Tracy Letts: August: Osage County

If you had asked me to make a series of suppositions about the author of this gripping script, I feel that I would have done pretty well.  Both the writer and the story reveal themselves with every line, and I feel like I cheated myself out of the opportunity to be smug by looking Letts up before writing my predictions down.  Naturally, Letts is an actor.  This script is an actors' showcase in all of the best ways.  It manages to have a reason to exist outside of itself, unlike so many modern American theatrical "classics" (basically every script I read in college, but the most ghastly example I can think of is Margulies' Dinner with Friends), resulting in something like a terrarium, where the audience just observes the actors, and is expected to marvel at how lifelike they are.

But it's more specific than that.  It's not just that this script was written by an actor, but by a very certain type of highly skilled actor, for whom every line is its' own story.  The ghosts of Edward Albee and Anton Chekov are on every page, and even more so on the second reading.  I flatter myself by imagining that I could have predicted that Letts was not only an actor, but one who specializes in the works of those playwrights, as indeed he does.  Osage County is no less than a modern Desire Under the Elms, so rawly and honestly American. 

But one thing did surprise me about Letts, when I did a little research.  He's a man.  Perhaps even more than the three playwrights to whom I've compared him above, he has created women who are so true that I assumed Tracy was a woman's name.   I was so gobsmacked by this script, that I couldn't sleep until I had not only finished it, but watched the movie.  Sadly, the edges seem purposefully filed down in the screen adaptation, but even a taste of this experience was enough to make me resent my entire ancestry.  Perhaps it's best that I don't have a chance to see it on stage.

Stagecoach

Often when watching older films, we find ourselves spoiled by the fact that whatever is about to happen on the screen, we've seen it before.  Everything that was once shocking and innovative, is now de rigeur, and we know, often down to the subtlest of character moments, how "this" is all going to play out.  Naturally, I went in to this 80 year old movie expecting to see where characters and scenes of which we've since seen a thousand versions were born.  I was not disappointed on that count.

But in a strange way, I was reverse surprised--unspoiled?--by the movies I had seen before.  Specifically Tarantino's Hateful Eight, which is based on what seems to be just the first ten minutes of Stagecoach, but also every other "eight strangers in a box" movie, had conditioned me to expect certain things: a hidden past, a sudden betrayal, a secret identity, some such "twist" is absolutely necessary in these movies.  So I waited until the last scene, still expecting Mr. Peacock to be a German spy, or Mr. Hatfield to be the child's actual father, etc..  But there was no such gimmick forthcoming.  As with anything that goes on for more than a few seasons, cinema's continued popularity is dependent on its ability to surprise us, and to that end is inventing ever more shocking spectacles and grand reversals.  But there was a time when all that was necessary was a solid script, nuanced performances, and an eye for scenery.

Catullus: Complete Poems.

Whether we have this work preserved to us by the idiosyncrasies of fate, of time, or merely of human nature matters not.  They are all equally fickle, and as likely to bring us a Catullus as a Plutarch.  The former, though seemingly adored among scholars of Latin, does not by my measure seem to deserve his reputation.  Those same scholars would argue that my appreciation for his verse is limited by my native English, but in doing so they would seem to be admitting that the form of his lines is their chief, if not only, virtue.  The content of those lines simply cannot stand on its own merit, and this reader cannot shake the impression that Catullus was his day's equivalent of Logan Paul.  He offers nothing in particular of value, but does so in such an entertainingly brazen way that his audience is mesmerized.  No doubt those who appreciate Latin will point to his masterful use of the language, but I reassert that without something underneath the language to recommend it, fate need not have bothered to preserve it for us.

박완서: 그 많던 싱아는 누가 다 먹었을까?

그 남자랑아무 연락한 지 벌써 6년 됐네.  그 잘 생긴, 말투가 부드러운, 나에 흥미가 없는; 박완서 소설가 좋아한다고했기 때문에 내가 이 책을 구매했던, 그 남자.  책을 구매하고 재목도 해석이 안 된 현실은, 나에게 그남자랑 연결이 안 된다는 징조엿나봐.

6년 그 후, 마침네 책을 읽어끝냈다.  그 때와 마찬가지로 홀로 살고 있다. 불운한 관계를 아직도 쫓는다.  그래도, 박완서와 비슷하게, 혼잣삶에 작아도 증언하겠다. 

Haruki Murakami (with Seiji Ozawa): Absolutely on Music

There's a clear parallel to be drawn between this book and Bill Moyers and Joseph Cambell's iconic conversation, The Power of Myth.  In each, two respected icons in their fields come together to talk, more or less casually, about a subject in which one of them is only a dabbler.  But the book under treatment here has the added benefit of an auditory layer which made it a singular experience.  Not only did Murakami and Ozawa talk at length and in depth about the nature of orchestral music, sharing marvelous personal anecdotes along the way, but Murakami did the reader the service of noting exactly where in the music they were referencing, down to the second.  This added layer absolutely predicates listening to the recordings in question as they are being discussed, including lengthy pauses where the conversants are simply enjoying the music with you.  When the music reaches a point where one of the two has a comment to offer, reading their transcript has the exact effect that was presumably intended: that of listening with them and hearing their comments in real time.  It's the equivalent of the director's commentary on a DVD track, but for Mahler's first symphony et al.  Having never been a fan of orchestral music before--anything without words has a hard time reaching me--I found a fledgling appreciation for the works mentioned here.  I am entirely likely to let it remain half-fledged, and rely on Ozawa's comments, but for the weeks that I spent with these two visionaries at least, I was a fan.

Andrew Robinson: A Stitch in Time

I've read an awful lot of books.  And as many books as I've read, I've watched even more television and movies (while every book I read makes it into this blog, only 'noteworthy' other media do so).  And for the life of me, I can't find anything in all that vast storehouse of consumed and digested media to compare this book to. Bear with me as I try.

Perhaps a good place to begin is with the source material.  We have the character of Elim Garak, a background character who, through the force of the performance, ended up becoming a central figure, and a fan favorite--including mine.  DS9 has always been my favorite sci-fi series, in spite of not being the best, and Garak is easily my favorite character.  What other character fills such a role, carving out such a healthy ledge in a ponderous fandom for her or himself?  Boba Fett? Certainly, but not by the strength of the original actor's performance.  Perhaps Captain Jack Harkness.  Let's use him for an example.

Now suppose that John Barrowman wrote a book, and not just any book, but a definitive history of the character that he brought to life.  No writer would have bothered to give Garak or Captain Jack life if the actors' performances hadn't so demanded it.  I feel safe in saying that both characters belong to the actor, more than to the writers.  Barrowman is a clever, charming, seemingly literate man.  It is not outside of the realm of possibility that he would undertake such a thing.

But now suppose that the book was good.  Not just that it satisfied and became popular among the fandom either, but that it was objectively well written, erudite, reflective, borderline postmodernist, and deeply philosophical.  Imagine, in short, that the book was written in such a way that it was impossible not to be swept up in the illusion that it was written by the character, rather than the actor behind him.  That's what you have here.  This book was not written by Robinson; it was written by Garak.  And the only logical conclusion is that Andrew Robinson is, in fact, a genetically altered Cardassian spy, brilliantly hiding in plain sight.

Wu Cheng-En: Journey to the West

I am entirely inadequate to the task of doing this epic justice at this moment.  Think of it as a Ming dynasty Lord of the Rings crossbred with The Fairie Queen, and you will have some idea of the narrative and allegorical treasures held within.  Each passage holds the promise of a mystical secret that a lifetime of study would be insufficient to explicate, almost as layered and inscrutable as the I Ching, but with a veneer of plot that begs to be read, rather than consulted.

As impossible as the task of explicating these 1400 pages properly is, I have at my disposal a lovely tool provided in undergraduate days by the venerable C.K. Pellow: a truly great work of literature will contain in individual passages a microcosm of the whole.  Each individual segment will carry the attributes of the whole, just as a molecule is a reproduction of a galaxy.  Accordingly, in the event that one cannot address an entire work, one has the option of addressing a small passage that contains the entirety of the work within itself.  To wit:

 意馬心猿都失散，金公木母盡凋零。

黃婆傷損通分別，道義消疏怎得成！

 The Thought−horse and the Mind−ape had scattered,

The Lord of Metal and the Mother of Wood were dispersed.

The Yellow Wife was damaged, her powers divided,

The Way was finished, and how could it be saved?

All five characters in the book are contained herein, though it requires some explication to identify them.  The thought-horse and the mind-ape are the most easily identified, and even this half of a line is bursting with insight.  One common Western conception of identity is that of a dichotomy and opposition between the mind and the heart, thoughts and feelings.  Wu Cheng-En (heavily influenced by Buddhist, Confucianist, and Taoist thought) reveals the problem with such a dichotomy by giving voice to the fact that the thoughts and the mind are not necessarily one unit.  The thoughts, like the dragon prince in Journey to the West, are clear, discrete, sequential, and can be led to an extent.  They are tools, a service animal that helps us to carry our burdens and complete our tasks.

The mind, however, is neither so easy to define, nor so generally helpful.   It is not our thoughts that cause us suffering, it is our mind--specifically the monkey mind that seizes a thought, twists it into a narrative, and uses it as an excuse to run around making irreparable damage in our lives.  In some ways the entire book is the story of the maddeningly headstrong and willful Sun Wukong learning to channel his marvelous abilities in the service of some greater good.  It would be difficult to argue with a similar interpretation of my life in particular and, I suspect, any human's life.  

All of which is a fairly straightforward and defensible interpretation.  But in the second half of the line, it gets considerably fuzzier.  The structure seems to imply that the two entities mentioned in the second half are parallel to the two entities in the first half, but such a parallel is unsustainable.  Elsewhere Zhu Bajie and Sun Wukong are conflated with the elements wood and metal respectively, so a reading that identifies them in this phrase is all but mandatory.  The characters in the story are not not only parallel to parts of the identity, but also to the five natural elements of Chinese medicine and philosophy.  Zhu Bajie, introduced into the equation here, corresponds to the body on one side and to wood on the other:  driven by biological imperatives to eat, drink, and procreate, just as a tree is occupied with the natural physical process of absorbing, becoming, and expressing.  And just as it is in the mind-ape's nature to destroy and ruin all it touches when left to itself, so too does the body-pig make a mess of things when led entirely by its own desires.  

If only the parallel continued so simply!  In the next line, Sha Wujing is added to the recipe as "The Yellow Wife", and takes his place in the alchemical parallel as Earth.  But what is his corresponding role in the self?  If the Dragon Prince, Monkey King, and Pig General are thought, mind, and body respectively, what role does the sand monk play?  That of spirit? Of heart?  Neither of these interpretations is supported explicitly by the text, nor is there any convenient traditional parallel between the five elements and the parts of the self with which to fill in the blanks.  Rather, a picture begins to develop of the relative importance of the three elements Metal, Wood, and Fire in Chinese alchemy, and the corresponding unimportance of Fire and Water.  While all five are believed to be in a pentalectic of birth and suppression, the former three have a unique relationship.  Each of them correspond to two trigrams, colors, planets, etc. while Fire and Water are only assigned one each, allowing the cross-cultural sum of seven to be reached.  

The story of the Journey to the West, therefore, is not simply the story of how one overcomes the wildness of the mind and the desires of the body, but the story of how these two work in concert with a third thing, a catalyst, to achieve balance.  Left to their own, either Sun Wukong or Zhu Bajie cause nothing but chaos.  But with the addition of Earth--Sha Wujing--the pilgrims are completely unstoppable.  This triune division is as ubiquitous in Chinese thought as it is textually in Journey to the West, and is known by far more names than I could explicate or even identify:  the three treasures, the three jewels, the Three Pure Ones, and--perhaps most relevant here--the three bases: energy, vitality, and spirit.  To a Western mind, this division is inscrutable, and it remains largely so to me, but I will hold it in my active concepts folder.  What or who is Friar Sand?  He is the necessary third thing, which has no name in English, and no place in our mind/body dichotomy.  He is the center, the intermediate, the root and the base.  Without his perspective, we are lost.

And it is in the fourth quarter of the passage that we come to realize what the entire book is about.  In contrast to the other four characters, Tang Sanzang corresponds with neither an element or an aspect of the self.  It would be tempting, based on both this fact and the narrative as a whole, to interpret that as meaning he is the whole self:  the pilgrim going on a journey, in the course of which he strives to ovrecome his inner demons as much as any external ones he meets.  But the book is not "The Golden Cicada", and he is not "the self" in this passage.  The story is not of the pilgrim, but of the journey, and Tang Sanzang is "The Way" personified.  He is the result when the three elements work together: earth, wood, and metal; energy, vitality, and spirit; Lao Tze, Kong Tze, and Siddhartha; the plantain fan, the seven-star sword, and the dazzling rope.  At his final goal, he watches his body drown and float away, utterly without remorse or attachment, as though Dorothy wakes up and realizes that the journey took place entirely within herself.

All of which, wordy and seemingly thorough as it was, is only to say that I have opened a single crack through which to begin to understand two lines out of 1400 pages.

Carlo Goldoni: Comedies

The excellent (though inexplicably unidentified) editor/translator of this volume accurately predicted my response to this author when ze compared him to Moliere.  I don't think of Moliere as particularly special, and neither do I Goldoni.  Both of them have their place, know their audiences, and above all know the stage and what will play on it.  Nonetheless, to this reader they serve as moderately entertaining, but unmemorable bookmarks.  In Goldoni's case, that bookmark is to show the intermediate step the Italian theatre took after the antics of the Commedia Del'Arte grew stale.  Significant, yes, and on the stage likely quite entertaining, but on the page a fair sight short of brilliant.

Elizabeth Strout (ed.): The Best American Short Stories, 2013

Cullen, that trivial little ninny, thought he was being clever leaving a bag of books at my place on his last day in Korea, instead of asking whether I wanted any of them.  And perhaps he was.  If he had asked whether I wanted to add a half dozen unread volumes to my stack, I would definitely have said no.  But here we are, him thumbing his repatriated nose, and me with several books that I would definitely not have chosen for myself.

I have read items in the "Best American"$ before, and am usually not disappointed.  I don't remember the quality being quite this good though.  Every story in this selection was well written and engaging in its own way.  But perhaps due to some disagreement between the editor and myself about the definition of a "story", I also don't remember quite so many of them feeling incomplete.  I'm sure it's my particular prejudice that assumes something must happen for the label of "story" to fit.  Many of the items in this volume, however, did not meet that criterion.  Rather than stories, they felt like vignettes, tableaux, mere descriptions.  I was left with the impression that they were (albeit well-chosen) excerpts from some larger story, or that the story had already happened, and the players were being wheeled out for me on an ekkyklema. 

For my money, the only real stories here were the ones were I was pressed into service alongside the characters, experiencing some process alongside them, as in Kirstin Valdez Quade's remarkable  "Nemecia", or Suzanne Rivecca's riveting and brutal "Philanthropy".  And the pinnacle for me, as it would be for most readers, was when the journey that I took with the characters coincided with some journey that I was also taking alone, in so-called "reality".  It is for this reason that Joan Wickersham's "The Tunnel, or the News from Spain" was my favorite.  I feel only too keenly the mix of resentment and affection that comes from a mother who needs too much, and becomes an emotional drain through no fault of her own.  It is an irresolvable dilemma that I would not have been able to express with such an honest and compassionate voice. 

Sullivan's Travels

This movie wasn't really that good, let alone great.  Never fully committing to its idea, and offering only occasional glimpses of skill from Veronica Lake, it would be easy to write this off as a middling romantic comedy. Which is, of course, purposeful.  In the course of delivering on its explicit promise of lighthearted but meaningless entertainment, it not only manages to comment on the type of movie it purports to be, but also sneakily to be exactly the opposite.

The film's central conceit of making a lighthearted romantic comedy about making lighthearted romantic comedies is the earliest example I can think of what has now come to be termed" meta".  Such an idea is positively pedestrian nowadays, and a film that attacks it has to do rather a lot to justify its existence.  Insofar as Sullivan's Travels treads this ground decades in advance of any other, it can be forgiven for being occasionally unfocused or pedestrian.  It travels a lovely thematic arc from "movies should be meaningful and serious", through "that's not as easy as it seems, and is frankly pedantic and insulting", ending up at "maybe a pie in the face isn't such a bad thing after all".  At each step of this journey, it not only delivers the message, but at the same time is the message, its own form and tone displaying in the macro what it's purporting to say in the micro.  If it were a little more artfully or skillfully done, one might be tempted to call it literature.

But the real cleverness (the clumsiness of the execution standing in the way of calling it genius) of the film is that the opposite idea, that movies should "mean" something, runs in a countercurrent underneath the film even as it is being mocked.  The film portrays the title character with a laughable and oblivious white savior complex that is rooted in ego, rather than in empathy--a phenomenon that is all to familiar today.  But even as that caricature is exhaled, and the idea that such a director is to be mocked, writer/director Preston Sturges sneaks a real picture of injustice, hardship, and inequality under the inhalation.  It's quite postmodernist and sophisticated, and insofar as such a thing was done before "modern" was a thing, let alone "postmodern", it can be forgiven for its clumsy, and ultimately only marginally successful, attempt.

자유부인

이러한 신파극에 의미가 숨어있을까요? 한형모 감독이 그런 목표로 촬영했는지 아니면 그냥 이익을 위해서 했는지 잘 모르겠지만 뒤늦게 보면 사회적인 영향을 받았다는 게 확실이다.  감독이 사회적인 영향을  일부로 강화하든 함부로 하든 결국은 마찬가지다.

자유부인에 무슨 영향이 미치냐면 작품명과 동일 한 자유가 아니다.  오히려 자유는 한국 부인을 부패하게 만드는 것으로 다루고 있다.  파방판에는 그 부패된 부인을 가부장제만 살려줄 수 있다.  그래서 이 작품에 "자유가 위험하다"는 의미가 숨어있다고 할 수 있다.

아직도 자유부인의 자손된 현재 한국 드라마에 같은 가부장제를 강화하는 내용을 찾기 어렵지 않다.  자유러운 여자가 남자 없이 잘 사는 장면을 언제 까지 기다려야 할 건가?

연세대학교 출판부: 주제가 있는 한국어 읽기 (5급)

다음달의 한국어 능력시험에 신청했다.  더 이상 미루면 그냥 쓸모없는 흔해빠진 중년 백인 아저씨가 됬다고 할 수 있을까 걱정이 돼서 마침내 마음을 먹었다.  생각 보다 무서운 일이네.  시험을 본 후 4급으로 나오면 그 지난 8년 낭비한 셈이다. 사실 온 지 8년이 됐어도 아직 실력이 낮은 것에 부끄럽다. 

그래서 이 책을읽은것이다. 읽어보니 더 무서워졌다.  시간 제안 없어도 이해하기 어렵다면 현실 시험은 어떻게? 특히 마지막 장인 "서편제"에 내용 이해 질문을 맞기는 커녕 등장인물 몇 명이 있는지를 말 할 수 없겠다. 

제 언어 습득에 어려운 당계를 당도한 것 같다.  앞에 지름길이 없겠으니 열심히 공부 하기 밖에 방법이 없다.

Amy B.M. Tsui: Understanding Expertise in Teaching

The problem with this sort of academic writing is summed up in something one of my favorite professors, 조현용 once said (roughly translated): "Academic writing requires you to write 30 pages for the right to propose a single line."  And that's basically what Tsui has dutifully done here.  I will save you all the trouble of reading the "30 pages" of theoretical underpinnings, research methodologies, and background information, and skip directly to the "single line", the kernel of insight that she had to work so hard to justify proposing:

"The findings of the case studies suggest that the critical difference between experts and nonexperts is not that the former solve more and more problems, because problems often do not present themselves as such.  It is their capability to 'see' what appears to be unproblematic as problems that distinguishes them from nonexperts" (271).

This insightful distinction, not between experts and novices, but between experts and experienced nonexperts, is at the heart of this research.  The ability to problematize, analyze, and improve things that experienced nonexperts would view as "ain't broke" is what makes a true expert, in teaching and presumably across fields.  While I find myself woefully short of expert in many ways, this salient perspective identifies a way forward and offers a way around the trap of becoming just another mediocre white guy teaching English in East Asia.

Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

There seem to be two things that people get wildly, carelessly wrong about Nietzsche--the sort of ignorance that comes from having read a few decontextualized quotes or believed one's undergraduate intro to philosophy class a little too willingly.  The first is that Nietzsche is a philosopher at all.  There are no reasoned propositions here, no analyses, proofs, or theses to be found.  This is poetry first, and philosophy only insofar as all poetry has a secondary claim to that label.  This book, and what little else of his I've read, is neither rational nor objective, but the pure and beautiful wailing of an anguished spirit, put into words where such should have been impossible.

Which leads rather naturally to the second thing people--by which I chiefly mean tepid, unremarkable straight white men with a desire to appear profound but nothing interesting of their own to say--get wrong about Nietzsche.  If one approaches a book like this with a meatheaded belief that it will be philosophy, the natural next question is, "What school of philosophy is it?  What label can I put on it, and then on myself to spare me the realization that I have nothing interesting to say?"  The answer that some come up with to that question is "Nihilism", a term which then gets further warped into "belief in nothing", and ultimately results in conveniently unassailable laziness.

But to assert that Nietzsche believed in nothing is manifestly ludicrous.  The passion with which this book seethes is in stark contrast to the numb, mushy life that so many who say they embrace Nietzsche live.  Nietzsche believes, not in nothing, but in nothingness: in the wild and creative power of the void.  When he wrote in "Beyond Good and Evil" that if you "gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you", he was referring to its power, not its danger.

That abyss, void, longing, desire, against which so many rail and resist is for Nietzsche not an enemy.  The gaping maw that yawns at our core is terrifying, and so many make the mistake of fleeing from it, covering it up, or trying to fill its insatiable mouth.  Its hunger begs to be satisfied, but is there a more Sisyphean task?  The desire of the abyss cannot be silenced, and neither is it meant to be.  That desire is the reason for its existence, and it is out of that desire, if we stop and gaze, that truth comes.  The abyss does not devour; it delivers.  It does not consume; it creates.

How ludicrous to suppose that Zarathustra in this book--and Nietzsche, to the extent the two overlap--have any truck with Buddhism.  The latter's dismissal of desire is completely incompatible with the former's embrace of it.  The sky calls to Zarathustra, to be sure: the soaring, liberating abandonment of this world's petty concerns.  But so does the earth call to him: desire, rage, and struggle.  There is an upward motion to our journey, an ascent to the peak of a mountain, at which point we have no choice but to sprout wings.  But there is also a going-under, a return to the darkness of discontent and agony, that is equally necessary.  It is this darkness, in fact, from which we get some of our truest light, if we can bear its gaze.  Wonderful things can come from the void, and Nietzsche here helps us to look at it without going mad, resting a comforting, but rough, hand on our shoulder as it opens up in us and produces, for example, verses like this of mine, a tribute to his vision:

Becoming a tree means grasping the earth, as surely as clutching the sun,
Seizing the soil for all that its worth, in the forest of two unfolding as one.

허영만: 식객

세상에 많은 재미없는 얘기 중 하나는 "지금 하는 걸 말고 우리옛날에 했던 걸 해라"는 얘기다.  시간이 흐르는 것과 마찬가지로 틀림 없이 모든 세대가 이런 말을 먼저 들어야 하고 마침네 해야한다. 그래서 "지금 먹는 음식 말고 우리 옛날에 먹었던 음식을 먹어라"는 책을 쓰려면, 이 뻔함을 어떻게 피할 수 있을까? 따분하고 재미없는 말을 재밌게 하는 방법은?

허영만 작가가 매체를 잘 산택한 것으로 이 도전에 성공했다.  만화의 특장은 독자의 방어를 낮추는 것이다.  아무리 교문적이라도, 글을 만화에 싸주면 광객이 잘 받을 것이다.  그러므로 이책에 담겨있는 역사, 요리법, 논평을 웃기고 담동적인 식사로 맛있게 먹었다.

하상욱: 서울 시 2

간결은 기지의 본질이라는 속담이있으므로 이책은 짧아도 기지로 가득해있다.  한국어의 많은 동음이의어, 동철이의어들의 도움을 받아 한 문장 속에 한 문단의 내용을 숨었다.  그러한 놀라운 정직성이 방패 세울 수 있기 전에 당도하여 골수에 사무치게 한다.  60% 웃기고 50% 현명하고 30% 통찰하고 30% 감정적이고 30% 그냥 설렁하며 단권에 두권의 보람이 있다.

김주영: 홍어

이 책을 불완전히 이해를 하는 것은 나의 즐거음에 장벽이 아니었다.  서양의 책을 읽는 것에 단어단어로 이해 해야 의미를 풀어 감상할 수 있다.  동양의 문학은 그렇게 읽으면 낭비다.  나무만 보고 숲을 보지 못하는 것이다.  나는 이책을 읽으면서 어떤 문장을 이해했고 어떤 다른 문장을 추측해서 해석했고, 또 다른 문장을 단어단어를 사전에 찾아보고 사투리 때문에 찾지 못 해서 포기 했다.  전체적인 소감은 쓰러져서 눈 더미에 빠진 것과 비슷하다.  눈송이들 모두다 유일무이하며 아름답지만 잠깐 추위를 느끼는 것도 알음답다.

Nashville

To the extent that the goal of art, in cinema or otherwise, is the clear and inexplicable crystallization of even the smallest moment of humanity, to exactly that extent this movie is a crowning glory.  To be sure, there are other goals of art: to tell a story, to inspire reaction, to simply exist in its beauty, and Nashville meets each of these goals almost as well.  But I can think of no other movie that captures and seals in amber exactly what it means to be a human the way this one does.  It tells no story completely, and doesn't need to.  It is unsatisfying and even ugly at times.  It means at once nothing and everything.  I am not any of the characters in this movie; I cannot relate to them at all.  I am instead the movie itself: a dizzying medley of experiences and stories that mean nothing individually, but everything in their whole.

Luigi Pirandello: The Late Mattia Pascal

What a joy and what a mercy it is to be free.  To be free from the limits of interpretation, to not ask "What does it mean?", and to experience a book as an event, rather than as a coded message of some sort, how lovely and kind.

And yet, as the title character found in his adventures here, every freedom is a tyranny of its own.  Yes, he loosed himself from the bonds of family, duty, and obligation; he escaped from the prison of his life.  But this freedom closed off to him that which he really wanted: stability, connection, and especially love.  He set about painting a new picture of himself, and, "determined to begin  new life from this point, [he] was filled and uplifted by a fresh infantile happiness" (83). Nonetheless, he found himself staring at the unfinished, unfinishable portrait of himself and growling at it, much as Pepita did later in the book (201).

Reading this book on its own terms, in perhaps something approaching an Asian style, I found myself immersed in its world, and as often happens, let the book escape from itself and read me back, even reading the other books I was working through with me.  But what did it mean?  Why did I read it?  Am I missing something, perhaps hidden in Paleari's theories of light and darkness (114-16)? Is the life that I have reconstructed to escape my former life as hopelessly untethered to reality as that of Adriano Meis?

Igor Stravinsky: An Autobiography

This is exactly what a memoir should be.  Stravinsky's approach to the recounting of his life is directly in line with his approach to music.  Of the latter, he says: "The interpreter, of necessity can think of nothing but interpretation, and thus takes on the garb of a translator . . . this is an absurdity in music" (34).  He later explains, "All these misunderstandings arise from the fact that people will always insist upon looking in music for something that is not there.  The main thing for them is to know what the piece expresses . . . They never seem to understand that music has an entity of its own apart form anything that it may suggest to them" (162). 

And it is the same objectivity that Stravinsky demands in music that he brings to narrative.  The reader of his autobiography "will not have found any lyrical outpourings or intimate confessions" (174).  Said reader will merely find a very straightforward account of his life, complete with colorful anecdotes.  What does that, or any, life mean?  One can no more answer life than one can answer music.  Both simply are, and must be appreciated and experienced on their own terms.