Traumatic Encounter with a Tabby

The most bizarre thing happened to me at Aardvark Books on Church Street yesterday. I walked into the mildew-smelling neighborhood used-book joint to see if I can find Rebecca West (Birds Fall Down) and several books on my list. Customers were sparse on Saturday morning and the store was very quiet and easy for browsing. Round the corner of the fiction rack came the resident cat, a golden tabby, who walked so slowly in front of me. I minded my own business. He paused, looked back and started meowing and grunting. The tabby suspiciously walked on but constantly stopped, turned his head and threw a glance at me. Before I could make head to tail of his hissing and growling, the cat jumped at me and landed his sharp claws on my left thigh! Not only that he had no intention to let go of my thigh, he also sank his claws deeper into my jeans. For a small-sized animal the tabby was quite strong and aggressive. I tried to shove him away without further provoking him. Back down on the ground he was standing about five feet from me, the tail arched and bristled. Then he darted away as if he pretended the assault never took place. On the way out I told the owner about the tabby’s perpetration but the tabby was holding me a sharp glare on the register counter. Tail straight up and fully bristled. What have I done? It was the weirdest encounter with cat. After this rift with the tabby I can say for sure that I’m a dog person.

[137] Slammerkin – Emma Donoghue

“She still breathed in what air there was and ate the little she could scrounge, though mostly for something to do. It was more that she no longer thought of herself as truly living, or as having anything left in the world to lose. Everyone she’d ever loved had left her, and always through her own fault.” (366)

Slammerkin* is a novel based on a real case of a girl, Mary Saunders, who was a servant in the employment of one Mrs. Jones in 18th century England. Emma Donoghue has drawn from the meager and disputed surviving facts Mary’s life and has chosen for her a very base trade, prostitution, for the three years of her life prior to service with the Jones. Her service at the household led to very shocking consequences that doomed her. In 1760, thirteen-year-old Mary Saunders was privileged to have attended school, for most of the girls at her age would have taken up apprenticeship in handicraft.

Being raised in a working-class family teetering on poverty constantly reminded her that she was a social disadvantage—a victim of her historical moment in which a girl was no more than an useless mouth to feed. When her step-father falsely accused her of pinching money with which she was to purchase meal for the family, her mother did not believe that the coins had slipped out of her frayed pocket. Embittered, out of protest she could have refused the last morsel of crust offered to her after the humiliation, but she was too hungry for dignity. Dignity.

Strolling the rabbit warrens of the Dials in London, Mary offered to be kissed by an old peddler and let his hands roam all over her skirts in exchange for linen, lace, and a shiny red ribbon that she she lusted for. Kicked out of the house she was taken in by Doll Higgins, who led her into a life of prostitution. Later on at Magdelen Hospital, where she sought refuge from the brutally cold weather and recovered from a nagging cough, the question of choosing confronted during a sermon that rehabilitated the girls to penitence. Is prostitution her own choosing? Has she chosen to kiss the peddler in exchange for the ribbon? True, she had chosen the circumstances, but had no say of her fate. She knew she deserved more than what domestic chores that confined the young women of her time. Her ambition, plagued by vague dreams of a better life, has destined her to this path.

Mary’s downfall began after less than month in the Jones’s house when she felt she had rented out her whole life to the family in advance. Service for which she had no talent reduced her to a puppet that had to obey the orders at someone else’s whim. Under the tutelage of her mistress, who treated her as a daughter, Mary became the deftest seamstress and embroider. The inner calling to the liberty and hustle-bustle of London streets overwhelmed her and, when she began whoring for the customers of the reverend, who pimped for her at the tavern, she forfeited the last chance of redemption. She rejected the new family and broke off engagement to a manservant. Her life was folded over like a hem—there was a day side and a night (dark) side—and she wasn’t sure which Mary was the real one.

Mary Saunders’s scope on freedom transmuted to the life of Abi, the African slave from Barbados. The central role in Abi was a big slap on the uncivil, stratified society that stripped people of their basic human right and dignity. But it crushed Abi’s spirit to realize that even a bold Londoner with high ambitions like Mary was not set free. In a sense, Mary’s being a prostitute who sold her body to the young, the old, the civil, and the boorish of her own choosing to achieve her goal in life was no more poignant than being a slave.

*Slammerkin n. (18th century, of unknown origin) 1 a loose gown 2 a loose woman

What is Reading?

Suggested by: Thisisnotabookclub

What is reading, anyway? Novels, comics, graphic novels, manga, e-books, audiobooks — which of these is reading these days? Are they all reading? Only some of them? What are your personal qualifications for something to be “reading” — why? If something isn’t reading, why not? Does it matter? Does it impact your desire to sample a source if you find out a premise you liked the sound of is in a format you don’t consider to be reading? Share your personal definition of reading, and how you came to have that stance.

Read vb 1. to understand language by interpreting written symbols for speech sounds 2. to utter aloud written or printed words 3. to learn by observing 4. to study by a course of reading 5. to recognize, and to be informed by reading

Reading is meant to be informative. Whether it’s a flyer to a concert, a magazine on commercial jetliners like the one I subscribe to, a nutrition label to which we pay more attention to ensure the ingredients are China-free, an instruction manual, a travel guidebook, or a novel, reading is complete when reader is informed. So it does not matter what we’re reading as long as we get something out of what we read. For children and younger readers, we should pique their interest in reading with books with pictures and illustrations so that they are not turned off by dreadful-looking chunkster. I remember first dabbling in the subject of philosophy reading this series of introductory books in comics.

In How to Read a Book, Van Doren and Adler encourage to take on an active role in reading. Be ready to interact with what’s written instead of being a receptive reader; for no sooner has a reader opened a book does he engage in a mental conversation with the author, who under the careful scheme of words and argument bears a message to either inform or to enlighten the reader. The only way to participate and reap the benefit is by asking questions, taking notes, finding the keywords, and nailing the gist of the book. This is a higher level of reading, or close reading.

Realism of Characters in War and Peace

Tolstoy’s techniques in characterization are part of the secret of his extraordinary realism, for one of the most difficult things for a novelist is to reveal the total personality of a character, as a person in real life reveals himself. The revelation of personality in real life comes about over a period of time by slow accretions, by the accumulation of much detailed information and understanding through innumerable small actions and intimacies. This is the logical, the natural way, and a close approximation of it is pursued in Tolstoy’s novels. We become acquainted with his men and women as we would become acquainted with real people whom we meet for the first time and about whom our knowledge and understanding increase as our intimacy increases over time and space.

Tolstoy does not confront us at the outset with the familiar lengthy description of a character, nor does he take refuge in the awkward flashback. We are introduced to Prince Andrew, Pierre, Natasha, or Nicholas in a customary setting, as we might be in the case of a future friend in real life. Our first impression of the external appearance is only that which we would see ourselves, conveyed by the author’s few brief descriptive sentences. We learn next to nothing of the character’s past or personality at this point. But from the reactions and remarks of others – this indirect method is a favorite of Tolstoy – and eventually through the conversation, self-examination, behavior, and actions of the character, spread out over many pages and years, our knowledge of him grows until finally we obtain a complete image. There are no startling or abrupt revelations. Each thought or emotion develops out of another. And in the case of characters with a pronounced moral and spiritual bent, like Prince Andrew and Pierre, their dissatisfaction with life is resolved, if ever, not by the author’s philosophizing, but by a combination of prolonged self-examination, reflection, and extensive experiences on the part of the characters. As Percy Lubbock affirms, these men and women never inhabit a world of their own, they seem to inhabit our world. That is, their world never strikes us as an abstract one. They stand forth fully defined with all their limitations of time, place, and circumstance. Tolstoy does not hover over the destinies of his men and women; they appear to exercise free choice in working out their fate, so that what they do seems to be psychologically necessary, even though their consciousness of freedom, in the Tolstoyan sense, is illusory. His psychological insights, like his style, create in the reader a sense of intimacy with the characters, for in his analysis of thoughts, feelings, and actions Tolstoy’s points of reference are nearly always the reality of life and not abstractions. “You can invent anything you please,” he once said of Gorky’s fiction, “but it is impossible to invent psychology. . . .”

Related Reading:
War and Peace Reading Schedule
War and Peace – Review
Napoleon and Discourse in War and Peace

Napoleon and Discourse in War and Peace

Napoleon, as a character in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, is more than once described as having “plump little hands.” Nor does he “sit well or firmly in the saddle.” He is said to be “undersized,” with “fat thighs … short legs” and a “rotund stomach.” And he holds court smelling of “Eau-de-Cologne.” The issue here is not the accuracy of Tolstoy’s description—it seems not that far off from nonfictive accounts—but its selectivity: other things that could be said of the man are not said. We are meant to understand the incongruity of a warring imperator in the body of a fat little Frenchman. Tolstoy’s Napoleon could be a powdered boulevardier putting a pinch of snuff up his nose—and that is the point. The consequences of such a disparity of form and content can be counted in dead soldiers strewn across the European continent.

It is a stratagem of the novelist no less than of the playwright to symbolize physically the moral nature of a character. And it turns out that, as Tolstoy has it, Napoleon is a preening pompous megalomaniac. In a scene in Book Three of War and Peace, the Russo-French wars having reached the crucial year of 1812, Napoleon receives an emissary from Tsar Alexander, a General Balashev, who has come with peace terms. Napoleon is enraged: doesn’t he have the numerically superior army? He, not the tsar, is the one to dictate terms. Having been dragged unwillingly into war, he will destroy all of Europe if his will is thwarted. “That is what you will have gained by alienating me!” he shouts. And then, Tolstoy writes, Napoleon “walked silently several times up and down the room, his fat shoulders twitching.”

Still later, after consoling himself by parading before adoring crowds, Napoleon invites the shaken General Balashev to dinner: “He raised his hand to the Russian’s … face,” Tolstoy writes,

and taking him by the ear pulled it gently … To have one’s ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the greatest honor and mark of favor at the French court. “Well adorer and courtier of the Tsar Alexander, why don’t you say anything?” said he, as if it was ridiculous in his presence to be the adorer and courtier of any one but himself, Napoleon.

Tolstoy did his research, but the composition is his own.

Answer to Song Riddle | Highway 1

Here I Am (Just When I Thought I Was Over You) by Air Supply.

Looks like George has a fun, fulfilling trip as well!

Tears, Getty

A while ago my friend Greg used to host this Friday tunes game in which bloggers are to guess from the lyrics he provided the song and the artist. So I decide to host a round of this game. Tears immediately welled up in my eyes and trickled down my face when this 1981-2 platinum hit floated into the air from the radio as I pulled into the Getty.

Here I am playing with those memories again
And just when I thought time had set me free
Those thoughts of you keep taunting me

Holding you, a feeling I never outgrew
Though each and every part of me has tried
Only you can fill that space inside

So there’s no sense pretending
My heart it’s not mending

Just when I thought I was over you
And just when I thought I could stand on my own
Oh, baby those memories come crashing through
And I just can’t go on without you

On my own I’ve tried to make the best of it alone
I’ve done everything I can to ease the pain
But only you can stop the rain

I just can’t live without you
I miss everything about you

Just when I thought I was over you
And just when I thought I could stand on my own
Oh baby those memories come crashing through
And I just can’t go on without
Go on without
It’s just no good without you

Without you, without you, without you
Oh baby, those memories come crashing through
And I just can’t go on without, you

So what is the name of this tear-jerker? Who is the artist? I’ll tell you the answer when I get back. And don’t worry, I’m fine, just a bit too emotional and sensitive at times! I am what the Chinese call a person with shallow eyes–plagued by too much weakness.. I take people and relationship too seriously. But the good thing is, I’ve got George (my lab) to hug with! I guess healing a process that is not complete without tears.

Brothel Reads

Reading The Painter from Shanghai lifted my memory of another which had been recommended to me, Slammerkin, by Emma Donoghue. Before this book, I have no clue what slammerkin means. It’s an archaic word meaning both a loose gown and a loose woman. The novel takes its inspiration from the true story of Mary Saunders, a girl driven to commit terrible deeds by her lust for fine clothes in the intensely-stratified 18th century England. The daughter of a poor but honest seamstress, allows a peddler to take her virginity in return for a shiny red ribbon. It should be downhill from there, and on the surface it is. I’m eager to find what would happen to her next. But both the writing and the story find their rhythm soon enough, and they are almost impossible to resist.

Go Go Go…LA

Taking a road trip to LA to see some friends. Hope to stop by the Getty Museum and Malibu. George is coming as well. I have pre-scheduled updates to the blog, mostly reading update and some entries pertaining to War and Peace for those of you who are interested. Have a great Memorial Day weekend. Blaring from my iPod speakers is….

Give Me Some Love – James Blunt

Movie Tie-In: Books vs. Movie

Suggested by: Superfastreader:

Books and films both tell stories, but what we want from a book can be different from what we want from a movie. Is this true for you? If so, what’s the difference between a book and a movie?

I used to complain about how the films are not being faithful to the books. But why should they? If a film is merely an adaptation, it is unfair to compare a film to the book, especially when we expect the film would match our vision or perception of the characters. Some movies, especially the epics, cannot accommodate all the details and subplots or the films would go on for hours. The, much-anticipated, upcoming Three Kingdoms: Battle of the Red Cliff will focus only on the battle between the three warring states at the end of the Han dynasty. My enthusiastic friend is planning to read the original novel, which was written in Ming Dynasty, 1200 years after the incident, in order to familiarize himself with the characters and historical background.

I remembered walking into the cinema with little expectation of The Namesake which is based on the novel with the same title by Jhumpa Lahiri. Books and films are completely different in their artistic imaginations. In books, readers can construct the world of the characters from the authors’ words, fill the gap for what’s not said, and speculate from between the lines. So it becomes very subjective, a matter of one’s own interpretation. The film is a manifestation of the story in the director’s perception. So different nuances can be exuded through the appearance of the cast, the scores, and the screenplay, which most of the time would have taken exact words or dialogues from the book, but the context becomes inevitably different. In this case, the film is a very portrayal of the book.

I have yet to see The Devil Wears Prada, a loose screen adaptation of Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel of the same name. The novel was hilarious and so engrossing that I had to put aside my Russian literature for a while. I entertained the thought that the film should be funnier, given the fact that it’s set in the fashion world, and that most designers and other fashion notables avoided appearing as themselves for fear of displeasing U.S. Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who is widely believed to have been the inspiration for Priestly, the devil boss played by Meryl Streep. I mention this film because I can walk right into the movie theater without reading the novel and still have a great time. In most cases, I prefer to read the novel, get a feel for the plot and characters, develop an interpretation of my own and see the film.