Death by the Isis

Literature for nostalgics

nusitatu — Mon, 03 May 2010 14:24:08 +0000

I love books. I love them so much I even love reading about books. And reading about reading. And reading about other readers. I can’t decide what book club to join. I feel I might miss out on others. I have no time for them anyway, what good is talking about reading when you could use your time to DO more reading. And read about people meeting at book clubs to discuss their reading. The Dumas club perhaps, now that is a book club worth going to. Worth reading about too, even better perhaps (yes, I do have a weak spot for Perez-Reverte).

Maybe I should start a book club, my own book club. Wait a minute, I am my own book club already. And I am sadly closed to new members however… At my club I sometimes read very exclusive writers, you know. Writers that have never been read by any other readers at any other book club in the charted world. Writers like myself, for example. Or like my fiancée, whose text messages are sometimes filled with such inexplicable sadness. Is literature a function of the technological world? Is fiction an app?

I will look for an answer in the books…And if I find it out, I will write it down somewhere, in an obscure note at the bottom of a page in a book about the soil composition in Bolivia and the extinction of the Eocene elephants. So make sure you read the fine print at the bottom of such texts if you want the key to knowledge. Or you could just google it…

The speed of thought today defies reflection. Action, terrorizing action pushes thoughts through, unsanctioned by the judge of beauty who was once the master of our soul. We process rather than slowly digest, swallow whole rather than taste, shout rather than sing, demolish and rebuild rather than consolidate and beautify. The world has awoken me to madness and I want to go back to sleep, back to the slow movement of waves, the slumber of the deep. And dream of life, not one but many, different and bizarre, as many as there are mouths to speak or eyes to see and minds to think them. So give myself back to my books, let me slide away from what is real and discover what was real or will be real, let us all just pause and…no, not think, but rather stop thinking. And just read about thinking, read about ourselves reading about ourselves reading about ourselves reading…

When I(they) Write

nusitatu — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:49:05 +0000

When I write in English it is absolutely imperative that I don’t try to translate Romanian thoughts but rather think and write English thoughts. In my recklessness I have attempted to take random Romanian writings and clothe them different garments. I have realized however that such efforts are doomed from the start as the particular feeling that drives the Romanian thought can’t be translated or transplanted in the altered sensibility that accompanies my use and abuse of the English language.

The two conscious scribes, it seems, must live separate lives, unknown to each other, neighbours, time-sharing one keyboard, one fountain pen, one pillow. One blog, broken in two by a ragged, absolutely necessary, continuous line.

Oddly enough I have lost this distinction in my sleep and my dreams speak a language that can be one or the other, impossible to remember the next day. Sometimes the sweeping emotions carry a linguistic identity that can be remembered, but for the majority of my night wanderings I am bound to understanding without knowing if the vessel that carries the message is inborn or learnt. Well, neither Romanian nor English are inborn, they are both learnt but I don’t remember learning Romanian so I will just assume there is a blob in my brain where Romanian happened before I became aware of it, as close to an inborn trait as is possible.

However, in the living, conscious line of my existence I must push forward the thoughts in alternate periods, Romanian now, then English, on and on, trying to escape the dissolution of my little used Romanian and the banality of my poor, abused, colloquial English, bringing together dubious heaps of communicable information that might keep some lonely soul from falling asleep on a boring night.

Penelope sees it as intellectual snobbery; she has, as always, little use for my perplexities. The other angels keep drinking my wine and nodding in agreement with everything she says. Useless, all of them…

The diary of a sentimental driver

nusitatu — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:27:20 +0000

I only live at night. That is because life, real life is too much to take in its fullness, in its overwhelming daylight presence. I can only take limited portions of it, neatly separated and confined in the precise enclosure of the headlights. I try to ignore her when She is above and I keep my eyes on the road, the same road every night, the only road. She changes, night after night, like so many others, all of them One. Some nights She is not there at all, and the darkness seems heavy, I can feel the light of the headlights inching through the thickness, slicing with difficulty, bouncing back from the assault of shadows…

I find myself as if asleep, pushed forward by the impetus of a technological abomination, my fingers numb on the wheel, devoid of colour, lifeless. I think of Her and wonder if she is awake. Not her, another her, not that it matters, they are all One to me…I think I thought that once before. I think I thought this once before…She is asleep, I know it because the darkness is heavy again although she, the other, is still above, crowning the hills with frost.

The road is opening ahead in small lengths, as if I were on a bridge of sorts that composes itself a few meters in front of me only to crumble to dust behind me…Am I going towards her or running away from her? The night feels just the same either way…The road is almost empty at this hour, the only cars I meet are slowly floating, just like me, in odd directions, hands of light gripping the night, pulling forward, with the mindless will of machines…

Somewhere, beyond the headlights, the road ends in forgetfulness…