The Land Across (part I)

Gene Wolfe's The Land Across is a strange book, and I have mixed feelings about it on first reading.

The novel is a first-person account of travel (to a fictional European country), starting somewhere close to a travel guide and quickly degenerating into a haphazard memoir in which time  flows irregularly. Some days stretch over chapters; some chapters cover months or years.

The narrator's voice is oddly without affect, and the narrator himself is unsympathetic and unreliable. (So obviously unreliable that it seems to point to some narrative trick being pulled.) Although unsympathetic, he must come across better in person, since he beds at least 3 women in the book  (of the maybe 6 he meets; of the others, two are uninterested or unavailable [e.g., a mostly-incorporeal ghost]). Events follow each other with no real sense of cause-and-effect or consequence, although the narrator keeps narrating as if a logical chain of causes and effects exists. This substantially contributes to my sense that the reader is being misled or left uninformed about some aspects of the book.

Also contributing to the seeming-puzzle-nature of the book: the narrator leaves out details, while noting they are omitted, and adds in extraneous-seeming facts, while noting that they seem extra or even that they are entirely unnecessary. I am sure several rereads, probably with notes, are required to figure out which of these are important and which truly dismissable, as well as which actually relevant information is being purposely omitted or obscured.

The effect? The entire book seems disjointed. I picked it up on the strong, strong recommendations of internet strangers, which suggested that this was a writer's writer, and this book was complicated and required rereading and was immensely rewarding. After the first reading, I am a little bored and disgusted with the narrator character: he is callous, scattered, opaque, and unsympathetic. And that's just in his own words, carefully and deliberately chosen. But I also see the giant signal flares, writ large across the novel's sky, saying that this novel contains hidden multitudes, puzzles, and mysteries.

So here I go: back for a reread, with the novel's details and my puzzlement still fresh in my mind. I'll let you know how it goes the second time around.


This post's theme word is quisling, "a traitor, esp. one who aids an invading enemy." Whether Grafton is a quisling or not, and who or what he is betraying to which particular organization/government/religion/woman, is not particularly compelling after the first few unexpected turns and reversals.

Louvre castle

The Louvre was once a royal castle, but not fortified [citation needed]. I think this addition will not help defend against invaders.

For one, it seems a little... low? Individual soldiers could easily vault the walls without assistance. Also, there are no gates. And the interior tents look flimsy. I could probably storm this castle-lette singlehanded.


This post's theme word is enciente, which as an adjective means "pregnant" and as a noun, "the fortification around a fort, castle, or town; area so enclosed." The Louvre's enceinte is not well-distinguished from the surrounding cityscape, and regularly overrun by pacific tourist swarms.

An abbreviated list of unusual recent compliments

This summer has passed in a sleet of unusual compliments. ("A sleet" should be the collective noun for compliments. Or maybe "drizzle" or "deluge" or "cloudburst"? I like weather metaphors.) In a not-at-all-humblebrag, I inform you that I have been complimented on my powerful shoulders (oh yeah!), my hands (unspecified compliment), my "muscular arms" (great? although a stereotypically male compliment), and my knee definition. Yes, that's right, the definition and shapeliness of my knees, those gristly bits at the joint mid-leg. Cheekbone definition? What a common compliment. Collarbone definition? Passé. This season's hip look is knees.

Do you have the right number? (We asked these 10 celebrities, and they unanimously said that they'd be wearing 2 --- two! --- knees this season! Whoa!) Do you have good definition? Coming up next: youtube makeup tutorials for outlining, highlighting, lowlighting, and really making your knees pop.


This post's theme word is keloid, a descriptor of scar tissue, brought to you from Miéville's Kraken, p. 128. These comely knees carry certain keloid cicatrices!

[Update: I was also called "the first woman I've met whom I could believe is really a worthwhile top." --- a comment which incited a little flare of anger and revenge-plotting, which I guess is the whole point. I preferred the merry knee compliment.]

On marriage and land ownership

Mawwiage... is what bwings us here togefah... today.

And it also permeates my social media of late, a symptom of the pleasantness of July and August weather in the northern hemisphere, where most of my acquaintances live. If only there were a social media filter that let me elide* "wedding photos and announcements". It is an inundation, and one that makes me feel like I am falling behind in some sort of absurd life-contest, even though it's not a contest and I'm quite happy with my life. Which is successful!

Part of the overwhelmed feeling is certainly the concentration: a huge spike in the graph for August weddings, a giant plunge in the graph for November, February, and all other months. Babies are similarly-celebrated Giant Life Milestones (GLMs), but they're more evenly spread across the year. A few years ago when my entire cohort seemed to simultaneously graduate from law/business school I had similar feelings of being left behind the GLM-race while everyone else forged ahead.

I found this article satisfying just because it asked any questions about the desirability of marriage: "How we end up marrying the wrong people". I understand, of course, that outward-facing social announcements will focus on the perfection, the love, the happily-forever-after, how lucky X is to spend the rest of zis life with Y, etc. It seems... performative.** And at this point in late August, repetitive.

I think I'd be pretty ok starting my list of criteria with "how much land do they have". A grain of salt: I remain unwed. #Spinsterlife forevah! Until the sufficiently-landed suitor comes along... and we are married in January (in our volcano supervillain lair) or November (by a Pastafarian minister on a hangglider over the Sahara)  or March (witnessed by a pod of dolphins in international waters).


This post's theme word is vituperation, "bitter and abusive language." I intend no vituperation towards the happy couples; their joy is delightful, and should be duly celebrated.


*What would be much more satisfying would be a filter which restricted the feed of announcements to conform more closely to demographic trends, e.g., by showing one divorce announcement for every two wedding announcements.

**... like all social media. My own included. Cognitive dissonance acknowledged.

Tracking

I am as much a datavore as the next internet-inhabiting member of my socio-economic-educational cohort. Right now, with a few clicks, I can bring up a history of my workouts, personal mass, and grams of macronutrients eaten, going back months or years (depending on the quality of data desired), as well as how long I've worn each pair of contacts I've ever used, and the length of every menstrual cycle. No, this data is neither open nor freely available (at least until I get a good publication out of it).

I have thought about getting a fitbit, but it seems extraneous. At my current level, increasing my steps per day is a tiny factor of my overall activity. Plus I'm not crazy about uploading my data to some company's website, automatically. I want to control the data I generate, and I think this is reasonable.

But this article makes me want to run from the fitbit, for many steps. In fact, I think that I could probably be discouraged from most of my present activities by an article describing them in this light: as an obsessive, addictive, cult-ish fad, in which basic humanity (competition, socializing, merely walking) is suborned in order to commodify community and "brand engagement."

Eugh.


This post's theme word is thrasonical, "bragging or boastful." Linked fitbit accounts are thrasonical interpersonal spam of an unpleasant sort.

Maine art

Gotta be lobster, I guess. If the lobster were riding a moose, it would be even more Mainish (Mainerly? Mained?).

I like this painting style --- it reminds me visually of smudged fingerprints, and my associations make these buttery smudged fingerprints.

Mmmm, food is delicious.


This post's theme word is kickshaw, "delicacy, fancy dish, trinket." Vacation indulgences include many kickshaws.

Portland picturesque sunset

The Portland sunset was spectacular today, and I had a front-row seat on the waterfront.

There goes our favorite mass of incandescent gas miasma of incandescent plasma, vanishing over the edge of this oblate spheroid of note.

The nearby swarm of boats offered an interesting texture of surfaces to reflect the colored streams of light.

All of human settlement in Portland, Maine is simply a dark, low smudge obscuring the beautiful sunset.

Look at that incredible spectrum of colors, bouncing off and diffusing through the clouds.

The sky looks somehow soft and comfortable.

The pink is amazing. Pollution? Chemistry? Physics? Impossible to know.


This post's theme word is ylem, "the primordial matter of the universe." We sit on the patio, watch the sun set, and commune with ylem.

Wolf on a wharf

Well, not really --- but wolf [statue] on an abandoned piling. Very realistic, lifelike, surprising to notice from the corner of one's eye.

Notice his buddies, who have made the leap and are now stalking ever closer to the shore, and the unsuspecting pedestrians on this unexpectedly perilous walking path.


This post's theme word is dess down, "to push with the horns, as a bull". When his verbal dressing-down was for aught, the satyr resorted to dessing down the wandering questers.

Tidepool textures

Some very cool textures were on display on the crusted, wind-blasted, smoothed and craggy rocks that the tide revealed when it receded. This is the idyllic, vivacious north Atlantic in its summer finery, vacationing along the coast just like everyone else.

Wisps of seaweed and moss grabbing a foothold in a shallow pool.

The presence of water is clearly indicated in the change of surface texture: bare rock into lush, soft greenery.

Thick, short, stubby seaweed, photographed through maybe 10cm of water, looked like a soft bathmat. I did not try to wipe my feet.

The entire fanciful landscape is contained in a nearly flat plane --- below, solid rock; above, empty air. Everything interesting happens in a narrow band, as usual.

The texture is fantastic.

The water's surface, a passive prison gate, confines the biological below its strict limits.

This post's theme word is sclerotic, "hardened, stony in texture" (but this is an obscure 3rd meaning). The receding tide of emotions exposed her sclerotic heart, weathered by many past losses.