Zorro and a bit of a wrap-up...

So while not my favorite book out of the four we read, it certainly beats out Satanic Verses for light reading. I finished this book in less than a week - Allende's writing style is easy and draws the reader in, I really couldn't put the book down.

Allende managed to fill in the gaps in the Zorro legend as far as I knew it. Of course, my knowledge of the Zorro legend comes from the films staring Antonio Banderas, but even so, I couldn't help wondering how Anthony Hopkins could whistle his horse right to him (Batman and his Batmobile are one thing...a pony, that's something different entirely). Thanks to Allende, I now know that as a youth growing up in Spain, Zorro trained as an acrobat with gypsies, which totally explains why he's so brilliant on the ponies.

I wasn't sure how I felt about the interruptions in the story line by the narrator. I think the concept of a third-party narrating the story is a great one, but I don't necessarily want to be told blatantly that the "writer" has to stop to refill on ink. That it was the smart yet unattractive girl narrating the story wasn't really a surprise: it couldn't have been Bernardo (he's too busy with his Indian love), nor Zorro (or we'd never hear the end of his amazing conquests), nor the beautiful love of his life (she's too busy with her French ex-Pirate - which, by the way, was a brilliant way to get rid of a character and allow Zorro to continue to be the Latin lover he was in legend).

Unlike the other books, however, I didn't highlight much in this one. I wasn't particularly impressed by her writing, so I didn't have many memorable quotes. All said and done, it was a good story, a fun read, and something I'd revisit when I wanted to procrastinate studying. That, and it made me crave the Zorro movie; so I watched it the other night. :)

Now for the wrap up:


Of all the books we've read this semester, I think "Welcome to the Monkey House" is my favorite. However, if I were to pick an author to continue reading, I'd start with Allende. Hers was the easiest to sink my teeth into, and the best way to escape for an afternoon.

As far as food goes, so the Indian night didn't quite turn out as we expected (but hey, neither did Satanic Verses). El Rod's was ok, but I think the Angel/Devil night was the best by far. But that might just be my sweet tooth talking!

Of Foxes and Final Posts

I gotta say, Isabel Allende's Zorro was my darling of the reading group's books. I have a kink for magical realism that Satanc Verses should've covered, but Zorro was both more easily accessible and higher swashbuckling adventure content. (Not to mention I spent many a Sunday morning watching the Warner Bros. cartoon that I don't think anyone else remembers. See right.) But onto actual content.

I especially appreciated that Zorro possesses both mestizo and white Spanish blood. It really hammers in the thematic conventions of magical realism, which celebrates the meeting of two worlds. Magic and the rational, tangible world come together at one obvious conjunction, and it parallels he coexistence of the mestizo and white cultures. Diego de la Vega does a lot of his own work, but he still has some magic in him. It emphasizes his role as a mediator between the two worlds, and his thirst for justice and fairness on both sides makes more sense. Kerry made a comparison to Batman; they're both men born into opulence who play wishy washy personas to counter their superhero egos. Both are stories of vigilante justice, but Batman's motivations stem more from "MY PARENTS ARE DEAD" while Zorro's are a result of culture clash, which I find a mite more interesting. (Though I do love Batman. Especially Little Batman.)

To summarize the semester, I really enjoyed the reading selections, especially the latter two since I doubt I'd encounter them in any English class or other honors colloquium. The dynamic pairing with cooking was a bonus, and especially in my personal discovery of chocolate and chili. So good! The sheer amount of material to read was a little daunting in some spots, (lookin' at you, Rushdie), but with books like Zorro, it was easy to blow through them in a couple of reading binges while putting off all my other work. I hope I see something similar in next semester's reading group offerings!

Masked Men

We didn't get to spend a lot of time on Zorro, a failure I really regret. I suppose it would be safe to say I'm a bit of a sucker for romantic adventures, especially "capa y espada" dramas. Blame it on my youth dominated by Errol Flynn and Princess Bride, or at least that's the excuse for this week. As for my other great weakness for origin stories (Batman Begins is my current favorite example), I really have no excuse. And Isabel Allende manages to fulfill all my wants quite admirably.

In the group discussion there were some problems with the structure of the novel, as a second/third person view, with more than a few breaks in the narrative. I happen to enjoy the idea of an outside storyteller, and often find that the personality of the storyteller integral to the story. I suppose I just wasn't bothered very much by the breaks in narrative, and found the novel as a whole very enjoyable.

I'll offer a brief note on the food before I start rambling on text: for the food of this section the group went out to El Rodeo restaurant for the discussion. In any real study of food it's important to expand the palate as much as possible, and to explore the style and preparatory methods and ingredients of different chefs and cultures. I've been watching the Food Network pretty avidly for a few years, and tried out the style of every chef they offer and really only like Iron Chef now. Why is it that I now campaign avidly for the end of Rachel Ray's influence on America? why I see Giada as a waste of Italy's resources and Paula Deen as just problems? Really it comes down to boredom. The recipes change, but the ingredients remain the same. In my own house there are a few dishes provided regularly for dinner: Mom's meatloaf is pretty spectacular (and the kiwi adventure is still a family story time favorite), the Indonesian spare-ribs sauce on chicken is a personal favorite, and then the holiday standards of apple-mallow-yamyam, and Mom's green jello. Other than that parent-child bonding time usually consists of discussing what page to try in the growing collection of cookbooks. I rarely spend more than two days in one set of ingredients or style. For those who don;t know me very well, I have a very short attention span. It's hardly goldfish level, but I get bored with things very easily. I have a number of brief but intense obsessions that keep me entertained, and a few standards to carry me through, with waxing and waning degrees of interest. Food in no different for me. I like to cook, I love trying new styles and techniques, and sometimes dream of becoming Julia Child, just with less butter and more knives. However, I need to spend some time out of the kitchen in order to inspire me to return, particularly right after the Thanksgiving holiday, and with the Christmas season creeping up with its demands of 4,000 cookies. Going out to eat offers an opportunity to try out new flavors and textures, and to plan how to recreate those experiences at home. Books have been a constant source of inspiration to me. The most recent example has been with another of Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited. It contains the description of a luncheon, and particular mention of plover eggs ("There's four each, and two over, so I'm having the two"). As a result of that I take every opportunity to seek out plover eggs to complement a meal. I've only managed quails so far, but a semester in London and access to Fortnum and Mason's may get me those strawberries and wine I've been looking for.

That was a bit longer than brief, but I feel it necessary to help sum up the food aspect of this group. Back to Zorro: I think my major interest in Zorro is in part that I enjoy the writings of Allende, and I really enjoy the self-made hero story. I dislike Superman in a lot of ways, and always enjoyed Batman. Spiderman is beginning to win me over, but much of the appeal that heroes have for me comes from the humanity displayed. Zorro is a man, a man who develops his skills through hard work and determination. He's intelligent and dedicated, and works from an actual desire to do good and improve the lives of the less fortunate rather than some false sense of grandeur. Diego de la Vega is a creature of Spanish aristocracy and Indian tribal culture, a combination that intrigues and keeps him from being trapped in any real social structure. I personally enjoyed the idea that the Indian principles of manhood are not really different from the virtues of the caballero. I would argue that at the same time the Gypsies and Native Americans are not different either. If anything this novel only highlighted for me how small the world really is. Barriers of race are truly artificial, as the same ideals define life, only with different names.

Revisiting Satanic Verses

So to be completely honest, I only made it through Part VII of Satanic Verses. It was quite ambitious of us to undertake this book, and I felt we rushed through it just a bit. I got through as much as I could, but I feel like we should have had someone, not necessarily holding our hand, but say, someone in a boat nearby with a life-saver handy. In any case, my thoughts on the book are as follows.

I really enjoyed Rushdie's style of writing. I mentioned Roi's book in an earlier post, and the more I read of Verses the more I thought of "God of Small Things." Making up words to represent complex ideas was an effective way of showing his character's displacement: as Indians in a Caucasian world, the language barrier fuels the cultural barrier, and there is often no other way of expressing what one means than to make up a word. Throwing in Hindi words was also true to his characters; the elder Indians I know often speak a mixture of English and Hindi in the same sentence, again scrambling together whatever means possible to convey an idea. Sometimes, I felt like this push for expression of thought could also be felt in Rushdie's magical realism - writing a true-to-life story couldn't have been the best way for him to express his intentions.

As for what his intentions were, I don't think it's quite so easy to quantify. Maybe he was just trying to explore the mythologies surrounding the satanic verses. Or, being an Indian in a Caucasian world himself, the book was an attempt to come to terms with his own life, making it autobiographical. If you can't tell, that's the part of the book I can relate to. The absurdity of culture shock is similar to Waugh's characterization of "the American" in "The Loved One."

Since the book is broken down into chapters, I thought I'd say a few words about each one.

Part I: The Angel Gibreel
Rushdie certainly knows how to begin a story. Two men falling out of the sky. This was the section I could most easily relate to, with references to my cultural experiences; though after discussions in our group, it was probably difficult for the others to gleam the full scope of Rushdie's writings *because* of the numerous cultural references. For example, knowing that "chamcha" meant spoon, made it a whole lot more meaningful when Gibreel refers to Saladin Chamchawala as "Spoono."

Part II: Mahound
"Should God be proud or humble, majestic or simple, yielding or un-? What kind of idea is he? What kind am I?" (P. 113). To me, this quote is an example of why the book might be Rushdie's attempt at finding himself. These kinds of open-ended questions appear throughout the book, making it read somewhat like a very personal diary; though his characters are the ones questioning, you can clearly hear the questions in Rushdie's voice.

Part III: Ellowen Deeowen
Rosa Diamond was a strange character. First, I didn't understand why the coppers took Saladin but not Gibreel. Then, I thought the whole Gibreel/Rosa relationship was as bit sketch. I was intrigued by the following quote: "while dying Rosa tossed on her bed, did-she-didn't-she, making the last version of the story of her life, unable to decide what she wanted to be true." We had a bit of a talk on this topic, the idea of the illusion of a viable memory, the choice we have to remember the events as we see fit, and whether Rosa did or didn't cheat on her husband. I my opinion, had she not cheated on her husband, she would have no need to reinvent history; then again, had she remained faithful, inventing an affair might be the only way for her to conclude she had had a fulfilling (eventful) life.

Part IV: Ayesha
I *hated* the character of Ayesha. I thought the whole story was painful to read, mostly because I didn't care for this character. I felt bad for Mizra, having his wife converted to believing in what I perceived was a false prophet.

Part V: A City Visible but Unseen
"'Chamcha,' Mishal said excitedly, 'you're a hero. I mean, people can really identify with you. It's an image white society has rejected for so long that we can really take it, you know, occupy it, inhabit it, reclaim it and make it our own. It's time you considered action.'"

When do you know your society is in a state of disrepair? When the image of the devil becomes something to rally around. It's not that it's the *devil* people are rallying around, but that the people need something to rally around and anything will do. I thought the image of the Asian youth taking on Saladin as their hero was absurd, yet one we see everyday - how much more ridiculous is it that people obsess over celebrities (hey, me included) to the point where they will do anything one individual says (not me, here, but think more Nazi/Hitler).

Part VI: Return to Jahilia & Part VII: The Angel Azraeel
It was at this point that I lost interest, or got so bogged down in the grit of the story, trying to follow what was happening, that I couldn't go any further. I stopped taking notes, mostly because there were so many to take.

In conclusion, I want to read this book again. With someone beside me that's done it before, and that can give me a nudge or two in the right direction.

The final chapter: Zorro

Of all the books we read this semester, Zorro was the one I liked least. The book was commissioned, which didn't help the style of the prose. It was an easy read and would be appropriate for children. It would be interesting to read this book in Spanish, the language in which it was written. Maybe some of the problems stem from bad translation.

The plot was imaginative, that I will concede, but the style and characterization were poor enough to make up for it. I still have a really hard time believing that the narrator was really Isabel. Her style and personality are dramatically different from Isabel's characterization. I know that Allende set out to make the narrator's identity a surprise, but it was obvious to me about halfway through the book that she would probably try to use Isabel for narration, and this non-surprise was not a pleasant one. I can see how it would be a good idea to make the narrator an actual character and Isabel was the natural choice. However, Allende's execution needs a lot of work.

I also didn't like the scenes where the narrator talked about running out of ink, etc. That was a very childish way of saying "hi, yes, there's a narrator and it's me. I bet you can't guess who I am," and it distracted from the rest of the story. Allende also frequently forgot to mention important details and then threw them in when she needed them. For example, it bothered me a lot when she made a big deal about Julianna's first kiss twice, once with Rafael and once with the pirate. A girl can only get her first kiss once, and if you're going to make a big deal of it, you should remember when it was. Botching of details like this gives the impression that Allende never planned out her story and just kind of said what she felt like as she went along. It also makes the story seem less real and distracts from any meaning the reader might have been able to squeeze from the narrative.

Finally, I really enjoyed the reading group this semester. I actually liked it a lot better than colloquium, because it had a focus and we all had a common mindset from the start. I especially enjoyed the Vonnegut short stories in Welcome to the Monkey House and Rushdie's Satanic Verses.

Hope everyone has a nice break, see you next semester!

My shoes are Japanese / My pants are English

In our first reading for Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses," I really identified with Chamcha's feelings of alienation within his home country.

He sat up, angry. "Well, this is what's inside," he blazed at her. An Indian translated into English-medium. When I attempt Hindustani these days, people look polite. This is me." Caught in the aspic of his adopted language, he had begun to hear, in India's Babel, an ominous warning: don't come back again."

I feel a similar struggle between my Vietnamese heritage and American culture. When I was little, my parents and I agreed that English would be more appropriate as my dominant tongue, seeing as I needed to grow up, learn, and get a job here in my adulthood. The brat that I was, I felt that this meant I didn't need Vietnamese. Vietnamese grew more difficult as there were few other people to practice it with, and it was so much easier to speak English since my parents have a greater fluency than most Vietnamese immigrants I encounter.

I, of course, grew to have a greater appreciation for my culture as I got older and less stupid. Unfortunately, the same obstacles remain, in that I have few others to practice my parents' language with, and my aptitude with languages stands as ... leaving something to be desired. My aunts and uncles coo when they hear me speak Vietnamese, because many of my cousins have even less of a desire to learn the language. Me speaking the language is less of a natural thing and more something precious and quaint.

My parents advise me not to visit Vietnam, where American born Vietnamese are especially naive and susceptible to abuse, which makes sense. It still makes me feel like a terrible person to think that I would be an alien in my parents' country. Thinking about it makes me feel a certain fear and futility in trying to continue my personal education of Vietnamese heritage, like I'm setting myself up for rejection by my family on a national scale. Then again, no amount of Americanization can change the Vietnamese blood in me or deny me the right to appreciate it.

Walking Machines

"Harrison Bergeron" is another dystopia centered upon the idea of equality, especially reminiscent of Lois Lowry's "The Giver," which I'm sure others read in middle or high school, or even the somewhat shallow but entertaining film, "Equilibrium." What always gets me in these kinds of stories is the treatment of pain. In the end, Hazel can't remember that she's mourning the death of her son, and her husband encourages her to forget sadness. Of course, we all remember the cliches about how we must have darkness to have light, good to have evil, etc. The one about pain and joy definitely applies here.

I assume the goal of equality and sameness in the story is so that everyone can achieve happiness without interfering with others' happiness. All too often in our current time, we have to compete with others in the quest to get what we want out of life. The story's government eliminates the need to compete in the interest of everyone receiving the same fruits out of life. However, in eliminating that competition, the government does away with the sense of accomplishment when we achieve our goals. I think we need the struggle and the pain in order to feel, so that we can truly understand the joys we work so hard for.

I find that in all kinds of friendships and love, the relationship is not just defined by mutual affinity, but by how willing the other is to put up with the less appealing parts of your personality. I can't predict how well a friend will get along with a new boyfriend/girlfriend until the honeymooning couple actually experience a first fight. You gotta work for it, etc.

And as to "Welcome to the Monkey House," I just prefer not to even think about sex not being fun. Apologies, but that's just how it goes for me.

... So it goes. (Vonnegut just wretched in his grave.)

An afterthought: The subject title comes from Revl9n's "Walking Machine."

She said, "I like it better when it hurts"
She said, "I don't want to be a walking machine"
She said, "I like it better when it feels"
She said, "I don't want to be a walking machine"
So let the rain keep coming down

Yeah, profound, but I want to make up for my personal lack of macro.

I like side stories the best.

I thoroughly enjoyed Satanic Verses, all things considered. As far as storytelling goes, it's somewhat complicated, following the stories of Gibreel and Saladin in modern London, the stories of their relationships, and then the side stories of the two prophets in Ayesha and Mahound. It's beautiful and tragic in the end, watching Gibreel fall into madness and destruction while Saladin rediscovers his identity as an Indian and makes his peace with his family. So many of the lives that touch Gibreel and Saladin's are shattered, and forced to rebuild. The images of the Angel and the Devil spark riots and race wars in London, and after all the destruction caused, lives must be rebuilt, identities rediscovered, and the world in whole appears unchanged, but the nuances of life are different now, perhaps only slightly, but different.

After reading some criticisms about the subject, I find that most critics look at this novel as an intelligent and wonderful view of the immigrant experience and feelings of alienation. It's easy to see that, how people leave home to make a new life, and the next generation takes the opportunity to fully assimilate to a new life and reject the family background. Even as the rejection happens, it never seems to last and a return to the old ways comes somewhat inevitably, but adapted to fit the new environment.
This is the great power of cultural exchange: the second generation takes the lessons and traditions of the old world and merges with the standards of the new world. The United States has always been an interesting example of how cultures collide and combine, not always (or ever) smoothly, but we've reached the point where the German tradition of Christmas trees is standard, everyone is Irish one day of the year, Chinese take-out is as common as pizza delivery, and every time I go out for food with friends I end up at the local Thai place or Chipotle. It continues through music, film, politics; nearly every facet of life has become integrated, and without a single raised eyebrow.

As much as I enjoy the immigrant experience, I really can't say too much about it. I'm third-generation, and until I carry-out my plan of moving to Europe I won't have any personal stories of immigration. I would like to take some time and space to discuss the story of Baal the poet.

As far as side stories in Satanic Verses go, Baal is my favorite. The first time we see this satirical poet, he's hired to attempt to undermine the growing power of the prophet Mahound. He's somewhat successful, but not enough to destroy the new faith. When Mahound returns and conquers the city of Jahilla, Baal hides in a brothel, and with the help of the prostitutes manages to create problems for the prophet through a physically satire. So much of the Jahilla stories rely on the power of words and dreams to claim control. Baal is not the greatest man of the city, but he has influence through the power of his words. Having read Shelley's "Defense of Poesy", I have come to have a greater respect for poets as the "unsung legislators of the world." Poets don't hold the traditionally recognized posts of power, but single works can impact the world. I cite Ginsberg's "Howl" as a prime example; a defining work of the beat generation. Perhaps not as widely read as it should be, it's a phenomenal work and the subject of an obscenity trial, but more on that later. Mahound as a prophet attempts to change the world through words, but is not above bloodshed. Baal uses his words to hurt, and manages as well as he can, but does the most damage once he gets the prostitutes to help. Poetry and satire are not limited to the written word- actions speak louder after all, and cut the deepest. Even as Baal dies for his actions, he still manages to force people to think about what they have done, and asks that everyone keep thinking rather than blindly following a man who makes arbitrary decisions backed up by an angel.

Back to the subject of obscenity, I happen to think that all works that go on trial for obscenity are the most fun to read. Satanic Verses is no stranger to controversy: in 1989 a fatwa was ordered on Rushdie for blasphemy, and several translators of the text were attacked or killed. Although not exactly an obscenity trial, it's a book of controversy, and a really wonderful one. I'm all for controversy in my texts. The best way to think is to be challenged to reconsider the way the world is. If anything, obscenity trials only increase awareness of books and encourage more people to read for the thrill of doing something wicked, and if reasons are given for the bans, even better. Improves the reading because now you know what to look for in the text.

i suppose what this comes down to is the realization that Satanic Verses is one of those novels that seems too complicated to attempt to understand in a short time, but has the great advantage of having so many layers of meaning to discuss. I've enjoyed the book immensely, and will probably list it among my favorites for the rest of my life, and probably return to it again and again in an effort to improve my understanding.

Food, Fiction, and Human Nature

Human nature has been said to be the set of psychological characteristics, including ways of thinking and acting, which all normal human beings have in common. This may be true, yet it is this same human nature that sets one person apart from another; this common tie makes everyone different and unique. The selections from this reading group have made this very obvious, sometimes painstakingly so yet almost always in an endearing manner.

From the very beginning, Evelyn Waugh highlighted the essence of human nature by examining the impact that a “loved one” leaves when they have passed. A posh funeral home outside of Hollywood, Whispering Glades, sets a scene that tweaks the aspects of human nature expected by the reader. Mr. Joyboy, a strong, passionate, and gentle mortician loses this persona outside the funeral home becoming sad, apathetic, and powerless to woo Aimee, the object of his desire. Dennis also desires Aimee, pulling famous poems from books to hide the fact that he works at Happy Hunting Grounds, a pet cemetery. The ties between love and death in this book are interesting, from the couples burial plots to the ferry that takes living couples to a lover’s lane in the cemetery. These connections do not correlate to the characters, however, as Aimee’s vow to love Dennis eventually drives her to kill herself, yet Dennis appears nonchalant, almost relieved as he cremates her body, leaving the remains to Mr. Joyboy.

Few writers address the issues of human nature more aptly, or subtly than Kurt Vonnegut. The first short story read was Harrison Bergeron, in which human nature was essentially eliminated as everyone was handicapped. Beautiful people wore hideous masks and strong men and women wore bags of lead shot around their shoulders to keep them down. This story emphasizes the importance of human natures individuality, and predicts the impending doom if they are prohibited. Welcome to the Monkey House addresses the very important aspect of human nature that is sexuality. Sexuality is one of the most prevalent methods of self-expression in today’s materialistic world. So much so that Vonnegut takes this expression to the opposite end of the spectrum, fashioning a world where sex is an illegal, underground movement attempting to liberate the minds of death parlor attendants by raping them.

The other notable Vonnegut short stories pertaining to human nature are Who am I This Time? and EPICAC. Who am I This Time poses interesting questions about identity as it is expressed by human nature. The idea that Harry Nash, a quiet and lonely man, comes to life when he is on stage is pivotal to today’s world, a world with a million and one outside influences all trying to leave their mark, brand their impression on a person’s outward expression. EPICAC poses the most piercing insight to human nature yet; what keeps a machine from being ourselves better than we can? In this story, the main character capitalizes on the chance finding that a multi-million dollar department of defense computer has a proverbial soul, longing for the love of a woman and spouting forth poetry to win her over. When the machine finds out that this scientist has been passing the poems off as his own, he cannot cope with his loss, self destructing entirely. The question of whether the computer would have been a more passionate lover that the lack-luster scientist is one that strikes the core of human nature.

Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” is an unparalleled view of the aspects that compose human nature, offering its largest input from the religious viewpoint. A highly controversial novel, The Satanic Verses traces the lives of Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, who fall to earth from a hijacked plane and find themselves as an angel and a devil. Although this book has many unfamiliar aspects to many readers, the essential message that Rushdie is trying to convey is completely clear. Throughout the course of this piece of literature, it becomes evident that Rushdie believes that no man or woman is completely good or evil; aspects of both are entwined in the hearts of human nature.

The final novel discussed in this group was Isabel Allende’s take on Zorro. The story of the masked man fixed on vigilante justice in the formidable southwest desert is one of the best known and most told action stories of our time. Allende’s version isn’t all slice-and-dice, mark-the-Z-in-the-dead-man’s-chest though. Her story begins with the true beginning: Diego de la Vega’s childhood. While the action and redemption of this book are what keeps the reader turning the pages, the aspects of human nature so evident in the humanized Zorro are what keeps the reader coming back for more. As has previously been said, “Zorro is not a magical character. He is not like Superman, Spiderman… he is a human being, a man who loves life, who is willing to take risks to defend the underdog.” These characteristics remove the superhero aura from this incredible man, making him all the more interesting and endearing.

While the unifying theme from this semester’s reading group may have been delicious, literature-inspired food, it is easy to see the thread of human nature meticulously woven through each novel. Furthermore, each work presents different aspects of humanity. From love to pain to apathy to empathy, many angles of this wonder called life were covered.

Human Fallibility and Religion

I hit a roadblock when I ran into the Rushdie book. The Satanic Verses is one of the densest books I have ever read, and I already read fairly slowly. I still haven't finished it, so I feel a little guilty about posting on it, but I've run into plenty of intriguing things and have lots to tell you.

First of all, I love Rushdie's style: making up words, pushing real words together, adding words where they don't make literal sense, all to add to the lyrical flow of his prose so that the book ends up having a poetic quality. Using poetry allows him to cram more meaning into each word, resulting in one very dense read. But this density is a good thing in my opinion. I like books with lots of meaning, and it's good to not always understand everything the author is trying to say. I think I could read this book many times and still not grasp all the meanings in it. The depth adds a mysterious dimension to the story, which is important for the book's themes. I think mysterious things appeal to me in many parts of life; they prevent boredom.

My favorite part so far is Gibreel's experiences with Doña Rosa. I think it is fascinating that Rosa can make Gibreel feel physical pain just by the force of her will. And there are so many parts of this narrative that I don't understand. Will Gibreel continue to be oppressed by her ghost? What is the purpose of her story? It seems that it may comment on our ability to reshape our own memories. When Rosa is dying, she "tossed on her bed, did-she-didn't-she, making the last version of the story of her life, unable to decide what she wanted to be true." Does this relate to a theme of this book? Do humans make up the important parts of their lives and their faiths in order to comfort themselves? Has absolute truth lost its meaning and importance?

Another interesting aspect of the book for me was Rushdie's decision to make Gibreel into an angel and Chamcha into Satan. Both characters' morals fit somewhere in the gray area between good and evil, and neither seems more angelic than the other. I speculate that Rushdie characterized these two as he did to prove a point, because, as we've said in discussions, an author like Rushdie who plans out so many aspects of his story doesn't make a decision like this by chance. I think he wants to point out that it is more luck and chance that determine whether a person is considered good or evil.

Moral relativity and human fallibility are important themes of this book. I have to say that in many ways, I agree with Rushdie and this book has interested me a lot more in religion. Even though I have a reasonable background in religion from Catholic school, I know it's very biased, so I think I'm going to try to learn more about religion and maybe take a class or two while I'm here. I need to know more before I could even begin to judge, and I probably shouldn't judge as much as I do.

Zorro

I have really enjoyed Zorro; it was definitely a huge change from Satanic Verses. It was interesting that the book focused on Zorro’s childhood, which the author, Isabel Allende, said in a question and answer section in the back of the book, that this was the first novel to do so. What interested me the most as I read the book was to see Zorro’s humanity and vulnerabilities. Allende said herself that “Zorro is not a magical character. He is not like Superman, Spiderman… he is a human being, a man who loves life, who is willing to take risks to defend the underdog.” When I pictured Zorro before I read the book, I did see a Superman like character, not necessarily with supernormal powers, but at least with abilities that no other human could match. In this book however, Zorro’s skills are explained through hard work and practice, along with some natural ability. He wasn’t born with these abilities, and most of the time luck helped him just as much as his earned skills. I enjoyed adding another dimension to the Zorro I previously knew, and since Allende’s book is full of adventure as well as history, it was a really entertaining read.

Getting Close to the End...

The last part of “The Satanic Verses” is much easier to follow, since the book tells the story at the current point in time, which means that there is less historical reference. I can understand better now why the book was so controversial, since Rushdie basically implies that Mohammed wasn’t being spoken to by God, but instead pushed his own wishes through the archangel Gibreel. In the story, Mohammed essentially made up whatever rules were convenient to what he wanted and then enforced them as Islamic Law. Also many people in the book disagreed with Mohammed and didn’t want to give up their own gods. I am very interested to see where the story goes, especially since many tangents earlier in the story that I didn’t understand to be important at the time have been brought back into it.
Gibreels character is very interesting too because of his mannerisms in the book. He talks to Chamcha in a specific way: his speech becomes colloquial and full of nicknames for Chamcha. He doesn’t seem to speak to anyone else that way; I think it really shows their complicated connection, friends who got through the hijacking together, but who are then labelled as angel or devil. The book really has shown that Rushdie doesn't believe in pure good or evil-- we are all mixed.
p.s. there was a German word (verboten) used in the story which made me feel good, because Amrita had to translate most of the book… but I did get one word! ;)

Revolution No. 9

No.9?
No. 9?
No. 9?
No. 9?

This may seem superfluous, indeed it has no relation to the general themes of the book. But my favorite quote in the "Satanic Verses" as to yet is:

"The kids in the Street [sic] started wearing rubber devil-horns on their heads, the way they used to wear pink-and-green balls jiggling on the ends of stiff wires a few years previously, when they preferred to intimate spacemen. The symbol of the Goatman, his fist raised in might, began to crop up on banner sat political demonstrations, Save the Six, Free the Four, Eat the Heinz Fifty-Seven."

Awesome indictment of "revolution." Far too often, the most extreme portions of "revolution" are marginalized, and the acceptable parts get rolled into pop culture (here, heinz 57). A strange dichotomy for revolution indeed.

A couple examples: Good music at the turn of the '90s. Nirvana gets rolled into pop; The Cure and Elliot Smith are pushed to the edges...Modern example: Red Hot Chili Peppers become mainstream and Radiohead is marginalized to "weird european stuff."

I guess that's a tangential argument. The point I'm driving at is that every "revolution" -- in our society at least -- has something that is anti-revolutionary. T-shirts and bumper stickers and such. It's a strange phenomenon that I can only hope is isolated here.

Sorry I missed tonight's cooking session but Tech v. Tech was calling.

Prelude to a blog

The selections for this group continue to amaze me. I've never read any Rushdie before, and now I realize that I've been missing out. I was intrigued when I bought the book, but now, halfway into it, I'm finally beginning to appreciate Rushdie's "scatterbrained and almost overly adjectival style". I'll be the first to admit that I'm a little lost at times, often re-reading things multiple times before they are decipherable. That link was very conducive to furthering my understanding abilities, but the lab that I have Thursday evenings that prevents me from coming to group lately is killing me. I'll throw some of my thoughts up here once they are in a more presentable format.

Blog Rampage Pt. 1: Sexy Circuitry

I'm going to spend the next few days catching up on my posts so bear with me.

First off, let's go waaay back to Welcome to the Monkey House. I'll start with "EPICAC," which I took to the most mainly because I'm a sucker for robot love stories. It really is the robot that shines here, isn't it? The narrator has little charm, and the means by which he attains his love wins over no reader. So why shouldn't EPICAC get the girl? We discussed in the colloquium that people need both the physical and emotional aspects to have a relationship, so I suppose the tragedy of EPICAC is the placement of a beautiful soul in an unable vessel. Though what if EPICAC were humanoid?

Okay, shoutout to mah nerdcore BSG fans: can cylons love? To those too cool for school, the science fiction drama Battlestar Galactica features some pretty sexy robot (cylon) ladies searching for love, and at least one makes a pretty convincing case for deserving it. I mean, I used the word "soul" just now pretty presumptuously, but the way that cylon Sharon/Boomer (played by the Grace "2hot4tv" Park, pictured) looks at her man, it makes you at least consider acknowledging she has one. What it comes down to in this example is whether or not she still can love because she was engineered or whether her human-like vessel would make her a viable love interest to any of you.

For those merely skimming, my concluding query: that robot, would you hit it?

(Oh God, it's 5:44, I'm late for this week's reading group. Hahahahaha.)

Halfway through

Enjoying the book thoroughly so far, but it's definitely some dense stuff. I really enjoyed the Mahound chapter and am happy the narrative is shifting back toward it. I didn't really care for the Rosa portion, it kind of seemed like a pointless tangent, but who knows maybe it will become more important or poignant down the road. I really enjoy Rushdie's scatterbrained almost overly adjectival style, it makes for a very interesting -- albeit slow -- read.

A bit of "home"

So I'm half done with "Satanic Verses" and I have to say, it's a bit nostalgic, for me, to read about Rushdie's Bombay. In many ways it's the Bombay of my youth (India is slow to change and ageless in that way) - and also the India of my parents' childhood stories. I'm working on getting the vocabulary translations up - they'll be up before the next meeting, I promise!

As far as the story goes - the magical realism reminds me of "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Garcia-Marquez - and the way Rushdie invents words, meshed together in a very Nordic/Germanic linguistic manner is probably an influence in Roi's "God of Small Things." I had no idea what the "satanic verses" of the title were, and only by reading the book was I inspired to more digging into the theological metaphor.

Well, it's a pretty blatant metaphor - Rushdie has no qualms about who his characters are meant to represent. Hell, there's even a character named Salman in the story.

This is a short blog post for me mostly because a) I want to talk about a bunch of things at the meeting today and b) I need to read more of this story before I can comment on it.

Satanic Verses

This book is very interesting, even though I can't follow all that I've read. Amrita translated some words throughout the text, which was very helpful, plus we got a little history of Islam, which also helped. The style of Rushdie's writing in this book is very fast paced (Rushdie can fit a lot of action in a sentence), but it seems like it takes me a long time to read. I am interested to see what else will happen, because the events seem random to me. The book started with Saladin and Gibreel falling out of the airplane, then went to their childhoods as they grew up, but then I feel like Gibreel stories seem jumpy and I don't always understand the historical significance of them. I am sure that we will talk more about them when we meet. All in all, I really like the style of the book and the history that I am learning through it and I am intrigued to see where it goes from here.

Satanic Verses-part one of many many

Language is certainly an issue-I can figure much out from the context, but it's the culture and religion that builds barriers. My religious education is patchy at best, unless you count my assertion that I am a fake Catholic-unbaptized and unconfirmed. My knowledge of other religions and the history/origins of those faiths is even worse. As such, I can't quite connect with the Islamic influences, the Hindi, and really whatever comes next in the great possibly hugely sacrilegious text.

I may not understand all of what I read, but the text is hugely compelling-I can't seem to stop reading once I start. I'm loathe to put the book down for classes, homework, or any other novel.

Perhaps it's because the central characters of Gibreel and Saladin are actors that I feel a connection to the text, or maybe the religious influences that draw me in, seeking an alternative view of the faiths that hold such power in the world, and have fascinated me. Either way, this is one of the best books I've begun reading in the last few years.
In some ways I compare this to the works of Umberto Eco-although Rushdie seems to be questioning the foundations of faith itself while Eco only challenged the structures that grew out of faith. Eco protects the mysteries of origin, fighting against the inventions of humanity-and thus far I have read Rushdie playing with notions of devil and angel-ancient concepts. Kim raised the best point for me- the comparison to "Good Omens": again the devil and angel, but not fitting the notions set up by thousands of years of tradition.

I think I have made very little sense this post, but it's still too early for me to have come to a solid opinion of what I am reading, but I'm eager to read on.

Recipes!

Chocolate and Chili Soup
10 oz heavy cream
5 oz milk
2 dried chilies (chopped)
2 tbs. marshmallows
2 tbs. croissant croutons
2 tbs. chocolate flakes

Method:
In a medium size pan place the cream, milk, and dried chili, bring to a gentle simmer and strain. Add the cream to the chocolate and stir until the chocolate melts. Pour soup into bowls and garnish with chocolate flakes, marshmallows and croutons.

There were also Chocolate Pretzels: melt chocolate in a double boiler, dip pretzels, let cool and enjoy!

The choices here were related to the previous sessions discussion on the issues of identity raised by Kurt Vonnegut, and which continued into the next session. Epicac struggles with the knowledge of love and his own reality of being a computer. Reality prevents it/him from fulfilling the desires planted by definition, and the identity created out of that knowledge.

Now, how does identity fit the food choices for this session? It comes down to a question of the identity of flavor. Oh, yes, that certainly sounds like the most B.S. rationale ever, and really just an excuse to make chocolate soup (and as a note, use the seeds of your chilies, adds more flavor). And yet, there's legitimacy: Food is culture- it defines a society with the same power of language. In the modern age, food is more powerful than language: think of any Italian restaurant, French, Indian, Chinese. From personal experience, I'm third-generation Polish, can't speak a word of the language but I can spend hours waxing poetic on the subject of pierogies and kielbasa. As much as it defines our cultures, food has it's own identities: oranges are citrus and sweet, potatoes are starchy, chicken tastes like everything else. So we play with flavor: combine the perceived sweetness of chocolate with the spice of chilies or the salt of pretzels.

Chocolate is a great blender; the sweetness and mildness of the finish product is easily changed: levels of sugar or milk in the process create dark, bittersweet, milk- all the wonderful variants of flavor. That inherent variance in a basic ingredient creates a blank slate to build with. Like so many of the characters we have read about, we are presented with a flexible identity-there's enough to function as a character, but the potential to build allows for the chance to surprise everyone with the end result.

What would you do for True Love?

I'm writing this really quickly before our cooking meeting (sorry I'm so late).

I love the Vonnegut stories and I agree with Amrita, Vonnegut is a lot better in Welcome to the Monkey House. My favorite of the stories we have read are Welcome to the Monkey House and EPICAC. EPICAC was a very imaginative story and had a magical quality to it, kind of like a children's story where an object comes to life at night. I was impressed with the self-sacrifice of EPICAC, who is a very interesting character despite being a machine. I think it is notable that he was being developed for war and he destroyed himself for love. He was in many ways superior to humans emotionally, probably as a result of his stoic machine nature. He understood sacrificial love almost as soon as he was given a definition of love, a feat that most humans could never claim. His understanding is especially obvious next to the narrator's, who betrays him and misleads his wife. I guess the narrator never told Pat about what EPICAC did.

I thought Welcome to the Monkey House was interesting because of the way it glorified rape. When Billy explains his motives to Nancy at the end, he explains that he only did this to her in order to bring her to the light, to let her hate him and look for another man that she could actually love. Does the end result of Nancy being in love justify the means of rape? Love is obviously necessary to a person's life, but is physical love worth demeaning him or her? I think Billy could have spent a little more time with Nancy and made the near gang rape unnecessary; he could have used other means. I think this debate is interesting in our contemporary society, which is obsessed with finding true love and especially with everyones' right to and desire for a fastidious sex life.

Kurt Vonnegut and the Temple of Doom

The only other Vonnegut work I've read aside from "Welcome to the Monkey House" is "Slapstick" and I can say without a doubt , "Monkey House" is way better. The stories short and simple, but they aren't any less comical or poignant for it.

Of EPICAC and "All the King's Men" I enjoyed the former. The chess game premise was an engaging set-up, but somewhere in the middle of the game it started to lag and became somewhat predictable (I mean, who didn't see sacrificing a kid to save the troops coming?). EPICAC, though not as comical as some of the works we read last week, was a nice man/woman/machine love triangle, and works with self-aware computers tend to turn out well. Vonnegut has a way of weaving humanity, technology, love and war together in a way that has some splendid results.

I didn't dislike "All the King's Men," (in fact moments after finishing it I told one of my roommates to pick it up and read it) I just felt it could have been tightened up in the middle. Also, and it may just me who had this problem, I had a hard time segregating Pi Yang from the Asian smuggler who tries to swindle Indiana Jones in "The Temple of Doom." They were both the same kind of cocky, shallowly drawn characters. Still a good read though.

Epicac

I really enjoyed reading this weeks selections from Welcome to the Monkey House. I've been a Kurt Vonnegut fan for some time but haven't spent much time reading his short stories. His ability to pick some social topic, throw it into some outrageous scenario, and have it spit out a sound message at the end is uncanny. "All the King's Horses" seemed to me more of an entertaining read than some profound statement. Although I hate to admit it, this may be because it conjured up images in my head from that chess scene in harry potter... EPICAC however, I enjoyed thoroughly. I'm fairly sure it is spelled differently, but the title made me think of that medicine used to induce vomit. I'm not sure how appropriate this is in reference to the story, but it made me laugh. As an engineer, the "mathematician romance" also made me laugh.

Only in a Vonnegut short story would a multi-million dollar super computer designed to pinpoint a rocket to Stalin's coat buttons turn out to be a helpless romantic. This story plays along with our discussion of last week pertaining to people being masked by/in order to please society. The narrator used this war machine to pursue Pat, whereas he wouldn't have stood a chance winning her over by himself. This "betrayal" ultimately leads to the self-inflicted short-circut of Epicac, only after he vomits enough poems to last the narrator 500 years of anniversaries.

Oh Vonnegut!

Last semester as part of Colloquium, we read Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five." I actually wasn't very impressed by the book, though I found some parts interesting (such as the repetition of "So it goes..." following the death of a character. But Susan insisted that Vonnegut was one of her favorite authors. I remember her sharing "Harrison Bergeron" with me as we walked up the hill to Hillcrest one afternoon, snickering incredulously the whole way, and I thought, well, I might as well give him another try - thus "Welcome to the Monkey House" appeared on this group's reading list.

I definitely liked "Welcome to the Monkey House" better than "Slaughterhouse Five." Maybe it was the bite sized short story format, that gave a hint of Vonnegut flavor to a different scenario every chapter. Maybe it was because it's set in the future - and offers more room for speculation on my part. The five stories I selected were ones I felt closest to, for various reasons.

"Harrison Bergeron," of course, was the story that drew me to the book. It wasn't that I couldn't fathom a world in which such extremes of the enforcement of equality were possible, it was that I COULD fathom such a world - in our near future. I mentioned religious equality in France - the fact that a country searching to eliminate barriers that cause racial tension could create a system gone so horribly wrong, where religious symbols are treated as gang paraphernalia, is incredible. And to think they're trying to uphold philosophies found in the US Constitution - separation of church and state! The state is, in effect, negating church completely!

"Welcome to the Monkey House," was not chosen because it's the title of the book, nor because (as some people would like you to believe) I'm obsessed with sex in fiction. I actually chose it because of the complete contrast Vonnegut presented to the society in which we live today. Today we are obsessed with sex. I saw a "Torchwood" episode recently (go ahead and laugh, Kerry, you've got me hooked) where an alien came to Earth and fed from human sexual energy. The episode included a montage of one of the characters walking down streets lined with posters for perfume ads featuring scantily clad men and women, ads for underwear (where, of course, the models must wear the item they're selling, and only the item they're selling), etc. While Vonnegut might have been trying to state that a culture that avoids sex at all costs is no better than one that obsesses over it, he was referring to the 1960s - what does it say about our society that we have not evolved in 40 years? Our thoughts towards sex need not get more prudish, nor do they have to become extremely open (as they have). Surely advertising managers are intelligent enough to find some images that don't involve sex to sell arbitrary items like shoes and deodorant?

I selected "Who am I this time?" because I love Kerry. The question of identity was one I felt could be interesting to discuss. As individuals in the process of "growing up," as the experience of living by yourself for the first time, taking control of financial affairs, etc. is part of going to college, we start to define ourselves. How do we present ourselves to a potential employer? A potential professor? A friend? A lover? ...that and the concept of method acting has always fascinated me. I'd love to have the chance to truly lose myself in someone else's skin (something I don't think can be done without truly knowing yourself first, or you run the risk, as Harry Nash did, of losing your own identity).

It seemed to me that "All the King's Horses" was made into a movie at some point...and as it were, Wikipedia notes that it was made into a TV adaptation in 1991, but IMDB has nothing to say about it. Hmm...well, I'm a terrible chess player, and I know if I were placed in the Colonel's position, I'd surely have lost the match about two paragraphs in. I thought the concept of a chess match to the death was very cruel, and that J.K. Rowling really needed to come up with her own plot. The End.

Not quite, actually: the last short story we read was "EPICAC." More than an odd fascination with sex and fiction, I'm interested by the de-evolution of the courting process in society. Here is a computer that wants to love, that writes poetry in the medieval manner of courtly love that is taken advantage of, by man. (An odd reversal of roles when it comes to science fiction, where the computer generally recognizes it is more powerful than man and then takes over the world - here the computer is not quite gullible, more naive). Sadly, today we don't even look to poetry as a means of courtship. Hell, and we even have all the words of past poets at our fingertips - at least Dennis had one thing right.

So there you have it. Why you had to read the short stories you did :) See you at 5:15!

Same and Equal

In our discussion last week about “Harrison Bergeron” we brought up the words “equal” and “same.” In this short story, society has forgotten that these things are separate. The story begins: “the year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way.” Instead of giving its citizens equal rights, the “agents of the United States Handicapper General” forces U.S. citizens to be exactly the same. And since it is easier (and possible) to make people dumber, less athletic, and uglier, than to improve education, mess with genetics or plastic surgery to make people physically the same, they use “handicaps” to bring everyone down to the same level. I find this concept fascinating, because we know as humans that other people are better at us in some ways and that we are inevitably better than other people in other ways. In this future society, however, it is wrong for anyone to be better, because that means that people are not equal.
We also talked about how despite the fact that people are handicapped down to the same level, the parents in the story, George and Hazel, still judge people based on their handicaps. For example, when they were watching a certain ballerina, it was “easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men.” People still judge other peoples true capabilities by how much they need to be handicapped to be brought down to the average. Vonnegut seems to be saying that humans will always judge who is the most beautiful, the strongest, the smartest, etcetera, and trying to make everyone the same is doomed to fail. We can make all people equal as seen by law, but not as seen by each other.
People being the “same” was also brought up in “Welcome to the Monkey House,” which is also a short story about the future. All of the hostesses in the story “hold advanced degrees in psychology and nursing,” and are “plump and rosy, and at least six feet tall.” To the hostesses “any old man, cute and senile, who quibbled and joked and reminisced for hours” was called a “Foxy Grandpa.” All “nothingheads” exhibit the same behavior. People don’t seem to be individuals in society, in Vonnegut’s many imagined futures, but machines that merely function within society as they are told they should. Although in both cases there are people who break through the mold and fight society to be themselves: Harrison and Billy the Poet.

The Reduction Factor

I'd like to take this post to really focus on 'Harrison Bergeron', not to say the other stories we discussed lacked merit and surely they will make their way into my ramblings, but I am struck by the ideas of equality presented in 'HB'. The reader is presented with the world in 2081, where everyone must be handicapped in order to ensure no one rises above anyone else. There's a Handicapper General to ensure an equality throughout the population.

It's really just too easy to compare this to what's going on in the world today. Anyone who's grown up in Virginia public schools knows about the SOLs: those dreaded exams, that for at least some people only served as an annoyance. All through elementary, middle and high school the SOL was present in order to ensure that everyone fits a minimum level of education. Now, I loathed these exams; they wasted my time, and offered no challenge. Then again, I test pretty well and memorize facts quickly. I would read articles about those less fortunate who just couldn't pass the test, no matter how much time or preparation. And everyone of those kids had stellar talents in other areas. I think I recall an Olympic level gymnast who couldn't get the English SOL.

As I watched my fellow students fly through the exam, or struggle for hours, there were the teachers to consider. Every one of them had to "teach to the test." The curriculum was handed down from the state, and I always thought really limited my teachers. Those who taught AP-level courses still had those limitations: all the students still needed to take the SOL, and then the AP exam needed its own prep.

I get the idea that everyone needs a basic foundation, I understand that there should be a common background for the population, but forcing everyone to one set of rules really limits the opportunity for individuality. I think my senior English teacher would have loved the freedom to just play with novels and poetry, instead of getting us into college and past the exam. He found the joy he could with the structures he had, but I wonder what it would have been like to just go for it.

The ballerina's in 'HB' appear to me an extreme example of equality-bringing beautiful and graceful figures down to ugly, ungainly beasts. But in the home of Harrison's parents the reader sees a somewhat above-average man not allowed to think due to a device that creates just enough sound to distract. It's the equality of the everyday-making the average more average, and that bothers me more than ballerinas. It's counter-intuitive to everything I was told growing up. It was always, "be yourself!" "don't conform!" "be all that you can be!" So, what part of that also means, "don't you dare make yourself a true individual. Don't even think about thinking." I can't resolve those ideas of individuality with standardized testing, or the celebration of the unique with the encouragement to be the same as your neighbor.

Well, can't say I got to the other stories, but soap-boxing does wonders for the soul.

The Loved One

I have never read The Loved One before, or anything quite like it. I found the warning at the beginning to be quite humorous and did not even consider "returning my copy to the bookstore or library unread". I really didn't have much trouble getting into The Loved One, as I kept waiting for the entrance of "the ultimate embalmer" and the "crematorium cosmetician" promised by the back of the book. Once the pieces began to fall in place, however, the sheer absurdity of the situation began to become apparent. I did enjoy Barlow's description of American women as "the standard product". I think it does say alot about our culture to be able to "leave such a girl in a delicatessen shop in New York, fly three thousand miles and find her again in the cigar stall in San Francisco, just as he would find his favorite comic strip in the local paper...". I realize this isn't always true, but I do think its funny when you pass the same girl ten times crossing the drill field. You know, the one with the big sunglasses, the jean miniskirt, the rainbow sandals, and that bag that all girls have? I did find it odd, though appropriate i suppose that Aimee appealed to Dennis' pursuit of "the veiled face in the fog, the silhouette at the lighted doorway, the secret graces of a body which hid itself under formal velvet," all images which allude to death in my mind.

I am not afraid of death, nor nearly as intrigued by it as the characters in the book. Perhaps it is my roots in Christianity, but I am wary of the way these characters glorify death. I realize that these are occupations which are needed in society, and perhaps I have never given thought to all the work that must be done before "waiting ones" say goodbye to their loved one by means of a funeral. Still, this was a very interesting book that opened my mind to many new perspectives in a short amount of time.

Alot like Fargo

For me The Loved One was alot like the movie Fargo. Both are blacker than black comedies that you feel bad about smirking about. I first read The Loved One in high school and I remembered liking it, but not this much. Waugh very cleverly pokes fun at American culture (or perhaps more accurately, lack thereof.) I agree with some of the other bloggers that the book starts very slow, I personally read the first fifty pages over the course of three or four days, but once things picked up I finished out the last hundred or so in one sitting. I really liked the several hideously hilarious scenes in the book, (e.g. when Amy Thatagenos goes from glum to beaming when she receives a smiling cadaver from Mr. Joyboy, or Dennis' poem about Sir Frances being painted like a whore.)

All in all a very entertaining, albeit brief, read.

"I'll put the chairs on tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave."

In our discussion of Waugh's The Loved One, someone posed the question along the lines of, "Do you think our generation has a special fascination with death, particularly in the media?" Men have always been fascinated with death; it's the end of one lifetime and, to many, the beginning of another, hence the many representations of the afterlife in mythologies across many cultures. I don't think our perceptions of death have changed either, though The Loved One presents a more modern perspective on commercialized grief. I see that economic value as what our era has brought to the table in the treatment of death. Not only in the actual ritual itself, where you can shop for how you want to bury your dead, but in general attitudes as well.

I refer to how our generation has spawned the goth movement, a social scene that fetishizes morbidity, or at least that's how it's marketed. It's cool to think about death and dress like it! Brand yourself with dreariness! While the movement draws from many other movements (i.e. roots in post-punk, focuses on individualism, aesthetic associations with the Victorian era), the watered down version targeting the more gullible prepubescents at Hot Topic focuses on the mainstream associations of which death is a part of. There's nothing wrong with a curiosity/interest towards death--it's just weird to think about an actual consumer market for this interest.

Anyway, while I do appreciate some aspects of the gothic aesthetic (damn Ms. McPherson, you make pretty shit), there's only so much I can take of the bleak attitude in regards to death. I mean, I'm a big fan of Kerry's Irish wake, the more celebratory and joyous mindset. In his comic classic The Sandman, Neil Gaiman wrote my favorite personification of Death (pictured and quoted in the subject line), depicted as a seemingly young woman with high energy and always ready with a smile. Never malicious or wicked, she's instead presented as someone you'd probably wanna hang with if she didn't, y'know, accompany everyone to the afterlife. That's not to say she takes her job lightly, and speaks of herself with gravity but without melodrama: "I'm not blessed, or merciful. I'm just me. I've got a job to do, and I do it. Listen: even as we're talking, I'm there for old and young, innocent and guilty, those who die together and those who die alone. I'm in cars and boats and planes; in hospitals and forests and abbatoirs. For some folks death is a release, and for others death is an abomination, a terrible thing. But in the end, I'm there for all of them." Gaiman's is a delightful treatment of death without trivializing or dramatizing it, but makes you feel like when it's your time to go, whether you were ready or not, you're in good hands.

Other death-related media worth mentioning:

• "Six Feet Under" - A six season HBO dramedy about a dysfunctional family that runs a funeral home in Los Angeles. It also deals with the commercialization of grief in a similar manner as The Loved One, when the family business is almost bought out by a funeral service conglomerate. Though really, you should watch it for the most upbeat embalmer you'll ever encounter.
• "The Frogs" - One of the first black comedies? By Aristophanes, the god Dionysus
  thinks good tragedy's gone to hell, so he goes to retrieve it ... in the form of Euripides.
• "Dead Like Me" - An HBO comedy about grim reapers.
• "Stranger Than Fiction" - Metafiction is sweeeet, especially in the film medium where the genre has only a small presence. A man starts hearing a voice narrating his life and learns of his imminent death. The moral about life in the face of death is pretty generic, but the storytelling is smart in all other aspects.
  
• "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" - Not mentioning this as a rec, per say, but with the popularity of all these forensics shows, I wonder whether the appeal is in the mystery scenarios that crime scenes provide or in the victim's death.
  

American Women

Fiction Side: “The Loved One” was the first book I have read by Evelyn Waugh. I found his humor, which was pretty dark, very entertaining, and I enjoyed reading it.
Waugh definitely had an interesting take on the American woman. Dennis found American woman to be all the same, a “standard product,” who would “croon the same words to him in moments of endearment and express the same views and preferences in moments of social discourse.” Dennis finds American women boring, even going was far to say that they all look alike, and when he does get involved with Aimee, he does not get emotionally attached (well, he is English). This is shown when she dies, as Dennis goes right into the business of getting rid of her body, the only regret of her death a “I loved that girl." There are many interesting characters in this book, and names too, especially “Joyboy,” since there was such a contrast of serious dialogue and descriptions with Mr. Joyboy’s name (very amusing). Examples: “‘This is no time for recrimination, Joyboy,’” “Mr. Joyboy was debonair in all his professional actions.”

Food Side: Ben and I scoped out D2 International Chocolate Day and discovered that they do not do chocolate and chili pepper well. Kerry, however, has promised that she does it very well, so that is perhaps a project to consider for later on.

Love, Death, and American Culture

The Loved One started out dull, but as soon as Sir Francis died, it got a lot more interesting. At first I was shocked by how cynically Waugh treats death and then I was appalled by it. Overall, I really liked the book; it provided a good sense for American culture, outwardly proper, but inwardly callous, that still easily applies today. A couple of examples of this duplicity are the characters of JoyBoy and Dennis. While at work, JoyBoy is gentle, strong, and passionate, but once he goes home, he becomes pathetic and powerless. Dennis, who seems unassuming and asexual in the beginning, morphs into a sadistic and sarcastic joker after he is seen through Aimee's eyes.

I was amused by how far out of his way The Dreamer was willing to go to make the park a place for lovers. The ferry brings young couples to the lake island so they can "neck," the Wee Kirk o' Auld Lang Syne provides a place for lovers to swear their eternal love, and a section of the gardens is a burial for couples, presided over by a statue of The Kiss. This approach could be interpreted as a noble blending of the love from life and love in death, but with Waugh's tone it turns cheap. Aimee might be one of the few people who takes the Heart of the Bruce seriously and she kills herself in order to escape it. Maybe this suggests that The Dreamer uses love as a way to urge people into earlier death. Part of the sales routine to get people to make their "Before Need Provision Arrangements" is to exploit their love for their families.

Overall, a good, short and sweet read. In my mind, I can still see Dennis reading a novel as his "fiancee" is incinerated..

On Dying and Diets (among other things)...

So we chose this book because I believe it was the Waugh novel neither Kerry nor I had read. Having come from "Handful of Dust" myself, I was glad to be reacquainted with Waugh's sharp humor and incredible word choice, all bundled into a tiny package of death and Hollywood.

There are a couple of quotes from the book I brought up at our cooking session that I'd like to revisit:

"We limeys have to stick together. You shouldn't hide yourself away, Frank, you old hermit." (p6)
I'm not a "limey," exactly, but I have left my country for the US, and can say that Asians have the whole "sticking together" mentality down pat. It's important, I agree, to retain a level of familiarity with tradition, but not at the cost of assimilating into society. It's a fine line, cricket in the morning and tea and scones in the afternoon is just dandy, as long as it doesn't mean you're never going to step into Starbucks.

"Clever chap, but he went completely native - wore ready-made shoes, and a belt instead of braces..." (p11)
I was amused, throughout the book, by Waugh's portrayal of what it means to be American. Such as this little bit here.

"...he came of a generation which enjoys a vicarious intimacy with death." (p37)
With a continuous stream of exposure to violence via media, I can't help but wonder if this statement continues to be true for our generation, though in a different sense. Waugh refers to the effects of the world wars on Dennis' generation; we. too, have our wars, fought on the other end of the world but brought into our homes on the television. Our siblings, we ourselves, have played war games (Halo, anyone?) and while this is not a rant about the negative impact of violence in video games, I can't help but wonder what having such a familiarity with death and violence can do to our generation.

"I presume the Loved One was Caucasian?"
"No, why would you think that? He was purely English." (p45)
*snicker*

"My memory's very bad for live faces." (p87)
Don't we all know that person that gets so involved in their work that they have no life outside the realm of a job?

"Why, my dear girl, it's only money that has been holding me back. Now you can keep me, there's nothing to stop us." (p110)
Marriage was originally an economic union; as "love" became a determining factor, the value of marriage as a means of economic stability dwindled. If deemed once again as an economic union in the eyes of the law, issues like "gay marriage" would be placed in a whole new light - without the argument for or against the ability of homosexuals to love each other in the same way heterosexuals do, without the argument for or against the "correctness" (moral or religious) of homosexuality, the only debate remains: can two men support each other economically in the same way a man and woman can?

"The cigarettes Mr. Slump smoked were prepared by doctors, so the advertisements declared, with the sole purpose of protecting his respiratory system." (p118)
This reminds me of the Woody Allen movie "Sleeper," where his character wakes up a couple of hundred years after being frozen, to find that in the future, science has proved that salad is actually what deprived humanity of enough nutrients, and eating steak and fries every night for dinner results in a healthier, longer life. Our society is preoccupied with diets, because of our preoccupation with appearance. The consumer-hungry nature we possess results in the plethora of diet options, all "medically" proven to be successful solutions to our weight-loss issues. Will we, too, learn that our cigarettes (diets) are no longer good for us?

"Your little Aimee is wagging her tail in heaven tonight, thinking of you." (p163)
What an appropriate ending.

Shropshire Soul Cake

The recipe:
4 c. self-raising flour
1 tsp. apple pie spice (mixed spice)
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
3/4 c. soft butter
3/4 c. superfine sugar (+ sprinkling)
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/4 c. raisins
approx. 2 tbsp. milk

Method:
Preheat over to 350 F; line a baking sheet. Sift flour and spices in one bowl, while blending sugar and butter to a light and fluffy state in another. Beat the eggs into the sugar mixture, then gradually fold in the flour mixture. Add enough milk to bind the dough, roll on a floured surface to a 1/4" thickness, cut into rounds . Arrange on cooking sheet, prick with fork to make cross design and bake for approx. 15 minutes. Sprinkle with sugar and enjoy.

According to my cookbook, Shropshire soul cakes were given out on All Soul's Day to those who would go out "souling", or singing for the souls of the dead. The traditions that surround death have always fascinated me- the Victorian death and mourning traditions took up volume upon volume: the dress, the flowers, the actions-death was an art. Death is still an art-according to the National Funeral Directors Association the average cost of funeral in 2004 was $6500. The coffin takes up some thousands, then the service, the flowers, and then there's the emotional costs...and so forth. From ancient times to the modern era, the ceremonies of death have been a huge part of culture. How we treat our dead ends up reflecting on our abilities to care for another, from the end of life into the world beyond.

Is this treatment of death, doesn't society go too far? In Loved One, lives of characters revolve around the funeral home. Every description of the "Whispering Glades" memorial park and funeral home paints a picture of the most luxurious possible final resting place, which really only settles the peace of mind of the deceased's "waiting ones". The 'Loved One', unless he or she has left final instructions, really won't have an opinion on the final procedures regarding, to put it crudely, the disposal of the body. Perhaps it's only that when I die I only request a quick cremation, a lovely urn, and one heck of a wake. Specifically an Irish Wake. From what I understand, this means my friends and family left behind get drunk and celebrate the life I led, and the memories I'll leave behind. I spend part of every day wondering about the legacy I'll leave behind, and wondering how I want to be remembered. Each day is a little closer to the final end, and all I really ask is something more lasting to humanity than a stone. I believe in the ancient tradition of the name lasting through the ages. Preferably not in a hated way, but so long as I'm found in a history book, I'll be happy.

Welcome!

A quick greeting and orientation to this blog.

Instead of writing a paper at the end of the semester, Russell has allowed us to post to this blog bi-weekly, to fulfill that requirement. As noted in the email, you should submit your post by midnight on Wednesdays.

We had our first filming session this week, and as soon as Kerry and I can edit the film (if there's someone willing to help us with that, please let us know!) it'll be posted as well.

See you next week!