Published by

Indignity by Lea Ypi

There might be a reason to compare Lea Ypi’s Indignity to her previous book Free, but I can’t get myself to think of one. It is again a sort of an investigation into her family history, connected to a broader situation in the 20th century Albania. This time, she’s writing about a life of her grandmother, and spends a lot of time in archives. Is she academic researcher, or looking into a family history? She keeps being asked and is not sure at first.

They stayed at the luxurious Hotel Vittoria, a resort nestled high in the Dolomites, seemingly suspended in that time-outside-time unique to mountain retreats, where one’s proximity to the sky makes everything unfolding below retreat into the misty distance. They tried to avoid reading the newspapers or listening to the radio, and almost forgot the world was at war. Asllan’s nightmares stopped. (p. 203)

Well, I wasn’t sure too about half way through, because it was going on in very slow pace, but the information value was still high and it kept me interested. It contains many intimate, tragicomic moments. Moreover, story of this part of the world at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is a wonderfully complex situation that I didn’t know much about and which is described here on a human scale. This is not the History of Albania, it’s a personal book and I found a lot of moments there that were kind of familiar. And, on the contrary, some parts of it described things new to me in relation to my own family history.

‘I was never unfree,’ she protested. ‘What most people take for freedom is in fact a sort of slavery to passion: fear, greed, envy. I think we’re only free when we try to do the right thing.’ (p. 315)

I learned a lot here, some of the passages are incredibly beautifully written. Especially the last few chapters are just next level.

Published by

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is one of those books where half of the beauty is having zero spoliers. So how to talk about it without breaking the spell? Piranesi si living alone inside infinite maze. He’s fishing and cooking seaweed, his own existence is tied to surrounding environment and being in service of Great and Secret Knowledge. Many things are unknown. He is exploring and studying in detail what he sees and what is happening to him. And while not much happens at first, the story soon starts to pull you into some kind of magical golden sequences:

Many things are unknown. Once – it was about six or seven months ago – I saw a bright yellow speck floating on a gentle Tide beneath the Fourth Western Hall. Not understanding what it could be, I waded out into the Waters and caught it. It was a leaf, very beautiful, with two sides curving to a point at each end. Of course it is possible that it was part of a type of sea vegetation that I have never seen, but I am doubtful. The texture seemed wrong. Its surface repelled Water, like something meant to live in Air. (p17)

It is really good. Would love to read this in my older teens and I’m not surprised that animated film adaptation is in the works.

Published by

Perils of publishing

Helen DeWitt has co-written a novel, “Your Name Here,” together with Ilya Gridneff. It took over 20 years to publish and if you know the practical and often frustrating side of publishing industry, you can probably relate:

In 2022, a new agent finally sold the novel. Even then, publication was delayed, in part because of the complicated process of printing a book with foreign script, shifting font sizes and dozens of images, including photos of the filmmaker Federico Fellini, the German philosopher Theodor Adorno and the actor Tom Cruise (the book ends, inexplicably, with an image of Cruise, waving and smiling).

(…)

“The only solution, I thought, was to make the impossibility key to the book and use it for comic effect,” she explained.

This seems exactly like a book I need right now and she sounds like a real legend.

Above is cited from a recent profile in The New York Times.

Published by

Week 3: Round Table

  • I’ve been shaking off a mild autumn cold for most of the week.
  • We have a new table at home: it’s round. It has no sides or fronts, so all those who sit around it are equal.
  • Went to see One Battle After Another and I have to say that I was quite pleased with the ticking jazz soundtrack and over-the-top villains. What really worked for me was the pace and editing, it somehow got the energy of Thomas Pynchon novel. It just kept going and going, almost three hours of decent filmmaking surprises. I wonder how much it’s perceived as a political film in the US. For me it was more of a personal epic, but for a Hollywood film it maybe reached the limits of both.
  • Our short Saturday walk led up the hills past an abandoned ski lift and slope. Even at 400 meters above sea level, there used to be a lot of snow.
  • I’ve collected a bunch of barcodes and QR codes from various packages and tickets. Now I’m doing some kind of collage out of that!
  • Only one run again (9K).
  • Thanks, bye

Published by

Week 2: Active Recovery

  • In order of appearance: work, teaching, moving some old stuff out of the house, taking some rest.
  • After some initial stress with admin, teaching always starts to be fun.
  • We had a general election, which I have almost nothing to say about. Aside for the fact that almost all outdoor ads changed literally overnight from ads for people in suits into ads for cars or insurance, which just feels refreshing.
  • Watched Killers of the Flower Moon. It is utterly terrifying true crime movie, but something felt missing there for me, and I suppose I now want to learn more about Osages and other Native American tribes.
  • Also watched a few episodes of Andor S02, which had a funky visual style with all these analog and bulky interfaces, but I almost forgot what was it all about. That unfortunately happens to me with most of the recent Star Wars franchise, sorry!
  • Only one run (10K) this week.
  • Finished reading the essays by Jan Patočka I mentioned last time. Processing some notes on it. This week I’m reading a relatively short, but packed Investigation/Design by Nicholas Nova.
  • Thanks, bye!

Published by

Words 09.2025

BFLPE. Airag. Adventure Tourism. Dynamicland. Atlantropa. Tube Alloys. Scamlexity. Schulze Method. Entscheidungsproblem. Blivet. Hooloovoo. QUESS. Emeco 1006. DWIM. BAMA. Aocicinori. Arrokoth. Aporia. New Topographics. Cold Chain. SkiFree. Archaeoacoustics. JLENS.

Published by

Week 1: Cells

  • More rain, more and more rain. Mood has changed and summer is ending with some occasional sunshine.
  • I watched some of the 90s Agatha Christie’s Poirot. I love the sound of all these people walking, their hard shoes making step step step clap clap. Nice productions, interiors, and it’s mostly one episode, one case. Title designer Pat Gavin created the opening sequence which fascinated me as a kid. David Suchet is perfectly, almost annoyingly … perfect.
  • In the words of Chief inspector Japp: „I don’t know why I bother sometimes. I may as well stay at home and do my garden.“
  • Listening to Mark Frost talking about Twin Peaks on MUBI Podcast made me realise how much I miss working on some collective creative/art project.
  • Some local news! Curious Emil the Elk, who bravely walked accross the densely populated Central Europe (and gained solid following on social media) was captured by Austrian authorities and released to a small population of his kind. Best wishes for him.
  • Running streak: 41 weeks. Managed to do two basic running sessions plus one orienteering local competition (middle distance) near Brno. Did some fine route choices, messed few other ones and very much enjoyed the terrain and all that! The competition map had a nice retro design.
  • I’m currently reading a small book of essays by Jan Patočka, it’s quite interesting but not exactly a bedtime reading.
  • Thanks, bye