Read Roberto Bolaño’s Short Story “Mexican Manifesto”

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“Mexican Manifesto” by Roberto Bolaño (translation by Laura Healy):

Laura and I did not make love that afternoon. In truth, we gave it a shot, but it just didn’t happen. Or, at least, that’s what I thought at the time. Now I’m not so sure. We probably did make love. That’s what Laura said, and while we were at it she introduced me to the world of public baths, which from then on, and for a very long time, I would associate with pleasure and play. The first one was, without a doubt, the best. It was called Montezuma’s Gym, and in the foyer some unknown artist had done a mural where you could see the Aztec emperor neck-deep in a pool. Around the edges, close to the monarch but much smaller, smiling men and women bathe. Everyone seems carefree except the king, who looks fixedly out of the mural, as if searching for the improbable spectator, with dark, wide-open eyes in which I often thought I glimpsed terror. The water in the pool is green. The stones are gray. In the background, you can see mountains and storm clouds.

The boy who worked at Montezuma’s Gym was an orphan, and that was his primary topic of conversation. On the third visit, we became friends. He was only eighteen, and wanted to buy a car, so he was saving everything he could: tips were scant. According to Laura, he was a little slow. I thought he was nice.

In every public bath, there tends to be a fight from time to time. We never saw or heard any there. The clients, conditioned by some unknown mechanism, respected and obeyed every word of the orphan’s instructions. Also, to be fair, there weren’t very many people, and that’s something I’ll never be able to explain, since it was a clean place, relatively modern, with individual saunas for taking steam baths, bar service in the saunas, and, above all, cheap. There, in Sauna 10, I saw Laura naked for the first time, and all I could do was smile and touch her shoulder and say I didn’t know which valve to turn to make the steam come out.

(Read the rest of “Mexican Manifesto” at The New Yorker)

William Gaddis on the Pulitzer Prize: “The Ultimate Seal of Mediocrity”

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In William Gaddis’s last novel Agapē Agape (2002), our embittered narrator excoriates the Pulitzer Prize:

. . . write what they want you’ll end up with a Pulitzer Prize follow you right to the grave. Maybe won the Medal of honor the George Cross even the Nobel but once you’ve been stigmatized with the ultimate seal of mediocrity your obit will read Pulitzer Prize Novelist Dies at whatever because they’re not advertising the winner no. No, like this whole plague of prizes wherever you look, it’s the prize givers promoting themselves, trying to rescue their thoroughly discredited profession of journalism. “The press is a school that serves to turn men into brutes,” Flaubert writes to George Sand “because it relieves them from thinking.” The prize winners? They’re just props, cartoonists, sports writers, political pundits, front page photos the bloodier the better for that instant of fame wrap the fish in tomorrow, good God how many Pulitzer Prizes are there? Over fifteen hundred entries, fourteen categories for journalists because if you started your bondage there you’re halfway home with that whole gang of sponsors, trustees, juries, God knows what who’ve survived that Slough of Despond and floated to the top. Just look at the next day’s New York Times, page after page bulging with self-congratulation with seven more categories to leech on, music, what they call drama and of course books where the Grey Lady finally got it both ways with their journalist who reviews books, like the misty-eyed ingenue but also destroys women writers and just for fairness crosses the gender line for an occasional assassination, give that lady a Pulitzer with oak leaf clusters! The books that are candidates are read by a jury whose decisions are passed up to the Olympian trustees with an eye to the multitude. We are thousands and they are millions, write the fiction they want or don’t write at all, ruling out Pound’s cry for the new, the challenging or what’s labeled difficult, so when Gravity’s Rainbow is being devoured by college youth everywhere and wins the National Book Award, its unanimous recommendation is overturned by the trustees for a double-talk spoof of academic vagaries by a bogus “Professor,” to everyone’s relief, and the author at peril escapes unblemished by the, no, no, no you can’t depend on it.

The Red Chamber (Book Acquired, Some Time Like Two Weeks Ago Maybe)

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A review copy of Pauline A. Chen’s The Red Chamber arrived at Biblioklept World Headquarters like maybe two weeks ago, but my wife snapped it up immediately and then I neglected to look at it until today. Publisher Random House’s blurb:

In eighteenth-century China, the beautiful orphan Daiyu leaves her home in the provinces to seek shelter with her mother’s family in Beijing. At Rongguo Mansion, she is drawn into a world of sumptuous feasts, silken robes, and sparkling jewels—as well as a complex web of secret rivalries and intrigues that threatens to trap her at every turn. When she falls in love with Baoyu, the family’s brilliant, unpredictable heir, she finds the forces of the family and convention arrayed against her, and must risk everything to follow her heart.

Based on the epic Dream of the Red Chamber—one of the most famous love stories in Chinese literature—this novel recasts a timeless tale for Western audiences to discover.

 

 

Something on Georges Perec’s La Boutique Obscure

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1. Listening to someone’s dreams is usually pretty boring. Reading about someone’s dreams is even worse.

Except when it’s not, of course.

2. Perec, describing his dream journal La Boutique Obscure:

I thought I was recording the dreams
I was having; I have realized that it was
not long before I began having dreams
only in order to write them.

These dreams—overdreamed, overworked,
overwritten—what could I then
expect of them, if not to make them into
texts, a bundle of texts left as an o)ering
at the gates of that “royal road” I still
must travel with my eyes open?

3. La Boutique Obscure is new in English translation by Daniel Levin Becker, published by the good people at Melville House.

4. The dreams in La Boutique Obscure, rendered in fairly concrete prose (Perec avoids analysis), were recorded between 1968-1972.

5. I’ve been slowly reading the essays and riffs and lists collected in Perec’s Species of Spaces and Other Pieces over the past few years. There’s something wonderful about picking the book up at random and finding some little quip or note (or entire essay) that illuminates some fascinating aspect of what we might initially take to be a dull topic.

La Boutique Obscure works the same way.

6. Sample:

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7. Many of the elements that we see in Dream No. 24 / “Cats” run throughout the collection: Friends, doors, streets, houses, apartments, disasters, performances, lists, etc. etc. Note also Perec’s refusal to analyze or contextualize or otherwise attempt to make meaning out of the dream.

8. My favorite pieces in the collection are the ones that convey more plot—adventures, chases, fragments of films and plays—but there’s also pleasure in Perec’s shortest pieces, which often resemble imagist poems—like “The stone bridge”:

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9. A good review, a responsible review, might try to situate Perec’s dream journal against his role as Oulipo gamesmaster, or set the entries against Perec’s biography, or maybe compare it to other dream journals. Or maybe even try to tackle it as a novel, or a novelish book.

10. But I’m more interested in the aesthetic experience of reading La Boutique Obscure. The book is fun, distracting, and divergent. Perec’s refusal to interpret his dreams leaves plenty of space for the reader to make his own connection—and if need be, interpretations—but to be clear, the same banal anxieties that inform our own dreams are what Perec traces the contours of in La Boutique Obscure. The book’s greatest strength is its imagery, its evocation of place, space, movement. To fault it for lacking depth would be to entirely miss the point.

11. Reading La Boutique Obscure provides another nagging reminder that I have yet to read Life A User’s Manual.

12. Finally: Roman Muradov’s response to the book is better than any review:

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False — Jean-Michel Basquiat

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“On the Weather” — Jerome K. Jerome

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“On the Weather” by Jerome K. Jerome

Things do go so contrary-like with me. I wanted to hit upon an especially novel, out-of-the-way subject for one of these articles. “I will write one paper about something altogether new,” I said to myself; “something that nobody else has ever written or talked about before; and then I can have it all my own way.” And I went about for days, trying to think of something of this kind; and I couldn’t. And Mrs. Cutting, our charwoman, came yesterday—I don’t mind mentioning her name, because I know she will not see this book. She would not look at such a frivolous publication. She never reads anything but the Bible and Lloyd’s Weekly News. All other literature she considers unnecessary and sinful.

She said: “Lor’, sir, you do look worried.”

I said: “Mrs. Cutting, I am trying to think of a subject the discussion of which will come upon the world in the nature of a startler—some subject upon which no previous human being has ever said a word—some subject that will attract by its novelty, invigorate by its surprising freshness.”

She laughed and said I was a funny gentleman.

That’s my luck again. When I make serious observations people chuckle; when I attempt a joke nobody sees it. I had a beautiful one last week. I thought it so good, and I worked it up and brought it in artfully at a dinner-party. I forget how exactly, but we had been talking about the attitude of Shakespeare toward the Reformation, and I said something and immediately added, “Ah, that reminds me; such a funny thing happened the other day in Whitechapel.” “Oh,” said they, “what was that?” “Oh, ’twas awfully funny,” I replied, beginning to giggle myself; “it will make you roar;” and I told it them.

There was dead silence when I finished—it was one of those long jokes, too—and then, at last, somebody said: “And that was the joke?”

I assured them that it was, and they were very polite and took my word for it. All but one old gentleman at the other end of the table, who wanted to know which was the joke—what he said to her or what she said to him; and we argued it out. Continue reading ““On the Weather” — Jerome K. Jerome” →

Orion — Martin Wong

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Theft of Substance — Remedios Varo

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Something to cry about (John Cage)

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The Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs — Giorgio de Chirico

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Willa Cather on Mark Twain

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If there is anything which should make an American sick and disgusted at the literary taste of his country, and almost swerve his allegiance to his flag it is that controversy between Mark Twain and Max O’Rell, in which the Frenchman proves himself a wit and a gentleman and the American shows himself little short of a clown and an all around tough. The squabble arose apropos of Paul Bourget’s new book on America, “Outre Mer,” a book which deals more fairly and generously with this country than any book yet written in a foreign tongue. Mr. Clemens did not like the book, and like all men of his class, and limited mentality, he cannot criticise without becoming personal and insulting. He cannot be scathing without being a blackguard. He tried to demolish a serious and well considered work by publishing a scurrilous, slangy and loosely written article about it. In this article Mr. Clemens proves very little against Mr. Bourget and a very great deal against himself. He demonstrates clearly that he is neither a scholar, a reader or a man of letters and very little of a gentleman. His ignorance of French literature is something appalling. Why, in these days it is as necessary for a literary man to have a wide knowledge of the French masterpieces as it is for him to have read Shakespeare or the Bible. What man who pretends to be an author can afford to neglect those models of style and composition. George Meredith, Thomas Hardy and Henry James excepted, the great living novelists are Frenchmen.

Mr. Clemens asks what the French sensualists can possibly teach the great American people about novel writing or morality? Well, it would not seriously hurt the art of the classic author of “Puddin’ Head Wilson” to study Daudet, De Maupassant, Hugo and George Sand, whatever it might do to his morals. Mark Twain is a humorist of a kind. His humor is always rather broad, so broad that the polite world can justly call it coarse. He is not a reader nor a thinker nor a man who loves art of any kind. He is a clever Yankee who has made a “good thing” out of writing. He has been published in the North American Review and in the Century, but he is not and never will be a part of literature. The association and companionship of cultured men has given Mark Twain a sort of professional veneer, but it could not give him fine instincts or nice discriminations or elevated tastes. His works are pure and suitable for children, just as the work of most shallow and mediocre fellows. House dogs and donkeys make the most harmless and chaste companions for young innocence in the world. Mark Twain’s humor is of the kind that teamsters use in bantering with each other, and his laugh is the gruff “haw-haw” of the backwoodsman. He is still the rough, awkward, good-natured boy who swore at the deck hands on the river steamer and chewed uncured tobacco when he was three years old. Thoroughly likeable as a good fellow, but impossible as a man of letters. It is an unfortunate feature of American literature that a hostler with some natural cleverness and a great deal of assertion receives the same recognition as a standard American author that a man like Lowell does. The French academy is a good thing after all. It at least divides the sheep from the goats and gives a sheep the consolation of knowing that he is a sheep.

It is rather a pity that Paul Bourget should have written “Outre Mer,” thoroughly creditable book though it is. Mr. Bourget is a novelist, and he should not content himself with being an essayist, there are far too many of them in the world already. He can develop strong characters, invent strong situations, he can write the truth and he should not drift into penning opinions and platitudes. When God has made a man a creator, it is a great mistake for him to turn critic. It is rather an insult to God and certainly a very great wrong to man.

Willa Cather on Mark Twain. Originally published in Nebraska State Journal, May 5, 1895

 

 

Sappho (Raphael + David Markson)

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“Avril 14th” — Aphex Twin

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“Poker!” — A Short Play by Zora Neale Hurston

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POKER! by Zora Neale Hurston

Time—Present

Place—New York

Cast of characters—
Nunkie
Too-Sweet
Peckerwood
Black Baby
Sack Daddy
Tush Hawg
Aunt Dilsey

SCENE—

A shabby front room in a shotgun house.

A door covered by dingy portieres upstage C. Small panel window in side Wall L. Plain centre table with chairs drawn up about it. Gaudy calendars on wall. Battered piano against wall R. Kerosene lamp with reflector against wall on either side of room.

At rise of curtain NUNKIE is at piano playing…. Others at table with small stacks of chips before each man. TUSH HAWG is seated at table so that he faces audience. He is expertly riffing the cards … looks over his shoulder and speaks to NUNKIE.

TUSH HAWG Come on here, Nunkie—and take a hand! You’re holding up the game. You been woofin’ round here about the poker you can play—now do it!

NUNKIE
Yeah, I plays poker. I plays the piano and Gawd knows I plays the devil.
I’m Uncle Bob with a wooden leg!*[Handwritten: Last sentence crossed out
in pencil in manuscript.]

BLACK BABY Aw, you can be had! Come on and get in the game! My britches is cryin’ for your money! Come on, don’t give the healer no trouble!*[Handwritten: last sentence crossed out in pencil]

NUNKIE Soon as I play the deck I’m comin’ and take you alls money! Don’ rush me.

 Ace means the first time that I met you
Duece means there was nobody there but us two
Trey means the third party—Charlie was his name
Four spot means the fourth time you tried that same old game—
Five spot means five years you played me for a clown
Six spot means six feet of earth when the deal goes down
Now I’m holding the seven spot for each day of the week
Eight means eight hours that she Sheba-ed with your Sheik—
Nine spot means nine hours that I work hard every day—
Ten spot means tenth of every month I brought you home my pay—
The Jack is three-card Charlie who played me for a goat
The Queen, that’s my pretty Mama, also trying to cut my throat—
The King stands for Sweet Papa Nunkie and he’s goin’ to wear the crown,
So be careful you all ain’t broke when the deal goes down!
(He laughs—X’es to table, bringing
piano stool for seat)

TUSH HAWG Aw now, brother, two dollars for your seat before you try to sit in this game.

NUNKIE
(Laughs sheepishly—puts money
down—TUSH HAWG pushes stack of chips
toward him. Bus.)
I didn’t put it down because I knew you all goin’ to be puttin’ it right
back in my pocket.

BECKERWOOD
Aw, Y’all go ahead and play.
(to TUSH HAWG)
Deal!
(TUSH HAWG begins to deal for draw
poker. The game gets tense. SACK
DADDY is first man at TUSH’s left—he
throws back three cards and is dealt
three more)

SACK DADDY My luck sure is rotten! My gal must be cheatin’ on me. I ain’t had a pair since John Henry had a hammer!

BLACK BABY
(Drawing three new cards)
You might be fooling the rest with the cryin’ you’re doin’ but I’m
squattin’ for you! You’re cryin’ worse than cryin’ Emma!

TOO-SWEET
(Studying his three new cards)
(Sings)
When yo’ cards gets lucky, oh Partner, you oughter be in a rollin’ game.
*[Handwritten: get you foot offa my chair etc]

AUNT DILSEY (Enters through portieres—stands and looks disapprovingly) You all oughter be ashamed of yourself, gamblin’ and carryin’ on like this!

BLACK BABY Aw, this ain’t no harm, Aunt Dilsey! You go on back to bed and git your night’s rest.

AUNT DILSEY
No harm! I know all about these no-harm sins! If you don’t stop this
card playin’, all of you all goin’ to die and go to Hell.
(Shakes warning finger—exits through
portieres—while she is talking the
men have been hiding cards out of
their hands and pulling aces out of
sleeves and vest pockets and
shoes—it is done quickly, one does
not see the other do it)

NUNKIE
(Shoving a chip forward)
A dollar!

SACK DADDY
Raise you two!

BLACK BABY I don’t like to strain with nobody but it’s goin’ to cost you five. Come on, you shag-nags! This hand I got is enough to pull a country man into town. *[Handwritten: Last sentence crossed through in pencil.]

TOO-SWEET You all act like you’re spuddin’! Bet some money! Put your money where your mouth is *[Handwritten: els my fist where yo mouf is.]

TUSH HAWG Twenty-five dollars to keep my company! Dog-gone, I’m spreadin’ my knots!

SACK DADDY
And I bet you a fat man I’ll take your money—I call you.
(Turns up his cards—he has four aces
and king)

TUSH HAWG (showing his cards) Youse a liar! I ain’t dealt you no aces. Don’t try to carry the Pam-Pam to me ’cause I’ll gently chain-gang for you!

SACK DADDY Oh yeah! I ain’t goin’ to fit no jail for you and nobody else. I’m to get me a green club and season it over your head. Then I’ll give my case to Miss Bush and let Mother Green stand my bond! I got deal them aces!

NUNKIE
That’s a lie! Both of you is lyin’! Lyin’ like the cross-ties from New
York to Key West! How can you all hold aces when I got four? Somebody is
goin’ to West hell before midnight!

BECKERWOOD Don’t you woof at Tush Hawg. If you do I’m goin’ to bust hell wide open with a man!

BLACK BABY
(Pulls out razor—Bus.)
My chop-axe tells me I got the only clean aces they is on this table!
Before I’ll leave you all rob me outa my money, I’m goin’ to die it off!

TOO-SWEET
I promised the devil one man and I’m goin’ to give him five!
(Draws gun)

TUSH HAWG
Don’t draw your bosom on me! God sent me a pistol and I’m goin’ to send
him a man!
(FIRES. Bus. for all)

AUNT DILSEY
(Enters after shooting bus. Stands.
Bus. drops to chair)
They wouldn’t lissen—
(Looks men over—Bus.)
It sure is goin’ to be a whole lot tougher in hell now!

CURTAIN

 

Woman Reading with Peaches — Henri Matisse

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The Sacrifice — Andrei Tarkovsky (Full Film)

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Satire on False Perspective — William Hogarth

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