A Slightly Relaxing Saturday Post

For all of you who are particpating in Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-thon this Saturday (28th July):

Good Luck!

There has been a dry spell for book related posts, so I'll just throw in a list of my recent acquisitions:

1. Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman by Alice Steinbach

   I guess in a way, this is the direction I am heading for: a journey, done independently. To find out for myself, by myself, who am I. We are often defined in relation to others - daughter, mother, friend, co-worker. If we take those relationship away, who are we?

2. The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos [Translated by Rémy Rougeau]
3. Mouchette by Georges Bernanos [Translated by J.C. Whitehouse]

   Two novels by Georges Bernanos, yes. In one of the more disreputable introductions to a book, I first became aware of Georges Bernanos through Robert Bresson's film adaptation of The Diary of a Country Priest.His country priest seems like a self-doubting loser - thwarted at every corner, unhappy, unloved, lonely. His only consolation seems to be writing in his cahier. Bresson put great care into the scenes of writing, as nib meets paper and ink runs over the pages. It was a captivating film, one I could watch over and over again.

   Georges Bernanos seems to be an inspiration to Bresson, as the filmmaker also adapted Mouchette, which NYRB has wonderfully published. You can't go wrong with NYRB.

4. The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares [Translated by Ruth L.C. Simms]

   I first read about Casares from Alberto Manguel's A Reader's Diary (a book that might have influenced the creation of this blog!) Manguel was full of praise for Casares's imaginative prose. The recent write-up on Boldtype reminded me to pick it up. Who knows, I might just bring it over to Dubai.

I'm still on the prowl for a digital camera, so this should be on my list of "Things To Do" this weekend.

But this Saturday evening has been reserved for the Anoushka Shankar concert.

Beatles fans would probably be familiar with Ravi Shankar, the great sitar master who taught George Harrison how to play the instrument. Ravi became known to the West during the '60s, when he played at Woodstock and the Monterey festival and collaborated with the Beatles.

Anoushka Shankar is Ravi Shankar's daughter - a musical pedigree, of a sort. She started learning how to play the sitar when she was 9, and by 13, she was performing by her father's side.

Anoushka Shankar's repertoire is rooted in India's rich tradition, but also influenced by the music of the West. This is all thanks to an upbringing in London, New Delhi and California spent listening to artists such as Sting and Tori Amos.

"People tend to find a big difference between me and other Indian musicians," she says. "I have fun on stage. I like to groove."

Do we call it fusion? Or perhaps Anoushka is just the current generation of musicians and artistes who knows boundaries are nothing but a state of mind.

Here are some Youtube videos if you are interested in checking out her music.

Anoushka Shankar performing at the San Francisco Stern Grove:

Anoushka Shankar performed live sitar solo as the opening number at the "Concert For George " (2003):

Ravi and Anoushka Shankar performing together:

OBITUARY | Elaine Dundy Passes

Oh. Elaine Dundy, author of The Dud Avocado (half-read on my TBR stack), passed away on 1st May 2008.

A Different Stripe has a write-up here.

Photos of Some of My Books

Imani mentioned there was a call for pictures of readers' NYRB books. I thought I just join in the fun.

I desperately need to invest in a proper camera, but until then, here is a preview of the NYRB Classics in my possession:

[Click on picture to enlarge -- but be warned: camera resolution is bad]

I might not have cutesy poppets, but I have Care Bear Babies! Hugs and Tugs! Everybody go "Awwwww....!"

List of NYRB behind Hugs and Tugs (from the top):

1. A Time To Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor
2. Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick
3. The Pure and the Impure by Colette
4. Sunflower by Gyula Krúdy
5. Seduction and Betrayal by Elizabeth Hardwick
6. Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig
7. The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
8. Ice by Vladimir Sorokin

My personal collection of NYRB Classics is still modest, but trust me -- it will grow. I've simply been restricting the number of books I buy each month.

The forthcoming titles also look interesting. Some of the titles I have my eyes on:

1. Belchamber by Howard Sturgis
2. Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage by Tim Robinson
3. Victorine by Maude Hutchins
4. My Fantoms by Théophile Gautier
5. Paperback of Grief Lessons -- 4 Euripides plays translated and with introductory essays by Anne Carson

On Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007)

At a memorial service for Elizabeth Hardwick, Darryl Pinckney and Joan Didion shared their memory of the late co-founder of The New York Review. The full article is available online.

From Darryl Pinckney:

"Sometimes she read in order to write, in order to begin, to find her way in. She agreed with Virginia Woolf that to read poetry before you wrote could open the mind. She typed at a desk upstairs in her apartment on West 67th Street; she typed at her heavy machine on the dining room table. She wrote in big handwriting on legal pads that then waited on end tables for her doubts; she wrote in little notebooks that she tucked between the cushions of the red velvet sofa. When she wrote, books piled up all around her, opened, or face down, each asking questions of her, whispering about the way in."

... ...

"Writing was not a collaboration. In the solitude of the blank page, everyone was up against the limits of himself or herself."

From Joan Didion:

"She understood at the bone the willful transgression implicit in the literary enterprise—knew that to express oneself was to expose oneself, that to seize the stage was to court humiliation—and she accepted the risk. Every line she wrote suggested that moral courage required trusting one's own experience in the world, one's own intuitions about how it worked."