5.04.25 Saturday

ONE

Affection may not be love, but it is at least its cousin.

I don’t know what direction the book will take yet, but the beginning is intriguing. We know the hero is a man in his mid-teens and for his 52, he thinks he solved his sex problem. The age of the girl he visits to on Thursdays is also emphasised, apparently for contrast. The girl’s name is Soraya.

Technically he is old enough to be her father, but then technically, one can be a father at twelve.

So he could be old enough to be her grandfather.

The skull, followed by the temperament: the two hardest parts of the body.

All is very vague and specific at the same time in the description of this male hero

Is he happy? By most measurements, yes, he believes he is. However, he has not forgotten the last chorus of Oedipus: Call no man happy until he is dead.

Is it another story like Lolita or My dark Vanessa?

Probably not a very scientific opinion, but I like his idea

His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origins of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul.

Because he has no respect for the material he teaches he makes no impression on his students. They look through him when he speaks, forget his name. Their indifference galls him more than he will admit.

The irony does not escape him: that the one who comes to teach learns the keenest of lessons, while those who come to learn learn nothing.

Madam Bovary is mentioned in a context of her affairs during the day.

He seems to have good looks. And because of the environment he grew up in, he’s a vomanizer. But that only lasted up to a certain age, then it all evaporated in an instant – all his charm.

Then one day it all ended. Without warning his powers fled. … Overnight he became a ghost. If he wanted a woman he had to learn to pursue her: often, in one way or another, to buy her.

He’s a bit of a slut, or not a bit. He sleeps with everyone – colleagues’ wives, bar tourists, whores.

…aging is not a graceful business.

He’s a horny dude in his 50s and he still has a hard-on and desire. But tracking down a woman through a private investigator is a “mega-cool” idea.

6.04.25 Saturday

TWO

The technique with repetition, where the singular is replaced by the plural, is repeated. For example: “a city prodigal of beauty, of beauties.”

And a lot of generalizations:

“Women are sensitive to it, to the weight of the desiring gaze.”

“Wine, music: a ritual that men and women play out with each other. Nothing wrong with rituals, they were invented to ease the awkward passages.”

But in my experience poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of response. Like lightning. Like falling in love.

What is this “romantic nonsense” that could now be considered abusive and harassing.

Because a woman’s beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.

THREE

He stalking again, what a piece of idiot. How deranged and horny do you have to be to sink to that. At least he spent more one-on-one time with a whore.

At least a few drops of reason are glimmering, but apparently they won’t help:

Too far. What is far, what is too far, in a matter like this? Is her too far the same as his too far?

It’s sad that in the mind of a man in his 50s, all he can think about is how to screw some young girl. Can this really be the meaning of life?

FOUR

He’s very presumptuous that Melanie herself wouldn’t denounce him, that it was her father and cousin who made her do it.

The deed is done. Two names on the page, his and hers, side by side. Two in bed, lovers no longer but foes.

Shakespeare, is that you? What’s all this drama for? He didn’t want to form a relationship with her, so what’s his regret now?

At least someone told him everything honestly to his face, if at his age you get into such a mess – you are an idiot and a fool. The ex-wife did a good job, she was very straightforward.

Don’t blame her! Whose side are you on? Of course I blame her! I blame you and I blame her. The whole thing is disgraceful from beginning to end. Disgraceful and vulgar too. And I’m not sorry for saying so.”

SIX

What “a grown man” is he? A stubborn asshole and that’s it:

No I have not sought counseling nor do I intend to seek it. I am a grown man. I am not receptive to being counseled. I am beyond the reach of counseling.

Stubborn, stubborn man. Does he not care what happens to his career? I don’t know what he’s thinking when he refuses to cooperate with the committee.

SEVEN

Dogs and a gun; bread in the oven and a crop in the earth. Curious that he and her mother, cityfolk, intellectuals, should have produced this throwback, this sturdy young settler. But perhaps it was not they who produced her: perhaps history had the larger share.

Why does the daughter address him by his first name and not as her father?

In his thoughts we see his daughter, though he addresses her by her first name as well. We don’t see her thoughts, but the way she lives her life is clearly not the easiest or most typical.

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That’s where my reading journal for this book ends.

You can see how much I was pissed off with the main character. That’s the author’s success, write such a character that would pull emotions out of the reader.

Even after all that, I liked the book. Yes, it’s rough and tough, but it has a point. In a way, he was doing the same thing to someone else’s daughters that a group of guys did to his.

One thing I regret we didn’t see in this book, that he sees it for himself, that there was not so much difference after all between him and the guy that his daughter will spend her life with. Except that that guy, actually will take somewhat responsibility for his deeds.