На мен
Естествен роман ми хареса умерено откъм конструкция и идеи, използваната образност и постоянното присъствие на мухата като символ и метафора ми напомнят постфактум доста на метафизичната поезия от 16 век на Джон Дън и други, което винаги е плюс. Поради изходната идея на романа да е сбиртък от фрагменти обаче ми липсваше тематична и емоционална сърцевина, която повече я има във
Физика на тъгата или поне започва да се проявява, докъдето съм стигнал, някъде около 100-ната страница. Трябва да хвана да я довърша.
Иначе като сме на тема постмодернизъм, подхванах да чета едно от най-хвалените отрочета на американския такъв,
White Noise на Дон ДеЛило. Последната година някъде ми е много трудно да си седна на гъза да чета без да се разконцентрирам, да си отворя телефона или да седна на лаптопа и да почна да играя нещо. Тук обаче ми тръгна много гладко четенето, докато се усетя за час и нещо бях опаткал 60 страници, което си е рекорд за мен в последно време на английски, ако не става дума за жанрово-приключенска литература. Главният герой е професорче в рандъм кампус градче, основател на дисциплината на Hitler studies
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
От там само се засилва гаврата с хуманитарните академични среди и склонността им често да се самовъзпроизвеждат без много смисъл поради пазарната логика на висшето образование в западния свят, но особено в Щатите. Цялото нещо по постмодерному се състои от кратки фрагментарни глави, макар че има нещо подобно на главен сюжет и негов катализатор които се повяват някъде към първата третина. Но това не е тематичната цел на романа, по-скоро нищи тепърва зараждащите се по времето на публикуване (1986) тенденции към културно обусловен цинизъм, комодификацията на всички аспекти на съществуването ни в късния капитализъм и разпадът на старите системи за означаване и осимволяване на света около нас. Във връзка с цинизма, децата на главния са много забавни за четене малки задници които изобщо не говорят като деца, единият от синовете му, Хайнрих (кръстен на Химлер, разбира се) играе шах по пощата с опандизен убиец. А във връзка с разпадането на простите системи означаващо-означаемо, ей този параграф много ми хареса:
"We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the sign started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides -- pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book.
"No one sees the barn," he said finally.
A long silence followed.
"Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn."
He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced by others.
"We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies."
There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides.
"Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. It literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism."
Another silence ensued.
"They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said.”
Ще пиша по-окончателни мисли евентуално като я довърша.
Иначе бавно и сигурно напредвам през
The Incompleat Nifft на Майкъл Шей. Уж е sword-and-sorcery, само че въпрсният Нифт не е хауърдов убременш, а преди всичко изкусен измамник и ловък крадец, а прозата, създанията и световете в разказите често бият към weird традицията по най-добрият начин. Примерно, в първият разказ Нифт и негов другар се промъкват в стаята на умиращ търговец, за да може в момента на смъртта му да използват заклинание с което да спрат времето и да се преборят с гигантския гущер който събира души за Водачът на духовете (Guide of Ghosts). Целта им е да завлекат в подземния свят един дребен търговец, нарушил любовната си клетва срещу млада жрица да се самоубият и двамата ако връзката им бъде разкрита. Мисията им е поверена, естествено от духа на въпросната жрица, с обещание за ключът към легендарна магьосническа крепост за награда. Оттам пътуването им през подземния свят е наистено със странни и гротескни пейзажи, просто е кеф за четене. Ето един по-дълъг пасаж за пример:
- Spoiler: show
- "Ye powers dark and light! What a ride, Barnar! There was no road—there needed none. Though we favored high ground, following ridgelines, we cut just as readily across the flanks of hills, or dove down the steepest canyon walls and charged through fordings with our great wheels tearing the water to spray.
And one had no wish to linger down in those gulfs either. From above you saw only forests of branched things that stirred slowly, or the roofs of bizarre dwellings. But within the valleys you could see the victims splayed upon what had looked like trees, feeding their foul, slow appetites—and you could see that those roofs were thatched with bones, and caulked with black blood. I was glad of every hamlet, every thicket of rooted shapes, which we steered clear of. At the same time, it was impossible not to exult—even to rejoice—in the power of our passage through a place of such infinite, endless captivities. To surge through league on league of darkness, where a whole world is doomed to endure forever, and be yourself exempt, on fire with life! I caught Haldar's eye; he smiled and nodded. Drinking the dead air like wine, we rocked and soared behind those dead titans which the viper scourged on.
But our glorious detachment was not to last. We crested yet another ridge and saw that it broadened to a wide field which ended, far ahead, at a chasm. This field bore a crop of big, tough bramble-vines, and in each of the vines was entangled a man or a woman. The feet of these sufferers merged with the dry roots, while their bodies were pinned and pierced in a hundred places. Little buckets hung from the vines to catch the rivulets of unexhausted blood that twisted through the thorns. Three hags moved among these plants—pruning, or tying the vines, or guzzling from the buckets. As we drew near they sighted us, and dropped their work. They began to race for the chasm, toward the point we seemed to head for ourselves.
They moved their crooked limbs with ghastly speed, shrieking like daws as they went, and waving. The dogs pounded past the bleeding thousands—our spokes hummed in the dead air. But the hags came before us to our goal: a bridgehead at the chasm's edge.
They blocked the bridge, bobbing and leering as the hounds were reined up in a scramble of paws. Stooped as these crones were, their height matched the Guide's. They were huge in their stench too, charnel house mixed with the smell of a brothel's slop room. Their eyes were flat and opaque, like glazed snot in the wrinkled cups of their sockets. They all had torn-out patches in their hair, and what showed was not scalp, but yellowed skullbone. Yet their faces were fleshed—wenned and warted. They wore grave-rags cinched with gallows rope at the waist. A glimpse through the robe of one, where a cancered breast showed a tumor-pit you could get your fist into, was enough to tell us that their rags were a mercy to our eyes. The fiercest of the three came forward, grinning. One of the hounds leaped on her with a roar. She gave it a clout to the skull with her fist that sprawled it shivering in the traces.
"Skin, Guide!" she shrilled. "Manskin with blood in it, living blood. We want a piece or you can't cross. We want a piece now!"
"Hail, Famine-sisters," the Guide said. "We shall pay your toll." He turned to us. Haldar and I traded a look, and turned to Defalk. He saw our intent to make him pay first. His hopeless expression gave me a twinge of guilt, and so I said:
"I'll pay it, Lord Guide." I'd have to settle up sooner or later, after all. The Guide nodded, and motioned me to jump down.
"What piece of this man do you want, starving ones?" he asked. They flew into a raucous discussion. They squawked, hissed, cursed and counter-cursed with a force that sent out gusts of their vampire-breath. They named every part you might think of and there were moments when I blanched and promised myself to draw my sword and be damned. Then at last the chief one came forward again.
"We want an ear," she shouted. "A nice, fat red ear hot and juicy with blood we want. A left ear."
"No!" shrieked a sister behind her. "A right ear. We want a right ear, you scabby sack of tombslime!"
"A left ear," insisted the first. She snatched some rusty shears from her waist. The blades were furred with mold where the blood was crusted, but I took the tool almost gratefully. It was only an ear, you understand, and the hole would still be there for hearing. Look. Here's my work—I spared myself a bit, you see, but I had to give them all the lobe, for that's where the blood is, and they'd have noticed a cheat there. Seeing through a bright red haze, I tossed them the shears, and then the morsel. Instantly they were a screeching heap, fighting for the prize. Hair was rent, and strips of flesh torn from lean flanks. They fought like famished gulls, while I remounted, and the Guide lashed the dogs. Haldar bound my head with a strip from my sleeve as we whirled across the bridge. It seemed endlessly long. The gulf beneath was a dreadful one. A groaning of deep waters filled its darkness.
Even before my brain had swum clear of nausea and pain, I discovered I was hearing things most deep and hidden and distant—hearing, impossibly clear, the secretest sounds of this world. The smallest whispers from the gulf floor entered my brain as if little rat-mouths were murmuring directly through the ruined gate in the side of my head. Pleadings in a mindless speech of moans; torturing giggles and chuckles from dry throats of bone; babbles of devil-confession; the liquid noise of strange stews; the scuff of hooves, claws clicking—even the silken sweep of deep fins. That gulf and all the canyons beyond said much to me as we pounded through them, and hinted countless things I did not wish to know."
Как да е, силно препоръчвам на който му се е дочел по-простичък и същевременно по-шарен и интересен тип фентъзи от поредната трилогия или многотухлеста поредица и благодаря на
@Trip че ме светна.
А впрочем някой прочете ли/почна ли
Чамкория на Русков? Повечето хора я хвалят, такива на чиято преценка вярвам, както и разни други, ама честно много ме дразни (очевидно) издателския номер с разцепването на две. Ако бг издателите не правеха в болшинството си ужасни книжни тела и не бяха толкоз алчни, това не би се случило с оправданието че е много голяма.
Ulysses е 900 страници, някак не съм видял издание в което да е разцепена на какъвто и да е език. Аз тепърва
Възвишение трябва да прочета, че 2013 я купих на зимния панаир, ама нейсе. Айде стига спам, ама като не бях поствал тук от не знам кога и изведнъж ми скимна, е така.