19th entry for 30th April

I read 'The Ten Thousand' by Michael Curtis Ford last week. Despite its several hundred pages, it didn't take more than a few days to read, since it wasn't a masterpiece of fiction; however, as a fairly authentic historical novel, it satisfied my brief interest in Greece of the 4^th century B.C. and its means of warfare.

The ancient world hitherto – probably due to its paganish image – was somewhat repulsive for me, but sooner or later you find something interesting in most of the cultures you find. Since as a teenager, I was quite interested in warfare, I find this interest gently renewed every now and then. This time it was the hoplite phalanx that took my attention, along with the routine and discipline it had needed in order to work perfectly; as well as its extreme efficiency when well deployed against non-phalanx armies.

Of course, this leads to the battle of Thermopylae and the Spartans, or rather, I’d better admit that the whole thing came up after watching the movie ‘300’, since in the latter years, I’m paying attention to popular culture – it is quite dangerous not paying attention to the world, isn’t it? Interpreting the movie itself is not an easy task; as an action movie, it’s evidently about making money and pleasing people with the spectacles, first of all. However, some critic implied that despite its semi-historical fantasy comics style, it could be considered realistic if it was meant to screen the Spartans’ impression about the battle. Make an authentic movie about it, and 21^st century people will experience something totally different than the Spartans did at the time. For example, all the things the Persians deployed are nothing new even for an illiterate audience. That is why all the fantasy, all the visual exaggerations of Spartan strength, and the understatement of other Greek hoplites (not even depicted as hoplites) could be authentic from the Spartan point of view; even if the Spartans themselves are altered a bit to obtain the audience's sympathy.

18th entry for 23rd, April

Whipping Star is a novel I’ve bought with the same pack as the Márquez novella this February. This story from Frank Herbert takes place in a universe quite different from the one of Dune (I was a little surprised to learn that Herbert has made up several different sci-fi universes). This one has much more resemblance to our 21^st century even though it includes a dozen of sentient alien species and the possibility of instant communication and travel through unlimited space,introduced by some of those aliens.

For me, the most important feature of the novel was showing how astonishingly one-sided and narrow-minded could be the human point of view on the Universe, since we are perfectly unable to look at it as other than a three-dimensional system of objects and radiations. It might be nothing else but our very own model of physical reality, based on how our senses and brains instinctually map our environment. Agent McKie is ordered to negotiate with a Caleban, a kind of creature no-one has actually seen so far. As it later unveils, their form of existence, however material it is, cannot be comprehended with the sensations and concepts we’ve made up so far. Their conversations take place in a metal ball, a self-propelled ‘house’ the Calebans create for communication with other sentient species (not all the story takes place in the ball, however). Although Fanny Mae – as she, confusingly, calls herself, probably because name is a new concept for Calebans – is obviously a superior intellect, they’re both struggling very hard to understand each other and to make themselves understood in the humans’ language; all because of the very-very few common concepts between their ‘cultures’.

Finally, with the help of an accident, McKie understands some of how Calebans apprehend the Universe (thus he’ll be able to solve the story’s crisis), and the reader is given a clue as well, but I’m sure it will make even more sense if I re-read that chapter a few months later.

17th entry for 16th April

After finishing the complete Dune saga by Frank Herbert last December, I supposed I'll find myself uncomfortable being left without the 'never ending story'. I was fourteen when I bought its first volume, inspired by a computer game's unusual atmosphere. I was amazed after the first few pages. I loved the whole concept and all the ideas of that 'irregular' type of future. In Dune, most of the technology we'd imagine in our futures – including computer technology – was made obsolete by the very thing it was supposed to surpass: the well-bred and well-trained human body and mind.

Then, there was much more to come. All the thoughts, conversations and acts of those super-conscious characters are so inspiring that they enhance one's intellect on an unconscious level. I've never experienced that reading any other novels. It was somewhat surprising to learn later that it was an effect on which the author has banked upon writing Dune. It wasn't a book to tell me all the mysteries of the Universe, of course, but from time to time, I continued getting new pieces of the six-volume saga and reading them, getting that special state of mind and way of thinking again for a few weeks at a time. I was more than twenty when I had a final restart in reading the series, feeling able at last to comprehend every single sentence of it. What have I learnt of this story of five thousand years? I guess there's no way of telling it without telling 'just read it all'. It doesn't cover even the whole of the human world, yet it seems to penetrate through all the frivolous problems of the 21st century.

After all, it has left a feeling that it has taught me everything I'll need to live without the story that took eleven years to read and seemed never to end. Reading some of Herbert's short stories in English, however, I just can't refuse reading some of his other novels without translation.

16th entry for 25th March

In the meanwhile, a friend of mine was most kind sending me a printed copy of ‘The Scarlet Letter’ which is a way more comfortable media than printed sheets and computer displays. The Custom-House section, while seemed to be finished, continued with an extra chapter. It didn’t seem to carry a new lesson for me first – it's the part about how does public office degrade one’s character because of its firm and powerful support – but there was one point that took my attention, however. Mr. Hawthorne mentions it's a significant cause of the effect that as a surveyor, for example, you aren't really doing anything useful.

Then, it came to my mind how usual this kind of jobs has become nowadays. In the last century, people's attitude to their jobs has changed as much as their attitude to their lives, and it probably has something to do with the above mentioned problem. These days, there are loads of jobs without the faintest hint of serving common interests. Some of them clearly serve strictly the companies' profits – since modern industry, instead of serving the demand, tends to raise demand first – and some of them are for perfectly obscure purposes; hence the saying ‘I believe in our department, since I’ll never understand what it is for’. 

Perhaps this is why it became an art to earn money and feel being useful at the same time, and this is how it doesn't seem that useless anymore to be a customs officer.

 

15th entry for 19th March

I'd better admit it's already Thursday night and I'm somewhat troubled with today's entry, but at least my situation is similar to the one that Mr. Hawthorne experienced upon trying to collect his ideas about ’The Scarlet Letter’. Sitting in my ’coal-lit parlour’ – which is my only room, and not a parlour at all, but let's force parallelism – I already have some candles lit and my display darkened. They can't compete with the dim red coal-fire, but I'm quite sure that no moonlight with any kind of coal-fire and fantastic-looking contours could help me in making up a remarkable issue to write about tonight.

As a last resort, I could deploy a glass of absinthe or two, which would surely give an extra chance for a reasonable entry. However, earlier this week, fleeing home a little shocked from the Torture Chamber (others call it the dentist's) I had two glasses already, and genuine absinthe would be a nasty thing to be irresponsible about. Not as if the Green Fairy's former ban would have too much to do with the risks connected to its consumption – it seems it was rather the all-around alcoholism it raised and the toxicity of contemporary fake absinthe, not to mention the interests of the resurgent French wine industry – but still, I wouldn't consider those herbs I macerate in the spirit to have a positive effect in such doses when consumed too often. Neither, I think, would it fully deliver its fancy effect of ’lucid drunkenness’ which is a surprising experience indeed. Thus, there's nothing left but to go to bed for a few hours' sleep, dreaming of an amazingly interesting future entry.

14th entry for 12th March

We have received a short story titled ‘A Perfect Possession’ by Alison Louise Kennedy for later discussion at our literature seminar. Just like the previous ones, it has some elements to feel disturbed or even provoked of: it's a monologue of a parent raising a handicapped boy with his or her spouse (we cannot know whether the wife or husband is talking) with an extreme and somewhat contradictory approach seemingly based on Catholic beliefs.

This quite essay-like – and at most points, very obscure – monologue tells us that they are to protect the child from every single thing that could be considered as a sin somehow, putting stress on the child’s sexual attitude. At this point, the parent admits they were a bit confused about knowing that ‘children come from sin’, but it seems they were most keen justifying it with some logical leap and dealing with the kid’s sins instead. It doesn't turn out what kind of disease the child suffers in (it seems to be a mental or nervous one, or both), but it’s probably the main reason for the endeavour to make their son perfect by some other means. Perhaps it's their fear of facing sin: they rather deny they have sinned – however, the diseased child reminds them of it – hammering in their nails voluntarily (saying ‘this is more a privilege than punishment and we treasure it’).

They also cross a basic Christian principle, in my opinion: since they are to completely prevent the child’s exposure to sin, the innocence achieved this way is going to be invalid; however, at the end of the monologue, it turns out they’ve failed to achieve their plan perfectly.

13th entry for 5th March

A few weeks ago I was about to order a few books from an on-line store for the single reason they're cheaper that way. Above a certain, yet still reasonable value, you even get free delivery, so I had to choose an extra book, and I chose 'Chronicle of a Death Foretold' by Gabriel García Márquez. It's a novella printed on slightly more than a hundred pages, and as such, a curiously expensive one, but I was still pleased after reading.

It's really a coincidence, but I bought a book which has some relations to 'The Lottery'. At the first glance, the two protagonists' death have nothing to do with each other: Santiago Nasar's deliberate murder is preceded by a dozen of unlucky coincidences, and happens even though no-one actually wants him dead. However, the latter is the first faint similarity to 'The Lottery'. According to the plot, a wife is brought back from the wedding bed by her husband for she turned out not to be a virgin (while she was supposed to be and pretended to be one), and so her brothers are to retrieve the family's honour by killing the man who is said responsible. The brothers do their very best to make people stop them, so by simply trying to take revenge, they'd retrieve the honour of their family. They tell everyone what are they up to and they prowl around with butcher knives all the morning, but all they achieve is that a policeman confiscates their knives and sends them home. Well, they do, fetching two other knives and eventually ending up actually butchering Santiago. Those few attempts to warn him are so faint that he (and also the only friend who tries to save him) gets the first warning in the last minutes.

All the primary reasons of his death are related a bit to Tessie's death in 'The Lottery'. It's a murder for tradidion with no real importance about whether the victim is guilty, and the people are not concerned too much. It's true however, that we can't sense any satisfaction of instincts in the murder this time, but we shouldn't forget the brothers are butchers by profession.