Oh Oscar!

The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde


Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions
by Frank Harris


Oscar Wilde

by Richard Ellman

it's not possible to come up with a witty title when one wants to talk about Oscar Wilde. and no words could express my total sympathy for someone whose life was like a mirror that reflects the ultimate shame and terror of humanity even in one of its better forms.

i started with Dorian Gray. it is a very fine book with a clever design and intriguing possibilities. i say "possibilities", instead of stories, because the whole design is evidently fictional, from start to end, and readers are fully prepared for it. this sets it opposite to the conventional "realistic style", which, in Wilde's words, is "art imitates nature", and dictates a distinct reading experience as if pondering a philosophical question (with disbelief suspended): what would happen if one remained young and beautiful while his portrait (art) aged in his place?  in Oscar's mind the answer is likely open-ended and Dorian for one takes on ever extravagant and bizarre sensual adventures, with his portrait taking a beating with each of his "successes".  "possibilities" are also felt as Dorian is constantly redirected by his friend Lord Henry Wotten. Henry lives a more mundane do-nothing life, except providing hints, suggestions and encouragement: Dorian is his artwork in constant need of touching up and perfection. the creator of Dorian's portrait is the virtuous Basil Hallward, who is hopelessly attracted by Dorian but tries in vain to illustrate the right way of living for the latter - the road not taken. The writing is absolutely absorbing in the first half of the book but becomes repetitive and tiresome slowly, only to be saved by a well-thought of ending. and my interest in Wilde was kindled.

thanks to my new kindle, i read Frank Harris's Oscar first (it's free). it's not a scholarly biography but a friend's recounts, biased and intimate.  in fact, it's very much a fictional story with two main characters. fictional because Harris was criticized even at his own time for recreating dialogues, an obvious no-no for an ordinary biographical writing. it is okay with me, however - i take it as a fact that memory is always "reconstructed" each time it is called into action, knowingly or unintentionally, obviously or subtly.  Harris himself becomes a major part of the narrative because he has an overbearing personality loaded with opinions and conviction.  Harris is highly sympathetic to Wilde for two reasons: he appreciates the latter's genius more than most of his contemporaries and he believes in fighting for a more liberal and tolerant society (for art and artists). it attests to his strong belief that he also shows a total lack of understanding of Oscar's homosexuality. thus, they are friends of contrast, but not of intimacy; of respectful deference, but not of love. one "casualty" of this powerful and revealing book of his is that i found Harris himself rather too straight-arrow-ish and ended up with no wish to learn more about him (his autobiography is fairly known, mostly for its frank and abundant sexual contents).

Ellman's book is considered the most authentic Wilde biography. it is well researched and comprehensive, but the writing is a little tedious. Ellman's Wilde is more mature if not as vivid. reading Ellman, i evolved from sympathy for Oscar's personal tragedy to appreciation of his true genius. with that, i do not feel Wilde had had too much to regret in life. tragic as it was, he knew what his desires were and dared to live them, too - not many human beings could have claimed that.  to a large extent, his contemporaries, supporters and detractors, behaved as well as their own nature had dictated.  the real terror is their well functioning society, with its capacity to exaggerate and multiply the collective sentiment or hatred of the populace, under which, Wilde was simply pulverized, as numerous before and after him.  and Wilde knew: 'as one reads history, not in the expurgated edition written for schoolboys and passmen, but in the original authorities of each time, one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishment that the good have inflicted.' not just sickening but horrifying. and Oscar becomes a martyr - most unwillingly, i am sure.

most memorable quotes:

"The Love that dare not speak its name" in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his philosophy, and such as you find in the sonnets of Michelangelo and Shakespeare. It is that deep, spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are. It is in this century misunderstood, so much misunderstood that it may be described as the "Love that dare not speak its name," and on account of it I am placed where I am now. It is beautiful, it is fine, it is the noblest form of affection. There is nothing unnatural about it. It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him. That it should be so, the world does not understand. The world mocks at it and sometimes puts one in the pillory for it."


------ his speech in the court


Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard.
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word.
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

- from The Ballad of Reading Gaol


"A patriot put in prison for loving his country loves his country, and a poet in prison for loving boys loves boys" (it is a relief that he never regretted his true nature)

Wilde had always held that the true "beasts" were not those who expressed their desires, but those who tried to suppress other people's. 

"What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. without it,the world would grow old and colorless". “by its curiosity Sin increases the experience of the race. Through its intensified individualism it saves us from monotony of type. In its rejection of the current notion about morality, it is one with the highest ethics."


How Wilde is remembered now:


from Harold Bloom:
...after more than a hundred years literary opinions has converged in the judgement that Wilde, as Borges asserts, was almost always right. This rightness, which transcends wit, is now seen as central to the importance of being Oscar. Daily my mail brings me bad poetry, printed and unprinted, and daily i murmur to myself Wilde's apothegm:"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling." -  Harold Bloom


from Ellman:


the monument bears an inscription from The ballad of reading goal: 
And alien tears will fill for him
pity's long-broken urn,
for his mourners will be outcast men, 
and outcasts always mourn.


'There is something vulgar in all success,' Wilde told O'Sullivan.'The greatest man fail, or seem to have failed.' he was speaking of Parnell, but what was true of Parnell is in another way true of Wilde. His work survived as he claimed it would. We inherit his struggle to achieve spureme fictions in art, to associate art with social change, to bring together individual and social impulse, to save what is eccentric and singular from being santized and standarized, to replace a morality of severity by one of sympathy. He belongs to our world more than to Victoria's. Now, beyond the reach of scandal, his best writings validated by time, he comes before us still, a towering figure, laughing and weeping, with parables and paradoxes, so generous, so amusing, and so right.

I also copied a passage from an old biography of Carson "Carson the advocate" by Edward Marjoribanks - probably the only one that has survived him, which nobody reads anymore. I searched for his biographies with the desire to find something like this, and did:

There remains only to be recorded a circumstance as strange and terrible as the culminating scene in Dorian Gray.

Some years afterwards, Edward Carson was walking by himself in Paris on a wet day in the early months of the year. He was about to cross the street when the driver of a fiacre, with Parisian recklessness, almost ran him down, and splashed him clothes with mud. He stepped back quickly on to the pavement, and knocked someone down. Turning around to apologize, he saw a man lying in the gutter, and recognized the haggard, painted features of Oscar Wilde. Like a flash, his mind went back to that occasion eight years before, in London, when Wilde's fine carriage had almost overrun him. the eyes of the two men met, and they recognized each other. Carson turned around and said, "I beg your pardon." Wilde, under the name of Sebastian Melmoth, was living in Paris, dying of a terrible disease, "beyond his means," as he observed with the wit which never deserted him, preying on the generosity of his friends. In a week or two, he was dead.

voyaging with Darwin...and Browne

Charles Darwin: Voyaging (vol1) and the Power of Place (vol2)

by Janet Browne

it's one of the best books i have ever enjoyed, certainly the best biography i've read.

while revisiting the notes i took on the Origin of Species - with the intention to expand them into something more substantial and interesting - it occurred to me that i should learn a little bit more about his life, beyond the ubiquitous iconic figure everyone seems to recognize.

but which biography to choose? i went Amazon.com, clicked the first Darwin book on top and dived right into the readers' reviews. almost immediately, someone was saying this book was pretty good; but Browne's far better. others concurred. with reasons i would heartily agree, like the avoidance of too much psychoanalysis... i got my book - such is wisdom of the mass.

and what a wonderful book. often biographies are as interesting as the lives depicted. i do not doubt biographical writing must be demanding and tricky. besides diligent research, one has to find ways to bring real-life heroes and sheroes alive, above and beyond merely "real". but i've rarely expected good writing and never actually noticed writers behind.

Browne's Darwin is different. Darwin is one of those few human beings endowed with high intelligence and luck, born in the right time and right place and lived a long life of amazing achievements. He is by nature complex, with controversies and contradictions abound, both as a person and as the "co-discoverer" of the "evolution by natural selection" theory. and what "controversies" his theory has been stirring, 150 years and counting! it seems any biography would do well.

not content with such rich a life, Browne attempted, and succeeded in placing Darwin in the much larger social and historic context of the Victorian era, which she painted with critical comments on the political and economical surroundings, with frequent references to the familiar (and less familiar) literary figures and books of the time, and with meticulous description of many trivial (but entertaining) details of a countryman's life back then. This realistic and beautiful setting is real and fictional at the same time, making the reading exceedingly satisfying.

with seemingly an effort to be thorough and objective, Browne also casts a very harsh eye on any, large or small, questionable behaviors and actions of her hero, unknowingly creating a digressive but amusing tension in her narrative, which tickled me to no end: "she is like Caroline, the loving but judging elder sister of Darwins'!" This kind of soft criticism eventually helps deflect any suspicion of Darwin's character and achievements that readers might have held based on other information and opinions, like those sympathetic to Wallace: "well, this indeed shows a little selfishness on Darwin's side, but taken as a whole, he had more than made up by his other good deeds!" thought this reader here and there.  

talking about Wallace, the only criticism, more like a wish, i could come up is that this expansive book provides very little scientific analysis on their respective contributions to the evolution theory and the critical difference in their thoughts. but this might take a different kind of expert.

ultimately, i am much gratified by finally learning a life as fully fulfilled as it could be. for once, free of the anguish i felt for my other favorites like Melville, like Van Gogh, like Orwell.

New day new plate

meat bad
rice a foe
make your (vege) plate 
fruitful

eat less
work more
live your (long) life
as a chore


(The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you don't want - Mark Twain)

When the domain Registar deletes...

(the pointer to www.baihua.org, "the woods")

it's pathless to the woods
and I am lost in the wilderness
of void

no burns and tickles from the cobwebs
and no twigs to break
or avoid

and two eyes are weeping:
where are my friends? and where
the feuds?!

----------------------

from Frost's Birches:

And life is too much like a pathless wood  
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs  
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping  
From a twig's having lashed across it open. 

 Birches

by Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right  

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,  

I like to think some boy's been swinging them.  

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.  

Ice-storms do that. 

Often you must have seen them  

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning  

After a rain. They click upon themselves  

As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured  

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.  

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells  

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust  

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away  

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.  

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,  

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed  

So low for long, they never right themselves:  

You may see their trunks arching in the woods  

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,  

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair  

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.  

But I was going to say when Truth broke in  

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,  

I should prefer to have some boy bend them  

As he went out and in to fetch the cows--  

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,  

Whose only play was what he found himself,  

Summer or winter, and could play alone.  

One by one he subdued his father's trees  

By riding them down over and over again  

Until he took the stiffness out of them,  

And not one but hung limp, not one was left  

For him to conquer. He learned all there was  

To learn about not launching out too soon  

And so not carrying the tree away  

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise  

To the top branches, climbing carefully  

With the same pains you use to fill a cup  

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.  

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,  

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.  

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.  

And so I dream of going back to be.  

It's when I'm weary of considerations,  

And life is too much like a pathless wood 

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs  

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping  

From a twig's having lashed across it open.  

I'd like to get away from earth awhile  

And then come back to it and begin over.  

May no fate wilfully misunderstand me  

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away  

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:  

I don't know where it's likely to go better.  

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,  

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk  

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,  

But dipped its top and set me down again.  

That would be good both going and coming back. 

dear Gaia I know

(it's mostly an "insider" parody, each line referring to one or two net friends)

Everyone is a poet at heart –
to free David from the Rock
to set sunflowers a-blaze!

Everyone is a poet at heart –
to play mother earth let
the white bunny graze

Everyone is a poet at heart –
to see a donkey in a glass
with odd numbers to praise

and to walk alone on
Kilimanjaro?
That’s all I know

the great gatsby is indeed great

The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

it didn't leave much of an impression when i first read the book many many years ago. i probably didn't even get the whole story right and certainly had nothing to say about the writing. i was barely able to plow through it smoothly. its exceedingly high reputation had puzzled me since.

this time around, however, i have come to a shocking realization - towards the end - that this is likely the most well written book i have ever read! how vivid all characters, major and minor; and how the incredibly perfect delegation of just the right amount of attention to each. the layout of the whole plot is flawless while the pace of the story flows like a confident river, fast or slow as required. adding to that are the subtle and effective use of symbols and, of course, the very polished and elegant style.

i was not particularly touched by the story, even less the much lauded social implications - it was a re-read after all - yet enjoyed the book tremendously. almost as an artwork. and it is a puzzle no more.

tinkers: tinkering, tinkering, and more tinkering

Tinkers

by Paul Harding

what a letdown.

the writing is simply too crafty (or tinkering); and the story and the plot become apparent twenty pages into the book. the heavy handed treatment makes the characters cartoonish and superfacial, their amazing pains/struggles not touching but overbearing. took some effort to finish this short book.

i am surprised that it won the big prize.

Moby Dick - and I only am escaped alone to tell thee

by Herman Melville

(old comment; been reading Melville biographies last few weeks)

Everything about whale and whaling, yet much more.

So intriguing were the stories and so beautiful the prose;
so abundant were the details and so complex the structure;
and so grandeur was the scope: science, philosophy, religion, history, human psyche and temperament, all in a single book (albeit a lengthy one).

And I had a time of enjoyment, enlightenment and enrichment. Then my heart ached when it all came to one tremendous tragic end.

Simply one of the best books ever written. I believe.

Not an easy one to read*. I might add.

(* No wonder his contemporaies all missed out on this book, leaving the author die in obscurity.)

a spy, a word play

(propped by dean because of this: http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0005/anagram/. the original little poem was written because of the word "dust". photo from google image)

Spy bares

by passerby
------------------------
She turns around
and sees –
those golden dusts
glittering
against the setting sun.
ocean abound

under which, a
bronze statue
bathing, unclothed
in the dusting sun.
ocean beyond

and she sighs –
is that you?
Bond,
James Bond?!

--------------

a glimpse of

you turn around
and see -

those golden dusts

glittering

against the setting sun

which touches you

so you look inside

and feel -

your tender heart

glowing

amid the dusting sun

and you resign -

such is life

worth living

an eternal golden braid. indeed

Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
by Douglas R. Hofstadter

Not sure what i could say about it. felt a sense of accomplishment already that i was able to gobble it down in its entirety. after quite a few "false starts". :-)

It's a "beauty of complexity": exploring human mind in such a comprehensive way that a reader is constantly in need of specialized and deep knowledge in diverse areas from art, music, mathematics, computer, artificial intelligence, to molecular biology. and a "beautiful mind", if not as beautiful as the author's.

And a book of entertainment, too ,despite the difficulty of the topics. The author was forever playing word games/puzzles, embedding small jokes/amuzements, or just generally thinking and writing in informal/playful ways, as branded in the title: "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll".

Also amazing that the book doesn't seem to age, 30 years since its publication. What could I say? One of its kind? Oh, sure.

self-identity in a crowd

Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley

"be yourself" is such an evidently enticing idea that one rarely pauses to speculate what "self" is really about... until the matter arises that one could not be anyone, or anything, but himself.

such was the fate of Frankenstein's monster. there are many things to read into this book: a horror story with an unmatchable monster, a science fiction about mad scientists in blind pursuing of knowledge, an indictment of modern science, ... even an advocate for Rousseau's educaion theory.

but i couldn't help but drawn by the monster's absolute loneliness. his creator, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, loathed and abandoned him the moment he was created, his life since becoming a futile search for love, bitter rejection by all who set sight on him, and his brutal annihilation of everyone his creator ever loved. with all this, however, when he finally confronted his creator, all his wanted was a monstrous companion of his own kind. such a revealing moment. it turns out that individuality is secondary to group identity, without which, the monster, or we, could not have happiness or peace.

should have known this all along. after all, the genetic identity among human beings are >> 99%, while our individuality is the 1% "rest of the story".

i was a little disappointed by the writing style (seemingly amateurish) and the lack of action from page to page. by the time i closed the book, though, i was totally impressed by its originality and complexity.

I buy books

I buy books
To tuck me in
With one more glance
Those blurry lines on
That page of vague importance

I buy books
To take me to
To many a lonely journey
That commuter train humming
That airplane roaring

I buy books
To bring home world
Of imagination
That mid-earth long past
That true love never to realization

I buy books
To listen to souls
Of originality
That gentleman who hunts whales
That young lady who walks on insanity

And I buy books
To wander in virtual reality
Between words and phrases
I forget
(Momentarily)
My own identity

Frank McCourt Passed Away

Angela's Ashes and 'Tis

Frank McCourt

I started this Pulitzer winning memeoir with high expectations (it was instantly a highly acclaimed book ) and was not disappointed. The childhood story, wrapped in the thicket of Irish culture, was sad, heavy and touching; the narrative smooth, poetic yet non-sentimental. This combination made an easy reading and left a lasting effect even after the book ended.

"'Tis" was a recount of the author's growing-up experience since he came back to America in late teen. It picked up where "Ashes" ended and more than made up what I felt unsatisfied after the first book. So these two books are essentially one and a very good one.

a sailing ant

(it was meant to be a joke - someone wrote a Chinese poem of sending an ant to a journey)


chip as the boat
leave being the sail
sat alone, the ant
pondering on his tail:

that gentleman will be fanning
the wind will be blowing
i shall say him good bye now
but where am i going?

geocities going away

(as everybody else who felt nostalgic, i set up my first ever website and wrote my first ever HTML line there. and the beginning of my internet addiction. but it was a brief hangover. moved on years and years ago. )

this is the "original statement" on the homepage --

Welcome to my eHouse!

It is my belief that every individual carries in himself a unique perspective towards life. I am happy to share mine while wishing this inspires you to reflect and explore your own inner world.
The overall theme (so far) is pretty much my attention on individuality, my general appreciation of life on its brighter side and my learning of some complex and intriguing matters. The desired effect of reading my stuff is for you to feel superior and creative about yourself. Well, I have enjoyed this exercise more than I would like to admit. Now hope you get something worthwhile as well. (photo from http://www.corbis.com/)

the left pane:

BOOK SHELF

COFFEE TABLE

STORIES

POEMS

OPINIONS

PICTURES

COLLECTIONS

FRIENDS


HOME

lower center:

Chinese Writings (NEW!>

Topics I Enjoy Thinking About
Interesting Articles I Have Collected
Special Moments to Share
Friends and Their Adventures

lower right:

The Coffee Table
The Front Yard

even a disclaimer:

*Except those with authors and sources shown clearly, all articles were written by Name. You may view and copy them for your personal, noncommercial use, provided you retain all credits associated with the Content.

The mysterious tyger

(it much delighted me listening to my elder boy recite it the first time. i even read quite a bit about Blake afterwards. his life tells of an extremely creative artist. a sweet love story, too.

i call my younger boy the "little one", so this was read by the "big one". he read it in such a rhythmic, even musical tone)

THE TYGER

By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
1794

my new websites

A 20-year Memorial Service for Those Who Lost Their Lives in the Student Movement in the Spring of 1989

http://www.remember64.org/

a Chinese forum to exchange thoughts and find friends

http://www.baihua.org/

searching the truth of life - The origin of species

The Origin of Species

Charles Darwin

I picked up the book because I felt compelled to join the hype for the author's 200-year' birthday and for the 150-year anniversary of the book's publication. knowing not too little about modern genetics and biology, i was prepared to read it as something of historical significance but too outdated to enlighten the mind.

how wrong i was. the book has survived because it is still ever so fitting. the evolution theory is essentially the same today, just more vibrating with each new discovery in life science. the book entertains, too, with Darwin's broad and intricate knowledge of everything living or lively. besides "throwing light" on the origin of speices, the author also lights up himself: his intellectual power, his passion, curiosity, patience, thoroughness, ... and his humanity.

it's no exaggeration that Darwin found the truth of life. and as always, with a glimpse of truth -even a much lesser one - stirs the heart in a poetic sentiment. so he ends his book with these lines:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

so true, so profound. :)

in search of identity

Dreams from My Father

by Barack Obama

I picked up the book because a review article on WSJ commented on its good writing. I had had little interest in Obama's politic views and found his speech, which seemed to inspire just about everyone else in my vincity, rather boring and empty - this was still true when I watched him again the other night addressing the congress. Well.

However, I was totally absorbed into his stories, an almost nonchalant account of someone searching and defining his ancestral identity exclusively from his father's line. From there, I was also taken to the traumatic journey Africans have experienced (or been driven to) in the past hundreds of years. It is sadness, humiliation, desperation, confusion, anger, even hatred combined. And simple - forever seemingly - disorientation or dislocation for a people. Individualism, which I myself identify with, is rather powerless against such tantalizing tragedy of human life - I have to admit.

Of interest to me was also his experiences as a "community organizer". I remember I was mildly offended by the constant scorn against such a career during the presidential campaign, but had no idea what it was about. Well, it was part of his personal search for those of his own, and a mostly futile effort to mobilize people for some common causes that are evidently important but lacking in glory. I know better now with my own share of such endeavor.

As a geneticist, it's also quite curious how he seemed to have no desire in defining himself as a "hybrid". He saw and thought of himself as black.

All in all, a very good book.

221b - reading Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

(comments later. now this cute little poem; Sherlock Holmes (R) and Dr. Watson (L), drawn by Sidney Paget)

221b

by Vincent Starrett

here dwell together still two men of note
who never lived and so can never die:
how very near they seem, yet how remote
that age before the world went all awry...
here, though the world explod, these two
survive, and it is always enghteen ninety-five.

and how can one not love these two dudes, their singular (an often used word in the stories) friendship, their most absurd adventures and their all eccentric neighbors in the great city of London. what fun. :-)