Category: Book Reviews

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

Lord Of The Flies By William Golding – A Hard Look At Who We Are

Let’s not dissect Lord of the Flies in an academic style.  I am sure that has been done professionally over and over for decades.  Some studied this book in school.  As for me, when I first saw the title many years ago, I mistook it to be related to Lord of the Ring.  Soon I found out that it is not.  I may have bought this 50th anniversary edition eight years ago.  But I did not have the courage to read it, until recently, when I have this crazy for old classic books.

This story prompts me to ponder upon our very own humanity, when society may one day break down, a return to the prehistorical era.  Can democracy, human rights, respect to all things and more survive when we plunge into a setting similar to the reality TV series Survivor?  Like the famous Chinese proverbs, are we born as good or are we born as evil?  How do we as a human race build our society to what we have today and what is keeping it from falling apart?  We have seen, as history has told us, the rise and fall of civilization.  What if …

Tons of questions in my head after reading Lord of the Flies.

It is a simple story.  A group of British boys not older than 13 years of age have crash landed onto an island.  It is the era of nuclear warfare.  What happens outside the island, no one can speculate.  One of the main characters Ralph – a natural born leader with charisma, good intention, and a logical mind – finds a conch by chance.  Upon blowing it, he unintentionally gathers the boys who are scattered around the incident scene.  Ralph then calls upon a meeting.  His first agenda is to determine if they are indeed on an island.  An impromptu agenda, it seems.  Like any politician who is gifted to think on his feet, he delivers a rather fluent speech.  Piggy – an overweight boy with bad eyesight and asthma – encapsulates the concept of the intellect group that is important to a society, but can be physically vulnerable.  He is a trusted adviser to Ralph, although Ralph often bullies him like everyone else.  He holds one of the most important tools in the island – a pair of glasses that can be used to make fire.

The way I see it, in this remote island, Ralph and Piggy represents the last defender of civilization trying their best to uphold democracy and to assign work to others in order to ensure their basic survivability.  The boys are tasked to create a fire big enough to signal any ship that may pass by as well.  While all are motivated by a rescue plan, most do not like to work.  Without reward and enforcement, the boys soon are doing their own things ignoring the assigned duties.  In this island where there is no such thing as law – what does law mean to the young boys anyway – how can a community get organized?

Here come the hunters.  Led by Jack, another leader in his own right, a bunch of choir boys go about hunting pigs for food.  Jack has lost the leadership position because he does not gather enough votes in the first assembly.  Back then, a sound rescue plan seemed more superior to chasing pigs in a foreign island.  But as time goes by, eating meat appears to be more satisfying than eating fruits.  Killing seems to be more superior to waiting for a rescue.  The very first kill Jack and his hunters made marks a major turning point of the story – boys losing their innocent.  The consequence is immense.  With new found confidence and the will to kill, Jack stands up against Ralph.  It is like the military against the council.  If pigs can be killed as food, why can’t humans be killed?  Especially the ones that stand against those who wield the wooden spike?

I am ahead of myself here.  There is no taking of human lives until the arrival of Lord of the Flies.  Simon is a peaceful boy.  Someone who is positive and loves the nature.  While Ralph motivates the boys with a rescue plan, Ralph terrifies with the boys with the presence of a beast – a terror born out of the nightmares of the younger ones.  Where does the beast come from?  Nobody knows.  Some say it comes from within the island.  Some say it comes from the sea.  In fact, the so-called beast is none other than the corpse of a pilot who parachuted into the island and died.  Only Simon has seen the corpse.  He is assigned by Jack to carry the pig’s head as an offering to the beast.  A head that is dripped in blood and swarmed with flies.  All of a sudden, Simon has a vision.  A terrible one.  He sees Lord of the Flies, consumed by it, and become it.  To me, Lord of the Flies personifies the Devil.  It has a message for Simon and the boys.  It is they who create the beast.  And it is they who have the beast within.

This is where the beauty of symbolism comes alive in this book.  The pig is initially described as a swine peacefully feeding her children.  Nothing ugly or foul in that sense.  Once brutally killed, its decapitated head looks gross, covered with flies.  The pig’s head is offered to the beast created by the boys that in reality is a corpse that does nothing.  The pig is transformed into Lord of the Flies that engulfed Simon.  Later that day, Simon was murdered by the boys in an animalistic ritual.  Such act then corrupts the boys into further murdering and torturing of their kind.  It is as though an element of devil that originates from the boys has spread and now lives in each of the boy.  Upon reading this, I cannot help but to ponder on the old debate on God and Devil.  If God creates all things in life, what about evilness?  What makes this story realistic is the demonstration of free will.  Unfortunately, this also makes it depressing to read.  Is there hope in humanity?  Is it an inevitable fate that we shall degenerate into such terrible stage in end time?

From the social standpoint, it is interesting to observe how Ralph and Jack split into two camps due to their differences in beliefs.  They think that it is happier that way.  Initially yes.  But sadly, separation has its issues.  It fosters hostility and insecurity, much like today’s world.  That eventually leads to violence and bloodshed.

In the end, when all hope is lost, a naval vessel has found the island.  The boys are saved, all crying for the loss of innocence.  But is this true salvation?  When the naval vessel is heading to another war – the war of the adults?  The ending is truly depressing, yet truly awakening.  Can we ever break away from this cycle of endless killing and evil deeds?  Or is this the only mean of survival?

As an afterthought, I think there is much imbalance in this novel. I cannot help but to imagine what if these are girls instead of boys.  Would it be any difference?  What if we have a mixed group of boys and girls?  Would that make the story too distractive due to an extra layer of social complexity?  This book briefly touches onto the topic of the need for a religion but stops there.  Why is there no balancing act against the presence of the Devil?  It is as though the author is screaming: Give up, there is no good, no evil, there is no God, only Devil.  My heart weeps thinking about it.

To me, this story is devoid of love.  And we know that in the absence of love and light lies hatred and evilness.  Perhaps, that is the main message.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

Memories of My Melancholy Whores By Gabriel García Márquez

This book, I have read twice.  After “My Cousin Rachel“, I wanted to keep up with the soul nourishing reading spree.  I ransacked my book collection, even scanned through the book list according to Harold Bloom’s Western Canon for inspiration.  I have read “Memories of My Melancholy Whores” once, possibly in the year of 2004.  I wish I had started writing book summary or introduction since the day I have started reading.  It is without a doubt one of the top-10-things-to-do-if-I-could-turn-back-time.

Gabriel García Márquez is a Colombian writer who has awarded with Nobel Price in Literature in 1982.  I have always wanted to read his books.  Both “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and “Love in the Time of Cholera” look mightily heavy.  Perhaps one day I will consume them.  For now, I am happy to have read his modern novella, especially since I enjoy reading short story format.

The topic of humanity has a wide reaching coverage.  To that extend, I shall not read this book purely from the angle of morality.  Any mature individual should be able to tackle the material with an open mind.  Those things that you may not approve of in life do not mean that they do not exist.  Nor should they be conveniently ignored.  I do not believe that the writer uses the book to endorse certain objectionable behaviors.  Rather, he uses it to bring out a facet of life that some of us rather not look at.

Because of its mature content, I would not recommend this book to the young adults (nor should you continue reading this post if you are one).  Also, this post may contains spoilers.  In case if you plan to read the book, you may wish to come back later instead.

The narrator of the story is turning ninety.  And he has an idea on what to get for his birthday.

The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin.

This one simple, yet genuine statement kick starts the story, sets the tone of what is to come, and basically tells the book in one line.  Slowly, the author introduces the main character: his near-century long career of being a mediocre columnist, his wedding that he failed to turn up, his stumbling into the scene of prostitution when he was merely twelve, and decades of paid sex without love, without friends.  Why does not he get married?  Why frequent the prostitutes?  To that, his reply is:

Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love.

No, that does not justify his action of sleeping with more than five hundreds women by the age of fifty.  Nor it was his intend to boost his conquest.  It is a consolation.  For someone who has lived for decades without someone to love, it sounds melancholy to me.  As a reader, I do not despise the main character.  I sympathy him.

I do not know the era the story sets in.  There is a hint that it may be in the ’60s.  I suppose the era does not matter.  Even in today’s world, underage girls are sold into prostitution (more can be read in CNN’s The Freedom Project).  When this ‘adolescent virgin’ turns out to be a 14 years old girl, part of me frown upon the main character’s moral standard, even though he did not specify his requirement for the virgin’s age.  Part of me, however, is aware that this is a slice of reality.

I woke in the small hours, not remembering where I was.  The girl still slept in a fetal position, her back to me.  I had a vague feeling that I had sensed her getting up in the dark and had heard water running in the bathroom, but it might have been a dream.  This was something new for me.  I was ignorant of the arts of seduction and had always chosen my brides for a night a random, more for their price than their charms, and we had made love without love, half-dressed most of the time and always in the dark so we could imagine ourselves as better than we were.  That night I discovered the improbable pleasure of contemplating the body of a sleeping woman without the urgencies of desire or the obstacles of modesty.

The beauty of Márquez’s work is that he can tell something plain in such a ordinary and neutral way that when read, it is uplifting.  That honesty and so directly to the point, I can’t help but to feel for the main character.  Making love without love and hiding the true forms in the dark.  No, there is no sex between the ninety years old man and the fourteen years old girl.  In fact, for a year, they spend time with him watching her sleeps.  He names the girl Delgadina, in accordance to a Mexican folk song.  I did some research in the Internet.  The folk song tells a story of a young girl whose father proposed a marriage with her.  She refused, was locked up as punishment, and died of thirst.  The song ends with the girl going to Heaven while her father to Hell.  It is in some way fitting to this novella.  The girl is young and her client could be as old as her great grandfather.  It kept me thinking how the story would resolve itself to be.

I cannot find words to describe the relationship between this girl and the old man.  After the first night (of he watching her sleeps), the old man has fallen in love.  Most interactions between these two throughout the book are one directional.  Some are highly imaginary.  Others, I am not too sure.  It is as though this platonic love from him to her is mostly his virtual creation.  Is it how love is born?  Because of this, the old man has changed, starting with the way he writes his columns.  All of a sudden, he is happy.  His new work has gained popularity.  From then on, a twin plot surfaces.  It is a story of celebrating being ninety.  That ‘age isn’t how old you are but how old you feel’.  The main character’s transformation can be best illustrated below.

Thanks to her I confronted my inner self for the first time as my ninetieth year went by.  I discovered that my obsession for having each thing in the right place, each subject at the right time, each word in the right style, was not the well-deserved reward of an ordered mind but just the opposite: a complete system of pretense invented by me to hide the disorder of my nature.  I discovered that I am not disciplined out of virtue but as a reaction to my negligence, that I appear generous in order to conceal my meanness, that I pass myself off as prudent because I am evil-minded, that I am conciliatory in order not to succumb to my repressed rage, that I am punctual only to hide how little I care about other people’s time.  I learned, in short, that love is not a condition of the spirit but a sign of the zodiac.

Another plot is the main character’s recollection of some of the women he encountered in his life.  Each encounter is memorable.  One of them retired from prostitution and was married.  She said to him: Today I look back, I see the line of thousands of men who passed through my beds, and I’d give my soul to have stayed with even the worst of them.

Melancholy.  Isn’t it so?

I found there are quite a few take home messages upon reading “Memories of My Melancholy Whores”.  It is never to late too transform ourselves in a positive manner, as what we always envisage ourselves to be.  Celebrate the present, regardless the physical state we are in.  Love, or rather loving others is the path to happiness.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

My Cousin Rachel By Daphne Du Maurier – Words Of The ’50s Still Haunt

I normally do not read books that are written before I was born.  I mean, way before I was born.  This book “My Cousin Rachel” was published in 1951.  I cannot even relate to what the world was like back then.  Inside a library, deflated by my return of a book that I was not able to even get through the second chapter, I was looking for one that is nourishing, yet easy to read.  I was attracted by this book’s hardcover design.  Very unique, and elegant.  I flipped to chapter one and immediately, I was hooked.

They used to hang men at Four Turnings in the old days.  Not any more, though.  Now, when a murderer pays the penalty for his crime, he does so up at Bodmin, after fair trial at the Assizes.  That is, if the law convicts him, before his own conscience kills him.  It is better so.  Like a surgical operation.  And the body has decent burial, though a nameless grave.

I was intrigued.  What is going to happen next?  I read on.  Before I realized, I was reading in the library, continued reading at Subway over my lunch, and I read it while waiting for Cynthia to leave the office.  I read it in the evening and in the morning over breakfast.  I could not stop.  It became, briefly, my obsession.

The narrator Philip from Cornwall is 24 years old (or shall I say four-and-twenty like in the novel?) when he inherits his elder cousin Ambrose’s estate and wealth.  Ambrose has died in Italy and at that time, was married to his cousin Rachel (who is half English half Italian).  Did Ambrose really die of brain tumor?  Or was he murdered by his new young wife?  Now that Rachel is heading to England, what is her motive and what will happen when the two meet?

“My Cousin Rachel” is a mystery novel, a masterpiece of its genre.  There are layers upon layers that are built onto the story.  There are hooks within the story that lead you onto seeing the characters from different perspectives.  What if this is true?  What if that is true?  Which one is the truth?  Characters come alive by the hands of Du Maurier.  Philip is young and inexperience, arrogance yet innocent.  Rachel is charming and mysterious, unpredictable and full of mood swing.  Both characters are acting on impulse.  Philip’s actions are rather predictable but Rachel’s not.  Other characters too.  Such as Philip’s wise godfather who is always cautious and selfless, knows where to draw a line and when to step aside.  His godfather’s daughter who has always been a good friend of Philip no matter what.  As well as Philip’s servants.  The characters are alive, even those who are dead.  Such mastery in literature, it is a rare gem I have found in recent days.

The center theme, to me, is about the collision of the two worlds – Philip’s and Rachel’s.  It is jealousy and obsession mixed with delusion and deception.  Because Philip is blinded by his background (he has not been raised or around women in his childhood), his infatuation, and his lack of experience, it is hard for the readers to truly decipher who Rachel is, through a man’s and through such a man’s eyes.  This rift could also be caused by the cultural difference between England and the Continent back in the old days whereby there was a certain expectation on a woman’s role in the society in England.  Should a woman yield to money, gift, and power when it came to her marriage?  Could a woman decide for herself?  After reading the novel once, I must admit that there are still much I am unable to grasp.  I feel as though I am hopelessly charmed by Du Maurier’s writing yet at the same time rendered helpless, wondering what the truth is.  I may never find the answer.  It could as well be a mysterious that Du Maurier has taken to the other world.

Part of this book has invoked a powerful and vivid recollection of my younger days.  I am sure most of you can relate too.  The days when we were young and innocent, thinking that anything is possible.  Days when we could give it all without reservation, just gambling everything away.  Days when we first fell in love, the silly things we thought, said, and did.  The clumpy things we did to the opposite sex.  The misunderstanding.  The make ups and the break ups.  The frustration, the infatuation.  Hope and despair.

On a side note, this version I am reading contains an introduction by Sally Beauman.  It is beautifully written.  If I am to take her words for it, “My Cousin Rachel” could well be Daphne Du Maurier’s best work in her entire career.

The next bit of this entry are some of my favorite quotes that I wish to share.  First, on women whom some men cannot live with, cannot live without.

‘I don’t know what’s come over you,’ she said; ‘you are losing your sense of humour.’  And she patted me on the shoulder and went upstairs.  That was the infuriating thing about a woman.  Always the last word.  Leaving one to grapple with ill-temper, and she herself serene.  A woman, it seemed, was never in the wrong.  Or if she was, she twisted the fault to her advantage, making it seem otherwise.  She would fling these pin-pricks in the air, these hints of moonlight strolls with y godfather, or some other expedition, a visit to Lostwithiel market, and ask me in all seriousness whether she should wear the new bonnet that had come by parcel post from London – the veil had a wider mesh and did not shroud her, and my godfather had told her it became her well.  And when I fell to sulking, saying I did not care whether she concealed her features with a mask, her mood soared to serenity yet higher – the conversation was at dinner on the Monday – and while I sat frowning she carried on her talk with Seecombe, making me seem more sulky than I was.

Perhaps it is a high time to note that literature written in the old days has a foreign touch to it.  Fortunately, this book is highly readable.  I found myself chuckle at times by the unfamiliar usage of words.  I find it charming.

Du Maurier describes the scenery well.  The era of the story is unknown.  There is something magical when reading how she paints the picture with words.  Such enchantment.

In December the first frosts came with the full moon, and then my nights of vigil held a quality harder to bear.  There was a sort of beauty to them, cold and clear, that caught at the heart and made me stare in wonder.  From my windows the long lawns dipped to the meadows, and the meadows to the sea, and all of them were white with frost, and white too under the moon.  The trees that ringed the lawns were black and still.  Rabbits came out and pricked about the grass, then scattered to their burrows; and suddenly, from the hush and stillness, I heard that high sharp bark of a vixen, with the little sob that follows it, eerie, unmistakable, unlike any other call that comes by night, and out of the woods I saw the lean low body creep and run out upon the lawn, and hide again where the trees would cover it.  Later I hard the call again, away from the distance, in the open park, and now the full moon topped the trees and held the sky, and nothing stirred on the lawns beneath my window.

Yet another view of a woman through the eye of the narrative (written by a woman!)  I approve the entire paragraph.

Why, in a sudden, had she changed?  If Ambrose had known little about women, I knew less.  That warmth so unexpected, catching a man unaware and lifting him to rapture, and then swiftly, for no reason, the changing mood, casting him back where he had stood before.  What trail of though, confused and indirect, drove through those minds of theirs, to cloud their judgement?  What waves of impulse swept about their being, moving them to anger and withdrawal, or else to sudden generosity?  We were surely different, with our blunter comprehension, moving more slowly to the compass points, while they, erratic and unstable, were blown about their course by winds of fancy.

This quote is my favorite.  Because it seems so true.

My tutor at Harrow, when teaching in Fifth Form, told us once that truth was something intangible, unseen, which sometimes we stumbled upon and did not recognise, but was found, and held, and understood only by old people near their death, or sometimes by the very pure, the very young.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

1Q84 By By Haruki Murakami – A Magical Read

1Q84 is the 10th Murakami book that I have read.  There are similarities when compared to The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.  It is divided into three books that span across three consecutive time periods.  Each chapter is named using a phrase found inside that chapter. 1Q84 further explores the concept of free will versus destiny and fate.  Having a page count of 925 covering the topics of cult religion, love and friendship, murder and violence, history and philosophy, 1Q84 is an ambition work of literature.  In addition, 1Q84 opens us to the world of alternative realities and it embeds stories within a story.  George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four has a theme on Big Brother.  1Q84 – a world that bears a question – switches the theme to Little People.  I took my time in devouring the entire book slowly and I enjoyed every bit of it.  For those who are new to Murakami, he is a Japanese writer and has won literature awards such as Jerusalem Prize.  Milan Kundera and Don DeLillo are among the prize winners whose work I also enjoy reading.  In view of this, perhaps I shall explore that list further in order to expand my reading horizon.

Some readers of my site have asked why I am so into Murakami’s books.  It is hard to describe.  But in the best I can, his unique style works for me.  Murakami tends to spend much effort in building the characters as well as the environment that wraps around the plot.  When writing in the mode of realism, Murakami put much details onto every single elements making them alive and real.  When writing in the mode of surrealism, Murakami describes the unimaginable so well that you feel as though you are sucked into this surreal vision.  The author is meticulous in crafting the plot, down to the very detail that links multiple plots into one.  His works are often filled with mystery that readers have little idea on where the story is heading.  In my limited reading experience, I have not read any book quite like his, in the same quality level.

Book 1 begins with the story of Aomame.  She is inside a taxi stuck in a traffic jam listening to classical music played on the radio.  On one highway, she has decided to get off the taxi, walk down the emergency exit and take a subway.  Before leaving the taxi, the driver says the following.

“It’s just that you’re about to something out of the ordinary … And after you do something like that, everyday look of things might seem to change a little.  Things may look different to you than they did before … But don’t let appearances fool you.  There’s always only one reality.”

That pretty much kicks start the concept of an alternative reality.  And before the author reveals the nature of Aomame’s appointment that cannot be missed, chapter two brings in a new character called Tengo.  He is a mathematics teacher by day and writes literature as his hobby.  He is about to encounter a writing competition submission by a seventeen years old girl.  Her story Air Chrysalis may read like a fantasy but it is slowly shifting into the very reality Tengo lives in.  How are the two main characters going to interact in 1Q84 when they have no such possibility in 1984?  This book by and large follows a structure that toggles the stories between Aomame and Tengo.  Throughout the book, there is this concept of light and shadow, or maza and dohta.  There are enough logos and hooks that make the twin stories connect, and not feeling disjointed.  Murakami varies the timeline too by allows part of the plots to overlap in time.  The result is that although the plots run in different threads, the overall story is not confusing.  Characters may overlaps.  But Murakami is meticulous to distinguish what each character knows in their story line versus what he or she speculates or does not know.  Taking all in, 1Q84 is a magical read.

Readers who are used to the author’s first person writing style may feel a need for a certain adjustment when reading 1Q84.  The twin stories are written from the third person perspective, with main characters’ thoughts written in italic and in a first person style.  It does feel odd in the beginning.  But this works better than some authors who switch the alternate stories in first person style whereby confusion may become a major hindrance to reading.  Among the three books of 1Q84, I would rank book two high in action and entertainment value.  Because of that, book three seems a bit slow.  It feels as though Murakami is trying very hard to control the pace, to impart upon us this sense of anxiety and lost, danger and death – slowly and steadily.  As always, patience readers are rewarded accordingly.  I don’t see a need to rush through the plots.  There is a reason and time for everything in life.

I would say 1Q84 is perhaps Murakami’s most polished work to date.  The hard copy design is beautiful.  On the front cover, there is a picture of a woman and at the back, a man.  On alternate pages, the page number and the book title is reversely printed.  Even the inlaid pictures of the moons are reversed comparing the ones in front and the ones at the back.  After finished reading the book, I cannot think of a better art design than this.  I have read 1Q84 in English and I am looking forward to reading the same story in Chinese.  I could be wrong to think that the Chinese version may be closer to the original Japanese version.  But I am keen to see the difference between the two – English translation versus Chinese translation.

Similar to my previous book summary entries, I am going to share some of the favorite quotes I found in the book.  I am often careful in not giving out too much spoilers.  If you intend to read the book, you may stop here and return to see if these are your favorite quotes too.

A while back, my friend and I had a lengthy discussion on practice versus talent.  On page 65, Murakami talks about talents versus instinct.

You can have tons of talent, but it won’t necessarily keep you fed.  If you have sharp instincts, though, you’ll never go hungry.

As for the next paragraph, I like the way the author describes the situation when communication breaks down.

[She] fell silent again, but this time it did not seem deliberate.  She simply could not fathom the purpose of his question or what prompted him to ask it.  His question hadn’t landed in any region of her consciousness.  It seemed to have gone beyond the bounds of meaning, sucked into permanent nothingness like a lone planetary exploration rocket that has sailed beyond Pluto.

“Never mind,” he said, giving up. “It’s not important.”  It had been a mistake even to ask [her] such a question.

I do enjoy reading some of the dialogues between two people.  Here is one on a dog.

“How’s Bun?” she asked.

“She’s fine,” [he] answered.  Bun was the female German shepherd that lived in his house, a good-nature dog, and smart, despite a few odd habits.

“Is she still eating her spinach?” [she] asked.

“As much as ever.  And with the price of spinach as high as it’s been, that’s no small expense!”

“I’ve never seen a German shepherd that liked spinach before.”

“She doesn’t know she’s a dog.”

“What does she think she is?”

“Well, she seems to think she’s a special being that transcends classification.”

“Superdog?”

“Maybe so.”

“Which is why she likes spinach?”

“No, that’s another matter.  She just likes spinach.  Has since she was a pup.”

“But maybe that’s where she gets these dangerous thoughts of hers.”

“Maybe so.”

The next paragraph – I believe – is not written by Murakami and is taken from a book called Sakhalin Island by a Russian writer, Anton Chekhov.  I find it a beautiful read.  And its style blends well into the story.

… The roaring sea is cold and colourless in appearance, and the tall grey waves pound upon the sand, as if wishing to say in despair: “Oh God, why did you create us?”  This is the Naibuchi river the convicts can be heard rapping away with axes on the building work, while on the other, far distant, imagined shore, lies America … to the left the capes of Sakhalin are visible in the mist, and to the right are more capes … while all around there is not a single living soul, not a bird, not a fly, and it is beyond comprehension who the waves are roaring for, who listens to them at nights here, what they want, and, finally, who they would roar for when I was gone.  There on the shore one is overcome not by connected, logical thoughts, but by reflections and reveries.  It is a sinister sensation, and yet at the very same time you feel the desire to stand for ever looking at the monotonous movement of the waves and listening to their threatening roar.

How would you write about ‘time’?  Here is the author’s attempt in describing time.  That is a pretty interesting way to observe time and us.

[He] knew that time could become deformed as it moved forward.  Time itself was uniform in composition, but once consumed, it took on a deformed shape.  one period of time might be terribly heavy and long, while another could be light and short.  Occasionally the order of things could be reversed, and in the worst cases order itself could vanish entirely.  Sometimes things that should not be there at all might be added onto time.  By adjusting time this way to suit their own purposes, people probably adjusted the meaning of their existences.  In other words, by add such operations to time, they were able – but just barely – to preserve their own sanity.  Surely, if a person had to accept the time through which he had just passed uniformly in the given order, his nerves could not bear the strain.  Such a life, [he] felt, would be sheer torture.

Through the expansion of the brain, people had acquired the concept of temporality, but they simultaneously learned ways in which  to change and adjust time.  In parallel with their ceaseless consumption of time, people would ceaselessly reproduce time that they had mentally adjusted.

I like the way Murakami describes reality.

… where I’m living is not a storybook world.  It’s the real world, full of gaps and inconsistencies and anticlimaxes.

And here is the most cryptic message of all.  I think that has something to do with beliefs.

If you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation.

1Q84 has also quoted Karl Jung.  I now recall that quite a few of my favorite books quote Karl Jung.

It is as evil as we are positive … the more desperately we try to be good and wonderful and perfect, the more the Shadow develops a definite will to be black and evil and destructive … The fact is that if one tries beyond one’s capacity to be perfect, the Shadow descends to hell and becomes the devil.  For it is just as sinful from the standpoint of nature and of truth to be above oneself as to be below oneself.

Within the story of 1Q84, Tengo is given a task of ghostwriting a fantasy book written by a seventeen years old girl.  In that story, there are two moons.  Tengo’s editor keeps on telling him that when writing something out of ordinary, more details need to be added so that readers are able to visualize.  But how?  Later on when that story diffuses into the main story, here is Murakami’s take in describing a scene with two moons.  He further infuses this symbolic vision into some of the characters, making this paragraph read more like a prophecy.

No doubt about it: there were two moons.

One was the moon that had always been there, and the other was a far smaller, greenish moon, somewhat lopsided in shape, and much less bright.  It looked like a poor, ugly, distantly related child that had been foisted on the family by unfortunate events and was welcomed by no one.  But it was undeniably there, neither a phantom nor an optical illusion, hanging in space like other heavenly bodies, a solid mass with a clear-cut outline.  Not a plane, not a blimp, not an artificial satellite, not a papier-mâché moon that someone made for fun.  It was without a doubt a chunk of rock, having quietly, stubbornly settled on a position in the night sky, like a punctuation mark placed only after long deliberation or a mole bestowed by destiny.

Here is one on hope and trials.

Wherever there’s hope there’s a trial … Hope, however, is limited, and generally abstract, while there are countless trials, and they tend to be concrete.

I also happen to like how Murakami describes clouds.

The clouds continued to scud off toward the south.  No matter how many were blown away, others appeared to take their place.  There was an inexhaustible source of clouds in some land far to the north.  Decisive people, minds fixed on the task, clothes in thick, gray uniforms, working silently from morning to night to make clouds, like bees make honey, spiders make webs, and war makes widows.

Finally, a quote by Tolstoy, another Russian writer.

All happiness is alike, but each pain is painful in its own way.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle By Haruki Murakami – So Unreal, So Mesmerizing

The paperback version of “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” is more than 600 pages long.  It sat inside my bookshelf for a long time because I was not sure if I have the patience to digest such a mightily thick book (to me that is).  I brought it along anyway for my trip to Hong Kong.  I did not manage to finish reading it because I was distracted by a fantasy book I picked up at the airport.  It took me another week in Singapore to finish it off.  If not for my holiday, it would take mightily long for me to complete.  Now I am looking at his new book “1Q84” that I bought in Hong Kong with deep concern.  That too looks thick, divided into three books like “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle”.

“The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” is surprisingly engaging.  I was glued to the story not wanting to put down.  Not many story books these days have this effect on me.  The book is not quite a page turner in a sense that it takes some effort to digest the content.  But it is worth it.  From start till the very end, I had no idea which way the story is heading.  Book One is titled “The Thieving Magpie” and it documents the events that happened between June to July 1984.  Then we have Book Two titled “Bird as Prophet” for events that happened between July to October 1984.  The last books is “The Birthcatcher” that spans a longer time frame of October 1984 to December 1985.

After reading the first few chapters, I concluded that this book has a very strong “Murakami” feel.  As in we could have wiped out the author’s name and avid readers would immediately identify the author.  While the setup may be as such, the story has evolved into something it is unexpected of.  Each character added into the story carries with him or her an unique story.  Centered to the story is the narrator, a man who is ordinary and laid back, whose wife is becoming more distant as days go by.  And they have recently lost a cat.  It seems like such an ordinary story but it is not.  It get more and more complicated and interconnected as the story unfolds and as the little parts chained together.  At some point, I wished I had drawn out a relationship diagram like some of the fellow readers would have done.

Authors like Murakami write stories that lead to open interpretation.  I am sure some of you may interpret “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” in a completely different way.  But here is mine.  There are a few themes that have emerged.  First is fate versus free will.  The entire story, or at least a good part of it, is driven by fate and prophesies.  Every character seems to exist for a specific reason to fulfill one’s fate and affect others to fulfill theirs.  If it is prophesied that someone is not going to die outside Japanese’s soul in World War II, he or she no matter what will not die.  But that does not mean a happy ending.  And in a morbid way, death may not mean a bad ending either.  It is how fate plays out and people will have to accept the circumstances.  Free will then becomes an illusion.

And then we have our narrator who is surrounded by fate and prophesies of others (and his), by and large goes with the flow, but unafraid of pursuing what he ultimately wants.  That opens up the second theme of this something that exists inside us.  This concept is perhaps the most abstract concept coming from this book.  Most of the time, as a reader, I am unable to pinpoint or even visualize what this something is.  This something could be sinister and evil.  Some use this something to hurt others.  Some possesses this something as an ability to heal others that are bothered by that something inside them.  Like the subject of psychology, it takes time and word to describe that something.  And hence the rather long stories that each character carries.

The good news is that as far as I can remember, there is some kind of closure for each character’s bizarre ‘somethingness’.  Some may demand a bit of open interpretation but it is there.  The third theme I can see is the theme of reality versus the unseen world.  Within the boundary of the story, what is real and what is not?  We are taught that literature that is narrated in first person may not be entirely trustworthy as we are seeing the world through the narrator’s eyes.  But what if those chapters that are outside of this rule may not may not be real within this boundary?  This book has missing chapters that we know should exist within the story’s boundary but are not revealed to us.  And yet some chapters that are revealed to us may not even exist in the eyes of the narrator.  To make matters more intriguing, there seems to be some invisible linkages between certain characters.  Are they the same person or entity?  How do they relate?  Explicitly, this story is divided into a physical reality and a realm that exists only for the soul.  Hence, summing all up, “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” is engaging, but it does take time to digest.

The fourth theme I can think of is more like a metaphor.  A metaphor that depicts politic as secretive and dirty.  It is probably one of the harder concept to grasp in this book.  What does defilement of body and mind mean?  How does one possibly become a ‘prostitute of mind’?  While reading the book, I kept on wondering if some of these concepts are lost in translation, or simply misunderstood due to cultural gap.  That, together with the triviality of hacking into a computer like many Hollywood movies are the only tiny complaints I have with the book.

Similar to some of the recent book summary I have written, below are some of the memorable quotes.  Is knowing your future a blessing?  Or is it a curse?  If you are to know that you cannot die till a certain age, how is it going to change your life?

When the revelation and the grace were life, my life was lost.  Those living things that had once been there inside me, that had been for that reason of some value, were dead now.  Not a single thing was left.  They had all been burned to ashes in that fierce light.  The heat emitted by that revelation or grace had seared away the very core of the life that made me the person I am.  Surely I had lacked the strength to resist that heat.  And so I feel no fear of death.  If anything, my physical death would be, for me, a form of salvation.  It would liberate me for ever from this hopeless prison, this pain of being me.

The next one is on money.  It is a rather long quote.  I like the punch line at the end of the paragraph.

The address – an office building in the wealthy Akasaka district – was the only thing on the card.  There was no name.  I turned it over to check the back, but it was blank.  I brought the card to my nose, but it had no fragrance.  It was just a normal white card.

“No name?” I said.

She smiled for the first time and gently shook her head from side to side, “I believe that what you need is money.  Does money have a name?”

I shook my head as she was doing.  Money had no name, of course.  And if it did have a name, it would no longer be money.  What gave money its true meaning was its dark-night namelessness, its breathtaking interchangeability.

And here is one confession from a girl to a man in the form of a letter.  Often when I think of my personal weakness, I seem not have a straightforward answer.  Perhaps, the answer is as simple as this.

I’m sorry, though.  I know I should never have done that to you (or to anybody).  But I can’t help myself sometimes.  I know exactly what I’m doing, but I just can’t stop.  That’s my greatest weakness.

Finally, there is one quote on work.  It could be something most of us can relate.

Lately, it’s really been bothering me that, I don’t know, the way people work like this every day from morning to night is kind of weird.  Hasn’t it ever struck you as strange?  I mean, all I do here is do the work that my bosses tell me to do the way they tell me to do it.  I don’t have to think at all.  It’s like I just put my brain in a locker before I start work and pick it up on the way home.  I spend seven hours a day at a workbench … then I eat dinner in the cafeteria, take a bath, and of course I have to sleep, like everybody else, so out of a twenty-four-hour day, the amount of free time I have is nothing.  And because I’m so tired from work, the “free time” i have I mostly spend lying around in a fog.  I don’t have any time to sit and think about anything.  Of course, I don’t have to work at weekends, but then I have to catch up on the laundry and cleaning, and sometimes I go into town, and before I know it the weekend is over.  I once made up my mind to keep a diary, but I had nothing to write, so I gave up after a week.  I mean, I just do the same thing over and over again, day in, day out.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

Thrall: Twilight Of The Aspects By Christie Golden – Powerful, And Moving

After I have finished reading Thrall in Hong Kong, I said to Cynthia, “Drop everything you are reading now and start to read this!”  It is that good.  Rewind to the day when we were at the airport.  On several occasions, I struggled if I shall read another book written by Christie Golden.  Price is a factor (S$44 in Singapore while you can get a Kindle copy from Amazon for merely US$15).  I have been camping at our library website for quite some time but the book is nowhere to be seen in the catalog.  Christie Golden does not strike me as a great writer, in the genre of fantasy.  Hence that added to my hesitation.  But hack, it is a holiday trip.  On the day of my holiday, Blizzard has announced a new expansion for the World of Warcraft online game: Mists of Pandaria.  On top of that, Cynthia and I have committed for a one year subscription and will get the upcoming Diablo III free.  There were many reasons to celebrate.  So I bought Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects.

The story is epic, even for those who may have no knowledge of the Warcraft Universe.  The book has told the story well, assuming that the readers may not have any background.  In the beginning, Titans (or creators) have entrusted their power to five dragon Aspects (leaders of dragonflights) and these Aspects – together with their respective dragonflights – are tasked to protect our world.  The green dragon Aspect is bound to the waking Dream of Creation.  She touches all living beings, and sing to them the songs of creation and interconnections.  The blue dragon Aspect regulates, manages, and controls all magic that must be appreciated and valued, and not hoarded.  The yellow dragon Aspect keeps the purity of time.  The red dragon Aspect is gifted with compassion for all living things, to protect and to nurture.  Heal those others cannot, birth what others may not, and love even the unlovable.  And the black dragon Aspect is offered the earth, the basis of all things, to manage time, life, dreams, and magic.  Prior to Cataclysm, Neltharion the Earth-Warder (black) was corrupted by the old gods and has become Deathwing who now destroys life instead of protecting life.  Malygos the Spell-Weaver (blue) was destroyed by the dragonflights led by Alexstrasza the Life-Binder (red) due to his genocidal crusade against all magic users in Azeroth.  Since then, the blue dragonflight is left without an Aspect.  Ysera the Awakened (green) has recently come out from the Emerald Dream after thousands of years of dreaming and she is still somewhat dreamy, somewhat confused.  Nozdormu the Timeless (yellow) has gone missing and no one knows where he is in time and space.

In short, Thrall is a story set against the dragonflights and the unique situation the dragons are now at.  For those of you who are mesmerized by the stories of the dragons since the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, this book is going to fill in so many lore gaps that are not featured in a gaming environment.

The world event Cataclysm was launched on December 7, 2010.  In less than a year, Blizzard has transformed one of the key lore character Thrall from a leader of one faction into a protector of Azeroth and more.  Some may or may not agree on such a special treatment of a Horde character (the Alliance certainly is not happy).  But given the unique background of Thrall – an orc who was raised by humans and learned to befriend with and trust other races – is a pivot to the general theme of Cataclysm: The healing of a wounded world.  Christie Golden has done a great job in intelligently describing Thrall’s life history without making this book reads like a history scroll.  Her strength is her story dialog and it remains powerful and moving.  In more than a few counts, I was moved to tears.  To be frank, I rarely cry reading books or watching movies.  But I do have a few soft spots here and there.

Unlike some of her other books, I feel that the plot of Thrall is tighter.  There is an overall build up to climax and a conclusion to a subplot less likely to be seen in the game.  Now that Dragon Soul patch 4.3 is at hand whereby adventurers will be able to experience first hand in aiding Thrall and the Aspects to battle against Deathwing, Thrall is a must read.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

My Favorite Quotes From “Aleph” By Paulo Coelho

I enjoy reading Paulo Coelho’s novels.  They are always inspirational.  Or simply put – food for the soul.  To be frank, I enjoy reading some of his earlier works better than his recent ones.  Hence my expectation for “Aleph” was not that high.  This book surprises me on several fronts.  First, it is quite a page turner, which is not usually the case of Paulo Coelho’s books.  Second, it seems genuine, pouring out from author’s personal experience.  After some research (and to my horror as you will find out in just a bit), while “Aleph” may not have accounted for all that has happened, what is written is 100% bibliography based on a true story.  Hence, depending on your moral compass, it could be inspirational for some, troubling for others.

The center theme of “Aleph” can easily be related by many.  Routines wear us down.  Great losses in life too may dip us into an emotional abyss.  We may find faith and then lose it along the way.  Or regrets in our past and worries in our future too can weigh us down.  How then can we get out of this?  A pilgrimage, as suggested by the author, may have the answer we need.

In “Aleph”, the 59 years old Paulo Coelho has taken a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway to meet his readers across Russia.  During his journey, a 21 years old Turkish girl Hilal has insisted to travel with Paulo and his team of editor, distributor, and translator.  Coelho (who is married) and Hilal became physically, emotionally, and spiritually close that even with my rather liberate mindset, I was finding it a bit uncomfortable to read.  But it is what it is.  Two people performed rituals together in an intimate setting.  And if you buy into the concept of reincarnation, that two lifetimes ago, Coelho and Hilal were lovers, that past and present are one, I suppose it is OK to be that close.  A bit confusing if you are an outsider.  But say for a moment that reincarnation does exist and we do happen to meet with the same people through time and space, perhaps what Coelho and Hilal have done is beautiful.  It is certainly romantic to read.  I love you like a river, said him to her.  That is probably the most artistic thing a married man can say to his admirer (and lover from another lifetime).

There are quite a few quotes that are memorable, that I can relate and would like to share with you.

1. It’s what you do in the present that will redeem the past and thereby change the future.

2. When faced by any loss, there’s no point in trying to recover what has been, it’s best to take advantage of the large space that opens up before us and fill it with something new.

3. People never leave, we are always here in our past and future lives.

I think the first quote is self-explanatory.  What we do at present matters the most.  The next two are to help us coping with losses.

4. Although sometimes, we need to be strangers to ourselves.  Then the hidden light in our soul will illuminate what we need to see.

What it means, I suppose, is that in order to rediscover ourselves, we need to look pass what has become so familiar.  Examine our lives in the eyes of a stranger in a detached manner.

5. Now each morning, when your mind is still empty, devote a little time to the Divine … Inhale deeply and ask for all the blessings in the air to enter your body and fill every cell.  Then exhale slowly, projecting happiness and peace around you.  Repeat this ten times.  You’ll be helping to heal yourself and contributing to healing the world as well.

I have not tried the above method.  It may work out better than screaming out loud into the mirror every morning and say: This is going to be a great day!

6. Walking is doing wonders for body and soul.  I’m completely focused on the present moment, for that is where all signs, parallel worlds and miracles are to be found.  Time really doesn’t exist.

When I was young, I used to walk a lot, in great distance.  My mother used to call me Walkman.  I agree with Paulo that walking does wonders for our bodies and souls.  Ideas do hit me.  But I have yet to encounter lovers from my past incarnations that way.

7. Don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions.  Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do.

8. Anyone who knows God cannot describe Him. Anyone who can describe God does not know Him.

Both quotes are again self-explanatory.  But it does take some time to fully internalize.

9. Love is beyond time, or, rather, love is both time and space, but all focused on one single constantly evolving point – the Aleph.

That, is the Aleph.  You may need to read the book in order to understand what he says.

10. We can never wound the soul, just as we can never wound God, but we become imprisoned by our memories, and that makes our lives wretched, even when we have everything we need in order to be happy.

On face level, this quote can be useful to most.  But after reading the book, I think that the author may refer to memories of our past lives.  I am not ready to believe in reincarnation (as yet).  Having said that, we should be reminded that we have everything we need to be happy.  And those things are within our reach.

11. Is it possible to deviate from the path God has made?  Yes, but it’s always a mistake.  Is it possible to avoid pain?  Yes, but you’ll never learn anything.  Is it possible to know something without ever having experienced it?  Yes, but it will never truly be part of you.

This is probably one of my favorite quotes.  We shall always seek to experience, accept the pain as it comes, and follow God’s will.

Last but not the least, there is one quote to share.  I agree wholeheartedly.

12. Like the children we will never ever cease to be.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction Linguistic

An Afterthought: El Búho Que No Podía Ulular

Uff.  Finalmente, I have read a story written in Spanish (just yesterday).  Ironically, it is not as Spanish as I would have expected.  It is a story of an owl banished from his own kind and has ended up being lectured by the ghost of Benjamin Franklin together with the rest of the founding fathers of America in ghost forms.  Coincidentally, this entry is published on the US’s Independence Day.  ¡Qué casualidad!

I have always wanted to read stories in Spanish.  Given my level of deficiency (I pondered hard if I shall use ”˜proficiency’), I shall realistically start with Spanish books written for the infants or young teens.  But I have seen too much and my mind has long been corrupted by the earthly vices and spices.  These books are simply not as appetizing.  I cannot even bring myself to read “Hairy Porter”.  Since our classmate is so kind to lend us a Spanish book called “El Búho Que No Podía Ulular”, or in English, “The Owl That Could Not Hoot”, I have decided to give it a go.  I was so determined that I would not publish any entry in my website until I have finished with the book.  This explains why you have not heard from me for quite some time.

Fortunately, this book written by Robert Fischer and Beth Kelly is thin.  And it comes with three stories.  That means, even though I have read one story out of three, I felt as though I have achieved something.  Systematically grinding through the vocabulary and the different verb forms was tedious.  Technology is a double edged sword.  The online resources and offline applications have helped me a great deal in finding what each word or even a sentence means in lightning efficiency.  But I do not find myself making an effort to memorize the meaning and the usage.  I end up looking up the same word again and again.  I suppose if I had a Spanish mama, I could always ask “¿qué significa sonreír?” or “¿qué significa suspirar?”  If I was to invent a new technology to help the Spanish learners, I would create a Japanese lookalike Spanish Nanny Robot.  An attractive one no doubt.  I could ask, “¿Qué significa sonreír?” and she would reply, “It is smile, sweetie”.  Or I could ask, “¿Qué significa suspirar?” and she would reply, “It is sigh, sweetie”.  How cool is that?

Back to the story, it starts with an owl that is unable to hoot.  He can say “why” but he cannot say “who” (the hooting sound of an owl).  Because of that, he is asked to leave the habitat.  Soon, he meets a duck that cannot say “cuac” and instead, he says “cuic”.  The two loners, or rather outliners, have then decided to team up and see what the world has to offer.  Their first mission is to study in a university and become a doctor.  Upon realizing that it would take longer than their lifetime to obtain a medical degree, they have decided to embark a journey of searching for the purpose of life.  This involves interviewing random people on the street and finding out what they do for a living.

The owl that can say “why” naturally does most of the talking.  The duck takes note.  After interviewing hundreds of people, they have come to the conclusion that most people do not like their jobs, yet they do not wish to switch.  They do it for the money and the only time they are happy is when they are not working and on vacation.  The duo further concludes that people are happy when they are spending money.  And they observe that most people do not own what they have.  What then should one do with his or her life in order to be happy?  A typical American story, I suppose.

One day, the owl hears a voice that leads them sneaking into a national museum at night.  Inside a gallery where the portraits of the founding fathers are hung, the owl sees something extraordinary.  All of a sudden, the portraits become empty and the founding fathers have materialized in front of the duo’s eyes (?!).  The ghosts of the founding fathers then lecture the duo on how America was originally founded as a place of equality and freedom and how they are disappointed that the America today is all about making and spending money.  I honestly do not see how this is linked to an owl that cannot hoot and a duck that cannot say “cuac”.  At the end of the story, upon hearing the wisdom of the founding fathers, the owl is enlightened.  And he says, “Libre … es lo que soy”, which means “Free, is what I am”.  Perhaps the moral of the story is that we should not see through the lens of social norms on what we are not capable of doing.  Instead, take the opportunity to break out of the mould and be yourself.  We may stand to gain so much more.

I used to think that I write weird stories.  Those who have read my manuscript for that writing competition would have agreed with me.  But this story is weirder.  If I was to rewrite the story, I would turn this owl that cannot hoot into a hero.  I would bestow some bizarre disasters upon the rest of the owls like the attack of the toxic toads.  And our hero would return to this habitat that rejected him and save the day.  Everyone would worship him and begin to say “why” instead of “who”.  The most beautiful owl in the forest would fall in love with the hero and they would live happily ever after.  Oh, before that.  At the altar, when the priest asks, “Do you take this owl as your lawfully wedded wife?”  Instead of “why?”, our hero would finally able to say “who?”  I think it is darn funny.

Humor aside, there are some good takeaway points from this book that is onto its 40th edition (gasp!).  Below is my favorite.  I too feel that the root of many of our problems today could have been solved by filling our life with love.  That way, we leave no space for fear and hatred.

«Aprendiendo a amarte a ti mismo»’, sonrió Franklin. «Y en la medida en que te ames a ti mismo, podrás amar a tus vecinos, a tus amigos y a todas las demás personas que hay en esta gran nación».

My attempt to translate the above extract is as follows.

“Learning to love yourself,” smiled Franklin. “And as you love yourself, you will love your neighbors, your friends, and the rest of the people in this great nation”.

On a side note, while it is not possible to linguistically memorize what the book teaches, I have noted down all the adverbs that ends with -mente for my future reference: profundamente (profoundly), bruscamente (abruptly), sucesivamente (successively or ”˜y así sucesivamente’, which means ”˜and so on’), detenidamente (carefully), desesperadamente (desperately), fijamente (attentively), rápidamente (quickly), únicamente (solely or only), tristemente (sadly), apresuradamente (hastily), constantemente (constantly), fríamente (coldly), repentinamente (suddenly), tímidamente (timidly), lentamente (slowly), amablemente (amiably), actualmente (nowadays and not actually!), alegremente (happily), completamente (completely).

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

Hotel Iris By Yoko Ogawa – Beautifully Ugly, Dark And Shocking

I do not suppose what Ogawa wrote is unrealistic.  At times, we read in the news about some women who are victims of domestic violence but yet, they have a tendency to return to the very same man who bestows such violence upon them.  I have read the story of Natascha Kampusch and had a glimpse of the kind of sick things some men do behind closed doors.  I have also read that some couples enjoy S&M and derives extreme pleasure from extreme pain. Mixing these together, we have “Hotel Iris” – almost.

A young girl who works at the front desk of a hotel is seduced by a much older man who appears to be mostly timid and loving outside his house, and someone quite the opposite when he is alone.  The love affair has then turned into a strange game of S&M.  How can a young girl be seduced by such a monster and be convinced that this is OK and that she is shamelessly ugly?  Ogawa has indeed taken a brave move and she presents to the readers the psychological and emotional journey of a young girl in first person view: Her longing to be away from her demanding job at the hotel, her longing to see this old man who does strange things to her body while showering her with words of love and tenderness, and her plunging into the point of no return.  Ogawa’s writing style is neat and elegant.  Deployed to this rather dark and ugly topic, the story reads almost too beautiful.  I must say, it was a strange feeling reading “Hotel Iris”.

Like one reader has pointed out, “Hotel Iris” is very different from “The Housekeeper and the Professor“.  Had I read these two books without knowing who wrote them, very likely I would not have thought that they come from the same author.  The writing style is the same though.  Since I like Ogawa’s writing style, I enjoy reading the two book just the same.  I look forward to reading more of hers.

Categories
Book Reviews Non-Fiction

Lion’s Honey The Myth Of Samson By David Grossman – A Mostly Imaginary Piece Of Work

After reading “Lion’s Honey”, I did some research on the author.  He is an Israeli, an established writer as well as a political activist.  This explains quite a few queries lingered in my mind after reading his book.  There are only very few places when Grossman subtly touched onto modern politics.  Here is one.  I am quoting the text here because quite possibly, I like this aspect of the book the most.

Yet there is a certain problematic quality to Israeli sovereignty that is also embodied in Samson’s relationship to his own power.  As in the case of Samson, it sometimes seems that Israel’s considerable military might is an asset that becomes a liability.  For it would seem, without taking lightly the dangers facing Israel, that the reality of being immensely powerful has not really been internalised in the Israeli consciousness, not assimilated in a natural way, over many generations; and this, perhaps, is why the attitude to this power, whose acquisition has often been regarded as truly miraculous, is prone to distortion (page 88-9) […] This is connected, without a doubt, to the very real dangers lying in wait for Israel, but also to the tragic formative experience of being a stranger in the world, the Jewish sense of not being a nation ‘like other nations’, and of the State of Israel as a country whose very existence is conditional, whose future is in doubt and steeped in jeopardy, feelings that all the nuclear bombs that Israel developed, in a program once known as the ‘Samson Option’, cannot eradicate (page 90).

Majority of the book is not about politics.  His interpretation of the Samson story may run against the grain of the familiar Samson in the Hebrew Bible (his own words).  As a Catholic, I would say that his interpretation runs against the grain of the same story in the Christian Bible as well.  The way Grossman breathes life to a local hero (or “judge”) and his surrounding characters extracted from the Book of Judges prompts me to reflect upon how we Christians breathe life to Jesus.  Because I am not used to reading the Old Testament in such fashion, I find that Grossman’s interpretation of Samson is highly imaginative at best, controversial at worst.  What do I mean?  I will get to that in just a moment.

First, to put things into context, I refer to the Catholic Study Bible’s guide on reading the Book of Judges.

There is one overriding theme that dominates the Book of Judges: the sin of idolatry leads to punishment; but if the people of Israel turn back to the Lord, the Lord will deliver them from their enemies … Into the theological framework of “sin-punishment-cry for help-deliverance” the deuteronomistic writers have incorporated various stories that relate the deeds of local heroes.  For the deuteronomistic writers the unity of all the tribes is an important concern; thus, in their historical schema, these heroes become leaders for all Israel.

The Book of Judges documents a number of heroes.  I must admit that the story of Samson is a peculiar one.  He does not lead all Israel as a warrior, nor does he liberate the people from Philistine.  Victories he has scored over the Philistine are personal.  There seems to be no reason to include Samson into the Book of Judges except in (15, 20) when the writers wrote: Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.  To understand its theological value, one has to read this biblical story in more detail.

Grossman’s “Lion’s Honey” dissects the biblical story word-by-word.  Some discussions – for good reasons on my end – I am finding it hard to concur with the author.  For example, in the Bible, after the woman being told by angel that she was going to have a son, she relayed the message to her husband and said, “A man of God came to me […] he said to me, ‘You will be with child and will bear a son.  So take neither wine nor strong drink, and eat nothing unclean.  For the boy shall be consecrated to God from the womb, until the day of his death.'”  And because she mentions about his son’s dying day, Grossman has gone into deep reflection and written pages of explanation on what has driven Manoah’s wife to add these words.  To me, it is simple.  Because the angel says so.  And she is merely relaying the message to her husband.  To Grossman, one of his many interpretations on this particular phase is that ‘Samson has been deposited within her for safekeeping and she knows that things that are deposited must, in the end be returned’, among many emotional turmoils that Grossman has imagined.

Grossman describes Samson as an artist, starting from his episode with the lion’s honey.  Or rather, honey from the lion’s carcass.  Grossman has gone in great length on how Samson would feel scooping honey from the lion, sharing honey with his parents.  Grossman wrote:

Take a look at him: a he-man with a little licking boy inside.  (How astonishing and poignant, this gulf between enormous physical strength and an immature, childlike soul.)  He walks and eats, walks and licks, till he gets home to mum and dad, and gives them the honey, “and they ate it”, apparently straight from the palms of his hands.  What a marvelous sensual scene!

Personally, I would not interpret this a as ‘marvelous sensual scene’.  Samson is bound by a vow to eat nothing unclean.  He is not faithful to these vows and has contacted with a dead animal, even eats food from it.  My discomfort with “Lion’s Honey” is not only on how Grossman dramatizes the story by imagining ‘[Samson] playing with his parents, touching them and dancing for them and laughing with them like any normal person, with the honey dripping, flowing down a cheek, sliding to the chin, being licked up, as the laughter swells to the point to tears …’, but also how some of the crucial interpretations such as the breaking of vow have been omitted.

There are controversial interpretations on the Samson story too.  When the wife of Manoah said, “A man of God came to me (13, 6)”, I would interpret the message as it is: an angel appears.  But Grossman offers a different perspective.  The phrase ‘came to me’, to his tradition, also means copulation.  Hence, to follow Grossman’s lead, the wife may not be barren as mentioned in the Bible.  A stranger copulated with her and impregnated her.  Fast forward to the part on Samson’s death, the Bible wrote: Then they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze fetters, and he was put to grinding in the prison.  According to Grossman, the verb ‘to grind’ in Hebrew carries a clear sexual connotation.  Hence, to the author, Samson may well be used as a stud bull when ‘everyone brought his wife to him to the prison that she might bear a child by him’.  I do not read Hebrew.  This interpretation is beyond me.  I would interpret this part of a story as a simple act of punishment and would not further analyze on how Samson was punished in the prison.  In short, I am happy with the direct meaning of ‘grinding’.

The most disturbing interpretation of Grossman is perhaps the part on Samson having to entertain the Philistines.  The passage on the Bible is simple.  It wrote:

When [the Philistines’s] spirits were high, they said, “Call Samson that he may amuse us.”  So they called Samson from the prison, and he played the buffoon before them.  When the people saw him, they praised their god.

According to Grossman, it was a sex act that Samson has performed in front of three thousand men and women.  This is a disturbing interpretation.  I would rather stick with the understanding that Samson was given to clowning and joking that somewhat triggers my mental association to the story of Jesus being put on a purple robe and a crown of thorns (Mark 15, 17).  I am finding it difficult to add so much texture into Bible that can hardly be verified or cross referenced to.

For better or worse, because I have read “Lion’s Honey’, that has prompted me to read this part of the Bible in greater depth.  Grossman’s book does by and large offer insights to the story of Samson.  Some reviewers have mentioned that the Samson story is their favorite in Old Testament.  As for me, mine is the story of Elijah.  Paulo Coelho has done a great job in breathing life to Elijah in his book “The Fifth Mountain”.  Grossman has also attempted to breathe life to Samson.  Unfortunately, that has left a strange aftertaste.  To close off this entry, I would like to share the theology of the story of Samson according to Catholic Study Bible.

The activity of the Lord gives us an indication of the theology that is in the background of the story of Samson.  The Lord is responsible for Samson’s birth, for Samson will be the Lord’s instrument in defeating the Philistines.  To defeat the Philistines is also the reason that the Lord is behind his marriage to a Philistine woman (14, 4).  The Lord gives Samson strength in his encounters with the Philistines.  The Lord responds to Samson’s prayers: for water (15, 18) and for vengeance (16, 28).  That the Lord is active in all that Samson does is clear.  We can wonder about a chosen hero who has a weakness for women, but it is clear that his bedroom exploits, though not explicitly condemned, are not approved of by the authors.  Indeed, his downfall rests upon his inability to say no to a woman.  Also operative theologically in this story are the consequences of breaking a vow.  Samson is a Nazirite, but fails to live in accordance with their code and suffers as a result of his disobedience.  At the same time, even his defeat becomes an opportunity for the Lord to gain victory over the Philistines.