Showing posts with label Emmanuel Bove. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emmanuel Bove. Show all posts

Sunday, September 27, 2015

The Sunday Series: Sunday September 27, 2015




The Sunday Series:
Sunday September 27, 2015

Well, I was born with everything and I will end up with nothing.   I can physically feel the drain of my finances disappearing, as if it was a personal check written in invisible ink.   The farce that is life, is slowly draining away as well.   I have a fear of looking in the mirror and finding my image gone.    There is a slow leak in my bathtub, and each drop represents my power getting less and less.  I was trying to fix it, but you can't fix something that is fate being written out for you.  I can now understand why friends and even slight acquaintances refuse to see or meet me for a drink.   Why be further reminded of failure?  It is right at this very moment, that I realize what life can be on this planet without me.



The buzz-buzz of the bumble bee, or what is left of the species, will be outside my window, competing with the hum of the early morning traffic.   The sound of people moving from one location to another, not for the sense of adventure, but out of duty.   I close my window, and I can see the one bee hitting against it, over and over again.   The determination to stay on the "program" no matter what, is kind of moving to me, but alas, it's sick.  If there is any happiness for me, it is to be removed from the physical space, and lets myself journey as a spirit.  Even that, I can feel the loneliness of the stores that close their doors as I attempt to enter.   There is no exit. So therefore there should be no entrance for me as well.  



There is something funny about my sadness.   People laugh at it, and that gets me to laugh as well.  I'm so over depression.  It's like the paper you used to wipe up the rain water that came through the house.   Instead of throwing it away, you just let it stay there till it's hardened and mildew takes over.  You can't bother changing the space, so just let nature take care of its own.  



I really want to write a poem.   It's Sunday, and it's either a day that starts off the week, or a reminder that the previous week was one of failure.   I don't go to church, nor do I not drink on Sunday, but instead, I try to dump my head into the thought that is Sunday.  I can't get my head around it.  Why is there a day of the week, where one mediates on their failures?  I have started a manuscript folder that is empty.  Every Sunday I look at the blank white piece of fake computer paper, and wonder "where is the poem?"   So I keep a record of all the empty pages, to remind me that I do try to work, but alas, the brain won't let me forget the darkness that's in my soul.  



At times, I feel the need to disappear into my writing.   If I can somehow take my body and get inside the manuscript, I would be, if not, a better place, but at home.   The brutality of the world is the need for physical comforts, and to be forced away from one's writings, is like the taste of something nasty and not right.  I want to feel right, and therefore I must find the portal to the written world. 



While walking around Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, I went to one of my favorite bookstores "Skylight Books" to purchase a collection of short stories by Emmanuel Bove called "Henri Duchemin and his Shadows."  As I sat at the Brü Coffee Bar, I didn't mean to read a whole story, but I started at the first sentence, and couldn't stop reading till the very end.   All the main characters are male, and too sure of their placement in their world.  Of course, this got me thinking about my problems and how I feel about myself.  Bove, according to the introduction, had a life-time of serious financial mishaps, and I try to imagine myself in his shoes.  In fact, when I look at the ground, and I see my shoes, I think of Bove.  




There is no doubt that I'm heading towards a major fall or breakdown of some sort.  The thing is at this point and time, I need to face up to it, and just either roll with the punch, or if I'm fast enough, must avoid the full hit.   It's odd to read a book and enjoy someone else's suffering. It doesn't make me forget my misery, but somehow enhances the experience as if it was a multi-layered milkshake.  Each bite or drink leads one to another sensation.   The world is not a happy one for me, but nevertheless, it is a landscape that has many textures.  My job is to jump into what is offered to me - both the good and the bad (and to be honest, it doesn't look too good here) and presented in such a fashion, that can hopefully enlighten one.   Or a reader or two.  Or not. 

Saturday, September 26, 2015

"Henri Duchemin and his Shadows" by Emmanuel Bove (Introduction by Donald Breckenridge) Translated from the French by Alyson Waters

978-1-59017-832-4, $14.95, nyrb classics

I have never read Emmanuel Bove, and now, I feel like I have a good new friend.  On the other hand, do I need him as a friend?  The short stories all deal with a main character who feels misplaced or not connecting on a human level with others or their settings.  In many ways, they are totally self-destructive figures who seem to enjoy their fall from grace to embrace emotional failure.  Most of his fiction was written between the two world wars, so it's a world that itself is in conflict, and i think Bove is commenting on the nature of that landscape and how one lives on that mental state of depression and fear of the future.  Relationships seem to be built on quicksand than on pavement and ground.  Bove captures these moments that are totally believable, yet they are basically insane people.   Right now, I feel we are going through an age of intense anxiety.   "Henri Duchemin and his Shadows" expresses the culture of the 20s, and makes perfect sense in the year 2015 as well. 


Emmanuel Bove