‘a horse may well be able to do things that a scholar can’t’

the siege is over - the defeated army trundle away - horsemouth will have to do some research. at one point, in ismail kadare's book, to find the aqueduct bringing water into the castle, the besiegers release a thirsty horse who begins to dig where the aqueduct is. in this he truly is ‘a horse ... able to do things that a scholar can’t’ because the aqueduct has been designed to baffle human understanding and ‘make no sense’ but a thirsty horse just digs where it can smell water...



this could have been a morrissey tune - if you listen very carefully you can hear him. swooningly romantic, wracked with self-doubt, all wrapped up in a double entendre... no idea who this lot are (young person's music).

horsemouth is uncomfortable with the animal side of him (notice that he has chosen a much put upon beast of burden to be his spirit animal). however it is sometimes necessary to connect with this side of himself (when dealing with animals, children, lovers and insufficiently socialised adults - all creatures who will not accept a fascimile of the correct response but demand actual emotional connection).

but horsemouth finds this difficult and will often just get angry instead at having been made to do it. horsemouth’s anger is not a least said soonest mended kind of thing, it’s a mean passively-aggressive consequences playing beast, it’s a bit of a tantrum thrower, it’s not a pleasant sight. but it is funny - a real comedy piece.

as horsemouth gets older he strives to do it less - let them have it, he says, if that’s what they want.

yesterday horsemouth got the bus out to fountainstown - and then after a read on the beach and a paddle he got the bus back. last night it rained (which made the dogwalking brief).

interesting there’s just been a power outage. the dog seems unbothered. horsemouth will blog on until the dog gets restless and then go for a walk. it’s a rainy grey day so he’s uncertain what he will do for the rest of it. for a brief moment he had a vision of no shops open, the fridges defrosting, the full ATMs not working apocalypse.

'come as you are...'

a few nights ago horsemouth was dreaming of village life. of the firemen making a symbol similar to the takoma park records logo. his dreaming of villages may be inspired less by carrigaline and more by the village in ismail kadare’s the ghost rider - the daughter marries out far away, the son promises the mother that if she wishes it he will bring her back, but then he dies fighting, the mother curses him in his grave for not bringing the daughter back, but then one night the daughter is at her door saying her brother has just brought her back. ‘come as you are...’ he said to her. his armour all covered in earth. 

when he wrote it kadare was in disgrace in internal exile in albania. it’s translation history is interesting it was translated into french by a friend of his joseph vuroni in paris and then from that into english with additional bits added. the book ends by giving a preview of the siege.

it’s another book (like broken april -horsemouth would argue his best)  about the kanun (albanian blood feud laws) - which the police chief sees as a self-managed means of imprisonment and execution (this may be a portion added after in the new translation). there is of course a political metaphor and message here but for kadare to have survived albanianian communism there can’t have been one - hence the rewrite, hence the original choice of a well-known ghost story (but one that was known in the rest of europe), folkloric material officially approved of.