"We wanted more"

that's the name of the first chapter of justin torres' book, we the animals. i highly recommend the book in its entirety, not just this chapter.

There’s also this great, vague quote from some saul bellow novella or short story “I want, I want, I want….”. I think it’s from Henderson the rain king…

this idea has been pulsing through my brain as of late. a vague longing. i think i have too much time on my hands. In theory I shouldn’t. in theory I should have no time on my hands—what with DELTA and all the reading I should be doing (taking a break now). And the nice weather and all the exploration of nature that that anomaly should entail. And yet I’m failing on both these fronts. drinking too much and over-analyzing my life. Good times. Yes, we are creatures of habit. Anyhoo, I did something cultural and life-affirming last week. Yes, in chongqing!

Justin torres, came to the chongqing library last week, transplanted from the chengdu bookworm’s booming literary festival to the wonderland of the chongqing library. There is absolutely no irony to the last half of that sentence. The part that lumps “wonderland” and “chonqging” together.

Torres himself--he’s too young to call mr. torres, and that’s also too formal for ye olde bloggy—was fantastic. A very approachable dude, even though I didn’t really approach him. i’ll recount the days’ events before getting to the substance of the event itself.

Getting any information about the event itself was a difficult feat, the same with any information about the art gallery that I visited last month. Or the band I saw last week, recommended by a friend in chengdu. Chongqing is just not foreign friendly in the same way that chengdu is. cool things exist, arranged/organized by Chinese people, but the thought never crosses their minds that perhaps foreigners would be interested in it. so everything requires a lot of word of mouth, or chance stumblings upon, or vague, tangential mentionings on an expat site. I guess I should just get used to having to dig a little more. Lesson learned.

Anyway, I got information about this event from an in-the-know dude from the bookworm in chengdu. I arrived at the chongqing library (the same site listed in the website the bookworm dude sent) 2 hours early. Because in my experience, something always goes wrong. This is why small things like going to the grocery store create stress. Venturing out anywhere is stressful in china. Not always because of language, but because something usually goes wrong that more often than not is beyond your (my) control.

I talked to about 6 different people at the library. Half of them tried to convince me that I was in the wrong place, half of them just had no idea what kind of event I was actually talking about. Fearing that my crappy Chinese was the culprit of all this confusion, I even had a Chinese friend talk to them. the result of that was that my Chinese friend was convinced I was in the right place, even though everyone at the library still had no idea that there was an event going on that featured a foreign author, and that other people might be attending, thus necessitating some rudimentary knowledge of the existence of said event. Rudimentary in that it exists. In a place. and that place is probably here.

So everyone at the library was telling me I needed to go to a different library in the same district. My friend finally convinced them to let me look around to see if there were any signs of the book, or the author, or other people looking for the same event. This required an escort because you needed a library card to actually get into the meatier sections of the library.

After wandering around for 20 minutes with a charming library aid eager to practice his English (he was lovely, actually. An earnest dude, both with regards to language and politeness. It was sweet--a word I don't use often), I finally met the woman from the library who was in charge of the event. She hadn’t bothered to inform anyone at any of the information desks of the fact that there was a literary event being held there (at this point, in the next hour).

This was about the same time that Justin torres showed up with his crowd of handlers and other random members of an entourage. the library had convinced me i was in the wrong place, and then the foreign writer i'd been asking about arrived. ha ha! crazy foreigner was right! this was after they'd told me repeatedly "you made a mistake."

The woman from the library tried to get me to sit with him, but I declined. Personal space is something that perhaps I over-value, having so little of it here, to the point where I place a surplus of literal and figurative distance between myself and others, whenever possible. self-awareness note: this is not necessarily healthy. Or normal.

he had a gaggle of Chinese women fawning over him, I figured that was overwhelming enough. I didn’t want to force conversation or feign familiarity with him in front of an audience. Yes, I read his book, but that’s what the 2 hours that he was slated to speak were for. To talk about the book.

I imagine that’s one of those things people who create things have to get used to—the arguably profound influence they've inevitably had on every stranger they meet, and the sort of fanatical desire for said fan to fully convey said influence to the source. or the expectations of the general public forced upon them to conform to the idea of “you know, those creative types” or people on pedestals. Maybe they just want to drink a coffee or beer in silence, but instead have to constantly be reminded of “the impact you've had on my life.” I think constantly having to be grateful and/or humble would be exhausting. I’m not saying justin torres is some uber-celebrity, but I think for anyone who puts him/herself out there there has to be a little bit of that.

Anyway (lot of caffeine today….), I introduced myself, shook his hand. He asked “are you with the times?” so that was flattering. Asking if I were a representative from the new york times (they were cooperating with the event—the nyt literary caravan). I said “I’m not with anyone. I’m with myself.” Then I tried, politely, to go sit in the corner away from him and let him have his space. His space for other people to consume. but at least not me.

I do wish I’d talked to him more. Haven’t had a conversation about literature or writing or anything creative in a really long time, let alone with a published author. But again, not keen on doing that in front of an audience who still giggle over the fact that they’re talking to a foreigner. Yes, It was that asinine. But it gets even more so.

Eventually he and his entourage are escorted up to the 3rd floor, my friend and I followed. The room was full of Chinese college students.

Get ready for a long, incoherent attempt at a summary of how ridiculous the day’s events were:

There were 4 foreigners (including me) at the foreign author’s book lecture hosted by the new york times at the library in which no one knew about the event that was taking place in which you had to have a library card to actually get to the location (unless you knew someone) that hadn’t been publicized at all in/on any English-speaking venue (aside from the listing I posted on the expat site, which was only met with a very fair amount of skepticism). Bang. Head. Against. wall. oh yeah, and the part where 6 people tried to convince me i'd made a mistake, was in the wrong place and needed to go to another library. just want to reiterate that.

Even after I shook justin torres hand, I was so overcome by the idiocy of the whole process (after ultimately meeting him in the café directly next to the first information desk that provided no information and told me I was at the wrong place. Full circle, indeed). I was still contemplating the notion of just fucking leaving. I felt uncomfortable and annoyed about/by the whole thing. It’s such a common feeling, too.

But I sat down, and he answered some questions asked by a bookworm representative, translated to the crowd. And it was fantastic. Then he read the first chapter of his novel, and I was able to disappear, to melt into my chair. it was true and pure and made me happy to be alive and to be in the vicinity of someone who used words beautifully. i recorded it, but don't know how to successfully embed it here. i'm not so tech savvy....

In the ELT/ESL/EFL world, we are constantly concerned with the pragmatics of language. boiling language down to its communicative essence. Is meaning being conveyed? this inevitably involves reducing things to a lower common denominator (“lowest” sounds too judgmental), stripping speech and communication of its tangentials and double entendres and punnery and all the other extras. There IS a beauty in the pragmatics of this and in the evolution of a language as it changes to accommodate more and more people, but there is also a space for all that filtered out complication and contradiction and beauty.

Sometimes I want to live in that space. Even if I can’t contribute to it, I want to exist in it.
It’s hard to be in two places at once.

After he talked, there was the q/a portion of the lecture/presentation. This was painful. And very high school feeling.

His book itself is a somewhat autobiographical novel. It is beautifully written, but there isn’t a happy ending. There are dysfunctional relationships/dynamics and recurring themes of escape and brutality. There is a familial break/rupture.

Here are some of the questions posed by over-zealous students and one refreshingly out-of-place old-timer:

“why didn’t it have a happy ending?”

“don’t you know about cultural differences between china and America? why do you think people in china will want to read this? how can they understand?”

“how can I achieve my dreams?”

“how can I get published in America?”

“why did you write this book: are you just trying to get famous?”

“why didn’t they get along?”

i’m just trying to imagine the sorts of questions that might come up were he doing this reading in say, a coffee shop in berlin or paris or any other international city (which is something chongqing purports to be). or even in fucking jefferson city, missouri. Surely there would have been some, um, more probing questions about the process of writing or his writing style or themes or some character analysis or whatever.

The chick from the bookworm asked him a series of questions before the audience did, and they were insightful and reflected someone who’d actually read and considered the book. Then they opened for the audience questions and what had been a seemingly intellectual discussion devolved into “oral English practice with microphone and foreign man.”

Anyway, my eyes are peeled for the next nugget of culture that I’m able to uncover here. just to watch it be butchered. Ever the optimist.