As such we’ve chatted about it a bit as I’ve played around with it. I am definitely a subvocalizer and so presumably that is limiting my reading speed in a major way. I read something like 500-700 wpm. This is about as fast as a friend of mine here in China reads English as her second language. I guess I pause less to look up words I don’t know but the notion of reading as fast in Chinese as I do in English seems impossible enough as it is. Her Chinese reading speed is probably faster than her English by a significant factor too.

When I asked if she subvocalizes, I first had to explain what I meant by that, and when I felt like I had succeeded, the answer was a clear no. I asked a few guys at work too (those adjacent to my desk, basically) and after struggling to explain to them as well, the answer was again mostly “no” (that or “I don’t understand”.

The sample size is obviously too small but I wonder if most Chinese readers do not subvocalize what is it about Chinese education or culture or ideographs or whatever that causes them not to develop the habit as I have for reading?

I’m guessing that for the young educated adults of the sixties and seventies, for whom the ultimate horror was the hypocritical conformity and repression of their own parents’ generation, Updike’s evection of the libidinous self appeared refreshing and even heroic. But young adults of the nineties – many of whom are, of course, the children of all the impassioned infidelities and divorces Updike wrote about so beautifully, and who got to watch all this brave new individualism and sexual freedom deteriorate into the joyless and anomic self-indulgence of the Me Generation – today’s subforties have very different horrors, prominent among which are anomie and solipsism and a peculiarly American loneliness: the prospect of dying without having loved something more than yourself. Ben Turnbull, the narrator of Updike’s latest novel, is sixty-six years old and heading for just such a death, and he’s shitlessly scared. Like so many of Updike’s protagonists, though, Turnbull seems scared of all the wrong things.

She flipped open the book and read the blurb about the author aloud “Miranda July is a filmmaker, performing artist, and writer… her first feature film Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)“. (imdb)

I asked if I could borrow the book.

It was a quick read, it’s a collection of short stories and none of them taken individually take a long time to read. A few passages and fragments here and there caught my attention so I’m going to collect those here for my own sake.

The Shared Patio

“What is the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to you? Did it involve a car? Was it on a boat? Did an animal do it? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then I am not surprised. Cars crash, boats sink, and animals are just scary. Why not do yourself a favor and stay away from these things?”

“If you are sad, ask yourself why you are sad. Then pick up the phone and call someone and tell him or her the answer to the question.”

“It’s not your fault. Perhaps this was really the only thing I had ever wanted to say to anyone, and be told.”

Ten True Things

“I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.”

The Man on the Stairs

“I also imagined friends who adored me. These friends think I’m a drag. I fantasize about starting over and eliminating the film of dragginess that hangs over me. I think I have a handle on it now; there are three main things that make me a drag:

I never return phone calls.
I am falsely modest.
I have a disproportionate amount of guilt about these two things, which makes me unpleasant to be around.

It wouldn’t be so hard to return calls and be more genuinely modest, but it’s too late for these friends. They wouldn’t be able to see that I’m not a drag anymore. I need clean new people who associate me with fun. This is my number two problem: I am never satisfied with what I have.”

The Sister

“Men alone often have one or two large things wrong with them, but these are things that the brothers think their sisters should be able to live with. An example of such a problem is: still being in love with one’s deceased wife. This wasn’t my problem; I had never been in love with anyone, dead or alive.”

It Was Romance

“… these distinctions are like shackles.”

“I walked down the hall and saw that Theresa was sitting on the floor next to a chair. This is always a bad sign. It’s a slippery slope, and it’s best just to set in chairs, to eat when hungry, to sleep and rise and work. But we have all been there. Chairs are for people, and you’re not sure if you are one.”

Something that Needs Nothing

“We were anxious to begin our life as people who had no people.”

“It is terrible to have to ask for anything ever. We wish we were something that needed nothing, like paint. But even paint needs repainting.”

“My mind slows down to a rate that would not be considered functional for any other job. I am alive only one out of every four seconds, I register only fifteen minutes out of the hour.”

“There was no way I could ever be in love with her because she was just as pathetic as me.”

“We were always getting away with something, which implied that someone was always watching us, which meant we were not alone in this world.”

“It was a scam. There was nothing in the world that was not a con, suddenly I understood this. Nothing really mattered, and nothing could be lost.”

“I had once believed in a precious inner self, but now I didn’t. I had thought that I was fragile, but I wasn’t.”

Making Love in 2003

“I wondered if I would spend the rest of my life inventing complicated ways to depress myself, “

In general, I’d say [tag]The Paradox of Choice[/tag]: Why More is Less by Barry Schwarz has been a very interesting read. It addresses all sorts of things related to how we have lots and lots of choice and yet people’s “happiness” (subjective well being, I think they call it) tends to be worse where this is the case.

Also, something I am intrigued by is this peak-end concept, wherein people remember only the peak and the end of an experience and judge accordingly. If something is extremely bad, but ends badly but not as badly as the peak, it will be remembered better than something that was just extremely bad for a shorter duration.

There’s lots of random tidbits like this that seem pretty interesting to me as well.

I don’t know what prompted me to pick it up in the bookstore a few weeks ago, much less seek it out in the public library here to finish it. Perhaps I am feeling academic withdrawal or something and reading is my only way to get my fix.

Anyhow, much unlike my time actually in school, in reading this book I actually had some decent questions I wanted to ask and so I went ahead and emailed them over to Mr. Wheelan. He was much quicker about replying than that Freakonomics guy, Stephen Levitt, and I was even in his class at the time. Maybe it’s because he’s not quite the celebrity Levitt seems to be these days. It’s a pity though, because I thought Naked Economics was quite a good read. (Not to say Freakonomics wasn’t, don’t get me wrong).

Unfortunately my questions weren’t really best directed to Mr. Wheelan but the authors of the papers he was citing. And accordingly, I’ve since emailed them my questions instead and am waiting to hear back.

It’s curious to me that I never did this while in school, presumably because any questions about whatever text I was using could be addressed in class, but now that doing that is no longer an option, I am instead moved to following up these questions on my own.

I feel like such a nerd.

Inside that darkness, I saw rain falling on the sea. Rain softly falling on a vast sea, with no one there to see it. The rain strikes the surface of the sea, yet even the fish don’t know it’s raining.

Until someone came and lightly rested a hand on my shoulder, my thoughts were of the sea.”
(Closing lines of Haruki Murakami’s “South of the Border, West of the Sun”)

I put this here because I removed it, more or less, from my facebook profile but felt that I didn’t want to forget the exact quote, and I don’t own the book so… yeah.

“See, how can you do that? Somehow you cannot idolize a place like this. How come I can’t? You’ve been here one day, and you can see into the shadows better than I do after three months.”
“I just don’t want you to lose track of why you came here.”
“God, I wish I had your sincerity. Really. You’re like Gary Cooper.”
“Don’t idolize me now.”
Another pause. “How do I do it?” he asked.
“Not lose track?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t live for their approval. Don’t live for anyone’s approval.”
“Everyone wants approval.”
“That’s just argumentative.”
“They do!”
“Sure they do. But you can take a break from it. Not forever, but a while.” (Bronson 2002: 134)

…

In this sophisticated passage, nevertheless we discover a powerful story with Aristotelian overtones: people are treating me tenderly because they fear hurting me. Doing so, they are hurting me.

…

Eventually the focus of his story shifted:
But after months of insecurity, depression, and shaking fear, the economic causes of his personal problems began to fade from view. All David could think about was, What is wrong with me? Why does’t anyone call me? What have I done wrong He would spend hours bent over his desk, rubbing his forehead, puffing on his pipe, examining his innermost charater, wondernig whether this or that personality flaw was holding him back. Could people tell that he was anxious? Were people avoiding him on the street because they couldn’t stand to come face to face with desperation? Was he offending potential employers, coming on too strong? With failure closing in from all directions the answer came back “It must be me.” The ups and downs of the computer industry and the national economy were forgotten. David’s character took center stage as the villain in his own downfall. (Newman 1988: 6-7)

These quotes don’t really have so much to do with why I found it an interesting read though. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, I just related a bit.

First, the reason I was so tired to begin with, was that last night I didn’t really get so much sleep. I’m guessing about 4 hours maybe? It was weird because I woke up without an alarm or anything, in spite of having only gone to sleep a few hours before. Anyway by the time I was fully awake it was around 9 I think? I put away some laundry and cleaned up my room a bit. I was pretty starved so I ate an avocado and munched on other random snack-ish things like a banana and some bread.

After doing this, I remembered that the book [tag]Self-Made Man[/tag] by Norah Vincent was due back today and I still had about 80 pages to go. I sat down and read that. The last couple chapters struck me as not nearly so entertaining as the first few. It was an interesting read, though I don’t know if I would recommend it. That is, I found her perspectives on gender relations and gender roles to be quite fascinating, but there was too much other stuff that I didn’t really care about. I almost feel that just reading an exercpt will give you a good look at the fun parts and you can skip out on the rest. Maybe I’m being too harsh though.

Anyhow, after finishing that, I spent some more time cleaning off my desk and setting up the old computer which I had gotten back on Wednesday. Once set up I moved some files around, did some backups and other random stuff.

Mike got in touch with me and said he was up for watching the movie [tag]In the Company of Men[/tag], which we had originally intended to do yesterday but that plan fell through. So I biked over to the library, returned my book, then headed over to his apartment. I hung around there for a while and we played on N64 while waiting for his roommate to go pay his rent, as he’d expressed an interest in watching as well.

I find the movie really interesting to watch. As it happens it’s third time I’ve seen it, though the second time had actually been the night before. I was falling asleep then so I missed a bunch of things. They, being Mike, his roommate and his roommate’s girlfriend, all thought that the character of Chad was too unbelievable. I don’t think I really agree with that though, as I feel like there are definitely people who are like that. They didn’t think that he had adequate motive to do all the terrible things he did, but I think otherwise. Anyhow, this is a movie I’d certainly recommend watching, as it does have a bit of humor in it, in spite of being a very dark comedy. I feel like it’s a movie I’ve thought about a number of times ever since seeing it way back when.

After this movie, I headed home and thought to perhaps take a nap. Instead, I stayed up, watched an episode of Arrested Development, and tried to figure out what the schedule was for later this evening. See, today, err, I guess yesterday now, the fifth, was Annie’s birthday. I thought it’d be a nice thing to do to make her a cake, so yesterday I did. There were some loose plans to go see a movie or something, but Annie had a dinner to attend and other key coordinating figures had other plans that evening as well. So I basically had this cake (a raspberry semifreddo torte) sitting in my freezer and I couldn’t get it over there (as I would have had to carry a pot full of berry compote as well) early, and then later we’d go see the movie and presuambly not return to my apartment afterwards. A few phone calls later it was all sorted out though and I got a chance to bring the stuff over before going to see a movie, and leave it there for until we got back.

With this window, I took the opportunity to try and get in a quick nap, which I did succeed with. I got almost an hour of sleep in here, I think.

The plans, as they ended up, were basically to go see [tag]Mission Impossible III[/tag] (or as I understand it’s abbreviated in ads, [tag]MI:III[/tag]), then return to Annie’s apartment to have cake and drinks.

Earlier when I had dinner, around probably 6-ish, I also consumed a fair bit of mild stimulant which I haven’t done for a while so I probably had too much. The expectation being that it’d keep me awake for the next 6 or so hours. Certainly in that regard it’s succeeded. Though at the moment I feel sort of physically awake but mentally exhausted. I don’t know, it’s weird and not entirely pleasant. I think perhaps it’s wearing off now?

That aside, well, maybe related actually, I really enjoyed MI:III. I thought it was a blast to watch and certainly blows the first two movies in the series away, in my opinion. Nary a dull moment, I’d say.

After the movie we all headed back to Annie’s apartment and had the cake. I’d never made it before, but I think it turned out pretty well actually. It looked astonishingly similar to the picture on the recipe site where I found it, and it tasted pretty good to boot. The crust was a little thick around the outside edge so maybe if I make it again I’ll work on that.

And that I think is about everything I did today. There’s probably stuff I missed, but whatever. I’m feeling a bit more sleepy now so I’m going to put this computer away and get some rest. Me and my roommates have decided to spend the whole day tomorrow doing stuff together and we need to be on a train at 10:00 in the morning or something. Hopefully 6-7 hours will suffice tonight. [tags]baking, dessert, torte[/tags]

I was originally inspired to read it because I had started, though not finished, and enjoyed When We Were Orphans, also by Mr. Ishiguro. It’s still sitting on my shelf, but I never get around to reading it because I own it. Anyhow, in addition to having remembered liking When We Were Orphans, I had read in a review of the movie The Island (2005) some reference to it. Apparently this was some great spoiler as when Annie read Never Let Me Go, it came as a big surprise to her what was going on. In spite of the fun of that experience being lost on me, I read it anyway. Frankly I don’t think it ruined much, they spell it out pretty clearly in the first 80 pages (the edition I’m reading is 288 total). Now, some [tag]quotes[/tag]:

He’d done it, he claimed, as a kind of joke. I quizzed him a lot on this point and I suspect the truth was that it was like a lot of things at that age: you don’t have any clear reason, you just do it. You do it because you think it might get a laugh, or because you want to see if it’ll cause a stir. And when you’re asked to explain it afterwards, it doesn’t seem to make any sense. We’ve all done things like that.
19

Tommy shrugged. “I’ve grown up a bit, I suppose. And maybe everyone else has too. Can’t keep on with the same stuff all the time. Gets boring.”
23

All the same, some of it must go in somewhere. It must go in, because by the time a moment like that comes along, there’s a part of you that’s been waiting. Maybe from as early as when you’re five or six, there’s been a whisper going at the back of your head saying: “One day, maybe not so long from now, you’ll get to know how it feels.” So you’re waiting, even if you don’t quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don’t hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you — of how you were brought into this world and why — and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it’s a cold moment. It’s like walking past a mirror you’ve walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.
36

Then suddenly, with the skeleton in an obscene heap on the desktop, she turned away and began telling us how we had to be careful who we had sex with. Not just because of the diseases, but because, she said, “sex affects emotions in ways you’d never expect.”
83

I basically stopped taking quotes at this point because I was too busy trying to finish it before late fees accumulated. I’m not really sure what I think about it yet. I’m going to give it some time to sink in first.

When he looked back on that moment, he wanted to offer others this advice: “Never marry your first Chinese girlfriend.”
pg. 13

He felt lucky. Believing in luck and fate was very Chinese.
pg. 14

Chinese actually believed in good luck, happiness, long life, and other phrases forged in steel and dipped in gold and used to decorate Chinese restaurants and the front of bright-red wedding invitations. To ensure all this good fortune, they backed up their good wishes with cash and jewelry at the appropriate times. Weddings and births of baby boys were big cash days in couples’ lives. When someone died, fake paper money was burned and food was offered to the dead to guarantee a journey without hardship. One did not burn real money; Chinese might be superstitious, but they weren’t stupid.
pg. 20

Did a search for identity have to have symbolic momentum?
pg. 23

A quick interjection here: About 50 pages in, I’d say the novel has got a lot more humor and jokes and such in it than did the movie. That’s not to say the movie wasn’t funny in parts, just… not as much. Anyhow, continuing:

“Your patience with women. I’ve noticed it’s how you flirt with women. You sit and listen. You actually want to be friends, and maybe several years down the road, something hits them and they want to go to bed with you. Women come up and kiss you, sometimes right in front of me.”
   ”Friendly kissess –”
   ”That’s the way you flirt. You walk into a room or a party or a dinner never expecting a kiss, nor do you look comfortable giving or receiving them. Keeping your distance is in itself a very flirtacious act.”
pg. 65

After they hung up, they were both dismayed at the exhibition of their own weakness for each other. Immediately each of them planned for the talk they would have later and planned how not to talk about their mutual lapses.
pg. 78

All the things we know about each other, we can’t unlearn.
pg. 79

Would she only dwell on the details about how they misconnected, miscomunicated, misunderstood? It was ironic to her that the agreement to separate was where lovers finally found their common ground and compliance, their compromise and resignation.
pg. 86

He was worried about not working out, being thirty, buying a new car, getting a better job. There were no political challenges to surmount, concepts to be swallowed, or action to be taken. There were no issues between them except personal ones.
pg. 158

“He’s Chinese, Ma, ” she said in English, followed by six yeses and a good-bye, but the conversation continued.
pg. 166