Walls go up, walls come down

Crossing the Sierra del Gredos is getting a fair amount of reviews in the US. (I'm still awaiting my copy.) They're split between those who admire the writer and the book such as Thomas McGonigle in the LA Times and Ross Benjamin in BookForum, and those like Charles Peterson in the Village Voice and Benjamin Lytal in the NY Sun who, because apparently they haven't got much of a clue, resort to political gossip and misrepresentation. 480 pages of novel are of little note to these two novel reviewers.

I'd be interested to find out where Handke "attacked the journalism that reported Serbian atrocities, questioning their very veracity" as Lytal claims. Perhaps he's referring to second-hand information or perhaps he's actually read Journey to the Rivers in which Handke observes too many similarities in the journalists covering the Balkans war:

Nothing against those ... discovering reporters on the scene (or better yet: involved in the scene and with the people there), praise for these other researchers in the field! But something against the packs of long-distance dispatchers who confuse their profession as writers with that of a judge or even with the role of a demagogue and, working year after year in the same word and picture ruts, are, from their foreign thrones, in their way just as terrible dogs of war as those on the battleground. (trans. Scott Abbott)

Yes, he questions the veracity of rote reporting yet nowhere have I found any denial of atrocities. He has questioned the silence of rote journalists about massacres in Serb villages but that's only the same thing to those who require a party line.

"In interview after interview," Lytal continues, "[Handke] gave the impression that his own subjective experience was more reliable, and more important, than Western journalism." So let's get this straight: Lytal wants to persuade us (without evidence) of his own "impression" that Handke values his own subjective experience and expects us to be appalled at this alleged selfishness, a selfishness based entirely on Lytal's "impression"? And he and the fact-checkers get paid for this?

See if you get the same impression reading this interview with Handke in which he defends his style of writing.

With the Yugoslav problem, the walls went up immediately. There were some who knew: this is the situation, this is how we should talk about it. You can only say this and that and only in a particular journalistic style. But in the meantime, another way of speaking has emerged that is not going to disappear.

Another way of speaking - such as we might find in a novel if, as reader or reviewer, we are prepared to submit to it.

The new age of anxiety

Evidence for a widespread anxiety about art abounds. In any one week you can read articles drenched in concern for its future. On the 2nd, Edward Rothstein (via TRE) observed that "art music has become almost quaintly marginal". On July 5th, John Freeman worried that the audience for the novel has been usurped by a TV series. On the 9th, Donari Braxton wrote that he can’t remember seeing anyone "pull out a collection of poetry on the subway and read through just for the sheer pleasure of doing so". It's a staple of print and blogs. On the 4th, there was a variant in Chris Wiegrand's call for "more respect" to be paid to Crime writers.

Of course, not one of these is really concerned about the future of art. They're concerned about the public life of art. Somehow, if "art music" meant something to those to whom it doesn't mean anything, if the viewers of The Sopranos would read "writers with plenty of lively ideas", if poetry critics didn't exclude the "layman" ... i.e the ninety-nine percent of the human-race who hasn't studied the intricate theoretical systems of Italian philosopher Agamben, and if genre fiction was given the same status as literary fiction then ... then ...then what?

Why is it that, from the conservative New York Times, to the liberal Guardian, to the "edgier waters" of 3AM Magazine, a personal engagement with a piece of music, a novel, a poem, is replaced by a search for wider cultural worth?

Perhaps it is the channeling of the true anxiety behind the public face. The art they wish more could experience involves not only the enchantment promised in all art, but also an exclusion. The Eden of modern art is a cold and bitter place. Mitigation of the sense of exclusion from the real thing is sought. Ian Rankin seeks it in the "biting exploration of contemporary social issues" offered by his crime novels. Might sociological studies be seen on future Booker Prize shortlists then?

The two together, enchantment and exclusion, constitute modern art and our experience of it. No matter how much one might embrace escapist art, the experience of exclusion remains - hence the denial inherent in nostalgia for the mythical golden era of Victorian fiction.

What we see every week is anxiety about personal exclusion. It would be better if critics, rather than hiding, mitigating or condemning the exclusion, brought out how the dual experience is liberating. However, this requires a certain amount of patience. Studying the intricate theoretical systems of Italian philosopher Agamben might also help too. Why protect people from it? I certainly recommend The End of the Poem and The Man Without Content. One trick I've found when reading supposedly difficult books is to, well, just read them.

Shakespeare without Company

Lee Rourke visits the Shakespeare & Co bookshop in Gay Paree.

It was horrible. So horrible in fact that I spent no more than five minutes in there. Just enough time to wander up and down the shoddy stairs and browse the shelves for Maurice Blanchot and Blaise Cendrars titles (of which they were disappointingly bereft).

Enough said. A bookshop in Paris without Blanchot is like a Waterstones without a 3 for 2 display.

Speaking of Blanchot, does anyone know anything about a rumoured translation of Christophe Bident's Maurice Blanchot: Partenaire invisible, an "essai biographique"?

In and outside the stories they tell

At last, Tim Parks makes the important distinction between Elfriede Jelinek and her influential predecessor:

The extremity of Jelinek's tirades soon won her comparisons with Thomas Bernhard, who had also remorselessly attacked the residual fascism of modern Austria. Seeking, in an interview with Gitta Honegger, a respected theater critic and biographer of Bernhard, to distinguish her approach from his, Jelinek claimed that as a man Bernhard "could claim a position of authority," projecting an identity with which readers could relate and giving a coherent, rhetorically convincing account of Austrian society, whereas, being a woman, even this form of "positive" approach was denied her; a woman working in a man's world and language could not present a coherent identity. [...]

However, one hardly need resort to feminist theories of language to see more obvious differences between the two writers. Bernhard's narrators are firmly placed within the stories they tell and a certain pathos attaches to the damage they do themselves with their constant negativity. In many of Bernhard's works (Frost for example, or the later Correction) we see a narrator drawn into the orbit of a strikingly negative figure and are invited to feel all the danger of his being seduced and destroyed by the other's despairing vision. There is never, that is, any complacency about what it means to see the world so darkly, nor a conviction that withdrawal is any solution.

Jelinek's narrator may constantly make her presence felt, addressing the reader directly and voicing the fiercest invectives, yet she remains resolutely outside the story, invulnerable in her sardonic detachment, her avoidance of experience. This separation is occasionally reinforced by reminding us that her characters are "only" creations, something Bernhard never does.

With apologies to Half Man Half Biscuit

They came for the Ian McEwan fans but I wasn't an Ian McEwan fan, so I did nothing.

They came for the Booker Prize committee that chose Vernon God Little but I wasn't on the Booker Prize committee that chose Vernon God Little, so I did nothing.

They came for the critics who claim Peter Handke "argued that the Srebrenica massacres never happened" but I wasn't a critic who claimed Peter Handke "argued that the Srebrenica massacres never happened", so I did nothing.

They came for the readers who think literary fiction should be more "accessible" but wasn't a reader who thinks literary fiction should be more "accessible", so I did nothing.

They came for the journalists who argue that Crime Fiction deserves to be taken "seriously" but I wasn't a journalist who argues that Crime Fiction deserves to be taken "seriously", so I did nothing.

They came for the soap fans who say if Shakespeare were alive today he'd be writing Eastenders, but I wasn't a soap fan who says if Shakespeare were alive today he'd be writing Eastenders, so I did nothing.

They came for Richard & Judy's Book Club and I think I'm right in saying I applauded.

They came for the bloggers who "confess" they haven't read each and every book in the entire history of English language publishing, but I wasn't a blogger who "confesses" he hasn't read each and every book in the entire history of English language publishing, so I did nothing.

They came for the admirers of The Intellectuals and the Masses but I wasn't an admirer of The Intellectuals and the Masses, so I did nothing.

They came for Julie Myerson and I said she's over there behind the wardrobe.

Everyone sing along: Sometimes it's best to turn a blind eye.

Quebec City (Canada)

Kuzey Amerika’daki Fransa!

Amerika’da yaşayıp da Avrupa’ya bu kadar yakın olduğumu hiç düşünmemiştim. Kuzey Amerika’da yasayanlar yılda bir kez Quebec’e ugrayıp Avrupa havası almalı bence, bir kendine gelme, silkinme ve düz amerikan hayatına bir yıl daha katlanma için.

Amaçlanan bir Kanada turu ise önünüzde iki seçenek var, ya güneyden Niagara Falls’tan girip Toronto’ya gider ordan da Montreal veya Quebec yaparsınız; ya da Boston’dan kuzeye doğru direkt Quebec’e varıp, sonra batıya doğru yol alırsınız, Niagara’dan Boston’a donersiniz. Ama sonradan da anlatacağım üzere tatilinizi sadece Quebec Montreal’le de kesebilirsiniz; ötesine geçmeye çok gerek var mı tartışılır. Ama şunu da belirtmekte fayda var: Niagara şelaleleri Kanada tarafından asıl olarak görünüyor, ABD tarafından gördüğünüz hiç bir şey. Yine de bunun için o kadar yol yapmaya değer mi, onu bilmiyorum.

Boston Quebec yolu inanılmaz güzel, dağların arasından göllerin kıyısından geçiyorsunuz. Yaklaşık 380 mil. 6-7 saatte rahatlıkla Quebec’tesiniz. New Hempshire ve Vermouth yol üzerinde geçtiginiz New England eyaletleri. Sakın bu yolu bitirmek için acele etmeyin, keyfini çikarta çikarta gidin. Sınırı geçtiktekn itibaren Amerikan havası yerini Avrupa havasına birakıyor.

Quebec kucuk bir sehir, Quebec eyaletinin baskenti, 700 bin nufuslu bir yermis, 40 bin memur varmis kentte. Bizim ankara gibi diyecegim ama Quebec’e haksizlik olacak. Kentin bir dokusu var, 300-400 yil once kurulmus olmasina ragmen kent bu tarihi dokuyu cok iyi muhafaza etmis. Kanada’nin en varlikli sehri olmasi sebebiyle de tarihi dokunun yaninda kentsel planlamasi, sehir hayati da ust seviyede.


Ana fikri en sona birakmayi burda soyleyeyim ve yoluma oyle devam edeyim. Quebec Paris’in minyaturu sanki. Tabii ki Paris’in tarihsel ve kulturel havasiyla karsilastirilamaz ama yine de size Paris’i animsatacaktir. Sokaktaki cafeleri/restorantlari Boston’a ana avrat kufur etmenize yol acabilir. Bir sehri guzellestiren sokaklara tasmis kafe bar restorantlaridir; sokaga sehre bunlar hayat verir; ama Boston’in 19 yy gelenekleri/ kurallari disarda alkol icilmesine izin vermedigi icin Boston’in hayat damarlarindan biri kesiliyor; iste o kesilen damari Quebec’te, sonrasinda Ottawa ve Montreal’de fazlasiyla buluyorsunuz.

Quebec eyaleti Kanada’dan ayrilmak icin can atan bir bolge; bu ayrilikci tohumu da atan De Gaulle! 1960’larda bir Kanada ziyaretinde meydanda halka karsi yaptigi bir konusmada bunu gundeme getirmis, o gun bugundur Quebec’te bu tartisma gundemde. Adamlar biraz da hakli galiba; vergi olarak verdikleri 10 liraya karsilik kendilerine 1 liralik yol su elektrik geri geliyor!!! Son referandumda ayrilmak isteyenlerin orani yuzde 48’te kalmis. Quebec city, bu Quebec eyaletinin baskenti iste..

Quebec eyaletinde resmi dilin fransizca oldugunu soylemeyi ihmal etmeyelim, sokak tabelalari da fransizca. Nufusun yuzde 95’inin birinci dili fransizca.

Quebec’i gezmeye sanirim ilk olarak Quartier Petit Champlain’den baslayacaksiniz. buradaki kucuk dar sokaklar ve hediyelik esya satan magazalar, kafeler, barlar size Avrupa’yi, Turkiye’yi hatirlatacaktir. Burada bir kac saat gecirmek cok guzel olabilir. Rue du Petit Champlain dar bir sokak ve Quebec’e muhtemelen burden girceksiniz, sokak boyunca dizili evler 17. yydan itibaren bugune gelen bir tarihi yansitiyor; bu sokak Quebec’in en meshur sokagi. (Rue cadde/sokak demek). Caddenin sonunda cok guzel bir duvar resmi var.
caddeden yukariya, ust tarafa dogru bir finikuler var ama topu topu 170 merdiven icin buna bunmeye degmez. Bu 170 merdiven Asagi Quebec’le Yukari Quebec’I birbirine bagliyor. Bu sokkata basinizi kaldirdiginzda goreceginiz ihtisamli yapi Chateau Frontenac. Cok heybetli duruyor ama yanilmayin tarihi cok eski degil; 100 yillik bir tarihi varmis. Ee Anadolu’nun bagrindan kopup geliyorsan 100 yil sana bir sey ifade etmiyor (Benden Selam Soyleyin Anadolu’ya). Ikinci dunya savasinda Kanada krali, Roosewelt, Churchill burada bulusup strateji belirlermis. Sehre hakim bir tepede, ve sehrin en onemli yapisi. Iddiaya gore dunyada fotografi en fazla cekilen otelmis; tabii bu nasil ispatlanir onu bilemiyorum; ama bizde bi bes on fotografini cekmedik degil. Bu arada bu otelde kalmak biraz pahaliya gelebilir, geceligini 450 dolar olarak gormustum... ama madem akilda kalacak bir sey yapcaksiniz, bu otele ilsiskin dealleri iyi kollayin. Butun yollar buraya ciktigi icin sagina soluna onune arkasina zaten ciakcaksiniz. Onunden Sn. Lavrance nehrine dogru bakan bankalrda oturup yorgunluk atabilirsiniz.
Burasi kale surlari icerisinde kalan bolge; kale surlarini gectikten sonra yukariya dogru gittikce yeni Quebec’e, hukumet binalarinin oldugu yere cikiyorsunuz. Burda da ilk olarak saginizda National Assembly of Quebec’i (parlamento binasi) goreceksiniz; bu bolge Parlamento tepesi olarak geciyor zaten. Bu caddenin adi Grand Allee. Bu cadde uzerinde cok guzel restorantlar var; fiyatlar biraz yuksek ama Kanada’da her yerde fiyatlar yuksek. Konsept olarak Bagdat Caddesi veya onun Boston muadili Newbury ayarinda bir cadde burasi ama bu belirttigim iki caddedeki magazalar yok burda tabii.. Tekrardan soyleyeyim: restorantlari guzel. Ayrica sehrin en onemli clubi Dagobert de burada.

Aksam 8-9’dan sonra hayat bitiyor Quebec’te, biz bunu gorduk..evet bunu gorduk derken yolumuz Dagobert’e dustu tesaduf. Herhalde sehrin tum gencleri eksiksiz buradaki clubta toplaniyor ki sokaklarda in cin top oynuyor... Carsamba gecesi idi, ona ragmen club tamamen dolu idi. Ve de bu sehirde hic cirkin kiz yok mu, bu sehirde sadece guzel genc kizlar mi yasiyor sorulari kafanizi karman corman ediyor. Yuzlerce modelvari genckizin doldurdugu bir club dusunun. Tipik bir soylem olacak ama aralarindan rastgele 15-20 tanesini secseniz Turkiye’deki modellerin pabuclarini dama atarlar. Amerikan kizlari ile aralarindaki tarz farkliligi ise Journal of International Affairs’in alanina girer, konuya bilimsel alana tasimak da bu blogun haddini asar!

Quebec City’ye muhtemelen araba ile gideceksinizdir; eger vaktiniz de bol ise Montmorency Falls’a ugrayabilirsiniz. Quebec’in selalesi bu. Sehir merkezine 15-20 dakika mesafede. Niagara ile tabii ki karsilastirilamaz ama yine de guzel. Teleferikle selalenin ustune cikabilirsiniz; biz yapmadik bunu, tabakhaneye onemli bir mal yetistirmemiz gerekiyordu:) teleferikle cikmayip merdivenlerden de tepeye cikabilirsiniz ama bu takriben gidis donus 2 saatinizi alir.
Buraya kadar gitmisken Ile d'Orleans koprusunden karsiya gecip araba ile bir ada turu da yapmak guzel olabilir. Bu tur yaklasik bir saatinizi alabilir. Kanada ciftcilerinin guzelim evlerini gorursunuz. Ama bunlarin hepsi ciftci olamazJ sanirim bizim gorduklerimiz ciftcilerin evleri degildi; bazilarinin onunde son model spor arabalari vardi. Bu ada tarihi boyunca hep izole kalmis oldugu icin tarihsel koruma alani ilan edilmis hukumet tarafindan.

Asagiya adanin yerlilerinden cok tatli bir buzon yavrusunun fotosunu koyuyorum:)



Lafi baglayalim; Quebec’e bir gece 2 gun ayrilmali; kokusu cigerlere iyice cekilmeli. Kanada’nin en guzel yeri oldugu bilinmeli, diger yerleri gormek icin cok da acele edilmemeli.

Hürriyet'te yayınlanmış Quebec City röportajım için tıklayınız.

The nightmare of reason

Today is Kafka's 124th birthday. Here's the final paragraph of Ernst Pawel's biography from 1984 with the winning title: The Nightmare of Reason:

The world that Kafka was 'condemned to see with such blinding clarity that he found it unbearable' [a quotation from Milena's obituary] is our own post-Auschwitz universe, on the brink of extinction. His work is subversive, not because he found the truth, but because, being human and therefore having failed to find it, he refused to settle for half-truths and compromise solutions. In visions wrested from his innermost self, and in language of crystalline purity, he gave shape to the anguish of being human.

A little excessive perhaps, though accurate enough, even if I'd say his "innermost self" was his innermost non-self too and that giving shape to anguish is the opposite of anguish. Anyway, for Kafka, reason was as problematic as faith. Earlier in the book, Pawel writes of how this manifested in his work:

Obedience to the spirit of the law presupposes knowledge of its letter. But knowledge breeds doubt, and as the letter of the law began yielding up the infinite ambiguities of its spirit, interpretation became the task of a lifetime, an endless “process” to which each generation contributed its share, expanding and refining the interpretations of the previous one, heaping comment upon commentary ad infinitum, a way of life by which reason seeks to justify faith.

This tension between faith and reason, the dynamic, ever-precarious balance between essentially irreconcilable opposites, is at the heart of Jewish tradition and a source of its enduring vitality. And the struggle of Joseph K., incapable of compromise like his creator, to reason his way to faith owes its inspiration far more to that heritage than it does to neurosis, literature, or politics.

(Let it pass that 'literature' is inseparable from K's struggle).

Lately, the loudest champions of reason have refused to respect let alone justify faith. And while Dan Hind's new book from Verso entitled The Threat to Reason does not seem to redress that imbalance exactly, it does confront "the great machinery of deception" reason has set up to deny its reliance on the unquestioning faith. For further chat around the subject, see Dan's blog and the ongoing interview at ReadySteadyBook.