Last night, another thunderstorm crossed over the hills where my parents live, this one by far the most frighteningly awe-inspiring. There is that edge, I think, to beauty sometimes. The beauty of the canyon, staring down over the precipice; the beauty of the spider or the panther, elegant in their predation; and in the volcano and depths of the ocean. The tension of safety and magnificence snatches our lungs and squeezes, and even in the thunderstorms, I felt a little of such. There was lightning like I've not seen since my childhood, too numerous for even calculating seconds between strikes, most of the time. One bolt struck not far uphill, less than a soccer field's distance away from my house, temporarily knocking out a street lamp. A fright possessed me, sitting with my nose to the screen and watching the cracks in the skyline. What if someone's house was struck? What if someone was hurt? I stayed up many hours, watching the lightning crackle and the thunder rumble, and listening to the rain tumbling down. I slept little and enjoyed myself immensely in the cradle of the valley, in the nook of the night.
Rosh Hashanah is the feast of trumpets and the Jewish new year. Rarely is a year's beginning so early in the Gregorian calendar. Unfortunately, I was in the wrong state to feast with friends, but I'll probably celebrate it in some capacity, regardless. (Matthew why you leave the country? Phil, why you at work?) I like the Jewish holy days. Especially the high holy days. Most people, often even Jews included, do not celebrate many of the Jewish holy days anymore (a land and temple thing, but also a parting from belief that the holy days are sacred). I'm not religiously Jewish, but I really appreciate the value in the appointments God prepared. Plus, they are always an occasion for a special celebration. A special appointment holy-day celebration ordained by God? Please and thank you.
And now, after a fantastic visit home, it is time to go home. With slightly more laden packs filled with new books, my heart is light and my drive looming. Goodbye beautiful forest backyard with its large maples and droopy pines, its jolly firs and wild blueberries, its garden and hills. I'll miss the nightly games, family dinners, and my charming closet of a room. Hasta luego, Redmond.
Friday, September 6, 2013
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Lyrique
Thunderstorms rage outside as I listen to melancholy musique, tearing up at the somber poetry and its symmetric outpour. Do not decry those tears; rain seeped through the window into my soul. I pen, in the silence that is the storm.
Where I stay up all night / And all that I write is a grey grey tune
Even the dim light of this laptop screen draws moths towards the window - night creatures eager for light. The bats soon swoop in for the feast. A great silk moth latches onto the window, and in my fright, I thought it a bat. Are they here for the light or the shelter beneath the eaves?
Are you looking for answers / to questions under the stars?
Dimly, the street lamps flicker through the valley beneath, illuminating needles of heavenly weeping falling onto unyielding asphalt. The souls of a thousand faces, spread across countless spaces, struggling, fighting, praying. I imagine a web of intersecting colors, illuminated by the cracks of lightning splitting this sky, a network of all our spiritual supplications. I read the Genesis, I read Psalms 23, I read Philippians 4, and I read Revelations 22. Listen, the storm is a song.
Oh I'll never know what makes this man
With all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away
Dreams collide, dreams of balloons and skies and transparent goodbyes, but distant, distant, as though a painting of a photograph of someone else's lives. It is a speculum of silver and stained glass, showing clearly nothing of love and hope and love, and the drums of the stormy night rage unending, though it is not rage, but the humming of bass strings.
All I ever learned from love / Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.
Small rivulets burn their whispering paths down the hills into the valley, into the creek in the hammock of the hills. I suspect the salmon leaping upstream to love and death, inextricably bound, mind this not. I can hear their splashes, a counterpoint. A coyote howls, an owl shrieks, the creatures stand still. But not the rain. I smile, and wonder what whispers the wind to comfort the clouds. May those words be carried far and fair this night.
Won't you come away with me tonight? / We can fly past the moon and the starlight
What the water wants is hurricanes, / and sailboats to ride on its back
And I ride the storm into slumber to swim with the salmon, gallop astride the lightning, and follow these rivers unto the vastness of the ocean, so I may gaze in its reflection and witness the sky.
Where I stay up all night / And all that I write is a grey grey tune
Even the dim light of this laptop screen draws moths towards the window - night creatures eager for light. The bats soon swoop in for the feast. A great silk moth latches onto the window, and in my fright, I thought it a bat. Are they here for the light or the shelter beneath the eaves?
Are you looking for answers / to questions under the stars?
Dimly, the street lamps flicker through the valley beneath, illuminating needles of heavenly weeping falling onto unyielding asphalt. The souls of a thousand faces, spread across countless spaces, struggling, fighting, praying. I imagine a web of intersecting colors, illuminated by the cracks of lightning splitting this sky, a network of all our spiritual supplications. I read the Genesis, I read Psalms 23, I read Philippians 4, and I read Revelations 22. Listen, the storm is a song.
Oh I'll never know what makes this man
With all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away
Dreams collide, dreams of balloons and skies and transparent goodbyes, but distant, distant, as though a painting of a photograph of someone else's lives. It is a speculum of silver and stained glass, showing clearly nothing of love and hope and love, and the drums of the stormy night rage unending, though it is not rage, but the humming of bass strings.
All I ever learned from love / Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.
Small rivulets burn their whispering paths down the hills into the valley, into the creek in the hammock of the hills. I suspect the salmon leaping upstream to love and death, inextricably bound, mind this not. I can hear their splashes, a counterpoint. A coyote howls, an owl shrieks, the creatures stand still. But not the rain. I smile, and wonder what whispers the wind to comfort the clouds. May those words be carried far and fair this night.
Won't you come away with me tonight? / We can fly past the moon and the starlight
What the water wants is hurricanes, / and sailboats to ride on its back
And I ride the storm into slumber to swim with the salmon, gallop astride the lightning, and follow these rivers unto the vastness of the ocean, so I may gaze in its reflection and witness the sky.
And then, there are no words. Only the weeping of violins as bows breathe across silver strings.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Dichotomies
We love our dichotomies, our contrasts and comparisons. It is almost an inherent dualism, a study in black and white, light and dark, love and hate. Many favorite phrases in our languages are contrived on this principle. Look up any famous writer, rhetorician, or anyone with meaningful quotes, and swiftly you'll discover a dualistic quote of some sort:
The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. ~ Einstein
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. ~ Mark Twain
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ~ Phil 4:6
We could write without these, but comparisons, metaphors, similes, dualisms, couplets - these are the strongest points of linguistics. Pictures through verbal tension. Verbal tension is one of the greatest tools of our language, the strings we tie around our readers fingers, drawing them in with promises and poetry. What is poetry but beautifully rendered comparisons and metaphoric linguistics? I'm simplifying things, of course. I often do so. Frequently, we invent our own clever metaphors and creative comparisons. I do. And when I do, I often beam at my ingenuity, pleased to have cleverly devised an artistic glass through which I can contemplate creation. It sounds right, it sounds perfect, it even sounds clever. Then, almost by accident, you stumble across someone with an equally clever witticism, reversed, and it, too, sounds valid, sound. Paradox, another piece of our cosmos that we hate and love because it draws us nearer as easily as it drives us away, drives us insane, or into faith.
-----
The pot of gold cheapens the rainbow.
Before the strength of man's conviction twisted the earth into a sphere, there was a village at the end of the world. Built into the basalt cliffs on the shores of earth's edge, it sat and watched and waited until such time as it was needed no more. The village had long past been named Rope, for that is what it guarded and waited upon. Or so the boy was told.
Down by the beach, waves still washed up against the shore from an ocean only paces wide, and a blackness lay beyond, deep and dark as before-time. At the furthest point of the beach, against the precipice of the world, an arm's length over the water into the great void, there was a rope, or a perhaps-string. It hung from the heavens, falling between the stars, and in neither night nor day could you see its end, but it shimmered as gossamer in the daylight, and as opals in the night, an ever-shifting glimmer of light. It was a single strand, and none in the village knew its purpose, many thinking it was simply a portion of the frayed edge of the world. Beneath the rope, on the barest edge of the shore, sat a boy. He was from the village, though it had been some time since he was of the village. He was forbidden to approach the string, but no matter the punishment or the confinement, the next morning he was always discovered on the beach once more, staring up at the gossamer thread.
It may have taken a year, a season, it may have taken only minutes, but the boy decided, eventually, the string was to be pulled. It was not fear that stayed his hands, not precisely, but the mysticism. Was it better imagining what might happen? If the stars might fall behind a curtain of night, or the sky itself collapse; or if the earth would become the heavens, the heavens the earth, and they might all traipse along island clouds, drifting along sky spume into an unblemished horizon, replete with salty stars. Would the angels corral in chorus to this world on the ringing of a bell, or demons rise from the gaping maws of hell? Would the world curl into a ball, like a giant rolypoly? Or would the world's edge be drawn back, and whole new lands unveiled to explore? What equally stayed the boy's hand were the disappointing outcomes he conjured in his imagination. What if nothing happened? Or what if the string itself fell, and disappeared off the edge of the world, and he could no longer gaze upon its illustrious glamour? What if it crumbled to ash in his hands? Perhaps it was a fear of a sort, but not of his fellow's punishing, but of an unforeseeable end.
It was wodensday, only a fortnight following fall’s blue moon, and the moon died tonight, only a pale sliver remaining. The waves were calmer tonight, softer, and a chill breeze forced the boy to cinch his scarf and tuck his hands deeper into his pockets. The rope drifted subtly, though not with the wind, and the boy imagined he could hear the tinkling that might draw the angels earthward to listen, like the gentle plucking of silver violin strings, high, and quieter than the crickets.
Was it time? He pulled his shaking hands from his pockets, feeling the wind against his trembling fingers, wrapping around each digit and pushing it towards the shimmering strand with gentle insistence. His hands hovered there, only a wrist-width away, too tentative to touch.
It might have been courage, though it was likely a clumsy motion that made him stumble forward and latch onto the rope. It was silken, but elastic, and strong as web. It stretched slightly as he fell forward onto it, hanging over the precipice of the world and staring down into bleak nothingness through the translucent waters of world’s end. An eternity of tiny moments he hung there, now clinging tightly onto the strand dangling over an impossible abyss. Then, without any lurching motion, the rope drifted higher into the sky, higher than the shrubs, higher than the houses against the cliffs so that the candle-lights in the windows looked like jack-o-lanterns or wisps inside glossy eyes. Above the hills he clung, until the walls and shores below became like golden and grey landscape snakes beneath him. He climbed up the rope a short ways, wrapping his legs around the strand with terrified fervor, though, in truth, he was more fascinated than frightened.
Alongside wispy clouds he floated, his clothes dampened by the foggy strands as the stars winked at him conspiratorially from above. Along the shores and into the hills, east, east towards dawn he was borne aloft. He stretched how his legs and imagined he was walking on the clouds, and from above he heard the singing of the winds, sweet as the songs of the angels. Over the hills and mountains along the spine of the world, rivers racing as the veins and arteries bringing life to the forests and living things. A volcano gaped is orange maw from beneath the boy, spewing its boiling fires from the underworld, and the mountains melted into valleys. Vineyards and grapes hugged the hillsides, and roads of hard-packed earth traced webs into the grasslands leading towards roads cobbled together with lime and quarry.
Down below the cities lights were fireflies, like the skies had fallen into the ground, and twinkled on a carpet of farmsteads and village homes of candles and fireplaces. The rope swooped nearer, and the boy glanced down into a city. On the still lively streets, lit by warm, yellow lantern-light and chimney-glow, a few faces gazed up into the sky and saw him, giving him a confused wave and pointing for their friends. Though the boy was whisked by, and stayed not long in place, sweeping over town like a falcon and soaring back into the sky on the updrafts of the night, back into the anonymity of the heavens.
Hours still, he drifted, his arms never tiring, his eyes never shutting as the world shifted past in twilight hues and crepuscular tides, until, at last, a dim fire flickered at the horizon like dragon’s flame and honeyed gazes.
As suddenly as he was raised, his descent began, and soon his toes touched the ground in a glade of maples and elms. Low grasses and thistledown crowned the glade in a fairy ring, the center of which was quartz, burning garnet with the dawn. Nymphs and fauns and dryads emerged from the tree-line and the fluting of pipes and the piping of flutes set their feet to caper and frolic and dance, a sonata to sunrise played by the early birds and the fa of the forest. And the boy danced, and danced, and when a girl floated into the circle and danced beside him, he clasped her hands and danced some more, until he could dance no more.
When he awoke, they lay, she and he, on the beach by the sea on the edge of dreams on the world’s final beach. Worried, still clasping her hand, he glanced up, fearful of what he might see. The sun warmed his neck as he stared up into the rainbow beauty of two gossamer strings, drifting against the sea breeze, singing the song of dawn.
The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. ~ Einstein
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. ~ Mark Twain
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ~ Phil 4:6
We could write without these, but comparisons, metaphors, similes, dualisms, couplets - these are the strongest points of linguistics. Pictures through verbal tension. Verbal tension is one of the greatest tools of our language, the strings we tie around our readers fingers, drawing them in with promises and poetry. What is poetry but beautifully rendered comparisons and metaphoric linguistics? I'm simplifying things, of course. I often do so. Frequently, we invent our own clever metaphors and creative comparisons. I do. And when I do, I often beam at my ingenuity, pleased to have cleverly devised an artistic glass through which I can contemplate creation. It sounds right, it sounds perfect, it even sounds clever. Then, almost by accident, you stumble across someone with an equally clever witticism, reversed, and it, too, sounds valid, sound. Paradox, another piece of our cosmos that we hate and love because it draws us nearer as easily as it drives us away, drives us insane, or into faith.
-----
The pot of gold cheapens the rainbow.
Before the strength of man's conviction twisted the earth into a sphere, there was a village at the end of the world. Built into the basalt cliffs on the shores of earth's edge, it sat and watched and waited until such time as it was needed no more. The village had long past been named Rope, for that is what it guarded and waited upon. Or so the boy was told.
Down by the beach, waves still washed up against the shore from an ocean only paces wide, and a blackness lay beyond, deep and dark as before-time. At the furthest point of the beach, against the precipice of the world, an arm's length over the water into the great void, there was a rope, or a perhaps-string. It hung from the heavens, falling between the stars, and in neither night nor day could you see its end, but it shimmered as gossamer in the daylight, and as opals in the night, an ever-shifting glimmer of light. It was a single strand, and none in the village knew its purpose, many thinking it was simply a portion of the frayed edge of the world. Beneath the rope, on the barest edge of the shore, sat a boy. He was from the village, though it had been some time since he was of the village. He was forbidden to approach the string, but no matter the punishment or the confinement, the next morning he was always discovered on the beach once more, staring up at the gossamer thread.
It may have taken a year, a season, it may have taken only minutes, but the boy decided, eventually, the string was to be pulled. It was not fear that stayed his hands, not precisely, but the mysticism. Was it better imagining what might happen? If the stars might fall behind a curtain of night, or the sky itself collapse; or if the earth would become the heavens, the heavens the earth, and they might all traipse along island clouds, drifting along sky spume into an unblemished horizon, replete with salty stars. Would the angels corral in chorus to this world on the ringing of a bell, or demons rise from the gaping maws of hell? Would the world curl into a ball, like a giant rolypoly? Or would the world's edge be drawn back, and whole new lands unveiled to explore? What equally stayed the boy's hand were the disappointing outcomes he conjured in his imagination. What if nothing happened? Or what if the string itself fell, and disappeared off the edge of the world, and he could no longer gaze upon its illustrious glamour? What if it crumbled to ash in his hands? Perhaps it was a fear of a sort, but not of his fellow's punishing, but of an unforeseeable end.
It was wodensday, only a fortnight following fall’s blue moon, and the moon died tonight, only a pale sliver remaining. The waves were calmer tonight, softer, and a chill breeze forced the boy to cinch his scarf and tuck his hands deeper into his pockets. The rope drifted subtly, though not with the wind, and the boy imagined he could hear the tinkling that might draw the angels earthward to listen, like the gentle plucking of silver violin strings, high, and quieter than the crickets.
Was it time? He pulled his shaking hands from his pockets, feeling the wind against his trembling fingers, wrapping around each digit and pushing it towards the shimmering strand with gentle insistence. His hands hovered there, only a wrist-width away, too tentative to touch.
It might have been courage, though it was likely a clumsy motion that made him stumble forward and latch onto the rope. It was silken, but elastic, and strong as web. It stretched slightly as he fell forward onto it, hanging over the precipice of the world and staring down into bleak nothingness through the translucent waters of world’s end. An eternity of tiny moments he hung there, now clinging tightly onto the strand dangling over an impossible abyss. Then, without any lurching motion, the rope drifted higher into the sky, higher than the shrubs, higher than the houses against the cliffs so that the candle-lights in the windows looked like jack-o-lanterns or wisps inside glossy eyes. Above the hills he clung, until the walls and shores below became like golden and grey landscape snakes beneath him. He climbed up the rope a short ways, wrapping his legs around the strand with terrified fervor, though, in truth, he was more fascinated than frightened.
Alongside wispy clouds he floated, his clothes dampened by the foggy strands as the stars winked at him conspiratorially from above. Along the shores and into the hills, east, east towards dawn he was borne aloft. He stretched how his legs and imagined he was walking on the clouds, and from above he heard the singing of the winds, sweet as the songs of the angels. Over the hills and mountains along the spine of the world, rivers racing as the veins and arteries bringing life to the forests and living things. A volcano gaped is orange maw from beneath the boy, spewing its boiling fires from the underworld, and the mountains melted into valleys. Vineyards and grapes hugged the hillsides, and roads of hard-packed earth traced webs into the grasslands leading towards roads cobbled together with lime and quarry.
Down below the cities lights were fireflies, like the skies had fallen into the ground, and twinkled on a carpet of farmsteads and village homes of candles and fireplaces. The rope swooped nearer, and the boy glanced down into a city. On the still lively streets, lit by warm, yellow lantern-light and chimney-glow, a few faces gazed up into the sky and saw him, giving him a confused wave and pointing for their friends. Though the boy was whisked by, and stayed not long in place, sweeping over town like a falcon and soaring back into the sky on the updrafts of the night, back into the anonymity of the heavens.
Hours still, he drifted, his arms never tiring, his eyes never shutting as the world shifted past in twilight hues and crepuscular tides, until, at last, a dim fire flickered at the horizon like dragon’s flame and honeyed gazes.
As suddenly as he was raised, his descent began, and soon his toes touched the ground in a glade of maples and elms. Low grasses and thistledown crowned the glade in a fairy ring, the center of which was quartz, burning garnet with the dawn. Nymphs and fauns and dryads emerged from the tree-line and the fluting of pipes and the piping of flutes set their feet to caper and frolic and dance, a sonata to sunrise played by the early birds and the fa of the forest. And the boy danced, and danced, and when a girl floated into the circle and danced beside him, he clasped her hands and danced some more, until he could dance no more.
When he awoke, they lay, she and he, on the beach by the sea on the edge of dreams on the world’s final beach. Worried, still clasping her hand, he glanced up, fearful of what he might see. The sun warmed his neck as he stared up into the rainbow beauty of two gossamer strings, drifting against the sea breeze, singing the song of dawn.
And the rain, rain, rain came down, down, down
In rushing, rising rivulets.
Still, it makes my backyard look positively splendid (albeit soggy). And I lovelovelove that maple. I think it's my favorite backyard tree.
Still, it makes my backyard look positively splendid (albeit soggy). And I lovelovelove that maple. I think it's my favorite backyard tree.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Ghosts of Faces
ghosts of faces are passing by
past they fly
could they be your friends, or mine?
or I theirs? - it's fine
for on streets or trails there's no goodbyes
for passersby living their own lives
rarely intersecting lines
and what of friends in different places
gone ten million paces
witness distant times
sharing but a moon and stars
of the sky's -
not ours
mountains here, desert there
forests and valleys
or dunes and seas
our times may meet but never, or twice
And your eyes say,
I love
I fly
my spirit's a dove
you'll never watch scrape the sky
nor the tears,
it cries,
of the endless phantoms you never meet
never treat for cups of tea
or campfire retreats
where rivers run besides
and their stories, well
you can never tell
they might have changed your life
might have loved, too
if only you, they, had chanced to say
who are you?
-----------
We celebrated my mother's birthday today. Surprisingly, the weather held. Here's to hoping it lasts a couple more days, so I might hike along the ridge or up a mountain on Wednesday. It does not look promising. We drove to the beach and went to a restaurant that mother dearly loves, and we all glanced out the windows over the ocean and into the water as the ducks paddled by, the jellyfish bounced their way through the waters, the seaweed drifted in its soggy swirls, and kayaks drifted by in the amiable waters. The sun gleamed off the waters and the windows of passing boats, fishing, drifting or sailing in the brine with sea breeze gently pushing at the waters.
Matthew is going to Korea, tomorrow, which is my last outside-the-house friend in Washington that I'm aware of (currently in the area discounting his family and my family - sorry if I forgot you). It will be quiet, perhaps, though I've long needed a little quiet. And how quiet is it really when the word games get crazy? When the card games with the family get joyful? Not. So. Silent.
Or when the coyotes howl with the distant neighbors huskies or when the wind races through the valley, stirring all the trees into frenzied whispers and wooden groans. It is a good sort of silence, and loudness. A restful set. Maybe I'll finish a few more books this week, too. Time for some creativity, time for some art, time for story magic and myth.
past they fly
could they be your friends, or mine?
or I theirs? - it's fine
for on streets or trails there's no goodbyes
for passersby living their own lives
rarely intersecting lines
and what of friends in different places
gone ten million paces
witness distant times
sharing but a moon and stars
of the sky's -
not ours
mountains here, desert there
forests and valleys
or dunes and seas
our times may meet but never, or twice
And your eyes say,
I love
I fly
my spirit's a dove
you'll never watch scrape the sky
nor the tears,
it cries,
of the endless phantoms you never meet
never treat for cups of tea
or campfire retreats
where rivers run besides
and their stories, well
you can never tell
they might have changed your life
might have loved, too
if only you, they, had chanced to say
who are you?
-----------
We celebrated my mother's birthday today. Surprisingly, the weather held. Here's to hoping it lasts a couple more days, so I might hike along the ridge or up a mountain on Wednesday. It does not look promising. We drove to the beach and went to a restaurant that mother dearly loves, and we all glanced out the windows over the ocean and into the water as the ducks paddled by, the jellyfish bounced their way through the waters, the seaweed drifted in its soggy swirls, and kayaks drifted by in the amiable waters. The sun gleamed off the waters and the windows of passing boats, fishing, drifting or sailing in the brine with sea breeze gently pushing at the waters.
Matthew is going to Korea, tomorrow, which is my last outside-the-house friend in Washington that I'm aware of (currently in the area discounting his family and my family - sorry if I forgot you). It will be quiet, perhaps, though I've long needed a little quiet. And how quiet is it really when the word games get crazy? When the card games with the family get joyful? Not. So. Silent.
Or when the coyotes howl with the distant neighbors huskies or when the wind races through the valley, stirring all the trees into frenzied whispers and wooden groans. It is a good sort of silence, and loudness. A restful set. Maybe I'll finish a few more books this week, too. Time for some creativity, time for some art, time for story magic and myth.
A day in the hills
I climbed my little mount yesterday, and meandered through the hills. I took a few lousy pictures. Turns out, I may be the lousiest photographer. I also completely forgot my pen, so I could not make any sketches or write any stories. Maybe I'll climb again Wednesday, weather permitting.
Even if these are not the best of pictures, it was the most beautiful of days (even with a grey-ish haze to the sky that made it, at times, more faded than blue)
The birds that stole my sandwich when I recently went were not as prevalent. The chipmunks, however, were out in force. Nearing the top, it was readily apparent that the plants thrived on short seasons, and the trees were all stinted pines, though near the top, there were actually a surprising amount of mountain raspberries. I saw no mountain blue jays, and only a few camp robbers (grey jays) on the mountain top.
Even if these are not the best of pictures, it was the most beautiful of days (even with a grey-ish haze to the sky that made it, at times, more faded than blue)
The birds that stole my sandwich when I recently went were not as prevalent. The chipmunks, however, were out in force. Nearing the top, it was readily apparent that the plants thrived on short seasons, and the trees were all stinted pines, though near the top, there were actually a surprising amount of mountain raspberries. I saw no mountain blue jays, and only a few camp robbers (grey jays) on the mountain top.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
She was a genius of sadness, immersing herself in it, separating its numerous strands, appreciating its subtle nuances. She was a prism through which sadness could be divided into its infinite spectrum.
- Everything is Illuminated
Having just finished Everything is Illuminated, I figured it was time I considered it, briefly. The tale itself is psychological - nothing of great import happens, and everything of any importance comes to pass. What is illuminated? Ah, everything is illuminated. There is much sadness, and a continual examination of the hole of love and memory in our spirits, and how that affects the present. We're drawn into the memories of the characters as a sixth sense, much like the Jewish members of Trachimbrod possess. I think the most fascinating part of this novel is the tricky way in which it deceives you into believing that Jonathan is the hero. Right from the beginning, Alex refers to Jonathan as the tale's protagonist, its hero. But, as you find out, Jonathan is merely along for the ride in helping Alex discover his courage, his identity, his determination to develop memories of beautiful things, his desire for positive change.
During some of Alex's letters, he asks Jonathan if he couldn't just create a better world, since it is a fiction, and let Saffran love the gipsy girl, or allot Brod happiness and love. Alex has a dream, an American dream, of moving with his little brother away from his violent father, and starting fresh. Throughout the story and following the Augustine chronology, Alex sends letters to Jonathan and develops into a stronger, more courageous character. It was craftily done, and though it is not my favorite novel, I think it grants some insight into character development and the different ways that is managed, as well as providing a window into the author's soul. There is something here we can glean about his view of the human condition, no?
There was also a little part in Everything is Illuminated that reminded me of the beginning scene of Amelie. There is something strange and moving about how he says it, the section on sexual intimacy creating lights and electricity, if enough loving is collected in once place. It is a strange novel, but, I think, a good one. I'm still digesting it.
I had more to say, but I'm *all* the exhausted. Definitely a good time for sleeping.
What good is all that love doing on paper? I said, Let love write on you for a little.
- Everything is Illuminated
Having just finished Everything is Illuminated, I figured it was time I considered it, briefly. The tale itself is psychological - nothing of great import happens, and everything of any importance comes to pass. What is illuminated? Ah, everything is illuminated. There is much sadness, and a continual examination of the hole of love and memory in our spirits, and how that affects the present. We're drawn into the memories of the characters as a sixth sense, much like the Jewish members of Trachimbrod possess. I think the most fascinating part of this novel is the tricky way in which it deceives you into believing that Jonathan is the hero. Right from the beginning, Alex refers to Jonathan as the tale's protagonist, its hero. But, as you find out, Jonathan is merely along for the ride in helping Alex discover his courage, his identity, his determination to develop memories of beautiful things, his desire for positive change.
During some of Alex's letters, he asks Jonathan if he couldn't just create a better world, since it is a fiction, and let Saffran love the gipsy girl, or allot Brod happiness and love. Alex has a dream, an American dream, of moving with his little brother away from his violent father, and starting fresh. Throughout the story and following the Augustine chronology, Alex sends letters to Jonathan and develops into a stronger, more courageous character. It was craftily done, and though it is not my favorite novel, I think it grants some insight into character development and the different ways that is managed, as well as providing a window into the author's soul. There is something here we can glean about his view of the human condition, no?
There was also a little part in Everything is Illuminated that reminded me of the beginning scene of Amelie. There is something strange and moving about how he says it, the section on sexual intimacy creating lights and electricity, if enough loving is collected in once place. It is a strange novel, but, I think, a good one. I'm still digesting it.
I had more to say, but I'm *all* the exhausted. Definitely a good time for sleeping.
What good is all that love doing on paper? I said, Let love write on you for a little.
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