Italo Calvino: Italian Folktales

What a lovely gem to have stumbled across in the bargain bin.  I love Calvino already, and have several of his books on my shelf, and even though not technically his original composition, this one definitely can stand happily next to them.  Discovering it was not unlike unearthing a chest of jewels in your garden when you were only intending to plant potatoes.  Each tale has its own charm, though some of them are charming merely in the familiarity of a new spin on a tale we've already heard in some other form.  Others, however, are entirely original, while maintaining the familiar flavor and tropes of a folk tale--at once sparkling new and  comfortably old.

I know people who collect trifles on a particular theme.  Some collect elephants, ducks, or cows.  Others Star Wars or Lord of the Rings memorabilia.  The feeling this book inspires is that of finding a new, previously unimagined item that fits right in with the thing you were already collecting.  The tropes are so familiar, and the stories so new, that I even set about to categorize them a bit.

Trope	Stories
Princess prisoner of a creature	2, 3, 6
Taking the place of the rightful heir/beloved	2, 3, 12, 16, 32
Prepare three unlikely bribes	3,11, 38
Three impossible tasks	3, 5, 27
Water/grass of life	3, 48
Tricked into suicide	3, 24, 29, 37
Three sisters	4, 9, 12, 19, 24, 26, 29, 35, 50
Omnipotent ring	4, 42
Stave off assault with clever delay	4, 24
Youngest child bravest/cleverest	4,9, 12, 19, 24, 26, 31, 45, 47
Young man sets off to seek his fortune	1, 6, 13, 27, 43
Jealous courtiers’ plot backfires	6, 11, 15
Smuggled into the maiden’s presence	7, 33 45
Ugly, jealous servant/stepmother etc.	8, 18, 31
Jealous older siblings’ treachery	12, 50
Giving birth to an animal	12, 19, 31
Regional characteristics	10, 21
Love beneath its station	13, 22, 31
Three brothers	14, 46, 47
Nuts filled with treasure	14, 19
The frog/snake/parrot etc. prince/ss	14, 15, 18, 19, 30
Sequestered beauty	15, 18, 33, 36
Treacherous old woman intermediary enables insidious royalty	15, 50
Reward for curing the the prince/princess	15, 18, 39, 41
“my son/husband/daughter will eat you if he finds you!”	19, 45
The boy is clever, but the girl is more clever and has her revenge!	21, 36
The comb becomes an obstacle	8, 22
Servants don’t have the heart to kill	23, 31
Maybe unique?	25, 40, 44, 49
Failing to fulfill a simple requirement	27, 35, 45, 50
Laughter is rewarded	29, 38
Maiden dressed as a man	18, 21, 31
Stealing from thieves	13, 31
Seemingly abandoned, enchanted palace	32, 35, 43, 48
Hollow animal that plays music	7, 33

I only went through the first 50 in this way, but one can see the pattern.  What a joy, one that I have already recommended to others.

박경리: 뱁새족

이와 같은 고급 책 읽으면 아직 문학으로 분석할 힘이 없다.  아쉽네.  아직 토지를 읽으면 안 되네.  그러나 문학에 대해서 배운 게 별로 없어도 내 자기 한국어 습득에 대한 걸 배웠다.  읽으면서 단어, 표현, 속담 다 노력하면 이해가 됐지만 책을 전체적으로 이해가 안 되는 것을 보니 나의 다음으로 극복해야하는 장벽을 알게 되었다.  다행이다.  앞길이 보이네.

더 익숙하게 만들어야하는 한국어의 특질은 바로 담화 표지다.  뱁새족을 읽으면서 누가 뭐라고 하는지 추적이 정말 안 되었다.  발언자뿐만 아니라 흔히 장면도 나 모르게 바뀌어 혼란스러워졌다.  이제 한 발짝 뒤로 물러서서 다시 아동책에 초점하겠다.

The Gold Rush

Sometimes we must, in the interest of fairness and objectivity, appreciate a movie in its context.  "Sure the camerawork, effects, writing, or structure weren't up to modern standards, but Intolerance was the first one to even try those things so give some credit", one might reason, or "It Happened One Night is even more impressive when you realize that all the movies of a similar style drew upon it for inspiration."

None of that is the case here.  How often does a movie do better with less technology and convention to draw on?  How often is the first example of something still the obvious best?  How often does a movie create practical effects that afterward have only been attempted in cartoons?  I'd say exactly once, and it is the oeuvre of Mr. Charles Chaplin.

As with City Lights, the director, lead actor, writer, and even composer?!?!?? of this movie did all of those jobs so well that if one didn't know its release date, one would be forgiven for assuming that it had just copied all of the tropes instead of having actually invented them.  At first I was in awe of how wonderfully he had captured the feel and style of a Looney Tunes cartoon.  What a marvelous feat to have reproduced all of those complicated gags without modern technology.  Imagine my surprise when I learned that I had it backward.  The Gold Rush predates Bugs Bunny by a decade.  Bugs Bunny copied Charlie Chaplin, but Chaplin did it so well that I just assumed the opposite.

After first watching this movie, I was affirmed in my opinion that Chaplin was a genius.  But further digging has revealed that I was mistaken.  He is a demigod. 

Catching Up

I don't tend to stick with things.  My attention span--for jobs, relationships, hobbies--seems to be about three years.  I have occassionally stuck with something for longer than that, but at the three year mark, the bloom inevitable fades, and, more often than not I scorch the earth and start over somewhere, something, with someone else.

Which is why it's a minor miracle that it has taken more than a decade for me to ask whether I wanted to continue writing in this blog or not. 

Clearly, I have come down on the side of yes.  But time passes, and memory degrades.  The books that I have reaad in the past few months have left relatively little trace, and I found myself unwilling to stretch them into their own individual posts.  There is precedent, of course.  At the beginning of this blog, some books barely merited a line or two. 

Liu Cixin: The Wandering Earth

Of all the books that I have read during quarantine, I had the most to say about this one at the time I completed it.  I recall wondering if the author was aware of his habits, whether he intended all the short stories in this collection to fit so neatly into the same universe.  Did he recognize as he wrote that his stories were all, in some way, weighing the vitues of being small against those of being large?  Or did he only see it after he stepped back and looked at what he had wrought, like a dinosaur seeing the pattern in a trail of ants that they themselves are unable to conceive?

Margarita Karapanou: Kassandra and the Wolf

I am beginning to sense a theme here.  I don't recall many details from these books.  Any self-styled reader can probably relate to the notion of remembering what you thought and felt about a book, rather than what it really contained.  In this case, the impression was one of a first attempt that was published by accident.  Vivid and evocative, in a way that often seemed to be testing the boundaries of what it could get away with--both in style and substance.  I felt the author reading over my shoulder, like an avid fan who introduces you to their favorite TV show and watches you watching, judging your reaction.

Hisham Matar: In the Country of Men

This item, like the previous one, betrays the weakness of the semi-autobiographical historical trauma novel.  Unlike the Karapnaou's effort, however, I find that I remember certain details, but nothing more.  It has the flavor of a book written because it could be, not because it must.  The author has a dangerous combination of a gift for language, and a vivid life from which to draw, but without a perspective on that trauma that necessitates its recording.

Anthony Jacquin: Reality is Plastic

And this is the opposite.  One gets the sense that Jacquin is struggling to convey exactly what he knows.  One could wish he was a slightly better, more organized writer, that he had a slightly more brutal editor, or that his manuscript was lost in a fire and he was forced to restart from scratch after having discovered in the final pages what he wanted to convey all along.  Nonetheless, of the four, this is the one that I will retain the best, for two reasons:  firstly, I am actually interested in what he has to say, both from a practical and a philosophical standpoint.  That reality is what I say it is--well, this idea is both seductive and compatible with what I tend to believe anyway.  Secondly, and as a result of the first,  I have actually taken the time to dig through his disorganized prose to pull out things that I can apply and, indeed, have.

Jane Gardam: The Queen of the Tambourine

Fate is so peculiar.  Last year a friend was unloading a pile of his books before leaving the country, and I of course accepted them all sight unseen.  I am occasionally guilty of literary tunnel vision, seeing only fiction, poetry, and drama by long dead authors as worthy of my time.  The bag I received from this friend was, by contrast, filled with modern writing, both fiction and non; decidedly outside of my usual wheelhouse.

So were it not for Fate, I would never have read this book--at least not until long after the author had died and it had proven itself worthy.  What a loss that would have been.  At first slightly unimpressed by the epistolary framework, I gradually succumbed to its charm, and by the end admitted that there was no other way it could have been written.  A good book until the last chapters, at which point it revealed itself to have been secretly great all along.  Every seemingly out of place or jarring addition earlier in the book gradually unfolded into a lovely and perfectly intentional flower by the end.  One scarcely noticed the seeds until they had bloomed, and that is, by my definition, literature.  Perhaps an author doesn't have to die to earn the label after all.

Hirotaka Kisaragi: BrotherXBrother

Just another breezy graphic novel, written in Japanese, read in Korean, and written about in English.  Nothing literary or groundbreaking.  And yet . . .

One does wonder about the theme.  Love between (albeit half-) brothers taken to the extreme is appropriate in a Japanese graphic novel.  Certainly not my fetish.  But there is something about the brotherly aspect of male romantic relationships that is undeniably attractive.  It is this dynamic that sets us apart from our straight counterparts, in my opinion, and I have for some years been campaigning to get us our own word, proposing "Theban" as a counterpart to "Lesbian" (to no success).

There are really only two things I want, after all: someone to watch over, and someone to watch over me.  A younger brother, and an older brother.  The three of us against the world,

김원일: 마당 깊은 집

우리 독서 동아리 회원들 모두 다 대구에서 사니까 이 책을 같이 읽기로 했다.  옛날의 대구 모습을 알게 되면서, 그 시대의 시민들이 어떻게 살았는지 배운 후 대구에 있는 "마당 깊은 집 박물권"을 방문해서 직접 이 책에 나오는 장소를 볼 수 있는 게 우리 다 좋은 기회라고 생각했다.  책을 읽고 난 후 우리의 의견이 완전 달라졌다.

친구 한 명은, "그냥 일반 대구 아저씨의 얘기인데" 라고 하며 다른 한 명은, "남성성의 오만"이라고 답했다.  더구나 그 "마당 깊은 집 박물권"으로 가서 자서전도 아니고 그냥 그 시절의 기억을 바탕으로 만든 허구인지 알게 됐다.  더 이상하게 자서전 아니면서 그 박물권 직원들이 굳이 자서전인 척 했고 독촉해야만 그 집, 그 사건들 존재하지 않았다고 인정했다. 

대표적인 한남 김원일.  감정, 철학 없으면서 "내가 하고 싶은 말을 모두 다 들어야한다"고 고집한다.  그 시대의 모습 정말로 알고 싶다면 마당 깊은 집을 무시하고 박원서의 그 많던 싱아는 누가 다 먹었을까"란 정당한 자서전을 읽는 게 좋다.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra: Don Quixote

What Pottermore house are you?  Are you team Edward or Jacob?  What color is your lightsaber? Do you admit that the most pure lady Dulcinea is the most beautiful of all ladies on this Earth, or do you prefer to die by my hand this very instant?  Have you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ into your heart? I challenge you to find the difference between these questions.

In chronicling the adventures of The Knight of the Sad Countenance and his squire, Cervantes seems almost to be describing our modern version of fandom, so little has the human phenomenon changed in 400+ years.  The parallels are striking.  Surely there are in your circle those who obsessively devour all media related to their chosen fantasy world: the fans. And likely you also know those who have allowed their fandom to seep even further into their identities, learn Klingon, dress as Sailor Moon, and get tattoos of the Bat Signal: the cosplayers.

But what Cervantes is most interested in here are the most obsessive of fans, those who actually go out into the world in the guise of a their fantasy persona, The Society for Creative Anachronism, Vampire: the Masquerade, the LARPers.  Cervantes does not mock these characters; his affection for his main character is palpable, and those who view the book as a documentary of madness and futility miss the point entirely.  Don Quixote's break with reality is entirely voluntary, as he is early to point out: "'I know who I am,' replied Don Quixote, 'and I know, too, that I am capable of being not only the characters I have named, but all the Twelve Peers of France and all the Nine Worthies as well, for my exploits are far greater than all the deed they have done, all together and each by himself."(54).  Quixote's supposed madness is divinest sense, both through Cervantes' lens, and a reasonable modern one.  Is that which somehow has earned the name "reality" so lovely and magnificent that it would be madness to escape it, or is it quite the other way around?  Is it not more rational to reject nature, red in tooth and claw, and to instead build a true-to-scale TARDIS in your den?  To choose your reality instead of suffering through it?

Which instinct is, of course far more prevalent than one might think at first.  The world is in fact full of LARPers.  Far more than half of all humans are following Don Quixote into the field, even as they vigorously deny it. Unable or unwilling to cope with the desolate waste of reality, they throw themselves into a half-conscious fantasy world created long ago by now dead authors, and have so convinced themselves that they pity those who don't do the same.  We sometimes don't recognize the prevalence of this instinct, because people doing largely don't call it fandom; they call it religion. It is this point that reveals Cervantes' most brilliant, though subtle, observation: the crux of the argument is that when Don Quixote adheres rabidly to the text of his stories, such as "when Carloto left Baldwin wounded on the mountain, a tale familiar to children, not unknown to youth, and even believed by old men, though for all that no truer than the miracles of Mahomet,"  the Don is doing something indistinguishable from religion (53).

It was perfectly safe, of course, for Cervantes to draw a connection between Quixotes' madness and that of the Muslims.  But the Catholics in his book, though they escape such direct comparison, are in no way painted differently from the supposed heathens.  In fact, they suffer from the increased attention, and their irrationally dogged adherence to ancient texts, when placed besides Quixote's, are revealed to be of the same nature.  Cervantes tacit observation is proven true by even casual contact with those ubiquitous LARPers of religion today.  Who is to say that the Bishop's mitre is not in fact a chamberpot that society has agreed not to notice?

Italo Calvino: The Baron in the Trees

In my early teens, I discovered The Great Brain series of novels by J.D. Fitzgerald, and within a chapter, I was home.  I had never read a book that seemed to be written so exactly for me.  Encyclopedia Brown, while ostensibly on a similar topic, was clearly written by someone who didn't know what he was talking about, had never had the thoughts and feelings that he was trying to describe.  But the titular Great Brain knew, or at least his brother knew, because the stories were true.  This was really what it was like.  I wasn't imagining it.  Somebody understood.

As an adult, I've since found actual people who thought and felt like me.  Sometimes we get along, and sometimes less so.  One would think that such meetings are a comfort, and indeed they often are.  But equally often, they are a warning that whatever gifts I have, they are not in and of themselves enough.  There are so many variables at play in this existence, and so many of them are hostile.  It is vanishingly rare for things to turn out the way people would want them.  And for those of us who think and feel deeply, it is even more difficult because we want so much more.

Cosimo, the eponymous Baron, knew this.  And he couldn't have known this if the author--serendipitously also speaking in the voice of a younger brother--hadn't known it himself.  It is so easy to withdraw, to live in and for oneself, among the trees as it were.  On the surface, scouring yourself free of all the messy variables that come with people and society seems like a cure.  But it is not.  It makes it worse, drives you mad with frustration, until the only end left to you is to hop on a balloon and drift over the ocean.

But there is an alternative to a life in the trees, and it is put so precisely here that I will end by quoting it:

"...association renders men stronger and brings out each person's best gifts, and gives a joy which is rarely to be had by keeping to oneself, the joy of realizing how many honest, decent, capable people there are for whom it is worth giving one's best (while living just for oneself very often the opposite happens, of seeing people's other side, the side which make one keep one's hand always on the hilt of one's sword)" (106).

Banana Yoshimoto: Kitchen

Sometimes you meet a person that reminds you so much of what you don't like in yourself, you hate them on sight.  What makes it worse, your similarities mean you travel in the same circles, compete for the same attention, and generally can't escape each other.  This is not a bad thing, necessarily.  Viewed properly, it give one the chance to reflect on her or his own behavior, on the way it affects others, and perhaps make adjustments.

It is unsurprising that the same phenomenon can exist in writers.  I didn't hate this book; in fact my response is rather positive.  Even that positive response, however, is muted by the realization that what weakens her writing is the same thing that weakens my own attempts at fiction.  Her engaging heightened reality, the vivid and memorable characters experiencing deep, recognizable, and universal thoughts and feelings, and her purposefully oblique scene-painting were all effective and engaging.  But they grabbed me in the way that an instagram story does, when they really could have held the weight of a full season of television.

So much was touched upon, underdeveloped here.  I suppose it's a testament that I was left wanting more, wanting to dive more deeply into this world, but wanting more is only a virtue when there is more to be had.  If this novella were the first in a series, I would be addicted.  But after the last page, all I'm left with are withdrawals. 

James Agee: A Death in the Family

Surely, the author could not have known that the titular death would be his own.  And yet, considering the depth of spirit that is evident in this work . . . perhaps he did?  It's entirely plausible that he knew this would his final word, and that the reader would be left behind to put it together in a way that makes sense.
Thus is death, and thus is grief.   They take their version with them, the dead, their director's cut, their final draft. What we are left with is fragments, our version of their story, and it is that which we mourn.  And just as the humans in this book will each hold a different Jay in their mind, so will each reader be left to wonder forever what Agee's final edition would have been.
My Maternal Grandfather will die this week.  He fell, and there's really nothing to do but inter him in palliative care, and then eventually in a hole in the ground in Kansas.  Why was he the way he was?  I have my version, my explanation why a decade ago he decided he never wanted to speak to me again.  Well, he got his wish.
But it is the privilege of the living, and of the reader, to have the last word.  To look at the fragments of stories left behind, and to declare them, as in the case of Agee, good, beautiful, necesary.

Antonio Machado: Border of a Dream

I feel conflicted about these poems, though not about this poet.  On the surface, they are the sort of poems that one reads, enjoys, and forgets.  They are largely snapshots, vivid descriptions of isolated scenes, presumably filed with the sympathy of the poet, but that sympathy is largely left presumed.  Taken as a whole, they give the impression of a sonnet without a turn, a haiku without a final line.  The poet is staring, devoted at the landscape of his memory, relating it in crisp detail to the reader, but speaking over his shoulder at us.  He nevers turns to look us in the eye and slap us with the final quatrain, the stinging glare that leaves a mark.  It is a testament and a rebuke that he is still known as "Antonio el Bueno", for his poems are "good", a word that is appropriately general and delible.

Which is slightly puzzling, considering his devotion to literature and philosophy for which one would never feel the word "good" was appropriate.  In particular, Machado's reverence for Miguel de Unamuno would lead one to expect a certain depth in his work.  Clearly the poet did not shy away from--and was in fact obsessed with--major philisophical questions. So where is this probing intellect in his work?  What is he staring at for so long? What is it that he sees, which is so engrossing he barely notices our presence behind him?

This is the question that burns under Machado's verses, and it is this that he ultimately succeeds in conveying.  It is not the clever answer to the question, the startling insight, that remains with us after reading, as it does with some other poets.  It is the lack of an answer, the fact that the poet himself does not know what exactly has transfixed him, nor why.  We tap on the shoulder of his poems to ask, but he does not acknowledge our presence there, let alone answer.  In the face of such a response, the reader has no choice but to calm his heart, stand next to the poet, and stare with him.

Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers

There's a reason I don't read more of these books, and a reson I should read more of these books, and as with most things they are the same reason. 

It's so easy to think these things.  It's so easy to read a book like this, or any of its popsociopsychology ilk, to polish it off in a day or two and get a rush of accomplishment, and to form some thoughts about it--pro or con.  In this particular case, it was exceptionally easy also to meet with the book club that had chosen it and talk freely about the ideas.  So easy.

By the same token, its easy to forget, after reading the book and in the glow of completion, that there's really not much to it.  It's easy to congraulate ourselves as readers as much as Gladwell congratulates himself on his existence, for being studious, awake, and probing.  But within hours, the aure of sophistication has worn off, and the illusion of thought has evaporated. 

This book was so easy.  Easy to read, easy to agree with, and ultimately, easy to forget.

Tirso de Molina: El Burlador de Sevilla

I'm not entirely satisfied with myself in writing this.  My original goal was to read and write about this seminal book in Spanish, but as you can see, I've failed in at least the latter part of that goal.  My Spanish simply isn't up to the task yet.  And even though I read the original 17th century text in Spanish, glued to a dictionary,  I wouldn't say that I succeeded in that either.  The highly colloquial and idiomatic language used, especially by Catalinón, remains opaque.  I understood the words, but often their implication escaped me.

But even within those constraints, even clouded by my intermediate Spanish and 400 years of linguistic change, the genius of Tirso de Molina is unmistakeable.  The dramatic imagination required to have created this work is so far out of the realm of what was being created at that time is astounding.  There are those who say that the basic building blocks of the legend predate Molina, but no proof seems to be extant for such a claim.  It is perhaps true that Molina drew from a variety of Spanish legends for his masterwork, but this is certainly no mere adaptation of a folk tale.  It does not seem to be exaggeration to say that Molina gave birth to Don Juan, rather tahn simply giving him a voice.

Neither is this mere entertainment.  Each character is there to deliver a message, but most marvelous to this reader is that it remains open to dispute what the message of the play itself is.  It would be easy to craft a case that Molina, a devout monk, was crafting a cautionary tale about sacrificing one's soul to earthly delights, and the dangers of relying on the sacrament of confession to ensure one's own salvation. But suppose that Don Juan had managed to go to confession just before meeting with the stone guest.  Such is not out of the realm of possibility.  What, then, would have been his fate?  Would the sacrament have saved him from damnation?  The play would ahve taken on an entirely different meaning.  This question opens the way for a reading of El Burlador as an indictment, rather than an endorsement, of the Church's approach to sin.  In fact, isDon Gonzalo's innocent but sudden death without that sacrament any different than Don Juan's?  The fact that he reappears as an agent of Hell does not indicate a favorable end for him, however potent his revenge.

On every level to which I have access, this play is a masterwork.  Molina's dramatic instincts are positively Shakespearean in their precision; he knew exactly what to put on the stage.  His characters are all indelible, and the eponymous villain so much so that he has become inextricable from world culture.  Underneath these skillful layers, however, lies perhaps the best part of the play: its earnest wrestling with an irresolvable philosophical question in terms accessible to even the lowest of brows. Would that my Spanish were strong enough to discern if the topmost layer, the words themselves, are of as incredible a quality.  I suspect that they are, and perhaps I will one day be able to appreciate them.  But even if they were as dry as stone, the play would still be a pillar of world literature.

Tomas Tranströmer: The Great Enigma

I owe several things to Rebecca LaRoche.  First among them is a string of apologies for being a complete twat; I was the very model of a self-important undergrad, and she deserved better from me.  The second debt is for a great many ideas about teaching itself, rather than about specific literature.  The third is for moments of clarity with regard to my own writing, and I still don't know how she found the stomach to deal with me considering the aformentioned twatness.

Among those insights that fall under the third category is a something she said about a poem that I thought very good, but she described as "about something I don't feel I have access to".  What was to me perfectly clear was, to someone unfamiliar with my internal workings, opaque and meaningless.  I have precisely the same reaction to many of the poems contained in this volume.  Tranströmer is clearly conveying something very meaningful and clear to him, but to me it fells like a description of an artwork, rather than the work itself.  Without access to what is being described, the description itself is beautiful but meaningless.

This effect is likely a result of Tranströmer's habit of transcribing dreams into poems.  Often, this is explicit, but more often he forgets to mention that what we are reading arises from a fugue state and is correspondingly unbeholden to reason, and immune to understanding.  These moments are not unlike art by Miro or Kandinsky, where the arrangement of shapes and colors itself is the work, and meaning is not a factor.

But in those moments where the dream brushes against reality, where whatever Tranströmer was thinking overlaps in some way with my own spirit, the result is magical.  It is the perfection of synaesthesia, where not only do all sounds have colors and vice versa, but everything is perceived by all senses at once.  Everything in these poems has a color, a voice, a scent.  It is no great feat for a poet to draw connections between two or three things in a simple metaphor.  But Tranströmer goes so far beyond metaphor as to render the word meaningless.  And not only does he give every thought a texture and a flavor, but also hands and lips and eyes.  We can see and feel and taste these poems, but they can also do the same to us as we read them.  Tranströmer captures ideas like bugs in jars, revealing to the reader that even "the ground [is] alive, that there [is] an infinite world of creeping and flying things living their own rich life without paying the least regard to us", and he didn't stop there but "caught a fraction of a fraction of that world and pinned it down in [his] boxes" (Museums).

Wuthering Heights

I'm not sure by what criteria this movie should be evaluated.  It would seem remiss to not include "faithfulness to the source material" as a criterion.  Adaptations exist in a vacuum even less than original works.  By that measure, and within the limits of my memory, the film passes fairly well.  I do not recall enjoying the book, rather finding the characters unsympathetic and dreary, and the structure unnecessarily meandering.  The movie, by way of contrast, was tightly woven, and the performances gave depth and sympathy, especially to poor doomed Heathcliff.

Even viewed on its own, the movie was perfectly watchable.  Score, direction, cinematography, and performance were all of a very high level, and I suppose I can't find fault with its inclusion in the AFI's "100 Movies" list.  But my reaction to the movie itself is exactly as tepid as it sounds.  It was . . . fine.

Evaluation, however, is not the only way of reacting to a work--either written or filmed.  There is something about the story of Heathcliff that transcends evaluation.  I, an inveterate evaluator, have no special place for it in my memory; I can barely remember reading it at all, though I believe I wrote a paper on it as an undergrad.  But its fans are legion, and mysteriously fanatic.  There is something about Heathcliff that speaks to people, making the book a legend, and the movie, to be honest, far more well-regarded than it merits.

Perhaps if I were to read the book again, I would find in the text that which was rather clearly woven into the film: that the worst people we meet often have very sound reasons for being that way.  The call is implicit in portraits of such tortured bastards that we should endeavour to understand them before passing evaluation.  That even terrible miscreants were once pure and innocent.  That all such Heathcliffs need is love, and all cruel and vile men deserve forgiveness.

It seems to be on this level that those who have a soft spot for the book, and I suppose the movie, react to it.  It is seemingly irresistible for a certain subset of optimistic romantics to embrace horrible people, trying to save, redeem, or heal them.  I have several personal acquaintances in mind when I write this, and know of far more second-hand.

As for me, it is likely a character flaw that I do not react to them the same way.  I have infinite patience for children, but once Heathcliff is an adult, his tragic youth ceases to be an excuse.  At a certain point we all, myself included, must heal and grow and unfuck ourselves from our universally tragic youths.  Only then can we lay claim to a greater evaluation than "fine".  The book was fine.  The movie was fine.  And the many Catherines in my acquaintance are fine.  But if any of them want a better reaction than that from me, they would do well to grow up.

An-Nisa

It is surely vanity that I enjoy the holiness of my own letter B this much.  I do not, however, entirely endorse Hulusi's interjection of it here.

1: If this verse is to be any indication, along with the epigraph, Hulusi is growing more comfortable intersting Sufi interpretation in the text--and not always with appropriate denotation.  Which is not to say that his ideas cannot be found in this excellent verse.  Merely that, as in all literature, explication can weaken the message and detract from the joy.

2-3: Hilarious and revealing that Women are given the epithet اليَتامىٰ (orphans) here, and there is no dispute among three translators that it is indeed the correct rendering.

4: Not entirely clear what fiscal policies were in place.  We in the West think of a dowry as a gift to the wife's parents, not to herself.

5-6: Are we not then referring to marriage, but to actual orphans, or to a man's sisters after their parents' death?

7: This is no doubt one of the verses people have in mind when they refer to the Quran's relative liberality toward women.  All things are relative, after all, and this is at least better than what Moses would grant.

8,9: Perhaps a corollary of the so-called "Golden Rule", flawless in its reasoning and appeal to compassion and fellow feeling

10: . . . but followed up, of course, with a more practical appeal to fear and loathing.

11: Again, liberal and feminist . . . by comparison. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the dubious math of this portion gave rise to plenty of conflict across the centuries.  The last part of this verse is the most interesting to me, though.  What a lot of conflict this could have prevented if common in the West!

12: I am extremely curious to know how many rich Muslim women there are in the world.  If this law were executed faithfully, there should be quite a lot. 

13,14: . . . of course every edict has to be thus punctuated.  

15: Again, extremely liberal by contemporary standards.  Not only are double the witnesses required by the Hebrew god necessary, but the punishment is relatively lenient.

16: A rare moment where Hulusi's liberty with the text takes him backward.  He translates this verse as saying "two men," but all other translations, and the dictionary, agree that وَاللَّذانِ is "any two people".

17, 18: Oh, another lovely distinction.  Repentance here is not some easy out.  It is much more specific, and the type of silliness we see in Christianism is specifically prohibited.

19, 20: I wonder if there was any resistance to this proscription at the time it was given.  We need only take a look at the fragile masculinity on display today to infer how easily it would have been to perceive it as an assault on the patriarchy, and trigger male defensiveness.

21-26: It would be easy, blinded by the relative liberality toward women and respect of their rights, to lose sight of some key facts:

• "You" in this book means "Men."  Women are the objects of this discourse, not the subjects.
• Marriage is still treated as an exchange of goods and services, and this transactionality only reinforces the objectification.
• No mention is made of women's right of refusal, insofar as goods cannot decline to be purchased.

Nonetheless, it is even more striking than I expected how much leverage women are given.  How on earth is it justified, then, to deny women rights on such a level as is seen in modern Islamic countries?  Where did the leap from "Treat women justly or burn forever" to "Who said you could drive, bitch?" happen?

27-28: or, "Misery loves company".

29-30: An interesting equivalence between wealth and life.

31: Rather a more reasonable and charitable demand than that of the Christian god.

32: This verse seems to contradict itself.  At first it makes the reasonable suggestion not to covet, for all things come from Allah.  This is based on the assumption that Allah gives unequally, however.  The following assertion that all get what they earn loses its way.

33: Seemingly a non sequitir.  If patterns hold true, this will be revisited in a few verses.

34-35: And here is the answer to the seeming contradiction in verse 32.  When it exhorts the reader not to covet another's position, it really means "Don't feel bad because your husband beats you.  You deserved it."

36-42: It had been a while since we got a warning against duality, but here it is.  Hulusi's nuanced interpretation makes the connection between unity and generosity rather easier to follow than other more literal renderings.  It also highlights the real problem with arrogance: it is rooted in duality.

40: Ok, this really seems like a bud that will bear fruit later.  All three renderings give لَدُنهُ as "Himself" or some variation thereof.  The dictionary meaning, however, is "elastic" or even "spandex" in one dictionary.  Furthermore, none of the possible translation given in the reverse, from the English "himself", are anywhere close.  I need to keep an eye out for this in the future, because it could be marvelously revealing.

43-45: I have come to instinctively assume the Prophet means "Jews'n'Christians" Whenever he uses this expression.  Interesting that Hulusi does not make his usual choice of leaving the Names untranslated when it comes to نَصيرًا, especially notable because his rendering emphasizes the وَكَفىٰ in the same verse.  Hulusi doesn't even bother to include the former in his comprehensive introduction, as he does with the latter.  

46: Yes, of course.  As predicted above.

47: Hulusi's explanation of these creative curse is as good as any, I suppose, but it does not seem to capture the essence of it.

46-57 This lengthy diatribe seems completely unrelated to the rest of the book.  The generous explanation is that An-Nisa, and even the whole of the Quran, is really about one thing, namely "one thing", and everything is to be read on some level as an invective against duality.  A less generous reading might be "The Prophet let his anger run away with him."

58: "Trusts" here seems to be used in a way other than "credibility", but neither the three renderings I am referencing, nor the dictionary itself is any help in parsing it.

59-60: Taghut appears again, and my fuzziness on the concept is palliated by complete disagreement between the three renderings. If a figure other than of speech, a fascinating one.

61-70 And another lengthy diatribe against "Jews'n'Christians".  It might be fruitful to keep track of these digressions.

69: I'm suddenly quite curious about the distinction between الرَّسولَ and النَّبِيّينَ. One would be tempted to say that the former was Muhammad, and the latter lesser prophets, if the latter were not pluralized earlier in 64.

71-77: And now a call to war! This book has gone right off the rails of its original topic.

78: This is pretty sound reasoning, and gets to the crux of the matter: there is basically one message in the Quran, and it is very simple and very difficult.

 79: Hulusi keeps adding things to make his point, but they are not in the text.  It seems that he most often does it to emphasize his pet mystic concept: the various powers of the Names in our own selves.

Speaking of which:

Running list of the Names referred to (started late, so possibly incomplete): 

Rahim: merciful

Aleem: all-knowing

Aliy: exalted

Kabir: great

Habir: all-aware

Afuw: all-excusing

Ghafur: all forgiving

Waliyy:  ally

Aziz: mighty

Hakim: wise

Sami: all-hearing

Basir: all-seeing

Tawwab: clement

Muqeet: watchful

Hasib: reckoner

80: none of which are to be confused with the Rasul, who is somehow both the topic and the addressee of this verse.

81: And neither does Wakil here seem to have the same weight as the above names.  

82: I will say that there do not seem to be the same inconsistencies in this text as in others of its class--no doubt due to its relative recency and singular purported authorship.  this is not to say, however, that it does not occassionally speak out of both sides of its mouth.

83: And we are back here to the curious question of the addressee.  Based both on plurality and content here, The Rasul does not seem to be addressed directly.  These shifts are disorienting, but may hold a key to some larger perspective.

84: A nice verse, and one I'm tempted to frame in my familiar paradigm of process v. product.

85: The line between a divine name and a simple descriptor is blurry. Capitalization of Muqeet here in one version, and transliteration in another, seems to argue for the former.  Simple lower-case translation in another version argues for the latter.  

86: And the same here with Hasib.  I do like this sentiment, though I can't imagine many humans being able to bring themselves to do it.

87: The suffix هُ here is given special treatment in Hulusi's rendering.  It makes me terribly curious about the semantic content of it.  It doesn't seem to have any innately.  I need to be on the lookout for incidences of the Divine Name without it, or it as a suffix in other contexts.

88: The idea of divine misdirection , here and in other similar texts *coughthebiblecough* is wildly grating to me.  Is belief a matter of divine selection, or of choice?  It seems to be a terribly important distinction, and this is not the first time this text has fallen on what I consider to be the unsustainable side of it.

89: If they have been led astray by divine will, then how would it be possible for them to reverse course in this way? The dichotomy has the aroma of convenient selectivity about it.

90: Another surprisingly progressive sentiment, and one that seems ignored by modern Islam.

91: This verse, on the other hand, has a fascinating blank space in the middle.  Those whom readers are given sanction to kill with impunity are those who have given into temptation, but the three texts I'm referencing here are at odds with regard to the nature of that temptation, and each sees fit to insert a non-textual explanation: polytheism, disbelief or hostility variously.

92-93: The idea of a hostile believer is somewhat prescient here.  At the time this book was written, which seems to be rather later than its placement in the canon would indicate, were cracks already beginning to appear among the followers of Islam?  Or is this a reference to their perpetual foes the Meccans?

94: A return to the ideas of v.90, with the same skeptical eyebrow from this reader.

Camilo Jose Cela: Journey to the Alcarria

"As always, the traveler doesn't realize he has put his foot in it until he's in belly deep" (63).  Referring in the second person to his own tendency to say the wrong thing and offend his listeners, Cela was rather more prophetic than he could have realized at the time.

Such a shame too.  If he were not such an engaging storyteller, a traveler seemingly after my own heart who believed as I do that "it's much more pleasant to come upon things as it were by chance than to go look at them in a  place where you know they'll be set up to perfection", if he were not so carefully offhanded with his reflections and descriptions on the journey, then perhaps I would not have been engaged enough to find out what sort of man he really was. 

And so it seems to always be with those who rise to grace in general, or our graces in particular.  The bigger they are, so to speak.  And what are we to do when a writer who we were fully prepared to follow through the Alcarria, retracing his steps, says something so grotesque of our precious and sacred Federico Garcia Lorca as "ni a favor ni en contra . . . Me limito a no tomar por el culo"? The same thing as when Kevin Spacey, 고은, or any other revered figure is revealed to be terrible and predatory.  We look at him with new eyes.  They are not changed; we are.  We grow weary and skeptical, but also clear and cautious.  Our perspective is broadened, and we see more that the scene with Elena and Maria, framed by the writer as a simple misunderstanding of artless peasant girls, was likely to have been something entirely different (103), or that the unnamed town where they threw him into jail, through no fault of his own, might actually have not had the wrong idea about him (5). 

At any rate, Cela turns out to have been a man, and a cautionary tale at that--not against traveling alone, but against expecting those whose art we enjoy to be any better humans than the rest of us donkeys.  As Pedro González Zerolo observed of Cela, "Que tenga en cuenta que un Premio Nobel de Literatura sólo acredita un buen hacer literario, no supone calidad persona".

조남주: 82년생 김지영

이 책때문에 한국 사회에서 논란이 이르킨다고 하는 게 아니라 이 책에서 표시되어있는 현상 때문이지만 그래도 한국 사람한테 "82년생 김지영"을 엉급하면 바능이 심할 수 밖에 없다.  내가 한국 남자한테 엉급했고 "이와 같은 논란 시키는 책이 없으면 좋다"고 했으며 한국 여자한테 엉급했을 떼 좀 놀랍게 "내가 잘 아는 현실인데 읽으면 화만 나니까 안 읽을래" 그렇게 답했다.

그 여자의 답이 맞다.  한국 여자들이 잘 아는 내용을 왜 읽어? 그래도 뒤에 포함되어있는 작품 해설의 "우리 모두의 김지영"이란 재목을 읽어 "여자만 읽을 만 한 책이냐"는 생각이 들었다.  "우리 모두의 김지영"이라면 그 해설의 데상 "우리"에 들어가는 독자가 여자만인가? 그러면 안 된다고 생각한다.  그 반데로 한국 여자가 읽을 필요가 없고 한국 남자 모두다 읽어야만 하고 읽은 후 주변 여자들한테 "정말 그렇냐" 묻으면 눈이 휘둥그래질 것이다.

Nicholas Ostler: Empires of the Word

One reason I don't read many modern fiction books is because they tend to leave little for me to say, and this is a perfect example.  Were this book fiction, philosophy (which is cognitive fiction), or analysis, I would feel free to react to it and offer my own thoughts.  But insofar as it is strictly objective fact, what could I possibly say?

And it is probably because of this attribute that I don't really feel that it stuck with me.  Ostler is such a scholar, so clearly objective, that his writing style leaves something to be desired.  I'm not saying that I would have preferred a narrative, but a little more attention to structure--viewing the book as an integrated whole, rather than a collection of facts--might have helped it stay with me a little more.  As it is, I could not say that I left this objectively valuable and fascinating book with much more than a fuzzy idea of its contents.

한국이민재단: 한국사회 이해

이와 같은 교과서는 해석 할 만한 책 아니지만 관련 과정을 이수한 것에 자랑할 만하다.  법무부에서 나온 책이라 선전을예상했지만 생각 보다 덜 그랬다.  한국의 앞뒷면 양쪽을 제대로 밝혔으며 도전되면서 좌절감시키지 않은 어휘와 문법은 내가 가져있는 한국어 수준에 딱 맞았다.  광고도 아니고 자랑도 적당하게 하고 어렵고 다양한 정보를 간절하게 전달해서 그 과정을 안 다녔어도 읽을 만한 책이다.

Ben-Hur

This is the first movie I have seeen in a while that I can confidently call "great".  Many movies are Art;  some few are even Literature.  But the element that elevates something from being masterfully done and perfectly executed, to the level of greatness is its overwhelming necessity.  A film cannot be great without having a reason to exist. 

Which is not to say that I personally must agree with that reason.  In the case under consideration here, I decidedly do not.  Evangelism and religious apologia of all sorts are rather nauseating to me, and I experienced just that nausea at certain baldly didactic moments while watching this film.  But the niche that this film occupies, its necessity in the biome of human ideas, is undeniable. 

But that necessity only allows the film's greatness; it does not predicate it.  To reach that potential, it also had to succeed on every technical level, from orchestration to set design.  And even if this film had no reason to exist, it would still be Art.  The art of cinematography is on full display in every facet of this film.  How to describe the spectacle of the chariot race?  The naval battle?  That it was all achieved without modern technology only makes it more marvelous, but is not a condition of admiration.  Those sequences could stand beside similar ones in contemporary movies without handicap. 

And perhaps the greatest miracle of all is how gracefully the writing trod the line between entertainment and propaganda.  The metaphysical themes of the setting never once departed from the very real, human, and believable personal drama that gives them their power.  I can find no complaint even with the central romance, which never felt contrived for appeal, though it surely was.  I place this movie confidently near the top of the list of movie I call great, though I must in good conscience demote it slightly because it advertises what I consider to be a lie. 

Jean-Paul Sartre: Being and Nothingness

It is perhaps indicitave of my predilection for systemic ontology that I see art in literature, and vice-versa.  How many ideas really exist, after all?  Two opposing forces?  The eight trigrams that come from those forces?  The 64 relationships between those eight?  At any rate, there is a limit.  And it is no more strange to say that the fundamental idea 艮 captures the nature of both the mountain and the stomach, than to say that Bach is fundamentally the same as Escher, or, as I have done in this blog, to say that Gibbon is fundamentally a Persian rug, Müller is a torn photographic collage, and Le Clézio an Impressionist painting.

So perhaps I can be forgiven for taking a similar approach to Sartre.  No doubt he would approve; his extended efforts to isolate the exact nature of visqueux are of essentially the same nature, after all.  What is this book?  It is philosophy, of course, but that definition is no more helpful than to say that something visqueux is slimy.  Sartre's philosophy is of a very different form from that of Kierkegaard's or Russell's.  Although he seems to be trying to prove something, it cannot be said that he succeeds.  His "proofs" rely so heavily on definitions that he himself has tendered, that what is contained in this book is not True, but rather a crystallization of what Sartre sees to be true.  It is often opaque, reductive, and inextricably tangled.  It would be easy to see it as merely a heap of recurving wires that go nowhere and prove nothing.

But to dismiss Sartre's work as such would be akin to trying to read it upside-down.  From that perspective, the words have no shape, let alone a greater meaning.  The key to understanding words is to look at them from the right perspective, and this is especially true of Sartre.  What is contained in Being and Nothingness is not fine, sound, indisputable ideas; it is rather a perspective, a way of looking at existence.  It reveals marvelous vistas, and opens up entire hallways filled with doors to insight on the nature of being--but only if you look at it right.  This book is not its words; it is the point-of-view that allowed the words to be written.  The words themselves are as anamorphic as that modern trend in art exemplified by Bernard Pras, or Tim Noble and Sue Webster.  They are heaps of seemingly unrelated things that spring to life if one stands in the right spot or shines the right light.

Which means that, just as in the works of Noble and Webster, there are three requisite elements for the installation of this art: the seething mass of wires, the point at which one must stand to see them properly, and the shadow that they create.  Sartre's version of reality is just as concerned with what is not, with nothingness, as with what exists.  He wants us to see the shadow that existence casts even more than he wants us to see existence itself.  And that shadow is the truth revealed when the light of Sartre's vision is cast through existence onto the wall of our own experience.

Ali-Imran II

I'm ready to level an accusation of false advertising against this book.  The title promises new stories about the family of Mary, but so far only verses 35-50 have had anything to do with that.  As much as I am enjoying exploring the theme of "submission", it is not what I was hoping for, and I'm ready to look for my stories in the Talmud instead.

103: The sin of sectarianism is the same as the sin of polytheism.  Division into Jew and Christian and Muslim is no more a commision of this sin than division in Sunni and Shia.  It is from the edge of this pit that true understanding of the Divine saves us.

104-105: A command that is easier said than done, as it requires direct rebellion against powerful human tendencies.  Indeed, the formation and maintenance of such a community is itself the challenge, rather than the enforcement of "good" and "bad".

106-107: Indeed, the darkest of visages is that which has seen the Divine reality, and chosen the easier path in spite.

108-109: It is against the nature of the Divine reality to ackowledge either harm or division.

110: Its would be easy to observe that the same accusation levelled against Jews and Christians here could be applied to Muslims today.

111-112: The metaphor of a rope in the original بِحَبلٍ is killed by translation to "covenant" or "asylum" in some translations.  Hulusi wisely leaves it literal, here and in v103.

113-115: Hulusi's metaphysical approach leaves the idea of "the last day", here and elsewhere, so far unaccounted for.  The liberties he takes in translating it are rather without merit.  The idea of a final reckoning is very clear and pronounced throught this book, and his refusal to acknolwedge it is glaring.

116-117: This metaphor is a bit arbritrary, and does not seem to illustrate what it is meant to illustrate.  The frosty wind is not a result of people's own action, and its destruction of their crops does not seem to be a suitable symbol for a harm one brings upon oneself.  And it belies the statement "Allah has not wronged them" which it is meant to reinforce.

118: Certainly incompatible with the frequent reminders that there is no East or West nor any other such thing as division in the Divine reality (most recently in v109).

119: But the above seeming contradiction can be understood in terms of not drawing to oneself the idea of division.  For here it is observed that the natural inclination of the who understand the Divine to act ecumenically is not a reciprocal one.

120: A pessimistic and xenophobic view of humanity that Schopenhauer would have endorsed.  Which does not make it wrong; only depressing.  One interesting note is the use of مُحيطٌ to invoke knowledge of something.  The way in which Allah knows something is different than the way in which we know it: reality is not something external to Him, and is known as one knows one's own body.

121: The battle referred to here is that on the slopes of Uhud (or so it is believed), and it is no doubt relevant to the verse that the prophet was injured here as a result of his soldiers' lack of fortitude.

122: It's curious that this battle is not framed as a loss, and that Allah is still called the وَلِيُّهُما of the guilty soldiers.  One would almost be tempted to call this disingenuous.

123: The battle mentioned here was more clearly decided in the prophet's favor.  Perhaps the intent is to contrast the result when one follows the divine path (as at Badr) with that when one gives in to temptation (as at Uhud).  At any rate, Hulusi's rendering of تَشكُرونَ as "be of the evaluators" is opaque and inscrutable.  I much prefer the translations "be grateful" or "give thanks" in other versions.

124-125: The addition of المَلائِكَةِ here is a fascinating one, and open to rather a lot of linguistic parsing.  In what way are these angels marked?  The meaning is left so unclear that, one might as well consider Hulusi's position that they are such in the sense that they have names, and are in fact aspects of the Divine name.

126-127: . . . which leads him to take the more extreme liberty of identifying them as parts of the individual essence, to the extent that it reflects the divine--a point decidedly not in the text.

128: Perhaps there were those who wondered why Allah did not destroy the enemy entirely.  The simple explanation, that this was merely a military victory and not a miracle, is far too pedestrian for the prophet and his believers.

129: An uncommonly clear and relevant transition from the explanation above, and the warning below--

130: To Allah belong all your assets, as surely as do the lives of  your enemies.  To lust after wealth is to question Allah.

131-132: Standard issue religiosity.

133: Hulusi's approach to the identity of this رَبِّكُم is as fruitful as ever, perhaps the most fruitful line of thinking in his commentary so far.  It's decidedly a modern concept to be concerned with forgiveness of oneself, from one's own divine nature, rather than frogiveness granted externally and arbitrarily from a divinity that we can only partially comprehend.

134: One of the best verses so far.  The first of these three virtues has been emphasized throughout, but the addition of the latter two is natural, and enriches the understanding of exactly what "submission" looks like in praactice.

135-139: More verses that could just as easily have come from another religious text, and accordingly less interesting than those like 134 that seem unique to this book.

140: To the extent that Ecclesiastes 1:9 could be slipped in here without anyone noticing.

141-142: Sounds like the hunger games.  I guess there's not room in heaven for everyone.

143: Be careful what you wish for?

144: This seems somewhat out of sync with the way the prophet is viewed among belivers today.  Rather unexpected of him to be so self-effacing however.

145: A point that Islam gets better than most other religions, as far as I have experienced.  Certainly the sentiment of keeping your eyes on spiritual things is present in the Bible, but I have yet to find a denomination of Christianity that practices it.

146-148: The backdrop of the battle at Uhud linders over this verse.  No doubt the believers were in need of bolstering at that point.

149-150: Nothing remarkable here; nothing but vanilla religious invective.

151: This is, so far, the main offering of the Quran in my eyes: the emphasis on the unity of reality, and the proscription against thoughts of duality and separation.  Naturally, Hulusi's liberties take it even farther from Tawhid to pantheism.

152-153: Seems like those responsible for the defeat at Uhud are getting off rather lightly here, considering the cost.  Very politic of the prophet.

154:  A concept plenty apparent in other religious texts as well, but lgoically unsustainable: the bad things that befall you, including your own weakness, are sent from above as a test.  But what need has the divine for a test?  Surely all things have unfolded as they will unfold in the eyes of reality.

155: More absolution for those who selfishly escaped with their lives.

156: This is rather a surprising doubling down on the above absolution, at once very politic and very zen.  From one perspective, it's very sensible of the prophet to reassure his living followers that they will be remembered honorably.  From another, it's not calculated at all, but consistent with previous admonitions to mind one's own business, and submit to the divine--even if that divinity has put fear in your heart.

157-158: But one wonders why quite so much ink is spent on it.

159: This admonition, which seems to be directed at the writer, not at the reader, removessome suspicion of calculation.

160: And the reader is merely left with a bit of foreboding.  Those who Allah leaves have no hope.  But were we not just told that those who ran from battle did so because Allah allowed fear to enter them?  If this is the case, what is to prevent us from simply assuming that all our baser tendencies are His plan, and surrendering to them?

161-163: Difficult not to see some inconsistency here in the original text, and one can see why the Sufi approach is so attractive.  If one wishes to take the book as divinely inspired and flawless, then the Sufi reading is the only one that effectively deals with these inconsistencies.

164: There is an evident pattern of inserting generic verses like this one into the middle of a discourse, one which in a western dialectic would be seen as unfocused and illogical.  But once one surrenders to the pattern, it becomes clear that these are interjections, and the effect is rather one of giving the reader a break from didacticism.

165: After which interjections, the topic is returned to exactly where it was lain.

166-168: And this seems to be the moral: not that the dead were at the mercy of their natures, and chould be remembered honorably, but rather that their actions have nothing whatsoever to do with our own.  To sum up, mind your own business.

169-174: Though it never hurts to end with a little panegyric. 

175: The logical extenstion of this verse is that be careful, not who you worship, but who you fear.  Be afraid, be very afraid.

176-177: More admonition to "mind your own business".  I just wish it was more consistent with the overall theme of the book.  Difficult to reconcile "don't worry about the unbelievers" with "KILL THEM ALL".

178: Presumably rhetorical here, and not literal theology.

179: In contrast to this verse, which is making a very clear statement of theology: you can't hope to know the divine mysteries, unless Allah chooses you as a prophet/apostle/messenger/rasul (depending on which translation you prefer). So just do as we say.

180: In light of the previous verse, it is tempting to take the stinginess mentioned here as refusal to share divine truth. Although I suspect tht we are about to see a more material application.

181-184: Well, I was wrong.  This is pretty clearly a condemnation of the Jews' hoarding of spiritual resources, not material ones, though the two have some overlap here.

185: A lovely verse, partly in its clarity, but mostly in its universality: the dismissal of this life as "delusion" fits nicely into the sentiment of all religions, but also upon a deeper look into the the metaphysical branches of those religions: Sufi, Kabbalah, and the Dao.

186: A warning is added to the usual caution against dualism (a mistaken belief in separation).  The sin of "those who were given the book before you" is also, in its own way, one of separation, however; it is vertical face of dualism: pride, superiority, and dominance.

187-189: As made clear here: their mistake is in trying vainly to keep the divine truth for themselves.

190: . . . when the idea of separation into us and them is completely alien to the divine reality.  Such separation is no more possible than the ascription to the divine of duality.

191: It is a shame that the element of fear has to be introduced.  Surely it's a practical matter, and one common to all religions.  And it's just as common for the metaphysical sides of those religions to discard it.

192-195: It's an equally universal rhetorical tool to double down on the stick, and then proffer the carrot.  Almost textbook abusive behavior.  Surely there is a thesis to be written about the overlap between the behavior of abusers, and the behavior ascribed to the divine in world religions.

196-200: The explications added by Hulusi here are almost unnecesary.  The truth is there in these verses for all to see: mind your business, especially the business of your Rabb.  This applies without embellishment to material, religious, and metaphysical matters alike.

But I'm still bitter that we have had nothing of the advertised story of Imran since basically verse 59. 

William Shakespeare: Sonnets

Well, that was unexpected.  Naturally I had read many of these before, taught some to my students, and even committed a few to memory.  I certainly thought that I "knew" them; I was wrong. 

Reading the sonnets out of sequence and context deprived me of the story behind them, and there is no mistake that there is a narrative here.  There is no "stopping place", no division where one idea stops and the next begins, though there may be said to be a "pausing place" at the end of n.126.  And the narrative's content is as startling to this supposedly well-read English teacher as is the existence.  In my Shakespeare classes, textbooks, and teaching materials, there was occassionally a winking nod to Shakespeare's relationship with the "fair youth" of the first 126 sonnets that centers on the clever wordplay and metrical games of n.20.  "Teehee," the body of scholarship seems to say, "Wouldn't it be a gas if Shakespeare were just the teensiest bit gay?"  Hahahano.  Read consecutively, these sonnets are the gayest poem I have ever read.  The sonnets are not "occassionally homoerotic in nature," they are a queer pride parade on paper. 

"But, but, the dark lady!" one might protest.  "Surely she is evidence that Shakespeare liked the ladies . . ."  Sure.  His body did at least like the ladies.  But the tone of the last section is so starkly different, so comparatively rational and physical, that it is impossible to say that the writer felt the same way about her as he did about the fair youth.  The former (in the preceding sentence, not in sequence) are poems of lust.  But the desperate, pleading, spiritual emotion of the first 126 is Love.  I would go so far to say that any attraction the dark lady had for the writer is rooted in his feelings for the fair youth, and could not possibly have arisen on its own.  And if I were to go farther, and abandon adherence to what is provable in the text, I would go so far to say that the physicality of the last poems are a proxy for the physicality that he was unable to express to their true object.   Perhaps in the same way that my feelings about these poems are a proxy for the feelings I could not possibly allow myself to express in life.

신경숙: 엄마를 부탁해

이 책을 일거내고 "우리 어머니의 이야기가 아니"라는 생각이 들었다.  표면적으로 그렇다.  우리 어머니는 전쟁 때문에 겪으신 고통이 없고 사랑이 없는 결혼 아니시고 특히 길을 잃어버려서 돌아가시지 않았다.  그렇게 보면, "우리 어머니의 이야기는 아니고 우리 할머니의 이야기라"는 생각이 된다. 

그러나 다른 구채적인 점을 보니 "우리 어머니의 이야기 맞다"고 할 수 있다.  통증을 겪으셔도 집안일을 부지런히 해내던 점.  죽은 아이 하나를 낳으신 점.  동생의 자살을 겪으신 점.  깊이 보면 볼 수록 우리 양쪽 할머니의 이야기 맞으며 우리 어머니, 이모, 삼촌댁, 새상의 모든 엄마의 이야기 맞다는 깨달음이 된다.  상모 마리아까지. 

오늘도 그런가? 내 주변여성 친구들, 우리 여동생, 계수도, 이러한 삶을 살 수밖에 없는 것인가? 예방할 방법이 업슬까? 와 같은 질문이 쌓여있다.  답은 모르겠지만, 신경숙의 작품명과 동일하는 엄마의 마지막으로 겪은 자식으로부텨 잊힌 슬픔을 우리 현실 어머니는 겪으시지 않게 할 수 있다. 

바보들의 행진

미국 친구들한테 "한국을 이해하려면 오발탄과 The Best Years of Our Lives을 비교해보"라고 하곤 한다.  같은 시절에서 나온 두가지 영상을 비교하면, 차이가 밝히게 된다는 말이다.  앞서 엉급한 두 영화를 보면, 50년대의 개념차이를 알 수가 있다.

마찬가지로, 바보들의 행진과 같은 시절에서 나온 Animal House와 같은 미국 영화를 보면 물론 70년대의 개념차이가 보인다.  미국 70년대의 번영과 낙관은 한국의 군사독재를 겪는 고통과 완전 반대한다는 게 당연하다.  근데 이 두게 영화의 비교는 또 다른 사실을 보인다.  Animal House말고 The Graduate와 같은 품질이 높은 70년대 미국영화도 예술로서 바보들의 행진과 비교가 안 될 정도로 흥해 빠진다. 70년대에서 나온 영상, 시,미술 포함된 한국 작품은 같은 시절의 미국 작품을 주목할  피료없다. 

J.M.G. Le Clezio: Desert

Many years ago, the pastor Jim White quoted an art historian in an effort to explain religion.  "The best thing about art," he quoted, "can't be spoken.  The second best thing about art we can only point at.  The third best thing about art isn't worth speaking about."  For fifteen years, I have tried to find the source of this quote, but have come to the conclusion--one entirely consistent with what I know of Jim--that the original quote, if it ever existed, was in some entirely different form and Jim remembered, not the words, but his own thoughts upon hearing it.  I feel safe in saying that the words, and even the sentiment, are his own without thought of plagiarism.

Le Clezio's book reminds me, not only of this truth, but of the way in which I received it.  Desert is art.  In fact, it is very nearly not a book at all, but a painting, the medium of which happens to be words.  It envelops, hypnotizes, and digests the reader in the same way that a great painting does.  And to ask "what does it mean?" is as insulting and ludicrous as asking that question of a painting.  Who are the Blue Man, The Secret, Nour, Lalla Hawa?  Is there some line of ancestry between the latter two?  Or is Nour the same spirit which haunts her in the desert? How did Lalla's aunt get to Marseilles before her?  And how did her story, which holds years worth of moments, take place in nine short months?  All such questions are part of the painting, though the answers are decidedly not.

But the real story of art--the story of stories in fact--is not simply that they are experiences that leave one changed afterward.  Just as Jim White inadvertently revealed all those years ago, the stories change for us as much as we change for them.  I will hold onto my version of Desert just as he held onto his version of a quote by an obscure art historian, my story of puzzling over a curious spelling varation that turned out to be merely a typo, my story of living with Lalla in Marseilles as I lay on the beach the day before my sister's wedding, and my despair upon realizing I am not Lalla, but Nour: a shining light in the desert, destined to burn out without amounting to anything.

Saving Private Ryan

If I were able to separate my opinions about this movie from my opinions about its topic, I would have to agree with the general consensus.  On every technical level, it was a masterwork; the performances, direction, cinematography, score, even the sound editing was clearly the work of someone at the top of her or his game.  And the screenplay was great, too I suppose.  Its only real sin was a deus ex machina moment that robbed the film of its dramatic potential.

But even in spite of all of these flawless elements, my overall reaction is summed up with "What in hell was the point of that macho bullshit?"  This is my problem with war movies in particular, and "Manly" genres--westerns, crime capers, police thrillers, and the like--in general: how tiny does a man's penis have to be to think that this is the way to behave?  To believe that honor and virtue equal nationalism and violence?  The truly great (by which I mean: those I enjoyed) representatives of these genres are those like Apocalypse Now (which mock the macho ideal) or High Noon (which turn it on its head).  Saving Private Ryan was not one of these. In spite of its claim to deglamourize war itself, it beyond glamourized the attitudes and societal expectations that make war possible.

I am clearly living in a bubble.  I acknowledge that.  War is real, and is likely to remain a dominant force in human history for as long as our race can hold off exterminating ourselves.  But to glamourize it, albeit artistically, has no particular appeal for me.  

David Sedaris: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Often books that I read merely for pleasure leave with me with the thought, "I should read more of these."  Not so with Sedaris.  On the contrary, the thought this book left me with was, "I should write more of these."  The allure of Sedaris for me is not his humor, his knack for creative storytelling, his insight, his seemingly endless supply of insane anecdotes--not in and of themselves at least. Rather, it is the fact that all of these overlap nearly perfectly with my own traits as a writer, and as a man who has lived through at least some of those experiences myself.  When I read Sedaris, I hear, of course, his voice telling the stories as I have so often on various radio broadcasts.  But I also hear my own voice, my own way of treating the most ghastly thoughts and images as offhandedly hilarious, my own coping mechanisms, clenched teeth, cocked eyebrow, and pursed lips.

Those anecdotes I've solidified into essays are filled with the same voice, and if the things that happened to this writer happened to me, I'm sure I would set them down in a very similar way.  Were I to relate, for example, the very clear memory of hearing a review of Sedaris' book on NPR twenty years ago.  Such a turbulent time in my life.  A fundamentalist Christian, married to a beautiful woman, running a successful business and yet transfixed by the account of this other world that existed.  A world in which a gay writer can rise above his pain, look at it with snarky condescension, and say to the world, "Well, isn't this is ridiculous and morbid?"

I committed the name of the book to memory, and pressed it to the back of my mind until a spare moment allowed me to seek it out at Barnes and Noble.  Even looking at the book was dangerous, and purchasing it would have raised far too many questions--mostly to myself, so I slid it out of its niche on the shelf, and parked in one of the broadly striped forest green and maroon armchairs that were provided in bookstores for those glorious ten years between Waldenbooks and Amazon.  I read the whole thing.  It wasn't erotic by my current standards, but even the hint of such liasions as he described were titillating in the extreme to my mind then.  A particular encounter in a Jeep stays with me to this day.

It's also entirely in character, and a detail that Sedaris himself would enjoy, that after reading this newer collection I revisted the one that had so influenced me twenty years ago.  It wasn't Sedaris at all.  It was another David.  David Leavitt.  Arkansas.  Sedaris isn't channeling my voice after all.  He isn't even, as some might argue, channeling the voice of every gay man of our generation.  Rather, we all speak with one voice, one of shared pain and sarcasm, both Davids and I.

Ali-Imran

1: So the beginning of Al-Baqarah was not a fluke, and the commentary on these letters is fascinating.  They range from the pedestrian (it's an acronym meaning I am Allah, the all-knowing) to the ecumenical (due to a fluke of Arabic phonology, the letters together would be pronounced as the Hindu "Aum"), and I suppose it's appropriate that the official position is "We won't know until the afterlife".

2: I approve of Hulusi taking هُوَ as one of the Divine names, and leaving it untranslated for our contemplation--even though the more straightforward "him" is tempting.

3: And, according to a certain interpretation of verse 1, The Bhagavad Gita.

4: Some new vocabulary to parse here:

•   Is قَبلُ related etymologically to هُوَ or is it a false cognate?  The former has plenty of semantic content, and the latter is merely a pronoun.  If there is some connection between the two, Hulusi's emphasis in v2 becomes infinitely more meaningful.  
• As usual, when there is some question about the proper translation of an important concept, Hulusi leaves it transliterated with a parenthetical explanation.  In this case, الفُرقانَ ۗ is rendered in places as "Criterion" and elsewhere as referring to the Quran itself, so Hulusi's "Furqan" is entirely appropriate.
• A new dyad of attributes here, though عَزيزٌ is familiar from Al-Baqarah.  Will it be paired with ذُو انتِقامٍ  hereon? Or is this a one time team-up?

5: This exceedingly straightforward verse did not need a paragraph of explication by Hulusi.  This exact verse can be found in every holy text.

6: We now have 5 attributes that have filled this slot so far, and there really should be a name for it.  The postinvocation?

7: This is truer of theis book than other holy books that I know, and I'm glad it has acknowledged this about itself--Alif Lam Meem.

8-9: The first moment where Hulusi's interpretation of رَبَّنا fails to satisfy, insofar as it is clearly an external force here.

10: The Prophet seems to have a specific groups of "deniers" in mind here, which tracks historically.

11-12: And He addresses them predictably, though it is not clear which of the categories in v7 the Islamic "hell" falls under.

13: It is not clear from the text itself what battle this refers to, though it will likely be made more explicit.

14: Such a lovely verse, and tied in nicely with the ideas in Al-Baqarah.

15: This is one of Hulusi's better moments: the explication that the "pure spouses" here could denote the perfect complement to one's own consciousness, a perfect body.  Hulusi also is consistent in his emphasis of such words as بَصيرٌ, leaving it untranslated as "Basir", where other versions force it into the English "all-seeing".

16-17: Fairly straightforward holy book content here, until one notices the wide variation between translations of وَالقانِتينَ variously "content (in Hulusi)" and "obedient (elsewhere)".

18: Hulusi makes an interesting conlfation of the divine names, which he has gone to great lengths to emphasize, and the angels themselves.  From a metaphysical perspetive, it is no surprise that angelic beings are somply manifestations of the greater divine self to the Sufi scholar.  And also to me.

19: As expected, this book begins to draw attention to the common origins of the three Abrahamic religions, and lay out its case for Islam.

20: There is a hint here that the root of the very word "Islam" is related to "submission", which would be revealing if I'm not imagining it.

21-22: Well, yeah.  I'm pretty sure killing prophets is universally looked-down-upon.

23-25: difficult to comment on this situation without knowing to what it refers.  Likely we will be informed within a few verses who exactly these people are and the exact nature of their delusions and divisions.

26-27: awfully convenient, as far as accountability goes.  I wonder if modern Muslims have forgotten this point as modern Jews and Christians have.

28: So far this book is not offering anything new, and after I had such high expectations.

29: Nearly word for word reiteration of ideas in Al-Baqarah.

30: No doubt referring to the "Day" in 25.

31-32: Something about these verses make me think that they are the end of the introduction section,, and we are about to get into the narrative that I hope for in this book.  Many religious texts simply can't seem to rely on their own credibility, and feel compelled to assert their authority in this circular manner.

33-34: And here we are, the eponymous family begins its tale.

35: I wonder about the source of this story.  There is no correlate in the canonical Greek scriptures.  Wouldn't it just be a hoot if the source of the story was one of those books that some regard as "apocryphal"?

36: Lots to parse here:  The detail that Mary's birth was a surprise, the curious statement that "the female is not like the male", and the identification of Satan as "the expelled", rather than "the accuser" or "the rebel".  This last point is indicative of a notion that the angel in question was cast out of heaven sometime between Job and Imran.  If so, when?

37: All of this adds marvelous detail to the tradition of Mary and Elizabeth, who under this arrangement would have been something of a mother figure to the young child.

38: Hulusi's interpretation of the Rabb being one's own divine nature casts a very different flavor on these verses.  It is also rather difficult to reconcile with the way Anne and Zacharaiah refer to it.

39: وَسَيِّدًا is evidently rather difficult to translate, being rendered "noble", "eminent", "masterful", and "honorable" in the various translations I'm referencing.  Hulusi wisely leaves it untranslated as "sayyid".  We also get introduced to the curious بِكَلِمَةٍ , a connection to the power of the letter ب.

40: It is less miracuous than one might think for Elizabeth to bear a child at a late age.  My own grandmother was among those who never went through menopause, and continued menstruating up until her death.

41: One of my favorite bits from this account.  Be careful what you ask for, you cheeky priest!  this version is slightly different than the one I remember, sentencing Zacharaiah to a mrere three days of muteness.

42: Suspiciously close to Greek accounts of the annunciation, and by extention the Ave Maria.

43: One could interpret this to mean that Mary worshipped with the men, an extention of her exceptionality in v36.

44: The image of the angels casting lots in heaven to see who would deliver this news, and Gabriel winning, gives me great snickers.

45: All of this gives rise to a line of metaphysical questioning.  Mary, John, and Jesus are all mentioned as being predestined for closeness to the Divinity, and therefore of special quality.  This sort of determinism is rather discouraging, rather than the opposite.  Is it possible for me to draw close to the Divine as well?  Or am I a prisoner of my birth? And again we see بِكَلِمَةٍ from v39, which Hulusi emphasizes.  Perhaps there is some solace in the fact that I am also a ب by birth.

46-48: the miracle of Jesus' birth is well publicized.  What might deserve additional notice is the miracle of his being able to read and write.  No doubt these were skills that Mary and Joseph did not have.  Do we see Zachariah's hand here?

49: The admonition in v7 to not take everything in this book literally is well-remembered here.  The clay bird would be a nice miracle indeed, but it's an even better allegory.  The tagline "there is a sign in this for you, if you believe" (which all three translations seem to agree on) makes a metaphorical reading almost irresistible.

50: The narrative point of view of this book weakens it for me a little.  Framing everything in terms of reminding the narrator to remind the listener of things they alraedy know leaves a lot of gaps for this reader.

51: Lest we forget, this is actually a third hand account, at least, removing us from the narrative by multiple steps:

from the Divine, to the speaking messenger
from the messenger to the writer
from the writer to intended audience
from the intended audience to their own existing knowledge of the narrative
From that existing knowledge to the modern reader

52-53: The concept of رَبَّنا (Rabb) begins to take shape here.  It is not a title, as LORD is used in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures.  Rather, it is a description of a relationship, one of submission that can be maintained in multiple directions simultaneously: from the messenger of this book to the divine, from the appostles to the prophet, and as so often pointed out in Al-Baqarah, from each of us to her or his own Divine nature.

54: Do I detect a sense of humor here?

55: Hulusi's explication here is eminently useful.  The taking of Jesus to himself is a specific example of the Divine thwarting the plans of the "schemers" in 54.  Of course, the subsequent resurrection is the punchline of the joke on them.

56-57:  This threat is reminiscent of similar ones in other holy books, but the addition of "they will have no helpers" is an escalation, especially in communal societies.

58: On the surface, a filler verse.  But in light of v7, it is also a reminder of the "signatory" and symbolic aspect of this narrative.

59-60: The book definitely came for me in this moment.  Even as I was thinking that the account in v59 was rather dubious, v60 came behind to smack me in the face.

61: Which reality is not to be disputed though?  The reality of the Divine conception? Or the entirety of reality?  I prefer the latter.

62-63: I'm reminded of the old ladies in the marketplace who cajole you to come to their stall for your business.  The more urgently they insist on their own credibility, the less I tend to believe it.

64: It's a well-taken point that, at some level, there is nothing for one to do but submit.  The path of inquiry can only take us so far, and beyond that point remains only what some would call "faith", but is more usefully called "submission" here.

65-66: There is a hint of controversy from which the modern reader is excluded.  The Quran is not the only holy book to have moments like this: specific to the time in which they were written, but consequently opaque today.

67: On reflection, this really is Abraham's striking point.  His faith and sincerity are the points that we emulate today, but at that time his monotheism was altogether more remarkable.

68: More emphasis on "submission", which if one were looking for a narrative framework would serve nicely.

69-71: More period-specific admonition, but the emphasis on "people of the book" reveals a distinction between knowledge and submission that the Prophet is drawing at every chance.

72: difficult to parse without knowing exactly whom and for what the Prophet is accusing, but the context seems to imply, "you disregard revealed truth to suit your own preconceived notions," a sentiment perfectly applicable to the Jews in the time of Christ, as well as here.  If new truth is revealed, perhaps through Sufi teaching, would the Shia clerics listen?

73-74: The most relevant perspective on this controversy so far.  Truth is Truth, regardless of its source. It may be a bitter pill to swallow, but don't be one who lets that be a deterrent.

75: Undeniably reminiscent of Christ's parable of the talents, though it remains unclear if he who returns the sum "as is" (without increase) is as culpable here as in that parable.

76: This would seem to indicate that the above mentioned is rather praiseworthy-an important departure.

77: If (as we are encouraged to in v7) we take this section metaphorically, the implication is that Truth is entrusted to us for a time, and must be returned eventually.

78: Not a terribly helpful verse, though.  These people exist.  But how are they to be identified?  What is to prevent us from numbering the Prophet of this book among them?

79-80: This is how.  If any "prophet" draws people to himself, he is one of those "deliberately lying" in v78.  By extension, to the extent that we venerate prophets and angels, as opposed to the Divine in all Its names, we have been misled.

81: Is this covenant recorded elsewhere?  It is reffered to as though it were.  At any rate, the Prophet is cleary here establishing his authority for practical, rather than spiritual purposes.  One would hope he is careful not to draw followers to himself.

82-83:  The corruption here is well in line with the Sufi idea that the only true heresy, the only real corruption is to live out of sync with one's Rabb.  It is impossible to endure the friction of such resistance indefinitely, and all will eventually submit to the natural order of the Divine as it is expressed in each one's self.

84: The key phrase here seems to be, and it appears in all three translations, "we make no distinction between/among them," namely the manifestions of the Divine as they were revealed to all the prophets from Abraham down to "us", presumably the current writer.  I find this difficult to reconcile with Islam as it is practiced today.

85: The principle in v83 is not limited to application in this life.  The nature of existence is such that resistance to it is unsustainable, and submission is the only possible, let alone reasonable, course of action.

86: This is not entirely true, based on preceding verses.  The very nature of the Divine is that it guides all; whether they submit to that guidance now or later is immaterial.

87: The curse being the aforementioned corruption, an unavoidable result of resistance to the Divine order.

88-89: and that curse will be in effect as the natural result of their resistance, for as long as such resistance continues.

90-91: This verse seems to go back on the verse immediately preceding it, and one would be tempted to level an accusation of pragmatism against it.  Fortunately, both verses begin with our old friend إِنَّ, which I have come to see as a promise of immediate explication, rather than a reference to preceding ideas. 

92: As promised, the explanation: the way of submission in summary.  To give, and to give specifically of what is dear.  The opposite course, that of attachment, is the course of friction and resistance.  It is impossible indeed to retain anything; such is simply not the natural way of the universe.  The only possible course, that of submission, is to accept with one hand, and to divest with the other.

93: Rather an indictment of Jacob, despite a promise to adhere to his words in v84.

94: Not entirely a useful verse, to be frank.  The caveat "what is untrue" to the proscription against adding to the Torah leaves it entirely open.

95-96: Some further calculation is in order, but it is still unclear when Abraham and Ishmael could possibly have done this, if one puts any stock in the Torah. 

97: this verse introduces a fabulous concept: to be غَنِيٌّ of somebody or something, which Hulusi wisely leaves transliterated as "ghani".  Those who fail to operate in submission to the Divine order hurt only themselves.  Allah is ghani of them.  As are each of us ghani from such individuals.  I have a particular individual in mind here, which is probably my own "resistance" in action.


98-99: I'm influenced by the fact that I'm concurrently reading Sartre to see a manifestion of his "bad faith" here.  The reality as it is revealed is vertiginous.  It is no wonder that some pretend  not to see it.

100: To follow that path, denial of reality, though it is undeniably easier and simpler in the short run, leads nowhere. 

101: It is really this simple, and this difficult.  To submit to the Divine reality, be it ever so terrifying, is the straight path, but it is not the easy one. 

102: The best protection from the wrath of the Divine, as it is manifested in friction as a response to resistance, is to reverse course.  The Divine nature is a perpetual motion machine, and only in it can one experience contact between surfaces without resistance.

Stendahl: The Charterhouse of Parma

If I had read this book in a vaccum (which will never be the case), I might have been taken in by its claim to be based on real events.  Such selfish, petty, foolhardy, and entitled fellows as the ostensible protagonist abound in the world today, after all.  Privileged young men act today just as described here, and presumably throughout human history will continue to do so.  As such, I might have forgiven Stendahl for his topic.  He may not have been elevating the 19th century equivalent of a fuckboi to Romantic hero status after all, merely faithfully recording a tragic story as related to him by one of the participants.

But this is a habit for Stendahl.  Fabrice del Dongo is cut from the same reckless, vicious cloth as Julien Sorel in The Red and the Black.  To the author's eyes, their downfall was only the result of their excessive passion.  An objective observer, however, can find myriad points where even the merest sliver of virtue would have forestalled tragedy.  Stendahl's men reap the whirlwind, not of fate, but of their own worthlessness.  The author dwells so heavily in both books on the various talents of these irredeemable characters that he seems to have fooled himself into thinking that wit is a virtue--when clearly it is no more so than being tall or handsome is.

And is it a surprise that a white male of some wit and ability built entire worlds where such a fellow as himself was universally lauded, allowed to do as he pleased, and nearly suffocated with the attention of beautiful women? Or that such a man was so dissatisfied with the failure of the real world to deliver him such a life that he passed from penname to penname as though changing hats?  Or that his "supreme happiness would be to change into a lanky, blonde German and to walk about like that in Paris" [Memoirs]?  Do I dare insult the reader by answering those questions?

Jin Yong 金庸 (Louis Cha): A Hero Born

It is humbling, especially to one who takes some satisfaction from knowledge, to realize that there is an author on the level of Tolkein or Lewis of whom I had not heard before this.  Jin Yong's following in the Chinese speaking community easily matches those writers, and approaches the popularity of J.K. Rowling within his niche.  I am told by multiple Chinese friends that it would be difficult to find someone who spoke Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese) and  had not read his books. 

Having read the book, it's easy to see why.  The characters are clearly and engagingly drawn.  The plot and setting have all the requisite elements for popular appeal.  And the ending of this first book in the Condor Heroes series makes it impossible not tho immediately search for the  next volume.  I'm certifiably a fan.  And yet.

The combination of the limitations of translation, and the unfamiliarity of the narrative structure do present something of a barrier to fandom, at least for the first half of the book.  The stories covered in this first volume alone feel so rapidly dispatched, that it feels like a shame.  Any Western author would have lingered through these passages; Jin (Yong? Cha?) seems to have been chiefly concerned with getting them out of the way at times.  He can be forgiven, of course.  If he had treated the material with Goerge R.R. Martin's relish, he never would have finished--and there would be far more than 12 volumes for me to work through.

And it's equally possible that the text doesn't feel so offhanded in the original Mandarin.  My efforts to find the original language for a particularly pleasing passage helped me to realize just what obstacles the translator faced.  A word for word rendering would have been utterly unrecognizable, and when I enlisted a native speakers help, he was unable to find the passage I wanted at all.  Such is the chasm between the original text and the translation that I enjoyed.

The French Connection

Either I have a blind spot, or there is an appeal to this sort of movie that completely escapes me.  The "based on a true story" crime drama probably has few better examples than this one, but it still left me wondering why I should care.  Perhaps I've pigeonholed myself into a mindset where I watch movies, especially those on the AFI list, with an expectation that they will be great, rather than merely serviceable.  Perhaops my working definition of "great"--namely that there should be a compelling reason for the film to exist, and that the individual elements of the film should live up in quality to that necessity--is narrow and short-sighted.  Perhaps I'm just a fuddy-duddy who doesn't see the point of these movies (this last is unlikely).

At any rate, the only pont I can think of in this film's favor is its decidedly postmodernist ending.  The ultimately frustrating wrap-up could easily have been the result of a Coen brothers collaboration, and perhaps it is this refusal to satisfy, along with certain technical elements and its place as the first R-rated movie to win the Academy Award, that prompted the AFI to have added it to its list.  And perhaps it is the films overall averageness by modern standards that caused it to drop to 93rd place on the most recent edition of the list.