the heat wave has broken

[aslant]

i woke up to a lovely cool breeze. after so many days of such heat, walking outside it seemed as if the world had come to a standstill. like the calm before the storm, all the breezes rippling in the alleys and the corners.

and the bandit queen is dead.

a woman on the radio lamented the she fought for their rights, she was their advocate, now who would fight for their rights?

and my heart broke.

more translations to come. i did another 10 pages last night. mm. it's a little early. got to stretch out the kinks. must go to the bank at lunch. must take advantage of such a beautiful cool cloudy day.

Comments

tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

I like what I've read so far, though I have to admit - I find it quite difficult to read. maybe I don't stretch my brain enough.

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

it's her style, it's a little obtuse. don't feel you have to read the whole thing, really.

Re: tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

but I want to now. it definitely catches my attention. she seems very resentful of her lack of love when she was small. my family was very affectionate when they weren't throwing plates at eachother. but I think that made me lonelier, because I can miss it.

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

throwing plates? haha. did you know that in greece when you're having a really great time in a restaurant you order a big stack of plates and then smash them one by one on the floor? i find that the most fascinating thing. the greeks seem so full of life. smashing plates on the floor.

yes, prato is super-resentful. it gets worse and worse throughout the book, nothing ever changes in her life, except her beloved uncle leaves for good.

i have a question: it's not entirely clear, but in reality her aunt and uncle weren't married. they were a celibate priest brother and his spinster sister, living together. but she doesn't come out and say this. did you understand that from the text? does it come across at all? it makes a big difference, i think.

Re: tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

yeah, I've heard that - but I think it's a little bit mad. they order the plates, right? and break them. I wonder if they get charged individually - or if the restaurant takes broken plates into account before they work out the prices for the meal. the plate industry there must be thriving.

so, nothing happens in the book at all? she just complains about everything? seems a sad thing to write about.

no, I didn't pick up on that - but I found it very hard to read. often, when I'm reading a book - if I lose interest my eyes automatically skip to the next piece of dialogue. I don't even notice I do it - but I couldn't do that in this instance, because there is no dialogue. still - I read it this morning, with a fresh hangover. maybe I'll read it again when I get part two.

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

well, things happen in the book, but it doesn't have a true structure. there are no chapter breaks at all, it's just one giant mass of text, with occasional line breaks. i wouldn't call it complaining, exactly. she lived an entire life, with zero recognition as a writer, and then when they finally accepted to publish this book she was already in her 80s. then they cut it down to a ridiculously smaller book, and disregarded her style completely, saying it was because she wasn't a good writer (when in reality that was just the style she chose).

then she died, 3 years afterwards, after having completely refused any connection with the butchered version of her book.

in '97 another editor finally published the whole thing.

but her life was very sad, and going back over her early childhood like this was important, because there were so many questions she didn't ask, and so many things she didn't understand. it's one big unexplained mystery for her.

yes, maybe read it over again later. excellent cure for insomnia, haha...

i'll type up pt. 2 this afternoon, but it might take me a few days to clean it up, fix the wording. but that's the fun part :)

Re: tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

I really need chapters in books - otherwise I can't stop reading. a chapter is a good place to put it down and go to sleep.

have you read the butchered version? is it awful?

are you an insomniac? that's one of the worst things there is. not being able to sleep - AND having something to do the next day.

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

i actually haven't seen the butchered version. even the long one is really hard to find. i had to order it from some obscure library and then get the whole thing photocopied and bound. so my copy is a sad looking thing. i should order it online, but by now i'm too attached to this version.

i've heard the butchered version is just edited way down to make it seem more like a story, centering around her uncle eventually emigrating to argentina, i suppose. it's less experimental, i suppose.

yes, it is difficult to figure out where to stop reading. but there are definite breaks in the flow, so i wonder if for an english-reading audience it would be worth it to make this look like chapters? i'm not certain.

i'm not an insomniac, thank god. i'm really good at falling asleep when i need to. i love to sleep, i love to dream. but it takes me a while to fall asleep when it's super hot, like last night, or if i'm stressed out about something.

Re: tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

I like the thought of you sitting there, with this big pile of pages all beaten up. you just need to write down the translation to candle light and you would have a very romantic piece of mental imagery.

if she didn't mean for there to be chapters, then there should not be chapters.

I love sleeping, I hate getting up. I dreamt yesterday that I rang the queen. I don't know why - but she answered the phone. I don't remember anymore though - which is a shame.

Phenna has just told me that I type to loudly so I'm trying really hard to type quietly now. it's hard.

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

phenna? what a great name. it sounds like pheasant. is she exotic? is this the same lady who was yelling at you earlier for leaving without saying where to? what does she do?

i agree, i think the chapters should be left out. but it'll be a daunting book to read. this is why i think there's only a small chance of it ever getting published. maybe i'll just license it to interested academics.

it's true, i might as well write by candle light. i sit at the kitchen table with all my stuff spread out with just one little lamp lit. usually i don't even notice i've been there for so long until my housemates come home, which is always around midnight, and then i notice how dark it is and how cramped my writing hand has become.

there's got to be an easier way to do this. i suppose with a laptop i could type it directly, but right now it's so useful to have physical papers that i can touch and watch pile up day after day...

Re: tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

she's the one that shouted at me, yeah. what does she do? not a lot - as far as I can tell. she works in my department, which means she does IT stuff. she's been ok recently. she has severe mood swings though. her name is "Bernadine Phenna" - but she doesn't like "Bernadine". she's part Irish and part Welsh I think.

so - you translate the book, with a mind to publish it?

I like the candle light idea. and you can gauge how long it has taken by how much candle is left.

a laptop would be easier - but I like to have something malleable too. that's why people use printers.

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

well, to be clear, the translation work is kind of in my spare time. i do the script editing work free-lance for a friend, i do the translations for my own happiness. my actual job is to answer this phone and staple these faxes and send off these letters. it's very boring. they need somebody to sit here all day, but it's not really a lot of work. i could think of worse jobs, though.

yes, i'd like to get 'giu la piazza' published, because i love it so much, but it might be more feasible to translate her shorter writings and publish them in academic journals. no one has published in any american journals about her yet, and very few have published in italian.

Re: tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

so - you're a receptionist, right? or is that an insult? I once did the washing up for an entire hospital, by myself. THAT was a miserable job. but then again, I was once a sound engineer for a travelling pantomime and that was excellent. you don't have pantomimes do you? do I have to explain what they are?

what are her shorter writings about?

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

yes, i'm a secretary to the project manager. but they call it an administrative assistant these days. it's a load of crap, i'm still a secretary. the world hasn't changed much even though they don't require us to wear skirts any more.

is a pantomime a children's theater show? i read a book that took place in te 20s in brixton and they talked about pantos, is that the same thing? we don't really have them here.

have you ever seen a punch and judy show?

an entire hospital? that's a crappy job. i was a maid in a hotel once and i hated it more than anything. i would try to get fired, but they never did it. i worked with a small group of annoying, older, complaining women who i wanted to kill constantly. i think their brains were mush from too many cleaning chemicals.

prato's shorter writings are about her later life, when she left Treja for boarding school (collegio) and then was working in rome. but they're more like short stories. you know, a beginning, a middle, and an end. the one i've read is very lyrical and beautiful, and still sad (of course). but she only wrote two or three of them. i've been unable to find the writing work she did in rome, which was for a magazine, i think. it's a little unclear.

Re: tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

administrative assistant sounds much better though.

yes, a panto - same thing. it's kind of a kids theatre - but very old and traditional rules are applied to them. so, they are all kind of the same.

yes - I've seen punch and judy shows :) lol
they're very violent!

it WAS a crappy job. I quit. why didn't you?

I wish I read better. I just like easy books - that don't tax me too much. I think that's because my work can really mentally exhaust me. it's a good excuse anyhow.

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

well, i didn't quit the maid job because it was only for a summer, and my mom would have killed me if i didn't have a job. i delayed for weeks before i got that one.

i've never seen a punch and judy show, but one of my favorite comic books of all time is dave mckean's "the tragical comedy or comical tragedy of mr punch". it's so beautiful. his artwork is amazing. and the story is scary and sad and very mysterious.

what sort of rules are there about the panto? like with stock characters? italy has a kind of theatre like that, the commedia dell'arte. i did a project on it once, and they think one of the characters was what led to the punch and judy shows.

easy books are good if you have a hard job. in my case it's the opposite, i find complicated books because i don't do much here. but in general i like complicated books better (well, to an extent) because they're intriguing. plus it's harder to make a good funny book. terry pratchett writes good stuff, but i can't read all of his discword books, because some of them aren't the best. but douglas adams is consistently great, that's for sure. sometimes i think it's easier to write tragedy. comedy is just difficult.

Re: tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

pantomime rules... like the lead guy is actually a girl. and there is always a comic female character that is actually a man. and they say "oh no it isn't" and everyone in the audience shouts "oh yes it is". and "it's behind you!" it's very difficult to explain. you should go to see one :)

in the comic book, is it a standard punch and judy story? or what?

terry pratchetts books ARE all good! he has some very insightful things to say, douglas adams is more into the clever scientific things - but terry pratchett makes fun of people. i haven't had one book by him I didn't like. some of them start slowly though. I read quite a lot of horror stuff too.

the book I was writing is an attempt at comedy. you'll see. i hope you laugh at it :P

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

hm. i read pratchett's 'small gods' and the one about rock and roll music. but there was another one i tried to read and i just couldn't get into it. i loved small gods, though.

that sounds like a lot of fun, shouting back at the actors. what a great tradition.

the comic book: well, it's a story about a small boy, in brighton i think, and his uncle owns a crappy indoor arcade, and a punch and judy man comes and sets up his show there. so the little boy sees it and then all the violence in the show is sort of paralleled to a bunch of different violence stuff in his life. it plays off a lot of the ideas about masks, and changing your identity, and puppets, etc. spooky stuff.

what kind of horror do you read? i haven't read much, although i used to read rice's vampire books...

Re: tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

"soul music" - that's really good. read "pyramids" that was my favourite, and good omens but you've read that one :)

the diggers series is very good too, even if it IS supposed to be for children.

there's a lot of audience participation. I haven't been for years though, maybe I'll go to one. I wonder if they do adult pantomimes...

comic sounds quite good. I always found the punch and judy quite disturbing. what with him beating a policeman around the head with a stick, and his wife too.

I like Stephen King, mainly because it fascinates me how every time they turn one of his books into a film, they change it to make the ending nicer. did you see the green mile?

Robert McCammon is very good too. "they thirst" is a good vampire book, and "blue world" is more short stories.

you should definitely read stuff by Robert Rankin though, he's my current favourite.

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

yes, i saw the green mile. good movie, altho a bit long.

in the book i read that was in brixton, they seemed talked about pantomimes becoming less popular and turning into burlesque theater. like early strippers.

what was the original ending to the green mile?

i'll have to look up the rankin when i go to the library. i might go tonight. i'm running out of books...

Re: tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

in the movie, did Mr.Jingles (the mouse) die at the end? he did in the book.

pantomimes are still popular, it's a way for old actors to still get work. probably not in Brixton though, that's a predominantly black area.

do do - I'd love for someone else to get my random rob rankin jokes.

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

yes, the mouse died. i hated that guy who killed him. jerk. sigh...

brixton used to be where all the lower-class theater were, according to this book.

i heard a thing on the radio last night about south brixton clubs, and basement jaxx. a review of their new album.

Re: tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

I didnt think the mouse died. oh. that means it had the same ending as the book then.

basement jaxx are excellent. they are so diverse. every one of their songs is so different, like daft punk. and todd edwards is good too.

brixton probably was like that at one point, but it's not now. they do have the brixton academy though, where all the bands play.

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

yes. so.

i should probably leave now. and you're off to go home.

hope you have a good night with all those people coming over!

Re: tale..

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

so do I. but Im hungover. Im really not upferrit. still - I dug my own hole. have a good day :)

Re: tale..

[aslant.livejournal.com]

take some aspirin, drink a lot of water!