i recently stumbled on a few lines of self descriptionn by a blogger that go like this:
"I am married to the love of my life, Lorna. I live in Pooland in a Bananaman style home with my wife and step-son Rocky. I have two grown daughters. Lorna and I have 6 grandchildren." (names and places were changed)why does this sound all too nice, distant far and remote to me?
it may have nothing to do with the fact that i am thousands of miles away from Pooland and that Bananaman style means nothing to me, but this is a good place to start: place and style. the love of my life, what is the love of my life? what! what, not whom, i dare declare.
my family has kept me occupied during the past weeks. i have a family; it occupies me. it could be that i eventually decide to blog about it, and then i may not. while today i visited a public school and held an interactive hour with a class, the students aware that i was a writer wanted to know all about it. i told them about my passion for writing, and i told them that i would not reveal my pseudonym. i was there to share with them about life, not to sell my stories. once i had declared my clear intention, it was the whole room and the teacher that opened up to me. i came there to sell nothing, i was there doing my job as school commissioner, to share about life, and to answer their questions.
besides all of that i just finished reading Andrej Kurkow's "Picknick auf dem Eis" (in the german translation from russian) and Michel Houellebecq's "Platform" in the french original version.
that bloggers declaration and the two novels just read make for a good story itself. while kurkow (kurkov) tells the story of a pragmatic approach to life where morals and ethics are the concerns of the affluent west europeans, houellebecq masturbates in cynical moralism. neither of the main characters in these two novels would ever have made such a declaration "i am married to the love of my life", although houellebecq's hero may indeed have thought for a while that he had found the love of his life and while ready to follow her to the other end of the world, some terrorist decides to throw a monkey wrench into those plans of theirs. shit happens. how shit happens is what makes the detailed stuff of novels, and writers amused at creating plausibility in the process of mixing in the experienced with the imagined.
what i can clearly say about the two novels is that i have immensely enjoyed reading both. they are the kind of stories that i would have gladly written, had i had had such inspiration, still neither corresponds to my gender, and both have something in common with you and i, we are alive and kicking in the XXI century, we share the experience of our times, and these are times that our ancestors did not share with us, these are unique times during which we once again re-interpret what it is that makes human experience, human. all said, all done, that blogger with his six grandchildren is part of it all, still i wonder what planet he may have come from. it all sounds so idyllic, romantic, and perfect, it overwhelms me.
Technorati Tags: alone, houellebecq, kurkov, kurkow, literature, XXI century
