For the reader wanting something unusual, there is Mr. Muo’s Travelling Couch by Dai Sijie. The main character, Mr. Muo, travels around the Chinese countryside on a bicycle, with a banner streaming behind, offering to give a Freudian interpretation of dreams to the peasants. Have they ever heard of Freud? Or France where Muo claims to have studied? Well, maybe France.
Is Muo familiar with psychoanalysis because he studied it or because he was the recipient? He says the first, but there are hints it is the latter. Why is he travelling around the countryside? He is looking for a virgin. Because this is the price of getting his beloved, a political prisoner, out of jail. Although it is illegal to bribe a judge, it is the way business is done, and this particular judge has plenty of money, but no virgins.
The plot travels at a very leisurely pace. We listen in on some of the dreams recounted. We read exact descriptions of everything seen, felt, encountered. They are possibly poetic. They are possibly making fun of the pretentious intellectual or the aspirations to become one.
Why read this? It is tongue-in-cheek funny, although the humor is a little weird. There is the wild panda reserve called Observation Post of Panda Droppings; the aphrodisiac chapter about sea cucumbers, the description of two bicycle riders, “(he) peddling against the wind, hunched over the handlebars, raincoat flapping, and she on the rack behind him, knitting a sweater that streams like a scarf behind her.”
Some of the best parts are the casual descriptions of everyday life in China after the Cultural Revolution is over, the filthy urinals, overcrowded trains, long queues, mahjong parties, music listened to, food eaten. As befitting a story about Freud, it is full of subtle sexual symbols and not so subtle sex.
In this story of a quest, our quixotic hero overcomes obstacles and perseveres in the face of adversity hoping to find a virgin in the rural provinces of southern China.
Many of us remember Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, a story about an older man who runs off with a preteen girl. It is hard to get beyond the repellent subject to realize this is a story about obsession, the emotions in life that are uncontrollable, that rise up and refuse to disappear. Such a story is Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux.
Ernaux begins this novella with “From September last year, I did nothing else but wait for a man: for him to call me and come round to my place.” Written as a memoir, the book tells the story of a young woman obsessed with an older married man. It isn’t a book that details sex, but a book about the feeling of a passion that consumes the waking hours, the thoughts, the dreams, the hopes of a young woman. She writes, “to find out whether other people have done or felt the same things…for them to consider experiencing such things as normal.” She is not interested in justifying or explaining, just portraying. The details of her feelings become tedious.
Although Ernaux and Nabokov both write about erotic passion, I think other strong emotions such as grief or rage can consume a person in the same way, demanding the subject be thought about again, again, and again.
An epic battle between good and evil is not what I expected. I was looking forward to the idyllic village of Three Pines, the brave, idealistic Gamache family, Olivier’s homemade scones and jam, Clara’s bizarre and gifted paintings, and of course, the poet Ruth, and her linguistically challenged duck, that speaks only one word that starts with f and rhymes with…itself.
But in Louise Penny’s latest, A World of Curiosities, the battle is joined. There has always been a touch of saintliness (or more) about Inspector Gamache, his rescues of fallen angels and lost souls, the heroic Quebec Sureté team that he leads.
Gamache knows that evil exists. He has seen it in the eyes of too many he has put behind bars. And one of them, from the iciest part of Dante’s hell, has escaped and sent the message. I am coming for you.
The story starts with a graduation honoring two young women with ties to Three Pines and the Gamaches. There is a tinge of sadness to the occasion which also commemorates an event of the past, a massacre of young women who had dared to attend that very engineering school.
A back story introduces two main characters, children then, who had been abused and pimped by their business minded mother who is found dead.
Odd things start to happen. A hundred-year-old letter is delivered; a bricked up hidden room is found; a painting with cryptic messages appears. “Curiouser and curiouser.” Before long, curious is no longer the right word; the first murder happens. Gamache starts to unravel the puzzles and finds a diabolical plan of revenge aimed directly at him and his family.
Just recently I learned that at the end of Frank Bruni’s NYT Opinion column/newsletter, published on Thursdays, there is a section entitled “For the Love of Sentences.”
He lists some of the most colorful prose he has recently read. How have I missed this? Here are some excerpts:
A comment on a movie: “Allegedly, it’s based on true events, in much the same way that ‘Pinocchio’ is based on string theory.”
Much was political and this time, Ron DeSantis was the butt of several comments: “There are universities like Harvard and Yale, which DeSantis attended but did not inhale.” Or, “He might unplug your life support to re-charge his cellphone.”(Yeow!)
A quote from David Brooks: “The G.O.P. is a working-class populist party that has no interest in nurturing highly educated boom towns. The G.O.P. does everything it can to repel those people—and the Tesla they drove in on.”
The Monday of National Library Week has been designated Right to Read Day. This year, April 24th marks the first anniversary of the Unite Against Book Bans campaign.
One of the easiest things you can do to continue to find the book of your choice on the shelf is to check out a banned or challenged book from your local library. Libraries keep statistics! To find a suggestion, look at The American Library Association website. They publish a list of the ten most challenged books each year.
What a strange combination of reads!
Love the sentences! ((*U*))