Sunday, December 27, 2015

S. Jobs Biography by Walter Isaacson

Old good Marxistic method is that one should know his enemy. Being a good pupil in the Titoistic times of former Yu, I am definitely a purest of Marxists. I am certainly a promoter of Open Source and I chant with Richard Stallman in praise of free software, following the thorny path of St. IGNUcius: "There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels."

This means I am also taking freedom to go and get myself informed on one of the arch-enemies of everything I believe in, and do in practice. The fat Biography of Steve Jobs then becomes a must-read book.

You will guess that I write this not on an Apple machine, but some Linux. I did not pay for the book, either: I got it for free from my corporate friend, in e-pub format. In fact, the book is available for free online, I do not know how is this possible, that it is not protected as an Apple product, hard-wired to read in Apple gadgets only, with buying of a small addition connector...? Weird. Someone should be fired!

The book was with me for quite a time, it is a lenghty read of some 750 pages. Even in such a hefty volume, a praise for the author: it is a very readable biography. It was rather known that nobody would believe "Jobs, a nice guy" story, given all the leaked stories through the years. To find a good measure, and to present enough of a "complete asshole" part of the Jobs personality, but to leave, still, enough space for something else, was not an easy task.

If you ever worked for a complete asshole, then you know why. Such people rob you of your peace of mind, of your motivation for work, and of your will for a balanced life between your work and private life. You just wish to get to Antarctica, Arctic, Equador or any other remote place, and farm cockroaches or bumblebees.

And the subject of this book was PROUD of himself being an asshole, thinking that he gets the best out of people that way! Oh yes, sure, but for what a price? The guys were not paid enough, even if he would pay them ten-fold. But shit he cared about that! You know, slaves also worked better when you would whip them...before they would collapse.

The simplest cut through the biography of this troubled young man who, from a long-haired creature of a dubious personal higiene and behavior, came to be a creator of one of the richest company of today would be: an orphan, a child whose parents were not in position, or will, to care about him, who was lucky enough to get adopted into a good, caring family.

Since I am writing this in the midst of the Sirian "migrants" crisis in
Europe, and Jobs father was a Sirian, let me add something what is
appreciated, among the others, by those who love Jobs: Banksy recently created a nice piece of art in Calais, with Steve Jobs in the main role. A nice work, my praise to Banksy for this point.

So, the child is clever and, as it happens all too often, not really
fit for the regular education system. I think the system is at fault here, not him... So, he drops out of college, busy about tinkering with some integrated circuits in his dad's garage. He has a pal, who is a real genius for such things-you guess, it is another Steve, Wozniak. The two go to make the most incredible piece of electronics in that garage, and the rest is history.

Sure not! We are not speaking about Bill Gates! You get his story up to now, if you take out the orphan and Sirian part! But after the garage there is not much before Gates eats (=buys) all the small companies around, and he retires from bussiness as The Richest Guy of Them All, switching to charity work with his dearest wifey.

In fact, I always thought I do not like Bill, the same as I do not like his company, Microsoft. No real reason, simply I do not like such behemots which eat all the others. But reading about Jobs, I understood that I was wrong: Gates is a proper one, a good guy. An industrial magnate, and it is all what is to say about him. That said, it still does not mean I switch to MS Windows! So, this biography made me change my opinion not on Jobs, but on Gates!

Thanks to Jobs personality, he experienced many twists and turns in his work and life story. He was kicked out of the company he himself created, he re-created himself through the other company, even made good movies, and good moves. And then, when he re-took the company with which he started, he made an icon of it. For how long it will last without him, it remains to be seen.

In difference to Gates, Jobs never retired. He was producing new gadgets one after another. Obviously he did not have better ideas what to do with his life, and he needed to spend his energy somewhere.

Even Jobs' death of pancreatic cancer is in large part the result of his own personality. He stubbornly delayed the proper medical procedure and went, instead, for "alternative methods"-he was Californian enough for that. Until he noticed that cancer is not a cold, that alternatives do not work, it was too late, even for one of the richest guys around. His "reality distorsion field" unfortunately did not include powers of healing.

Apple became synonymous with Steve Jobs, but what is it that, exactly, that makes the phenomenon? Economically, they did not sell so many computers as there were sold PC's, but they earned more than others per unit on what they sell. Marxist would say that Apple created value by something else, not only the technical aspect of their machines. Jobs would probably be satisfied with the
assesment that it is the holistic, or even artistic aspect, which adds the value to Apple's products.

And this is where his esthetics and his preferences in the ways of producing and selling the product, was definitely the driving force. It is what distinguishes him from just a good salesman. He sold you a piece of vision.

There IS something convincing in Jobs' approach that a customer wants a perfect product, comfortable, reliable and easy to use. It definitely worked with the legion of graphic designers at times when Mac was really The Machine for them. But when the same vision was sold to just anyone who wanted a machine to work on, trying immediately to force on such unhappy a person the machine to listen the music, the machine to use when not using the main (Mac!) computer, the phone to use...it became an unhealthy opsession. I do not know if Apple started producing vacuum cleaners, but I suspect it to be an item in the list of follow-up products, if bad times come.

Recently I often hear a complaint, from Mac users in Science, that it
became useless crap, with its sticking to obsolete formats and drivers, or not accepting some generally used ones. Such things could mean that the clicque of self-satisfied salesmen in Apple abstracted themselves away from the base, from the users. It is usually the fore-teller of the disaster for the company which started delivering beautiful, but useless boxes. People will need to switch to maybe less beautiful boxes, but with which they will be able to get the job done. And, oh yes, those other boxes are cheaper, too!

One of the beauties of the Capitalism is that it is utilitarian: if
something does not work, you go and buy something that works. Even if Apple is Made in China, you are hopefully lucky enough that your preferred salesman is not your one and only Party chairman, and you can decide to ignore him and go to the other company's shop.

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Jewish museum "Polin" in Warsaw

 I visited new Jewish Museum in Warsaw. It's name is "Polin", from the old word for "forest", which is where from the word Poland comes. Interesting building-I did this photo 5 years ago, when they were still building it:

















It is located inside the former Ghetto. By some "miracle" nothing of Ghetto was rebuilt after the WWII. It seems it was too demanding a task, although Polish rebuilt with a great success, the Old Town of Warsaw (it is even an Unesco site!), just few hundred meters away.


















What they did was to build ONE building in place of the center of the old Jewish part of the city-and this was the one actually "gifted" to Warsaw by Moscow:


















Anyway, at that time Polish did not have much of a say in Warsaw. Russians were the masters.

Interesting building contains an equally interesting exhibition. It is NOT a Holocaust museum. In three hours of my visit I did not even reach that part of the museum. Then it was the closing time, so I will have to come some other time to se that part, and also post-WWII period.

I am especially interested to see what they prepared about 1968, when there was a massive expelling of Jewish people from the universities and schools, and many had to leave the country.

The exhibition is mostly multi-medial:

































I suggest taking the audio-guide at the entrance, as otherwise you might miss most of the points, it is really a wast topic.


There are also some beautiful, and interesting exponates. Like this remake of the old wooden synagogue:
































An interesting passport:


















Advertisements of the companies which were enabling emigration to Americas...only 6 days travel! In the ad is even specified that they provide kosher food.


















On this boat, people from Poland would meet with people from Croatia.

































In the log of one of such ships, from the beginning of 20.ct. which I found online, I found about 30 people from my village on the Croatian island, mixed with Poles, Ukrainians, Jews.

Poland at that time was, in difference to today's purely Polish country of Wodka and Church (order of those two intended), a multi-national, multi-language, multi-cultural and multi-religious state.

 






























Idea of the exhibition could be stated, in short, by the words: "See,you idiots, what you lost!".

 It is made around Jewish story in Europe and Poland, with an accent to the interaction of Jewish and Polish cultures during the last Millenium.

































Shown is the richness of the Jewish culture and its ability to survive, in spite of irrational hate, which was sometimes motivated by hate of "others" or just a pure...stupidity.

It was interesting to see the crowds in the museum. Obviously it is earning a good name. I would rather expect it to stay an isolated enclave in Warsaw, as I always had the feeling about the synagogue Nozyki, hidden amidst the soc-realistic buildings in a former Jewish part of the city.

Here is one of famous boxes where in synagogues was collected money for buying of tha land in Palestine:


















I am curious when will this part of the history come to evaluation in modern Croatia, that we would recognize the role of Others in our history. It still has quite some time to go. I hope we will learn from those who did it wise way, as here in "Polin".

Sunday, December 13, 2015

H. Miller: "Sexus"

I read through the next of the works of Mr. Miller. "Sexus", the first book of "The Rosy Crucifixion" trilogy was following me accross the half of the world.
Let me sketch a few interesting material circumstances, showing the changes in our civilisation. The book befell on me in not at all old-fashioned paper edition when I was still in Taipei, in a green-bound behemoth containing all three of "Rosy crucifixion" novels... Yes, it was cheap to buy, but my, it was heavy even to hold in hand, not to think about reading it! And eyes had to work hard to go from one to another side of the too-extended page of that Olympia Press mega-edition. Still, I endured it when reading it stretched on bed, in my portion of the air-climatized nightmare of Taipei.
Next it acted as a brick in my luggage to Croatia, and found its resting place on my island. I will not move it from there any more. Before my leaving Croatia for France, I read about half of it.
For the further read, with my stomach following the stars, and limited luggage possibilities, I had to switch to ethereal eInk device. My 9inch screen Kindle is now my portable library for such heavy-weights. So, this is the edition which came with me to Warsaw. I am curious what would Mr. Miller think of it. I think he would be fond of eInk, as I am.

What the great Buddha of the Big (Cock)Sur shoveled to us here? Lots of sex with all its juices, bites and scratches, then lots of human rot, as usual... even more raw than in his more famous "Tropic" novels. But then, he is just frank, painfully frank. And I only occasionally was disturbed by his over-frankness. And oh my, that guy knew his talk! I am not surprised girls were melting, I can imagine their uteruses convulsing orgasmically when such a Master talked.
If only he would not be such an utter... prick. But prick-ishness is not a measure of the writer, as amount of booze or dope is not a measure of a singer.

I extend here an appraisal of his mastery in writing and in conveying the message: a man is to go and live, be utterly fucked-up, screwed and screw, do what he pleases to do... But, I would add, please, do not screw up your dreams, because you will finish as a dog. What Mr. Miller duly achieved at the end of this first volume of the trilogy... a beaten dog which even does not bark any more.
It is a miracle and a feat of human race that he managed to stand up from that and survive to become a Buddha in that American Tibet of California, Big Sur.

I will continue to follow him, although I feel this trilogy starting to taste a bit like wartching the "Star Wars" movies, with its broken time-line.

For Mr. Miller is such a superb talker! Even when the written rendering by him is not much of an art.

But it often IS pure art: " "The world would only begin to get something of value from me the moment I stopped being a serious member of society and become-myself. The State, the nation, the united nations of the world, were nothing but one gret aggregation of individuals who repeated the mistakes of their forefathers. They were caught in the wheel from birth and they kept at it till death-and this treadmill they tried to dignify by calling it "life". If you asked any one to explain or define life, what was the be all and the end all, you got
a blank look for answer. Life was something which philosophers dealt with in books that no one read. Those in the thick of life, "the plugs in harness", had no time for such idle questions. "You'we got to eath, haven't you?" This query, which was supposed to be a stop-gap, and which had already been answered, if not in the absolute negative at least in a disturbingly relative negative by those who knew, was a clue to all the other questions which followed in a veritable Euclidian suite. From the little reading I had done I had observed that the men who were most IN life, who were moulding life, who were life itself, ate little, slept little, owned little or nothing. They had no illusion about duty, or the perpetuation of their kith and kin, or the preservation of the State. They were interested in truth and in truth alone. They recognized only one kind of activity-creation. Nobody could command their services because they had of their own pledged themselves to give all. They gave gratuitously, because that is the only way to give."

Monday, November 16, 2015

"The Zen Experience" by Thomas Hoover

There are many books on Zen, one could say it is even too many for a topic which is nontransferrable by words. Still, T. Hoover wrote an excellent, readable historical book on it. Probably it is because he wrote it without going too much into the devotional moments.

It seems that until the 1980, when the book was printed, reality about Zen started slowly to seep in to the West, stripped of its exotic content, and the real learning about it could start. Zen is not the tea ceremony, and it is not the cherry blossom. Although, sure, it is all about having a tea with a view to the cherry blossom!

I had a great fun following Masters of various attitudes through the centuries in Hoover's writing. I knew some of the stories before, but he unearthed many more, and re-told them in a lively way. I was not bored with any of them in his rendering.

Of special value I find his exposition on the Chinese Zen. It is a mix with Taoism and Confucianism, and Hoover navigated skilfully through those murky waters of politics and philosophy.

Of the later masters in Japan, he revealed for me the magnificence of Hakuin. I was not aware of his so many achievements. He was definitely a material for the CEO, with him at the steer, Sony or Toshiba would eat Apple for the breakfast!

If you are searching for a well-balanced exposition of the Zen tradition, this is a good book. It is available from book-sellers in the printed form, and it is also freely available as e-book. I had read the freely downloaded pdf version.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Elif Shafak: "The Gaze"

A bit different work from others I read until now by E.S. At the beginning it did not stick to me, but as I continued, it started to uncover its value. It grows in me as a kind of investigative novel.

The text is cyclically structured-maybe superficially in the pretty much prosaic setup of the story, but writer obviously gave it more thought than we might think. I read somewhere that E. Shafak is a clever, beautiful woman. Maybe she had some bad experience with the gazes of the people? It is an usually overlooked topic, especially today when the world, pushed by the media magnates and debilism of the media market, degenerated into a celebrity culture, in which everybody seems to be asking for attention. But it is easy to imagine the topic as taken in this novel might be a hot one for many people. I remember how I thought, on seeing some really beautiful women, how their life must be affected by their beauty. And it usually invoked sadness, as it is such an unnecessary weight in one's life.

E. Shafak here chose to invert the role and speak about attracting attention by uglyness. She writes about weird and rather unusual connection of two people, fed by them being outcasts because of their appearance. It separated them from the world of "invisible", average population. They were too much visible, especially if going out together. So much that they chose not to go out in their usual persona, but to invert roles, and spice them with additional weirdness.

It is a story with insight into the world of distorted vision, not of the eye, but of the soul. A distorsion more painful, and more haunting, because of its permanence, than actual broken bone or psychological condition.

Intertwined into the story is the typically Turkish fascination with weird and unusual-it is also present in Arab world, an cultural atavism from the times before the TV and mass media. Boredom was then often chased away with the theater of weirdness or show of unusual. Today it would be in a bad taste, the world became a more emphatic place.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Pope Joan

My favorite writer here steps-in to refurbish an (un)famous Greek novel, "Papissa Joanna", by Emmanuel Royidis. The original author was excommunicated by the Orthodox Church and the book banned, sure, only to add to its glory. I was searching for the book for quite some time, and recently found it again on stock in bookdepository.com I love the possibilities we have today to acquire the rare book.

Since Lawrence Durrell did not have to worry about anathemas, and he was a product of another time (Royidis lived 1835-1904 and published the book in 1886) he could develop some of the more jolly elements of the Royidis work-and this he thoroughly did, according to the commentators who read both works. I did not yet have chance to read the original, so will not comment on this, but will only praise the readability of the book. Especially in undoubtedly completely imaginary description of the first travel of young 9th century Joanna from England to Germany and Greece. It is so lovingly unbelievable, that it might indeed show to be the closest to truth, which, we know well, is rather an unbelievably elusive category. And also completely chaotic, but beautiful. As this story is beautiful, I would give it lots of chances to be almost true in the roulette of History.

It is endearing to see how Royidis and Durrell topple the sainthood of the saints, and the reverence of the revered. Dirt of the Church is exposed in its best, and devils supper with popes in close communion. True to the bare bones, a reality show online from Vatican of the 9th century!

A highly reccomendable novel. It is also a very learned work, thanks to Royidis. It is definitely not just a spitting bowl against the Church, but an educated frontal attack on the filth of Papacy.

Curious enough, Vatican accepted it with a smiling eye. In their devilish wisdom they knew that such a triffle story can not add more than powdery dust to the already blood-stained and broken picture of the Holy See. The stink emanating from there is too strong, so that Royidis "truth" could hardly add anything to it.

Monday, July 6, 2015

D. Adams & M. Carwardine "Last chance to see"

I am a sceptical, but naive man.
Sceptical: It means that I will not fall easily for a book co-authored by an author I love. I will not buy others' wish to capitalize on my liking someone else.
Naive: I give it a chance sometimes.

Summa summarum: in this case, it was good to be naive. I was mistakenly sceptical.

This is a great Adams' writing, with a spirit and few (ending) words of Carwardine, who is obviously a great man, but rare are such writers as D. Adams.

I enjoyed every single page of the book. It delivers what it promises: an insight into the world which is slipping under our feet. It will go perfectly with books of R. Dawkins, if there are any I did not share as a gift. Until I share it-the best fate for a book, to be shared, and shared, and shared... in a word, read. It is a fun book, although it deals with not a funny topic at all: extinction of beautiful creatures.

Rhinos, bats, trees, pigeons, dolphins...and I would add, after all, humanity, is decaying faster and faster. As cleverly pointed at the end of the book (by M. Carwardine), species were always disappearing, but what is happening today is increase in the rate of extinction. It is a F1 race of extinctions. Here we should panic!

The battle is fought by idealists, or plain madmen, rarely anyone else.

Read the book, point it to your children and read to your grandchildren. It has something of a spirit of Darwin's writing about travels aboard "Beagle".

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Ave Marcus Aurelius!

In the past, I tried few times to approach Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations", but somehow it did not stick with me. I always thought it strange, as in general I acquiesce with Stoic philosophy and am sympathetic with their minimalism regarding demands from the world.

Reading it now in English translation, I think that the problem was that I was approaching it in Polish or Croatian translation, in which it seemed unnatural to me. Was it the projected catholicism in those translations, even if ony in verbalisation, or bad translators, or maybe I was not mature enough yet, I do not know.

So, it took me almost half a century to mature to Marcus Aurelius. Not bad.

In a rather dry Penguin "Great Ideas" English edition, it achieved appropriate form for me, I felt that I am having a discourse with the Emperor-philosopher.

At moments it felt like reading of the excerpts from an email Emperor would write from his seclusion at some of the summer villas. Considering his timelessness-it is not a little feat to be a best-selling author for almost 2000 years after you disappear from the Earth-I give him a credit for being a bore sometimes, with his all too frequent reminders that we are not to dwell the Earth for long, and that both we and our doings will cease to be, all too soon.

So, yes, even in English rendering I did not find him jolly. It was an encounter with rather a sullen Emperor, but at least I could feel the person behind the text. It was not leading me-or the translator-to some shallow musings of a Catholic obsessive manic melancholic.

I definitely admire Marcus' being so down to earth a man, when he could bask in the purpury and not give a damn about posterity, or those before him. He did not make much of them or himself, but he remained true to simplicity of thought, loftiness was a stranger to him.

Ave Marcus Aurelius!

Friday, May 8, 2015

Elif Shafak: "The bastard of Istanbul"

When passing through "Ataturk" airport in Istanbul, I usually visit a very good bookstore there, where I can equip myself with something to read on intercontinental flights. I was waiting for an occasion to read "The bastard of Istanbul" by Elif Shafak since few years when, in the same shop, I bought her "The forty rules of love", and read it with great pleasure.

"The Bastard..." was her first book, and what a beautiful work it is! It is a family book; she found a format to reach, really, to the whole generational span of a traditional Middle East family...mostly female, that is, somehow I have feeling that "real" men of that region will not read her. Some "effeminate" figures like Orhan Pamuk, yes, undoubtedly.

The book reflects her experience as a global citizen of XXI ct., spans between Turkey and USA, between the heavy topic of mass killings of Armenians at the end of Turkish Empire, and everyday life of American average citizen. Whirls between fantastic connection between families and objects in their life througout the century and half the world distance, between shame and domestic matters, spoken and unspoken... It is a beautiful work, another gem in her collection.

It matches my personal experience of Turkey, where in mountain villages of Central Anatolia I met people as traditional and patriarchal as if they'd pop-out from an Ottoman fairy-tale, and in the same time their children, whom I met in the coastal cities of Turkey, were a modern youth, with perfectly modern longings and experiences.

It is a travel which Turkey started long time ago, and it is still uncertain where it will bring her...as the waters of international affairs are murky beyond recognition. It is not at all obvious to me that the swing of the wordly matters will bring Turkey even closer to the West. Could be that the West will, after a XX ct. drunkenness, will whirl back into its familiar vicious circle of blood and thirst for power, Christian supremacy idiocy and malice towards others. Tribal wars of Europe and post-neo-colonialism, to put it in somewhat worn-out words.

Then, thanks to the sheer power of vivid culture, Turkey will have the sincerity and authority to ditch the corrupt West and East equally, and go further on its own. An Empire is an Empire, and Ottoman was not the least of them, however badly it would crash for a moment.

I was astonished by the gamma of good literature in the bookstore-modern, worthy books, not only some bullshit "Kitchen of the East" trash. Someone must be buying and reading them, thinking about the matters moved there. This, and authors like Elif Shafak give hope, indeed, that the world is poised for more ... intelligent, if not easier times. It becomes obvious that people are not satisfied with their TV set and bowl of rice, potatoes or couscous. There is a longing for more, and good, good, long for more, this world IS beautiful!

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Also sprach Nietzsche

Long time ago, when the world was young, Nietzsche's "Zarathustra" was my guide through the forest. It was so serious and successful, that I had to literally drown it in a river, as a first batch of kitten, in the way of my independent thinking.

After few decades, more exactly, quarter of a century, Nietzsche's book found his way into my hands. This time in a bit modernized, eInk edition, in English. Good, as I would not like a smell of rotten fish when reading it.

In difference to the previous version, which travelled with me for max. 80km from Zagreb, this one accompanied me from Taiwan to Europe during the last year, and appropriately I finished it in the air, somewhere above India. Really appropriate!

What new brought to me this re-reading of Nietzsche's anti-philosopher, pompous poet and dancer on the wire?

In the first place, I was not impressed at all by his independence on the opinions of others. In my previous readings I admired it a lot, and today it seems obvious to me. Obviously I absorbed well his teaching during my early days, so it became my second nature.

Similar was my (lack of) reaction at morder of the gods, idols and authorities-30 years ago he taught me all needed lectures in this, so it seemed all "obvious" today.

Poetic form, chosen by Nietzsche, is not foreign to me, and I still consider it appropriate for Zarathustra, but it was sometimes tedious in its litanies. In English it was even less impressive than I remember from Croatian translation. In original he is even more popmpous, when he wants to be so, as German can be ueber-pompous, oh yes! A seam for the lowest sewer pipe can be pronounced in German so that it will sound as the most important part of a spaceship! Jawohl!

So, this time Zarathustra did not teach me much, except showing me that i read it on time in last about 20 readings, and that it left an imposing trace in my weltanschaung. Probably this was the last it had to teach me, before disappearing in Black Forest?

Even a century after it's writing, "Zarathustra" has a word for us. In fact, I think it is even more needed today than at his birth. At that time there were many voices agains conformism, and they were louder and louder, we even fought wars for it. Nietzsche only added to a mighty river one independent stream. As a real philosopher, not philosophier, in the sense of R.M. Pirsig's definition from "Lila", he gave his vision of both the problem and the solution.

Today we definitely do not live the epoch of a super-human. I think that since 1968. when the 2nd rennaisance so utterly failed, we only de-evolutionized... I was born after that, so maybe this would explain why a prophet laughing of a divine seriousness was, and still is, so attractive to me?

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Lu Xun: "Wandering"

I found this small collection of Lu Xun's short stories at the marvellous 2nd hand bookmarket in Rue Brancion near Porte de Vanves Metro in Paris XVe. Naturally, most of books is in French, but there is also some choice of English books, most of Far East provenience. A place worth visiting, if you are into such things.

The collection I bought bears identation as "1st Edition 1981", translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, published in Beijing by the Foreign Languages Printing House. Very well done, in my opinion.

Not everyone knows about Lu Xun (Zhou Shuren), although he is a writer of fame in China. To make it clear, he was not a communist, although he was a leftist: he was lucky enough to live in times when it was still possible: 1881-1936. Probably he could be termed something as a George Orwell of China?

Checking in Wikipedia about him will bring you into the very interesting period of Chinese history, and following some of the links you can learn a lot (I did, even after living 10 years in Taiwan), I think Lu Xun is a good entrance to learm about China which did not happen...yet.

The short stories are about anything unusual, unhappy marriages, happy and unhappy times of ordinary people, solitary teachers in the province... In a sense it is like compressed Gao Xingjian from one of his two thick novels, but he is not as soft in writing, is more focused. Good, well written stories. One can learn well about Chinese ways of thinking from them. I think they mature well, too, but then, in Chinese world things usually mature well, often becoming a mummies of itself. Lu Xun writing stayed alive. Highly recommended.

Monday, February 16, 2015

A Slave

T. Hoover in "The Zen Experience" relates the following episode from Ch'an cannon:

A local governor asked venerable Ma-tsu, Ch'an master of T'ang dinasty time: "Master, should I eat meat and drink wine?"

Master answered rather straightforwardly: "To eat and drink is your natural right, to abstain from meat and wine is your chance for greater blessedness".

I doubt a Zen master of such posture would be so plain.

My answer, accross the centuries, is:

To eat meat and drink wine, or not to eat mean and drink wine, both is your natural right.

A need for an answer is your natural slavery.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Miroslav Krleza and his cycle on Glembay family

Miroslav Krleza is a Croatian writer of XX ct., loved and hated by Croatians, for his rather unsympathetic and unflattering picture of his fellow citizens. His politycal posture, strenghtened by a veiled friendship with a Yugoslavian dictator Tito from the times before the WWII, enabled him to survive turbulent times and become an Editor in chief of the Yugoslavian encyclopedia, his pet project for more than 30 years. Today the fruit of this effort is called Krleziana, and is one of the monuments of this great man from another epoch.

His works encompass novels, essays, drama, poetry,... It is Krleza, from the former Yugoslavia, who should obtain Nobel prize for literature, not Ivo Andric (a Bosnian Croat shfting voluntarily into being a Serbian writer, hardly there could be a more politycally correct writer for former YU)- but this would be too much for Serbs, so Krleza never made even to being an official candidate from the Yugoslavian side. Something similar to a case of Zbigniew Herbert in Poland (where he definitely would be a logical pick instead of Wislawa Szymborska, after Milosz was already awarded it). Award itself here is not important, but it brings wider knowledge of a writer, and it is indeed a cultural crime to rob the wider world audience of writers like Herbert or Krleza.

In his large opus, Krleza is today most often present in theatre and TV with a cycle of three drama works on a North-Croatian family of Glembay, notorious petty-bourgeois post-feudal capitalists. It is a violent drama cycle, with corpses of lovers and ruined existences falling at the floor in the finals. As Krleza was pre-cursor of existentialism (writing such works well in advance, 10 years before Sartre), his heroes mainly theatrically kill themselves, after a vicious and ruthless self-questioning, tortured by the equally vicious and ruthless reality of their doings and shortcomings.

A drama cycle "The Glembays", "In agony" and "Leda" are three works where Krleza gave a tomography of rotten patrician bourgeouis world of Zagreb at the beginning of the XX ct. Nothing is real here, everything is rotten and false, guided by lowest instincts and money. Honesty is virtually non-existant, even-or especially in-emotional relationships.

Mixed with Krlezian existentialist observations of the world, this work lucidly shows an agony of the falling society. While local in its scope, it is of a general austro-hungarian spirit, and could be well understood all through the lands of the old Empire even today. In this sense it is definitely defining a wider Central-European experience.

Friday, February 6, 2015

Peter Nadas: "Love"

This short novel by the author of immense "A book of memories" and short "The end of a family story" is a report on madness. Madness of love? No. Madness in a lover himself.

Maybe this should be at the obligatory list of school readings, now when marihuana is to become legally allowed in many countries? Namely, the novel is about a night of madness which the main character lives through after smoking a joint. It must be it was a bad one, (or/and the character himself was bad), since it produced a fly-away for the night, a kind which can easily happen after a stronger variety known as skunk.

What was to be a relaxed night spent with the lover became a paranoic nightmare. Maybe it was triggered by a strong contradiction in him: he actually came to tell to the woman that he will not be coming the next time... but he knows he is not able to tell it to her, as it would be too much off beat. So he skips into paranoia.

Nadas gave here a different relation than in his aforementioned books, as it involves only one person, which is separated from the world. We follow his paranoiac visions-very good and thorough description is telling; author probably just gave a relation from his own experience.

Advisable for anyone who would like to know how it is when one gets a slight overdose of a psychotic drug, without actually trying it in vivo. Soft, thoroughly true Nadas' writing.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Che the motorcyclist

For quite some time I wanted to read "The motorcycle diaries" by Ernesto "Che" Guevara. I am not a fan of Che, too many people were killed around him and by him, that I would like anything about him, but by an old Marxist maxime, it is good to know the enemy.

To be just, Che, or what he was involved in, I would not think the worst thing in the world, at his time. It was definitely more moral doing than what his opponents were doing. And, also, I respect the fact that he died the way he lived. He did not dodge, become worthless politycal shit-mouth only, but actually died doing what he considered right thing to do.

The book itself is a short text worth reading, as a first-hand raport from the places which at the time he visited them, were not exactly the touristic attraction.

The title is a bit misguiding, as he and Alberto made in fact less than half of the trip by motorcycle, the rest was ship, boats, a raft, lorries which they hitch-hiked...the title should be "A tramp's diary".

Thanks to the fact that they travelled with minimum finances, the trip became a school of life-there is no better school than getting to know the bottom of the ladder. Keen observer, Ernesto noticed things which would not be noticed by some fatty brain of some ordinary tourist.

He lived only 15 years after the trip, then he was killed.

Obviously what he saw, what he learned on this trip was important to him... important enough to go and invest his life (and lives of others) into the idea.

Who are we to judge? South America, Africa, were batttlefields at those days, battlefields of ideologies, visions... I am not certain that the taken course brought us closer to happiness for the peoples of both those continents, but my uncertainty is that of an armchair observer. Che was a participant and a creator of one viable option. Which, eventually, lost, and we got a rabies of rabbis, priests, imams and mullahs instead. In package with suicide bombers at age 7-77, refugee crises and USA becoming a 3rd world country. Russia becoming an agressor in wish to make others even poorer capitalists than they already are. China becoming the wealthiest communist party in the world, leading the largest rampant capitalistic economy in the world.

Really an advance?

In this book one can also see a child, like there is one in every of us. What becomes of a child, depends on so many things. But one is admirable: this child went for an adventure, lived it, learned from it. Parents of today should remember to relax their love-ties a bit, not to cripple the new generation.

Recommendable read, indeed.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

A Small Courtyard

I wrote in http://mikidkolan.blogspot.com/2007/12/literature-without-borders-milan.html about a Serbian writer Milan Jovanović.

His recent book, from 2012, "Malo dvorište" ("A small courtyard") is an interesting historical detective story. Located on the mountainous Balkans, Serbia proper, at 13th century. Story happens in a small monastery in which are placed, in fact detained, daughters, wives or widows of Serbian royal families, which are for some reason unconvenient or dangerous for the family or the kingdom.

Jovanovic tells of escape of some of the detainees, and unexpected plots around seemingly static places and situations.

In the narrative method Jovanovic returned to the method of his debut, the novel with the similar topic, "Monk". In both novels the story is told through relations of the participants, building the story that way. Very successful, probably because such a narrative corresponds to the historical context, and evokes something of the slowness with which the information was transmitted in the Medieval times.

In an anthology edition, which Jovanovic's works will surely once obtain, "Monk" and "A small courtyard" will form a couple that would not shame any literature.

One does not often find stories told with so much genuine feeling ... it seems as if the writer spent decades in Hilandar, Serbian monastery at the Greek Holy mountain, Atos, that he would be able to tell the story in such a way.

Shortness - both novels are only about 100 pages - adds brevity resembling rather the Zen Buddhism than Orthodox eloquence and lavishness - but wisdom is transmitted in a short, not overflowing form, and Jovanovic knows this very well.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

"Will you please be quiet, please?" - more Carver

It is perfectly clear why this first of Carver's collection of short stories attracted attention. It is as mind-gripping as I described two posts back, when writing about "Cathedral", maybe even a bit more.

The titular story, which is the last in the collection, is really a masterpiece. It is a story about an ordinary couple. Everything was going maybe too smooth for them, and there is a problem with one outing of the wife few yeaars ago, which was an infidelity. It is obviously a thorn in the body of otherwise happy marriage, and it is revealed in a seemingly unnecessary manner, during a relaxed family day at home. Is it a call to sobriety, reminder that nothing in the world is as it seems? Or just a sign of rotting human flesh, which eats human happiness? I would not opt for this, as I think that such happiness is not real at all, that it is more often just a blindness, voluntary or involuntary. And I would not think what happened immoral or anything, rather a natural thing. But definitely not something what should happen, or be revealed, in a happy marriage.

Small scenes from life of ordinary people, which held me more tense than any chainsaw-massacre movie (I would leave such a performance, anyway) makes that I will probably not go deeper into Carver's writing soon. But I hail him as, indeed, a novel voice in American writing of the 2nd part of the XX ct. Almost every paragraph holds a screenplay for some Lynch' movie.

Through the writing I see, however, the writer being not only a spectator, but a participant of the show he is writing about: in his meek writing I find he is often humiliated, frightened, not at ease with the surrounding world. Also with the inside world of his heroes-no, characters, they are not possible to be described as heroes.

Carver taught me another dimension of writing. It still has to settle in me, but it is to stay, definitely. Thanks!