Marcus Tullius Cicero: Selected Works

Although I didn't find this selection of works particularly pithy or epigrammatic, I nonetheless came away from it considerably moved.  It's easy to see from the structure of his works why Cicero is considered one of the fathers of modern rhetoric.  The structures and devices he uses feel perfectly modern, and would not be out of place on the floor of Parliament or a Presidential debate.  And like most of that sort of thing, it is the effect of what is said, rather than any particular point, which lingers in the memory.  Cicero himself seems to acknowledge that he is offering no new thought, but merely putting existing ideas into a nice package.

In spite of all that, I put the book down with the feeling of being personally admonished by a great man. 

What good have I really accomplished in life?  My father recently told me that, out of his children, I was the one whom he felt had done the most real good in the world.  I was surprised at this, not because my brother and sister are great philanthropists, but because I don't think of myself as having contributed in any meaningful way to the rest of society.  There are no doubt some few students whom I, In my years as a public school teacher, was able to help.  I count this as nibbling at the edges of good, and not any  great credit to me.  I do what I can, and I am admittedly invested in the welfare of those around me, but I don't feel like any marginal difference I might have made even tips the scale against some of my rather foolish and harmful decisions. 

And even if life were not measured in a grand ledger of good accomplished versus harm done, how would I fare when measured against Cicero's standard of virtue:  wisdom, fortitude, justice and temperance?  It would be disingenuous of me to deny that I have accrued some wisdom over my lifetime--a combination of copious reading and the ability to piece things together in a logical way.  I don't think I can allow myself to say that the remaining three virtues have found a home in me.  I have behaved unjustly--not often, but seriously.  My fortitude is marginal, and my temperance nonexistent.  What in me is there worth admiring?  My father seems to think there is something worthy in me, but surely his judgement is less than objective.  I could wish that he were more like Cicero, in fact: to be able to see my worst qualities, and give me sound advice on their remedy. 

As it is, I will have to make use of the burst of motivation I received from Cicero, thousands of years after his death, to make some small adjustment in my habits before it wears out.  Or at least, as the determination he has given me fades, to revisit his writings and be stimulated once again by this great rhetorician.

Birth of a Nation

It's easy to see why this film was included on AFI's list of 100 influential films.  The staggering ambition of the project is evident from the very first captions, and its contribution to cinematographic technique is non to be underestimated. 

Nonetheless, one can't help but feel that it was included for other reasons altogether.  Griffith's subject is understandably abhorrent to modern eyes, but it was not without controversy in its own time as well.  The eponymous nation, after all, is not the newly united America after the civil war, but the abhorrent Ku Klux Klan.  And it is not only the decision to lionize that organization that puts the film squarely in the indefensible column.  Every characterization, from the lascivious mulatto carpetbagger to the conniving mulatto housekeeper is so nauseatingly racist as to make it very nearly unwatchable, and this is aggravated by the fawning treatment of the heroic Klansman protagonist.

All of which need scarcely be said again by me, as thoroughly as it has been treated both by the viewing public at the time of its release and film historians since then.  I will add, however, that the chief thing that bothered me about the film was not any of the aforementioned racism, but rather the aggrandized tone that Griffith himself takes in the filming.  Although the film was on the surface about the post-war South, I can't help but feel that the whole thing was really about Griffith's own ego.  Perhaps he thought at the time that such an illustrious name as his would give gravitas to what even contemporary viewers recognized as horseshit.  It did not, and it does not, and I wonder if his subsequent film "Intolerance" will reek in the same way.

The Song of Roland

It's not a reproach to say that I found the content to greatly outshine the form here.  W.S. Merwin has taken the only rational approach in translating the Middle French verse into prose.  My own views on translation into verse are well documented, namely that it is more often than not heresy.  I could have wished that the editor/translator gave the reader a little more insight into the beauty of the original, explicating some of the more notable passages, drawing attention to certain linguistic features, or even applying some line breaks.  Admittedly, however, such would have been a pale reflection, and I do not fault him for instead focusing entirely on what is, after all, the real star of the test:  the narrative.

Having years ago read and been moved by Bulfinch's parallel account, I found this a welcome elaboration on one of the most neglected stories in Western Literature.  I had forgotten how compelling the characters were, and how riveting the tale.  How is it possible that we have not a single modern adaptation of the tales of Charlemagne?  It has all the ingredients of a runaway hit: love, blood, betrayal, revenge, valor, honor, the only thing missing is a wisecracking sidekick or monkey in a dress, either of which would be easy enough to add.  Can't you picture the scene of Roland and Oliver's epic duel, during which they are revealed to each other?  "I yield me." sayeth the one. "I am defeated" echoeth his companion.  And if the show be aired on Showtime, they proceed to make sweet, gay love right on the battlefield.  Not a dry eye in the house, I assure you.

2 Peter

1:1 already we find a divergence from the first book claiming to be written by Peter, namely his self-appellation.

1:4 Although the subject of the exhortation is similar to that in 1 Peter, I find the tone markedly different.  Less oratical.

1:7 What is meant by "godliness" here.  I'd be interested to know the original Greek.  One normally would say it refers to goodness, self-control, etc., but as it is here distinguished from those other characteristics, it must be referring to some other, more specific attribute.

1:!4 If this letter was indeed written after Peter's death (as most scholars believe, based on its seeming reference to later letters of Paul), then this verse is not a gentle fiction, but a rather shameless falsehood.

1:20 I find this argument hard to support.  If no prophecy is subject to interpretation, then why are some of them so darned opaque?

2:4 The Greek here is Tartaros, not Hades, and the translation as "hell" seems rather misleading.

2:6 Here is a hint about what "Peter" exactly means by godliness.  He doesn't say what it is, but that it is whatever Sodom and Gomorrah were not: hospitable, chaste, mild.

2:10 aaaaaaand there it is.  Depraved lust and contempt for authority, these were the ungodly acts of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Although I for one and hard pressed to think of a way that submissiveness is in any way displayed by the divine figure.

2:12 Whoa whoa whoa, the implication here is that not only will the ungodly be destroyed, but also the irrational animals.  That's the first I've heard of such a thing.

2:17 what exactly is a "waterless spring"?  A hole?

2:18 And here's the bombast that I remember from 1 Peter.  Markedly different from the letters attributed to Paul, and thoroughly demagogic.

3:8 a rather convenient algebra.  By this reasoning, people can always be saying that the end is coming "any day now," and still be correct whilst saying nothing of value.

In general, while I find even Paul's most inflammatory doctrines to be based on logic and reason, in both of the books attributed to Peter I find the aroma of a modern day televangelist, one who relies on oratorical tricks to reach his audience.

서정오: 호랑이 뱃속 구경

한국 민족성은 뭐냐면 답이 두 게 가능하다.  내가 자주 하는 답은 "정"이란다.  인정도 많고 열정도 많고 도정된 것도 많고 (고정의 정 달라도).  그러나 "정"이란 것에 포함 되지 않은 한국의 다른 민족성이 있다: 자연에 대한 사랑.  여러나라 그렇다고 생각 할 수 있지만 한국 마음이 더 밀접하게 자연과 관련이 있어 보인다. 

이 민족성이  전통 이야기에 볼 수 있다.  지금 고려하는 이야기 엮음에 내가 벌써 알았던 이야기 있으며 금시초문도 있다.  공통점 뭐냐면 자연이다. 확실히 말하면 모두 다 이간과 짐승이 어떤 관게 있는 지에 대한 이애기다. 

그 관계는 다른 나라에 있는 이야기와 달리 친구나 적이란 관계 아니라 이간과 짐승은 친족 관계가 있다.  "아기 보는 호랑이", "호랑이 형님"이란 이야기의 재목에 볼 수 있으므로 즘승은 인간을 친족으로 여기며 그 반대도 마찬가지다.  또 짐승을 살려주면 은혜를 운혜로 갚지마는 사람을 살려주면 은혜를 원수로 갚는다더니 짐승이 이간보다 이도적이라고 생각 할 수 있다.  그래서 한국 사란들이자연을 소중하게 여기는 게 놀라운 일이 아니다.

Emile Zola: L'assommoir (The Drinking Den)

It's been a while since I've been so thoroughly affected by a book.  Somehow Zola managed to capture me in Gervaise's world so thoroughly that, although It's summer, and I just ate, I finished this book feeling cold and hungry, and wondered as I looked in the mirror whether someone would give me a few francs for my hair so I could buy a crust of bread.

I can't help but compare this a little to Stendahl's failure in The Red and the Black.  I didn't understand a single thing those characters did , and approved of none of their choices.  As comparatively unsympathetic as Gervaise was in L'Assommoir, I not only understood every thought she had, and every debasement to which she was brought, but found myself agreeing with her more often than not.

The neatest trick, however, was that even as it was clear where the story was going, and that it would end in nothing but despair, Zola held out jussssssst enough hope that I thought maybe she could pull out of it, that maybe she would turn it around in the last chapter.  It's not such a great trick to paint a picture of human misery.  Midnight Cowboy comes to mind as a good example.  What makes this book stand out--aside from its charming dialogue, artistic language, and intricate characters--is that it made me fight for Gervaise all the way to the last page, instead of surrendering to the muck halfway through.  If one were to set this to music, it would combine all the best elements of Carmen, Traviata and Street Scene, and become an operatic masterwork.

North by Northwest

I don't get it.  As soon as this film picked up speed, I thought to myself, "Oh, it's one of these," by which I meant a thriller along the lines of The Net or The Game where the protagonist spends the entire film trying to convince everyone that she or he is not crazy.  Insofar as this film predates all those others, I suppose I should give it some credit, but I just couldn't.  I kept hoping for something inventive to happen, for for Hitchcock to toy with the audience a little more, or for things to progress in anything other than the most predictable of ways.  In the end it was a beautifully shot, but empty thriller.

Objectively, I can't justify this opinion.  I can't expect the first film of its type to subvert expectations, insofar as those expectations are the result of years of conditioning for which the film bears no blame.  No doubt to contemporary audiences North by Northwest was thrilling, innovative and original.  But film, like all literature, belongs to the audience--the viewer in this case.  I found nothing significant in the performances, direction, or writing.  The budget alone was responsible for anything notable in this film, and I end up lumping it in with Mission Impossible and other harmless summer fare.

오발탄 (aimless bullet)

It was originally my intention to view this film, number 2 on The Korean Film Archive's recently published list of 100 Korean Films, alongside an item from the American Film Institute's list from the same time period (North by Northwest). Released one year apart, I assumed that the two would give conrasting takes on the world of the late 1950s in a way that might shed open an interesting conversation about Korea-American relations.  Of course the two were in marked contrast in just about every way, and I'm sure I could stich together some nice comparisons and package them up in little bites that would make everybody happy.



But comparing the two would really be like comparing Jaws to Cabaret.  Sure, the two were filmed at around the same time, but are so divergent as to make any comparisons seem a bit pointless.  North by Northwest was a beautifully filmed, but ultimately harmless romantic thriller.  오발탄 was not only shot with seemingly the lowest of budgets and the most ramshackle of equipment (the actors were not even paid), but was so inflammatory that the fascist government of Korea forbade its screening.  It was only seen at all due to the intervention of an American who managed to see a screener and bring it to San Francisco for entry in the 1963 International Film Festival.  The hastily painted (and error ridden) subtitles were still visible on the copy I found.  To this day it has still not been restored and is out of print.  If ever a film were begging for the attentions of the Criterion Collection, this is it.


Rather than North by Northwest, 오발탄 is reminiscent of an earlier American film--to the extent that I refuse to believe Director 유현목 didn't draw inspiration from it:  The Best Years of our Lives.  Both movies tell the same story, with almost the same cast of characters, and it is by viewing these two films side by side that the real contrast between the two worlds comes into focus:


Character:  wounded soldier returning from the war to try and find his place in a changed world.


The Best Years of Our Lives variant: real life amputee Harold Russell won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Homer Parrish, a man who lost both his arms in the war.  Homer returns home to find his girlfriend waiting for him, but he can't allow himself to be loved.  Ultimately he realizes that she loves him just as much without his arms, and they are married in a climactic and touching final scene.



오발탄 variant: The main character's army buddy is injured, and forced to walk with crutches.  He can't bring himself to accept the love of the woman to whom he was betrothed, preferring to remember the dream they once had of a happy life together.  Unable to bear it, he finally throws himself in front of a train.


Character: his beloved


TBYOOL variant: plucky and independent Wilma sticks by her man, and convinces him of her love after lovingly helping him remove his prostheses.


오발탄 variant: 명숙, unable to deal with her injured lover's rejection, becomes a prostitute for the American G.I.s .


Character: Hard working finance executive who is lucky enough to have a job upon the war's end.


TBYOOL:  Fredric March's Al returns to find his wife waiting for him, and eveything changed in his absence.  His children seem to have grown up wthout him, and he doesn't know where he belongs in this world any more.  Over the course of the movie, he gets to know his family again, as if for the first time, and is promoted to a cushy position at his bank.


오발탄: 영호 (the eponymous bullet) works his fingers to the bone as a clerk, and brings his meager paycheck home to his family, declining even to have a painful tooth removed.  But the check is not nearly enough to support his two kids, pregnant wife, brother, sister, and delusional mother, all living in the same hovel. 


Character: his wife


TBYOOL: Myrna Loy's Milly has been doing just fine in her husband's absence, and helps her well-meaning husband to adjust to his new reality.


오발탄: 영호's wife, who does not even seem to be named, is malnoursished and accordingly dies curing childbirth.


Character: decorated war veteran, whose skills don't seem to have a place in a post-war reality

TBYOOL: As Fred, Dana Andrews goes from war hero to soda jerk, and even gets fired from that insulting job after defending a fellow veteran from an abusive customer.  His wife, expecting a little more glamorous life, files for divorce and runs off with a dandy.  All's well that ends well, though, as this frees him up to marry the woman he really loves, and accept a simple but honest position at a scrap yard.


오발탄: 철호, a well respected Captain during the war, is unable to find any work whatsoever as a civilian. Desperate, he turns to crime and robs a bank at gunpoint.  He is caught and arrested, presumably to be hanged.


Character: his love interest


TBYOOL: Smart, kind Peggy (Teresa Wright) falls for a married man, but heartbreaking though it is, she does the right thing and lets him go.  Only later, after his divorce, do they meet again (at the happy wedding  of the first couple) and set about a simple, but honest life together.


오발탄: 철호 sees a glimmer of light when he is reunited with a nurse that tended to him during the war.  They declare their love for each other, but the next morning he returns to find that her neighbor threw her to her death in a fit of jealousy.


These are only the most striking parallels that can be found in the comparison.  Even without the benefit of a foil, however, 오발탄 is a masterpiece of cinema.  Visually stirring, symbolically poignant, well-acted, and haunting (the insane mother's "가자!" is still ringing in my ears), and all this on a budget of around $8,000 (compared to $2.1 million for The Best Years). As good as the latter movie is, it wanes in comparison to this Korean masterpiece.

Stanley Burnshaw (ed.): The Poem Itself

I have so many wonderful things to say about this book.  Not only did it introduce me to a whole bevy of authors, but it did so in their original language.  Translation in general is suspect, and translation into verse is as near to heresy as exists in my book.  How is one to ever appreciate the poetry of other languages without devoting a lifetime to the languages themselves? 


Burnshaw et al execute this balancing act in exactly the right way, offering the original text, a literal translation, and a detailed analysis of the prosodies that contribute to the texture of the finished work.  Previously I only had a vague notion that I didn't like French poetry.  After reading this volume, in which one finds such revered luminaries as Mallarme, Baudelaire and Rimbaud, I can state confidently that I indeed do not.  It all seems to be trying too hard, either to be beautiful, or to be meaningful, and never both. I suppose I should offer the caveat that of all the languages included in this volume, I am the weakest at French, but the English translations should have levelled that out a little.


Previously, I simply had a vague notion that Spanish poetry was the best in the world.  After reading the treatment here of Machado, Guillen, and Salinas, I find that I was right.  Noticeably absent is that greatest of poets, Octavio Paz, who was possibly still too modern at the time of publication.  I would love to see him given the same treatment, but seeing as it would likely fall to me, I suppose it will remain a vague desire.


The real surprise was how lovely I found German poetry.  I became fully absorbed, not only in the work of Stefan George, Hugo Von Hofmannsthal, and of course Rilke, but also in the fascinating lives that colored their work.  It is to this area that I most want to devote future attention.


And there were some Italian guys too.  Not bad.

1 Peter

1:1 already a solemn, ominous note that I don't find in Paul's writings--even when he was writing about his own iminent death.


1:2 By now a familiar greeting.  Was Paul copying Peter when he adopted this greeting, or was it just colloquial?


1:5-6 We can look back on this argument and judge it to be specious, I suppose.  The last time is near! This suffering is temporary!  For how long have religious orators been offering some version of those lines?  Theologically speaking, of course, both statements can be seen as true, but it seems a little disingenuous.


1:8 This book is clearly meant for a later audience than previous books, addressed as it is to a second generation of believers, who have only second hand knowledge of Christ.  This persents some chronological  and/or authorial difficulties however.  Isn't Peter supposed to have died before Paul?


1:10-12 "Peter" is laying it on pretty thickly here, I must say.  Surely it's an overstatement to say that the first century audience is the fulfillment of all sort of divine plans, and that the angels themselves are jealous of their knowledge.


1:18 Peter's rather dismissive references to Jewish tradition also argue in favor of a second generation audience, as contrasted with the reverent tone earlier authors took.


1:20 By no measire can the first century be labelled "the end of the ages" in retrospect.


1:24 Ok, I'm really intrigued by this.  Of course this is not the first time that the version I'm reading (NRSV) sets a section of in stanzas, but it's not clear exactly what this signifies.  It's either indicitave of the quotative or the poetic properties of the original text.  If this is a quote, from where?  If this is poetic in a way that can be perceived through the veil of ancient Greek, could it really be the voice of a fisherman?


21-3 The three statements here are each interesting in their own right, but do not quite seem to relate to each other.  For one thing, why is "Peter" putting such stron emphasis on things that should be self evident?  Malice is a pretty strong word.  Are the the Christians of Asia Minor really in need of a reminder not to be malicious?  Are they really so juvenile?  I especially like that he includes an admonition not to be insincere.  I'm not sure I have seen a similiar directive elsewhere in the Bible.  Now that I look at it more closely, it does tie in rather nicely to the next verse after all.  After reminding them of what should be bare minimums, he them tells to to long for spiritual milk like newborns.  It's as if he's saying, "Quit acting like such infants.  If you are going to be infants, at least drink your milk."


2:6 Here it's clearer exactly why the verse is set poetically:  it's a quotation from Isaiah.  Why was 1:24 set in the same way then? 


2:10 and here a more telling quote from Paul, which makes the dating/timing of this book even more suspect in my mind.


2:16 In what sense does he urge them to live as a free people?  As one free from the Mosaic Law?  From obligation to secular law? And in what sense it that meant to contrast with the fact that they are servants of God?


2:18 oooohhhhh he's talking in part to slaves, who are in spirit free, but in law not so much.


2:23 I found this reasoning a bit suspect at first reading.  Is he really suggesting that the unjust beating slaves endure are analogous to the beating Christ underwent?  But yeah, I guess he is.  And I guess it holds up logically, but it still rubs me strangely for some reason.


3:1 By the same logic: if a man beats his wife, she should just put up with it.  Wow has this verse ever been taken out of its rhetorical context . . .


3:16 This is the second mention of reverence, a trait that I never had much use for.  It's a running theme of this section, and although I can see the connection to a Christlike mind (as in 3:8), I question whether it's not being overgeneralized here.  What "Peter" is suggesting is not reverence for God, or Christ, or even each other.  But reverence to everyone who might pass on the street.  Surely there is some language barrier that is obscuring the original meaning of what is here translated "reverence".


4:1 "Peter" tries to give Paul a rune for his rhetorical money here, emplying a rather bald appeal to his audeince's ego, but unlike Paul's similar rhetorical turns, this has no logical underpinning.  The argument that suffering is the absolution of sin is really unsuuportable, logically or theologically.


4:7 It is impossible to count how often this tactic has been employed by unscrupulous preachers throughout history.  "The end is near" persists as a theological fraud because of its undeniable effectiveness.


5:13 Now this is an interesting turn.  Babylon?  This statement of "Peter" has been the subject of much discussion among schoalrs, whether it is code for Rome (which seems a bit unnecessary) or Babylon in Egypt (possible) or even, I suppose, actual Babylon (unlikely).  At any rate, the entire book smells of demagoguery, of the flavor that I hesistate to ascribe to the Biblical figure of Simon Peter, whom I perefer to think of as a man whose chief virute was his simplicity, not his ability to work up a crowd.

Hall, Smith and Wicaksono: Mapping Applied Linguistics

Normally I don't write about my textbooks here, for the very simple reason that I usually don't read them very thoroughly.  This volume, for example, was assigned to one of my grad level classes last semester.  I gave it a cursory flip-through, heaved a shoulder in a gesture of unimpressiveness, and proceeded to give two very successful presentations on it. 


Then came time for my comprehensive exam, a monolithic beast taking five hours and covering everything from syntax and phonology to translation and language policy planning.  To my weary disgust, this book was on the reading list.  Now I had to pull it off the shelf and actually read it, for who knew what obscure point would be referenced by our seemingly sadistic professors? 


And in the course of reading it, I developed an opinion that was somewhat more specific than a shrug of disregard.  To wit:  this was not a textbook--let one appropriate for graduate level work.  It was a discussion guide, such as might be found in the back of a coffee club book.  It offered no information, merely a wearisome list of things to think about, hedge statements, "possible answers", and "some thoughts on" various topics about which one would hope to be getting rather more detail. 


In short, I suppose I could picture using this as the textbook for an undergraduate introduction to linguistics, but that it was not only a textbook for my graduate level seminar, but also on the reading list for my senior comprehensive exam is insulting, and should give you some idea of the laziness of my advising professor.

전성현: 읺어버린 일기장

한국어 유창을 위해서 다시 쉬운 아동 책을 읽기로 했는데 몇권의 뒷커버를 읽었다가 ㅈㅐ미있는 내용을 찾았다.  커버에서 "일기자에 몰래 찾아든 다섯 아이의 비밀스런 고백과 소통"이라는 말에 Bronx Masquerade이란 미국 책이 떠올랐다.  사실 전술한 책과 비슷한 점이 많았지만 놀라운 점 하나 있었다.  그는 꽤 야한 내용이 있는 점이다.  정말 아동 책인가 하는 생각이 들 정도 말이다.  초경, 몽종 등을 언급하는 미국 아동 책을 본 적이 없는데 한국에 이러한 주제를 솔직히 다루는 책이 있는 사실 다행이다.  또 다른 한국의 쟁점을 독단적이지 않게 다룬다: 이혼, 가난, 사생, 다 아동들이 이해할 수 있는 식으로 대해서 한국 아들이 읽을 보람이 있다.

Stendahl: The Red and the Black

Not only does this book come highly recommended by Ward's Lifetime of Reading (a schedule that, with this book, takes me into its 8th year), but it also was consistently urged on me by my literature professor turned friend C.K. Pellow.  If I had approached this book with no more expectation than I had brought to Flaubert, I might have been pleasantly surprised.  Weighed down, though, as I was with such a buildup, I found myself more than a little dissapointed. 


Stendahl's language is marvelous, and there are enough epigrammatic little moments to thoroughly justify the reading, my favorite of which is:


"Mind-made love is of course subtler than true love, but its moments of enthusiasm are limited: it understands itself too well; it is always evaluating, passing judgement" (341).


Perhaps it is for this reason that I found the book beneath my expectations.  Amour de tete, as Stendahl puts it, is all I've ever experienced in my life.  Perhaps the love story held in these pages is beyond my understanding, and people really do behave in these utterly unfathomable ways.  Perhaps Stendahl has painted a masterfully honest picture of something that I cannot grasp.  Whatever the cause, however, I found the characters to be inconsistent, the plot unneccesarily delicate, and the book in general to be thematically unexceptional.  It is not a complement when I say that I think it would make a fine movie.

The Best Years of our Lives and 하녀 (The Housemaid)

As I work my way down the list of the AFI's list of American films, it comes to my notice that the Korean Film Institute has developed a similar list.  Might it prove amusing to view items from the two lists side by side?  Having done so purely by accident this first time, I find an interesting contrast, one that might bear comparison.

The American film in question is that rarest of creatures, an entirely original work that has not been duplicated, and has no predecessor.  In very nearly every way--tone, technique, execution--it resembles other films from its period.  But the role that it was created to fill is quite singular, one that has since been filled largely by documentary films, not scripted ones.  At the end of the great war, America experienced something that was not entirely alien, the return of large numbers of men who found themselves and their country other than as they remembered.  Each of the three men whose return and readjustment director William Wyler chronicles need to remember what it is to love, and each does so in his own way.  For Fredric March, this means loving a wife (stunningly portrayed by Myrna Loy) who is not exactly the woman he left behind, and children who are children no longer.  The ostensible protagonist of the film, Dana Andrews, must find love in the more Hollywood sense, and his story taken individually is basically indistinguishable from a generic romance.  The most difficult love, that of oneself, must be found by Harold Russell.  It is this role that takes the movie to another level, filled necessarily and without flourish by real life amputee Harold Russell.  Taken individually, each story would serve for a pretty decent movie.  Seen simultaneously, they transform the movie from one America wanted, to one it needed. 

As destabilizing as WWII was for America, the Korean War was unfathomably more so for Korea.  Imagine that the Civil War had not only been lost, but that the North and South remained in that conflict for over 50 years.  As South Korea moved through--not to say recovered from--this period, Director Kim Kiyoung (notably born in the North) took a wildly different approach to filmmaking than Wyler had.  There is no talk of love.  No talk of recovery.  No mention even of the war, which might make the parallel rather forced in some eyes.  But the very fact that these themes, so craved in America at the time of her recovery, are not even considered in this film, which tops all lists of the best Korean films ever made, makes the contrast that much more remarkable.  What Korea needed after the armistice was not healing.  Such a thing was impossible.  The country would never recover, and to even dream of it would be to surrender to despair.  What it needed was to muddle through somehow with the horrors that were now reality.  And that is the idea of the film.  Man is not noble and redemmable, as in The Best Years.  He is a savage, of whom the best we can hope is that he be controlled.  As is observed in a jarringly didactic final scene,

--그게 남자의 약점이야. 높은 산을 보면 올라가고 싶구, 깊은 물을 보면 돌을 던지고 싶구, 여자를 보면 원시로 돌아가고 싶어

--원시가 뭐예요, 솔직히 남자란 야비한 동물이라고 하세요. 이 집에 젊은 하녀를 둔것이 아마, 범의 입에 날고긴가부다.

 

For Kim, in a way that Wyler could not have conceived, man cannot see a mountain without climbing it, a lake without throwing a stone into it, or a woman without wanting to have his way with her.  And women fare little better in the film.  The title character is, of course, a beast of pure desire, but the seemingly innocent wife is just as lustful--for wealth and status.  It is this lesson that Kim wished to impart to the post war audiences of Korea, interestingly with no admonition to overcome it.  Simply a darkly frank admission that it was inescapable.

It Happened One Night

I don't know why they continue to make romantic comedies.  I suppose after City Lights, the first and most perfect romantic comedy ever made, those who decided such things had to see what the perfect romcom would look like with dialogue.  Well, they did it, and this is it. One Night is every romcom that follows it rolled up into one, and done with wit, charm, emotion, and art.  Even the flaws of the romcom are captured perfectly, the  contrived last minute change of heart that could have been avoided with a well-timed conversation. 

And the leads.  Not enough can be said about how charming, funny, believable, and attractive they both were.  All the Matthew McConaghooeys in the world aren't fit to touch Gable's hem--although Channing Tatum comes close.  Can we pitch Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Aniston, and ESPECIALLY Kate Hudson onto a bonfire, and use it in the arcane ritual of bringing Claudette Colbert back from the dead?  Even her reanimated corpse would be dazzling by comparison.

James

I find myself trapped in a reader's dilemma.  Usually I fancy myself a nontraditionalist when it comes to literary criticism, to wit: My experience reading something is my experience, and the author's intent can go fuck itself.  But reading something of which the authorship is uncertain has made me rethink that approach.  This was especially true reading the book of Hebrews, where the mystery of the authorship dogged me at every page.  I expect that to be even more true of this book.  Not because the authorship is a complete unknown--it's pretty clearly somebody named James--but because the possible authors are each of them distinct historical personages with fascinating stories and perspectives.  It feels as though I have to decide which glasses to wear before reading:  James the Less?  James the Just?  James the Great?  James the Son of Alphaeus?  James the son of Zebedee? James Marsden?  I especially find myself fogged up by the fact that several of these people are referred to differently by various religious traditions, but are in fact the same person. 

Anyway . . .

1:1 Is this meant to indicate that the intended audience is Christians of Hebrew origin, or is it used in a more metaphorical sense?

1:5-8 This raises something of a sticky issue for me, namely that of prayer.  For some time, my approach has been that if something is needed, God needn't be asked, and if something is not needed, God oughtn't be bothered.  A god who needs convinced, or even nagged, seems to be no God at all.  My approach to prayer is rather more like that of Ernest Holmes, in that the saying of something makes it true--at least a little.  If you declare with the whole force of your conviction behind it, it become 10% more true every time you say it.  Something that was 0% true to begin with with see no measurable change, but something that was 90% true to begin with becomes 99% true with the force of your declaration.  Anyway, What James proposes here fits nicely with that  approach.

1:9-11 This presupposes the audeince's familiarty with Jesus' parables of the seeds sown on different soil.

1:13 So far James' theology is perfectly compatible with mine.  I had forgotten about this verse, and wholeheartedly endorse it.

1:19 Advice I could do well to apply more often.  Especially the part about being slow to speak.

1:27 I especially like this summary.  Much more meaningful than Paul's simple exhortations to abstain from this or that.  James' instructions are simply to shine, to let the pure, clear light of the divine be reflected by and through you with as little diffraction as possible.

2:1-7 I was thinking of this tendency, especially among so-called progressive Christians, earlier today.  I think of Amos' reference to the "Cows of Bashan" who pontificate while reclining on their divans, and contrast that with true religion, the obliteration of material distinctions.

2:11 Again, a beautiful contrast with Paul's approach.  Following any set of "don'ts" becomes quickly burdensome, because failing in one is a failure in the whole set.  Following a list of "dos" is different.  Failing to do one good does no undo another.

2:16 I can't agree with this more.  How could I live with myself knowing that I had failed to help a fellow human?  Indeed, what justification do I have for living if I don't help others?

2:18 Haha indeed.  Well-played.

3:5-12 I might argue this point a little.  I can cetainly see James' point, but what is true for him is not true for all.  I know plenty of people whose tongue is perfectly under control, and yet they are useless individuals.

3:17 I have on occassion been accused of being wise.  This is no surprise, I suppose.  I am smart and knowledgable, and these things put together often give the appearance of wisdom.  But in any conversation where I'm called upon for advice, If I go on for too long I find myself reaching a point where the advice gets away from me and starts to develop a life of its own.  All of a sudden, I've created a monster, a speech act that has has become self-aware, and conscious of its own preservation.  Wisdom must remain tied to its practice, it cannot be allowed to run amok and feed itself--to become ambitious, as James puts it. 

4:5 Now wait a minute, what on Earth does this mean?  And what is being referenced here?  It's not any specific scripture that I've ever read.  That in itself carries a pretty weighty implication, maely that there are inspired books that have not been preserved for prostperity.  The content of the verse is of note too:  that the divine spirit is a limited commodity, not to be wasted.  This echoes Jesus' experience when the woman with an unclean flow of blood touched him, and he perceived a power reduction.  That carries aaaaawl sorts of bizarre metaphysical implications.

5:1-3  I especially love that he uses the past perfect here.  It's not a warning, it's an announcement.

5:12 Again, James has hit upon one of my pet peeves:  "Do you promise?" what the fuck does that mean?  I said I would do it.  I either will, or I won't, and, my promising will not change that fact.

5:16 I've often wondered what the value of confession was.  In James' theology, it's pretty clear: to keep us humble.

만화 2권

Rie Honjyou: 비밀의 밤놀이

원래 일본에서 나온 책인데 한국어로 번역됬다.  그러므로 한국의 문화와 사고를 잘 반영하지 않다.  또는 2반 생활에 대한 책이기 때문에 쓰~~윽 물건을 넣는것밖에 내용이 별로 없다 ㅎㅎㅎ . . . 그래도 이 책덕분에 확인된 생각 하나 있다.  한국 문화는 추가하는 문화이며 일본 문화는 빼는 문화.  즉 한국 사람은 뭣을 추가할까 말까 할때 꼭 추가할 것이며 일본 사람은 그 반대 뺄 것.  부응해서 이 만화에서 장명사이에 이행을 빠지며 설명도 없다.  이해 안 된 정도로 말이다.  아이구~~~

채정택: 다세포 소녀

표면으로 보면 이 책은 지나치게 야한 소극이지만 깊게 살펴보면--위에 언급한 만화와 달리--한국의 생활을 반영한다.  원조교제하는 것은?  한국에 있다.  볔태 선생님? 그것도 신문에서 나온다.  특히 그 가난을 등에 업은 소녀란 얘기 핵심을 찔렀다.  한국에 가난을 겪는 애가 많은 사실과 그를 같이 가는 감정을 다세포 소녀란 만화가 완벽히 표현한다.

Greguerías: III

It's been forever since I continued this project--four years at least--but I find myself having to cover a friends Spanish classes while whe's out of town next week.  What better way to brush up a little?  I've decided to start posting the original Spanish with my translations, as much of a pain as it is to add all those fucking accents . . .

Las únicas que saben de arquitectura comparada son los golondrinas

The only ones who understand comparative architecture are the swallows.

 

El bújo es un espantapájaros que se come los pájaros.

The owl is a scarecrow that eats the birds.

 

EL reloj que atrasa es un reloj ahorrativo

A slow watch is a thrifty watch.

 

Poner notas a los libros es un atrevimiento, como la sería el retocar los cuadros de una exposición

To put notes in a book is insolent, like touching up the paintings in a gallery.

 

Lo mejor del cielo es que no puede inundarse de hormigas.

The best thing about heaven is that it can’t be flooded with ants.

 

El arroyo trae al valle llas murmuraciones de las montañas.

The stream bring the gossip of the mountains to the valley.

 

Lo irracional es así:el animal que se mira en un espejo cree que es un amigo o una amiga, nunca él mismo.

It’s as irrational as this:  the animal who looks in a mirror and sees a friend, never itself.

 

La mano del ladrón es un manojo de ganzúas con uñas.

The hand of a thief is a bundle of lockpicks with fingernails.

 

El campesino que lleva un conejo colgando de la mano lo lleva la elegancia con que un inglés lleva un piaaguas.

The peasant who carries a rabbit dangling from his hand does so with the elegance of an Englishman carrying an umbrella.

 

Era unos de esos días en que el viento quiere hablar.

It was one of those days when the winds wants to speak.

 

Los bancos públicos son los pentagramas de las iniciales del amor.

Lovers carve their initials into the bank of the river as if it was a musical staff

Literally: Public banks are the musical staffs of the initials of love.

 

 

Lo peor de la ambición es que no sabe bien lo que quiere.

The worst thing about ambition is not knowing well what you want.

 

El camello tiene la nuez en la joroba

The camel has the nut in his back.

 

El léon en su jaula parece vivir de renta

The lion in his cage seems to pay rent

 

Había tanta gente esperando el tranvía, que parecía la inauguración del primer tren.

There were so many people waiting for the trolley, it seemed like the opening ceremony.

 

Cuando el cocinero hace mucha espuma al batir, le crece el gorro

When the cook has a lot of foam to beat, he cocks his hat.

 

Not sure about my translation of this one.  I will need to consult a native speaker to see if "cock (one's) hat" is acceptable.

 

El ballenero lanza la aguja enhebrada del arpón y cose la ballena al barco.

The whaler hurls the threaded needle of his harpoon and sews the whale to his boat.

 

La ardilla limpia con el plumero de su cola el sitio en que se sienta.

The squirrel uses his tail to dust off his seat.

La golondrina llega de tan lejos porque es fleche y arco al mismo tiempo.

The swallow can fly so far because it is at once bow and arrow.

 

El sueño es un pequeño adelanto que nos hace la muerte para que nos sea más fácil pasar la vida.

Dreams are little steps toward death that make life easier to live.

 

El cráneo es la bóveda alta del corazón

The cranium is the vaulted ceiling of the heart.

 

El cacahuete tiene algo atravesado en la garganta

The peanut has something blocking its throat.

 

Aparece lo práctico en la civilización cuando se inventa la herradura

Practicality only appeared in civilization when the horseshoe was invented.

 

En el otro mundo se debe de respirar mejor.  Respiraremos sin pulmones a pleno aire.

They breathe better in the other world.  Without lungs, we would breathe purer air.

El micrófono es ya don Micrófono, un personaje de americana y cuya aureola son las ondas reveladoras del ser milagroso.

The microphone has already become Sir Microphone, an American character whose aura is the waves that reveal he is a miracle.

 

Los sillones de mimbre son los esqueletos de los sillones tapizados

Wicker chairs are the skeletons of upholstered chairs

 

La ópera es la verdad de la mentira, y la cine es la mentira de la verdad.

Opera captures the truth in lies, and cinema the lies in truth.

 

En el lavabo del vagón nos lavamos del negro crimen del viaje

We wash our hands of the black crimes of our journey in the sinks of the passenger train.

 

Las gallinas blancas están en paños menores

The white hens go around in their underwear

 

Los murciélagos nos pasan de parte a parte como balas perdidas

The bats pass us from place to place like stray bullets

 

Los que se desperezan son como salvajes que disparan su flecha al aire

Stretching is like shooting your arrows into the air

 

Cuando más admire la paternidad es cuando veo salir al niño con las mismas largas narices del padre

One admires paternity the most is when seeing the children come out with the same long noses as their father.

(One wonders if to have a long nose has some sort of cultural significance)

 

Hay un momento en que el astrónomo debajo del gran teloscopio se convierte en microbio del microscopio de la luna, que se asoma a observarle.

There’s a moment when the astronomer under his great telescope turns himself into a microbe under the microscope of the moon, who pokes her face out to observe him.

Es que lleva el paraguas abierto cuando ya no llueve parece un paracaidista caído del nido

When you carry an open umbrella you look like a parachutist fallen to Earth.

 

La S es el anzuelo del abecedario.

The S is the fishhook of the alphabet

 

Lo único que comen las puertas son esas nueces que les damos a partir

The only thing that doors eat is the walneuts they came from.

 

Cuando el cisne submerge en el agua cabeza y cuello, es como la mano be un brazo femenino que busca en el fondo del baño una sortija.

When the swans ducks head and neck underwater, it’s lika a feminine hand searching for her ring in the bottom of the tub.

 

Bajo la sombra de ese árbol que hay medio de la llanura están en cuclillas y de tertulia todas las ideas del paisaje.

Under this solitary tree in the middle of the plain, all the ideas of the landscape are squatting in a group.

 

Es dificil imaginar que una monda calavera sea una calavera de mujer.

It is difficult to imagine that a woman’s skull could be plain.

 

Las cenizas de cigarro que quedan entre las páginas de los libros viejos son la major imagen de lo que quedó en ellos de la vida del que los leyó.

The cigar ashes between the pages of old books are the best symbol of the ashes of the lives of those who read them.

 

Aquella noche era la luna como la coronilla del obispo de la noche.

That night the moon was like the mitre of the bishop of night.

 

El ruido de los pies descalzos de una mujer sobre los baldosines da una fiebre sensual y cruel.

The sound of a woman’s bare feet on the tiles imparts a cruel and sensual fever.

 

La golondrina es una fleche mística en busca de un corazon

The swallow is a magic arrow in search of a heart.

 

El cepillo es un milpiés que se escapa simepre del sitio en que debía estar

The comb is but a millipede escaped from its proper place.

 

Cómo dicen ¡adios! y cómo están hechas para decir ¡adios! las mangas largas de los pierrots.

How they say goodbye! and how they are made to do it, those long sleeves of the pierrots!

 

El saltamontes es una espiga escapada que ha comenzando a dar brincos descomedidos

The grasshopper is an escaped ear of grain which has begin to jump wildly.

 

El whiskey es el árnica del estómago

Whiskey is a tonic for the stomach.

 

Hay pensamientos pacificadores, como éste: “El sexo daría interés a un peñasco.”

Pacifists sometimes think “Sex would make even a boulder interesting.”

 

Cuando en la mesa solemne nos encontramos en el plato la tarjeta con nuestro nombre, pensamos que ya podían habernos hecho un siento.

When we finally find the plate with our namecard by it at fancy dinners, we think “they could have made us a chair by this time.”

Los papeles que se tiran arrugados en el fondo del cesto se desarrugan como con vida propia y submarina

The crumpled papers in the bottom of the basket uncrumple themselves as if with a submarine life of their own

 

El gesto de sacarse el pañuelo del faldón del frac es un gesto indecente e ignominioso

The gesture of clearing the tails of one’s coat is both ignominious and indecent.

 

Mete tanto ruido una cucharilla al caer porque es el niño de los cubiertos el que ha caído

The falling teaspoon makes so much noise because it is the child of the cutlery on which it falls.

 

Hay cielos sucios en que parecen haberse limpiado los pinceles de todos los acuarelistas del mundo

The are dirty skies in which all the painters of the world seems to have washed their brushes.

 

El mono parece proceder del coco peludo como si hubiese salido de su huevo

The monkey seems to have come from a hairy coconut as if from an egg.

 

La jirafa es un caballo alargado por la curiosidad

The giraffe is a horse lengthened by curiosity

 

El más pequeño ferrocarril del mundo es la oruga

The caterpillar is the world’s smallest train.

 

 

Cuando baja una mujer por una escalera de caracol parece haber sido despedida del Paraíso

When a woman descends a spiral staircase, she seems to have been thrown out of heaven..

 

¡Como rompe los calcetines lo que tenemos de monos irremisibles!

No idea.

 

La niña con el aro en la mano va al jardín como al colegio, a jugar con la circunferencia y la tangente.

The girl with a ring in hand goes to the garden as if to school, to play with the circumference and the tangent.

 

Tengo suprimido el parenthesis de (q.e.p.d.) porque no hay nada que ponga más nerviosos a los muertos.

We have to put parenthesis around the letters (R.I.P.) because nothing makes the dead more nervous.

 

Los tornillos son los gusanos de hierro.

Screws are but iron worms

 

No me gustan esas sillas de tubo metálico que parecen arrodilladas.

I don’t like these chairs made of metal tubing that look like they’re groveling

 

At this point I'm really feeling how inadequate my Spanish level is to this task.  I think I'll put it on the back burner for a while.  My apologies to anyone who saw this and mistakenly thought of it as the authoratative work of an expert, rather than the doodlings of an amateur.