Saturday, August 28, 2004

 
The most revered fig tree is in Ceylon, in the ruined city of Anuradhapura (130). Mushrooms have no sugars, not much carbohydrates, many minerals and vitamins, and a good deal of protein--much more like meat than vegetables (273). British owners of sugarcane plantations in the West Indies petitioned George III for breadfruit trees from the South Seas so as to give their slaves a cheap food source using minimal land (37). The word "salt" comes from the Roman god of health, Salus, who gave his name to other words as "salutary," "salute," and "salvation" (437). Spain monopolized the secret of making chocolate in Europe for nearly a century (72).

These and other trivia may be found in Waverley Root's Food: An authoritative and visual history and dictionary of the foods of the world (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980).

posted by Open Mouth 4:29 PM

 
" 'As to who among us is a ghost and who not I have nothing to say: it is a question we can only stare at in silence, like a bird before a snake, hoping it will not swallow us' " (134).

Fortunately, the mystery of Friday remains his. Otherwise, the book would have collapsed from this release of tension. Susan Barton and Mr. Foe talk their way out of nothing, and Friday stays his own in Foe.

" 'In a life of writing books, I have often, believe me, been lost in the maze of doubting. The traick I have learned is to plant a sign or marker in the ground/ where I stand, so that in my future wanderings I shall have something to return to, and not get worse lost than I am. Having planted it, I press on; the more often I come back to the mark (which is a sign to myself of my blindness and incapacity), the more certainly I know I am lost, yet the more I am heartened too, to have found my way back' " (135-136).

posted by Open Mouth 4:18 PM

Sunday, August 22, 2004

 
Never have I felt so unmotivated to finish one of Coetzee's books. Usually I read them in one sitting. Something about this female protagonist makes me anxious, more so than her of In the Heart of the Country. I have a feeling that this one's not going to end up all right, as though she'll continue the insanity and starvation of the other one to its natural end. And what would that be? What's worse than being hungry, alone, and going crazy with the loneliness? That I don't know if I have it in me to find out.

J.M. Coetzee, Foe (New York: Viking Penguin, 1987).

"When I reflect on my story I seem to exist only as the one who came, the one who witnessed, the one who longed to be gone: a being without substance, a ghost beside the true body of Cruso. Is that the fate of all storytellers?" (51).

"...the danger of island life, the danger of which Cruso said never a word, was the danger of abiding sleep. How easy it would have been to prolong our slumbers farther and farther into the hours of daylight till at last, locked tight in sleep's embrace, we starved to death...! Does it not speak volumes that the first and only piece of furniture your master fashioned was a bed?" (82).


posted by Open Mouth 10:34 PM