Der Andere

i started to read a collection of short stories, all coming from the region of former Yugoslavia. “Der Andere Nebenan”, the book is called: “The Other in the Next Place”. the one who started the book sent out 1 question to 20 authors. the question was: “Is the Other in the Country Next to You rather Friend or Foe?”. some answered in short stories, some in essays.

one essay, it is so moving – about the human concept of “us” and “them”. i wished it was in english. it made me think of Elle, and her interest and will to dig for the roots of human and social concepts and conflicts.

there also is an essay by Aleksandar Hemon, and in one of its passages, he tells the story of a Canadian professor of politics whose parents had emigrated to Canada when he was a child. in the ending phase of the war, he came to former Yugoslavia as part of an UN study, with a group of UN-soldiers. (Blauhelme – Bluecaps, they are called here).

he had all the papers he required, and his Canadian pass. at most checkpoints, he didn't have problems. but one day, he was stopped at a checkpoint, as the soldiers there got suspicious, seeing his name was Eastern European, but his passport Canadian. they checked his papers twice, trying to figure out how he fitted in the ethnic picture. and finally, asked him: “What are you?”. the professor, irritated, gave the answer most reasonable to him: “a professor of politics.” the answer must have seemed somewhere between philosophic and naïve to the soldiers, who started to laugh, struck by a world where life, and with it, the question “what are you” is reduced to ethnic belonging.

another painful point this book makes: that the wars in which the lines between us and them are tainted often belong to the cruellest and worst wars: civil wars.

Sprachland

März. Und es schneit. Ist kalt wie Januar. Zum Glück habe ich einen guten Stapel Bücher hier. Der Monat begann mit Cormac McCarthy, The Road. An dem ich wahrscheinlich vorbeigelaufen wäre, hätte nicht ein Freund das Buch mit nach Mexico genommen, und von unterwegs darüber geschrieben.

The Road. Ein Buch mit einer eigenen Sprache.

No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth is grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have you.

Vom Dunkel der Zukunft dann zurück in die Vergangenheit. Nach China. Nach San Francisco. Mit Amy Tan. Und wieder, in einem Buch mit einer eigenen Sprache, mit einem unübersetzbaren Titel: The Joy Luck Club.

I am a writer. And by definition, I am someone who has always loved language. I am fascinated by language in daily life. I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language - the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth. Language is the tool of my trade.

Und heute, während der Schnee weiter fällt, lese ich Jon McGregor. Nach dem Regen. Auch so ein Buch mit unübersetzbarem Titel. Im Original heißt es "If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things".

Danaben, eine Sammlung mit Kurzgeschichten aus Osteuropa. Der Andere Nebenan. Ein Buch, das in fünf Ländern gleichzeitig erschienen ist, in allen Sprachen der Beiträge: Serbisch, Albanisch, Englisch, Kroatisch, Ungarisch, Bulgarisch.

Ein Buch, das mit einer simplen Frage beginnt: "Ist der Nachbar nebenan Freund oder Feind?"

Die allerbesten Fragen sind aber oft die ganz einfachen, diejenigen, die so selbstverständlich und naiv erscheinen, dass wir gerade deswegen darauf verzichten, sie überhaupt zu stellen.
Etwas ganz anderes ist es, ob es gute oder überhaupt irgendwelche Antworten auf noch so gute Fragen gibt. Gute Autorinnen und Autoren stellen lieber selber Fragen, als dass sie Antworten geben.

Also dann März: Sprachland. Und auch: Frageland.

~~

we didn't start the fire

and in the swimming hall, music was playing: Depeche Mode, and later that great song from Billy Joel: “We didn't start the fire”. i just looked for the lyrics, here's a bit of it:

“We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai…”

i loved it, swimming with this words. and i felt – the fire. the energy. it's always there, but sometimes we can't reach it, can't open to it.

added to that, i am reading a wonderful book. one that is also put together out of different narratives and characters, and also has the theme of life change, with the focus on immigration. it's all written by one person: Amy Tan's “The Joy Luck Club”

the interesting thing is that i have a special version of the book, including an interview and background on the story. here a quick description of it:

“The Joy Luck Club (1989) is a best-selling novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese American immigrant families who start a club known as "the Joy Luck Club," playing the Chinese game of Mahjong for money while feasting on a variety of foods. There are sixteen chapters divided into four sections, and each woman, both mothers and daughters, (with the exception of one mother, Suyuan Woo, who dies before the novel opens) share stories about their lives in the form of vignettes. Each section comes after a parable.”

The Road

The Road / Cormac McCarthy's.

that's what i am reading right now. what a book. it's so strong and intense, like Italian espresso without sugar and milk.

i admire the way McCarthy developed the language, into a spare and vivid tone, in places almost like short diary entry lines put together. and there is so deep thoughtfulness, under cover of the lines.

The cold drove him forth to mend the fire. Memory of her crossing the lawn toward the house in the early morning in a thin rose gown that clung to her breast. He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the words and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, know or not.

it's a hard read. i woke me up early twice now, yesterday and today, my mind spinning with images, a mix of the Road and 2028. i want to finish the read today, to be able to put it down.

yesterday evening, we went on a night drive, to visit C. after the storm calmed down – it wasn't really bad here, just a lot of wind and rain. it ended in the afternoon. and it was almost bizarre, coming from reading the Road, and then driving down a highway, past the airport, past all this civilization, to a flat that is now all fresh and furnished, with plants inside that have deco butterflies on them. but fitting to the Road, she had the TV on when we arrived, and there was “V like Vendetta” on – another dystopia.