Catching Up - Sort Of 9-3-2015 (Part Two)

[ I am back working through my prison journal. It is out of order… Well, the order is as I have opened boxes. The date in the title is the date it was written. I hope this is not confusing. What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars. Continued from Catching Up - Sort Of 9-3-2015  (Part One). sch 10/10/2025] 

Downhill to 56 is not the time to regretting left Kant unread, or re-reading Hume. Both of whom are in mind because I am reading Robert M. Pirsig's Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

I am also read Milan Kundera's Laughable Loves. Looks like I have a Penguin edition from 1987 of stories (novellas I think more accurate) from 1974, and maybe before. "Nobody Will Laugh" reminds me of the only other Kundera book I've read, The Joke, and does nothing to make me think live in Communist Czechoslovakia was funny. "The Golden Apple of Eternal Desire" does a very good job of outlining a problem known to me and some of my Hoosier friends decades later than the story. "The Hitchhiking Game" has role playing ages before I ever heard of the term - and a result I think must be the common for such games, a loss for both sides; especially if they go on too long. Not sure what to make of "Symposium", but I feel all too certain "Let The Old Dead Make Room For The Young dead" speaks to an older version of myself.

For all Kundera's leaving me feeling like I got kicked in the shins, I like his writing. Clean prose. Thoughtful. Cutting into his subject at odd angles. Way smarter than me.

The conversation was proceeding to still greater extremes of rudeness; it shocked the girl slightly but she couldn't protest. Even in a game there lurks a lack of freedom; even a game is a trap for the players. If this had not been a game and they had really been two strangers, the hitchhiker could long ago have taken offense and left. But there's no escape from a game.... 

[A page is missing; I assume this quote is from "The Hitchhiking Game"; but also missing  is the start of the following. sch 10/9/2025.]

...In eroticism we seek the image of our own significance and impotence....

Symposium, "The Chief Physician's Greatest Success"

***

... What astounded him was the knowledge that he had experienced rather little. When [he] thought about this he felt embarrassed; yes, he was ashamed, because to live here on earth so long and to experience so little - that was ignominious.

Let The Old Dead Make Room For the Young Dead, 3

***

... "Please, leave me alone for a minute," and released herself from his embrace; she didn't want to interrupt what was racing through her head: the old dead must make room for the young dead and memorials were worth nothing and her memorial, which this man beside her had honored for fifteen years in his thoughts, was for nothing, and her husband's memorial was for nothing, and yes, my boy, all memorials were for nothing, she said inwardly to her son....

Let The Old Dead Make Room For the Young Dead, 14

I wonder what Joni Renforth would make of these stories. I have no doubts she would have given them a shot. What of Kari? Both Kari and Joni share an unsteady intelligence - they never assert. Unlike LAH, who I wrote to and received the silence I asked for in 2005. 

I have some more quotes from Kundera.

... Precisely in this groundlessness is a tiny scrap of freedom granted us, for which we must untiringly reach out, so that in this world of iron laws there should remain a little human disorder....

Symposium: "In Praise of Freedom", p. 96

Maybe also reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance made this stand out. Written by Kundera while living under Communism, or strongly influenced by having lived under a Communist dictatorship. Why then does it seem so appropriate for America in 2015? Hm.

The next quotation hit quite close to home for this criminal. Yes, I thought this captures the mentality I had online - and off. Oh, it does so well characterize me and at least a few of my skirt-chasing friends.

"The Great Collector knows nothing of tragedy or drama. Eroticism, which used to be the greatest instigator of catastrophes, has become, thanks to him, like  breakfasts and dinners, like stamp-collecting and ping-pong, if not like a ride on a streetcar or shopping. He has introduced it into the ordinary round of events. He has transformed it into a stage, one which genuine drama should by now have stopped. Alas, my friends," ranted Havel, "my loves (if I may call them that) are a stage upon which nothing is taking place."

Symposium: "The End of the Don Juans", p. 111

 Which raises even more thoughts on the erotic images forbidden me by the United States Government, and are a subject of my play "Perversion". Always with the fodder for thought! Not always did we do the right thing. 

I think I will work on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for the rest of the day.

sch 

[A link I turned up typing this post: Laughable Loves by Milan Kundera (Read A Kitaab)

And now, before moving on to the duller side of the stories, a general note on writing style. The moment I started reading this book, I couldn't help myself but think how accessible is it to adapt into a short film or a play or an anthology. The characters, setting, and dialogue had such clarity to them that it is impossible not to follow what was going on. And also, each short story is numbered into many sections, making it less tiresome. Textbook characters talking textbook dialogue, put in textbook situations. Textbook beginnings, textbook endings. It's that perfect. Plus sometimes, the narrator directly speaks to you, asking for your opinion on the proceedings. Each story had a singular vision, a single point to make and arrive at it. It's also worth mentioning that this was a work of translation and seemed there was nothing really lost in translation and had an original and natural flow to it. 

Now, coming to stories I didn't particularly enjoy which were also painfully long were three sequential ones, one of them aptly named 'symposium'. This section had many characters, but none particularly striking. It was once again a game, well written with an untoward incident at its heart but nothing really saved the day for the set-up itself felt artificial. I mean, we here have a bunch of doctors on duty, talking endlessly of philosophy and philosophically, to the point where it feels forced. But, the two stories that continued, set in distant time from the current one were powerful. Especially, one called 'Let the old dead make room for the young dead.' 

To sum it up, read this book if you'd want to read how it gets done. In this case, to know how to perfectly plot a story, write accurate dialogue and most importantly to drive a singular point really effectively.

The erotic images forbidden by the government were not illegal ones; just ones deemed to be erotic, without any further definition. sch. 10/09/2025.]