Canvas

So I've just finished Milan Kundera's Encounters, which is a collection of essays about art (literature, music, painting, even film) and it was light reading but also highly interesting, and oddly enough I understood where he was coming from even though I've hardly read/listened to/seen the art he reviews or describes. It was plenty of food for thought (and I copied down some titles to read soon) but I think possibly too much at one go for an afternoon, ha ha. Some of what he said was familiar, as if I'd identified with it before but was always unable to voice it in my limited words - ideas about the unity of literary works through the repetitions of symbols/tropes, about how film as we know it has become far less of an art form than it initially promised to, about how there were so many undeveloped possibilities for the novel that are still unrealized, about ugliness in art, meditations about how exactly the wars left indelible marks on Europe... the kind of literary and cultural commentary that I find myself, surprisingly, loving quite deeply.

And then I wonder if maybe this is the path for me, academia and possibly some writing of my own, writing that would aspire to art. But I don't know. I feel like I have been buffeted along, ever since age 15 or so, by winds and forces that would counsel, or demand, me to pursue something colder, less emotional, more apparently reliable. Oddly enough that's also the age I feel like I began reading for myself for the first time - reading outside of the syllabus, opening my mind to books like Kundera's. To be honest, I started reading more than I needed to because I thought it would give me an academic edge - it was all about hard-nosed, accelerating competition, but in one of life's little ironies it actually made me less inclined to follow that cold narrow path set down before me. I don't know. I think the relative lack of things to do nowadays has opened up a lot of speculation about the future and while that sometimes strays into the path of worrying, I know I shouldn't because God is in control and I'm just going to go along with whatever He decides.

A few days ago I also finished Aleksandar Hemon's The Question of Bruno which focuses on the impact of the breakup of Yugoslavia - I feel compelled to tell you about how many little spikes of emotion it provoked in me while I was reading, but now to my horror I can't really remember what exactly happened in that book. I remember bits and words but not actual happenings, which is a testament to the fact that I read too quickly for my own good :/

Anyway, I have Hemingway next - a tiny little book to finish before we go off to New Zealand. Then I'm probably bringing East of Eden along. Also, I found out that the library is doubling our loan quotas so I can actually borrow TWELVE books at once hahah! I suppose part of the reason why I rely on the library so much is because I also cannot fathom leaving so many beloved books behind when I go off to university :/

It is beginning to storm here (been thundering extremely loudly for the past half an hour) and this means my runningtime is being postponed :( Pfft.

On other things, I'm missing Z so much. Skyping him twice a day is already such a luxury and yet it's not the same, not having his presence, not being able to share things with him on the spot, and being constantly reminded of us because of the smallest things - I watched Winter Wipeout today and kept thinking about the time we stood outside that shop in Plaza Sing just laughing our heads off at the contestants getting wet and muddy and wipedout on the screen. I think that moment kind of encapsulates our relationship, how we exist in a little bubble away from/in the middle of the mad world around us and it's safe and comforting and it's home.