Saying something doesn't make it true

Pinterest feeds off sentimental sayings of ten words or less set on a pretty textured backgrounds or stock photos. Saying something doesn't make it true, my friend, any less than believing the sun will rise in the south tomorrow will make it so. Nor will grouping ten words, like singles around the bar, guarantee they make sense. In fact, you could argue that there is an ideal number of words in a concise but accurate description. But ten words is not it.

Think about it: Big Bang Theory. Err firecrackers? Popping balloons (shudder)? Sheldon? Explain that in ten words or less.

In fact, most of these memes make less sense than the cliches and housewives' myths handed down through the generations (like the perfect way to make tea), which usually only inadvertently make sense (there is no perfect way to make tea, because coffee. You heard me. Coffee). "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Aaaaaand sometimes it doesn't. "Haste makes waste." Not in the movies. You're not exactly going to sit down to think when an alarm starts running its mouth off in a nuclear reactor.

Here are some clangers.

The words are very pretty and, in these cases, make some superficial sense and give us a warm feeling that would otherwise be a symptom of internal bleeding. Although this may surprise you, I am a book person, a reader, a literate. I am also a creative who fits into the box of stereotypical characters of writers quite nicely, with some shuffling. So I can tell you that the imagination is mostly escapism and creating is more a by-product. I've lived the thousand lives The Man of One Thousand Books is alluding to. Many are independent of books and live like moss in the damper parts of my brain.

Let's take a breather here. What is The Point of this post? a) The Big Bang Theory b) Memes c) Game of Thrones d) Coffee e) None of the Above.

The Point is always coffee but you get points for trying if you went with e). Now, we're rounding a hairpin bend, so stay with me, you.

Reading turns you into a know-it-all. I am a false measure, because I was this way to start with. I once tried to convince my mother than one million was actually one thousand thousand. My clincher was "my teacher told me". This is like Maths in school - most of your marks were for working out, even if your numbers were wrong. So my logic was wandering in the right direction, but it could have hit the million between the eyes if I had listened.

A reader can, and will, tell you about Emperor butterflies (all my knowledge about these creatures comes from the books of Enid Blyton so it could, for all I know, be a strictly fictitious thing. Although, who would make up a butterfly?), the aftermath of World War I and where Anastacia's body is. Replace these facts with whatever fact the reader in your life is currently spouting.

This occurred to me because, in lieu of being able to give anything my attention for more than five minutes right now, I am devouring magazines as if they were episodes of The Office (fyi my favourite two series. Like, ever). Mostly techie or cultural things (fashion magazines, by comparison, are just recycled and often contradictory tidbits, like whether ripped denim looks trashy and whether yellow lipstick ever suits anyone. Like, ever).

Ok, I confess. I just wanted to regale you with some annoying facts about the world. Anticipating it would be annoying, I tried to ride in on the back of a Lipizzaner - donkey - mule deer - camel. Basically, I tried to hide my intention in plain sight. Since we've come all this way, I am just going to go ahead as if I had not confessed anything at all. Which, honestly, is the way most Catholics go about it.

So, did you know that nuclear reactors are being phased out, by not being upgraded, the output slowed and the plants shut, because they are not efficient sources of power? Although it is an efficient source of death and general suffering. Did you know that a team of countries hacked into the nuclear facilities of another country and shut the whole thing down? Did you know that the most complete skeleton of a T-Rex was found in 1977 and is the only one to have arms (that sounds like a meme in the making)? And that T-Rex could not live in today's world because the air isn't dense enough?

Facts are like crosswords: they are addictive. In fact, both are like reading fiction, which is addictive. Don't take my word for this though; nothing accurate can be said in ten words, other than: My favourite dinosaur is the stegosaurus. The cat crossed the road. The tree is tall. While true, they don't have quite the same ring as "A rolling stone gathers no moss" (you spotted it, right, the blatant problem here? A rolling stone probably has crevices that gather moss, because to gather does not mean to grow).

We have inadvertently (phew, this post has meaning) stumbled onto questions about language, truth and culture. None of this can be summed up in ten words, or even in this post, or probably in a lifetime. So, I will distract you with another fact: Eskom (our electricity provider) built a pumped storage site that can power up in five minutes to support the national grid. It is built underground because the site it's built in is home to a rare bird that no one has ever heard sing. Or something.

That was more than ten words, you.

V: on hold

The real world has me in its claws but I promise not to let this become a habit. Granted, a mole can't do much against the eagle attached to the claws except become a very unpleasant meal. All this really proves is that this metaphor has limits. The real world has me surrounded but the Law of Cowboy Films says that the fewer the men, the craftier they have to be to survive. In this case, I intend to go down in a blaze of words and few inappropriate pranks.

For instance, is it safe to put a goldfish in a bowl in the fridge for long enough for someone to find it?

I haven't abandoned words in this stake-out - that would be just ridiculous. At the moment, all I really have brain real estate for is crosswords. Yep. You, stop sniggering. Quit - lay off - end - halt - cease - terminate - desist from snickering - simpering - sneering - laughing.

Really, I rarely finish a crossword without cheating: using dictionaries, thesauruses, and an app that allows you to match words and reveal blocks. But I can live with this because I get bored when I reach an impasse and rules are flexible.

Before my two-week hiatus from blogging, I was still ploughing my way through V and 1Q84. Ok, don't look at me like that - that's not exactly true because the latter has been kicked under my bed, behind my hairdryer. I had reached the point where one character's married girlfriend is pregnant and the other is recovering (in uncomfortable detail) from a night of debauchery she doesn't remember. I stepped on it as I got up out of bed and slipped.

V is on my Kindle, which is less slippery. However, it does not have a solution to being distracted. Every time I pick it up to read it, I have to flip back to find something I recognise. The novel is made up of stories that branch off from the main story. These branches usually handstand back in time, pulling certain characters with it. The point being that you have to pay attention otherwise you may find yourself unwittingly a soldier without a past on Namibia's Skeleton Coast.

The chapter set in Namibia is gruelling, as is another set close by, in an estate that houses one continuous party a la The Great Gatsby. Not only do events depict the brutal violations of human rights that were colonialism, but the protagonists experience a flux of emotions, from bravery to insipidness, activism to self-preservation, care to the need for care.

The main story is set in post-World War II America and follows an ex-naval officer. Although Wikipedia says he was discharged, I remember vividly that he went AWOL, although perhaps this insert is the reverse of my loss of memory. He is part of the Whole Sick Crew, an incestuous bunch of naval officers and some women. He describes himself as the most popular man among the women but also the most virginal, even though he and Rachel have something destructive going on.

Now we reach My Point - congratulations, pick up 50 000 Air Miles when next you visit your local bookshop.

V reminds me of Cloud Atlas, but only in the sense that Mercury and Jupiter orbit the same star. Cloud Atlas depicts several stories set in several genres, with no main narrative except that forced on it by the movie. Instead, it is the themes that bind them - themes that range from esoteric (producers of the movie) to literary and semiotic (me).

Having said this, certain elements recur, just as they occur in other novels written by the same author. Mostly, these elements are characters. They recur as actual characters, or just references or blurry pasts.

In V, the stories are more interbred, with a single protagonist, and more consistent voice and genre. I am twisting myself into contradictions now, which is fitting, because the author also experiments with genre, particularly historical drama. His prose is consistently highbrow, even when he is slinging slang between the Sick Crew and rival gangs.

Am I recommending fans of Cloud Atlas to read V? a) I can't because I haven't finished and who knows what asteroid could be hiding in the last few pages. b) These are two different but similar books, and it depends on whether you enjoyed the games the first played with genre (different) or that they played games with genre (similar).

Don't quote me on it. My opinion can only be trustworthy once I have finished the book and I haven't. I also cannot promise to finish anytime soon, since isolated synonyms and antonyms comprise the sum total of my attention right now, as I figurre out how to twist myself to bite the claws that hold me, or crawl out of the frontier cottage I am crouched in, in the hopes that my attackers will wait there until their toes chafe.

Humpty Dumpty was a nihilist

Humpty Dumpty - WW Denslow

Go into your kitchen and break a glass. (You sense a moral here, but do it anyway.) Now, what do we (note: this does not imply I am in any way responsible for your decision to obey my imperative) have to hand to put Humpty Dumpty back together again? A plaster, superglue, paper mache, a welding iron? You get the point. You do, right?

What doesn't kill you does not make you stronger. Oh, it's just a saying? Well then write it on a piece of paper instead of saying it to someone in a bind. Because you may be scratching at a hairline crack or chip in the rim. I have seen people smash a glass or mug that is chipped and apparently harbouring all sorts of bacteria. This is a great metaphor, right?

People are not only flawed but damaged. Yes, even you. We're all wandering around hiding hairline cracks so that no one smashes us. To kill the bacteria or stop you from infecting everyone. Or something. This is still a good metaphor, because some people seek out other damaged people and smash them, on purpose but not consciously.

Even a saintly person, who takes in more orphans than she has resources for, may be operating from a desire to give herself up like a sacrifice, drown in other peoples' traumas or withhold luxury from herself and even the orphans. This isn't to say she's not a good person or altruistic, but she's still human.

By nature humans have to be selfish. Each one of us is glued to one spot in a fleshy box. You can't even explore the box, unless you have been breathing in fumes, but even then you just think you're exploring the box. Apart from the fact that any living creature defends its own territory, and especially when as far as we're concerned going beyond your room in the box is walking into a sci-fi movie (which rarely ends well), we may also have Stockholm Syndrome.

(That last bit may be facetious, I don't know. Part of me believes it.)

This was definitely not My Point. My Point is a) never use sayings like that in real life because you are asking for me to smash something and b) don't cast the first stone unless you are sure it doesn't have a log in it, which is unlikely because this box is made of wood. Or something.

Ever heard the claim that abused children often grow up to be abusers? Trauma begets trauma. Cracks breed more cracks, which is the real reason why people smash the glasses and mugs. This is my contribution to the Tree of the Human Condition. That people seek out other people to crack and smash, because what salves a weakness like shattering someone else's? Even the saint harbours a grudge against society or wealth or whatever.

This isn't some devilish spell; it's just unfortunate, like the flaws of our poor hero Hamlet, who is fated by the thoughts that he acts on, on purpose but unconsciously.

Ha! There is a third point! Now that I have completely depressed you (thereby perhaps fulfilling my destiny to seek out other people's chi) I am going to uplift you with the unexpected joy of the Nihilist. No, not really. That's ludicrous. But I still think I am more idealistic, even realistic, than most.

c) If most of the terrible offshoots of humanity, like poverty, McDonalds and the Vikings, are beaten into us, there is still space for us to be inherently... good is not the right word. None of us deserve haloes, my friend. Deserving of respect. Having integrity.

In my experience, treating people with respect is an investment. Even though they may be wary at first, most come around. It's a selfish ploy, really: you catch more flies with honey (disclaimer: as yet untested, because flies also like garbage) and what I want is more honey. But it's a principle I believe in (probably having wedged it into a crack), in the innate sense of belief (not the kind where you expect a deity to shower you with cash, upon which you visit said deity regularly in case they have more to spare).

The rewards have been like sunlight versus a flashlight of attempts to smash me. (Well, until now, but I also believe I will survive, even if a little less steady.)

For my belief to remain intact-ish, it's not necessary that the person reciprocate (although it is preferable because honey is expensive). Respecting other people is like respecting my image in a mirror. I am witnessing my own sense of integrity in action. If people respond they can see it too.

If that arrow didn't kill me... I'd be a warrior princess.

People usually don't call me idealistic, especially not realistic - they call me naive. How I hate that word. I see the world, and folks, it's not pretty. I cannot accept that half of the world's population is starving, and that isn't even an accurate representation because a subsistence farmer is not in my mind starving. But that a single child starves tonight disgusts me and that we (including me) don't rage in the streets to save that child disgusts me.

Is it naive to believe that child, as a human being, has a fundamental right to respect? To know that she is starving because we're all chipped and afraid of the box we are confined to? To know she is starving on purpose if not consciously? And to know there is nothing I can do to save her or her siblings?

Now you don't have to be a rocket scientist to realise this desire to be Superwoman to the world represents my own need to be cared for. Perhaps even my belief in our innate right to respect and power of integrity. But of all the kinds of chips, I'm okay with this one.

Lately I have been called naive for taking all the motivational speeches and books and blah blah at face value. People have integrity, I yelled, jumping into the fray. But apparently I overlooked the disclaimer: except within the walls of capitalism, upon which they become automatons concerned only with their own survival and that of the structure around them. Right. This is just the way it is, they tell me. Another tried and tested saying. Because life is not filled with surprises. Everything is as it appears. Right.

'The way it is' is this: a society is made up of people. Some people have more and some people have less power. But every single event that happens is related to people. Made up of persons. We have integrity, but we also have cracks that sometimes obscure our integrity. These things, together with a host of creepy crawlies hitherto unmentioned, affect how we interact with the world.

You may feel you have no power; but you have the power to assert your integrity, which (in my experience) usually reflects back from your environment.

My brand of naive nihilism says that (and this is crude and chauvinist) you need to grow some balls and man up. That you respect yourself and the people around you, and you don't let people tell you that you (and they) are worth less than that. You jump into the fray, yelling 'Integrity', but you also pack steel, because some people are looking for a crack to widen. Or something. That when you see someone on the ground you lob them over your shoulder, because when you lay him down, you'll see he has your face.

I can't promise you that you will always win. I can't promise wealth, glory or a picket fence. But I can promise you that if you call me naive or try to patronise me, I will smash your face.

V & 1Q84

They have more in common than isolated consonants from the second half of the alphabet (that would be V and Q for those to lazy to glance at the heading and work it out). This is not beginning well. Which is another thing these books have in common. More accurately, they (the beginnings of these two books - and even this post) are awkward.

I felt the introduction should end awkwardly, too. Yes, I did that on purpose. Not because I had no idea where to go from there.

We will get back to the awkwardness shortly, don't worry. I want to tell you about something else they have in common, which is the real reason for this post of paragraphs that end like cliffs. Me.

As you should know (you religious reader of this irreverent blog), I am reading 1Q84, but in tiny portions like baby quiches and cucumber fingers stolen from trays carried by waiters around the room. After more weeks than I have limbs, I have only just reached page 209. Of 1 300 and something. And three parts. In between I have been reading 'sorbet' reads: frivolous, with happy(ish) endings and only light intellectualism.

So why then I should read V by Thomas Pynchon is a mystery. You know those competitions where marketers ask us to test the new flavour of chips or yoghurt or fizzy drink, and name it - which is so dubious because, if they can't figure it out, there has to be an experimental and perhaps accidental mouthful of preservatives and flavourants in there? This is that kind of mystery.

Let's retrace our steps back to the awkward introduction (not because we've lost our way. No. Definitely not).

Ulysses. Yet another thing these books have in common. If Terry Pratchett is prince of light reads, Murakami is prince of opaque Literature. James Joyce is king. The plot of a Murakami novel cannot be summarised without sounding like a Philip K Dick plot (which is really the snail trail of his brainwaves on acid).

You don't believe me? The first protagonist is a gym trainer slash assassin, who murders wife-beating politicians with a tiny ice pick. The second protagonist is a language tutor who discards his ethics to rewrite a short story so that the author can win a prize. She is a dyslexic, potentially emotionally disturbed young woman, who cannot use punctuation in speech. She also believes in 'Little People'.

Oh and there is some kind of space-time warp where events impose themselves in hindsight like a waiter with a tray of baby quiches into your conversation.

V is a colleague of said waiter, except he apologises and then explains what is on the tray under your nose. In other words, the characters and even the narrator steer you toward a premeditated snail trail of thought. The narrator outlines the potential paths you can follow and the exits you can choose, should you choose to follow and exit.

Despite the comparative doggedness of V's themes, the language of the first limbs-worth of chapters reminded me of Joyce. Sentences end abruptly, words leapfrog each other and dialogue is sometimes invisible.

The book begins by following a drifter who is AWOL from the navy. His name is Profane. He drifts for a while, building roads, until drifting back to his former cabinmates, all of whom are um choice characters. The moral epitome of the sort of person who doesn't read. Including the women. The language and even the characters quickly become your calendar - the setting for the memory of these days and weeks.

Despite this, I was irritated by how little of the chapters I understood. Until the chapter in which Profane signed up to hunt and cull alligators in the sewers. Here I finally understood Profane - divorced from most of the cabinmates I judge so pretentiously.

Confession (don't get excited; this is only a mushroom of a confession): My Kindle copy of V is not exactly legal. By which I mean it is entirely illegal. I rarely read free books unless they are loaded on my library card (if you happen to find it) or loaned from a friend. And by rarely, I mean never. I am setting a precedent for when I am an author and need income to pay for food.

As you don't know, because you never do such things, pirated copies are often of bad quality. This may explain the missing articles, prepositions and conunctions. And the misspellings of 'it' and 'and'. The BA student will loftily proclaim that this is a practical metaphor for the death of the author. But no. My guess is that either this is an edited but unproofread manuscript or an OCRed version of the Kindle version.

Perhaps the alligators never waddle through the original version.

Now, this is awkward.

Another confession (a toddler of a mushroom): The two books have less in common than I have suggested. Not only because my copy of 1Q84 is legal. V plays with language and ideas, but you can still read it for hours on end without remembering you haven't had a cup of coffee yet.

1Q84 is why you need coffee.

From these last two posts, you might think I do not like 1Q84. I do. (Confession: I am not sure whether I do or don't.) But, true to form, it is opaque, even opaquely opaque.

PS. This conclusion is intentionally awkward.