Capitu's comments
(member since Sep 02, 2008)
Capitu's comments from the Constant Reader group.
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I read The Night Watch some time ago, but still remember enjoying it immensely. This is the book where Sarah Water “went” literary. I don’t mean that her previous books were not good – just the opposite, there were something out of the ordinary in all of them. But, in TNW her prose and characters took a completely newer direction than her in previous work, there was a progression of some sort that I am not able to probably verbalize. Incidentally, many of her traditional readership did not like it, preferring instead the mix of Victorian and lesbianism of the first books.
I am curious to read The Little Stranger and see what she wrote this time. And I recommend all of her books.
Munro based these stories on her own heritage which could have been a paralyzingly narcisstic experience in the hands of a lesser writer. In Alice Munro's, it was magic.
I bought Too Much Happiness Stories, her last collection, at Cosco of all places but I have not yet started on it. I love Alice Munro too, and my feelings about A View from Castle Rock resonates very much with yours, Barbara.
and I am envy!
Whitaker, I have been feeling quite guilty towards you as I “dropped” out of this discussion. I am sorry for it. My excuse is that I have been very busy, which is true. But also I think it is because I have had troubled verbalizing my feelings about this book.
I just read your review of it, and maybe I should post this comment under it, but I decided instead to ask that you post your review here in this thread, so that it stays in the CR archives. It is so well written and it voices much of my feelings (I do still smile at the idea of a twin in Asia, but recently it seems that our thoughts in so many subjects have been parallel.)
I do want to thank you for nominating this book, for the many posts here trying to explain the symbolisms and prodding to get the discussion going. It is a beautiful book, for lack of a better description.
In your review you compare it to the experience of listening to Indian raga or Indonesian gamelan music. I had to laugh when I read it, because I actually linked it to my recent experience of listening to the opera. I don’t seem to have the vocabulary to describe either experiences (opera and this book), as they came to me through an emotional route, and left my often used rational path abandoned.
Ishiguro says that Kawabata is plotless. I have to agree with him there. But more and more I think this is not a story to be rationalized, but “felt”. And feelings don’t require plot.
On a personal note, among the many things that kept me busy this past few days is that we had 26 trees planted around our farmyard. One of the hardest things for me living in the Canadian prairies, coming from Brazil, is the lack of trees. We have planted young trees over the years, but the trees this time are over 10 feet tall, and I have been beaming with pleasure at this gift. Every time I look through a window, I now see a tree. And I drove my husband crazy deciding which tree went where, studying my books on their fall colors and water requirements. My feelings and pleasure in all this venture was not as subdue or lyric the way Shingo describes the landscape around him. I have been dancing with joy. But this book came to my mind many times during all this. Sorry for the long story, which I don’t know if fits in the discussion, but I wanted you to know this.
Katy, I hope you make to the encore. I had to tease a bit about Nessun Dorma being the Soccer World Cup theme in Italy – only the Italians could link opera and soccer, of course - but the point I was trying to make was that even when I did not know anything about the music of “Turandot” or the opera in general, I have heard Pavarotti’s interpretation and we can say that he has made it part of popular culture. I understand your sister’s reaction too. His interpretation is so visceral.
Sylvia, thanks for the link. It is easy to like and identify with the character of Liu, but nevertheless this last song is beautiful.
I feel so thankful for you all here who have made me aware of these performances. I can already see it may be something for my older daughter and I to learn and share. We certainly will see Carmen, and probably at least one of the performances before Christmas. I don’t think that finding tickets in Medicine Hat, Alberta will be a problem, so I don’t have to worry about planning ahead. The downside of the almost empty theatre is that they are not doing the encores, and I really wanted to see last month’s performance of Aida. I may just have to buy the DVD.
Erin, if it makes you feel better, I voted for Moon Tiger. Please, do nominate it again.
As promised, I am reporting back on Turandot. I can confess now that I did wonder if this was the opera for me to go the very first time. It was close to 3 hours drive one way to see a title I had never heard of before. So I was very surprised when in the opening of the 3rd act I recognized a song. I could not place where I had heard it before, but it certainly brought back strong emotions.
I went searching when I got home, and the song is “Nessun Dorma” which Pavarotti has made famous. Wikipedia also reminded me that this song was the theme for the Soccer World Cup in 1990 Italy. You see, Brazil came out undefeated of its group, but in the quarter finals faced our soccer archenemy Argentina, which got to the quarter finals through the back-door of 3rd place qualifiers after losing to Cameroon and tying with Romania. So, Brazil went to play against Argentina as the favourite, and guess what? Argentina made a comeback, won against Brazil, and kept on wining until it lost at the finals to West Germany. And all of these happened against the background music of Nessun Dorma. Strong emotions indeed!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOfC9LfR3...
But I got away from discussing Turandot, didn’t I? Both my daughter and I loved it: the music, the grandeur of the production, the interviews at the intermissions, the raw emotion. Unfortunately there were problems with the transmission during the 1st act, but it got much better during the 2nd, and perfect during the 3rd. Sitting was not a problem, as there was no more than 40 people in the theatre, which could had sat 150 or more and we arrived early. I loved when talking about Turandot, the young maestro summoned it as: “Everyone loses something when they love.”
Some of the comments my daughter made in the drive home: The story line is somewhat simplistic, but we have to allow the emotions of the story overtake us. Also, Hollywood has taught us that the actors have to fit perfectly in age and body type with the character being played, while in the opera we have to allow for an “older” woman to play the beautiful princess, or an overweight man to be the hero.
We have become fans and are planning to go back to the next production.
Sherry, thanks for putting this all together. Great books to read on 2010.
Mina, I hope you have a great birthday. I have missed you around here.
In Canada we celebrate “Remembrance Day” on Nov 11. As an act of Remembrance, I have shared these letters smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto that I found at the CBC website with friends and relatives. And I thought CRs would enjoy them too:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/11/05...
I am sorry for abandoning you all here. I have read the posts, but have been too busy to put my thoughts together in a post of my own.
I had the good intentions of re-reading this book, but that did not happen. I truly enjoyed it and some passages remain vivid in my memory, yet I do have a feeling that I “missed” something. It is after all a banquet of symbolism (not only the flowers and trees, but the kerchief, the lotus seeds, the masks, the kimono tied wrongly, etc. ), and many secondary stories – Kikuko/Suichi, Suichi/Kinu, the abortion, the divorced daughter/her husband’s suicide, the dying man in the hospital and his possible suicide, the grand-daughter’s wanting of a kimono, etc, etc...
There is so much happening that when I ask myself, What is this book about? I have to think hard to answer it, but I think ultimately it is about Shingo coming to terms with aging and the eminence of his death. It is as if the realization of death tunes him into the beauty around him, and the memories of his love/admiration to his dead sister-in-law materialized again in Kikuko.
But, as much as I sympathize with Shingo, the western cultural baggage in me wants to slap him hard. For all his thoughtfulness towards Kikuko, he is oblivious to his only daughter and grand-daughter.
I have a sense that the Japanese and Latino (my own) cultures sit on the opposite spectrum when comes to the expression of feelings, love and family ties. Therefore the experience of reading this book is beautifully alien, and quite puzzling to me.
Going back to the discussion at hand. Whitaker, I had not noticed that the book begin and end with a diner. Thanks for pointing that out. Yes, I think that Shingo does arrive at a point infused with some sort of “piece of mind”. The course that takes him to it is end is not a strait one, and because his search is never really defined, the “finding” is also elusive. I think he does find “redemption” but it does comes from the acceptance of death (hopefully I am making sense here).
The abortion puzzled me too. I interpreted it different than you though, Carol. It seemed to me as if Kikuko rejected the pregnancy because it would tie her even more into a marriage she by then perceived doomed. In the end however, the abortion seems to bring Kikuko and her husband closer, and perhaps it does save the marriage. Shuichi also leaves his mistress when she too gets pregnant and refuses to abort.
In a foreshadow, Shingo dreams of a young girl having an abortion, but becoming “saintly” by it. “And she has become a holy child forever” (pg 130, vintage edition 1996). I wonder that motherhood would destroy Shingo’s idealized view of Kikuko. But Shuichi too agrees with the abortion and makes attempts to reconnect to Kikuko afterwards.
It is as if Kikuko’s abortion has two opposite outcomes: it reinforces Shingo’s idealized views of her, while making Shuichi reconsiders his opinion that she was too childish and innocent.
Janet, it is nice to see you around here. We missed you.
It is too bad that the book did not work for you or Ruth. But that happens, and there is always another book coming along. Welcome back, anyway.
Sybil, I have sent my/our nominaton in.
We are watching Turandot by Puccini on Nov 07. I really, really want to see the “encore” of Aida on Nov 21, but that weekend is looking too busy already, and I don’t think I will be able to fit it in. Carmen is scheduled for Jan 16 and that is another one I really would like to see. As promised, I will keep everyone posted.
I cook mine at 325, and against tradition, I cook it from frozen. I usually rub it with a pesto like paste and add a bit of wine and/or water to the pot (beer works too). I don’t add the vegetables until later, about 1 hour before I calculate it will be done.
Because we raise our own beef and have it butchered to our specifications, I never buy roasts at a store, so it is not that I am freezing it to then cook. We also order turkeys from a Huterite Colony and ask that the gizzards be left out instead of put in a little pack and stuffed back into the bird, this way we also can cook turkeys from frozen.
Sybil, we could strike a deal. I didn’t plan to nominate any books because next semester will be a busy one for me, plus I am already leading two discussions on the classics ( and I am counting on Jane to nominate the new Byatt book). If you commit to lead the discussion on either Pan or Hunger (you chose which), I can nominate it for you. Let me know.
Or maybe, whoever nominated Pan would like to do it again.
PS: Steve, I wanted to comment on the library picture. It is a lovely setting. I can see you basking in the sun in this courtyard engaged in a book.
Now is confession time: I have never been to an opera. I followed this thread with interest a few months ago, and made a note to attend an opera performance in Calgary if it ever coincided that we be there during a presentation. But it never happened. I didn't even checked the Mets presentations because I just assumed that in these back waters, we would never have asses to them. So, when my friends mentioned it that they saw it in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, I almost fell over.
I have now purchased tickets for myself and my 18 year-old-daughter, and I will report back with my impressions.
Thanks to you all for expanding my horizons.
You can nominate Hamsun again under the regular book nominations.
