A Dreamer

The Attic 
by Danilo Kiš


"Some heavy blue autumn plums dropped onto the path from a shadowy tree whose branches jutted over a fence.  I had never believed that such firm blue plums could exist in autumn.  But back then we were so preoccupied with our embraces that we didn't pay any attention to things like that." (5)


This is a story about a young man in Belgrade named Orpheus. His name alone resonates both in a literary and in a mythical way, creating an interest in his story from the opening pages. It also helped that, as the translator wrote, he is "a writer and a lute-player," and "a philosopher, a dreamer and--probably--a perpetual student". Thus he is a man after my own heart. What followed the opening was a dream-like, somewhat picaresque tale of his experiences in Belgrade with his friends, neighbors and a young girl named Eurydice. He describes that he first met her during a period when "I was feverishly demanding answers from life, so I was caught up in myself". (10) One of the list of philosophical questions (Orpheus liked to make lists, not unlike a literary predecessor named Rabelais) that he was contemplating was, conveniently, "the question of love", which leads him into an attempt to describe Eurydice. Here is his attempt to describe her voice:
"The voice of a silver harp, of a viola with a mute, of a Renaissance lute, the voice of a Swedish guitar with thirteen strings, of Gothic organs or a miniature harpsichord, of a violin staccato or a guitar arpeggio in a minor key." (12) Did I mention the dream-like quality of the story?

Orpheus lives in an attic with his friend Igor and the episodes in his life are strikingly imaginative, providing a contrast with his encounters with other people who seem reality-bound in contrast.  Early in the book he describes his attempts to protect his books from rats, but this episode like so many others could easily be a dream.  It is not that he does not notice the world around him, for at one point he decides to meet the world as it really is; but this does not deter him from his primary aim.  He plans with his friend Igor (also known as Billy Wiseass) to "dedicate ourselves to our studies" at a rented tavern in a small country town.  ""Books are an invention. . . But we will gather around us all kinds of desperados (we especially like this word in those days) and listen to authentic stories, authentic life experiences.  Only that will constitute the true school of life," Billy explained excitedly." (74)

Orpheus is writing a book called The Attic, as he tells his neighbor one morning. The neighbor replies that Orpheus should be careful not to ruin his eyesight with writing by candlelight. Rather he should write by daylight or at least accept the light bulb offered to him.  Orpheus replies that "I write by candlelight . . . So that I create the right atmosphere." (108)
This is a novel written by candlelight and it is in the shadows that the world creeps into the life of young Orpheus. His real life is in his mind and it is as interesting and beautiful as any imagined world could ever be. His life is the artist's life and his world is the writer's world with lists of qualities, learned digressions, and a touch of irony. In all of this the literary allusions seem fitting, just as the book naturally becomes a bit of a miniature bildungsroman.

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Camera

by Jean-Philippe Toussaint

It was about at the same time in my life, a calm life in which ordinarily nothing happened, that in my immediate horizon two events came about, events that, taken separately, were of hardly any interest, and that, considered together, were unfortunately not connected in any way. As it happens I had just decided to learn how to drive, and I had barely begun to get used to this idea when some news reached me by mail: a long-lost friend, in a letter composed with a type-writer, a rather old type writer, had informed me he was getting married. Now, personally, if there's one thing that terrifies me, it's long-lost friends.

The Belgian novelist Jean-Philippe Toussaint is quickly becoming one of my favorites. The opening sequences of “Camera,” one remind me of the enjoyment I experienced recently reading another work, Television, by the same author.
Toussaint’s writing is comic and in this case that entails a sort of comedy with a tendency toward the mechanical. People, gestures and events become like automata — compressed, sprung, interlocked and endlessly repeating. The action, limited as it may be in this book that exhibits the author's control over inaction, in “Camera” take place among automobiles: machines whose very name encodes self-generated motion without end. To the extent there is any plot it involves the hero’s repeated trysts with the driving-school secretary. But this exists within and overlays a background of mechanical wordplay.

It seems that not much happens in “Camera.” But the hero is in a continual battle with a reality of driving lessons, journeying and falling in love. The hero muses that “in my struggle with reality, I could exhaust any opponent with whom I was grappling, like one can wear out an olive, for example, before successfully stabbing it with a fork.” That olive appears a few pages later, in a restaurant scene whose dialogue is passed over entirely, the better to let us appreciate the olive’s lined surface, its “resistance diminishing” beneath the pressure of the tines. Who will win this battle is not always clear. In an interview reproduced at the novel’s end, Toussaint cites Kafka: “In the fight between you and the world, back the world.” Continuity or focus is provided by the titular camera. The novel progresses and this reader had fun with the real moments while not necessarily sharing the level of despair brought forth by the author. The battle can be fun, if you let it.

Camera by Jean-Philippe Toussaint. Dalkey Archive Press. 2008 (2005)


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