Murakami's Spaghetti

My current read on a Saturday afternoon as this is Murakami's Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. I have been jumping books in the last few weeks, from Jack Kerouc's Dharma Bums to Dambisa Moyo's Dead Aid. Different days, different needs I say. 

In one of the 24 short stories, The Year of Spaghetti, the character makes spaghetti every day, every week and for a long time. Cooks and eats alone, convinced that it's best enjoy alone. It's a simple story really, revolves around the character and spaghetti cooking and one telephone call. 

But I thought the best part of the story is when it ends with this:

Durum semolina, golden wheat wafting in Italian fields.

Can you imagine how astonished the Italians would be if they knew what they were exporting in 1971 was really loneliness?

Invisible Children

I like watching films more than once. It helps me refresh my memories and more often than as a personal pleasure, I get to relive what sentimental ideals I have in life. So earlier, I watched this documentary called Invisible Children

http://blog.invisiblechildren.com/2010/11/a-message-to-president-obama-from-the-lra-victims/

Watch this video - about the abducted children of Northern Uganda and their message to Obama

Currently reading and flicking... The Art of Travel

Having read How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Consolations of Philosophy and Essays in Love, I can officially say I am quite a fan of Alain De Botton's writings. So when I found The Art of Travel on a local charity store in West Hampstead in London, I bought it - it was a second hand copy and was only 99p. It would be foolish of me to not buy it. As an avid traveller (long term mover as I do not really settled in one place necessarily), I was very excited to go through the book and see what further philosophical insights he might add. But I was somewhat disappointed at the passionless manner he talks about the wonders of travel. His grasp of chosen writers/painters/artists and other notable people like Edward Hopper (who is featured a fair bit in his other bookst) is excellent for a novice art-reader like myself. But de Botton's seemingly less-than-excited attitude towards the joys of what travel is was perhaps less impressive. He started the book with his complaints about his vacation to Barbados - forgetting to tell a colleagues he is away, the one-sided swaying palm trees, the petty argument about creme caramel and so on and then questioned how in spite of being in a very exotic location, he is still plague by the same old woes. His answer was: we do not understand or know very well the art of travel. We are constantly bombarded by travel agents, brochures on where to go but not always why and how to. 


I have travelled a fair bit in my life and have never once took myself to a travel agent (I certainly have encouraged anyone I know to do same). I don't believe that there is necessarily an art of travel i.e. how and why to. I mean, we all travel for very different reasons but it would be unwise to generalize why we travel I think (although this what he attempts to do). What I think is missing in this book and which I think is perhaps the most fundamental issue that should have been better discussed is - the faces and people you meet while on travels. Sure I can go to Rome and visit the sights like all the things tourists do and I might have a good time but I reckon if I wander the streets and have no set plans, I might end up finding a gem, a restaurant hidden in a hole, people whose lives differ from mine and more often that not, beautiful stories waiting to be untold. I believe people make places. Places come to life because of the very faces and people that make up its environment. Being able to fly into different countries doesn't quite mean we travelled. It only means we have arrived and the journey into discovery begins. He says, 'what we find exotic abroad may be what we hunger for in vain at home... the pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.' 


I am not sure about this but I can only say from my own experience. Travel has brought me perspective with which I understand the world around me. I still don't know a lot of things or understand the complexities of the world we live in today. I am constantly hungry for more. But I rather move from my comfort chair and see for myself what the world and exotic corners have to offer rather than observing it through media-tinted glasses and the observations of one man (or in this case, the experiences of some expert observers).

The Notebook

A few years back, in my self-imposed solitary lifestyle, I wandered along the mall near my place. In typical routine, I popped into the only 2nd hand bookstore in the building. I never really cared very much for the store since they don't normally have much of a collection, it's a lot of sci-fi stacks, Japanese manga and Danielle Steel yellowed-pages love novels and so on. I don't even remember the name of the store which bothers me at times since I have an irresistible urge to pigeonhole everything I see, do, know, feel into special memory boxes in my head.

Anyway, I found a small, paperback called The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. Not the regular book I'm used to reading but I picked it up and I fell in love with it. I am still in love with the story until today. I have watched the movie so many times that I can traced the moment visually in my head when N pulled and kissed A by the pier in the rain as he shouted, "it's not over then, it's not over now!"

It's the only Sparks book I've ever read. Really. I've never attempted to read another just so I could prolong the sanctity and sacredness of this one just a little bit longer. The Notebook holds a special place in the confines of my heart and my soul. It has taught me to relive the love I've had before and to remember the ones that have occupied me in between. I learned to cherish the love in the past, to breathe in the moments of ecstacy, to sear every moment in memory, to cry and grief, and to look forward to love in the future. Last Friday, when Tim and I celebrated our 2 years together, I thought of this book and I smiled. I told him so. I know why I bought the book then and I understood what it meant now.

In The Notebook, N wrote to A for 365 days since they parted in summer. She never responded to any of the letters and in the final letter, he wrote,

"The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls were connected. Maybe they always have and will be. Maybe we've lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them we've found each other. And maybe each time, we've been forced apart for the same reasons. That means that this goodbye is both goodbye for the past ten thousand years and a prelude to what will come.

When I look at you, I see your charm and your gentleness and know they have grown stronger with every life you have lived. And I know I have spent every life before this one searching for you. Not someone like you, but you, for your soul and mine must always come together. And then, for some reason neither of us understands we were forced to to say goodbye.

I would love to tell you that everything will work out for us, and I promise to do all I can to make sure it does. But if we never meet again and this is truly goodbye, I know we will see each other again in another life. We will find each other again and maybe the stars will have changed, and we will not only love each other in that time but for all the times we had before".

Over time, I realised I don't remember the books I read. I forgot what they say, what they served to remind me of and why I had picked it up in the first place. So I decided to read this for the 2nd time over this past weekend. Each line is reflective and now that I am reading it for the 2nd time, I am beginning to see the overly interpretive nature of the characters. Each one has a layer waiting to be peeled and discovered, complex than the one before. And I'm enjoying it. I thought about it last night and each time I do, it evokes different emotions, thoughts, bringing new perspectives.

'Every story we tell about ourselves can only be told in the past tense,' notes the storyteller

a thousand splendid suns

This book was an unexpected present from Tim's family in Brussels. I have been meaning to read this for a long time and managed to get around it only recently. This is an essentially captivating book. I wish I had a talent to tell a story like Hosseini does. Old, traditional, reminiscent of the fairy-tales and fables. I wished I could craft words beautifully like he does - smooth, real and flowing. The book is a tale revolving around Mariam and Laila - 2 different women brought up in 2 different environments but entwined unwillingly in the same fate. A fate perhaps common to Afghan women. Hosseini makes it apparent that this is what his intention is - highlighting the plight of "women like us" in the opening pages. His skilled storytelling allows us to picture what daily lives then must be like. His characters may sometimes seem one-dimensional but as you read along, you see some sense of personality. There were times I felt this couldn't be the reality Afghan women had to endure. He makes it real, and it takes a hold on you. You feel for the characters. You get embroiled by your emotions - pity for Laila, hatred towards the misogynist, wife-beater Rasheed and compassion for hobbling Tariq. I enjoyed this book tremendously. I think you will too. I am currently reading The Kite Runner.

Memory is a funny thing. When I was in the scene I hardly paid it any attention. I never stopped to think of it as something that would make a lasting impression, certainly never imagined that 18 years later I would recall it in such detail. I didn't give a damn about the scenery that day. I was thinking about myself. I was thinking about the beautiful girl walking next to me. I was thinking about the two of us together, and thenabout myself again. I was at that age, that time of life when every sight. every feeling, every thought came back, like a boomerang, to me. And worse, I was in love. Love with complications. Scenery was the last thing on my mind.

Norwegian Wood -Murakami

The Photographic Story

This is the book that fascinates me the most presently (on top of the other read as well by Soyinka, the first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature). On Photography is a collection of six essays by American writer Susan Sontag. This is a brilliant book. Beautifully written, intelligent and thoughtful. In my dreams, I wish I could write like her.

On Photography makes one think and question our societal construction of images - what ought to be preserved, what ought to be displayed, who decides what goes into the picture frame etc. Photographs we take are more than just mementos of a lived experience. It is a reconstruction of a present for the future. We keep pictures not only for memory but also to inform our children and grandchildren of the lives we had. In doing so, we reconstruct this present or future for that matter by carefully selecting pictures that are flattering, that depicts joy, laughter and good times. These are pictures we proudly display on the shelves. The rest that reminds us of sadness and pain will essentially remain hidden in that little shoe box and stored in the corner of the drawer to collect years of dust.

Importantly, this book has allowed me to understand why I take photographs and why I value them and will hold on them to dearly. It allows me to capture the life around me that I normally otherwise would not have noticed. It gives me great pleasure to take a snapshot of a face I secretly adore. Beautiful photographs bring wonderful sentiments along with them. For me, it far beyond what the picture says, it's what the pictures conjure in me each time I look at it that matters more.