Meatloaf

1. Prepare the breadcrumbs by cutting old bread into croutons and baking into the oven until crispy.  Allow to cool completely in a dry place (if the bread still feels most, pop it back into the oven to bake until dry) and pound into very fine breadcrumbs with either a food processor, a mortal & pestle, or in a bag with a rolling pin. You will need about 300 - 325 grams (8 - 10 ounces) depending on the fat content of your ground beef (other meats)

2. Combine bread crumbs with the following:

5 g  - 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
5g - 1/2 tsp cayenne or other chili powder
5 g - 1/2 tsp thyme (roll it between the fingers to "activate" the flowers)
1/2 onion minced fine
3 cloves of garlic smashed, green bits taken out, and minced fine
1/2 red and 1/2 green pepper diced
15 g - 1 1/2 tsps of sea salt

 3. Add the 575 g - 18 ounces of ground beef, and mix in the breadcrumb, spices, and vegetables as much as possible so that the beef is completely broken up and covered in the breadcrumb/spice/veg mixture.

4. Add the egg and a dash of Worcestershire sauce and mix completely.  The mix should naturally come together. If the meat doesn't come together, add more breadcrumbs. Don't worry about it being "dry" because the fat from the beef will come out in the cooking and you have the added moisture from the vegetables.

5. Pack meat into a loaf pan and bake until toothpick in the center comes out clean on 180 C for around 45 minutes.

6. Drain off the fat and use for sauce by mixing the cooled fat + 20 g flour + 10 g butter + 20 ml of water.  You can add brandy or another liqueur to deglaze the fat, and mix with mushrooms sauteed in butter until slightly crispy and bits of crispy fried bacon (Calvados, Poire Williams, or white wine do nicely for this.)

 You can also alternatively slightly fry the bacon and wrap the entire meatloaf in bacon.

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Sharing Literature with Children & Maurice Sendak

I snagged this book a few years ago at a library sale mostly for all the books mentioned throughout its near 500 pages. It's impressive.  The Acknowledgements list takes up the first four pages and after every section there are another couple of pages of books to read with children.

Francelia Butler's "Sharing Literature with Children" was designed for use in college classes and as a source book for libraries and elementary schools and though it tends to slant slightly further to being a textbook, it is still a great resource. It's full of essays about the theories behind children's literature and its symbolic themes.

It's appropriate and a nice coincidence given the sad news of author Maurice Sendak's passing today that I opened up the book to his name in this book originally published in 1977.  Butler's class asked Sendak "How do you know what it is like to be a child?"  His answer? "I have been a child."

The fiveparts cover "Toys and Games", "Fools", "Masks and Shadows", "Sex Roles", and "Circles" with numerous examples taken from sources like folk rhymes, folk play (Punch and Judy is referenced),fantasy, fiction, poetry, myths, fables, folktales,literary folktales, limericks, dramas, essays, biblical writings, and folk songs.

Some of the references are particularly great. For example here is a rhyme about Marilyn Monroe:

Marilyn Monroe
Broke her toe
Riding on a buffalo
On the way to Mexico

Some of the other pop culture heavy rhymes reference Macy's, Charlie Chaplin, and even Hitler (Part I, Page 10)

An essay included in the first part of the book on "toys becoming real" includes the first chapter of Sendak's "The Sign On Rosie's Door".  I've always loved the first lines of this book.

There was a sign on Rosie's door.

It read, "If you want to know a secret knock three times."

I won't ruin what the secret is since it's revealed quite early on (next couple of lines), but the scene that follows the big reveal is one I can remember from my own childhood; of the magic that is possible in a clutched hairbrush and the extra-strong hold of Aqua Net hairspray. Even now, decades later I can still call to mind the memory of my agonised facial expressions in the mirror as I sang "Crazy For You" and squeezed myself into stonewash jeans one size too small before going out into the brightness of an imagined spotlight and pressing the play button on my Barbie cassette player only after the roar of the crowd died down.

In the preface Butler mentions that another intention of this book was to help adults reading it to recapture their hidden child. I know it did for me and like I said it's full of references to other works and excerpts. It's by far one of the best books I've bought for reference in recent years and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is writing for children themselves.


However, keep in mind it was printed in the 70's. Some of the things said are archaic at times. After reading Bettelheim and Campbell I've been left with this ideas that the themes of children's literature never really change, but seeing that I find some of the ideas archaic, perhaps it should be more reassuring to me because what I'm writing now doesn't follow Campbell's "Hero's Journey" as closely as I had once thought it might.

In the interview an with Issac Bashevis Singer found within the section of "Fools", Singer states that he needs three conditions to write: 1) I must have a plot.  2) I must have a desire or a passion to write a story.  3) I must have the conviction or the illusion that I am the only one who is able to write this particular story.

Personally I cannot agree with Singer's Third Condition. Maybe it is a lack of confidence on my part. I would replace his with "I have a reason." I knew I wanted to write books since I was four years old. I didn't know I wanted to write the sort of books I loved as a child until I was twenty-eight. The reason why I'm writing for children is because as a child books meant everything to me. They were friends. Compatriots. There would have been no dreaming, no passion, no sense of adventure in me without the books that are crammed on to the shelves of my autobibliography.

Books like this one remind me of some of those books whose titles I have forgotten and leads me towards the books I never met in my travels. The sort of books I am passionate to write.

Sendak said, "You cannot write for children.  They're much too complicated."

He never said you couldn't write for the child inside yourself, which is above all things, wild or otherwise, what I think made Sendak very special.  He wrote for the child that he still was and that he would always be.

I hope some day I accomplish the same.  Until then I'll go on imagining I'm "Alinda" (another reference to Sendak's The Sign on Rosie's Door) until the dream comes true.


"The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye.”
 

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The Best Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookie Recipe EVER!

If you've ever had a too dry and tasteless peanut butter cookie this recipe will convince you that not all peanut butter cookies need taste like the Sahara. After years of making adjustments, I finally have what I consider a perfect peanut butter chocolate chunk cookie recipe that is moist, slightly chewy, and looks delicious as well.

Since chocolate chips (called pepites in French) are rarely found even in the French version (which are about 4 euros for 150g so also quite expensive), I buy chocolate bars and make my own chocolate chunks. If you have to make your own, I suggest buying thin chocolate bars that are already formed to break into little pieces such as these from Lindt:

I break the bar into the pre-designated squares and then snap them in half (I'd like to snap them into thirds but my fingers aren't strong enough). I can buy these bars in a three pack which is the perfect amount for this recipe (300 grams total). Just be sure to refrigerate them or else they'll melt. I also refrigerate the chunks afterwards.

Here are a few tips when dealing with this recipe:

• I can only get Korean brown sugar, which is quite dark (it's normally used for making Hot Cakes called hoddeuk/호떡 you can find a very good recipe for those here) and has a lot more molasses in it than light brown sugar. Part of what makes this cookie so moist is using the darker brown sugar, so try to use it if you can for similar results to mine.
• Do not overbake. You should take the cookies out of the oven when about a thumb-sized portion of the center is still undercooked. Overbaking will make the cookies more desert-like than dessert-like.
• Allow the cookies to cook on the cookie sheet until completely cooled before removing to a cooling rack or plate. It'll firm up that uncooked portion of the center and make the cookie sturdier for devouring.
• Use regular old flour. Nothing fancy. Make sure to sift it.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies (PBCCC)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

a dash of salt 

1/2 c. + 1 tsp. white sugar

1/2 c. - 1 tsp packed dark brown sugar (you can use light, but results might be different)

1 c. butter softened at room temperature

1/2 c. peanut butter (creamy works best I used Skippy)

1 tsp. vanilla

1 large egg

300 g chocolate chunks or 1 3/4 c. chocolate chips

If making chocolate chunks do so now and refrigerate while making the rest of the recipe.

1. Sift together dry ingredients.

2. Combine white sugar, brown sugar, butter, peanut butter, and vanilla and cream together until the colour is uniform.

3. Add egg and mix in gently.

4. Slowly add in dry ingredients and mix.

5. Stir in chocolate chunks/chips.

Set batter in fridge for at least 1/2 hr, an hour is better, and overnight is best.

I used a French sorbet scoop to measure out the cookie dough, but keep in mind they will spread a bit so give them plenty of room on the cookie sheet. I use an insulated cookie sheet and make 6 cookies at a time.

Put cookies into an oven that's been heated to 350° F / 180° C and bake for four minutes, turn the cookie sheet, and bake for another 2 -4 minutes depending on how big your cookies are. Remember the tip from above, and remove the cookie when the center is still uncooked. Do not let the cookies get too brown. They should be pale. I placed my oven rack in the dead center or the oven, but still found I needed to turn them because some cookies were browning though this is why one must know their oven well when baking.

Let cool completely before removing to rack/plate.

You won't be able to stop eating them. They're that good!

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Books bought on a whim that turned out to be treasures

I've been sitting on writing this particular post for a few reasons:

It was mostly inspired by an article in The Guardian written by David Mitchell about collecting in which he declares the Internet has ruined what one might call "the thrill of the hunt" for whatever object a collector likes collecting. I don't believe this is true for everyone and every thing. I think the Internet has made it easier for the collector who knows what they're looking for and,

I needed in order to show exactly what I mean to spend some time with my own library and think of my own book shopping, finding, and hunting habits. I buy books everywhere. I buy them in shops, on street corners, on the Internet, in flea markets - and I've even dug a few out of the garbage. In London a copy of Henry Miller's "Black Spring" and "Crazy Cock" was pulled out of a box of junk on the Portobello Road and bought for 50p. I found a beautifully illustrated children's book on top of the garbage bins while walking around Montmartre early one morning that is now a favourite. I have a tradition if I'm in Amsterdam on a Friday of eating pancakes and strolling towards the Spui, stopping along the way at every bookshop I see and then strolling past the Spui for Thai food on Zeedijkstraat and wandering down to the bookshops near the university. And yes, I also stalk used book websites for bargains on first editions, Borges books, and books that are out-of-print.

But like I said, the Internet is for the collector that knows what they're looking for and the more exact you can be the more likely you are to find it. I tend to shop through eBay, ABEBooks, and similar sites when I've collected bits of information on a book and have wanted it for awhile only to not find it elsewhere. This sort of collecting is by far my least favourite (that is to say enjoyable) way of getting my hands on books and the one I use least often.

I bought the sixteen volume collection of Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton's "Thousand and One Nights". I got a real bargain at $400 including shipping from the US for an edition that is limited to 1,001 and normally sells for three times as much. I ordered Dante's "Paradiso" to complete a Dent & Sons 3 volume set of "The Purgatorio of Dante Aligheri" that was bought one volume at a time and the 3rd volume just seemed to never turn up. Like I mentioned previously I collect the works of Jorge Luis Borges, and have bought some great rare Borges hardcovers and first editions for less than $1.

The pleasure I get from using the Internet is fairly straightforward. It gives me what I want at a price that is usually reasonable (or I don't buy) and thus allows me to save my money for the things I don't know I want.

My real passion isn't just about amassing a library. It's about discovering books no one has ever told me about or I've never heard about and then having that moment where I need some entertainment, nugget of knowledge, or enlightenment and as the smart phone generation wouldn't say "I have a book for that".

Here are 8 books that I bought because the only significance they had at the time was I liked the title or some other odd details that caught my attention, and they were cheap, so I bought them on a whim not knowing they'd turn out to be treasures.


1. "The Treasures of Time" - Leo Deuel

Explained on the cover as "firsthand accounts by famous archaeologists of their work in the Near East" with accounts by Belzoni, Exploring the Valley of the Kings; Rawlinson, "Climbing After Cuneiform"; and Schliemann, "Unearthing Troy"; which I bought because I liked the map on the inside cover...

Why did it turn out to be a gem? While it may seem to be a simple firsthand account of archaeologists unearthing things, it's more than that. It's a book full of fascinating characters.  Take Giovanni Battista Belzoni for example, he was better known on the London streets as "The Great Belzoni, the circus strongman who along with 130 other men dragged the 7 ton bust of Ramesses II to the Nile over the course of 17 days.

Oh and Belzoni was also used as archetype for the character of Indiana Jones.

Henrich Schliemann was a rich amateur who retired and became obsessed with discovering the location of Troy because he was equally obsessed with the works of Homer. As a young boy he was given a copy of The Odyssey and The Iliad by his father and he decided at the age of 8 he would find Troy. Though he did not find it in his lifetime (and perhaps ruined parts of the city), before Schliemann not many believed in Troy at all, it was in many ways like Atlantis.

You can find your own copy here: 

2. The Play of Musement - Thomas A. Sebeok

Okay so I will admit straight off that I bought this book because the inside jacket cover mentioned "Star Wars Empire Strikes Back".

I wasn't particularly knowledgeable or interested in semiotics when I found the book, but for any one interested in language this book is a fascinating read. Not only does it deal with semiotics which is is the study of signs and sign processes (semiosis), indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication. Semiotics is closely related to the field of linguistics, which, for its part, studies the structure and meaning of language more specifically. Semiotics is often divided into three branches:

Semantics: Relation between signs and the things to which they refer; their denotata, or meaning

Syntactics: Relations among signs in formal structures

Pragmatics: Relation between signs and the effects they have on the people who use them


It's not the minor reference to Star Wars that makes this book a treasure (though this little passage is delightful: "I returned home from having acted as companion and guide to a young lady, who had just barely pushed past the age of four, at a tense viewing of The Empire Strikes Back. The precocious lass is a fervent admirer of Darth Vader's martial skills and stunning weaponry, although his wheezing metonymic malevolence and one breathtaking glimpse of his phallic pars pro toto head, caught in the act of sheathing, will cunningly continue to feed on her (and my) fancy as the rest of the epic unfolds and maybe beyond.  (The Empire Strikes Back is not, as I had, in my innocence, assumed, Episode II of Star Wars, but Episode V, following hot upon what had retrospectively become Episode IV!)

(So yes, even back when the original trilogy was coming out, Lucas was already fucking with it.)

Seboek goes on to talk more about the mythic overtones that "encumber" the second installment including this jab at the Jedis: "You recognize Jedi Masters mainly by virtue of the fact that they often speak in an elaborated  code...Yoda talks backwards and in Timestyle, "No good is this....what know you of ready?...Tried have you? Always with you it can't be done. Hear you nothing what I say?...Try not. Do, do. Or do not. There is no try.""

Beyond the short two page reference to Star Wars, there is a wealth of information on the speech of animals and an analysis of Arthur Conan Doyle's windows as eyes compared to Captain Nemo's portholes from Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" that is perhaps the best part of the book. There's plenty of illustrations and examples as well as a chapter titled "Close Encounters with Canid Communication of the Third Kind" if only for the references to dogs in literature, folklore, and legend which makes for great reading for any dog lover (like me who also believes my dog can sort of talk though mostly to complain about things).

You can find your own copy here:

Ponto from Dickens' "Pitwick Papers" was a  particularly sagacious pointer.

Other books I pulled out include:

3. "Still More About Dolls" - Janet Pagter Johl

It's a book that is slightly creepy (as old dolls can be to some) but full of information, diagrams, and history about doll making. It's the third in a series that started with a book called "Your Dolls and Mine", followed by "More On Dolls".

This diagram for example is included as part of a patent for a "Walking Doll" and a "Singing Doll".

You can find books by Janet Pagter Johl here.

4. "The Yachtsman's Week-End Book" - John Irving (not the New England author) and Douglas Service

This is literally a sort of funny, quirky, seafarer's handbook as its aimed primarily at the week-end leisure sailor. There are poems, diagrams of knots, and other valuable information including a chapter on "Drinks Soft & Hard". Obviously essential for any yachtsman.

5. "The Art of the Faker - Three Thousand Years of Deception" - Frank Arnau

This book is a veritable history of fakes, frauds, and phonies in art: oils, coins, sculpture, semi-precious stones, paperweights, furniture, some thing called handles (no mention of what this is exactly in the book, but I think it might refer either to door handles or handles of knives, swords, and other objet d'art) and so on. It will not only help you to identify forgeries but even perhaps how to fake some stuff of your own.

According to this book the most lucrative field for forgeries is furniture, which somehow makes me think of IKEA...

6. "The Foxfire Books: Volumes 1-3"

The Foxfire Books (there are 7 total) started off as the Foxfire Magazine in 1966 and is devoted to subjects surrounding Appalachian culture (known as Appalachia it extends from southern New York down the east coast through parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

It includes articles on topics such as hog dressing, faith healing, how to build a log cabin, how to make a banjo, and blacksmithing along with oral histories of the people.

The Foxfire books also include a wealth of folklore with its roots in Celtic paganism, home remedies, how to make apple butter, examples of hoo doo (black magic), and snake healers.

All in all, it's one of the greatest treasures I've ever found and it cost me 2 euros.

7. "Bakunin An Invention" - Horst Bienek

This book is not included on Bienek's bibliography on Wikipedia. If you're familiar at all with anarchy, you'll recognise Mikhail Bakunin as the nemesis of Karl Marx, but this isn't a biography on Bakunin. It's also "not just a documentary, not research, nor is it a novel". It is however stylistically speaking sort of glimpses into the thoughts of someone who wants to write a biography of Bakunin, but can't seem to. It's peppered with excerpts from other works and quotations and even a mention of Jimi Hendrix.

The best part of the book however is the reference guide to the quotations, which would make for a rather interesting list of books to read in the future such as: Max Nettlau's "Michail Bakunin, A Biographical Sketch" (which is an actual biography of Bakunin); Walter Benjamin's "On Surrealism"; and Vera Figner's "Night Over Russia" to name a few.

Also Bienek appeared to be a massive fan of Samuel Beckett. He references Beckett's works and biographies more than any other besides Bakunin himself.

8. "All Silver and No Brass An Irish Christmas Mumming" - Henry Glassie

This book has particular meaning in the library and it wasn't found by me, but rather by Monsieur Redacteur who remembered "The Mummers" from his boyhood days growing up in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, which was already a far cry for the more historically accurate description of "Mumming" in this book.

The book jacket reads, "At Christmastime in Ulster, not so long ago, young men wearing colored tunics and tall pointed hats that covered their faces used to go from house to house presenting a play for their neighbors.  They enacted a short rhymed drama in which Saint Patrick was killed and miraculously resurrected, collected money for the Mummers' Ball - hoping for all silver and no brass - and departed to the sound of flute or tin whistle."

Part I of the book talks about the haunting and poetic recollections of four old people of the hamlet of Ballymenone who recall the mumming from their youth. While social and economic changes have upset mumming in certain parts of Northern Ireland, mumming has existed in Great Britain, France, Germany, and other European countries since medieval times - though little to no documentation survives from that period.

This book is a unique study on a very particular aspect of Irish folklore, history, and tradition which even Monsieur Redacteur had forgotten about, all come back to life between the covers of this book.

8. "Sea Shanty Men & Sea Shanty Boys Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman" - William Main Doerflinger

This book besides being a treasure in its own right came to my hands after a long history of being treasured. It bears a stamp as being once in the library of the Services des Relations Cuturelles at the American Embassy before it was donated to the American Library of Paris where I bought it during one of their book sales.

This is, of all the books on this particular list by far one of my favourites and since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm going to let you see why when flipping through this I simply had to have it.

Here's the first paragraph of the Preface: "This is a collection of songs that sailormen sang aboard deep-water windjammers, in the fishing schooners of the western North Atlantic, and in the West Indies trade; and of ballads of American and Canadian lumbermen.  In the running text I have attempted to set the songs against their natural backgrounds of life under sail or in the lumber woods and to explore their interesting history."

And maybe it wasn't a treasure when I bought it, but when I needed a feel for what it was like to be a sailor hard at work on the sea, working trade routes, and maybe even dealing with pirates - this was the book that came to mind and as you can see from the photos that picture with the detailed description of every part of a ship that got me to buy it in the first place was rather helpful too.

Like any bibliphile I'm naturally proud of the rare books in my collection or that I have every book by such-and-such an author, but what really makes me proud are books like the eight above. To me these often overlooked , forgotten, or even books that have become less relevant because of further discovery since their printing are the bones of my library. These are the books I'm really looking for and as gifted as I've become at scouring eBay, ABEBooks, Bookfinder, and similar sites the pleasure is lessened by finding them in the digital marketplace.

When books arrive in the post I know what they are already. When I discover books during my hunts they are still undiscovered territory. I haul them to a café, order something to drink, and spend a little time pouring over them for a hint of what lies within their pages.

And it's not just because books are heavy and I need a little break before lugging them home, although I usually do as I've been known to buy 40 books at a time - it's also to extend the pleasure and to celebrate. A sort of feast after the hunt.

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On Japanese Literature Part I

When I was about thirteen I was introduced to Japanese literature by a teacher who gave me a copy of Lady Murasaki's "The Tale of Genji".  As I sit here typing the two volume edition is staring at me and I'm trying to remember what I loved about it, but I can't seem to, yet somehow the book exudes a sort of aura for me. I remember details of my reaction to the book, which is really in many ways just a love story. I say just a love story, but of course it's far more complex than that and that is probably the reason why I can't remember much more than the major events of the book, which all seem to be the deaths of the various characters including what alludes to the death of Genjii himself.

I might have not known it then, but "The Tale of Genji" left its mark on my literary tastes, but it wouldn't be until ten years later when I went to live in Japan that I would really begin to discover Japanese literature and love it in a way that is unique and different from the way I love the literature of other countries.

My reintroduction to Japanese literature was by way of Japan's current reigning author, Haruki Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World". Of all of Murakami's works, and even those which are in many ways superiorly written such as "The Wind Up Bird Chronicles" or "The Wild Sheep Chase", Hard-Boiled is still my favourite. It's also oddly one of the few Murakami books I don't actually own anymore since it was lent and never returned. I'd like to think, despite being slightly grumpy at the moment because I'd love to pick it up and rifle through the pages that the person I lent it to had a similar reaction. Maybe it was because it was the first of Murakami's books that I read, but it is to date the only of his works that completely enveloped me in Murakami's particular sort of world. None of his other books have ever managed to do the same, but it's what I consider my least favourite Murakami book, "Kafka On the Shore" that renewed my interest in Japanese literature and prompted me to expand my library.

On the inside cover of Kafka On the Shore was a little blurb about Murakami and some of the prizes he had won. I made a note of the prize he won for Hard-Boiled (The Tanizaki Prize), which I would later find out was rather prestigious and named for another Japanese author, Junichiro Tanizaki.

I have to confess I've only read one of Tanizaki's works. "The Key" shocked me and I am not easily shocked. The reader is allowed to glimpse into the intimate lives of a married couple thanks to the format of "dueling diaries" that is used. To see how the husband describes his wife's body, which is reduced to a description of its parts is in sharp contrast to his wife's frankness about the decline of her husband's sexual prowess due to age and her own reactions to his time worn limbs.  But it would be unfair to say that it is all the book is about. There are interesting plot twists woven in with everything else. It is on a very short list of books I intend to read again, as quite frankly I am certain that I missed something in my reading, but that is Tanizaki's genius.

Recently I picked up another of Tanizaki's works, "The Makioka Sisters", which I still haven't read and didn't know existed until I found it in the secondhand Oxfam bookshop that opened in Paris. I also plan on one day reading "Confessions of a Mad Old Man".

Scanning my bookshelves it'd be obvious that I'm a fan of Japanese literature. Some authors I buy without even bothering to read the blurb first. I simply want the book on hand so that I'll have the opportunity to read it later. I'll pick up anything by Soseki, who's "I Am A Cat" is particularly wonderful (and yes it's narrated by a cat). I went to great pains to collect Mishima's "Sea of Fertility" tetralogy. I bought each of the four books by stalking the shelves of Book Off, a Japanese secondhand bookshop in Paris, and was delayed in reading it because I found "Spring Snow", the first book in the series of four books last.

I wouldn't want to tell someone to invest their time in reading The Sea of Fertility tetralogy without mentioning that it is the best and the worst of Mishima's works. Spring Snow is not only my favourite of the four, but also my favourite of Mishima's works. Of his other books if I were forced to pick a favourite I would probably settle on "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea"

Now I have many more books to add to my list when it comes to Japanese literature, but I'm going to leave you with a book not written by someone who was Japanese, but deserves his place amongst the other great names I've mentioned here, and even amongst the greater names and books I've yet to mention. The Japanese called him Koizumi Yakumo, but you might know him better as Lafcadio Hearn.

"Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things" was written by translating old texts and collecting stories that had previously only been known through storytelling.  A few stories are uniquely Hearn's own. There is even a study on insects included.

Kwaidan (meaning ghost story and that's all I'm going to give away) is a unique book and no foray into Japanese literature for a non-native would be complete without it. Here Japanese ghost stories and superstition are flavoured for the Western palate in such a way that nothing of the nuance of Japanese culture is lost in translation, which, no matter how good the translator, often sadly happens as Murakami has voiced himself many times over the years.

I've listed the books mentioned in this post to make it more convenient for those who might want it to build a collection of their own, but quite frankly, the best bits of Japanese literature are still to come.


Books mentioned in this post (in order of my personal preference, with the books I've not yet read in italics:

Murakami, Haruki:

• Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
• The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
• The Wild Sheep Chase
• Kafka On the Shore

Lady Murasaki:

• The Tale of Genjii

Tanizaki, Junichiro:

•  The Key
• The Makioka Sisters
• Diary of a Mad Old Man

Mishima, Yukio:

The Sea of Fertility tetralogy -

• Spring Snow
• Runaway Horses
• The Temple of Dawn
• The Decay of the Angel

•  The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea
• Confessions of a Mask
• The Sound of Waves
• After the Banquet
• Way of the Samurai

Soseki, Natsume

• I Am a Cat
• The Miner
• The Wayfarer
• Three Cornered World

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A CIA Biography of Leo Tolstoy

I found this video on YouTube which was made by the CIA (yes the Central Intelligence Agency used to make films) of Tolstoy's daughter Alexandra speaking about her father and their family.

One of the comment's on YouTube mentions that Alexandra (Tolstoya, not to be confused with Alexandra Tolstoy) was quite a woman in her own right so I turned to Wikipedia and have to agree. She helped Nabokov and Rachmaninoff to escape Bolshevik persecution and settle in America.

It's definitely worth a watch for any fan of Tolstoy.

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How To Write Short Stories - Ring W. Lardner

Another gem from the bookshelf as I was scanning this morning to find something to blog about is "How To Write Short Stories [With Samples] by Ring W. Lardner.

Originally published in 1924, the name Ring W. Lardner might "ring" a bell with you if you're a fan of the work of J.D.Salinger who references Lardner in "Catcher In the Rye" and "Franny and Zooey". He was also a friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Lardner and Fitzgerald both happened to live in Great Neck (New York) between October 1922 and April 1924. It was an improbable friendship aided by alcohol and that their wives got along well. Zelda who had "special standards" for people (I couldn't find any information on exactly what those standards were and what made them special according to an article in the New York Times), didn't always get along with Scott's friends, but she liked Ring well enough to allow him to conduct a mock courtship of her.

Of all the girls for whom I care,
And there are quite a number,
None can compare with Zelda Sayre,
Now wedded to a plumber.
So here's my Christmas wish for you:
I worship Leon Errol,
But the funniest girl I ever knew
Is Mrs. Scott Fitzgerald.

A poem from Ring to Zelda

Another poem from Ring to Zelda, click to enlarge.

Another story regarding their friendship involves dancing on a lawn in the hopes of gaining an audience with Joseph Conrad who was visiting America at the time. Conrad had them thrown off the property without seeing them.

Lardner's friendship proved to be a bigger inspiration to Fitzgerald than I originally thought. I thought the extent of the literary proof of their friendship in fiction anyway - since they wrote each other letters for many years - was that Lardner was a model for Abe North in "Tender Is the Night". Further research has shown that Lardner also appeared in "The Great Gatsby" as Owl Eyes who delivers Gatsby's obituary of "The poor son of a bitch", presumably as a thank you Lardner proofreading the book.

Later Fitzgerald would use Lardner's looks and wit. The man Fitzgerald referred to as "my alcoholic" would be reflected in Abe North further. North as the gifted musician who had ruined himself with drink and loss of belief in his work is exactly what Lardner had become. But Fitzgerald never abandoned his friend. After Lardner's death Fitzgerald wrote an elegy called "Ring" for The New Republic where he expressed with deep regret that:

"At no time did I feel that I had known him enough, or that anyone knew him - it was not the feeling that there was more stuff in him and that it should come out, it was rather a qualitative difference, it was rather as though, due to some inadequacy in oneself, one had not penetrated to something unsolved, new and unsaid. That is why one wishes that Ring had written down a larger proportion of what was in his mind and heart. It would have saved him longer for us, and that is itself would be something. But I would like to know what it was, and now I will go on wishing - what did Ring want, how did he want things to be, how did he think things were?

A great and good American is dead. Let us not obscure him by flowers but walk up and look at that fine medallion, all abraded by sorrows that perhaps we are not equipped to understand. Ring made no enemies, because he was kind, and to many millions he gave release and delight."

Lardner was also an inspiration to another writer. Ernest Hemingway. In high school Hemingway wrote for his school paper under the nom de plume Ring Lardner Jr. (the real Ring Lardner Jr. went on to win an Academy Award for "Woman of the Year" and for "M*A*S*H). Though he doesn't openly admit Lardner's influence there is some evidence to be found in Hemingway's letters that Lardner continued to influence Hemingway throughout the course of his life.

• "Burton Rascoe said In Our Time showed the influences of who the hell do you think?--Ring Lardner and Sherwood Anderson!" (To Ezra Pound, Burguete, Spain, 19 July 1924).

• "Some bright guy said In Our Time was a series of thumbnail sketches showing a great deal of talent but obviously under the influence of Ring Lardner. Yeah! That kind of stuff is fine. It doesn't bother." (To Edmund Wilson, Paris, 18 October 1924).

• "Your friend Ring is hampered by lack of intelligence, lack of any aesthetic appreciation, terrible repressions and bitterness. Any one of those is a terrible load for any writer to carry no matter how talented. He is, of course, 100 times as intelligent as most U.S. writers." (to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Paris, 20 April 1926).

• "Learned from Anderson but it didn't last long. Imitated Ring Lardner as a kid but didn't learn from him. Nothing to learn because he doesn't know anything. All he has is a good false ear and has been around." (To Arnold Gingrich, Key West, 3 April 1933) 

If you read the preface to Lardner's "How ToWrite Short Stories" it is full of sage advice and a writing style that helps me understand why it would have attracted the likes of Hemingway and Salinger - but I can also see how it might have influenced other writers like Bernard Malamud writer of "The Natural", perhaps one of the best novels ever written about the great sport of baseball.

But knowing the outcome of Lardner's life from Fitzgerald's point of view makes the knowledge that Lardner's work went on to inspire some of the greatest writers American literature has ever known bittersweet.

Lardner's preface is a mere five pages long, but full of helpful advice. He shows how a trivial line of dialogue can upset an entire plot and lead the author him or herself astray. My eyes stayed fixed to the line "it will be good practice" for quite some time. Practice. Writing takes practice.

And in case you're wondering about Lardner's references in Salinger's "The Catcher In the Rye", he's mentioned twice. Once as being an interest of Holden's brother and the other as being Holden's favourite writer after DB.

 Further reading:

• If you'd like to read the preface in full to Lardner's collection of short stories, you can find it here.

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The Princess Bride

If you've read my blog you might have come to realise I'm a massive fan of the 1987 film, "The Princess Bride". It is certainly one of my favourite films. I often shout in my best Vizzini, "inconceivable" and I can't tell you the number of times I've filled out a "Hello My Name Is" badge with "Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die".

But the book itself, which is read by Columbo to that kid from The Wonder Years? I spent a lot of time looking for it starting some time in the mid-90's. Finally I bought "The 30th Anniversary Edition" last year.

"You know that's abridged, right?" Monsieur Redacteur said to me.

I did know it was abridged. I knew because every copy I'd ever seen was abridged. I was sick of waiting around to find one that wasn't. Except that it wasn't actually abridged. It never had been.

The book, "The Princess Bride" and the movie of the same name is a sort of wonderful joke. The inside title page reads:

The Princess Bridge

S. Morgenstern's classic tale of love and adventure

The "Good Parts" Version Abridged by

William Goldman

Now I don't know why or when or how or what made me think it was and had always been a book originally written by S. Morgenstern that had only been brought to light by author William Goldman, but it got stuck in mind and remained unchanged. The title page above is the only version I'd ever seen. The introduction itself leads you, at least in the beginning, to believe that it is indeed a story William Goldman found and brought to light on the behalf of someone named S. Morgenstern. 

So I turned to Wikipedia. It only made me feel more like an idiot.

S. Morgenstern did not exist. But I wasn't the only one who thought he did.

According to the book's Wikipedia page:

In the novel's commentary, Goldman writes that he added nothing to the "original" Morgenstern text, although he comments that he did write one original scene, a loving reunion between Buttercup and Westley, but claimed that his publisher objected to this addition. He invited any reader who wanted to read the "Reunion Scene" to write to the publisher (formerly Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; now Random House) and request a copy. Many readers wrote in to the publisher and did receive a letter, but instead of an extra scene, the letter detailed the (obviously fictitious) legal problems that Goldman and his publishers encountered with the Morgenstern estate and its lawyer, Kermit Shog. This letter was revised and updated periodically; the 1987 revision mentioned the movie, while the 25th Anniversary Edition publishes the letter with an addendum about Kermit's lawyer granddaughter Carly. The 30th Anniversary Edition has a footnote at this point saying that you can now find the three pages of the reunion scene online. However, if one goes to the website detailed in the footnote, all they receive via email is the text of the three letters.

Now does it make me feel slightly better that I wasn't the only one duped? Not really.

But I suppose it's part of the charm now. The book is very similar to the movie except that there's quite a bit of commentary from the author. I chose to ignore those passages of text and read the story as S. Morgenstern intended. I figured I'd read it with the commentary track later.

Now aside from the joke William Goldman played on me and that I find his commentary a bit boring - I will say that The Princess Bride might just be one of the best stories ever written. It's downright hilarious most times and even the bits that the kid from The Wonder Years thought were "icky" at first (like kissing), had their own special charm. When Buttercup realises she loves Wesley is one of the sappiest scenes I've ever read, but its brilliant use of satire and exagerration somehow render the lines endearing. I got to know my favourite characters, Inigo and Fezzik even better. Thankfully The Man In Black poisons Vizzini when he really starts to deserve it. Wallace Shawn's portrayal of Vizzini is spot on reading the book proves. I'm even more glad that The Man In Black has that inconceivable immunity to iocane powder than I was while watching the film.

It's no wonder that the scenes in the book I liked the most - Fezzik climbing up the cliffs followed by The Man In Black and then the subsequent duel - are also two of the most memorable scenes from the film. William Goldman wrote a number of screenplays for other successful films including "All The President's Men", "Maverick", and what was considered Stephen King's unadaptable "Misery", which won Kathy Bates an Oscar.

If only I'd come across this particular version of the cover in my search for the book then maybe I wouldn't have been so duped.

But read it. Or as Inigo and Fezzik might have said:

Inigo: But really you must read it.
Fezzik: Anybody want a peanut?

* It's also now Number 1 on my list of "Movies As Good As Their Books". "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" / Bladerunner is now Number 2.

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Discovering Ice

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" Gabriel Garcia Marquez 

Today is the 85th birthday of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I can't let this day go by without writing something about what his two most well-known works "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love In the Time of Cholera" mean to me. It's something deeply affecting and not entirely able to be explained - like magic.

I devoured "100 Years of Solitude" and I was not sated. I read through most of Marquez's works, fascinated by this type of writing I knew somehow from reading works by Borges and Rushdie and Murakami, but hadn't known were considered magical realism. 

I didn't give much thought to the labels applied to literature besides fiction and non-fiction, but "Solitude" changed me. It opened my eyes to a way of discovering literature that I'd never bothered with, but suddenly I couldn't get enough of. I Google'd my way around the Internet compiling lists of authors who wrote in the genre like Miguel Angel Asturias, Isabelle Allende, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Mikhail Bulgakov, Italo Calvino, Robertson Davies, Gunter Grass, Kafka, Ben Okri, Jose Saragamo, and Kawabata. 

One scan of my bookshelves and I can see the path that Marquez's work set me upon that was littered with masterpieces I might not have stumbled upon otherwise. 

Asturias' "The Mulatta and Mr Fly" and his children's book "The Talking Machine". His works were so difficult to find I got a membership to The American Library to read "Mulatta". I spent months searching online for an affordable copy of the first edition of "The Talking Machine" (which runs anywhere from $60 - $150 but I snagged on eBay for $3). 

I loved Allende's "House of Spirits" so much that I wrote her an email to tell her, to which she graciously responded and encouraged me to write a book of my own. Allende's TED Talk is undoubtedly one of my favourites. 

Through Casares I discovered a link to Borges who was already a favourite. Their work "The Book of Fantasy" is something I found on ABEBooks for a pittance and would rescue from a burning house. Through Casares and Borges I discovered Alberto Manguel's "The Dictionary of Imaginary Places" - one of the greatest books ever put to print and also worthy of rescue from flames.

I could go on about books I discovered and rediscovered because of the spell "Solitude" cast upon me. I in turn have always pressed it into people's hands, though I know the style and story isn't for everyone. Please, I have urged people, just give it a read. It might change you forever.

Before "Solitude" my mind didn't really understand the freedom the writer has at their fingertips. I'd buried my nose too long in books that were all realism and no magic. I reread  "The Chronicles of Narnia" almost in secret because I thought it was silly to read such things when I was attempting to be the author of serious literature. 

I wanted the notches on my belt of being able to claim to have read "Ulysses" (I've made many attempts and never made it past a few pages) and the other sort of books you hear people discussing at parties to show off. And while I've read many of the books that should give me the right to strut around parties like a pretentious peacock, it's not exactly my style to judge someone based on their taste in books, but I was still worried that somehow if I didn't have the right resumé I was somehow obviously going to turn out to be a shit writer.

After finishing "One Hundred Years of Solitude" I started writing a book. It was the first version of the book I've been trying to write ever since. Not to be like Joyce or Hemingway or Miller or Nabokov, but to simply write a book that one day might have the impact on another in that way that "Solitude" did on me.

Feliz Cumpleaños Señor Marquez y muchos gracias for this book that began with the discovery of ice and brought me to that instant where I began to decipher that I was living.

If you're interested in some of the other books that I've loved, you can find a Henry Miller inspired list here. 

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World Book Day

In honour of World Book Day I decided today I'd spend my day with some books. You know, like every day.

I started by taking a peek as the first book of "The Hunger Games". There are movie posters plastered all over Paris. I started getting curious. I read about twenty pages or so, but stopped because I kept thinking of another book, Koushun Takami's "Battle Royale". Apparently I'm not the only one that thought this.

I look around my desk. There's a worn paperback copy of Richard Jeffries' "After London & Wild England", a copy of Eugene Zamiatin's "We" (which heavily inspired Orwell's "1984"), and a near pristine copy of Takami's "Battle Royale"... I notice that all three books are about a future gone horribly wrong.

This isn't the only theme of the books I find on my desk this afternoon, though it's the most obvious.

Stacked up on the corner are: Dante's "Purgatorio", Sawako Ariyoshi's "The River Ki", Morio Kita's "The Fall of the House of Nire", Andersen's "Fairy Tales" illustrated by Arthur Szyk, [W. Somerset] "Maugham on Kipling", "The Travels of Marco Polo", and Alberto Manguel's "Dictionary of Imaginary Places".

Those books all share a common denominator in a way that makes sense to me. They each contain something important. That's the thing. I don't read for pleasure any more. Not really. The act of reading is a pleasure in itself, but I read for the sake of perfecting my craft as a writer nowadays. I want to see the style, the way ideas were developed, and how the writing is overall.

I asked on Twitter today "What's your favourite book?" Your one favourite. The book you could not live without reading again. It's a question that I cannot even answer simply myself. The books that spring to mind are not books I've read to perfect my craft as a writer. They are instead, the books that made me want to be a writer in the first place.

The books. Not just one book. I cannot point to a single book and say after reading it that I knew I wanted to be a writer. The books that come to mind, most of them are books I wish I'd written myself. In the instance of W. Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge" I wish I'd written each and every single word. Maugham is, without overthinking it, my favourite author (in the English language). I still wax poetic about one his short stories, "Rain" every chance I get. He is the author that has the something I wish and hope I have as a writer.

Writers I'd love to borrow talent from could be their own list. Colette, Nabokov, George Orwell,  Mikhail Bulgakov, Ken Kesey, Yukio Mishima, and Henry Miller along with Maugham would top this list.

Then there's the ideas I wish I'd come up with myself.  

Discovering a world in a wardrobe.

A wrongly imprisoned man uses a treasure to seek revenge.

Satan comes to Moscow.

A cat narrates the lives of Japan's middle class.

(Books in order: C.S. Lewis "The Chronicles of Narnia", Alexandre Dumas Pere "La comte de Monte Cristo", Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita", Natsume Soseki's "I Am A Cat")

Or first lines.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

You better not never tell nobody but God.

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

Walking back to camp through the swamp, Sam wondered if he should tell his father what he had seen.

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

(Books in order:  JRR Tolkien "The Hobbit", JD Salinger "The Catcher In the Rye", Sylvia Plath "The Bell Jar", Franz Kafka "The Metamorphosis, Alice Walker "The Color Purple", C.S. Lewis "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", E.B. White "The Trumpet of the Swan", George Orwell "1984")

Then I think back to my first books. The fairy tales stories; the books written for children; the books that seemed written for children, but were for adults too; and then the books I read that weren't for children.

Mitch Hedburg said, "any book is a kid's book if the kid can read". He obviously never read Flaubert's "Madame Bovary", which I read first at age 12 and completely misunderstood. I've read it many times since at 14, 22, and aged 28. At each point in its reading I have had a different gut reaction to the story. This is why it's one of my favourite books.

When it comes to my absolute Top Five Desert Island books, it's hard to make a final selection. This indecisiveness hovers because I can't make up mind about what or which criteria is most important to me.

So fine I'm going to pick five. But I'm not going to hold myself to it. Because I'm going to read all my life. I'll never stop. It's a lifelong disease I've got. Can't walk past a bookshop without having a book. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if I perished in a fire unable to be put out because I, known to the neighbours as the Crazy Book Lady fell asleep chain smoking in a room piled to the ceiling with hardly flame retardant books.

But fine. Here they are:

My Top Five Desert Island Books:

1. George Orwell, "1984"

2. W. Somerset Maugham "The Razor's Edge"

3. R.L. Stevenson's "Treasure Island"

4. Alexandre Dumas Pere "La comte de Monte Cristo"

5. A book of collected fairy tales

I tried to stay away from series of books otherwise "The Chronicles of Narnia", which I read in part or in full every year and have since I was a kid (along with "La comte de Monte Cristo") would have made the list. I might have also picked Mishima's "The Sea of Fertility" tetralogy, of which the first book in the series, "Spring Snow", is one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read.

"1984" will always be on the list. I never knew books like "1984" existed until I read it. I felt the same way when I read Orwell's "Animal Farm".

"Treasure Island" makes the list because the edition I have in my library includes Stevenson's essay from "The Art of Writing" that made me realise that it was time for me to try being a writer and stop feckin' about.

But it's the book of fairy tales that gave me the most trouble. I couldn't pick which collection it'd be. I'd want the complete set of Andrew Lang's "Fairy Books" with me. I'd want a copy of "The Brothers Grimm". I'd want the encyclopedia of fairy tales I had as a child called "Le cabinet des fées", which had forty volumes and is so precious that I refuse to re-read my childhood copy because it's quite old and sentimental to me.

I think to myself for a moment. Would those be my favourite books? The first books I ever loved? Cherished? They're still precious to me. But I cannot remember their stories as vividly as I can recall others.

I look at the shelves. There's about 1,700 books in the library. A hundred of them probably a favourite.

When people come to the house they're always amazed by the library. I tell them it's not even one half of my actual library. There's another 17,000 + books in storage. Then there's the books I want to have in my library and my visions of what this library will be like. What kind of bookshelves I want. How much space I'll dedicate to a library. (A lot.) How it will be organised.

Once I have more library space, I tell them, the first books I plan to buy is a reading copy of "Le cabinet des fées". I will put my childhood copy safely behind glass (there will be bookshelves with glass doors for rare books and first editions) and will dedicate an entire section of my library to fairy tales and mythology. There will be shelves devoted to children's books, reference books, poetry, fiction, philosophy...

I go on.

I will build my library inspired by the collecting and collections of Andrew Lang, Captain Sir Richard Burton (I already have a rare 16 volume set of his Arabian Nights), Jorge Luis Borges (I am a big collector of his works), and of course Peter and Iona Opie - who left their impressive collection to The Bodelian Library at Oxford containing:

A collection of works written or published for children, or related thereto, mainly British, totalling c. 20,000 items, put together from the mid 1940s to the early 1980s as a private research resource, rich in terms of rarity and deep in terms of quantity of variant editions, ranging in date from the 16^th to the 20^th century, including c. 800 18^th century books. Includes much of Roland Knaster’s collection, strong in foreign books and books of the 1920s and 1930s. Arranged in c. 20 categories, relating either to form or subject (when a category contains a good proportion of early books it is subdivided into pre- and post- 1850): stories (over 1,400 pre-1850 and 2,700 post-1850 items); books of instruction (over 360 pre-1850 and 280 post-1850 items); fables, legends, and fairy tales (over 1,200 items); biography and history (over 270 pe-1850 and 250 post-1850 items); moveables (over 70 pre-1850 and 470 post-1850 items); natural science (over 280 pre-1850 and 450 post-1850 items); primers and alphabets (over 340 pre-1850 and 320 post-1850 items); travel and geography (over 200 pre-1850 and 100 post-1850 items); periodicals and annuals (over 40 pre-1850 and 900 post-1850 items);games and pastimes (over 90 pre-1850 and 1,200 post-1850 items); religious instruction (over 360 pre-1850 and 290 post-1850 items); toy-books (over 1,000 items); nursery rhymes (over 1,000 items); poetry and verse (over 540 pre-1850 and 770 post-1850 items); keepsakes and miscellanies, almanacs and birthday books (over 40 pre-1850 and 160 post-1850 items); drama (over 190 items); music (over 170 items); foreign languages (over 1,300 items); hornbooks, cabinets, etc.; copy, exercise and drawing books; manuscripts and original artwork; ephemera. Accompanying the collection are records of the books: catalogue cards, accession diaries, notes loosely inserted into books, etc. Acquired by the Bodleian in 1988 after a public appeal, Iona Opie donating half the value of the collection.

20,000 items, I say excitedly. I don't go into the specifics - that's just for your benefit. I revel in my bibliomania a little more. I confess all my dreams and plans.

When they've suffered through all of that (but I can't help myself) they say "they don't have the money" or "they don't have the space" to indulge their own love of books, but like me they have books they love and lists of books they want to read and sometimes books they hope they'll write.

And that's when my heart breaks a little. I don't go into the stories about how I have starved for books. How I've sacrificed. How I've traveled the world for them and with them. I'm proud of my library, but the purpose has always been to one day share it. 

One day I'll have a house in Amsterdam with a TARDIS front door. A house that like the TARDIS is bigger on the inside. I will make cakes and invite people to tea for interesting conversations about books. I will serve delicious dinners to guests who will gravitate towards the library, who won't hear me calling them to the dining room because they're lost in a book.  I will open my library up to children who can come and look at the books in the collection and read and have little paper library cards like I did when I was a child.

The first book I ever took out of a library with my library card was about coccinelle, ladybugs to Americans, what you call ladybirds in the UK. They became my favourite insect. Nearly 30 years later I still have a special fondness for them. I still remember their wings beat faster than a hummingbird's. It's probably because of that book that I ran outside on a cold grey day to take this photograph.

This is what I can see by turning my head to look out of the window next to my desk.

Happy World Book Day, books. Every day should be World Book Day.

  
 

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Bibliomancy: The Magic of Books

Bibliomancy is defined as the use of books in divination. If you'd like to know more about the history or practice of bibliomancy you can look here. I'll be talking about bibliomancy as a method for writers (which means I'll actually be talking about stichomancy, if only because my method involves using books selected at random.

The Method:

1. Select a book at random.
2. Open it to any page.
3. Point to a line.
4. Record it.
5. Stop when there's no more space on the page.

Like I said this is a method I use when inspiration is low or stress is high or some other sort of exasperatingly intangible thing is getting in the way of my writing. I write down lines or phrases that stand out to me when I read books. They're scribbled in notebooks. This is different.


When I get stuck the first time in the course of my "writing day", I pull out a fresh blank page.I play some music. Roll a cigarette, and stand before my bookshelves. I wait until something catches my eye. I open it, read what sentence I've pointed to, and either stuff the book back on the shelf or I write the line (or lines) down. Sometimes it's because its good or interesting. Sometimes it's because it's crap.

I keep the sheet next to me from that moment until I call it quits for the day. I write on it. I cross out things. It gives me something to think about besides what I don't want to think about (that I'm not writing).

Here are my lines from today:

Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part II, Ch. XVI

"The traveller drew in his rein, gazing in astonishment at the figure and face of Don Quixote, who was riding without his saddles."

Robertson Davies, High Spirits, p. 151

"A hundred and fifty years is a long time, you will agree, for a man to suffer misunderstanding and wrong."   (First line of short story.)

Yasunari Kawabata, The Lake, p107

"They had decided to write their messages at the bottom of the high wall where, hidden by grass, the writing would not be noticed."

Mervyn Peake, A Book of Nonsense, p 39

"I cannot give the reasons,

I only sing the tunes:

the sadness of the reasons

the madness of the moons."

William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner, p. 251

"He said keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman."

I've only made two notes so far about the lines from Robertson Davies' "High Spirits" - striking out "you will agree" because I don't like it for a myriad of reasons (It's hokey, breaks the wall between the reader and the first person narrator in a way I don't like, and because quite frankly I don't agree.) and that it's the opening line of a short story because I'm obsessed with first lines in writing. Something I know I've mentioned many times before.

But what's the point? Why am I making such a big deal out of it? Because after typing those lines into this post, I'm inspired again. I want to get back to writing now. I've also added "The Confessions of Nat Turner" to my reading list.

Any little bit helps, the saying goes. I believe that. I'm at a point now where I will never be able to read all the books I want to read or the books I should and maybe bibliomancy or the more appropriate stichomancy is about divining the future from books in a more religious context - but hey, whatever works.

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Ambiance Part Deux - 111 Archer Avenue

My favourite house is both fictional and real. 111 Archer Avenue is how it's known in Wes Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaums", but the house where the film was shot really exists on the corner of Convent Avenue & 144th Street in Harlem.

The simple answer to what I love about the Royal Tenenbaum house would be everything, but its all about the details.

One thing I quite like about The Tenenbaum house is that almost everyone in the family has an "office" or in Chazzie's case his room is an office.

Chaz's Office

Now I don't particularly like the "70's" office feel of Chaz's room, but I do like where he positioned his desk. I love the nooks and crannies of the Tenenbaum house. In terms of location though, Etheline (who shares her office with Henry) has what would be my ideal spot for an office and if there was a way to enter the house's courtyard it'd be even more perfect.

But the best room in the house is Margot's.

In the film Margot likes her secrets. She also apparently likes her privacy.

I love the wallpaper.

Have I mentioned I love the wallpaper?

I wouldn't transform my bathroom into a darkroom, but it's a cute idea.

Margot's "Library of Plays". Also she's the only Tenenbaum with a working fireplace.

Richie also has great wallpaper, which he paints himself.

In fact Richie is the "artist" of the Tenenbaum family. He has an art gallery in the ballroom.

There are other great rooms in the house with little details I'd love to find in my own dream house. Lots of beautiful wood, swinging doors, a phone cubby, and a closet full of old board games.

Game closet. With two sets of Operation.

The library.

The phone cubby (doors open).

The phone cubby (with doors closed for privacy).

Smaller kitchen or breakfast nook.

The stairway before Javelina (the boar's head) is stashed in the game closet.

Obviously my dream house would need its own flag. Aa "A" for Ama!

But what I love about the Tenenbaum house, aside from what I've posted above has always escaped me. Now that I'm house hunting for a move to Amsterdam I need to be able to tell someone what I'm looking for - and that hasn't been easy.

I can say I want this and this and that - I want more than one bathroom; a library; two offices; an extra bedroom for guests; a massive dining room for dinner parties. I can specify the neighbourhood or that there's a garden of some kind, but it doesn't mean I'm going to get it.

I found this great interview of Wes Anderson talking about the Tenenbaum house where he specifies the things I haven't been able to quite put my thumb on. I want my own little world. A sort of castle. Surroundings that are "dated and dusty". Bohemian. I want a house where each room seems to have its own identity.

Then I remember a house I lived in once. It was massive. Most of the walls were paneled with mahogany. There was a similar sort of staircase and a quirky bathroom with a claw footed tub and a window I always forget to pull the blind on (thankfully there were lots of trees). I like Richie had the attic bedroom.

But I'm being sentimental. Despite what I can call to memory like the porch that ran along the front of the house where I hung a porch swing (that I bought at a junkyard for $5), it was a boring house. I was a poor student. I didn't care very much about the ambiance of where I lived so much as comfort and that I could get 200 people inside it on a Friday night.

Still, looking at the last picture of the Tenenbaum flag flying over the neighbourhood I see houses with fascades like those found in Amsterdam. Haarlem was originally a city in Holland (and New York once owned by the Dutch was called New Amsterdam). It keeps me hopeful that eventually I'll see a place and I'll have that moment when I think to myself - 'this is my Tenenbaum house'.

Now all I need is a Chazz to help me close the deal when that day comes. I've already tracked down Margot's wallpaper.

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