A Thousand Splendid Suns (2008)

I haven’t read a book this quickly since Into Thin Air, which I read in 2 days. This one took me about 4 days. What was so compelling about it? It’s hard to not keep reading when tragedy and suffering are around every corner!  Especially when it’s women who are suffering. Women at the hands of men, and things men do to mankind.

This is a story about the choices people make, the actions they take or don’t take, and the choices made for them; it’s about how the world around them keeps moving, sometimes in their favor, sometimes not. It’s also a story about the world of men/mankind and politics and mankind’s penchant for causing suffering over ideological claims. This is a story that is trying to tell the reader about real people whose everyday lives are affected directly, and yet not, by the turmoil of the world around them. It is a very sad story. But it is a happy one.

I knew I would be pulled into this novel when within the first 20-or-so-pages, tears came to my eyes.  This novel reminds me a lot of The Grapes of Wrath, and the choice Rosasharn makes in the end. As a matter of fact, this entire novel, to me, is permeated by that same pathos that Steinbeck is trying to convey through Rosasharn’s actions.  It is a reminder of the perseverance of women and the lengths to which they are willing to go to take care of their children, their friends, their loved ones, their fellow man.

This is a novel I would love to send out to people with a note attached saying: “This is what mothers go through for their children.” I am not a mother (yet) but I feel closer to the idea of motherhood than I ever have been. It is a scary thought, just to consider the motherhood option, much less being a mother in a war-torn country, where bombs have been raining down since the 1980s, and oppression inside the home, for some, has been a mainstay for time immemorial.  But in many ways, motherhood in this novel is a blessing. It is a way to find and create unconditional love. That is motherhood. Unconditional love and the endurance of suffering.  Motherhood is suffering from the beginning if you think about it: birth is painful. Love hurts and causes suffering. Death hurts and causes suffering. Life is suffering. Motherhood is life. Motherhood is suffering.

Rosasharn and Laila have a lot in common. Rosasharn breastfeeds a dying stranger to give him nourishment when she can give literally nothing else to the world. But she can give life, and she does without flinching, without hesitating, without being asked. And Laila endures the unimaginable in her unanesthetized caesarian delivery of Zalmai. All for life. All for the love of life. All hard to believe because “we” have not had the opportunity to be faced with such options. This is the core. This is the base the ethicists refer to. This is the factor-X we attempt to understand and describe. It is there, when all else is stripped away and there are no other choices to be made. But choice is still present.

I feel sorry for the women in this novel. They have been exploited and abused by men. But some of the men in this novel have redeeming qualities, and the choices they have made have been tainted by cultural expectations.  Rasheed represents the bottom of the barrel (selfish, patriarchal, violent, hiding behind the comforts of cultural convenience, oppressive), Jalil represents a step above that (compassionate with the unfortunate circumstance of having internalized certain cultural limitations), and Tariq represents the ideal: love for love’s sake, unconditional, enduring, long-suffering, truly compassionate.  The reader sees them all: the ‘regular’ men of the Afghanistan described by Hosseini. The reader doesn’t get a good glimpse of the men behind the wars, but then again, the bombs and the killings are just about all we need to understand them.

I think it’s important that we see regular people doing regular things, whatever they may be for their particular place and time. These are my favorite types of novels because regular people read these books and glean something out of them to use in their regular, everyday lives.

What do I take from this book? A sense of comfort that when I disagree with my husband, he doesn’t punch me square in the chest and shove a pistol in my mouth. A sense of anxiety that though my personal reality is basically thriving, the world around me is moving at such a pace that its suffering isn’t noticed over the speeches and the outbursts and the rhetoric. A sense of resolution about motherhood: that whatever suffering is required, will be endured for the love of life and of love.  A sense of understanding that suffering is part of the human condition.

Rama II (1989)

I lodge a formal complaint against Arthur C. Clarke & Gentry Lee for the first 100 pages of this novel because of the excessive amount of narrative space taken up with character development. And before I leave that topic behind to pursue the actual gems of this novel, I’d like to point out that even after the 100 pages of narrative have come and gone, the reader is left without any narrative description or action of the actual space voyage from Earth to Rama II. One minute, the reader is learning about the corruptible natures of Francesca and Dr. Brown, the next minute, they’ve already docked with Rama II.  Why not 50 pages of character development, 50 pages of the journey to Rama II, and the rest the way it already is?  It’s a moot point, I guess. But complaint, lodged!

The rest of the novel was just what I was hoping for: lots of new discoveries; lots of tension (thanks to the excessive, yet unresolved character traits learned about in the first 100 pages!) between crewmen and their varying perspectives on what’s to be done with and about Rama II.  Reading this book was a bit like watching Twin Peaks. I say this because in Twin Peaks, David Lynch presents the audience with something to confound (the White Lodge and the Black Lodge); this/these place(s) are shown but not explained. And the viewer is only to be let down by his or her expectations when watching the film, Fire Walk With Me, when nothing about the White or Black Lodge is resolved.

How is this relevant to RAMA II, you ask?  It’s relevant because something tells me Gentry/Clarke, with their RAMA quadrilogy, are playing a little game with the reader. Giving us tidbits here and there, like the White Room on RAMA II, where Richard and Nicole find the odd, human artifacts (the reader will recall 2001: A Space Odyssey, when Dave Bowman wakes to find himself in the blue room with simulacra of real, human objects–the food not real food, etc.)  Same on RAMA  II: lots of simulacra with no real, human substance. Even toward the end, Richard and Nicole see simulacra of the crew walking around, mere shadows of their real selves. Of course, the reader will recall back to Rendezvous with RAMA when the first exploration into the other hemisphere (across the cylindrical sea) showed human artifacts encased in hermetically sealed cases. Well, RAMA II just amped it up, I suppose, by recreating AND reanimating.  It is proposed that the first RAMA vessel had intercepted images of human culture through radio waves, and had created those objects (like a hair brush), but by the time RAMA II came around, whatever technology the Ramans possessed had taken things to the next level by allowing for the possibility of “life” for those objects. Something tells me the Ramans are collectors, roaming through the universe collecting and improving upon their own reanimations (like perhaps with the spider biots or the avians???).

This reminds me of my first introduction to the idea of postmodernism: in a Science Fiction class as an undergrad taught by a SF scholar. We read Asimov, Lem, Delany, Bester, Orwell, and more. And we were told about the basics of cyberpunk and postmodernism. One day in class we got to watch a film by the Survival Research Laboratories (Thank you, once again, oh holy Storming the Reality Studio for helping me find what I was looking for!), where the skinned corpses of rabbits and dogs, or possibly goats, were being reanimated.  Provocative. Profound. And perhaps, perhaps, this is what Clarke/Lee will be getting at with all this replication and (re)animation…I should say (re)animation rather than re-animation, because the only possible re-animation occuring in RAMA II would be if the Ramans reanimated Dr. Takagishi, who is sitting currently, stuffed in a corner in the White room…but there are still 2 books left in this series!  It’s a pretty sound prediction, I think.

So what do I actually have to say about this novel, RAMA II? (I seem to be diverted quite a lot on this post).  Aside from the 100 page fiasco at the beginning, it is a good story. It is a reminder to the reader that the ‘reality’ of the truth of the universe is a lot bigger than we can currently perceive, and that even in the future, Clarke/Lee predict we will always be fearful of what we don’t and can’t understand. But the true mavericks out there, willing to enter the belly of the beast, and be stuck there, will reap the rewards for a humanity too stupid and backwards and fearful of something smarter than us.  It is a reminder that mob mentality is always ignorant, and always makes the wrong choices. But individuals, individuals who make choices, are more likely on the right track.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936)

I’ve been sitting on this Orwellian treasure for a few years. Every so often I get an urge to go to a used bookstore and buy up all I can find of a particular author…and then I proceed to not read any of the books for a very long time. What is wrong with me? I hear it’s a common problem, at least.

Well, sometimes it’s fate that causes this to happen.

As it turns out, Keep the Aspidistra Flying is about a young man, Gordon Comstock, who has some major issues with getting a “real job” because of his dire hatred of money and the capitalistic infrastructure that keeps society “going.”  This is an ironic book for me to read because of my own “real job” issues and so I thought the time to read this book is now, or never!

So I picked it up, hoping to gain some insight into my own situation. After all, Orwell is known for a little moralizing, and it’s always nice to find yourself nestled snugly inside his every-man/woman.  I got what I was looking for, and I also got a nice reminder of Orwell’s criticism of his own society.

Gordon Comstock, after suffering for about four years at poverty level, working as a bookstore associate (though he is an aspiring, published, small-time poet), gets himself into some trouble by getting his girlfriend pregnant. After four years of quite militantly defying all-things-bourgeois, he VERY SURPRISINGLY relents completely to the middle class life and even resorts to ordering the dreaded houseplant, aspidistra, the one thing he’s loathed more than money. This is disturbing but not altogether unexpected, given what the reader is left with at the end of 1984: Winston Smith is sitting drinking Victory Gin, after having suffered through Room 101, only to have ultimately relented to the Inner Party Ideals.  Both men in these cases have tried to push through the immense pressures that their respective societies/authorities have thrust onto them; both put up a good fight; and both ultimately relent and, perhaps worst of all, accept.

I think the most glaring aspect of this novel is how similar the two narratives are in terms of Gordon Comstock and Winston Smith. Clearly Gordon Comstock was a precursor to the sentiments and character traits that Orwell wanted to portray with Winston Smith.

Perhaps the saddest part of this novel is reading the publisher’s (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) description of it on the back: “Despite its poignancy and merciless wit, hope does break through in this book’s happy ending, a tribute to the stubborn virtues of ordinary people, who keep the aspidistra flying.”

NO! You fools! There is NO HOPE!  There is NO HAPPY ENDING!  That’s the point!  There is only falling prey to capitalism and consumerism and the unhappy hum-drum existence of bourgeois homogeneity!   Are we then supposed to believe that Winston Smith is happy after having been tortured and re-brainwashed and sent to wait to be killed by the Inner Party at some undisclosed time? No! We have to look at Winston Smith and pity him his dilemma. Same with Gordon Comstock. We, as thoughtful readers, should pity him his newfound re-acceptance of consumption after all he’s been through.  The publisher should be ashamed for writing such unilluminated copy.

What I learned from this book is that giving in, after militantly standing by your ideals, is the easy, fool’s way out; is the Winston Smith way out. And who can look at Winston Smith and say “I wanna be that guy”?  No way. I’ll go with Braveheart.

The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

Taken from my film blog: http://cinematophiliac.wordpress.com/2009/05/10/the-grapes-of-wrath-novel-1939/

As my faithful readers know (thank you!), this is a blog devoted entirely to analyzing film. And, I normally stick pretty closely to the unspoken tenets of only writing about films. But once before on this blog, I ventured into writing about Arthur C. Clarke’s Odyssey Tetralogy because of the corresponding films and my overpowering desire to write about the books in a place where I knew it would be read. So I suppose I justify my actions now in that same way.

Now, I haven’t watched the 1940  Henry Fonda/John Ford film version yet because I like to read the book first and then watch the film, but I did just add it to the top of my Netflix queue.  But, I feel compelled to write about the novel right now because I just finished reading it this morning and it evoked a particular reaction in me.

I don’t know if I had the same reaction as every one else who has read this novel or not. The older I get, the more I realize how similar we all react to things. So what I say about this, or anything else I write about on this blog, is just what comes out: untainted, unfiltered.

I’ll get to my point in a bit but I’d like to build up to it by explaining that the reason I picked this novel up at the Library was because it’s a classic and I’d never read it. I’ve started to feel ashamed lately because of my lack of experience reading some of our great American classics.  I didn’t specifically pick the book up because I thought it had some relevance to today’s “economic hard times” as we keep hearing on the news…now, after reading The Grapes of Wrath, I know the real hard times is yet to come, folks!  (A side effect of reading this novel is that you want to write in Okie dialect too).

But as soon as the novel began, I started seeing the connection between the state of affairs in the novel and what we’re experiencing today: big businesses and banks taking the land and livelihoods away from the American people in order to turn a bigger profit.    But by the end of the novel, in the last paragraph actually, it really hit home for me that we’re not any where near the level of desperation and human suffering that Steinbeck was describing. I know this for a few reasons.

I know this because we’re still taking vacations and planning weddings; we’re still shopping online for iTunes; we’re still filing sexual harassment lawsuits; we’re still protesting gay marriage rights; we’re still having parties at our houses and inviting friends and feeding them all night long.

We’re nowhere near the level of desperation Steinbeck describes. I agree with you that that is an obvious statement. But until you’ve gone through the novel and you’ve let your imagination run wild with the characters and their plight, I think it’s too easy to say to yourself as a reader in 2009: the same thing’s happening now!

No, the same thing isn’t happening now. We keep hearing “these tough economic times” every time we turn around. Yeah, we are experiencing tough economic times. Yeah, many of us don’t have jobs or have jobs that don’t come close to paying the bills. Yeah, I know. I’m living it too.  But the connotation that the media is trying to convey with “these tough economic times” is something much more grande than we can fathom in 2009.

I know this because I know what Rose of Sharon did in that last paragraph of the novel, and I know what the penultimate chapter was foreshadowing. Don’t worry, I won’t give it away. In the paragraphs leading up to the final paragraph of the novel, I didn’t realize what was happening. I stopped and re-read it a few times before I got to the end because I couldn’t figure it out. Then, I finished the last paragraph and I knew.  And I cried. I can’t remember the last time I cried reading a novel.

I cried first because of the beauty of human nature. And the confusing part became clear.  Then I cried because of my confusion and I realized that’s the difference between us and them: we can’t fathom it, and Rose of Sharon and Ma both knew what had to be done.

Despite the 4-5 weeks it took me to read this 450 page novel (I won’t lie:  it’s long and it’s depressing, and that makes it hard to read for long durations), I made it to the end and found it to be one of the most beautiful novels I’ve ever read. At first, the rotating descriptive chapters are tedious because the reader hasn’t been brought thoroughly enough into the Joad Family story line yet.  But as the novel progresses, the descriptive chapters provide much-needed details and foreshadowing about the general state of affairs for migrants.  And by the penultimate chapter, it’s clear that it’s foreshadowing beyond the last words of the novel. It’s a lot like reading The Odyssey:  the narrative seemingly just ends without giving the reader the satisfaction of a truly happily-ever-after for Odysseus, Penelope and Telemachus, but the reader has to recall the prophecies and the omens and then he or she will know what is to come for them, and the reader can take some peace from that because the end is known.

Steinbeck has done the same thing for his readers but his Odysseus and Penelope and Telemachus will not grow old on Ithaca, and that is part of the sadness and beauty of this novel. We do not know what will specifically happen with Tom, but we know what happened to Casy. We do not specifically know what will happen with the rest of the Joad family, but we know what the penultimate chapter foreshadows. And we do not know what will specifically become of Rose of Sharon but we know that she is the embodiment of all that is good and pure in the human soul.

People relying on people who are in the same state of being as they are. People being good to others because they are good people, not because they’re being forced to for some ulterior motive.  People recognizing their own suffering in others and doing their best to assuage the pains of life.

This novel moralizes while also de-emphasizing the necessity for a fear of God. In fact, I think it is one of the best aspects of the book, and it is why Casy is in the narrative: to show that goodness and moral-ethical behavior do not have to be followed by God’s wrath. In fact, Steinbeck makes a point of showing that good judgment is just good judgment. (And there’s plenty of suffering for the living without having to worry about suffering after death).  And sometimes when wrong is being done to you, and you react in a way to protect yourself, bad things happen accidentally. I don’t think Steinbeck is justifying murder or violence; just the opposite. I think he’s justifying human behavior in the face of highly unethical treatment and oppression: the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.  I think he’s pointing out that if you push men to the brink, they will have no other choice (i.e. Tom) than to protect themselves, and at the same time, they will make the right choice (i.e. Rose of Sharon). When you’ve stripped man of his autonomy, you’ve opened up the can of worms on yourself; but when the can is empty, you’ll find the core of human nature.

Steinbeck was writing about real people.  We’re not quite real yet.  Nope. Far from it.  But I know there are Roses of Sharon out there waiting in many of us.

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove (1999)

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Coveis by Christopher Moore, who seems to be following in the footsteps of the great Tom Robbins.  This novel was fun. But it was also making a comment on the over reliance, in American culture, on anti-depressants.  You get a feeling, while reading it, that maybe Moore was channeling Valley of the Dolls with all of its pills, a.k.a. ‘dolls’, when he was writing it.  He also hits on sexual behavior, from the normal to the utterly absurd and aberrant. 

I think this novel is a good reminder about paying attention to life. Many of the inhabitants of Pine Cove, CA  are sedated, Huxley-soma-style, on medication doled out by their lazy psychiatrist and their sexually deviant pharmacist.  Profit and apathy drive their businesses of pushing pills, until something bad happens. Then all hell breaks loose, and turns out nobody needed the pills in the first place. Well, that part of the narrative isn’t truly tied up by the end, but the reader must assume that the psychiatrist made a major error in putting thousands of people onto Xanax, Prozac, etc.

The centerpiece of the novel was Steve, the enormous mutant sea creature who affects the libido of anyone or anything within a few mile radius of him.  He brings out the primal in everyone. He doesn’t repress like the medication. He doesn’t keep the ego in balance. And I think that’s the point.  But, at the same time, the primal instincts Steve brings out also lead to a lot of death and destruction because Steve literally eats people. 

In a silly way, with a smooth and inviting narrative, Moore was trying to pull off a major moral tale about balance, preconceptions/prejudices/stereotypes, human behavior, and relearning an enjoyment for life.

A Wild Sheep Chase (1982)

This is the fourth Haruki Murakami novel I’ve read. I’ll rank it 2nd, behind Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World only because I like the more cyberpunk narrative of HB.  A Wild Sheep Chase is full of the mystical, detective elements that Murakami is famous for. And, I was glad to see the Sheep Man again, who is in Dance, Dance, Dance (1988).  NOW I understand a little bit more about who the Sheep Man is, though it’s still not entirely clear.

I love it when I read something AFTER that helps me understand something I’ve already read. I have the same sentiment about Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey because I read it after watching Kubrick’s film and the novel (and the rest of the quadrilogy of books) helps make the final scenes of the film make a lot more sense.

I will honestly say that I didn’t realize A Wild Sheep Chase was part of a trilogy before I read it, but apparently the first two of the series are hard to find and maybe not even translated into English or something. That’s okay.

Once the protagonist finds his way to the Rat’s country house, I think we have Murakami at his finest: isolation, mysticism, trust in friendship.  Sometimes Murakami puts his characters in holes to exemplify the isolation, but in this case, it was a pastoral scene with no one for miles and an harsh and isolating impending winter to attempt to escape from before it was too late.

I’m interested in Murakami because, like some of my other favorite writers, he writes about regular people with regular problems that somehow turn out to be connected to otherworldly things. Muriel Spark frequently does this and it is one of her most endearing qualities as a writer, besides all the blackmail she writes about.

I think I will have to read the rest of Murakami’s translated literature before I will ever come to a determination about what his cryptic endings mean. I have struggled with the same with Muriel Spark, and keep coming back for more too. There are worse things to spend time doing.

As a side note, I wrote about this novel in relation to Twin Peaks on my film blog.

The Stranger, Camus (1942)

I haven’t updated this blog with my readings lately. For what reason, I know not, because I have been reading a lot since my last post.

So we’ll start with the most recent. I just finished The Stranger. It reminded me a lot of Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat, although Spark’s novel was published in 1970.  So I should say that now that I’ve read The Stranger, The Driver’s Seat reminds me of it!  I’ll get to that more in a bit.

I was impressed with the poesy of Matthew Ward’s translation of The Stranger. His introduction states that he maintained the integrity of Camus’ short sentences. This tactic speaks well against the curtness of Meursault’s character because he gets to the point and merely says what’s on his mind in the shortest way possible, because that’s natural. 

Meursault reminds me of Lise (or Lise reminds me of Meursault) from The Driver’s Seat because both are apathetic to the world around them, and seemingly detached from what the reader would perceive as the real world, or a more fitting perception of reality. I sometimes think that we all assume that everyone has the same basic sense of reality but it is the great authors who remind us that is not the case.

In Lise’s case, she is an automoton; she works in an office, keeps a meticulously sterile apartment, and seemingly has no “life.” She would not be classified as a loser, per se, but she is definitely not on the high end of the scale of those who relish life, or even pay attention to it, on a daily basis.  Meursault is the same, he seems to go through his life without ever stopping to smell the roses. His interactions with Marie, his girlfriend-fiance, are indicative of this. When she asks him to marry her, he says okay, but that if someone else was to ask him, he’d be just as likely to marry that girl too; he told her he didn’t love her but if she wanted to marry him, he would be fine with that.  His utter detachment from all emotions creates a major problem for him that he does not realize until he is in his cell for months.

The same for Lise: she is so detached from the world around her, from her own emotions and the emotions of others, that the reader has to wonder what is the point of even living. Well, that’s the point Spark is trying to make because Lise goes on a trip and her goal of this trip is to find someone to murder her. She finds someone to do it and the novel ends.

There are many literary characters that fit this m.o. of detachment and/or apathy toward life.  Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov from Crime & Punishment comes to mind, but he is an intellectual in a bind.  Meursault and Lise are not intellectuals at all. They are part of the uber-mundane class who never tried to learn anything because they were so un-preoccupied with life.

Is it sad, the predicament Meursault is in? Not really. As he says, it’s normal. You kill someone, you go to jail and get your head lobbed off.  So what is the point?  Besides all of the existential mumbo jumbo you read about this novel, what else is happening? Sure, it’s about the potential for the non-existence of God and all that, but somewhere in the novel someone says to Meursault (I think it was the Magistrate) that even if you don’t believe God exists, you still believe in God. For to believe he doesn’t exist is to at least have considered he did.  Therefore he does. 

I’m going to consider this novel as a reminder that life should be appreciated and savored. Meursault and Lise did not do either, and they lost out.

I would also like to mention that it is clear that characters like HBO’s Dexter Morgan, possess the same detachment and feigned emotion as Meursault does in this novel.  Part of Dexter’s training as a child was to feign emotions and to act normal. Meursault does the same thing, and his inner monologue gives him away throughout the novel.

By the end, Meursault has come to look forward to his moment of execution, and he hopes that the crowd of spectators will spew chants of hate at him for what he’s done.  I suppose it is because he lacks such emotion in his real life that he has come to at least appreciate the capacity for emotion in others. Ironically, the final scene is the only instance of emotion for Meursault (when he rages against the Chaplain), and that was an emotional outburst against an insistence that God exists. At least he feels strongly about something.

Rendezvous with Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke (1973)

What I like about Arthur C. Clarke’s writing is that his narratives are so diverse.  By that, I mean that there will be periods of narrative description or dialogue without much action, then he will hit you with the good stuff:  the stuff that gets your heart pumping and makes YOU want to get the heck out of whatever predicament his characters are in.  Its those moments of heart palpitations that keep me reading his books.  And those are some of the greatest moments of this novel.

So after reading Clarke’s 4-book 2001 saga (see my Cinematophiliac blog posting on it, and other related posts), I couldn’t resist Rendezvous with Rama, if not for the cover’s flaunting of its Hugo and Nebula awards.  Okay, enough of the build up.

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!!! (though you’ve had since 1973 to read this….

It’s ironic that Clarke ends this book mentioning the triple redundancy of the Ramans because of the quadruple-plus redundancy of his books I’ve read so far (2001, 2010, 2061, & 3001), and the other three left in the Rama series. Anyway, that’s an interesting side note.

Rendezvous with Rama ended before I thought it would, but clearly it ended primed for a sequel.  That’s good and I wasn’t disappointed.  I read books much like I watch films:  with little to no understanding of their backgrounds.  I never read film reviews, and I’d certainly never be caught reading a book review.  It’s just not my style.  And, that way I am surprised by what unfolds, like not realizing there were sequels to this book.  It sounds naive, but really it’s much more pleasurable that way.  And, if I knew there were 4 books, I might not have read the first one!  Large volumes intimidate me.  For instance, I took almost an entire summer to read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible.  It was like 500 pages!  Great book though.

Sometimes the beginning of Clarke’s story is a bit tedious (i.e. my mention above of the diversity of his narratives), with a lot of background information before you get into the meat of the action.  I realize, after reading his books, that I really like narrative action.  I like feeling connected with the situations the characters are in:  the danger, the clock ticking away.  It’s exhilerating.  I think of the books on narratology I read in grad school. Mainly Mieke Bal’s On Narratology.  I learned a lot from that book.

One of the things that stood out for me in this novel was the insistence by Captain Norton to do the right and ethical thing at ever moment possible.  In fact, there weren’t any situations in which he acted out of fear or impulse.  He always took into consideration the way their actions would affect the Ramans and he went to extremes to make sure that they did not adversely affect the temporary world they were exploring.  I think that’s great.  He was even open minded to one of his crewmen’s (Rodrigo) “religious” explanations and thoughts on Rama, and eventually let him disable the bomb sent by the Hermians on Mercury.

(I just now get why they called them Hermians…obviously Hermes, the Greek god of the forge!  Ahh…Thank God for The Iliad and The Odyssey!!!  They’re the gifts that keep on giving! I love it!  And this is what’s so wonderful about writing on this blog:  it helps so much with comprehension and retention of what I’ve read.  Mission Accomplished!).

Captain Norton reminds me of Captain Jonathan Archer from the Star Trek: Enterprise TV series (2001-2005) because Captain Archer ALWAYS took the most ethical route possible.  That was a great TV series, by the way, and I can’t believe it went off the air. 

At a time when a lot of uncertainty was barreling through the solar system, and a lot of people were afraid of the unknown, Captain Norton kept his head on straight and didn’t react out of fear.  This says a lot about the type of character that Clarke was developing:  someone level-headed who could take in all of the data from a lot of different directions, and make the right decision.  His compassion for the reasonableness of his “religious” crewman (Rodrigo) showed perhaps the most about Norton’s character: that he didn’t jump to conclusions and assume the guy was a whack-job. 

I think we all need to learn some lessons from this:  we might be surrounded by people we think are whack-jobs, but aren’t we being just as fanatic by not being open to their ideas? 

I’m wondering what Rama II has in store for Captain Norton, or future generations’ captains.  I assume it’ll pick up with the NEXT Rama ship (because there will be 3 if we read the triple redundancy correctly) and will help prove why it’s best to NOT bomb things we don’t understand, but rather observe, relate, and let them go on their merry way.  And, who knows how many years it will take for ship #2 to get there….

I finish with this:  In our day and age, can “we” refrain from bombing things and people “we” don’t understand?  Or is there a Captain Norton or a Rodrigo out there brave enough to stand up to the “Hermians,” and their political influence, savagery, and xenophobia, for the good of not only us, but for the good of those we don’t know, can’t see, and certainly don’t understand? 

That’d be nice.

When Things Fall Apart: The rest of the book

It’s nice when you find a book that you can sit down with and read the last half of it in one sitting, and learn a heck-of-a-lot in the process.

I want to briefly summarize what I learned from reading this book because it has been extremely helpful.  Thanks, JD!

Accept that life is ever-changing; therefore, accept that you cannot maintain stasis because it is impossible.  Therefore accept that life is groundless and you are groundless.  Therefore accept that change is inevitable and do not struggle against it.  When you find yourself struggling, remember that life is supposed to change and it is a good thing, but do not rely on habitual patterns of behavior to deal with the ever-changing state of life.  In other words, do not react the same way every time. We do this out of fear of the unknown or fear of failure or fear of something else.  The best thing to do is to face your fears head on, do not rely on old ways of dealing with things, push through it, and move past it.  Do not let your old way of doing things (including old ways of perceiving your identity) get in the way of true growth.  You cannot grow up if you stay in stasis. Your sense of reality will always be false if you never face your fears or rely on habitual behaviors. 

You must have unconditional compassion for yourself before you can have unconditional compassion for others. We put limitations and restrictions on others because we struggle with things ourselves. We pass judgments and create barriers to unconditional compassion because of our own insecurities about ourselves.  We do not give unconditionally because we do not give to ourselves unconditionally.  This is important, and difficult to overcome. 

Ultimately, we need to let go and move on. We recreate our identities so that we can keep from moving on.  We have to accept that we change as the world changes.  And that’s okay. 

We have to slow down and live in the present, and enjoy the present moment because it’s the only thing we have.  That makes a lot of sense to me because we cannot time travel either direction so clearly it is the present that matters. Yet we so easily get caught up in the past or future:  what we did or what we want to do. Or worse, what we wish we would have done.  It’s too much. We have to move on.

And most importantly, “Sometimes you just have to let everything fall apart” (170) so that you can reconnect with yourself, your groundlessness, and a clearer sense of reality.

There are a lot of things in this book that I found helpful and relevant to myself at this present moment.  I’ve gleaned a lot of strength from the words of Pema Chodron:  some of it I already knew, some of it I didn’t.  It’s just nice to “hear” it again, and again, and again….

When Things Fall Apart, by Pema Chodron, Ch. 1-8

A very good friend of mine, JD, recommended and gave me this book because it’s always reassuring to read things like this when you’re at a liminal moment in your life.  It’s written by a Canadian Buddhist “nun” and contains many insightful thoughts on dealing with fear, uncertainty, suffering, and compassion, among other things.    It’s interesting reading this at the same time as Hawking’s book because of some overlap.

Here is the bibliographic reference for the book: 

Chodron, Pema.  When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.  Boston: Shambhala, 2005.

Here are some of Chodron’s insights, which I feel are most applicable:

• SUFFERING is an inevitable part of life if we keep on believing that life is everlasting; therefore, if we give up the idea that things don’t eventually “disintegrate” or die-for-good, then we reduce or eliminate our suffering (11).  In other words, we suffer because we assume things can and should be better (tomorrow, in the afterlife, etc.). She later discusses our fear of death and I will get to that a little later.
• She advises us to relax in the midst of chaos and UNCERTAINTY(13).  This is ironic because of the other book I’m reading (Hawking) and its discussion of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.  What I take from this connection is that uncertainty is in everything and we must embrace it and be satisfied with it.
• We should seek to lose our “EGO” by seeking neither to INDULGE or REPRESS; therefore, if we remove that “ego-balance” from between the Id and the Superego, neither will exist and all will be in balance naturally (18).
• By seeking a state of ego-lessness, we allow all of our thoughts to arise and simply go away without indulging or repressing them (19).  This is a common theme in the book:  to embrace your thoughts (and fears) and meet them head-on, then let them melt away and not bother you.  But the main thing is to face your fears, your obsessions, your addictions, etc.
• She talks about MEDITATION and how difficult it can be to truly clear your mind.  A way to face this dilemma is to literally  label your mid-meditation thoughts as “thinking” when they come into your mind, and then once you’ve acknowledged those thoughts, let them go and return to an empty mind (27).  In other words, acknowledge the thoughts, let them go, and relax.
• COMPASSION is the root of Buddhist philosophy.  Chodron writes a lot about praticing GENTLENESS & LETTING GO (32).
• ENLIGHTENMENT is attaining a wakeful state of no more DELUSION(35).
• Chodron advises to PAY ATTENTION to life more (37).
• MINDFULNESS is “a sense of clear seeing with respect and compassion for what it is we see” (39).
• REFRAINING is an important concept that she reviews.  She says: “Mindfulness is the ground; refraining is the path” (39). 
• We avoid things out of fear.  We tend to want to “[fill] up space just because there’s a gap” (40).  In other words, we can’t sit alone with ourselves because perhaps we’re afraid of what thoughts will pop into our minds so we try to fill the spaces of our lives in order to avoid GROUNDLESSNESS.
• Chodron says we FEAR GROUNDLESSNESS (41).   But we have to face that fear head-on and be okay with the groundlessness.  The method to do this is to REFRAIN from reacting to the fear and restlessness (41).
• Pausing helps us connect with fundamental RESTLESSNESS and SPACIOUSNESS (42).  I think this is especially important in regard to our desire to seek an answer to our questions about the universe (c.f. Hawking).
• Chodron wants us to respect the jitters, and learn to pause and not be impulsive or react negatively; therefore move toward less compulsiveness (42-43). In other words, face things head-on without fear of being groundless. 
• This reminds me of another book (recommended by JD), Ethics for the New Millennium, in which one of the major points the Dalai Lama focuses on is the importance of PRACTICING to be more compassionate.  It’s not about reacting perfectly every time, but rather practicing reacting more compassionately, and eventually you won’t have to “fake it til you  make it.” 
• Ultimately Chodron wants us to refrain from reacting (emotional chain reactions or anxiety) and therefore become more clear (44-45).
• HOPELESSNESS is a necessity.  We must give up HOPE in order to relax about where and who we are (46).  We must give up HOPE that the world is to blame for our own situation and that thinking that way brings us satisfaction (47).
• SUFFERING dissolves when there’s nowhere left to hide; therefore, when there’s no more HOPE (47).  Ultimately, attaining lasting security in our lives is impossible (47).
• In other words, if we sit around being HOPEFUL that our situation will eventually get better, we DENY reacting in the PRESENT to those emotions and dealing with them properly.  If we allow the idea of HOPELESSNESS into our lives, we will eliminate our SUFFERING.   
• You really have to think about that one:  Chodron says that lasting security is an hopeless endeavor  (48).  One can never be ultimately secure because nothing in the world is permanent or doesn’t change.  Even Hawking says this about the universe because it is ever-expanding, ever-reproducing.  Therefore, if you give up HOPE that your SUFFERING will end (i.e. from ever suffering again), you will be living in a state of HOPELESSNESS, which is a good place to be because you won’t be sitting around expecting your life to never encounter any more suffering.
• Chodron says that NONTHEISM (versus THEISM) allows for the individual to relax with the idea that life is ambiguous and uncertain and that we cannot protect ourselves from SUFFERING (48).  This is true. We cannot protect ourselves from SUFFERING, so why not just resign ourselves to the fact that it will happen and when it does happen, take it in and then let it go.
• DHARMA is a total appreciation of IMPERMANENCE and CHANGE (48).  Life is a constant coming-and-going.
• Chodron says that SUFFERING is not inherently bad or wrong, but our ADDICTION to HOPE leads us to the idea that SUFFERING is BAD (49).  This leads to the HOPE/FEAR dichotomy.
• Chodron writes: “In an nontheistic state of mind, ABANDONING HOPE is an affirmation, the beginning of the beginning.  You could even put “Abandon Hope” on your refrigerator door instead of more conventional aspirations like “Every day in every way I’m getting better and better”" (50). 
• This is an especially profound statement and it reminds me of another text in which “Abandon Hope” is used:  Dante’s Inferno!  Inscribed on the wall of the entrance to Hell is a phrase: “Abandon hope, ye who enter here.”  Now, this is used in a different way than Chodron intends it but they do overlap.  Chodron advises us to ABANDON HOPE in order to END our SUFFERING.  Dante tells those who journey into Hell to ABANDON HOPE because they will SUFFER greatly with NO END.  But, in both instances, HOPE is unnecessary and should be abandoned.  Very interesting!
• According to Chodron, HOPE leads to a sense of lacking and when we CONFRONT and EMBRACE our own SUFFERING, we don’t resort to HOPE (50).  Even in Dante’s Hell, this rings true because the souls in Hell, in fact, EMBRACE SUFFERING and want it badly because they do not want God’s love, they want the exact opposite!
• Chodron writes that because INSECURITY and PAIN cannot be exterminated, we must embrace HOPELESSNESS and GROUNDLESSNESS in order to resolve ourselves to the fact that when INSECURITY and PAIN occur in our lives, we meet them head-on and then move on (51).
• FEAR OF DEATH is a profound state of being.  Death occurs whether we like it or not.  We are all aware that we will die and we fear it. We DENY that TIME is passing. Reminders of DEATH cause us to PANIC.  If we RELAX with the PRESENT MOMENT and see that everything CHANGES over TIME, that HOPELESSNESS is the preferred state of being, that DEATH is inevitable and not to be feared, then we will END our own SUFFERING (52-55).
• We must become HOPELESS in terms of the PRESENT MOMENT and not expect it to be better, to suffer less, etc.  Becoming HOPELESS helps rectify our FEAR OF DEATH because the PRESENT MOMENT is what matters and dealing with things in the PRESENT helps END our SUFFERING in the PRESENT.  The PRESENT MOMENT is what matters.
• The EIGHT WORLDLY DHARMAS that cause PAIN and SUFFERING are actually four dichotomies:  PLEASURE/PAIN, PRAISE/CRITICISM(BLAME), FAME/DISGRACE, GAINING/LOSING (56).
• If we practice our REACTIONS to our preconceived notions about these things, we will SUFFER less. If we pay attention to how we REACT when moments of PRAISE occur, we will better understand how to deal with moments when CRITICISM occur. Chodron says to be CURIOUS about your reactions to the EIGHT WORLDLY DHARMAS, and not HABITUAL (61).
• Chodron advises us to ENJOY in the PRESENT without clinging to our preconceived/prepared REACTIONS to things, then let those MOMENTS dissolve: this is the ultimate NONATTACHMENT.

So far, Chodron’s book has given me a lot of interesting things to ponder.  Much of it I’ve read before in works by the Dalai Lama, but I think lessons like these need to be reinforced a lot because our minds can sometimes forget the obvious lessons of life.