Tomas Transtromer won the Nobel Prize in 2011, but like most authors in translation, it always takes some time for the collected works to trickle into our American bookstores and onto our shelves. I may still be a little late to the parade, shouting praise of Transtromer’s The Great Enigma,but I think he’s worthy of the attention.
Tomas Transtromer is the Swedish Robert Frost. The staccato images of his poems pull you into the woods, into a natural world in which truth is just below the ice on the frozen pond.
Transtromer made a name for himself as a poet in Sweden in the 1970s and 80s, having published several small, but well received, collections. In 1990, he suffered a stroke that damaged his right hand, and made his speech difficult to understand. 6 years later, he published The Sad Gondola.
“From July 1990”
It was a funeral
and I felt the dead man
was reading my thoughts
better than I could.
The organ was silent, the birds sang.
The grave out in the sunshine.
My friend’s voice belonged
on the far side of the minutes.
I drove home seen through
by the glitter of the summer day
by rain and quietness
seen through by the moon.
Airmail, released this month by Graywolf Press, is the collected letters of the American poet, Robert Bly, and Tomas Transtromer. The book is an intimate portrait of the two men, as well as an opportunity to eavesdrop on their conversations on poetry, art, life, and the art of translation. The wisdom these men share! (and the cartoon drawings are pretty great, too)
original text of Air Mail
“Air Mail”
On the hunt for a mailbox
I took the letter through the city.
In the big forest of stone and concrete
the straying butterfly flickered.
The flying-carpet of the stamp
the staggering lines of the address
plus my own sealed truth
soaring now over the ocean.
The Atlantic’s creeping silver.
The cloud banks. The fishing boat
like a spat-out olive-stone.
And the pale scars of the wakes.
Down here work goes slowly.
I ogle the clock often.
The tree-shadows are black ciphers
in the greedy silence.
The truth’s there, on the ground
but no one dares to take it.
The truth’s there, on the street.
No one makes it his own.
And if you like this poetry, you will like this music by Edward Elgar (The Enigma Variations)
HBO’s hit television series, A Game of Thrones (ASoIaF), is still really really good, despite their childish need to pornoshize everything they put out. This show is good like old school Coca-Cola – you know, that Coke that had coke in it? They are similar in two basic ways: a. The formula is solid. Coke is tasty and so is Martin’s story. b. There is a substance present in both of these forms of entertainment that ‘hook’ people hard and keep them coming back with one wicked craving for more. Of course in the case of Coca-Cola I’m referring to the cocaine that was present in the original formulation. As for ASoIaF, there is a substance present that makes people compulsively and crazily throw back episodes, often times slamming 10epis down in a single binge night – this substance is highly addictive, viz. pornography.
The reason I draw this parallel between cocaine and pornography is that they both work on a relatively similar plane. They are both dopaminergic, among other things. If you don’t know much about dopamine, just know that it is an incredibly powerful neurotransmitter that acts in your body as a reward system conditioning you to repeat those things that cause it to be released, etc. It gives you a high.
Obviously Coca-Cola doesn’t need cocaine to sell their product around the globe, but maybe a film or a book does. If you were to take this pornographic element out of the compound you would still be deeply mired in a soup of dopamine releasing agents, among other things. For example, the largest slice of pie in ASoIaF is not porn, but violence. Violence is something that is ~universally present in every story. Violence is basically ~the root of all conflict, with few exceptions. And it would be well to note the violent nature of most pornography – is it not that nearly all pornography is conducted with men as the actors and women as the object being acted upon?
Still, I would appreciate this series a lot more if it didn’t have those classic Tarantino moments where you are watching this super film and then suddenly you are thrown into this immature sex scene that just makes you feel like you’ve walked in on a friend masturbating to a computer screen. Georges Bataille, a dead French author known for his explicit erotica literature (e.x., The story of the Eye) , argues that anything sexual is inherently childish. Maybe this is so, but I can’t help looking at this with eyebrows raised. I mean seriously, HBO is like a surgeon that sniggers in a cancer seminar every time the word breast is mentioned.
The thing I love most about this show is that it has created another phenomena like what Harry Potter did some 10 years ago, i.e. it has become an intersection where nonreaders can slip into the stream of books. So many people have watched this show and loved it so much that they have come to the books for more, and plenty of these people are virgin book readers and don’t know what to read next. This is why having a good local bookseller is so important. You don’t want to sift through the chaff do you, only to find subquality items? Why not go to someone who can just throw the gems at you?
So, you who have watched the show and read the books but have no clue on where to go from her? You’ve found the right place.
If you liked A Game of Thrones, come by today and snag up Promise of Blood by Brian McLellan – this book is brand new, Brian is a new author, and it is completely awesome. This is the first volume in the Powder Mage Trilogy. With a generous mixture of gunpowder, social revolution, and magic, this book is a fast paced piece of flintlock fantasy. So, if you’re lost and you don’t know which way to go, let us here at Lemuria take the reins and guide you into some new and exciting territories.
I just finished Doug Stephens’ book The Retail Revival. This timely book is the most interesting business book I’ve read on the future of retail since The New Rules of Retail (see blog) a couple of years ago.
On surviving in the new age of consumerism, two statements Stephens makes in the first ten pages stand out:
1. Stephens lists brands that are under his “deathwatch” and his list includes Barnes and Noble. All of the brands on his list have one thing in common: “They each missed or ignored at least one universe-shaping shift in their market, and never quite recovered from it.” (xi)
2. “The bookstore channel has gone to great lengths in its attempt to convince us that deep down we all still love the smell and feel of paper books, when every available statistic suggests that we actually prefer the smell and feel of tablets and e-readers.” (xviii)
My reaction to these comments:
While at the very least B&N may appear to be backsliding, this bookstore chain is going through a re-branding process. And we don’t know the final result or what B&N will become. I’m not so sure B&N knows where they’re going either.
On the second statement, I simply disagree. I feel physical books are important to readers’ lives. Home libraries are what families are built around. I also feel that relationships with booksellers are meaningful associations within any community.
With all this being said, I’m getting to what this blog is really about.
I am proud of the announcement that Square Books as Publisher’s Weekly Bookstore of the Year in 2013. (see PW announcement here) My friends Lisa and Richard Howorth founded their bookstore in 1979. For over 30 years, they have made their community a better place to live. Their contributions have not just given Oxford something to be proud of but the whole state of Mississippi.
Richard and Lisa do an exceptional job of demonstrating why real bookstores won’t go away. Their dedication of a lifetime of vitality through books and reading have changed their culture and will have positive effects on generations to come.
So as a fellow bookseller, I applaud their achievement with a standing ovation. I consider Square Books a shining example that contradicts Stephens’ earlier statement about real books. I feel now is the time for Real Book Store Revitalization. If book people are wishing they had the strength and willpower to build a bookstore in their community, now is a great time to do so.
As B&N expands its retailing brand into what–we do not know, now is the time for the Real Book Seller to emerge by forming Real Book Stores and selling real books. If this blog touches the inclination of any wanna-be bookseller, I suggest you travel to Square Books in Oxford and experience the pinnacle of what a bookstore can be and what bookselling can accomplish for its local environment.
Once again, congratulations to Lisa, Richard, Cody, Lynn and the Square Books gang on making a difference. Square Books is a Real Book Store.
“We don’t need to see anything out of the ordinary. We already see so much.” -Robert Walser
I first came across Robert Walser’s writings in the 2011 edition of Microscripts. He had an affinity for writing short stories and essays using an early German script called Kurrent. I tried to forget about this beautiful book, Microscripts, but I never really did. And now my love for Robert Walser freely abounds with the gorgeous new book A Little Ramble: In the Spirit of Robert Walser, published New Directions. As with all of Robert Walser’s writings, you will want to take A Little Ramble in slowly.
If you’re interested in Robert Walser, leave a comment below. We will be getting in more of his books in the next week that will find their place on Lemuria’s shelves and maybe yours, too!
Robert Walser can make me feel really sentimental as my walking paths in Austria come very close to his paths in Germany and Switzerland. Surely, he walked some beautiful ways in Austria, too?
I don’t quite live in the picture-postcard Austria any longer but we do have many beautiful places in Mississippi. And maybe they are all the more special because they are not as obvious. Over the past few weeks I have been enjoying my own little ramble in downtown Jackson along the levee and down some beautiful paths along the Pearl River. Enjoy Robert Walser’s ramble in words and my ramble in photos below.
A Little Ramble:
I walked through the mountains today. The weather was damp, and the entire region was gray. But the road was soft and in places very clean. At first I had my coat on; soon, however, I pulled it off, folded it together, and laid it upon my arm. The walk on the wonderful road gave me more and ever more pleasure; first it went up and then descended again. The mountains were huge, they seemed to go around. The whole mountainous world appeared to me like an enormous theater. The road snuggled up splendidly to the mountainsides. Then I came down into a deep ravine, a river roared at my feet, a train rushed passed me with magnificent white smoke. The road went through the ravine like a smooth white stream, and as I walked on, to me it was if the narrow valley were bending and winding around itself. Gray clouds lay on the mountains as though they were their resting place. I met a young traveler with a rucksack on his back, who asked if I had seen two other young fellows. No, I said. Had I come from very far? Yes, I said, and went farther on my way. Not a long time, and I saw and heard the two young wanderers pass by with music. A village was especially beautiful with humble dwellings set thickly under the white cliffs. I encountered a few carts, otherwise nothing, and I had seen some children on the highway. We don’t need to see anything out of the ordinary. We already see so much.
Reading Sharon Olds’ work, you are reading the poet’s own life history–the messiness of life rubbing up against the beautiful. Sharon Olds is not afraid to air her dirty laundry in public. InStag’s Leap, she isn’t afraid to air her ex-husband’s dirty laundry, either.
Over the course of her writing career, Olds has hashed and rehashed her experiences–the death of her college sweetheart, the birth of her two children, her marriage, the death of her father and then mother. Stag’s Leap, Olds’ newest collection of poetry (and the Pulitzer Prize winner for 2013) is no exception; the book chronicles her divorce with a blatant honesty that is unsentimental and refreshing. (The severed marriage is especially poignant when juxtaposed to the intimate portrayls of her ex-husband in her previous books of poetry.)
The poems are arranged chronologically, moving from the first moments of separation(“While he told me, I looked from small thing/to small thing”), to years after (“We talk of the kids, and it’s/ as if that will never be taken from us”). She charts the change in emotion and relationship: the shock of being a single again, the feelings of inadequacy, anger, bitterness, guilt, and eventually, forgiveness.
Stag’s Leap is a poignant portrait of life-after-marriage. The not-so-glamourous story of falling out of love.
Tomas Transtromer won the Nobel Prize in 2011, but like most authors in translation, it always takes some time for the collected works to trickle into our American bookstores and onto our shelves. I may still be a little late to the parade, shouting praise of Transtromer’s The Great Enigma, but I think he’s worthy of the attention.
Tomas Transtromer is the Swedish Robert Frost. The staccato images of his poems pull you into the woods, into a natural world in which truth is just below the ice on the frozen pond.
With all this being said, I’m getting to what this blog is really about.
