Put On Your Red Shoes and Dance the Blues...
So.
Just back from Portugal. My aunty and uncle have a flat over there and me and my folks went away for a few days, mostly cause none of us are really planning a 'summer' holiday - y'know, hot and stuff.
The flat is amazing. I can't believe I'm related to people that own something so swish. They even have sky on the TV and one of those little intercoms that has a camera so you can see who's standing at the door on a little screen. I was ludicrously amused by this, being such a commoner myself.
The town it's in is called Tavira. It's small and full of rustic looking, flat roofed houses and churches made of dusty bricks with big open bell towers. We walked past one to get into town to eat and every night there would be dozens of swallows, playing before night falls, swooping through the sky in black formations, forked tails disappearing into the holes in the walls of the church like wind. There's a wide river through the middle of the town and a fort on the hill that's surrounded by tall, lush trees. We sat in a little french cafe by the river one day and ate pate and bread. I had a gigantic slice of the most amazing strawberry tart you've ever seen - home cooked crust, thick fresh cream and huge slices of strawberry glazed in syrup. It was so good I couldn't even feel guilty about it. We sat in the sun and watched the river drain as the tide went out and the birds foraging in the mud. Amongst the seagulls there was a big, regal Heron, dipping it's long legs in the water and jostling the gulls to get the best fish. I've never seen a Heron so close before. It was a beautiful bird, graceful for being so large, it's great white wings tipped with black looking like they could cover the whole sky.
The town's close by the sea too, just hazy green-blue water stretching out to the horizon, and no matter where you are you can always hear the faint roar of the surf tumbling over the sand and smell the salt of the sea. I think it'd be nice to live somewhere like that - though not so hot. I'm far too fond of jumpers and tea and fires, rainy days spent bundled indoors.
As always, travelling home was unpleasant. We had to get up at 330am to get to the airport in time for our flight. I hardly slept because I just kept thinking about getting up. Then we're packed into a crummy Ryanair tin can of a plane and have to survive the next two and a half hours surrounded by strangers, trying not to breath too deeply or drool on my shoulder when I fall asleep, with cold ankles and my head feeling like it's slowly being compressed to half it's normal size. Then of course we had to drive all the way back from Prestwick, which - while wonderfully scenic on such a lovely day - is also apparently in the middle of sodding nowhere. I still feel travel sick thinking about it, but I guess that's what happens when you pay 40 quid for a flight.
The only redeeming part of the whole thing was Ben and Hannah waiting to pick us up at the airport and Hannah running to meet us. Too cute.
It's been ages since I've posted anything, not that that's out of ordinary for me, but I had a sudden urge to write something because I just finished a really good book. Yep, I'm gonna talk about a book again...
This time, it's Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. I've read another one of his before, Norwegian Wood, and I can't get enough of his writing. I'm a fan of a good narrative - it's why I like modernists so much. As far as I'm concerned you can skip the drama, the love triangles, the purple prose, just as long as I have some character driven prose I can really get addicted to. Throw in the odd obscure metaphor or mythical allegory and I'm hooked. I just have to know how it turns out. Even if nothing much really happens. 'Nothing much' in a soap opera, who's the father, rerouting the course of history kind of way I mean. Obviously a lot happens in terms of the characters - they experience life defining moments which drive the story and, in the case of Murakami, these are often intensely bizarre and/or heart breakingly tragic.
One of the things I like about Murakami's style is that he's so straight forward. The way he describes things isn't flowery or overdramatic. The great thing about a lot of modernist writing is that it doesn't need pages of thesaurus bashing or extravagant prose to convey something meaningful. They can condense everything they want to express into one sentence or one paragraph and make it hit you with all that meaning... For example, when he talks about sex, it can sometimes be very clinical - this is a penis, this is a vagina (stop snickering children!), it's just two human bodies and this is just one of the things they do together. What makes the sex meaningful is the characters and their interactions. They don't need fireworks or detailed descriptions of an orgasm to convey that this is meaningful... I don't think I'm explaining it very well. I guess it just cuts out a lot of bullshit.
And yet his novels are so full of things for you to think about. I can spend ten minutes to a whole afternoon puzzling over one paragraph, enjoying the words, the structure, trying to wrap my head around a metaphor and pin down exactly what he was trying to say, the exact emotion he was trying to express. Sometimes something not even as complicated as an emotion - a sound or the expression on someone's face or the way they place their hands upon a table. That's the kind of writer he is, that he can take something you've always taken for granted and make you really look at it, realise how beautiful it can be.
Maybe it's just me. And I know to a lot of people that just sounds like way too much work, and I'd probably think the same about analysing something else, like engineering or geology or something. And a lot of my literary analyses is likely bollocks anyway, but it's just my impression and we all know how I like to ramble on. Especially after reading a book like that, I feel like I have to take a deep breath and absorb it all, take it into my soul and let it rest there.
In Kafka on the Shore, Murakami talks about us all having our own little library inside our heads where we store all our memories and experiences and we all spend our lives there amongst the stacks, dusting off the older volumes and updating the catalogues. Unsurprisingly, this imagery appeals to my inner librarian very much.
Hm, guess I've got that off my chest. Just one more thing...
TOTALLY GOING TO NEW YORK COMIC CON IN OCTOBER!!! OMFG I AM SO LUDICROUSLY EXCITED!!
Back to the Big Apple for a week with my best girl Lou-chan for a whole shed load of geekery! I knew I'd end up in New York again some time but it warms my heart to know it'll be so soon ^_^
Aaaand have some gifs.
And just cause it's creepy
Yeah I totally don't think they're all gonna work but hey, I tried!
+_+
Just back from Portugal. My aunty and uncle have a flat over there and me and my folks went away for a few days, mostly cause none of us are really planning a 'summer' holiday - y'know, hot and stuff.
The flat is amazing. I can't believe I'm related to people that own something so swish. They even have sky on the TV and one of those little intercoms that has a camera so you can see who's standing at the door on a little screen. I was ludicrously amused by this, being such a commoner myself.
The town it's in is called Tavira. It's small and full of rustic looking, flat roofed houses and churches made of dusty bricks with big open bell towers. We walked past one to get into town to eat and every night there would be dozens of swallows, playing before night falls, swooping through the sky in black formations, forked tails disappearing into the holes in the walls of the church like wind. There's a wide river through the middle of the town and a fort on the hill that's surrounded by tall, lush trees. We sat in a little french cafe by the river one day and ate pate and bread. I had a gigantic slice of the most amazing strawberry tart you've ever seen - home cooked crust, thick fresh cream and huge slices of strawberry glazed in syrup. It was so good I couldn't even feel guilty about it. We sat in the sun and watched the river drain as the tide went out and the birds foraging in the mud. Amongst the seagulls there was a big, regal Heron, dipping it's long legs in the water and jostling the gulls to get the best fish. I've never seen a Heron so close before. It was a beautiful bird, graceful for being so large, it's great white wings tipped with black looking like they could cover the whole sky.
The town's close by the sea too, just hazy green-blue water stretching out to the horizon, and no matter where you are you can always hear the faint roar of the surf tumbling over the sand and smell the salt of the sea. I think it'd be nice to live somewhere like that - though not so hot. I'm far too fond of jumpers and tea and fires, rainy days spent bundled indoors.
As always, travelling home was unpleasant. We had to get up at 330am to get to the airport in time for our flight. I hardly slept because I just kept thinking about getting up. Then we're packed into a crummy Ryanair tin can of a plane and have to survive the next two and a half hours surrounded by strangers, trying not to breath too deeply or drool on my shoulder when I fall asleep, with cold ankles and my head feeling like it's slowly being compressed to half it's normal size. Then of course we had to drive all the way back from Prestwick, which - while wonderfully scenic on such a lovely day - is also apparently in the middle of sodding nowhere. I still feel travel sick thinking about it, but I guess that's what happens when you pay 40 quid for a flight.
The only redeeming part of the whole thing was Ben and Hannah waiting to pick us up at the airport and Hannah running to meet us. Too cute.
It's been ages since I've posted anything, not that that's out of ordinary for me, but I had a sudden urge to write something because I just finished a really good book. Yep, I'm gonna talk about a book again...
This time, it's Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. I've read another one of his before, Norwegian Wood, and I can't get enough of his writing. I'm a fan of a good narrative - it's why I like modernists so much. As far as I'm concerned you can skip the drama, the love triangles, the purple prose, just as long as I have some character driven prose I can really get addicted to. Throw in the odd obscure metaphor or mythical allegory and I'm hooked. I just have to know how it turns out. Even if nothing much really happens. 'Nothing much' in a soap opera, who's the father, rerouting the course of history kind of way I mean. Obviously a lot happens in terms of the characters - they experience life defining moments which drive the story and, in the case of Murakami, these are often intensely bizarre and/or heart breakingly tragic.
One of the things I like about Murakami's style is that he's so straight forward. The way he describes things isn't flowery or overdramatic. The great thing about a lot of modernist writing is that it doesn't need pages of thesaurus bashing or extravagant prose to convey something meaningful. They can condense everything they want to express into one sentence or one paragraph and make it hit you with all that meaning... For example, when he talks about sex, it can sometimes be very clinical - this is a penis, this is a vagina (stop snickering children!), it's just two human bodies and this is just one of the things they do together. What makes the sex meaningful is the characters and their interactions. They don't need fireworks or detailed descriptions of an orgasm to convey that this is meaningful... I don't think I'm explaining it very well. I guess it just cuts out a lot of bullshit.
And yet his novels are so full of things for you to think about. I can spend ten minutes to a whole afternoon puzzling over one paragraph, enjoying the words, the structure, trying to wrap my head around a metaphor and pin down exactly what he was trying to say, the exact emotion he was trying to express. Sometimes something not even as complicated as an emotion - a sound or the expression on someone's face or the way they place their hands upon a table. That's the kind of writer he is, that he can take something you've always taken for granted and make you really look at it, realise how beautiful it can be.
Maybe it's just me. And I know to a lot of people that just sounds like way too much work, and I'd probably think the same about analysing something else, like engineering or geology or something. And a lot of my literary analyses is likely bollocks anyway, but it's just my impression and we all know how I like to ramble on. Especially after reading a book like that, I feel like I have to take a deep breath and absorb it all, take it into my soul and let it rest there.
In Kafka on the Shore, Murakami talks about us all having our own little library inside our heads where we store all our memories and experiences and we all spend our lives there amongst the stacks, dusting off the older volumes and updating the catalogues. Unsurprisingly, this imagery appeals to my inner librarian very much.
Hm, guess I've got that off my chest. Just one more thing...
TOTALLY GOING TO NEW YORK COMIC CON IN OCTOBER!!! OMFG I AM SO LUDICROUSLY EXCITED!!
Back to the Big Apple for a week with my best girl Lou-chan for a whole shed load of geekery! I knew I'd end up in New York again some time but it warms my heart to know it'll be so soon ^_^
Aaaand have some gifs.
And just cause it's creepy
Yeah I totally don't think they're all gonna work but hey, I tried!
+_+