Showing posts with label dag solstad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dag solstad. Show all posts

Wednesday, 13 September 2017

solstad/monikova: same but different

I still border on a word and on another land, 
 I border, like little else, on everything more and more, 

a Bohemian, a wandering minstrel, who has nothing, who is 
held by nothing, gifted only at seeing, by a doubtful sea, 
 the land of my choice.

-- IB






the other day i read solstad's novel 11, book 18 and thought hang on, i've read something like this before, and that was monikova, pavane for a dead princess. same but different, i thought. interestingly both writers would have been of somewhat the same age had not monikova died of a brain tumor almost 20 years ago. her book was written approx 20 years before solstad's and named after that ravel piece. so, in monikova, princesses, the moment of royalty, reference to nabokov and charles kinbote, solus rex, and in the end, the royals flee into literature (if only they would), dignity flees into literature, shyness too, if you want to, if it makes you happy. as if literature is more real than life. which is why monikova always has been -- properly baptized by friedrich christian delius -- the duchess of bohemia at the sea, according that bachmann poem, and because that was where monikova came from, in both senses.

is literature more real than life?

In Solstad, the protagonist Bjorn Hansen who leaves his wife for a feeling only experienced in literature, a feeling that sometimes in rare occasions, seems to manifest itself in people, for instance in a new woman: He had discovered in this deliberate infidelity an intensity and a suspense that he could usually only observe with fascination, but without fully understanding, in art and literature. p7

the protagonist in monikova, specialized in kafka and arno schmidt, adjuncting and in despair about the students, she says about her life that it is rather a sequence of quotes from literature or movies which she not always immediately can place and then intends to write them down. yet, if they are written down and she finds back the quote, she wonders, whether there is the danger that you then double the boredom or despair...

is it about the good old hunting for the ineffable again?

and where to hunt it, in life, or in books? at any rate not easy, because not all sorts of books might provide that or maybe not all sorts of readers either...

i mean i liked the book, but did it go deeply enough, I mean deeply enough into my own existence? p72
[...]

what he now wanted to read was a novel that showed life to be impossible, but without a trace of humour, black or otherwise p74

so, hunting for the ineffable in the axebooks, but that is difficult, because they are not easy to find, or not enough or often enough that it would help (help for or with what?)

somehow it happens that ineffable feeling cannot be found in the other person either, or not always or not for long and what remains are artificial emotional constructs like bjorn hansen's jealousy barely covering the emptiness of this relationship and not sure it is because of that but bjorn hansen leaves turid lammers also because the french charme has worn, off. there is the old woman problem in solstad, i noticed in shyness and dignity too, the women,they're generally only characterised by their looks, never say anything, and once they get older and according to some, less attractive which is embarrasing and then, he can leave them as it is conveniently not him that's callous, but it's all nature's fault. so this is all a bit grating. then again you could just as well say, all of that, the aloofness, the alienation, belongs to the book, is a theme of it and in a way characterizes life, loneliness characterizes life, but not even loneliness is a problem, the problem is -- well what is it. someone inable to give himself meaning and does things in order to see whether they make him feel something?

in novel 11, book 18, it's all very seamless, glossy, affluent, saturated, complacent, aloof, no one has real problems - and in fact in a way one could say this is the usual one about the nothingness actually being not-so-nothing at all, but even if it is not nothingness it is still not yet the ineffable feeling and maybe, maybe there may be really nothing after all underneath all that distance, and not-so-nothing - or life is as usual elsewhere...
-- at any rate there are not the problems that normal people have such as money worries etc, there are rather smaller problems of hierarchy, of belonging (but only in the way in which belonging would help to give oneself consequence - or access to that ineffable feeling), bjorn hansen's son is a weirdo, but not as much as himself who is sort of moderately sociable, but then again not as fancy to outdo turid lammers in acting, a bit at the margins in the theatregroup.

that people in monikova are different, they are alienated too but not so much from each other as rather from society. all are somewhat less glossy, less sheltered and all are in some ways deprived and harmed, they're less successful and goodlooking [in fact the monikova protagonist who lives quite contently with two men is of according to solstad of ugly-woman age, but that isn't described as a problem in that book], their life is less easy and smooth, ugly daily life leaves its imprints a bit stronger. as such maybe? they came to admit their fallibility -- and i wonder whether it is the admittance of one's own fallibility that allows for the sharing of those insights in life, are we really so detached from each other or only sometimes. so it seems, in her book they are rather together alone than alone-alone like the people in solstad.
however, i think it's too easy to dismiss bjorn hansen's problem as originating from being too affluent or having an too easy life as that would not do justice to the whole existential dimension (in that book. 


so, the big no, the great negation, both take to the wheelchair.

in solstad it's a secret plan. the difficulty to accept that this is life, the this is it feeling, so to speak:

What bothers me is that my life is so unimportant. p79
[...]
Existence has never answered my questions. he added, just imagine, to live an entire life, my own life at that, without having fund the path to where my deepest needs can be seen and heard! I'll die in silence, which frightens me, without a word on my lips, because there is nothing to say. p80f
[...]
In this way he became increasingly absorbed by thinking openly in the language that had somehow taken hold of him. It was all about his inability to reconcile himself to the fact that this was it. p83

something is out of control, is it about gaining control again, language has hold of him, but doesn't reveal the ineffable. one is not even in control of language. something needs to happen, what is it, a reassurance of the self? to take matters in the own hands and - to the outside - cripple yourself so you can feel that you have some consequence? cripple yourself, but not really, because that would actually hurt and actually have consequence. but that would hurt, wouldn't it?

it is one interesting question whether resistance always have to involve self harm, whether a form of resistance is not just thinkable but liveable that does not involve self-harm, for as such one could interpret the big No, the big Negation. the surrender of the self in a way, and whether one has to surrender oneself in order to express one's freedom or give oneself traction. and whether this is only possible in this way and not anyhow else. and would only this give hansen his moist, dark peace p211, satisfied but still mute and lonely.


this is where solstad stops. in his case only inauthenticity seems to work. which reminds of again ibsen and his wild duck that had played a huge role in shyness and dignity as well. i wonder whether shyness and dignity might represent as a whole the relling character while here, novel 11 represents hjalmar ekdal. if that was an intention, it's quite successful. but yes if it is about inauthenticity and the wild duck's theme of the life-lie occurs here again, as such that the life-lie of someone ought not to be destroyed, according to relling, because the life-lie keeps people alive. interesting here is that when they plan to play the wild duck in novel 11, the physician that is assisting bjorn hansen in his wheelchair plan and thereby errecting the life-lie (which in this case is a lie to others, not to oneself as in ibsen) does refuse to play the relling role in the theatregroup and this refusal is a very relling-like act and as such indicator of some gentle mocking or ironizing in solstad's writing, at times. monikova in a different way, is a prankster too.
it's very interesting, how they both use literature and refer to other books... for solstad, ibsen and for monikova it's kafka, schmidt and nabokov...

in monikova there is apart maybe from the aspect of resistance, or giving some sort of meaning to one's life another reason for sitting in the wheelchair, it is an obvious expression of hurt or handicappedness, a making visible of a hurt that otherwise would go unnoticed. in her book the alienation is different, it's alienation from some people from some parts of society, but also a closeness to some parts of society and a closeness to some people and it is not easy to reconcile that. it's a problem with daily life. daily life hurts and that manifests itself in bodily symptoms such as limping, in a sense - as the development (unlike in solstad where one only find out at the end what hansen has planned for his great negation) is a gradual one and walking gets more and more difficult, -- it's less about pretending the handicap but more about an acute pain of living that is a bit more clouded in distance in solstad. in last consequence the wheelchair is an image for not being able to walk in this world anymore.

the problem of loneliness is a different one as well, the relationship between her and her two men characterized maybe not necessarily even by a longing for each other but rather they are driven to each other by a fear of that chaos which is that problem with life, the this is it problem, - but, this is admitted as in they don't exclude themselves from each other and those moments of recognition of that problem of life and/or each other leads to some odd and deep moments of happiness, closeness. so they sort themselves out, in a the blind leads the deaf sort of way, as they can share that insight about life probably being meaningless, whereas it is maybe not meaninglessness but something else:

some residuum of life, that remains after one has done everything, all one's tasks and so on. that there is a constant implosion of a fossilized brain which can't explode anymore by any sort of despair; a sadness of senseless staring is bigger than the power of life and the power of death, it's beyond suicide.

this in a way is yet another negation, and that adds up to another refusal and a gaining of the experience of consequence of one's own life, of traction, to give up the charade in the wheelchair, it just doesn't make sense anymore. monikova's protagonist does this symbolically by having a doll - the dead princess - commit suicide in the wheelchair on june 3rd -- the day kafka and arno schmidt have died, she says, her adversaries and aides. so, where to find the ineffable, in books, or life, or both? not sure whether there is an answer to that maybe the answer walks away just like the protagonist, just walks away in that truly bohemia-by-the-sea spirit, bordering like little else, on everything more and more.


[2012]


Wednesday, 20 January 2016

...that could only be quietened by life itself...

to follow dag solstad's preference: "he could not entirely bypass sigrid undset, but his appetite for going through kristin lavransdatter was rather limited; he preferred cora sandel." (shyness & dignity p26)

cora sandel -- alberta & jacob:

But Alberta was incapable of settling matters. She had an ingrained fear of the spoken word, an irreparable horror of argument and explanation. She blushed, was prostrated, lost the thread and might well say something quite different from what she had intended. p.72

...until the light of the first stars penetrated it like a trembling, hesitating message from somewhere forgotten. p.97

The truth was that Alberta only knew what she did not want. She had no idea what she did want. And not knowing brought unrest and a giddy sensation under her heart. She existed like a negative of herself, and this flaw was added to all others. p.98

But Alberta sat there wretchedly. God knows who put the words into her mouth. They were not her own. They were foreign to her, stupid words behind which she hid herself. Her own never saw the light of day, died unborn or withered on her tongue and were born distorted. She was disabled, she was without the use of speech, she would die of muteness. p174

Antipathy towards them all erupted in Alberta. She felt utterly paralysed by numbing, inner cold.p181

Alberta demonstratively held her tongue when its merits were under discussion, defending herself with her sole weapon -- silence. p209

It was done. It was as if something soft and small and defenceless had been crushed and trampled on, just as when Ola Paradise in his drunkenness had dashed a blind, newborn kitten against the wall of Ovre the baker's shed. Everything stopped, you dared not to breathe, not look, something moaned and whimpered deep inside you. p.220

Beneath her own weariness and despondency a stubborn will to continue, a hungering uneasiness, that could only be quietened by life itself; that could intoxicate itself with small, fluttering verses on a clear evening in spring or a moonlight night in August, yet hankered restlessly and desparately for somehting else, something undreamt of, far distant and obscure. p 233