Friday

 I can stand and walk this morning better than I have for all the throbbing in my hip and smelling like a locker room.

Email opened and there is the book reviews from The Brisbane Time. I read Putting together the jigsaw puzzle pieces of life with interest and out of interest:

The Melbourne-via-Adelaide author won the inaugural Horne Prize in 2016 for her essay The Suicide Gene, detailing her own history of ideation against the backdrop of her grandfather, who took his own life. The frank, shattering nature of that essay continues in the memoir A Kind of Magic, Spargo-Ryan’s third book but first long-form non-fiction work, which explicitly lays out the ways, big and small, in which mental illness impacts a life.

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But if the purpose is to allow readers to physically feel the intense and often terrifying mental health struggle, Spargo-Ryan nails it – her beautiful prose is especially effective when she is describing panic and anxiety attacks with breathless run-on sentences, giving outsiders an idea of what it feels like to be inside those kinds of moments. The debilitating and all-consuming nature of living with mental illness is drawn with clarity, pushing up against the “degree to which people imagine mental illness is performative”.

I do not know why - it's foreignness itself? - but I do like the way the Aussie's write their reviews. They do not seem so stodgy as, say, The New York Times.

I also found out Orhan Pamuk has a new novel, Nights of Plague, which is reviewed under Ancient versus modern in a story of sickness and murder.

A number of early reviews have noted that the premise of Nights of Plague is reminiscent of Albert Camus’ existentialist classic The Plague. But Pamuk’s expansive style and thematic preoccupations are quite different. Running through all his work is a concern with the conflicts that arise between ancient traditions and the forces of modernisation. This is often played out in his novels as a complex historical interaction between the values and cultures of East and West.

In Nights of Plague, there is a religious angle (the population of Mingheria is divided between Muslim Turks and Christian Greeks), but the immediate point of contention is the draconian measures that are put in place to control the spread of the disease, which are enforced in such a clumsy manner that they not only arouse fear and suspicion among the people of Mingheria, but also expose the inadequacies of the rickety imperial bureaucracy.

Pamuk has always been conscious of the ways in which different literary genres can overlap and inhabit each other. On a conceptual level, the richly imagined world of Nights of Plague recalls one of his greatest novels, My Name is Red, in that it combines two familiar genres – the historical novel and the detective story – and gives them a twist.

Pamuk won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and I think has things to say to us Americans, but most importantly - he writes a damned good story.

With this story of the fitful birth of a nation state, Pamuk opens up far-reaching questions about the tragic contingencies of history and the forging of national myths. It is an extraordinary achievement (and uncannily prescient, given that Pamuk began writing it four years before the 2020 pandemic).

At nearly 700 exposition-heavy pages, Nights of Plague is well into baggy monster territory, and it does have its longueurs, but the skill with which Pamuk synthesises its disparate elements, and the convincing palpability of its imaginary setting, conspire to make the novel one of his finest creations.

And now it is 5:45, and I need to move towards work. I feel strange having been gone, and am nervous if I can work today. Not many places will hire the likes of me. 

I worked all day. It was a close one - the hip pain gave way to the knee. I was ready to give up by 2 pm. 

After work, off to Payless for groceries. I had to have missed a bus, or else the schedule was off. During my half hour wait to get the bus home, I realized how deserted was the bus station, and how it was getting colder. I did not get back until 6:30. I paid rent. Then I ate my dinner.

I read Giving Attorney General power over prosecutors “least preferred” route in dispute and Indiana higher education commission advances funding model, despite some pushback. The first gives me hope and the second feels like déjà vu all over again - not a good feeling.

What I am going to do now is call it a day. I am tired, hurt, and do not have the energy to do any more writing or reading. One more post added for pretrial detention. The brain rebels at any more words.

"Colonel Tom" got a rejection today:

Thank you for submitting "Colonel Tom" to Gordon Square Review. While we appreciate the chance to read your work, we regret that we are unable to accept it for publication.

One of the unfortunate realities of literary publishing is that editors will always have to pass on a lot more work than they accept. As writers ourselves, we understand the frustration of rejection, but please know we appreciate your time and efforts and are honored you trusted us with your work.

Thanks again, and we wish you the best in placing your work elsewhere!

Best,

Nardine Taleb

Prose Editor

Gordon Square Review

gordonsquarereview.org

I will watch a little TV, probably not going to stay up for Graham Norton. Vegetate.

It is getting cold & snow is expected for tomorrow.

sch