When Writing Spooks Television

I am currently writing a *perhaps* novel (that is, perhaps it will be a novel), though I suppose I should find out if it is a novel since I just passed the 200 page point.

In my current project, following the escapades of Alison Alexandra (entitled Stones for short), my erstwhile activist, Alison Alexandra, is a passenger on a freighter (that takes a limited number of passengers) as it delivers goods from port to port.

I’ve done a fair amount of online research into these freighter cruises as I, myself, would much prefer such a trip over the very crowded (and expensive) Cruise Lines. But, I will research anywhere that might help my cause. So, a couple of nights ago, on television, there was a documentary about the most recent, largest, and most extravagant Cruise Ship as yet built.

I was very interested in following its construction. I was also very interested in seeing how it was run, taking into consideration the thousands of people who had to be tended to. The delivery of provisions, the kitchens, and the massive amount of work necessary to clear out thousands of folk and then greet thousands of folk on the same day, was fascinating. Not a freighter by any standard, but basic principles were the same.

Then the documentary followed the ship on its first cruise.

Now, back to my reality. At the same time as writing original material about Alison Alexandra, I have been putting a hand-written manuscript of a novel finished a number of years ago into the computer. I do one thing in the morning, and the other in the evening. So far – no problems have arisen.

My hand-written manuscript is set in the 1300’s. The first part depicts a two year voyage from Italy to China and back. Both the voyage and events in China are described. And then, the arrival back to Italy. For four straight days, I have been transcribing the docking and aftermath of the ship at Civitavecchia, Italy. It is the closest seaport to Rome.

On television, before my eyes, after a day of writing, the Cruise Ship I had watched from inception to voyage, pulled into the port of Civitavecchia.

Maybe I should take a cruise.

Civitavecchia (image)http://www.cruisemapper.com/images/ports/81-e23a9f4fb2887.jpg

02/17/2017 0

It Is A Grave Thing To Be Dead

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(image)http://zeek.forward.com/workspace/uploads/kafka-photo-grave-300dpi-4c5c1958.jpg

I enjoy graveyards, and peruse them with vigour. It’s true I don’t plan to spend the rest of my life in them, but, after that …

So, I have many tales of cemeteries to tell. Hardly any are scary because, contrary to popular depiction, graveyards are not haunted. Unless one happens to die in one (or – worse yet – die after being buried in one), there are no lingering spirits to haunt. Graveyards are a place, however, to go and contemplate those buried there. I am planning for myself a grand mausoleum.

While researching my novel about Franz Kafka, I went to Prague. In those days it was still under communist subjugation, and travel in and out of Czechoslovakia, to say nothing of travelling the country, was complicated and dangerous. I was fortunate to have arrangements to stay with a Czech academic and his nuclear scientist wife while in Prague. They had a social standing which facilitated an easier visit.

Unknown to me upon arrival, the academic was an amateur historian. When he found the major thrust of my visit concerned Kafka, he was full of places to visit. Many of them I did not know about, and others I doubt I would have found on my own. For instance, he took me to the small house where Kafka had lived on Alchemist Lane, which eventually became the setting for half of my novel. Even though Kafka was in disfavour at the time, the house was noted for the fact he lived there, and it was on tourists lists. In a Kafkaesque twist, it was even then a bookstore, but none of his books were allowed on the shelves.

One of the places I was taken was to Kafka’s grave. It is situated nowhere near where Kafka lived his life, but is in a huge Jewish graveyard on the outskirts of the city. It took nearly an hour on the subway to reach the area. And then a walk to the graveyard itself. And then a walk through the graveyard, though the way to Kafka’s grave was signed. I would never have thought of trying to get there myself.

Kafka is buried with his mother and father (though, literally, vice versa, as he died first). It is only years after the fact that I read about the drama of his death, and the drama at the graveside. His young lover, Dora, who had spent the last year of his life with him, attempted to leap into the grave. She had to be restrained by Kafka’s best friend, Max Brod.

I lingered a long time – perhaps a half hour – by the grave. In the Jewish tradition I left a stone upon the gravestone. In my own twist, I also left a pen. And, because there were few about, and I was so moved, I lay down upon the grave itself.

09/09/2016 0

My Letter To Kafka – Life Lessons With Postage Due

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My Present / Your Future

Still in this World

A Life Away

Dear F:

Although it will give you no pleasure – well, ‘little’ pleasure – you are correct in all your observations.

Governments become the tools of the bureaucracies which run them. It doesn’t matter what type of Government, from the monarchy under which you lived, to the right wing horror of fascists who called themselves socialists, to the inept socialism pretending to be ‘for the people’. All three governments held their sway over the city where you spent your life. All three oppressed the people they ruled. All three looked after themselves first.

Writers are either writers or they aren’t. The urge to write encircles one like a snake around its prey. Feed it and it won’t quite squeeze you to death. You can not ignore it – even at your peril. It is with you every hour of every day, ever inquisitive and (sadly) always looking for something better.

Love is a see-saw of extremes. Every high guarantees a low. Every low reaches for a high. Every high reaches for a high. When these hills and valleys are eventually levelled, they are still desired.

Sex is highly over-rated. The thing of it is, even rated fairly ’tis a consummation devoutly to be had. Yes – I know – you appreciate Shakespeare. On a par with Goethe, even if you can’t bring yourself to say the words.

People are just one damned thing after another. Of course, so many people have brought you blessings that you throw up you hands to ward off the snake. Sometimes loosening its grip.

There is no castle with walls thick enough to hide against the perils of being human. Which is why you never tried. Except the grave, of course. Except the grave.

Yours,

08/12/2016 0

Kafka Pages Survive Fire, History, And The Law

page-of-kafkas-writing-1 (From Der Process by Franz Kafka)

Much keeps being made about Franz Kafka telling his best friend, Max Brod, to burn all of his (Kafka’s) manuscripts, and that Max did not do it. What keeps being overlooked is that Kafka made this request three or more times, and each time Max told him outright that he would not do it.

Kafka asked a person whom he knew would not burn his manuscripts to burn his manuscripts. That is a perfect encapsulation of Kafka. He could justify to himself that he tried. He made the effort.

Had he wanted them all burned, he would have done it himself.

So, now, some remaining manuscripts of Kafka have ended their own trial, and will be made available.

Brod estimated that Kafka actually did burn about 80% of all his own manuscripts. In my novel, Kafka In The Castle, I have described such an incident, based on secondary sources. It follows the current News article about Kafka’s manuscripts.

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Franz Kafka literary legal battle ends as Israel’s high court rules in favor of library

Country’s supreme court rules manuscripts are the national library’s property
Estate’s heirs must hand over documents, which include unpublished writings

Franz Kafka had instructed Brod to burn the manuscripts after his death but his friend did not honor that request and took them with him when he fled the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939 and emigrated to Palestine. — Kafka had instructed his friend Max Brod to burn the manuscripts after his death but Brod took them with him when he fled the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. Photograph: CSU Archives/Everett Collect/Rex

Agence France-Presse in Jerusalem

Israel’s supreme court has ruled that Franz Kafka’s manuscripts are the property of the National Library of Israel, ending a lengthy legal battle, judicial sources said in Monday.

The nation’s top court on Sunday rejected an appeal by the heirs of Max Brod, a friend of Kafka and the executor of his estate to whom he had willed his manuscripts after his death in 1924.

Kafka had instructed Brod to burn the manuscripts after his death but his friend did not honor that request and took them with him when he fled the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939 and emigrated to Palestine.

On his death in 1968, Brod bequeathed the papers to his secretary Esther Hoffe, with instructions to give them to the “Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the municipal library in Tel Aviv or another organization in Israel or abroad”.

But Hoffe, who died in 2007, instead kept them and shared them between her two daughters – sparking multiple legal battles.

In the trial against Hoffe’s heirs, which began in 2009, the state of Israel demanded they hand over all the documents, which included unpublished writings, arguing it was Brod’s last will.

Hoffe’s daughters refused, however, saying the papers – estimated to be worth millions of dollars – had been given to their mother by Brod and therefore she could dispose of them any way she wanted.

In its ruling, the supreme court said: “Max Brod did not want his property to be sold at the best price, but for them to find an appropriate place in a literary and cultural institution.”

Hoffe had during her lifetime sold the original manuscript of The Trial –considered by some to be one of Kafka’s best works – for $2m.

The Hoffe family kept the bulk of the collection locked away in bank safety deposit boxes in Israel and Switzerland and over the years sold some papers to collectors.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/08/franz-kafka-papers-israel-court-ruling

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Excerpt from: Kafka In The Castle

18 April 1917

Max occasionally tells me that my writing makes a mockery of real life. But I find that the life which surrounds me – which I wade through every day – makes a mockery of anything I can write. What place do my awkward dreams and petulant hopes have in this real world. “Do they keep me warm?” as my father asks. Father would have been happy – if far from understanding – had he been watching me this past hour. I wedded both worlds through flame. Passion enough for me, and heat enough for him.

On this abrupt cold day, in this chilled, unwelcoming house. I opened the empty, blackened stove, and prepared to make a fire. I read too many newspapers, so their pages were abundant. All this vague war news, getting more vague, and pointing only to disaster. A match struck against the side of the stove, and the war news erupted. A fitting end. Then, since I’m not allowed into their war so my flesh can perish, my other life could at least enter the inferno.

I took a pile of manuscripts from the chair and placed them into the flame. Page by page. Words and sentences marching. I didn’t even look to see what they were. Which characters vanished. Which actions ceased. All equal to me, and all equal to the flames. Some of the pages were older work, which I carry from house to house with the intent of making better. This time I succeeded. Other pages were created in this tiny house, where there are too many eyes at the windows, and too many years caught in the dust. They followed into the fire, sometimes by the handful.

And now, I ponder over these pages beneath my fingers. However, there is new wood within the stove, and for the moment, the heat sustains me.

19 April 1917

Max was horrified when I told him about last night. “You burned your stories? Are you crazy?” “I wrote them, so I must be.” He smiled at that. Max’s anger can be easily deflected, for it is never deep. Max is a very good man, and cares for me more than I do myself. “And the novel? The Amerika novel?” I told him that many chapters of that must have been burned. Probably right from the start – they were no doubt the first things I grabbed from the chair. “Anything else?” “There were a couple of plays. I remember pages of dialogue.”

Max’s voice became hollow. He might no longer be angry, but neither was he happy. “I didn’t know you had written any plays. You have secrets even from me.” “I keep secrets from myself. Don’t be offended.” “What else?” I could picture him writing down an inventory. “Some diary entries – those were deliberate.” “And was that the end of your pyromaniacal obsession?” “Of my own work – yes.” He looked at me questioningly – he didn’t need another secret. “There were a couple of bundles of letters from Felice. Neatly tied with string. They burned slowly. I have not had such warmth from her for a long time.”

08/09/2016 0

Kafka Sweeps Away Dust, Gold And War [from: Kafka In The Castle]

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27 November 1916

Should I comment upon my unique and strange surroundings – this tiny house of Ottla’s. Not shared with a fiancée, but a sister. This place would not do for Felice, it is too small and too spare and too far from the heart of the city. But I feel secure against the winter. Up here in the castle.

As with all the tiny houses on Alchemist Lane, this one has its history of the quest for gold. Thus I fit right in, for I am after such purity.

17 December 1916

Although Ottla seems content with just her Sunday afternoons in this tiny house, I was careful to make certain no one was here before I entered. Since the Alchemist Lane ends in a stone wall, all who enter have to return the way they came. How awkward. Ottla would just smile and ask after my health, it is I who would look at my feet. My love affair of letters would blush on such sure ground. But, we did not pass.

This place is of course a fantasy, a burrow in which to hide through these winter months. It’s barely big enough to bury a man properly, yet before Ottla moved in, a family of eleven crammed their lives into it. Knowing how fortunate I am in this world never seems to help in mine. I thought I might leave both worlds, with the help of the army. Friends and family have told me how grateful I should be that I am unable to join. My official dispensation because I am indispensable to the bureaucracy of the Empire. F. looked upon me in disbelief when I told her I would try again to enlist. Perhaps I can gather the spirits of the necromancers who have lived on this lane to assist me.

18 December 1916

I could, with my broom, sweep away the glory of war. It is less than the dust of this tiny house.

(image) http://www.remodelista.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/objects-of-use-chinese-broom-Remodelista-518×600.jpg

06/28/2016 0

Amazing History Of The Writing Life In The Ice House

My great friend and writing mentor, Nancy Bauer, as wise as the ears she writes about, once mentioned the past on Facebook in regards to a Thanksgiving Day. One of the responses to her comment spoke about our mutual times with the fluid writing group in the gathering place fondly known as the Ice House.

That reminded me of this blog, which I wrote nearly six years ago. It is centred around the Ice House and the passage of time. I’m sure Nancy, who writes a weekly newspaper column and has, occasionally, some trouble thinking of topics, will allow me to modify and steal from myself.

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I came across an announcement today about a memorial reading for the Canadian poet, Alden Nowlan. One of my claims to fame is being mistaken for Alden – sadly three years after he died. Perhaps I had had a rough night the night before. At any rate, at this memorial reading a number of the readers are known to me and come from my ‘era’. One of the things some of us shared was that we were members of the same writing group. This group met on Tuesday nights for two to three hours, reading and commenting on each others work. Save for one Master’s Thesis that I know of, not enough has been written about this long-lasted group. And much could be written. Many notables passed through the door and many eventually-established authors emerged.

Although the building where we met had the proper name of McCord Hall, it was in fact the very old converted Ice House of the University of New Brunswick. It had been turned fancy with wooden beams and high windows and a long impressive wooden table. The Ice House is in current use as I speak, designated as an English Graduate seminar room. There is even coffee.

Indeed, just recently I wrote a brief story about the Ice House for a CBC contest. It went, in its entirety:

When the august Ice House Gang was in its writing heyday at the University of New Brunswick, the saintly Nancy Bauer was looked upon as our revered Mentor. She was calm and fair, even to the untutored and raunchy. Once, while one of our more seamy members was reading out-and-out pornography, I began to rub my foot against her leg. A look of confusion crossed her face and then, with a voice etched in acid, she loudly announced: “That Estey is feeling me up under the table.”

I did not win.

However, perhaps the reason is because of the following. This is part of the description of the memorial reading for Alden:

Along with Nowlan, former University of New Brunswick professor Bob Gibbs was a member of the “Ice House Gang”, a group of faculty members and writers who would gather in an old stone hut on College Hill

Oh, and this is the Ice House itself.

McCord Hall
I know much is in the eye of the beholder, but…

(image)
http://www.heritagefredericton.org/node/154

05/04/2016 0

Ship Voyage, Crew and Chickens in the 14th Century

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From China Lily

{A 14th Century sea voyage}

More than once he had brought chickens on board ship for the voyage. He had been totally unprepared the first time to find the crew (and even the officers) were far more interested in having fresh meat than fresh eggs. They had barely been out of the site of land when some crewmen brought Matzerath two dead chickens. They said that they found the birds fighting and that they were so badly injured there was nothing to do but to wring their necks.

The next time it was just one chicken. Matzerath was told that it had escaped and bashed its brains out trying to get out of the galley. Then there were four chickens, somewhat bloodied, and he was told the chip’s cat had got to them. By now he was down to just a few chickens, and was only mildly surprised when they turned up, in ones and twos, broken-necked near the crude coop he had built.

He toyed with the idea of cooking them in some manner that would repel the crew, but the fact of the matter was that he enjoyed the feast himself.

On a couple of other voyages Matzerath had constructed secure hen coops. He put two layers of wire over the frame and put a lock from his own house on the door. He wore the key, along with others, around his neck. There would be no cats intruding and no chickens getting free to ‘kill themselves’ against the sides of the ship. And things went well – for a week.

Matzerath began to find, one chicken at a time, the members of his flock at the entrance of his galley. The galley was meagre, with barely room for a fire, a preparation space, and some provisions. He was allowed to make hot meal only on Sunday and Wednesday. The ship could not carry much fuel and the crew was (rightfully) terrified of a fire breaking out. Matzerath always had to have an officer present to cook a meal. The flame was always dowsed with copious buckets of sea water when the cooking was done.

The chickens appeared the days he was going to prepare a hot meal. As there was no pretense that the birds had escaped and died, they were plucked and cleaned. Since no one could abide waste on the shop, and because he took a generous portion of breast for himself, Matzerath cooked them without complaint. The carcasses guaranteed a soup for those who didn’t get much of the actual bird, and all went on as before. He eventually found out that some member of the crew, adept with tools as so many seamen were, had untwined and cut the wire in one corner of the coop. he effectively made a flap that he could undo and secure without it being noticeable.

When Matzerath finally found this entrance, his supply of hens was so low that he did nothing. He had managed to have two months of eggs (which did not seem overly appreciated), and some meals of chicken that he himself enjoyed. He also realized that the contest between himself and the chicken thieves eased some of the boredom of the long voyage.

His next time out at sea he also had chickens and a coop. He took pains to make it more secure, and his chickens lasted longer. However, the owners complained about the waste of the chicken feed at the end of the voyage.

On the trip after that, his whole flock caught some disease within the first week.

The birds became bloated and stank within the same day they died. Their feathers were moist and puss formed where they were attached to the skin. There was no space in the coop to separate the ill birds from the others. The captain was swift in his judgement about getting rid of the corpses. He feared the disease might spread to his crew. He had seen ships overcome by a rapid wave of sickness. Had it been further into the voyage, the crew might have eaten them but, as it was, Matzerath had to dump them over the side.

(image)http://www.ciaofamiglia.com/emigrants/Ships/Marco_Polo/Marco-Polo-Yarmourh-BAR.jpg

04/08/2016 0

Kafka Was Not Tortured, Sex-Starved Or Crazy

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When Kafka gave readings of his work, he left the audience rolling in the aisles from laughter. He was a polite and considerate fellow, concerned about the people around him. People enjoyed his company. Children adored him.

Reiner Stach has written the most recent – and, it can be safely said – the most definitive biography of Franz Kafka. All three volumes. And he has detailed the life and work of the man, the trials and the dark outlook, the insistent search and recording of the truth that would disturb anyone’s peace of mind. But – almost, it seems, to his surprise – Stach also encountered numerous occasions and writings that show a man far more balanced than most give Kafka credit for. He has collected them in their own book, Is That Kafka? 99 Finds. The book is to be released in an English translation 21 March 2016.

The Nation has printed two excerpts of the book, which I happily include. They show both Kafka’s keen observational eye (he did, after all, write the very first newspaper article describing aeroplanes at an air show he attended) and also his humour. Why, I’m looking at my desk right now.

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Who Was Kafka?
A collection of ephemera complicates the picture of Franz Kafka as a tortured neurotic.
By Reiner Stach
Yesterday 10:32 am

The Paris Metro

In the course of researching his acclaimed three-volume biography of Franz Kafka, Reiner Stach discovered numerous curiosities and idiosyncrasies about the writer that, taken together, complicate the image of Kafka as a tortured neurotic. He loved beer and slapstick. He undertook a fitness regime popularized by a Dutch exercise guru. He tried to cheat on his high-school exams. He used his desk as a metaphor for self-parody and waxed lyrical about the Paris metro. Stach details some of these oddities in Is That Kafka? 99 Finds, first published in Germany in 2012 and forthcoming from New Directions on March 21 in a translation from the German by Kurt Beals. The following two finds are reprinted with the permission of the publisher.
Kafka Takes the Subway

The Metro seemed very empty to me back then, particularly if I compare it to my trip to the races, when I was sick and alone. Even apart from the emptiness, the metro’s appearance showed the influence of a Sunday. The dark steel color of the walls dominated. The work of the conductors, shoving the doors of the cars open and shut and swinging themselves in and out, was in keeping with the spirit of a Sunday afternoon. People walked slowly along each long correspondence (i.e. transfer). The unnatural indifference of the passengers, their acceptance of this travel by Metro, became clearer. The way that people turned toward the glass doors, that individuals disembarked at unknown stations far from the opera, appeared capricious. Despite the elec. light, changes in the daylight are clearly visible in the stations, particularly when you have just gone down, particularly this afternoon light, just before dusk. Entering into the empty terminal station, Porte Dauphine, a mass of pipes comes into view, a glance into the loop where the trains are allowed to travel in a single curve after such a long, straight trip. It is much more unpleasant to go through a tunnel in a railway train, in the Metro there is no trace of that oppression that the passenger feels beneath the mass of the mountain (even if it is held in check). You also aren’t far from people, it is a city facility, e.g., like the water in the pipes. Leaping backward when disembarking, then moving forward again, all the more forcefully. This disembarking on the same level. Small offices with a telephone and a bell apparatus, usually empty, direct the operation. Max likes to look in. The noise of the Metro was terrible when I took it for the first time in my life, from Montmartre to the grand boulevards. Aside from that it isn’t bad, rather it even intensifies the pleasant, calm feeling of speed. The advertisement for Dubonnet is very well-suited to being read, expected, and observed by sad and unoccupied passengers. Elimination of language from commerce, since one does not have to speak when paying, or when getting on or off. Because it is so easy to understand, the Metro offers the best opportunity for an eager, weakly foreigner to assure himself that he has quickly and correctly made his way into the very essence of Paris on his first try. Foreigners can be recognized by the fact that they are already lost by the time they reach the topmost landing of the Metro stairs, they do not exit the Metro and seamlessly lose themselves in the life of the street like Parisians. And upon exiting, reality only slowly begins to correspond to the map, since, if we had come on foot or by hired car, we never would have made it to this square onto which we just emerged without the guidance of the map

Kafka’s Desk

Now I’ve taken a closer look at my desk and realized that nothing good can be produced on it.

(more) http://www.thenation.com/article/who-was-kafka/

02/12/2016 0

Hitler And Mein Kampf – The Power Of A Book

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As I point out in my self-serving information in As He Is Known, I owe my life to Hitler. If there was no Hitler, there would be no me. Millions of others can also say this but, still, it puts existence into some sort of perspective.

My father – from Canada, met my mother – from England, when he went overseas to fight against Hitler. Otherwise, they would have never met.

Thank you, Adolf.

So it goes.

One of the facts about Hitler (which seems little-reported) is that he made most of his money from sales of his book, Mein Kampf. Yes, his wealth came from his royalties as an author. A guiding light for all of us wordsmiths. Now, it is true that every citizen of Germany was, er, encouraged to buy a copy of the book. But, still.

Mein Kampf is not great literature. It is a mixture of memoir and fanaticism and politics and hate. Hitler’s genius was on the stump, and not on the page. It was banned in Germany after the war until its copyright timed out, which happened this year. And now, though it has always been available if one wanted to delve into it, the book is printed anew.

It is selling like schnitzels.

It is a best-seller. The first printing sold out in a week. It clocks in at 2,000 pages (annotated) and sells for $64US. There are also 15,000 pre-orders. As an author, I am envious.

There are the usual squabbles about the propriety of having such a book published and sold. Fears it will encourage dissent and anti-Semitism. To which I say, look around the world to any day since Hitler killed himself.

01/15/2016 1

kafkaestblog

It is a whirlwind in here

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