labyrinths

"Bioy Casares had had dinner with me that evening and we became lengthily engaged in a vast polemic concerning the composition of a novel in the first person, whose narrator would omit or disfigure the facts and indulge in various contradictions which would permit a few readers - very few readers - to perceive an atrocious or banal reality. From the remote depths of the corridor, the mirror spied upon us."

"Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" in "Labyrinths", p.27


"One of the schools of Tlon goes so far as to negate time: it reasons that the present is indefinite, that the future has no reality other than a present hope, that the past has no reality other than as a present memory."

Ibid, p.34


"The methodical fabrication of hronir (says the Eleventh volume) has performed prodigious services for archaeologists. It has made possible the interrogation and even the modification of the past, which is now no less plastic and docile that the future."

Ibid, p.38

Travels in the Scriptorium

"My head would fill with images of my wife and daughter, and again and again I would see their mud-splattered bodies being lowered into the ground, again and again I would see their naked limbs entwined among the limbs of other corpses in the hole, and suddenly the darkness of the house would become too much to bear. I would venture out into public places, hoping to break the spell of those images in the noise and tumult of crowds. I frequented taverns and alehouses, and it was in one of those establishments that I did the most damage to myself and my reputation."

pp.44-45



"The Confederation... The Con-fed-e-ra-tion... It's all very simple, isn't it? Just another name for America. Not the United States as we know it, but a country that has evolved in another way, that has another history. But all the trees, all the mountains, all the prairies of that country stand exactly where they do in ours. The rivers and oceans are identical. Men walk on two legs, see with two eyes, and touch with two hands. They think double thoughts, and speak out of both sides of their mouths at once."

p.81


"It will never end. For Mr. Blank is one of us now, and struggle though he might to understand his predicament, he will always be lost. I believe I speak for all his charges when I say he is getting what he deserves - no more, no less. Not as a form of punishment, but as an act of supreme justice and compassion. Without him, we are nothing, but the paradox is that we, the figments of another mind, will outlive the mind that made us, for once we are thrown into the world, we continue to exist forever, and our stories go on being told, even after we are dead."

p.129

Dubliners

The introduction to my copy of Dubliners (Penguin, 2000) contains the following extract from a young Joyce's letter to Nora Barnacle shortly after the death of his mother in 1904, when he was 22:

"My mind rejects the whole present social order and Christianity - home, the recognised virtues, classes of life and religious doctrines. How could I like the idea of home? My home was simply a middle-class affair ruined by spendthrift habits which I have inherited. My mother was slowly killed, I think, by my father's ill-treatment, by years of trouble, and by my cynical frankness of conduct. When I looked on her face as she lay in her coffin - a face grey and wasted with cancer - I understood that I was looking on the face of a victim and I cursed the system which had made her a victim."
(Letters, II, 48)

The extract is a scathing denouncement of Joyce's upbringing, rife with youthful disillusionment and the horror of awaking to find that his life has not in fact been as he had believed it to be. The inherent pathos of domesticity seems like interesting ground for exploration...


"There was no hope for him this time: it was the third stroke. Night after night I had passed the house (it was vacation time) and studied the lighted square of window: and night after night I had found it lighted in the same way, faintly and evenly. If he was dead, I thought, I would see the reflection of candles on the darkened blind for I knew that two candles must be set at the head of a corpse."
The Sisters, p.1

New character of the voyeur, perhaps? Gazing into lit interiors is one of the greatest pleasures of the urban experience...

"I waited until his monologue paused again. Then I stood up abruptly. Lest I should betray my agitation I delayed a few moments pretending to fix my shoe properly and then, saying that I was obliged to go, I bade him good day. I went up the slope calmly but my heart was beating quickly with fear that he would seize me by the ankles. When I reached the top of the slope I turned round and, without looking at him, called loudly across the field:
- Murphy!
My voice had an accent of forced bravery in it and I was ashamed of my paltry stratagem. I had to call the name again before Mahony saw me and hallooed in answer. How my heart beat as he came running across the field to me! He ran as if to bring me aid."
An Encounter, p.20

This scene comes after two young boys skipping school encounter an eccentric older man in a field in Ringsend. The situation is every bit as suspicious as it sounds; the boys are uncomfortable in his presence and, at the beginning of this extract, the narrator decides to break away from the conversation. This piece reminded of the trepidation and fear that can characterise encounters with strangers, a quintessential part of an urban existence, and something which we have overlooked thus far.

"That night the city wore the mask of a capital. The five young men strolled along Stephen's Green in a faint cloud of aromatic smoke. They talked loudly and gaily and their cloaks dangled from their shoulders. The people made way for them."
After the Race, p.39

Interesting for a couple of reasons. Really like the description of Dublin as wearing "the mask of a capital", and, although my footnotes suggest that this refers to the fact that the country was, at this time, governed from London rather than Dublin, I prefer to associate it with those brief moments where Limerick feels superficially like "a real city". The characters are also relevant for our purposes; perhaps this kind of extroversion (at night, in groups) is what we have been thinking of?




Image via http://www.flickr.com/photos/bg/4365402771/. Interestingly, it formed part of a physically disconnected, loosely defined virtual reading group's response to the stories. More info on the project here: http://motleyread.posterous.com/reading-joyces-dubliners-join-in-the-fun

A stranger in his own home

"He could see through the crack of the door that the gas was turned on in the living-room, but while usually at this time his father made a habit of reading the afternoon newspaper in a loud voice to his mother and occasionally to his sister as well, not a sound was now to be heard. Well, perhaps his father had recently given up this habit of reading aloud, which his sister had mentioned so often in conversation and in her letters. But there was the same silence all around, although the flat was certainly not empty of occupants. 'What a quiet life our family has been leading,' said Gregor to himself, and as he sat there motionless staring into darkness he felt great pride in the fact that he had been able to provide such a life for his parents and sister in such a fine flat."

Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis, p.20

The image is another untitled Gregory Crewdson photograph.

Falling Down The Rabbit Hole...?

The British Film Institute has released this restoration of the very first Alice in Wonderland film from 1903. Shot on 35mm, it was directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow.

metastages and more...

Interesting description of part of the process we have been, in my case unwittingly, undergoing thus far:

"...characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no-one else has discovered or said something essential about"

And, interestingly, tying in to the Invisible Cities discussion we had, the next line is as follows:

"But isn't it true that an author can only write about himself?"

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, p215


Also, I know you're uncomfortable with the 'All the world's a stage' concept that has been coming up both in class and in our discussions, and I am aware that we're sailing a little close to the wind with the cast idea, but I thought you might appreciate this nonetheless:

'A question is like a knife that slices through the stage backdrop and gives us a look at what lies hidden behind it.'
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, p247

All the world's a meta-stage, perhaps?


The image is an untitled Gregory Crewdson photograph referencing the character of Ophelia

Fiction?

‘As an object a book can sit around for years, resting comfortably on a library shelf, but as a text, it does not exist at all unless it is read, interpreted, understood.’ –D. G. Myers

the new shelton wet/dry