The man in the Bookshop - Short Story

The clock struck 3 and inside a bookshop in Maradana, Codwin made a mental summary of himself.....Codwin, age 29, failed artist, indifferent poet and now a bookshop assistant at Premasiri Bookshop in Maradana. The world seemed darker than it did a few years ago and he knew that it would become worse when he reached his thirties. He looked through the glass window at the traffic below....it seemed to move slower everyday....so much like his life...........already he felt weary of his journey home.....the traffic before the kelani bridge would take one and a half hours......why on earth did they build a highway without solving this problem first........but then he gave up this line of thought......these were nuts beyond his ability to crack.....surrounded by books that's what he must think about.....most of them horrid and unsaleable.....how on earth did they make a profit selling this junk. He knew Mr. Premasiri knew nothing....nothing at all about books.....the novel's in the shelf's that he had read secretly were all trash.....but still Mr. Premasiri was a millionaire.....the wind blew in a different way nowadays.......and the likes of him with his half baked poems.....and knowledge of things unimportant wasn't going anywhere........but even in this trash there were gems that had been bought accidently.... take W. Somerset Maugham's short stories based in Malaya.....Maugham could write.... most of George Orwell's books were good too....though you got the feeling Orwell was mad to have written them. Maybe he should have become a teacher.... yes of English... general knowledge and things like that.....he could certainly write better than the people who wrote articles and stories in the XXXX English Newspaper. But who cares about literature, grammar and silly things like this nowadays.....the way the wind blows .......is the way the Crow goes..........

But wait in walks a women of maybe 47, Codwin recognised her at once because she came on TV often, one of those people who spoke to everyone kindly on TV but was rude to people like him..... shopworker that he was. But at times when she was not arrogant hurting peoples feelings she displayed an unusual variety of talents. One of her talents was writing poetry in the XXXX English Newspaper.....and what poems they were.........she had even written a book "The Island of Justice" very subtle title that and how very True.....Codwin knew her kind only too well......he would have slipped her a really bad book if she had asked him to recomend a book....maybe " The Eight Pillars of the ultimate Truth"..........how it would disappoint her....but of course knowing her tastes she might even enjoy it and who would be the fool then ?

The Great Sandy River

Meandering along the valley
Flows the great sandy river
Starting from the central hills
It reaches the sea in an hour

Men may come and men may go
But the river flows on
The river reminds me
We are all one.

The Jungle Tree

Here in this jungle grows a hidden tree
That all the eyes in the world cannot see
I seek to find it soon
Before the Sun reaches noon

What is money but a material thing
Where silver fools and gold kills
But each atom in this wondrous tree
Has a magic in it that can cure all ills

Written by: RJX

William Blake

  

William Blake (1757-1827), was an English poet, painter, and print maker. Considered mad by contemporaries, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of poetry and visual arts. He was a man of intense moral purpose who looked forward to the establishment of paradise on earth. In his strange, mystical poems Blake envisioned earth and air as filled with spiritual forces in unending struggle, “armies of angels that soar, demons that lurk. “ As a child he once thought he saw the face of god peering in through the window. Because no one else could understand the “prophesies” in his verse, people thought him insane. Yet some of his poems are charmingly lyrical, written with almost childlike simplicity.

The first editions of Blake’s poems are remarkable in that the poet was also artist and engraver. He engraved the poems and his illustrations for them upon copper plates. The pages printed from these plates he later tinted by hand. Blake’s illustrations and engravings, both for his own books and for books of other writers, have the same unearthly, symbolical, and mystical quality as his poems. He wrote the following poem:

Jules Verne

Jules Verne (1828-1905), was a French author. He is considered to be the father of science fiction. His novels forecast, often with remarkable accuracy, the submarine, airplane, and automobile; space exploration; and numerous other inventions and scientific developments then many years in the future. A skilled storyteller, he became one of the world's most popular authors and remains so, especially among younger readers, to this day. A number of scientist have credited his writing, which abounds in technical detail with arousing their initial interest in science. 

From the Earth to the Moon (1865) describes the journey of a space vehicle; it is launched from Florida, reaches the moon, and returns to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) concerns the flawed genius of Captain Nemo and his submarine, the Nautilus. In Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), Phineas Fogg wins a wager by circling the globe in record time. 

Verne was born in Nantes. He studied law in Paris, and tried writing plays but with little success. The popularity of his first novel, Five Weeks in a Baloon (1863), led him to choose writing as a career.

Marooned

Marooned in a Lonely Island
Seeking a Friendly Ship,
Waters of Silver Ripples,
And Beaches of Branchless Trees.

A Sun that Burns the Skin
Clouds that Embrace,
Parrots that Speak Bloody French,
God ! Am I going Insane

Is that a Damn ship out there
Will it hit the Damn Reef
Will my Dumb Dog greet me
Dammit, it’s the bloody Spanish

But behind this Coconut Jungle
And Creepers of Blue Lilies
And Past that thorny hell bush
Is a Jungle of Great Trees

Trees of Giant Timber
A Jungle of Tamarinds
With a Saw from the old Wreck
Could I Build a Two Mast Ship

Charles Sanders Peirce

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), was a United States philosopher, logician, and scientist. He was the founder of the philosophical movement called pragmatism, which his friend William James developed. Peirce believed that the meaning of any idea is found in its workability, or practical results. Bertrand Russell wrote "Beyond doubt he was one of the most original minds of the later nineteenth century and certainly the greatest American thinker ever". Peirce made contributions in many fields, particularly in the modern development of logic, but received little recognition during his life-time. He published only one book, Photometric Researches (1878), but wrote many essays - on logic, metaphysics, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, psychology, religion, and other fields. 

James Fenimore Cooper

 

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), was a United States author. He is Chiefly remembered for his Leatherstocking series of novels about Indians and frontiersmen, but he also wrote tales of the sea and other books. Cooper was the first American author to win wide popularity in Europe. He did more than any other writer to create the theme of the crafty but noble Redskin pitted against the equally resourceful woodsman.

Mark Twain and others ridiculed Cooper for his impossibly wooden heroines, his unreal dialogue and plots involving miraculous escapes from dangerous situations. Much of the criticism is justified, but Coopers skill in weaving an exciting tale and picturing a romantic woodland background has helped his books remain popular.

Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey, the second youngest in a Quaker family of 12. When he was one year old, the family moved to the shore of the Otsego Lake in western New York. There his father founded the village of Cooperstown. Young Cooper soon became acquainted with the Indians and the forests of the region. He entered Yale College at 13, but was dismissed in his third year for playing a prank. He went to sea as a common sailor in 1806, and in 1808 he received a commission as midshipman in the navy.

His dissatisfaction with an English novel provoked him to say he could write a better one. Precaution (1820), an imitative society novel, was the result of his wife’s demand for proof. It was unsuccessful. In 1821 Cooper published The Spy at his own expense. This romance of the American Revolution made him famous on both sides of the Atlantic and caused him to be called the equal of Sir Walter Scott as a historical novelist.

Here along the beach lies hidden treasure

Here along the beach lies hidden treasure
That all the money in the world cannot measure
I seek to find it soon
Before the Sun reaches the Moon

What is money but a material thing
Where silver fools and gold kills
But each grain of sand in this lonely beach
Has a magic in it that even I can reach

Written by: RJX

Tobrabane - Short Story

I am R, living in the land of Tobrabane where my ancestors lived and died, but where I know longer felt like living for I longed for the lands beyond where the sun shone differently, and men thought differently. I heard from men who sailed the seven seas of lands of calm beaches and majestic cities so high that men never set sight upon their peaks. 

Day after day and night after night I dreamed and the ocean which was silent until then spoke in a kind language that I seemed to know well, of a land to the west called a land of XXXXX where the sun shone so gently that there were four wonderful seasons, all of them colder than the coldest days in Tobrabane, where men were so disciplined that they needed no laws. As I gazed under a yellow moon the ocean parted and gave me glimpses of this land of order, that needed no laws for the men were sane, perhaps too sane for I thought I saw a land of despair, a land where boredom prevailed, a frightful emptiness, a secret death wish, but before I could say anything the ocean took me to another land, the great land of CCCCCC where men fled and sought refuge in an earlier, darker time, but could never return home again. 

This then I decided was the land of hope, where a better life could be sought a land of wealth where men achieved what they desired. But it was a dreary, cold land, where the sun hardly shone, and men worked continuously like machines. Happiness here could only be found in money for there was nothing else. The trees here looked monotonously dull, much like the sun. The sea seemed to have sensed the blow this dealt to my illusions for it took me to a land where the sun shone hot.

This was a land of unimagined wealth, of great sunny cities, where the land was blessed with gold that was black, and great men walked about proudly in robes. But then I saw a glimpse of a man's hand being severed for stealing a loaf of bread, a women being stoned to death, while the great men pretended to lead pious life's and I knew it was a land I will never visit.

Then the ocean showed me a land of imperfection but a land where the sun shone brighter when it shone and it rained more when it rained, and the people were slightly mad but happy, and I recognised it as the land of the emeralds and other precious stones, where men from different creeds climbed the same holy mountain with great difficulty, a land where Time was on my side or at least so I hoped, and I realised it was my own land and I decided never to leave it again.

The I dea - Short Story

Many years ago, I worked as the chief engineer for one of Sri Lanka's biggest hydropower projects. It was in the Hill Country, the picturesque central mountainous area, where tea is grown so abundantly that almost all the mountains are entirely covered by perfectly trimmed tea bushes, making it look more like a fairytale painting than an actual mountain. I was one of the “foreign experts” who would make Sri Lanka's ambition of becoming self sufficient in energy a reality. Life here was good with it’s slow pace and laid back attitude and a cup of Sri Lankan tea is just what you need in the cool Hill Country. 

But one day a strange man approached me, he was one of the minor employees, who I sometimes suspected had something a little wrong with his head. He was not educated but had a strange grand way of talking. A man with big ideas, R wasn’t educated but considered himself a practical man and “a man of the world.” It was obvious that the Hydropower project had caught R's imagination. But I was surprised when he came up to me and said that he had an idea which would make him rich, but he wanted to try it in his hometown of  Trincomalee first. He said he wanted to use the movement of the sea waves, to pump water to a nearby cliff which he said was called the Koneswaram mountain. From this cliff would flow water through a pipeline downwards which would be used to turn a Generator, from which he would get electricity for the entire town. At first I could not decide whether he was extremely intelligent or a little too simple minded, but I soon realized that it would never work, for it seemed to go against all the laws of physics, particularly lord Kelvins First Law of Thermodynamics. But to my utter disbelief he wouldn’t listen, he was convinced that it would work and nothing I said could convince him to give up his idea.

A year or so later I heard he had tried to implement his idea by collecting money from the villagers, had lost a lot of money on it, had been beaten up by the villagers and put in prison; I blamed myself for not having convinced this madman to give up his idea. Many years later I visited  Sri Lanka as a tourist, and was walking in the dusty streets of Colombo with my son; memories of my earlier days on this adventurous island came flooding back, when all of a sudden a Limousine stopped in front of us. The man who got down from it had the appearance of an important politician, but then I realised that it was none other than R. “Don’t tell me you made it on the Koneswaram mountain idea” said I. “No” said R in his thick accent “But while I was in prison I improved my idea, got a patent on it, and sold the patent for which I got 100 million dollars. “That’s unbelievable” said I not knowing what else to say. But in a way it wasn’t unbelievable because R had always had ideas, most of them bad, but he had so many bad ideas that one of them turned into a good idea with experience. And that’s more than you could say about most people in this world, they do not have any ideas either good or at least Bad.

Surrealism

I didn't study art so when I first saw Salvador Dali's paintings it really got me interested. Surrealism was an art and literary movement that began in the 1920's. It's leader Andre Breton had earlier worked in a mental hospital and had even met Sigmund Freud, perhaps it was this meeting that got him interested in the study of the unconscious for he founded the surrealist movement, which he considered a revolutionary movement. Surrealism seeks to free the unconscious to express itself. The first technique was automatic writing which Breton expressed in 1924 as pure psychic automatism - by which the real processes of thought could be expressed. It is the dictation of thought free from control from reason and any aesthetic or moral considerations. If this seems odd it gets odder still when we view the surrealist paintings. 

A few years ago I read a book by a famous scientist that someone had left behind by mistake, and in it he says that while fields like physics were truly profound, artist pretend to have done something great by describing their work in a profound way, even going to the extent of using extravagant names, while in reality it is nonsense. I think that you will agree this is an unkind way to describe an artist. Some artists work sells at hundreds of millions of dollars while this scientist books fetch him a relatively small amount. The reason for this is that there are at least some instances when an artist can capture our imagination far more than famous physicist can and when this happens its not called nonsense, its called magic........