Friday 9 March 2012

Music, novels and misunderstanding




Sometimes there's just so much a person could write about*... but today all I will offer you is a quote from the book “Everything is Illuminated” by Jonathan Safran Foer (2002). I read the book this week... which means I'm a bit late to it, I suppose, as it's ten years old already (and that means it's already been the hot new book... and the totally cold don't-be-seen-with-it book... as here... so it's probably due for a rebirth around now). I picked it up (from the library... and they only had it in large print... my first time...) mainly because after reading about his later book “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” (the film of that one being up for Oscar this year) I thought “oh heck, I haven't even read the first one yet!”. But now I have. Cultural honour is preserved.

I'm not going to analyse “Everything is Illuminated” right now (visitors here are intelligent people – read it yourselves... see what you think) but basically, for those of you haven't got to it yet, it is one of those multi-perspectived, keep-you-on-your-toes numbers (we jump about from 1791 to 1941 to the present day on a regular basis... and then also round and round between these and other years... much of it in translated/awkward English). I could further enlighten you by telling you it is a fictional account of a young North American Jewish man's trip to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis... and that the project started life as a real trip of a similar nature (that Safran Foer made from the US to Ukraine in 1999). I should also tell you, I think, that it's not for people who like nice tidy endings to their books (may as well save some of you the time...). However, I certainly thought at least some of it was very good... but you can read other reader responses here and an interview with the author here. I would also point out that the author was in his early twenties when he wrote this first novel and that it's certainly a better piece of work than most of us could have managed at that age (well, me anyway...). How well it will last as the years flick past and the youtube wonders come and go... that's harder to say. It did make me want to try another of Safran Foer's books at least (thinking, for example, how I liked Zadie Smith's 2000 novel “White Teeth” but loved her 2005 best-so-far “On Beauty”).

But anyway... to the quote. “Everything is Illuminated” really has everything – comedy, magical realism, historical horror, a dog, tenderness, lots of shagging – but the passage (ahem) that caught my eye was this section from the novel's “The Book of Antecedents” (a record of everything to do with the fictional Ukrainian shtetl** Trachimbrod, where much of the action takes place, kept by its residents over the years). I suppose I do, in a quiet way, collect quotes about music so here is another one:



"IFACTIFICE
Music is beautiful. Since the beginning of time, we (the Jews) have been looking for a new way of speaking. We often blame our treatment throughout history on terrible misunderstandings. (Words never mean what we want them to mean.) If we communicated with something like music, we would never be misunderstood, because there is nothing in music to understand. This was the origin of Torah chanting and, in all likelihood, Yiddish – the most onomatopoeic of all languages. It is also the reason that the elderly among us, particularly those who survived a pogrom, hum so often, indeed seem unable to stop humming, seem dead set on preventing any silence or linguistic meaning in. But until we find this new way of speaking, until we can find a nonapproximate vocabulary, nonsense words are the best thing we've got. Ifactifice is one such word."


It's just a quotation... but there's a fair amount in it. If you want a poem about music instead... handily there's one in my last post.


* Things I could write about include: Gardening (well, someone's got to do it now Mum's gone... see photo above), Bill Hicks (I watched “The Bill Hicks Story” last week), Jane Austen (I also watched, for contrast, “Becoming Jane”... surprisingly enjoyable actually... even if it was hard to think of actress Anne Hathaway as anyone other than herself...), the whole Joseph Kony/ Invisible Children film and responses (here, here and here) issue, that “Make Bradford British” TV programme on recently (white English people... almost impossible to articulate my feelings about some of what they come out with sometimes), the continuing Donald Trump Scottish golf farce (new article here)... and that's before you even get started on Scottish independence matters... trouble-making clergy and about a million other things... good job I've been doing some yoga, that's all I can say...

**Yiddish for small town

19 comments:

Niamh B said...

impressive flowers!! sorry can't manage anything much more cerebral than that right now... but I do mean it.

Rachel Fox said...

It was probably my Mum who planted them! It certainly wasn't me... this is my first year taking charge really (of the garden). Oh dear...
x

Rachel Fenton said...

Beautiful crocus. Must be reminders everywhere, if not all as unexpected or lovely.

I haven't read anything you've mentioned but I did read a great chunk of White Teeth. Got GB84 to read next but will add yours to the list for after that. Sounds like my kind of book.

The Solitary Walker said...

Ok, you've sold that book to me, Rachel!

And I think you underplay the greenness of your fingers. Those crocuses are radiant.

Rachel Fox said...

I've not read any David Peace, Rachel. I suppose I should (him being a Yorkshire writer an' all).

As for my fingers, SW, they never touched that trough. I had no idea what was going to appear this spring (we were away last year of course... and I didn't know what would have survived through to this...). Really I am just tidying (a bit) and learning. I have no real desire to be a gardener, it must be said, just no excuse to avoid it any longer. It's either move house (not appropriate just now) or do some work in the garden... and I do like being outside.

x

hope said...

Interesting reading list. Ironic that my favorite new word this week might be "onomatopoeic". :)

Ah, the secret gardening trick: plant bulbs! Many will return for years and ask for little in return. Some, like daffodils, multiply like crazy! Your crocuses are beautiful...how they got there is just a reminder of Mum's love. :)

The Weaver of Grass said...

There is a lot to think about in your post today Rachel. Those crocus are absolutely beautiful and must remind you of your mum every time you look at them.

I read that the book is much better than the film - I am speaking of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I have the book on order and don't intend to see the film until I have read it so that I can make my own mind up.

Rachel Fox said...

The people who lived here before us planted a lot in the garden too, Hope. Mum always said this garden needed more taking out than putting in (good job now!).

Yes, Weaver I like to read the book before seeing the movie too (if it was written first, that is... there are some exceptions where the movie came before the book...). I can't imagine how they made "Everything is Illuminated" into a movie (though they did). Whilst I did get plenty from the book I won't rush to see its film... probably one of those things I'll watch some quiet night when there's nothing else jumping out at me.

Titus said...

I loved that Huffington Post page! The Sharon Olds take!
Haven't read it, but liked the extract very much.
I plumped for the easy read this week and did The Snow Child. Very enjoyable, not too challenging. And for a cold book, pretty hot right now. Took the Bragg on class option televisually, and enoyed that too. Avoided the Bradford one because I thought it would make me shout.
Rather unbelievably, Craig was in the presence of Cardinal Keith O'Brien a couple of weeks ago, as he shared a 4-bed ward with a Catholic priest in Edinburgh and the head man popped in for a visit.

Rachel Fox said...

Bradford was so local to us for so long that we couldn't quite resist watching the Bradford show. It was not all bad (not at all) but the attitudes of some of the white people (in particular) did remind me why I wasn't sorry to move away from Yorkshire. The young white man was the only white person on the show who didn't, at some point, make me cringe (or worse). He was great in places - open-minded, straightforward - maybe the future can be better...

I know these kind of shows are silly in some ways (the Big Brother format really) but at the same time having lived in an area very like (and very near) Bradford the issues it tackled are important and can't just be ignored. It was a shame one of the participants left and nothing much was said about that - maybe he just realised he had made a mistake being on the show. Stuff like that (revealing yourself on national TV) is not for everyone! I wouldn't want to do it!

x

swiss said...

coincidentally a good read this week featured everything is illuminated and also bernadine evaristo

Rachel Fox said...

Now, you see, your lack of punctuation lost me for a while! It's a thing on Radio 4... is that right? I'm still a very minimal R4 person.
x

swiss said...

i'd claim it as a style but really just too lazy to type proper!

Marion McCready said...

The book sounds good and those crocuses look magical!

Rachel Fox said...

The spring flowers are strong this year. And today (and yesterday) it's felt more like summer than spring here. I'm in short-sleeved t-shirt... heating's off... sat in sunshine in the garden yesterday (and walked dog on beach)! Long may it last...
x

A Cuban In London said...

I've heard of him, obviously. One of those authors whose books are not, at the moment, very appealing. Maybe, as you mentioned at the beginning of your post, is to do with the Zeitgeist, the hype and the isn't-it-cool-to-be-seen-with-this-book attitude. I might pick it up some day but at the moment I'm enjoying a novel that came out about the same time as Jonathan's novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Greetings from London.

Rachel Fox said...

Oh Cuban, WNTTA Kevin is one of my favourite books! Especially about parenting! That's a good choice.
I will avoid the film as long as possible too... I've heard it's good but I\d rather read the book again. Sometimes you just don't need the film.
x

Roxana said...

these are ones of the most impressive crocuses i have ever seen!!!

Rachel Fox said...

They're all a bit flattened now! On to the daffodils...
x