"A Real Durwan": We love stuff.

So, there is a homeless woman with a lot of grand stories, and she lives near the mailboxes in this apartment complex. Because she has stories of days when she was rich, and because she acts as a sort of guard dog, the tenets like her. The story as a whole is a greed story. The Dalal's buy two basins (sinks); they install one in their apartment, and another in a common area for all to use. The other tenets slowly get envious of them, and decide that they too have every right to have nice things inside their apartment. The homeless woman slowly gets out placed as the people decide to redo the entire building and make it prettier. Everyone is very upset when the basin in the common area gets stolen; there was no one around to protect it anymore. There is a lesson in simplicity present as stuff begets more stuff and wants begets want. As the tenets slowly work their way out of simpler living, the push the old story teller out as well, and end up paying the price for having stuff: they gain the fear of losing that stuff.

The Plague by Albert Camus

It took me a long time to read this book, but it is so good. Camus is a good writer because he makes you think. He does, however, fall into what Patrick Marton and I always referred to as “French-people-can’t-write-fiction.”

The book doesn’t necessarily flow very well. Sometimes, it seems to bop around to whatever topic the narrator (and therefore Camus) feels like talking about. This could reflect the chaotic environment that would besiege a town that has been quarantined., but it doesn’t not make for easy reading. Reality doesn’t translate well to fiction.

That being said, I love reading this book because Camus also falls for what Patrick Marton and I often referred to as “French-People-Know-How-to-do-philosophy-stuffs-especially-when-it-is-literature-based.” If you are anything like me you like stories where something happens to humanity as a whole, and humanity as a microcosm gets interesting (Russell has an interesting game like this; if there are only a 1000 people left on earth, what does the world do?). Unlike the Stranger, Camus does pretty well in painting people in a positive light. At one point there is a discussion about God, and one person talks about how he doesn’t believe in God. What is interesting is that it is a similar complaint that I’ve heard Russell make about people. The character says there cannot be a god because it takes people’s attention away from life. “Stop praying and save a poor person!” he would say. Russell and I have talked about how annoying the idea of waiting for heaven is. Don’t wait for the Kingdom of Heaven, it is upon us now.
The scary thing about this is when the Kingdom gets plague, which is what happens in this novel. Despite their words many people are good, and work to do good. In the event of this crisis, people do not act like animals, even if that simply means standing upright as you walk to your death (Camus’ Sisyphus idea).

My caffeine levels have gotten a little high, so I think I need to stop here. Read the Plague, and get rid of your adjectives sometimes. If anyone has questions, I can answer them in comments.

Going Home to a Landscape: Writings by Filipinas. Ed. Marianna Villanueva, Virginia Cerenio

"Writing landscape thus becomes constitutive of the process of selfhood. This Phillipines, as represented by the women in this volume, is a distinctly plural phenomenon constructed out of the comparison and intersection of past and present, of colonizations and immigration, of the cohabitation of different races and cultures."
- Foreward by Rocio Davis

Phew!! It's a good thing that the poetry and prose in this collection contain NONE of the academica-graduate-degree-speak contained in this foreward, which is nearly drowning in its own jargon. Yet this foreward is also something to be proud of, because it represents the achievements Filipino writers have made in the past 5 years. When I was an undergraduate in 2001, one of my classmates was working on creating a pretend anthology of Filiipino authors, just like this one, because she couldn't find anything like it out there!!

Still, you might want to skip the foreward, and jump right into the introductions by its two editors, for an introduction into the book's design and to Filipino literature in general.

This collection is all about discovery. Villanueva's introduction says that for Filipino women, maintenance of "the internal landscape" is vital, and this image (theme?) unites all the works. The book moves through five phases:

I. Las Dalagas (the time between girlhood and adult womanhood)
II. Landscapes
III. Traveling over Water
IV. Testament
V. Another Day
VI. Roots

The variety of voices is astounding! And it's quite refreshing, making this a fun read. None of the selections repeat, yet they are all actually connected. I am mid-way through the second part, but I'd like to share a few clips to show you the different voices I'm talking about:

april is the month of asparagus / of old uncles with bent backs and tired eyes / of hot sun on my back and shoulders / in april / my father greets the sun / and stays in the fields long after sunset / in dirty flannel and worn Dickies / for more than forty years he has cut and packed / a detestable vegetable / white people love to eat
--- "April in Stockton"

oh yeah, well check this:
my mama's hella brown,
a teacher/artist in da Flip nation
don't got an accent
'cause she's second generation!
-- by the Pinay M.A.F.I.A.

You think I am all mountain and valley, your mouth probing forests, your tongue climbing peaks.
I am small, a landscape defined by the space within your arms. Your palms journey and memorize me.
-- "Cartographer"

some women color their lips red.
not me, i like to color mine with good words instead.
--- "Some Women"

At 2:00 in the morning, the patients who are not unconscious drift in morphine-induced bliss. The events of the evening drift across Caridad's mind like the patients' cardiac tracings on the screen. She hates losing her composure in front of doctors, but she couldn't help herself, she thought. When she and Nita were wrapping Mang Tomas's body in that plastic shroud, she remembered words her father had spoken that summer long ago: "Over the years I built walls around my mind so nothing could hurt me."
--- "Mang Tomas"

I am really enjoying this reading. It is not at all work, though my motive to jump in was partially work-related, given the number of Filipino students in our school. I will update as I read more.

interpreter of maladies / stories by Jhumpa Lahiri

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER... WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE... PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD WINNER... NEW YORKER "DEBUT OF THE YEAR".... it declares on the front and back covers. I am not typically one to be swayed by such awards, since artistic merit does not always translate into a good read. Still, I am not above placing them in capital letters at the beginning of my book review, in a pitiful attempt to entice my readers to continue onward.

I have read 56% of this book, which equals the first five of its nine short stories. I read them about a month and a half ago, and when I just now picked up the book in my hands, I had forgotten if I'd even read the story "Sexy." The details came back slowly... not a good sign, when you consider that my memory for fiction typically lasts years.

Still, the first story, "A Temporary Matter," is brilliant. It is not brilliant in the "shiny and happy" sort of way, but in the "piercingly accurate and moving" sort of way. I read this entire story with a fierce look upon my face... A young married couple receives notice that their electricity will be turned off every night, beginning at 8pm. And in the private darkness of their home, every night, they play a simple game that helps them speak what they could not communicate otherwise. They explore their relationship, reach blindly for a way to move forward. Eventually, they grasp the truth of the situation. To me, these characters feel real. In a scene when the husband brushes his teeth, I think the author captures the occasional mundanity of daily life.

The title story, "Interpreter of Maladies," once again portrays a cast of frail, hopeless characters who are trapped in an existence of suffering, due primarily to the overpowering influence of their unfulfilled desires. Hindu overtones abound here, made especially apparent when the family of American tourists visit an ancient holy site. The tourists are sick, almost grotesque, due to their own lack of discipline, which is highlighted in sharp contrast to their disciplined Indian tour guide... or so we think. There are some surprising, provocative moments in the story and the story really picks up in the middle when the conflict finally reveals itself. The English teacher in me really enjoyed the irony that the interpreter in this story is both immensely powerful, yet at the same time completely powerless.

Overall, I would say this is a well-crafted collection of stories about India and her people, including those who stay at home and those who move abroad.

This collection contains characters who struggle to manage their desires -- especially sexual desire -- in their personal relationships and daily life. It is filled with characters who question their choices, doubt their fate, and yearn for a truer sort of existence. Sadly, some are hurt by their dangerous passions. And honestly, the book left me a little depressed.

Promethea: Books One & Two

I feel a little bit better about reading this comic because, unlike 300, it will take me days to read this. Promethea was part of the America's Best Comics line, which was all governed by Alan Moore, one of the mediums best creators. He is the man behind From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Watchmen, Swamp Thing, its spin-off Hellblazer (Constantine), and V for Vendetta (yes, most of the movies were crap). In the late 90s, Moore came out as a practicing magician; the comics world sighed, said, "wow that's great, can we have more comics please?" and a lot of people just let it slide; Alan Moore was never known for being completely sane.

Promethea is where he explains a lot of what he knows about magic. Promethea is a story that lives. When the story of Promethea is written about, someone becomes Promethea. I'm making this all sound like crap.

The interesting part is how Moore does nothing to chastise other belief systems. This is not, "go Wiccans, F*** the Christians!" It is largely about showing how all belief systems work much better together than they possibly could apart. In the last chapter of the second book, the Tarot is explained as a means of talking about the history of mankind, from the big bang on, each card representing a different chapter in the history of time and the universe (the zero card, for example, is The Fool and represents the lack of knowledge because of... well... the lack of everything). One of the most interesting parts he throws in is the interpretation of the genesis creation story representing an amoeba first finding out it could separate into more amoebas, hence why Eve came out of Adam's side.

I'm big on inclusion (stop laughing) and I'm bigger on new ideas. Promethea, even on a second read, does this. And if you don't like what it says, you can always just tell yourself it's a comic book. And it isn't like the characters we read about really exist. Right?

A Canticle for Leibowitz: Clever Subtitle for Post

I had planned on doing three posts on this book, but have failed as I have finished the book, but never felt like writing anything up. I have not been doing very well emotionally lately, and as I sit here thinking about the book, I realize how nice it would be for me to blame this book for that. I could get away with it. The book looks at how we, as humans, often repeat ourselves throughout history. When we destroy our history, there is a fair chance the same mistakes will be made.

This is, of course, a simple view of the issue, and the book deals with it quite well. Human's have flaws, but we have learned from ourselves in the past. We have overcome some of those flaws, but the greatest flaw may be thinking that now-we is better then then-we and that translates into now-we thinking we are better then tomorrow-we will ever be. The world is destroyed twice in The Canticle for Leibowitz; while difficult to find the silver lining here, note that humanity, like the cockroach seems able to be beating down, though not destroyed.

I'm rambling. I think the most important thing to learn from this book is to be weary of facts and texts. Stories (which I love) have to remain their own category of thing, separate from truth. I cannot believe every word of the bible is true, as there were far too many translations, and far too much separation between event, author, first draft, second draft, and so on. But there is a worthwhile story there, and in learning a story, we begin to discover truth; they are small, and they are gradual, but each step gets us closer.

The Fuck-Up: Circumstances Own Control, and You Like It That Way

It seems fitting that the narrator of this book never bothers to share his name. Perhaps it is an effort to portray him as a everyman in his early 20's. During the period when I read the bulk of the book, I was visiting my brother and delivering to him a copy of the The Big Lebowski by Joel Cohen. Both Chris and the Dude share a seemingly fate based view of the the evolution of one's life. Decisions can be made in the moment, but the circumstances that bring about that moment and generally the results of those decisions made in the moment are completely out of the believer's control.

The life which results from such a belief system cab be tempting. Depending on the stringent-ness of one's morality and a ever adjusting base level physical and emotional necessity, these Fatalists will find themselves occasionally in very comfortable circumstances. Unfortunately, as the unnamed narrator, Arthur Nersesian's fuck-up, discovers he who has no real hand in achieving good fortune has no way of ensuring its continuance. Sadly, Nersesian seems more of an Anglo-Saxon than Cohen or Curtis in his particular take on fate. The fuck-up is doomed to suffer the Wyrd of life. When he drifts loose in the world, things generally take a turn for the worse.

The narrator eventually settles on a life which would have been viewed as confining at the novel's beginnings, but the view from the hardest of rock bottom holes can make the mediocre seem acceptable, even satisfying.

The story was well written, and I read it with interest, but did not find nearly as much amusement in the fuck-up's suffering as I believe that the author had intended. Yet perhaps this was the intervention of my own fears. Identifying with or recognizing the fuck-up in one's own life is its most satisfying when one's own fuck-up has either emerged from this ideology or been a friend of karma. Otherwise, visualising a grown man getting deservedly beaten with bats by a junior high school baseball team isn't as much amusing as it is sad.

Ragtime: and here I thought it was a crappy musical

I got into the writing of E.L. Doctorow two summers ago when I saw a three volume book on my friend's shelf. As it turns out I was incorrectly intrigued. I had read the man's name as the suave, and very clearly Spanish, El Doctorow. Amusingly, a similar misconception kept me from reading Ragtime even though I had enjoyed the mafioso adventures of Billy Bathgate, which had been my introduction to the author. All I knew of Ragtime was that it was a musical, and I am, possibly quite pigheadedly, no great fan of musicals in general.

The story of Ragtime is an historical fiction. Now, though I believe that I have only read a few of these types of fictions before, all have generally been enjoyed and one in particular, Little Big Man by Thomas Berger, was a favorite of mine for a long time in high school. Ragtime drew me in particularly quick, due in part to it choice of historical figures to include: Houdini, a beleaguered showman who worked always on the edge of death, frequently walked the line of high entertainer and lower class entertainment. Anarchist Emma Goldman, was also intermittently present throughout the story, ironical acted as one of the most stable figures in this story of the early part of America's twentieth century. She more than any of the other characters realized the size and and stink of the bullshit that was the American dream at this time.

That is what Ragtime represented to me, what has come to be the omni-present reality of America: purported opportunity for all, as long as it advances or does not hinder the rollicking ambitions of America's upper echelon. The were characters who saw the dream realized, who climbed from the stink of NY slum tenements to find an America where one could transform themselves into mysterious European Baron. After all, no one questions the claims of the wealthy and successful.

Yet, a character, such the as fictitious jazz musician Coalhouse Porter would find the world of Ragtime to be a place when you could only climb as far as a community's prejudice would allow. Yet, one could not live in this time, rise a little way, and not expect a system of justice and even-mindedness to rule in your favor. The failure of the system to do satisfy, the realization of what Goldman knew all along, that the American Dream is no more than a cardboard, Hollywood set piece, is a devastating blow for those who aren't cynical enough to see it coming.

What is to be done when a entire belief system is ripped away? Some, like the father of the family at the center of the novel, waste away, while others, like Coalhouse, reveal the true, unfathomable cost to an arrogant system when it believes that all men will go so quietly.

Where, on this sad spectrum, would your reaction would fall if you were faced with a similar collapse of all in which you once held faith? If you can, drop me a line when we get there, I, for my part, will try to do the same.

The Screwtape Letters unveil the devil in my mind

About time that I finally post to the 25 books archive. My only excuse, in honor of my first post, is that the devil made me delay. The Screwtape Letters is a correspondence between two devils, which C.S. Lewis claims he happened across during his various journeys and musings.

What it is in actuality, is a reverse indoctrination to Lewis' particular brand of Christianity. It was a book that had long sat neglected upon my shelf and was finally read as a stealthy addition to my British Literature curriculum. Ahh, the pleasure of a, in many ways, former Roman Catholic exploring his religious foundations and the very reasons religion can be abandoned with public school children. Separation of Church and State my foot!

As Screwtape, the primary narrator, instructed his nephew Wormwood on the various excellent ways of corrupting a patient (any one of us), I was surprised by how often my own excuses and reasons for abandoning a christian god came flowing from the mouths of devils. Suggested as the perfect methods of corruption over and again were distraction, a skewed perspective on reality, and an overconfidence in human intelligence and understanding.

Reading Cappy's reflection on The Unbearable Lightness of Being I am reminded of another of Screwtape's corrosive ways. The devil says that it is acceptable for us to read, even extensively, the thoughts of past philosophers, as long as we regard them as something to be classified, placed coldly in reference to their own time and place, but never regarded as a possible truth. Though in the case of Cappy's introduction, Screwtape would smile widely, even better than not viewing a reading a personally relevant is to view the works of the past or of the mind as an allergen, something to be given a wide berth.

Beyond the war against religion and religious thought, the subtext of the reading is that most dangerous (if you are a devil or a suspicious former Catholic) reality: god never gives up on us. No matter how far we may wander into darker territory, Lewis reminds us that all we need to do to throw off Screwtape and his treacherous ways is recognize the god who has been invisibly by our side all along and follow him home.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

My sister, Catherine, refuses to read even Book I of Plato's Republic - and this despite my frequent proddings and protestations. Though I have never asked why not, I suspect that she, like a great many of her generation and all other generations, considers herself allergic to Philosophy. It's as though she should not dare read it for fear of bursting into hives or her throat swelling up so much as to suffocate her. Such perceived maladies have sworn too many off of "the love of wisdom."

And so we leave it up to folks like Milan Kundera to trick people into studying Philosophy against their will - dressing the ages-old discipline up as a play, a short story, or, as in this case, as a novel.

Kundera's quarry is a question of reality. What is "the real?" Is it the moments we call "light," when responsibility and concern seem to melt away as we, freed from burdens, rise slowly above the troubled world below? Or is the real world "heavy?" Are we not our truest, best, most authentic selves when life puts the screws to us and we are almost literally pushed by our burdens closer to the world on which we stand? The Philosopher calls this line of questioning "Ontology," the study of a thing's nature or origins, and she could ponder it for hours at a clip - and be ecstatic doing so.

The Philosopher wouldn't move copy, though. To do that, you have to write a story, and it's best if the story is about love. That's essentially what Kundera has done. He's written a tale of couples - Tomas and Tereza along with Franz and Sabina - and tracks the arc of their affairs through countless miscommunications, messy crossings, and an exceedingly long litany of infidelities. The couples do love each other - the author almost pulls muscles to communicate this in the face of so much evidence to the contrary - but so often one lovers affection fails to match the needs and expectations of the other. Tomas, for example, loves Tereza as though she were a gift sent to him down the river in a basket, like Moses to Pharaoh's daughter. What he doesn't seem to understand, though, is that Tereza considers sex intrinsically linked to love and struggles with Tomas' sharing a bed with so many mistresses.

Due to so much wanton sex and crushed feelings, it would be easy for The Unbearable Lightness of Being to devolve into little more than a cheap romance novel. Lucky for Kundera that love also happens to be a tried and true method of investigating and weighing philosophical truths. (Even the staid Plato wrote Symposium.) His interest in these underlying themes of lightness and weight is what saves the book from being tawdry. And it begs the reader to wonder aloud about what it is that makes them real.

We are a sneaky bunch, we Philosopher Kings. And here you thought we never left our ivory towers.