Sindbad's Prayer Vis-à-Vis Women

 

from The Adventures of Sindbad by Gyula Krúdy

To which I can only say... 

A-fuckin-men.

Again, László Krasznahorkai: A Cry For Help

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the 21st Century, right? And my beloved László Krasznahorkai just won the Nobel Prize for Literature, correct? So how is it possible that The Quiet Prophet: László Krasznahorkai's Journey Through Chaos and Grace by Camille F. Arden, which was just published last year, is not available ANYwhere but here:

 

?

I've checked everywhere I can think of, and come up with nothing. 

What the fuck?

DDR: The Adventures of Sinbad by Gyula Krúdy

 

This has been on the Been Meaning To list for a very long time...probably since I first "discovered" Central European Classics, which has turned into one of my favorite imprints. (Some of whose titles have migrated to New York Review Books, another favorite imprint.) 

xxiv + 205 = 229 pages...so a quick one (while he's away).

Day 1 (DDRD 3,220) August 27, 2026

Read to page 20. This hasn't really caught me up yet, but there have been some nice bits of writing, so here's hoping.

Day 2 (DDRD 3,221) August 28, 2026

Read to page 65.

"...he thought of the man whom women had cheated, stolen from and discarded, men whom women had watched with interest, wondering when they would put a bullet through their brains...." (33)

Not very nice (👆), of course, but...you know.

And isn't this lovely?

"Then suddenly her expression brightened and a timid, hopeful smile transformed her whole expression: it was as if two fireflies had raised their wings in the pupils of her eyes." (61-62)

I'm getting into this now. Krúdy has some great, odd descriptions...and some VERy odd plot twists...as when Sinbad dies and chooses to come back as a sprig of a plant. BTW, this book was translated by George Szirtes, who did one of Krasznahorkai's books (maybe more than one).

Day 3 (DDRD 3,222) August 29, 2026

Read to page 101.

Mmm-hmm.

"She almost had more to do with the other world than with the present one…" (97) Said of an old servant who had seen her employer's pass away "one by one." It reminds me of a comment that William Blake's wife said about him:  "I have very little of Mr. Blake's company; he is always in Paradise." Kind of true of my daughter, Jacqueline...and at least a little bit true of me as well.

Sindbad, who is still dead, has returned to visit a former lover. As he is speaking to her we are told that his voice sounded "of leaves and shadow" (98), and when he strokes her brow "she felt it like an autumn breeze." (99) This reminds me of something I say to Jacqueline and Joe. I don't want them to be frightened when I die or to miss me too much, so I tell them that when I die I will go to heaven and that they can still talk to me anytime they want to, but I won't be able to answer them directly. However I will be able to hear them, and I will place my hand on their shoulders, and they'll be able to feel it and know I am there and watching out for them.

😢

Day 4 (DDRD 3,223) August 30, 2026

Read to page 167. So tomorrow is probably going to be it. Although I'm actually wanting to read more today, so today might be it.

"...that long-extinct volcano, his heart...." (126)

I met some friends for coffee this morning. They'd recently returned from a trip to Canada and were talking about the mountains and glaciers they had seen and how beautiful they were. Somewhere in the course of the conversation Craig made reference to tarns ("A tarn (or corrie loch) is a mountain lake, pond or pool, formed in a cirque (or "corrie") excavated by a glacier." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarn_(lake) ). After we parted I went home and started reading Sindbad and almost immediately read this:

And I'd never heard or seen this word before Craig mentioned it. Do do do do, do do do do.

"Is it not the case that everyone would soonest hear the story he believes in his heart of hearts, the one where he dreams his own life?" (151)

Asimov Fucks Up Again

 

I finished Asimov's Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan this morning, and while it wasn't great, it was good enough for me to think that I'd like to read another Asimov annotated book. These are the others:

Asimov's Annotated Don Juan (1972), Asimov's Annotated Paradise Lost (1974), Familiar Poems, Annotated (1977), Asimov's Annotated Gulliver's Travels (1980), and Asimov's Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan (1988). In the same category but not really "annotated" in that the full text isn't reproduced with the notes are Asimov's Guide to the Bible in two volumes (1968 and 1969) and Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare in two volumes (1970). In the Beginning: Science Faces God in the Book of Genesis (1981) should also be included (though it doesn't look like anyone on the internet has done so) as it comments extensively on the first eleven chapters of Genesis--and also reproduces the text of those chapters. 

So depending on how strict you are with the definition of "annotated" and "volume"), Asimov has between 5 and 10 annotated books. I've read 5 of the 10 so far (       ), and after finishing off G&S I thought I might (please, sir) have some more. I wasn't in the mood for the long works, though, so I had a peek at Familiar Poems, which is available through Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/familiarpoemsann00asim/mode/1up). Or you can buy it for about 60 bucks. 

I opted, as you probably guessed, for Internet Archive. The table of contents included many poems I didn't know, but as the first one listed was "Ozymandias," I had a look at it.

I got to the second annotation and encountered a problem. Well, two problems, actually. 

Problem the First: The "another woman" referred to in the first paragraph is Mary Shelley. This is obvious in the second paragraph when it refers to the fact that she wrote Frankenstein, but why on earth isn't she identified either time by name? Seems to me a bit misogynistic.

Problem the Second: Asimov tells us that "Ozymandias" (which should not be italicized, btw) is a portion of a longer poem entitled "The Revolt of Islam." I was surprised by that as I've been reading this poem for about 50 years and had never heard that before, but being be the wily and suspicious old man that I am, I found the full text of the poem--quite a long one, so I didn't want to read it all--and did several word searches using keywords from "Ozymandias."

No results for any of them.

Inescapable conclusion: Asimov fucked up. Which isn't a huge deal, of course, but this is something that could easily have been checked, even in those pre-internet days. Yet neither Asimov nor his proofreaders(s) nor his editor(s) did so, and that's a sign of laziness which irks me...and undermines my trust in the work. So I decided to put this one back on the shelf, so to speak, and have another think on it tomorrow, when I choose my next Daily Devotional Reading. 

🤔

Um...excuse me, Amazon, but I think something's off here....