Everything is One

A few hours ago I finished Siddhartha and it really took my breath away. At this moment I do not have any words to describe the book further as I did in my "read in progress post" the other day, or what I think of it - as any word seems not appropriate enough.

I just can say that I am more than impressed, that I will think about it often in the future and that a re-read is more than certain. It is also certain that I will add up some more books by Hermann Hesse in my list as I am beyond curiosity about his other works. For sure, I am also going to read Demian, Steppenwolf (Which I believe is already in my classics list), das Glasperlenspiel, as well as his poems. 

Here's one quote among many which I admire:

Jeder kann zaubern, jeder kann seine Ziele erreichen, wenn er denken kann, wenn er warten kann, wenn er fasten kann.  

                              ********

Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast. (Source)

chapter 5, Hermann Hesse - Siddhartha

Have a fantastic weekend, everyone!
Love,
Svenja 

First impressions: Siddhartha

After I have been looking at it, holding it in my hands and taking a small glance into it I threw all resolutions of finishing my started books first - over board and began reading, no - indulging and - at the same time - admiring Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. I believe that I have read the first 35 pages (until the awakening, after that I fell asleep) and I am totally fascinated and beyond excitement over that book. 

When I read the teaser I have already assumed that it will be a wonderful book, but it is a real classic page turner! 

Siddhartha is a young wise Brahman on his way to find the true self through enlightenment - A story which (I would say) can not be written without having found one's own self first, what an achievement. It seems the author was already beyond the wisdom of Buddhism to actually be able to write it this way. Amazing.

For those of you in need of a full summery, spark notes has got one here but I decided to not spoil the content on my blog yet for bookish people who still want to read it (including myself :))

As far as I am with my reading I can highly recommend the story of Siddhartha. It is set in ancient India, and of course it touches Buddhism here and there, but it is not a story about any particular religion, but the story of one individual looking for one's self and leaves, and that is the point, any school beyond, even the one of the great Buddha.

My very first two literary months

Yesterday I read Jillian's classics club Check in #1 over at her awesome blog A Room of One's Own and also her reblog on a seriously interesting post on two neurotics try to join the classics club and what they found out or around the classics club in 80+ books byLitHitchhiker. And I thought I will also try a little summery of my past two literary months:

First of all I have to say that I am really, really REALLY glad that I joined. Even if I sometimes do not have time to read I still feel comfortable with my goal and know I am in it together with all of you and whenever I read a post in the literary blog world I immediately feel drawn to my book shelf to pick up my current read, or start a new one.

It seems to me that all of you are reading by far more books in a week than I do, and I also know that finishing three books within two months is not a very high performance. But given the circumstances I also have to admit that even if I have wanted to it would most probably not been possible: A puppy moved into my house -- which means I had a new 24/7 job and we also did quite some business traveling... But I am proud to at least have finished a few.

From my 50+ list I have read the following titles so far:

Shakespeare - Twelfth night.

Anna Sewell - Black Beauty

Ernest Hemingway - The old man and the sea

Hemingway was seriously impressing me. Great writing I had missed so far. Black Beauty was a novel which was also pure fun to read, very touching, and especially for animal and horse lovers an absolute highlight!

I am half through with Jane Austen's Persuasion and I did already a quick read-into of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha, which is - I know me- only a matter of (short) time until I will read - and most likely finish it quickly. So tempting!! I am reading Siddhartha in German, as this is my mother tongue. For those of you knowing the language, I will include a small teaser:

Ein Buch, dessen Tiefe in der kunstvoll einfachen und klaren Sprache verborgen liegt, einer Klarheit, die vermutlich die geistige Erstarrung jener literarischen Philister aus dem Konzept bringt, die immer so genau wissen, was gute und was schlechte Literatur ist. Einen Buddha zu schaffen, der den allgemeinen anerkannten Buddha übertrifft, das ist eine unerhörte Tat, gerade für einen Deutschen. Siddhartha ist für mich eine wirksamere Medizin als das Neue Testament.

Henry Miller

Uhhh, I seriously cannot wait until I will have time to start - as this bank holiday weekend will be a busy one. My parents are visiting and we will be around the Netherlands a little bit. Maybe we include a visit at the famous Keukenhof Hollands most famous flower, and of course especially tulip exposition. We shall see.

I any case I am also currently reading Night train to Lisbon. A highly recommendable contemporary novel about a Swiss guy in his mid fifties named Gregorius, high school teacher for Latin and Greek who after an incident with a Portuguese lady decided to change his life and leave the city of Bern into the uncertainty of Lisbon....

****

If I look at those beautifully presented statistics by LitHitchhiker, I must say, that I am pretty average. I have Dickens and Austen in my list, and from the Top Ten list I only did not include David Copperfield and Bleak House (Yet- haha). Just my Shakespeare consumption seems less than average as the only works I have included was "Twelfth Night".  I just cannot find a good access to Shakespeare yet, and it makes me uncomfortable to read and feel that I do not make any progress and feel like driving on a (too) stoney road... Elizabethan English also seems to not fit my mouth and is perhaps just too difficult for me. 

I was surprised that Anna Karenina was such a top top top hit. I mean it is in my list as well, as I am particularly interested in the novels of that time, as I have already read Tess of the D"Urbervilles - Adventures of a milkmaid by Thomas Hardy, Madame Bovary by Flaubert and Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane who were all working on the topic of social standing of women in that time. Anna Karenina is the one I still miss - but I would not consider it my very personal, very own top top top classic. (Which one that would be I would perhaps need to think as there are some more candidates, but it would certainly be going more into the Austen direction).

Oh, and I was also surprised that George Eliot's Middlemarch was such a popular classic. I have read it once and it troubled me once.. and it is also on my list, but it is on my list because it used to be my biggest literary enemy and it is certainly the book I am most scared from. Even though it is a re-read.

I am not surprised that there is only one Austen work in the top ten, as tadaaa, most of us most probably have already read the classics of the classics already at least more than once ;-) and not so many classics bibliophils would name Pride & Prejudice as the classic still to be read... Or am I wrong here?

Anyways, I loved to see the list you two made, it is awesome, also how it looks! Thank you very much Alexis & Claudia!

Happy long bank holiday weekend & happy reading,

Love,

Svenja

***

Bookish birthday

Last week I had a very bookish birthday and I must say that I come closer to fill my TBR pile of books belonging to the Classics Club challenge... and to my very own library -- yay!! 

Let's see, what we have here:

1. Hermann Hesse: Siddartha - eine indische Dichtung

2. Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol

3. Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

4. Alexandre Dumas - The count of Monte Cristo

5. Oscar Wilde - The picture of Dorian Gray

Not (yet) on my Classics' list:

6. GU Ratgeber - kleine Hunde

(I have read it right away and found out that dogs actually can also have cheese as a reward. I can tell - that works Madame Josie immediately decided that those expensive puppy training snacks are not so tasty in the end...)

7. Multatuli- Max Havelaar 

(This is THE Dutch classic I have heard. I will add it to my list, and I must say that this is a particular challenge, as I have never read a Dutch book in my life, let alone one from the field of classical literature...)

8. A compendium about arts

So, lots of things to look forward to hopefully read soon. Particularly Siddhartha makes me want to leave all other current books and things in life and read. Just read....

Have a lovely week,

Svenja

Paolo Coelho: When you thought I wasn't looking...

by Mary Rita Schilke Korzan
 

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You hung my first painting on the refrigerator
And I wanted to paint another.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You fed a stray cat
And I thought it was good to be kind to animals.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You baked a birthday cake just for me
And I knew that little things were special things.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You said a prayer
And I believed there was a God that I could always talk to.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You kissed me good-night
And I felt loved.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
I saw tears come from your eyes
And I learned that sometimes things hurt—
But that it’s alright to cry.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You smiled
And it made me want to look that pretty too.

When you thought I wasn’t looking
You cared
And I wanted to be everything I could be.

When you thought I wasn’t looking—
I looked . . .
And wanted to say thanks
For all those things you did
When you thought I wasn’t looking.

Colourful Sunday

My Sunday has been very colorful so far...
How was yours?

Lets see:

Running my Sunday morning round around the Karpendonkse Plaats in Eindhoven, which is a kind of park with a lake in the middle surrounded by nice estates and a Michelin Star restaurant and lots of nature.

And: Really funny. When I accomplished my run today, it was Lance Armstrong** who congratulated me for my longest run (I have that Nike + Sensor and I did not know that they put so much effort in this) so far (at least since I have that thing..).

** UPDATE: Mr Armstrongs career has taken a little different turn (cheater!!!) and I am sure Nike is no longer proud on their partnership ,,,

Life is fresh...

Peppermint nail polish by Rimmel London. I like.

Life is pink:
Our Sunday evening mediterranian food...

Left: Couscous with fresh beet root and feta cheese (utterly delicious!!)
Right: fresh sambas from the market

Life is fruity:

While I mostly drink white wine, preferably Chardonnay, but I have a new addiction: This fantastic French Rose wine: Montalis 

French Rose Wine: Fruity, but not sweet, very summery and just perfect for a sunny Sunday evening...

Aaaand, my new shoes -- by Fred de la Bretoniere, a Dutch shoe designer

also in mint.

Life is fresh, part 2

The only occurring problem now: I do NOT have a scarf in that color. Those who know me would perhaps say: "That is impossible", but - helaas - it is the truth...

And not to forget:

The colorful card I got from my dear friend Hanna for my 30th birthday: 

Hope you all had a fantastic & colorful weekend!

Love 

Svenja

Home

Recently I wrote about home and what I consider home and about my relationships with my past and current homes. Though, I have to admit that I have been overlooking things a bit.

I realized that home is not necessarily where my love is. My love is here but I do not feel at home here. I find it very difficult to find friends in the Netherlands, even though I speak the language and can adapt to my surroundings. People seem to have not really time for friendships; life here is so time consuming that in the end of the day everyone seems happy to have some hours of sleep. And I can understand that, it is the same for me.

I realized that for me this way of living, this way of interacting with each other is not making me happy. And it took me quite a while.

If I would have at least have my family around me it would maybe be acceptable. But seeing them twice a year for a short week is just not enough for me.

Now I have to find a solution how to deal with the situation and take action. And this will be a move to my home country for me and my darling.

I have had a good time here in the Netherlands, but I feel that it is difficult to grow happy memories....

Instagram for beginners

Okay, I will probably be the last person on the world wide web to try out that application - but even I have to say, it is worth it!! A quick and easy way to transform new and existing photos into a new look, vintage, or with some kind of frame, or in polaroid style. It is fun to play around with it, so these are my first attempts:

New years day walk in the Sonse Heide 

Vintage Venice 

Karpendonk'se Pond / EIndhoven 

 Josie sleeping on her new cute dog blanket which I got for my birthday! 

Thank you, Anja!! I love it - and  Josie too 

My cute puppy Josie is already four months old 

A ticket to ride

The other day I finally managed to finish Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier, a contemporary novel about a Portuguese doctor, intellectual and aristocratic author and a Swiss old languages teacher who leaves his home to find the man who wrote the impressive text he found in a Bern book store. Completely and more and more fascinated by his way of following the stream and ways of consciousness and the truth of a soul framed by a dance of words arranged in perfect harmony...

The book is written by an utterly talented author who succeeded in writing a story which is unpredictable until the very end. 

Mercier has touched different aspects here and there which made me think of a different ending, and I was almost a little disappointed when he did not call the mysterious phone number written by the lady on the forehead at last. Grrrrrr --- I do not like if there are such unsolved mysteries...

What I also really, really liked about the book was the cultural background. When I think of my interest in Portugal it mostly started in idyllic beaches where I could go for long long rides on horsebacks in the sunset with the amazing Atlantic Ocean sweeping her waves smoothly to the shore... and ended with a glass of wine in the ancient city centre of Lisbon. OK, to be fair, I forgot the beach holiday at the Algarve... I was aware that the Spanish neighbors have been oppressed by that dictator called Franco, yes. But that there was a similar situation in Portugal with a massive movement of resistance, that I did not know...

I am mostly drawn to (contemporary written) books which "play" - I should actually say "live" , but I do not want to sound too pathetic, in the Anglo Saxion world, or France maybe, but apart from the books by Zafon which are set in Barcelona I cannot - and I know that it is very poor remember any other story set in Iberia. 

The story made me want to travel to Lisbon immediately, to look if I might find the blue house, and the antiques shop, and the pharmacy (yes, now I am being pathetic, but that's how I am - a little bit I guess) and walk through the busy streets ordered like a chess board and enjoy the atmosphere of past glory. And play chess with the old guy in the nursing home (Errr, if I COULD play chess of course, always wanted to learn!!) and drink coffees and teas with the lady doctor, and with the sister of Amadeu de Prado. And also ask them so many things. And I would like to meat Gregorius, aka Mundus, aka Papyrus. And I would ask him to show me the pictures he took. And ask him how he felt when he tried to feel how Amadeu had felt. And how he exactly felt when he left Lisbon. When I was very young I had the same experiences, very often. I contemplated how it must feel when I was not me but girl x. Who had an own pony, and the parents had a cute dog. And how it must feel when I could go out to ride my pony every day, not only once a week. And how it feels when I go home with her parents, not with mine, and that I would perhaps miss my parents then, but in the next minute I realized of course that they were not my parents, that they were not at all connected to me. That I had no emotion with them - that they were just the parents of girl y (my actual me, which I would not be at that moment,because I was my x me.) And it kept me busy how it must feel to look at my actual me, and would I look at my real me and thinking that that me is exactly like my y me sees it? Does that correspond? I was mostly busy with these kind of thoughts which I could have never ever put into words when I was around 7. I wonder if I would have talked about what has kept me busy if the other children had the same? I think so. Why then did we never talk about it? Why did we just play Barbie? 

Anyways it was really nice to read a book which is explaining similar strings of thoughts as I so often had myself. Still have. Whoops, I am at the airport, have to wait, and I see this elegant business woman with the perfect hair and suit and the very expensive handbag. How would it feel being her instead of my bookish me with only trouble in my life right now. Oh I would probably like to swap. Mmmh, she will perhaps checking into the flight to New York. To have to attend a business meeting tomorrow morning. Will she have enough sleep in the airplane? Maybe not. I do not like to sleep anywhere else than in a bed. I can sleep but I do not feel refreshed after sleeping in an airplane. Me alias her will feel mediocre. Waking up. Quick shower. This me will perhaps take a bit more time to get this accurate hair thing done. But it will be easy to choose a perfect outfit. I would feel stressed and wish I'd had a small dog I could take out for a walk to relax and prepare the day in my thoughts.... And I would go to work completely in my thoughts, I would have no eye for the city I have never seen in my life, it would just pass by, be a by-element, a substitute for the Londons and Zurichs and Frankfurts and Singapores I would go often as well. I would wake up in the morning without quite knowing were I am and check my agenda for the location of the meeting. Anyways, my life would be busy, superficial, I would have no time and no interest in the true beauty of the places I am going....

Or when I see that other lady sitting there. She looks a little bit tired. Now I see the kid which is sitting next to her playing with her doll. She seems to be not from here and has difficulties with the local language. She is asking somebody next to her if it was her flight already where they were calling for boarding. She is sitting at the gate to Buenos Aires. Spanish. She looks worried. If this was me, how bad would I rate my worries? Would I have the same rating of worries as I have in my real me? Would the Argentinian me also would be annoyed by dirty toilets, by people being late, closed supermarkets on Sundays or rude drivers on the road? Perhaps I would laugh about me.......

Back to my own me I decided that I need to go to Lisbon asap. Really! 

Until that time I will dream of a ticket to ride and of wines and coffees and teas in the ancient city of the Portuguese capital!

Which one is your next destination? Do you also always get so inspired from books?

Sparkling

Being spammed by all those shocking news all the time, about financial and economic crisis, catastrophes, wars and other negative input, I sometimes feel that we should have a look at the beautiful things in our world.

I have tried to put a small collection together to prove, that 

our world is sparkling, glittery and shiny.

Swan at the Spree. Berlin / Germany

Gras after rain shower

Raindrops 

Dewdrops at dust

Snow glitter 

Fireflies in Spain

Bioluminescent phytoplankton glitter 

on the Maledives

Ocean glamour

Sometimes I need to remember this..

Source

The importance of reading Ernest...

Uhh, I know, I am still overdue to write a wrap up on Earnest Hemingway's "The old man and the sea". I planned to get things done last weekend, but I got hit by an utterly annoying stomach flu, which made me lay in bed for almost two days. And no, I was not even able to read. No further details necessary. 

Anyways, now - Hemingway! The importance of reading Ernest. He came into my life already years ago when studying English and American literature classes. Amongst others Hemingway was on the list, and while paying more attention to Tuesday evening  Frizz-party nights and the involved pre-planning Hemingway and all the others got read - well a little bit, not with the right amount of attention I would say. Mmmh, as a twenty-something there is also so much more than literature (I just joined the club 30 earlier this week, so I can know) but I missed out great writing!! 

"The old man and the sea" is a short story about an old fisherman, a young boy and the elements. A fable about luck, dreams, pride, respect and the interconnectedness of the elements...

I was more than impressed by the accurateness and attention to detail, yes, even love to detail that sometimes, I just read the sentences 2, 3, 4 times - not because I did not understand them - but just because they were so extraordinarily beautiful. Like a perfect composition in a picture!

For example how he has described the sea, as la mar, - well it is too beautiful to not place that part here and share it with you:

He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a women. (...) the old fisherman always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withhold great favors, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a women, he thought. 

p.19f 

When I read this part which is in the first quarter of the short story, I was completely hooked by Hemingway's style of writing. 

I also liked this one: 

The clouds over the land now rose like mountains and the coast was only a long green line with the grey-blue hills behind it. The water was a dark blue now, so dark that it was almost purple. p.24

He also continue to explain how the plankton looks like and throughout the book I had the idea to take part in a colorful journey on the ocean, which - to me always tended to be more dark-blueish. Next to colors, also the senses played an important role and made me almost smell the sea and the salt. Hemingway also included a lot of naval know how, such as weather conditions and signs, or that a lot of plankton means fish. This, at least to me, serves as a kind of frame to a brilliantly told story which has, like the critics say "not a word too many"!

For me this story was a narrative master piece and definitely marks the importance of reading Ernest!

Teneriffic!

Right. Well. Back home it is almost weird to think about the turquoise water, the bright blue sky and the shiny colors of the Canary islands. Tenerife is one of the bigger islands of the Canaries and covered with a volcanic surface, which leads to the fact that the land is not very fertile and appearing in all earth colors, but mostly dark. But - the vegetation which has made its way through the lava stones is remarkably beautiful. OK, my western European eye which is used to boring green trees and a couple of flowers which are lovely but mostly found in a flower shop might easily be satisfied, but I seriously got impressed a couple of times by natures pure beauty: 

These violet / purple flowers are cultivated to serve as normal hedges for sight protection.

They are basically everywhere - such as we have a normal hedge to separate ours from the garden of our neighbors - which is mostly just green. In Tenerife those flowers are not only purple but they also have them in a soft rose / slightly orange. Also really beautiful







This red leafed hedge is - unlike the violet kind- not able to grow on grids upwards, but still - its deep red leafs are really fascinating.

Last - but not least - my favorite: The top of floral awesomeness around the Atlantic ocean is this cute, pink flower which I could not let go without getting it in front of my camera.

But that is not all the Canaries have to give: Next to the floral colourspots the ocean also plays of course a major role to let my aesthetic heart beat faster: Glittering in the sun the water has so much power and always draws my attention to it - even (and I am from the North sea side and can know it) if the weather is rather poor. But no way, here it was just utterly fantastic. I just love if it shimmers turquoise with its white tops if it culminates to small waves and met the banks - time after time.

Or this - like I find- almost perfect wave - as I would always try to draw it if I was a child...

I had another nice rendezvous with the ocean when I went on a Catamaran for wale watching. I was so fascinated that I hardly could take my eyes off them! And I was very grateful that they let us watch them for quite some time. We saw one really big wale who dived under the catamaran so that we could watch him very closely (there is a kind of gap between the two "legs" of the Catamaran so that we could see) and some of the dolphins we saw had their babies with them. And they were so cute, they played on the surface of the water, turned around, one time, two times, they could almost not stop, and they always splashed their water with their tail fin - amazing!

And their bodies, so beautiful and glossy, grey and majestic, how they slowly moved in the water, difficult to put the feeling of seeing them into words.... 


This experience definitely made me adore nature even more than I did before.

This one was my holiday schmankerl. Am big fan of Hemingway now. The art how he is playing with language is adorable. His use of describing everything in every detail makes me feel that I was with this old man on his boat on the sea and fighting the elements. Amazing. I am so impressed from his perfection in writing that I was doubting that I would like any other style after reading his. But - fortunately I was mistaken. I started "Nachtzug nach Lissabon" right afterwards and it was not disappointing at all - yet surprisingly addictive! 
I will write a post on Hemingway a little later, as I think it is just too less to only mention him and the book very shortly on a random holiday post! Far too less. 


To sum it up I had a perfect holiday, with perfect weather, perfect reads and perfect waves!