Stephen Batchelor's Verses from the Center
Began: 1/16/07
End: 01/25/07
Quality: Five Out of Ten.
Reason: Unread
Genre: Non-fiction. Religion. Buddhism. Nagarjuna.
Number: First.
Thoughts:
This was quite a bit tougher than I had anticipated. I actually read the introduction twice. And have not spent as much time as I should on the poems themselves. I am getting a little ahead of myself, let me give you a brief blurb on what this book is about.
Stephen Batchelor has basically translated Nagarjuna’s Verses from the Center into English. He has also written an eighty page introduction to not only give the reader an introduction to Nagarjuna but also his ideas of emptiness.
It usually takes me a little longer to get through eastern philosophy being as versed in Western logic as I am. And this text was a little more difficult than your average. I have done a little research (aka googling at work) and from what I quickly surmised, Nagarjuna is very difficult and his work is rarely translated. I guess this is the first nonacademic and idiomatic English translation. I think I might have to come back to this in a few years when I have a more familiarity with Buddhist thought and philosophy.
I also found Batchelor’s use of the term contingency to be quite confusing. I have checked many dictionaries and I still cannot really grasp exactly what he means by the use of that word.
Overall, I did like and appreciate it but again, I do not feel that I am grasping it properly so I will put it back on the bookshelf for now and just come back to it later.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Robert O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
Began: 1/23/07
End: 01/24/07
Quality: Six Out of Ten.
Reason: Newbery Award.
Genre: Fiction ; Children's
Number: First.
Thoughts:
I thought it was really quite good although much different from what I expected it to be. I remember watching the movies version in the 80's and loving it and that story seemed quite a bit darker and I remember that Jenner was a cunning and diabolical villian, rather than a break off with differing philosophies.
The basic story has to do with the mouse Mrs. Frisby. Her son comes down with phenonmia and must not be moved at all and kept warm. Mr. Fitzgibbon, the farmer whose fields their winter house lay, is about to plow the field for the spring destroying their winter house. Mrs. Frisby gets advice to go to the rats of Nimh and thus the story begins.
I found the story interesting but it was not the page turner that I had anticipated based on my memories of the movie. I also really wanted to know more about the rats of NIMH, wanted to know more about their civilization, the structure of their soceity, their plans, ect. I thought it was interesting how much O'brien left to the reader's imaginaton. He didn't really tie up any of the loose ends and I think I liked that about the book, make people think.
Began: 1/23/07
End: 01/24/07
Quality: Six Out of Ten.
Reason: Newbery Award.
Genre: Fiction ; Children's
Number: First.
Thoughts:
I thought it was really quite good although much different from what I expected it to be. I remember watching the movies version in the 80's and loving it and that story seemed quite a bit darker and I remember that Jenner was a cunning and diabolical villian, rather than a break off with differing philosophies.
The basic story has to do with the mouse Mrs. Frisby. Her son comes down with phenonmia and must not be moved at all and kept warm. Mr. Fitzgibbon, the farmer whose fields their winter house lay, is about to plow the field for the spring destroying their winter house. Mrs. Frisby gets advice to go to the rats of Nimh and thus the story begins.
I found the story interesting but it was not the page turner that I had anticipated based on my memories of the movie. I also really wanted to know more about the rats of NIMH, wanted to know more about their civilization, the structure of their soceity, their plans, ect. I thought it was interesting how much O'brien left to the reader's imaginaton. He didn't really tie up any of the loose ends and I think I liked that about the book, make people think.
Monday, January 22, 2007
William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Ceasar
William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
Began: 1/17/07
End: 01/21/07
Quality: Six Out of Ten.
Reason: Reading Plan
Genre: Drama; Shakespeare
Number: Second???
Thoughts:
I read this particular Shakespeare play due to the fact that I have been completely obsessed with the HBO series Rome of late. I definitely did not pick up all that I should have with this one. My attention span has been so completely horrible of late. I still enjoyed it. I wish that Portia had a bigger role. She was probably my favorite. Portia and Brutus. They were both so sadly noble. This, of course, is the whole tragedy of the damn play. I think I will end here. What is the point, really, of writing about Shakespeare after people like Harold Bloom and Northup Frye already have???
Began: 1/17/07
End: 01/21/07
Quality: Six Out of Ten.
Reason: Reading Plan
Genre: Drama; Shakespeare
Number: Second???
Thoughts:
I read this particular Shakespeare play due to the fact that I have been completely obsessed with the HBO series Rome of late. I definitely did not pick up all that I should have with this one. My attention span has been so completely horrible of late. I still enjoyed it. I wish that Portia had a bigger role. She was probably my favorite. Portia and Brutus. They were both so sadly noble. This, of course, is the whole tragedy of the damn play. I think I will end here. What is the point, really, of writing about Shakespeare after people like Harold Bloom and Northup Frye already have???
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye
Began: 1/12/07
End: 01/16/07
Quality: Seven Out of Ten.
Reason: Book Club
Genre: Literature ; African-American Literature???
Number: Second???
Thoughts:
Ah, Toni Morrison. Now here is a woman who knows how to write. Fuck Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson and give me some more Toni Morrison. She is a woman who makes me want to read. She is a woman who has me pausing a thousand times and sending my wee little brain scattering in a thousand directions. She is a woman who can inspire and horrify and move me with her words.
Okay, now that I am finished with that little brown nose session, I expect I should be talking about the book, the Bluest Eye. This is her first novel written during the late sixties and published in 1970. The general consensus is that this novel is the story of Pecola Breedlove and her struggles with beauty and the resulting madness which these struggles awaken in her.
Yet, I find that synopsis false to the actual story in the book. It simplifies the novel too much. It tries to wrap it into a neat little package that readers can easily categorize in their minds. I found this work more to be a collage. Pecola wasn’t really the protagonist. She was more like a prop which other characters revolved around through the story. She is central to it but is never really developed in any way. We get the story from a few different perspectives….Pecola, Claudia, Pauline Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove and Soaphead Church. Each character brings their own little piece of understanding to the reader’s awareness. "There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how." (3)
As you probably gleaned from my opening paragraph, I enjoyed this work quite a lot. I have read it a few other times, but it seems to grow in my estimation the more that I read it. I do not think that it is the best of Morrison’s canon but I still find it powerful and resonate quite a lot with me.
It was a quite deft attempt at coming at the problems of self-hatred, of the problems of beauty in America, of the “damaging internalizations of assumptions of immutable inferiority originating in an outside gaze” as Morrison states in her afterword. And it was not just Pecola who was infected by these assumptions of beauty and worth. Yes, she was destroyed by them in the end but no other character was unaffected. We see Claudia in the beginning hating Shirley Temple and destroying her dolls. Pauline Breedlove taking in the messages of the movies she goes to again and again. Cholly Breedlove hated not the perpetrators of his humiliations but rather those sharing his humiliation.
I think that the breaking up of the narrative structure is both one of the novel’s great strengths as well as one of its weaknesses. It allows her to get at the problem from many angles as well as give the reader a larger awareness of the story as a whole but it also fractures the story in some ways, giving it a sense of disorder and of disunity, like the various sections were just jammed together for no apparent reason. Morrison herself admits to some of these foibles saying "My solution-break the narrative into parts that had to be reassembled by the reader- seemed to me a good idea, the execution of which does not satisfy me now."
I think the only other thing that I really wanted to talk about in terms of this novel was the solidarity in some ways that I felt with Pecola. Morrison feels that “many readers remain touched but not moved.” I cannot speak for others readers but I was most definitely moved. I do not know how I could not be moved by a story of self-hatred. I am a gay man. How many of us have escaped battling it out with self-hatred? And I spent nine years immersed in the evangelical Christian world. I have had my struggles.
And my self-hatred stems not just from my homosexuality. I have also had probably a far longer and insidious struggle with trying to live up to the concepts and expectations of beauty in the gay world. I still, to this day, sometimes think…if I only looked like that or if I was only that much cuter then… I still struggle with accepting myself as I have been made. And while I usually don’t find myself quoting scripture as I don’t really believe in Yahweh, that bible has some great fucking lines…”For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are they works; and that my soul knoweth right well.” (Ps. 139: 13-14)
And now that I am getting into it, I also remember as a child and teenager, trying to make myself as quiet as possible, as small as possible, as unnoticeable as possible.
“Please, God,” she whispered into the palm of her hand. “Please make me disappear.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Little parts of her body faded away. Now slowly, now with a rush. Slowly again. Her fingers went, one by one; then her arms disappeared all the way to the elbow. Her feet now. Yes, that was good. The legs all at once. It was hardest above the thighs. She had to be real still and pull. Her stomach would not go. But finally it, too, went away. Then her chest, her neck. The face was hard, too. Almost done, almost. Only her tight, tight eyes were left. They were always left. (33)
I understand, all too well really, that need to want to disappear, to not want to be viewed and laughed at and scorned. I remember hiding in closets, under beds, at the beach, trying to avoid contact with those in my household, wishing I could just become invisible.
Well, on that happy and carefree note, I will leave off with some quotes that I wanted to highlight….
"Frieda and she (pecola) had a loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was. I couldn't join them in their adoration because I hated Shirely. Not because she was cute, but because she danced with Bojangles, who was my friend, my uncle, my daddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and chuckling with me. Instead he was enjoying, sharing, giving a lovely dance thing with one of those little white girls whose socks never slid down under their heels. So I said, "I like Jane Withers."
,,,
"Younger than both Frieda and Pecola, I had not yet arrived at the turning point in the development of my psyche which would allow me to love her." (13)
"I turned, the bone-cold head collided with my own. It was a most uncomfortable, patently aggressive sleeping companion. To hold it was no more rewarding. The starched gauze or lace of the cotton dress irritated any embrace. I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me." (14)
"You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question." (28)
"Frieda and she (pecola) had a loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was. I couldn't join them in their adoration because I hated Shirely. Not because she was cute, but because she danced with Bojangles, who was my friend, my uncle, my daddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and chuckling with me. Instead he was enjoying, sharing, giving a lovely dance thing with one of those little white girls whose socks never slid down under their heels. So I said, "I like Jane Withers."
...
"Younger than both Frieda and Pecola, I had not yet arrived at the turning point in the development of my psyche which would allow me to love her." (13)
"I turned, the bone-cold head collided with my own. It was a most uncomfortable, patently aggressive sleeping companion. To hold it was no more rewarding. The starched gauze or lace of the cotton dress irritated any embrace. I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me." (14)
"Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another-physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion. In equating physical beauty with virtue, she stripped her mind, bound it, and collected self-contempt by the heap. She forgot lust and simple caring for. She regarded love as possessive mating, and romance as the goal of the spirit." (95)
"Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another-physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion. In equating physical beauty with virtue, she stripped her mind, bound it, and collected self-contempt by the heap. She forgot lust and simple caring for. She regarded love as possessive mating, and romance as the goal of the spirit." (95)
Began: 1/12/07
End: 01/16/07
Quality: Seven Out of Ten.
Reason: Book Club
Genre: Literature ; African-American Literature???
Number: Second???
Thoughts:
Ah, Toni Morrison. Now here is a woman who knows how to write. Fuck Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson and give me some more Toni Morrison. She is a woman who makes me want to read. She is a woman who has me pausing a thousand times and sending my wee little brain scattering in a thousand directions. She is a woman who can inspire and horrify and move me with her words.
Okay, now that I am finished with that little brown nose session, I expect I should be talking about the book, the Bluest Eye. This is her first novel written during the late sixties and published in 1970. The general consensus is that this novel is the story of Pecola Breedlove and her struggles with beauty and the resulting madness which these struggles awaken in her.
Yet, I find that synopsis false to the actual story in the book. It simplifies the novel too much. It tries to wrap it into a neat little package that readers can easily categorize in their minds. I found this work more to be a collage. Pecola wasn’t really the protagonist. She was more like a prop which other characters revolved around through the story. She is central to it but is never really developed in any way. We get the story from a few different perspectives….Pecola, Claudia, Pauline Breedlove, Cholly Breedlove and Soaphead Church. Each character brings their own little piece of understanding to the reader’s awareness. "There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how." (3)
As you probably gleaned from my opening paragraph, I enjoyed this work quite a lot. I have read it a few other times, but it seems to grow in my estimation the more that I read it. I do not think that it is the best of Morrison’s canon but I still find it powerful and resonate quite a lot with me.
It was a quite deft attempt at coming at the problems of self-hatred, of the problems of beauty in America, of the “damaging internalizations of assumptions of immutable inferiority originating in an outside gaze” as Morrison states in her afterword. And it was not just Pecola who was infected by these assumptions of beauty and worth. Yes, she was destroyed by them in the end but no other character was unaffected. We see Claudia in the beginning hating Shirley Temple and destroying her dolls. Pauline Breedlove taking in the messages of the movies she goes to again and again. Cholly Breedlove hated not the perpetrators of his humiliations but rather those sharing his humiliation.
I think that the breaking up of the narrative structure is both one of the novel’s great strengths as well as one of its weaknesses. It allows her to get at the problem from many angles as well as give the reader a larger awareness of the story as a whole but it also fractures the story in some ways, giving it a sense of disorder and of disunity, like the various sections were just jammed together for no apparent reason. Morrison herself admits to some of these foibles saying "My solution-break the narrative into parts that had to be reassembled by the reader- seemed to me a good idea, the execution of which does not satisfy me now."
I think the only other thing that I really wanted to talk about in terms of this novel was the solidarity in some ways that I felt with Pecola. Morrison feels that “many readers remain touched but not moved.” I cannot speak for others readers but I was most definitely moved. I do not know how I could not be moved by a story of self-hatred. I am a gay man. How many of us have escaped battling it out with self-hatred? And I spent nine years immersed in the evangelical Christian world. I have had my struggles.
And my self-hatred stems not just from my homosexuality. I have also had probably a far longer and insidious struggle with trying to live up to the concepts and expectations of beauty in the gay world. I still, to this day, sometimes think…if I only looked like that or if I was only that much cuter then… I still struggle with accepting myself as I have been made. And while I usually don’t find myself quoting scripture as I don’t really believe in Yahweh, that bible has some great fucking lines…”For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are they works; and that my soul knoweth right well.” (Ps. 139: 13-14)
And now that I am getting into it, I also remember as a child and teenager, trying to make myself as quiet as possible, as small as possible, as unnoticeable as possible.
“Please, God,” she whispered into the palm of her hand. “Please make me disappear.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Little parts of her body faded away. Now slowly, now with a rush. Slowly again. Her fingers went, one by one; then her arms disappeared all the way to the elbow. Her feet now. Yes, that was good. The legs all at once. It was hardest above the thighs. She had to be real still and pull. Her stomach would not go. But finally it, too, went away. Then her chest, her neck. The face was hard, too. Almost done, almost. Only her tight, tight eyes were left. They were always left. (33)
I understand, all too well really, that need to want to disappear, to not want to be viewed and laughed at and scorned. I remember hiding in closets, under beds, at the beach, trying to avoid contact with those in my household, wishing I could just become invisible.
Well, on that happy and carefree note, I will leave off with some quotes that I wanted to highlight….
"Frieda and she (pecola) had a loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was. I couldn't join them in their adoration because I hated Shirely. Not because she was cute, but because she danced with Bojangles, who was my friend, my uncle, my daddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and chuckling with me. Instead he was enjoying, sharing, giving a lovely dance thing with one of those little white girls whose socks never slid down under their heels. So I said, "I like Jane Withers."
,,,
"Younger than both Frieda and Pecola, I had not yet arrived at the turning point in the development of my psyche which would allow me to love her." (13)
"I turned, the bone-cold head collided with my own. It was a most uncomfortable, patently aggressive sleeping companion. To hold it was no more rewarding. The starched gauze or lace of the cotton dress irritated any embrace. I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me." (14)
"You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question." (28)
"Frieda and she (pecola) had a loving conversation about how cu-ute Shirley Temple was. I couldn't join them in their adoration because I hated Shirely. Not because she was cute, but because she danced with Bojangles, who was my friend, my uncle, my daddy, and who ought to have been soft-shoeing it and chuckling with me. Instead he was enjoying, sharing, giving a lovely dance thing with one of those little white girls whose socks never slid down under their heels. So I said, "I like Jane Withers."
...
"Younger than both Frieda and Pecola, I had not yet arrived at the turning point in the development of my psyche which would allow me to love her." (13)
"I turned, the bone-cold head collided with my own. It was a most uncomfortable, patently aggressive sleeping companion. To hold it was no more rewarding. The starched gauze or lace of the cotton dress irritated any embrace. I had only one desire: to dismember it. To see of what it was made, to discover the dearness, to find the beauty, the desirability that had escaped me, but apparently only me." (14)
"Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another-physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion. In equating physical beauty with virtue, she stripped her mind, bound it, and collected self-contempt by the heap. She forgot lust and simple caring for. She regarded love as possessive mating, and romance as the goal of the spirit." (95)
"Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another-physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion. In equating physical beauty with virtue, she stripped her mind, bound it, and collected self-contempt by the heap. She forgot lust and simple caring for. She regarded love as possessive mating, and romance as the goal of the spirit." (95)
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Hunters of Dune
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Hunters of Dune
Began: 1/10/2007
End: 01/12/07
Quality: Five Out of Ten.
Reason: It’s Dune!!!
Genre: Science Fiction.
Number: First.
Thoughts:
I have such mixed feelings about this book. I have been waiting to find out what happened to these characters and the dune universe for over five years, when I first finished Chapterhouse: Dune.
When Brian Herbert first starting releasing his “prequels” I picked them up and found them to be pretty horrible. Well, maybe horrible is too strong a term. I just found them to be standard science fiction and I am an elitist snob so that equals crap in my mind. Yet, I still pick them up from the library and hate every minute of it because it’s all I am going to get from the Dune Universe since Frank passed away.
Nevertheless, I was hoping that this would be different. Brian said that they found Frank’s outline for the final Dune book. I was really wishing that somehow, despite what I had previously seen from their writing, that this would be more in tune with the Frank’s original novels. And I am not trying to make it sound like Brian and Anderson are these completely horrible authors. It’s just that they are not up to par with Frank Herbert. He was a giant.
Be that as it may, I still found the novel enjoyable. I just kept thinking of it as fan fiction. I do not believe that the story they have given us is the story that Frank Herbert envisioned. I could probably take everything but Omnius. I am not even going to get into their warping of Marty and Daniel into computers instead of independent Face Dancers.
There isn’t even anything really to discuss. There are really three different stories running along here. We have the fate of the Ithaca as it travels around the universe trying to avoid Marty and Daniel. We have the fate of the New Sisterhood now headed by Mother Commander Murbella. And then we have the Face Dancer Khrone as he half works for Marty and Daniel and half does his own scheme.
I found some aspects of it to be workable in the dune universe, but it is such a pale shadow of the world that Frank Herbert created and I just cannot get over that fact.
Began: 1/10/2007
End: 01/12/07
Quality: Five Out of Ten.
Reason: It’s Dune!!!
Genre: Science Fiction.
Number: First.
Thoughts:
I have such mixed feelings about this book. I have been waiting to find out what happened to these characters and the dune universe for over five years, when I first finished Chapterhouse: Dune.
When Brian Herbert first starting releasing his “prequels” I picked them up and found them to be pretty horrible. Well, maybe horrible is too strong a term. I just found them to be standard science fiction and I am an elitist snob so that equals crap in my mind. Yet, I still pick them up from the library and hate every minute of it because it’s all I am going to get from the Dune Universe since Frank passed away.
Nevertheless, I was hoping that this would be different. Brian said that they found Frank’s outline for the final Dune book. I was really wishing that somehow, despite what I had previously seen from their writing, that this would be more in tune with the Frank’s original novels. And I am not trying to make it sound like Brian and Anderson are these completely horrible authors. It’s just that they are not up to par with Frank Herbert. He was a giant.
Be that as it may, I still found the novel enjoyable. I just kept thinking of it as fan fiction. I do not believe that the story they have given us is the story that Frank Herbert envisioned. I could probably take everything but Omnius. I am not even going to get into their warping of Marty and Daniel into computers instead of independent Face Dancers.
There isn’t even anything really to discuss. There are really three different stories running along here. We have the fate of the Ithaca as it travels around the universe trying to avoid Marty and Daniel. We have the fate of the New Sisterhood now headed by Mother Commander Murbella. And then we have the Face Dancer Khrone as he half works for Marty and Daniel and half does his own scheme.
I found some aspects of it to be workable in the dune universe, but it is such a pale shadow of the world that Frank Herbert created and I just cannot get over that fact.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Began: 1/05/07
End: 01/10/07
Quality: Six Out of Ten.
Reason: Unread.
Genre: Non-Fiction/Memoir.
Number: First.
Thoughts:
This book was definitely not at all what I was expecting. It threw me for a loop. Luckily, I love when books do that for me. It’s what I want from them. I think the subtitle sums up this book quite a lot more than the title: a memoir in books. The book club or class itself was not the primary focus here, nor were her girls. This is primarily about Nafisi and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The regime as well as Ayatollah Khomeini seems to me to be stronger characters than these girls, but I digress.
The main story here is of Nafisi’s experiences in Iran as first the revolution took place and then the Islamic Republic of Iran was formed. This is weaved inside Nafisi inviting seven of her most gifted female students to her house every Thursday to talk about forbidden western books. The story begins and ends with this girls but the bulk of the text deals with Iran under the Islamic Republic and Nafisi’s experiences.
I enjoyed quite a few aspects of this work. I loved her analysis of some of the heavies of the western literary canon (i.e. Fitzgerald, Austen , James, Nabokov) although I did not always see things exactly how she saw them. It made me want to dive back into a few of those works, especially Lolita. Nafisi seems to have a special love for Nabokov and a love which I share. It also made me want to try a few works that I have not been able to read just yet.
It also gave me a real desire to discover more about the Islamic Republic and the revolution which begin this regime which is being so reviled by the United States Government. She seems to make it the arch-villain of the story. And it makes me want to learn about it for a number of reasons. I am, first of all, quite obsessed with politics and Ayatollah Khomeini seems to me to be a political genius, an evil one but a genius none the less. In connection with the politics, I want to know more about this theocracy which seems to be causing quite a few panic attacks at the United Nations and at the White House. There is also the fact that this revolution took place when my mom was pregnant with me and when I was a toddler and that gives me a weird connection to it. And lastly, I want to check her facts. There are some rumors on the webs and the blogosphere that she is in bed with the neocons and this book is part of an effort to get Americans riled up against Iran.
Now, as much as I enjoyed it, I did have a few problems with this work as it stands. (I am not now going to get into whether it was a anti-Iranian propaganda piece. I am going to save that for a rainy day.)
First of all, I found the storyline as such to be rather jumbled. I am still having trouble organizing the chronology of the story in my head. She jumps around quite a bit, sometimes mid-paragraph. Perhaps, I am just being daft. Perhaps, the next time I read it; it will make more sense to me than it did on this initial reading.
I also had a hard time discerning her female students from each other for a few reasons. They all have foreign names and not to be an ignoramus or anything but it's just easier for me to remember and register familiar names. Also, she introduces them all in a relatively short period of time and she doesn’t spend that much time with them at all. As I said before, both the Islamic Republic and the Ayatollah are far stronger characters in this work than any of the students. I think I am going to try and make a character list for my next reading.
This is a book that I would not give a blanket recommendation. It has a target audience in my mind. I know a few people who I will pass it along to but I also know a number of other people who would never be able to get through it. It has some great strengths but I really feel that it could use some more work.
Quotes:
“Do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth."
(3)
“I wrote on the board one of my favorite lines from the German thinker Theodor Adorno: “The highest form of morality is not to feel at home in one’s own home.” I explained that most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable. I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes.” (94)
“A novel is not an allegory, I said as the period was about to come to an end. It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empthaize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing. I just want you to remember this. That is all; class dismissed.” (??)
Character List:
Yassi: Our Comedian. “I’m like good old plastic. I won’t crack no matter what you do to me.” “Yassi was shy by nature, but certain things excited her and made her lose her inhibitions. She has a tone of voice that gently mocked and questioned her inhibitions.”
Mashid: My Lady. “Mashid was good at many things, but she had a certain daintiness about her…Mashid is very sensitive. She’s like porcelain.”
Mitra: The Calm One. “Like the pastel colors of her paintings, she seemed to recede and fade into a paler register. Her beauty was saved from predictability by a pair of miraculous dimples, which she could and did use to manipulate many an unsuspecting victim into being to her will.”
Nassrin: The Chesire Cat. “She was her own definition. One can only say that Nassrin was Nassrin.”
Sanaz: “pressured by family and society, vacillated between her desire for independence and her need for approval.”
Azin: The Wild One. “Azin’s smiles never looked like smiles; they appeared more like preludes to an irrepressible and nervous hilarity. She beamed in that perculiar fashion even when she was describing her latest troubles with her husband. Always outrageous and outspoken, Azin relished the shock value of her action and comments, and often clashed with Mashid and Manna.”
Manna: The Poet. “She makes poetry out of things most people cast aside. The photograph does not reflect the peculiar opacity of Manna’s dark eyes, a testament to her withdrawn and private nature.”
Began: 1/05/07
End: 01/10/07
Quality: Six Out of Ten.
Reason: Unread.
Genre: Non-Fiction/Memoir.
Number: First.
Thoughts:
This book was definitely not at all what I was expecting. It threw me for a loop. Luckily, I love when books do that for me. It’s what I want from them. I think the subtitle sums up this book quite a lot more than the title: a memoir in books. The book club or class itself was not the primary focus here, nor were her girls. This is primarily about Nafisi and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The regime as well as Ayatollah Khomeini seems to me to be stronger characters than these girls, but I digress.
The main story here is of Nafisi’s experiences in Iran as first the revolution took place and then the Islamic Republic of Iran was formed. This is weaved inside Nafisi inviting seven of her most gifted female students to her house every Thursday to talk about forbidden western books. The story begins and ends with this girls but the bulk of the text deals with Iran under the Islamic Republic and Nafisi’s experiences.
I enjoyed quite a few aspects of this work. I loved her analysis of some of the heavies of the western literary canon (i.e. Fitzgerald, Austen , James, Nabokov) although I did not always see things exactly how she saw them. It made me want to dive back into a few of those works, especially Lolita. Nafisi seems to have a special love for Nabokov and a love which I share. It also made me want to try a few works that I have not been able to read just yet.
It also gave me a real desire to discover more about the Islamic Republic and the revolution which begin this regime which is being so reviled by the United States Government. She seems to make it the arch-villain of the story. And it makes me want to learn about it for a number of reasons. I am, first of all, quite obsessed with politics and Ayatollah Khomeini seems to me to be a political genius, an evil one but a genius none the less. In connection with the politics, I want to know more about this theocracy which seems to be causing quite a few panic attacks at the United Nations and at the White House. There is also the fact that this revolution took place when my mom was pregnant with me and when I was a toddler and that gives me a weird connection to it. And lastly, I want to check her facts. There are some rumors on the webs and the blogosphere that she is in bed with the neocons and this book is part of an effort to get Americans riled up against Iran.
Now, as much as I enjoyed it, I did have a few problems with this work as it stands. (I am not now going to get into whether it was a anti-Iranian propaganda piece. I am going to save that for a rainy day.)
First of all, I found the storyline as such to be rather jumbled. I am still having trouble organizing the chronology of the story in my head. She jumps around quite a bit, sometimes mid-paragraph. Perhaps, I am just being daft. Perhaps, the next time I read it; it will make more sense to me than it did on this initial reading.
I also had a hard time discerning her female students from each other for a few reasons. They all have foreign names and not to be an ignoramus or anything but it's just easier for me to remember and register familiar names. Also, she introduces them all in a relatively short period of time and she doesn’t spend that much time with them at all. As I said before, both the Islamic Republic and the Ayatollah are far stronger characters in this work than any of the students. I think I am going to try and make a character list for my next reading.
This is a book that I would not give a blanket recommendation. It has a target audience in my mind. I know a few people who I will pass it along to but I also know a number of other people who would never be able to get through it. It has some great strengths but I really feel that it could use some more work.
Quotes:
“Do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth."
(3)
“I wrote on the board one of my favorite lines from the German thinker Theodor Adorno: “The highest form of morality is not to feel at home in one’s own home.” I explained that most great works of the imagination were meant to make you feel like a stranger in your own home. The best fiction always forced us to question what we took for granted. It questioned traditions and expectations when they seemed too immutable. I told my students I wanted them in their readings to consider in what ways these works unsettled them, made them a little uneasy, made them look around and consider the world, like Alice in Wonderland, through different eyes.” (94)
“A novel is not an allegory, I said as the period was about to come to an end. It is the sensual experience of another world. If you don't enter that world, hold your breath with the characters and become involved in their destiny, you won't be able to empthaize, and empathy is at the heart of the novel. This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing. I just want you to remember this. That is all; class dismissed.” (??)
Character List:
Yassi: Our Comedian. “I’m like good old plastic. I won’t crack no matter what you do to me.” “Yassi was shy by nature, but certain things excited her and made her lose her inhibitions. She has a tone of voice that gently mocked and questioned her inhibitions.”
Mashid: My Lady. “Mashid was good at many things, but she had a certain daintiness about her…Mashid is very sensitive. She’s like porcelain.”
Mitra: The Calm One. “Like the pastel colors of her paintings, she seemed to recede and fade into a paler register. Her beauty was saved from predictability by a pair of miraculous dimples, which she could and did use to manipulate many an unsuspecting victim into being to her will.”
Nassrin: The Chesire Cat. “She was her own definition. One can only say that Nassrin was Nassrin.”
Sanaz: “pressured by family and society, vacillated between her desire for independence and her need for approval.”
Azin: The Wild One. “Azin’s smiles never looked like smiles; they appeared more like preludes to an irrepressible and nervous hilarity. She beamed in that perculiar fashion even when she was describing her latest troubles with her husband. Always outrageous and outspoken, Azin relished the shock value of her action and comments, and often clashed with Mashid and Manna.”
Manna: The Poet. “She makes poetry out of things most people cast aside. The photograph does not reflect the peculiar opacity of Manna’s dark eyes, a testament to her withdrawn and private nature.”
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World Revisted
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World Revisted.
Began: 1/02/07
End: 01/03/07
Quality: Eight Out of Ten.
Reason: Unread, just finished brave new world.
Genre: Essays.
Number: First.
Summary: Huxley wrote this twenty-six years after writing Brave New World to discuss ways in which the world was becoming similiar to his dystopian world. It is divided into a few different sections about different aspects of Brave New World such as Over-Population , Chemical Persuasians, ect.
Thoughts: I actually liked this quite a bit more than Brave New World. I mean Brave New World was such an idea novel, such a piece of persusian and this seems like it is more of the genre that these ideas should have been presetned in rather than in novel form. It is rather outdated since Huxlet wrote it almost fifty years ago but I still thought that he made some very good points and I am also interested in reading more of his ideas about the education of freedom and spirituality.
Recommendations: I would not give this a blanket recomendation. It is good. I enjoyed it and look forward to reading it again but I think it is more benefical to those interested in politics, in Huxley and in the counter-culture.
Began: 1/02/07
End: 01/03/07
Quality: Eight Out of Ten.
Reason: Unread, just finished brave new world.
Genre: Essays.
Number: First.
Summary: Huxley wrote this twenty-six years after writing Brave New World to discuss ways in which the world was becoming similiar to his dystopian world. It is divided into a few different sections about different aspects of Brave New World such as Over-Population , Chemical Persuasians, ect.
Thoughts: I actually liked this quite a bit more than Brave New World. I mean Brave New World was such an idea novel, such a piece of persusian and this seems like it is more of the genre that these ideas should have been presetned in rather than in novel form. It is rather outdated since Huxlet wrote it almost fifty years ago but I still thought that he made some very good points and I am also interested in reading more of his ideas about the education of freedom and spirituality.
Recommendations: I would not give this a blanket recomendation. It is good. I enjoyed it and look forward to reading it again but I think it is more benefical to those interested in politics, in Huxley and in the counter-culture.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.
Began: 12/29/06
End: 01/02/07
Quality: Five Out of Ten.
Reason: Book Club.
Genre: Dystopian Fiction.
Number: Third???
Summary: Quite possibly, the world's most famous dystopian novel. It takes place a few centuries in the future where the entire world is one big happy society run by an extremely efficient world government which has done away with warfare, strife, poverty and unhappiness. Of course, the government has also done away with literature, religion, freedom of thought, the family and quite a few other things that people today find more than slightly important for their happiness. It is a soceity of promiscious sex, rampant use of the drug Soma, exteme materialism and highly stratified society.
The novel has two protagonists, Bernard Marx and John the Savage.
The novel opens with Bernard Marx. He is the highest level of society, an Alpha-plus but is extremely dissatisfied by it for various reasons. This first section of the book seems to set up for the reader the structure of the dystopia. He takes his playmate of the time, Lenina, for a visit to the Savage Reservation where they meet up with John the Savage, who they decide to take home with them.
The sets up the second section of the book, where John the Savage is the protagonist. This section is really John's reaction and critique of this world society.
Here is the quote which the title comes from.
"O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!" -The Tempest, Act V, Scene I.
Thoughts: I have read this a few times. It has been a while. I think I might have been in college, one of the last times that I did take a gander at it. I like it but there seems to be something missing from it. I don't know. It just doesn't completely satisfy me as a work of fiction. It's good. It's a remarkable piece of work but the characters are so underdeveloped and it is such a work of ideas, instead of a work of pure art. It's almost a propaganda piece. It seems to me that it was written to prove a point rather than to tell a good story. I don't know.
Recommendations: I am not sure if I would recommend it to someone. It all depends on who they were and what they were looking for in a book. If they were interested in either dystopian or Utopian fiction, then yes but otherwise probably not.
Began: 12/29/06
End: 01/02/07
Quality: Five Out of Ten.
Reason: Book Club.
Genre: Dystopian Fiction.
Number: Third???
Summary: Quite possibly, the world's most famous dystopian novel. It takes place a few centuries in the future where the entire world is one big happy society run by an extremely efficient world government which has done away with warfare, strife, poverty and unhappiness. Of course, the government has also done away with literature, religion, freedom of thought, the family and quite a few other things that people today find more than slightly important for their happiness. It is a soceity of promiscious sex, rampant use of the drug Soma, exteme materialism and highly stratified society.
The novel has two protagonists, Bernard Marx and John the Savage.
The novel opens with Bernard Marx. He is the highest level of society, an Alpha-plus but is extremely dissatisfied by it for various reasons. This first section of the book seems to set up for the reader the structure of the dystopia. He takes his playmate of the time, Lenina, for a visit to the Savage Reservation where they meet up with John the Savage, who they decide to take home with them.
The sets up the second section of the book, where John the Savage is the protagonist. This section is really John's reaction and critique of this world society.
Here is the quote which the title comes from.
"O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't!" -The Tempest, Act V, Scene I.
Thoughts: I have read this a few times. It has been a while. I think I might have been in college, one of the last times that I did take a gander at it. I like it but there seems to be something missing from it. I don't know. It just doesn't completely satisfy me as a work of fiction. It's good. It's a remarkable piece of work but the characters are so underdeveloped and it is such a work of ideas, instead of a work of pure art. It's almost a propaganda piece. It seems to me that it was written to prove a point rather than to tell a good story. I don't know.
Recommendations: I am not sure if I would recommend it to someone. It all depends on who they were and what they were looking for in a book. If they were interested in either dystopian or Utopian fiction, then yes but otherwise probably not.
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