate and share (however crudely) when on the end of his walk he lies down and watches the sky;

    Watching earth, sky and heaven I was overwhelmed by a saddening, uncontrollable thought that made me convince myself that I was a poor prisoner caught between heaven and earth, that we were all miserably caught this way, that no other way existed for all of us to another world except the one that leads to that deep dark pit, the grave.

    And with these dark thoughts finally comes his remorse for a chance missed;

    …I might have been able to convince her that I had her best interest in mind. I should have told her in time that my affection was completely honest. It would have been simple and truly correct if I had openly confessed: ‘I love you. All your affairs are to me just as important as my own affairs. For many kind, beautiful reasons it is of utmost importance to me to make you happy.’ But she left, because I didn’t make any effort… I raised myself up to go home because it was late and everything was dark.

    With that I end this post. It’s also dark outside of the espresso bar. Time to go home.

  • What I talk about on a date

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    When dating women, I often come to think of myself as a rather boring person with nothing meaningful to say. I don’t have a job right now so that topic is of the table, but even if I had a job I don’t think I would like to talk about it at length.

    So what do I reply when asked ‘What do you do?’ Usually I start by saying that I read a lot, and then there is a slight pause. What dó I do? I mostly read and think. And sometimes I write. When I add  ‘I also write, I have a blog’, she will naturally ask what about. I cringe from the question even-though I have had plenty of practice answering, but the question always catches me off guard. ‘Ehm, autobiographical stuff, observations, reflections, ideas.’ Embarrassed I add that it’s nothing special, or serious and just for fun. So yes, what do I do? Mostly reading, thinking and writing.

    But of course I do experience a lot just by reading. I recently finished Kotkin’s excellent first volume of three about Stalin; ‘Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928’ which more than just offering insights into the life and character of Stalin offers a well written overview of the revolution and its key personalities and historical events all factors contributing to his rise to power. It ends (spoiler alert) with a discussion and conclusion that without Stalin the revolution and Leninism would have died, because from all the heirs of Lenin he was the only man orthodox and ruthless enough to be able to collectivize the peasantry – making an end to the compromise NEP policy – no matter what the cost of human life.

    Right now I am really thoroughly enjoying ‘A Guide to the Good Life {the ancient art of stoic joy} by William B. Irvine, about living the good life with Stoïc philosophy as a practical guide (on which I will definitely write a blog, as to me Stoïcism might be an easier alternative to Zen Buddhism, but with the shared benefits for living the good life.)

    Anyhow; I find it hard to converse with people with little to no interest in history or literature or philosophy but (this is no judgement) few people nowadays do. Inside of me there exists a vast world of ideas, topics and opinions, and yet I seem to find few people that can relate. While most people can go on for hours about their travels and travel destinations, most popular destinations are of little interest to me. I want to visit the Ukraine to discover the historical locations of my ancestors and the battlefields that changed the 20th century. I want to visit the places Hemingway visited, and experience Europe, because I am an European and have little feeling for Asian territories no matter how picturesque on film or photos. And when people tell me that travel enlightens I always reply that the Buddha mostly sat underneath his tree. I maintain that one travels farther in literature and the imagination than in miles by airplane. I know I learned more about India by reading Kipling’s ‘Kim’ and E.M. Foresters ‘A passage to India’ than a few weeks of physical presence in India would have taught me. And of-course in literature there is the added dimension of travelling in time and in the thoughts of characters. But I digress…

    Sometimes I try to discuss my spiritual growth as a person, and my philosophical outlook on life and with it (how else) my doubts. But often expressing doubt invites some to think you don’t know and are looking for answers, answers which then are promptly offered, often with little regard to the Original problems posed. So sooner or later you choose to reveal less and you stop expressing your doubts out loud because your doubts are only just that; doubts, contrary ideas long thought through inside -sometimes for years- and they wouldn’t be doubts if any easy answer would do. They might well remain doubts forever. There are no easy answers, but sometimes you just want to share those doubts nonetheless, but soon you become careful expressing them.

    So what remains? You end up talking about the weather and about some silly item in the news, you ask ‘How was last weekend’, about the bills, about the general mood; ‘I am fine thank you’, and on you go until hopefully, finally you will find the girl who goes week in the knees when you tell her about Stalin or Zeno of Citium.

  • De overbodige man

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    ‘The superfluous man (Russian: лишний человек, lishniy chelovek) is an 1840s and 1850s Russian literary concept derived from the Byronic hero. It refers to an individual, perhaps talented and capable, who does not fit into social norms. In most cases, this person is born into wealth and privilege. Typical characteristics are disregard for social values, cynicism, and existential boredom’.

    Hoewel, ik heb natuurlijk geen rijkdom nog privilege. Toepasselijk vond ik wel de volgende verklaring van criticus Belinsky over de oorsprong van de term;

    Russian critics such as Vissarion Belinsky viewed the superfluous man as a by-product of Nicholas I’s reactionary reign, when the best educated men would not enter the discredited government service and, lacking other options for self-realization, doomed themselves to live out their life in passivity.

    Mooiste voorbeelden daarvan in mijn optiek Oblomov (roman door Ivan Goncharov) die in de eerste honderd pagina’s van zijn roman twijfelt of hij uberhaubt uit bed wil komen en Prins Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky uit Oorlog en Vrede. Prachtig beschreef Tolstoy hoe deze ambitieuze talentvolle man snel gedesillusioneerd raakt en politiek en oorlog de rug toekeerd om in rust op het platteland te leven. Had ik maar de middelen, dan keerde ik de maatschappij ook direct de rug toe. Ik kijk al geen tv meer. Ik wil eigenlijk zonder Facebook. Als het kon vertrok ik met de noorderzon en leefde ik met een gelijkgestemde partner samen in een staat als Montana, zonder directe buren en zonder gezeik over bootvluchtelingen, zonder de regeldrift van de Nederlandse en EU overheid, zonder hipsters in het straatbeeld, zonder de alomtegenwoordige geestelijke armoede waar je mee besmet raakt en je handen in vuil moet maken om te functioneren in het dagelijkse menselijke verkeer van een grote stad. Een overbodig man. Ik herken me er wel in. Nog cynischer, kritischer en misschien eerlijker wel ben ik een typisch voorbeeld van iemand die spreekwoordelijk wel de klepel kan horen luiden maar hem niet ziet hangen. Uit een arbeidersmilieu met alle gemak en zonder noemenswaardige problemen scholing doorlopen, afgestudeerd aan een universiteit dat de naam universiteit niet mag dragen (in klassieke zin), heb ik mogen ruiken aan een intellectueel leven, aan privilege en kon ik me even als uitverkoren wanen, denken dat ik iets noemenswaardig had gepresteerd om vervolgens rap van mijn imaginaire troon te vallen en losgelaten te worden in een maatschappij die zo egalitair is ingericht dat er geen behoefte, nog ruimte is voor vreemde eenden met een hunkering naar meer met een eigenaardige voorkeur voor zaken die geld kosten en niks opleveren en zonder gram praktisch benul. Mijn laatste illusie dat mijn denken nog van toegevoegde waarde is zal sterven zodra ik de virtuele facebook dood sterf, geld leverde het me toch al nimmer op. Nee, was ik bemiddeld of presenteerde zich vandaag een excuus om voor goed te verdwijnen naar een stille uithoek van de wereld om daar mijn leven eerbiedig uit te zitten, dan was ik weg, gisteren nog. Of is ook dit slechts grootspraak? Kijk ik krabbel alweer terug.

  • Rokjesdag

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    Het was vrijdag en de eerste warme dag van het jaar, rokjesdag. Werkloos en vrij liep ik in de vroege ochtend over de Erasmugbrug. De zon scheen fel en warm in mijn rug en weerkaatste in het wit van de brug, de lucht heiig en vrij van wolken. In het oosten aan de horizon de Willemsbrug, het noordereiland en de hef, in het westen ver aan de horizon de haven en haar vele kranen en fabrieken en het af en aan varen van grote schepen met vracht.

    Wat een mooie stad toch mijn Rotterdam. Wat een voorrecht om in het hier en nu over deze brug te mogen lopen en om de Maas in al haar glorie en glinstering te zien stromen op deze prachtige lentedag.

    Mijn geluk kon niet op want ik werd deze ochtend wakker naast haar en eerder die nacht momenten voor ik zelf insliep lag ze in een kokkonetje tegen me aan en was ik me bewust van mijn geluk. Nu, op weg van haar studentenkamer over de brug naar hartje Rotterdam op deze rokjesdag wilde dit gevoel van gelukzaligheid niet weggaan.

    Ik was toe aan dit gevoel, toe aan de lente, toe aan wat vrouwelijke genegenheid.

    Een tijd terug had ik met veel bewondering Narcissus en Goldmund gelezen en een prangende vraag hield me sindsdien al weken bezig, was ik als Narcissus of Goldmund? Terwijl ik zo over de brug liep denkend aan haar en aan het vooruitzicht van een volle dag schrijven en lezen in de zon wist ik het antwoord.

    Ik was Goldmund. Sterker nog, net als de Goldmund in het verhaal was ik er heel vroeg in mijn jonge jaren van overtuigd dat ik geboren was voor het vergaren van kennis en het zoeken naar antwoord op vragen. Toen had ik eigenlijk ook een Narcissus nodig die me had moeten wijzen op mijn ware aard en roeping. Lang heb ik tevergeefs naar een Narcissus gezocht, maar ik wist eigenlijk al langer dat ik een aantal verkeerde paden had bewandeld. Als ik het eerder had geweten had het me een hoop frustratie en energie gescheeld in een zoektocht naar antwoorden die ik toch niet zou vinden, tijd die ik beter had kunnen besteden in het ontwikkelen en verfijnen van de expressievormen die ik nu nodig had.

    Ik de eeuwige twijfelaar. Echte intelligentie was zo wist ik al langer niet leidend. Ik was een Goldmund omdat ik moest ervaren, moest proeven, vrij moest zijn. De universiteit was een teleurstelling die me nog steeds verdrietig stemde. Het was niet de baken van kennis die ik me er in mijn voorstelling als kind van maakte, er liepen weinig heldere lichten en leraren om een voorbeeld aan te nemen. Hiervoor moest je denk ik toch in het klooster, de kerk of Jeshiva zijn. Ik was een ongeleid projectiel op zoek naar richting en nu halverwege mijn baan moest ik zelf richting vinden en ik was al vaart aan het minderen.

    Zowel kennis als kunst leiden naar de waarheid, maar de waarheid is weinig permanent en tastbaar, vaker ongrijpbaar zo niet onzichtbaar. Voor een glimp van de waarheid hoef je niet geleerd te zijn. De waarheid is alomvattend, voor een ieder voelbaar en aanschouwbaar, mits iemand er voor open staat. Wij zijn onderdeel van haar, het zit in ons DNA.

    Het lag er al die jaren zo dik op. Hoe vaak leek de maatschappij niet slechts als een necessary evil, hoe vaak leken conventies niet meer dan een beperking, een teugel, een riem? Nooit was ik gemaakt voor een carriere, ik was te onrustig, te eigenwijs, te bijdehand. De maatschappij probeert me wijs te maken dat ik ongelukkig moet zijn of op zijn minst ernstig bezorgd want ik heb zoveel potentie (als in intelligentie) en ik maak er zo weinig gebruik van (als in een mooie functie) en deels maak ik dat ook mezelf wijs want ik ben niet graag onverantwoordelijk en neem niet graag risico’s, en toch. Is er geen groter risico in het niet doen, in het hardnekkig verplichtingen aangaan die ik voor mijn gevoel toch niet kan waarmaken?

    En er is natuurlijk die verdomde keerzijde. De dalen zijn diep en soms lijk ik er moeilijk tegen bestand en wil ik alles opgeven. Dan helpt alleen de zon en een vrouwenlichaam, zo ook bij Goldmund.

    Afgelopen nacht had ik die geborgenheid en vandaag scheen de zon en meer kon ik me op dat moment niet wensen. Het was rokjesdag. Ik heb eindelijk weer kunnen schrijven en ik had weer twee boeken gekocht. Ik was gelukkig en het stond op papier om te herlezen op donkere dagen, want geluk en ongeluk zijn nooit permanent en als de seizoenen, een cyclus waar we als gewone stervelingen geen vat op hebben.

  • All Quiet on the Western Front

    Figure 9

    Just a few days ago I was waiting at the trainstation for a train to arrive. When I looked down on the tracks I noticed a fat rat’s upper half, the rat was cut in half by the passing of a previous train. I suddenly experienced a flashback, and there I was, down in the trenches, looking at bodies the way Paul described them, this time the result of the surprisingly devastating force of an artillery barrage. I remembered the rats also, grown fat by the rotting bodies lying in no-mans land. It’s impossible to have a flashback of something you havent experienced. Still, the images felt real. So was the loneliness and the fear when I joined him at that cold dark night stuck in no-mans land, playing for dead, hoping his buddies will be in time to save him, afraid to raise his head, holding tight to dear earth, hoping to survive another day. This sums up the force of ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’. I wasn’t there, all I saw was a glimpse of the tragedy, but it was enough for me to be very glad I could end it all by closing the book.

  • Homesick after mine own kind

     

    NPG Ax7811; Ezra Pound by Alvin Langdon Coburn

    Sometimes when for long periods nothing worthwile seems to come from my hands, all I can do is drench and absorb myself in the works of others, hoping to find words to fit my malady. Most people listen to music, but while music might bring comfort, the lyrics almost never fit. It only rarely happens that the words of others seem to reflect what I feel. This is the case with Ezra Pound’s ‘In Durance’. Often when lonely I think of his lines, which struck me from the first. Sometimes not just any company will do.

     In Durance – Ezra Pound (1907)

    I am homesick after mine own kind,
    Oh I know that there are folk about me, friendly faces,
    But I am homesick after mine own kind.

    ‘These sell our pictures’! Oh well,
    They reach me not, touch me some edge or that,
    But reach me not and all my life’s become
    One flame, that reaches not beyond
    My heart’s own hearth,
    Or hides among the ashes there for thee.
    Thee’? Oh, ‘Thee’ is who cometh first
    Out of mine own soul-kin,
    For I am homesick after mine own kind
    And ordinary people touch me not.
    And I am homesick
    After mine own kind that know, and feel
    And have some breath for beauty and the arts.

    Aye, I am wistful for my kin of the spirit
    And have none about me save in the shadows
    When come they, surging of power, ‘DAEMON,’
    ‘Quasi KALOUN.’ S.T. says Beauty is most that, a
    ‘calling to the soul’.
    Well then, so call they, the swirlers out of the mist of my soul,
    They that come mewards, bearing old magic.

    But for all that, I am homesick after mine own kind
    And would meet kindred even as I am,
    Flesh-shrouded bearing the secret.
    ‘All they that with strange sadness’
    Have the earth in mockery, and are kind to all,
    My fellows, aye I know the glory
    Of th’ unbounded ones, but ye, that hide
    As I hide most the while
    And burst forth to the windows only whiles or whiles
    For love, or hope or beauty or for power,
    Then smoulder, with the lids half closed
    And are untouched by echoes of the world.

    Oh ye, my fellows: with the seas between us some be,
    Purple and sapphire for the silver shafts
    Of sun and spray all shattered at the bows;
    And some the hills hold off,
    The little hills to east of us, though here we
    Have damp and plain to be our shutting in.

    And yet my soul sings ‘Up!’ and we are one.
    Yea thou, and Thou, and THOU, and all my kin
    To whom my breast and arms are ever warm,
    For that I love ye as the wind the trees
    That holds their blossoms and their leaves in cure
    And calls the utmost singing from the boughs
    That ‘thout him, save the aspen, were as dumb
    Still shade, and bade no whisper speak the birds of how
    ‘Beyond, beyond, beyond, there lies . . .’

  • Happiness a state of mind?

    Happy-KidsIn populair thought people often argue that happiness is a state of mind.

    I disagree.

    Sure, sometimes we can make problems bigger if we run circles inside our head, often spiraling out of control. It takes an effort to turn things around an stop negative thoughts in their tracks. But it is wrong to assume that it’s all a question of self control.

    As thinking beings, the result of both nurture and nature, the workings of our mind are a complex process of which we of as yet no very little. Many factors are at play.

    Some people are chronically depressed or anxious and only medication can give them any sense of relief.

    Some people have personality disorders the result of years of abuse or trouble since childhood, resulting in changes of the brain and how it functions for good. Sometimes with hard practice old patterns can change, but it is an illusion to expect change over night, waking up staring into the sun and deciding to do everything differently.

    Instead of positive credo’s like ‘Happiness is a state of mind’ I would rather prefer more realistic credo’s. Even ‘Shit happens’ sounds better to my ears.

    Ever since I’ve started to read about Zen philosophy I’ve had most difficulty with those practitioners and ‘Dharma Bums’ preaching against any negativity. But is this the only way? What is wrong with negativity? Without negativity, there exists no positivity. It’s yin and yang, and all part of life.

    Since I remember myself, even as a kid, I was intrigued by the dark side. Not clothing myself as a goth, or imagining myself as count Dracula. No, just a curious interest or fascination with death, with mourning, with loneliness. I never considered it a bad thing.

    Later this developed into an appreciation of writers as Dostoevsky. Realistic fiction, often dramatic and often ending in tragedy.

    Hemingway wrote in ‘Death in the Afternoon’;

    Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.

    Isn’t this awfully true?

    Suffering is part of being human and the price we pay for being conscious beings.

    Many times when happy I don’t even know why I am happy, I just am. It comes and goes like inspiration for writing posts for this blog. I have little control of it.

    So no, happiness is not a state of mind and negativity is just as welcome if honest and not conceited.

    Hemingway also wrote;

    Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it — don’t cheat with it.

    All states of mind to me are equally worthy. Just don’t cheat with it.

  • How I wept and why I write

    424552_10150642580756098_1718214860_nAs a teenager growing up in Israel I had it hard. I felt isolated and lonely and I didn’t belong. I felt trapped with nowhere to run or hide. And after high-school I got enlisted in the army when I wasn’t up for it.

    The worst part was the frustration of lacking a means to express myself. All I had going for me in those days was a terrible anger. You can ask my parents.

    I can remember how I longed for a means to release my anger. I was without talent for music, I didn’t play an instrument and all I could do was listen to other peoples music; angry music, sad music, teenage music. ‘If I could only play the guitar’ I thought. Listening to other people expressing themselves didn’t help. Besides, the same music was often the soundtrack to parties to which I felt an uninvited guest. It made me feel even more inadequate. I hated sports because before I enlisted I didn’t have the physique so I hated the guts of those who had, because it got them girls.

    Had I then known the comfort of reading, it might have spared me a lot of sorrow. But I didn’t read and when I tried to write it was immature and angry and full of cliché’s, so much I understood.

    —

    It was sometime during my early twenties – back in Holland with Israel behind me – when I first read Salinger’s ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ and I remember immediately rereading it for a second and third time. It was an immense experience. I carried the book with me for days as a close friend. I felt deeply for the main protagonist Holden Caulfield. Holden was from a wealthy family living in Manhattan and couldn’t have been farther away from my family background, but it felt as if I understood him completely. It felt as if I wandered with him through Manhattan with no place to go like the ducks in Central Park during the winter. His little sister Phoebe was like my twin sisters, young and untarnished and with a bond which was unconditional.

    I long wondered about my connection with Holden. I knew I was one of many millions who felt the same. Yet the feeling was sincere and immediate. Then I thought that what we shared was an anger and frustration and difficulty coping with the real world. I shared his concern with phonies and hypocrisy. I shared his concern with change. I didn’t think him crazy. The thought never once occurred to me. Was anger and dissatisfaction with the world the reason I felt so close to Holden? It sounded like an awful cliché, not that I cared, he was my friend.

    It was only much later that I read Salinger’s other works and it was only when I read Kenneth Slawenski’s biography about the writer J.D. Salinger that many pieces fell together. I learned to appreciate the man who created Holden. I learned about his life and what an extraordinary talented person he was. And I learned about his role in WWII. I discovered that the man who gave life to Holden was a sensitive and fragile man scarred by terrible experiences. When he couldn’t handle the fame after publishing ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ he retreated from society and lived the remainder of his life as a recluse. It left me with a tremendous admiration for the person that was J.D. Salinger.

    It was when I read his latest biography by David Shields and Shane Salerno (2013) that I found the answer to my question about what I shared with Holden. It was in a chapter titled ‘Is the Kid in this book Crazy?’. Here the biographers quote writer Andy Rogers who offers his theory about ‘The Catcher’. According to Rogers it was a war novel:

    Holden Caulfield, has more in common with a traumatized soldier than an alienated teenager. His prematurely gray hair serves as fodder for teasing and insecurity, but it also symbolizes something rather obvious: Holden is an old man in a young man’s body. This places Holden in an estimable literary lineage of characters who feel that their youth has been lost in the war.

    and further on:

    Salinger will never be the boy who went to prep school again, thus Holden is Salinger and the Salinger who will never be again.

    It hit me. Holden was angry and seemed frustrated and misunderstood and I felt the same. But what we really shared and what I recognized was the underlying trauma. The anger and frustration was just a result of the trauma, a cover for the pain and sadness. Suddenly I wept.

    And it was then that I made the decision to write no matter what. The biographers quoted psychologist Jay Martin:

    One of the processes we see in creativity is that the creative person solves a problem, That is, he’s depressed, he’s anxious, he’s uncertain, he’s mourning, he’s grieving. He writes, and in the process of writing, he doesn’t necessarily cure himself, but he gets some perspective by writing. By putting one sentence down after another, you get a perspective on your own disorder… I would guess that if Salinger was depressed, he found a way to rid himself of his depression by giving it to someone else. It’s almost like black magic, in which you put your anger or hatred into a character and discharge it there.

    It really does help.

  • Parade’s End

    TV-Parade's-End-StoppardI am in a restless and sad mood.

    I think it’s because I just finished watching the BBC miniseries ‘Parade’s End’. It was magnificent and brought me to tears. But it also made me melancholy because I’ve read the novel and now I’ve seen the series, and I just didn’t want it to end. Parade’s End. Such a fitting and well chosen title. In the novel it signifies an end of the Parade’s of Edwardian society, and the Parade’s of the soldiers who survived the trenches. No more Parade’s.

    I was born in 1980 and I can’t be farther from the age, the morals and the values of early 20th century and yet I have a sincere longing for some Parade’s, any Parade’s for all I care.

    And I feel melancholy because I am through my F. Scott Fitzgeralds and I have read all Salinger’s short stories, even just recently his unpublished ‘The ocean full of bowling balls’ which was illegally thrown online. I’ve read all I could about Hemingway and I can go on like this for hours, and there is so little to rejoice about in current literature, or so it seems.

    And people say there are great writers out there. People recommend some like Dave Eggers and his recently published ‘The Circle’, but I don’t mind the reviews, I am just not interested in the story he has to tell. I don’t want to read about the internet, about a virtual world, about company policies or what not. In fact I didn’t even really like Orwell’s 1984, I much prefer his other stories, especially Burmese Days. Eggers is just one example. The age seems all wrong. The topics seem all wrong. The sentiments seem all wrong. Or so it seems to me! And I don’t care for fantasy but it’s everywhere. And all the women are seemingly reading chicklits, but maybe I should stop here.

    I like Parade’s End because of Tietjens the main protagonist. Tietjens a proud and intelligent, well read and well behaved and dutiful man cause such he was raised. And despite the fact that he marries an adulterous cruel wife who despises him precisely for his good character he doesn’t falter. He doesn’t divorce her because that would be unkind and not done for. He doesn’t take a mistress even though he is terribly in love because of the same rules he stands for. He even goes to the trenches if the rules of the society and the country in which he lives demands it from him, even if society treats him unfairly.

    Who dares to judge character nowadays? Who are our heroes? Who do we look up too?

    If I stroll the bookshelves in libraries or bookstores all I seem to see is poverty. There is a shelf for everything; Japanese manga cartoons, American comics, New Age religion, mysticism, loads of fantasy or science fiction. When I do find the shelves in the section ‘English literature’, I see a lot of questionable reads. I see a lot of post-colonial literature, I see African American literature (seemingly always in stock), you can always find the dharma bums in stock; Kerouac, Bukowsky, Fear and Loathing. So are the works of Coupland, and postmodern classics like Catch 22 and Slaughterhouse 5. Is it too much to ask to reserve one section, say around 20 square feet with just works by great dead white men?

    It saddens me. Luckily there are still some Ford Madox Ford stories left unread for me, and I don’t mind rereading the works of those mentioned.

    There, I let off some steam.