Afterthoughts inspired by John Rechy´s City of Night

I´ve been thinking a bit more about the darkness that somehow can be related to other worlds, and not just the world that the narrator is describing. It doesn´t even have to be at night. It can be anytime depending on for an example the mood. The mood can be filled with dark thoughts and the time linger as if it was night all the time. Night-time with its endless stream of either lonliness or filled with joy. Shadows hanging over like deep dark clouds that simply just won´t disappear. The mortality of the heart and soul. In the book the narrator talks about being dead inside while the body lives, the mind and the soul is dead. Almost like a zombie, going through the motions, but without actually living to the fullest. Dark thoughts of pain have entered my mind and the only way to get rid of them somehow is for me to write them down. Let me come out, like a cry in the dark. Numbness feelings as my limps continue to move with the speed of I don´t know what. Just my fingers moving around the keyboard. Trying to somehow get rid of the feeling of emptiness. The dark hole that will swallow you up if you´re not careful. Mindgames playing tricks on you. Imagining things that isn´t really there, or are they? I can never tell sometimes. Somehow I get the feeling that it isn´t all in my head. That it´s actually part of a truth somehow. Whirling thoughts that just keeps spinning round and round and round. The need for someone or something comes hunting me again. Another sleepless night, sitting in front of my computer playing a game in order to get away from bad thoughts whatever they are. The escape of not wanting to feel like a complete fool. But aren´t we all fools in some wacky way. Aren´t we all special as individuals? I like to think so, it would certainly help the insomnia if that was the case. No, I´ll take that back. I truly believe that each one of us got something to give the world, the trick is to find out what it is. But the posibility feels comfortable enough for me at this moment of time.

City of Night by John Rechy

When I first started reading John Rechy´s City of Night I never thought I would undergo such a journey with a book which I´ve now finished after almost two months. This book took me longer to read of two reasons. One is that the book is much thicker than the previous ones I´ve read since I started on this project, second, it was a hard book to get through. Sometimes I thought that I lacked interest in the world which the narrator is telling about. Other times I didn´t understand it completely or it didn´t compell me enough, or I was just simply enduring it. But I promised myself that I wouldn´t shut my eyes, I would go into this world and have an open mind about it. If there´s something that I´ve learned ever since the beginning of May, is that nothing is what it seems like when you first start to read a book and when you have finished it. What I feel now is wonder and fulfillment. The book had a greater power over me than I ever thought was possible. Especially the ending. The ending that left me with such an inspiration to write, to express myself in a way I didn´t think was possible.

It got me thinking and I started questioning topics like lonliness and the fear of intimacy. The narrator searches for some kind of way to subdue and remove the fear of getting too close to someone and he does it through sex. Every person he´s with is like a substitute for something else, something to fill out his lonliness. I sensed it like he´s afraid of being trapped and feeling like he´s got to move from place to place in order to escape from his lonliness and his endless search for something. A search for an identity perhaps or happiness or an escape from himself and what he is feeling or the lack of it even. An endless stream of conscious wonders and selfsearching for the soul. He calls it soulsearching of the city of night. The book is kind of dark, but still it reflects some lights too. The people in the book are in some ways tragic, funny and individual and I found that very interesting. A lot of happy faces or voices masking the true sadness and lonliness of their lives. Despair mixed with happy emotions and expressions. As I´m writing this I´m filled with confusion myself about numerous things in the world. Perhaps that´s why I feel like I can relate to the narrator in some ways. He´s search for something and the feeling of being lost within yourself, whether it´s by choice or not.
Overwhelming feelings comes over me just as I´m writing this. Fellings that I can´t put my finger on what it means. Just words coming out, pouring like raindrops from the sky that seems endless sometimes. When you are flying above the clouds and they look like big chunks of snow, but if you touch it, you´ll know it´s kind of like an illusion. A cover for space and air. It´s like nothingness. Sometimes I wonder why I was placed on this earth. Is it for someone or something? As I feel it, I haven´t figure that one out yet, and that´s ok. Being ok with not knowing is perfectly alright, it doesn´t change anything, it´s just there hanging like a big questionmark.

Short thoughts about The Brown Buffalo

I´ve just finished reading The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo by Oscar Zeta Acosta, and for the first time after reading a book, I´m totally exhusted. It was soo emotional and gripping at times that when I finished the book, I started crying because I felt all drained out. The book evoke a lot of feelings within me and it raises some good points about identity and soulseaching. I´m deeply touched by it and I´m soo glad that I got to read it. I Will definitely read it again. I will write more on my next entry about this book, but for now, this is it.

The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo by Oscar Zeta Acosta

Within a week I will have completed both Hunter S. Thompson´s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as well as Oscar Zeta Acosta´s The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo. When I started this project of mine, I never would have imagined me being so drawn into the worlds of these two books that I´ve become. I thought at first that I should give it a go, and I was prepared for a struggle, that I would feel a need to endure them. Instead I have found myself reading them very quickly because I can´t put them down. I´m already through half the book by Mr Acosta. The way he writes has struck a cord with me. I can feel his lonliness at times and when he describes some of the events in his childhood I can´t help but feeling sad, and at the same time impressed by him. How he handled the rough and tough situations he went through. I feel like I can feel his pain.
I can identify and relate to many things that he writes about. Well, except for the drugs and alcohol, I´ve never been much for that sort of thing, but I don´t have to. The book is more than just drugs and alcohol. The storytelling is what is the core here. It´s so amazing and well-written, and I especially like the sections where Mr Acosta talks about his childhood and upbringing.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

I´ve now finished reading the book and I got to say that I´m surprised over how amazing the book was. Or to be more exact, how I reacted to the book. It took me by surprise how funny and hilarius I found it to be. With rental-cars packed with drugs, Hunter S. Thompson aka Raoul Duke and his attorney is searching for the american dream in Las Vegas in the sixties. I´m soo glad that I decided to start this project, otherwise I wouldn´t have had the pleasure of this book. When I saw the movie which is based on this book, I didn´t really like it and I couldn´t understand it. I tried, but it was still hard for me to comprehend it. Now when I´ve read the book the movie seems different to me now. I think that Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro made the book justice. I can´t see it being any different. I´ve got a whole new understanding for what they were trying to do, and that was the reason why I wanted to do this project from the start. I wanted to be more enlighted and to learn things I never would have taken the time to spend time on otherwise.

For me the way Mr Thompson writes is quite unique. I both understand it and don´t get it, but I find it fascinating and I kept on reading and laughing outload because it was so funny and brilliantly written. I finished it in like two days and that surprised me. I thought it would take me longer, but the whole experience was soo fantastic and I wanted to continue, to find out how it all ended.

Eversince I started reading Hemingway, Dostoevsky and Sartre I´m amazed how easy it is to keep reading their works and still have questionmarks all over my face. I´m amazed over how I try to figure it out and I go back and ponder over some stuff I just recently wanted to know about a special part of the books. I like that, and it gives me great pleasure when I finally get it. I try to turn it around and see things from different perspectives, especially the women in the books. I always try to understand where they are coming from, but instead of pushing it, I let it sink into my brain, and all of the sudden I understand. I will go into more details later hopefully. As it is now I feel my brain can´t think of something more at the moment. It´s just too hot.

Updates and what´s to come + links

I´ve now completed reading five books on the list I´m following for this blog. So far I´ve managed to read:

1. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
2. Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
3. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
4. Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
5. The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky

And I just started reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson. That will be interesting. I´ve seen the movie, but I think I will have a different experience reading the book. I hope I will be able to understand it better. I think that´s why I love the remake of The Wolfman so much. That movie made be become more interested in Benicio Del Toro. I´ve noticed that I look at his acting in a different way now. It´s interesting to see how he manages to build up his characters. I never thought about that before. I´m always fascinated by people who can make you see things from another perspective.

Part of this blog was to watch ten movies as well, and I´ve managed to get hold of The Universal Horror Collection containing:

1. Dracula (1931) Director; Tod Browning Starring Bela Lugosi as Dracula
2. Frankenstein (1931) Director; James Whale Starring Boris Karloff as the monster
created by Dr Frankenstein (Colin Clive)
3. The Mummy (1932) Director; Karl Freund Starring Boris Karloff as The Mummy
4. Werewolf of London (1935) Director; Stuart Walker Starring Henry Hull as the werewolf
5. Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Director; James Whale Starring Boris Karloff as the monster and Colin Clive as Dr Frankenstein
6. The Wolfman (1941) Director; George Waggner Starring Lon Chaney Jr as The Wolfman aka Lawrence Talbot
7. Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman (1943) Director; Roy William Neill Starring Bela Lugosi as the Frankenstein-monster and Lon Chaney Jr as The Wolfman
8. Phantom of the Opera (1943) Director; Arthur Lubin Starring Claude Rains as The Phantom
9. House of Frankenstein (1944) Director; Erle C Kenton Starring Boris Karloff as Dr Gustav Niemann and Lon Chaney Jr as The Wolfman
10. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) Director; Jack Arnold Starring Richard Carlson as Dr David Reed

If you want to know more about which books and movies I´m going to watch, go to these websites:

http://www.beniciodeltoro.com/biography.htm

http://www.beniciodeltoro.ca/ArticlesArchivesBlackBookDec2000.htm

Some of the movies that are listed amoung Benicio´s favourites have been kind of hard to find so I will try and read more books than what I first intended. It´s going to be books that are connected somehow with Benicio or his work, but also books I´ve been inspired to read because of what I´ve found in a bookstore. I used to be good at locating books a long time ago, but I kind of lost that when I didn´t keep it up. Now when I´m into it again, I´ve found some really good books that seems very interesting. That´s what I love the most about my newfound interest in Benicio Del Toro. It feels like I´m not exactly a changed person because of him, but I´ve been more aware of things and interests that´s been a part of me, but hidden or forgotten. You might say he has brought those things to the surface.

http://www.flicksnews.net/2010/03/benicio-del-toro-interview.html

I love this article because it contains my new favourite saying; the ability to see that everyone is different, that you can be smart in different ways. I used to think that I wasn´t smart because I couldn´t think like this or that and I didn´t realise that there isn´t a particular way that you have to be smart in. That´s what fascinated me with this article. Another great interview with Benicio can you find here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4410385919400037051#docid=-3073392062454022045

Ok, this was a little different blogentry, next time I´m going to continue discussing the books.

Thoughts inspired by Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre

So here I am again, writing, letting the words float free like a river. I´ve been thinking a lot about rivers lately. How they run free like the clouds in the sky. I went out this morning and found myself drawn to these clouds that were there. But it wasn´t like I wanted them to be there, I wanted to remove them. I wanted the sun to come out and radiate me with its beaming shines. Look at me sitting here writing about just nothing, and still there is something deeper more profound to this post than all the rest I´ve written on here. I think I´ve been affected by Nausea written by Jean-Paul Sartre. All this philosophical stuff has started to get to me. I think I am in that kind of place now when I just need to let the words come out of me. They have been screaming to come out, and not just these words, but all that I´m feeling inside. To be able to find it though can be hard. It´s not like they can just come up whenever you want them to, they have a life of their own. That´s how I interpret the section of the book I´m reading now.

I wasn´t even going to start writing this, but it just came to me. When I sat on the balcony, another beginning started to take its form, but as soon as I sat down here my fingers started writing something new, like they had a will of their own, and there´s nothing I can do about it. I can just come along on the ride seeing where it leads me. That´s the interesting part. You´re not even aware of what is happening to you, you just keep on writing and it´s not until afterwards that you can read it and reflect on it, like you are someone else. Not the same person who just wrote it.

I just realised that I was going through some kind of a ghostly mission. In search for a piece of paper. Something that I could use scribbling down my idéas and thoughts. I came up in vain and caved in to the computer. All these lost thoughts, and they can just be replaced by new ones. New words and new idéas. I feel it like my well at the moment is filled, where it used to be quite empty. I just need to fill it up more often. It is a relief to start writing again. I´ve always felt the need for it and it gives me such a joy and pleasure. Especially when it floats, when I can just sit down and just write. I don´t even have to give it much thought. That´s what I´m doing now.

I have often wondered why I was placed on this earth. A sort of morbid thinking, but still it has lingered there. I ´ve always felt like I needed to tell a story. To have a purpose in life. Even my dreams are storytelling, usually in form of a movie. The fiction and the reality blends and comes together. I´ve got several stories in my head, and it just needs to be written down. I think I´ve finally found my inner peace for the moment at least. I haven´t had that in a while and I´ve been drifting apart, floating among the skies. I just felt today that for the first time in a long time I know where I´m heading and what led me to this moment. I had to be at a certain place in order to find it. A place where my soul could be nurtured and complete. And there is nothing like that, that moment of satisfaction.