Posts Tagged ‘Milan Kundera’

On Deliberately Ignoring Something Because of the Hype


2009
08.15

I loved the Matrix and Moulin Rouge, despite their being hyped. On the other hand, I did watch Lord of the Rings 1 & 2, but stayed away from 3. Tried reading book 1, but just managed a few paragraphs, and then stopped… (Well, perhaps someday…)

Did “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” have that much hype? I love that novel, have read it twice, and think of it as the kind/type of novel I’d love to write if I ever get the chance of writing one. (Haven’t seen the film adaptation with Daniel Day-Lewis…)

As for “The Da Vinci Code,” if you find a copy lying around, it’s worth reading din naman. For one thing, I do subscribe to the recuperation/rehabilitation of the “sacred feminine.”

One other reason why I stayed away from Dan Brown’s novel is that I’ve read Umberto Eco’s “Foucault’s Pendulum” and from what I had heard about “The Da Vinci Code,” it seemed to me to be a “Foucault’s Pendulum”-wanna-be.

I’m currently re-reading Eco’s novel. (I read it years ago, mistakenly thinking that it’d help me write a paper on Michel Foucault. Wala palang connect. Ibang Foucault ‘to… Or, meron din, if one looks at the obsession for power and techniques of power…)

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Gerontophobia (The Fear of Getting Old)


2008
03.22

“Keep me searchin’ for a heart of gold, and I’m gettin’ old.”

Neil Young, “Heart of Gold”

A few months ago, I met Lizza, who’s in her early 30′s. When she realized I was older, she talked about “feeling it.” The coming of age. Old age… and all its concomitant side effects.

I feel the same. There’s a certain wistfulness in the realization that time’s passing. And that sooner or later, time, my time, will be up.

Most of my friends and acquaintances merely laugh it off.

I don’t. (Or, I try to, only that I imagine hearing a faint echo, as if the grim reaper itself were Old Sir Mick singing “Time is on My Side.”)

I feel old. Even when I feel young inside, my body feels old.

Even what I used to think was this raging fire inside my soul seems to be just dying embers.

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