a fiction and a philosophical hourglass

Accidental God

by Aleron Zemplin

http://www.anaccidentalgod.com/

I read the book a while ago and liked it a lot.  It has a very fine and cute narrative.  Both stories, Yehhi's and Abram's, are engaging and "make sense" - in parallel and in contrast to those in the Bible. Characters are well done: Yehhi intelligent and polished, Abram awkward, kind and devoted, Ismael smart and practical, Alina loyal and hot-tempered, and her husband hot-headed... And all of them live in a believable ancient world of strange, brutal, and often comical rituals and habits.  The writer's subtle, humorous treatment of those poor souls here and there further adds to the fun of reading.

With the extensive and opinionated preface in mind, I was happy to see that the author's own philosophy is woven into the story in a non-intrusive and fairly charming way.

As for the important message the author aspires to convey via the stories, which he has done very concisely and forcefully in the preface, the scope of the book appears a little too narrow to carry. In fact, it only apparently shows up on one occasion when Yehhi has to spell it out. It would be more effective if the story had continued a little further down the "historical road" to complete Yehhi's eventual success in becoming God.  This way, the reader, with the help of the author (as he appears in and out of the story in creative ways), could get a complete picture how this "fat chance" has eventually played out.  At one moment, I wondered whether this book was only the 1st installment of an ambitious trilogy. I would certainly look forward to it.

The main book aside, I also enjoyed the author's elegant lengthy introduction of the theory of "Fluctuation", presented to encompass everything that matters.  As a preface to a fiction though, it could be a little fancier.  I can imagine fictionalizing it a little to satisfy both readers with technical and science training, and those with a literary bend.

The double triangle on the cover is a rather interesting symbol.  The way I look at it, the top triangle is one's heritage of the past (knowledge or genetics) while the bottom triangle how one passes on his essence to others; with neither, one becomes the infinitely diminishing dot in the middle, with no existence or significance.

All in all, a fun read with some good food for thought.

人与《枪炮、病菌和钢铁》

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies 

by Jared Diamond

今年过节不顺，一家人除了俗事就是病痛，很多时候是躺在床上度过的。 但手边的书恰好是《枪炮、病菌和钢铁》，放眼千万年人类社会的消亡和变迁，自怨自艾的机会就这么错过了。 

据作者钻石教授（Jared Diamond）介绍，写这部书的契机是他的一个新几内亚朋友鸭梨（Yali）提的问题:“为什么你们白人开发出那么多的货物并带到新几内亚，而我们黑人几乎一无所有？”。这里的“货物”泛指一切现代生活物质，如铁斧头，火柴，医药，衣物，软饮料和雨伞之类。而按人类学标准，在二百多年前欧洲人到来时，新几内亚仍然处于“石器时代”，非常原始落后，只有寥寥可数的石头做的工具和器械。 钻石教授接着说，他和鸭梨都很清楚，平均而言，新几内亚人和欧洲人一样聪明；那么，这个天差地别，一定是其它因素造成的。

钻石教授 是洛杉矶大学的地理以及生理学的教授。《枪炮、病菌和钢铁》于1997年发表后即风行全国，很快获得普利策奖（Pulitzer Prize）和 Phi Beta Kappa 奖，并成为很多大学专业和公司上层的必读书，影响巨大。他本人也因此书获得国家科学奖章。


那么钻石是怎样回答鸭梨的问题的？ 简单而言，他放长眼光，跳过有书写记录的人类历史，从几万年前说起。因为他发现，居住在不同大陆的不同民族的未来，其实从一开始就因为各自所在大陆的地理和生态特点的截然不同而“命中注定”了，跟他们的智力或天分毫无关系。

最关键的事件发生在上一次冰川结束后的一万三千年以前。 复杂文明社会的产生和发展，包括先进的技术以及中央集权的政治结构等等，跟农业社会的形成是分不开的。 在此以前，人的生存完全依赖于原始的生态环境，靠采摘果实和射猎动物果腹。 为了找到足够的食物，人群需要不断地迁移。 这种无定居的游牧生活，极大地限制了财富和知识的积累。农业的出现和发展，使得“余粮”成为可能，导致人口飞速增长；飞速增长的人口又使得新的技术发明，劳动的分工和专业化（商人，士兵，艺术家，政府官员。。。），以及复杂的社会结构的形成（比如国家和帝国），变为大势所趋。 换句话说，农业是现代文明的源头。

但是农业的出现，实质上完全仰仗于自然生态环境中可以培植的植物和可供驯化的动物的存在。 作者分析了各大陆的原住居民的历史，确信他们都有培育植物和驯化动物的能力和行为，但仔细研究各个大陆的野生动植物，就会发现，并不是所有的动植物都可以被人类培植或驯化，并不是所有的动植物都能够提供足够的供人类繁衍所需的营养！把这些条件应用到各个大陆人类社会，古代农业最早出现在西亚的所谓“新月沃地”（fertile crescent）就不足为奇了。“新月沃地”包括从尼罗河向东北延伸到底格里斯河，向东南伸展至波斯湾，那里有人类培植和驯养的动植物的最早记录：粮食（大麦，小麦），亚麻为棉，家畜（山羊，绵羊，牛）。　他们还从临近地区进口了马和驴作为运输工具。总结起来，欧亚大陆一共驯养了１３种大于100磅的大型动物，而南美只驯化了一种，其它大陆则根本没有。 

谈到驯化的困难，作者借用了托尔斯泰的名言“幸福的婚姻都是一样的，不幸的婚姻各有个的不幸”来解释。　幸福婚姻需要很多要素都同时满足：性吸引及观念一致。而后者包括对财经管理，孩子教育，宗教以及对方家庭的看法等等，不一而足。。。一个因素不满足的婚姻，往往就不能够维持幸福。 野生动物的驯化也是如此。食肉动物需要太多的食物喂养不划算；大象长得太慢也不成；豹子圈养起来就不能生儿育女；熊太凶猛很难驯化；斑马看着跟马很相似，挺有希望，却却喜欢咬人，而且咬住就不松口，甚至用绳索套住一匹斑马也是难乎其难的事！羚羊一惊吓就乱撞；独居动物不可能圈在一起。。。这么三下五除二，能够驯养成功的动物数目就少得可怜了 —— 只有欧亚大陆得天独厚。


换一个角度看问题，人类社会大大小小的创造发明，比如农业的出现，文字的出现，并非总是从无到有，“重新发明轮胎”，更多的情形是引进，模仿，再改进。 因此，新技术出现后的迅速传播，还受制于地理环境的方便与否以及有没有天然屏障的阻碍。 欧亚大陆幅员辽阔而且东西纵长，气候条件大致类似，这既提供了繁多的野生动植物作为培植和驯养的原材料，也方便不同的人群往来，及交流新思想新技术。 相对而言，美洲大陆南北延伸， 气候差异巨大，就不利于在一个气候带里成功培植出来的植物或动物被带到另一个气候带存活繁衍。其间，最大的赢家是欧洲，从公元前到公元后的两千年间，地中海地区从中东引进了了那里的动物，植物和农业技术，还有字母文字，整个欧洲很快跟进。 农业迅速发展，人口密度增加，使得技术分工，社会复杂化；后者再进一步促进经济发展和技术进步。 这些优势最终使得欧洲人率先有了“枪”和“钢铁”，得以征服其它大陆。 

农业发展和稠密的人畜共处也会产生新问题，比如微生物（“病菌”）导致的传染病的出现和传播。 只不过，魔高一尺，道高一丈，病菌传染致病和与之接触的人群的免疫机能对病菌的抵抗是 “红皇后赛跑”的经典实例。 在（《爱丽丝镜中奇遇记》中，爱丽丝（小卒过河变皇后）跟红皇后一起当棋子，奇怪的是，她俩拼命地往前跑，却始终呆在同一个棋格子里：

“咳，在我们的国家里，”爱丽丝说，仍然喘着气，“你一般都能跑到一个别的什么地方去 —— 如果你跑得很快又跑那么久的话，象咱俩这样。”

“像一个慢人国嘛！”皇后说。“嘿，在这儿，你看，你得竭尽全力跑，才能在同一个地方呆住。如果还想去别的地方的话，你起码得把速度加倍！”

这就是病菌和人的免疫机能共同进化的实质，一个敌对的而又相互赖以生存的核竞赛。 当“跑得很快”的欧洲人来到新大陆时，他们随身携带的 “病菌”，无意之中，甚至成了比“枪”和“钢铁”更有力的武器。 土著人完全没有相应的免疫机能可以对抗之，也没有足够的知识和手段能够及时阻止其传播。 结果一传十，十传百，转眼便是哀鸿遍野，然后万里无人烟。


《枪炮、病菌和钢铁》这本书的大视角长距离，粗线条一般的假设和推理，以及生动的例子，给对人类史不了解的普通读者提供了一个全新的思考角度。近代几百年欧洲在全球的军事和文化的任意扩张，确实让人难以抵抗“人种优劣论”。 稍微想想，一边是钢枪铁炮，一边只有大刀长矛； 一边是层出不穷的文学艺术音乐佳作，一边只有对“高山流水”“二泉映月”的仰止：即使双方达到的至高境界难分上下，从数量和花样翻新的角度看，却实在没有可比性的。这难道不证明人种的优劣吗？ “不！”钻石教授是坚定的地理环境决定论者。 他用了无数事例，说明各个民族的好奇心和创造性其实是相似的，不相上下的。 例如，他接触的那些土著人，都对自己周遭环境的动植物了如指掌；假以时机，也都有过试图驯化野生动物和种植粮食的努力。最终人算不如天算，最早的各个大陆定居者别无选择，只能因地制宜，找到最适合当地环境的生存办法，所谓“一方水土养一方人”。 登陆到澳洲大沙漠的远古亚洲人，就不得不放弃已有的“先进”农业技术，重新拾起长矛射猎为生。 

那么，这是否就证明人的智力跟人类发展一丁点关系都没有？ 按鸭梨和钻石的观察，平均而言，新几内亚人和欧洲人一样聪明，钻石甚至觉得他的很多新几内亚朋友比白人更聪明。 这就是教授的偏见和个人观察的局限了。 放下争论不休的智商问题不提，即使假设当初登陆各大陆的人群智力完全相同，一万三千年不是一个太短暂的时期，无论是对所处的不同地理环境的适应，还是对复杂的社会结构的形成和技术文化的发展 ——文明的发展 —— 带来的新的生存挑战的适应，今天的人和老祖宗都不可同日而语，一如与病菌长期竞跑中的免疫系统与从未接触过病菌的免疫系统之间的差异，因为他们应该拥有对相应的地理环境和相应的文化环境的，具有选择优势的遗传变异的积累。


从可以供人类栽培和驯养的动植物出发，到农业的出现，使得文明的产生变得简单而有序可循，并令人信服。但如此大手笔，自然也会有很多难以回答的问题。 比如读者还可以问，这些野生动植物的存在就足够产生现代文明吗？ 另外，现代文明到底指的是什么？ 书里描述的现代文明主要指欧洲的“枪炮和钢铁”，但“欧亚大陆”却是囊括在一起描述的；其早期文明至少包括北非，中东，中国和欧洲，而这些文明现在却处在不尽相同的阶段：欧洲的极大优势和中国以及其他地区的相对停滞和落后。 这是钻石收到的读者反馈中一个主要质疑点：为什么是欧洲，而不是中国征服全球？ 退回去一千年，中国的技术文化，至少在很多方面，确实是遥遥领先于世界的。

钻石因此单独写了一章，专门讨论中国问题。 中国也是最早农业化的地域，虽然考古记载比新月沃地稍晚，但种种证据表明，是从无到有的五大独立起源之一，甚至可能还有南北两个起源地：北方最早种植小米（millet），南方最早种植大米(rice)。 跟其它地区一样，农业发展后，人口暴增，随之而起的是社会结构的复杂化，专业化以及各种各样的创新发明。 早在公元前500年，中国就率先有了铸铁技术。 除了常常提到的四大发明，中国人还驯化了野猪，学会了养蚕，并首先发明了苹果嫁接工艺，解决了种植果树的巨大难题。 中国对世界的影响，在亚洲各国尤其明显，不仅仅输出了农业技术，还有其独特的文字和文化。中国为什么没有持续领先？ 钻石教授归咎于大一统对创新的阻碍。据书里的例子，1432年（？），新登基的明皇帝明文禁止建造航海船只，使得在其父亲执政时已经领先世界的航海技术功亏一篑（郑和下西洋）。 相对而言，欧洲一直是群雄争锋，彼此既有合作也有竞争，更适合技术文化的革新。但这些观点事例恰恰说明文化制度对文明发展的重要性，已经偏离了地理环境决定论。 

这是该书论点的一大局限，地理环境决定文明的产生和雏形，似乎无可置疑；但文明发展的过程，也是人类慢慢打破地理环境的制衡的过程，如今，即使在自然环境最严酷的澳洲，也已经遍布现代化的城市和农村，新移民无需被迫抛弃已经积累的文明成果，“回归自然”。事实上，现代人的生存环境很大程度上已经变成了人造环境，而造就人类文明的地理环境，却相应地变得脆弱不堪，甚至面目全非，而需要人类的关注和维护。 这是一种新的“共生”关系。或许我们不应该再漫无目的地“拼命往前跑”，而是慢下来，好好保护现在居住的这个棋格子，咱们唯一的棋格子：地球。


《枪炮、病菌和钢铁》的可读性很强。 许多小故事都描述得很生动，并发人深省。 关于日本人起源的那章，令人信服地证明现代日本人其实是韩国人的后代，并从旁观者的角度调侃两国的兄弟“相煎何急”。技术发明和流行，原来并非总是最佳的胜出；很多时候偶然因素，甚至错误因素也会起到决定性的作用：打字键盘至今遵循QWERTY字母排序就是一个典型的例子。 读到关于病菌的描述，正是本人偶染肺炎卧床的日子。 自身免疫系统没能够抵抗住细菌的侵入，却有医生开的抗菌素法宝。谈笑间，病菌和人的免疫机能共同进化的核竞赛，已经变成了病菌和抗菌素代表的现代医学之间的核竞赛。 地理决定论离我们越来越远了。这是好事，还是坏事？ 我想不清楚；但对本病人来说，当然是好事，不然，哪里还有机会翻这本闲书。

lights off, from beginning to end - heart of darkness and lord jim

Heart of Darkness
Lord Jim
by Joseph Conrad

1. Heart of Darkness.
It took me a while to get past the first few pages of Heart of Darkness. To me, the sentences seemed to be blunted. Read in isolation, they were fine, even elegant; yet one sentence did not lead to the next naturally, to the point that I would even notice such a issue might exist and feel the pulsating pain in how the words, images and meanings might have been threaded together.  At least twice, I flipped my kindle away utterly bored and annoyed. It came as a surprise, as I was expecting nothing less than the best possible English to flow through, like the deed and dark river. Most likely, I recognize, I am totally wrong about this writing of Conrad's; but truthful to my own subjective judgement.

Across the long "opening" water, the writing became more engaging and less irksomely meaningful. Still I could see what the author was leading to all too clearly, for he had been dropping foreboding hints and winks all over the places. way ahead of time.  It was so heavy-handed that I decided to stop reading one night, anticipating the overwhelming climax. It came in the morning reading. only so lamely. by the time, this reader had factored in all possible catastrophic scenarios to be even mildly shocked. Besides, it lacked absorbing stories and plots.  Characters are mostly qualitatively and vaguely described, but not enlivened by their actions.  the frame-in-frame story telling technique might be original but felt too polished and artificial - Marlow, an old sailor, just kept talking, talking and talking, talking beautifully, articulately and intellectually, to a deafening and invisible audience. "really?"

Having done with my complaints, I did find the book thought-provoking and insightful in depicting human psyche: as dark, as deep and as impenetrable as water (river, ocean...).  How Jungian. Yes he would have loved it. The morale of the story is a little dated but adequate, even a little advanced, to the times Conrad had lived. By the former, I mean that he considered the Jungles and whoever lived there the beginning, the primitive of life, only to be civilized to the (Western) light of the day.  on the other hand, he did question the brutality and effectiveness of such an endeavor and depicted the danger of one gave in to "darkness".  The book illuminates Conrad's complex mind: deep emotion, high intellect and intense creativity.

So I looked for another book of his to read.  I had to abandon Secret Agents after another few false starts: it sounded so artificial. But I was quite satisfied with Lord Jim.

2. Lord Jim.
It was Marlow again telling a long long story to an unresponsive and irrelevant audience; but this time there were stories to tell - the sad life of Jim, a romantic sailor who failed in the ocean and on the land. Writing was consistent with that of Heart of Darkness, but it was a far better novel with touchable characters and track-able story lines.  While the pace was rather slow, and occasionally tiring, an absorbing and intense narrative was able to hold the reader's attention and steer his sympathy to a startling question: could anyone redeem himself after one momentous but catastrophic loss of courage that breaks the unwritten code of conduct of humanity? This was Jim's journey of life, with Marlow as witness and half-minded supporter. Conrad's answer was a long convoluted NO, in the sense that a faulty mind has no means to right itself. What's missing in Jim, however, was hardly clear: the moral courage, intellect, practical judgement, or all of them. It seems easier to see what he does have: he wanted to be good despite himself.

Ultimately, his books illuminate Conrad's pessimism and disillusion towards human nature and civilization, his disheartening suspicion of imperialistic expansion and keen prophesy of the eventual breakdown of humanity: as with Lord Jim, the voyage started on the wrong foot, in the middle of chaos, and a jump off of it only led to a spiraling down into the abyss.

bound to the earth

Of Human Bondage

W. Somerset Maugham

it was not as i had expected, a touching and polished drama by a hugely popular author. it is indeed touching, but only because it is full of real-life pain and joy, struggle and triumph, confusion and revelation, much as experienced by the author himself.  literally and figuratively. the writing is not particularly smooth and elegant; but the narrative is clear and absorbing enough to overcome the lack of style.

the opening chapter is unforgettable: a happy little boy, Phillip, suddenly lost his loving mom and had to move in with his uncle and auntie he did not know: the uncle was cold and detached; his auntie tender but timid. added to the ineffable suffering was his born-with club foot. Phillip Carey managed to grow up, travelled abroad, tried to learn art and then medicine, fell into a wrenching unrequited love, lost his (little) fortune, made and lost friends, and found happiness...eventually, he gained his foothold.

i have read two books by Maugham: this and the Moon and Sixpence.  much like how Phillip lived, he wrote with great effort, sincerity, thoughtfulness and passion. life was not a smooth sail, in particular because he was so sensitive and had to struggle more constantly with mental burdens: his stutter and his loss of parents at a very young age.  this afforded him a better understanding of and empathy for others, ordinary people with ordinary virtues and limitation.  it made his books earthy with humane warmth.

some "earthy" passages:

it is such as he, as little conscious of himself as the bee in a hive, who are the lucky in life, for they have the best chance of happiness: their activities are shared by all, and their pleasures are only pleasures because they are enjoyed in common; you will see them on Whit-Monday dancing on Hampstead Heath, shouting at a football match, or from club windows in Pall Mall cheering a royal procession. It is because of them thatman has been called a social animal. (kindle location 654)

there was no meaning in life, and man by living served no end. It was immaterial whether he was born or not born, whether he lived or ceased to live. life was insignificant and death without consequence. (location 8368).

the will to achieve could not help you and confidence in yourself meant nothing. (location 3645)

the illusion of free will is so strong in my mind that i can't get away from it, but i believe it is only an illusion. but it is an illusion which is one of the strongest motives of my actions. before i do anything i feel that i have choice, and that influences what i do; but afterwards, when the thing is done, i believe that it was inevitable from all eternity. (location 5131)

Jane's ladies and Jane Eyre revisited

Pride and Prejudice 
Sense and Sensibility 
Emma
by Jane Austen

Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte

Loved all three books by Austen, with Pride and Prejudice most satisfying.  Auntie Jane's ladies are beautiful, idealistic, independent, witty and worldly; her writing, with biting humor, displays a seemingly realistic picture of the old British society in the early 19 century: its foolishness, provincialism, and parties, lots of parties.  After all the intrigues and confusions, there is a happy ending for all who have fallen in love, thus guaranteeing the ultimate joy of reading.

It's harder to warm up to Jane Eyre than to sympathize with, but she won over this reader with her intelligence, courage and her capacity for love, despite a nightmarish childhood, a humble beginning of youth and the unbearable hardship she endured while running away from Mr. Rochester . Her friendship with Helen Burns was sad but beautiful; that with Diana and Mary was endearing and so ... womanly.

I did not re-read Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte because its dramatic impression on me decades ago has never been forgotten.

In real life, Austen was a tough lady and Bronte sisters no less so.  But what lively and eternally fresh books they have written.

Candide and the intellectual power of the author

Candide

Voltaire
here is another satire on human nature, laid bare with all of its deficiency: cruel, stupid, ugly and senseless; and on this world: meaningless, indifferent and chaotic.  it is a carefully constructed argument against the presumed purposeful human existence, expressed as "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds".  the rebuttal is caricatural but powerful; the stories, while sketchy and conceptual, are intriguing enough to hold one's attention and sympathy. from time to time, i mentally compared it to Gulliver's Travels. while it is cruder and less imaginative as literature, Candide does deliver its intended message effectively with blunt and brutal directness.

i had not read Voltaire's works till this novella and was rather surprised to learn, from wiki, that it was practically the only one of his thousand books still widely read. it seems sorrowfully inadequate to his lasting fame. evidently, one can be prodigiously intelligent and productive without being truly original. and time will erase all but the most indented traces. nonchalantly. without a yawn.

old dueling - the strange case of Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Haggard

She

King Somomon's Mines
by H. Rider Haggard


Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson

googling the most read books of all time, i was surprised (and ashamed) that i had never heard of "She" or H. Rider Haggard.  almost impatiently, i read through his two most famous books in next couple of days: first the Queen, then the King. it was certainly enjoyable, but i could easily imagine a much younger me to be mesmerized by such stories while observing this older, if not wiser, me criticizing the writing with detachment. like those stereotypical "good bad books", the plots are intriguing but the narrative plain, with the characters poorly depicted and of little development.  It also reminds one how time has changed. one of the main attractions of such stories is the description of vanishing worlds of past and lands far far away.  now with globalization, with internet, and with all sorts of blending and mingling, even moon has been touched upon and Mars bare for all to see, the only lost land seems these old generations of fantasy.

it was mentioned in the wiki entry that Haggard was prompted to write the books by the huge success of Stevenson's "Treasure Island". he even placed a bet that his stories would be far better. i did buy a copy of "Treasure Island" many years ago for the boys. neither was interested in reading so i didn't bother either. now i wasted no time to read Stevenson's classic.

well, almost from page one, it was a "hands down" in my mind whose books are better. far better: the writing and characterization, assuming the plotting is at par.  by this time, i was also reminded of Stevenson's Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. so intellectually, Stevenson was also superior.  i could only say i wish i had read Mr. Haggard at a much younger age.  Stevenson is probably timeless, however.

Travel with Gulliver again, or for the first time

Gulliver's travels
by Jonathan Swift
it's about the land of little men and the land of big men: one of those never-to-be-forgotten stories in everyone's childhood. i did not know for all those years, however, that it was actually an adult book: a satire on human nature.

with kindle, i started to read Swift with "a modest proposal" and "the battle of the books". i was not particularly engaged in either: so yesterday and so far away. but Gulliver's travels was different.  i immediately tagged along with Gulliver and was delighted to revisit those good old lands, this time, seen through the eyes of  the very original and bitter old Gulliver (or Mr. Swift). it turns out the Lilliputians (little men) are narrow-minded and mean and Brobdingnagians (big men) insensitive; Lupatanians are boring and Houyhnhnmsians too noble to reach. Yahoos? ouch! that's us, the mere human beings: too degenerate to bear.  the stories are delicious, cute, funny, ridiculous, realistic, other-worldly. and more. what a book. how one wishes to be able to write like that!

Memory palaces and places - Moonwalking with Einstein

Moonwalking with Einstein: the Art and Science of Remembering Everything
by Joshua Foer

1. pickled garlic
2. cottage cheese
3. salmon (peat smoked if poss.)
4. white -------------------------------------- six bottles of white wine
5. 3 hola hoops ------------------------------ socks (x3)
6. socks 2x ---------------------------------- 3 hola hoops (spared?)
7. -------------------------------------------- snorkel
8. -------------------------------------------- dry ice machine
9. email to Susan ----------------------------- email to Sophia
10. ------------------------------------------- skin toned cat suit
11. find the Paul Newman movie - someone up there likes me
12. ------------------------------------------- elk sausages??
13. megaphone in director's chair
14. ram steak --------------------------------- harness ropes
15.-------------------------------------------- barometer

well, this list was a supposed to-do list the author used to learn from his mentor (Ed Cooke) and to illustrate in the book the techniques of submitting something (and everything) to memory.  I grasped the principles as I read along and could remember 14/15 after finishing the chapter (1:30 am, 10/21/2011). with a few minor mistakes. 6:30 am in the morning, i recounted all 15 of the items with ease (not counting minor mistakes).  i hadn't thought of it since.

now, almost one month later, the list is no long crispy in my min: I barely managed half of it. with significant effort to recall the missing ones to no avail. and with quite a few mixed-ups. and crumbs here and there: only white is left with six bottles of white wine.

the basic techniques are simple enough. the first step is to build one's memory palaces (in my case, it can be appropriately called "a place", one place), where everything is in unforgettable order and they serve as your own signposts. next is to hang whatever you want to remember to each of those signposts in order. for this, you have to first create an image of the thing to remember and then assign that image to the signpost to make them inseparable.  now things to remember become things to visualize with association. according to the teaching, the best palaces are places you've lived: childhood home, familiar neighborhoods, grandparents' houses, train stations ....

for someone as disoriented as me, this kind of palaces are impossibility compared to whatever I have to remember. so for my practice, not done with serious effort, i used the Chinese zodiac: a tiny place with 12 animals called for my service: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, chick, dog, pig. since there were 15 items in the laundry list, I reused the first 3 animals:

my rat hang a picked cucumber jar on his neck; but it is not cucumbers, but white garlic. next.

my ox got the cottage cheese. he was puzzled: cheese belongs to the rat. done (it helped also, i am sure, that i associated the first two items this way).

my tiger fights with salmon (it looked more like an alligator as I just Haggard's She).

checking back to what's retained, memory is about hardworking, time, concentration and repetition. i can see this technique powerful, but the effort is insignificant.  my original insincere objective was to memorize the card deck so that i could show off at imagined parties of future. for that, i must build a much larger memory palace and I must have 52 unique images of subject-action-object. then i have to practice, practice, practice... now the question becomes "do i have better things to busy myself with?"

it is certainly a book worth reading. i have learned something unforgettable: not the laundry list, which is now back in my memory again, but the impressive memory techniques and principles. so I've acquired knowledge, if not skills.  it chewed up a significant chunk of the mystery regarding "photographic memory", which I always find fascinating. many small stories are quite fun to read. however, i also find this book itself slightly superficial. it is well researched, yet lacks the authenticity of true knowledge and passion. the writing is bland, too. the best part is Foer's skepticism and investigation of one of the so-called "high functioning savants" (Daniel Tammet). anyway, i could envision a far better book on the same topic, of the same style.  Stefan Fatsis's Word Freak came to mind. with all this and that, however, this is a book hard to forget.

A heavy-handed portrait of an artist

The Moon and Sixpence
by W. Somerset Maugham

He was a stock broker, and a good husband with a lovely wife and beautiful kids. He turned 40. He abandoned his family to become an artist. His art works were strange, other-worldly and eventually recognized as the touches of a genius.

Maugham must have been fascinated and puzzled by the incredible life story of Gauguin. To comprehend, he recreated a fictional version of him.  The moon and sixpence is really a rational depiction of pure artistic temperament, as exemplified by the reclusive artist. Having made myself fairly familiar with the biographical facts before hand, I did not find Maugham's portrait to coincide with my own impression of Gauguin.  I even liked "the real thing" better. However, I was not at all disappointed with the book.  Maugham was a very good story teller and able to make his thoughts and reasoning interesting by vivid characters and plausible plots.  And his appreciation of art and artists is genuine and touching.

can't go wrong; hard to add much - to the immortal Michelangelo

The Agony and The Ecstasy
by Irving Stone

this is the very popular "biographical novel" of Michelangelo. it was not poorly written and did add texture to the usual sketches of his life. however, Michelangelo's life was no ordinary life; it was full of astonishing achievements and never short of drama, all of which meticulously documented and recounted over and over. having already visited Rome to "witness" his artworks and read several books and numerous articles about him, i found it hard to get excited about the little stories made up by the author beyond the "authentic facts" i had already become familiar with. it would be a fun book for someone who enjoys an easy read and has only started to learn this amazing genius.

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