Salman Rushdie's FURY

Here is how Rushdie summarizes the plot of his novel, Fury: 

Malik Solanka, historian of ideas and world-famous dollmaker, steps out of his life one day, abandons his family in London without a word of explanation, and flees for New York. There’s a fury within him, and he fears he has become dangerous to those he loves. He arrives in New York at a time of unprecedented plenty, in the highest hour of America’s wealth and power, seeking to “erase” himself.

While in New York he is hit by the feeling that the world is changing "advancing" in ways beyond his ability to follow. He is being left behind. Is this not the feeling of huge numbers of Americans today? Are there not the thoughts of Trump's benighted followers? Here is how Rushdie's character, Solanka puts it:

Now that Solanka knew that someone somewhere knew what he would never know, and was additionally quite aware that what was known was vitally important to know, he felt the dull irritation, the slow anger of the fool. He felt like a drone, or a worker ant. He felt like one of the shuffling thousands in the old movies of Chaplin and Fritz Lang, the faceless ones doomed to break their bodies on society's wheel while knowledge exercised power over them from on high. The new age had new emperors and he would be their slave."

David Remnick in his recent article in the New Yorker "The Defiance of Salman Rushdie" bifurcates the novel into two streams: 

Rushdie takes from Milan Kundera the idea that the history of the modern novel came from two distinct eighteenth-century streams, the realism of Samuel Richardson’s “Clarissa” and the strangeness and irrealism of Laurence Sterne’s “Tristram Shandy”; Rushdie gravitated to the latter, more fantastical, less populated tradition. 

Big Frank is reading Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" while he reads Rushdie's "Fury," but has since discovered that it is "Midnight's Children" where Rushdie most closely follows Sterne's "strangeness and irrealism." Big Frank first bumped into that novel back in 1982, when a fresh new graduate from Oxford came to Krakow to teach for the British Council and in his baggage he carried a much thumbed copy of Rushdie's "Midnight's Children." That was forty years ago! And Big Frank still has not read it! Ah, perhaps tomorrow!

At first it is quite upsetting to try to settle into a normal chronological flow with Sterne. Then after accepting that he will us unending digressions, stories embedded within stories, unending interruptions, just to name a few narrative devices, Big Frank woke to the modern novel - born in the 18th century with Sterne. Rushdie embraced Sterne as well, and after Fury Big Frank will finally pick up Midnight's Children.

Goodby Breakfast with Konrad

 

Konrad has been visiting Big Frank for the past month or so. All good things come to and end and so Konrad is heading back to Krakow tomorrow. It's been wonderful having my son with me for such a long time. Big Frank is a lucky father to have such a loving, considerate, and eminently responsible son. He is a great father, loving husband, and makes his dad proud.

We went to the City Diner, located in the River Market part of Kansas City. It's right down the street from the loft where Big Frank lived prior to his moving out into the suburbs of Parkville.

Konrad is a big eater. He had three eggs (sunny side up) with sausage, hash browns, four pieces of toast and three pancakes! Big Frank had a modest breakfast of two eggs (sunny side up, hash browns, sausage, and two pieces of toast. It hit the old spot!

 

See how Big Frank's breakfast is overshadowed by Konrad's.

Great restaurant for breakfast!!

FALLING

Big Frank toppled recently. He woke early in the morning and went to take a leak. The next thing he remembers is he is on the floor. This is the first time in his life that he fainted and he is lucky that his injuries were minor: some scrapes and a soar neck. However, the task now is to discover what took him down and he is on that like stink on a monkey and will see his doc tomorrow for his opinion as well, of course.

Today's posting is to inform the rest of you just how prevalent and dangerous such falls are in the U.S. According to the CDC: "in 2014, 28.7% of older adults reported falling at least once in the preceding 12 months, resulting in an estimated 29.0 million falls. Of those who fell, 37.5% reported at least one fall that required medical treatment or restricted their activity for at least 1 day, resulting in an estimated 7.0 million fall injuries." Furthermore: "Falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries among adults aged ≥65 years (older adults). During 2014, approximately 27,000 older adults died because of falls; 2.8 million were treated in emergency departments for fall-related injuries, and approximately 800,000 of these patients were subsequently hospitalized." In fact "Falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries among persons aged ≥65 years (older adults)." All of this information and quotes is taken from the CDC.

It turns out that there is a particular kind of fainting that appears to cover Big Frank's fall. It is called micturition (or post-micturition) syncope. This is fainting while urinating or immediately after urinating. It is thought to be due to a severe drop in blood pressure. Micturition syncope is common in older men like Big Frank and usually happens when getting up at night from a deep sleep, which is exactly what happened.

Alexander Anthony

Alexander Anthony, Big Frank's grandson, has come and gone (those are his little shoes to right of Big Frank's. He is back in Poland with his mother after a three-week visit with Big Frank. His dad, Konrad, remains; his aunt, Gina, has left and is back in California. The house is emptying out, is quieter, and has lost its three-generations flavor. Big Frank has a large bank of great memories from Alex's visit. A 2 1/2 year old with three languages under his belt, a great love of books, a very large appetite for healthy food, and ceaseless energy for life. There is a large hole here at Big Frank's place now with Alex gone.

Alexander Anthony

 

The Benevolents

The Benevolents (click link to view) came out in 2021 under French title ''Les bienveillants' and was directed by Sarah Baril Gaudet. In the film the viewer goes into Tel-Aide Montreal call center. We follow a group of volunteers in training. The key to their important work is learning how to listen, "the importance of vigilent ears in a society of loneliness."

The volunteers listen to callers, lonely, desperate people calling to talk. They let the callers talk and through comments and questions affirm that they are there listening and that they HEAR what the caller says. They are the ears in the darkness that affirm the callers humanity and allow them to name their pain. We all could benefit from this training. The rare often lost art of listening is so life affirming. 

This film is part of a series of short documentaries by independent filmmakers available through the New York Times online. These include a spectrum of films from emerging directors to Oscar winners from around the world. 

"In the Distance" by Hernán Diaz

 

Håkan Söderström, is the giant of a man who is the hero of Hernán Diaz’s novel, “In the Distance.” The novel centers on a young Swedish immigrant to the U.S. who after becoming separated from his brother, Linus, arriving in San Francisco rather than New York, heads east to join his brother. The novel takes places sometime between the gold rush of 1849 and the civil war.

Håkan is a huge guy when he arrives and then throughout the novel he keeps growing. He always stands out - first because of his hugeness and secondly because of his limited English, which is compounded by his shyness. He tries to avoid problems/trouble, but cannot. As he travels ever eastward Håkan meets a strange assortment of frontier folks: a crazy Irish gold prospector, a woman with no teeth who keeps him as her plaything, a naturalist seeking life's secrets, a sadistic sheriff and amoral civil war soldiers. 

He learns self sufficiency as part of his journey becoming adept at trapping animals and foraging for food. This is partially the result of his having become a wanted man as a result of his having killed men -- something that he was driven by circumstances to do.

In the end our hero is driven to hiding in the wilderness, living in dugout dirt homes, and trapping and foraging for food. Years pass in this manner and Håkan loses himself in the rhythm of fixing his tunnel/house, trapping, picking wild plants, cooking, and doing all the previous over and over again. 

The novel was nominated for the Pulitzer and has many parallels in American literature. It is a kind of anti-western, one where, unlike The Virginian or Lonesome Dove, the hero does not triumph in obvious ways, but rather like more of the settlers of the west Håkan triumphs through perseverance. He has his moments of using traditional violence to overcome obstacles, and while these win the day, they also set him back through making him a wanted man. 

While for the majority of the novel, like an inverted Huckleberry Finn, he is striking out for New York, yet, in the end he ends up striking out, alone in Alaska to cross the Asian continent back to Sweden.