I'm a sucker for redemption stories, so naturally I love the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, the best Alma 36 story since Alma 36. But why read A Christmas Carol when the plot is so familiar from all the different movies, plays, and other adaptations? For the language. What bauhaus has done to our architecture, modern writing has done to our language. Yes, its more effective and utilitarian. But we've lost something baroque and beautiful in the process. Here is Dickens describing a marketplace:
"The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe."
Metaphor, simile, personification, chain-adjectives, alliteration ("apoplectic opulence")! When did we stop writing like this? When did we forget the feats our language could perform? So sad. So grateful we will always still have Dickens.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
In my mind, there are three great themes worth studying in American history: (1) the founding: how and why we managed to successfully obtain our independence from Britain, and then create a constitutional government of laws and not of men, when every other country founded in revolution seems to have skipped right over the "rule of law" phase and jumped right into military dictatorship; (2) the quest for racial equality, especially as exhibited in the Civil War struggle to overcome slavery, and the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s; and (3) the fight against totalitarianism: America's 20th Century victories over German National Socialism and Japanese Military Imperialism in WWII, and Soviet Communist Totalitarianism in the Cold War. (I probably need to read Zinn, so I won't have such a triumphalist view of American history, but I think I'd rather not).
Certain books ought to be read by every American on each of these themes. And Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is one book that ought to be read on the fight against slavery. After all these decades, it's still an incredibly moving read.
Certain books ought to be read by every American on each of these themes. And Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is one book that ought to be read on the fight against slavery. After all these decades, it's still an incredibly moving read.
The Social Animal by David Brooks
This book, the story of married couple Harold and Erica, is supposedly "the happiest story you've ever read." Harold and Erica are not real people, they are fictional constructs David Brooks has created as the framing device for a book about social and psychological research, much of it truly fascinating.
Thus, we are first introduced to Harold's parents, and as they meet one another, and their attraction develops, we are told what "studies have shown" (the book's most frequent phrase) is going on beneath the surface, in the brain, the psyche, the personality, of each of Harold's parents, which causes them to react to each other the way they do. As Harold is born and develops, we are told what various studies have shown is going on in his cognitive and character development, and how his genes and his environment are affecting that development, etc. We meet Erica a little later in life, and follow her and Harold through adolescence, adulthood, and old-age. Along the way, we are introduced to various personality and psychological studies and theories helping us to understand their lives.
Harold and Erica don't live in real time. Rather, it is roughly 2010 when Harold's parents meet, 2010 when Harold and Erica go to High School, 2010 when Harold and Erica marry each other, and still 2010 when Harold dies. Putting Harold and Erica in real history would apparently distract from the purpose of the book, which is not interested in how people's lives have been affected by the actual events of real history, living through the Korean war or the Carter-era recession, say, but is interested in how people's lives are affected by their own psychological and personality traits.
It's a little hard to figure out where Brooks is going with all this, or what larger point he is trying to make. Apparently it's something about the need to better understand what modern science is telling us about the psyche if we want to make better political choices. Or perhaps the need to understand the "social" nature of man in order to make better personal choices. Despite initial headings on Brooks' "Purpose" the overall point is never made very explicit.
But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that introductory idea that Harold and Erica's lives are "the happiest story you've ever read." The thing is, Harold and Erica's lives don't actually seem that happy, and Brooks' insistence that we see their lives as an example of what we should strive for to live a happy life rings awfully hollow: Harold and Erica have no children. They belong to no church. They seem to have no real moral code. They (and their author) use vulgar and crude language. Harold's high school years are promiscuous, and after their marriage Erica cheats on her husband so Brooks can talk about the psychology of shame. Although Erica becomes involved in a Presidential administration, and Harold takes up his creator's Hamiltonian political ideas, you never get the sense that either have become adherents of some larger social or political cause that gives their lives great meaning. It is true that Harold and Erica both become extremely successful and prominent, but one never gets the feeling that their lives have been lived for some purpose beyond their own success and prominence. For "social animals" Harold and Erica have ultimately led pretty lonely lives. When they die, their existence doesn't seem to have meant anything for anyone but themselves.
The subject matter of this book, what we believe we've learned about the unconscious mind in the last 30 years, was fascinating, and I had a hard time putting it down. Some of Brooks' satirical social observations about modern life are hilarious and spot-on. But in the end the book left me with a bad taste in my mouth. This is not the happiest story I've ever read. It's not even a particularly happy story at all. And the claim that I should see it as such left me cold.
Thus, we are first introduced to Harold's parents, and as they meet one another, and their attraction develops, we are told what "studies have shown" (the book's most frequent phrase) is going on beneath the surface, in the brain, the psyche, the personality, of each of Harold's parents, which causes them to react to each other the way they do. As Harold is born and develops, we are told what various studies have shown is going on in his cognitive and character development, and how his genes and his environment are affecting that development, etc. We meet Erica a little later in life, and follow her and Harold through adolescence, adulthood, and old-age. Along the way, we are introduced to various personality and psychological studies and theories helping us to understand their lives.
Harold and Erica don't live in real time. Rather, it is roughly 2010 when Harold's parents meet, 2010 when Harold and Erica go to High School, 2010 when Harold and Erica marry each other, and still 2010 when Harold dies. Putting Harold and Erica in real history would apparently distract from the purpose of the book, which is not interested in how people's lives have been affected by the actual events of real history, living through the Korean war or the Carter-era recession, say, but is interested in how people's lives are affected by their own psychological and personality traits.
It's a little hard to figure out where Brooks is going with all this, or what larger point he is trying to make. Apparently it's something about the need to better understand what modern science is telling us about the psyche if we want to make better political choices. Or perhaps the need to understand the "social" nature of man in order to make better personal choices. Despite initial headings on Brooks' "Purpose" the overall point is never made very explicit.
But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that introductory idea that Harold and Erica's lives are "the happiest story you've ever read." The thing is, Harold and Erica's lives don't actually seem that happy, and Brooks' insistence that we see their lives as an example of what we should strive for to live a happy life rings awfully hollow: Harold and Erica have no children. They belong to no church. They seem to have no real moral code. They (and their author) use vulgar and crude language. Harold's high school years are promiscuous, and after their marriage Erica cheats on her husband so Brooks can talk about the psychology of shame. Although Erica becomes involved in a Presidential administration, and Harold takes up his creator's Hamiltonian political ideas, you never get the sense that either have become adherents of some larger social or political cause that gives their lives great meaning. It is true that Harold and Erica both become extremely successful and prominent, but one never gets the feeling that their lives have been lived for some purpose beyond their own success and prominence. For "social animals" Harold and Erica have ultimately led pretty lonely lives. When they die, their existence doesn't seem to have meant anything for anyone but themselves.
The subject matter of this book, what we believe we've learned about the unconscious mind in the last 30 years, was fascinating, and I had a hard time putting it down. Some of Brooks' satirical social observations about modern life are hilarious and spot-on. But in the end the book left me with a bad taste in my mouth. This is not the happiest story I've ever read. It's not even a particularly happy story at all. And the claim that I should see it as such left me cold.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart
“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” C.S. Lewis
I like childrens and young adult books for the same reason I enjoy fantasy and sci-fi: they can deal with big plots, major symbols, and the deep questions of life, in a way that authors of a standard grown-up thriller or literary fiction would be embarassed to tackle. But why read at all if you can't deal with big ideas?
The Mysterious Benedict Society lays the whimsey on a little too thick at times (a girl who always carries a bucket, another character who never sleeps, a villian who happens to be the long lost twin of the hero's mentor). Even in children's or young adult literature, I find this annoying. Give me a fully realized fantasy world like Hogwarts, allow some well-defined magic to exist in that world, but then make everything else as familiar and real as possible so I will want to suspend my disbelief and spend time in a place that seems real.
Nothwithstanding this one weakness, when Mysterious Benedict works, it works well, and it kept me reading to the end. There are some important ideas here for young people and old people to learn, such as:
-there are different types of intelligence, all valuable in their own way;
-when recruiting for a secret mission to save the world, it's as important to test for moral character as for ability;
-if some person or group wants to take over society, their first step will be to manufacture a false "crisis" followed closely by taking over the media.
All true concepts, all worth knowing.
I like childrens and young adult books for the same reason I enjoy fantasy and sci-fi: they can deal with big plots, major symbols, and the deep questions of life, in a way that authors of a standard grown-up thriller or literary fiction would be embarassed to tackle. But why read at all if you can't deal with big ideas?
The Mysterious Benedict Society lays the whimsey on a little too thick at times (a girl who always carries a bucket, another character who never sleeps, a villian who happens to be the long lost twin of the hero's mentor). Even in children's or young adult literature, I find this annoying. Give me a fully realized fantasy world like Hogwarts, allow some well-defined magic to exist in that world, but then make everything else as familiar and real as possible so I will want to suspend my disbelief and spend time in a place that seems real.
Nothwithstanding this one weakness, when Mysterious Benedict works, it works well, and it kept me reading to the end. There are some important ideas here for young people and old people to learn, such as:
-there are different types of intelligence, all valuable in their own way;
-when recruiting for a secret mission to save the world, it's as important to test for moral character as for ability;
-if some person or group wants to take over society, their first step will be to manufacture a false "crisis" followed closely by taking over the media.
All true concepts, all worth knowing.
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