"Nothing is right or wrong...."
December 11, 2005
Ugh�there are a lot of things swirling around my head lately, and a few questions I�d like to put to my readers, but here�s the thing: I�m so tired of talking about myself. As my
Diaryland profile indicates I started this diary so I could learn that it�s okay to talk about myself�something I tend to shy away from in person, unless it�s to tell an anecdotal story to help relate to another person. Like, it�s only okay for me to talk about myself if it�s a means of relating to you (Thanks, Carnegie). Talking about me in general, for the hell of it is not something I feel comfortable doing because, frankly, I don�t think I�m that important or interesting. At some point I started to feel that this way of thinking might be indicative of a problem with my own self-esteem, and thought what better than an �anonymous� diary which can be read by others to help me work on this issue.
So, I�m glad for Rudy�s last post�which as he so kindly emphasized was not an attack on me�because it gave me a chance to sort of mull over some things while not talking exclusively about me. (Uh, at least that�s how this is supposed to turn out. We�ll see.)
First, a little background on how I came to see Maciej Ceglowski�s entry on Kundera:
My recently departed (as in, gone to Canada to pursue a PhD) and much loved co-worker Cherry finished reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being about two weeks ago, or a week before she left us here at the old AAD. The day after she finished it she came into work gushing about how much she�d loved it, and about how she found Kundera�s ideas on love and sex fascinating. This led to a long conversation in which I told her that I felt that he had not really introduced me to any new ideas on those two topics (or that one topic depending on how you look at it), but that even so I appreciated his well-written (though reading it in translation, I do like what I can glean of Kundera�s writing style) thoughts on the matter. I just didn�t think they made for a good novel. A thoughtful, eloquent essay, yes. A captivating novel, no. Cherry countered that she had never considered the idea of separating love from sex, saying that she had never understood how someone could claim to love a person, but still be interested in sleeping with other people, and that this novel had made her understand that way of thinking a little more. I found this odd, but Cherry and I established long ago that we have very different views on relationships. I am more cynical and less emotional, she is more romantic and more heartfelt. Neither one of us has been able to sustain a relationship since moving to Egypt, and both of our most recent long-term ex-lovahs somehow ended up in Shanghai. But that is neither here nor there, really. It�s just something we like to relate on.
In any case, the day after this conversation with Cherry I told my boss, �Monde� about the conversation we�d had. Monde�who came to Cairo about 10 years ago, from Austin, TX as a grad student and just never left, and whom I consider to be a brilliant, well-read woman whose opinions on literature, politics, and culture I value highly�let loose a tirade against the misogynist tripe that is, in her opinion, the ULoB, and the next day she showed me the article posted in the previous entry. (Turns out she attended Middlebury with the author one summer.) She also recommended that I read Kundera�s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, which has also been recommended to me by others who know my feelings on ULoB.
But back to Rudy�s entry, specifically this bit right here: I think the interesting part comes in talking about them in an attempt to understand where another person is coming from, in showing someone what you find beautiful and trying to see things from their viewpoint at the same time. I think that it's in those moments that art can work miracles, and lead to some very hot dates. I feel like I haven't had those moments enough, that they've been overwhelmed by this strange, competitive version of that exchange, where seeing what another person sees isn't as important as defending the tower of your own opinions. I miss the joy that comes from sharing tastes, and if it means that I have to stop being a critic to share my tastes in that way again, I'm ready.
Anyone who knows me knows that a large part of my energies are spent (sometimes, misspent) in attempting to understand where another person is coming from. I thrive on making connections, on putting myself in someone else�s shoes, and on trying to understand what it is that makes them tick. Furthermore, anyone who knows me knows that I generally don�t get off on being right, because I am a highly non-competitive person. (That�s probably why I prefaced the previous entry with saying that I was being petty�I must consider wanting to be �right� and �winning� petty things.) But, I�ve read one other Kundera novel and a couple of his short stories, and these are the conclusions I�ve reached based on this small sample�Kundera doesn�t seem to think much of women, and he makes a better essayist than a novelist, though I agree with Rudy that Ceglowski does not seem justified in declaring the UBoL a bad book.
What I found so...amusing about Ceglowski�s article is that he introduced the UBoL as a dating book, which is in essence what it was for me. Along with a few letters, several phones calls, hundreds of MP3s, and around a thousand emails, JIM and I also exchanged ideas and recommendations on books we had loved. He repeatedly recommended anything Kundera to me, but especially the UBoL, and I promised him I would read it before we met up in Ireland. Unfortunately, I got around to fulfilling that promise at about the same time that our �relationship� took a sharp downturn. Instead of emphasizing JIM�s often dreamy, idealistic, and friendly nature, it reminded me of the little comments he�d made here and there about he had never really been friends with a girl, and how he thought that most women were evil and annoying [�But not you, Newgy.�]. I tried really hard to see something else in the novel, but it was so hard to divorce it from what was going on with the JIM at the time. Furthermore, it only fueled my fear back then that JIM had woken up one day and decided that I wasn�t as cool as he was always telling me he thought I was. I�d somehow suddenly become a Kundera woman in his eyes�I was either annoying and needy, or else I was cold and calculating. (Due to a lack of response to my questions on the matter, I still do not know which. Happily though, it doesn�t matter to me anymore, as I�ve finally managed to move on to a place where I am just happy with what we had for a few months, and no longer sad about what never happened.)
So, I�ve resolved to re-read The Unbearable Lightness of Being at some point, though I dislike rereading a novel in the same year, so it might be a while. I also plan to try out a couple more Kundera novels. I want to like him because people I respect and admire do. But if I dislike him, I want it to be based on a little more than a mildly painful and utterly confusing experience.
So much for this entry not being about me.