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Male nude by Egon Schiele. Image from Wikimedia Commons

The Defenestrations
Chapter 4
By Patrick Limcaco

Warning: For mature (or less immature) audiences

Part 1

Rubbing dollops of oil on strange men’s backs wasn’t so bad, thought Inigo. Besides, he only had to do it in a dimly lit room that could barely contain two average-sized adult males. He didn’t have to talk to them as his hands did all the communicating. He didn’t even have to show his face to his clients, and he didn’t have to see theirs.
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We had the reading group discussion of Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata yesterday at Tin-Aw Art Gallery. The aircon was being repaired, so we moved to the cozy basement for a very insightful conversation about conformity, the burden of expectations, and individual definitions of happiness. Joining our regular group were Ari, Tere, Tess, Yomoko and Mariko from the Japan Foundation (who gave us context and perspective on Japanese society), and artists Ricky and Jay. Then the regular readers: Jessica, Angus, Von, Lord, Jon, our fabulous host Dawn, Roni, and Deo.

The next reading group discussion will be held on March 30. Jay suggested The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, and later I remembered that it was JD Salinger’s 100th birthday last January 1 so I pitched Franny and Zooey.

What do you think?

Note: Drogon is not really on the cover of Franny and Zooey.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

From the blurb: The devil comes to Moscow wearing a fancy suit. With his disorderly band of accomplices–including a giant, demonic tomcat–he immediately begins to create havoc. Disappearances, destruction and death spread through the city like wildfire and Margarita discovers that her lover has vanished in the chaos. Making a bargain with the devil, she decides to try a little black magic of her own to save the man she loves.

Setting: Moscow 1950s, with a side trip to Christ’s Jerusalem
Length: Paperback, 563 pages

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

Meet the Glass children: Seymour, Buddy, Boo Boo, the twins Walt and Waker, Zooey, and Franny. As children they were all regulars on a radio show called “It’s A Wise Child!” featuring child geniuses. Franny is in college when she has a nervous breakdown. She has decided that the world is worthless and full of phonies so she’s stopped eating and started reciting a medieval prayer. She goes home, where her brother Zooey, a TV actor, tries to pull her back into the world with the help of some old notes from Seymour, who committed suicide, and a phone call from Buddy, now a writer.

If it sounds familiar, it’s because I suspect The Royal Tenenbaums by Wes Anderson was inspired by the Glass family stories (See also: Nine Stories, Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters, Seymour).

Setting: New York City, 1950s
Length: Hardcover, 200 pages

Update: Franny and Zooey won the poll (Instagram mostly). See you on March 30.

Francois Truffaut said, “Three films a day, three books a week, and records of great music would be enough to make me happy to the day I die.” A good plan for spending your life, but for that annoying concept: bills. So I make do with three films and one book a week minimum, which is doable if you don’t fritter your life away on social media, having arguments that will never be resolved. At least books and movies end, though we wish the great ones would not.

Must read

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

So wonderful and gripping, I read it in one sitting. Told in the form of a memoir by a writer whose close friend has died. She takes in his dog, a huge Great Dane that is even more grief-stricken than she is. It’s about friendships between people and animals, how writers turn their own lives into fiction, and the futility of describing suffering in words. I was so fascinated by the memoir that I wondered who the dead writer was. Then I remembered that The Friend is a novel—not factual, but true—that won the National Book Award for Fiction. So now my cats demand that I write a novel about them.

Must watch

Cold War by Pawel Pawlikowski

By far the most romantic movie I’ve seen in years. In Communist-era Poland, a musician researching folk music meets a young woman (Joanna Kulig, remember the name) with moxie, and their affair spans the length of the Cold War. Based on the story of the filmmaker’s parents. Watching it is like having your heart broken repeatedly until it feels like happiness.

Read my list at the beginning of every month in Esquire (Thanks, PJ).