Henry Miller as a Technician of the Beautiful

In "The air-conditioned nightmare" Miller is giving us a disarray of his emotions and impressions when he returned to USA from Europe at the start of the WWII. From the very beginning he gives to know that the return was not an easy venture; he had to re-learn his own country.

Having made a similar comeback myself recently, from Asia to Europe, I could sympathize with this keen observer of a world. It is somewhat ironical fact that I did a shift an ocean eastwards, having in mind his idolatry of the Chinese and the East, but feelings are compatible. Not in content, but in reflections they awoke.

Most Millerian treat is that the book is NOT what it promised to be: he could not find anything worth recording during his trip. Everything disgusted him-and more so as he was ready to enjoy, feast on the Return, discovery...there was nothing to discover, only a vasteland of Humanity.

Yet, he produced a memorable tome of memories of America Lost, which is a pleasure to read, an agreeable companion to the Hemingway and Orwell impressions from Paris and London, which it followed in my readings.

I love his start with a citation from Vivekananda, which is setting the stage for the anonimity of his heros. Artists are the only recognizable patterns on the soil of America, and they are like rare birds, in danger of extinction. Others are regulars, tramps, or just an illusion: "The fat, puffy, wattle-faced man of forty-five who has turned assexual is the greatest monument to futility that America has created. He's a nymphomaniac of energy accomplishing nothing. He's a hallucination of the Paleolithic man." Or: "Most of the young men of talent whom I have met in this country give one the impression of being somewhat demented. Why shouldn't they? They are living amidst spiritual gorillas, living with food and drink maniacs, success-mongers, gadget innovators, publicity hounds."

Sounds familiar? What would Henry Miller say about celebrity culture we suffer today? I think he would say nothing, he would follow Hemingway, and right so.

"The american way is to seduce a man by bribery and make a prostitute of him. Or else to ignore him, starve him into submission and make a hack of him."

There is a hope: only yesterday I heard from an American expat that maybe it is not so bad that USA is turning the 3rd world country, as maybe it will put the people there back to senses, turn them away from the utilitarian paradigm in which they are living. A refreshing thought, but it is painful to see it has to go through such transformations from the very times described by Miller.

The worse is that Europe is trotting, as usual, 10 years behind America. We still think digital watches (or, today, iWatches) are a good idea...

Carver: Cathedral of everyday life

Raymond Carver himself comes to me late. Not being a great fan of certain parts of American prose, his "Cathedral" needed 45 years to make it to me. Maybe better so, as after H. Miller and J. Kerouac I can appreciate it more.

When the two above mentioned writers worked for me by their description of a part of the population of States which seems more interesting to me, in a collection of short stories "Cathedral", Carver hits with his decription of a non-descript America. It seems at the beginning like writing a screenplay for "Barbie and Ken" animation, but after a few sentences, it starts to catch the attention by its ...pregnance.

Exactly this is the word, as he is able to make a story of something what could be a midwest scene: a perfectly normal home visit to a co-worker. Two couples meet at the home-ground of one of them. Really not promising great entertainment. But Carver holds the reader's attention by ...what, exactly? Nothing great is happening there, nothing bad, too. Just a bit edgy way of description, which almost forced me to put the book aside. I almost expected someone to pull the axe and make a mess in the living-room. It is obvious that I am not watching TV for decades, so I am out of habit to participate in other people's "normal" lives without feeling intimidated. Yes, the way Carver bite into it is alike to a (good) sitcom. Out of such staff came Lynch and alike.

I read somewhere that he'd had a following in Europe in 1970-ies, that many writers started seeing the word in his terms. Yes, I could imagine this, a deserved kick in the ass to overly "artistic" or "philosophical" Europe. Or, as R.M. Pirsig, another of Americans I really like, would say (in "Lila"): philosophying.

I will continue digging into this writer.

Orwell in Paris and London

In my reading through the experiences of people who touched down in Paris, I came to Orwell, who in his "Down and out in Paris and London" really touched the base. Of life, that is.

Poor fella' was so ripped of money in 1920-ies that he, unwillingly, had a chance to experience being among the debased, paupered citizens of those two urban molochs. Investigative, as he was, he made it into a learning experience, learning not about being poor, but about his human fellows.

Often he would offer his practical insight, which undoubtedly should be branded as a leftist one, but a real humanistic, not some brainwashed aparatchik leftist mind. Go you Marxists and learn!

When in Paris he was trying to earn his money by any job which he could find, in London he was waiting for a promised job and had to go penniless for weeks. In Paris he worked down to the cellars of a hotel as a dish-washer, and learned why we should not be frequenting in fancy restaurants, and in London he tried how it is to be a regular tramp, spending nights with the poor tribesmen of the city in a "spike" or any somilar place to which a common London tramp was forced by law. Orwell is not only critical, he gives a practical advise how the things should be improved.

Orwell wrote this text in a very plain writing. I saw recently some poor soul wasting electrons to prove Orwell was not a good writer, exactly because of this style. I ould not less agree with the critic. Enough is to say that I did not care to read, or want to read, any of the blood-sweated word of that poor critic, although he seemed to be a writer of some success. But to Orwell I myself, and in fact many, many people, return quite often with even larger admiration in repeated reading. It might be true he was not an "innovative" writer of a class of Miller or Carver, but then, he never wanted to be such. Orwell was giving a true picture of the world in most of his works, and when he ventured into imaginative world, he was not far from truism about some of the places on Earth at his time. And so much more about (all too) many countries a bit later after his time. If anything, his writings stand the test of time.

It was a shocking realization that many of the effects of being poor, underfed, hopeless about obtaining a job, and hopelessly outcast from the society, seemed so much familiar to me. If anything, I do know what he means by living on 2 slices of bread and a margarine, my comment was only "wow, rich were those Paris tramps, they had a margarine!". I slept on the train station floors or benches and spent not one winter night in search for a not too exposed corner to spend night in wait for a morning train, without money for any lodging. This was only a mild, passing experience... but enough to understand all too well what Orwell was writing about here. He did a fair, very fair job.

As I opened the next book to read, it was written 20 years later, and the writer just decided to travel around US after return from Europe which just started the WWII. He is also a pennyless writer, but he was donated some money and his experience (in Pittsburgh) is thoroughly different:

"I am in a small, supposedly comfortable room of a modern hotel equipped with all the last conveniences. The bed is clean and soft, the shower functions perfectly, the toilet seat has been sterilized since the last occupancym uf I am to believe what is printed on the paper band which garlands it; soap, towels, lights, stationery, everything is provided in abundance.

I am depressed, depressed beyond words. If I were to occupy this room for any length of time I would go mad-or commit suicide."

It is like a direct inversion of sickly dirty, unsanitary world described by Orwell. But he did not mention a word "depression" one, and there was no, in fact, any time when a tramp would have time to be "depressed". What a luxury! World really fared a lot in that 20 years from the shackles of the Great war to the Dawn of the Brave New World! We today are underestimating the power of Change. It is upon us even more than it was upon those guys. Beware, the world is spinning much faster nowadays!

Steppenwolf

When I was closing Hesse's "Steppenwolf"...he!, do not imagine me closing the actual book in paper, those days are almost gone! It was an e-book, this time I read it on Kindle DX, my personal library which travels with me worldwide. So, when I was closing the file, echo of Mozart's laughter mentioned by Hesse at the end of the book came to me. For, as Harry was horrified by the sound of music coming distorted from the loudspeaker of a radio, this is how I would be horrified 30 years ago, when reading it for the first time, if I would know I will read one day not in paper, but electronic version. And in English of all languages, oh my!

But still, as Mozart explains to Harry, the spirit of the music survives such a negligence, and we are to laugh off the screetches of the poor device, and to grasp the spirit behind. The same is with the books: they are, for me, always a conversation with the writer, or with his digestion of the world into the novel. If it is given to me in an expensive hardcover, or in cheap, rugged paperback, or a virtual, nonexistant format of an e-book, what does it have to do with the spirit conveyed? Nothing, perfectly nothing.

When I finished this reading, I did the same as I probably did 30 years ago: went back to the start, to read the "Preface" where is explained what was the condition of the imagined writer of the text. He disappeared from his lodgings to never return, leaving the text behind him.

What could happen to him, indeed? What is the meaning of a big quarrel (with Hermine?) soon after which he left the place? Who quarrels is not idle, has some passion for life... (s)he also laughs, loves, hates... so I assume he went on living some more passionate life than the scholar's death mask of a life which almost brought him to suicide.

I have read this book many times through my life. It would usually bring a somewhat nostalgic memory of myself as a youth, walking the streets of my Baroque city, with heavy thoughts resembling those described in Harry Haller's memoir. Now, when I am of almost his age in the book, I must say I did pretty much of what he needed to catch-up...from both sides. I was a scholar, literally, and I also learned the other ways. Now I see the text as a quite true image of the lively spirit of life. Kind of a shrugging-off of the dust of the "learned" spirit. Always a healthy thing to do.

What, then, was Hesse telling us with this book? That Life is not to be wasted, it is to be lived. Obvious, for us today, but for him (and others) then, it was not at all obvious, it needed a positive confirmation in idea and art. Hesse gave it in Steppenwolf.

There are opinions that Hesse is... simple, primitive. Compared to types of H. Miller, Sartre or Camus, Celine or succh he might be. But, dear fellow readers, put yourself in his shoes, at his time. Go into those mountains of his from which he came, see the average family, and even today you will find so similar to his time narrow-mindedness and limited scope of life, that he should be reborn again and again and write his "simple" books again and again, to light some light in minds of the lost souls of children in the forests. And, before we would think we are so advanced...there is a danger in "living" to forget about the motivation below. It comes from the spirit of music, art, science, which are all just a conveyed spirit of Nature itself. There is no "high" and "low" Nature. It is one of non-divisible entities in our experience. Like the number PI, if you approximate it, it will always come out with sharp edges, construction of the approximation visible below, never smooth as a circle of PI is.

One of my circles in Slovenian Alps

The mountainous world, as Slovenians say it... is wonderful. After 25 years, I completed the circle atop the Logarska valley, in Kamniske & Savinjske Alps of northern central part of Slovenia, with a climb to the highest top there, Grintovec. Starting from Logarska, as I was usually doing, Grintovec was always too remote for my short climbs. This time, thanks to the good company, I headed for it from the Kamnik side and finally completed this of my circles. The story begins with a short but steep climb to Kokrsko Saddle at 1800m, which is quite evident here:

At the top we are welcomed by the pillars of the cargo lift:

Looking down-yes, this climb is quite steep:

Cojsova house stands here about 110 years (this is a new house, the first was at a nearby location):

It's not really about one man, but about two brothers Zois who first listed the plants in this part of the 
 Alps and financially assisted first ascents in the Julian Alps, even before the 1800s.
  The house is beautiful, with a little more water and a few more toilets would be even better. Be sure to take all the water you need
from the valley below, up there water is scarce.

The primary goal of our ascent was Grintovec, which was the first peak in the Slovenian Alps of such height (2558 m),
  which was climbed, because of its accessibility. From Cojsova house it took 
 about 3 hours of easy hike. The only problem is that you need to choose a good time to catch the top cloudless and have a view around. 
 Clouds from the valley of the Kamniska Bistrica rise very quickly.
 For us it showed good to start a bit later, as during the otherwise slightly cloudy day, the top
 cleared around noon.

To complete this of my circles, it was necessary to reach the Turski groove, which is why I suggested a walk to 
 Kamniško Saddle. The next morning we headed down the path toward a beautiful bivouac

which is very interesting, it should be nice to sleep there...i na a good weather:

Above us was all the time Skuta, an impressive top, just a few meters lower than Grintavec:

Note the exclamation point in a triangle, it is a sign for a "Very demanding trail":

This means that it will look like this:

and you'll have to use your hands quite a lot:

It is nicer when not in the cloud, one can see where one goes:

We climbed the top of Turska mountain:

After quite a rugged walk in the cloud, it was an easy hike below top of Brana:

Finally, after 5 hours altogether, house on Kamnisko Saddle, the most luxury place in the Slovenian Alps:

Those alps for me were, during my student days in Zagreb, the closest target for my first solo walks through the stone. 
This is why visit to them is always special for me, like visiting old friends, a pure pleasure.

Hemingway: "A Moveable Feast"

There is a Quality in Hemingway's writing which comes out only in original. He devised his own English. I had read him in various translations, but since he is writing directly and simple, I suggest anyone knowing English at least a bit, to read him in original from the very beginning.

At the first visit for this time to Kilometer Zero Shakespeare in Paris, I was searching for a book which would match my own position here this time. I found this perfect piece of writing. This book I never read in translation, so it was a new one for me. I still had in my mind a mastery of "Farewell to Arms", which I re-read recently, so I knew this should be an appropriate piece.

Hemingway is here an observer, and sometimes a participant. As usual, no bull-shitting in his writing, he is frank and direct. Made of short pieces about people and places, or himself and his present condition (Paris, 1920-ies), the book becomes a discourse with the author on walks through the streets of the City. It hits you when you walk the street or place which you just read about in Hemingway's straightforward writing. It is like a stamp in time on the place, much better than any bronze or marble plaquette on the wall. And not that there would be missing such, more material ones, in the City... I think his one is to last longer.

Gell-Mann and Jaguar

"The Quark and the Jaguar" is a text by renowned physicist Murray Gell-Mann about...many things. Maybe a bit too many.

Probably the best part of it, in my eyes, is the description of a needed revision in explanations of Quantum Field Theory. True, the descriptions used in current textbooks rely too much on the historical, today quite antiquated, ways to explain the content of the theory.

Apart from this, Gell-Mann gives an interesting wide view of the simple and complex in nature, from his perspective of an amateur ecologist.

For readers of popular science books the following might be useful: It reads as an intermediate between Richard Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker" and Anthony Zee's "Fearful symmetry" or Michio Kaku's "Hyperspace", but is less entertaining. It is delivered in a more serious tone of a physicist of an older generation. If it serves your preference, it is a good read. It is not so geeky as Hofstadter "Goedel, Escher, Bach" or "Artificial Intelligence", and is also less physics-centered than "Emperor's new mind" by Penrose.

The book is from 1994, which is 20 years ago, but Gell-Mann correctly predicted up-rise of social media and political consequences of implosion of Soviet Union and fall of communism. This makes it a surprisingly up-to date book, and a valuable read.

Billiards at half past nine

I finally found a Polish translation of this book by Heinrich Böll, after a couple of years of searching through 2nd hand bookstores. As it goes, I found the first Polish edition from the year 1961, only two years after the publication of the original.

It's easy to find the story of the book online,Böll was, after all, a Nobel laureate, but I will add some my comments. The book is definitely one of the best of his works. Very briefly, it is the history of the Fähmel family at the time after the First World War and Hindenburg, until the time of post-WWII West Germany. No big philosophy, more a personal psycho - sociological picture of the pathology in the society. Interestingly, it is not about a poor family, and is given in terms of the positive characters: architects, sincere, faithful, morally and socially unquestionable people. No creatures like then and current political or human shit of characters. Nazis are referred to as a primitive and inherently evil people, but more as a social evil than private.

Precisely in this way Böll achieved, at least for me, the most effective condemnation of bourgeois, or rather klein-buergerlich society. A woman from the apartment a couple of floors above the impoverished families in times of great crisis, which lends a half cup of sugar and is considering a debt returned only when she receives a full cup; outraged wealthy citizen who requires the bill in a restaurant charging HALF boiled egg, because he ordered it so, and not the whole egg; boys' arguments that eventually grow into national issues at the cost of people's lives... There is no better way to get to the core question: who are those people able to send a couple of million people in gas chambers and bring out such an ideology as the Germans followed during the Nazi time? In the book, Böll does not even mention those things by name, but they are constantly just behind the horizon; it feels like an army coming onto the city during a siege.

A sad thing is that today similar issues are emerging in Europe. See Ukraina today. Obviously we have not read enough of Böll, maybe a good time to refresh our memory a little?

"The Tartar Steppe" by Dino Buzzati

This masterpiece of Buzzati from 1938, (in original "Il deserto dei Tartari", in my opinion it is better translated like "The Tartar Desert"). I read it repeatedly during last 30 years, but this was the first time in English translation (the previous was always Croatian). More than language, I think the actual time difference in reading made it somewhat different experience-but always an excellent piece of writing, among the 10 best on my list.

In previous readings I would see the waste of life in unimportant routine. This time, the question "which routine is not unimportant?" showed through. Not the philosophical one, but realistic: when one turns 30 years older, is there still the hope, or passion, in its full measure? Or we just follow the routine, want to find smooth, warm place and calm down, not stirring the air much?

I found that there is, for me. But I need the whole Universe for it, anything less. For others, I leave the question to themselves.

This allegory of Buzzati on life and all that is still a masterpiece, because of the setup he chose: bareness of the military life on the remote outpost, where enemy is not realistically expected in any time on the scale of human life. Everything what happens, is there as an unimportant addition to the routine of...waiting. Like waiting for the barbarians, who never come. When they do come, it is too late, the life is over-is it a punishment for the wasted time? Everything is punishing the main character for the failure, from his own body, to people surrounding him. Does he find consolation in anything? Not really, Buzzati does not leave much of the space for him, nor is the decay of hope long and slow, it is sudden, because life, in reality, is not long and slow. Take what you want, make sure you want something to take from it, as at the end, not much remains.

Positive solution for the book ending, in a given setup, would really be only to die in a battle!