segunda-feira, 9 de fevereiro de 2015

Paul AuSter and VMS an improbable coincidence!?

Hello, today I want to talk about some improbable or not so improbable coincidences I found between two different writers (Paul Auster and VMS) and two different books (Winter Journal and SOT).


Paul Auster is an american author whose themes are identity, solitude and the struggles of a writer to do his work. He is also famous for his autobiographical writing style.
I was surprised he is not so famous in USA as he is in Europe (as far as I read). Also he is not so well received by the critics although is books sell huge.
Here I will be talking about particularly of one of his last autobiographical books called Winter Journal. Although most of his books have recurrent themes: identity, writers struggle, daily life problems and finding a meaning. It is also important to him the relation of things, coincidences, recurrences and so on. (ex. The Invention of Solitude)

 VMS is... You know who he is. (Or maybe you don't yet) And to make his introduction short, lets say that he shares most of what I wrote above about Paul Auster.
He uses S. as a bibliographical characterization of his own struggles with the same themes.
Themes: identity, solitude, searching of love, compassion, understanding and respect. Writer struggles with his work and with a strange world that surrounds him. Autobiographical writing style. Books that sell huge but are not well received by some critics and so on.

Besides, both views of hegemony and tyranny are quite similar as far as I can tell.

Based on SOT and Winter Journal let's see some "coincidences":
(there are possibly more, tell me if you find some)

In the first chapter of SOT S. finds is way to a bar where he finds Sola reading. He is exhausted, totally wet and confused. Paul Auster enters a bar with his friends after a long day of film making. He's wet since it was raining outside. He’s tired and he falls asleep. As for S. he is shanghaied at the bar and passes out when his dragged out of it and recovers conscience only inside the ship.

By the way, Paul Auster considers his wife an inspiration and he treats her like a muse. It recorded me of S. and Sola sometimes.

S. struggles constantly about his identity and the reasons of his life. Paul Auster also debates constantly about his identity and he compares it’s lacking to a time of voyage specially when you are inside a plane. As you fly between two destinations you lose sight of who you are and get a sense of lost of reality. Inside the ship, S. struggles with similar questions as he sails to somewhere he doesn't know.

"... but nothing is more disconcerting to you than the ride in the plane itself, the strange sense of being nowhere that engulfs you each time you step in the cabin, the unreality of being propelled through space at five hundred miles an hour, so far off the ground that you begin to lose a sense of your own reality, as if the fact of your own existence were slowly being drained out of you, but such is the price you pay for leaving home, and as long as you continue to travel, the nowhere that lies between the here of home and the there of somewhere else will continue to be one of the places where you live."
Paul Auster, Winter Journal

If you substitute the plane for a ship (in that a plane is a kind of ship/vessel) and you imagine you are reading SOT, it could be something VMS could write himself. 

After this S. has given a mission. He must kill by poison a number of agents.
As for Paul Auster he describes a movie he once saw that he felt he could relate with himself. It is a movie about a man that is poisoned. He finds a doctor who tells him: “You have been murdered!”
In both books the coincidences of facts and the recurrences of events appear quiet often an surge as a reason to justify the story.
The main theme of SOT is the struggles of a man belloging to the labor movement against the power of capitalism and progress.
Paul Auster tells about his aversion to the ascension of the right, the contemporary american culture and the end of the labor movement.
It seems to me that we are present with two very different books that relate in many of their themes.

There is another similarity, in the narrator voice.
This is the first book by Paul Auster that I read where he uses the second-person narrator. I haven´t read everything from him though.
In SOT the only place this happens is in the description of agent 26 and FXC calls our attention to this fact in her footnote (SOT pg. 311).

Also, he mentions briefly being over a nazi concentration/labor camp that was now very different from what it looked before and he felt he heard the voices of the many Russian soldiers that had been buried at this site.
In SOT S. hears similar voices in the Vevodas cellar: "He hears the whispers of many thousands of restless souls and discerns the lost woman voice among them." (SOT pg. 411)
They both feel uncomfortable and dizzy about it. They both want to leave.

Also Paul Auster mentions suddenly about the Fall. As you know The Fall and the falling is a recurrent theme in SOT.
Telling us about a near fatal fall he gave himself, Paul Auster write: "Everyday, in every country around the world, people die from falls like that one." (WJ)
And he gets to fall two times in this book, one when he's still a boy and another time when he gets older.

And last but not least, if you were thinking about the birds that invade SOTs pages, you can also find an important bird in Winter Journal. It is a robin, and it is something Paul Auster expects the arrival with anticipation, since it will mean the arrival of Spring and the end of his winter.
By the way, he's winter is the winter he takes to write this journal/book. It is also the winter of his aging. And in that regard it is not so different from the S.'s winter in the Winter City.


terça-feira, 3 de fevereiro de 2015

Filomela Xebregas Caldeira FXC

Hello again. I haven't updated before since I want to finish the book before make a general overview of it. But since I couldn't finish it out yet, I will give you just a glimpse of some of the things I have found out.
Today I want to tell you about Filomela Xabregas Caldeira, FXC for short.
Before we start I would like to say that I will not avoid any spoilers, so if you didn't read the book I strongly advise you stop reading this and read the book first. From now on, even if we are working with possibilities, I would not avoid any spoilers as sometimes I will have to refer to the book passages.
Also bare in mind that I didn't finish the book yet (it's close now) but I believe what I have to say can stand by itself. Also it is my own interpretation and you are free to comment it or have your own.

Let's start with the first name, Filomela, as you probably know it is a Greek name and she was a figure of Greek mythology. Filomela was raped by Tereus who cut out her tongue so that she couldn't tell about it to anyone. Later he tried to kill her and the gods transformed her into a nightingale in order to save her.
The name itself can be translated as "lover of fruits" or "lover of songs". It depends on your interpretation of the last word. I go for the second, specially in our context.

I don't know if you have noticed by now but as far as I see it the writers presented in the book as well as their representations are associated with birds. Birds have not only the possibility to fly, which can be associated with liberty (and liberty is often a writing theme) but they have also the possibility to sing, thus transforming the mere communication in a form of art. It is what literature is all about, after all.

So, Filomela is a special woman impeded to talk about her suffering to whom the gods favor with the possibility to fly (to flee her persecutors) and to sing her songs, like a bird.

If you can see here some relations with FXC or VMS themselves I think you are correct.

Let's jump to the next name: Xabregas.
Xabregas is a area in the city of Lisbon, in it's oriental side. It became famous during the industrial age (about beginning of XIX century in Portugal) because of it's many factories, specially the most famous of them were the tobacco factory and the textile factory.
We will take a closer look at the textile factory in a minute.
Let's just say that this area of Lisbon were important also because it was/is an important joint for railroads in their travelings to and fro from Lisbon Port with their merchandises.
Maybe you noticed that Vevodas agents use to travel by train, as S. members use to travel by ship, at least our S. does, as you know.
This can be seen as an image of progress versus old ways (tradition) since the ship is associated with tradition but the train is usually associated with progress. By the way, it was railroads that brought the possibilities of industrialization as much as industrialization itself. It was like a symbioses between steam machine which permitted most of the industrial revolution and the train itself with its possibilities of travel.
Industrial revolution changed the manufacturing process and as you know VMS was not so happy about it, since it permitted capitalism and human exploitation.
It permitted also progress which mean a better living for some people with goods they didn't have before, but also very poor working conditions that were refused by men like VMS.
Transportation and travel also changed a good deal, and it is important for our interpretation. Especially the train were a big advancement in this regard. Just to give you an idea, carriages traveled about 12 km/h and the horses got tired often and needed to be changed. As for the train it traveled about 45 km/h and non stop as long as there was energy. It was permitted specially by the steam machine (more about it later).
So the industrial revolution brought progress and the world became faster. It was so faster for some people in fact,  that they started getting confused about it, and they invented names for this new condition they didn't know nothing about like spleen. Nowadays we call it stress! Could we say that S. is a stressed man!? In a way, yes, so as VMS, FXC, Eric, Jen and on and on. We are all stressed nowadays anyway!
There would be many more things to say about labor and labor conditions at this epoch and about the new movements that began to appear to "fight" those conditions. But I leave that investigation for you since there's plenty of information about it.

Let's continue our analyse of FXC name.
Let's talk about the Xabregas Textile Fabric for a minute.
It was called Fábrica de Fiação e Tecidos Oriental and it was founded in 1888. It was also called Fábrica das Varandas which can be translated as "balcony factory" and you will understand why when you see it's picture. It lasted from 1888 to 1983 (about 100 years).
It is associated with strikes, labor movements, syndicates and so on. Many people were dismissed as a result of this movements.
By the way, why is it that the current english verb for dismiss someone from work is to fire!? 

Some addicional notes:

It got a steam engine of high and low pressure. Maybe the first to appear in Portugal.
The noise inside the factory was so high that people have to communicate by mimic gestures. Does it remind you of the sailors whistles which also could remind you of the bird twits!? Me too!


source: http://aps-ruasdelisboacomhistria.blogspot.pt/2010/04/rua-de-xabregas-xvii.html


There is another factory that I am not sure if it is the same, but it is interesting to talk about it.
It was called Fábrica da Fiação de Xabregas and was founded in 1854.
Why I say it is interesting to note, because the conditions of labor in it were not so different from the other one (assuming they are two different factories and not the same).
But what is more interesting is that it was destroyed by fire two times. The first at 1877 and a second time at 1948.
This makes you wonder a great deal of possibilities. For example: a workman got fired and he decided to retribute his employers by putting their factory to fire! Just a thought.
Most certainly the fire started by some electric malfunction, but there are no references to the causes of fire.
Also there are some big windows and balconies there, It would give a great place for a fenestration, but none occurred that we could know of. I'm glad it didn't!

source: https://toponimialisboa.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/largo-da-fiacao-de-xabregas/

I found no images of this one, and I belive it was destroyed already. You guess, by a fire probably!

I want to do some research about the proprietaries of both fabrics as they were both english men. Didn't had the time yet...


This brings us to the last name Caldeira, which is in fact a common surname in Portugal and Brasil.
I saw it translated before as a hot bath! I don't think this is correct. I searched in the dictionary and it is not translated that way anywhere,
The common name, not the family name, mean what I must call for lack of a better word a boiler. I don't know if this is the correct term in english, anyway, a boiler (caldeira) is some kind of device used to boil water with the intention of producing vapor and henceforth energy.
At first I thought it was a thing of the past, but make a search and you will see that it is very present in our daily lives. It is used for example to make hot water (maybe that was the confusion with the hot bath), to make food, to power up engines and so on.
This device evolved over time and today it is a high performance device.
It was also used to power up trains and you bet, ships! In fact the changing from the old methods of power up like the charcoal to the boiler increased the velocity and power of the machinery considerably. Adding the efficiency of it!
By the way, look at the inserted photo of FXC inside the book, take a close look behind her! Yup, there it is hidden in plain sight! It was quite funny to find it!
To finish for now I will leave you with the only other use of this word that I found and it is interesting to our study.
In the book it is mentioned the Azores archipelago. Well, it happens that in Azores islands there are some big lakes that the locals call "caldeiras". And they are quite special!
I am sorry I didn't had the time to investigate it further yet, but I will and I will tell you about it in the near future.
Also there are so many topics to discuss that I don't know where to start. I just want to finish the book first to give a correct and acknowledge review.



quinta-feira, 29 de janeiro de 2015

A little story (hope not to boring)


A man says to other - start digging, you will like it. Just try it! The other even reluctant starts digging on the spot. Sometime later he asks himself, what I'm I digging here!? The first man says keep digging till you find sometimes of value. The second man keeps digging out. After a long while (lets say some years) he calls the second man and says to him - I kept digging and I found many things, but I couldn't find what I was looking for! Second man - You mean yet! Keep digging. And he keeps on digging for some more time (lets say another couple of years). He keeps finding things, interesting things like some bits of rock, sometimes a rare species of fossil, he even found a little diamante, and he starts liking what he's doing. After so much digging he starts feeling it is a reason for him. And finding it so he keeps doing it for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile this man had a son, and after the man left this earth, his son seeing what this man was doing so intently, gets curious. He starts exploring this hole on the ground, trying to figure out what to do with it. The first man had long gone himself. But the son seeing the tools of his father try them, out of curiosity and after a while he sees he can dig. So he does it, and does it again and again everyday. The story is quite similar to his father, the difference is mainly in what he finds out while he's digging out.
To make a long story short lets say that some hundred, two hundred, three hundred (who knows!) years after the last descendant of a traditional long family of diggers is born. Guess what will do!? You're right! He goes digging that dam hole on the ground. He digs and digs and digs, he just want to see what he will find. And what he finds is a light, a very tiny light at first that grows bigger the more he digs out the dirt. Finally the light is so big that he feels he can reach it, and he does. He passes through this light and he is on another side, another world. Or is it the same world but upside down!? If you want to know for yourselves, dig!



Hope you found it amusing. Anyway what I wanted to say is that when someone says you to dig but don't tell you where or how, you can end anyway, even in the other side of the world. But seeing it on the other side (of the question not the world) maybe it is all about that, you dig because you like doing it and if you find something of value, so much the better. Keep on digging my friends, let's see what we will find!

"I urge you to dig. Give in to the unknown for a while and ponder the mystery. It’s worth it."  JJ Abrams


First thoughts and some notes

Before beggining bare in mind that I'm still at the middle of the book and I haven't read everything on the net so maybe something will be not news to you and something maybe you found out already. I only wish to share my views of the book so far and if it will be useful for your own search, great! Any comments will be always welcome.

Ok, my thoughts so far. Maybe it’s because I’m a foreigner but I can read most book in English

without much problem. But I must say this book as been difficult to read. Specially the first chapter.

When I started reading it I got immediately lost. Maybe this was the intention of VMS to make us

feel that way!? I would like to have the opinion of a native english speaker on this.


Thoughts on the cover:

A ship inside a spiral. A spiral maybe a black hole (a rabbit hole). It is believed that a passage by a

black hole would bring you to another dimension. Is the ship going trough another dimension!?

After the storm S. finds himself in a entire different place. Could we possibly imagine that he

made a leap into another dimension!? The style used and the thematic seems to change too.

The book that Sola is reading and is mentioned in the text various times is written by a man

named Arquimedes de Sobreiro and its name is Tales of the Archer. S. says the author is

Portuguese. Arquimedes is not a common portuguese name even in the old times as far as I

know. As for Sobreiro it is a common family name. It is also the name of a tree, the oak tree. The

oak tree is famous by its longevity and big branches. So I believe this book of the Archer is

somewhat important to our understanding of the root philosophy subtenant to this book.

Arquimedes was a famous greek philosopher and inventor. There is a document called the

Arquimedes Palimpsest. In this paper it was found some other books written by Arquimedes some

of them interesting to our search: "About the equilibrium of planes"; "About spirals"; and "Measure

of a circle".

As far as I can think the archimedes spiral is an important concept to take in account as we read the

book. There is also another related concept that could be useful in the future for the codes. It is

called the Ulams spiral. It is a spiral invented by a scientist by the name Ulman that is made of

prime numbers. It may be related with some kind of page code or footnote code.

There is also a old deity called the Kolopelli, it is found particularly amount south­american indian

tribes (also some of Mexico tribes). This is a deity of fertility and renewal which can be related with

S. and his story. Also there are some criptogliphs found at some caves in chapter 5 or 6 (can't

remember, but it's the chapter of the caves) and the mysterious tribe K_. Maybe this tribe can be

related with the Kolipolli mitology. Kolipolli criptographs are sometimes found next to spirals.

Those spirals have the meaning of the universe, so of creation and all reality, as far as I know. But it

could also have some symbolic meaning for another dimensions, in this case another states of

consciousness, since the tribes used to practice rituals and magic as is mentioned in the book itself. S.

 also passes for a lot of altered states of consciousness and awareness in his struggle to fight his

amnesia. He even sees some alternate realities as the one of the boy and girl kissing in the harbor,

before the bomb.


Main relationships:

S and Sola; VMS and FXC; Stenfalk and Corbeau; Eric and Jen (so far).

I believe all those couples mean the two opposite energies of the oriental philosophy. They can also

mean the search of one for the other in that the M principle is usually the one initiating the

searching but it is added by the F principle, even if it can change the other way around

sometimes.

It can also mean the writer searching for his muse as someone said before.


Key words until now:

Monkey; Birds; Water


I want to make a list of literary influences in the book (any help welcome):

So far: Kafka, Nabokov, Lovecraft, shades of Saramago(!?), I believe some of Paul Auster.

I will detail about my connections with Paul Auster later, also something about FCX. In the meantime I will try to read a bit more of the book itself.

I found that I can't keep with the back and forward of the margin notes. The problem is not to grasp all meaning as some had said but to go back and forward. It is a chronological problem and not a understanding problem. I just don't like to read about what will happen while I'm still reading what's happening. Anyway, I know it means to be that way, so after chapter four when the second coulors start appearing, I decided to read only text footnote and black/blue margin notes as I go along to the end. Then I will be back and read the margin notes in their chronological order. I belive now it is the best method, but as someone said there are not right methods.


terça-feira, 27 de janeiro de 2015

The search beggins!

Started reading the novel S. by Doug Dorst and J.J. Abrams, a novel about a man searching for himself and a search for the reader to find some meaning.
I made quick search over the net and found some extra information in the meanings behind the novel but as some of it doesn't correspond with my own views I decided using this place as a repository of my own ideias as well as others. It may be somewhat inconsistent at times as I go along taking notes and sharing my view and observations. It will be more of a note taking book than a finnished work of reshearch.