readingstag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2007:/books//32007-04-29T21:55:00Z“ brain food ”Movable Type 3.34The Bridge of San Luis Reytag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2005:/books//3.412005-07-03T22:40:13Z2007-04-29T21:55:00ZOn Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all of Peru broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below. And so Thorton Wilder's novel opens with the end of the beginning. A resting Fanciscan friar, Brother...Zarina
On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all of Peru broke and precipitated five travellers into the gulf below.
And so Thorton Wilder's novel opens with the end of the beginning. A resting Fanciscan friar, Brother Juniper, who casts a happenstance glance at the bridge that fatal afternoon bears witness to the tragic event, and that instigates the friar to launch an investigation to ascertain the meaning and metaphysical cause of this tragedy. He posits that this event is not a mere accident dependent on human error, it is never something that takes place so severely by chance. Brother Juniper believes that this tragedy is God's will, and he sets out to prove beyond doubt that the inevitable fate of these five people is indeed a Divine intervention that punishes the evil and bestows mercy on the good. He proceeds with the scientific examination of the lives of these five men, women and child, to validate his convictions that the tragedy of the bridge has a divine purpose and it makes perfect sense.
Plunging to their deaths from the bridge of San Luis Rey are Doña María the Marquesa de Montemayor--a lonely elderly woman abandoned by her daughter and family; her faithful maid Pepita; Esteban--an orphaned young man who has recently lost his twin brother and was about to redeem his life at sea; Uncle Pio, a devoted doting guardian of the beautiful Peruvian actress, Camila Perichole; and Jaime, the son of Perichole. Their lives, we later learn, are neither ordinary nor simple; their complexities are simply a small manifestation of humanity at large. The secrets of their lives finally lead to the inconclusive end of Brother Juniper's inquiries. Their stories have no discernible pattern that logically justifies their deaths at the bridge, and his conclusion later takes him to his own end.
Predestination, or foreordination, is a subject and question of contemplation and discourse throughout history in the circles of religion and philosophy. It is debated rather intensely in the Abrahamic religions, particularly in the Christian and Islamic traditions; although the understanding of the concept is quite different and complex between Christianity and Islam. But this novel is not a pursuit of a definitive answer to this age-old question, the conclusion is stumbled upon by Brother Juniper and him alone, and the last word is still the readers' to discover through their own personal experience. This is Mr. Wilder's narration of the meaning and the more importantly, the nature of human existence; a form of a moral fable.
We are all witnesses like Brother Juniper, and increasingly so in the age of technology and readily available news media. Just like the curious friar, some seek answers hoping to understand and justify the ways of God to man. For many others, bearing witness to events that defy understanding forces them to examine their positions appropriate to their religious and philosophical traditions, prompts them to shape their intentions for their actions and apt comportment. But these responses and investigations are dependent upon the longevity of the events in the minds of the witnesses. Soon, there will be only traces of these events in our memories, and when we leave this existence, these traces will depart with our bodies. Maybe that is just the point, that these events are reminders of the transient nature of human existence, that this realization stays constant in our minds, and that the intentions and responses are for that realization.
This compelling novel, though only 102 pages in this edition, is brevity pregnant with mellifluous prose, and elegantly smooth narration. Mr. Wilder indulges in exquisite aphoristic style such as this: "There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but there can never be two that love one another equally well." There is only sweetness in its simplicity.
"The Bridge of San Luis Rey":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060088877/
by Thornton Wilder
1927; Perennial Classics published 1998
ISBN: 0060088877
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Fast Food Nationtag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2005:/books//3.392005-06-28T03:39:04Z2007-03-25T23:20:31Z"If we eat McDonald's hamburgers and potatoes for a thousand years, we will become taller, our skin will become white, and our hair will be blonde."--Den Fujita, President of McDonald's (Japan). I have never been a fan of fast food,...Zarina
"If we eat McDonald's hamburgers and potatoes for a thousand years, we will become taller, our skin will become white, and our hair will be blonde." --Den Fujita, President of McDonald's (Japan).
I have never been a fan of fast food, and God knows I have been struggling to eat healthy and right for years. I read the ingredients labels obsessively before I make a food purchase mainly to look for elements that are obviously not "halal":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halal or "kosher":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosher. I hold everything meat a suspect because I am not entirely certain what goes into the process of packaging, especially the machine-masticated meat-products. So, I was not shocked when reading the the pages where the author describes the additives mixed into the processed food common to all kitchens. The rest of the book, however, propelled me to a reality that shook me to the core, and turned my stomach inside out.
Mr. Schlosser does not seek to present the readers with unpalatable accounts and anecdotes, but the current state of the food industry is unfit for human consumption and there is no other way around it. He unravels what goes on underneath the burger wrappers, between the burger buns, and inside the meat patties. He carefully describes the birth and history of the fast food chains and how they turned into a powerful industry, powerful enough to dictate what goes on in all other industries in the chain of production. Mr. Schlosser then continues to describe the cattle and the meatpacking industries and the unhealthy and inhumane practices that they engage in from the farms all the way to factories and restaurants. He also touches briefly on the advertising and image-making industries where the manipulative strategies made no sense. In another chapter, the author discusses the dent the fast food industry has made on health: from obesity to outbreaks of E. coli and mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy - BSE). Finally, Mr. Schlosser expounds on the apparent and continuously damaging consequences of the industry abroad pushed forth by globalization.
Burger and fries have undeniably become a symbol of a culture, a metaphor of an ideology desired by many, and it is an icon of mass production and consumption. All of these mind-boggling practices of the the industry are generally motivated by unmitigated greed that defines the engine of the corporations, and they are connected in an intricate and interdependent web that impacts the society along the food chain. This book is not just about the dollar meal at the fast food restaurant, it discusses the industry and the culture engendered by the demand that we created, or were forced to create, for all things bigger, faster and cheaper.
It is easy to conclude that the book paints a dire and pessimistic picture of our current condition. But I would argue otherwise. As a reader, I am confronted with the question, "What next?" Knowing the unsettling truths about the food industry, it seems like I am confronted with a dead end. What should I do with this newfound knowledge? Everytime I sink my teeth into a morsel of beef that came from the path described in that book, I am taking pleasure in all that is against the grain of what I believe is ethical, healthy and lawful. Should I abstain from eating meat altogether? Or should I take the progressive route and demand better quality of my food by actively seeking all things organic. I think the book certainly provides food for thought, and encourages the readers to looks deeply into the industry and demand a change of course to a more ethical and healthier consumption.
A word of caution: some portions of the book may be unsavory and disturbing. So tread carefully if you cannot stomach the content.
"Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060938455/
by Eric Schlosser
Paperback with a new Afterword: 2002
ISBN: 0060938455
]]>
Reading with a Purposetag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2005:/books//3.382005-06-27T04:30:38Z2007-03-25T23:20:31ZSomeone once asked me if I have read this particular book of fiction, whose title I cannot remember now. My reply was, "I do not have time for fiction." She was a little perplexed by that. A friend once said...Zarina
Someone once asked me if I have read this particular book of fiction, whose title I cannot remember now. My reply was, "I do not have time for fiction." She was a little perplexed by that. A friend once said that reading fiction is a way for people to relax and unwind, akin to watching a mindless television show after a difficult day at work, similar to indulging oneself to a candy bar for a quick sugar fix after eating heathy for the rest of the day. It is the guilty pleasure.
Mortimer J. Adler, in his book "How to Read a Book":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0671212095/, argues that one should aspire to read not to be merely informed, but to be enlightened, that is to lift oneself from a state of understanding less to one of understanding more. He proposed that one should not just amass information in the chest of one's mind, but seek in one's reading the state of "why". Can fiction do that? Of course. Not all, but many well written stories are more than just empty calories for the mind. I remember reading an article many years ago explaining the reading habit of an aspiring writer. That writer read simply to see how the story was written. How was the story delivered? What beautiful strings of words did the author choose to unfold the plot, its twists and turns? To be drowned in the prose was what she desired when reading fiction.
An acquaintance once told me why he reads only fiction. He believes that truth in its diversity and variety can be found in the midst of the building blocks of a made up story. That is an interesting irony.
Maybe my answer to the initial questioner should be: I read fiction that can lend me something, teach me something, open my eyes to something. I read carefully chosen gems typically not on display in the bestseller's list. Does this sound like a literary elitist. Maybe. But what is wrong with demanding more depth in this epoch of fast and instant gratification?
My Name is Redtag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2004:/books//3.332004-07-27T23:34:42Z2007-03-25T23:20:30Z This is an eleborate, complex work of art, and if words were musical notes, this would be a symphony. This novel is a murder-mystery in 16th Century Turkey, rich with philosophical, religious and personal conflicts, and the clash of...Zarina This is an eleborate, complex work of art, and if words were musical notes, this would be a symphony. This novel is a murder-mystery in 16th Century Turkey, rich with philosophical, religious and personal conflicts, and the clash of civilizations in the arts. Orhan Pamuk uses a lot of sensory details in his novel, and he weaves art, culture, religion and time into a clever device to unveil his story. Each chapter is a movement building up the suspense. In each chapter of his novel, the author assumes the identity of a character, effectively, and reveals the plot from his, hers or its point of view. For example, the novel begins with the first person narrative of a corpse, and in later chapters the narrative voice belongs to the mysterious murderer. The character then became a mirror to another character. The movement from one chapter to the next is closely tied with the transition of one voice to the next. The book has to be read with attention.
"My Name is Red":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375706852/
by Orhan Pamuk
Published August 2002
ISBN: 0375706852]]>
<![CDATA[Eats, Shoots & Leaves]]>tag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2004:/books//3.302004-07-15T22:43:46Z2007-03-25T23:20:30Z I was first introduced to this book in my creative writing class. Well, I stole a quick glance at my professor's stack of books and the peculiar title caught my eye. I was not certain what the title was...Zarina I was first introduced to this book in my creative writing class. Well, I stole a quick glance at my professor's stack of books and the peculiar title caught my eye. I was not certain what the title was alluding to until I read "the panda joke and it's variations":http://think.patchesandmarble.com/archives/main/observation/2004/07/000029.html on the Web. I was a little behind in my knowledge of jokes; who has time for everything?
The next natural step for a bibiliophile was to look it up on "Amazon.com":http://www.amazon.com/. It is a book about punctuation, and despite the vow-of-no-purchase that I always make everytime I visit bookstores, I caved into temptation and bought myself a copy.
So why punctuation and grammar, why now? Consider a typical example of a conversation that I might have with a friend, on iChat or AIM:
*friend:* hey, how r u?
*me:* I am well, thank you for asking. How are you?
*friend:* i'm ok...... r we on this tue?
*me:* I suppose so.
*friend:* i sent you txt msg, but u didnt reply.....
*me:* I probably turned my phone off.
*friend:* lets try this new place.......i heard its good......u'r fine w/it?
*me:* I suppose so.
Who am I writing to? A Martian using the Morse code? This could very well be the result of punctuation indolence that borders on grammatical heresy. I would fit the description of a stickler for punctuation and grammar. Yes indeed. A sentence such as "there is less than two hundred people in the room" would trigger within me an urge to correct the speaker. I am not a grammarian, not at all. I confess that I have my share of mistakes in the past, but flagrant errors like these are too painful to bear. Therefore, it is quite natural for me to be interested in any book that discusses repeated offenses in languages.
Punctuation is "a courtesy designed to help readers to understand a story without stumbling." It is good manners, the decorum to help us pause, ponder and understand before we stop. The funny marks--dots with a tails, dashes, paired dots--convey different meanings without much explanation. Consider this example:
*Unpunctuated series of words:*
a woman without her man is nothing
*Some may say:*
A woman, without her man, is nothing.
*However, I think this is much better:*
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
Funny how little things alter everything.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves is not a book of rules and regulations of the English language. It is not a puritanical homily on the virtues of good grammar. It is an adorable, amusing, and deliciously witty approach to an otherwise dreary subject. With history, anecdotes and examples, Lynne Truss shows us how we have effaced the roles of punctuation over time and argues that we should root for the unsung heroes--the commas, the semicolons, the apostrophes. She provides us with guidelines of usage to save the punctuation's habitat in sentences and paragraphs, to restore the original meaning of a panda's description, and to acknowledge that the mammal "eats shoots and leaves."
"Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1592400876/
by Lynne Truss
Published April 2004
ISBN: 1592400876]]>
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaningtag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2003:/books//3.162003-05-19T04:18:51Z2007-03-25T23:20:30ZThis book is not a call for inaction. It is a call for repentance. �Chris Hedges When the tragic series of events took place since September 2001, I became concerned, worried, intrigued and I started to bury myself in readings...Zarina
This book is not a call for inaction. It is a call for repentance.
�Chris Hedges
When the tragic series of events took place since September 2001, I became concerned, worried, intrigued and I started to bury myself in readings that may or may not reveal to me the mysteries of humanity, peace and war. Not that war is anything new to mankind, in fact, war is something of the norm throughout history. As many people, I have not paid much mind to war until suffering hits home. I am just trying to make sense of this love affair our species have with war. I am trying to be intellectually awake.
�War is a force that gives us meaning,� argues Chris Hedges in his book. The author is a foreign correspondent for the "New York Times":http://www.nytimes.com who spent a good portion of his professional career covering the unrest of the world including those in the Balkans, the Middle East and Central America. He shares with us an honest portrayal of the experiences he garnered first-hand in the field. Hedges examines the meaning that war brings to those directly and indirectly involved in it, and this meaning cannot be necessarily heroic and noble. For the most part, the meaning materializes in front of us in the shape of addiction, suffering and destruction.
Using stories from the past of villages and tribes, empires and nations, Hedges reveals to us the elements of war. First, there is the obvious�war kills, tears, hurts, maims, and perverts. War creates a mythology of noblemen and heroes, it is deceitful in its causes. War distorts our perception of history, clouds our interpretation of the present, and muddles our goals for the future. War razes heritage, and erases civilization selectively. War challenges our principles and ethics, it can corrupt our collective morals. War deceives us in our politics, destroys us in our humanity. War makes us turn a blind eye and turns us all into self-glorifying tribes. War turns us into wide-eyed spectators, hungry for continuous feed of images to satisfy our perverted curiosity. War mutes us.
Susan Sontag argues in her book "Regarding the Pain of Others":http://think.patchesandmarble.com/archives/books/nonfiction_misc/2003/05/000017.html that contrary to conventional expectations, history has shown that war has been the continuing norm, and peace is an aberration. Hedges once said, � "the most powerful narcotic invented by humankind is war":http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_hedges.html � and judging from the stories he tells in his book, from box-office hits, from popular television shows, this drug is holding us tight in its addictive grip. The author reminds us how important it is for us to understand that unless we are prepared to renounce violence all together in all corners of life, we will continue to resort to war as a necessary fever, or a poisonous drug to cure what might ail us. But before we swallow the bitter pills in high doses, we must read the warning labels, and be completely aware of the deep and permanent repercussions of war, and be responsible and accountable for every measures that we take.
All the world�s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts...
�Jaques, As You Like It by Shakespeare
As people who live in nations privileged enough to be removed from the front lines of turmoil, we tend to look at war as a strategy of a big picture, absent in all its gore and but saturated in its glory. Whether we are the supporters, opponents, planners, participants, recipients, survivors or spectators of war, we must not begin to forget the meaning of war�the positive and the negative�even when it is over.
"War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1586480499/
by Chris Hedges
Published September 2002
ISBN: 1586480499
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Regarding the Pain of Otherstag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2003:/books//3.172003-05-17T00:33:49Z2007-03-25T23:20:30Z Live, from Baghdad, the first act of Shock and Awe, brought to your living room by CNN/Al-Jazeera/BBC vicariously as the ultimate reality-TV hit show. Upon witnessing the brightly lit Baghdad sky on CNN, "Susan Sontag":http://www.susansontag.com said, "[I]t makes me...Zarina Live, from Baghdad, the first act of Shock and Awe, brought to your living room by CNN/Al-Jazeera/BBC vicariously as the ultimate reality-TV hit show. Upon witnessing the brightly lit Baghdad sky on CNN, "Susan Sontag":http://www.susansontag.com said, "[I]t makes me ill. It makes me fearful. I begin to tremble a little...because I remember the fear that you feel on the ground when the sky is like that." (discussing war "with Bill Moyers":http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_sontag.html)
In the media-savvy age, we cannot live a day without tuning in, or looking at the scenes and photographs of turmoil from all over the world. Most recently, we were bombarded by the media representation of the war in Iraq. Whether they represented the display of military might, or suffering of the receiving end, they were the two aspects of the same presence. These images invoked different emotional experiences in all of us�horror, fear, anger, sadness, or arrogance. And at some point, we numbed ourselves against them, and exposed ourselves to the beginning of forgetting and indifference.
In her book, "Regarding the Pain of Others":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374248583/002-0842461-3823267, Sontag reveals a critical observation of the images of war and turmoil, and our rapacious appetite for them. She looks at the representation of suffering in photographs and how they are used, viewed, and misunderstood. In the early chapters she traces the history of the representation of war and turmoil from ages ago predating the invention of film. Then she offers some insights on the sometimes twisted career of photographs of suffering. The imageries of war forces us to seek a response that we think is proper from the vocabulary of memory, experiences and present feeling, and this vocabulary we shape from the selective experiences we take in, whether it is cultural, political or religious experiences�collective or personal. Sontag argues that the seldom objective nature of response retrieval can undermine the true nature and causes of suffering, and lead to misunderstanding of the situation.
The author reminds us that for everything that appears obvious in a photograph, there is a portion that is hidden and implied, and she urges us to look for it to understand the represented better. It is not an easy task because we spectators are easily sealed in within the confines of the photos framed by editors, owners, politicians and popular wisdom. This reminds me of a passage written in the 12th century by an Islamic philosopher�Yahya Suhrawardi�on the rules of knowledge and definition:
The use of a word to signify its whole conventional meaning is called "intended signification." ...Its use to signify a concomitant of the meaning is called "concomitant signification." Signification by intention includes concomitant signification, because nothing in existence is without concomitants.
� "The Philosophy of Illumination":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0842524576/002-0842461-3823267
In other words, for everything that IS, all that it IS NOT accompanies the subject to complete its definition and representation. To be aware of only the obvious is to be exposed to only one side of the coin.
Sontag also discusses the impact of the proximity of suffering on the truthful representation in the photograph. She illustrates from a series of examples that the closer it is to home, the representation of that suffering becomes less frank, or further detached. Which suffering is then worthy? Which is more represented?
She ends the book with the difference between the images we see on television and elsewhere and what we get form them; and what really takes place in the environment of war:
These dead are supremely uninterested in the living, in those who took their lives and witnesses and in us. Why should they seek our gaze? What would they have to say to us? We, this we is everyone who has never experienced anything like what they went through. We don't understand. We don't get it. We truly can't imagine what it was like. We can't imagine how dreadful, how terrifying war is and how normal it becomes. Can't understand. Can't imagine. That's what every soldier, every journalist and aid worker and independent observer who has put in time under fire and had the luck to elude the death that struck down others nearby stubbornly feels. And they are right.
War is spectacular for us to watch from a safe distance, but we need to bear in mind that there is the receiving end of this force facing the dreadful outcome�first-hand and in its totality�whatever our stand on war is...which brings me to the next book: "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning":http://think.patchesandmarble.com/archives/books//2003/05/000016.html."Regarding the Pain of Others":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374248583/002-0842461-3823267
by "Susan Sontag":http://www.susansontag.com
Published February 2003
ISBN: 0-374-24858-3]]>
reading and diningtag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2003:/books//3.142003-05-14T18:02:37Z2007-03-25T23:20:30ZThere is great deal of good things that can be said about Instant Messaging, and in my case, the "iChat":http://www.apple.com/macosx/jaguar/ichat.html. Chatting with your friends, is a good thing, but chatting about reading experiences with your friend living in another country...Zarina
"The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312282990/qid=1052931839/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-0842461-3823267?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 reads well with Doctorow's "Ragtime":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679602976/qid=1052931961/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/002-0842461-3823267. Good authors write in different styles, and good books invoke different reactions and emotions: joy, sorrow, hope, repentance, and so forth. If one is not sure what constitutes a good reading, she would turn to others who can provide expert advice. And of course, she can always consume any written words, void of careful distinction.]]>
the book of salttag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2003:/books//3.92003-05-02T03:29:49Z2007-03-25T23:20:30ZA friend from college had her book published�"The Book of Salt.":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0618304002/qid=1051845801/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/103-5384584-8186233...Zarina
"The Book of Salt.":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0618304002/qid=1051845801/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/103-5384584-8186233]]>
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the Westtag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2003:/books//3.42003-04-21T04:10:15Z2007-03-25T23:20:30Z We live in the day and age of confusion and especially after the chaos that greeted the beginning of the 21st century, people struggle to define what is good and what is evil. While doing so, they hope for...Zarina We live in the day and age of confusion and especially after the chaos that greeted the beginning of the 21st century, people struggle to define what is good and what is evil. While doing so, they hope for a definition that is lucid and proper, and perhaps this "clear signal" can help them compartmentalize the elements they encounter in their lives. But what if there is no exact definition of good and evil, then what should one do?
We were told at some point in our lives that Glinda the Good Witch was the beautiful, fair and kind creature; while the Wicked Witch of the West was the dark-green, ugly and vindictive one. The opposing forces laid out the moral landscape of the land of Oz according to L. Frank Baum. Then came Gregory Macguire with a new spin of this classic tale. It was a chronicle of the life of Elphaba, later known as the "evil" WWW.
What I like about this novel is that it basically brings up the general idea of looking at the other side of the coin. What were the circumstances that pushed Elphaba to the reputation of the Wicked Witch? Could it be that she was not all together that bad, but the priciple ground she stood on was incompatible with the standards of the common society in the land of Oz? This book is a good read. (Originally posted 12/31/2002)
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Ceritalah 2 - Journeys Through Southeast Asiatag:think.patchesandmarble.com,2003:/books//3.32003-04-21T04:07:25Z2007-03-25T23:20:30ZAuthor: Karim Raslan. I wanted to like the book, in all honesty. I am a person from the East who resides in the West and embraces a faith that has no geographical boundaries. The author's background is similar to mine,...Zarina
Author: Karim Raslan. I wanted to like the book, in all honesty. I am a person from the East who resides in the West and embraces a faith that has no geographical boundaries. The author's background is similar to mine, and I was looking for a mutual experience in his book. Alas, his accounts of these journeys are superficial, descriptive at best. I cannot say that I would recommend the book. (Originally posted: 2/1/2003)
And so Thorton Wilder's novel opens with the end of the beginning. A resting Fanciscan friar, Brother Juniper, who casts a happenstance glance at the bridge that fatal afternoon bears witness to the tragic event, and that instigates the friar to launch an investigation to ascertain the meaning and metaphysical cause of this tragedy. He posits that this event is not a mere accident dependent on human error, it is never something that takes place so severely by chance. Brother Juniper believes that this tragedy is God's will, and he sets out to prove beyond doubt that the inevitable fate of these five people is indeed a Divine intervention that punishes the evil and bestows mercy on the good. He proceeds with the scientific examination of the lives of these five men, women and child, to validate his convictions that the tragedy of the bridge has a divine purpose and it makes perfect sense.
Plunging to their deaths from the bridge of San Luis Rey are Doña María the Marquesa de Montemayor--a lonely elderly woman abandoned by her daughter and family; her faithful maid Pepita; Esteban--an orphaned young man who has recently lost his twin brother and was about to redeem his life at sea; Uncle Pio, a devoted doting guardian of the beautiful Peruvian actress, Camila Perichole; and Jaime, the son of Perichole. Their lives, we later learn, are neither ordinary nor simple; their complexities are simply a small manifestation of humanity at large. The secrets of their lives finally lead to the inconclusive end of Brother Juniper's inquiries. Their stories have no discernible pattern that logically justifies their deaths at the bridge, and his conclusion later takes him to his own end.
Predestination, or foreordination, is a subject and question of contemplation and discourse throughout history in the circles of religion and philosophy. It is debated rather intensely in the Abrahamic religions, particularly in the Christian and Islamic traditions; although the understanding of the concept is quite different and complex between Christianity and Islam. But this novel is not a pursuit of a definitive answer to this age-old question, the conclusion is stumbled upon by Brother Juniper and him alone, and the last word is still the readers' to discover through their own personal experience. This is Mr. Wilder's narration of the meaning and the more importantly, the nature of human existence; a form of a moral fable.
We are all witnesses like Brother Juniper, and increasingly so in the age of technology and readily available news media. Just like the curious friar, some seek answers hoping to understand and justify the ways of God to man. For many others, bearing witness to events that defy understanding forces them to examine their positions appropriate to their religious and philosophical traditions, prompts them to shape their intentions for their actions and apt comportment. But these responses and investigations are dependent upon the longevity of the events in the minds of the witnesses. Soon, there will be only traces of these events in our memories, and when we leave this existence, these traces will depart with our bodies. Maybe that is just the point, that these events are reminders of the transient nature of human existence, that this realization stays constant in our minds, and that the intentions and responses are for that realization.
This compelling novel, though only 102 pages in this edition, is brevity pregnant with mellifluous prose, and elegantly smooth narration. Mr. Wilder indulges in exquisite aphoristic style such as this: "There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but there can never be two that love one another equally well." There is only sweetness in its simplicity.
"The Bridge of San Luis Rey":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060088877/
by Thornton Wilder
1927; Perennial Classics published 1998
ISBN: 0060088877
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This is an eleborate, complex work of art, and if words were musical notes, this would be a symphony. This novel is a murder-mystery in 16th Century Turkey, rich with philosophical, religious and personal conflicts, and the clash of civilizations in the arts. Orhan Pamuk uses a lot of sensory details in his novel, and he weaves art, culture, religion and time into a clever device to unveil his story. Each chapter is a movement building up the suspense. In each chapter of his novel, the author assumes the identity of a character, effectively, and reveals the plot from his, hers or its point of view. For example, the novel begins with the first person narrative of a corpse, and in later chapters the narrative voice belongs to the mysterious murderer. The character then became a mirror to another character. The movement from one chapter to the next is closely tied with the transition of one voice to the next. The book has to be read with attention.
"My Name is Red":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375706852/
by Orhan Pamuk
Published August 2002
ISBN: 0375706852]]>
I was first introduced to this book in my creative writing class. Well, I stole a quick glance at my professor's stack of books and the peculiar title caught my eye. I was not certain what the title was alluding to until I read "the panda joke and it's variations":http://think.patchesandmarble.com/archives/main/observation/2004/07/000029.html on the Web. I was a little behind in my knowledge of jokes; who has time for everything?
The next natural step for a bibiliophile was to look it up on "Amazon.com":http://www.amazon.com/. It is a book about punctuation, and despite the vow-of-no-purchase that I always make everytime I visit bookstores, I caved into temptation and bought myself a copy.
So why punctuation and grammar, why now? Consider a typical example of a conversation that I might have with a friend, on iChat or AIM:
Live, from Baghdad, the first act of Shock and Awe, brought to your living room by CNN/Al-Jazeera/BBC vicariously as the ultimate reality-TV hit show. Upon witnessing the brightly lit Baghdad sky on CNN, "Susan Sontag":http://www.susansontag.com said, "[I]t makes me ill. It makes me fearful. I begin to tremble a little...because I remember the fear that you feel on the ground when the sky is like that." (discussing war "with Bill Moyers":http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_sontag.html)
In the media-savvy age, we cannot live a day without tuning in, or looking at the scenes and photographs of turmoil from all over the world. Most recently, we were bombarded by the media representation of the war in Iraq. Whether they represented the display of military might, or suffering of the receiving end, they were the two aspects of the same presence. These images invoked different emotional experiences in all of us�horror, fear, anger, sadness, or arrogance. And at some point, we numbed ourselves against them, and exposed ourselves to the beginning of forgetting and indifference.
In her book, "Regarding the Pain of Others":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374248583/002-0842461-3823267, Sontag reveals a critical observation of the images of war and turmoil, and our rapacious appetite for them. She looks at the representation of suffering in photographs and how they are used, viewed, and misunderstood. In the early chapters she traces the history of the representation of war and turmoil from ages ago predating the invention of film. Then she offers some insights on the sometimes twisted career of photographs of suffering. The imageries of war forces us to seek a response that we think is proper from the vocabulary of memory, experiences and present feeling, and this vocabulary we shape from the selective experiences we take in, whether it is cultural, political or religious experiences�collective or personal. Sontag argues that the seldom objective nature of response retrieval can undermine the true nature and causes of suffering, and lead to misunderstanding of the situation.
The author reminds us that for everything that appears obvious in a photograph, there is a portion that is hidden and implied, and she urges us to look for it to understand the represented better. It is not an easy task because we spectators are easily sealed in within the confines of the photos framed by editors, owners, politicians and popular wisdom. This reminds me of a passage written in the 12th century by an Islamic philosopher�Yahya Suhrawardi�on the rules of knowledge and definition:
We live in the day and age of confusion and especially after the chaos that greeted the beginning of the 21st century, people struggle to define what is good and what is evil. While doing so, they hope for a definition that is lucid and proper, and perhaps this "clear signal" can help them compartmentalize the elements they encounter in their lives. But what if there is no exact definition of good and evil, then what should one do?
We were told at some point in our lives that Glinda the Good Witch was the beautiful, fair and kind creature; while the Wicked Witch of the West was the dark-green, ugly and vindictive one. The opposing forces laid out the moral landscape of the land of Oz according to L. Frank Baum. Then came Gregory Macguire with a new spin of this classic tale. It was a chronicle of the life of Elphaba, later known as the "evil" WWW.
What I like about this novel is that it basically brings up the general idea of looking at the other side of the coin. What were the circumstances that pushed Elphaba to the reputation of the Wicked Witch? Could it be that she was not all together that bad, but the priciple ground she stood on was incompatible with the standards of the common society in the land of Oz? This book is a good read. (Originally posted 12/31/2002)
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