of books
one hundred years of solitude
It seems cool to talk about something like "one hundred years of solitude". Somehow or another, it is a modern malady (nonetheless, pathetic) to want to be seen as solitary. It almost adds an enigmatic or mystical dimension to one. Like van gogh, the solitary person is always the one who has the most beautiful soul, although the world is full of cheap dirty people who can't seem to understand him (at least when van gogh was still alive).
Ah... this brings back memories, for that was a time when I actually yearned so much for things to work out between me and P, that suddenly only one person mattered to me in the world.
No wonder marquez called it a hundred years of solitude. It really does take a hundred years.
middlesex
Nearing the end of my undergraduate life, I came to realize that my biggest distraction in my school life, was none other than.... nope, not my lab work... nor cute people (ooh, cute people are quite distracting though).... it was books. Books infused with so much emotions that you lose yourself in a virtual reality where your only reason to live hangs on your hope to see him removed from this excruciating world of self-deceit (especially when he escaped being raped in the park when they discovered his deformities, but if you think about it, he was therefore raped).
I was exceptionally moved when he said that he never felt anything wrong being a girl. It's just that right from the start, he had only liked girls. Which I guess is something that touches me a lot, because we are who we are, honestly. It's really painful to face up to the truth sometimes, and when I woke up one lazy morning and looked out of the wall-sized windows to see Fish Bay and the little fishing boats gently bobbing up and down in unison with the waves, I understood that I would never return to the past.
I guess I am really who I am.
no one writes to the colonel
When Marquez is at his best, he creates this lonely, brooding character, a colonel who has fought in the civil war for years and has withstood numerous atrocities, losing almost everything and everyone he has, only to end up surrendering the war because the general said so. Worse still, he waits for a letter everyday. The letter containing the check for his pension, something the government promised when his general signed the letters of surrender. Something that he actually needs now in order to escape starvation.
What were you expecting? The communists surrendered! The capitalists won! There is no reason whatsoever to expect the check to come.
Several times in my little existence, I felt the same way. Day after day, I wondered when the letter would come. I woke up in the morning and the first thought in my mind was whether a letter would be here for me. I walked to the post-office half-dazed, prolonging every second in a bid to minimize disappointment when the "no" came. I admired the husky and the cherry blossoms even after I was told "no one writes to the colonel anymore".
In retrospect, those were dark days. Dark, dark days.
all my friends are going to be strangers
There has always been some kind of animosity going on between California and Texas. Not the kind that's like "we ought to kill each other", but the kind that's more like high-school teenage girls' feuds fueled by jeolousy and, of course, hormones. Texans say "Texas can live without America, but America can't live without Texas". California, hmm, doesn't need to say anything. It waits for people from other states to report stuff like "California accounts for 25% of America's economy, although it makes up a little more than a tenth of that percentage of America", plus all the porn we watch is filmed in California anyway (thank god for california!).
But the story of a person who straddles between these 2 states in a bid to find a place to settle down and really call it a home is too much to take. He falls in love repeatedly, and out of it repeatedly too. There is no one place that he can really settle down with someone, they all leave him eventually. Neither is there a place that he really grows into and connects to, something we sometimes call a home. No, McMurthy knew it from the first day that he started writing the book. Our vacation is going to end, and he is going into the river for good (though we are made to guess if he does die).
Sigh, you know what? It's true. All my friends are going to be strangers.
Fuck you, for reminding me that. And fuck me, for believing it's true.
love in the time of cholera
I flew from saint louis to chicago, only to have my flight to newark cancelled, due to severe thunderstorms in Ohio (huh? are you kidding me, american airlines? my geography is not that bad!). I waited for 1.5 hrs for the newark flight, then 1.5 hrs for a delay for the la guardia flight (the aa woman said going to la guardia new york was my next best choice), and then sitting in the plane to la guardia for 1.5 hrs on the runway (the pilot said we were waiting for the storms to clear. to clear where? in ohio? or sunny new york?), and finally reaching la guardia to take a cab to newark.
The cab driver was from bangladesh, and came in 1984. He was clearly perplexed by my odd decision to go to newark airport from la guardia airport (I guess I must have looked stressed because I didn't know if I was going to make it for my international flight at newark).
After some very poor attempts at making a conversation, he took out a cigarette and lighted it, and then asked me: "do you mind if I smoke?" I told him that smoking didn't really affect me and out of sheer happiness, he gave me one and lighted it for me too.
The cab ride went right through manhattan, and I saw old manhattan covered in smog again. There is this sinister feeling you get when you see the same less-than-happy-image again ten years later. The cab driver asked me where I came in from, so I said saint louis, to which he dismissed the city completely, in his broken English: "I don't even know where that is. no place like new york."
We went through soho, which hit me hard, because I recalled so many memories from my first trip to nyc, hmm, maybe 15 years ago? I exclaimed that soho felt exactly the same, and the cab driver said once again, ain't no place like new york.
Went through the holland tunnel (jam-packed with cars and their angry drivers) and crossed into jersey, during which he kindly reminded me again: "no place like new york" (after hearing that I was moving to the san francisco/bay area. apparently the golden gate bridge counts for nothing).
Finally, I got to newark 1hr20min before my international flight, and the fare came up to a whooping 93USD (110 after tips) and I told myself this better be my most expensive cab drive in my life. The cab driver was happy with the tip and the conversation (that I had kept going), and after thanking me profusely and reiterating that new york was the best place in the earth to be, kindly provided me with another cigarette and lighted it for me. No, I lost both pieces of luggage and am in Singapore now with no clothings or computer or nothing whatsoever, again (I am just buying a new shirt to wear everyday now!).
It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. On the plane, when the doctor suddenly dies from rescuing the the parrot at the end of the first chapter, I gasped out loud.
It suddenly hit me that chapter one of the book was dedicated to the doctor and his wife. Every other subsequent chapter was about F's unrequited (and yet undying) love for the doctor's wife for over 50 years, bringing him through countless promiscuous encounters night after night while he dreamed of holding her one day. Something tells me marquez intended the ratio to be so.
ah... the scent of bitter almonds...
Il piccolo principe
A big thank you to my sis for the present from Italy. Hugs.