1 January - 31 December 2015
In a globalising world that urges the individual to adapt to ever more uniform standards, those who are different in any way are almost necessarily pushed into the role of the outsider, not to say the unwanted freak. Just as much as the different, the new and innovative is perceived as a potential danger. Therefore creators often have a difficult standing. Society favours thoughtless – brainless – “selfless” pawns who want whatever they get and like whatever is in fashion. The long novel The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand portrays a man whose creative force spurs him on against the current of the mediocre and praised mainstream. He knows who he is and what he wants. He doesn’t care what others think or do, even when he becomes the target of power-hungry begrudging schemers. He is simply indestructible, invulnerable, unstoppable.
... and an invitation to join.
Holly and Mistletoe
The workings of the mind are mysterious and our memory isn’t always very reliable, especially about childhood. Some people recall their early years vividly and in great detail, while others seem to remember hardly anything. Moreover, the bits and pieces that have lasted in our minds for many years often turn out to be shockingly incomplete, blurred or even alienated past the recognition of others who were present too. Some memories are so painful that they are downright repressed: access denied until… This is the experience that an ageing novelist makes in So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighbourhood by Patrick Modiano, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2014. When a man steps into his life to return his lost address book, he rouses the ghosts of childhood asking after a person whose long outdated number is in it.
A Boy and a Red Lama on the Diamond Way: Am Grischtdaag
(aus
Drauss un Deheem: 1891/1936)
Sis
Grischtdaag.
Die ganz Welt iwwer
Frei
die Leit sich sehr,
Un
alles is harrlich, as wann der Daag
Vom
Himmel gelosse waer.
Ich
hock allee in mei Zimmer
Un
denk so iwwer die Zeit -
Wie
der Geischt vun Grischt sich immer
Weider
un weider ausbreid:
Un
wie heit in yeder Famillye
Frehlich
un gutes Mut
In
die liewi aldi Heemet
Sich
widder versammle dutt.
Ach
widder deheem! Ach, Yammer! -
Net
all! Deel sin yo heit
Zu
weit vun uns ab zu kumme -
Fatt
in de Ewichkeit.
Net
all deheem! Verleicht awwer -
Unich
behaap's kann sei -
Im
Geischt sin mir all beisamme
Un griesse enanner uff's nei!
So
sin mir vereenicht widder -
Loss
die Zeit vergeb wiesie will;
Ich
drink eich ein Gruss, ihr Brieder!
Verwas
sitzt dir all so schtill?
Weit
ab - iwwer Barig un Valley,
Un
iwwer die Ewichkeit's Brick -
Vun
eich Brieder all, wie Geischdeschall
Kummt
mir Eier Gruss zerick.
(Charles)
Calvin Ziegler
(1854-1930) |
At Christmas
(from Outside and At Home: 1891/1936)
It's
Christmas.
The
whole world over
Everyone's
filled with love,
And
everything's joyful, as if the day
Was
given from above.
I sit
alone in my room
Thinking
about the times -
How the
spirit of Christ always
Wider
and wider shines.
And how
today all families
With
much happiness embrace
As they
gather once again
In the
dear old home place.
All
home again! Oh, not so! -
Not
all! Some today in reality
Are far
from us below -
Away in
eternity!
Not all
at home! Perhaps though -
And I
insist I knew -
In the
spirit we're all together
And
greet each other anew.
So we
are together again -
May the
time go as it will,
I drink
to you a toast, brothers!
Why do
you all sit so still?
Far
away - over valley and ridge,
And
over the eternal bridge -
From
you brothers, like a spiritual echo
Your
greeting returns below.
Original
Pennsylvania Dutch and English version retrieved from Poetry
Soup
|
Modern life in overcrowded cities estranges society ever more from its roots, be they natural, cultural or spiritual. The consequence is that many people are discontent although they have everything they could wish and hope for. They suffer feeling empty, lost and out of place. Looking for a way to salvation, some become easy prey for self-appointed preachers who offer ready-made instructions for everybody leading to quick as well as lasting peace of mind. Others are luckier. Fate pushes them into a situation that allows them to get back in touch with their souls and to restore their natural bond with the world. In Lake of Heaven by Ishimure Michiko the protagonist travels to the place where his late grandfather grew up to scatter his ashes over the old family grave and finds a fading world still in harmony with nature and local culture.
A Novel – Almost – Like A Fairy Tale: 
Espionage is a dangerous trade, especially in times of – hot or cold – war, but not everybody deliberately chooses to enter it. Sometimes, above all in novels, outsiders get mixed up in intelligence work more or less by accident like Graham Greene’s Jim Wormold, the Englishman living in Cuba before Fidel Castro, who is recruited as a spy against his will (»»» read my review of Our Man in Havana) or the middle-aged American protagonist of The Angry Hills by Leon Uris who at first doesn’t even know that Greek resistance against Nazi Germany and British Secret Service have chosen him as unsuspicious and ignorant courier. What starts for the “bread-and-butter” writer Mike Morrison as an innocent business trip to Greece to transfer family money to the USA just in time before war will prevent it turns into a flight from invading German troops and Nazi spies hunting after a sealed envelope containing secret information.