Reading Out

Let me give you an image.

You’re outside. It is summer and it’s hot, but there’s a light breeze that makes the temperature just right. Dandelion seeds are lazily carried over the soft, springy grass underneath or are carried up into the lazuli sky. You pull your shoes off, sit down, and read.
Are you comfortable?

Heck no. Ants. Sunburn. Nothing to lean on. Grass stains, wind playing with your pages, grass pressing painfully into your elbows. Suddenly, reading in the garden/field/park doesn’t seem to be a thing you can do spontaneously without preparation. What you need is a reading kit.

Here’s a list of things to take with you when you’re an outdoor reader:

In the park:
You’ve been working your ass off and you can hear the birds outside calling your name. You deserve a break and some sunshine, so you prepare a picnic basket for one:
- blanket to avoid grass stains
- firm pillow to lean on or one of those collapsible thingies
- bookmark (preferably two to clasp your pages tight, for windproof reading)
- sun lotion
- hoodie (you never know when those clouds can come back)
- plastic bag to keep bugs from crawling into your things
- optional: food and drink that don’t spill easily. It isn’t easy to put down a half-empty can of soda on tall grass.
- Or: go sit on a bench like the others, and use your coat as a pillow so your butt doesn’t fall asleep on the hard surface. Didn’t you see the sign that you should stay off the grass?

In the city:
if you’re tired of shopping or walking and you just want to read for an hour or two before that one friend can come do that one thing with you, it can be hard to find that one spot where you’re allowed to sit for a long time without being judged. And what if it’s raining?
Coffee shops:
- money. Those chai lattes won’t pay for themselves, and it’s the only way to bribe the owner to let you stay a bit longer.
- music to block out the noise
- napkins.  if you’re going for the jar of bar nuts, you’re going to get orange fingers.
Train stations:
- music
- hoodie, hats, fingerless gloves and whatnot – it’s indoor, but stations can still be cold. Fingerless gloves are a must if you don’t want to pull a glove off every time you want to turn a page.
theatres (if you’re going to go to the theatre, you might as well go early and enjoy their plush seating with a book)
- flashlight
- napkins (sticky fingers!)
- shoes that are easy to slip off (no one will notice anyway, and no way that you can sit like that for so long)
Universities (that is, if you can pull off looking like a student)
- coins for the vending machine
- clock (in my experience, they’re always behind, early, or absent)
Libraries
- nothing. You don’t even have to bring a book. Maybe a library card.

On a break whilst hiking/cycling:
-mud/rainproof bags. You want to keep your book safe and you don’t know how far the next shelter will be.
- umbrella
- something to drink. By the time you have reached your ideal reading destination, you will probably be tired and thirsty.

On public transport:
- a ticket (ideal bookmark!)
- music to shut out the noise of wailing babies or of girlfriends on their phone
- scarf/jacket to prop against the window as a pillow
- if you’re me, something against motion sickness

At the beach:
- don’t. your book is going to be covered in sand.

pebbly beaches:
that’s better.
- pillow/blanket for sitting on. Stones aren’t comfortable!
- bookmarkers to fight the wind
- hoodie for when it gets cold
- towel. When there’s water, stuff gets wet.
- waterproof bag

garden:
- two trees
- a hammock (not a wiry one unless you want to look like you wore giant fishnets)
- pillow
- someone to gently wave a palm leaf next to you ànd hold your drink

freezing feet, so comfortable!

the rim of the door feels so nice against my foot!
I wonder if my neighbor can see me from here.

reading a book isn't the same without a
wooden fence between your legs.

Reading in lots of different places somehow makes me end up with lots of different bookmarks. I’ve used receipts, postcards (ones I bought myself or got from others), ribbons, yarn, bits of cardboard, unused teabags, feathers, and whatnot. One of my favorite was a receipt for boots I bought in San Francisco, because it felt like it made me look cool. But well, duh. I read books. That’s a +5 charisma right there.

And you’re reading my blog, which is a +15 sexy.

Until next time,

Bejoes

Othello

There was a quiz about Shakespeare in my favourite newspaper a few days ago, and since I was starting to run behind on my reading schedule I thought I’d borrow some short plays from my library.

The first time I got into Shakespeare I must’ve been about 15 years old, and I’d just seen the Romeo + Juliet movie (yes, the one with Leonardo Dicaprio when he was still cute), and I was just in total awe with the words. They were so full of emotion and they even rhymed. I was blown away and even tried to copy the style in my teenage angsty poetry for a while.
Back then, I borrowed Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet from the library, and loved them very much. But then I tried Othello, in English, and I just had to give up after a couple of months, not getting far at all. The thing is that Shakespeare is quite fancy with words and sentences, and if you can’t comprehend two words out of a seven-worded sentence, and that for pretty much every sentence in the play, you’re screwed.
Which is why this time I read it in Dutch. Sue me.
Anyways.

I’ve always thought, and these thoughts have been reaffirmed, that reading Shakespeare is quite an experience. You can feel the steady beat of the words flowing throughout the play, which makes it hard for me to put it down once I have the time to get immersed in the story. These stories are, as far as I’ve read, very… pure, for lack of a better word. They usually centre around one emotion (jealousy for Othello) and examine all aspects of that emotion throughout the play, which sometimes feels as if you should finish the book with a new moral in your head. Don’t go after 13-year old virgins who happen to be the daughter of your family’s enemy. Hamlet was thinking too much, and Othello should’ve known who to trust, knowing that appointing a new commander was going to rub some people the wrong way.
So yes, I like Shakespeare a lot. When I got to know about the whole discussion of ‘did he really exist or was it just a bunch of people under one artist name’, I was inclined to think the latter, simply because he came from a rather poor family, and his collection of works just seems so huge. But then again, Schubert wrote more than 600 lieders and then a bunch of other things, and he died at 32. And yet, given the choice, I must say that my preference goes to Oscar Wilde. Much like Shakespeare there’s a lot of timing in his plays (people leaving just before someone important comes in, the right people finding the wrong things,…)  but he adds more humour to his plays. When I read The Importance of Being Earnest (in English without difficulty), I groaned and laughed out loud by the sheer ridiculousness of what was happening. That hasn’t happened to me whilst reading Shakespeare.

I guess I should really get to the point and tell you more about the story.
Although the title is Othello, I feel like the main character in this book is Iago, who is jealous of Cassio who was promoted by Othello, a Moor, to Lieutenant while Iago remains his ensign. Iago wants his revenge on Othello, and with help of his friend Roderigo he manages to make him believe his newlywed wife Desdemona is cheating on him with Cassio, of all people. This is all cunningly done, with the right words whispered to the right people at the right time, ensnaring a lot of people who in the end are all partly to blame to Desdemona’s death by Othello’s hand.

I am probably going to read this again in English someday, because in translation some of the rhythm and wit got lost, no doubt. But! Thanks to youtube, I can listen to the play with Ewan McGregor as Iago whilst I work on my next knitting project. I really am looking forward to that.


PS: yes, Shakespeare can be funny too: 

Iago
               I am one, sir, who comes to tell you your daughter and the moor are now making the beast with two backs.
Brabantio
               you are a villain!
Iago
               you are a senator!

Until next time,

Bejoes

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters

Sorry this is posted a day late, guys.

This book, A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, was different from all the other books I’ve read so far this month in several ways. It wasn’t my own, for starters; I swapped books with a friend. But what made me really nervous was that it was a signed copy by Julian Barnes himself. So, naturally, I didn’t dare to take it anywhere, which slowed me down a bit in the reading department. But that turned out to be a blessing.

This book is a collection of ten short stories plus half a chapter’s worth of a really good explanation about love. This chapter, Parenthesis, might have been one of my favourite parts of the book, because to me it was the kind of explanation that made me say “fuck yes” and “so true” lots of times. The other chapters are very diverse, but are loosely tied together by random subjects that pop up in every chapter; like woodworm and arks. (Not the easiest things to slip in a conversation, so hats off. And I don’t take my hat off very often.)

When I say that these chapters were very diverse, I do mean *very*. Not only does the author jumps in time and storylines, the stories vary from a woodworm’s recollection of his voyage on the ark and a court’s case of woodworms being prosecuted for eating through the bishop’s chair to an astronaut who thought God talked to him and an actor whose career takes an odd turn. And every short story has its own style too; difficulty, perspective, everything changes so much they might as well have been written by totally different people.
I must say that, probably because English isn’t my main language and because I never really had English class that was challenging to me, that the book might have been a bit too difficult for me; which is why it was good I read this book slowly. Mister Barnes spices his stories with fancy words and delicious metaphors, like (I’m just randomly fishing them from the pages as I leaf through them) promulgated, menaced and obliquities.  Some of the best metaphors are found in the ‘half chapter’; the chapter about love: … I love you I love you- it’s become some trilling song popular for a lurid month and then dismissed to the club circuit where pudgy rockers with grease in their hair and yearning in their voice will use it to unfrock the lolling front-row girls. I love you I love you while the lead guitar giggles and the drummer’s tongue lies wetly in his opened mouth.

Looking back on it I’d say that the book isn’t my usual genre, but was definitely worth the read. The picture of the painting Scene of Shipwreck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa ) was definitely a nice touch.

Thanks for letting me read this, H.





 
Until next time,

Bejoes