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1 Year, 100 Books

1 Year, 100 Books

Monthly Archives: May 2012

#24: Secrets of the Heart by Khalil Gibran

20 Sunday May 2012

Posted by tcnorwood in Book Review, Literature, Philosophy, Poetry

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100 books, book review, books, classics, Gibran, literature, philosophy, poetry

I went with another quick read for my twenty-fourth book of the year, choosing Khalil Gibran’s Secrets of the Heart.  Based on my previous experience with Gibran, I expected a deeply philosophical book written in beautiful figurative language.  As usual, Gibran did not disappoint. 

Secrets of the Heart is a collection of poems and short stories that reflect Gibran’s general philosophy of renouncing worldly goods in favor of universal brotherhood.  He writes in language that is both wonderfully symbolic and ageless.  My favorite selections from this particular book were “Dead Are My People” and “John the Madman.”  “Dead Are My People” is a poem about the death and suffering of the people of Lebanon during World War I and Gibran’s guilt about escaping that suffering by moving with his family to America.  “John the Madman” is a short story about a young farmer in Syria who reads the New Testament in his spare time (against the orders of local priests).  His observations of the real world and the sermons preached by the priests do not align with his own scriptural readings.  When he (rightfully) speaks out against the corruption and wickedness he sees, he is dismissed as a madman and shunned.  Both of these stories are well written and very profound.  Even if the other selections offered in Secrets of the Heart had no value, I would recommend the book based on these two stories.  Fortunately, the entire book is wonderful.  Although I would recommend The Prophet or The Madman more highly, Secrets of the Heart is well worth reading.

The Current Count

24 Read, 76 To Go

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#23: One Hundred and One Famous Poems, edited by Roy Cook

19 Saturday May 2012

Posted by tcnorwood in Book Review, Books, Poetry

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100 books, book review, books, poetry

Despite being a certified English teacher who ostensibly taught poetry to a group of 10th graders last year, I have read very little English poetry apart from Shakespeare and Milton.  I occasionally get the urge to correct that shortcoming and branch out a bit in my reading.  My most recent selection is one of those efforts.  One Hundred and One Famous Poems is exactly what it sounds like– a collection of one hundred and one famous poems.  It includes some well-known classics I had encountered before, such as Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade, Poe’s Raven, Whitman’s O Captain! My Captain!, Henley’s Invictus, and Kipling’s If.  It also includes several that I had never encountered.  My favorite of these was either I Have a Rendezvous with Death by Alan Seeger or Horatius by Thomas Babington Macaulay.

I enjoyed my brief foray into the world of the poetic.  I appreciate the value of a well-crafted poem, one in which every word must be carefully considered to extract every bit of poetic meaning.  If you are looking for a nice sampling of English poetry, I would recommend this book.  That said, I would much rather read a novel.

The Current Count

23 Read, 77 To Go

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#22: The Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry

15 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by tcnorwood in Book Review, Philosophy

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100 books, book review, books, economics, philosophy, politics

It is a well-known fact for teenage students that all assigned work (particularly assigned reading) is designed to waste their time for no good reason.  As a teacher (who has almost attained the wizened old age of 26) I get to see the reverse of that medal.  Much to the surprise of my teenage self, most of the work assigned by teachers in both high school and college really is meant to help the student.  While I stand by my 10th grade decision not to read Harry Potter as assigned in English class, I do recognize many missed opportunities for intellectual and personal improvement that resulted from that natural mistrust of authority in my youth.  In the spirit of that realization, I decided to revisit a bit of assigned reading.  The Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry was assigned by the Baylor University Honors Program as a summer reading project for incoming freshman back in 2004.  We were supposed to read the book and write an essay over the course of that summer and then participate in a discussion group during our first week on campus.  Eighteen-year-old Me skimmed enough of the book to write a thoroughly unremarkable essay and made no references to the actual text during the discussion group.  Score one for teenage apathy.  Last week I revisited this relic of my rebellious youth.  As it turns out, those honors professors weren’t just wasting my time.

The Art of the Commonplace is a collection of essays by noted novelist, poet, philosopher, and farmer Wendell Berry.  This collection includes previously published essays that span Berry’s five decade career and is intended to give a comprehensive (if superficial) overview of his agrarian philosophy.  As such, the book is divided into five general sections.  The first is entitled “A Geobiography” and provides context for Berry’s writings. Berry operates a farm outside of Port Royal, Kentucky near where he grew up.  This same area was home to his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.  This long connection has given Berry an intimate knowledge and abiding affection for the land he occupies.  It is also important to note that Berry has not always lived on this farm.  He was once a successful writer and professor in New York City, Mecca of intellectuals.  He gave up that prestigious position to return to his native Kentucky.  That decision and his connection to the land have inspired and informed his subsequent philosophical efforts.  This first section illustrates that influence.  I appreciated the inclusion of this section, as it lends an authenticity to Berry’s other essays that would not be so apparent without its presence.

The second section of The Art of the Commonplace is “Understanding our Cultural Crisis”.  It includes essays that identify and discuss a variety of modern cultural issues, including environmental concerns, racism, gender discrimination, and overdependence on technology. Berry outlines a connection between these problems of culture and problems in agriculture.  The abandonment of the agrarian ethos fundamentally altered the way society looks at work.  In a society rooted in agrarian rather than industrial ways, physical labor and careful work are viewed as dignified.  Industrialism discredits physical labor.  Those who can avoid physical labor must be better than those who do such menial work.  The result is a discrimination against those employed in these jobs.  The root of racism, according to Berry is not that slaves were black, but that blacks were slaves.  Agrarian culture recognizes the importance of the health of our land and our communities.  Quality and sustainability are valued over quantity and immediate profit.  The industrial mindset replaces this careful approach with an exclusive focus on profit.  The result is a society more concerned with cash than character.  As a small-town boy turned city dweller engaged in a nonphysical job, I tend to be a touch skeptical that all of our cultural ills can be traced to the abandonment of the agrarian lifestyle. Berry’s arguments are very interesting, however, and certainly merit consideration.  I particularly agree with his notion that the shift in focus from quality to profit has certainly had a negative impact on the character of most people.  So many students in both high school and college are focused only on economic eventualities.  As a result they miss out on the true goal of education: enlightenment. 

The man himself.

The third section, “The Agrarian Basis for an Authentic Culture”, expands on the breakdown of culture as a result of abandoning agrarian practices.  Agrarianism recognizes that human beings do not exist in autonomous isolation.  Every person is inextricably linked to other people, other creatures, and the Earth at large.  Industrialism transforms complex, interrelated people into individual consumers. Berry argues that we must recognize and accept the responsibility of our interconnectedness if we are to repair the cultural damage of industrialism.  Only by forming close-knit communities that develop and maintain the awareness of these connections can we make real progress towards cultural and ecological health. Berry’s vision of communities in which “people belong to one another and to their place” is appealing.  My concern is with freedom from conformity. Berry argues that “A community, as a part of a public, has no right to silence publicly protected speech, but it certainly has a right not to listen and to refuse its patronage to speech that it finds offensive.”  That makes sense.  People are free to say what they want and I am free not to listen. Berry later states that

A general and indiscriminate egalitarianism is free-market culture, which, like free-market economics, tends towards a general and destructive uniformity.  And tolerance, in association with such egalitarianism, is a way of ignoring the reality of significant differences.  If I merely tolerate my neighbors on the assumptions that all of us are equal, that means I can take no interest in the question of which ones of us are right and which ones are wrong; it means that I am denying the community the use of my intelligence and my judgment; it means that I am not prepared to defer to those whose abilities are superior to mine, or to help those whose condition is worse; it means that I can be as self-centered as I please.

In order to survive, a plurality of true communities would require not egalitarianism and tolerance but knowledge, an understanding of the necessity of local differences, and respect.  Respect, I think, always implies imagination—the ability to see one another, across our inevitable differences, as living souls.

This notion of communities seems to require a certain amount of homogeneity amongst the community members.  What of those individuals who differ or disagree with prevailing community standards?  To say that a community respects all members as living souls and is capable of appreciating the value of differences ignores the tendency (supported by historical examples) to divide communities over differences rather than coexisting with them.  To argue that those were not true communities because true communities must respect differences does not answer the practical question—How can we create these perfect communities?

The fourth section is titled “Agrarian Economics” and is largely a critique of the prevailing economic order. Berry excoriates the industrial mindset of the present global economy on practical and moral grounds.  These criticisms apply to both free-market capitalism and traditional communism.  The practical criticism basically states that the current economic system exploits the environment and the consumers in the interest of maximizing profits.  Rather than seek the most sustainable methods of manufacture and production, corporations seek the cheapest.  This mindset creates an inherently unstable system.  Producing goods in the cheapest possible manner often involves stripping the land of its ability to produce the very commodities needed to produce those goods.  Eventually we will run out of those resources, which will be a catastrophe from which this economy will not recover.  Another practical flaw in our economy is the emphasis on competition.  There is a well-established notion that competition in a free market is inherently fair and inherently just. Berry argues that this simply cannot be true.  That notion assumes that all competitors are equal in opportunity and resources, distinguished only by their natural ability and effort.  Unfortunately, this is not the case.  In an economy based on competition there must be winners and there must be losers.  The winners accrue tremendous profits that allow them to defeat other less advantaged competitors.  This concentrates wealth and economic power in the hands of a very few corporations.  This again leads to instability as the unsuccessful and economically disadvantaged eventually refuse to accept this situation, generating potentially severe civil unrest.  The moral critique is very simple.  An industrial economy based on competition does not have room for concerns of morality.  Ethical considerations cannot be plotted on a profit-loss spreadsheet.  History shows that companies can and will violate moral considerations to the detriment of humanity at large in the interest of profit.  This system rewards those most willing to consider pure profit.  I must admit that I am not a fan of capitalism.  I have never considered it a just system.  In many situations, the free market does indeed reward those most willing to take risks and put forth tremendous effort.  Just as frequently, the rewards go to people who put in little effort and do no actual work.  It baffles me that a system in which tremendous profit can be generated simply by possessing large sums of money can be called fair.  Don’t get me started on the pitfalls and moral implications of an economic order that has the generation and perpetuation of debt as one of its primary foundations.  This doesn’t mean that I am a communist.  I think communism is even worse for many reasons (that I won’t extend this blog post by enumerating).  I do not know what would be better than the status quo, but there must be something.  Perhaps Berry has found that something.

The fifth and (mercifully) final section is “Agrarian Religion”.  It is primarily an appeal to religious communities, and especially Christian communities, to recognize the sanctity of every part of Creation.  Once this sanctity is acknowledged, it is impossible to blindly accept the ecological abuses perpetrated by the industrialist economy.  The only solution is to embrace the agrarian mindset that focuses on the holiness of the Earth.  Recognizing the miraculous cycle of life embodied in the natural world is absolutely essential to a sincere religion.  I thought Berry’s appeals were very persuasive and should be taken very seriously by all religions.  Focusing on spiritual concerns tends to devalue the physical world.  The result is disrespect for the environment that does not line up with a religion that values all of the works of the Creator.

Overall, I loved Berry’s book.  It is very thought-provoking and insightful.  I don’t agree with every aspect of Berry’s philosophy, but I definitely think his ideas demand consideration.  My chief complaint with this book is that it is somewhat repetitive and occasionally disjointed because it is an assemblage of essays from throughout his career.  It was an excellent introduction, however, and I look forward to reading more of his work in the future.  I fully appreciate the choice of this book by those professors eight years ago (but am glad I waited to read it until I had a bit more intellectual maturity).  Perhaps this epic blog post makes up for the crap essay I produced that summer.

The Current Count

22 Read, 78 To Go

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#21: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

08 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by tcnorwood in Book Review, Books, Drama, Literature

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Tags

100 books, book review, books, classics, drama, literature, Shakespeare

Nearly a week ago I finished reading Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream but have only now found the time to sit down and write my review.  I picked this play for several reasons.  First, I love Shakespeare and am slowly working my way through all of his plays.  Second, this is one of the most frequently performed of his plays and I wanted to correct this gap in my literary knowledge.  Third, I wanted something short, quick, and entertaining.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream definitely met the last requirement.

To say that A Midsummer Night’s Dream is about relationships would be a bit of an understatement.  There are relationships piled on top of relationships in this particular play.  There is Theseus, Duke of Athens, who is engaged to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons.  There is Hermia, and Athenian maiden whose father has pledged her to marry Demetrius but who loves Lysander.  There is Helena, who loves Demetrius but cannot sway him from his desire for Hermia.  There is Oberon, King of the Fairies and his queen, Titania.  Finally, there is Pyramus and Thisbe, the main characters in a (supposedly) tragic play-within-the-play acted out by some humble Athenian craftsmen.  These relationships frame the action throughout the play and offer many opportunities for comic misunderstanding.

These relationships form three plotlines that are woven together.  The first plotline revolves around the Athenian lovers.  Hermia wants to marry Lysander but has been pledged to Demetrius by her father.  Her father uses an ancient Athenian law to force his daughter to choose between marrying Demetrius or death.  Theseus, as duke, is forced to resolve the issue.  He gives Hermia the choice between marrying Demetrius or becoming a nun in the service of Diana.  Lysander and Hermia plot to flee Athens and get married in the woods outside of Theseus’ jurisdiction.  Helena, in a fit of jealousy, informs Demetrius of the plans of his supposed bride in the hopes that he will be so grateful that he abandons Hermia in favor of Helena.  Demetrius and Helena prepare to pursue Hermia and Lysander.  While all of this is occurring, a group of simple Athenian craftsmen makes plans to rehearse a play in honor of the impending nuptials between Theseus and Hippolyta.  Their chosen rehearsal location is the very same clearing in the woods at which Hermia and Lysander plan to wed (and Helena and Demetrius plan to confront them).  Confused yet?

The action then moves to the woods, where we encounter Oberon, King of the Fairies.  Oberon is in the middle of a dispute with Titania, Queen of the Fairies.  Oberon is angry with Titania because she refuses to give an Indian changeling who was the son of one of her followers to Oberon to act as his knight.  Oberon plots a bit of trickery to punish Titania for her obstinacy and sends his servant Puck to retrieve a magical flower whose juice can be applied to a person’s eyelids while they sleep, causing them to fall in love with whatever they see first upon awakening.  His plan is to make Titania fall in love with a woodland creature and then shame her back into obedience.  While plotting this revenge, he overhears Helena’s struggle to win Demtrius’ favor.  He tells Puck to apply the juice to Demetrius’ eyes as well so that he will return Helena’s love.  Puck accidentally applies the magic juice to Lysander’s eyes instead, who sees Helena when he awakes.  When Oberon learns of the mistake, he charms Demetrius’ eyes and sends Puck to retrieve Helena.  Demetrius falls for Helena and challenges Lysander to a duel to determine whose love is greater.  Fortunately, Puck distracts the two men until all of the lovers fall asleep and Oberon removes the charm from Lysander.  That leaves Lysander and Hermia paired, and Helena and Demetrius together. 

While all of this is happening, the six craftsmen are practicing their play.  Puck changes Bottom, a weaver playing the part of Pyramus, into a man with the head of an ass (my older brother has sported that look for years).  Titania, under the influence of the magic flower, falls in love with the transformed Bottom (that would make a great name for an exercise program).  While she is thus distracted, Oberon steals the changeling.  He then transforms Bottom back to his natural state and lifts the spell from Titania.  Puck arranges for the Athenian lovers to believe that everything was only a dream. 

The action then returns to Athens, where the happy couples of Theseus and Hippolyta, Lysander and Hermia, and Demetrius and Helena are all married.  The craftsmen act out their play, the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe.  The lack of skill and rehearsal, and hypersensitivity to the women in the audience render the tragic play laughable.  The newlyweds watch the play with glee and then retire to bed.   Oberon and Titania, now reconciled, visit the house of the duke and bless the weddings.  The play concludes with Puck apologizing to the audience for any offence and reminding them it all may have been just a dream.

I loved this play.  Shakespeare is always a pleasure to read by virtue of his language, but this play was enjoyable because it is just plain fun.  The plotline borders on the absurd and the characters are somewhat ridiculous, resulting in a play that is lighthearted and farcical.  That said, it still explores the complex nature of relationships and the importance of love.  The final act, in which the newlyweds laugh at the ridiculous tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, is a wonderful bit of irony.  I would definitely recommend this play for anyone looking for a pleasant afternoon read.

The Current Count

21 Read, 79 To Go

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