Problems of universal importance

Proud Beggars, by Albert Cossery, is a very funny book, and proved to be a delicious palate cleanser after having read a couple detail-intensive historical novels that went on a bit too long.

Written in 1955, Proud Beggars is surprisingly fresh, and in light of the Arab Spring, its revolutionary spirit can be viewed as relevant — not exactly prescient, but insightful into a simmering antiestablishment, life-affirming attitude.

It's set in Cairo, and in the second chapter there's a murder in a brothel. We know who did it — this is no police procedural or cat-and-mouse tale.

The story is about three friends, barely concerning itself with how they are implicated in the murder.

The novel starts with Gohar, who lives ascetically in a single room in a slum. He wakes to find it flooded and determines that the best course of action is to do nothing and wait for a miracle. But he's freaking out, so finally he makes a run for it, and only once he's well away from the building does he realize he's left his drugs behind, but he's too freaked out to go back. He spends the rest of the day affected by paranoia and hallucinations and sudden clarity and withdrawal, trying to track down his dealer. He dreams of finding passage to Syria where he can spend his days frolicking through fields of hashish. He gave up his professorial gig at the university some time ago; his literary talent now earns him some coin at the brothel, for to "write the love letters of illiterate whores seemed to him work worthy of human interest."

Yeghen is (he seems to think) a very ugly man, which quality is deemed to be central to his character, that of romantic and poet — a popular poet, a populist poet, giving the people voice in the people's own language. He makes his living by dealing drugs and, no doubt, engaging in other nefarious activities.

El Kordi is a revolutionary in his head, but by day he plays the role of government clerk:

It was eleven in the morning. Seated behind his desk in the Ministry of Public Works, El Kordi was growing bored watching the flies buzz about. The large room, lit by high windows and containing several desks behind which other clerks were labouring, was as odious to him as a prison. It actually was a sordid kind of prison, where one was in eternal contact with common-law prisoners. El Kordi would have accepted being in prison, but in a private cell, as a political prisoner. His rancor against such overcrowding derived from noble, aristocratic instincts of which he was not at all aware. He was embittered by the lack of privacy that became intolerable in the long run. How could he reflect at ease on problems of universal importance in front of these dusty, congealed figures devoted to unending slavery? To protest against this injustice, El Kordi abstained from practically all work, intending thereby to show his disapproval and his spiritual independence. But since no one noticed his protest, he grew bored.

[...]

From his chair, he distractedly contemplated his sorry colleagues and thought he saw the chains of slavery everywhere. These constraints imposed on his freedom several hours each day made him extremely sensitive to the sorrows of the oppressed masses of the universe. He stirred in his chair and sighed loudly. Some of the slaves, seriously occupied with their work, raised their heads and gave him a look full of incomprehension. El Kordi answered these sad looks with a kind of aggressive pout. He despised all of them. The revolutions would not be carried out by this wretched breed. They'd been there several years — how many, no one could say — rooted to their chairs, covered with dust, with their mummified faces. A veritable museum of horrors. At the thought that one day he might be like them, El Kordi shivered and felt like leaving at one. But then he told himself that it wasn't yet a decent hour to go, and so he stayed on quietly being bored.

Besides the motley trio, the investigating police inspector is himself quite a character, a man of peculiar habits and aspirations. He rounds out the novel's absurdities and brings it to a perfect close.

Along the way, adding to the rich tapestry of impoverished Cairo life: Yeghen's mother ("She was skilled in the art of distilling sadness; she spun misery like a spider its web."); the consumptive whore El Kordi intends to save; and Gohar's limbless beggar-neighbour and his jealous wife.

Despite the material poverty of the surroundings, there's a freedom of spirit and life-is-beautiful vibe throughout the book, and it's more than implied that such joie is absent among the oppressors, and only through relinquishing bourgeois extravagances can one know what is truly important. Of course, so many ideas are turned upside down in this book; ironically, the dead whore's life isn't given much value at all — she's of no consequence, just a casualty of the revolutionary ideas of a few self-important, if beggarly, men. So it seems Cossery is mocking the life-is-beautiful attitude as much as he's embracing it. Either way, it's something to smile about.

The novel has been adapted to a graphic format (French original, Mendiants et orgueilleux), extracted in Words without Borders.

The taste of the Russian peasant

The thespian side of Elizabeth's soul! Hunger for the awe lighting up visitors' faces when they reached her presence, having passed through the enfilade of staterooms connected through carved and gilded portals. Hunger for the gasps of astonishment at the soft browns and yellows in the Amber Room. Shades of ebony touching on the color of dark honey, through which she, the queen bee, floated in her luscious dresses, her high heels sliding on the polished mosaics of the floors. "How vulgar, Varenka," Catherine had murmured. "She has the taste of the Russian peasant she will always be."

The Winter Palace, by Eva Stachniak, is a historical novel centering on the rise to power of Catherine the Great of Russia, from the time she arrived at the court of Empress Elizabeth, at the age of 15. Catherine is a mythic character, but the truth is I know very little about her.

Her story is told through the eyes of one of the maids at court, Varvara, the orphaned daughter of a bookbinder, whose main duties revolve around the transmission of information, or, more bluntly, spying.



I wanted to love this book, but didn't. A little over halfway through I toyed with the idea of abandoning it. After all, I know the story ends in a coup and Catherine's ascension to the throne. I think the only thing that pulled me along was the introduction of the character of Count Poniatowski and the connection to Polish history, though I think my curiosity would be better served by a biography or history text.

The tagline — "behind every great ruler lies a betrayal" — is a little misleading; there is no single betrayal on which events hinge.

It was not believable to me that Catherine would suddenly have so much support, at court, among the Guard, after having lived so much on the sidelines, out of the court's and public's eye. Her life was fuller, of course, than we are allowed to see (and the novel is weaker for us not seeing it).

That's one of Varvara's epiphanies, but she comes off as rather pathetic for not having realized earlier that her status was not unique, for not having questioned some sources of information or the nature of other relationships. For someone in the know, she knows very little. Similarly, I don't buy Varvara's grief for her husband, and the characterization of her relationship with her daughter feels forced. It's too bad that we experience all the novel's events through someone whose characterization is relatively weak.

There's a disconnect between her perception, Catherine's story, and what I think the reader is intended to come away with.

About the palace cats.

Excerpt.

X

Has anyone read X'ed Out, by Charles Burns? Can you explain it to me?

I wish I'd known that this story was incomplete and was only the first part of a serial. On its own it's a bit slight, and I don't see what the big deal is over it. The story elements are part David Lynch, part William S. Burroughs — trippy and unexplained. Visually it pays homage to Tintin, but beyond that I don't see how referencing Tintin adds to the story. Maybe Burns intends a stronger parallel to be drawn in the next 100 pages, but I don't see it yet.

I'd be interested to see how the whole story plays out — what's with the hive, and the lizard creatures? — but the first volume by itself was pretty disappointing.

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Wonderful

Graphic novels, comic books, whatever you want to call them, have never really been my thing. I've always been open to them in theory, but was never particularly drawn to them as a genre.

I use the word "genre" deliberately because it highlights a major misconception about what comic books are, one I was guilty of in the past, and one that is slowly being overcome in the literary establishment. Graphic novels are not a genre unto themselves; the term describes a format, like book, movie, painting, article, that delivers some kind of narrative (hence the "novel" part). I have over the years read in the form of graphic novels: adventure stories, fantasies, journalistic reportage, science fiction, historical memoirs, love stories.

My other half has always been a big fan of Daniel Clowes. This Christmas I gave him a handful of Clowes's latest, and since nobody gave me any books for Christmas this year (what the fuck?!), I've taken to reading over his shoulder.

Saturday morning I managed to squirrel away on my own with Mister Wonderful. Dark comedy romance? It's an evening in the life of a divorced middle-aged man out on a blind date. It's funny, perceptive, sweet. The night's events are visually depicted, but the meat of the story is Marshall's internal running commentary. In this way we also get glimpses into his past, learning how he came to be the man he is today.

But one night about three months ago, I was "befriended" by a strange woman. We wound up spending a crazy, sleepless weekend together. It was sort of like "Breakfast at Tiffany's," except in this version, Holly Golightly is an unstable, crank-snorting sociopath. It wound up costing me $800, my grandmother's earrings and a laptop, but such is the price of transformative human events, I suppose.

Clowes is a keen observer of behaviour. We miss a lot of Natalie's chitchat because Mister Wonderful is too busy thinking about having to pee but this not being a good time to go pee. Her emotional confessions are interrupted by the waitress. He grumbles about the rich party-goers and insults them in his head. It's all very human.

I'm learning that reading graphic novels requires a certain kind of literacy; one review notes some of the artist's techniques:

He makes judicious and creative use of comic book devices: three dimensional words to symbolize emotional distress; a little floating man to represent Marshall's superego; text in word balloons running off the side of a panel or obscured by inner-thought boxes; vignettes drawn in cartoony style to depict imagined consequences; flashbacks tinted a rusty orange.

Mister Wonderful originally ran in the New York Times Funny Pages.

From real to configurational space

Back in December when I was wondering what to read next, I held up two books and asked Helena, the one about robots or the one about something else (I don't remember what)? No contest. Robots, hands down.

The Cyberiad is a collection of short stories by Stanisław Lem. The stories are awesome and clever and hilarious.

They are illustrated by Daniel Mróz — the drawing I've posted here depicts the electronic bard, the story about which I quoted from previously. (There is an online gallery of Mróz's work, and and the recent Google doodle commemorating one of Lem's publications also pays him tribute in employing his style.) The illustrations are as funny and weird and complex as Lem's stories.

The stories read like fairy tales, though they are set in the far future. They deal with warring kingdoms, exotic cultures, human foibles, and questions of morality. They have a 1001 Nights feel to them, but with robots. Essentially, The Cyberiad relates the adventures of Trurl and Klapaucius, two constructors, as they execute various commissions across the universe while working on their own personal robotics projects. But they — the stories, not so much the constructors, but sometimes — are deeply reflective and philosophical.

Trurl and Klapaucius are friends, colleagues, competitors. The stories are about them more than their creations — the robots serve to amplify their too-human flaws: greed and ambition often lead them to go about their work with blinders on. The fact that they enjoy some relative successes means that there are others scheming to undermine them; when they're not trying to sabotage each other, they will join forces against a common threat.

Many people point to The Cyberiad as the perfect entryway to Lem's work. These stories are certainly accessible, but I'm not sure how representative they are of Lem. They are nothing like the handful of novels that I've read, but I imagine some other of his books might share The Cyberiad's light-heartedness and joie de vivre.

I don't know if Douglas Adams ever cited Lem as influence, but a comparison between these authors is clear.

Behold, from "The Third Sally or The Dragons of Probability" (I've inserted breaks for readability, but note that Lem writes this as one paragraph):

Trurl and Klapaucius were former pupils of the great Cerebron of Umptor, who for forty-seven years in the School of Higher Neantical Nillity expounded the General Theory of Dragons. Everyone knows that dragons don't exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact wholly unconcerned with what does exist. Indeed, the banality of existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to discuss it any further here.

The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely different way. And then there were the imaginary dragons, and the a-, anti- and minus-dragons (colloquially termed nots, noughts and oughtn'ts by the experts), the minuses being the most interesting on account of the well-known dracological paradox: when two minuses hypercontiguate (an operation in the algebra of dragons corresponding roughly to simple multiplication), the product is 0.6 dragon, a real nonplusser. Bitter controversy raged among the experts on the question of whether, as half of them claimed, this fractional beast began from the head down or, as the other half maintained, from the tail up.

Trurl and Klapaucius made a great contribution by showing the error of both positions. They were the first to apply probability theory to this area and, in so doing, created the field of statistical draconics, which says that dragons are thermodynamically impossible only in the probabilistic sense, as are elves, fairies, gnomes, witches, pixies and the like. Using the general equation of improbability, the two constructors obtained the coefficients of pixation, elfinity, kobolding, etc. They found that for the spontaneous manifestation of an average dragon, one would have to wait a good sixteen quintoquadrillion heptillion years. In other words, the whole problem would have remained a mathematical curiosity had it not been for that famous tinkering passion of Trurl, who decided to examine the nonphenomenon empirically.

First, as he was dealing with the highly improbable, he invented a probability amplifier and ran tests in his basement — then later at the Dracogenic Proving Grounds established and funded by the Academy. To this day those who (sadly enough) have no knowledge of the General Theory of Improbability ask why Trurl probabilized a dragon and not an elf or goblin. The answer is simply that dragons are more probable than elves or goblins to begin with. True, Trurl might have gone further with his amplifying experiments, had not the first been so discouraging — discouraging in that the materialized dragon tried to make a meal of him. Fortunately, Klapaucius was nearby and lowered the probability, and the monster vanished.

A number of scholars subsequently repeated the experiment on a phantasmatron, but, as they lacked the necessary know-how and sang-froid, a considerable quantity of dragon spawn, raising an ungodly perturbation, broke loose. Only then did it become clear that those odious beasts enjoyed an existence quite different from that of ordinary cupboards, tables and chairs; for dragons are distinguished by their probability rather than by their actuality, though granted, that probability is overwhelming once they've actually come into being.

Suppose, for example, one organizes a hunt for such a dragon, surrounds it, closes in, beating the brush. The circle of sportsmen, their weapons cocked and ready, finds only a burnt patch of earth and an unmistakable smell: the dragon, seeing itself cornered, has slipped from real to configurational space. An extremely obtuse and brutal creature, it does this instinctively, of course.

Now, ignorant and backward persons will occasionally demand that you show them this configurational space of yours, apparently unaware that electrons, whose existence no one in his right mind would question, also move exclusively in configurational space, their coming and goings fully dependent on curves of probability. Though it is easier not to believe in electrons than in dragons: electrons, at least taken singly, won't try to make a meal of you.

[Helena asked if she'd made a good choice, selecting this book for me to read. I told her, excellent. Over the weeks I was reading these stories I would retell parts of them to her, and we'd share our puzzlement or laugh at their ridiculousness.

In an unrelated conversation, she told me she's changed her mind about what she wants to be when she grows up. Maybe she wants to be a constructor (and I thought this was a weird choice of word for her to use), to build things she designs herself, ecological things, that are good for the planet, to make our lives better, like pineapple phones or electric cars.]

What you know, you know

"Why did you strike his so soundly?"

"He needs that scholarly pride clouted out of him."

"Like the man you spoke of who angered you?"

There's a short silence. His shoulders rise and fall. "There are those who think that all of life's lessons can be reaped from reading. I despise them."

"Despise them?"

"What a man does with his brain is his concern, not mine. Just do not let him think he's a better man for it. [...]"

Although many professional reviewers are quibbling over the liberties David Snodin has taken with Shakespeare's Othello, I rather enjoyed his Iago, and I'm guessing my general ignorance of Shakespeare went a long way in this regard. I didn't notice what plot points were changed, nor did I have a strong sense of Iago's character before jumping in.

Of course, I knew the basics of Shakespeare's story, and read up on it a little after Snodin's novel had hooked me.

Snodin has written about his fascination with the character of Iago, and the more I know, the more entranced I become myself — enough so that I'll be checking out Othello on film soon.

Snodin's story picks up where Shakespeare's left off. Iago is imprisoned for murder in a remote corner of Cyprus, and by page 11 we learn he's escaped. Back in Venice, we learn of the domestic tragedy of Othello and experience its aftermath through Gentile Stornello, cousin of Shakespeare's ill-fated Desdemona. Gentile's a nerd and a weakling — a poet! — and he gets mixed up with — that is, beaten up by — one of the Malipiero bad boys. And he falls for his servant girl.

One of the Malipiero uncles is Chief Inquisitor of the Serene Republic of Venice. He has Gentile brought in, because he can. And he throws Gentile — who reminds him of his own deceased son — in with Iago — for whom there is still an official hunt going on. That is, he's got Iago, but he's not telling anyone yet, cuz that's not enough for him; he wants to know what makes Iago tick. So he lets him go. Malipiero uses Gentile to gleen what he can about Iago.

So the plot has some Shakespearean-like complexities at its core.

It's a cat-and-mouse story — the cat know exactly where the mouse is, and the mouse knows the cat is on its tail, but the cat waits for exactly the right moment to pounce, and the mouse plays to survive, and you're never really sure what the cat gets out of it. Is there really such a thrill in the hunt or is it simply playing, to the death — does it enjoy the game or is it merely acting according to its nature?

There are a lot of reasons I enjoyed Iago.

One. I'm loving historical Venice, its sounds and colours. This is directly related to my ongoing relationship with the Assassin's Creed video games, and reading this book was a reasonable substitute for the games, allowing me to immerse myself in that world through a different channel.

Two. It seems I may have my own personal Iago these days, whispering groundless suppositions in my Othello's ear. But by what motivation? Jealousy, cruelty, kindness, justice, amusement?

Three. I read this novel while watching people grieve. It served as a much-needed escape from funereal circumstances and as a reminder of some basic truths.

The loyalty and protection of those closest to you, I think, is what makes for true succor — a shield against the fears of the night and the perils of the world outside.

Mostly it made me wonder about our true natures. Do we always act as our selves, or can we be driven to deeds that are out of character? How? Which is our true self — the one in cool-headed repose or the one inflamed by passion? Do we betray our true selves under torture? People around me are saying things in their grief — I can't tell if it has muddied their contact with the world or if it has stripped bare something that is in their essence.

(With these questions I'm reminded of Louise Penny's A Trick of the Light, a completely different novel from this one, and a remarkably strong one in how it's holding up in my memory, but with a similar motivation — to dig at the roots of human nature.)

Reviews
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The New Republic
Washington Post
Winnipeg Free Press

I tend to agree with the reviewer of the Winnipeg Free Press piece:

It is a journey that ends, as it seems all post-Freudian accounts of evil must, with sexual trauma suffered in childhood.

This is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the novel, betraying as it does the most unsettling aspect of Shakespeare's play. Whereas Shakespeare's Othello reveals to us monstrosity disguised as mundanity, Snodin's Iago only manages to make the monstrous mundane.

From what I gather, if you know your Shakespeare, this book may disappoint you, but if you're like me, Iago may inspire you to approach its source.

Finding Shakespeare

Hamlet finally meets his maker in The Blast of War, Volume 2 of Kill Shakespeare (collecting issues 7–12).

The first volume, A Sea of Troubles, set the stage, bringing to life the premise that Shakespeare's creations have taken on a life of their own and are grappling with some metaphysical complexities. Are they bound by Shakespeare's quill (and what exactly is the nature of that bond), or is their will entirely free (and if so, where does that leave Shakespeare)? The plot is a question of resolving the balance of power — the bloodlustiness of Lady Macbeth and her demonic minions and the treachery of Richard III on the one hand, with Juliet, Othello, and Hamlet leading a kind of uprising against a meaningless existence on the other, essentially in defense of Shakespeare's honour.

This second volume see these factions do battle in an ultimate confrontation. But it's not all war. I was swept up in the love story: Romeo is alive after all. Will Juliet go back to him, or will she move forward with Hamlet?

Shakespeare turns out to be an alcoholic recluse wallowing in his own existential crisis. Hamlet has searched him out.

"Amazing. These people believe you their creator and yet thou art merely a drunkard. They deserve better. For this ale-soaked form deserves not my pity, nor even my scorn."

"Careful, Prince. I was not asked to be their — or your — maker. But know this: I most assuredly can unmake thee."

While the first volume stands for the novelty of its premise, I enjoyed the sequel even more for the strength of its story.

The video clip that follows features an interview with Kill Shakespeare's creators. It provides some insight on what went into its making, but it also gives you a taste of the story and the wonderful artwork.



There's some talk of adapting this work for film. Personally, I'd love to see this turned into a TV series: the Kill Shakespeare universe is wide open for countless potential adventures.

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PopMatters

************

I read this back in early December, but for various reasons haven't had the opportunity to post about it (or spend much time on the Internet at all) till now. It's a happy coincidence that since then, I've read David Snodin's Iago, another extrapolation of the life of a Shakespearean character beyond Bill's script (I'll write more about this novel later). It certainly complemented my reading of the comic, giving me a fuller appreciation of Iago — a character I know very little about (I've never read or seen Othello) — and how he fits among the villains in Shakespeare's world, and helped keep this comic book alive in my mind.

This to say: you don't need to know any Shakespeare at all to enjoy Kill Shakespeare, but (as with anything, I guess) the more you know, the richer it is.

Why should I long for things of this world?

My father's voice came back to me first: "The power of reason . . . breaking down fear and superstition . . . Kunstkamera is a temple of knowledge." And then I remembered our maids calling Peter's museum a cursed place, one that would bring bad luck on our heads. Were they right when they sneered at my father's words?

I pushed away these thoughts. I would not cry, I vowed.

The first thing Professor Stehlin pointed out to the Grand Duke in Kunstkamera was a glass dome covering a hill made of skulls and bones. Two baby skeletons propped on iron poles looked as if they were preparing to climb it. Beside them another skeleton, bow in hand, seemed about to start playing his violin. A wreathe made of dried arteries, kidneys, and hearts hung above them, with a a calligraphed inscription that said: Why should I long for things of this world?

"Anatomical art," Professor Stehlin called it. "So why should we think of death when we are still in our prime?" he asked his pupil.

The Grand Duke rubbed his hands and grinned. He remembered word for word what I had read to him days before.

To make us aware of the brevity of life. To remind us that we will have to account for our deeds well beyond the moment of death.

Professor Stehlin nodded with a smile.

— from The Winter Palace, by Eva Stachniak.

It feels right to be reading this when it's cold. These last weeks have been dark. There has been death, and also violence. It's been a sad time, and morbid too.

The description of this museum disturbed me. The book is historical fiction. At this point I had to investigate: how much is historical, how much is fiction?

Kunstkamera is real, situated across the Neva from the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. It is Peter the Great's personal collection of anthropological artefacts. Something of a freak show.

Much of the extensive and gruesome collection of anatomic specimens is viewable online.

Capitaine Haddock: Iconoclast

I am surrounded by Tintin lovers.

As much as we are sceptical of the translation of Tintin to the big screen, we are eager to see it. But for various reasons, it will have to wait a little while.

Myself, I have only a passing acquaintance with the intrepid young reporter. So by "we" I really mean my daughter, her father, his mother, her brother, and so on.

Being surrounded by Tintin as I am, there's nothing to do but grab an album off the stack: Le Crabe aux pinces d'or, in which we are first introduced to Capitaine Haddock.

I read this in French, and while I didn't get all the words, I got most of them. In fact, the most entertaining aspect of the story was the stream of insults Capitaine Haddock would let forth.

Canailles!... Empl­âtres!... Va-nu-pieds!... Troglodytes!... Tchouk-tchouk-nougat!...

Sauvages!... Aztèques!... Grenouilles!... Marchands de tapis!... Iconoclastes!...

Chenapan!... Ectoplasmes!... Marins d'eau douce!... Bachie-Bouzouks!... Zoulous!... Doryphores!...

Froussards!... Macaques!... Parasites! Moules à gaufres!

and

Filibustier!... Végétarien!... Pacte-à-quatre!...

Pirate!... Corsaire!

Arlequin! Hydrocarbure! Zoulou! Canaque! Gyroscope!

Empl­âtre!... Doryphore!... Noix de coco!... Zouave!... Cannibale!...

Anthropopithèque!... Iconoclaste!...

Paltoquet! Anacoluthe!... Invertèbre!... Jus de réglisse!

Do these insults really need translation?

I'm informed that this character trait of the good captain's pervades the rest of the adventures. There is much to look forward to.

Such is the way of scientific fanaticism

Trurl decides to build a machine that could write poetry...

The program found in the head of an average poet, after all, was written by the poet's civilization, and that civilization was in turn programmed by the civilization that preceded it, and so on to the very Dawn of Time, when those bits of information that concerned the poet-to-be were still swirling about in the primordial chaos of the cosmic deep. Hence in order to program a poetry machine, one would first have to repeat the enter Universe from the beginning — or at least a good piece of it.

[...]

Towards the end of the twentieth century the machine began to tremble, first sideways, then lengthwise — for no apparent reason. This alarmed Trurl; he brought out cement and grappling irons just in case. But fortunately these weren't needed; instead of jumping its mooring, the machine settled down and soon had left the twentieth century far behind. Civilizations came and went thereafter in fifty-thousand-year intervals: these were the fully intelligent beings from whom Trurl himself stemmed. Spool upon spool of computerized history was filled and ejected into storage bins; soon there were so many spools, that even if you stood at the top of the machine with high-powered binoculars, you wouldn't see the end of them. And all to construct some versifier! But then, such is the way of scientific fanaticism. At last the programs were ready; all that remained was to pick out the most applicable — else the electropoet's education would take several million years at the very least.

During the next two weeks Trurl fed general instructions into his future electropoet, then set up all the necessary logic circuits, emotive elements, semantic centers. He was about to invite Klapaucius to attend a trial run, but thought better of it and started the machine himself. It immediately proceeded to deliver a lecture on the grinding of crystallographical surfaces as an introduction to the study of submolecular magnetic anomalies. Trurl bypassed half the logic circuits and made the emotive more electromotive; the machine sobbed, went into hysterics, then finally said, blubbering terribly, what a cruel, cruel world this was. Trurl intensified the semantic fields and attached a strength of character component; the machine informed him that from now on he would carry out its every wish and to begin with add six floors to the nine it already had, so it could better meditate upon the meaning of existence. Trurl installed a philosophical throttle instead; the machine fell silent and sulked. Only after endless pleading and cajoling was he able to get it to recite something: "I had a little froggy." That appeared to exhaust its repertoire. Trurl adjusted, modulated, expostulated, disconnected, ran checks, reconnected, reset, did everything he could think of, and the machine presented him with a poem that made him thank heaven Klapaucius wasn't there to laugh — imagine, simulating the whole Universe from scratch, not to mention Civilization in every particular, and to end up with such dreadful doggerel! Trurl put in six cliché filters, but they snapped like matches; he had to make them out of pure corundum steel. This seemed to work, so he jacked the semanticity up all the way, plugged in an alternating rhyme generator — which nearly ruined everything, since the machine resolved to become a missionary among destitute tribes on far-flung planets. But at the very last minute, just as he was ready to give up and take a hammer to it, Trurl was struck by an inspiration; tossing out all the logic circuits, he replaced them with self-regulating egocentripetal narcissistors. The machine simpered a little, whimpered a little, laughed bitterly, complained of an awful pain on its third floor, said that in general it was fed up, through, life was beautiful but men were such beasts and how sorry they'd all be when it was dead and gone. Then it asked for pen and paper.

— from "The First Sally (A) or Trurl's Electronic Bard," in The Cyberiad, by Stanisław Lem.

Ma chandelle de Noël

Ma petite chandelle
Est très belle
Elle est décorée
D'étoiles en papier

Elle va me quitter bientôt
Car je vais la donner en cadeau
Noël c'est triste et amusant
Surtout le jour de l'an

Elle va me manquer
Pendant toute l'année
Car Noël est bientôt fini
C'est ainsi

— by Helena, grade 3.

Written for maman et papa at Christmas.

The furious animation of children

The differences among the children were startling, and yet, in the end, their faces mingled. Above all, the tapes revealed the furious animation of children, the fact that when conscious they rarely stop moving. A simple walk down the block included waving, hopping, skipping, twirling, and multiple pauses to examine a piece of litter, pet a dog, or jump up and walk along a cement barrier or low fence. In a schoolyard or playground, they jostled, punched, elbowed, kicked, poked, patted, hugged, pinched, tugged, yelled, laughed, chanted, and sang, and while I watched them, I said to myself that growing up really means slowing down.

— from What I Loved, by Siri Hustvedt.

Looking for China

Sometime he directed me to one or another of his online projects. That was how I realised that Aykan was a virtuoso of programming. Once, on one of our infrequent rendezvous, I called him a hacker. He burst out laughing, then got very angry with me.

"Fucking hacker?" He laughed again. "Fucking hacker?" Listen bro, you're not talking to some sebum-faced little sixteen-year-old geekboy with wank-stained pants who calls himself Dev-L." He swore furiously. "I'm not a fucking hacker, man, I'm a fucking artist, I'm a hardworking wage slave, I'm a concerned motherfucking citizen, whatever you want, but I'm not a fucking hacker."

— from "An End to Hunger," in Looking for Jake, by China Miéville.

While a friend of mine is sharing her enthusiasm for China Miéville as she discovers Bas-Lag for the first time, I've been experiencing Miéville withdrawal. His next novel is a few months off yet, so I finally turned to Looking for Jake, a collection of short stories that I'd been saving up for just such an occasion.

Ah, it's great to read phrases like, "a bad atmosphere as tenacious as stink," and, "manipulating scobs of gris-gris," again.

A few of the stories are standouts. Namely, "Foundation," "Reports of Certain Events in London," and "Details."

They are cool and original and unsettling. I moved through them relatively slowly, partly in order to draw out the Miéville experience, but primarily to prevent overdosing on the vibe.

The story about the Ikea ball room, for example — I kept returning to it in my mind for days afterward, every time we passed Ikea (twice), every time I received or threw out an Ikea flyer (twice), every time we discussed a potential Ikea purchase, every time the kid mentioned hot dogs, whenever a colleague mentioned having recently been. This to say: the story stayed present, and I will never, ever leave a child of mine to the care of the Ikea ball room, and I want to warn all parents against it. (It turns out, that of all the people I informally polled, none have put a child in the ball room — it was too busy. It makes me wonder who actually enjoys this privilege?)

All this being the effect of a story I didn't even particularly like — the writing style felt off, it dragged a bit. Yet. It creeped me out!

You can't read too much of that kind of thing at once.

When Miéville is being straightforward with the storytelling, when it's about "regular" people in London (as opposed to "creatures" in imaginary worlds), when he's doing dialogue, he reminds me of Doris Lessing. The Londonness, the political sensibility. Banality preserved in even extraordinary circumstances.

A few other stories remind me of Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. It's hard not to think of Danielewski when structures are imbued with qualities ordinarily reserved for animate things. "Reports of Certain Events in London," for example, uses scraps of documents to tell its story about streets that move. The alleyways, they fucking move! Also, there's a Johnny Truant–like edginess in a couple other stories (see quotation at the top of this post).

I was reminded of one other voice in particular, though it took me a while to identify. Anne Hébert. Every now and again, romanticism rears its ugly head, brought into sharp relief by the urban setting, and it made me think of Hébert's psychologically starved characters in lush surroundings, her vampires.

What you cannot know is how it hurt.

For we who are not, or were not, our bodies: we, for whom flesh is, or was, only one possible clothing. We might fly or invert ourselves through the spines of grass, we might push ourselves into other ways of being, we might be to water as water is to air, we might do anything, until you looked at yourselves. It is a pain you cannot imagine — very literally, in the most precise way, you cannot know how it is to feel yourself shoved with a mighty and brutal cosmic hand into bloody muscle. The agony of our constrained thoughts, shoehorned into those skulls you carry, stringy tendons tethering our limbs. The excruciation. Shackled in your meat vulgarity.

On the whole, these stories weren't completely satisfying. They're too long, or too short, not tight enough. The characters feel incomplete, the ideas haven't been fully thought out. For whatever reason, these short stories don't quite work for me. (Note also that one story is in graphic form, and the ebook interface in this case was not easy. Had I known, I might've opted for paper.)

I like Miéville best when he's discursive and epic, and that's only just hinted at here. He does manage to establish mood quickly and strongly. I almost wish each of them had been sustained for the length of novel.

If you worry that Miéville might be a little weird for your pedestrian tastes, this collection will give you an idea of what he's capable of. Only know that he's much, much better in long form.

Excerpt: "Looking for Jake."

Flipback

It's a tiny — but perfectly readable — little book, about the size of a cassette tape.

Its orientation is perpendicular to that of a typical book. Closed, the book has a horizontal "landscape" orientation. The text runs parallel to the spine, and you turn pages upwards.

I don't know what the technical term is for this kind of binding, but the cover is attached only to the back end page, so the binding is super flexible while the spine of the cover lies flat (kind of like those 3-ring binders where you can unfold the cover back from the rings).

It's printed on onion paper, also known as bible paper — the pages are very thin. The 633-page novel I have at hand is barely more than a centimetre thick. (The standard paperback version comes with 384 pages.)

Background
For many months I've been seeing these lovely little books near the checkout in several local bookstores. Sadly for me, it was a weird selection of titles and they were all in French. While I considered picking one up for mere novelty's sake, I figured the language hurdle would discourage me from getting around to actually reading it.

A little investigation shows that these books are an award-winning concept that originated in The Netherlands (where they're known as dwarsliggers), and they've been around for some time in French and as librinos in Spanish.

And as of this past summer, a British publisher (Hodder & Stoughton) is offering titles in English. They're called flipbacks.

For the time being there are only 18 titles, but they are varied — good chance you'll find something to interest to you.

I wanted Cloud Atlas, long on my to-read list, but it wasn't readily available. I finally chose Siri Hustvedt's What I Loved (mostly on the strength of Sasha's review), and I ordered it up. I'm not far enough along to comment on the novel, but I've read enough to know something about the reading experience.

Yay
- Fits in your pocket. Discreet enough to read under the table at dinner parties or take into the toilet at work.

- One-handed functionality. Perfect size for gripping with one hand. One-handed page turning takes a little bit of practice, but it can be done. All in all, suitable for rush-hour public-transit commutes.

- It's a hardcover. Kinda. It's some sort of cardboard, sturdier than a paperback's covering, that won't rip or crease easily. It would have to be to protect the fine paper inside. It takes some effort to ding it up.

- The horizontal orientation means another design opportunity with regard to the cover art. Because it's not enough to turn a cover sideways. Designers get to re-envision such exciting elements as image cropping and text placement.

Nay
- The paper seems so delicate — I wonder if it's undergone strength testing. My book has suffered no damage yet (I have been treating it rather gingerly), but I'm afraid it's only a matter of time before pages are ripped.

- The line spacing is a bit tight. Certainly it's tighter than standard, and it does take some getting used to. I find I tend to use my bookmark as a line guide. Also, reading while in motion, my eyes occasionally trip to the wrong line.

- Margins are near nonexistent, so you'll have to jot down your notes somewhere else.

In sum


I'll happily consider acquiring more flipbacks as the catalogue of titles expands.

Not surprisingly, as with any good book, when a story is engrossing, the interface disappears.

Something old and predatory and utterly terrible

"I stared at the whole mass of the bricks. I took another glance, relaxed my sight. At first I couldn't stop seeing the bricks as bricks, the divisions as layers of cement, but after a time they became pure vision. And as the whole broke down into lines and shapes and shades, I held my breath as I began to see.

"Alternatives appeared to me. Messages written in the pockmarks. Insinuation in the forms. Secrets unraveling. It was bliss.

"And then without warning my heart went tight, as I saw something. I made sense of the pattern.

"It was a mess of cracks and lines and crumbling cement, and as I looked at it, I saw a pattern in the wall.

"I saw a clutch of lines that looked just like something. . . terrible — something old and predatory and utterly terrible — staring right back at me.

"And then I saw it move."

— from "Details," in Looking for Jake, by China Miéville.

Monsieur le president

The President is the latest novel by Simenon to be rediscovered by English-speaking audiences, issued by Melville House as part of its Neversink Library.

Again, different from any Simenon I've read to date. This one's a political drama with psychological suspense.

What makes this book different is that all the others deal with seemingly ordinary men — businessmen, clerks, shopkeepers, family men. Ordinary men who in one sense or another, actively or passively, walk away, and by doing so are doing something extraordinary. The President, one might say, is the opposite — the former leader of the nation, a rather extraordinary figure, who has withstood extraordinary circumstances, has taken extraordinary measures to achieve and maintain his status, or the aura of it, is reduced to ordinary actions, is shown to be an ordinary human, mortal, and with all the usual emotions and baser instincts.

The man now is old and ineffectual. He's been cast aside by his country, but still he hopes to make one final, dramatic play. After all, once upon a time, the premier was privy to some financial hanky-panky.

The Premier was livid when he finally gave the signal, in much the same spirit as a general launching a battle half lost in advance.

This would no longer be a bloodletting operation, affecting the whole of France to a more of less equal extent. Those in the know had already escaped, and what was more they had made huge profits at the expense of the medium and small investors.

During all these discussion, Chalamont, as white faced as his chief, had remained in the office, lighting one cigarette after another and throwing each one away after a few tense puffs.

He was not fat in those days. The caricaturists usually depicted him as a raven.

[It very nicely complemented the ambience of the book that I would climb out of the metro every morning at the site of Occupy Montreal.]

The figure of the premier is said to be inspired by Georges Clemenceau, who served nonconsecutive terms as Prime Minister of France as well as holding various other positions of influence.

I don't know how much of the novel is founded in history. It doesn't matter. It's an excellent read, with all the witty detail I've come to expect of Simenon.

He was a big, flabby chap, always dressed up to the nines, always with his hand held out and his lips ready to smile, the kind of fellow who won't express his views even on the most harmless subject without first peering at you to try to guess what yours may be.

The Premier had done nothing to help him, merely staring at him as malevolently as if he'd been a slug in the salad.

"I was at Le Havre, after driving a friend to the boat, and I thought I'd just like to drop in on you . . ."

"No."

That an unpopular trick of his. His "no" was celebrated, for he brought it out frequently, without anger or any other inflection. It wasn't even a contradiction: it simply took note of an almost mathematical fact.

This novel certainly has suspense — an element of mystery combined with politics. But ultimately The President is a character study (as are most Simenon novels). The man of consequence is shown to be suddenly grappling with his impotence, but more simply, to put a more everyman spin on it, it's about a man grown old and coming to terms with the choices he's made.

Tellingly, the title of the book alludes to another figure, the president, who has the power to appoint the premier. Perhaps this is to suggest to the reader that the premier be absolved of some responsibility, that not everything is within his control, that there are higher authorities, whether in public life or private.

November days

Helena turned nine this month. Part of her special day included a trip to the toy store, where she casually informed me that she didn't believe in Santa Claus anymore. She hasn't believed in a while, she says. I guess she just wanted to get it out in the open.

This month I started exercising. Not that I believe much in exercising, beyond that I know that I should. Mostly with the encouragement of my physiotherapist and for the benefit of my knee, I bought an exercise bike (because, who's kidding whom, I will never get my lazy ass to a gym). And I bike almost every day. I'm not sure I've seen much benefit apart from more mobility in my knee, but I suppose it's helping to counterbalance all the cakes I've partaken of this November. Most remarkable of all is how easy it was to develop this new habit. Which has me thinking I ought to try developing more new habits.

The first day of the exercise bike, I figured out how to position and fasten my ereader. But for the time being, it's still a bit awkward — I'll leave ereading for more advanced exercise sessions. Audiobooks are easier. I've just finished listening to Late Nights on Air, by Elizabeth Hay — it was charming and poignant and even tragic. But, in its being read me, I feel it's been interpreted. A much more passive experience than reading — I don't get from it what I get from the page when it's at a pace I set in my own voice inside my head. A nice way to pass the time, though.

One of my birthday gifts to Helena: The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick. Mostly because I wanted to read it myself. I can't say Helena was particularly thrilled, but then we saw the movie, and we were enchanted, so now we are reliving the magic in book form and waiting for snow.

Fairytale update

I had to know how it all turned out. I had to invest in the subsequent volumes of Doctor Who: A Fairy Tale Life.

And it turns out rather well, I think. The Doctor finds the TARDIS, Amy is cured of recombinant yersinia pestis, children thought lost to the serpentine of the Dread Tower are restored to their families, and the galactic tourist industry is well on its way to recovery. (Sorry if I spoiled it for anybody, but really, these resolutions are rather obvious from the start.)

What surprises, and thrills, me most about this SF franchise comic book experience is exactly how much these characters sound exactly how they're supposed to sound, saying exactly the sort of thing they would say. The whole thing was very cinematic, like I'd just watched an episode on TV.

Bonus: Helena's on page 14. So we all read happily ever after.

A language of collapsing jargon

When he speaks he wears a large and firm smile. He has to push his words past it so they come out misshapen and terse. He fights not to raise his voice over the sounds he knows you cannot hear.

"Yeah no problem but that supporting wall's powdering," he says. If you watch him close you will see that he peeps quickly at the earth, again and again, at the building's sunken base. When he goes below, into the cellar, he is nervy. He talks more quickly. The building speaks loudest to him down there, and when he come up again he is sweating below his smile.

When he drives he looks to either side of the road with tremendous and unending shock, taking in all the foundations. Past building sites he stares at the earthmovers. He watches their trundling motion as if they are some carnivore.

Every night he dreams he is where air curdles his lungs and the sky is a toxic slurry of black and black-red clouds that the earth vomits and the ground is baked to powder and lost boys wonder and slough off flesh in clots and do not see him or each other though they pass close by howling without words or in a language of collapsing jargon, acronyms and shorthands that once meant something and now are the grunts of pigs.

He lives in a small house in the edges of the city, where once he started to build an extra room, till the foundations screamed too loud.

— from "Foundation," in Looking for Jake, by China Miéville.

Astronauci

The Google doodle in Poland today celebrates the 60th anniversary of the publication of Stanisław Lem's first science fiction novel, The Astronauts.

The doodle, inspired by The Cyberiad, viewable at Google Polska is crazy interactive.



10 Things You Need to Know about Stanislaw Lem

Coincidentally, just the other day I decided to treat myself to a copy of The Cyberiad. I'll be sure to tell you all about it someday.

Edited to add:
Permalink to interactive doodle now available.