Can you guess what this is?

Just returned from the doctor's office after wondering about this odd rash.  The diagnosis isn't unexpected, but I just thought I'd see what people reading this think it is based on the picture alone.

Any guesses?

A surfeit of reading pleasures

So I've been a bit quiet this week.  It's not due to work as much it is to just enjoying several high-quality reads.  Here's what I'm in the process of reading:

R. Scott Bakker, The White-Luck Warrior (less than 100 pages to go).

David Foster Wallace, The Pale King (nearly 100 pages into roughly 550 pages)

Roberto Bolaño, Los sinsabores del verdadero policía (50 pages into 320 or so)

Tibor Moricz, O Peregrino (roughly 1/4 in)


Each and every one of these, in their own ways (none resemble the others in form or the stimuli each gives my imagination), are shaping up to be very enjoyable works.  I promised Tibor a review last week and while sheer exhaustion kept me from reading it that weekend as I had hoped, I should have that review and the Bakker one up by Sunday, if not as earlier as Friday evening for the latter and Saturday for the former.  The Wallace and Bolaño will be reviewed in the next week or so.  There ought to be a lot of specifics in each review.

Excited, or just ho-humming it right about now while hoping that I'll review a Goodkind novel again?

This might be a challenging passage to translate

Here's part of the first paragraph from Roberto Bolaño's 2011 posthumous novel, Los sinsabores del verdadero policía:

Para Padilla, recordaba Amalfitano, existía literatura heterosexual, homosexual y bisexual.  Las novelas, generalmente, eran heterosexuales.  La poesía, en cambio, era absolutamente homosexual.  Dentro del inmenso océano de ésta distinguía varias corrientes:  maricones, maricas, mariquitas, locas, bujarrones, mariposas, ninfos y filenos.  Las dos corrientes mayores, sin embargo, eran la de los maricones y la de los maricas.  Walt Whitman, por ejemplo, era un poeta maricón.  Pablo Neruda, un poeta marica.  William Blake era maricón, sin asomo de duda, y Octavio Paz marica.  Borges era fileno, es decir de improviso podía ser maricón y de improviso simplemente asexual.  Rubén Darío era una loca, de hecho la reina y el paradigma de las locas (en nuestra lengua, claro está; en el mundo ancho y ajeno el paradigma seguía siendo Verlaine el Generoso).  Una loca, según Padilla, estaba más cerca del manicomio florido y de las alucinanciones en carne viva mientras que los maricones y los maricas vagaban sincopadamente de la Ética a la Estética y viceversa.  Cernuda, el querido Cernuda, era un ninfo y en ocasiones de gran amargura un poeta maricón, mientras que Guillén, Aleixandre y Alberti podían ser considerados mariquita, bujarrón y marica respectivamente...

What struck me as I was reading this a few minutes ago is the variations in grade? and quality? of terms for homosexuals.  Although I am familiar with most of the terms that Bolaño employs above, it would be a challenge to find le mot juste, to borrow Flaubert's term, to label all of these.  Perhaps one might say that a "marica" is to gay as "maricón" is to faggot, but that is not really the case.  Although "fileno" seems to be more obvious in its borrowing from the Greek for "brotherly love," the asexualness of this term for a vague, quasi-homoerotic yearning depends here more on one's awareness of Borges' almost non-existent sexual life than it does on the term being something that could be translated precisely into English.  "Mariquita" and "bujarrón" are the hardest for me; I have not heard them used much, if at all, in Latin American dialects.  "Mariposa," which chastely translates as "butterfly," intuitively is associated with flittering about, almost like a male coquette, but "mariquita" puzzles me.  One just can't use "gay," "queer," "invert," "faggot," or "bent" as substitutes, because later on in this introductory section, there is a word play on "marica" and "maricón" that is similar to a joke I heard about the tomatito wanting to become a tomatón while the huevito cried.

Will be very curious to see what choices whoever (Wimmer, perhaps?) assigned to translate this unfinished 1990s novel into English will make in rendering these slang expressions.

Quotes from books being read that you might just need to read

'Speaking of which, what do you think of when you masturbate?'

'...'

'...'

'What?'

Neither had said a word for the first half hour.  They were doing the mindless monochrome drive up to Region HQ in Joliet again.  In one of the fleet's Gremlins, seized as part of a jeopardy assessment against an AMC dealership five quarters past.

'Look, I think we can presume you masturbate.  Something like 98 percent of all men masturbate.  It's documented.  Most of the other 2 percent are impaired in some way.  We can forgo the denials.  I masturbate; you masturbate.  It happens.  We all do it and we all know we all do it and yet no one ever discusses it.  It's an incredibly boring drive, there's nothing to do, we're stuck in this embarrassing car - let's push the envelope.  Let's discuss it.'

'What envelope?'

'Just what do you think of?  Think about it.  It's a very interior time.  It's one of life's only occasions of real self-sufficiency.  It requires nothing outside you.  It's bringing yourself pleasure with nothing but your own mind's thoughts.  Those thoughts reveal a lot about you:  what you dream of when you yourself choose and control what you dream.'

'...'

'...'

'Tits.'

'Tits?'

'You asked me.  I'm telling you.'

'That's it?  Tits?'

'What do you want me to say?'

'Just tits?  In isolation from anybody?  Just abstract tits?'

'All right.  Fuck off.'

'You mean just floating there, two tits, in empty space?  Or nestled in your hands, or what?  Is it always the same tits?'

'This is me learning a lesson.  You ask a question like that and I go what the hell and I answer it and you run a DIF-3 on the answer.'

'Tits.'

'...'

'...'

'So what do you think about, then, Mr. Envelope Guy?'

Stock cue SOUND:  "Presenting SCANALYZER, Engrelay Satelserv's unique thrice-per-day study of the big big scene, the INdepth INdependent INmediate INterface between you and your world!"

Stock cue VISUAL:  cliptage, splitscreen, cut in bridge-melder, Mr. & Mrs. Everywhere depthunder (today MAMP, Mid-Atlantic Mining Project), spaceover (today freefly-suiting), transiting (today Simplon Acceleratube), digging (today as every day homimage with autoshout).

Spring.  Down in the Cispontine Quarter the vegetation has begun to flourish again.  The fuel-gathering women are no longer seen.  Ragwort clothes all the fallen walls and earthy scars, its stems already infested with black and yellow caterpillars (later in the year these become an attractive crimson moth which was once the symbol of the city).  Up at Alves, jackdaws are squabbling all day over nesting sites in the cracked dome of the observatory.  And in that demimonde which has its centre at the Plaza of Unrealised Time, the women smile down from their casement windows, lifting a hand to pat newly washed hair.  Humanity has recolonized the inconceivable avenues of the High City - gaping up open-mouthed at the inexplicable architecture of the Afternoon Cultures while it empties its bladder in their millennial gutters - and hung out its washing again in the Low.  The "Winter of the Locust" is over.  Only a sudden increase in the number of beggars (some of whom have the most novel deformities) along the Rivelin Way persuades us that it ever took place, that we ever listened to that white thin song.

So they are;

My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up,

My father's loss, the weakness which I feel,

The wreck of all my friends, nor this man's threats

To whom I am subdu'd, are but light to me,

Might I but through my prison once a day

Behold this maid.  All corners else o' th' earth

Let liberty make use of; space enough

Have I in such a prison.

One day the King turned to the women that danced and said to them:  "Dance no more," and those that bore the wine in jewelled cups he sent away.  The palace of King Ebalon was emptied of sound of song and there rose the voices of heralds crying in the streets to find the prophets of the land.

Then went the dancers, the cupbearer and the singers down into the hard streets among the houses, Pattering Leaves, Silvern Fountain and Summer Lightning, the dancers whose feet the gods had not devised for stony ways, which had only danced for princes.  And with them went the singer, Soul of the South, and the sweet singer, Dream of the Sea, whose voices the gods had attuned to the ears of kings, and old Istahn the cupbearer left his life's work in the palace to tread the common ways, he that had stood at the elbows of three kings of Zarkandhu and had watched his ancient vintage feeding their valour and mirth as the waters of Tondaris feed the green plains to the south.  Ever he had stood grave among their jests, but his heart warmed itself solely by the fire of the mirth of kings.  He too, with the singers and dancers, went out into the dark.

I was seven years old before I understood the meaning of "Bad" and "good", because it was at that time I noticed carefully that my father married three wives as they were doing in those days, if it is not common nowadays.  My mother was the last married among the rest and she only bore two sons but the rest bore only daughters.  So by that the two wives who had only daughters hated my mother, brother and myself to excess as they believed that no doubt my brother and myself would be the rulers of our father's house and also all his properties after his death.  My brother was eleven years old then and I myself was seven.  So it was at this stage I quite understood the meaning of "bad" because of hatred and had not yet known the meaning of "good".

Uma escuridão imensa. Silêncio. Um nada absoluto. Foi assim por um tempo desconhecido. Até que se iniciou um rumorejar. Como água correndo pelo leito de um rio. De começo uma correnteza leve. Depois uma enxurrada que sai arrastando tudo o que encontra pelo caminho. Estava mergulhado nela, sendo arrastado. Ora submergindo, indo até as profundezas mais densas, ora explodindo na superfície, procurando por ar. A água corria por leitos impenetráveis. Embora estivesse sendo conduzido violentamente para algum lugar, era-lhe impossível determinar o seu destino. Eralhe impossível determinar qualquer coisa, porquanto a escuridão ainda imperasse.

Two of these are 2011 releases, one was released posthumously, and all I am enjoying so far, even if one is actually a re-read done for the third time since 2007.  Which ones do you know or think you know?  Which excerpts appeal to you and why?

Leatherbound Classics: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust

Wenn Phantasie sich sonst mit kühnem Flug
Und hoffnungsvill zum Ewigen erweitert,
So ist ein kleiner Raum ihr nun genug,
Wenn Glück auf Glück im Zeitenstrudel scheitert.
Die Sorge nistet gleich im tiefen Herzen,
Dort wirket sie geheime Schmerzen,
Unruhig wiegt sie sich und störet Lust und Ruh;
Sie deckt sich stets mit neuen Masken zu,
Sie mag als Haus und Hof, als Weib und Kind     erscheinen,
Als Feuer, Wasser, Dolch und Giftl
Du bebst vor allem, was nicht trifft,
Und was du nie verlierst, das mußt du stets beweinen.

If Phantasy on daring wings once in the past,

Swelled by hope, sailed into infinite space;

Yet now she is satisfied with a little place,

Since joy after joy in the whirlpool of time is cast.

Care nestles in the depths of every heart,

There causing many a secret sorrow,

Restlessly rocking, driving joy and peace apart,

Disguised with changing masks each morrow,

It seems to be house or land, or child or wife,

Or fire, water, poison, steel;

Though nothing happens, dread you always feel,

What you never lose, you mourn throughout your life. (p. 23)

The legend of Faust and Mephistopheles has been around for over half a millennium.  Its two most famous iterations (although both are based on still older legends) are Christopher Marlowe's late 16th century play Doctor Faustus and German philosopher/playwright Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's early 19th century two-part play, Faust.  In each, there are some traditional elements (Faust as doctor/scholar, the temptations of ennui that lead to Mephistopheles' appearance, the "Faustian bargain" struck for greater knowledge, Faust's death), but there are some very key differences.  In Marlowe's play, the story takes on the tone of a morality play, with a suitably dark and damning conclusion.  Yet Goethe's play does not follow this path.  Why is that?

That is a question that several readers familiar with the traditional German 16th century folklore surrounding Faust ask.  Why does Goethe depart from the original morality play of the source legends to create something that is much more complicated than a fable regarding the perils of bargaining with the devil?  An answer might lay in the prevailing Romanticism of the first decades of the 19th century.    In the passage quoted above, which is part of a long soliloquy given by Faust, expresses Faust's discontent with his life's experiences and his longing for more.  He aims to pierce through phantasies, to discover what might be found through alchemical or magical meanings.  His is an understandable emotion, one that Faust shares with several characters found in plays and poems of the time.  He wants to feel more, to experience things better, to become something more perfect.  Yet he cannot; he is constrained by the limits of body and time.

It is from here that Goethe juxtaposes conversations in heaven, between the saints and the Host, between God and Mephistopheles, who make their own wager regarding Faust and his soul.  God claims there is a part of Faust's soul that is incorruptible, while Mephistopheles aims to prove otherwise.  What follows is a metaphysical tug-of-war, with Faust's life in the balance.  Goethe easily could have played this straight up as a simple tale of an inquisitive man who stumbles and falls under the devil's sway, but what happens is something that is sumptuous to behold.  Having read this in both English and German, what I learned while reading notes related to the translation is that several phrases found in this book have worked their way into the German lexicon similar to the way that Shakespeare's plays have entered our own vocabulary.  "Das also war des Pudels Kern!", spoken when Mephistopheles transforms from a dog into human semblance for his first meeting with Faust, is more than "the core of the Puddle."  It is a metaphor for change and what is concealed within; the heart of the matter, if it may.  Sadly, much of this semantic meaning is lost in translation.

Throughout the first part, published originally in 1808, Goethe focuses on the temptations that Mephistopheles presents to Faust, finally toppling him with visions and promises of things to be learned through magic.  Goethe explores the ramifications of this, through Walpurgis Night and Faust's seduction of the innocent Gretchen/Margarete, who ultimately dies due to his nefarious actions.  Yet although Gretchen and her destroyed innocence/death are a core element of the elements upon which Goethe drew his tale, it is her semi-Marian role in Part Two that changes the course of this retelling.

Part Two is much more allegorical than the first, as the focus shifts away from the personal struggle for Faust's soul and toward the knowledge and experiences that he gains under Mephistopheles' guidance.  Through the past and into the Hellenistic mythos the two go, where Faust comes to know the Queen of Beauty, Helen of Troy.  Faust experiences a plethora of new feelings, learning more than he had ever deigned to expect.  And it is in the midst of his ultimate, sublime experience that the bargain made earlier in Part One is shown to be void.  Grace has triumphed; experience and emotion trump reason.

For some, Part Two may be difficult to read, as it requires the reader to not only to be familiar with all sorts of European fairy tales, classical myths, religious doctrine, etc., but also to be willing to let themselves be caught up in the allegories that Goethe explores.  Yet if that effort can be made, a wealth of literary treasures opens up.  Reading Faust might have been simultaneously one of the most profound and most whimsical reading experiences that I have ever had.  There is a bit of almost everything literary contained within its play/quasi-poetic structure.  It was almost a surfeit of pleasures for me as I re-read these two parts.  Although the English translations (the Easton Press edition contains Alice Raphael's translation, while the Penguin Classics translation of Part Two was by Philip Wayne) depart in some ways from the German originals that I also read, on the whole neither one detracted from my enjoyment of the story.  Faust is one of the greatest Romantic writings produced in any language and two centuries after Part One appeared, it still is one of the most influential literary classics ever to be produced.  It is the nearest thing to a must-read for anyone who has any pretensions to being a well-read human being.

Lists of five

Here's a little activity that can amuse you and others who choose to respond to it (I'll post mine later).  What you do is this:  In the comments, list five favorites in the categories listed below.  Might remind you of a half-forgotten favorite or you might discover something new from another's response.  Here are the categories:

Five (American) Southern Authors

Five Female Authors

Five Novels That Deal With Social Concerns

Five Novels That You Plan On Reading Soon

Five Novels You Read In The Past Two Years That You Would Re-Read In The Next Two

Five Books That Taught You Something About Life

Five Books That Deserve To Be Considered "Classics"


If you can't answer five in each category, that's OK.  Just want to see what titles are listed and if any are worth looking into the next time I go book shopping. 

New projects, new foci

A week or two ago, I informed readers that I completed a translation of Argentine author Leopoldo Lugones' "El escuerzo" for May publication in the ODD? e-book anthology that Ann and Jeff VanderMeer are editing.  At the time, I believe I hinted that there would be future projects, with some already in the pipe.  However, I didn't feel comfortable discussing all of these projects without consulting with some of the principals involved and seeing if they would be OK with me breaking news of some exciting projects.  Now that I have their approval, it's past time to reveal certain projects that will be of interest to readers here.

The first project is a continuation of the three-pronged guitar review attack that I, Paul Smith, and Jeff VanderMeer have been doing since October 2010.  While we will be covering Eric Basso's work later this spring, a few things came up with Jeff's trip to Europe for half of April, so we agreed that we would do a short, "easy" read by a recent New York Times-bestselling author.  Jeff and Paul in particular seem to be excited by this change of pace, but I'll be more cautious in doling out praise, even despite the glowing review I read here.

There will be more translations this summer.  One of the stories I'm tentatively scheduled to translate is La Gran Alianza, by one of this country's most renowned and respected authors.  Another possibility is translating the Chilean classic, La rabiosa de las ardillas serbias, which has been a huge underground cult classic for the past several decades.

Others also, I learn, are doing their own projects.  In the wake of Paul Smith announcing his intention to focus on "weird fiction," a number of other bloggers, including those at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist, Floor to Ceiling Books, A Dribble of Ink, and The Speculative Scotsman, have been contemplating on Twitter starting up a multi-reviewer group blog, similar to the SFF Masterworks blog, that would cover the backlist of the Marquis de Sade, Lautréamont, Mirbeau, Huysmans, and the Immortal One.  From what I've gathered from their tweets, there will be copious giveaways, exclusive excerpts, advance cover art images posted, a de Sade-themed ARC release party, and a seance involving one of Richard Gere's gerbils and a vole.

Hopefully, some or all of these projects, whether they be brought to fruition or not in the near future, will be of interest to readers.  Which one(s) appeal to you the most and why?