Echos of Eco

Finally, I've finished Foucault's Pendulum after having been reminded a couple of times that it's been a while since I've written anything.  I'M A SLOW READER APPARENTLY, OKAY??  Just kidding.  Thank you for checking up on me to make sure I'm still on task and kicking.  It's appreciated. 

Anyway, I have a feeling this story ended in a similar nostalgic fashion that Queen Loana did, but I may also be making that up completely since I don't really remember but rather just had this slight déja vu feeling as it was happening.  The text ends in "It is so beautiful" after a bunch of melancholy closing-word type things have been said.  Finality is always beautiful, isn't it...as is sadness.  At least in art.  Too bad it doesn't really work that way to the one experiencing it, in real life.  Otherwise so much would seem beautiful and glittering to me rather than extremely mundane and useless.  Although, I guess they are actually starting to glitter now with Christmas on its way.

Anywhoooo, now that I've thoroughly S.A.D'ed you out, some more thoughts, tracking backwards:

I am nosy and a snoop, and therefore savor being inside other people's minds and hearts.  Eco gives me only glimpses of that, hiding between lengths of obscure ideology.  For example:

"'All emanates from God, in the contraction of simsum.  The problem is to bring about tikkun, the restoration of Adam Qadmon.  Then we will rebuild everything in the balanced structure of the parzufim, the faces -- or, rather, forms -- that will take the place of the Sefirot..."

(seriously, what??)

vs.

"Because at the time I felt the need.  I had just given up drinking.  Relationship between the liver and the heart.  A new love is a good reason for going back to drink.  Somebody to go to a bar with.  Feel good with."

Perhaps the sparseness of these moments gives it more value.

Speaking of going to bars with people, I guilted some old coworkers into spending time with me a few weeks ago.  It was nice to go out, and to be social.  Same with Thanksgiving, having had the opportunity to see friends that I truly value. Feelin' good with people, reminding me that they exist.

I think it's time for me to read a slim volume.  Eco's brief chapters saved me any strenuous work, but I think I need something quick and (hopefully) breezy for the next book. I feel this impending doom creeping up on me but it could be exciting...I need some forced change in my life, I think.  I've also had this intense pain in my lower back lately that will just not go away.  I'm aging rapidly, or the whole of me is giving up, either way.  Better read as many books as I can before whatever it is that I feel in my gut eats me up. 

Art and Theory

It's pretty windy here in the Windy City.  Probably thanks to Good 'Ole Sandy but it's much more anticlimactic here in the Midwest.  No end-of-the-world-esque rising tides and puddles for me, boohoo.

To fill the void that the lack of extreme weather on my mundane life imposes, I have continued reading like a diligent student...or ant...or whatever other persevering animal there is out there.  Maybe the dung beetle.  That seems diligent.

The point is, I'm currently reading Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum.  It's a pretty large text, as I suppose most of his novels are.  In high school I read The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (I won't lie, I was attracted to the graphics because I am superficial and enjoy judging books by their cover and treats that are snuck inside).  I wonder if the person who writes the synopses/book jackets for Eco's books is the same for them all...I feel like they do not accurately depict Eco's language.  From these two experiences, I have to say the plot, though technically accurately described, seemed much more exciting and action-packed than in reality.  I was all pumped up to read this book, imagining a cultured/intellectual version of the Da Vinci Code but it seems to have one-upped me and surpassed my level of worldly knowledge.  The jacket writer is a marketing genius, I tell you.

There is a lack of fluidity in both of these books for me that I can't actually pinpoint.  The language isn't inaccurate...it's just...stiff because it is so information-heavy (yes, haha, that sentence was incredibly janky, but I am not an award-winning writer so sue me).  I realized it's probably the fault of translations, to which I think he really needs to get better translators, but then I found that's NOT the case, and that Eco writes in English, so now I'm just having to come to terms with the fact that I am just not educated enough.  Who are his fans?  Scholars?  His plots are very intriguing, but it's the way that he delivers that I can't quite keep up with, without any knowledge of the referenced content.  If I were willing to do additional, heavy research while I read along on this already page-heavy block of pages, perhaps I'd be able to grasp it better (but alas I am much too lazy for that).

Eco writes in English but it reads like a foreign language (and often REMAINS in untranslated foreign phrases).  He's playful and smart, but hard to touch.  I have felt detached in both books, but I can't quite put my finger on why.  It's like sitting listening to a philosopher or scientist speak to you without their expecting any sort of response.  It's more an observation than engagement.

Not to say I'm not enjoying it enough, because I am...but I still feel like I'm just a visitor in these conversations about Templars and Rosy Crosses.  I'm currently a little over 1/3 through, so we'll see how I feel at the end.

On the other hand, a book I'm NOT feeling left behind in, is The 2-Hour Job Search: Using Technology to Get the Right Job by Steve Dalton.  This, unlike Eco's, is a very straightforward book.  I actually find it quite engaging, unlike most books like this.  That either means I'm sinking down to self-help level, or I'm just that obsessed with job hunting.  I think it's both.  It's basically an addiction now.  Anyway, read this, if you're interested!  It's fun!  And you get to pretend that you're on The Bachelor!






And to end this lengthy post...

More art!  Teehee.  Charcoal and acrylic, folks.  I sprayed them with hairspray (ghetto) to keep the charcoal down and it basically blasted bits of charcoal dust everywhere because I am unprofessional and dumb.  But, what can you do, I still like them (you can see another painting in the back though, that is not so good and in turn saddens me).  I think I'll make more when I get the materials (I only have one more of those canvas panels...but maybe I will buy a bunch and draw myself a legion of dreamed up friends.

Stalk me a little

Huzzah! I have a portfolio website now! It was a pain to make because of unforeseen setbacks that could only happen to an unfortunate soul such as myself but it's up and running now so YAAAAY.

Tell your kids, tell your wife, tell anyone who's going to get me an awesome writing job: www.minamifurukawa.com

That's probably not as exciting to you as it is to me so here are some sketchbook pics to hold your interest.

Confusing Classics

I finished up The Sound and the Fury last night under steady rain in Chicago.  The book insisted on constantly confusing me at the start with multiple characters having been named after each other, and an unclear distinction as to which one was being mentioned at specific times because memories/occurrences blended together without note.
I needed Sparknotes to tell me that Quentin was both a dead brother and Caddy's daughter.  For the first two parts, the name was referred to as both "he" and "she" to the point that I had no idea what was going on.  Maybe I am too much of a simpleton for Faulkner.

The first three sections were all written in first person by different characters (it was most useful in the first part, with Benjy describing the past with his run of memories).  For the fourth and final, the narration switched to third person, which I can't really figure out why.  I think I would have preferred if it had kept its style but maybe there was just too much hopping around at the close between Dilsey and Jason to keep focus.  I'm just glad it wasn't from the POV of Caroline, or else I would have pulled my eyeballs out with all the whining that would have ensued.

And that Jason (who is also named after his father. UGH), what a dick.  What a perfectly terrible asshole son for a whiny self-entitled/pitying woman like Caroline.  I'm glad they're both such miserable people.
On the other hand, I liked Dilsey, Jason Sr., and Caddy very much.  They were all very kind, and grounded, and really emphasized the ugliness of Jason and Caroline.
Also, as a sidenote, I kept thinking of toilet paper every time T.P. came around.

While we're on the topic of being confused, I had started At Swim, Two Birds a while ago but I cannot bring myself to go on at this time.  I seriously cannot follow what's going on at all and I am really not interested because of that.  Maybe I will start again at a later date but for the time being I'm throwing in the towel of disinterest.

Two weekends ago I went to Evanston to buy me some books.  I came home with an armful, after having gotten lost on my way to find the books-by-the-pound store, and stumbling into a strange place without order and old men eating pizza discussing celebrity sightings.   I did finally find my destination though, and along with the two large volumes I bought at Barnes and Noble, ended the day happily, with sore wrists from carrying heavy bags.

"A taste for the miniature was one aspect of an orderly spirit..."

"...Another was a passion for secrets".

^^It's as if it's speaking directly about me.  But really it's talking about the heroine (do I call her that?) of Ian McEwan's Atonement.

I genuinely liked Briony at the very start of this novel.  I related to her, and thought McEwan did a nice job of capturing a young girl's thoughts and actions.  The first third of the novel was very picturesque - like an oil painting - immersing me in a privileged girl's life that I always wanted when I was small.  But, like many reviews of the movie that was made as an adaptation of it, I felt the story, once straying from the Tallis mansion, was not very strong.  It started with the Fifty Shades of Grey-ish scene in the library that seemed so out of place, and stretched through the war bits.  This lack of emotional stirring on my part though, may have been on account of the fact that I wasn't very interested in Robbie and Celeste's love.  Though I hated her a bit, I preferred scenes involving Briony; because I am morbid, I found the gory hospital scenes where she attended to the dying engaging, and the end to be pitch-perfect with her "voice-over" explaining her decisions in ending her novel.

*Major Spoiler*
It was an absolutely correct decision for McEwan to kill off the lovers and keep them from from each other - though, I don't especially agree that they were kept from each other as Briony describes...they were making out in front of her and all.  Get a room, sappy paramours.
Anyway, the fact that they died made their two-dimensional characterization more interesting.  Though Briony is the obvious "villain", she is so much more layered and complex, and therefore real.  I have a feeling that the movie version obliterates all this and makes the story another stupid romance about Keira Knightly falling in love though, which I abhor.

Props to you, Mr. McEwan, for writing an unconventional book, and redeeming yourself after the "meh" I felt through Saturday.

#245

White Noise by Don DeLillo.

My initial love affair for this book has waned down, as most relationships do with time.  I will blame this on my lover's over-dramatic tendencies, though of its sometimes ludicrous behavior, I was quite fond.  I enjoy some silliness here and there.

What I had initially found so attractive was the dialogue - which I still hold in high regard - the author shapes his characters by the things they say rather than the things they do, and I think that's really neat (Even the children are impossibly brilliant...and we all know how much I love unrealistically smart kids).  DeLillo really has a talent for engaging, intelligent thoughts and conversations (unpretentiously).  Some highlights from the beginning:

 -"Where are you living, Murray?"
-"In an old rooming house.  I'm totally captivated and intrigued.  It's a gorgeous old crumbling house near the insane asylum.  Seven or eight boarders, more or less permanent except for me.  A woman who harbors a terrible secret.  A man with a haunted look.  A man who never comes out of his room.  A woman who stands by the letter box for hours, waiting for something that never seems to arrive.  A man with no past.  A woman with a past.  There is a smell about the place of unhappy lives in the movies that I really respond to."

(that one might just reflect my own writing style so I'm biased)

and

"I can't help being happy in a town called Blacksmith...I'm here to avoid situations.  Cities are full of situations, sexually cunning people...The irony is that I love women.  I fall apart at the sight of long legs, striding, briskly, as a breeze carries up from the river, on a weekday, in the play of morning light.  The second irony is that it's not the bodies of women that I ultimately crave but their minds...The third and related irony is that it's the most complex and neurotic and difficult women that I am invariably drawn to.  I like simple men and complicated women."

and finally,

"...Now she watched him with a tender sympathy, a reflectiveness that seemed deep and fond and generous enough to contain all the magical counterspells to his current run of woe, although I knew, of course, as I went back to my book, that it was only a passing affection, one of those kindnesses no one understands."

Love love.

Everything that I read afterwards about this book really highlighted the topics of commercialism, mass culture, and technology...and maybe that was the intent at the time...but I find those topics to be so base in comparison to the glaring topic of death and emotion.  DeLillo randomly scatters these little name-brand groupings at the end of paragraphs throughout the work, and I never really understood why; it didn't seem to be adding anything to the text, and it really just kind of made me think of bullshitting (and forcefully cramming in) concept just for the sake of conceptuality into a work that is otherwise solid.
Is humanity's consciousness and fear of death not a complex enough issue without having to force some outer crap about technology ruining our lives into the mix?  Unless this was the intent...to distract and to confuse...but...somehow I don't think it was.  SparkNotes says:

"Throughout White Noise, Jack Gladney, the narrator, constantly connects seemingly random events, dates, and facts in an attempt to form a cohesive understanding of his world. Behind that attempt lies a deep-seated need to find meaning in a media-obsessed age driven by images, appearances, and rampant material consumption."

Who knows.

Well now that I've overloaded everyone with a mass assembly of quotations, I will leave you with just one more.  Fall has officially arrived in Chicago and it is pitch black at 7:30pm.
"It was the time of year, the time of day, for a small insistent sadness to pass into the texture of things"

Started Reading

...White Noise by DeLillo.

And I am in love.

In other news, I tried to find some short stories I had worked on in college and abandoned, but found they are missing from my computer.  Hopefully they are backed up somewhere, but I managed to find excerpts that I'd saved and scrapped...and...

Hey, I wasn't half bad.

“The case of the chubby Ferrari”

Howard Louis was the owner of the dandelion-colored Ferrari that inexplicably and unmistakably was growing wider and, frankly larger, each day.  The ordeal had everyone in the neighborhood perplexed; the hot rod, which once coasted with sexy charm through the streets of Seaport was now finding itself lodged in not-so-tight spaces.  The roar of the engine too, having already been ferocious, was now unbearably loud leaving a deafening ring in the ears of passerby as the vehicle clumsily trudged along in its obesity.

          Howard Louis cursed his bad luck.  At dinnertime, he squinted at the French Bordeaux served in his crystal wine glasses with spite.  He regretted buying the Ferrari.  He regretted having voted for the president.  He regretted meeting and marrying her.  He regretted the friends he had had in grammar school.  He regretted not having yelled at his father before he had passed away. He regretted the days of his youth when he had believed in God. 

Makes me kind of sad.