Photo: Greenwich Limits #1

NYC Souvenir #1

NYC

I had the pleasure of visiting NYC last weekend with my wife (off-season + Travelocity = good). I should say that, beyond the commute to/from LaGuardia, it would only be fair for me to speak of Manhattan (where we stayed and explored during our brief stay). However, needless to say, I want to see more.

As a first-time visitor, it's pretty astounding. In fact it's hard to find words to describe the overall scale of the place. It's massive - paradoxically massive (as if it weren't built for humans), densely laid and populated, surprisingly clean, and simply fascinating to stare at. I actually didn't mind standing still, risking muscle cramps in my neck, gawking at century-old skyscrapers, unabashedly unmindful of whether or not I looked like a smitten tourist. I can't remember feeling this way since 10 years ago when I took my first trip to Europe.

Of course, being only a weekend escape, we came home to Toronto with a swirl of impressions - like a snow globe - whistling through our heads. Thankfully I also took some photos, so I look forward to sharing them here when I get around to scanning them.

If anyone has any interesting nooks and crannies to suggest for our next visit please feel free to dish.

The Steppenwolf Effect, pt.1: Synchronicity

As mentioned in my previous post, a couple of things occurred to me while I started reading Steppenwolf.

As mentioned in a previous previous post (here), I write fiction. I've written one novel and have since completed the rough draft of a second. When I started reading Steppenwolf I realised (at the point where Harry meets Hermine ¹) that it shared a parallel storyline with my second novel.

I clearly remember starting to sweat, followed by some muffled swearing.

If there was anything that freaked me out at the time, it was the fear that I was going to open a book (whether it be a novel or a collection of short stories) to discover that something I've written had been, as they say, "done before". In retrospect there isn't much reason for this fear - unless one is directly influenced by something it would be a hell of a coincidence to write something that was so similar to a previously published work that you should have to worry - particularly if it's something as complex and individualistic as a novel.

But I was concerned; I thought to myself: F*!king bastard Hermann Hesse and his f$~king storylines. But I digress...

I turned to my writing group ². I asked them: has anyone opened a book to discover some freak-assed psychic parallel to something you're currently working on? The answer, surprisingly, was yes - all the time, in fact. Synchronicity happens more often than we think, as it turns out.

Thinking about it, it makes sense; assuming we aren't forced to read the books that we do (as in school) we end up reading those works which appeal to us - as readers and perhaps subconsciously as writers also. So it should come as no surprise to find narratives, plots, or characters that ring familiar.

1. Harry & Hermine sounds like the name of a Hollywood adaptation.

2. I'm blessed to have such a good writer's group - most of us were students of DM Thomas at the Humber College School for Writers.

Book Review: Steppenwolf, by Hermann Hesse

We often lack depth when looking backward, particularly as it regards cultural history. For example, if I were to ask you "Name some book titles or authors whose style you would describe as hallucinogenic?", you'd probably name the likes of William S. Burroughs and such books as Brave New World. And if I asked "What period would you pin the advent of this style to?", you'd probably say, and without much pause, the 60's. Because, you would reason, everything before then was formal and disciplined; rational if enlightened.

The problem is that this is entirely wrong. It is an assumption which benefits too much the artists of the mid-50's to late-60's ¹ and by ignorance does disservice to those who came before and made such efforts feasible in the first place. Most people wouldn't know that one of the most commonly-associated hallucinogenic novels, Brave New World, was not a product of the 50's-60's. It was written in 1932, nearly 50 years before Burroughs' Junkie (1953).

Another of these books is Steppenwolf, by Hermann Hesse. Written in 1927, it is a cracker of a novel, injected with a dream-like existential narrative, intermingled with undercurrents of Eastern mysticism and Western philosophy.

The novel opens with a brief (although I would've preferred a briefer) forward by the son of a rooming house matron who describes his relationship with a mysterious boarder who had inexplicably left without notice one night. The tenant, a temperamental stranger in his early 50's, named Harry Haller, left a manuscript behind which the son hopes will some day shine some light on the capricious personality of the tenant who disappeared. The manuscript which follows is a revelatory and harrowing first-person account of Haller's self-discovery.

Harry Haller is a man out of place and out of step with his time and his country (in this context, post-WWI Germany). He has grown accustomed to referring to himself as the Steppenwolf: a wolf who has come down from the Steppes to live among men, and as such can neither fully be at ease with an increasingly bourgeois society nor, as a man, the divisively lonesome and eternally longing animal within.

Arriving at a nameless town, he finds himself trying to fit-in as best as possible, but always restless and battling with his duality and the thirst for an end to his seemingly infinite inner conflict. He can't seem to relate to others and increasingly begins to loathe the life he has led. Just as he begins to obsess over the thought of suicide, he meets a mysterious and vibrant young woman, Hermine. Harry discovers that, unlike anyone around, she is able to understand him and, in a way that is once playful and scolding, is able to direct him away from self-destruction.

Hermine introduces Harry to a colourful and sensual existence with the help of her friends, yet this experience comes at a price. There is a tragedy beneath Hermine's hedonistic demeanour, and Harry realises that the path she offers him is one not only of liberation, but necessary destruction. As the story proceeds, Harry is enveloped into a seductive world of physical pleasure which unleashes within him a mystical inspiration which serves to alleviate his natural displeasure with the world and his place in it.

However, Harry Haller is Harry Haller. He can't help but feel as if he has stepped into a world that is not his, inspirational though it may be. As before, just as he feels freed from the shackles of his own prison, the Steppenwolf beckons; the conflict between righteousness and desire, formality and inspiration. He cannot help but grip his traditional way of thinking, torn as he is by the transcendent pleasure Hermine unfolds for him.

The story comes to an end, a hallucinatory multi-layered climax, as Hermine introduces Harry to the Magic Theatre, which becomes an existential funhouse mirror through which Harry comes face to face with his predicament. Face to face with death. Face to face with the nature of the Steppenwolf.

I'm not going to give anything away here - not that there are many "spoilers" to concoct out of this novel. Hesse injects a whirl of thoughts and feelings, sometimes painful and possibly autobiographic, from the necessary tragedy of Romanticism to the bewildering transcendence of Eastern mysticism. While the climax may be highly conceptual and perhaps too ambiguous for some, I must say that I ate this book as if it were my last dinner: reverently.

I will be writing separately about a couple of experiences which happened in relation to my reading Steppenwolf. It is a book that still haunts me and if you haven't read it (and what I've written above doesn't bewilder you too much) I strongly suggest you do.

Steppenwolf, by Hermann Hesse (ISBN-10: 0312278675) is available at a friendly independent bookstore near you. Or online at any number of vendors.

1. A problem compounded by the Baby Boomer generation's evergreen self-obsession, combined with their control of the media.

Blogger Update

Blogger, the blogging portal through which this site exists, has upgraded to a new version. I've been reticent to switch, particularly as it has been interminably stuck in a Beta stage ("beta" being the latest buzzword for "it doesn't work but because we're a publicly traded company we need to produce output for the sake of keeping the price of our shares consistent"). However, apparently, it's out of Beta so I will be switching to it today.

What scares me is that the template - those bits of code which I've been polishing like gemstones for the last year - will require upgrading. I don't have as much time to polish as I used to, so I hope the changes aren't too heinous (let alone the hope that my site simply doesn't break in half).

In any case, here it goes...

P.S. Coming Up: book reviews!

Update (05/01/07): the switch wasn't too bad, but now that bloody Blogger Nav-Bar is at the top again. Bastards.