Portrait of Rabo Karabekian (15th of December 2010)

portrait of Rabo Karabekian, graphite pencil

When I made a portrait of Rabo Karabekian yesterday (above) he was somewhat sick. Stuck sinuses, sore throat, light headache. I think that his state can be seen on the portrait also. I decided to make his portrait after I read another Vonnegut's book "A Man Without a Country". So the combination of my sketching/drawing and reading of Vonnegut continued after >>Icon and Bluebeard.

"A Man Without a Country" is good (and very short) book, but not as good as "Bluebeard". It is about thinking of an old man, eighty years old man, who had seen many things and who knows what is wrong with the world. While, as somewhat younger, he was resigned, now he is almost furious and wishes that the things change somehow if possible, since he knows that he will be gone soon, and with him all that he noted and that he maybe might have changed. Although Vonnegut is likable and intelligent, that need of his to point to the things that are out of order is somewhat irritating - it sounds as preaching at times (yes, we know who are (were) George Bush and people from his administration, we know about the problem of fossil fuels and their merciless spending, about TV that stupefies, about religion that does not make people better, and we know that this world may be hell). I did not wanted to cite anything from the book, the whole book is a collection of wisdom. But I remembered the two books that I read several years ago that were also written by great writers in their old age. I remembered the books "La Resistencia (The Resistance)" by Ernesto Sabato and "The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship" by Charles Bukowski.

In the Croatian version of this page ( >> HERE), I continue with citing interesting passages from the two books, but I cannot provide the same for the English speaking readers of Construction of Reality. It wouldn't be fair to Bukowski and probably also not to Sabato to translate back to English from Croatian.

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Last updated on 15th of December 2010.