Karmic Traces Book

Weinberger manages to do with his writing what I fear I cannot do with mine. To make it out of the world. Often I fear I move too lithely through life. I fear I cannot translate what I know into solid writing. Weinberger on the other hand is a translator, and it comes through in his writing. It is very solid writing. It is writing that comes as a bombardment of beautiful astonishment. It is just language. It is the chronicling of heavily laden intel about Invisible Cities somewhere in the world we live in. It's a whole bunch of tall tales and ghost stories too, and they'd satiate Kublai Khan.

Often the tall tales are true, or at least they seem like they'd be. Weinberger's description of Iceland in the essay "Paradice" elicited from a friend with whom I'd shared it the response, "I really liked that short story" as if through only his use of language, Weinberger had written Iceland out of the material world and into one only on the page. Another friend, who'd been recently to Snæfellsnes Peninsula, called the essay "a bit romantic." Well of course it is, I said, he's one of the premier editors and translators of Latin American literature. He wrote about Paz and Paz wrote about him.

The James Laughlin obituary was lively. The guy (E.W.) is a New Directions guy and so am I and so I appreciate his occasional chronicling of that Publishing Behemoth's Sagas. (Or are they myths?) Even the design of the book, the black and white photograph on the cover, the classical typography'seems to be an homage to that House's Golden Age. I'd like to imagine E.W. wanted them (even asked for them to be?) that way. They're nice touches that may have nothing to do with anything. That's okay. The book is pleasant to hold nonetheless.

Sorry that I am not getting much into the substance of this book. That'd be possible, and it would probably even get someone interested in reading the book, but I'd rather commiserate about the book's essence. When someone writes about MTV in the 90s (in the 90s), it can get very "MTV in the 90s" but somehow Weinberger manages to make the discussion of the topic "news that stays news." The guy has a few anecdotes to share. That's how I feel about myself sometimes, but then what do I do with them? The marriage of substance and essence evades me. I don't know. I appreciate that strange fascinations fascinate Weinberger. Most people just assume the world is empty of them.