by Juan Carlos Onetti
This book finally came in through ILL last Friday. I read the entire thing on Monday, taking breaks to go kayaking and walking and listen to a couple of newly purchased albums. It really was the perfect day off, especially because the sun came out and I got to spend almost the whole day outside. I was beside myself with pleasure.
The tone of The Shipyard is very much the opposite of how I felt that day, but somehow the contrast only increased my own delight in being alive. The book is slow, sad, dreary – not so much depressing as deflated. The narration trudges along behind a man named Larson, who has shuffling back to the region of Santa Maria after five years in exile. He has a sort of half-hearted thought of making a comeback, and with this in mind he takes a job as the General Manager of a failing shipyard. Only two other men work there, routinely going through the motions while the owner is off trying to get the bankruptcy order lifted.
In trying to think about what happened in the book, I get lost. Larson is a fairly full-bodied character, but everyone else – the men he works with, his love interest, Angelica Ines, and the other women he encounters – all seem shadowy. The book seems to be less about the events that occur and more about the mood. There is an odd kind of urgency in the mood of the book – everyone and everything in it seems to be poised on the brink of something, but have been poised so long that the weeds have started to grow and the waters have grown stagnant. If only, if only something could be done, something to snap the stupor, everyone, everything, is ready for action. The book is one giant held breath, waiting to be expelled.
I can’t decide if I liked The Shipyard or not. I was fascinated by it, certainly. I was especially struck by Larson’s awareness of the dualness of his person – his internal thoughts and feelings, and how his face and body reacted to situations. He was constantly putting on a mask, slipping into the costume of a man who was full of faith and sincerity, almost believing his own act sometimes. How often do we all do that?
Onetti’s style is mesmerizing, and while I can say I didn’t enjoy the book exactly (in the sense that I enjoyed the sunny day,) I did find it thought provoking. A couple of the conclusions that Larson comes to are definitely interesting.
“…life holds no surprises; at least not for real men. … As for the meaning of life, don’t imagine I’m talking nonsense. I know a thing or two. We do things, but can’t possibly do more than we do. Or to put it another way, we don’t always choose.”
He suddenly suspected what everyone comes to understand sooner or later, that he was the only person alive in a world peopled by phantoms, that communication was impossible and not even desirable, that compassion was worth more than hate, that a tolerant indifference, an attention divided between respect and sensuality, was all that could be asked for or given.”
It was hard for me to agree with these sentiments on such a glorious day, and even now (that the sun has gone away again…) I would still beg to differ. There have been times in my life when I have felt that I was trapped and that life had gotten out of my control, but I’ve never felt that I wasn’t the one that had done the choosing. I do recognize the helplessness (even just the exhaustion) that Larson felt, and so perhaps I can move on from this book with a greater sense of thankfulness – that the sun does still come out (once a week or so…) and that I’ve never yet encountered anything as dreary as the shipyard!
Even so, I’m not sorry I fell under it’s spell for a day.
Aside from all the things I’ve already posted about here, I also finally tracked down one of Peter Dickinson’s earlier novels – The Old English Peep Show – a mystery set at an old country estate where poor Inspector Pibble is up against aging Generals/War Heros, lions, and the dark force behind profitable enterprise. My father has always told me to look for Dickinson’s old mysteries, but until unearthing this one in the basement collection at Jesup, I was missing out! A fast, fun read with well drawn characters, and lots of odd quirks.
The other book I found in the treasure trove of the Jesup basement was Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven. I wanted to read it so that I could watch the movie that is based on it. I had found out from her web site that this movie was just about the only movie based on one of her books that she liked. The book proved to be fascinating. It is set a bit in the future, and focuses on George Orr, who has a slight problem with dreaming. His dreams change reality, or so he claims and that is why he overdosed on drugs – he was taking them to prevent himself from dreaming. He is sent to a psychiatrist who specializes in dreams, and quickly proves that he is not kidding around, nor is he crazy. Dr. Haber realizes the potential for good that Georges’ dreams provide, and he in turn proves how very wrong things can go when someone tries to change the world and control their own destiny. The book is a whirlwind, as each time George dreams both he and the reader have to come to terms with the newest version of reality. Beautifully written as always with Le Guin’s work, this book blew my mind.
The movie was really interesting too. It was extremely close to the book, and as such was very satisfying. It was made in 1980 and was PBS’s first direct-to-TV production. The budget was small and the scope of the film large, but for what they had to work with I think the result was excellent. My viewing enjoyment was somewhat hampered, however, by a terrible transfer to DVD. There was large degree of “ghosting” which was distracting. Apparently this is because PBS didn’t save a copy of the production after the rights to rebroadcast expired! It was too expensive to pay for all the rights they needed to continue broadcasting. The home video release was remastered from a video tape of the original broadcast, and I assume that’s where the DVD came from too.
My final fond memory from this past rainy June is waking up late on a Saturday and tumbling out of bed, only to curl up in a blanket and watch My Neighbor Totoro and laugh and cry and in general thoroughly enjoy that dreary, lovely morning.
by Eduardo Galeano
My friend and I watched Tango about a week before we saw Fados. I thought it was the first in the series, but actually Flamenco was made several years before. It was released on DVD later, however, and Tango is the movie that got a lot of publicity due to Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Of the three films it is the only one that has a plot driven format. Set in Buenos Aires, it centers on Mario Suarez, a middle-aged theater director who is still recovering from a bad break-up. He is working on a musical about tango. While he tries to get over his feelings for his ex-girlfriend (who is also his principle dancer…) and enjoy an affair with another beautiful dancer (who has a possessive boyfriend of her own) we get to watch a lot of fabulous tango sequences and enjoy some really creative cinematography. Reality and the story in the musical sometimes blend in intriguing ways. I didn’t particularly care for the plot of the film, but the dancing more than made up for it, and Vittorio Storaro’s camera and lighting work was stunning.
We finally got to watch Flamenco last night. Of the three it was my least favorite, which surprised me because I was SO excited for the dancing, flamenco being one of my favorite forms. The film did and excellent job of showing the variety of flamenco rhythms, and bringing out it’s Indian, Greek, Romany, and even Jewish influences. The entire musical genre was examined – the style of singing, dance, and guitar playing. The dancing was thrilling, no doubt about it, and some of the guitar solos were absolutely amazing. However, I didn’t care for the style of singing. An astonishing degree of passion was portrayed, but the harsh anguish that made every singer’s voice grating and rough and nasally was not to my taste. Still, on a whole the movie was fascinating, and the intense inclusive circles of family and community groups all participating in make the music was wonderful. You really got a sense that this type of music was being passed down with a great deal of respect and joy. My favorite part was when an old man and a young boy were dancing together – the boy lithe and full of energy, the old man slower but still full of light-footed grace.
1946 – Dir. Jean Cocteau
The idea behind Philip Glass’ opera is that it is performed live while the movie is projected behind. He painstakingly timed all of the sung lines so that they synced with the filmed actors. I imagine it is very impressive when done live. Even as just an alternative soundtrack to the movie it was enjoyable. I have to add though, that I am not overly awed by Philip Glass. While interesting, his music is just a bit too repetitive for me. I am still exploring his work though, so no official opinions yet.
A passing comment about Tom Robbins brought Richard Brautigan into my life. According to my friend Colin, everything good about Robbins writing had been done first, and better, by Brautigan. This excited me, because while I have generally liked the few books I’ve read by Robbins, his somewhat overblown opinion of his own cleverness has always irked me.
Recent Books -
Recent Movies -
by Vladimir Nabokov (1962)
Such finickiness has paid off! “I’ve got something special for you today,” he said. “Because you’re so good with books, and because you let me borrow Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” (hahaha) “I’ve brought the Proust comic books for you.” I was quite beside myself with pride and excitement !
What I loved was how Heuet whittled down the story, including all of my favorite parts but skimming over those 5 page long descriptions of a drawing room, etc. All the episodes and even the passing comments that I made notes on or remember especially appeared in Heuet’s version, so the reading experience was very fulfilling.
I went out again today, and saw a bald eagle and some mergansers and a belted kingfisher, not to mention jellyfish! The water was full of Moon Jelly –
I finished Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupery while sitting in the sun and drinking a Bloody Mary yesterday morning. It was slightly odd to be so warm and in such brightness, while reading about airplane pilots caught in black storms in the middle of the night. The book was quietly sad, but very beautiful. It told briefly but vividly a tale of the brave men who piloted night mail planes from Patagonia, Chile, and Paraguay to Argentina in the early days of commercial aviation.


