Jazzy D's Soul Notes

Absurdity

by Jazzy D




We wake up, we queue, we boil the kettle,
we lose the keys we just had in our hand.

We build a shed for the things we don't need,
mow the lawn in perfect stripes,
then watch the rain undo it.

We argue passionately about biscuits.
We fall in love with people for the way they laugh at nothing.
We keep photographs of dogs we never owned.

The to-do list gets longer as the days get shorter.
We plan forever for Tuesday,
and Tuesday never quite arrives as planned.

We are terribly serious about it all -
the mortgage, the garden fence, the correct way to load toast -
and the universe, vast and indifferent,
can't stop giggling.

And yet -
the kettle still sings.
The bee still finds the flower.
You still dance a little when that song comes on in the shop.

Absurd, isn't it?
And entirely worth showing up for.

Natasha Solomons "The Novel in the Viola" (Sceptre)






The story of Elise Landau, a young Jewish woman who escapes Nazi-occupied Austria by securing a job as a parlour maid at the manor house in the English village of Tyneford. This was a near-perfect read. I loved Elise as both a character and a narrator. The descriptions of life in both Vienna and at the manor house strike a lovely balance between realistic and elegiac. There's a romance, and it holds precisely as much sway over the narrative as it should. The setting (both place and time) is beautifully rendered.

A touch predictable in spots, but in a way which suggests one has really gotten to know the characters rather than that the plot lacks something in originality. A good, satisfying story, very well told. Recommended.

James Hogg "The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner" (The Canons)






An eerie Caledonian fable about religious dogmatism, which works simultaneously on dozens of levels – atmospheric, intellectual, generic, geographical – and all of them engaging. With its in-jokes, its metafictional structure and even a cheeky authorial self-insertion, it reads very much like something faked-up by Pynchon or Coover or some other contemporary experimentalist: a postmodern rewrite of Gothic Romance. But this is very much the original article.

The accoutrements of the genre are all there – doppelgängers, sublime nature, black-clad figures, looming architecture, eldritch forces that man should not wot of – but fused, here, with the Scottish landscape in a way that locates the horrors of the story firmly ‘at home’. (This is unlike Gothic fiction from south of the border, which tends to go abroad to find its otherworldliness – Switzerland for Frankenstein, Italy for The Castle of Otranto, France for Udolpho, Romania for Dracula.) The supernatural elements are also built up over a scaffolding of fascinating religious debate that comes out of the split between Calvinists and religious liberals in Scotland in the nineteenth century.

The root of the story is in the dispiriting notion of predestination, which, as Hogg's protagonist points out, makes ‘the economy of the Christian world…an absolute contradiction’.

Seeing that God had from all eternity decided the fate of every individual that was to be born of woman, how vain it was in man to endeavour to save those whom their Maker had, by an unchangeable decree, doomed to destruction.

Not only does this theory, taken to its logical conclusion, make preaching and religious guidance a complete waste of time, it also means that your own actions have no bearing whatever on your eventual fate amid the celestial choirs or the sulphurous pits. In which case, if you happen to know that you're heading upwards – that you're theologically ‘justified’ – then what's to stop you doing anything you like? Rape…murder…fratricide…there are no limits.

The concept is a brilliant one and Hogg plays it for everything it's worth. His interest in ideas of confused identity, psychological breakdown and multiple ‘truths’ makes it easy to understand why the book was so enthusiastically rediscovered towards the end of the twentieth century after decades of neglect; throw in the religious extremism and it's never been more relevant. It's also genuinely creepy. The character of Gil-Martin is one of the best literary treatments of the Devil I've encountered, and some of the set-pieces have a real uncanniness to them which is hard to pull off. A fascinating book, and an excellent choice for anyone in search of a suitably nightmarish Hallowe'en read

Light Falling On A Leaf

by Jazzy D




Light does not land -
it lingers.

It pools in the palm of an oak leaf,
thin as paper,
and for a moment the green becomes gold
from the inside.

It slips through the higher branches
in quiet chords,
one note, then another,
laying itself down
on the leaves below
like a soft hand.

Some leaves take it sharp and bright,
a flash on their edges.
Some take it deep,
and glow.

No wind moves them,
and still they tremble,
each one holding a little piece of the afternoon
until the light,
unhurried,
moves on.

Sebastian Faulks "Faulks on Fiction" (BBC Books)





This book was published as a companion piece to a BBC television series which I’ve not seen. In it, Faulks considers twenty-eight characters from literature, and comments on them. The characters are split into “types”: heroes, lovers, snobs and villains. And within each group, he considers a well-known character from a famous novel. Some of the choices are obvious: Sherlock Holmes as a hero, Constance Chatterley as a lover, Fagin as a villain. Some are a bit odd: James Bond as a snob (although given the use of brand-names in the books, it does sort of make sense), Winston Smith as a hero… And I wouldn’t have chosen Ronald Merrick as a villain to represent the Raj Quartet – Barbie Bachelor is a much more interesting character; nor do I necessarily agree with the conclusions Faulks draws about the four books and Merrick’s role in them. But then the Raj Quartet is one of the few works covered in Faulks on Fiction which Faulks read for the first time for the television series. Many of the others he had read as a schoolboy or a student, and he writes as much about how his view of the book has changed with this new read as he does in analysis of the character under discussion. Of the twenty-eight novels covered, I’ve read only nine (but I’ve seen film/tv adaptions of a further seven), which at least gives me a position to compare Faulks’s thoughts with my own. He raises points I’d not considered in many cases and there’s very little I’d disagree with on those characters with which I’m familiar. Admittedly, I seem to hold both DH Lawrence and Paul Scott in higher regard than Faulks does – though, to be fair, I don’t prize Lawrence for his characterisation, and that’s pretty much the focus of the essays in Faulks on Fiction. An interesting read.

Paul Auster "Bloodbath Nation" (Faber & Faber)




Bloodbath Nation, by Paul Auster with photography by Spencer Ostrander, is an impassioned look at America's bloody love affair with guns, from colonial times through to our most recent bloodbaths.

While making a case for gun control Auster stops well short of being blind to either the appeal or the reasonable reasons for gun ownership. That said, he also points out the amazing levels of irrationality in the extreme arguments against any and all regulation. Through both personal stories, statistics, some basic history, and analyses of a few cases, Auster paints a picture of a divided country that has chosen deadly weapons as the battleground on which to display its dishonorable partisanship.

Combined with Ostrander's haunting photographs this short volume speaks to both the mind and the heart. There are no winners, except those raking in the cash from all the bloodshed.

I would like to recommend this to everyone, but I am almost positive the ammosexuals will be offended that their little compensatory phalluses are under attack. So other than them, I recommend this to anyone who cares about people being able to safely and without fear go about their daily business, be it work, shopping, school, or worship.

I hope everyone will read Dave Ramsey’s comments about going cashless. It’s a two minute read. No one has explained it better. He brings up several situations I'd never considered.
NO CASH means ABSOLUTELY NO CASH. Here is an idea. The next store you go in and order a drink or want to buy their product and they tell you “card only” …. Walk Away

Dave Ramsey repost:

HERE'S WHAT NO CASH ACTUALLY MEANS:
A cashless society means no cash. Zero. It doesn’t mean mostly cashless and you can still use a ‘wee bit of cash here & there’. Cashless means fully digital, fully traceable, fully controlled. I think those who support a cashless society aren’t fully aware of what they are asking for. A cashless society means:

* If you are struggling with your mortgage on a particular month, you can’t do an odd job to get you through.
* Your child can’t go & help the local farmer to earn a bit of summer cash.
* No more cash slipped into the hands of a child as a good luck charm or from their grandparent when going on holidays.
* No more money in birthday cards.
* No more piggy banks for your child to collect pocket money & to learn about the value of earning.
* No more cash for a rainy day fund or for that something special you have been putting £20 a week away for.
* No more little jobs on the side because your wages barely cover the bills or put food on the table.
* No more charity collections.
* No more selling bits & pieces from your home that you no longer want/need for a bit of cash in return.
* No more cash gifts from relatives or loved ones.
What a cashless society does guarantee:
* Banks have full control of every single penny you own.
* Every transaction you make is recorded.
* All your movements & actions are traceable.
* Access to your money can be blocked at the click of a button when/if banks need ‘clarification’ from you which will take about 3 weeks, a thousand questions answered & five thousand passwords.
* You will have no choice but to declare & be taxed on every pound in your possession.
* The government WILL decide what you can & cannot purchase.
* If your transactions are deemed in any way questionable, by those who create the questions, your money will be frozen, ‘for your own good’.

Forget about cash being dirty. Stop being so easily led. Cash has been around for a very, very, very long time & it gives you control over how you trade with the world. It gives you independence.

If you are a customer, pay with cash. If you are a shop owner, remove those ridiculous signs that ask people to pay by card. Cash is a legal tender, it is our right to pay with cash. Banks are making it increasingly difficult to deposit cash.

Please open your eyes. Please stop believing everything you are being told. Almost every single topic in today’s world is tainted with corruption & hidden agendas.

Pay with cash & please say no to a cashless society while you still have the choice.

Alice Hoffman "The Story Sisters" (William Collins)



This is a novel about three sisters growing up, growing apart, and learning about the dangers and difficulties of the real world. After one of the sisters is abducted and molested by a teacher, the family is thrown into turmoil. The damaged sister grows distant, begins harming herself and taking drugs. The family is continually shattered by new tragedies.

I seriously don't understand this author's writing style. This book reads like its own wikipedia page. Everything is told, almost like a history book, with no character development and almost no dialogue. Seriously, this book has to be about 95% exposition. I felt like I was trapped at a family party where an aging relative told me an endless, rambling story about the tragic life of someone I'd never met. Granted, it's sad, but I don't know the person and really can't care about it.

The Story Sisters suffer so much that it's almost comical by the end. Every bad thing happens to them from rape, to drug abuse, to cancer, to having a beloved dog die. And I never once cared. Because the characters weren't real, vital, or likeable. The book was tedious and I couldn't wait for it to end.

Julia Boyd "Travellers In The Third Reich" (Elliott & Thompson Limited)




At a time when America is operating concentration camps and moving ever more closely towards totalitarianism, this book is especially poignant. Why did tourists continue to visit a country that was so clearly uncivilized and aggressive? How did they reconciliate the politics of the country with the friendly, efficient people they met everywhere on their travels?

Myopia of the Moment

Time and the critical eye of historians brings perspective often lacking at the time events occur. That is one of the takeaways from Julia Boyd’s intriguing exploration of the rise and fall of Nazi Germany through the eyes of visitors from 1919 to 1945. These visitors included British and American citizens, as well as one Chinese graduate student. Visitors were vacation goers who loved the landscape and culture of Germany, as well as the value it represented right up to the start of WWII. For the most part, though, visitors were politicians, intellectuals, and students, individuals you would hope to have been more acute observers, people attuned to the politics of a country, and thus able to tell when they are being seduced and hoodwinked. Not so in most cases, especially prior to at least 1938, when Hitler’s and Germany’s march to war became more apparent, and the persecution of the Jews outright and undisguised.

If you’ve read the history of the period and of Germany in particular, you understand how Hitler used the anger of Germans over WWI and its aftermath, as well as Germany’s long volkish history that included a very strong current of antisemitism, to beguile them with visions of greatness to surpass that of the past. (Readers might like to try George Mosse’s The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich, one of the best studies of the subject.) These resentments come through loud and clear in the conversations related by travelers. Too, the level of antisemitism might startle some modern types, especially that expressed by the travelers, politicians, intellectuals, and students alike.

That observers quoted in this volume could not see German military intent even before 1936 will strike readers as surprising, especially when you read about a population in uniform, people, young and older, marching here, there, and everywhere, while singing patriotic songs. You would have to ask yourself: what were they practicing for, what would this uniformity of behavior lead to? Often, you’ll read accounts of young people holidaying in the mountains encountering troops of Hitler youth groups practicing military techniques, including stealth assault employing camouflage.

This book should be better known to Americans, because it’s loaded with information on the power of propaganda, the myopia of observation in the moment, how quickly people can fall prey to totalitarians who promise to restore the past, and make the future even better, and how readily the dominant populace can succumb to scapegoating. Even casual readers will find themselves drawing parallels to our own current situation.

Recommended to all readers, and as a welcome addition to the bookshelves of readers of German history and the Nazi era.

Freida McFadden "The Teacher" (Poisoned Pen Press)






Addie, a high school junior, has some problems. Her dad had died last year, and when a teacher tried to console and help her, some parents got the wrong idea that something nefarious was going on. It wasn’t, but the teacher was forced to leave the school. This year, Addie is shunned by her peers and treated warily by teachers. All except for her English teacher, Nate, who just happens to be married to her math teacher, Eve. Eve and Nate are not the happily married couple they appear to be to others.

They each find happiness outside their marriage, Eve with her expensive shoes and handsome shoe salesman, and Nate with the adoring young Addie. In this tale, the youth are capable of great evil, and the adults who should protect and nurture instead corrupt and destroy. This book is repulsive on so many levels: adultery, pedophilia, murder, obsessions, complicity to commit murder, unlawful entry, and concealing crimes. Secrets, of course, are plentiful in this tale. It is a fairly quick read, and compelling in its suspense. The ending, though, was so contrived that even after reading it, I thought that the author couldn’t possibly have meant that. But she did. Are there any likable characters in this book? Maybe the principal who barely makes an appearance and Addie’s mother, a hard-working nurse who is seldom in the story. If you like thrillers just for the suspense without much else, this book may appeal to you. But if you need to have at least one character that you could admire, this is a book you should skip.