Ok, I’m a little behind in wrapping up last year, including picking the best book I read in 2008.  Let’s just say there have been more important things going on.

Like last year with George Orwell, it was great reading for the first time a book that I could have (should have) read earlier in life.  Naipaul is destined to be a sort of grounding for me, and that lesson in itself was a good one to learn.  I have Patrick French’s biography in the stack of books to read, but more likely I’ll finally get to A House for Mr. Biswas or In a Free State. And I can certainly sense a growing need to learn about and live in Sri Lanka, thanks in large part to Michael Ondaatje’s body of work and the poetic family memories he shares in Running in the Family.

But no, for 2008 it really was a choice between two books: Netherland and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.  Two very different novels with very distinct writing styles.  As mentioned in the respective reviews, voice mattered a great deal in both these works, and if you want a taste of today’s Dominican mash-up flavor (hurry, it will need updating every year, I’m sure), you need to read Junot Diaz.

But if you want a book that is both chock full of gorgeous prose and which asks you to think about life, which forces you to feel the meaning of the words in the middle of the night, then you can’t go wrong with Joseph O’Neill’s masterpiece.  The folks at Salon.com come close to calling it a perfect book during a 45-minute discussion.  You decide.

Might take donkey’s ears and I’m sure it’ll go all Pete Tong…

Some new (old) holiday music, courtesy of The Flaming Lips.  Everything’s gonna work out just fine…

The weekend was 1) f—–g cold, and 2) tiring. I met a friend of a friend for a drink after work, then met D coming in from Brussels at the champagne bar at St. Pancras station (heated seats!) and then went off to meet someone else at a concert which turned out to be at least one awful band.  Saturday was spent on a trip to find a bookstore called John Sandoe near Sloan Sq, and being slightly disappointed by it, but eating a nice brie and cranberry jam sandwich and vowing not to shop in London on weekends during Xmas.  Back to the apt. for a nap, being woken up by Angeline’s sister who stopped by for a glass of wine and some convo, and then going to a “shiny” party hosted by a young diplomats association.

Sunday, needless to say, was somewhat of a haze which involved Skypeing with the boys in the morning and making up a story for Q’ool with two small stuffed elephants I have from Rwanda to keep his attention.  Then reading the awful newspaper over Thai food at a local pub but not getting warm enough, and having D come over for the evening and going for tapas and wine on the High Street and realizing that I was still exhausted at the end of the weekend.

Yes. It is ridiculous.  I went and saw Malcolm Gladwell speak this evening at the Lyceum Theater. I enjoyed his talk. I equally enjoyed the McDonald’s two cheeseburger meal I ate on the walk to the Tube station.

Two days of relative non-activity except that I have to rent a tuxedo somewhere, then A arrives on Thurs morning until Sunday. And people ask me if I’m going to cook a turkey this year. Incredible.

One of my favorite writers/journalists/essayists is George Packer.  The last line of this entry on his blog caught my attention.

And to becoming, in my middle years, a bit of an élitist.

George, it’s time to take the next step and just say it: there is nothing wrong with being an elitist in this country, for Pete’s sake, particularly when you know what the word means (nice use of the accent aigu, btw.)  It’s time to stand up for knowledge, education, and aesthetics.

Need more food for thought? Try here, here.

(written on the back of my appointments schedule)

That became the tread of my days.  Some days up and then suddenly a fantastic low, a mood that hollowed me out; where I sank into an approximation of gloom burdened with a nagging guilt at my unease.  It felt wrong to be ungrateful, and this was the worst part of those down days.  One day I envisioned what a graph of my life looked like and saw a sine wave, like a radio frequency with sharp oscillations of static noise.  Was that really what life was meant to be?  It seemed illogical really — here I was with every opportunity (including the opportunity to be left alone if I so chose) and daily I struggled still.  There were few useful comparisons and even less sympathy for my condition.  My family couldn’t understand my lack of conviction, to them it seemed I was creating problems where none had existed.  This was because they lacked the capacity for self-reflection.

There were many who had moved on of course. Often I noticed that these types quickly became possessed by a missing zeal which is ever present in American society — to “do good” or “give a voice to the voiceless.”  The ferocity with which they began to champion causes of all sorts astounded and unnerved me.  Sometimes I found myself engaged in a debate about a topic for which I cared little or not at all.  Often I sounded ridiculous, as anyone might who was arguing a point about which he didn’t truly have a a feeling one way or another.  Before I became too disturbed by my losing record as a debater, though, I began noticing a commonality in the people I argued with.  They all showed signs of — and some eventually became — a strain of nihilism in their discourse.  Behind the passion and conviction lay the real sense that there was no answer, that things, all things, would in the end fall short, achieve little, and bring ruination.  The world had become (frequently “because of the West”, whatever that meant) hopelessly corrupted and broken.  Even if they won their argument with me, they lost.  The game had been pre-cooked.  It was beautiful how their notions contained a rejection of fate and repudiation of any natural balance to the universe.

“But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.”

I realized one day that I had ceased to appear in photographs.  Naturally, when you are traveling alone it’s difficult to set your camera down, frame a photo properly, and rush to pose before the timer sets the shutter off.  Of course too there’s the worry that someone may run off with your camera once you’ve set it down.  But if you can get beyond all that — and after all you’re traveling in lands strange to you, which should indicate that you have accepted a certain amount of risk in your life and besides, it’s just a camera, right? — if you can get beyond all that, why not just ask a passer-by to take your photo?  It seems simple enough, but somehow out of my reach.  So I instead have albums worth of photos of inanimate objects and environments, few containing me.

Many of these settings are lovely in their own right.  Inside the terminal at Abu Dhabi International, for instance, with the glittered tile in greens and blues, and yellow flecks that remind you of the desert outside and the gold of your mother’s jewelry.  There the curve of the pillars, built in 1982, almost speaks to you as you sip espresso to wake up after an overnight flight.  The flight attendants, happier to be on the ground than in the sky (unexpected, but understandable), pulling their personal luggage trolleys from gate to gate.  All these things in a location as mundane as an airport!  Small wonder that I focused on my surroundings and forgo to include myself in the picture.

But was it really that?  I began to disbelieve it the more I considered.  Where had I gone and why was I never there? It seemed a strange thing to choose not to be present, but that was in fact what I had done.  I was playing a part in my own disappearance from the earth, from memory including my own.  Worse still, such behavior made me dangerous.  I began connecting unrelated ideas and theories and grew bitter.

For the number of non-fiction books and essays I’ve read by V.S. Naipaul, I hadn’t tackled any of his novels.  Having just finished A Bend in the River, I simply have to say that the man, whatever you think about his personal life and actions, knows how to write.  After all the dross conatined in much of what passes for fiction today, it’s clear that standards do remain, and that the bar is set high.  It’s amazing in particular to me how he maintains a balance between his characters’ personal narratives and the outside world.

In many of his essays he writes about immigrant Indians inability to look, to see the world around them.  I’ve traveled to many places, lived among a variety of cultures and people, but I have this gnawing feeling that I don’t know how to look either.  It’s a skill, for sure, and sitting behind a laptop at a cafe isn’t the way to develop a real sense of seeing, let’s be honest.  I’m not sure what it takes…writing down observations? Learning names and details? Having an opinion about the small things around you?

If there’s anything that 9/11 offered us, it was opportunity for self-examination. Not that all of us need such a thing, but I’m confident that from Sept 12, 2001 till date, American introspection has grown significantly.  And it’s no surprise that we find a novel written within that post 9/11 introspection.  What’s a little surprising is that it’s written by an Irishman who writes for the New Yorker occasionally.  It has been short-listed for the Booker Prize and Netherland, to be sure, is a viable candidate for the award, but what’s more interesting is figuring out exactly what kind of novel it is.  In fact, its most serious flaw is arguably that you’re not quite sure exactly which story forms the narrative’s heart. 

My last bit of work business in Kolkata was accompanying the Consul General on a farewell call. At 4:15pm, I clambered aboard the lightly-armored, black Land Cruiser and we creaked our way 2 miles or so through the Maidan to Raj Bhavan, the office and home of Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi.

One of Q’ool’s favorite books is La Vie de Kuma Kuma, a story in French.  I read it to him every Friday night.  Yesterday, Q’ool brought it from from the bedside bookshelf, opened it, and said:

‘My friend Kuma Kuma lives on the mountain far way.’

‘It’s not easy to get there.’

‘He eats salad.’

‘He’s making his coffee.’

‘He read magazines at the book store.’

‘He carries his bags.’

He’s sweeping the floor.’

‘Kuma Kuma cuts fingernails and looks at them.’

‘He’s sliding on the roof.  Watch out! Be careful!’

‘Ohhh, it’s raining! Kuma Kuma go inside!’

‘He’s rolling on the floor.’

‘Kuma Kuma writes long letters after dinner.’ (my favorite)

‘Time for bed!’

‘The end.’

It’s amazing.  He’s not reading, he’s telling the story.  So Q’ool.