The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows etc.

ecidivism

n. the habit of closing a browser tab to go do something else, only to absentmindedly return to the website you just left, which is your brain’s way of stress-testing your attention span under a synthetic and highly experimental blend of ones and zeroes, mostly zeroes.

[The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows]

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Ο Jay Rubin, ένας από τους μεταφραστές του Murakami στα αγγλικά, για την πρώτη του αναγνωστική συνάντηση με τον Murakami (με το Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World), τη μετάφραση του 1Q84, τις μουρακαμικές γάτες, την υστερία των αναγνωστών και την ανάγκη να διαβάζουμε από το πρωτότυπο. [via]

At Koenji Station, Tengo boarded the Chuo Line inbound rapid-service train. The car was empty. He had nothing planned that day. Wherever he went and whatever he did (or didn’t do) was entirely up to him. It was ten o’clock on a windless summer morning, and the sun was beating down. The train passed Shinjuku, Yotsuya, Ochanomizu, and arrived at Tokyo Central Station, the end of the line. Everyone got off, and Tengo followed suit. Then he sat on a bench and gave some thought to where he should go. “I can go anywhere I decide to,” he told himself. “It looks as if it’s going to be a hot day. I could go to the seashore.” He raised his head and studied the platform guide. At that point, he realized what he had been doing all along.

[Town of Cats, απόσπασμα από το 1Q84 όπως δημοσιεύτηκε στο New Yorker - η συνέχεια εδώ]

It is, however, a question that feeds itself, because the obscurity of women’s work is why historians and experts feel free to consider it less than great. Greatness is supposed to speak for itself, it is supposed to show up and demand its own audience. You’re not supposed to have to coddle it. Take, for example, an argument that is currently raging through a commercial art world: the comic book industry. A woman dressed up like Batgirl was attending Comic Con with her daughter, and she stood up at a panel to ask DC Comics co-publisher Dan DiDio why his company employed so few women artists and writers. This was not exactly a new problem, as any woman who has been reading comic books for a long time knows. But the numbers have recently fallen off of a cliff. Ten years ago, the DC creative staff (writers, artists, etc.) was 12 percent women. Now it is one percent. DiDio’s snapped at the woman, “Who should we be hiring? Tell me right now. Who should we be hiring right now? Tell me.” As your mind goes blank searching for an answer, he wins the argument. See? No women artists worth hiring — you, who brought this up, can’t even think of any. 

This type of argument is not simply a rhetorical crutch, it is a standard response to those who try to have a conversation about why so few female creators and artists win awards, are displayed in museums, or advance into higher profile positions. The women’s obscurity bolsters their argument. The Orange Prize for literature by women was founded in response to the predominance of men on literature award shortlists. And since prizes can be incredibly valuable to an artist’s career — not simply for the money but in bringing her vital media attention and giving the publisher a reason to publish her follow-up — the women behind the award felt it was important to draw some attention to female writers of note. Yet as award season dawns every year, a debate over the award’s mere existence re-emerges. “[T]he Orange Prize is sexist and discriminatory, and it should be shunned — or, at the very least, mocked mercilessly” (Toby Litt, 2008). “The Orange Prize is sexist” (A.S. Byatt, 2010). “Is there sexism at play here... or is it a case that female writers... are just not up to scratch?” (ABC Radio, 2011).

[Jessa Crispin, Old Boy’s Club - What’s a female artist to do?]

Πρέιζ δε λέιντιζ:

Nicole Krauss [pic]

Jennifer Egan [pic]

Siri Hustvedt [pic]

I often think, after I finish a book: how does that start? And it’s not always so easy to know. But while I was writing The Shaking Woman, I was thinking of the next novel and I knew, after I finished The Sorrows of an American, that I was going to write as a woman. I knew that for sure because I had spent ten years writing as a man. So I spent six years writing as Leo and four as Erik. Then I thought Oh! God ! I want to go back to women and I think you always react against to what you’ve done before. I thought it would be interesting, if there’s really no men. There are obviously men in the book, but they’re dreams, memories, e-mails. You know, they are out of the picture, so that seems like a good idea, and I think too because of the tone of my earlier novels, I wanted to write a comedy, a comedy like in a classic sense. Terrible things can happen along the way, but there’s something positive. So these things are rolling around in my mind. And then, you know, my husband and I have been married for thirty years, not quite but we’ve been together for thirty years, just recently we celebrated our anniversary. And so we have had a lot of friends over the years, so there are about two or three stories that we know personally were out of the blue, I mean out of the blue. The man has left. And from the woman I knew there was no conversation. That happens all the time. These were sudden abrupt departures, and, of course, you think to yourself: what would I do? This is a good premise, not really to tell the story, but after. So that was the premise. Of course there are many famous stories, like the guy goes out for cigarettes and never comes back. I know someone personally who had that happened. She was married and had one child and there was no warning. The guy went out to do an errand and he called up two or three days and said ‘I’m not coming back’. So these things happen in a way. And it’s stunning. So that was my premise. And then I started writing the first paragraph in my head, and this voice of this woman began to appear. “Some time after he said the word pause, I went mad and landed in the hospital. He did not say I don’t ever want to see you again or It’s over, but after thirty years of marriage pause was enough to turn me into a lunatic whose thoughts burst, ricocheted, and careened into one another like popcorn kernels in a micro wave bag”. This deeply amused me. And once you get the tone, it kind of blew out of me, this book. And I had so much fun writing it. My husband heard me laughing.

[Η Ηustvedt για το The Summer Without Men - η υπόλοιπη συνέντευξη εδώ]

Yōko Ogawa [pic]

Banana Yoshimoto [pic]

Donna Tartt [pic]

Well, about media attention and the whole idea of early success being detrimental to a writer, I think that it can be true. It doesn’t have to be true. The reason that early success can be so disorienting to writers is that for one [thing] it leads them into overproduction. That’s a great danger. There is suddenly an expectation that once one has had a success—the way the machine works is—more success. They [novels] should just be coming down the conveyor belt at a regular rate. It’s a question of if you want to play by those rules or you don’t. Some people play by those rules. They play by them brilliantly. I never wanted to. It’s not what I ever wanted to do. Also, about media attention, it’s very funny because it comes and it goes. It’s very concentrated while it lasts and then it goes away very quickly. It must be horrifying if you wanted that or you liked it or wanted to hold on to it. But it’s actually hard to—it’s not even hard—it’s impossible to get any work done in terms of writing. I can’t get my real life’s work done when I am traveling around. I just got back from Dublin. I’ve been all over the place.This time it’s much less intense because I am traveling for only a month. I’ve given a month to do the publicity for this book.

[Identity Theory Interview]

Lydia Davis [pic]

How Difficult
Lydia Davis 

For years my mother said I was selfish, careless, irresponsible, etc. She was often annoyed. If I argued, she held her hands over her ears. She did what she could to change me but for years I did not change, or if I changed, I could not be sure I had, because a moment never came when my mother said, “You are no longer selfish, careless, irresponsible, etc.” Now I’m the one who says to myself, “Why can’t you think of others first, why don’t you pay attention to what you’re doing, why don’t you remember what has to be done?” I am annoyed. I sympathize with my mother. How difficult I am! But I can’t say this to her, because at the same time that I want to say it, I am also here on the phone coming between us, listening and prepared to defend myself.

Margaret Atwood [pic]

What is writing for? Writers —unlike dentists, bricklayers and other practical folk— are always being asked why they do what they do; asked, in effect, to prove their usefulness. It’s an odd question, because language and mathematics are the two most potent and useful tools human beings have ever invented. Sometimes, as a writer, you forget this. You can get stuck; you can start believing in your own superfluity. As you crumple up the first paragraph yet again and heave it into the wastebasket, you may feel that you’re living in a paper house and speaking into a void.

[Margaret Atwood, The Writing Life]

Μια κοινωνική προσφορά του μπλογκ προς επίδοξους συγγραφείς:

ΦΟΡ ΔΕ ΛΑΒ ΟΒ ΟΛ ΔΑΤ ΙΖ ΧΟΛΙ, ΓΟΥΑΪ;

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Ένας πελαγωμένος συγγραφέας γράφει στον David Foster Wallace αναζητώντας παρηγοριά κι ενθάρρυνση, κι ανακαλύπτει ότι παρηγοριά κι ενθάρρυνση σε αυτή την κωλοδουλειά δεν υπάρχουν:

Thank you for your nice letter. I’m sorry that I have no words of wisdom or inspiration. I get sad and scared too. I think maybe it’s part of the natural price of wanting to do this kind of work. I wish you well.

Πράγμα που κατά κάποιο τρόπο έρχεται να επιβεβαιώσει τις υποψίες της γιορς τρούλι ότι τον Wallace δεν τον έφαγε η ρουφιάνα η κατάθλιψη από μόνη της - τον κατάπιε κι ο Χλωμός Βασιλιάς, που μόνο ο Wallace θα μπορούσε να ολοκληρώσει, αλλά ακόμα κι αυτός απέτυχε.

Στο μεταξύ οι Decemberists για το βιντεοκλίπ του Calamity Song κινηματογράφησαν μια παρτίδα του γουαλασικού Eschaton (από το Infinite Jest) - μόνο που το βίντεο δεν είναι πλέον διαθέσιμο στη χρεοκοπημένη Ελλάδα σκρατς δατ, όπως με ενημέρωσε φανταστρουμφικός αναγνώστης στα σχόλια (γουάου, συγκλονίζομαι όταν κάνετε τον κόπο να γράψετε ένα σχόλιο αντί να κρυφοκοιτάτε με τις ώρες στη γωνιά σιωπηλοί σαν το Χάρο, τα ξέρω, αμέ, μη νομίζετε, μου τα μαρτυράει ο ρουφιάνος) έχει ανέβει κι ένα λινκ που λειτουργεί στην αποδώ όχθη:

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This aspect of Mitchell’s work might prove to be his most innovative, that which stamps his work as indissolubly a product of our twenty-first century global coexistence. The novel, at least since the time of Henry James, has made the workings of its characters’ minds of central interest. Mitchell appears to be simultaneously working within that tradition while denying its centrality. Unlike the previous generation of British novelists who, falling under the influence of Roland Barthes and company, tended to emphasize the constructed nature of subjectivity, Mitchell gives the impression of a writer who wants to force the novel to respond to a globalized world by taking it beyond its dependence on “personality.” But, recognizing that vividly realized characters are one of the key ingredients of the bestseller, he achieves this by creating a gallery of skillfully individualized characters who proceed to demonstrate their essential similarity to one another. Personality emerges in his work as a part each of us acts out. Beneath personality lurks a level of commonality (the product of our globalized lives?), which as a novelist Mitchell can make apparent by such purely narrative means as juxtaposition, comparison, repetition, and the like.

[Brian Finney, Ghostwriting the Globe]

Μια εικόνα που μοιάζει βγαλμένη από δυστοπικό μυθιστόρημα: Billy Stinson comforts his daughter Erin Stinson as they sit on the steps where their cottage once stood on August 28, 2011 in Nags Head, N.C. The cottage, built in 1903 and destroyed by Hurricane Irene, was one of the first vacation cottages built on Albemarle Sound in Nags Head. Stinson has owned the home, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, since 1963. “We were pretending, just for a moment, that the cottage was still behind us and we were just sitting there watching the sunset,” said Erin afterward. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)