#rm books

[btsfolks]

Namjoon's Library

A library of book recommendations by Kim Namjoon

namjoon's (RM) book recommendations

[booksfornamjoon]

Jung’s Map of the Soul: What do we need to understand about BTS’ new album?

PART I: The relation of The Self to Consciousness

PART II: Persona, Ego and Shadow || PART III: Anima and Animus || PART IV: True Self and the Individuation Process (Coming soon!).

As you might know, it has been announced that BTS’ new album will be called Map of the Soul: Persona. As I’ve been pointing out since my Singularity analysis, Carl Gustav Jung, as well as Freud, Nietzche, Schopenhauer, Hegel and Kant, is one of the main influences of Bangtan’s world philosophy. Demian, the novel by Hesse and inspiration of Wings album, was dedicated to Jung and, just looking at the title (Map of the Soul: Persona), it’s definitely worth it to analyze the so-called Jungian Model of the Psyche. Throughout the different parts, we will study what the Map of the Soul means and, little by little, investigating each of the psychic structures (Self, Anima & Animus, Shadow, Ego, Persona), we will be able to understand the concept of the new album.

(1) The Self:

In the map of the psyche traced by Jung, firstly we need to start by referring to the concept of the “Self” and the human conscience. What are the meanings on these terms in Jung’s theories?

The “Self”, whose etymology is the Latin word “Ego”, is the most important characteristic of the human consciousness, is its centre.

The human consciousness is the state of alertness, what Jung catalogues as “being awake”.

These two parts are the entrance to the psyche, that’s why it is necessary to understand them: the consciousness of the self is a primordial aspect in the study of the psyche.

According to Jung, the “Self” has a social value. He elaborated a description of its functions and recognized the crucial importance of awareness about them. The consciousness of the self is in itself the prerequisite for all psychological research. As human beings, our knowledge is conditioned by the capacities and limitations of our consciousness, so studying it is essential to delve into human psychology. We need to study the consciousness of the self because it’s necessary to make adjustments in this distortion. Jung affirmed that all psychology is a personal confession (Collected Works, vol.4), that is, every psychologist is influenced by his/her personal biases and prejudices. Much of what we take for undoubted knowledge is nothing more than pure prejudice or mere belief based on distortion, fantasy or speculation. Therefore, Jung devoted his efforts to examine the foundations of his own thinking, since it was the method by which he made his discoveries and, after all, sifted the reality that surrounded him to make hypotheses. In this sense, he argued that a critical understanding of consciousness is indispensable for science, especially for psychology and philosophy. An accurate understanding of the psyche comes directly accompanied by the state of one's consciousness. In order to achieve this, Jung wanted to offer a critical understanding of the consciousness, the fundamental objective of one of his main works, Psychological Types, which describes eight cognitive styles that differentiate human consciousness that process information and experience life differently.

But, what’s the relationship between the self and consciousness? We need to analyze one of his texts: Aion: contribution to the symbolisms of the self. This text contains a good synthesis of the concept of psychic structures called: self, anima/animus, shadow, ego and persona.

Jung defines the self in the following way: "It constitutes, in a certain way, the centre of the field of consciousness; and, insofar as it embraces the empirical personality, the self is the subject of all personal acts of conscience” (Collected Works, vol.9 / II). So:

1. The consciousness is understood as a field.

2. The empirical personality is the personality, as we understand it.

3. The self is the center of that field.

4. The self refers to the experience one has of oneself as the center of a desire, of an act, of a reflection.

The text continues with a comment on the function of the self in the psyche: "The relationship between a psychic content and the self constitutes the criterion of the conscious, since, for a content to be conscious, it is necessary for a subject to represent it" (Collected Works, vol.8).

1. The “Self” is the "subject" where the psychic contents are "represented", it is like a mirror.  The self is a sort of mirror in which the psyche can see itself and thus become conscious.

2. The connection with the self is the necessary condition for something to become conscious, be it an emotion or a thought.

3. According to the degree to which the ego takes a psychic content and reflects it, we can say that this content belongs more or less to the realm of consciousness.

4. When a psychic content is only vaguely aware, it is that it has not yet been captured and maintained on the reflective surface of the self.

Jung makes a crucial distinction between conscious and unconscious characteristics of the psyche: consciousness is what we know, and unconscious is everything we do not know. This distinction, fundamental in analytical and profound psychology, states that some psychic contents are reflected by the self and kept in consciousness, where they can be examined and manipulated, while other psychic contents remain outside of consciousness, either temporarily or permanently. The unconscious includes, therefore, all the psychic contents that are outside the consciousness, whatever the reason or the duration of it, and in fact, it constitutes most of the psychic world.  

In the passage of Aion, Jung calls the ego a specific content of consciousness, from which it follows that consciousness is a larger category than the self and that it contains more than the mere me. However, what is consciousness, that field in which the self is located, being its centre? Simply, consciousness is a realization, it is the state of being awake, of observing and recording what is happening in the world that surrounds us and in the world that is within us. All living beings have consciousness; children have consciousness, just like adults, that is, human consciousness, in terms of its essential quality, does not depend on age or psychological development. The opposite of consciousness is a deep dream, the total absence of response and ability to feel. The permanent absence of consciousness can only occur in death.

During the development process, specific contents are added to the consciousness. In theory, consciousness can be separated from its contents (thoughts, memories, identity, fantasies, emotions, words, etc.), but in practice, this is practically impossible. Only someone who is trained in the spiritual arts could divert consciousness from its contents, for example: someone whose consciousness is not defined by previous identifications with selected images and thoughts. For most people, a consciousness that lacks a stable object that takes root seems to be something extremely ephemeral and transient. The substance of consciousness and its feeling of solidity are typically obtained through stable objects and contents such as images, memories and thoughts. These constitute the substance and the continuity of consciousness. However, both the thoughts and functions of the ego consciousness (thinking, remembering, naming, speaking, recognizing) are actually more fragile and transient than consciousness itself. For example: if we suffer a brain damagw we can lose our memory but remain conscious. Therefore, consciousness is like a room that contains and encompasses the psychic contents that temporarily fill it. Consciousness precedes the self that, eventually, becomes its centre.

The self, like consciousness, also transcends and survives the specific contents that occupy the room of consciousness temporarily. The self is a focal point within consciousness, it is its most central and most permanent feature. In addition, it determines what contents remain in the realm of consciousness and which ones fall back into the unconscious. The self is responsible for keeping the contents in consciousness and can also eliminate others by not reflecting them. Following Freud, the self can "repress" contents that it does not like or that are painful or incompatible with other contents.

The self is not fundamentally constituted or defined by the contents acquired by consciousness, it is more like a mirror or magnet that maintains the contents in a focal point of consciousness. But it also disposes and acts. As the vital centre of consciousness, it precedes the acquisition of language, of personal identity, and even of the knowledge of a name. The subsequent acquisitions of the self, such as the recognition of one's own face or name, are contents that are closely grouped around this centre of consciousness and have the effect of defining the self and amplifying its sphere of action and awareness. The self is the eye that sees and has always seen the world, even before it is consciously constructed. In itself it is nothing, it is not a thing, so it is highly elusive and difficult to access. You could even deny its existence. However, it is always present. It is not the product of parenting, development or growth, it is innate. It is true that we teach it to strengthen itself, to know itself, but the nucleus is given from our birth.

According to his description of the psyche, there is a network of associations between the various contents of consciousness. All of them are linked directly or indirectly with the central agency, with the self. It is the energy centre that mobilizes the contents of consciousness and orders them according to priorities. It is the engine of decision making and free will. For example: 

I go to the park to walk the dog

When I say this, my self has made a decision and mobilizes the physical and emotional energy necessary to perform that act. It is the one that directs me and determines the priorities (go directly to the park and don’t get distracted or enter a store). By itself, as defined by Jung, the self is morally neutral, the ego is not a bad thing as usually thought, but a necessary part of human psychological life. It’s what differentiates human beings from animals and human beings from each other: it is the individualizing agent in human consciousness.

[booksfornamjoon]

When I am with you, we stay up all night. When you are not here, I can’t go to sleep. Praise God for these two insomnias. And the difference between them.

Rumi (Balj, 1207-1273)

[booksfornamjoon]

The literary sources of BTS’ “Singularity” (Part II)

Chapter II: Oedipus Rex, the blind who had eyes

* This is a personal and purely philological analysis, that is, centred on the study of literature and/or the language as used in literature.

* This post was originally written in Spanish and translated into English, sorry if there are any errors.

* You can check part I --Narcissus and the problem of self-identity--, here.

* Also, you can check my in-depth analysis of Singularity lyrics here.

As we established in the first part of the analysis, one of the main literary sources of "Singularity" is the classic myth of Narcissus, established in Western culture through the Metamorphosis by Ovid. Remember that Narcissus, the son of a nymph and a god, ends up so enamoured with his reflection that he ends up falling into the water where his beautiful face appears, dying because of his own vanity. We affirmed that in one of the versions of the myth, the mother of Narcissus, the nymph Liriope, decides to visit Tiresias (in ancient Greek, Τειρεσίας), one of the most famous soothsayers of Greek mythology. This character, present as a prophet in all Greek tragedies related to the founding of the city of Thebes --one of the most important social nuclei of ancient Greece-- is not only considered the mediator between gods and humans but between men and women --by its androgynous nature. and between life and death.

[Tiresias appears in front of Odysseus during the sacrifice, Heinrich Füssli (1780-85)]

One of the main tragedies, and the one that will centre this second part, is Oedipus Rex (Oι̉δίπoυς τύραννoς), a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles in an unknown date (it is believed that it was composed around 430 BC). Broadly speaking, the work begins during the mandate of Oedipus, king of Thebes and husband of Jocasta. His glorious reign is dying by an aggressive epidemic of plague and he orders his brother-in-law Creon to depart for the Oracle of Delphi (a sacred temple dedicated to Apollo, built in the Villa of Delphi, Greece). 

The prediction is clear: the plague is a divine punishment because the death of Laius, the previous king, has not been avenged and it will not disappear until the guilty party is killed or sent into exile. After this, Oedipus collaborates arduously to discover the culprit -- to who promises to save his life and only punish him/her with exile--, relying on his citizens and the close members of his family. It is precisely Creon who introduces the character of Tiresias since he advises the monarch to come to him to solve the problem.

OEDIPUS: Teiresias, you who understand all things—what can be taught and what cannot be spoken of, what goes on in heaven and here on the earth—you know, although you cannot see, how sick our state is. And so we find in you alone, great seer,  our shield and saviour. 

We must bear in mind that Tiresias, who appears in this work as a character already known from other mythological cycles --Greek tragedies were represented in the amphitheatres and used to use dynasties of characters that all the public knew-- is a blind fortune-teller. When he arrives in Thebes, he refuses to declare what he knows, even though he was present at the time of Laius' murder, and he and Oedipus confront each other in a heated conversation. Irritated, Tiresias declares that Oedipus is the murderer that Oedipus himself is searching for and insinuates him that he lives in incest with his mother, with whom he has had children, he is not the Theban as he believes and that, shortly, he will be blind like him. Faced with such accusations, Oedipus does not believe him and thinks that the fortune-teller has conspired with Creon to snatch his throne.

TEIRESIAS: I say that with your dearest family, unknown to you, you are living in disgrace.  You have no idea how bad things are.

OEDIPUS: Do you really think you can just speak out, say things like this, and still remain unpunished?

TEIRESIAS: Yes, I can, if the truth has any strength.

OEDIPUS: It does, but not for you. Truth is not in you— for your ears, your mind, your eyes are blind!

TEIRESIAS: You are a wretched fool to use harsh words which all men soon enough will use to curse you.

TEIRESIAS: You may be king, but I have the right to answer you—and I control that right, for I am not your slave. I serve Apollo, and thus will never stand with Creon, signed up as his man. So I say this to you, since you have chosen to insult my blindness— you have your eyesight, and you do not see.

Since the tragedy is extensive, I will try to explain the argument briefly. Finally, Oedipus, who was actually the heir of the kings of Corinth, left his city because of an oracle that proclaimed that he would kill his father and marry his mother. He wanted to avoid the tragedy of his destiny and fled. During the way, he's entangled in a brawl in which he assassinates several people ..., one of them turns out to be Laius. With the intervention of several witnesses, it is known that Oedipus was not the biological son of the kings of Corinth since he had been abandoned on a mountain shortly after being born and saved by a messenger from the kingdom of Corinth. Little by little, Jocasta, his wife, realizes the truth: Oedipus is the son that she and Laius abandoned to their fate so that a fateful oracle would not be fulfilled, unaware that the messenger had managed to save him. Oedipus, oblivious to his true identity, had become a brave citizen of Thebes and, after overcoming the enigma of the Sphinx, took the throne. Married to his mother and having killed his real father, Oedipus stabs his eyes, not wanting to see the tragedy of his existence, and asks for an exile with his two daughters, which marks the end of the story.

OEDIPUS: But the hand which stabbed out my eyes was mine alone. In my wretched life, why should I have eyes  when nothing I could see would bring me joy?

[Oedipus Rex, film adaptation by Pier Paolo Passolini (1967)]

In summary, we can see that Tiresias is the only one, by being ironically blind, who can see the truth in a world full of people who have eyes but cannot see. He's the famous prophet whose true revelation is not accepted when he twice proclaims it. The originality of Sophocles lies in this irony (especially taking into account that Tiresias appears at the beginning of the tragedy), in the belief that the knowledge of the human being is not a simple objective fact that is imposed on us, but a subjective possession before the one we can react belligerently, as a possession that partly needs to be possessed by the one who receives it to become effective. That is why Oedipus rebels against the truth, because he believes more in him than in the gods.

A fatal love, the intervention of a vengeful divinity or the problematization of sight are common themes between the myth of Narcissus, Oedipus Rex and Singularity. If we stop a bit in the lyrics, we can extract some examples:

A sound of something breaking I awake from sleep

We have the fracture, the rupture of the individual once he realizes he's wearing a mask, he's blind.

I dumped myself into the lake I buried my voice for you Over the winter lake I was thrown

The lake, an obvious reference to Narcissus and his death. On the other hand, the second verse talks about a certain culprit (that’s why he says 'for you’ or uses passive verbs that exempt him from responsibility: 'I was thrown’), like if he was even talking to a god, maybe to a woman (that's the simplest interpretation). However, he's talking to himself. He's the culprit of his blindness like Oedipus is.

In addition, another interesting aspect is the last speech of the tragedy. This is said by the chorus, a collective character who comments and judges what happens in the tragedy and represents the Theban citizen, the public. I could not help thinking about the dancers of the video.

CHORUS: You residents of Thebes, our native land,  look on this man, this Oedipus, the one  who understood that celebrated riddle.  He was the most powerful of men.  All citizens who witnessed this man’s wealth  were envious. Now what a surging tide  of terrible disaster sweeps around him.  So while we wait to see that final day,   we cannot call a mortal being happy   before he’s passed beyond life free from pain.

Also, BTS tends to distort the figure of the idol, that is, the famous singer who is seen as a deity and not as a human being. Oedipus, like Taehyung, is seen by the public as a king, as a divine emissary, but eventually ends up being as mundane as the spectators. He suffers, he has doubts and, sometimes, he doesn't love himself either.

Lastly (I KNOW THAT I AM WRITING A LOT), among the main themes of this fabulous work of universal literature, we must talk about the problem of the search for truth and the risks and harms involved in achieving knowledge. Nietzsche speaks of this drama in the 9th chapter of the Birth of Tragedy (1871-1872). The main thesis of this book states that art is based on two fundamental notions that the Greeks of the archaic era and the classical era, ie, the Greeks prior to Socrates, knew: the two fundamental impulses of nature that are symbolized by two Greek gods, Dionysus and Apollo. 

Apollo and Dionysus symbolize two physiological states of the human being: sleepiness and drunkenness; as well as two vital impulses: the individuation (JUNG'S INDIVIDUATION PROCESS!!!!!) and the overflow. Broadly speaking, Nietzsche makes use of the deities to highlight the human condition in its strictest sense and, in turn, unveil the struggle or opposition of forces that hide in the bosom of nature. Apollo symbolizes the veil (the beautiful forms/artistic creations that adorn life and justify it) and Dionysus symbolizes suffering, death, truth..., the tragic wisdom, that is, the terrible awareness of the finitude of Men and his suffering existence. Nietzsche states that the hypertrophy of some of the elements could be harmful to man, an excess of veil could lead to optimism and rationalism, and an excess of truth could lead to suicide or asceticism. Both elements are necessary so that life can be kept in balance.

To end, Nietzsche presents Oedipus as a transgressor, a hero condemned to fall for having tried to go too far. By transgressing nature and social norms, and wanting to find out what is forbidden, Oedipus discovers a world whose vision is forbidden to the rest of mortals. He commits a masculine, heroic version of original sin by choosing to eat from the tree of knowledge that condemns humanity to abandon innocence. In this case, it is his curiosity and his integrity that encourages him to investigate. That abandonment of innocence, of comfortable ignorance, is the cruel and heroic destiny of Oedipus, and his deed consists in his sacrifice (LIKE IT HAPPENS IN 'DEMIAN'!!!). Searching in ourselves, inquiring into our motives and wounds, has a price, it leads to a rupture of the individual necessary for the rebirth of the being.

Thus the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and he enjoys his observation: for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life. It is not only pleasant and agreeable images that he experiences with such universal understanding: the serious, the gloomy, the sad and the profound, the sudden restraints, the mockeries of chance, fearful expectations, in short the whole 'divine comedy' of life, the Inferno included, passes before him, not only as a shadow-play — for he too lives and suffers through these scenes — and yet also not without that fleeting sense of illusion; and perhaps many, like myself, can remember calling out to themselves in encouragement, amid the perils and terrors of the dream, and with success: 'It is a dream! I want to dream on!' Just as I have often been told of people who have been able to continue one and the same dream over three and more successive nights: facts which clearly show that our innermost being, our common foundation, experiences dreams with profound pleasure and joyful necessity (Nietzsche, The Birth of the Tragedy).

I hope you liked this and found it interesting and easy to read. I’m working in the next chapters, which will talk, among many things, about these works/characters/topics:

Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818): A man can create his own monster

Wuthering Heights (Emily Brönte, 1847): Narcissus and Heathcliff

Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brönte, 1847): Understanding the Double - Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason

Alice Through the Looking-Glass (Lewis Carroll, 1871): The mirror symbolism

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886): Evil in a reflected identity

The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1890): Self-image and ego

Dracula (Bram Stocker, 1897): Innate evil without a reflection

Peter Pan (James Matthew Barrie, 1904): Seeking for a reflection in the absence of shadows

Ophelia (from Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, 1603): Madness, water and suicide

From the myth to contemporaneity: how to codify identity and body in the information age

[booksfornamjoon]

BTS’ lyrics as Nietzsche’s aphorisms (Part II)

· You can check part I in here ·

Of all the literary influences that characterize, directly or indirectly, the discography of BTS, Nietzsche – like Schopenhauer and C.G. Jung–, are continuously present in what we could call Bangtan’s world philosophy. The imaginary that surrounds their compositions, of high symbolic and conceptual complexity, establishes relations with the works of universal literature and manages to connect and approach, uniting the educated discourse with the mainstream discourse, an audience of all kinds. For instance, one of those works is Beyond Good and Evil, written by Friederich Nietzsche in 1886. In the aphorisms included in this book (Chapter IV, entitled Maxims and Interludes) we can see to what extent the lyrics of BTS drink from the philosophy of this author, considered one of the most important thinkers of the nineteenth century.

79 ·  A soul which knows that it is loved but which does not love itself reveals its bottom layers - its deepest stuff comes up.

It’s my fate. Don’t smile to me, lie to me, because I can’t get closer to you, there’s no name you can call me. You know that I can’t: show you me, give you me; I can’t show you a ruined part of myself, once again I put a mask on and go to see you, but I still want you (The Truth Untold). 

80 ·  A matter which is explained ceases to concern us. - What does that god mean who advised "Know thyself"? Does that not perhaps mean "Stop being concerned about yourself! Become objective!" - And Socrates? - And the "scientific man"?-

Who says a dream must be something grand, just become anybody. We deserve a life, whatever big or small, you are you after all (Paradise).

81 ·  It is dreadful to die of thirst in the sea. Must you then salt your truth so much that it can no longer - quench your thirst?

I just started walking and ended up at the sea. I’m looking at the coast from here, there’s endless sand and the rough wind, but I’m looking at a desert. I wanted to have the sea so I swallowed you up, but I’m even thirstier than before. Is what I know really the ocean? Or a blue desert? (Sea). 

82 ·  "Pity for everyone" - that would be hard and tyrannical for you, my neighbour.

Follow the sound of the pipe, follow this song It’s a bit dangerous but I’m so sweet. I’m here to save you, I’m here to ruin you. You called me, see? I’m so sweet. Follow the sound of the pipe..., I’m takin’ over you (Pied Piper).

83 ·  Instinct - when the house is burning, people forget even their noonday meal. - Indeed, but people later haul it out of the ashes.

When you called me I became your flower. As if we were waiting, we bloom until we ache (Jimin, Serendipity).

88 ·  We begin to mistrust very clever people when they become embarrassed.

Gonna breathe a little slower, cuz my life and my rap, they’re usually too fast (RM, Forever Rain).  

89 ·  Dreadful experiences lead one to wonder whether the person who undergoes them is not something dreadful.

On the other side of the famous idol rapper stands my weak self, it’s a bit dangerous. Depression, OCD, they keep coming back again from time to time. Hell no, perhaps that might be my true self, Damn, huh, feeling estranged in reality, the conflict with ideal, my head hurts (Suga, The Last).

90 ·  Heavy, melancholy men become lighter precisely through what makes other people heavy, through hate and love, and for a while come to their surface.

I collect myself that's shattered beneath the moonlight. I call you moonchild. We are the children of the moon. I breathe the cold night air: yes, we're livin' and dyin' at the same time (V & RM, 4 O’CLOCK).

91 ·  So cold, so icy that we burn our fingers on him! Every hand that grasps him pulls back! - And for that very reason some assume he's glowing hot.

Kiss me on the lip, lips. This is a secret between the two of us. I am addicted to the prison that is you, I cannot worship anyone else besides you, I knowingly drank from the poisoned chalice (Blood, Sweat & Tears).

92 ·  For the sake of his good reputation who has not once - sacrificed himself?

Even if I’m slow I will walk with my own feet, because I know this path is mine to take. Even if I go back, I will reach this path eventually. I never, I will never, I will never lose my dream (Lost).

94 ·  Maturity in a man: that means having found once again that seriousness which man had as a child, in play.

I don’t have biceps or pecs, I don’t have a super car like Batman, the ideal hero is my fantasy, but all I can give you is Anpan. I’ve dreamed of becoming a hero like Superman, I ran with all my strength, jumping high up in the sky. I’m not afraid of little things like bruising my knees, innocent fantasies of my childhood (Anpanman).

95 ·  For someone to be ashamed of his immorality: that is a step on the staircase at the end of which he is also ashamed of his morality.

I am still the same person I was before. I am here, the same person I was from before, but an overgrown lie is trying to swallow me whole (Jimin, Lie).

97 ·  What? A great man? I always see only the actor of his own ideal.

Rappers who act arrogant, my flow job that takes them all and toys around with them. If you try to damage me with simple words like that I only become stronger (Suga, J-Hope, RM & Supreme Boi, Cypher Part 3).

98 ·  If we train our conscience, it will kiss us at the very moment it bites us.

Yes I hate you, you left me, but I never stopped thinking about you, not even a day. Honestly, I miss you, but I’ll erase you, because it hurts less than to blame you. I try to exhale you in pain, like smoke, like white smoke. I say that I’ll erase you, but I can’t really let you go yet (Spring Day).

99 ·  The disappointed man speaks: - "I listened for the echo, and I heard only praise -"

Me, a shadow behind the stage. Me, in the depth of darkness. I didn’t want to show everything including my pain, but because I’m still unaccustomed I just wanted to make you smile, I wanted to do good, so thanks. Believing in someone like me, dealing with these tears and wounds, so thanks for becoming my light, for becoming the flower in the most beautiful moment in life (2!3! Still Wishing For More Good Days).

[booksfornamjoon]

Day 73

Voltaire (1694-1778) - Candide: or, Optimism (1759)

“I have wanted to kill myself a hundred times, but somehow I am still in love with life. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our more stupid melancholy propensities, for is there anything more stupid than to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away, to loathe one’s very being and yet to hold it fast, to fondle the snake that devours us until it has eaten our hearts away?”

[booksfornamjoon]

Day 74

Paul Auster (1947-) - The Brooklyn Follies (2005)

“‘All right. The story. The story of the doll... It’s the last year of Kafka’s life, and he’s fallen in love with Dora Diamant, a young girl of nineteen or twenty who ran away from her Hasidic family in Poland and now lives in Berlin.

She’s half his age, but she’s the one who gives him the courage to leave Prague-something he’s been wanting to do for years-and she becomes the first and only woman he lives with. He gets to Berlin in the fall of 1923 and dies the following spring, but those last months are probably the happiest months of his life. In spite of his deteriorating health. In spite of the social conditions in Berlin: food shortages, political riots, the worst inflation in German history. In spite of the certain knowledge that he is not long for this world.

Every afternoon, Kafka goes out for a walk in the park. More often than not, Dora goes with him. One day, they run into a little girl in tears, sobbing her heart out. Kafka asks her what’s wrong, and she tells him that she’s lost her doll. He immediately starts inventing a story to explain what happened. ‘Your doll has gone off on a trip’, he says. ‘How do you know that?’ the girl asks. ‘Because she’s written me a letter’, Kafka says. The girl seems suspicious. ‘Do you have it on you?’ she asks. ‘No, I’m sorry’, he says, ‘I left it at home by mistake, but I’ll bring it with me tomorrow’.  He’s so convincing, the girl doesn’t know what to think anymore. Can it be possible that this mysterious man is telling the truth?

Kafka goes straight home to write the letter. He sits down at his desk, and as Dora watches him write, she notices the same seriousness and tension he displays when composing his own work. He isn’t about to cheat the little girl. This is a real literary labour, and he’s determined to get it right. If he can come up with a beautiful and persuasive lie, it will supplant the girl’s loss with a different reality-a false one, maybe, but something true and believable according to the laws of fiction.

The next day, Kafka rushes back to the park with the letter. The little girl is waiting for him, and since she hasn’t learned how to read yet, he reads the letter out loud to her. The doll is very sorry, but she’s grown tired of living with tile same people all the time. She needs to get out and see the world, to make new friends. It’s not that she doesn’t love the little girl, but she longs for a change of scenery, and therefore they must separate for a while. The doll then promises to write the girl every day and keep her abreast of her activities.

That’s where the story begins to break my heart. It’s astonishing enough that Kafka took the trouble to write that first letter, but now he commits himself to the project of writing a new letter every day -for no other reason than to console the little girl, who happens to be a complete stranger to him, a child he ran into by accident one afternoon in a park. What kind of man does a thing like that? He kept it up for three weeks, Nathan. Three weeks. One of the most brilliant writers who ever lived sacrificing his time -his ever more precious and dwindling time- to composing imaginary letters from a lost doll. Dora says that he wrote every sentence with excruciating attention to detail, that the prose was precise, funny, and absorbing. In other words, it was Kafka’s prose, and every day for three weeks he went to the park and read another letter to the girl. The doll grows up, goes to school, gets to know other people. She continues to assure the girl of her love, but she hints at certain complications in her life that make it impossible for her to return home. Little by little, Kafka is preparing the girl for the moment when the doll will vanish from her life forever. He struggles to come up with a satisfactory ending, worried that if he doesn’t succeed, the magic spell will be broken. After testing out several possibilities, he finally decides to marry off the doll. He describes the young man she falls in love with, the engagement party, the wedding in the country, even the house where the doll and her husband now live. And then, in the last line, the doll bids farewell to her old, and beloved friend.

By that point, of course, the girl no longer misses the doll. Kafka has given her something else instead, and by the time those three weeks are up, the letters have cured her of her unhappiness. She has the story, and when a person is lucky enough to live inside a story, to live inside an imaginary world, the pains of this world disappear. For as long as the story goes on, reality no longer exists.”

[booksfornamjoon]

How much I came to love you. How much I loved you. But I'm empty, I lost my way back to that book. I forgot how to love you again. Your memory weighs the same as I imagined at that time. Light as the flames of a bonfire. And I, weak, holding you, terrified to get you down from the stars and not having you near. You are a blessing from heaven. I knew it since I saw you for the first time. Always, I will always be with you. I fear that you will vanish in the fog. No, you would never disappear like that. You would do it in the sunlight. Because you are a golden eagle. You are destined to fly aimlessly to the end of sunset. But I don't want you to do it. Greedily. Even if I know that you are predestined to walk among the clouds. The exploits were useless, the sequels immense. Beyond the world, he smiled. The one that heals. The one that was born to save herself. Because I had been kissed by the fire and would be born among ashes that would burn until the end of the moon.

Collection of Letters (2010-2018)