i got new eyewear. i relay this to you in a consumer upper white middle class comfort zone. they’re purple and hella cute.
i’m reading this book right now called ‘the floating world’ by cynthia gralla. it’s so good. i could rave on and on about it. but i will limit myself to this little post. at the beginning the language is kind of stilted and unsure like a wobbly colt. but then about 20 pages in or so it just finds this lyrical, evocative voice and becomes this transcendental prose of eroticism and sensual lushness, (sensual…think mrs. butler and billy bud. ha ha. but seriously.)
perhaps i like it just because it’s set in japan. but i think it has something to do with the integral plot point that the main character becomes a “hostess” at a restaurant where she strips naked, has designs painted on her, lies down on a table, and people are served sushi off her body. naked sushi girl. most likely it doesn’t get much better than that, right? the ideals of revolution, feminism, aesthetics, and mono no aware (an awareness of the transient nature of the world, life, etc) are all touched upon and linked within the pages of the story detailing one woman’s journey to touch her soul.
i’ll give you a quote. i had to re-read it like 3 times because i was so delighted by it:
“you are like a lady carrying an atomic bomb around inside of you. did you drop your bomb on this country? is that why this place calls to you? all that power and all that horror nestle in your breast. my lady of sorrows–there are half-burnt bodies contorting like gifted acrobats in your heart, your soul; you carry them with you, these corpses which support your beautiful skin better than any bone or blood could do. those who are blind cannot see this–it requires sight far more searching than an x-ray, but i can see it. i can see that blackened bodies are the whalebone stays of your lovely dresses.
my lady dulcinea, lady of false dreams, i christen thee–
tonight i watch the night sky closely–thinking, yes, i could cast my lady up there.”
p.s. cynthia gralla goes to UC Berkeley even. wouldn’t it be so amazing to be her walking around and see me, or someone, reading her book. wouldn’t it be cool to have a published book and see people reading it? the thought astounds. i stand amazed.
beautiful! lovely! “half burnt bodies contorting like acrobats” yee haa! I ill read this book.
Hmmm, it ld be nice to be published and randomly see someone reading my work, but I’d settle for a few comments on my blog (wink wink).
Michele once told me I was lazy, devious, and enterprising. I hope I’m living up to her estimation.
What does she do at Berkeley?
attends class. she’s doing a phd in comparative lit (or so says the back flap of the book.)
YOu could go to her dissertation or whatever it’s called.
I put the YO back in
“YOu could go to her dissertation or whatever it’s called.”
reading at lunch today:
“the customers are then allowed to eat from the bodies of the women, but only with chopsticks; their hands can never touch the servers. that is, unless the pay exhorbitant amounts (we do not have an exact figure), in which case they are permitted to eat directly from the women’s bodies with their tongues. throughout these escapades, the female servers lie as still as snow white in her casket, necrophilic treasure booty in a consumer society intoxicated not by what it can preserve but by what it can throw away. throughout the city of tokyo, one can find examples of this tendency, but the horinouchi restaurant (which so delights in its exclusivisity that it doesn’t even have a name) is one of the city’s most acute examples of fin de siecle decadence, female/worker subjugation, and materialist waste.”
shit, i love this book.
hi there 🙂
i was just looking around on the web for new links re: cynthia and her book. we grew up together. i’ll have to point her here so she can see the lovely things you wrote.
yay for fans!
abby
I adore Cynthia Gralla!