The Story of My Life
[Books]
The god of love plays on THOR KAH HOONG’s mind as he ruminates over Casanova’s colourful memoirs.
In my usual fashion while writing this column, I allow thoughts to build to a critical mass, this process being subtext to reading this and that through long days, and then there is a breach in the dam of words.
There is a skeletal map, but who knows where the flow goes? This is my way of explaining why I still haven’t gone through memoirs of Giacomo Casanova, heralded in the past few weeks.
Firstly, quite chuffed to receive an e-mail to last week’s piece which, among other things, recommended a read of Mark Childress’ novel Tender – from Mark Childress. He was equally chuffed to find his book being mentioned in Malaysia. (Mark, my shop also carries a copy of Crazy in Alabama.)
The unexpected mention must have felt like a ridiculously slow after-shock tremor that wobbled his step and world briefly because as he noted, it’s way back in his past. Published in 1990. A long time ago, many more words since then for a working writer; those emotions then, deeply buried by succeeding layers of experienced and discarded emotions; only current feelings and coming words count.
I thought of having another contest this week – then remembered I had one weeks ago about a memory palace. That elicited one response. One – either my readership runs to a single-digit, or I should have paid attention to Casanova’s wisdom:
“Any author who means to provoke thought in all those who read only and exclusively to deliver themselves from the temptation to think is presumptuous.”
Okay, how about a laugh? A chuckle? Work yourself up to a fleeting smile. This thought was prompted by a chapter in Giles Smith’s Lost in Music.
Smith is off to university. In a momentary fit, he decides to purge his 150 albums, cull music that would shout out “Hopeless Nerd”, Thirteen albums were buried deep in a cupboard. Smith is funny in explaining the rash juvenile enthusiasm for albums by Wild Cherry, Status Quo, Genesis.
For shock value there’s John Lennon’s Imagine in the neglected, but not forgotten, pile – “The rush of otherwise intelligent people determined to account for him, in death, as not just a surly rocker with a lippy wit, but as a philosopher and sage?.”
I do that all the time with my books and music – not to avoid cringing embarrassment, too hide-bound and past the age of blushing for that; my motivation – storage space at home is finite, my interests infinite. And at times some of the interests fade or die.
Looking through my music collection, , I was shocked at the sight of a Kim Carnes album. Vague memory of Betty Davis Eyes. Temporary insanity. I must give it away as a Christmas present.
Here’s where I part ways with Smith. His purge ended with: “? there is, in the end, a limit to the extent to which you can rewrite your past, unless you are a Stalin or trying to get into politics. It’s like trying to claim you are the sum of your edited highlights.”
Well, in the Penguin Classics edition of Casanova’s The Story of My Life, the reader also gets edited highlights – all of 500 pages. Sufficient for this reader, because I do not think I’ll have the interest to read the full 3,600 pages.
What a man. What a life. Born in Venice. Yet the memoirs were written in French. Born to actors who wanted him to be a priest.
He studied law and became an abbe? and a writer, soldier, con man, gambler, violinist, spy, director of a lottery, librarian, translator of Homer’s Iliad into Italian, contributor to the libretto for Mozart’s Don Giovanni ? and still found time for so many women.
It would be perverse to ignore Casanova’s loves and passions. There is nothing salacious in his recounting of his varied amatory adventures. One senses a joyous steeping in the senses.
Until 1993, the many editions of Casanova’s memoirs were based on a couple of early editions that freely cut and adapted the memoirs. The omission of much that was explicit about sex is understandable considering the times. Now the passages in the manuscript are just innocent pleasures compared to the domestic relations we read in the newspapers daily.
I cannot disapprove of someone who is so disarming, tongue in cheek, about his behaviour. In his preface, Casanova writes: “Despite an excellent moral foundation, the inevitable fruit of the divine principles rooted in my heart, I was prey to my senses throughout my life. I took pleasure in straying, and I lived perpetually in error, with no other consolation than an awareness of doing so?.
“As for my deceptions of women, these are not the sort to be tallied, since when love has a hand in things, each party usually dupes the other.” Hear! Hear!
The memoirs are not the tall tales of a boastful stud. The fact that Casanova started these memoirs in the last years of his life probably gave it the ironic distance and unashamed regard that are its features.
Here is another example of his humour with a subtle bite:
“One consolatory philosophy claims, in accordance with religion, that the soul’s dependence on the senses and organs is purely fortuitous and transitory, and that it will be free and happy when the death of the body liberates it from their tyrannical power. That’s all very beautiful but, religion aside, it is hardly certain. As I therefore could never be absolutely sure of my immortality before ceasing to exist, you will forgive me if I was in no hurry to discover this truth. A knowledge paid for with life is paid too dearly. While waiting, I shall worship God, avoiding all unjust action and shunning unjust men, without, however, doing them harm. It is enough that I abstain from doing them good. One must not feed snakes.”
Fans of National Geographic and Animal Planet notwithstanding, I love that last line. Just as I love the last half of this sentence (in italics): “Feeling as though I was born for the fair sex, I have always loved it and let it love me as much as I could.”
Alright, if humour and thought doesn’t ring your bell, read Casanova’s memoirs for the naughty bits. Just read him.
Before I start vegetating for the rest of the long holiday weekend, a note to those who contacted me about Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women. My shop now has stock of this book.
Thor Kah Hoong is a lecturer, playwright, actor, theatre director and bookstore owner (Skoob Books in Old Town Petaling Jaya; 03-7770 2500; e-mail: skoobkl@pd.jaring.my).
The god of love plays on THOR KAH HOONG’s mind as he ruminates over Casanova’s colourful memoirs.
In my usual fashion while writing this column, I allow thoughts to build to a critical mass, this process being subtext to reading this and that through long days, and then there is a breach in the dam of words.
There is a skeletal map, but who knows where the flow goes? This is my way of explaining why I still haven’t gone through memoirs of Giacomo Casanova, heralded in the past few weeks.
Firstly, quite chuffed to receive an e-mail to last week’s piece which, among other things, recommended a read of Mark Childress’ novel Tender – from Mark Childress. He was equally chuffed to find his book being mentioned in Malaysia. (Mark, my shop also carries a copy of Crazy in Alabama.)
The unexpected mention must have felt like a ridiculously slow after-shock tremor that wobbled his step and world briefly because as he noted, it’s way back in his past. Published in 1990. A long time ago, many more words since then for a working writer; those emotions then, deeply buried by succeeding layers of experienced and discarded emotions; only current feelings and coming words count.
I thought of having another contest this week – then remembered I had one weeks ago about a memory palace. That elicited one response. One – either my readership runs to a single-digit, or I should have paid attention to Casanova’s wisdom:
“Any author who means to provoke thought in all those who read only and exclusively to deliver themselves from the temptation to think is presumptuous.”
Okay, how about a laugh? A chuckle? Work yourself up to a fleeting smile. This thought was prompted by a chapter in Giles Smith’s Lost in Music.
Smith is off to university. In a momentary fit, he decides to purge his 150 albums, cull music that would shout out “Hopeless Nerd”, Thirteen albums were buried deep in a cupboard. Smith is funny in explaining the rash juvenile enthusiasm for albums by Wild Cherry, Status Quo, Genesis.
For shock value there’s John Lennon’s Imagine in the neglected, but not forgotten, pile – “The rush of otherwise intelligent people determined to account for him, in death, as not just a surly rocker with a lippy wit, but as a philosopher and sage?.”
I do that all the time with my books and music – not to avoid cringing embarrassment, too hide-bound and past the age of blushing for that; my motivation – storage space at home is finite, my interests infinite. And at times some of the interests fade or die.
Looking through my music collection, , I was shocked at the sight of a Kim Carnes album. Vague memory of Betty Davis Eyes. Temporary insanity. I must give it away as a Christmas present.
Here’s where I part ways with Smith. His purge ended with: “? there is, in the end, a limit to the extent to which you can rewrite your past, unless you are a Stalin or trying to get into politics. It’s like trying to claim you are the sum of your edited highlights.”
Well, in the Penguin Classics edition of Casanova’s The Story of My Life, the reader also gets edited highlights – all of 500 pages. Sufficient for this reader, because I do not think I’ll have the interest to read the full 3,600 pages.
What a man. What a life. Born in Venice. Yet the memoirs were written in French. Born to actors who wanted him to be a priest.
He studied law and became an abbe? and a writer, soldier, con man, gambler, violinist, spy, director of a lottery, librarian, translator of Homer’s Iliad into Italian, contributor to the libretto for Mozart’s Don Giovanni ? and still found time for so many women.
It would be perverse to ignore Casanova’s loves and passions. There is nothing salacious in his recounting of his varied amatory adventures. One senses a joyous steeping in the senses.
Until 1993, the many editions of Casanova’s memoirs were based on a couple of early editions that freely cut and adapted the memoirs. The omission of much that was explicit about sex is understandable considering the times. Now the passages in the manuscript are just innocent pleasures compared to the domestic relations we read in the newspapers daily.
I cannot disapprove of someone who is so disarming, tongue in cheek, about his behaviour. In his preface, Casanova writes: “Despite an excellent moral foundation, the inevitable fruit of the divine principles rooted in my heart, I was prey to my senses throughout my life. I took pleasure in straying, and I lived perpetually in error, with no other consolation than an awareness of doing so?.
“As for my deceptions of women, these are not the sort to be tallied, since when love has a hand in things, each party usually dupes the other.” Hear! Hear!
The memoirs are not the tall tales of a boastful stud. The fact that Casanova started these memoirs in the last years of his life probably gave it the ironic distance and unashamed regard that are its features.
Here is another example of his humour with a subtle bite:
“One consolatory philosophy claims, in accordance with religion, that the soul’s dependence on the senses and organs is purely fortuitous and transitory, and that it will be free and happy when the death of the body liberates it from their tyrannical power. That’s all very beautiful but, religion aside, it is hardly certain. As I therefore could never be absolutely sure of my immortality before ceasing to exist, you will forgive me if I was in no hurry to discover this truth. A knowledge paid for with life is paid too dearly. While waiting, I shall worship God, avoiding all unjust action and shunning unjust men, without, however, doing them harm. It is enough that I abstain from doing them good. One must not feed snakes.”
Fans of National Geographic and Animal Planet notwithstanding, I love that last line. Just as I love the last half of this sentence (in italics): “Feeling as though I was born for the fair sex, I have always loved it and let it love me as much as I could.”
Alright, if humour and thought doesn’t ring your bell, read Casanova’s memoirs for the naughty bits. Just read him.
Before I start vegetating for the rest of the long holiday weekend, a note to those who contacted me about Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women. My shop now has stock of this book.
Thor Kah Hoong is a lecturer, playwright, actor, theatre director and bookstore owner (Skoob Books in Old Town Petaling Jaya; 03-7770 2500; e-mail: skoobkl@pd.jaring.my).
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