more on reading and writing

I’ve just read the first 25 pages of a book I bought last week. It is “My Father’s Notebook” by the Iranian writer Kadar Abdollah. That is not his real name navn, but a name to commemorate one of his friends murdered by the Iranian regime. His real name is Hossein Sadgadi Ghaemuraghami Frahani, born in Iran in 1952, where he studied physics and was active in the student movement. He fled from his home country in 1985, and has since 1988 lived in the Netherlands. ”My Father’s Notebook” is impressively translated from Dutch into English by Susan Massotty. The Norwegian translation came in 2002, translated by Guro Dimmen with the title “Spikerskrift”.

Here is a quote, an uncle talking to his deaf-mute nephew in sign language:
I can't write. I can't even read, Akbar signed.
You don't have to read, but you do have to write. Just scrible something in your notebook. One page every day. Or maybe just a couple of sentences. Anyway, try it. Go upstairs, write something in your book, then come and show it to me.

This is from page 19, and the great story has not even begun.

narrare necesse est

Walter Fisher, in his 1984, Narration as Human Communication Paradigm, writes in my paraphrase: People are essentially storytelling animals, and all communication is a form of storytelling. We make decisions on the basis of good reasons, and history, biography, culture, and character determine what we consider good reasons. Narrative rationality is determined by the coherence and fidelity of our stories, and the world is a set of stories from which we choose, and thus constantly re-create, our lives.

This is of course nothing new. Roland Barthes and others have expressed the same earlier, and later, Anthony Giddens, in his Modernity and Self-Identity, writes extensively on the narratives of self-identity and the necessity to keep a particular narrative going as a biographical protection, affirmation and continuity. In other words: narrare necesse est.

the attack of the starlings

was one of the most dramatic events on the home front last week. We have for years had a nesting box for blue tits on the garage top, and some members have returned every year to take possession of it. I don't know, however, whether they are of the same family, those of them that might have survived the attacks from cat and crow. But the thing is that the hole is so small that few other birds may enter.

The blue tit is very early, arriving in March well before some of the other migrants. So this year the small family was safely installed when the next wave of air-borne travellers landed, among them the starlings. The latter seems to have a certain preference for man made bird houses, and four of the newcomers engaged in a regular air attach on the tit habitation. They tried to enter the hole with the intention of evicting those who already lived there, and they besieged the box for a couple of hours preventing anybody from whether coming out or going in.

I experienced an upsettinge and aggressive feeling of righteousness, and I ran out in my slippers to chase away the attackers, siding instinctively with the weaker part. I even dug out an old air rifle, loaded, and fired a shot at the garage in my fuming anger. Luckily I hit neither window glas, tit, cat nor starling, but the commotion led to the starling abandoning the field. One of the blue tits was witnessing the whole affair from a nearby tree, and to me it seemed as if it enjoyed the thing. At least it never showed any fear whatever I was doing to frighten the invaders.

So now the little family is at peace again, and since it is nesting so early in the spring, there are surely fledlings there putting on weight and building strength to enter the more dangerous world outside. Good luck to them.

I was going to change tires on my car today,

but it is snowing again, and temperatures are going down to zero. Since I am driving up country this weekend to secure firewood for next winter, I had rather keep the winter tires on.

But there are signs of spring. For the last two weeks we have had formations of wild geese heading north above our house in the early morning hours. We have been half awake to their calls to each other, and we treasure that sound.

I read your comments, hm

and I link to your blog, or do you have a German blog as well. Judging from your mastery of language, you might have one. That would be another voice for you, and enjoyable practice.