H. Miller: "Sexus"

I read through the next of the works of Mr. Miller. "Sexus", the first book of "The Rosy Crucifixion" trilogy was following me accross the half of the world.
Let me sketch a few interesting material circumstances, showing the changes in our civilisation. The book befell on me in not at all old-fashioned paper edition when I was still in Taipei, in a green-bound behemoth containing all three of "Rosy crucifixion" novels... Yes, it was cheap to buy, but my, it was heavy even to hold in hand, not to think about reading it! And eyes had to work hard to go from one to another side of the too-extended page of that Olympia Press mega-edition. Still, I endured it when reading it stretched on bed, in my portion of the air-climatized nightmare of Taipei.
Next it acted as a brick in my luggage to Croatia, and found its resting place on my island. I will not move it from there any more. Before my leaving Croatia for France, I read about half of it.
For the further read, with my stomach following the stars, and limited luggage possibilities, I had to switch to ethereal eInk device. My 9inch screen Kindle is now my portable library for such heavy-weights. So, this is the edition which came with me to Warsaw. I am curious what would Mr. Miller think of it. I think he would be fond of eInk, as I am.

What the great Buddha of the Big (Cock)Sur shoveled to us here? Lots of sex with all its juices, bites and scratches, then lots of human rot, as usual... even more raw than in his more famous "Tropic" novels. But then, he is just frank, painfully frank. And I only occasionally was disturbed by his over-frankness. And oh my, that guy knew his talk! I am not surprised girls were melting, I can imagine their uteruses convulsing orgasmically when such a Master talked.
If only he would not be such an utter... prick. But prick-ishness is not a measure of the writer, as amount of booze or dope is not a measure of a singer.

I extend here an appraisal of his mastery in writing and in conveying the message: a man is to go and live, be utterly fucked-up, screwed and screw, do what he pleases to do... But, I would add, please, do not screw up your dreams, because you will finish as a dog. What Mr. Miller duly achieved at the end of this first volume of the trilogy... a beaten dog which even does not bark any more.
It is a miracle and a feat of human race that he managed to stand up from that and survive to become a Buddha in that American Tibet of California, Big Sur.

I will continue to follow him, although I feel this trilogy starting to taste a bit like wartching the "Star Wars" movies, with its broken time-line.

For Mr. Miller is such a superb talker! Even when the written rendering by him is not much of an art.

But it often IS pure art: " "The world would only begin to get something of value from me the moment I stopped being a serious member of society and become-myself. The State, the nation, the united nations of the world, were nothing but one gret aggregation of individuals who repeated the mistakes of their forefathers. They were caught in the wheel from birth and they kept at it till death-and this treadmill they tried to dignify by calling it "life". If you asked any one to explain or define life, what was the be all and the end all, you got
a blank look for answer. Life was something which philosophers dealt with in books that no one read. Those in the thick of life, "the plugs in harness", had no time for such idle questions. "You'we got to eath, haven't you?" This query, which was supposed to be a stop-gap, and which had already been answered, if not in the absolute negative at least in a disturbingly relative negative by those who knew, was a clue to all the other questions which followed in a veritable Euclidian suite. From the little reading I had done I had observed that the men who were most IN life, who were moulding life, who were life itself, ate little, slept little, owned little or nothing. They had no illusion about duty, or the perpetuation of their kith and kin, or the preservation of the State. They were interested in truth and in truth alone. They recognized only one kind of activity-creation. Nobody could command their services because they had of their own pledged themselves to give all. They gave gratuitously, because that is the only way to give."

"The Zen Experience" by Thomas Hoover

There are many books on Zen, one could say it is even too many for a topic which is nontransferrable by words. Still, T. Hoover wrote an excellent, readable historical book on it. Probably it is because he wrote it without going too much into the devotional moments.

It seems that until the 1980, when the book was printed, reality about Zen started slowly to seep in to the West, stripped of its exotic content, and the real learning about it could start. Zen is not the tea ceremony, and it is not the cherry blossom. Although, sure, it is all about having a tea with a view to the cherry blossom!

I had a great fun following Masters of various attitudes through the centuries in Hoover's writing. I knew some of the stories before, but he unearthed many more, and re-told them in a lively way. I was not bored with any of them in his rendering.

Of special value I find his exposition on the Chinese Zen. It is a mix with Taoism and Confucianism, and Hoover navigated skilfully through those murky waters of politics and philosophy.

Of the later masters in Japan, he revealed for me the magnificence of Hakuin. I was not aware of his so many achievements. He was definitely a material for the CEO, with him at the steer, Sony or Toshiba would eat Apple for the breakfast!

If you are searching for a well-balanced exposition of the Zen tradition, this is a good book. It is available from book-sellers in the printed form, and it is also freely available as e-book. I had read the freely downloaded pdf version.

Paris

Elif Shafak: "The Gaze"

A bit different work from others I read until now by E.S. At the beginning it did not stick to me, but as I continued, it started to uncover its value. It grows in me as a kind of investigative novel.

The text is cyclically structured-maybe superficially in the pretty much prosaic setup of the story, but writer obviously gave it more thought than we might think. I read somewhere that E. Shafak is a clever, beautiful woman. Maybe she had some bad experience with the gazes of the people? It is an usually overlooked topic, especially today when the world, pushed by the media magnates and debilism of the media market, degenerated into a celebrity culture, in which everybody seems to be asking for attention. But it is easy to imagine the topic as taken in this novel might be a hot one for many people. I remember how I thought, on seeing some really beautiful women, how their life must be affected by their beauty. And it usually invoked sadness, as it is such an unnecessary weight in one's life.

E. Shafak here chose to invert the role and speak about attracting attention by uglyness. She writes about weird and rather unusual connection of two people, fed by them being outcasts because of their appearance. It separated them from the world of "invisible", average population. They were too much visible, especially if going out together. So much that they chose not to go out in their usual persona, but to invert roles, and spice them with additional weirdness.

It is a story with insight into the world of distorted vision, not of the eye, but of the soul. A distorsion more painful, and more haunting, because of its permanence, than actual broken bone or psychological condition.

Intertwined into the story is the typically Turkish fascination with weird and unusual-it is also present in Arab world, an cultural atavism from the times before the TV and mass media. Boredom was then often chased away with the theater of weirdness or show of unusual. Today it would be in a bad taste, the world became a more emphatic place.

Pope Joan

My favorite writer here steps-in to refurbish an (un)famous Greek novel, "Papissa Joanna", by Emmanuel Royidis. The original author was excommunicated by the Orthodox Church and the book banned, sure, only to add to its glory. I was searching for the book for quite some time, and recently found it again on stock in bookdepository.com I love the possibilities we have today to acquire the rare book.

Since Lawrence Durrell did not have to worry about anathemas, and he was a product of another time (Royidis lived 1835-1904 and published the book in 1886) he could develop some of the more jolly elements of the Royidis work-and this he thoroughly did, according to the commentators who read both works. I did not yet have chance to read the original, so will not comment on this, but will only praise the readability of the book. Especially in undoubtedly completely imaginary description of the first travel of young 9th century Joanna from England to Germany and Greece. It is so lovingly unbelievable, that it might indeed show to be the closest to truth, which, we know well, is rather an unbelievably elusive category. And also completely chaotic, but beautiful. As this story is beautiful, I would give it lots of chances to be almost true in the roulette of History.

It is endearing to see how Royidis and Durrell topple the sainthood of the saints, and the reverence of the revered. Dirt of the Church is exposed in its best, and devils supper with popes in close communion. True to the bare bones, a reality show online from Vatican of the 9th century!

A highly reccomendable novel. It is also a very learned work, thanks to Royidis. It is definitely not just a spitting bowl against the Church, but an educated frontal attack on the filth of Papacy.

Curious enough, Vatican accepted it with a smiling eye. In their devilish wisdom they knew that such a triffle story can not add more than powdery dust to the already blood-stained and broken picture of the Holy See. The stink emanating from there is too strong, so that Royidis "truth" could hardly add anything to it.

D. Adams & M. Carwardine "Last chance to see"

I am a sceptical, but naive man.
Sceptical: It means that I will not fall easily for a book co-authored by an author I love. I will not buy others' wish to capitalize on my liking someone else.
Naive: I give it a chance sometimes.

Summa summarum: in this case, it was good to be naive. I was mistakenly sceptical.

This is a great Adams' writing, with a spirit and few (ending) words of Carwardine, who is obviously a great man, but rare are such writers as D. Adams.

I enjoyed every single page of the book. It delivers what it promises: an insight into the world which is slipping under our feet. It will go perfectly with books of R. Dawkins, if there are any I did not share as a gift. Until I share it-the best fate for a book, to be shared, and shared, and shared... in a word, read. It is a fun book, although it deals with not a funny topic at all: extinction of beautiful creatures.

Rhinos, bats, trees, pigeons, dolphins...and I would add, after all, humanity, is decaying faster and faster. As cleverly pointed at the end of the book (by M. Carwardine), species were always disappearing, but what is happening today is increase in the rate of extinction. It is a F1 race of extinctions. Here we should panic!

The battle is fought by idealists, or plain madmen, rarely anyone else.

Read the book, point it to your children and read to your grandchildren. It has something of a spirit of Darwin's writing about travels aboard "Beagle".

Ave Marcus Aurelius!

In the past, I tried few times to approach Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations", but somehow it did not stick with me. I always thought it strange, as in general I acquiesce with Stoic philosophy and am sympathetic with their minimalism regarding demands from the world.

Reading it now in English translation, I think that the problem was that I was approaching it in Polish or Croatian translation, in which it seemed unnatural to me. Was it the projected catholicism in those translations, even if ony in verbalisation, or bad translators, or maybe I was not mature enough yet, I do not know.

So, it took me almost half a century to mature to Marcus Aurelius. Not bad.

In a rather dry Penguin "Great Ideas" English edition, it achieved appropriate form for me, I felt that I am having a discourse with the Emperor-philosopher.

At moments it felt like reading of the excerpts from an email Emperor would write from his seclusion at some of the summer villas. Considering his timelessness-it is not a little feat to be a best-selling author for almost 2000 years after you disappear from the Earth-I give him a credit for being a bore sometimes, with his all too frequent reminders that we are not to dwell the Earth for long, and that both we and our doings will cease to be, all too soon.

So, yes, even in English rendering I did not find him jolly. It was an encounter with rather a sullen Emperor, but at least I could feel the person behind the text. It was not leading me-or the translator-to some shallow musings of a Catholic obsessive manic melancholic.

I definitely admire Marcus' being so down to earth a man, when he could bask in the purpury and not give a damn about posterity, or those before him. He did not make much of them or himself, but he remained true to simplicity of thought, loftiness was a stranger to him.

Ave Marcus Aurelius!