Jonas Jonasson's "The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden"

One of the books that were given as a birthday present this year was Jonas Jonasson’s “The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden”. I am currently taking a break from Marcel Proust’s “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower” and now opting for something that’s easier to read (more like a bedside-table or a bathroom read). 

Jonas Jonasson's protagonist grew up in a shanty town of South Africa. She empties latrines for a living ever since she was 5 years old. Although borne an illiterate, fated to destitution and later on die of tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrhea, pills, alcohol (or the combination of these) like the rest of the kaffirs (as the blacks are called) she shares this menial task with, Nombeko Mayeki’s inherent genius offers her the position from being a mere latrine emptier into a managerial position. She soon managed to escape town and by some freak accident, becomes a cleaning lady to Engr. Westhuizen, the top representative of nuclear weapons of South Africa. Things got crazy along the way, of course with Nombeko always saving the idiot of an engineer’s ass. 

Another story follows the lives of the Holger twins and their father, Ingmar, a fanatic of the Swedish Monarchy who later turned into a detractor after the king refused to lay eyes or even speak to him (in one of his chases). Although one bears the spitting image of the other, they can’t be confused because Holger Two seems to be more sensible than Holger One (who took after his father’s anarchist teachings and penchant for ruinous decisions). However it is Holger One, who by manners of Swedish Registry, who truly existed. Later on in the story, Holger Two met Nombeko and later on fell in love with her. Their love affair did not take up the bulk of the book's pages but instead the little incidents that intertwined their lives with the most unlikely characters: The Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf, Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Countess Virtanen, an American potter, 2 Israeli Mossads, some Chinese  swindlers and an angry young woman who shared the foolish Holger twin's beliefs. A "non-existent" atomic bomb was also involved.

Although this book wasn't nearly as exciting as his “The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of The Window and Disappeared” which I read in 2013 it held the author’s knack for piecing together a comical skit that renders a light hearted take on international politics. 

Kerouac Quote

 

 

 

 

“the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

 

-- Jack Kerouac, On The Road

Colette's "la vagabond"

I didn't know it was the day before Colette's Birthday when I started to read this again. Well, Happy Birthday Dear Colette! She would've been 140 years old.

I was quite lucky that during my late teenage years I became friends with people whose choices in literature had a lasting influence in me. Works by writers Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Laura Esquivel, Oscar Wilde, Herman Hesse, Milan Kundera, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (to wit a few) were amongst that brought  joy to a little table shared by 2 or 3 other people, breathless over what book at lunch or quick breakfasts at the school cafeteria. There were also nights spent sipping coffee our meager college allowance allows until the early hours of dawn. These were cheap joys, pocket-sized memories that never fail to cheer me up especially at times when I brood over a boring or exhausting day at work. When one comes across something: a song, a poem, a book, a thin ribbon of scent, a work of art, a photo that marked a moment some number of years ago, one can't help but wish for a secret passage to those rare, rare times. But I'm getting sentimental, again. 

But it is just as so while I read Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette's "The vagabond" again. One of the books I had the instance of sharing with my like-minded friends. It was actually my literature teacher (who I became close chums with up to now) who lent me her own copy then one of my professors in grad studies offered her own as she assigns the very book to discuss in class (which I did a horrible job at). Over the years I never own a copy of it and though I found a collection of her short stories during my visit to the Philippines in 2007 (?), I had to give it away as a present for a dear friend. However, during my visit last year (December 2013), I came across the very book sold at P154 (around 5 BND) in Robinson's Booksale. So here, again, what must've been my 4th or 5th rereading of this literary gem which I find was and still is a delightful, charming and fascinating little book.

    

Miracle and Colette ( I gave as a present)

The story is about Renee Nere, 33, who earns here way into life as a music-hall artiste ( and once as a writer). She then meets an admirer, the rich Maxime Dufferein-Chautel who woos her despite her obvious disregard for the fellow. It's interesting how their relationship turned sweet somewhere in the middle of the book, but what's more interesting is the prose itself.

****

      To write, to be able to write, what does it mean? It means spending long hours dreaming before a white page, scribbling unconsciously, letting your pen play around a blot of ink and nibble at a half-formed word, scratching it, making it bristle with darts and adorning it with antennae and paws until it loses all resemblance to a legible word and turns into a fantastic insect or a fluttering creature half butterfly, half fairy. 

     To write is to sit and stare, hypnotised, at the reflection of the window in the silver-ink stand, to feel the divine fever mounting to one's cheeks and forehead while the hand that writes grows blissfully numb upon the paper. It also means idle hours curled up in the hollow of the divan, and then the orgy of inspiration  from which one emerges stupefied and aching all over, but already recompensed and laden with treasures thst one unloads slowly on to the virgin page in the little round pool of light under the lamp. 

     To write is to pour one's innermost self passionately upon the tempting paper, at such frantic speed that sometimes one's hand struggles and rebels, overdriven by the impatient god who guides it-- and to find, next day, in place of the golden bough that bloomed miraculously in the dazzling hour, a withered bramble and a stunted flower. 

     To write is the joy and torment of the idle. Oh to write! From time to time I feel a need, sharp as thirst in summer, to not and to describe. And then I take up my pen again and attempt the perilous and elusive task of seizing and pinning down, under its flexible double pointed nib, the many-hued, fugitive, thrilling adjective . . . The attack does not last long; it is but the itching of an old scar. 

**** 

     A vagabond, maybe, but one who is resigned to revolving on the same spot like my companions and brethren. It is true that departures sadden and exhilarate me, and whatever I pass through, new countries, skies pure of cloudy, seas under rain the color of a grey pearl --- something of myself catches on it and clings so passionately that I feel as though I were leaving behind me a thousand little phantoms in my image, rocked on the waves, cradled in the leaves, scattered among the clouds. But does not a little phantom, more like me than any of the others, remain sitting in my chimney corner, lost in a dream and as good as gold as it bends over a book which it forgets to open?

Aimee Bender's "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake"

With its gentle prose and fascinating characters, it is easy to love Aimee Bender’s “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake”. For someone who has never been acquainted with the author’s seemingly surreal stories, the characters strike me as odd. Though they are admirable, one can’t help but ask “Did I just pick another super-heroes-with-super-powers themed book?”.

 A young girl, Rose Elderstein, is a prodigy of taste.  As she took a bite from a lemon cake baked by her mom during her 9^th birthday she did not only taste the cake’s citrus and buttery taste, she also tasted the contents of her mother’s heart. The cake, despite its blended taste of sugary sweetness and lemony sourness, was hollow. And that was how she knew the amount of loneliness her mother was going through. I enjoyed reading the book especially because it was this gifted young girl, Rose, who voiced the story. The prose was womanly: intricate, florid, sensitive and sweeping. It keeps ones senses (especially taste) in a clockwork. I actually remember eating twice as much as I read on, what with all the talk about food and taste.

As her narrative unfolds, the reader will discover that it wasn’t only Rose Elderstien who was gifted with a special streak. Her paternal grandfather who with a slight whiff of a person’s scent, can tell a lot about the person. She also has a brother, born a savant but later on deteriorates and becomes a piece of furniture (One needs to understand the nature of Aimee Bender’s stories to know why this is so). And if one does not limit his or her imagination or speculation to Rose’s narrative, one would assume that the father, too, has a gift (albeit he’s too scared to discover it’s boon or bane).

 Although the characters possess a superhuman ability, they do not go fighting for the sake of saving the world as we are all inclined to think with characters like these. The story was not of an earth-shaking kind but through the eyes of a young girl one will come to share her silent struggles, her gift, the wads of secrets she bore, secrets that came to her without her asking. Don't we, at some point in life, also hold secrets that by mere breath of it and its unknown outcomes just causes a shudder? Secrets with no trace of telling whether its a blessing or a curse? This is how I’ve come to appreciate the story, as always is the reason for admiring any book regardless of how far-fetched or irrelevant its characters and their circumstances are, there is always that tiny keyhole that one can peep into and find the slightest resemblance to one’s life. As Aimee Bender’s fiction progress, we are told about the mother’s palpable loneliness, that it was because of the almost-always-absent husband who’s too frightened to embrace his own weakness, the self-absorbed first-born and of course the many entanglements and complications a married life leads to. The other sibling reveals about how her mom has an affair to fill this void. But despite knowing this, Rose hid it as she did her “gift”. And she hid it well until she’s at that age when life’s mightiest of blows teaches us to accept the things that fate has bind us to. It is a thoughtful story that’s a blend of magic and realism.

I lifted some parts in the book which I liked

“I bit into the chocolate chip. Slowed myself down.

By then, almost a week in, I could sort through the assault of layers a little more quickly. The chocolate chips were from a factory, so they had the same slight metallic, absent taste to them, the butter had been pulled from cows in pens, so the richness was not as full. The eggs were tinged with a hint of faraway and plastic. All those parts hummed in the distance, and then the baker, who’d mixed the butter and formed the dough, was angry. A tight anger in the cookie itself.”

“He smiled at me, and it was genuine, but it was also a smile from further away. Our boats on the river have drifted apart. There was a loyalty call he’d had to make, and I could hear the popcorn popping in the kitchen, and the alluring smell of melting butter in a pot. Joseph muttering away, as he prepared it. That popcorn, a puffy salty collapsing death. I would not eat a piece of it.”

“Then he left. Mom went out to talk to him. I lay against the pillow and aged many years in that hour on my own.”   

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Benjy mouse and Frankie mouse

http://fuckyeahdouglasadams.tumblr.com 

About 15 minutes before the earth goes kaput, Ford Prefect (an alien who got stuck on earth for 15 years disguised as an actor but in truth was a researcher for the eponymous electronic book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) survives this imminent doom along with Arthur Dent (an ordinary earthling who had a miserable Thursday  because his house is about to be bulldozed to make way for a "bypass"). They hitchhiked on a Vogon spacecraft, got busted and was sent for torture by way of Vogon Poetry (known to be the 3rd worst in the universe). They were soon spat out into space to die but was saved by "The Heart of Gold" a second too early before they asphyxiate in deep space. Inside the spacecraft they met Trillian (the second earthling spared from the destruction and was actually some girl Arthur fancied at a party), Marvin (a manically depressed robot) and Zaphod Beeblebrox (a two-headed, three-armed guy, elected president of the Galaxy who was actually on the run with The Heart of Gold and is also Ford Prefect's semi-half-cousin, and the guy who went off with Trillian at the party where Arthur was in). On board the stolen space craft they headed for the mythical "Magrathea" a place where planets are made and was actually in sleep for 5 million years. A series of misadventures took place, odd characters pop out, each turn of events were unpredictable adding up to the thrill and excitement to this interstellar adventure written by Douglas Adams. 

Zaphod Beeblerox, a two-headed, 3 limbed president of the Universe

I hold a very old copy of this book whose cover carried a hint of this absurd tale. It was a college friend who told me about it. Apple (that's her) proclaimed it as the funniest book she's ever read, holding out this itty book with scant pages like an educator holding out flashcards to a class of kindies. We were in college and none of her deadpan voice, her nondescript face or her freakishly tall height ( I think she was a six footer doing a bit of modelling on the side) connotes the person I have come to love and adore. We were puffing our nth cigarrette, my mouth was dry and tasted like a horrible compost from sucking in smoke of dead leaves (she has this thing of using them as a bookmark, she'd massage them to a fine roll and flatten its tip before lighting them), it was another afternoon spent talking about books, movies, music, poetry and stuff. She's already talked about Douglas Adams, Micheal Moorcock, Herman Hesse and I was all ears, feeling a bit like an obscure art form to this cool chic who used to hate me ("You walk and talk like someone who swallows shit" the best translation of her words I can come up with) but now ditched her classes (and soon failing them) just to spend time with me. By Apple's recommendation, I searched for this book hoping to enjoy it as much as she did. I fished an old edition sold cheap at SM Booksale. I was oblivious to its humor, lost amidst the nerd talk. What can you make out of a book that tells you that mice are hyperintelligent pandimensional beings (hyperintelligent what?) or that the earth was a product of the mythical "Magrathea", that towels are the "most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have"? and finally The Answer to Life, Universe and Everything is "42"? It was some geek culture I didn't want to be involved in. I'd rather bust my brains out with Marquez or Kundera or a bit of Nietzsche. It all seemed like a joke with a horrible stripe to it. Ha-ha. I read it again after years of neglect. 

Yes, I read it again and it was wonderfull. 

A Vogon reading a Vogon Poetry as a means of torture 

Beautiful illustrations can be found here 

http://jonathanburton.net/The-Hitchhiker-s-Guides

Snippets: 

"The world is about to end." Arthur gave the rest of the pub another wan smile. The rest of the pub frowned at him. A man waved at him to stop smiling at them and mind his own business. 

"This must be Thursday," said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. "I never could get the hang of Thursdays." 

*** 

"He slumped against the wall again and carried on the tune from where he left off. 

"You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelguese, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space, that I really wished I'd listen to what my mother told me when I was young. 

"Why, what did she tell you?"

"I don't know, I didn't listen." 

"Oh" Ford carried on humming. 

"This is terrific," Arthur thought to himself, "Nelson's Column has gone, McDonald's has gone, all that's left is me and the words Mostly Harmless. Any second now all that will be left is Mostly Harmless. And yesterday the planet seemed to be going on so well. 

A motor whirred. 

A slight hiss built into a deafening roar of rushing air as the outer hatchway opened onto an empty blackness studded with tiny, impossibly bright points of light. Ford and Arthur popped into outer space like corks from a toy gun."

***
The mice bristled. 
"Well, I mean, yes an idealism, yes the dignity of pure research, yes the pursuit of truth in all its forms, but there comes a point I'm afraid where you begin to suspect that if there's any real truth, its that the entire multidimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs. "

Book List of 2012

an unflattering pic of the book-binged shelf. I am not an expert photographer. Heck, I'm not even an amateur.

1. 
   

   I can't believe it took me this long to compile a list of the books I've read during the previous year. The main goal was just 30 but you know how it is with books, one thing always leads to another. While some of the books were bought from bookshops I happen to come across while travelling, there were those which some people lent me. There were also titles ordered from  www.bookdepository.com, an online bookshop that delivers books free of charge, heaven-sent for my fellow book lovers out there but can be quite disappointing and frustrating especially for those who can't wait for 30+ days in order for the books to arrive (IF it arrives at all). I am quite pleased with this year's acquisitions (umm 2012). Though there were some which I never bothered to finish (not because they were awful but because the collection kept piling up and because, truth be told, I suffer ADHD. That upon other reasons he he), the ones in bold letters are the ones I enjoyed most and strongly  recommend. I am now in the process of compiling the list for 2013 :-)  

   
   

   
   

   Books of 2012

   
   

   1.       Anagrams – Lorrie Moore 

   2.       Who Will Run The Frog Hospital– Lorrie Moore

   3.       Like Life – Lorrie Moore

   4.       Heartbreak and Magic – Ian Rosales Casocot

   5.       Beautiful Accidents – Ian Rosales Casocot

   6.       The Girl’s Guide To Hunting and Fishing – Melissa Banks

   7.       Alibis – Andre Aciman

   8.       The Way by Swann’s – Marcel Proust (unfinished)

   9.       You Deserve Nothing – Alexander Maksik

   10.   Uncollected Poems – Rainer Maria Rilke

   11.   Waking the Dead – Yvette Tan ( not owned)

   12.    The Great Gatsby – Francis Scott Fitzgerald

   13.   This Side of Paradise – Francis Scott Fitzgerald (unfinished)

   14.   Palo Alto – James Franco

   15.   White Teeth – Zadie Smith

   16.   Boy Meets Boy – David Levithan

   17.   A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway

   18.   The Fault In Our Stars – John Green

   19.   The Museum of Innocence – Orhan Pamuk

   20.    Call Me By Your Name, Andre Aciman

   21.   I Feel Bad About My Neck --Nora Ephron (unfinished)

   22.   Eleven – Mark Watson, July 6

   23.   The Uncommon Reader , Allan Bennet–

   24.   An Abundance of Katherines, John Green –  

   25.   Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares, David Levithan and –  

   26.   Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

   27.   The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell –   

   28.   Looking for Alaska, John Green –  

   29.   Paper Towns, John Green (unfinished)

   30.   NP, Banana Yoshimoto

   31.   The Line of Beauty, Alan Holinghurst (unfinished)

   32.   Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami,  

   33.   Number9Dream, David Mitchell

   34.   Where Things Come Back, John Corey Whaley

   35.   Ex Libris, Ann Fadiman

   36.   Why We Broke Up, Daniel Handler

   37.   American Gods, Neil Gaiman

   38.   Death in Venice, Thoman Mann 

   39.   A Tiny Bit Marvelous, Dawn French

   40.   Before Ever After, Samantha Soto

   41.   Almost French, Sarah Turnbull

   
   

   
   

   
   

On Jonas Jonasson's "The Hundred-Year Old Who Climbed Out of The Window and Disappeared"

About the Book:

A few minutes before his hundredth birthday party is thrown, Allan Karlsson escapes from his room in the Old People’s Home and embarks on a journey that will leave the entire town of Malmkompling in a frantic search. With no destination in mind, he heads for the train station and inquires on a trip to anywhere that leaves the soonest. Here he met a slightly built young man who asked if he could look after a gray suitcase while he takes a dump in the toilet. The man rushes inside just as soon as Allan's bus arrives. As a man who has never been given to pondering things too long, Allan then took for the bus with the suitcase in tow. The suitcase, as it turns out, contains 500 million crown notes. Unbeknown to Allan, the young man (who is, by the way, a member of Never Again, a small group of men with criminal intentions)  follows his trail and haunts the geriatric that went away with his suitcase and its princely sum. While back in the Old People's home, things were set abuzz bringing some well-wishers (which includes the mayor, journalists and the police) in a wild goose chase for the old geezer. Riding the bus to Byringe Station only begins Allan’s escape, an adventure among the very many adventures in this centenarian's life. From his first failures as an explosives nut, to being a prisoner and a renegade of the Russian correction camp "Vladivostok" to the various coincidences that dragged him into the worst places at the worst times and with the most notorious men and women in history (among them were Spanish dictator Primo de Rivera; the father of atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, 33^rd U.S. Vice President, Harry S. Truman; Madame Chiang Kai-shek or Soong May-ling; he saved the then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill from being blown to bits in Tehran, Herbert Einstein (brother of Albert Einstein whom he was mistaken for during a planned kidnapping); Soviet Union leader, Joseph Stalin; North Korea Supreme Leader; Kim Il Sung (and Kim Jong Il who was then 10 years old); The founding father of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Tse-Tung). There was no space for dullness in its pages. It's a thrilling and engaging read that makes you slap out a laugh or two (to be met by confused looks. Just warning you). A work of fiction that's a fun roll of comedy and unforgettable characters: Julius Jonsson, the red biddy Gunilla Bjorkland  a.k.a The Beauty (and her circus elephant “Sonya” and Alsatian “Buster”), Benny the hotdog vendor, Bosse. One will admire Jonas Joansson for milking a hilarious story in the midst of world wars and violence. I definitely enjoyed reading it that I didn't want to put it down. Definitely among the list of notable reads of 2013, along with Adam Johnson's "The Orphan Master's Son". 

This is Jonas Jonasson's first book and according to his FB page there's an upcoming book  "The Analphabet That Could Count" WHICH IS MAKING ME VERY EXCITED RIGHT NOW! 

The last pic is of the author and he is not at all dangerous. 

On Adam Johnson's "The Orphan Master's Son"

For someone who usually turns a blind eye and a deaf ear over the varying degrees of violence that's happening all over the world, it is most unlikely that I am suddenly possessed with the temptation to pick up Adam Johnson's "The Orphan Master's Son" which is basically about the atrocious life inside DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or North Korea). There were no shilly-shallies involved and to save me the possibility of going skint the next few days, I goaded a friend to pay half its price with a deal that I lend him the book after reading it. 

I have read (in the news by accident) that once again, North Korea has been beating the Philippines with headline-worthy news on their nuclear attacks over the brewing dispute between the Sultanate of Sulu and Sabah, Malaysia. I can just imagine the toll it took on it's counterpart, the utopiac South Korea and it's personal bugbear, the U.S. If I read even further, the U.S. is ready for it's ballistic attacks. It's always news like these that gives me the funk and keeps me in bed, reading (instead) fiction for a more bearable version of these harsh realities, a diversion. 

But lo! Adam Johnson's work of fiction read like a firsthand experience in the terror torn North. The book circles around three people, with stories veering on the tragic, you'd want to go and save them yourself. Pak Jun Do, is an orphan and a trained assassin and kidnapper. He fell in love with actress Sun Moon, who is the wife of Commander Ga, the sworn enemy of the (then) Supreme Leader Kim Jong Il. There were chapters told in a first person POV and there were those told in a third person POV that sometimes you can't tell which side of reality is being narrated by who. After series of weird turns, Pak Jun Do finds himself in one of the prison camps under the identity of Commander Ga. He assumes marriage to Sun Moon who despite knowing this man who arrived in her house one night is not the Commander Ga who won her as a prized wife for bringing pride in the country. But she falls in love with him, nonetheless (but rather reluctantly). Despite coercion tactics on the autopilot ( whew! for lobotomy) Pak Jun Do still admits to the identity of Commander Ga. There is not a page that doesn't talk about the various oppressions of the people inside this hellish camp. It is a gritty and compelling work that uncovers the various horrors of this isolated half of the Korean peninsula under its supreme leader Kim Jong Il, from the various brutalities inside the camps, its coercion tactics, the massacres, of how people were starved to death, how they are duped under a perverse ideology of “propaganda” and much about cult of personality. This is a tale of aggression, fear, love and political control in one of the most self-ruling, controlled and restricted places in the world. If you've got the heart and the time to read this, it bears a promise of a brilliant story, I swear. 

On Susan Sontag's "On Photography"

Susan Sontag turns a critical eye on photography in her book “On Photography”. A collection of essays/critiques on the craft written for the “New York Review of Books” between 1973 and 1977, this book is a sheer burst of intelligent insights by one of the greatest thinkers of our time. Astute observations on photographs by photographic evangels of the past, this book can be regarded as an instant study of history; of a society of varying cultures in line with the practice and purpose of the taking pictures. While one may find her views enlightening, thought provoking even and always leaning towards the radical, unpopular; characteristic of a Sontag punch of confidence, conviction and wit, one may not always find ones self agreeing to everything. The fact that this is the very first reference on criticisms on the craft, its value cannot be easily undermined especially in the aspect of thorough education on “what” to observe and “how” to observe a photograph. Those who share the passion will find a great purpose for this book and those who wished to broaden their understanding or improve their visual experience when viewing certain photographs will find this book useful as well. Masters like Diane Arbus, Nathaniel West, Stiechenm, Alfred Steglietz, Edward Weston, Moholy-Nagy (to wit a few) were brought up and whose style and technique were discussed and pitted against. Whether you are a practicing photographer or a mere lover of beautiful pieces caught in a neat cut of time by a nanosecond press of a button, one may refer to this book as an academic and at the same time enlightening reference on the practice and purpose of photography.

I have earmarked some passages that I think were worth a thought or two.

****

“Whatever the camera records is a disclosure—whether it is imperceptible, fleeting parts of movement, an order that natural vision is incapable of perceiving or a “heightened reality”, or simply the elliptical way of seeing.”  

 “In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge out notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe. They are a grammar and, even more importantly, an ethics of seeing. Finally, the most grandiose result of photographic enterprise is to give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads – as an anthology of images.”—In Plato’s Cave,

“A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs—especially those of people, of distant landscapes and faraway cities, of the vanished past—are incitements to reverie.”

“When we are afraid, we shoot. But when we are nostalgic, we take pictures.”

“The photographer is an armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitring, stalking, cruising the urban inferno, the voyeuristic stroller who discovers the city as a landscape of voluptuous extremes.”

“ .... paper phantoms, transistorized landscapes. A featherweight portable museum.”

“Photographs are .... clouds of fantasy and pellets of information.”

“There is one thing that a photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.” – Robert Frank, from chapter Photographic Evangels 

March 09, 2013

Talks in The Head

 ****

"One of these days someone will come out of the darkness and into your life for hidden skeletons in your closet. You wouldn't like it. But it would be fun for him, like how you now jangle some of mine right in my face."

****



"We sometimes learn the most valuable life-lessons from the wretched".

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Just these. After 7 hours of late sleep, too much analysis and too much movies and books, after oh so many talk in the head about oh so many things. It is only January 23, 2013.

Before Ever After Samantha Sotto

One part romance novel, one part historical fiction; a pastiche. Non of its romance-novel-cliches of a title nor its nondescript cover gave a hint of the kind of story Samantha Sotto had in store even for the most curios reader. I read it and loved it for its subtle womanly prose, its easy to love protagonists (who were too perfect for me, but) and its kaleidoscopic European adventures. Samantha Sotto is a writer from the Philippines. This is how her book looks like.

Sarah Turnbull's "Almost French: Love and A New Life in Paris"

Among the books my sister kept in one of her car's pockets was of Australian journalist Sarah Turnbull’s “Almost French: Love and A New Life in Paris”. A delightful read about her “fish out of water” experience in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Paris. If you happen to be someone who had a life-long dream to set foot on this romantic city, this is a book for you. She talked about Paris, its charms and complications. From people, places, culture, her her low points to her exciting accounts on finding an invite to fashion runways and eventually interviews with fashion bigwigs.  One will find this real-life stories entertaining if not an education on why Paris is still one of the most interesting places to be in.  

The French on fashion w Ines de la Fressange: