When one expects to read a "diary" or a "journal," one still expects it to correspond to a certain format. One expects descriptions of quotidian life,When one expects to read a "diary" or a "journal," one still expects it to correspond to a certain format. One expects descriptions of quotidian life, confessions, patterns of personal development, and so forth. One is less likely to expect lists of "elegant things," "sorrowful things," and the like. It reminds me rather of Borges' almost certainly 100% fictitious taxonomy of all the animals in the world from an ancient Chinese encyclopedia. And yet that's how our brains work so often, isn't it? Especially those of us who live aestheticized lives dedicated to the archiving and curation of objects and experiences. Little bits and fragments, in no particular order. I'm not sure if Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book counts as a work of genius, but given the way it's structured, I feel like I do have both lucid insight into the thoughts of this Japanese noblewoman 1000 years ago, and the circumstances in which she lived....more
I fucking hate hearing people's dreams... there's that old Mitch Hedberg joke... “let me tell you something that didn't happen.”
I hoped the narrative I fucking hate hearing people's dreams... there's that old Mitch Hedberg joke... “let me tell you something that didn't happen.”
I hoped the narrative of dreams would be better coming from Georges Perec, the absolute GOAT of literary experimentation in the 20th Century, but sadly I was wrong. It's still a guy talking about his dreams, which was boring when I was 16 and we were baked, and it's boring now....more
Worse than the other diaries of Sontag I've read, but at the same time more relatable. Rather than Sontag the wunderkind, you get Sontag the kind of cWorse than the other diaries of Sontag I've read, but at the same time more relatable. Rather than Sontag the wunderkind, you get Sontag the kind of confused, pretty smart, but on the whole mostly confused writer of fragments that you feel like you could know -- I felt like I could have written many of these myself, which, despite the fact that I do take pride in my writing, should be a bit of a dig on a writer of Sontag's stature. Also, saying things like "Fantasia is like, fascist" should be considered embarrassing for all parties involved....more
As with so many other diary collections, I felt something of a sense of guilt about reading this. Given Kafka's outward behaviors -- the successful inAs with so many other diary collections, I felt something of a sense of guilt about reading this. Given Kafka's outward behaviors -- the successful insurance lawyer and inveterate womanizer, one imagines him holding court over a packed bar with a glass of Scotch and a Czech honey on each side -- and given the brilliant eeriness of his stories, the diaries reveal that the two things that these facets of his life have in common is a fundamental anguish and insecurity.
We also see him early on, heavily involved in the specifically Jewish social, intellectual, and religious life of Prague, and we see him later on, more cosmopolitan in his outlook, and less likely to identify with the community of his birth. Which is interesting -- while countless more contemporary writers try so shoehorn this sort of standpoint-theory Judaism into his fiction, which has always irked me, you can see the ways in which he was shaped by the debates over Zionism (which he was rather suspicious of) and by mysticism as it was practiced in prewar Prague. It's a funny thing about Kafka. His writings are so universal and so abstract that you can project whatever you want onto them, and still come out with results....more
As I read Susan Sontag's journals, I thought, as is I think kind of inevitable, where I was in my late teens and early 20s, when Sontag was off cavortAs I read Susan Sontag's journals, I thought, as is I think kind of inevitable, where I was in my late teens and early 20s, when Sontag was off cavorting with geniuses in Paris and reading dense German romantic epic poems in the original. Let's face it, I was probably ripping a bong in an attic.
Sontag's journals, fractured as they are, are a remarkably portrait of the inner thoughts of one of the 20th Century's big name intellectuals, as she went through book after book and a couple of what were apparently really fucking self-destructive relationships. I'm always afraid that reading the journals of an author will be rather like looking in their laundry basket-- more a project of nosiness than of intellectual curiosity-- but these were pretty interesting....more
What an odd book-- Henri-Frédéric Amiel is one of those minds who's remarkably difficult to pin down. Deeply religious, but ultimately skeptical; arisWhat an odd book-- Henri-Frédéric Amiel is one of those minds who's remarkably difficult to pin down. Deeply religious, but ultimately skeptical; aristocratic in spirit, but grudgingly realistic to know that democracy is the only way forward for a society; admiring of science, but simultaneously recognizing the dangers of positivism; and a lifelong conservative Protestant who as he got older began to embrace socialist and Buddhist thinking, and someone who, in his own way, seemed to be lighting the path for the future of French thought, a first sort of ur-existentialist emerging from the cave. And over the course of this journal, we see the arc of a man whose life is lonely, damaged, deeply romantic but necessarily pragmatic, over the course of a remarkable century. I've never read anything like it....more
