Andrew
A really incredible book that stems from a dark portion of history. No-No Boy is maybe the angriest book I've ever read and has one of the strongest authorial voices; it's a shame Okada never had another book published (apparently he wrote more, but his widow burned them), because he had what writing needs, he was just a bit too early, and maybe a bit too angry for when this book was published. The scars of the second world war, the scars of the ways people of Japanese ancestry who lived in America were treated, were all still too fresh when this book came out. The other issue is the book seems to reel against American exceptionalism, and the national narrative that America saved democracy, saved the world. And if America saved the world, then anyone who refused to fight was a coward and a monster, a criminal: even if they had been asked to fight while prisoners in concentration camps, while American citizens denied the fundamental rights and privileges thereof, even if they had been born here, had never seen Japan, didn't speak the language, didn't know the customs, and only carried with them a tenuous connection to that place through parents who left that place to come to America.
In a modern world, where institutional racism is being dragged out into the open for public discussion, a book about a young man who was victimized by his own government because of his ancestry is an important book to read. But it's not just important, it's more than that; No-No Boy is a great book, and it's one that needs to be more widely read.
I think the profound effect Lewis has had on my mind is keenly comparable to the way Lewis viewed George MacDonald. I'm certain that Lewis and I exist on different wavelengths on many things, and yet each time I read one of his works I find myself moved and hoping he's right. What if Hell really is only closed from the inside? Lewis is quick to make clear that this book is one of his “supposeales,” and even clearer that he intends this book wholly as a work of fiction, not one of those “I saw heaven/hell” books; in fact, Lewis has a short but funny exchange with author George MacDonald about people who have “visions” of heaven/hell and then write books about their “experience.” So, to sum it all up, I don't really buy Lewis's viewpoint (or George MacDonald's, for that matter), but I find so much of it beautiful.
After all, as Lewis's fictional George MacDonald explains, trying to understand eternity while living within time is like looking through the wrong end of a telescope.
Man this book is dull. Every other chapter is memoir-ish, while the in-between chapters are inside-looks at Orthodox practice (the bit I was interested in). I also think the book is bizarrely dense for as thin as it is in terms of length. It's okay, and some of the insights are nice, but I wouldn't recommend it. All that being said, Eastern Orthodoxy is super interesting, and entirely foreign to anyone (like me) who has grown up in a more westernized, protestant Christianity.
I don't think this is a particularly great book, although there are nice insights into Lee's films (especially his themes); it's just terribly uninteresting and dull, even though the author clearly knows her stuff, both in terms of the cultural, political, and historical aspects/contexts that surround these very complicated film.
I won't pretend that some of this isn't complete nonsense, but some of it is brilliant philosophy, aiming to realign one's viewpoint of the world to generate peace and calmness, both with oneself and others.
One thing that struck me very much are the way the Lama's Buddhist worldview can be compared to someone like Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas saw that the idea of physical eternity was absurd and that there could not be an infinite regress of cause and effect; he came to the conclusion, based on the teachings of Aristotle, that there had to be an “unmoved mover,” an entity who was infinite in itself, without beginning and ending, who (so to speak) “kickstarted” everything we see. The Buddha came to a somewhat similar conclusion, but with a stark difference: nothing that exists does so inherently, that is, of its own power, except for the energy of life itself, or perhaps what could be called “consciousness.” So the Lama talks quite a bit about the emptiness of existence (but not in a “woe as me” way), nothing that is reality (nothing) inherently exists; and by this he means nothing exists own its own. In other words, everything has cause and effect, stemming from the consciousness, which the Lama says is eternal.
Anyway, that's a layman's explanation, and as that summary probably shows, some of this stuff is clear as mud, but it's nevertheless fascinating. Ultimately, the same apparent problems that exist with the Buddhist theology are also true of Aquinas's: how does something exist forever and not have something else that starts it off? Furthermore, why is that idea of infinite cause and effect apparently illogical (Newton's laws?)? I'm a big Aquinas fan (he has his problems), probably because Lewis and Tolkien were, and maybe now I'm a Dalai Lama fan, too. I'm reminded of Lewis writing that “truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is” (God in the Dock 67): so if I see some grain of truth in Aquinas and the Dalai Lama, it's because they both stumbled (although, imperfectly) into some shared, correct perception of reality (which truth always points to).
As for somethings that I learned (apart from learning about Buddhism itself (specifically Tibetan Buddhism)): one is that you cannot know a thing unless you do it; head knowledge of a subject is not enough: it must be put to use. Another is that enemies (people who cause you problems or pain) are to be cherished, because without an enemy to pester you, you cannot practice patience and love. That's pretty good.
Do you believe in an elusive, difficult to describe past when things were “great” and heroes roamed the landscape, when men-were-men and women-women and children never disobeyed? That the Nation was built by great people who were, at least, more right than they were wrong, and that we would be better off going back to how things were? That we should make the Nation great again?
Do you believe that your Group (defined by nation/race/gender/religion) is the greatest, is without flaw (or at least more right than wrong, usually), and that your national identity (and the Nation itself) are defined by its people being members of the Group? Do you feel that your Group is the target of blame and that the culture at large hates your group, aiming to suppress and do away with it, thus destroying the Nation?
Do you believe that so-called “experts,” who claim to use facts and data to promote their ideas are simply mouthpieces for agendas designed to topple the Nation's history and standing, and the Group associated with it, and that public universities and schools are dens of liberal indoctrination, best to be avoided by those who make up the Group?
Do you believe that certain people are just more deserving of things like comfort, success, happiness, and resources than others are, whether it be because of how they act or where they come from? That crimes should be dealt with quickly and mercilessly, and that the Nation should maintain law and order primarily through fear of punishment? Do you believe that lazy people just don't deserve things as much, and that hard-work solves and covers a multitude of sins? That success means wealth and wealth means freedom?
Are stay-at-home dads or men who cry emasculated and weak? Are women who work instead of taking care of the house rebellious against the natural hierarchy? Are homosexuals and trans people trying to destroy the Nation and corrupt the Group's children? Do you believe that cities are dens of immorality and liberality, designed from the bottom up to destroy the traditional values of the Nation and Group?
The above are all parts of fascism: the notion that life operates best when it is racially, ethnically, ideologically, and culturally pure; where the world operates in simple top-down structures (the father rules over the family, the CEO over the business, the Leader over the nation ) that put people in their place; and where people who suffer poverty probably deserve it, because only a person bankrupt of moral character (ie: lazy) could ever become poor or need the help of the State. Also the State is distinct from the Nation: the State is that liberal hive that wants people to push against tradition, where all people have value for no reason other than that they are alive (and not because they add anything to society); the Nation is that core collection of Ideas, perhaps enshrined in a religious or philosophical notion, but embodied by the Group, explaining the successes of the Nation as a result of favor (either from natural-order or God himself), while explaining the failures of the Nation as the result of deviance (from the Ideas).
When the State does something, it is government overreach, an act of Big Government. When the Nation does something, it is a desperate act to maintain the Nation and the Group and the Ideas. The State coddles its citizens like children, whereas the Nation makes them productive members of the Group.
I will end with two quotes from the book. The first describes fascism and how it relates to social Darwinism (survival of the fittest); the second regards the legacy of fascist thought.
Fascist movements share with social Darwinism the idea that life is a competition for power, acording to which the division of society's resources should be left up to pure free market competition. Fascist movements share its ideals of hard work, private enterprise, and self-sufficiency. To have a life worthy of value, for the social Darwinist, is to have risen above others by struggle and merit, to have survived a fierce competition for resources. Those who do not compete successfully do not deserve the goods and resources of society. In an ideology that measures worth by productivity, propaganda that represents members of an out-group as lazy is a way to justify placing them on a hierarchy of worth.
Does anyone really want their children's sense of identity to be based on a legacy of marginalization of others?
Addendum:
Republic
1. Elected officials
2. Free, fair, and frequent elections
3. Freedom of expression
4. Alternative sources of information
5. Associational autonomy
6. Inclusive citizenship (“What Political Institutions Does Large-Scale Democracy Require?” Robert A. Dahl, Political Science Quarterly (vol. 120, no. 2, Summer 2005, pp 187-197))
1) I am reading so many books right now, I'm not sure how many I'm reading (some have been on the back burner for months).
2) This book was awesome. Not only does it trace Tolkien's actual interactions with the OED text as a writer/contributor, but it then includes an extended appendix of word studies of Tolkien's vocabulary. If you've ever wondered why the Hobbit's call anything they simply must keep but have no use for a “mathom,” then this is the book to turn to.
This is really just a survey, and it only deals with its topics in the lightest, simplest ways, but it gets the job done in getting things started. From here, I feel like I can go on to a more in-depth book without feeling overwhelmed, since I now in part understand some of the core ideas of Confucianism.
A short little story, but I only read a chapter or two a night (and skipped some nights), so it took a while to get through. This little vampiric story is older than Dracula, and more sexual/erotic in its content (in this way, it has more in common with likely earlier drafts of Stoker's novel, which may exist in various foreign versions of Dracula). Overall, I liked this a lot. It's moody and shocking for its day, and I'm certain any mother or father who read this would have been appalled by it, which is a good mark of horror fiction. The vampire is a predator, obviously, and usually the vampire is coded as a sexual predator (or lover, in certain instances, if not abuser), but the vampire is almost always male. Count Dracula is fearsome because he plays into some Victorian notion of women and young girls falling prey to lecherous but suave men; but here, the main character, a young girl, falls prey to a female vampire, thus turning the whole trope on its head in an unexpected way. As a horror novel making use of mythological motifs in a specific cultural context, Carmilla asks if anyone is safe, since anyone can be a predator; furthermore, is the book about a father's attempt to suppress his daughter's developing homosexuality?
So the book is certainly interesting in those ways. Where I think it fails is in a few plot points that do not make any sense at all. The book leaves some things open-ended, but not in a mysterious way, only a frustrating way. For instance, who was Carmilla's mother? Another pet peeve of mine is the introduction of heroic characters in the last act, who sweep in to solve the narrative problems. Very, very annoying.
It's odd to rate a book both 4/5 and mark it did-not-finish, and yet here we are. Wood is insightful, his writing is lucid, and when he's socially/culturally interpreting films he's riveting (especially when it's a film you know). The problem is simply that Wood and I exist on different planets. I'm pretty liberal, but I'm not a communist and Wood is explicitly one. I have the same general issue with Wood that I have with most Marxists by the way: they are phenomenal at diagnosing societal issues, but they are terrible at prescribing solutions. That being said, I wish Wood stuck more to interpreting films in light of culture and society: his writings on the horror film are easily the best I've ever read on that genre (how monsters are stand-ins for white people's fear of otherness, the way women are objects of violence at the hands of men, and, furthermore, how all of those distinctions break down). I mainly got tired of being told that I'm actually a repressed bisexual and that Freudian psychology is the secret to understanding human actions...ehh, sorry, Wood, but I'm not so sure on either of those two points.
This Robin Wood guy was a nut, but he understood the way movies are used to express ideology really, really well.
Currently writing a paper on the film Brokeback Mountain and its relation to the western genre. My teacher recommended I read the short story and screenplay, which was a good call. I'm glad to have found this book at the local library, since it has both the story, screenplay, and even three essays (one each from the story's author, and the screenwriters).
I think the film is overall more effective than the short story, but it's a fine little piece of fiction, I guess. The screenplay (partially written by the screenwriter of Lonesome Dove) is great though.
Bazin's obsession with realism is a bit annoying, but he was also writing in a particular time and place. Overall, the writing is fine and none too difficult. The only essays that left me cold (cold enough I skipped through them) were the two comparing the cinema and theater. As with most film theory/criticism books, this book is most enjoyable when you are reading about films or filmmakers that you're already familiar with.
Hashimoto gives plenty of hot takes in here (are Kurosawa's latter films really that bad? I don't think so), but there's also an interesting perspective on the whole Kurosawa filmography that makes the book worth reading. It's also just an enjoyable read overall, and the translation is very clear and easy to read.
For such a short book, this was exhausting to read. I'm definitely experiencing some mid-semester burnout (and college burnout in general), but I think this book is just a pain to get through. John Edwards likes long, plodding sentences of the sort that I was taught never to use in text because they're exhausting and force the reader, who is surely going to get tired of subordinate clauses being strung together rather haphazardly, as though the sentence were an infinite chain of nouns and clauses and ideas, and as though I had never once before heard of the period, to try and remember what the heck the author is talking about.
A shortish book (really, more of a longish pamphlet) about Japanese film narrators. They were one of the most powerful unions in the country, and staved off the advent and wide adoption of “talkies” until nearly the 1940s (the silent era lasted longer in Japan than, I believe, anywhere else). Really fascinating stuff. The book is light on essays about the art and craft and heavy on biographical information about silent films, the benshi themselves, and even silent-film movie theaters. Probably could have done without the catalogue of films, and yet those sorts of lists are indispensable for a historian. A good little book, all in all.
There are five main parts to this book:
(1) an introduction to the work as a whole, which gives historical context to the act of language creation and Tolkien's involvement in it;
(2) the actual essay A Secret Vice, wherein Tolkien explains his great love and mild embarrassment over his hobby;
(3) Essay on Phonetic Symbolism, wherein Tolkien operates in full linguist mode, trying to wrestle with why some sounds seem better suited to certain concepts (“smash” words for hitting things: smash, clash, thrash, bash; or the “gl-“ words for appearances: glow, glitter, glisten, glower; or how in various languages the word for “cut” has an “s,” “c,” or “k,” sound in it);
(4) the epilogue, Coda: The Reception and Legacy of Tolkien's Invented Languages, wherein the editors of this volume contextualize invented languages today, looking back at Tolkien's work, and how Tolkien's fiction jump started the language-creation act in modern fiction;
and (5) the appendixes (what is a Tolkien book without appendixes?), wherein the authors give the text of the various manuscripts from Tolkien's various drafts of the two essays in this volume. This section is particularly interesting because we can see something of his method and the way his mind worked out an essay, speech, or lecture.
The Monsters and the Critics, and other essays
A Secret Vice
Here's the thing. This isn't the most interesting book as a whole, because not every essay is interesting (to me); however, there's a lot of neat stuff in here. It's just annoying that this is the second time I've been asked to read this book for a class, which isn't a big deal. I'd just like something a big meatier at this point.
This book is simultaneously a must-read and a slog. When it soars, it's the best writing book I've picked up; when it slows down, it's like trudging through waist-high mud. But Zinsser's prose is clear, consistent, and easy to skim. I found in the slower chapters that I could normally read the first and last sentence of each paragraph and get what I needed. This tells me two things: (1) if those particular chapters were more relevant to me (they were focused on particular kinds of non-fiction writing), they would be wellsprings of information; (2) Zinsser so carefully used topic-sentence conclusion-sentence in his writing that his paragraphs can sing with just two sentences. It's startling writing, and refreshing to read. It also wakes you up to your own tics and shortcomings. Terrific book!at first, I wrote “a bit of a slog,” but then remembered Zinnser's advice: if something's a slog, say it's a slog; don't hedge your opinion behind weak phrases.
I wish the essays had focused more on technique, and at times they didn't even really feel to be about writing at all; nevertheless, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It just wasn't quite what I wanted (so the problem was me, not it).
But one useful thing I did learn is that ideas are like cats:
You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you. If you try to approach a cat and pick it up, hell, it won't let you do it. You've got to say, “Well, to hell with you.” And the cat says, “Wait a minute. He's not behaving the way most humans do.” Then the cat follows you out of curiosity: “Well, what's wrong with you that you don't love me?”
are
This little pamphlet contains three essays and one short story: (1) Why I Write [essay], (2) The Lion and the Unicorn [essay], (3) A Hanging [story], and (4) Politics and the English Language [essay]. The common theme between the pieces is the way language is used to convey political ideas. To quote the final page of the book: “...to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind” (p120).
Why I Write is largely concerned with Orwell's political motivations: “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism [emphasis author's]” (p8). For some (those who have only read Animal Farm or 1984), learning that Orwell was a self-proclaimed socialist will raise many questions, but it's simply a misunderstanding: Orwell wanted the state to do it's job by providing a good quality of life to its people, keeping them out from under the boot of the rich, and then to otherwise leave them alone.
The Lion and the Unicorn is the most difficult essay to get through (I, admittedly, DNF'd it) and concerns the political climate of Europe at the time of writing (1941) and the hope that Europe would move away from its totalitarian, capitalistic, unplanned economy, and move toward a more socialistic, planned economy, which sought to better the lives of its citizens rather than investors and businessfolk.
A Hanging is a short story about a group of British officials who oversee the execution of a brown-skinned prisoner (in some British-occupied country), and the way the whole thing is rather annoying and unpleasant to them, not because it is barbarous but old-hat. The story ends with the unnamed narrator asking if such executions are justifiable for any reason.
Politics and the English Language is the real meat of this book though (although considerably shorter than The Lion and the Unicorn), and was the reason I picked up this little volume. Here, Orwell gives his brilliant explanation of why imprecise language is an enemy of commonfolk: “in my opinion” may be more polite than “I think,” but is less precise, and needlessly wordy. In one hilarious stretch, he rewrites a passage from Ecclesiastes in the style of what he considers Modern English Prose.
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account. (p110)