Dream of the Red Chamber, Wisse

I spent the week-end catching up on three issues of The Economist and an issue of The New Scientist and Eclectic Reading. I also finished the last quarter of The Dream of the Red Chamber. I suppose all cultures have these long, picaresque, comic novels written in instalments. I was reminded in a way of Don Quixote. Certainly the first half, I grew disenchanted with what seemed to me to be endless bickering and intriguing among the women of two affluent households. Then, in the second half, it was like a different author had taken up the pen. The psychology was more interesting, the plots were more complex, the human nature more believable, and of course it intended less humor, thank goodness. All in all it was worth the reading, however much slogging I did up front. I also just finished Ruth Wisse's Jews and Power, an essay on the political aspects of Jewish culture and modern history. I found myself straining to try and accept her views, since I feel strongly that the Jewish people have indeed 'been singled out by history.' But in the end, I concluded that this work was that of an extremist. I agree with her view that foreign governments would abandon the Jews to their fate, if it ever came to that. I agree that there is widespread anti-Semitism. I don't agree that most governments in the world today blame the Jews for their own problems. I think institutionalized anti-Semitism exists, but that the Holocaust has taught it to be more subtle than that, to go underground so to speak. And I confess that I am surprised that such views could be held by a fellow Canadian, a fellow Montrealer. I feel like we have grown up in parallel universes, however much pro-Israel I may be.

Mullan, Plumly, Ramadan, Almeida, Weber

John Mullan's Anonymity makes a really good read. It is about the reasons why and examples of authors publishing books anonymously or under pseudonyms. Some pseudonyms remain, like George Eliot, and some do not, like Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte). People used anonymity for marketing reasons, or for fear of the law. I also read William Weber's Great Transformation of Musical Taste, which is about concert programs and types for a 150-year period. It was interesting to see how late the church-like atmosphere and sacredness of text came into the culture. The author mentions, but I had also noticed, that the same is true in literature, particularly mangling Shakespeare, and it happened at about the same time. I did not find much that was new in Tariq Ramadan's Western Muslims and the Future of Islam, since I had read some liberal Muslim theology before. I found that there was similarities with Christianity in terms of the ethics of living, but I had noticed that before. I regret to say that Manuel Almeida's Memoirs of a Militia Sergeant, yet another picaresque novel, made next to no impression on me. Stanley Plumly's Posthumous Keats was excellently written, and it was an intriguing premise to look at how Keats' legend grew up in the 2 or 3 decades after his death. After that I spent quite a lot of time reading Reve du pavillon rouge. I'm going to have to read up on it, because it started getting more interesting than endless bickering among women in classical China past page 1500 or so. Yes, it's a 3000 pager, and I'm about 3/4 of the way through. I am finding it much more psychologically interesting. After that, I have the first 3 volumes of Voltaire's complete works to read.

Odds and Ends

Since my last post, I've read a issue of The New Yorker, and started another, started an issue of The Economist, an issue of OK Magazine, Vanity Fair, and The New Scientist, as well as Eclectic Reading. I've also read Ruth Wisse's If I Am Not For Myself, and The Schlemiel as Modern Hero, Mudslingers by Kerwin Swint , Ken Hamilton's After the Golden Age, and Al-Mazini's Egypt.

Wisse's is the most intense Zionist literature I've ever read, and this comes from a Canadian, no less. I found it interesting if extreme, and I must say I have greater tolerance because I knew she had been a refugee as a child, possibly a Holocaust survivor. Schlemiel made me jealous: a 126 page doctoral dissertation? I wish mine was that short. Mudslingers was fun to read: the list of dirty tricks in US politics is seemingly endless, and there were lots I didn't know about. The worst, as one might expect, was probably George Wallace and his naked appeal to racism. Al-Mazini's book was a trilogy of picaresque novellas about Egyptian society. Hamilton's is an essay on pianism, i.e. the ways of being a pianist. I thought it was interesting.

Odds and Ends

Since last writing, I read a issue of OK Magazine, one of the New Yorker, and one of the New Scientist. I have also read some fascinating books. One, Nightwork by Anne Allison, explores ethnographically the hostess bars of Tokyo. I also read an excellent book by a moderate Arab, , called The Arab Center, by Marwan Muasher. I also read Murray Bail's Longhand. I didn't think much of it, although it's fine as a notebook goes, but because it didn't need to be published. It is an approriately private document. I read a novel translated from the Urdu, The Shore and the Wave, by Aziz Ahmad, which I also liked. Best of all, I read Abe's Inter Ice Age 4, one of the most imaginative novels I've ever read. It is the story of a Japanese researcher who discovers a time machine, and then goes on to discover a secret government initiative to turn human beings into water-breathers by genetic engineering, because the sea level is rising and Japan will be submerged. He discovers that his wife's aborted fetus has been sold to this organization, the water-breathers come into being and then conflict with the land people, elderly Japanese spend their life savings on cameras to watch their water grandchildren, and the novel ends with the submersion of Tokyo. It was a masterpice. Unsettling and unpredictable at every turn. I can't recommend it enough.

I also read Kevin Swint's Political Campaigning and Negative Advertising, which was a quick read and very interesting. It appears that negative advertising about the candidate's person is the most likely to backfire. I also read Trevor-Roper's posthumous Invention of Scotland. The front of the book studies the creation of the idea of nationhood through Robbie Burns and Buchanan and the like, but the back two chapters are fascinating. It appears the kilt originated as the clothing of the poor, but was in its present form invented by an English Quaker industrialist. The tartan was created in its clan-belonging incarnation by two Polish tailors, who published the fraudulent Scotia Antiquarum, which was taken for cash by everyone since. Originally, different members of the same family would wear different patterns, for example. I laughed my head off.

I have now undertaken the 3000 page Chinese classic, Dream of the Red Chamber, which is primarily about women. I am reading it translated into French.

Odds and Ends

I read Les tambours noirs, by Josue Montello, a wonderful anti-slavery novel from Brazil, told in the first person in flashback. I also read a classic of Persian poetry, Nizami, entitled Chosroes et Chirin, as well as a novel which made next to no impression on me, Les oiseaux by Tarjei Vesaas. I just finished The Forsaken, by Tim Tzouliadis, about the Americans imprisoned by the Soviets, and I was riveted by the sadness and the inhumanity. It ranks right up there with the Nazi concentration camp literature I read when I was a teenager, Les medecins maudits and Les medecins de l'impossible. Apart from that, I read an issue of The New Yorker, an issue of The Economist, and two issues of Eclectic Reading, as well as an issue of The New Scientist. I also read Guided Inquiry, by Carol Kuhlthau, one of the last volumes about analogical cognition, this time written by a library scientist. It was excellent.

UNESCO Part XIV

I read Joel Lehtonen's Combe aux mauvaises herbes, Rizal's Noli me tangere, Flor Romero de Nohra's Crepitant tropique, and Eca de Quieros' Os Maia. Lehtonen barely kept me awake, despite it being a pastoral. It did give me a good idea of what it was like to live in the country in Finland about 1910, just like Nohra's book gave me a good idea of Colombian village life. Quieros' novel is indeed to be classed with The Forsyte Saga and Buddenbrook -- although I almost laughed when the principal lovers turned out to be brother and sister. Well, at least I didn't see it coming, as I have so many other times in other plot twists. Reading a book by a revolutionary shot by the authorities is always a ghostly experience, I find, but I also noticed that he named a character Sister Slutty, so he didn't exactly go out of his way to endear himself to the 1840s Philippine establishment either. I have just begun Herberto Sales' Les visages du temps, about colonial Brazil, and the style is already light and endearing. After this, I'll only have 2 UNESCO listers to read before I run out -- but the library will be open tomorrow.