You didn’t reply to my last letter, but I’m writing again anyway.
July 13thish,
Dear Sean,
Luke, fresh face English boy who will be very handsome when he gets older, both charms and infuriates me. I say he’s a boy but he’s 20. He has travelled more than most his age and speaks Arabic and Russian but he’s still a boy. He has such tidy thoughts about things. Such well articulated, precise thoughts on complex issues that I’ve seen in many of my classmates at Cardiff.
I think my opinions, whatever they might have been at 20, were orderly and articulate, too. Now I can barely manage to comprehend most issues in the world, let alone present them, along with an opinion of them, in a neatly wrapped package. I tend to garble on about one thing only to contradict it the next moment. Ah well. He’s gone now, and I’m the only native English speaker again, so I’m good company in struggling to express myself.
I look forward to going to Morocco after I turn in my dissertation. Of course, first I must actually write the thing.
I’m renting a flat in Budapest for the month of August, where I intend to work on it four hours before noon every morning. That ought to do it. Then I can spend my afternoons and evenings in bookshops and museums and the opera. I didn’t get to go last time, now I can attend as often as I like. I have bought a good cane, stylish and feminine (in my opinion.) I will say this for crutches, though, my triceps have never been this defined, no matter how many hours I spent in the gym. Sadly, or perhaps thankfully, I doubt they will be as nice when I’m home in October, for I will not have had need for them.
Oh, I spend the start of September (and the very last weekend in August) in Germany with Stephy (the Austrian, not the German whom you met in Cologne six years ago.) After a weekend in Oldenburg we will be tourists on the northern islands for a time. Should be nice and relaxing. I might be ale to fly from Budapest to Bremen, but there is also a cheap bus from Prague. While it is a bus (ick) it’s an excuse to visit the Czech Republic. If I have time, of course. I’ve forbidden myself from leaving Budapest until the dissertation is complete. (Though I’m still in Ukraine as I write this.)
Currently reading:
Steppenwolf. I would say it’s one of those books that change my life, but it hasn’t. It has exposed it. Thing is, I didn’t especially like the book, but I related to it… sort of hated it for that. Hesse says that self-hate is a sort of egoism, and I suppose he’s right. I’ve always been a vile egotist.
In any case, I think many who read Steppenwolf must see themselves in it, else it wouldn’t enjoy the success it has.
I’m officially recommending it to you. I think, in a different way, you are Steppenwolf, too. You’ll understand the weariness.
I’ve finished it now. Still recommending it. I maintain that it’s not exactly pleasurable, but there is something edifying in it. It’s like taking medicine, and the more I think about it, it seems to me to be the spirit in which Herman Hesse wrote it… for himself.
He wanted to cure himself.
I also think I read it at either exactly the right time, when I was at my gloomiest and grumpiest with my age and infirmity, or if I shouldn’t have read it when I was feeling so sympathetic with the gouty Harry Haller.
The last two books I have read, Journey by Moonlight and Steppenwolf both had much to do about suicide. The next book I read, I’m determined will be more light-hearted. Not sure which yet.
There’s a thunderstorm now, bringing the welcome cool and proper rain smell with it. There was a thunderstorm a few days ago, L and M were camping in the mountains 4 days ride from here, and in the night the horses panicked and ran nearly all the way home. They have returned and leave tomorrow. They will leave the horses here and take a bus to Romania where they will search for an extremely endangered species of cattle that only live high in the mountains where no cars reach.
July 21st,
I have decided on a book now. Archer’s Goon, by my adored Diana Wynne Jones. Not sure why I didn’t read something of hers the moment I got my cast, but it is just what I need. It’s not a reread either, but one I’ve been saving for a special occasion, for when I would need it. I’m running out of ones I haven’t read yet. I despair when I read the last one and have nothing left.
This will be horribly depressing thing to write about, and you’ve probably heard this rant before, but I can’t be the only one who gets torn up when an author dies. DWJ died over 2 years ago now and I am still crushed to think I’ll never get to read anything new from her. What about Robert Jordan, who died writing his penultimate book? And I know more than a few of us are concerned about George R. R. Martin and his Song of Ice and Fire.
What happens when writers die? To us heartless readers, for whom the writer is simply the machine producing the product we want, we mope at the loss of the writing (not the writer). Those of us desperate for more story will resort to fanfiction. Bad idea if you are reading, and a waste of time if you’re writing.
What else are you supposed to do when one of your characters suffers a cruel and untimely death? (Cough, Game of Thrones, Cough)
It’s one thing for an author to already be dead when you discover them (Oscar Wilde, Vladimir Nabokov, J. R.R. Tolkien, Ireve Nemirovsky, Jane Austen to name a few personal favourites). You know from the start how many books you’ve got to read. It’s okay to be disappointed that Wilde only wrote one book (and I am disappointed, but his plays are still my love and joy) but at least it’s not a shock. It’s quite another thing to be stalking your favourite author on their website, twitter, facebook, what have you, and know they’re working on a new novel and you are waiting impatiently and then,… nothing.
I mean, what are you supposed to do? Reread everything they ever wrote so that the pain is that much more acute?
I was doing an interview with writer (and head of London City University’s Creative Writing MA) Jonathon Myerson and I posed him that question, rhetorically, but he answered it anyway.
“Find someone else.”
And really, that’s the simplest and best advice. It’s the only thing one can do, as a matter of fact. I’ve found many new authors worth following, of course. Is it the same? No, of course not. Nor should it be.
People I’ve started following in the last two years:
Tracy Chevallier
George R. R. Martin
Glen Duncan
Jasper Fforde
Jonathon Howard (for whom I have you to thank. Did you the coughsignedcopyofcough his latest book I gave you?)
There are numerous others, but those are the principle ones I can think of for now.
I mean, you won’t even start a series of books unless it’s already finished, and I can understand the sentiment, though am too greedy myself to wait.
But all the same, to writers, I feel that if you’ve got cancer, WRITE THE HELL OUT OF YOUR LAST BOOK! Seriously, finish it.
I think it was Asimov who, when asked what he would do if he only had a year to live, answered, “Write faster.”
I’ll admit it, I get emotionally invested in characters, (and perforce, to the authors that write them.) Everybody does. We do this because we are book people.
Imagine the horror, if you will…
We were all devastated when Sirius Black died in the fifth Harry Potter book, but imagine how cataclysmic it would have been if Rowling had died instead? I shudder to think about the fallout (all the fantastic work with the charities the former billionaire alone would be a tragic loss, let alone leaving the series unfinished.)
I’m just saying, that authors shouldn’t die. Unless they are done.
Authors I give permission to die:
Harper Lee
She did it. She’s done. Well done.
Phillip Roth
Completed solid life work. Well done.
Toni Morrison
I feel she has written more than enough to be proud of, and she’s not writing a series. I salute her.
Next after this I know which book I will read, one I’ve just bought (even though I’ve plenty unread titles on my Kindle. Kornel Esti, a Hungarian writer’s thought experiment, meant to be tremendously clever. He gives his id a character and then collaborates with that character to write a book. Granted, I suppose that is in part what writer’s do anyway, but he is admitting that he’s doing it.) I look forward to it.
I will end this letter here, to make up for the excessively long last one.
I remain your (less grumpy, still hobbled and held housefast, but now mostly placid) sister,
~K
P.S. Emily had puppies. I finished Kornel Esti (clever, but for the writing, not the conceit of the book, which was disappointing but still worth reading.) Now reading Chess Story by Zweig. Halfway through and like it immensely so far.
P.P.S.
July 30th, finished Zweig, Bronte’s The Professor and silly sailing fencing story called Steel and am currently reading Tibor Dery’s Niki: The Story of a Dog and Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot.
Arrived in Budapest yesterday. It seems to disconcert people to see a young woman walking with a cane. They all too solicitously stand aside, or carefully look away, or race ahead to hold doors open for me.
I also spent about 10,000 forints (about $40) on books my first day here. So, falling back immediately into my old vices.