Laa~Laa~Laa~

picadorbookroom: Yoko Ogawa’s forthcoming linked story...

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:06:36 +0900

Yoko Ogawa’s forthcoming linked story collection, REVENGE, will be released at the end of the month. Here she talks about empathy for characters, the meaning of food in her fiction, and the writers who influence her.

When and how do you write? What time of day? Pencil, pen, or word processor? Do you have any rituals you conduct before or after a writing session?

I start around 9:00am and finish around 5:00pm. During those hours, I sit at my desk and write and think and daydream, and then write some more. I write on a computer. I usually walk the dog before I sit down to work; after I’m done writing, I mark the number of pages I’ve produced on the calendar.

Your work has been well received by American critics and readers, it seems to transcend culture in many ways. Why do you think your books, which at times are quite surreal, nonetheless translate smoothly into other languages and cultures?

My work begins at the level of images that form in my mind; from those images, settings and characters take shape. But it’s not particularly important to me what country the story is set in or what language the characters are speaking. My goal, in fact, is to create people and places that exist solely in and for the world of my novel. If the result of this process is that my work can be read and appreciated by people in other countries, then nothing could please me more.

In The Diving Pool, you show normal people committing acts of casual cruelty; in Hotel Iris, your characters engage in sexual practices that to many people would seem perverse. Yet you extend tremendous empathy toward these characters, and never portray them as deviant or evil. Talk about what it means to create empathic characters, and why you have written about people who traditionally are difficult for readers to empathize with.

It can happen at times that you are drawn into something for no particular reason—or for no reason at all—and afterward can find no way back. It can happen that you suddenly do something foolish, something you had no intention of doing. I feel that a novel has the ability to describe the nature of these random acts—that lack of motivation. For me, one of the fundamental values of fiction is its power to express the inexplicable and the absurd.

In many of your books, the characters are unnamed. What does it mean to create characters without a name and why do you choose to do it?

At the level of image, where my fiction begins, I have no idea where the characters come from or even whether they are living or dead. So it is beyond my abilities to give them names.

Your stories, which are very elegantly constructed, rarely offer easy answers. Sometimes they end ambiguously, or with a sense that reality is not something of which we can always be certain. Would you talk about why this ambiguity is a part of how you tell a story?

Since I have almost no plan or outline before I begin writing a story, I have no way of predicting how it will end up. As result, I suppose the endings can seem “ambiguous.” My happiest moment, however, comes when I get to enjoy the surprise of seeing how my story has turned out.

Food can be both expressive and quite dangerous in your books, especially in The Diving Pool, but also in Hotel Iris. Why does food have such menace?

When I was young, I ate very little, and my mother nearly went crazy trying to feed me. I suppose the memories of that period still revive an association between food and some sort of psychic danger.

What are your favorite books and authors? Who are your influences?

Yasunari Kawabata, Abe Kobo, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Paul Auster. I love everything they’ve written.

What are your favorite films?

Some that come to mind, in no particular order: The Tin Drum, Sophie’s Choice, La Strada, Death in Venice… .

What do you do when you are not writing?

I walk our dog, and knit, and watch baseball on TV.

*This interview is an edited version of what appears on the Picador website. You can read in full here.

legallyblindobservations: juststark: The Avengers and their...

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 14:31:11 +0900

legallyblindobservations:

juststark:

The Avengers and their Pokemons by FerioWind@Deviantart

This is amazing

Desde Mexico (Taken with Instagram)

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 03:24:24 +0900

Desde Mexico (Taken with Instagram)

ｑ (Taken with Instagram)

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 09:55:33 +0900

ｑ (Taken with Instagram)

crumbs (Taken with Instagram)

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 06:53:27 +0900

crumbs (Taken with Instagram)

Taken with Instagram

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 02:07:11 +0900

Taken with Instagram

Taken with instagram

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:38:55 +0900

Taken with instagram

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:32:05 +0900

Taken with instagram

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:29:32 +0900

Taken with instagram

Dear people who question why girls go to the bathroom together

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:51:24 +0900

middle-east-beast:

Hermione went alone and got attacked by a troll

The Writing Process - In Pictures

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 19:43:29 +0900

titlethisaparadox:

EDIT: THE NOTES HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS OMG I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH.

AHHH! Why must you use all my favorite fandoms?!!! So happy :)

the-mad-angel-with-a-box: sherlocksscarfandjohnsjumper: celesti...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:42:40 +0900

the-mad-angel-with-a-box:

sherlocksscarfandjohnsjumper:

celestialcow:

Remember that time when Matt Smith was dating Billie Piper during the era when she was playing Rose Tyler?

And then travled into the past with her in Ruby in the Smoke (Which was his television debut)?

And then went on to have sex with her in Secret Diary of a Call Girl (which was one of his very first TV roles)?

Yeah…Remember that?

… I did not know this.

HOW DIDN’T I KNOW THIS?

(via imgTumble)

Photo

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:40:53 +0900

princessofkings: The lynching of Michael Donald Michael Donald...

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 00:30:29 +0900

princessofkings:

The lynching of Michael Donald

Michael Donald was born in Mobile, Alabama, in 1962. He attending a local trade school and worked part-time at the Mobile Press Register.

In 1981 the trial of Josephus Andersonan, an African American charged with the murder of a white policeman, took place in Mobile. At the end of the case the jury was unable to reach a verdict. This upset members of the Ku Klux Klan who believed that the reason for this was that some members of the jury were African Americans. At a meeting held after the trial, Bennie Hays, the second-highest ranking official in the Klan in Alabama said: “If a black man can get away with killing a white man, we ought to be able to get away with killing a black man.”

On Saturday 21st March, 1981, Bennie Hays’s son, Henry Hays, and James Knowles, decided they would get revenge for the failure of the courts to convict the man for killing a policeman. They travelled around Mobile in their car until they found nineteen year old Donald walking home. After forcing him into the car Donald was taken into the next county where he was lynched.

A brief investigation took place and eventually the local police claimed that Donald had been murdered as a result of a disagreement over a drugs deal. Donald’s mother, Beulah Mae Donald, who knew that her son was not involved with drugs, was determined to obtain justice. She contacted Jessie Jackson who came to Mobile and led a protest march about the failed police investigation.

Thomas Figures, the assistant United States attorney in Mobile, managed to persuade the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to look into the case. James Bodman was sent to Mobile and it did not take him long to persuade James Knowles to confess to the killing of Michael Donald.

In June 1983, Knowles was found guilty of violating Donald’s civil rights and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Six months later, when Henry Hays was tried for murder, Knowles appeared as chief prosecution witness. Hays was found guilty and sentenced to death.

With the support of Morris Dees and Joseph J. Levin at the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), Beulah Mae Donald decided that she would use this case to try and destroy the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. Her civil suit against the United Klans of America took place in February 1987. The all-white jury found the Klan responsible for the lynching of Michael Donald and ordered it to pay 7 million dollars. This resulted the Klan having to hand over all its assets including its national headquarters in Tuscaloosa.

After a long-drawn out legal struggle, Henry Hayes was executed on 6th June, 1997. It was the first time a white man had been executed for a crime against an African American since 1913.

velocifaggot: (◡‿◡✿) what’s a better way to celebrate a 3...

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:48:18 +0900

velocifaggot:

(◡‿◡✿)

what’s a better way to celebrate a 3 monthiversity than with drawing heterosexual life partners

nothing. that’s what.

Photo

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:57:33 +0900

Photo

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:56:14 +0900

iTunes loves me so much right now, choosing all the right songs. ^_^

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 23:58:58 +0900

iTunes loves me so much right now, choosing all the right songs. ^_^

秋桜（コスモス）is by far my favorite Momoe Yamaguchi song. Along with...

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 22:36:00 +0900

秋桜（コスモス）is by far my favorite Momoe Yamaguchi song. Along with the melody and Momoe’s beautiful voice, I find the message bittersweet. Remembering heartbreak and loss on a unusual Spring-like Fall day. ~~

It’s quite unbelievable for me that she’s only 20...

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 22:29:00 +0900

It’s quite unbelievable for me that she’s only 20 here. An ethereal beauty, Momoe Yamaguchi.