Saturday, April 22, 2017
Dali's History and Culture under a British Painter's Brush
I've recently stumbled on an amazing video documentary about a British painter's life in Dali, Yunnan, from which I learned a bit about Dali's ancient history and culture as well as its modern day outline. Its inhabitants, the Bai tribe 白族, have a history that goes back all the way to the Nanzhao (8th & 9th century) and Kingdom of Dali era (10th, 11th & 12th century). Dali's famous landscapes include the Erhai Lake 洱海 and Cang Mountains 蒼山.
[P.S. Thanks to Jason Pym's (the British painter in the video) reminder, I now recall that Jin Yong's 天龍八部 is set in Dali. When I read the novel in my childhood, I was smitten with one of the protagonists 段譽 (a prince of the Kingdom of Dali) and his magical martial arts skill 凌波微步, but I've now forgotten most of the story.]
Here's the video:-
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Book Review - "Embers" by Sandor Marai
This
was a powerful read that pulled my heart along with the narrator Henrik’s
soul-searching dialogue (perhaps monologue is more appropriate) with his best
friend and enemy Konrad whom he has not seen for forty-one years. The story is
set in the 1900s in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The
speech evokes a past love triangle between the two and Henrik’s wife, long dead,
and a murder attempt. Henrik chose to stay silent about the double betrayal and
to live on stoically. Konrad chose to escape to the tropics. Henrik’s wife
chose to die.
Henrik’s
mordant observations about fidelity and betrayal between intimate man-friends,
passionate and possessive man-and-woman relationship, dark human nature like
arrogance and cowardice, and the solitude and sorrow of aging are beautifully
woven into a web of silky smooth words that has the power of swallowing one’s heart
and mind whole with no reprieve.
I
find these passages especially striking:
It’s the moment when something happens
not just deep among the trees but also in the dark interior of the human heart,
for the heart, too, has its night and its wild surges, as strong an instinct
for the hunt as a wolf or a stag. The human night is filled with the crouching
forms of dreams, desires, vanities, self-interest, mad love, envy, and the
thirst for revenge, as the desert night conceals the puma, the hawk and the
jackal.
Every exercise of power incorporates a
faint, almost imperceptible, element of contempt for those over whom the power
is exercised. One can only dominate another human soul if one knows,
understands, and with the utmost tact despises the person one is subjugating.
There is this question of otherness….So
just as it is blood alone that binds people to defend one another in the face
of danger, on the spiritual plane one person will struggle to help another only
if this person is not ‘different’, and if, quite aside from opinions and
convictions, they share similar natures at the deepest level.
Is the idea of fidelity not an appalling
egoism and also as vain as most other human concerns? When we demand fidelity,
are we wishing for the other person’s happiness? And if that person connot be
happy in the subtle prison of fidelity, do we really prove our love by
demanding fidelity nonetheless? And if we do not love that person in a way that
makes her happy, do we have the right to expect fidelity or any other
sacrifice?
Do you also believe that what gives our
lives their meaning is the passion that suddenly invades our heart, soul and
body, and burns in us forever, no matter what else happens in our lives?.... Is
it indeed about desiring any one person, or is it about desiring desire itself?
Or perhaps, is it indeed about desiring a particular person, a single,
mysterious other, once and for always, no matter whether that person is good or
bad, and the intensity of our feelings bears no relation to that individual’s
qualities or behavior?
This novel forces one to ponder on one’s own
intimate relationships.
Monday, April 17, 2017
Book Review - "Eugenie Grandet" by Honore de Balzac
[Note:
I read this novel in March/April 2013 and posted a review on my Asia Sentinel
blog on April 12, 2013. I’ve just dug out the review from my files and am
posting it here with some minor changes.]
What
is a miser? The dictionary says it means either one of two types of persons:
(1) one who lives very meagerly in order to hoard money; or (2) a greedy or
avaricious person. I’ve lately read Honore de Balzac’s famous novel Eugenie Grandet and am impressed with
the author’s perspicacious insight into the traits of misers.
This
is an excerpt from the novel that illustrates Balzac’s perception:-
A miser’s life is a constant exercise of
every human faculty in the service of his own personality. He considers only
two feelings, vanity and self-interest; but as the achievement of his interest
supplies to some extent a concrete and tangible tribute to his vanity, as it is
a constant attestation of his real superiority, his vanity and the study of his
advantage are two aspects of one passion – egotism. That is perhaps the reason
for the amazing curiosity excited by misers skillfully presented upon the
stage. Everyone has some link with these persons, who revolt all human feelings
and yet epitomize them. Where is the man without ambition? And what ambition
can be attained in our society without money?.......
Like all misers he had a constant need
to pit his wits against those of other men, to mulct them of their crowns by
fair legal means. To get the better of others, was that not exercising power,
giving oneself with each new victim the right to despise those weaklings of the
earth who were unable to save themselves from being devoured? Oh! Has anyone
properly understood the meaning of the lamb lying peacefully at God’s feet -
that most touching symbol of all the victims of this world - and of their
future, the symbol of which is suffering and weakness glorified? The miser lets
the lamb grow fat, then he pens, kills, cooks, eats and despises it. Misers
thrive on money and contempt.
In
the novel, Felix Grandet is depicted as the stingy, egotistic and mean-spirited
money hoarder in suburban France, against a money-grubbing social backdrop with
the rise of the bourgeoisie. He rations everyday food for his weak-minded wife,
his only daughter Eugenie and his loyal house servant, and purposely keeps his
house in shabby disrepair, while making immense fortunes secretively. He almost
seems to derive sadistic pleasure in ruling his domestic household with an iron
fist.
The
only two persons who have knowledge of his true worth are his lawyer and his
banker. Knowing that these two are trying to get their respective nephew/son to
win the hand of Eugenie, he plays one against the other to extract the greatest
monetary advantage. He employs devious means to cheat and fleece his deceased
brother’s creditors and insists on Eugenie breaking romantic ties with his own nephew
Charles, who is left penniless by his deceased father’s bankruptcy. Charles is
forced to go off to the Indies to find his fortune and Eugenie gives him all
her gold coins that her father has given her over the years, to the miser’s
furious dismay.
When
Charles comes back to France a rich man, having made his fortune from dealing
in slaves, he forsakes Eugenie for a wealthy aristocrat, mistaken that the
former is now poor.
Eugenie,
by nature a kind-hearted country girl, faces the music after having her heart
broken by Charles and discovering her father’s base deeds. She becomes disgusted
with the wealthy class as she learns about its hypocrisy and shallowness. Upon
inheriting both her father’s and her husband’s fortunes (the husband being the
lawyer’s nephew, who dies shortly after their loveless marriage), she chooses
to live a modest and philanthropic life on her own terms.
The
novel makes one ponder on whether there is an effective cure for avarice and
excessive materialism in our society of today.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Book Review - "Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc" by Mark Twain
This novel was Mark Twain's last
completed work which he considered to be the best of all his books. He claimed
that he had spent twelve years in its research and two in writing. One of his
key sources of research was Jules Quicherat's Proces de Condamnation et de
Rehabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc
As a historical novel, this is one of those that let me learn a great deal about the historical background and the historical character(s) while keeping me emotionally engaged with the plot. It was not a fast read, but by the time I finished reading, I felt glad that I had picked up the book.
As already mentioned in numerous other reviews, Twain's deep fascination with and affection for Joan of Arc shines through the entire novel. It's been pointed out that in writing this book, the author made a deliberate departure from his well-known comedic style, as he wanted readers to take it seriously. Be that as it may, I find that his innate sense of humor is all too readily discernible.
Joan's story is without question a compelling and poignant one. The fact that an illiterate teenage French peasant girl was able to make such a stunning impact on late middle-ages history of France and England, more specifically on the outcome of the infamous Hundred Years' War, is reason enough for history lovers to read this important account of her humble and glorious life.
As with many historical novels set around this period in Europe, religion plays an important part in the factual details and plot twists. In the case of Joan of Arc's story, this passage can best describe how some French Catholic priests, in depraved conspiracy with the English nobility, have a hand in deciding her tragic fate:
The Church was being used as a blind, a disguise; and for a forcible reason: the Church was not only able to take the life of Joan of Arc, but to blight her influence and the valor-breeding inspiration of her name, whereas the English power could but kill her body; that would not diminish or destroy the influence of her name; it would magnify it and make it permanent. If the Church could be brought to take her life, or to proclaim her an idolater, a heretic, a witch, sent from Satan, not from Heaven, it was believed that the English supremacy could be at once reinstated."
As a historical novel, this is one of those that let me learn a great deal about the historical background and the historical character(s) while keeping me emotionally engaged with the plot. It was not a fast read, but by the time I finished reading, I felt glad that I had picked up the book.
As already mentioned in numerous other reviews, Twain's deep fascination with and affection for Joan of Arc shines through the entire novel. It's been pointed out that in writing this book, the author made a deliberate departure from his well-known comedic style, as he wanted readers to take it seriously. Be that as it may, I find that his innate sense of humor is all too readily discernible.
Joan's story is without question a compelling and poignant one. The fact that an illiterate teenage French peasant girl was able to make such a stunning impact on late middle-ages history of France and England, more specifically on the outcome of the infamous Hundred Years' War, is reason enough for history lovers to read this important account of her humble and glorious life.
As with many historical novels set around this period in Europe, religion plays an important part in the factual details and plot twists. In the case of Joan of Arc's story, this passage can best describe how some French Catholic priests, in depraved conspiracy with the English nobility, have a hand in deciding her tragic fate:
The Church was being used as a blind, a disguise; and for a forcible reason: the Church was not only able to take the life of Joan of Arc, but to blight her influence and the valor-breeding inspiration of her name, whereas the English power could but kill her body; that would not diminish or destroy the influence of her name; it would magnify it and make it permanent. If the Church could be brought to take her life, or to proclaim her an idolater, a heretic, a witch, sent from Satan, not from Heaven, it was believed that the English supremacy could be at once reinstated."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)