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msarki

M Sarki

Besides being a poet with four collections published, M Sarki is a painter, film maker, and photographer. He likes fine coffee and long walks. 

M Sarki has written, directed, and produced six short films titled Gnoman's Bois de Rose, Biscuits and Striola , The Tools of Migrant Hunters, My Father's Kitchen, GL, and Cropped Out 2010. More details to follow. Also the author of the feature film screenplay, Alphonso Bow.

Currently reading

L'Appart: The Delights and Disasters of Making My Paris Home
David Lebovitz
We Learn Nothing: Essays
Tim Kreider
Elmet: LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017
Fiona Mozley
Limbo, and Other Places I Have Lived: Short Stories
Lily Tuck
The Double Life of Liliane
Lily Tuck
At Home with the Armadillo
Gary P. Nunn
American Witness: The Art and Life of Robert Frank
RJ Smith
Autumn
Karl Ove Knausgård, Ingvild Burkey, Vanessa Baird
Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd (Reading Edition)
Nick Mason
American Witness: The Art and Life of Robert Frank
J.R. Smith

The Seducer

The Seducer - Jan Kjærstad, Barbara Haveland http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/89114037763/the-seducer-jonas-wergeland-trilogy-1-by-jan

This is a very long book and it is quite amazing to me that any one writer can have this much life experience and still be capable of telling about it. And keep it interesting. Even if research offered the many historical facts adjusted as fiction and presented as anecdotes I would still find it remarkable that Jan Kjærstad could actually pull it off as well as he did. It is a long life story of Norwegian TV celebrity Jonas Wergeland told in circles and repeats, ending at a certain point when the weary traveler and star of his show discovers the love of his life flat-out on a polar bear rug dead-red in their home after being murdered with a Luger. For an enormous number of pages the narrator relates the many stories connected to the life of Jonas Wergeland and how these events all contributed to the dreadful result we are faced with in the very early pages of the novel. The mystery the book blurbs promise it to to be never quite measures up, though the revealing and tantalizing anecdotes all add to a quite suspenseful and fulfilling climax.

There is no possible way in which I might explain this novel. I can say however that as I perhaps too eagerly updated my wife these last few days about each extremely wonderful experience I had while reading this novel she finally replied, “It sounds like a Wes Anderson movie.” So the very best I can do now would be to inform anyone already enamored with the work of screenwriter/filmmaker Wes Anderson that this book is completely up their alley. Throughout the revolving myriad of countless stories related page after page regarding this fascinating life of Jonas Wergeland one is immediately struck by the eccentricities, curiosities, dangers, and clever results in all his affairs. Jonas is quite an amazing individual as are the unlikely heroes in every Wes Anderson film. Over-the-top is an understatement but it makes the reading experience absurdly fun.

A continuing theme for me throughout this first book of a trilogy is how everything is always connected. Each chapter in one way or another returns to visit a previously told story or adds something or other to an unfinished business. I failed to count the many chapters but there are numerous anecdotes involved in getting to know this man Jonas and the principle influences that made up his life. There are several memorable and important characters we meet along the way. By the end of the book almost every question of fate is answered except for the initial mystery of his good wife’s death. I suppose that being the paramount reason for the author making this work a trilogy.

It is quite unfair to focus on the almost undo importance given to Jonas’s “magic penis” or the phallic symbol his aunt employed as a life-long artistic obsession. The truth is that most young men are a bit too interested in that thing between their legs, as are some women perhaps, but there is really nothing to be done about it. Denying, ridiculing, or shaming only makes it worse. But the interesting development in this book for me regarding this phallic obsession is that Jonas himself never seems overly impressed or even brazenly brags about his manly gift. Jonas always is the wanted one in a sexual relationship, which to some of us just might be a mutual fantasy not often shared. He was never the initiator of any of the sexual behaviors in the first place, and for the most part always during the act itself remained on his back on the bottom. And what seemed both beautiful and amazing to the narrator of this tale was the unlikely fact that this magic organ could fairly accommodate and satisfy any wanting vessel, be it large or small. But the book was far beyond such a seemingly shallow thing as this magic penis. It was achingly more about a real tingling up his spine that would climb up and into his shoulders. It was about owning and using his imagination, exploring and revealing human nature, and understanding the world we live in a bit outside of the box rather than remaining stubbornly stuck in our given notions of things as they are.

Given that Jan Kjærstad, like me, was also born in 1953 added more of a connection to his writing. Having the novel placed in the same time period I grew up in offered opportunities galore for me to remember and reflect upon too. I smiled often and always felt satisfied. This is rare in a book for me. In absence of any good explanation of what actually occurred between the covers for me, the bottom line for what I took away from reading this novel was a poignant reminder that life can be comprehended only as a collection of stories. In good time I look forward to my continued reading of the remaining two books in this trilogy.