Lenny: Mahler, Pedagogy, Leonard Bernstein, and My Cat

Leonard Bernstein rehearsing with Benny Goodman, 1940s. [Photo: Public Domain via Wikimedia]

Dinner with Lenny: The Last Long Interview with Leonard Bernstein by Jonathan Cott

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A brief look at Jonathan Cott's profile at Rolling Stone magazine reveals a long list of interviews (including dinners) with some of the greats of music, literature, and film, including Bob Dylan, Susan Sontag, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Henry Miller, Richard Gere, and Francis Ford Coppola. I found this book, which was originally meant to be an article for Rolling Stone, refreshing. During the course of some twelve hours, Jonathan Cott interviews the conductor and composer most famous for West Side Story, but is not allowed to ask questions such as "What is your favourite book/composer/music (etc)?" The interview was conducted in 1989, and within a year, Bernstein, a heavy drinker and smoker, was dead. There are some great reviews that cover the basics of the work, including Amanda Mark's review in the New York Journal of Books. I agree with Mark's criticism of the interviewer injecting a little too much of himself into the interview, but it is clear that "Lenny" was taken with him. Suzy Klein's interview in the New Republic captures more of Lenny's sassiness.

But for me, two things stand out most. First, Leonard Bernstein was a great conductor. And not just because others say so, but now I am armed with more knowledge of his work as a conductor, I have been able to compare the works conudcted by Bernstein with that of others. For example, I have taken a keen interest in Mahler. This interest stems from a number of coinciding interests. I first "discovered" Mahler after reading Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. This led me to watching the movie starring Dirk Bogarde, where Mahler's music forms a major part of the soundtrack. (This led me to discover the literary work of Dirk Bogarde.) Around the same time, I was fortunate enough to attend the inaugural performance of John Adam's Saxophone Concerto at the Sydney Opera House, where John Adams conducted the work. Despite a non-existent microphone, Adams held the audience captive as he spoke to the audience about Mahler (among other things). I have never heeard such silence from such a large crowd. John Adams is easily my most favourite composer (of any genre), but there is clearly a connection here with Mahler. So I was surprised to learn that Bernstein fits into the theme of things I enjoy, and I have been comparing recordings of Mahler's work conducted by Lenny with other conductors. There are clearly interesting differences that I would otherwise have missed.

Second, I had no idea that Bernstein had a clear pedagogy. He is credited with teaching a new generation about classical music with the 1950s television series Omnibus. Suffice it to say that Bernstein had a way to lift the lid on education, to inspire, entertain, and really teach. I like West Side Story, but I was never really enamoured with it, as many others seem to be. But reading this book has given me a glimpse of the great man. Finally, and despite my initial reservations about the interviewer, I have a new appreciation for Jonathan Cott's work, and will investigate some of his other published works. I am not sure how I stumbled upon this book, but I have a suspicion it was from Maria Popova's wonderful blog, Brain Pickings, which is easily one of my favourite blogs. And by way of an aside, we named our cats Karl and Lenny (of The Simpsons fame), but interchangeably refer to them as Karl Marx and Lenny Lenin. But now I can only think of my cheeky cat as Lenny Bernstein. And, based on Cott's interview, reincarnation was not something that Lenny took lightly.

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On the trail of the Christian use of the Delphic maxim "Know Thyself"

Saint Teresa of Avila's Vision by Peter Paul Rubens, 1612-1614 [Public Domain via Wikimedia].

The Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It took me some time to get through this masterpiece by Saint Teresa of Avila. Written in 1577 during the Spanish Inquisition, I found it difficult to get through the self-effacing humility of the good saint and had to take several breaks. 

One of the blessings/curses of the Dover Thrift Editions is that the books are deceptively small, and while this book is only 168 pages, the pages are dense in words. It is a blessing that the books look short, and a curse because they aren't. Yet they are very affordable and the deception encourages me to read books I would otherwise put off for later. Like Karl Marx's Capital, sitting near me (and almost as long as Tolstoy's War and Peace at some 1,361 pages.). 

I found a few things about Interior Castle confusing. St Teresa writes there are seven mansions that the soul passes through (one chooses to enter the crystal castle from the wilderness). As one enters the first mansion, some of the critters get in with you. You can see both the light of the innermost mansion, yet you can still see the dark. 

St Teresa tells of the experiences of the soul progressing to the seventh mansion where the soul is at one with God. Although the development of the soul as it progressed was obvious, I am still in the dark as far as knowing which mansion one might be in at any given time, if at all. 

St Teresa writes for other nuns, and while I understand that this is a modern translation, it is interesting how she frequently asks the reader to excuse her stupidity in being unable to explain things. 

Clearly, the book was not written in one sitting, and often St Teresa admits that she cannot recall what or if she mentioned something in a previous chapter, and that she would not re-read what she had written. This is clearly not a first draft, however, and this edition includes footnotes that indicate what was a marginal comment, with alternative wordings, additions, or omissions from one of the two "learned men" St Teresa had correct her drafts. Such caution was prudent during the Spanish Inquisition, indeed. 

For many pages I made no notes, and then numerous notes in a handful of pages. St Teresa covers the importance of self-knowledge, of learning, of humility, and raises an interesting question of the soul versus the spirit. While she does not give a definitive comparison, she suggests that the soul and the spirit are closely intertwined, but are not necessarily the same thing. I have often wondered about this difference. 

One could argue that the ideas of Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, James Allen, and Stephen Covey came from this work. St Teresa confirms the theme of Candide, Franklin's virtues, James Allen's "he who conquers self conquers the universe", and Stephen Covey's "Circle of Influence" as principles for living the interior life. 

I read this book because of the title, hoping to find something more about the "inner citadel" the Stoics spoke of, and others who have used "interior castle" to mean something similar. St Teresa puts a different bent on the Stoic idea, but one can see the influence of the Stoics on Christian thought. 

There are two main lessons St Teresa has confirmed for me. First:

...try to be least of all... and your foundation will be so firmly laid that your Castle will not fall.

And second:

...unless you strive after the virtues and practice them, you will never grow to be more than dwarfs.

Further, St Teresa provides a quote which goes a long way to explain what I refer to in my leadership teaching as the "duty cycle" that prevents people from realising their goals:

...the devil sometimes puts ambitious desires into our hearts, so that, instead of setting our hand to the work which lies nearest us, and thus serving Our Lord in ways within our power, we may rest content with having desired the impossible.

Finally, a friend once asked about the Delphic maxim "Know Thyself" and that, despite having been told by others that the phrase appeared in the Holy Bible, it doesn't (and it really doesn't), this is the earliest Christian reference to the Delphic maxim I have encountered to date. Whether this was a result of the work of the Toledo School of Translators is something I hope to investigate further.

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There is no time like the present to cultivate your own garden

Woman with bound feet reclining on chaise lounge, China [Public Domain via Wikimedia].

Waiting by Ha Jin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a lovely story that has all of the drama of Candide without the travel. If the theme is anything, it is that, rather than "good things come to those who wait", we might often wait for something that was never good, and then regret what we deliberately left behind. I don't think the theme comparison with Candide's "cultivate your own garden" is too far from the author's intention. 

Set in a period that encompasses the Cultural Revolution, this novel captures what it may have been like to live during this period of history in China. Ha Jin's work is brilliant. I saw this book in the bookstore and I was drawn to it. 

After reading Eileen Chang's Lust, Caution, I have decided to investigate a variety of literary works outside of my Anglophone comfort zone. While Chang's work was translated, Ha Jin is a Professor of English at Boston University, so this work was written in English. 

His style is engaging and I found it hard to turn the light out to sleep for two nights as I wanted to finish it in one go. This novel had me reflecting on my own life and the choices I have made. 

Not that I regret the past - or at least I inspire to live in the spirit of amor fati - but I couldn't help think that there are many lessons of the past that I hadn't really embedded in my psyche. After sharing the journey with the protagonist, Lin Kong, I am still returning to memories to mop up the remnants of lessons long forgotten or ignored. 

I think a great novel allows the reader to learn from the experiences of the characters. In effect, to learn from the mistakes of fools rather than make the same mistake. This novel won the 1999 US National Book Award, and no wonder. While I do not pretend that a book award is the be-all and end-all of great books, it provides some reassurance. And I wasn't disappointed. 

Ha Jin has written many other novels, and I hope to be reading another of his works very soon. It was helpful to have a working knowledge of Chinese modern history, and especially Chairman Mao's philosophy, but it is not necessary to enjoy the story. 

At the beginning here I wrote that it is a lovely story, and it is, but in a way that one sits and thinks for an eternity before putting the book down. It is also a very sad story. If I were to sum up the story in one of Poor Richard's (Benjamin Franklin's) maxims, it would be thus:

Would you live with ease, do what you ought, and not what you please.

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On the Origins of Folk Wisdom with Poor Richard

Benjamin Franklin Henley House. Photo by Valis55 [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Wikimedia.

Wit and Wisdom from Poor Richard's Almanack by Benjamin Franklin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book includes hundreds of quotes from Poor Richard's Almanack, published annually by Benjamin Franklin and lasting some 25 years. Franklin admitted that he had "borrowed" some of the maxims, but the Almanack seems to have created many a household saying. It is always interesting to find one of the sources of "folk wisdom" and familiar sayings for which we take the origin for granted. I have been using La Rochefoucauld's Maxims for some time as a prompt for my daily journalling, and as I near the end of his maxims, I anticipate substituting Franklin's maxims once I am done with La Rochefoucauld. What is surprising about Franklin's maxims is the sheer breadth of topics - and of course, this volume is but a few of the best from the many issues of the Almanack. Some have a Christian bent, for example:

When you taste Honey, remember Gall.

Some recall Arabic sayings:

Fish and visitors stink after three days.

Others consider the "no contest" between science and religion:

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason; The Morning Daylight appears plainer when you put out your Candle

And even some leadership lessons:

He that cannot obey, cannot command.

This work is part of the Dover Thrift Series and I have others including Oscar Wilde and Abraham Lincoln to read. While technically not a "book", I find such lists of maxims easiest to digest if one reads through the list first, and then takes each in turn as a trigger for reflection. One of the most interesting quotes makes me wonder whether Franklin's self-teaching (minus the social capital of those who win the birth lottery) had similar limitations to my own:

Write with the learned, pronounce with the vulgar.

I found the after-effects of these maxims long lasting. There is so much in such a short book. That Franklin thought long and hard about his personal philosophy is obvious. If I were to sum up this philosophy in one maxim, it would be this:

A long Life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough.

The strangest thing for me was that I read this while taking a break from reading St Teresa's Interior Castle. That much folk wisdom emanates from St Teresa's masterpiece is obvious, albeit more readily digestible when written by Poor Richard.

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Human Nature and Waugh's Phoney War

Waugh's Phoney War scammers become heroes because they are all in it together. [Images: Public Domain via Wikimedia]

Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Waugh begins with two quotes from Lin Yutang's The Importance of Living. Interestingly, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank used the epigraph as a critique of President Trump's February 2018 plans to hold a "grand military parade" in Washington. Yutang's epigraph provides Waugh's title:

A man getting drunk at a farewell party should strike a musical tone, in order to strengthen his spirit . . . and a drunk military man should order gallons and put out more flags in order to increase his military splendor.

A second quote from Yutang applies equally to the work of Waugh and Trump:

A little injustice in the heart can be drowned by wine; but a great injustice in the world can be drowned only by the sword.

Yet Milbank's critique of Trump refers to the Classical Roman triumphal parades, sans the ego check:

There’s only one problem with this plan, as I see it. In the Roman triumph, a slave would ride with the general in his chariot and repeatedly whisper into his ear, “Memento mori”: Remember, you are mortal. For our parading president, this could be a dealbreaker.

The Evelyn Waugh Society was chuffed that Put Out More Flags got a guernsey. But here is the "dealbreaker" for comparing the theme of Waugh's story with contemporary conflicts: Waugh's characters all act like petty scammers and nepotists during the Phoney War, but by the time the conflict begins, and reality hits the first casualty, we see a change of heart as the characters step up and do their duty. Nonetheless, the period before the evacuation of Dunkirk and the ensuing Battle of Britain was remarkably un-warlike. Waugh captures this time satirically. I was confused about the theme of this work and so I turned to John Chamberlain's 1942 review in The New York Times. Chamberlain wrote:

[The story] starts out as a wicked satire in the well-known Waugh manner and ends up as a morality play.

I rather thought it otherwise - that Waugh was looking at human nature when there was nothing to lose, versus once the first blood is spilt. Once our first war casualty appears, everyone except the author rushes to become a commando or refuses a commission so they can serve as private soldiers. Otherwise, they are all silver-tails who try to gain obscure roles in safe office jobs. There is one scene, however, where the author is exiled to Ireland, that reminds me of the present. Basil Seal, in his attempt to increase his tenuous status in the bureaucracy, accuses the author of being a Nazi (a situation which Basil himself orchestrated). This results in the author's exile and I watched the movie Trumbo immediately after finishing the book. To be un-American (or indeed, un-Australian) seems to be a timeless farce. Chamberlain thought the change in attitude of the elites rather absurd, that it was not "good Waugh". Yet the book remains a classic, with Bridey Heing writing for Pank Magazine in 2015 claiming that:

...telling a story that is humorous without making a joke of war itself can be extremely difficult [and] Put Out More Flags is laugh-out-loud funny, and the humor being at the expense of the war industry makes that laughter cathartic.

I certainly didn't laugh out loud, but I intend to read more of Waugh's work. Once I started, I barely put this book down. This is the first Evelyn Waugh novel I have read, and I have A Handful of Dust to read next.

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How to Organise Your Scholarly Life

I advocate effective use of technology, which may not be the latest thing. [Photo: CC0 PublicDomainPictures.net]

Back in 2012, I had reached the trough of disillusionment with social media. The Campus Review thought it was novel that I had refused to use a mobile phone from 2010 until 2015. But after moving to a regional area, the mobile phone found a real purpose. I have since worked hard to find balance in the effective use of technology, rather than technology for technology's sake. In this article, I outline what I think are the best things online, particularly for serious scholars who don't want to be distracted by time- and energy-sapping online noise.

Creating a serious library

I read books. Real books, and I prefer paperbacks. But I catalogue them and cover them. Thanks to Mortimer Adler, I have given myself permission to write in my books. Keeping a library sounds simple, but there are a few things to learn.

How should one cover one's books? I asked the librarian at the Gunning Library to teach me. The first thing is to buy decent contact. I buy mine online from The Book Cover Co. 

I use labels I bought from the Gunning Paper Shop - Austab WP21 labels - and I add my name and the catalogue number and the first three letters of the author's family name (I discuss this below) to the label (before covering).

To catalogue my books, I use OCLC Classify. Simply enter the ISBN or author's name and title, and find the most common catalogue records. I decided on the Dewey Decimal system, which works best for small libraries, and it has a sense of primary school nostalgia. (I remember with fondness the smell of books in the library of Parramatta Park State School.) I use BPeck's DDC list to check catalogue numbers and for books not on OCLC Classify.

I set up my library using IKEA's "Billy" bookcases and, inspired by IKEA Billy hackers, built it into the wall using mouldings from Bunnings. My shelves are labelled using inexpensive brass drawer label holders from ebay.

So that's the library. But how do I stock it? This process is intertwined with my blog. I explain below.

Buying Books

I buy books mostly from The Book Depository because the prices are good and the delivery is free. I have also found The Book Grocer at Majura Park in Canberra, among other places, to have interesting titles. But these two are my go-to bookstores. 

The Book Depository has a personal wish list function. I use this to keep track of the books I want to buy. I explain how I discover books below. But for now, here is how I develop my library catalogue.

Say, for example, I purchase a book from my wish list. When the book arrives, I immediately add it to my Goodreads "Want to Read" list, and add it as an "owned" book. Every now and again, I export my Goodreads library, then import it into Library Thing. I paid a modest donation to have lifetime access to Library Thing and it is worth it. The free account is limited to 200 books. With my unlimited account, I have a searchable, printable, shareable, and usable catalogue of my library. But it isn't finished yet!

I use Goodreads to review every book I read. This is not to critique the book as in a typical review, but to record my notes and reflections on reading the book. I then use the Goodreads "Blog This Review" code and paste it into Google Blogger, where I label and modify the review to suit my blog. 

I became a Goodreads Librarian a while back to add new books and to correct mistakes in the Goodreads data and metadata. 

Discovering Books

The best way to become an effective reader, in addition to limiting use of social media, is to remove your television (or put it in an inconvenient location in your house). Next, set up a reading program. I use the annual Goodreads' Reading Challenge to stay on track. However, note the downside of such challenges.

In addition to my long-term goal to read all of Mortimer Adler's Great Books list, I have a number of email, podcast, and literary subscriptions I use to "discover" new books. The following is my top ten:

1. Ryan Holiday's Reading List. Ryan Holiday is my ideal student, blending the old with the new.
2. Art of Manliness Book Club and Podcast. This list and podcast introduced me to the work of Steven Pressfield, Cal Newport, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Theodore Roosevelt, to name a few.
3. Brain Pickings. Maria Popova's blog is how I'd want mine to be if I were writing for other people.
4. Literary Hub. I have learnt so much from this website. It covers an extraordinary range of topics.
5. Paris Review magazine and Podcast. It's not based in Paris, and it doesn't do reviews, but the hardcover subscription provides access to the entire archive, and the podcast, recently established in partnership with my favourite premium podcast subscription, Stitcher, is brilliant. See also the London Review of Books, but I stopped subscribing to the newspaper version, but still visit the site from time to time.
6. Esquire magazine and Esquire Classic. The cover price is so cheap, why not? Esquire Classic is a separate (although discounted for print subscribers) subscription to everything ever published by Esquire. I discovered much of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Truman Capote's destructive La Côte Basque, 1965 in the archives.
7. The Atlantic. I no longer subscribe to the New Yorker, but the international subscription price for The Atlantic is so low it is worth the money. Even if their prediction of the presidential election is still smarting.
8. Lapham's Quarterly, The World in Time podcast, and Lapham's Quarterly: The Podcast. Lewis Lapham, former editor of Harper's Magazine, is still one of the sharpest intellects around.
9. Stitcher. I host my own podcast on Stitcher. There are so many podcasts to listen to, but one of my favourites is Literature and History and, although as inconsistent as my own podcast, The Joy of Serious Literature. 
10. Book Riot and Annotated Podcast. This is a recent subscription. But the podcast introduced me recently to Truman Capote's downfall (see Esquire Classic above).

Blogging

My blog is less of a blog and more of a personal website. I have been blogging regularly for well over ten years. At first, I wrote standard blog-style articles on politics in the area of my research interest. This attracted the attention of ABC Unleashed (later The Drum), and my media engagement as an academic took off from there. 

Nowadays, my philosophy of blogging has changed. It is based on Rolf Potts' idea of travel journalling:

My [blog] is written by myself and for myself - an author and audience of one.

While this has severe limitations for those who wish to commercialise their blog, if one blogs for scholarly reasons alone, then this philosophy reduces self-censoring. It also enables me to record what I learn from my reading, rather than writing notes (or reviews) for others. I am my own audience. This may sound myopic, but I have a collection of notes that is always at hand, and I have a curriculum vitae that is perpetually up to date, and travels with me wherever I go.

To set up the blog, I registered the domain name www.politicalscience.com.au and have my email hosted by NetSpeed. The Google Blogger DNS code redirects to my domain. That way, I use Google Blogger templates (I have learnt over many years how to customise Blogger's templates), rather than full-service website hosting. I find this approach gives me complete control over my website.

I share directly to Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus using the inbuilt sharing functionality. I don't chase followers and I tend to broadcast, rather than interact. I use News Feed Eradicator for Facebook, and this keeps distractions to a minimum. The approach allows me to be visible on social media, rather than being consumed by it.

Email

A few years ago, I decided to separate my work and personal email accounts when organisations started to clamp down on the use of information technology. This has been a blessing. Setting up a Facebook page means I can share Facebook things with students, without becoming a 24-hour IT Helpdesk. I first used Facebook in my teaching in 2007 and had thousands of friends (mostly students). This was a mistake and has potential to increase the risk of burnout. 

My policy is to strictly follow work email protocols. Despite an initial feeling of being overly bureaucratic, there are inherent benefits to bureaucracy that create space for deep work. My student feedback improved even though I felt disingenuous. For more on dealing with email, check out BIFF. It works. Try it.

Podcasting

I have blogged about my podcasting setup previously. I host my podcast on Soundcloud, share it via Stitcher and Apple Podcasts, and add the show notes to my blog.

Academic eBooks

Although I find e-reading awkward, and I have subscriptions through various university libraries, I still find Cengage Learning's Questia the best online source for academic books. The cost of the annual subscription is less than one academic textbook.

Writing

On a recent podcast, I discovered Scrivener. For the price of a few cups of coffee, I purchased an annual subscription. The app is basically a word processor, but it enables one to organise written work, including references and images, and to keep an electronic index card system. The app enables various ways to merge and add metadata to documents, which can then be exported to MS Word or other apps. Takes a bit of work to learn, but worth the effort. Used in conjunction with Zotero's referencing app, I have solved my frustration with MS Word's inadequacies.

Teaching

Teaching is an evolving practice, and I try to balance modern employment challenges with scholarly integrity. I find the following apps and sites useful.

1. The Hemingway App. This app helps students to write concisely and in plain language. I have trialled this successfully with an op-ed, where students were required to write to an audience with a Year 9 level of education, as gauged by the app. This is similar to the in-built apps used by a variety of media websites, and teaches students to write to a particular audience.
2. Vocabify. I have been using this app since the beta version and provided feedback before it went live. Each time I encounter a new word, I add it immediately to the app. I can then review to my rote-learnt heart's content. This is very powerful, and sits right in the browser address bar.  I encourage students to do the same.
3. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Plato). I am a recent convert to the "no textbook" subject. Textbooks are expensive and, I find, unnecessary. My go-to website for articles that relate to most of my teaching  is Plato. The articles cover significant detail and, after using the site for a few years, I have confidence in the content. I use other sites, too, but when I want a reading for complex theories or ideologies, this is the best place to go, and it's free.

Storage

I have a legacy subscription to Google Drive. 100GB of data for $2.49 per month. The only disadvantage is that it is inaccessible in mainland China. The new plans are significantly more expensive on a monthly basis. 

Keeping it all together

The biggest challenge is to keep track of all my subscriptions. After reading The Barefoot Investor, I subscribe to LastPass. With one master password and multi-factor authentication, I can randomly generate passwords, test my security level and whether my email accounts have been compromised, and generally have my online security house in order. Worth every cent.

I have developed the above approaches over many years, mostly through trial and error. But my system works well and I hope this proves useful for others.

The Four Seasons of Village Life

Spring

To these modest landholders the rural character of the neighbourhood was a matter of particular jealousy...

(Evelyn Waugh, Put Out More Flags, p. 108).

 

Everyone agreed that the day was just right for the picnic...

(Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock, p. 7).

Sundance draws his Colt, takes careful aim, and fires. He misses.

(Steven Pressfield,The Authentic Swing, p. 55).

Summer

Listen to the pounding old jalopy with all your senses, for a change of tone, a variation of rhythm may mean – a week here?

(John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath).

Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.

(Aristotle).

The only thing the road cares about is that you pay it a visit once in a while.

(Mel Gibson, What Women Want, 2000).

Autumn

It was a mistake to think of houses, old houses, as being empty. They were filled with memories, with the faded echoes of voices.

(Nora Roberts, Key of Knowledge).

No, of course. It's just the name. There is no fog in London. There is no London fog.

(Lane Pryce, Mad Men).

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.

(Saint Basil).

Winter

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

(Alexander the Great).

No other game combines the wonder of nature with the discipline of sport in such carefully planned ways. A great golf course both frees and challenges a golfer's mind.

(Tom Watson).

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

(Groucho Marx).

Spivak: What's in a name?

Michael Bacall as Wally Spivak, in the movie Spivak (2018).

As if to confirm my experience of the inter-relatedness of events across time and space (as depicted in Nowhere Man), I recently watched Michael Bacall's latest movie, Spivak. If Bacall can continue in this vein, he is bound to be the next Woody Allen.

Although there appear to be no reviews from critics just yet, IMDb reviewers of Spivak are divided. I thought it was rather charming, and for a movie about a writer trying to write, it is somewhat inspiring.

Not so much the unlikely situations Wally Spivak (played by Michael Bacall) finds himself in, but that people can and do write novels, and they can and do give book readings and signings in Los Angeles, and the grind of it all looks no different than it would if one were doing the same thing at the Paperchain Bookstore in Manuka, Canberra.

But what is the connection between this movie and Nowhere Man? 

"Spivak" is a family name of Ukrainian-language origin, and it means "singer". There is more to this name than at first appears. Many Ashkenazic Jews in Eastern Europe, for example. did not have last names until in some cases the early 19th century. "Singer" and its variants was one of the common names adopted.

Interestingly, the family name "Singer" is one that most Anglophones will immediately recognise as the name of the popular sewing machines. But whether Isaac Merritt Singer was Jewish appears to be a hotly debated topic. Apparently, his father was a German-Jew, but Isaac's mother had Isaac christened as a Lutheran. The name was not adopted from "singer" as in a choir, but from the German/Bavarian name "Reisinger".

Nonetheless, the family name "Singer" is a common Jewish family name, for example Yiddish author and Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Many families, during Alexander III's policy of "Russification" of the empire's national minorities, including Jews and Muslims, adopted Slavic name endings. 

As a consequence, Muslims in countries such as Uzbekistan might have the Slavic suffix -ov added to what would otherwise be a Turkic or Arabic name. Further, members of the Mongol's Golden Horde did not use surnames, later adopting surnames which were Slavicized by adding the various Slavic suffixes to Mongolian names.

The question of adapting names to suit host countries continues to this day. In Nowhere Man, we never learn whether Jozef Pronek is Muslim, and he avoids the question each time he is asked.

Similarly, in Spivak, we do not learn about Wally's background. But I found the title of the film intriguing, and there is clearly more to Slavicized names in the former Soviet Union than I ever imagined.

Aleksandar Hemon: On the smell of socialist grease and vinegar

Signs of Soviet decline, amusement park near Chernobyl disaster (occurred 1986).
Photo via PXhere [CC0]

Nowhere Man by Aleksandar Hemon

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I discovered this novel at a bookshop where I also purchased two other novels written (respectively) by Chinese-American and Cambodian-American women. After reading several international authors, in addition to the classics, I have recently purchased books by authors either translated into English or written by authors with English as a second language. 

This is one of the most recently-written novels I have read, published in 2002. What I find remarkable is that Hemon arrived in the United States in 1991, and began writing in English in 1995, echoing Nabokov (one of my favourite authors). 

The plot encompasses the experiences of Jozef Pronek, a Bosnian stranded in the United States by the war in the former Yugoslavia. (A refugee but not really a refugee.) The character comes from "Blind Jozef Pronek & Dead Souls" in Hemon's first work, a short story collection entitled The Question of Bruno (which I haven't read). 

Different narrators take up the story of Pronek as he moves between an English course, working as a private investigator and a Greenpeace canvasser, with flashbacks between his experiences in Sarajevo and the Ukraine. The different narrators are an interesting device, providing different perspectives of Pronek. 

At times, however, I found this a little confusing, assuming the first narrator was the protagonist who would reappear sometime later in the story. Instead, a seemingly unrelated story of Captain Pick in Shanghai some 100 years earlier echoes the events of Pronek's experiences, culminating in a wonderfully layered finale. 

The subtitle of the novel, The Pronek Fantasies (which I didn't notice until after I had finished the novel), makes a little more sense of the unusual intertwining of plot devices. 

Before I wrote this, I checked reviews of this book from The Guardian and the New York Times. 

Maya Jaggi (The Guardian) points out the obvious economy of words and the interesting use of the English language. Gary Shteyngart (NYT) points to Pronek's broken English and Hemon's constant references to how everything smells. This I found most interesting. Ernest Hemingway (Death in the Afternoon, 1939, p. 225) was a master in describing the sensual experience. For example:

If qualities have odors the odor of courage to me is the smell of smoked leather or the smell of a frozen road or the smell of the sea when the wind rips the top from a wave...

But Hemon captures the feel of the Soviet Union towards the end, with the train "much too salty" (p. 85), references to the smell of sweat and armpits, and the endless "socialist grease" (p. 94) on everything. 

But my favourite quote captures the imagination and (I imagine) what it was like immediately before the Soviet Union collapsed (p. 85):

I thought that if another revolution were ever to break out in the USSR, it would start on a train or some other public transportation vehicle - the spark would come from two sweaty asses rubbing.

It is true that you can actually smell this novel (more so than any I have read before) and for that alone it is clever. But on finishing the work, I had to sit and wonder. 

Both Jaggi and Shteyngart point to some of the novels shortcomings, and I have other reservations. But I was glued to the chair as I read the work, and elements of the iceberg theory are evident in that as I write I am still asking questions of the characters and the historical story. 

I can imagine the experience of being an immigrant, even though my mono-lingual self would struggle much more than Pronek ever did. 

So what did I get from this work? First, being competent in a language does not a story-teller make. Hemon proves this and I am envious. 

Second, there is something in such works that one cannot get from a classic novel written in a person's first language and culture. This is clear to me, and it is why I am broadening my reading horizons to capture much of the new work that is appearing from authors with immigrant backgrounds and also from international authors only recently being translated into English. 

For poor, mono-cultural me, this is the closest I can get without having to go through the experience myself. 

I think, too, that reading Hemon's first work would be useful, and I will endeavour to buy a copy of Bruno in the near future to test this theory. 

Otherwise, I enjoyed my break from St Theresa and her "vain modesty" trope, but I may need a little more before I can get back to the good saint's crystal castle. Hopefully with less of the olfactory saltiness of Prenok's past to haunt my nostrils.

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Eyes Wide Shut: The book is better than the movie

Mask from the film Eyes Wide Shut by Stanley Kubrick. Exhibit at EYE Filminstitut Netherlands, Amsterdam. Photo by FaceMePLS via Wikimedia[CC BY 2.0].

Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While reading St Theresa's Interior Castle, I needed a diversion to bring some interest back to my reading. A simple way to ensure I have a steady supply of novels to read is to buy all of the Penguin Classics series. This international series brings to the reader authors and stories that would otherwise be neglected by we Antipodean Anglophones of little news from the Otherphones. Unless the story was the plot of a movie. 

I knew nothing of Austrian author Arthur Schnitzler, nor of his novella Dream Story. As I read it, I couldn't help but think of Stanley Kubrick's final movie, Eyes Wide Shut. When I looked up Arthur Schnitzler just now, I discovered that the movie was indeed an adaptation of this very novella.

Such discoveries are pleasing and bring an undeserved sense of achievement, much like becoming a grandfather. 

But I recall hating the movie when it first came out. Bearing in mind, of course, that at that time I thought Starship Troopers was the greatest movie ever made. But long since my late 20s, I have revisited many of Kubrick's movies (as I have done with Woody Allen), and there is certainly something of the genius there. 

(I still struggle with Clockwork Orange, but will read the book and see if that helps. After reading this novella, I intend to watch Eyes Wide Shut again and see if my opinion changes.)

But as for this novella, I read the lofty dream-like scenes before sleeping rather late, and then awoke to finish off the last few pages where reality hits Fridolin, our protagonist. My state of being suited the plot rather well. 

One scene in the Kubrick movie had Tom and Nicole smoking a joint, and this must have been where Fridolin's wife, Albertine, tells him of her desire to have an affair with a young naval officer. I recall being annoyed by that scene - Kidman didn't have the innocence that Albertine portrays in the novella.

The innocence brings out the stupidity of Fridolin's jealousy in sharp relief, whereas Kidman's character, I recall, was really trying to stir things up. This means some of the key themes of courage and class-based morality are lost in the movie.

The movie, too, seems to direct the audience too much, whereas the novella doesn't answer all reader's questions; it is left to the imagination. Schnitzler does this well.

This is a very quick read, but of course, the book is better than the movie.

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Intellectual Underpinnings: or, You expected a revolution without firing squads?

Slavoj Žižek. Political radical, celebrity philosopher, and the Elvis of cultural theory. Photo: Andy Miah [CC BY-SA 2.0].

On Practice and Contradiction by Mao Zedong

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am often critiqued for conflating ideas.

<conflate>

I am fascinated by founding documents of social movements, political ideologies, and nation-states, and I also enjoy protest music, particularly the folk variety. Maybe this is a contradiction, in that one can be fascinated by the founding documents while supporting radical music designed to upset tradition. I don't know. 

But I do know that Australia's Constitution is suitably a bureaucratic administrative document that doesn't mention citizens, free speech, or human rights. This is a country that banned a Bob Dylan song.

China also banned Bob Dylan from performing in 2010.

(Did you know that the Government of Utah in the United States still kills people by firing squad? The last time was Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010.)

Yet China is a republic forged from revolution. It is strange how pervasive conservatism can become. Especially when one considers these foundational philosophical writings by Mao Zedong. 

</conflate>

When reading Mao's book of quotations, I become interested in reading more of his historical writings. When teaching political ideologies, I have always included Mao's development of communist theory to incorporate peasants (who were technically not part of the proletariat, and certainly were not to be trusted, according to Lenin and Stalin). 

Yet today we have the next global super-power - displaying all the hallmarks of a capitalist industrial behemoth - still evolving out of what will soon be the world's longest experiment with socialism (the Soviet's lasted 74 years, the People's Republic of China is approaching its 70th birthday next year). Socialism, albeit with Chinese characteristics. 

But where did the ideas come from and what theory guided China's implementation of socialism? 

This work provides at least some of the answers. The introduction is by "the Elvis of philosophy", Slavoj Žižek, someone whose ideas I have grown fond of over time. I note with a little surprise that many suggest Žižek's introduction does not add much, but after reading it twice, it is clear that Žižek knows what he is talking about. 

In terms of theory, Mao suggests that the "negation of negation" is simply the bigger fish consuming the smaller. But Žižek points out that this is a critical mistake for Mao Zedong's thinking. For Žižek, Tony Blair's Third Way incorporated Thatcherism - you know you have really won not when you have destroyed the enemy, but when the enemy begins speaking your language. 

There is much more to discover in Žižek's short introduction, but it is certainly worth at least two readings. As for Mao's writings, there is so much to cover it is clear that he was a genius, with an enormous intellect. It is interesting that the United States, the most liberal (individualistic) country in the world, had a group of "founding fathers", whereas China, with its socialism with Chinese characteristics and its sense of filial responsibility, had an individual "founding father". Again, contradictions. 

Mao also writes of the eleven types of liberalism which must be combated. He also gives words to an idea I have when I observe my dogs eating. If you give one dog something to eat, it will sneak off to enjoy its meal individually. But the other dogs, seeing one has something and the others do not, will insist on equality (in terms of food distribution). For Mao (p. 105), combating liberalism is important as it is like a cancer on Marxism:

...they talk Marxism but they practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves.

The book includes a critique of some of Stalin's economic work (and some of Mao's critiques of Lenin) and outlines rather substantially Mao's ideas about overcoming contradiction, right analysis to bring the universal to the particular and back to the universal, to discover the essence of contradictions, and so on. All brilliant thinking. 

Mao also speaks of his pedagogy. Interestingly, this echoes Theodore Roosevelt's The Strenuous Life, but with more of a focus on working the land with the peasants to not only harden oneself, but to actually be the proletariat, to join in the struggle. 

A disturbing perspective, which other commentators see as the rationale for so many deaths during the Great Famine (and following the Great Leap Forward - clearly, there is a difference between theory and implementation), relates to Mao's view of the Atom Bomb. In effect, China's millet and rifles would surely overcome the United States' planes and atomic bombs.

We have two principles: first, we don't want war; second, we will strike back resolutely if anyone invades us... The Chinese people are not to be cowed by US atomic blackmail.

Mao justifies this stance through the historical processes of socialism: The First World War increased the number of socialists (via the Soviet Union); the Second World War increased the number of socialists again (via the People's Republic of China); and thus the Third World War will increase the number of socialists yet again, and so on until we all live happily ever after. 

But Mao does what all good philosophers do (from the time of Heraclitus), and maps out his understanding of physics, biology, the universe, and so on. No philosophy is complete without an understanding of the world. And herein lies the historical value of the work in this book. Mao was a prolific author, and, although Mao's former comrade Deng Xiaoping, undid all of his work in the space of a few years, Mao remains revered in mainland China. 

Later, when the victors control the past, Mao's cult status can only increase. 

But that hasn't stopped one New York Times reviewer of Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, suggesting: 

If Chairman Mao had been truly prescient, he would have located a little girl in Sichuan Province named Jung Chang and "mie jiuzu"-- killed her and wiped out all her relatives to the ninth degree. But instead that girl grew up, moved to Britain and has now written a biography of Mao that will help destroy his reputation forever.

And this is the general tone of the reaction of most of the commercial world to Unknown Story. 

Nevertheless, the academy responded with Was Mao Really a Monster? The Academic Response to Chang and Halliday’s Mao The Unknown Story, and basically tore it to shreds for dodgy research and re-purposing evidence to achieve an agenda (is this negating the negation?).

The things is, and despite the problems cleverly identified and articulated in Žižek's introduction, Mao's philosophy is comprehensive, and provides a systematic approaches to understanding society, for better or worse. 

I intend to study Mao more seriously as a result of this book and hope to read my copies of Mao: The Unknown Story and Ross Terrill's Mao: A Biography in the near future.

I am also fascinated by the link Mao makes between contradiction and identity (p. 94), and how this relates to the idea of identity and contradiction outlined by Joss Whedon in his 2013 Wesleyan Commencement Address.

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This isn't writing, it's just typing...

Jack Kerouac Alley, San Francisco. Photo by Beyond My Ken [CC BY-SA 4.0] via Wikimedia.

Doctor Sax by Jack Kerouac

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I finished this book and thought to myself, "What the hell was that about?" I still don't know. It is poetic in the sense that it has a distinct rhythm, not as hectic as the rhythm of On the Road, but a rhythm nonetheless. I read this book over a few days, and my dreams were haunted by visions of my childhood. Not that my childhood compares with Kerouac's, in many ways he seemed to have an enjoyable childhood with many friends. But his childhood recollections of creativity and games and imagination allow one to recall a time long past. As I read the book, I wanted it to finish as soon as possible. I couldn't stop reading it, but I wanted it to end. When it ended with:

Written in Mexico City,

Tenochtitlan,1952

Ancient Capital of Azteca

I was convinced Kerouac was completely off his nut when he wrote this work. So I looked to The Guardian and The New York Times to see what it was all about. In The Guardian, Lettie Ransley suggests that Kerouac was using what he:

...came to refer to as his "spontaneous prose" method: incantatory and insistent in its rhythms...

One can certainly feel the rhythm, much like an ebbing tide. But David Dempsey (1959) of the New York Times was closer to how I feel about the work:

"Dr. Sax" is not only bad Kerouac; it is a bad book. Much of it is in bad taste, and much more is meaningless. It runs the gamut from the incoherent to the incredible, a mishmash of avant-gardism (unreadable), autobiography (seemingly Kerouac's) and fantasy (largely psychopathic).

While I am reluctant to say it was bad, I am none the wiser as to why one might read it, other than for historical study purposes. Dempsey tells me that Truman Capote said of Dr Sax:

...this isn't writing, it's just typing.

Capote might be close to the truth, but I find it difficult to accept that the little I have read of Finnegan's Wake is somehow art while Doctor Sax is something else. So while I must appreciate it for its historical merit, and I while I have not lost anything from reading it (it has forced me to think and to recollect forgotten moments from childhood), I find it hard to say this is a good book, and I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone other than the student of literature. I enjoyed Maggie Cassidy and On the Road, but I have struggled to commit to Kerouac's Wake Up. All I can say is that after this book, I think Jack and I need a little time apart.

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