If on a rainy morning

Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the writers whose work I find awe-inspiring.

For the second time, I am reading “An Artist of the Floating World”. Here is the first sentence:

“If on a sunny day you climb the steep path leading up from the little wooden bridge still referred to around here as ‘the Bridge of Hesitation’, you will not have to walk far before the roof of my house becomes visible between the tops of two gingko trees”.

This reminded me of: “If on a winter’s night…” A quick Google search reveals that ‘the first chapter and every odd numbered chapter are in the second person’. Coincidence? I remember not wanting to read Calvino’s book because he had stolen the title from Shakespeare. I can’t find anything to bear that out, now. Maybe I even tried to read it, but, like A Hundred Years of Solitude among other ‘classics’, I couldn’t get into it. This reminds me of people other people keep insisting I should like, but that I feel indifferent towards. The spark of friendship cannot be commanded anymore than the love of a book, or enthusiasm for a film.

Like so many times when I have had very strong reactions, this one may well have been based on a misapprehension. This is an interesting aspect of psychoanalysis. It brings to light the irrational or subjective nature of strong likes and dislikes. In other words, the world is not at war with me. Why, then, am I at war with the world? However, in a way, the world is at war with me, because the world is at war, and I am on it.

Here is a picture I painted last summer. I photographed it because I will probably re-use the canvas this summer, when the light is right. I don’t particularly like it, which is why I feel tempted to paint over it, but I did it and I accept it and it is somehow a statement that is important to me.