divided by blue

In October of this year, I started working for a Belgian online magazine covering Dutch/Flemish comics. It's volunteer work, but I loved the idea of working for the magazine, doing articles and interviews, so I applied for the job when I heard of it. Happily, I was accepted. One of the first interviews I did was published in the magazine today, and it discusses a comic based on the Russian avant-garde and absurdist writer Daniil Kharms (or Charms, in Dutch) by Dutch Illustrator Wouter Gresnigt. One of Daniil Kharms' better-known short stories is "Old Women Falling Out" from 1937, and it's featured in the comic. This is the short story:

Excessive curiosity made one old woman fall out of a window, plummet to the ground and break into pieces.

Another old woman poked her head out of a window to look at the one who had broken into pieces, but excessive curiosity made her too fall out of the window, plummet to the ground and break into pieces.

Then a third old woman fell out of a window, then a fourth, then a fifth.

When a sixth old woman fell out, I felt I’d had enough of watching them and went off to the Maltsev Market where I heard that a blind man had been given a knitted shawl.

I had never heard of Daniil Kharms before I was asked to do an article about this book. I read the comic and was intrigued. I write sometimes, very short/flash fiction in Dutch or stories for my own comics, and I instantly felt a connection to the humor and absurdist nature of this work when I read it. I decided to read a few of Daniil Kharms' short stories bundled in a small book after reading the comic, and I loved it. There is something so honest about his absurd stories in this form, for life can be absurd if you pay attention to what happens every day. For anyone looking for short stories, I greatly recommend the Russian author. The comic by Wouter Gresnigt is also great but is currently only available in Dutch.

Three weeks for Dreamwidth: Name three books (or book series) that had an impact on you

I’m going to answer that only considering fiction books, no non fiction.

Robin Hobb, Farseer series

I read these books in my youth, and I think this fantasy series got me into really enjoying reading. For school, we got these lists of books to read, and I often didn’t connect with those books, especially not the young adult books they advised us to read. They were frequently full of drama, and I already had a difficult situation to cope with at home, so I didn’t want to read things that were depressing as well.

I found this book series in a bookstore, read the description about a young man growing up in a castle full of intrigue, training to be an assassin, though he didn’t want to be one. He also had an extraordinary magical gift to communicate with animals. I hadn’t read any reviews on this series, but I really liked the description and bought the first book. I loved it, read the whole first trilogy. I saw there were (at the time) two more trilogies following this story, so I read them as well. I have very fond memories of this, staying up late to discover what was going to happen. I started reading other fantasy books after that, as well as classic seventies speculative fiction that my father had on his bookshelf and that he had read when he was young.

Terry Moore - Strangers in Paradise

This comic book series is about Katchoo, a young woman growing up and being in love with her best friend Francine - who keeps dating men who were mostly bad for her. It starts as just a fun growing-up tale, with plenty of humor, but it evolves further to incorporate aspects of the crime and thriller genres.

I read the book while in college, studying economics, but what I really wanted to do was to study art or take art courses. Katchoo grew up to be an artist, and the book showed me parts of a life I liked to have: learning about art and taking life drawing courses. Being an artist. She also was a badass, taking no shit from anyone. I admired her, wanted to be more like her in some ways. I loved reading about her, and I think this is one of the few books I reread years later. It was again a wonderful experience.

Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being

This was a mandatory read for a college course about literature. I remember being intimidated by the title. I thought this would be a tough book to read and connect with, but I was very wrong. It read really nicely, and told the story about two people who had an entirely different way of seeing life and about what life should be. One chooses security, planning everything out, wanting security, and for instance, a steady romantic relationship. These were things that other protagonists saw as ‘heavy’, as she wanted a life that was light and free of responsibilities, taking everything one day at a time, and just having fleeting flings with people. The ultimate question this book raises is, what kind of life is ‘light’ and ‘heavy’; and I find myself often thinking back to how the novel dealt with these questions, frequently posing myself the same ones as I go through life. Not many books linger in my mind like that.