The manuscript

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, by Jan Potocki, is a weird slice of literature, and I'm pleased that it has not fallen into complete obscurity.

The narrator, a Walloon officer on his way to Madrid, recounts the 66 days of his journey. While he does share the actual events he experiences, most of the book consists of the stories told by the people he encounters along the way, and the stories of the characters within those stories.

The novel is about 200 pages too long for my liking. At just past halfway, I found myself sympathizing with the geometer:

As soon as he left, Velásquez spoke and said, "I have tried in vain to concentrate all my attention on the gypsy chief's words but I am unable to discover any coherence whatsoever in them. I do not know who is speaking and who is listening. Sometimes the Marqués de Val Florida is telling the story of his life to his daughter, sometimes it is she who is relating it to the gyspy chief, who in turn is repeating it to us. It is a veritable labyrinth. I had always thought that novels and other works of that kind should be written in several columns like chronological tables."

The tales are labyrinthine; some intersect, others lead nowhere. The book as a whole strikes me as experimental. Potocki is playing with the form of his stories within stories, and quite consciously and deliberately, to mess with the readers' expectations regarding chronology and the conventions of traditional narrative.

Potocki experiments with style as much as with form. The stories are by turns picaresque and gothic, some historical, other faintly erotic. Most have to do with a sense of honour in the pursuit of romance and fortune.

There are some wonderful philosophical digressions, for example, on what is to be human and on the nature of faith. Indeed, religion plays a fairly significant role: we encounter the Inquisition and a secret Muslim society; the fellow travellers include a cabbalist and the Wandering Jew; many of the tales demonstrate resistance to conversion to another faith, even while characters at times struggle with their faith and confront the supernatural. It seems to me that Potocki regarded all religions as equal, and readily incorporated mystical elements into his understanding of God.

One character sets about expanding the academic work he'd previously assembled in The Secrets of Analysis Revealed, together with the Science of Infinite Dimensions. He proceeds then to classify all human knowledge in 100 volumes, and Potocki enumerates all 100 fields. The hundredth volume is devoted to analysis, "which, according to Hervas, was the science of sciences and marked the extreme limit of human knowledge." It's a bizarre exercise that does nothing to move the story forward but in itself is delightful food for thought.

The novel was filmed by Wojciech Has in 1965 (the whole of which can be seen on Youtube — I haven't watched more than a fragment, but it looks promising).

I can't recall how I came to learn of this book. It's a bit esoteric and slow-going at times; it's definitely not for everyone. The tales make for good bedtime reading, but it's really easy to lose sight of the whole of this book, so I can't really say if it amounts to more than the sum of its parts. However, the parts taken individually are both entertaining and provocative, and the structure and style give this 200-year-old novel the unique flavour of being ancient and modern at the same time.

"The Mystical Count," in The Fortean Times.

No one's gonna take me alive

Reading "The Duchess of Medina Sidonia's Story," which gives way to "The Marqués de Val Florida's Story," told along with "Hermosito's Story," as related within "The Gypsy Chief's Story," over the course of the twenty-seventh through twenty-ninth days of the adventures recounted in The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, by Jan Potocki.

Listening to "Knights of Cydonia," as told by Muse.

What you may find in Saragossa

She opened the door and we found ourselves in underground vaults, beyond which was what looked like a silver lake, but was actually a lake of quicksilver. The princess clapped her hands, and a boat propelled by a yellow dwarf appeared. We stepped into the boat, and I saw that the dwarf's face was of gold, with diamond eyes and a coral mouth. In other words it was an automaton who rowed through the quicksilver with his little oars and skilfully made the boat skim along. This novel pilot took us to the foot of a rock whch opened up to allow us to pass into another chamber, in which there was the amazing spectacle of countless other automata: peacocks spreading enamel tails which were studded with jewels, parrots with emeralds for plumage flying above our heads, negroes made of ebony proffering golden platters laden with ruby cherries and sapphire grapes. There were numerous other astonishing objects in these magical vaults which stretched further than the eye could see.

At that moment I was unaccountably tempted to repeat the word "paradise" to see what effect it would have on the princess. I yielded to this fatal curiosity and said, "Signora, one can truthfully say that you are living in paradise on earth."

The princess smiled in the most charming manner and said, "So that you can better judge the delights of this place, I shall introduce to you my six ladies-in-waiting."

She took a golden key from her belt and opened a huge chest which was covered in black velvet and decorated with solid silver.

When the chest was opened, a skeleton appeared, who came towards me in a menacing way. I drew my sword. The skeleton ripped off its left arm and, using it as a weapon, launched a furious attack on me. I put up a good fight, but a second skeleton emerged from the chest, tore a rib off the first skeleton and hit me over the head with it. I grabbed it by the throat but it clasped me in its fleshless arms and tried to throw me to the ground. I managed to get clear of it, but a third skeleton emerged from the trunk to join the other two. Then the other three appeared. Seeing no chance of coming away alive from so unequal a combat, I fell to my knees and begged the princess to spare me.

The princess ordered the skeletons to return to the chest, then said, "Romati, never forget as long as you live what you have seen here."

As she said this she grasped my arm. I felt it burn to the bone and I fainted.

— from The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, by Jan Potocki.

It was written around 1800 in French by a Polish nobleman, but wasn't published in its entirety during his lifetime.

It's a novel of frames. Kind of like Arabian Nights, with a touch of Don Quixote about it (for its adventuring and metaphysical aspects), and maybe even Perec's Life A User's Manual (not sure exactly why — some of the flavour has seeped from one reading to the other), only more macabre. Loving it!

The future is now

I'd decided to treat myself to an ereader as soon as the Kobo became available in black. I've read all about it, know the specs, etc, but some purchases I want to turn over in my hands before I buy. So this weekend I tried one out in-store.

The Kobo is bigger and lighter than I expected it to be. Page-turning was a little slow, but I hear that's typical of all devices using eInk technology. I went around in circles, navigation-wise, for a bit, but that circle is limited, and though it was taking longer than I wanted to figure things out, I'm sure I would've done so eventually. I left the store determined to have one; if I couldn't convince anyone to get me one for Mother's Day, I would pick one up for myself on Monday.

As it happens, I hardly had time to sing its praises at home before I had in my hands an altogether different ereader (because allegedly, I'm the best mom ever).

The Sony Reader Touch Edition is about twice the price, and I'm not entirely convinced I'm worth it. Undeniably, however, the look and feel of the Kobo is cheap by comparison. The Sony has more weight to it (kind of a negative), but this heft also confers solidity. I can imagine the Kobo being easily cracked, and the buttons not registering your intended actions. The Sony is a quality piece of hardware. (And the eInk seemed to move faster on the Sony in my own home than in-store and under sales pressure.)

Getting started
The Kobo comes preloaded with 100 books, which had had me excited — with it, I could get started straight away. On the other hand, those books are public domain — presumably I could track down and download those public domain titles I'd actually be interested in reading to any ereader I pleased.

(Has the meme propagated yet? What are the 100 books preloaded to the Kobo? How many have you read and how many do you actually intend to someday read? Now I'm kind of curious to know what they are.)

The Sony reader wasn't quite ready to use starting out of the box. First you have to charge it up. Then you have to find something to read.

This reader comes loaded up with about a dozen samples: 5 are in a Germanic language I can't read, and there are 2 fantastic classic novels in French (both of which I've already read (I even read half of one of them in French)). The English samples are all excerpts. I was surprised to find one of these is a selection of 10 recipes, 3 of which I'm eager to try out.

A few hours later I've added to my library some Dickens, some Dumas, PG Wodehouse, and Agatha Christie. None of these are top of list, but they're all books I mean to get around to someday. Also, I find on my hard drive a PDF of Miriam Toews' A Complicated Kindness. Onto the ereader it goes. (Since added: George Gissing, on Susan's recommendation.)

Things to get excited about
The Sony has going for it the ability to take notes. I always figured e-marginalia would be a natural offshoot of this kind of technology, but I'd convinced myself wasn't really necessary. How often do I make notes in books? Not very. But I do add a lot of sticky notes with stars and arrows (mostly as bookmarks). So it is comforting to have the option of extending these habits into the future.

Also a plus: the built-in dictionary. How often do I look up words in the dictionary while reading? Not very. But, I feel that I should (a recent exercise in annotation mde me realize that I understand many words in context but much less precisely than I should). And now I can! Very, very easily! I'm looking forward to putting this to the test when I'm reading the new China Miéville this summer (though, there's a good chance a lot of his words won't be in the dictionary). Ehh, I'm sure I'll use it with Dickens too.

Some frustrating quirks
Regarding the reader itself, at this early stage, I have little to complain about. I hate that alphabetical by author means by first name, and I appear to be losing this battle against the technological world. But, oh, I hate that a lot.

Regarding the whole business of ereading, well...

I downloaded a PDF (Agatha Christie) only to find it included only the book's odd-numbered pages; all the even-numbered pages were (mostly — except for the occasional oddly placed scrap block of text) blank.

The public domain files are often hit or miss. Many of the ePub books are obviously produced using OCR. One sample (GK Chesterton) was evidently not proofread; headers (the book and chapter titles) and footers (paper page numbers) would appear mid e-page, often interrupting a sentence.

And! Why can't I get (I mean buy, from a store) any JD Salinger stories?

At the end of the day
I went to bed, finally, with a real hardcover book though, because it was the book I happened to be in the middle of. Not because of its format. Format is lost behind a good book. I'd gladly read it electronically if it were at the ready (but now, I wasn't going to buy an ecopy, when I already had paper in front of me).

I've purchased one ebook (The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, by Jan Potocki) and am considering a few more. I think it's a bit funny that my hi-tech reading device is being used to supply me with literature that's old. I feel like I should be using it to read science fiction.

One publisher has already advised me that they do not (cannot?) supply review copies (in Canada) in an electronic format. Not yet anyway.

I'm definitely hoping that the move to the ereader will help me reclaim some wall space, or at least not endanger any more, but the effect will not be immediate. I have two print books ordered a week ago winging their way to me, review copies will continue, and then there are those darn sexy, irresistible NYRB classics.

Advice?
Do you have an ereader? If so, do you read more print or electronic books? Do you find you choose to read certain types of books in one format or another? Where do you like to get your ebooks from? Do you find your ereader lacking in any particular respect? Do you use your ereader one-handed or two-handed? Do you carry it with you everywhere?