A literary gathering
Kenny had invited over some Koreans and Japanese. When I walked in, the party was winding down. The revelers were sitting on the floor with their dregs of Asian booze; Lost in Translation was on TV, but nobody was paying attention.
I was an instant hit. “You are very handsome,” said the Asians. (Males, all of them.)
I decided these guys were all right.
“All Americans are very handsome,” said the Asians.
This irked me, for I knew that by “Americans” they meant gringos, not South Americans. But I quietly forgave them.
Soon I had them debating which was better – Korea or Japan. Or rather, I had the Koreans debating against each other. The Japanese wouldn’t debate that issue; to them, the answer was clear enough.
Then I showed them which novel I’d been reading that day: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. There were grunts of approval all around. “He’s a good writer,” said one of the Koreans. “He describes everything.” “What do you mean, everything?” said his compatriot. “I mean, he describes all the clothes everyone wears,” explained the first Korean.
I hadn’t noticed that, but I’d noticed how Murakami would describe everyone’s food: spaghetti, stir-fry, cheese-and-tomato sandwiches. I really like it when a novelist will do that; it’s a trick I associate with Hemingway. That prosaic sensualist. That glutton.
The first Korean had earned a degree in English literature, but his favorite writer was Yeats. And so tonight I looked at some of Yeats’s poems.
That crazed girl improvising her music,
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling she knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.
No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, ‘O sea-starved hungry sea.’
I was an instant hit. “You are very handsome,” said the Asians. (Males, all of them.)
I decided these guys were all right.
“All Americans are very handsome,” said the Asians.
This irked me, for I knew that by “Americans” they meant gringos, not South Americans. But I quietly forgave them.
Soon I had them debating which was better – Korea or Japan. Or rather, I had the Koreans debating against each other. The Japanese wouldn’t debate that issue; to them, the answer was clear enough.
Then I showed them which novel I’d been reading that day: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. There were grunts of approval all around. “He’s a good writer,” said one of the Koreans. “He describes everything.” “What do you mean, everything?” said his compatriot. “I mean, he describes all the clothes everyone wears,” explained the first Korean.
I hadn’t noticed that, but I’d noticed how Murakami would describe everyone’s food: spaghetti, stir-fry, cheese-and-tomato sandwiches. I really like it when a novelist will do that; it’s a trick I associate with Hemingway. That prosaic sensualist. That glutton.
The first Korean had earned a degree in English literature, but his favorite writer was Yeats. And so tonight I looked at some of Yeats’s poems.
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯
A Crazed GirlThat crazed girl improvising her music,
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,
Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling she knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.
No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, ‘O sea-starved hungry sea.’
⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯