MY LIFE AND THOUGHTS

Having, in a recent post, expressed some concern regarding the global Possessed-to-Labradoodle ratio, I was thrilled to receive the following images of Boswell, Adelaide-based Labradoodle:

A big thanks to James for the moving and inspirational pictures – which, to be totally honest, filled me not only with delight at my widening empire, but also with an inexplicable melancholy.  I so much wished I had a Labradoodle called Boswell!  I think I just really miss my intern, who has been on the other side of the planet for several months now, holding down the US side of business…

Speaking of business, latest 5-star review is up here.

Hi Elif,
to my delight I stumbled across a copy of The Possessed at a bookshop last night in Sydney and purchased it. A slight mystery is that it has an inscription in it: “To Okan Orhan, Gok memnan oldum!”. I don’t want to cast aspersions on Okan, but it was intriguing how it wound up in the new books and what the inscription meant.
thanks
Andrew

Dear Andrew,

Thank you for your kind message, and for your purchase of The Possessed!

Re: Okan Orhan, it’s a funny story.  I did an event at Gleebooks in Sydney a few weeks ago (in conversation with the lovely Jane Gleeson-White, who—another funny story—turns out to be the author of a forthcoming book about double-entry bookkeeping, in which capacity she is also, to the best of my knowledge, the only person who has ever quoted from my unpublished dissertation on double-entry bookkeeping and the novel!  The organizers didn’t know about this connection when they set up the event.)

At the book signing afterwards, a bearded, slightly distracted-looking young man in a leather jacket introduced himself and, speaking in Turkish, told me that he grew up in Istanbul and that he used to be roommates with the critic Walter Pater.  I was very tired, since I had spent the morning at ABC studios in Melbourne, doing a radio show with the amazing David Astle, “Sergeant Pepper of cryptic crosswords,” after which my incredibly heroic Australian publicist and I headed to the airport to catch a plane to Sydney.  The flight departed not only with a delay but also from the international terminal, which meant that on the way out we had to go through customs and passport control, whence we rushed to the hotel and immediately to the bookstore, the reason I bring all this up is being that I might well have misunderstood the exact nature of the relationship between Okan Orhan (for it was he) to Walter Pater, because Walter Pater died in 1894.

Okan Orhan then asked me to inscribe a copy of The Possessed to him, which I did. “Çok memnun oldum” means “I’m very happy [to have met you].”

At that point I really had to get something to eat, because two hours later I had to be at the Sydney ABC (where I was a guest on Late Night Live, right after an expert on the Australian elections, and also another expert on cyber-terrorism).  Whereas O.O. was trying, quietly but persistently, to tell me the story of his life.  It was probably an interesting story but I was not in the right frame of mind to appreciate it.  The whole thing ended with the organizer gently but firmly inviting him to leave.  I then lost track of his strand of the story—forever… or so I thought.

(more…)

For those who might be wondering what is new with Roz Chast, the amazing artist who did the cover of The Possessed:

While we are looking at beautiful images, I would like to mention another talented reader, Abraham Kelso, who actually gave me some original prints at my reading last month in Brookline.  On the train back to New York the next morning, I had the foresight to place these beautifully rolled-up prints in the overhead luggage compartment, so they wouldn’t get smooshed.  At that point, with the satisfaction of a job well done, I fell into a deep sleep.

Now here is the thing with the New York – Boston train: you can fall asleep going to Boston and it’s all fun and games, but if you fall asleep going to New York, you end up in our nation’s capital.  Luckily, I woke up just as we were pulling into Penn Station, whence I rushed directly to the Times building in order to record a podcast.  Unluckily, in my alacrity to disburden myself of some more thoughts and feelings about Russian literature, I forgot the beautiful rolled-up prints in the overhead compartment.

Well, I hope and trust the originals are hard at work right now representing our interests in DC.  In the meantime, you can enjoy some simulacra here:

(more…)