Missing Hong Kong Booksellers + Book Passage of the Week (1/9/2016) – from The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy

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HK booksellers have gone missing, if you haven’t heard the news. One of them was a British citizen, so the CCP is now kidnapping citizens of other countries for publishing books they don’t want you to read.

And don’t doubt for a second they’re behind it. You can’t put anything past the mainland regime. When you operate the strictest internet censorship in the world and require companies to turn over customer data as a condition to do business in their country…yeah, it’s not a stretch at all.

The appropriate response would be to disseminate these books as widely as possible. Far as I know, the book is about Xi Jiping’s alleged mistress. If I had more power, I’d do everything I could to not only publish it but make it as widely read as possible: every language, every country. Fuck your hurt feelings.

As it stands, I’m here, blogging about it. If you want to help, spread the word. Sign the petition. Don’t let them get away with this shit. You think this just stays in Hong Kong? Wake up. It sets a horrible precedent all over the globe.

This passage is from The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. He’s the guy who helped get Confederacy of Dunces published, which is how I knew about him and ended up reading The Moviegoer:

For some time now the impression has been growing upon me that everyone is dead.

It happens when I speak to people. In the middle of a sentence it will come over me: yes, beyond a doubt this is death. There is little to do but groan and make an excuse and slip away as quickly as one can. At such times it seems that the conversation is spoken by automatons who have no choice in what they say. I hear myself or someone else saying things like: “In my opinion the Russian people are a great people, but—” or “Yes, what you say about the hypocrisy of the North is unquestionably true. However—” and I think to myself: this is death.

I felt the same way the other day at work, when people had a length discussion about whether Caitlyn Jenner still has a penis, and does this make him a man or a woman? I can’t even pretend to care about this shit.

 

Book Passage of the Week (1/2/2016) – from George Orwell

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Animal Farm was required reading in 9th grade English. I read 1984 several years later, but only recently have I dove into Orwell’s nonfiction.

Today’s rather short passage comes from the essay Such, Such Were the Joys, collected here.

Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child’s eyes, is that the child is usually looking upwards, and few faces are at their best when seen from below.

The essay is about Orwell’s experiences at a prep school. Besides life at an English prep school in the early twentieth century, it delves into class conflict, the effects of (and reasons for) corporal punishment, psychological abuse … and the authority figures who frightened you as a child:

What should I think of Bingo and Sim, those terrible, all-powerful monsters? I should see them as a couple of silly, shallow, ineffectual people, eagerly clambering up a social ladder which any thinking person could see to be on the point of collapse. I would be no more frightened of them than I would be frightened of a dormouse.

A good read. Check it out.

 

Bloody Marys (from a work-in-progress)

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William and Lisa are having afternoon Bloody Marys, at a beachfront bar in Virginia Beach.

“I’d say that’s about right.” William drank his Bloody Mary. “You’re wrong, you know.”

“About what?”

“The chaser.” He pushed the Sprite to her. “You can have it.”

“I don’t drink carbonated beverages.”

“How come?”

“Unhealthy.”

“But you drink alcohol.”

“Yes.”

“You know, other people might find that a bit weird.”

“Other people can go fuck themselves in traffic.”

“Wow. Didn’t know you had such hatred towards other people.”

“Other people move through time like slugs, unaware of what’s passed until it is well gone. Have you ever been to a nursing home, William?”

He shook his head.

“I worked in one, some time ago, and you could see it on their faces. Eighty years on this world, a regret for every second. Most people’s deaths are a sham. There’s nothing left to die.”

“Bukowski. Impressive.”

“I asked a few what they regretted most about their lives. It seemed a reasonable question, and they were happy to oblige. I think I was the only worker who spoke to them like they were people, rather than dogs.”

“What’d they say?”

“I’ll tell you what they did not say. Not one of them regretted not buying a Lexus, not one of them regretted not getting a promotion at work or not putting in longer hours for more money and recognition. Time treats all of us poorly, but that does not mean we have to treat ourselves poorly too. Do you understand?”

William did. He’d never heard it put like that before. He finished his Bloody Mary, quickly. The way she mixed it was worth way more than a dollar.

“Hey,” he said. “Ready for the beach?”

New Fiction + Book Passage of the Week (12/26/2015)

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If you haven’t already, check out my short story Ghosts, in the Eighth Anniversary issue of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. The story is a reprint, originally published in Terracotta Typewriter. Since Terracotta Typewriter’s gone (and with a cool name like that, it wasn’t long for this world), I thought Ghosts could use another run.

It’s actually from an unpublished novel set in 2007 Wuhan.The book acts as a prequel to Little Red King, featuring a side character from that novel, detailing how he goes from English teacher at Wuhan University to living illegally in Hankou’s back-alleys.

 

Today’s book passage comes from The Given Day, by Dennis Lehane. No commentary; it speaks for itself:

The limestone dunes recalled dreams Danny’d had, ones he’d forgotten about until this moment. Dreams in which he hopelessly crossed vast moonlit deserts with no idea how he’d gotten there, no idea how he’d ever find his way home. And weighing down on him all the heavier with every step was the growing fear that home no longer existed.

Dennis Lehane is a great writer. If you’re looking for a good read, you can’t really go wrong with him.

Book Passage of the Week (12/19/2015) – from Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Cave on Earth

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About a year ago I read Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Cave on Earth, by James M. Tabor. It tracks the efforts of two teams, one led by American Bill Stone to the Cheve Cave system in southern Mexico and the other, led by Ukrainian Alexander Klimchouk to the Kurbera supercave in the country Georgia.

Exploring caves is dangerous. It seems obvious, but Blind Descent opens it up in ways you wouldn’t imagine, from diseases to sound amplification (imagine sleeping next to a roaring 747 for months at a time) to The Rapture, an anxiety attack brought on by prolonged periods in darkness.

And by darkness, I mean complete darkness. Sometimes in spaces so tight you can barely wriggle through. All your light runs on batteries, and all your equipment must be protected.

You also have to deal with sumps, flooded underground tunnels which carry the risk of getting lost, damaging your equipment

And drowning:

Drowning is a cruel way to go. It throws two of the body’s most potent self-preservation reflexes into competition. Trapped underwater, you hold your breath as long as possible, with the urge to breathe growing from a whisper in your chest to a scream in your brain. As the carbon dioxide in your bloodstream builds up, you start to jerk and spasm. Gray fog closes down your peripheral vision. With your vision down to points of light, your fists clenched and toes curled as if in orgasm, your mouth opens not to scream but to inhale involuntarily. Finally, your lungs fill and you become negatively buoyant, floating slowly down, staring at eternity. There may be no good ways to die, but some are worse than others.

All in all, the book is great. Here’s a great interview with James Tabor about supercave exploration and be sure to check out this article about the Krubera Cave and the deepest point on earth, “Game Over”.