Pamuk

The art of the novel is based on the craft of telling our own stories as if they belonged to others, and of telling other people's stories as if they were our own. 

--Orhan Pamuk, Nights of Plague

Orhan Pamuk is my latest addiction. I have always had a way of coming upon an author I like and then proceeding to read the better part of what he has written. Just a while back I was onto Thomas Hardy, and read his four major novels. Now I am onto Pamuk. I have finished The Museum of Innocence, I am currently wading through the Indonesian language version of a novel called Snow, and I have just begun on Nights of Plague, a novel that is about the size of a phone book (although I guess I am dating myself with the phone book reference. What's a phone book? you say). Anyway, it is long. 

Pamuk it is not the most quotable writer in the world, and I think that is because he does not intrude himself into the story he is telling. Or so it is in the work I have read so far. Instead, he himself is to be found only in the telling of the story, as suggested in the quote above. 

Interestingly, the narrator of the Museum of Innocence hands over the conclusion of his long story about love and obsession to the writer Orhan Pamuk by name. The protagonist hands over the book to the writer of the book, leaving judgment, evaluation to him. It's an interesting little trick, and a stunning one as well. Suddenly we are standing outside of the story, soberly looking in. Obsession fades like fog in the sunlight, the mystery, the aura, the veil falls away. 

The fixation of the lead character, Kemal, on the young and lovely Fusun is extreme (extreme in the extreme, one might say), and yet I think that everyone can identify to some degree with what Kemal is going through, or rather putting himself through. Anyone who has ever had a crush cannot help but experience a pang of memory, and probably a wince of embarrassment as well. I was obsessed once with a certain woman when I was younger. Yes, I would have to say obsessed. Like Kemal, I would collect things that she had left behind after a visit - - some strands of hair, for example, or something she had written on a scrap of paper, or the pen she had used to write it. These things were a bit of her, they were things I could hold when she was away, each having a magical significance, just as the woman herself possessed a magical significance, though wholly conferred by my own imagination. She was, the best of her anyway, an invention of my own, just as Fusun was Kemal's invention. 

 

And that's it from Bali tonight, folks. It's my bedtime now and I am sleepy. The other night I had a dream of this same woman. In the dream there was some kind of problem. We had argued and there was tension in the air, a certain painfulness. We separated and I headed for home, ending up in an apartment building and standing before a room numbered 222. I was searching in my pocket for the key, and suddenly realized that this was not my home at all. I then pictured my home in Bali, from above as in a certain photograph I have that was taken by a drone. Now I am curious about the number 222. What does it mean? Perhaps I will find out in tonight's dream.

Mini Trek

Given the mild weather this evening, a bracing 82° or so, I decided to take a walk down to the nearby Alfamart, not because I really needed anything but because it was a likely destination and because I reckoned I needed the exercise. During these weeks wherein I have been banned by the doctor from driving my scooter, I have been decidedly less active than usual (which is saying something, because I am not generally very active in the best of health). 

I live at the end of a dead end street, and walking up to the living end, so to speak, one passes by newly deforested land on his left side. This deforestation (or dejungleization) has unhoused all kinds of previously hidden critters, including, no doubt, the snake that recently showed up in the middle of my living room, as well as lizards of the larger variety (such as the tokek which has now set up house in my bogainvillea tree), and a number of very well fed rats (one smashed variety of which I pass on my way up the street).

On this barren land, new houses are being built, and the builders have set up little plywood shacks to live in while they do their work. These are migrant workers for the most part, coming either from the boonies of Bali or from other islands, principally from Java. On the side of one of these shacks two words have been painted in red: bajul bedeng. I have no idea what this means. (Later on, I ask Evelyn, but she also has no idea). These particular scarlett letters must remain a mystery. 

At the head of the street, one turns left if he wants to go to the market (and right if he wants to go nowhere in particular), and then left again upon her reaching the main street. On the way I pass two young men coming in my direction, one wearing a t-shirt with a large cross on it, the other wearing a t-shirt with a colorful picture of Jesus on a cross, both smoking cigarettes. 

Just past the gas station is the market. Here I buy a bag of Cheetos, two bags of M&Ms, and two packs of cigarettes for a total cost of seratus sembilan puluh tujuh ribu seratus, about $10 USD. 

Fully equipped now to enjoy the remainder of the evening, I trek back home, only a little less wobbly from when I started out.

Mission accomplished.

The Boredom of Healing

The healing process of my broken shoulder is coming along nicely, it seems, but still it is frustrating to be grounded from the use of my motorbike. I don't like just sitting around the house (no doubt the day will come for that in the future, but not yet), so I am left with calling for a grab car everyday if I want to go anywhere (which I do). I must now wait for yet a third x-ray on July 9th before the doctor will determine whether or not I can drive. Two of the bones have healed, he tells me, but a third not yet. Were I to drive the motorbike, I would risk re-injuring this bone. So, erring on the side of caution, I must wait. 

In the meantime, I have begun reading two new novels - - the Museum of Innocence, by Orhan Pamuk, and the Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Steven Graham Jones. 

I have chosen the first because I enjoyed the Netflix series taken from the novel, and the second because I had read something by Jones in the past and seemed to remember liking it (I think it was The Only Good Indians). 

I am finding The Museum engaging on the literary level - - an interesting filling out of what was presented in the television series. In many cases, I am reminded by the telling of the social conditions in Turkey of these same conditions in Indonesia. 

Buffalo Hunter, disappointingly, strikes me as boring and silly, but I will struggle on through it anyway. 

I've just enjoyed a week with Evelyn, who, sadly, had to leave sooner than expected. But it was nice to have help with taking care of things around the house while my right arm was still basically immobile, and of course, as always, her sparkling presence made everything more cheerful. 

Now it is back to the old grind. I am eager to get some things done, which I am nonetheless unable at present to do. I need to take my motorbike for repair, for example. Apparently it also was injured in the fall, such that something is leaking from the bottom of the bike and the engine does not sound well. This is going to cost me, I reckon. Evelyn feels that this type of motorbike is now too large for me, as I have shrunken in the past couple years, and certainly I am not as strong as I used to be; but on the other hand, what am I to do? I just recently renewed the registration of the bike for the next 5 years, and I don't really have the money to purchase a new, smaller bike. 

Ah well, life is costly sometimes.

Face It

I don't know about the rest of y'all, but my Facebook has become absolutely worthless, crammed with one extreme partisan post after another, one divisive hate mongering site after another, so much so that I've decided there's no point in even looking at the app anymore. It is one big invitation for people to hate on each other, and it is both depressing and exhausting to look at. I suppose some of these sites may be coming from foreign countries and paid trolls, but surely many of them are originating right here in the good old USA. Perhaps I have invited this trash through my own innocent interests. I am interested, for example, in politics, and I am interested in religion, and I'm even interested in a discussion of atheism versus religion, as long as there is some actual substance to it, and some civility. But perhaps I have unwittingly created a toxic algorithm that brings me all this poison. There is no exchange of ideas, no room for learning new things or discovering other meaningful points of view. No, it is all insults and curses and foul language, and most of all stupidity. I am endlessly astounded by the deplorably low level of intelligence displayed. Are Americans in general really this dumb, or is it just that Facebook particularly attracts the dumb among us? I don't know. It didn't used to be this way. But it is irredeemable garbage at this point and so I've decided to move my Facebook icon to an inferior screen on my phone with the other apps that I do not use and did not ask for. So goodbye for now, Facebook. I will check in once a month or so to see if anything has changed for the better.

A Holy Fool and his Followers

"Literature is a particular type of knowledge ... it is the perfection of imprecise forms." 

--The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk

I have finally finished this inventive and intellectually stimulating fictional documentary of the life and times of Jacob Frank, known to his followers simply as the Lord. The story ranges from Turkey to Germany and everywhere in between, most especially Poland, winding about like a mouse in a maze, meeting up with Muslims and Jews and Christians and Jewish converts to Christianity and stubbornly talmudic Jews as well as people pretending to be one or the other or the next for mere convenience sake. And then there is Frank himself and Frank's ever obedient followers. One might call it a cult and not be too far off. Frank, who started out Jewish, then became Muslim, and then converted, at least in name, to Christianity, was at base an anti-Talmudist, and ultimately, in many ways, pretty much anti everything, and yet he managed to manipulate the powers that were in force during the various periods of the 18th century, both religious and royal. Nor was he any stranger to the love of money. He was both a fool for God and just a plain fool. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this sprawling novel and will miss living between its covers.

Frankenshoulder

Back to the doctor yesterday. Bandage removed. Wound looks good (really cool, Frankenstein type scar). Doctor says that I cannot lie on my right side for 6 weeks, which is a bummer because that means I cannot do the back exercises that might help the pain from pre-existing disc disease because they would put too much pressure on the shoulder. Boy this world gets ya comin' and goin', don't it? One more visit scheduled in 2 weeks for a final post-operative x-ray. Two months before I can drive the motorbike again (if I am brave enough). I mean, Grab car is okay, but you kind of have to go just one place, and I am used to going here and there on the motorbike to get my various errands done. But the cost of going here and then there and then the other place using grab which soon become unmanageable. Ah well, such is life for the time being.

Allen Somebody

After coffee this morning at my favorite spot, I walk up to the nearest Kimia pharmacy. I have decided that methylprednisolone will assist in the healing of my shoulder. I also found last week after meeting the surgeon once again that the pain in my right mid back is from yet another broken bone. This one was not broken so badly as those in my multiply fractured shoulder, and yet it is causing much more pain than the shoulder. It is a stabbing pain, much worse when you get up or sit down, or certainly when you try to get out of bed in the morning. The doctor, last week, gave a pain medication that has proven completely ineffective. Pretty much the only way I can sleep at night is by taking Xanax. The main problem with the shoulder is frustration at the limited motion along with the need to sleep only on my left side. At night also there are shooting pains in the shoulder and twitching nerves in the arm. 

So from the Kimia pharmacy, I call for a Grab car. 16,000 rupiah going and 16, 000 coming back. Not bad. Together, the price of an evening coffee  somewhere, which I no longer enjoy, staying home instead. So that I break even as far as cost goes, for the two Grab trips are equal in price to one coffee at the beach.

On the way back home, the Grab driver plays country music on his stereo. Allen somebody, or somebody Allen. I don't know him, but he's pretty good. He's got the twang going, and it's hard not to sing along -- which the driver does. He is a mustached young man and has a deep, pleasant voice. He sings along about love gone wrong. What else can you do? 

The driver really likes this Allen somebody. He searches for another tune which he sends to the stereo from his phone. There is no tape, no disc, no radio dial. I guess this is the way they do it these days. I don't understand how it works. 

I'm thinking that I am pretty much cooked. I'm thinking that I'm about ready to clock out. Punch my card. 

What now? TV news that I can't bear to hear. Old movies that I have seen before. Books. Coffee. Medicine. Sleep. Half-hearted physical therapy. Maybe there's a cookie somewhere. Popcorn. The popcorn is always more entertaining than the entertainment.