There are some losses you cannot prepare for. Before realizing this, I spent the year rehearsing a grief. You were still here. Your elbow wedged below my rib, my hands anchored along your jaw, our faces so close only the crescent of a single eye was in focus. I would imagine sorrow in all its shades: the salty, gritty twisting of guts and hot, dizzying tears; my lungs practiced emptying themselves. Half-heartedly I bat at the teasing hope lodged vaguely between us (you might stay, you might stay).
I guess it is easier to imagine something than nothing, which was what remained. Where you were, a blank length – a reluctant marathon I did not want to start. I did not cry because there was no one to cry to. There was no elbow to prompt a tangible pain, no cheek to press against my palm as blueprint to navigate loss. My tongue became sandpaper, rasp with unanticipated silence.
Ceteris paribus, you once said as a punchline to a joke I cannot remember (except that you told it with a lilting grin and expectant eyes). Perhaps that is the hardest part of all: that all else remains constant. I remember you in everything else left behind. Once, I caught myself turning to where you would have been, your name hitched right at the base of my throat, hastily swallowed, embarrassed for no one.
A year ago you would have stirred and – half-awake – pulled me in, away from my careful plans of being alone, leaving them crumpled and frivolous. Now I stand gaping, the shape of your name still tingling against my paper-thin lungs like an unfinished arc of a question mark
I read Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl on my phone, and was so obsessed with her writing i immediately tore through Dark Places and Sharp Objects. They were all fascinating reads, but in different ways. In Gone Girl, the cutting descriptions of love as it can be: cruel, sour, obsessive, was especially immersive. I found myself hoarding Diary Amy’s words – a fiction weaved within a fiction but almost embarrassingly real.
As a side note, underlying embarrassment should be what compels a writer’s subscription to Mary Sues: the inability to fully recognize or reveal themselves as flawed as they really are. Gillian Flynn’s characters are either superficially polished but severely messed up inside, or else rotten through and through (Dark Places). She doesn’t see the need for a redemptive theme, so eagerly pursued by many American authors (Good triumphs Evil! Bad situation lead to Personal Growth! etc.), which I love and is a feature of a great many Japanese novels.
Beyond the shedding of Mary Sue types, it occurred to me that the most subtle devices employed crafted the most believable characters. As opposed to telling me what or how the characters were, there were little irrelevant details Flynn intersperses into the text:
I take baths. Not showers. I can’t handle the spray, it gets my skin buzzing, like someone’s turned on a switch. So I wadded a flimsy motel towel over the grate in the shower floor, aimed the nozzle at the wall, and sat in the three inches of water that pooled in the stall. Someone else’s pubic hair floated by.
I’m not sure how this tells me something about the character, but it does. It fascinates me how writers can conjure up the most mundane, detailed aspects of everyday life. Is it something they think up on the whim, or an extract from their actual lives? I’d love to try incorporating it to my own writing.
Standard school-issue journals throughout my convent school days might have a role in shaping this habit in my formative years. In JC when diaries weren’t given out, i became a loyal fan of Muji weekly planners.
Sometimes i do wonder why i’ve not exported my days over to electronic planners. It is indisputably more convenient: there are too many times event changes upset me not so much for the schedule disruption than the ugly cancel marks it’s gonna make on my planner. Haha. It’s more accessible, more compact, more flexible.
But i’ve stuck with my physical planner. I’ve always thought it was habit, but it really doesn’t explain my stubborn refusal to switch platforms. Then it struck me: i have an implicit fear that one day digital data will collapse upon itself from its sheer immensity.
I’m not sure how irrational this fear is, but as a child of the computer age – having been there for the birth and frightening acceleration of e-advancement – i am inherently wary of its sustainability.
I straddle the ridge between hardcopy world of mountain, sun, and organic daisy fields, that drops into a dark, mystical, swirly void of digital data. I’m too young to stay independent of such technology in my daily life, but too old to be free of all skepticism.
Sometimes i’d stop and think about all that data i have in my Mac. The dozens of files, the hundreds of documents and images, millions and millions of words. I am overwhelmed just by the sheer amount of information contained in my laptop. I am often petrified imagining the total informational weight of the internet.
I guess my question is how. How is it possible that humanity exploded into this hyper-intelligent species capable of condensing so much into so little? I am equal parts impressed and suspicious. There is no way my fear that all my digital notes, blog entries, and photos may one day drain into oblivion from a single binary coding glitch.
Maybe a century from now someone might read this and laugh at the awe and unwarranted anxiety experienced by a person tentatively rooting into the infant years of computer technology. Or maybe no one will read this because somewhere down the road a plug is pulled and all we’ve coded online tumbles into a digital sink hole.
There’s a good reason why i’ve been blogging less. Well. Not really a good one. I used to be so indulgent and inhibited with my writing it’s horrifyingly embarrassing. At the same time i need to give props to the past me: A+ for courage, girl.
It’s not that i have a huge readership now, but i’ve realized the potential debate my posts can trigger. I wish it didn’t, but that deters me from posting unfiltered. Because i know how flawed and biased most of my thoughts are. A more academically rigorous Qing would close up the specious rips in her arguments. Not me i want to drink hot milo and sleep by midnight.
It’s sad because so many times ideas or thoughts would bubble into being, cry out to be explicated, but fizzle out without claiming an appropriate outlet. They are conceptual fetuses – pathetic and raw and helpless. I was okay with throwing fetuses into the cyber-void once upon a time. Now i’m too conscious of public evaluation.
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Anyway, school has begun (!!) (?) I’m equal parts thrilled and reluctant. There is nothing i love more than stewing in slothfulness on my bed all day with YouTube. At the same time, there is a masochistic pleasure in hammering my brains about all day.
Today i thundered through my readings. The professor warned us that the paper would be a difficult one to understand. Personally, the indigestibility stems from it being quite a shitty paper, not a tough one. There is a difference. I’m in a very critical mood today. In the margins of all my readings i scribble angry black words and feel unjustifiably smug and superior.
This weekend, J and I both made rewarding entertainment choices. He bought Divinity: Original Sin, and promptly shed his worldly self and could only be found gleefully tweaking the stats of his in-game characters. GEEK. I’m no better: started on The Crimson Labyrinth by Yusuke Kishi and COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. It has been a long time since i found myself willing and able to finish a novel within two sittings. We spent most of the day together but reading/gaming respectively, and it was rather late in the evening before we couldn’t ignore our hunger and wandered out to Nando’s for dinner (before rushing home to continue haha).
The Crimson Labyrinth was, simply put, an exciting book. It’s somewhat a cross between Battle Royale and Hunger Games, although i loathe to associate a good book with HG. I take it back, besides the broad premise, it is nothing like HG. Fujiki finds himself awake in a strange – almost alien – place, with only a GameBoy giving him vague hints of a game he seems to be in. Eventually he finds other participants, who like him seem unable to recall the immediate events preceding their awakening.
From there, it gets increasingly sinister. What i loved most about the novel is the way it unravels. It may not be brilliant stylistically, but does a neat job dishing out hints – just enough for to thrill, for the reader to feel like the hints were cleverly caught than served. There were also grotesque plot features that shocked enough to be fascinating: cannibalism, the devolution of humanity, all strung together in a stimulating pace.
It was so exhilarating, in fact, that J read the last parts with me. I must have looked very tense or disturbed, because he paused his game and made me read aloud. A few paragraphs in, he was hooked too. We read the last couple of chapters together. Midway through i was so eager to get ahead of the story i started speed-reading verbally… we ended up just sharing the book haha.
If you don’t mind a ***spoiler***, what i especially liked about was it’s departure from the ‘dystopian future’ easy route. It made references to very real events in contemporary history i.e. the Japanese economic bubble burst. Although elaborate and almost unfathomable, it appears that the entire ‘game’ was for an extreme snuff film, based on someone’s obsession to bring to life a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game existing in the market. So, unbelievable but fully plausible.
A strong plot without a distinctly brilliant style. For one, it’s translated, so i really can’t say for sure. Secondly, it didn’t need too stylistic a narration… it may even have detracted from the simple, clear presentation the plot details required. Either way, it was a direct juxtaposition to the book i read right before it: Anne Enright’s The Portable Virgin.
This is an example of postmodern gone awry. Although pretty, it is a hollow glass vase. I was so drawn to its minimalist aesthetics in the first few pages, that i decided to give it a chance despite prior warnings. It’s the literature version of the emperor’s new clothes, you tell yourself that unlike others, you ‘get it’. But there really is nothing to get. I give up.
The short stories in this collection get exponentially more fragmented and meaningless, and not even in a good way. Its only saving graces are images, striking and sublime. The Portable Virgin was more a viewing gallery in words than literature. It describes casual sex with a baker found at a bar:
“…(he) sort of dodged in, like I was an alley on the way to school. I didn’t know whether he had come, or a picture had slipped on the wall… True love.”
Holidays bloat up my recreational activities. Unable to walk for long distances or take jogs this time round, i’ve succumbed to the slothful activities of reading and watching shows and snacking in bed. I haven’t been able to find really good books recently, and my reading list is pitiful relative to last holiday’s. But still. A short run through of this season’s hits and misses, will probably do a more in-depth recommendation later.
READS
HIT – Pastoralia by George Saunders
Pastoralia is a compilation of Saunders’ short stories. This is breathtakingly masterful writing. The premise itself is novel: think a displaced time and space where things work differently, but not impossibly so. Pastoralia, the cover story, is set in a museum where humans are made to live the life of people in different eras (protagonist a caveman) for the entertainment/pleasure of others. Simple enough, but Saunders method of unfolding the setting is absolute genius. I love most his relinquishing of explicit telling, and his expert narration of the protagonist’s throughts (it’s almost poetic). Also the irony that always follows behind his stories, sort of like a superior Catherine Lim without the pompous use of language. In fact that’s a better analogy than i thought: most of their stories slant towards social critique.
I can go on and on about Saunders, but not for this post. I’ll read more of his works before recommending them all at a go. So far i’ve only read Semplica Girl Diaries and Pastoralia.
MISS – For the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
This was extremely disappointing because 1) it had rave reviews 2) JAPANESE AUTHOR. I usually love their work! But i guess my benign racist generalization backfired. I didn’t like how self-conscious and self-referential Ozeki was. It was too indulgent and explicit, leaving a squeamish, awkward aftertaste when reading. Ozeki was trying too hard to highlight Japanese elements (i should have seen it coming… Zen Buddhist nun, Hello Kitty lunchbox, Japanese tsunami….)
I guess what i love about Japanese novels that i love is their embodiment of the Japanese wabi sabi spirit. A distilled, quiet, intense but controlled aesthetics in writing and telling. Ozeki violates this on all fronts. It screams: I AM JAPANESE LOOK AT MY OTAKU HELLO KITTY MAID CAFE ZEN ZEN. Frankly i found it very offensive. This book made me very angry.
SEMI-MISS – One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gabriel Garcia Marquez writes LENGTHY novels. Not Harry Potter action-packed lengthy, but ‘i am going to retell decades of their lives’ lengthy. I read Love in the Time of Cholera, and loved it, lengthiness and all. This one stretched my patience by spanning seven generations. I had trouble keeping up with the new people with similar names, which kind of disrupted the flow of reading for me. I only have my own inadequacy to blame here, therefore the semi-miss. To be fair, the first half of the book before the characters started inter-breeding, dying, and spawning, was very captivating – in the typical GGM way.
I’d say this was still a good book overall, but a challenging one to read.
EATS:
HIT – Snickerdoodle Snackimals!!!
CINNAMON COOKIE GOODNESS. And the best part??? ORGANIC GLUTEN-FREE SUPER HEALTHY! To be honest i have no idea what gluten-free or organic really means, except that it’s more expensive. But this one does taste much more wholesome (but just as yummy) than other cookies in the market, and they are in tiny bite-sized pieces. This means you don’t get that sick buttery jelat feel and can probably finish the entire (quite huge) pack in a day.
ALSO THEY COME IN ANIMAL SHAPES. What is there not to love!? Only drawback: VERY ADDICTIVE.
MISS – Peanut Butter Snackimals
You’d think no one can screw up PB, but they did. Following the success that was Snickerdoodles, i got a pack of PB. It was flat and crispy, tasting vaguely like salty chips? Eugh. Anyone wants i will give away mine.
TV:
HIT – Legend of Zhen Huan / Empresses in the Palace / Zhen Huan Zhuan
Started watching this on Kejun’s recommendation. Up to Episode 30 right now, so yes – definitely addicted. This is available HD on YouTube! Yeah okay everyone mocks me for watching something so cheena, but MOCK ALL YOU WANT. It is worth it! The intelligent well-written script in all its superb subtlety and nuances, SO INCREDIBLE. The plot also avoids the pitfalls of predictability just to please the crowd… it portrays human desires and failings very, very truthfully. Usually i shun away from shows where tragedies occur, because my weak heart cannot take it. But this one – you can’t stop. THINGS – BLOODY AND HEART-BREAKING THINGS HAPPEN. BUT IT IS SO GOOD YOU WATCH IT AND TAKE IT – HEARTBREAK AND ALL.
Songs:
HIT – STRFCKR’s older albums
Recently i re-listened to Starfucker’s earlier works in a bout of nostalgia. Introduced it to Justin, who can be quite stingy with his music preferences. He approved of it! So it must be pretty good… not that i didn’t know that already. I’m nostalgic for the all the good earlier works of my favorite bands. Is it bad that i avoid listening to their new pieces, because i’m afraid of disappointment?
That’s all for now. OH and also i’d be watching Inside Llewyn Davis soon.
HIT – Inside Llewyn Davis soundtrack
Some movies are made pretty good by virtue of their soundtrack. Garden State was one of them. Hopefully Llewyn Davis too. xx
A moment still enough that infant roots push into my soles. once someone told me pausing was therapeutic but today i feel only life’s impatience. the air is damp with the death of mangos, which are in season now. it is so bright it hurts. all around me tall trees spell themselves in black light on glittering concrete. dizzying.
it is summer that reminds you of murder, more than any other time of the year. everything it births is harsh and insidious – and too loud, always too loud. crows dive into sparrows drenched in bowels of yellow mango flesh gilded by the sun in obscene red orange black. it is almost too much.
in a stray conversation with a friend recently, i uncovered my ability to recite the 三字经 , 木兰诗, and a large bulk of 唐诗三百首.
in primary school we were made to memorize all these in class. rather ironically the convent school i was in had an excellent panel of mandarin teachers. by excellent i mean by the standards of us chinese: strict, passionate, demanding, unrelenting, and thoroughly intimidating. i say this in the most respectful way possible.
at that time it seemed like sadism – why would they want us to memorize things obviously beyond the scope of our syllabus, and how do they expect us to retain that much? well i’ve proven their foresight right in this regard: young minds are bloody sponges. i haven’t read an entire paragraph of chinese since 2009 and there i was spewing 孟洁然like it was my life song.
more surprisingly was that i understood these poems. when and how they managed to cram 300 poems into our brains along with their underlying meaning i have no idea, but they did a good job. although… admittedly my memory (especially for conversations) is quite extraordinary; i used to recite commercials verbatim to entertain friends. anyway.
on hindsight, i am rather grateful they’d tortured us that way. torture may sound like a hyperbole but in truth it wasn’t so far from it. we had our ears twisted and collars pulled, had insults yelled at us in front of the class, given impossible amounts of homework. but somehow we got through because we were children from the 90s and we just take this shit.
revisiting these 唐诗 makes me appreciate how beautiful they are, really. i should read more of them.
Years later the 4 by 6 glossy you’ve kept is nothing. She is looking at a separate you and has a smile you don’t recognize. You scratch thoughtlessly along the edge where a date(of what?) was scribbled. Her blue-black ink, immutable from time and travel, doesn’t smear.
Instead it comes back to you in the most heedless moments: autumn in the subway, your own face flickering back at you like a broken picture-film. There in a panic is her: above, the clink of gold against teeth; a slide of citrus sealing in feinted sleep, your own laughter filtered in a cloud of hair without subtitles.
You let it rumble through you – freight train of years past – and surfacing, find yourself the same person as before.
From there, it gets increasingly sinister. What i loved most about the novel is the way it unravels. It may not be brilliant stylistically, but does a neat job dishing out hints – just enough for to thrill, for the reader to feel like the hints were cleverly caught than served. There were also grotesque plot features that shocked enough to be fascinating: cannibalism, the devolution of humanity, all strung together in a stimulating pace.
Q 