Novels

"The situation [K. looking for the crime himself—in his actions and history] is not at all unreal: this is actually the way some simple women hounded by misfortune will wonder: what have I done wrong? And begin to comb her past, examining not only her actions but her words and her secret thoughts in an effort to comprehend God's anger." (Kundera, Testaments Betrayed)

I recommend Breon Mitchell's translation of The Trial released as The Trial: A New Translation Based on the Restored Text, Cornell University Edition, ©1998 Schocken Books Inc.

Just as Beckett sat with Caravaggio's The Beheading of St. John the Baptist, I invite you to sit with The Trial yourself. Read it—not what other people say about it (practicing this week's theme, making a relationship to original art yourself).

I believe it is necessary to experience the novel—for the first or for the 100th time. Give yourself over to the world of it. Do not let go of your own world (you have the responsibility to know that world, reside in it, and participate in it). Be able to hold in place, across time, both worlds simultaneously, the world of the self and the world of the text. Bring them together without losing the integrity of either. From there we can discuss. This is not a forum for me to tell you what to think about a particular piece of art, but to encourage you to read specific pieces (novels in this case) that have changed me.

Calvino devotes the entire chapter (11) of If On A Winter's Night A Traveler to describing readers. [The whole book can be said to be a description of reading, but chapter 11 is particularly pointed.]

Last week's novel entry also discussed being a competent reader.
link: http://jaatarats.blogspot.com/2012/07/novels_11.html

"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." I accept a world where this is true. I seek it out.

Hearing Radmilla: http://vimeo.com/13113380

"The creation of an integral self is the work of a lifetime, and although that work can never be completed. It is nonetheless an ethical responsibility." (Morson & Emerson, Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a Prosaics)

Ms. Radmilla Cody and Ms. Angela Webb, do not believe in simple women. Many of us comb our pasts, sifting through actions, words, and secret thoughts in an effort to comprehend God's anger. Many of us know the Gods are not angry—in this sense, seeking personal retribution, and exacting daily punishments for our existence. We are not simple women. We have stood before life and made a statement—some times lacking in eloquence, but statements nonetheless.