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May. 25th, 2018 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI picked up Kanishk Tharoor's short story collection Swimmer Among the Stars on a recommendation from izilen, and it's one of the more linguistically beautiful books I've recently read.
The stories in this volume are all deeply concerned with language and history and colonialism and loss, playful and sad at the same time. Most of them worked for me, a few didn't quite, but all of them were gorgeous. Rather than attempt to describe them in-depth, I think I'm going to do the Yuletide recs thing and just give a quote from each:
1. Swimmer Among the Stars
Ethnologists visit the last speaker of a language.
With nobody to speak her language to, she began talking with objects, the pots and pans, a creaking door, the sharp corner of a table. She never spoke it with animals because - and here a foreign kind of pride sparked within her - it was never a language to waste on goats. Once, on a rare visit, her son came upon her in the living room, speaking with a teacup. He told her she was going mad. No, she sighed, you don't understand, this is what a conversation sounds like.
2. Tale of the Teahouse
A doomed city turns against its teahouse.
Three days before the khan's army razed the city, the teahouse owner brought out pastries and water pipes, leavening conversation with the smell of jasmine and a thick purple smoke that made it difficult to roll one's r's. The teahouse patrons watched the steam rise from their cups, while one drinker, between bites that shook her jowls, wondered about food.
3. Elephant at Sea
A deeply inconvenient diplomatic gift.
As he readied the elephant for the march on, he wondered how a journey across the seas could change someone. When the elephant regarded its reflection in the still water, did it see a being transformed? Could it? Maybe it was presumptuous of the mahout to think so grandly of the elephant's capacities, its self-awareness, its very sense of the possibility of a self. Perhaps this sad-eyed creature merely looked at the pond and thought: What a miserable excuse for a sea.
4. A United Nations in Space
After devastating global climate catastrophe, the UN has to go somewhere.
Queues snake down the hall from the cafeteria to the single computer lab, where Paraguay and Bolivia quietly catch up on their local football scores - the ball rolls on in the mountains. Kazakhstan leaves his screen, dejected. He hasn't received any message from his government. Maybe they've just forgotten about me, he thinks optimistically. France and the United Kingdom have long given up hope of hearing from their foreign ministries, if such things still exist. They play table tennis in the rec room. Sometimes, they ask for the 1g to be dialed down towards 0g.
5. Portrait with Coal Fire
A conversation between a photographer and his subject.
A name?
(Translator: Yes, a name.)
Why would she say that?
A name. My daughter said, In the magazine, Papa, lots of other people in the photos have names. Some of the animals have names. Even the stars and the galaxies have names, and they're just purple and black and white shapes. But you don't have a name. The magazine calls you a "miner" or "a man" or "the man" or a "coal tender."
6. The Mirrors of Iskandar
A collection of anecdotes regarding Alexander the Great.
You can't be serious, Aristotle said, you can't actually intend to do this. Where's your spirit of adventure, Iskander replied, where's your curiosity? You're going to drown. Nonsense. Everybody else will drown trying to rescue you. If any of my subjects are trustworthy, it's the glass-blowers...they won't let me down. Have some pity, Aristotle said, can you imagine me, at my age, lifting up my robes and diving in after you?
7. The Fall of an Eyelash
A refugee builds a new life, and makes wishes.
What a waste, she thought. Her brother was about to reach the border. The breadth of a single vanished eyelash might be enough to push him across. But when she needed it most, her eyes refused to surrender a single wish.
8. Letters Home
A collection of anecdotes regarding travelers, journeys, lost messages, unknown territory.
One of the words reaches shore. Sea, a man says, sea! Yes, sea, Odysseus grasps his hand, which way is the sea? The man smiles. He gestures at the infinite steppe. Sea.
9. Cultural Property
An artifact heist.
They will look at the sword and say, Oh, wouldn't that be a terrible way to go, or, It's not fair to judge, but don't you think our swords are more elegant? or, It really makes you think how bleak England was, or, It really makes you think how bleak the world is. If they read the caption (they won't), they will learn that the item was excavated for and is the exclusive property of the Nalanda Museum of Art and Global Culture, Patna. All the bleakness is ours.
10. The Phalanx
A pair of soldiers at the back of the phalanx have a chat.
See, it changes the meaning completely ... would you rather be a peasant in this life than a king in Hades?
Of course not, I wake up every morning to say thanks that my mornings aren't the mornings of a peasant.
Exactly ... like so many princelings, Achilles had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
11. The Loss of Muzaffar
A mysterious cook in New York City meets a sad end.
If asked about the land of his birth, or his age, Muzaffar would laugh and later emerge at dinner with a grilled swordfish and declare, "This is where I'm from!" or, after placing a goat cheese tart on the table, clap once: "That, my dears, is the sum of my years." Likewise, he explained his ethnicity with a chestnut soup, while his childhood was one of eggplants and quails. His family consisted of twenty-four cupcakes; he elaborated his political beliefs in dumplings; and the path that had finally brought him to the Celestinis' stoop appeared in the burnt trails of roasted tomatoes.
12. The Astrolabe
A shipwrecked captain meets a sad end.
The captain inhaled. Long ago, he had a better grasp of the logic behind the astrolabe, but that knowledge had silted into his mind and lost its definition. He knew simply to trust the astrolabe's measurements. The prospect of having to relate its functions in his whorehouse French exhausted him. How could he explain such grand concepts with so few words?
13. Icebreakers
A ship is trapped in ice. Then, more than one.
Well, at least you have the helicopter, the Russian captain says. They speak in English, which is the language of the sea, of the air, and of space, even if it will never fully conquer the land.
Yes, and the helicopter is as useful as two tin cans tied by string. They laugh. Neither of them has ever held tin cans tied by string.
izilen, and it's one of the more linguistically beautiful books I've recently read. The stories in this volume are all deeply concerned with language and history and colonialism and loss, playful and sad at the same time. Most of them worked for me, a few didn't quite, but all of them were gorgeous. Rather than attempt to describe them in-depth, I think I'm going to do the Yuletide recs thing and just give a quote from each:
1. Swimmer Among the Stars
Ethnologists visit the last speaker of a language.
With nobody to speak her language to, she began talking with objects, the pots and pans, a creaking door, the sharp corner of a table. She never spoke it with animals because - and here a foreign kind of pride sparked within her - it was never a language to waste on goats. Once, on a rare visit, her son came upon her in the living room, speaking with a teacup. He told her she was going mad. No, she sighed, you don't understand, this is what a conversation sounds like.
2. Tale of the Teahouse
A doomed city turns against its teahouse.
Three days before the khan's army razed the city, the teahouse owner brought out pastries and water pipes, leavening conversation with the smell of jasmine and a thick purple smoke that made it difficult to roll one's r's. The teahouse patrons watched the steam rise from their cups, while one drinker, between bites that shook her jowls, wondered about food.
3. Elephant at Sea
A deeply inconvenient diplomatic gift.
As he readied the elephant for the march on, he wondered how a journey across the seas could change someone. When the elephant regarded its reflection in the still water, did it see a being transformed? Could it? Maybe it was presumptuous of the mahout to think so grandly of the elephant's capacities, its self-awareness, its very sense of the possibility of a self. Perhaps this sad-eyed creature merely looked at the pond and thought: What a miserable excuse for a sea.
4. A United Nations in Space
After devastating global climate catastrophe, the UN has to go somewhere.
Queues snake down the hall from the cafeteria to the single computer lab, where Paraguay and Bolivia quietly catch up on their local football scores - the ball rolls on in the mountains. Kazakhstan leaves his screen, dejected. He hasn't received any message from his government. Maybe they've just forgotten about me, he thinks optimistically. France and the United Kingdom have long given up hope of hearing from their foreign ministries, if such things still exist. They play table tennis in the rec room. Sometimes, they ask for the 1g to be dialed down towards 0g.
5. Portrait with Coal Fire
A conversation between a photographer and his subject.
A name?
(Translator: Yes, a name.)
Why would she say that?
A name. My daughter said, In the magazine, Papa, lots of other people in the photos have names. Some of the animals have names. Even the stars and the galaxies have names, and they're just purple and black and white shapes. But you don't have a name. The magazine calls you a "miner" or "a man" or "the man" or a "coal tender."
6. The Mirrors of Iskandar
A collection of anecdotes regarding Alexander the Great.
You can't be serious, Aristotle said, you can't actually intend to do this. Where's your spirit of adventure, Iskander replied, where's your curiosity? You're going to drown. Nonsense. Everybody else will drown trying to rescue you. If any of my subjects are trustworthy, it's the glass-blowers...they won't let me down. Have some pity, Aristotle said, can you imagine me, at my age, lifting up my robes and diving in after you?
7. The Fall of an Eyelash
A refugee builds a new life, and makes wishes.
What a waste, she thought. Her brother was about to reach the border. The breadth of a single vanished eyelash might be enough to push him across. But when she needed it most, her eyes refused to surrender a single wish.
8. Letters Home
A collection of anecdotes regarding travelers, journeys, lost messages, unknown territory.
One of the words reaches shore. Sea, a man says, sea! Yes, sea, Odysseus grasps his hand, which way is the sea? The man smiles. He gestures at the infinite steppe. Sea.
9. Cultural Property
An artifact heist.
They will look at the sword and say, Oh, wouldn't that be a terrible way to go, or, It's not fair to judge, but don't you think our swords are more elegant? or, It really makes you think how bleak England was, or, It really makes you think how bleak the world is. If they read the caption (they won't), they will learn that the item was excavated for and is the exclusive property of the Nalanda Museum of Art and Global Culture, Patna. All the bleakness is ours.
10. The Phalanx
A pair of soldiers at the back of the phalanx have a chat.
See, it changes the meaning completely ... would you rather be a peasant in this life than a king in Hades?
Of course not, I wake up every morning to say thanks that my mornings aren't the mornings of a peasant.
Exactly ... like so many princelings, Achilles had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
11. The Loss of Muzaffar
A mysterious cook in New York City meets a sad end.
If asked about the land of his birth, or his age, Muzaffar would laugh and later emerge at dinner with a grilled swordfish and declare, "This is where I'm from!" or, after placing a goat cheese tart on the table, clap once: "That, my dears, is the sum of my years." Likewise, he explained his ethnicity with a chestnut soup, while his childhood was one of eggplants and quails. His family consisted of twenty-four cupcakes; he elaborated his political beliefs in dumplings; and the path that had finally brought him to the Celestinis' stoop appeared in the burnt trails of roasted tomatoes.
12. The Astrolabe
A shipwrecked captain meets a sad end.
The captain inhaled. Long ago, he had a better grasp of the logic behind the astrolabe, but that knowledge had silted into his mind and lost its definition. He knew simply to trust the astrolabe's measurements. The prospect of having to relate its functions in his whorehouse French exhausted him. How could he explain such grand concepts with so few words?
13. Icebreakers
A ship is trapped in ice. Then, more than one.
Well, at least you have the helicopter, the Russian captain says. They speak in English, which is the language of the sea, of the air, and of space, even if it will never fully conquer the land.
Yes, and the helicopter is as useful as two tin cans tied by string. They laugh. Neither of them has ever held tin cans tied by string.
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Date: 2018-05-25 09:52 pm (UTC)I will look for this; thank you for bringing it to my attention.
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