十一月的河面上飛過 
目的地不明的白鳥
簡略的身影卻有不可辯駁的   篤定

煙灰的放蕩出賣了小心翼翼的風

時間列隊跨過季節的縫隙
步履整齊
而你在冷淡的陽光中枯坐一下午
沉默如雪后公園的長椅

臥室至今沒有窗簾，早晨一睜眼就看見天，烏雲深重，遮擋著天光不能完全放亮。一看表不到八點，想起今天調時間，憑空多出一個小時，象收到一份貴重卻毫無用處的禮物，捧在手裏有些惶惶不知所措。不了然地躺了半天，悻悻地爬起身來。打開窗戶將赤裸的臉探出窗外，欲雨的清晨有種不透明的氣息，伸出舌尖舔一舔潤濕的空氣。可以用試探十一月一號的冰涼，來預知即將面臨的漫長冬季嗎？象害怕游泳的人在池邊伸出腳尖試探池水的深度。自從中了陳昇的魔咒，十一月變成一個特殊的月份。前奏一響起，我就很自動地沉入一種恍惚的寒意。“也許有天，會在別的城市相遇，但是如果我忘記關於半島的失憶千萬不要提起。”一個每天坐在辦公室擔心著被解雇的人也許沒有什麼資格談論wanderlust，但是我想這首歌對我的毒害，在於它暗示的一種破壞欲。無論什麼難題，離開就可以解決一切，只要決然地抽離，驟然斷裂的疼痛就能象酒精一樣清洗一切不衛生的感傷。但是這種近乎於耍無賴似的情緒，本身難道不也是極其不健康的嗎。“見到了海浪和飛鳥，我象石頭一樣忍住悲傷”是值得欽佩的，但是到了後來終於變成逃離，離開就可以失憶，好像賭氣的小孩子轟然推倒搭不好的積木，多少有點跟自己撒嬌的意思。而我自然是沒有什麼感傷可言，衹是在長時間的空白中以葉公好龍的熱情去意淫一種沒來由的悲愴，在換季的時候也算得上是應景的一件事。

看完了《我是貓》，還算蠻有趣的一本書。常常會看到放聲大笑，即使在生活中也難得這麼開心了。然而結局卻寫成那個樣子，有一種被背叛的感覺。

接下來硬著頭皮拿起《金閣寺》。稍微看過中譯本日文小說的都知道大陸的日譯被兩個人壟斷。川端康成的《雪國》是葉渭渠翻的，《古都》就是唐月梅。我之所以那麼不喜歡《古都》，我曾懷疑唐教授要負一大部分責任。不過既然她以大陸的三島由紀夫專家出位，她對川端康成的屠戮我也一聲不吭地忍了。但是讀她《古都》的譯文，眼前情不自禁浮現出一位不要說毫無才情根本就是毫無趣味的大媽，以一種硬充好漢，勇敢的革命心情，帶上“翻譯家”的標籤挺身而出的景象。於是我專門到台灣的網上書店，居然繁體版的一套三島由紀夫都是她老人家名字若無其事地排在旁邊。但是我以一種記吃不記打，心癢難搔到毫無廉恥的心情統統買了下來。

今天晚上翻開第一頁，映入眼簾的是

根據眾人的懇切期望，父親遁入空門。

這個“根據”看得我老大不是滋味，難道一個普通的“應了”或者“因為”不通順地多嗎。不過我訕訕地說服自己大師的用詞劍走偏鋒也是他牛逼之處。緊接著下來

但這塊土地上總是飄蕩著一种預感到海似的東西。偶爾，風絲也送來了海的气息。海上一起風暴，海鷗群就紛紛逃命，飛落在這一帶的田野上。

我痛苦萬狀地閉上眼睛，腦海裏總算如願以償地浮現起那種白鳥飛翔在臨海的田野上空的美麗景象。“一種預感到海似的東西”。。。唐老師初中語文不及格以後是以大器晚成的魄力終于做到文學教授的嗎。“但這塊土地上總是飄蕩一種海的預感”都要好得多吧，可是我不禁遺憾不能知道原文的意境是怎樣的。即便日文原文的順序翻出來就是這樣，可是也應該知道中文裏讀不通吧。我只能夠寄希望與重新在腦海裏構築原文的意境，算對我的一種考驗吧。但是這個“紛紛逃命”。。。真讓人有話不投機半句多的感覺，直想一抬手扔出去。

我缺乏一种沖動。。。換句話說，我要當藝術家，未免太傲慢了。

我想了半天，這裏“傲慢”原來是“狂妄”或者“不自量力”的意思才對吧。

我迎亮看路上，遠處立著一個朦朧的白影。疑是拂曉的曙光，卻原來是有為子。

這個“迎亮”，是一個中文辭彙嗎？“順著微光”也就多兩個字而已啊，至於這麼懶嗎。

我夢幻多年的金閣，就這樣容易地以其全貌展現在我的眼前。

難道她想說的不是“輕易”嗎。。。是校稿的該被解雇還是唐教授白癡啊。

每年初秋天氣驟然轉涼的時候就想起去讀鄭愁予和楊牧的詩。就連驟然轉涼都不是我的語言：

生死俯仰
一種迢迢趕赴的姿態
在持續轉涼的海面上

--楊牧 《故事》，1994

於是在網上定了洪範版的鄭愁予詩集I，II和楊牧詩集I，II，昨天到了。下午步行去Bryant Park的時候，覺得我日後背井還鄉，最懷念紐約的應該就是幾個大道上秋天的下午吧。 當然還有west village的Jazz bars。如此而已了。再讀兩人的詩，覺得在文字的華麗精巧上來說，似乎楊牧還更勝一籌，這是以前沒有的感覺 。其實到了我這個年紀，對漂亮的文字已然有了一種條件反射一般的懷疑，但是楊牧的一些句子，讓我竟然又有了Death in Venice那種心態，完全被它的外觀美征服，極致的美本身就是一種不容辯駁的神意。比如楊牧有這樣的句子：

鐘鳴處，羣鴉畢至
飛來探問寺院中一草率的早殤
。。。
原來他病酒悲秋方才有這些惜別的怔忡

亂鴉飛進寺院，和一個人醉酒後傷秋，應該不是什麼了不起的意象，但是這幾句詞句的安排，完全是音韻上幾乎不可思議的昇華。如果說“早殤”帶來的些微出乎意料是頭兩句的點睛，那後面這一句，即使有 “悲秋”，“惜別”這樣危險而濫俗的詞語，都慰貼地融入綿延流暢的韻律之中，以“怔忡”這樣一個同樣蹊蹺但細想下無比貼切的詞收緊，一股涼意從行段間絲絲滲出。完全是用字的功底。

而鄭愁予的詩，大多美在意象。比如相比上面楊牧那一首，鄭愁予有這樣相似的情景：

鳥聲敲過我的窗，琉璃質的磬聲一夜雨露浸潤過，
我夢裏的藍袈裟已掛起
在牆外高大的旅人木
清晨像躡足的女孩子，來到窺我少年時的剃度，
以一種惋惜一種沁涼的膚觸，說，
我即歸去

這一首單從文字上講，“我的窗”，“膚觸”，特別是“女孩子”，這幾個詞，其實都是相當的突兀拗口，但是最後三句描繪出來的意象，已經比絕大多數整本的愛情小說更淒美動人。這首我從十年前第一次讀到就幾乎立刻可以背誦，那種柔軟纖細是只屬於鄭愁予的。當然他也有金戈鐵馬的句子，比如這首寫於18歲的

是誰傳下這詩人的行業，
黃昏裏掛起一盞燈啊，
來了--
   有命運垂在頸間的駱駝
   有寂寞含在眼裏的旅客
。。。

   有松火低歌的地方
   有燒酒羊肉的地方
有人交換著流浪的方向

這最後一句，直白簡單，但是卻是大氣象的手筆。正如他後來所說“擁懷天地的人，有簡單的寂寞”。

相比楊牧的句子，很多衹能用妖異來形容：

我的白骨已經風化成缺磷的窘態
雨前雨後，卻也
十分憂鬱十分想家
。。。

我的悼祭者流落在外地
有的打鐵，有的賣藥

雨中想家，本來是很普通的意象，詩句從內在意義上講也未曾表達出比這個更深切的意義，但是第二，三句，總是讓我想反復去誦讀，哪怕衹是去放縱自己在那種短暫的聲色上的快感。又比如

眼淚永生等等抽象的，給黃昏的鼓
其餘的猶疑用來榮養一朵猝不及防的花

反復讀了幾遍，也不知道他想說什麼，就是覺得很漂亮，很酷的句子。也許這就是鄭愁予比楊牧出名的多的原因，鄭愁予的美輪美奐的意象，是哪怕不經心的人一看到都會被吸引的， 所以他雖然也有很多上面那種大漠孤煙直一類的詩句，他給大眾的永遠是“我打江南走過，那等在季節裏的容顏如蓮花的開落”這樣纖細柔美的印象。而楊牧的純粹文字上的不可思議近乎詭異的美，不是每個人都願意接受的。

兩位都是相當長壽的詩人，從60年代寫道90年代。然而說到這裏，不能不說相當不敬的一些話。我對鄭先生是非常仰慕的。在波士頓的時候，因為一個好朋友剛好是鄭先生的至交，有幸隨他一起兩度去New Haven鄭先生家喝酒。席間還有另外一位我非常崇拜的康正果老師。有一次喝到酣暢時，鄭先生拿出一首飲酒的詩助興，我自告奮勇地拿來誦讀，結果其中很多古字不認識，硬著頭皮讀下去。念完鄭先生興味索然地說，“好些是古字。。。”這件事十年之後我仍然不能釋懷。這裏要說句對鄭先生不敬的話，看他後來的詩，可以說非常悲哀，有尚能飯否的感懷。而楊牧在九十年代，還有《故事》那樣的詩句，應該說生命更長吧。以及同一詩集裏我也喜歡的一首：

不要追問細節：
遠處
樹葉和喇叭花後面
靠著欄杆的是最憂鬱的事
。。。

不能溶解的是記憶
沉澱在冷卻的淚。我以
求援的神色問你

我無比欽佩他的是，他總能把“憂鬱”，“淚”這種本來讓人看了頭皮發麻的詞去庸俗化。而鄭先生《雪的可能》和《寂寞的人坐著看花》兩本裏，我個人感覺已經沒有能與這兩首相提並論的詩了。當然我作為一個沒有天分的人，衹能說說讀別人的想法，是沒有任何資格來評判的。陳克華曾經鼓勵我說，你一定要持續寫下去，我相信你會成為下一代重要的一個詩人。現在想起這句話，也衹能愧對他的期望。象黃舒駿，是我喜歡的一個歌手，能寫出《何德何能》這樣的歌，以及“屬於我們的精彩，早已經不複存在；我的她再好也衹能愛著我的未來。”所以曾經被認為會成為是羅大佑的接班人。最近看到一篇報導，說他已經完全變成一個生意人，聽到自己從前寫的歌，唏噓有恍如隔世的感覺。也許他自己知道畢竟是才情不夠，所以會早早地對楊明煌說出了”我沒成為你以為的那個人，真的很抱歉“這樣的話吧。

在微弱的晨曦中看完《雪国》，心中充满了无可言说的哀伤。合上书的时候，天已经亮了。抬头望见窗外的河还是安静的流着，只是两岸的树木，已经有了秋天的味道。但是城里的一切都还是离开时候的样子，两个礼拜的时间，似乎就在昨天下午出租车开进曼哈顿的一霎那被无声地抹去了。“穿过县界长长的隧道，便是雪国。”而我两种方式的存在也被隔在林肯隧道两端。想象着又要日复一日在清晨迅速转凉的空气中沿着一大道步行去上班，有一丝安静的绝望，像被风吹起一样在心中上下飘浮，纤细地看不清抓不住，却无比的忉扰。而彻夜的读完这部小说，也许是下意识的抗争一般，想把那种闲逸的日子再延续哪怕一晚。然而一种时空错乱的感觉象乱草一样在心中滋长。在成都，每天下午在那个冷清的院落里就着一壶茶看英文诗。却在回来以后的第一个清晨等待黎明的时候看完这部中译本的小说。然而那种绵长而寂静的凄凉比较起来也许更适合初秋的纽约，在家，无论是安静还是孤单都是舒适惬意的。

一觉醒来的时候看见屏幕上显示飞行高度是3万3千英尺。这个似乎形而上的数字，显示了离开的不可辩驳性。ipod还在响，放到“何德何能”这首歌。很多年前还在波士顿的时候，我曾经跟一个朋友感慨说从来没有过那种为了谁而知足感恩的心情。她说你心思太复杂，那种简单率真的心情你不可能有。这句话我一直记得。而现在突然很危险地想回去过那种简单的生活。岛村的三次雪国之行，无疑也是从现实生活中的完全抽离，所以我想那种爱怜即便真实如冷空气中贴紧肌肤的温暖拥抱一样，他终于也不能投入身心地去依赖于它。“岛村的手也暖和了。驹子的手更加发烫。不知怎的，岛村感到离别已经迫近。”两个人之间的温情永远被模糊但迫切的分离所威胁着。“驹子撞击墙壁的空虚回声，岛村听起来有如雪花飘落在自己的心田里。”这里说的撞击墙壁的回声，是在屋里等待的岛村听到喝醉的驹子陪完客人以后跌跌撞撞地穿过走廊来到他房间的声音。刚读到这一句的时候，不知道为什么觉得很懂，很明白川端康成想要描述的是怎样的一种心情，无限的爱怜混杂着内疚和绝望。这种内疚和绝望，源自岛村的懦弱，对诀别的拖延但深知不能抗拒。

而我在三万英尺的高空，瞬间有了不如归去的想法。

Lately, I feel increasingly lonely in my reading experience. I'm using the word "lonely" in a neutral tone, without the negative connotation usually associated with it. It's as if I'm walking deeper and deeper into a no-man's-land, all the while fully aware of a total disconnection with the real world. I used to think reading makes me a better person, or makes my life more self-sustainable, and to a certain extent, and for a while, it's true. As I gradually broadened my horizon in the literature world, my self-assurance unconsciously grew with it. But that comes with a price, I become ensnared in this massive web I waved for myself. The first symptom is the increasing random quotes popping up in writing and conversation, most of which deliberate and unnecessary. It's the first symptom of a dangerous tendency, of referencing real life to a personal literary universe. As the symptom worsens, the quotes become more tangental and obscure, the worst of them being quotes from myself. Although I can safely say this is not done out of vanity or desire to show off, it does make communication increasingly difficult and eventually self-selective: I increasingly only talk to those who can understand, and eventually, as the web becomes wider-spread and more-exclusive, only to myself. I keep looking inward for validation for every real world experience, labeling it as true or false depending on if a reference is found. When I write about a book, or a movie, it's not really about the book or the movie itself, it's about its location on this value system, or the lack of it.

I think to a very large extent that's the real problem when I was waylaid by the Trilogy. It forces itself into this elaborately waved system, his mastery of words not only commands a force to be reckon with, but also a messages not to be denied. It completely breaks down the system and reduces it to total chaos. It's as if a life-time Catholic finally get a chance to meet to Pope, only to be told it's all really just a hoax. Isn't that to an extent what Salieri thought Mozart did to him? Salieri finally met this person who's blessed with the highest form of talent, but what he does with it, he only uses it to mock the less fortunate ones and music itself.

When I obsessively write about Beckett, after being under his spell, or should I rather say curse, for a good 3 months, I'm fully aware probably nobody will bother to read it except me, myself and maybe yours truly (Yes, sometimes I read what I myself wrote as many as three times). This is really meant for myself rather than for anyone else, I have to write it down to get past it, "move the fuck on, you know?" Like Nathan said. Actually same thing goes for the whole blog, it's an endless, obsessive self-righteous rant about random shit which no one else cares about.

But if anyone ever bothers to spend 2 mins skimming through this blog, he/she probably won't miss the fact that whatever this blog is lacking, it's not biblical references. Many of them have an unmistakeable negative connotation, they are inaccurate, sarcastic and self-serving. To a devoted believer, some of them are right out blasphemy and any number of them might be sufficient to condemn me to a tropical ever after. I guess I'll have plenty of chances then, after all time is no more and all I have is "eternity", to learn from my sins. It's probably safe to say my life is more entangled with the Word than many of the Christians. I first read the Bible when I was 14, then again 17, and all through the years, there are probably not many books I've read that are not in some tangental way related to Bible. I often open it out of boredom, and close it awe-struck. The Word is all engendering, all powerful. In the beginning, God says "Let there be light", and there is light. So God creates the world through words. As opposed to the goddamn, pathetic pagan gods, who have to get their hands dirty and rub clay together to make human. And to me, Bible is just that, the magnificent concoction of words, and nothing more than that. I have zero interests in Christianity as a religion. Prof White once said, "The tolerance many non-believers have towards Christianity is in essence not tolerance at all, but contempt in disguise." I remember how that stuck me like a revelation and an accusation. I thought about it long and hard, but eventually decided I'm ok with that. If I have to pick, out of the seven sins, Pride is something I'm willing to live with. After all, Christians are no stranger to the sense of superiority either. How many Jews were persecuted because they are insolent enough to claim to be the "chosen ones"?

Many years ago, I went to a random party where I ran into this Chinese Christian. Upon learning that it was my first month in US, he must figure I'm an easy target. He wasted no time trying to enlighten me. At first I was, of course, quite amused. Then He tried to convinced me I was lost. I said it's ok someone is giving me a ride home. He sighed, "You are so lost you don't even know it." Being young, I was naturally a little irritated being told I don't know something. I started to walk away and asked him please not to follow me. He said, "You can't turn your back on God, God is everywhere watching you, judging everything you do." I did turn around, and said, "Let me ask you a question..." I did pause a little but I couldn't help myself, "Do you masturbate?" He said "Excuse me?" I said, "Do you masturbate? If you do, does it spoil the fun a little or get you off even more knowing that God is watching you doing it?" I was asked to leave the party, and it was a big hassle for me since I was not driving. That of course is poor judgment on my part, it only showed my ignorance by taking a cheap jab like that. I've learned much more after that, but I'm aware I'm still very ignorant when it come to what it means to be a believer. But I guess I've decided I'm ok with that too.

The fact that he wreaks havoc between the two ends of a book in itself should not be so threatening. After all one of the great past-times of human being is to conjure up all sorts of fucked-up situations and write a book about it. Double-crossing, backstabbing, murder, suicide, adultery, incest, you name it. If there is a sin, there is a book about it. And that's just Shakespears. But of course it's a cliche to say tragedies exist because of their therapeutic values. The indescribable joy of seeing the neigbour's house on fire, is the reason God has forsaken us in the first place. I admit I did derive some sort of odd joy when I fist started to read it: "It's like being molested at parts which I didn't know could be sexual before, shamed by the insolence and mortified by the audacity, but secretly liking it." Cocky. And I paid for it. So what is it in his book that spilled over into reality and hung over my already meager existence like a constant menace? He denied the basic assumptions we, I, built my existence on. The most apparent one is what we know as time.

There is not a single word about religion (if my memory serves me right), but the trilogy in its essense is deeply Antichrist, at least as I read it. It is Antichrist in the sense that it completely denies the continuity of time as we know it, and religion is rooted in the divine continuity. Time started at creation, drags us through an endless variety of living hell which are all our own fault and eventually leads up to Judgment Day. I might very well be a part of this grandiose divine plan, but what it is to me if I don't live to witness the Grand Finale? I met with a financial advisor a couple of weeks ago and he showed me a chart of my life insurance payout scheme. It goes up to 50 years and stops. At my age, when mortality starts to enter into the equation as a real parameter, concepts like "forever" or "end of the world" means very little to me. "Till Death do us apart"? Ok, fine. Maybe. "Love you foever"? Don't think so. But Beckett won't even give me that. Put it this way, his "world" is Already the end of the world. Time comes here to die. No more time, none, no such concept anymore in this "world". There is no memories or hope, no looking back or forward, everything is present, now, happening at the same instant, all jumbled together, in an in-your-face kind of way. This "world" is poetentially more devastating than the Judgment Day, when the earth will be burning and the sky will rain meteoroid (personally I never understand the point of this Holy firework show but like they'd teach you the first day of law school, don't fight the hypo). After this terrible fanfare at least part of the population, presumably, get to go to Heaven and live happily ever after. Again, the concept of time sits awkwardly here. Augstine, in answering the smartass question, "What is God doing before he created the world?", commented "Maybe preparing the Hell for those who dare to ask this kind of questions". Fair enough, but what about After? If the world as we know it finally comes to an end, what's the point of time continuing to exist? If there is no time then there is no "ever after", the chosen ones will be just living in a similar chaos Beckett has depicted. And even with the added blinding lights and endless cotton candies, that would not be a world I'd want to live in.

The immediate impact was somewhat a surprise to me, and I had this feeling of being waylaid from the very beginning. I was no doubt fascinated by the unique approach of narration as well as his mastery (or there are times where maybe the more proper word is “trickery”, with the cunning but not the negative connotation) on the tempo of words. It’s surprising how he can paint the full spectra of total detachment and deliver the utter hopelessness inevitably associated with it, in just a matter of 3 pages. It took Kafka and Camus a whole book to do it. I naturally wondered, and anticipated with excitement, where this high intensity and efficiency lead to. And maybe that was where disaster stroke. Excitement is not me, I don’t get excited, ever. Maybe there is a reason for it. Anyway I digress. Yes, where will it lead to. I turned each page with the excitement of a kid unwrapping his X’mas gift. I found out the answer pretty quick to, and it’s devastating just like how a kid looking forward to a PS3 ended up getting a sweater – it leads to NOWHERE. It’s a reign of Chaos, Chaos in its most profound, frightening and destructive sense. And that’s exact what Beckett intended to convey, and as soon as I realized that, the fear was instilled in me.

In Paradise Lost there is Heaven, which in my mind is always like somewhat a field of blinding light (in a rather unpleasant sense) and floating cotton candies everywhere; there is Paradise, again to me nothing more than an overgrown tropic jungle; there is Hell, which strangely evokes a sense of grandiose and purpose in me, a cradle for the ultimate anti-hero (Blake did comment that Milton is more at easy writing about Hell that Heaven, being a fellow devil of his). And then there is the place that stands between Heaven and Hell, which does not even have a name, where Chaos rules:

Before their eyes in sudden view appear
The secrets of the hoary deep, a dark
Illimitable Ocean without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,
And time and place are lost; where eldest Night
And CHAOS, Ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal ANARCHIE, amidst the noise
Of endless wars and by confusion stand.
For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four Champions fierce
Strive here for Mastery, and to Battle bring
Their embryon Atoms;

…

Into this wild Abyss,
The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,
Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mixed
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more Worlds…

THAT’s the place Beckett has conjured up. The place with no name, the place that nearly swallow up Satan like the raging sea would swallow up a boat:

Audacious, but that seat soon failing, meets
A vast vacuity: all unawares
Fluttering his pennons vain plumb down he drops
Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour
Down had been falling, had not by ill chance
The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud
Instinct with Fire and Nitre hurried him

Now, this is the place initially everything was created from, by the divine intervention that pulled the world out from this ungodly orderlessness. Who, (apparently not even Satan itself), would be audacious enough to send this world as we know it spinning back to that state, by sheer power of his words?

I was at a loss for words, when a particularly cynical friend of mine, in the context of after-lunch speculations on social economics, asked, "how much is a reasonable salary for an English literature professor in a random liberal art college?" I don't have a legitimate counter argument to the underlying accusation that in an ideal society of ruthless economic efficiency, we shouldn't be dragging the dead weight of redundant words. Nor can I come up with a number for the fair market value of what was perceived here as a mere necessary pretense of an "evolved" society. we don't need literature. I don't need literature. Evidenced by the 4-month dry spell. In fact, the 100 or so words I just typed, at 1:10am in the middle of a week, is itself nothing but yet another restatement of maybe the most meaningless cliche. Presumptuously summoning up what's already been beat to death a thousand times, only to commit my personal offense over its corpse.

Just like summer 2003 is a 3 months of uncanny productivity which now only serves as a constant reminder that my best days are already behind me, March 2008 to March 2009 is a year that has left an unmistakable mark on my literature experience and changed it in a way I likely will not experience again. Almost everything I've read in the span of this 12 months had an immediately impact on me in its own profound way, and the resonances of them all eventually proved to be too much to bear. It started with a brief, and I'd say relatively harmless prelude with the Trial, then the first wave of shock came in the form of The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Followed by Crime and Punishment, a heavy dose of what turned out to be more or less nothing. But that two months of half-sleepiness was succeeded by Paradise Lost, which marked the onset of a wallow in Biblical images and metaphors that to this day has not shown any sign of relenting its grip on me. I was enchanted by the metaphysical image of flight like the particular paragraphs had been tattooed in my brain. It also directly caused the ensuing nosedive into Blake (mixed with a brief revisit to Chinese classical writings, for no apparent reason). Upon arriving in Manhattan I took a detour to Anna Karenina. It solidified my genral aversion to the love of an unattainable woman but very little beyond that. Around deep September Borges made his entrance, sprawled a world of imagination and creativity that is almost divine and fascinated me to no end. Although not without its own fair share of Biblical references and speculations, Borges to me read like a boundless green pasture floating on a boundless sea of darkness and chaos, the sea of the Word and everything else engendered from it. "Beast in the Jungle" and "The Turn of the Screw" I mainly read on sunless Sunday afternoons, October, November, in the crispy air by the river side, on the bench facing Queens and over Turkish Gold and a lukewarm cup of Latte. "Beast" is dear and near to me only on a personal level. Then after rain on 1st Ave, snow over East River and wind that dutifully blew in everywhich direction (not necessarily in that order), came January and on the airplane back to China I opened Beckett's Trilogy. A fateful moment, to say the least. In the following two months I've experienced every awe, ecstasy, resignation, jealousy and hatred that must have burnt through Salieri's soul and eventually turned him into the demon, not to suggest I even have the caliber anywhere near his. At a moment of unguarded cockiness I commented, "I worship Borges as a pagan god at his best moments, but I fear Beckett like a Biblical (or should I say more precisely, Blakesque) Devil through and through".

It Shut me Down. I watched my literary vanity lit up as if on gasoline and burnt swiftly to ashes, leaden ashes without a hint of umber. For the 4 months after, I can't so much as read a label on a bottle of shampoo without having a faint feeling of nausea in my stomach. Words disgusted me.