Nation Day

Yesterday was Nation Day in China. That meant flower arrangements and bright streamers and lanterns. (I liked the way the flowers reflected in the wings of this metal bird sculpture.) I thought maybe I heard some fireworks toward evening. But I confess I didn't leave the house all day. I didn't even take out the garbage (which I should have). I'm not sure what other people do on Nation Day, but I stayed in. There can't be too many of these ultra-lazy, anti-social days. But having one once in a while is a great relief from the pressures of living in a foreign country.

Of course some of the bafflements followed me into my room. The first was the brand new frying pan I bought yesterday. It just plain doesn't work on my dinky little ceramic burner. I think this is horribly unfair. When did you ever have to worry about a frying pan not working?! But beyond that, the frying pan even specifies that it can be used on ceramic burners. The burner, however, has other ideas. It seems to feel that there is nothing on it when I put the frying pan down, even though the frying pan is about twice as heavy as the horrid thin ratty little wok that came with the burner. Since the burner thinks nothing is on it, it won't heat up. Some stupid "safety feature." We're in China! Since when did they have safety features for god's sake. But there's no reasoning with it. And I seriously doubt it will be possible to return the frying pan. So I'm despairing of ever cooking anything here beyond a boiled egg or a bit of rice (which burns on the bottom because the pan is too thin). Argh!

I had been planning to have scrambled eggs for brunch, which I somehow or other managed to cook in the old wok, but they were not very good. I had tofu and greens for "tea" (or some such midafternoon meal), also not so great. But I did have this superb pomelo, the largest of all citrus fruits.



Nothing much else to report except that I have abandoned Through the Looking Glass for a commercial recording of Jeremy Irons reading Lolita. Wow, Jeremy Irons is an amazing reader. He really GOT Humbert to a T. Listening to him read the book makes me realize new things about it. For example. I first read Lolita for a class on aestheticism. At the time, I couldn't see very well how it fit with the idea of aestheticism, except for a few tacky rhapsodies about the eponymous character. But listening to the silky voice of Jeremy Irons as the tortured pervert makes me realize that aestheticism is wound through every strand of his character. And I also realized--in the earlier parts of the story, before L appears, which is actually quite a lot of it, more than 10%--that aestheticism easily generates its own principle of conflict within in the plot. If ugliness is what you abhor (rather than wickedness), there is no shortage of it to confront and torment you. Wickedness is hard to make convincing in any modern sort of way; it's too easy to reduce it to a two-dimensional cartoon mustache. But ugliness can be impressive and monumental and complicated by the fact that there is a tension between aesthetic values and moral ones. Ugliness is not necessarily wicked, and if you equate it with badness, there is a leftover unease. The author lets us see past Humbert his narrator to the world of things that Humbert gets wrong. That's the kind of interesting part, and that's why Lolita isn't just a novel about a pedophile molesting a little girl.

A propos of that, I also like the audio book version because it puts the listener in a different relation to Humbert than a reader would have. As a reader, you read Humbert's "I" in your own voice, and in a way it has to be your "I". But when you listen the narrative read out loud, Humbert's "I" takes on a distinct character of its own. You are not forced to identify with Humbert because Humbert is outside of you. Somehow, that makes him more sympathetic rather than less. (Probably Nabokov would not approve!) What really makes him more sympathetic is the superb vocal range of the reader. Again, all I can say is--wow. Maybe paying money for audio books is worthwhile after all, if they're going to be this good. (This one's a loan from Colin's colleague AE.)

Okay, I'll stop now lest you start to think I'm writing some kind of Reading Lolita in Beijing. (Actually a mildly interesting idea, but I'd not be the one to do it.)

That's about all I have to report, except that I caught Queequeg in a superbly silly-looking basking pose. He had fallen deeply asleep in the warm sunlight, so I was able to sneak up and take this picture of him without him ever even waking up. Good little Queequeg. I think he's getting less shy. Yojo, on the other hand, spends almost all his time huddled under the plate. Rarely does he come out and bask, and if he catches even a glimpse of me it's down under the plate again right away, usually for the whole rest of the day. Silly tortles.