Michael Ondaatje's _The English Patient_

Saw the movie years ago, but forgot most of the plot. Somehow my chair likes the book very much and referred to it several times during our discussions of my diss. in the past few years, which made me decide to read it. (ft-- why can't i stop following what she said-- already a compulsive reaction to her words?)

Surprisingly, the language isn't quite my type. Guess the multi plot line/non-linear narrative is truly the strong point here. There's something about its colonialism-war-torture-sexuality-psychoanalysis stuff that I don't like--probably the underlying / unconscious pro-British stance (and in this sense, is Kip the Sikh the character that the author identify with the most)?

Different than Eugenides's (or some of Ishiguro's) books, of which just a few pages make me sure about my love for them, this book upsets me and exhausts me and makes it very hard for me to really "like" it. I quickly finished it over the weekend and returned it to the library on Monday, in an extreme hurry as if keeping it one more minute would leave some irreversible damage to me.

So, here's one more kind of "good" books: it is "good" in such a way that you don't like it completely but at the same time you know you will never ever forget it. (Other kinds: that makes you simply love it and want to read it again and again; that makes you want to write too; that makes you forever miss your experience of reading it for the first time...)

Dear Water,

我想，还是不再开一个了。 以前试过MSNspace, 几次都不习惯，国内的豆瓣我好象也有个账户呢，也懒得用了。看了看MySpace，也是厌倦，再一套个人信息登记，真真假假重新来过，好麻烦。就给你写邮件吧。或者FaceBook上长长留言。这里就留着回头再来吧，你说呢？

从很小时候因为搬家转学就开始有写信的朋友，活到现在，你是最近一段时间最可亲可爱的对话朋友。不管记点什么总有你听和回应，是我何等幸运。前阵子，有一天，翻以前的邮件，看到我07年夏回国时和你还有hualing的信，重读了半天，又感动于你们的关心，心里暖暖的。还有一天，我在华人店买了包瓜子儿给爸妈解闷，就想起你，还是在AA时在你们家聊天时总吃，这几年都没吃过瓜子儿。上个星期我在网上找电影看，又想到你说的《一一》，打开看了，却发现，所有重点早已因为你告诉过我的细节烂熟于心，再没有看的必要，索性关掉。

你论文如何了？交稿时告诉我啊，要替你在心里庆祝。

今天给hualing电话，谈了一会，我的电话死了，作罢。也不想长聊打扰你，就这样写信给你吧。我大约在八月二十一日走，先去教ＥＳＬ，机票仍待定。有太多关于这个工作决定的阴差阳错、争执犹疑，想讲给你听，但太多痛苦琐碎，也没办法电话里说，烦闷里，只觉我这八年每一步都是错。以后慢慢解释，还盼着听你劝慰。

论文加油，祝早日完成计划大功告成！

家长里短的故事电影，我耽溺的不过是变了味的自己的理想。
我在报上的文章后写两句读者评论，却发现编辑根本不会刊登。
有日子没好好念诗了，更担心若再一次学术市场受挫，我究竟该干什么？

看多日不碰的通俗小说，好象不去想，所有烦恼就可以无需过问自行解决。
导师的信，依然是略带不满的催促，是，我仍然不够努力，要改的信，要投的稿，拖得不象话。

跟E说我们下面几个月的安排，他一副理解的让人心酸模样。
抱歉的我，怎么弥补所有过错。

夜晚，对牢一室微光，为自己一路追到三十五岁的文学研究不知所措。隔着海，二十年的好朋友还是那句问话，今年回来吗？我说终于念完了，她说恭喜恭喜。向收到所有其他“Congrats"时一样，我感动于她的关心，却同时意识到我还是无法真正为自己庆祝。虽然饭也吃了，香槟也开过，但，我知道，我仍然没有正视这个八年的结果，这个真正过程远重于结果的东西。这个过程让生活彻底翻转，把自己最不堪的的一面暴露在自己和生活面前。

其实，大概，也没必要想那么多了。

_Harvie Krumpet_

Saw Adam Elliot's short film _Harvie Krumpet_ while E was napping.

The story of Harvie reminded me of what Prof B once said in a class on _Ulysses_ in 2003. Bloom has every reason to give up, to feel depressed or even suicidal, yet he carried on, in spite of all the ugly business of living... Somehow I've always remembered that little comment, the only thing that I really learned from all those painful hours spent on Modernism.

Harvie's life is marked by illness, displacement, and a lot of bad luck. He's never defeated though-- no, it's not precise to comment this way, because for him life is not a question of fighting. Instead, it is simply a journey you go on naturally no matter what. His "carp diem" and naturalist philosophy, which comes as much from the "Horace" epiphany as from a residual memory about his parents, is perhaps just a little effort to make the journey a bit more pleasant.

[Reading the above paragraph again I realized the over use of "to be" sentences -- a problem Prof B pointed out in my term papers that same year. My writing still sucks.]

In the dream, I was reading the book my chair recommended, one on psychoanalysis. I remember leafing through the book in the dream, trying to find the key word with which I was most concerned: shame. Did I find it at all? Only the image of black prints on white pages vaguely stayed in my mind.

We woke up to a day much cooler than yesterday. All our hysteric screams last night faded away, and the apartment seemed oddly empty.

Summer seemed to have forgotten the Seattle area entirely, until today.

Because of E, we "celebrated" the 4th of July seriously like never before. Went to a parade, in spite of the impossibly terrible weather-- there were people in wintry coats everywhere. And E had his raincoat hood on the whole time. He came across the word/concept "parade" multiple times in the past year and finally got to see what it really meant (although he has been to one before--the awesome and famous one of the Davis' Picnic Day--he was too young at the time to remember it). More exciting were the fireworks, which followed a pretty nice concert of the Bellevue Philharmonic. E's interest in the music and the various instruments in the orchestra seemed genuine and made us happy. The fireworks didn't start until 10:05pm, and he was already tired and sleepy by then. Yet the splendid light and color attracted him, and he said his favorite fireworks were those of the golden color. I remember last fall, he often said he liked golden and yellow leaves better than those red red ones...

We're still working on temper control.

天水围的日与夜

很久没看过这么好的电影了。
或者，“好”根本无法表达出我的感觉。白描，几乎没有情节的叙事，却感动无处不在。普罗大众的柴米油盐可以这样近乎纪录片式地记录，但同时显露艺术安排的熨贴巧妙。表现伤感，但丝毫不过多渲染滥情，影片结束真真是余味无穷。

许鞍华在这里的白描，让我想到看贾樟柯时的遗憾。我看过贾的三部片，明白他的社会关怀意图和记录目的，但总觉得缺点什么让我真正喜欢。回味许的手法和取材让我看清自己的偏好：天水围这样的白描是温情的，“美”通过生活真实细节里彰显的“善”表现，即便时有难以承受的人情冷暖，但希望不会破灭。贾的作品，想来想去竟是绝望的。

忽然就真的绝望起来：原因在他描述的社会吧。那形式呢？我还是应该仔细分析一下。

近期新目标：把许鞍华全部电影看一遍。

原来，我不是对电影整个没了兴趣，　哈哈。