A Civil Contract

     Georgette Heyer is one of my favourite historical romance writers (if not the favourite), because she writes with such warmth, humour and understanding of what it is to be human. She is often known and recommended as Jane Austen with romance/ a poorer Jane Austen - and that was actually how I got to discover Georgette Heyer and how I introduced her to friends. But, the more I have read her novels, the more I find this a misnomer... because Georgette Heyer is I daresay, an original in her own right, she never repeats herself in any of her novels, and her gift for re-invention and the playing of tropes gives me real pleasure. I always feel, just before I open her novel, that I am going to have the most fun reading it, that I will never be dissatisfied (even when I have my favourites). That, as a reader, is often all I can ask from a writer.

   I was particularly moved by A Civil Contract and when it ended, I felt slightly out of breath, and smiled to myself, that was really beautiful. Roughly, the main character, Adam, returns from the war to inherit the title of Viscount Lynton from his just deceased father and finds his family "on the brink of ruin and the broad acres of his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt". Thus, he cannot marry his first love, a beautiful blond romantic creation called Julia. Adam becomes engaged and subsequently married to "plain ol Jenny", the daughter of one of the richest man in the City, who wants to make a great social match for his daughter.

   A Civil Contract is simultaneously absorbing and frustrating - because you know this story in your heart, titled handsome man marries the plainer but more practical and wiser girl (who has always loved him and can take care of all his needs) while having already given his heart to a beautiful princess of a blonde (who loves herself more than him, never really loved him but only the person she imagined him to be, and could scarcely survive with her golden spoon in her mouth). You want it to turn out the way you envisioned satisfyingly - and it does pan out satisfyingly but never in the way you want it. And somehow, that feels the most true to life, gaining that happiness in the end, but not exactly how you envisioned it.

    Now, don't read the quote below if you don't want to know the ending:

    A little pang smote her; she wanted to ask him: 'Do you love me as much as you loved her?' She was too inarticulate to be able to utter the words; and in a minute, knew that it would be foolish to do so. Searching his eyes, she saw warmth in them, and tenderness, but not the ardent flame that had once kindled them when he had looked at Julia. She hid her face in his shoulder, thinking that she too had an impractical dream. But she had always known that she was too commonplace and matter-of-fact to inspire him with the passionate adoration that he had felt for Julia. Probably Adam would always carry Julia in some corner of his heart. She had been tiresome today, putting him out of love with her; but Jenny did not think that this revulsion would last. Julia stood for his youth, and the high hopes he had cherished; and although he might no longer yearn to possess her she would remain nostalgically dear to him while life endured.  

   Yet, after all, Jenny thought that she had been granted more than she had hoped for when she had married him. He did love her: differently, but perhaps more enduringly; and he had grown to depend on her. She thought that they would have many years of quiet content: never reaching the heights, but living together in comfort and deepening friendship. Well, you can't have it both ways, she thought, and I couldn't live in alt all the time, so I daresay I'm better off as things are.  

     ... She thought, and was comforted, that though she was not the wife of his dreams, it was her, not with Julia, that he shared life's little, foolish jokes. 

     Dear Husband, I am grateful to be both your Julia and Jenny. Which do you see in me at any one time? We are always changing, aren't we? But let's learn to always share in life's little jokes. After all, it would be nice as well, to be yours forever. 

SEA Aquarium (Part 3)

   Because of Murakami, no visit to the aquarium is complete without seeing the Jellyfish. 

        We spent that first afternoon together in the aquarium of the Ueno Zoo. The weather was so nice that day, I thought it might be more fun to stroll around the zoo itself, and I hinted as much to Kumiko on the train to Ueno, but it was obvious she had made up her mind to go to the aquarium. If that was what she wanted, it was all right with me. At the aquarium there was a special display of jellyfish, and we went through them from beginning to end, viewing the rare specimens gathered from all parts of the world. They floated, trembling in their tanks, everything from a tiny cotton puff the size of a fingertip to monsters more than three feet in diameter. For a Sunday, the aquarium was relatively uncrowded. In fact, it was on the empty side. On such a lovely day, anybody would have preferred the elephants and giraffes to jellyfish. 

       Although I said nothing to Kumiko, I actually hated jellyfish. I had often been stung by jellyfish while swimming in the ocean as a boy. Once, when swimming far out by myself, I wandered into a school of them. By the time I realised what I had done, I was surrounded. I never forgot the slimy, cold feeling of them touching me. In the centre of their whirlpool of jellyfish, an immense terror overtook me, as if I had been dragged into a bottomless darkness. I wasn't stung, for some reason, but in my panic I gulped a lot of sea water. Which is why I would have liked to skip the jellyfish display if possible and go to see some ordinary fish, like tuna or flounder. 

       Kumiko, though, was fascinated. She stopped at every single tank, leaned over the railing, and remained transfixed as if she had lost all sense of time. "Look at this," she'd say to me. "I never knew there were such vivid pink jellyfish. And look at the beautiful way it swims. They just keep wobbling along like this until they've been to every ocean in the world. Aren't they wonderful?" 

       "Yeah, sure." But the more I forced myself to keep examining jellyfish with her, the more I felt a tightening growing in my chest. Before I knew it, I had stopped replying to her and was counting the change in my pocket over and over, or wiping the corners of my mouth with my handkerchief. I kept wishing we would come to the last of the jellyfish tanks, but there was no end to them. The variety of jellyfish swimming in the oceans of the world was enormous. I was able to bear it for half an hour, but the tension was turning my head into mush. When, finally, it became too painful for me to stand leaning against the railing, I left Kumiko's side and slumped on a nearby bench. She came over to me and, clearly very concerned, asked if I was feeling ill. I answered honestly that looking at the jellyfish was making me dizzy. 

        She stared into my eyes with a grave expression on her face. "It's true," she said. "I can see it in your eyes. They've gone out of focus. It's incredible - just from looking at jellyfish!" Kumiko took me by the arm and led me out of the gloomy, dank aquarium into the sunlight. 

       Sitting in the nearby park for ten minutes, taking long, slow breaths, I managed to return to a normal psychological state. The strong autumn sun cast its pleasant radiance everywhere, and the bone-dry leaves of the gingko trees rustled softly whenever the breeze picked up. "Are you all right?" Kumiko asked after several minutes had gone by. "You certainly are a strange one. If you hate jellyfish so much, you should have said so right away, instead of waiting until they made you sick." 

        The sky was high and cloudless, the wind felt good, the people spending their Sunday in the park all wore happy expressions. A slim, pretty girl was walking a large, long-haired dog. An old fellow wearing a felt hat was watching his granddaughter on the swing. Several couples sat on benches, as we were doing. Off in the distance, someone was practising scales on a saxophone. 

        "Why do you like jellyfish so much?" I asked. 

      "I don't know. I guess I think they're sweet," she said. "But one thing did occur to me when I was focusing on them. What we see before us is just one tiny part of the world. We get into the habit of thinking, This is the world, but that's not true at all. The real world is in a much darker and deeper place than this, and most of it is occupied by jellyfish and things. We just happen to forget all that. Don't you agree?"

- The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami

"You have been in every line I have ever read"

      Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. 

                                                              - Charles Dickens, Great Expectations 

illogic

     
       Illogic (Cake Theatre Productions)
       Playing from 13 to 15 June 2013
     

Someone said the universe must not be narrowed down to the limit of our understanding.

Illogic is a theatre performance in two acts.

Two actors move across a desert-like terrain. Encounters between them gradually bring forth a dramatic landscape capturing at once, a dream like state and the reality of their humanity.

Illogic asks questions it can’t answer and sets a path it won’t follow. 

Two actors. One moving terrain. Giving way to Illogic.

       

      I was intrigued by the synopsis given of the production. It had echoes of Waiting for Godot even if it was borderline pretentious.

      After watching the play, the truest thing that could be written about it are those very lines above. Illogic is a theatre performance in two acts... 

     I though the first half was a failure and the second half a success. But a production is a whole, isn't it? Were they mirror images of each other - the second one building and consolidating images, sounds and senses given in the first half of chaotic frenzied segments?

     And so it starts, I am writing a play... It does not follow the usual rise and fall, exposition, etc... It follows a theme... themes on love. What is love? The rise and fall of the first half - raising the question and offering no answers, except intermissions of songs, shortcuts to already filled depositories of emotions and memories. They rise and fall on the stage resembling a sketch by Escher - a resemblance they will never achieve, because the very essence of Escher is to be impossible. But these two chameleonic figures, both mind and flesh, both young and adult, both female and male, everything and nothing at the same time, were the audience's vicarious pathways to infinity.

    I want to be possessed by God. A woman will undress and become naked on stage. I'm going away - Stay. I'm going away - Stay. It needs two. To the breathtaking crescendo when the actor becomes director (as directed) and controls the stage light (god's thunder onstage), to the stripping of the actress with the stripping of the stage embalmed in light. The actress breaks the fourth wall in the last monologue, you will be ok. We will meet again. 

         "August. We were arguing. You want love to be like this every day, don't you? 92 degrees even in the shade. This intensity, this heat, sun like a disc-saw through your body. Is it because you come from Australia? 

          You didn't answer, just held my hot hand in your cool fingers and strode on easy in linen and silk. I felt ridiculous. I was wearing a pair of shorts with RECYCLE tattooed across one leg. I remembered vaguely that I had once had a girlfriend who thought it rude to wear shorts in front of public monuments. When we met I tethered my bike at Charing Cross and changed in the toilets before meeting her by Nelson's Column. 

'Why bother?' I said. 'He only had one eye.'  

   'I've got two,' she said and kissed me. Wrong to seal illogic with a kiss but I do it myself all the time."

   - Written on The Body, Jeanette Winterson  

Consolidation

                                                                 Etsy: Illustrative Quotations


        It's been about seven months since I've started writing in this place and it's nice to see how much I've grown to love it. As the entries grow, I've decided to categorise some of the entries for ease of reference later:

a) Book
b) Europe
c) Food
d) Hoarder
e) Home & Decor
f) Quotations
g) Taiwan
h) Theatre
i) writings
j) Z & C
k) 我和她

    I'm not really sure how to make the tags appear on the blog (it-idiot) so I'll probably do consolidated entries every now and then. Finally, thank you for actually reading this space of mine. From the number of page views and geography of readers, it's more than likely we have never met in real life. But that's what I love the most about the written word - you write it and let it go. 

and maybe if we drive fast enough

"I thought, there is nowhere else in the universe I would rather be at this moment. I could count the places I would not rather be. I've always wanted to see New Zealand, but I'd rather be here. The majestic ruins of Machu Picchu? I'd rather be here. A hillside in Cuenca, Spain, sipping coffee and watching leaves fall? Not even close. There is nowhere else I could imagine wanting to be besides here in this car, with this girl, on this road, listening to this song. If she breaks my heart, no matter what the hell she puts me through, I can say it was worth it, just because of right now. Out the window is a blur and all I can really hear is the girl's hair flapping in the wind, and maybe if we drive fast enough the universe will lose track of us and forget to stick us somewhere else."

                                                                  - Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield 

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because--

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because -- 

because--I don't know how to say it: a day is long

and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station

when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because

then the little drops of anguish will all run

together,

the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift

into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;

may your eyelids never flutter into the empty

distance.

Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far

I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,

Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

"my heart rides at anchor"

"... and one man will single me out and will tell me what he has told no other person."

- Virginia Woolf, The Waves

"I knew what slant of light/ would make you turn over"

San Antonio
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Tonight I lingered over your name, the delicate assembly of vowels a voice inside my head. You were sleeping when I arrived. I stood by your bed and watched the sheets rise gently. I knew what slant of light would make you turn over. It was then I felt the highways slide out of my hands. I remembered the old men in the west side cafe, dealing dominoes like magical charms. It was then I knew, like a woman looking backward, I could not leave you, or find anyone I loved more.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

    I was walking home on tuesday and thought the sky was beautiful. Falling asleep in its own quiet way. Reminding me that the world does not owe us a thing, but simply does its job each day - spinning in its own orbit, giving us the beauty which we must learn to see.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

     love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

—Mary Oliver

The worthwhile things are difficult

    My parents kept some of the wedding flowers. They re-arranged the flowers and gave them more water. And, they grew more beautiful each day. I watched as each flower kept its whole while the petals slowly curled up and faded. The days grew by, and I couldn't see time, but I could see these flowers. 

“There's no such thing as effortless beauty - you should know that. 

There's no effort which is not beautiful - lifting a heavy stone or loving you.

Loving you is like lifting a heavy stone. It would be easier not to do it and I'm not quite sure why I am doing it. It takes all my strength and all my determination, and I said I wouldn't love someone again like this. Is there any sense in loving someone you can only wake up to by chance?” 

― Jeanette Winterson, The PowerBook

   Cr shared with me about her wonders of is it worth it? - how sometimes people cannot see the good you want to give them, of the pains of being misconstrued. I told her, the worthwhile things are difficult. The things that mean the most to us, saves us and destroys us, makes us the happiest and saddest persons on earth. At the very least, they should be able to do that much. And then, we laughed about how as you grow older you realise it's not about planning how to deal with life. If you plan life, you take away much of its beauty. The key is to be prepared. And when it comes, to let go.  

My lizardy friend

“If I can't stay where I am, and I can't, then I will put all that I can into the going.” 

― Jeanette Winterson

 And so, she left. With a tight hug for each of us, a pair of red eyes, and a heart so big - she needs more than one continent to hold.

As hard as it always is to say a goodbye (for now), I like to think that when one forages out in the world, one becomes a deeper shade of themselves. So much more to love and share when one returns.

Together, my friends, we will do great things. Very great things.

Like a dog in outer space

I received a postcard unexpectedly today. Traditional mail is perhaps one of the few real romantic things left in the world. My parents once told me that they would use steam to heat the stamps off their letters so they could re-use them again and again. How precious!

I find the idea of a Museum of Innocence intriguing, as if it contains something that is already lost. I had a debate about purity today - is purity remaining untainted by letting everything wash over one's self without thought or by actively, literally, purifying yourself, to remain/become clean? A kind of distillation so to speak? But, perhaps, pure is indeed to be without filter. To be pure undiluted goodness.

I am amazed at the seeker of purity
who when it's time to be polished
complains of rough handling.

- Rumi