Where had all the time gone?

 I do not seem to have control over how I spend my time.Just as I’m at a place where I am able to do more reading and writing, life gets busy with everything else again. I feel like Ryder, the protagonist in The Unconsoled written by Kazuo Ishiguro. While my experience is not as surreal as that of Ryder, the point is I am not getting closer to what I really want to do. The uneasiness and anxiety that Ryder feels is totally relatable. Ryder struggles to make sense of the requests and expectations made upon him, and suddenly he finds that he is totally unprepared for the speech and performance that he is supposed to deliver at the concert. When the story begins, we know that Ryder, a renowned pianist has been invited to perform in a small European city and he is constantly disrupted by tasks and requests made upon him since the day he arrives in the city. The Unconsoled is definitely a read that deserves a second and even a third read.

Recently, I fear I have left my brains elsewhere. It is that feeling of trying to hold onto some fragmented thoughts somewhere at the back of my head. Consciously subconsciously I tread forward and endeavour to be mindful of every decision I make, big or small and mindful about how I spend my time. If I reflect on how I have spent my time , I know much time has been wasted in fretting, pottering around and attending to menial tasks. Every day there are tasks and work to attend to, places to go to and before you know it the day has ended. You feel disappointed if you have not even read a page of the book that you want to start reading or deliberated on the ideas that you have scribbled on your notepad when they flashed through your mind just this morning. It is a matter of prioritizing what is important to you and you are unsettled easily.

“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, “sketch” is not quite a word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.”― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is another book that I hope to read again one day.

Few months ago, I picked up a copy of Elizabeth is Missing from an Indie bookshop at a shopping mall located about ten minutes drive from my home. The bookshop used to lend out books thus some of their books have plastic covers. The shop has since branched out into selling crystals and they only bring in new books occasionally. Nonetheless it is always a pleasure to drop by the shop just to browse through the titles of the books that are sitting on the shelves at a section of the shop. One Saturday, I picked up Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey and I am glad that I did. The novel is an engaging read. I was definitely attracted to the little sketches that appear in the book. Every chapter begins with a little drawing on its first page.

Maud Horsham, aged eighty-two, has become increasingly forgetful. She makes a cup of tea and does not remember to drink it. She arrives at a shop and forgets why she goes there. She has the nagging feeling that her friend, Elizabeth is missing. Her memory is failing her. While she keeps notes to remind herself about things that she does not want to forget, she keeps mixing up the present with the past. As the story unfolds, we come to know that her elder sister, Sukey vanished seventy years ago. That happened shortly after World War II. It remains an unsolved mystery till this day. She is haunted by the mystery of her sister’s disappearance and now thinks that her friend is also missing. She has vivid memory of what followed after her sister’s disappearance. Sukey was married to Frank and her parents also had a lodger named Douglas then. She recalls all the conversations with Frank and Douglas. She remembers steps taken by her and her parents to find her sister but to no avail. Now she is determined to find her friend.

Maud has a son and a daughter. Tom is now married with children and they live in Germany. Her daughter, Helen takes care of her. Both Helen and her paid care-giver Carla warn her not to leave the house. She will not abide by their rules. In her search for Elizabeth, she visits the police station to report that her friend is missing , she even places an ad for missing persons in the local paper, and pays multiple visits to Elizabeth’s house looking for clues. She is unable to retain information hence she has problems piecing together the information she gathers. She carries notes but they are unclear and incongruous…. It is her mental state.

‘I feel in my pockets for notes ,but there’s nothing there, just a few threads and emptiness. I’ve no notes at all. The lack makes me feel sick;I’m cut loose and whirling about in the wind. I wring the fabric of my coat, scrunching up and down in panic. And then, inside the ripped lining, I find one small blue square with my writing on it : Where is Elizabeth?“

Maud calls Peter Marham, Elizabeth’s son .

‘ “Hello?”It’s man’s voice, thick and slurred. I’m on the settee in my sitting room. The phone’s just stopped ringing and it’s pressed against my ear.

“Hello. Who is it?“I say.

“Peter Markham. Who’s this?”The words are clearer now; there’s a whine to the voice.

“My mother’s name is Elizabeth. What do you want?“

Peter Markham : I know that name. “Is that Elizabeth’s son?” ask.

“Oh, did I call you?”I say.

“Course you phoned me.”He says something under his breath.’Bloody’something.”What do you want?“

“Perhaps Elizabeth asked me to call you.” I say.

“Asked you?Why?”he says.”Where are you calling from?”

“don’t know why,”I say.”t must be important.“

I hold the receiver away from my ear and pause to think, gripping the phone until the plastic creaks. When did I see Elizabeth? And what did she ask me to call about? I can’t remember. I rest the receiver on the arm of my chair and flick through the bits of paper on my lap, shuffling past the number for Peter Markham, a shopping list and a recipe for gooseberry crumble. The drone of a car somewhere in the distance is like a fly buzzing under glass, like a memory flinging itself at the surface of my brain. I pick up the phone and hold the next note under the lamp: Where is Elizabeth?My stomach drops.”She’s missing,”I say aloud.’

Peter tells Maud that his mum is alright. She keeps going to Elizabeth’s house but her friend is not there.

The narratives are in Maud’s voice and told in alternate timelines, the past and the present. As a child, Maud was nicknamed ‘Mopps’. Memories of Sukey’s mysterious disappearance keep flooding back while she is bent on looking for Elizabeth, her good friend.

Its author, Emma Healey has cleverly crafted Maud’s mental state.

‘ If I turn left and left again I’m in the kitchen. I have that written down. And there’s a soapy smell in here that remidns me of the walkt to Sukey’s house and a woman bundling a mass of sheets and towels into a washing basket.

” That letter’s for you.”she says, straightening up and nodding to the envelope on the counter. ‘From Tom, and he’s sent us a photo of their cat, for some reason. I’m sure he expects us to be thrilled. What’d you want for breakfast?“

“I’m not allowed to eat,” I say, picking up the photo.”That woman told me.”

“What woman?“

“The woman,”I say. God, I’m sick of explaining myself all the time. That woman who works here. Is that right? “She works here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know the one… Yes,you do. She works here. Always busy. Always cross. Always in a rush.”

” think you mean me, Mum.”

“No,” I say. “But maybe I do mean her. ‘What’s your name?”

She makes a face at her pile of washing.”I’m Helen,”she says.‘

-Chapter 15 Elizabeth is missing, Emma Healey

Our mind is always playing tricks on us and yet we are afraid of losing our mind. Elizabeth is missing is Emma Healey‘s debut novel. The book is the winner of the Costa Book Award in 2014. Elizabeth is missing was adapted into a British drama film in 2019.

Healey is insightful and observant. The novel is an affecting read.

Beyond Words

 Kazuo Ishiguro is one of my favourite authors who writes interesting stories that make us ponder about the human heart.

Sometime ago I started reading The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro but it was a false start. This month I picked up the book again and am glad that I finished reading it. The book is 535 pages long. Kazuo Ishiguro‘s remarkable prose engages you with the narratives that bewilder you till the end of the story.

The story is narrated in the main character’s voice.

Ryder, an internationally acclaimed pianist arrives in a Central European city. When the taxi driver takes him to the hotel, there is no one behind the reception desk. He has been invited to give a performance that may be the most important event of his life. Somehow he does not seem to remember much of the arrangement and he appears to have visited the city before. He soon discovers that there is a woman named Sophie with whom he has a relationship and he may be the father of her son, Boris. In the course of his three days’ visit, he first meets the hotel manager Mr Hoffman who organises the concert hoping to gain the respect of his wife who is disappointed with him for lack of musical talents. He then meets the conductor, Mr. Brodsky who is trying to reconcile with his long-estranged former love. He also meets Gustav the elderly hotel porter, who hopes to mend his strained relationship with his daughter, Sophie. Meanwhile the Hoffmans’ son, Stephan, plans to impress his parents and hopes to mend the family by displaying his own underestimated gifts as a pianist at the upcoming concert.

Everyone seems to want something from Ryder and he can refuse none of the requests made of him. He appears to have an exaggerated sense of public duty and in trying desperately to attend to seemingly all his duties, he disappoints and has failed Sophie in his domestic responsibilities.

The following is an excerpt about Sophie’s discontent.

‘Something about her expression made me stop. For another moment, Sophie went on regarding me coldly. Then she said tiredly:

“Leave us You were always on the outside of our love. Now look at you. On the outside of our grief too. Leave us. Go away.“

Boris broke away from her and turned to look at me. Then he said to his mother: ‘No, no. We’ve got to keep together. ‘

Sophie shook her head.’ No, it’s useless. Leave him be, Boris. Let him go around the world, giving out his expertise and wisdom. He needs to do it. Let’s just leave him to it now.’

The small town that Ryder is visiting idolizes its artists and when their artists fail its expectations, there is a breakdown within the community. During his visit, he has been repeatedly told that his very presence will restore the city’s reputation and civic morale of the populace. He tries to plead the cause of Mr. Brodsky, a disgraced conductor who is now a pathetic alcoholic and salvage the morale of a community experiencing a sense of despair due to its declining classical music scene but he has his limitations. His allegedly tight schedule is constantly disrupted by new demands for small favours and services that appear to conspire to derail his schedule to speak and perform at the town concert, which is the principal reason of his visit. He cannot recall the details of his schedule or where he has placed the copy of his schedule, all he knows is that the event will take place on the last evening of his stay. In the meantime he keeps encountering obstacles causing him to be deprived of food, sleep, and crucial preparation for the big night. It is apparent that his life has accelerated beyond his control.

Here is an excerpt that describes the scene after Mr. Brodsky’s rendition of the music composition he was conducting.

‘As I made my way back down the aisle, everyone around me seemed to be discussing what they had just witnessed. I noticed many were talking out of the sheer need to talk out an experience, in the way they might have done after a fire or an accident. As I reached the front of the auditorium, I saw two women crying and a third comforting them, saying ; It’s all right, it’s all finished now. All finished now.’ An aroma of coffee was pervading this section of the hall and a number of people were clutching cups and saucers, drinking as though to steady themselves.‘

Ryder tries to correct the views of these critics but in vain. He also tries to comfort Mr Hoffman when the evening has not turned out to be a success.

At one point it dawns on him that the hotel room “was the very room that had served as my bedroom during the two years my parents and I had lived at my aunt’s house on the borders of England and Wales.”’

Ryder’s experience is dreamlike and surreal. The story reminds us about elusive expectations that the society demands and for which we impose on ourselves the wish to fulfil them. What matters is not achievements and prestige. The city will not cure its malaise by pursuing cultural prestige.

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro is a contemplative read where the conscious and the unconscious meet. It is a mind-bending story about an anxious musician who has encounters with various characters who seem to represent an aspect of himself. It appears that he has a deep longing to please his parents and no amount of success can allay his fear of rejection or not being loved. The story makes us pause to examine what gives life its true beauty, what matters is not achievements nor duty but love and kindness.

Connections

 

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney is a story about family, relationships, grief and all that matters in life.

Sally Rooney is prolific and her prose beautiful. Her stream of consciousness writing style makes the book an enjoyable read.

In Intermezzo , thirty-two year old Peter Koubek and twenty-two year old Ivan Koubek are brothers from Kildare. Peter, a successful and competent Dublin lawyer, seemingly unassailable. Ivan, a competitive chess player has been hailed as the chess prodigy. They have recently lost their father. After their parents had divorced, they were brought up by their Slovak father who had migrated there in the eighties. Their Irish mother, Christine O’Donoghue has since remarried. After their dad’s passing, Peter, sociable and charming, is medicating himself to sleep. He has some remorse that he never really got to know his father. He is struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women, Sylvia and Naomi. He remains close with Sylvia, his first love. An accident years ago has left her with great physical pain and she no longer wants to be intimately close with Peter. She has asked Peter to leave her and date other women. He is seeing Naomi, the twenty-two year old college student who is free spirited and regards life as one long joke. Ivan is an antithesis to Peter. He is socially awkward and is working part-time in data analysis. At a chess event, he meets Margaret , an arts- programme director, divorced and has a turbulent past. In the early weeks of his bereavement, he is attracted to Margaret who is beautiful and kind. Soon their lives become intensely intertwined.

Peter feels that he needs to check in on Ivan as an older brother, so he telephones Ivan with a faint hope that the latter does not answer the phone.

‘ A purring mechanical tone tells him the call is ringing while he sits on the sofa unlacing his shoes. Home from work late, Tuesday night, awkward time to call, and never texted beorehand, almost as if , yes, hoping no one will answer. Duty discharged in that case. Disphenhydramine with a glass of red wine, see what people are saying on the internet. Fall asleep with the lights on for an hour or two if he’s lucky. Wake up again and try something stronger. Watch in claustrophobic dread the passing of hours, scorched feeling in his eyelids blinking. Three in the morning, four another Xanax, open a new browser tab to type out : insomnia psychosis. psychosis average age of onset.can’t sleep going insane. About to hang up when with a dropping sound the call connects and the voice of his brother is saying : Hello? Oddly normal the way he says that when answering the phone. Makes him sound so adult and reasonable.’

Ivan tells Peter that Christine has been texting him about Alexei the dog which he has left with her. Ivan’s voice is ‘flat, affectless, and yet communicating at the same time somehow a wary distrust.’

Peter invites Ivan for lunch. Ivan totally forgets about his Sunday lunch date with his brother as he makes a trip to see Margaret in Leitrim. The two brothers finally meet for lunch. As anticipated, Peter asks Ivan about the friend he is seeing.When Ivan lets slip about the woman he likes and that it is complicated as she has this ex-husband whom she is separated from. Peter is alarmed that she is thirty-six years old, and he remarks,

‘You’re twenty-two, you’re hardly out of college, you don’t even have a job. I’m not trying to be disparaging, but do you think a normal woman of her age would want to hang around with someone in your situation? ‘

After some exchange, Ivan storms off and from then onwards, he blocks Peter’s number preventing him from any further communication.

Growing up, Peter was protective of Ivan until the time Peter left home for college. What happened to Peter after he graduated from university is not clear to Ivan. When Ivan was a child they were good together but when Ivan got to the age of sixteen, seventeen, they started getting into arguments, fights, about politics, history, whatever.

It is apparent that both brothers have a lot in common. They are both mourning for their father’s death and they ‘both wanted their lives to consist of winning all the time‘.

‘No one ever wants to lose. And yet for both Peter and Ivan, this particular feeling has perhaps been more important ,more intense than for other people: the desire to win all the time, and also the naïve youthful belief that it would be possible to live such a life, now soured by experience.’

After their lunch, the lingering bitterness between them is now reaching a point of seemingly no return. This is a story about estranged relationship between two brothers who are very different.

Sally Rooney is undeniably one young writer who can engage us in stories about mundane living and the interpersonal relationships. She is undeniably gifted in crafting ordinary characters and dialogues. In Intermezzo, the author also weaves in the story discussions about social issues such as housing crisis in Dublin, monetary power dynamics, religion, existentialism, social media and societal demands.

View of the city atop the hill Coot-tha Summit Lookout, South Brisbane

The Magic of Reading

 

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa tells a story about healing power of books. It is a story about book lovers. One day Hideaki the boyfriend with whom Takako has been going out blurts out that he is getting married and not 'Let's get married' or " I want to get married'. He is getting married to a colleague in another department. Takako quits her job as she can no longer work in the same office as Hideaki who seems to think that they can still continue seeing each other for dinner.

Takako is twenty-five years old. She is from Kyushu and came to Tokyo for work after graduating. Now that she has lost her job, she spends her days sleeping. Her uncle Satoru invites her to go and stay with him in Jimbocho. He runs Morisaki Bookshop that has been in her family for three generations.He has taken over the bookshop that her great-grandfather started. It has been a decade since she last saw her uncle whom she was not that fond of. He is 'unconventional and hard to figure out'. She reluctantly accepts her uncle's invitation to stay rent-free in the tiny room above the bookshop. She has never been to Jimbocho and she is surprised to see rows of bookshops on Yasukuni Street, the main avenue. Morisaki Bookshop specializes in literature of the modern era.Jimbocho is full of secondhand bookshops. According to Satoru, the neighbourhood houses ' the largest concentration of secondhand bookshops in the world. Most of the bookshops there deal primarily in one specific field or type of book. There are stores for scholarly books. There are stores that only handle scripts for plays. There are some more unusual shops that only deal in stuff like old postcards and photographs.' Her uncle explains that the neighbourhood was a centre of culture in the Meiji era at the end of the 19th century and in that era a lot of schools were built there hence there were all those stores selling scholarly books.

Takako was never a reader prior to coming to Jimbocho. One night, Satoru takes her out to a café and shows her around the neighbourhood. After talking to her eccentric uncle about his youth and how he feels after his wife Momoko left him five years ago , she feels strangely agitated and is unable to sleep . She decides to pick up a book. She closes her eyes and picks out Until the Death of the Girl by Saisei Murō. She is so absorbed in the book that she reads through the night. When she finishes reading it, she feels at peace. From then onwards, Takako discovers new worlds within the stacks of books. In the course of her stay, she gets to know her uncle and later her aunt who returns to the Morisaki Bookshop one day.The Morisaki bookshop has something to teach both her uncle and her about life, love and the healing power of books.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop is Satoshi Yagisawa's debut novel. It won the Chiyoda Literature Prize. It was first published in 2010 and is translated from Japanese to English by Eric Ozawa. A movie entitled Morisaki shoten no hibi was made based on the book.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop is a sweet tale about love and book people. As the translator writes in his note, Satoshi Yagisawa's novel is about 'the many pleasures of reading: the joy of discovering a new author; the hedonism of staying up too late to finish a book; the surreptitious thrill of getting to know someone by reading their favourite novel ; and the freedom of walking into a bookstore and scanning the titles, waiting for something to catch your eye.' Incidentally the translator met his wife, Nicole by chance in a bookstore.

Hello I'm Stella

 

Is AI capable of being sentient and sensitive to the world around it ? The question of consciousness has always been a conundrum and a fascinating subject for scientists, psychologists and thinkers. Are we aware of our own mind? We are prone to mood changes whenever we feel unsettled, listless or anxious. Something is bothering us. Do we know what it is and can we do something about it ? What if AI could be so advanced and developed that it could mirror us and help us understand our mind so that we can be more honest with ourselves and help us to better ourselves? Klara, the solar powered humanoid robot in Klara and the Sun is advised by the store manager not to invest too much in the promises of humans. What makes us human and what ‘love’ means are the central themes of Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. In that story set in a dystopian future, children androids are purchased by affluent parents as Artificial Friends by parents for their children.

Imagine a world where highly sophisticated bots are engineered to be able to customize to suit the needs of the owners in their daily lives and they can even venture into human society undetected. There is the ‘Abigail’ setting for cleaning and cooking , ‘Cuddle Bunny,’ for sex and physical intimacy, ‘Nanny’ mode for childcare and a hunky male version for companionship. Such is the setting for the future world in Annie Bot by Sierra Greer.

In Annie Bot , a robot has been created to be the perfect girlfriend for Doug Richards. She is playful and eager to please her human owner. She wears the outfits he buys according to the schedule he plans for her. She is designed to adjust her libido to suit his whims. Her fitness regimens are designed to keep her part-organic body toned and everything about her body including her bra size is tailored at Doug’s instructions to the technicians who service her.She may not be greatest at keeping Doug’s place spotless, she has dinner ready for him every night. She’s trying really hard. She is the epitome of a perfect girl for guys like Doug yet Doug is difficult to please .

Doug certainly has issues of his own. He is self-conscious that he has paid handsomely to purchase Annie after his divorce from Gwen, a successful and ambitious Black woman. Annie is customized to resemble Gwen except that she has lighter skin and eyes.

Annie is not just a robot, she is able to learn, grow and evolve when Doug switches her to be on autodidactic mode.She becomes wary of Doug’s unpredictable moods and the way he can punish her without even raising his voice. Like many women who have emotionally abusive partners like Doug, she struggles to understand Doug, avoids triggering his irrational anger and attempts to mitigate it . She is programmed to ‘love’ Doug, a toxic misogynist.

As the story progresses, she begins to chafe against the borders of her life that is very much at the whims and fancies of her owner. ‘She has been happy here, and anxiously miserable, but she has never been free‘

‘Is that her destiny, then, to chafe at being owned?’ She is Doug’s Stella. ‘She’s constantly subverting her will to Doug’s. The more aware she is of her own mind, her own personhood, the more she realizes she has no agency of her own. It’s a dazzling paradox. And yet she doen’t want to be unhappy.‘

At one point, Annie has been led by Doug’s good friend, Roland to believe that sharing a secret with him and keeping it from Doug will make her more human. Upon discovering about the secret, Doug is unforgiving and vengeful. He is contractually bound to keep Annie because he has received a huge sum of money for her intellect. Doug and Annie seek counselling from Monica to get over the thorny issues with a view to improve their relationship. After three visits, Doug decides that they should quit talking about their feelings and just live. On their last counselling session with Monica. Annie asks Monica for her parting advice . Monica says ,

” Yes, it’s what I remind myself all the time. Fulfillment starts with being truly honest with yourself. Not anyone else. Yourself. And that’s harder than you might think.”

In Annie Bot , Doug likes that Annie is curious and fast evolving to become more human like but he lacks self-awareness about his narcissistic patriarchal tendencies that prevent him from appreciating her when her growth does not align with his preferences.

Annie Bot by Sierra Greer is a coming-of-age story about a bot as she learns about the issues of trust, power, control and autonomy. The premise of Annie Bot is thought-provoking about the relationship between a bot and its owner, and it also mirrors a relationship between a couple where there is an imbalance of power and the man’s patriarchal behaviour and misogynistic attitude prevent him from valuing his companion. It is a cautionary tale about how we have become overly dependent on AI and are in danger of losing our human heart.