Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Title: Invinsible Cities
Author: Italo Calvino, with translator William Weaver
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Book description (taken from the back of my own copy):
In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo - Tartar emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming soon. Marco Polo diverts the emperor with tales of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: Cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities. Soon it becomes clear that each of these fantastic places is really the same place.

“Of all tasks, describing the contents of a book is the most difficult and in the case of a marvelous invention like Invisible Cities, perfectly irrelevant” (Gore Vidal, New York Review of Books)

* * *

This book. How I wish I hadn't had finished it, because now it has come to an end and there will be no more. (Of course I could reread it again).

I'm forever grateful that I have discovered this gem. That I have read this book. I wish I could tell you - I wish I could describe it, and I wish I could elaborate what is it that has made me so warm when I read it passage by passage, when I was made stunned by the lyrical language that makes up the entire prose, a tale after a tale, each is so delicious and like no other that I wish I could read it as slowly as I could, in a vain attempt to make it everlasting.

Hidden messages. A portrayal of a city and its people, their happiness, sadness, foolishness, as well as grief, behaviors, desires, principles, pasts, memories, virtues, beliefs. A human being. A society. A community. A civilization. All are woven beautifully, almost like a drug, sedating and addictive, under the beautiful narration of Marco Polo the Italian merchant traveller, whose eyes have rejoiced in feast of the sight of the world and its cities. It is a fiction, not a biographical account indeed; yet the imaginary conversation between Marco Polo and the conqueror Kublai Khan could in fact turn out as real as it could be, regardless of everything.

During my childhood to adolescent years, I was the kind of girl who found simple happiness in conjuring up imaginary cities with its own traits and cultures and buildings, with a mix of fantasy: A quaint, charming little town in the riverside with potted flowers and wind chimes everywhere - and if someone took a stroll around the town square he could hear diverse chiming notes of melody in the air. Then I also imagined a village deep in the pine woods where the villagers - each family - lived inside a round, big tree trunk so wide in diameter (so their houses were actually built inside a tree) and each room was so thick with pine and earth and wilderness scents. There was also a city which spires and buildings and towers and walls were made of crystals that gleamed like pearls in the dusk, each shone in a different shade of color - brightened, glowed at a certain interval of time, like a pulse.

Perhaps it was because I played a lot of of RPG games. Most of them, usually, require you (the character) to travel in a quest from one village to the next, from one small town in a valley to a harbor town, from one big city on a rolling plateau to another big city in the middle of dessert. Even to the end of the world. I was so fascinated by these virtual villages/towns/cities that I could only see from the screen, and you won't believe me how the current me can easily reconstruct the very images of my favorite cities in games I played in the past so vividly.

(For example, Lindblum. And each of its district)

or Ritardando from Eternal Sonata

Which is one of the very basic reasons why I felt strongly compelled to pick up this book.

Marco Polo would tell you of a vibrant city with a multitude network of turquoise, sparkling canals and beautiful hanging bridges and balustrades. He would tell you of a city that builds an underground city just beneath the surface - which is occupied by the dead people of the city. He would also speak to you of a city that is built based on the blueprint of stars in the night sky and glimmering constellations.

Fret not, he won't tell you about that city's population or its statistics. He won't speak of its criminal rate.

Only that - as I've mentioned earlier - behind the images and its prosaic language, hidden messages and secrets are lurking, embossed with a thoughtful philosophy. An underlying conclusion. The visceral, inlaid meaning behind the obscured veil that, if you seek it out, it will be an unforgettable experience that is so personal and its effect is kind of long-lasting.

It's what beyond the surface. Which means, there's an element of illusory, contradictory, ambiguity, concealment, analogy, resemblance, surprise...  but then again, each of them makes up for what you call reality, without any exclusion. Because they are part of reality. They are part of civilization. They are part of life.

I'm sorry if it is confusing, but I guess you should read it yourself.

But I'll give some example, taken from a number of passages of the book:

"When a man rides a long time through wild regions he feels the desire for a city. Finally he comes to Isidora, a city where the buildings have spiral staircases encrusted with spiral seashells, where perfect telescopes and violins are made, where the foreigner hesitating between two women always encounters a third, where cockfights degenerate into bloody brawls among the bettors. He was thinking of all these things when he desired a city. Isidora, therefore, is the city of his dreams: with one difference. The dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he arrives at Isidora in his old age. In the square there is the wall where the old men sit and watch the young go by; he is seated in a row with them. Desires are already memories.” 
***

"The city appears to you as a while where no desire is lost and of which you are a part, and since it enjoys everything you do not enjoy, you can do nothing but inhabit this desire and be content. Such is the power, sometimes called malignant, sometimes benign, that Anastasia, the treacherous city, possesses; if for eight hours a day you work as a cutter of agate, onyx, chrysoprase, your labor which gives form to desire takes from desire its form, and you believe you are enjoying Anastasia wholly when you are only its slave."  
***

"In the center of Fedora, that gray stone metropolis, stands a metal building with a crystal globe in every room. Looking into each globe, you see a blue city, the model of a different Fedora. These are the forms the city could have taken if, for one reason or another, it had not become what we see today...

On the map of your empire, O Great Khan, there must be room both for the big, stone Fedora and the little Fedoras in glass globes. Not because they are equally real, but because all are only assumptions. The one contains what is accepted as necessary when it is not yet so; the others, what is imagined as possible and, a moment later, is possible no longer."
***

"With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else."
***

“A description of Zaira as it is today should contain all Zaira’s past. The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.” 
***

"You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours."
***

"Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have." 
***

"Also in Raissa, city of sadness, there runs an invincible thread that binds one living being to another for a moment, then unravels, then is stretched again between moving points as it draws new and rapid patterns so that at every second the unhappy city contains a happy city unaware of its own existence."

* * *

Again, I'm so grateful for having found this book. I never heard of Mr. Italo Calvino before, and I never heard people talk about him and his excellent works. At least most people, readers or bloggers, when talk about classics, would notably mention, for example, Austen, The Bronte sisters, Tolstoy, Thomas Hardy, Dante Alighieri, Machiavelli, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Woolf, Proust, or Hemingway. I don't know why or how, I never encountered the name "Italo Calvino" before.

But I guess, it was only me. Because I hadn't specifically looked for a book that belongs to Italian Literature. Nonetheless, I encountered Mr. Calvino's name through a blogger who remembered that she'd read this book with pure thrill - something along the line - she described it, so shortly, in such a way that made me curious enough to look for it on Goodreads.

My own thoughts, my own attempts to describe this book are probably, in the end, insufficient, unclear and incoherent. Or perhaps they lack of quality and do not even do justice. Or perhaps, too exaggerating. Having said that, I admit I'm still uncertain myself, as I'm not confident enough to define it.

It's just that, I feel deeply moved by this book.

And you see, there are various talented artists out there who have attempted to depict Calvino's Invisible Cities:

Awesome artworks of Invisible Cities, by David Fleck

Invisible Cities by Beatrice Coron

by Kimberly Igno

Thekla City by Janice

Olinda City by Shu Okada

Valdrada City by Shu Okada

Invinsible Cities by Lisel Jane Ashlock

Ersilia City by Tesseract

They are awesome, aren't they?

Thoughts on No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

Why... this is a remarkably dark and depressing story of a man who is literally horrified of a human being, who dreads the very notion of society. He is Oba Yozo. He is a man who feels like he doesn't belong - he feels disconnected to other people.

“All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about, how should I say it? - I don't know.” 

“I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.” 

“I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed. I feigned an innocent optimism; I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric.” 

“As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn’t matter how, I’ll be alright. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won’t mind it too much if I remain outside their lives. The one thing I must avoid is becoming offensive in their eyes: I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.” 

It strikes me a great deal how familiar and understandable his thoughts and perceptions are - despite the fact that later on in the story he is claimed as a madman. The complexity of the details depicted from his very narration is not even foreign, his acquired concept of life is explicable and perceivable. Why he does certain things - hiding, escaping, running away, pretending, losing hopes all too early, torturing his own soul, committing a suicide, to convincing himself again and again that he doesn't deserve happiness - he makes one atrocious choice after another yet the rationale behind his godawful choices that condemns his life to a living hell - heck it does make sense. Yes, the most horrible thing of all, it does make sense, and I could unsurprisingly relate to his thoughts.

“I myself spent the whole day long deceiving human beings with my clowning. I have not been able to work much up much concern over the morality prescribed in textbooks of ethics under the name as “righteousness.” I find it difficult to understand the kind of human being who lives, or who is sure he can live, purely, happily, serenely while engaged in deceit. Human beings never did teach me that abstruse secret. If I had only known that one thing I should never have had to dread human beings so, nor should I have opposed myself to human life, nor tasted such torments of hell every night.” 

“Unhappiness. There are all kinds of unhappy people in the world. I suppose it would be no exaggeration to say that the world is composed entirely of unhappy people. But those people can fight their unhappiness with society fairly and squarely, and society for its part easily understands and sympathizes with such struggles. My unhappiness stemmed entirely from my own vices, and I had no way of fighting anybody.” 

The saddest thing of all, is even until the end of the story, he still doesn't know - let alone experience - the slightest bit of what happiness is. Or perhaps, fail to notice it. He has fallen too deep in his own mind-made chasm and the society doesn't even help him, or cushion his fall.

“Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.” 

“I thought, 'I want to die. I want to die more than ever before. There’s no chance now of a recovery. No matter what sort of thing I do, no matter what I do, it’s sure to be a failure, just a final coating applied to my shame. That dream of going on bicycles to see a waterfall framed in summer leaves—it was not for the likes of me. All that can happen now is that one foul, humiliating sin will be piled on another, and my sufferings will become only the more acute. I want to die. I must die. Living itself is the source of sin.” 

“The world, after all, was still a place of bottomless horror. It was by no means a place of childlike simplicity where everything could be settled by a simple then-and-there decision.” 

This is a brilliantly thought-provoking book. Deep, oppressively daunting, but interesting all the same.

I just really want to hug Yozo.

5 of 5 stars.

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My Ever-So-Growing To-Read Books

My new books - as per October 29 2013

Another to-read batch borrowed from Elise! Kate DiCamillo books! (Nov. 1 2013)

And finally, another batch of new additions to my bookshelf (bought from book fair), as per Nov. 2, 2013! 

Can't wait to read them!  

It's K.

I have another confession to make.

Have you ever read The Sputnik Sweetheart, by Haruki Murakami?

There is a chapter in which the narrator, identified as K, only K, tells about himself. K is not the main character of the story; the spotlight is for Sumire, a friend of K, and K narrates Sumire's story from his point of view.

The thing is, the way K describes himself, I feel that K introduces my own self to me.

(Note: This can be -pretty much- a major spoiler. If you haven't read the book but plan to, and you happen to come across this blog post, I suggest you to read only until this part and not continue. Nonetheless, if you don't plan to read Sputnik Sweetheart and, let's say, will never do, then you're good to go.) 

Starting from this:

"I find it hard to talk about myself. I'm always tripped up by the eternal who am I? paradox. Sure, no one knows as much pure data about me as me. But when I talk about myself, all sorts of other factors - values, standards, my own limitations as an observer - make me, the narrator, select and eliminate things about me, the narratee. I've always been disturbed by the thought that I'm not painting a very objective picture of myself."

(p. 54)

That paragraph - it literally defines me. It is me. Enough said, it's self-explanatory. And this:

"Given the chance, people are surprisingly frank when they talk about themselves. 'I'm honest and open to a ridiculous degree,' they'll say, or 'I'm thin-skinned and not the type who gets along easily in the world.' Or 'I'm very good at sensing others' true feelings.'"

Yes, I notice a lot of people in my surrounding do that easily.

"But any number of times I've seen people who say they're easily hurt, hurt other people for no apparent reason. Self-styled honest and open people, without realizing what they're doing, blithely use some self-serving excuse to get what they want. And those 'good at sensing others' true feelings' are duped by the most transparent flattery. It's enough to make me ask the question: How well do we really know ourselves?"

(p. 54)

That's exactly what bothers me. Our opinions of things, including the topic of ourselves, are inevitably subjective, yes?

And so, K uses this method instead, to get to know himself better - I should say I'm pleasantly surprised, because that's exactly what I do!!

"What I'd like to know more about is the objective reality of things outside myself. How important the world outside is to me, how I maintain a sense of equilibrium by coming to terms with it. That's how I'd grasp a clearer sense of who I am. 

(p. 55)

"Like a master builder stretches taut his string and lays one brick after another, I constructed this viewpoint - or philosophy of life, to put a bigger spin on it. Logic and speculation played a part in formulating this viewpoint, but for the most part it was based on my own experiences. And speaking of experience, a number of painful episodes taught me that getting this viewpoint of mine across to other people wasn't the easiest thing in the world."

(p.55)

And other bits of things:

"I didn't swallow what other people told me." (p. 55)

"Not that I knew what I was seeking in life - I didn't. I loved reading novels to distraction but didn't write well enough to be a novelist."(p. 57)

"Novels should be for pure personal enjoyment, I figured, not part of your work or study.... I enjoyed reading and thinking, but I was hardly the academic type." (p. 57)

And then K talks about Sumire, a friend, who also happens to be a person he loves so much but it is easily an unrequited love. 

"Unlike other people she honestly, sincerely, wanted to hear what I had to say. I did my best to answer her, and our conversations helped me open up more about myself to her - and, at the same time, to myself." (p. 58)

I have 2-3 close friends who I can easily talk to, about almost everything from trivial talks or recent happenings to a series of heavy discussions about one's principles in life. These friends, they talk about themselves, how they consider everything, in a certain manner, how a problem is best solved, and their opinions of things... of course they know how subjective this talk can be, and so they really want to hear what I'm going to say about it. They ask me many things, the way I also ask them many things. 

And this is also, I think, one of the best ways to help you find out more about yourself. But this is also to say:

"I spend more time being confused than not." (p.50)

But no matter what, I can be judging and egoistic. 

"Judging the mistakes of strangers is an easy thing to do - and it feels pretty good." (p. 76)

"Did I do what was right? I didn't think so, I'd only done what was necessary for me." (p.201)

I've never met a character from a book that is (almost) so similar to me, so reading Sputnik Sweetheart gives quite a memorable reading experience. K feels lonely, I do feel lonely sometimes. But that's understandable; a lot of people are unsurprisingly lonely. We are all lonely, at a certain point in life or moments. K loves books and music, and I do (heck who doesn't????) (But I think so far Murakami's characters share this very particular passion in them: they all love books and music).  

But anyway, this is not a book review. But I rate this book with 5 stars anyway. 

Just need you to know ;)

I Still Love Haruki Murakami

I always enjoy reading Haruki Murakami's books. Well, I may still have several books to go before I completely finish reading all his works. But so far, no matter how weird they are, no matter how inconclusive their endings turn out to be, and although I understand the points argued by so many people who dislike, even hate, Murakami's books, I still love Haruki Murakami and consider him one of my favorite authors.

Unlike the majority, I didn't start with Norwegian Wood, and up to now I still haven't read Norwegian Wood (another confession) (yet I have read quite a number of his books anyway). Instead, I started by reading the most gigantic and ambitious book of his, 1Q84. Strangely, I got along just fine with this book and its lonely protagonists as well as their respective past and longing and problems, weird sex scenes, massive descriptions of almost everything, occasional (frequent?) drops of (most of them Western) music or literature references, and not to mention the whole strangeness and quirkiness of it. Mostly the otherworldly experiences. They are there, and they just happen - but not accompanied by a generous amount of explanation. Some are left hanging, and like I said before, often inconclusive.

Well, this kind of thing also happens to his other books, such as Sputnik Sweetheart or Kafka on the Shore. It's like a trademark. There's this character who goes over to another world, and he/she might/might not make it back to the real world. More cat town experiences (this cat town story is mentioned in 1Q84, telling a tale of a man who drops off at a station, and he lands in a town of cat and spends some time there, frightened yet curious of its inhabitants, and he misses the train back home. No train comes to that station afterwards, and he's trapped forever in the cat town). In other word, trapped in another world entirely different than the one we reside.

Besides the existence of and journey to another world, Murakami's books are famous probably of its in-depth exploration on human longing, their incapability and limitations, troubled relationships, finding and searching for lost thing and identity... well in a way you could say that it's kinda depressing.

But I don't know. I do find that journey, although not all aspects are thoroughly understood, fascinating.

I enjoy the weirdness of the story, and I don't quite understand why. It's strange, because I understand, more easily, why Murakami's books annoy some people, how they say it makes them feel depressed because of those lonely protagonists, or that it is simply boring and the surrealistic of it is plainly frustrating. Or the way the unsolved riddles are just... unsolved. Or that because his one novel resembles his previous novel a lot, and the raw plot is just overused (1Q84, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Kafka on the Shore, Sputnik Sweetheart)...

Well, Murakami plays a lot with symbolism and analogy. Foretelling, and sometimes a view or philosophy of life is infused into his characters' dialogues - and this, I could say with confidence, is one of the best qualities in his novel. It is just interesting to read them, in a prose so easily understandable yet heavy in weights, in relation to the context of the story itself. Honestly, they can be thought-provoking - and although people may find it tiresome to go through that kind of book, especially when the book is also incorporated with too-detailed yet unnecessary description of honestly unnecessary, non-essential things - I still love every bit of it.

Yet, I don't swallow everything. I may agree or blatantly disagree with his characters and their views, their arguments and reasoning, and the roots of senses their decisions are derived from. But then again, it is always in my nature to be interested in what people have to say about life - their philosophy of life, their opinions, their experiences and how those experiences shape them in person and quality. 

Which is why I always take my time when I read Murakami's books. I don't read his books consecutively - one's finished, then I'd pick another one. No. I read other books: fantasy, adventure, sci-fi, etc. - and it would be months before I decide to buy and read another book of his. Another strange thing is, in between, I would simply miss it. I would simply miss reading Murakami's prose (that doesn't happen with other authors, I wonder why) and when I don't have a new Murakami book, I'd pick his short stories or reread his quotes instead.

This being said, I don't know if later I would end up detesting Murakami (let's say, after I read all his works including other nonfiction books he writes), but let's just see.

Presently, I love his works so far.

Quite a Diverse Choice: Kawabata, Reeve, and Bukowski

My next TBR pile :)

Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata, Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve, and Post Office by Charles Bukowsi.

I once read another book by Yasunari Kawabata, Thousand Cranes, and although it's a short read (147 pages), finishing this book was not easy and in the end, leaving me instead with this unresolved feeling in the back of my mind. This something, I can't explain it, was left by the shadows of the story itself, but more profoundly felt was from the characters. But this was strangely interlaced with beauty - yes, there was a hidden beauty inside it - an effect perhaps only Kawabata could achieve. 

Somehow, reading Thousand Cranes has become one of those exceptional reading experiences that I would most definitely be delighted to experience again. Which is why, I decided to pick another book of his and the choice went to Palm-of-the-Hand Stories. It is a collection of short stories; which Kawabata mentioned not less remarkable than longer prose fictions - just as well like haiku is no less beautiful than a longer poem. 

I look forward to reading this soon! 

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve is also equally anticipated. Mostly because it is steampunk, and well yeah there is no need to explain this, but you see, adventure books make up the most of my bookshelves. Some of them sci-fi. Most of them fantasy. Well, they never fail me - and I'm a sucker of another world with foreign elements and systems - an entirely different world like those you can find in games and illustration - which also explains that I'm a sucker of world building - which makes a book way more awesome if it is complemented with a world map. 

Not necessarily though. 

But anyway. 

Mortal Engines belongs to my usual crowd, and is something that you would expect to find in my hands ;)

And.... Post Office. What could I say? This is my first Bukowski book and I think I like it. I think. I just finished part 1 of the book, so I have 4 parts (or 5?) to go, but man. Henry Chinaski fascinates me so much! What in reality is perhaps a dull, boring - although sometimes not but when it's not it's extra unbearable - life, it is never the case with Chinaski. I adore this guy - he curses a lot, boozes a lot, screws around, always finishes his route late, he drags his life day by day but he definitely doesn't take his life so seriously, or perhaps he doesn't even care. Things may get downhill and I will perhaps find myself despise this guy a lot later on, but it's just getting messier and I somehow and somewhat like the way it goes.  

LP Discover Japan! I think I'll still pre-order LP Japan (new edition, to be released in this October if not mistaken) since this one still doesn't completely cover some places in detail.

I'm currently into Japanese literature and look forward to reading more notable works of Japanese authors. So far, my experiences with Japanese literature are still limited to Haruki Murakami, Natsume Soseki, and Yasunari Kawabata.

But I can't just help it.

Will definitely read Yukio Mishima's Sound of Waves soon.

TBR March 2013

I believe one of the most happiest moments for a book reader, or let me be specific by saying a book lover instead, is the moment and time spent to browse the next book(s) to read. It's fun, and it is made even more exciting with so many gems out there, coming from different genres. Finding out the true or hidden gems can be challenging, but there are plenty of them out there actually, so no need to worry.

Some people love fantasy. Some always stick to paranormal genre. Some even only prefer dystopian books. Or, they don't mind reading any genres as long as it is young adult. There are also those who go for romance.   I myself used to "restrict" my book choices, ranging from dystopian and fantasy (but usually dystopian books have this sci-fi elements in them, so perhaps sci-fi is also included in my range of book choices), and contemporary. All YA. But then I found out that venturing into other book genres are so fun, fun, and much more fun. I tried adult fantasy (favorite ones are NK Jemisin and Brandon Sanderson) and romance. And I loved it. I tried new adult (which proves to be awesome), and I also delve more into middle-grade books (a lot of them are fantasy, yes) and found that it's just as equally fun as any young adult or adult fantasy. Middle-grade fantasy books that I read are not even afraid to introduce kinds of serious issues and quite bold in addressing these issues to their intended young audience - let's say, A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge, or The Bird of the River by Kage Baker. I also read classics - I used to read short stories by William Faulkner or Ernest Hemingway when I was in my early year of college. I read John Steinback's Of Mice and Men and didn't really like it back then. I recently re-read The Adventure of Tom Sawyer and came to love it more. My adventure with classics has just begun though, and like many, it was actually started with Jane Austen's works (my favorite in the meantime is Mansfield Park), and this has further ignited my interest in historical fiction, really. I intend to explore more notable classic and literature works (as well as Asian and Russian ones), from the least-known to the well-known, from the enthralling one to the bizarre one.

Ha. Quite a challenge. I know, because there's no guarantee I would be able to go through them... but anyway. I will still love fantasy - high fantasy, dark fantasy, steampunk, magic, adventure, fairytale, time travel, but it's really nice and quite a wonderful change of air to try other genres.

Below is my TBR (to be read) list as of now.

This really makes my reading experience richer, this - to discover and know a lot of things.

After all, readers are supposed to know every little bit of everything, right?

What It Is by Lynda Barry

Bits of pictures, taken from my personal copy of  "What It Is" by cartoonist and author Lynda Barry. I took pictures of some pages which have my favorite quotes/sayings in it ;)

"To follow a wondering mind means having to get lost. Can you stand being lost?"

"What is an experience? Is it something you have? Or something which has you?"

"An image is a place. Not a picture of a place, but a place in and of itself. You can move in it. It seems not invented, but there for you to find."

"What, where is a story before it becomes words?"

"Where is a story after it becomes words?"

"What is movement? Do thoughts move? When people are trying to remember something, they often tap their fingers or touch their foreheads, Why does this kind of motion help us remember?"

"Time + place are always together. Why?"

WHAT IT IS
by Lynda Barry

How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? For decades, these types of questions have permeated the pages of Lynda Barry’s compositions, with words attracting pictures and conjuring places through a pen that first and foremost keeps on moving. What It Isdemonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or to remember. Composed of completely new material, each page of Barry’s first Drawn & Quarterly book is a full-color collage that is not only a gentle guide to this process but an invigorating example of exactly what it is: “The ordinary is extraordinary.”

(taken from goodreads.com)


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