Book Review: THE FILIPINO CHRIST AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS by Michael Demetrius H. Asis

The Filipino Christ and the Historical Jesus by Michael Demetrius H. Asis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a profound link between the Jesuits and nation-building in the Philippines. Yesterday we celebrated the death of our national hero, Jose Rizal. A visit to his place of exile, Dapitan, and its neighbor, Dipolog, made me realize just how intimate the connection between the Jesuits and Rizal was. Both cities' parish churches were founded by Jesuits, who formed the social consciousness of the man who invented the very concept of the Filipino nation. Until now, an altar carved by Rizal is used in Dipolog's church, while in the Dapitan church's garden is a map of Mindanao drawn by Rizal himself.

My father, himself Jesuit-educated before studying at the state university (the running joke about people with similar backgrounds is that they got the best from the separation of church and state, hehe), carved the Jesuit motto in the front door of our school's faculty room: "Ad majorem Dei gloriam." (For the greater glory of God)

Physical signs matter because they remind us of the living message of heroes and gods past. This was a theme present in this firebrand of a book.

Part of my annual examen on this last day of 2022 was reading this short scholarly book by Prof. Asis from the Theology Department of the Ateneo, the foremost Jesuit educational institution in the country.

Concise yet accessible, it's short enough to be read over a very long breakfast! Written in layman-friendly language so an ordinary reader like myself had no trouble, this was a book-length analysis of the challenge facing every Filipino Catholic today and always: why is "the only Catholic nation this side of the world" also one of its most morally corrupt?

This is a very brave book. Prof. Asis asks difficult questions, makes painful observations on clergy and laity alike.

"The prophetic function of the Church empowers it to denounce the many cases of abuse, violence, corruption, and injustice in society. But this prophetic task and vision should be the same benchmark by which the Church measures itself... Has it confronted the obvious evil of clerical sexual abuse and financial anomalies in the Church?"

"Why do Filipino Catholics, despite their inherent piety, seem to fail - essentially - to build up the Kingdom?"

"Filipinos will go to great lengths imitating Christ's passion but fail to live out his moral examples."

Prof. Asis presents the theses of other scholars (a glance at the bibliography show how universal he is, referencing both Catholic and non-Catholic authors) to present the merits and failings of the syncretism in Filipino Catholicism.

This is not finger pointing at the clergy only, but also a call for collective action. Enough with the passivity, Prof. Asis says. Enough with the separation of our Sunday selves from our daily lives, using liturgy and folk practices as escapism, imbibing the post-Colonial legacy of the martyrdom in accepting injustice on earth, while praying for Heavenly rewards.

Prof. Asis ends with a call to action, to live more heroic lives, to live out "bayanihan" as a "collective saving effort of the community." He also pointed out that Jose Rizal was called as the "Tagalog Christ." Just see the wonders he wrought in Dapitan! Instead of languishing in exile and indulging in self-pity, Rizal taught local boys for free, became doctor to the people, engineered water works that still stand today. He literally carved out a haven on earth, creating a heaven out of hell, as it were. And that challenge stands before all of us today.

"This is how salvation begins," Asis writes, with "the human exemplification of commitment to social welfare and development."

A proper examen should never end in despair, as Prof. Asis reminds us, "Jesus himself never explained why there was evil in the world. He did emphasize that it does not have the final word."



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Book Review: FOUR SEASONS IN ROME by Anthony Doerr

Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"A year is an infinity of perceptions...This year has been composed of a trillion such moments; they flood the memory, spill over the edges of journal entries. What is it physicists tell us? Even in a finite volume, there are an infinite number of points."

I think this is my last book for 2022, and I consider myself very lucky to be able to finish this Roman treat while fresh from the excesses of Greece in Paddy Fermor's MANI and ROUMELI! To be able to book-end my literary adventures with Doerr/Fermor was an unexpected grace, especially since I had no idea Doerr wrote a travelogue on a year spent in Rome until I received an email informing me that it was marked down to 2 dollars on Kindle!

I've been a fan of Doerr ever since his amazing ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, and some months ago I also read his pandemic novel, CLOUD CUCKOO LAND. FOUR SEASONS IN ROME has themes present in the two other books, but it is extra special for fans of ALL THE LIGHT because it talks about one year (2005) that Doerr spent in Rome, with his wife and newborn twins, while he was working on what is perhaps his most famous book (which will become a Netflix mini-series in 2023, hurray!).

To be so close to the Vatican when Pope John Paul II passed, to have been amongst the crowd of smiling Romans who ran to St. Peter's as soon as bells pealed, celebrating the white smoke from the chimney of the conclave, to explore the ruins of a city celebrating the best (and worst) of Europe!!

The blurb of the book says that one shouldn't leave for Rome without this book, but I think Doerr shares this common trait with Fermor in that they write about the human experience of a place, not so much the logistics of sightseeing as seeing with the inner eye how one's soul is changed by a prolonged pilgrimage amongst such beauty. To borrow from Doerr, both authors write tributes to wonder itself.

Light features very prominently in Doerr's memoir, as does the act of seeing. Doerr challenges us to counteract entropy, to view the world with an infant's eyes. All places have their own beauty, Doerr writes, and their time in Rome just reminded them of this. What matters is how we view the world, and the kind of frame we use.

"The oculus of the Pantheon, the dome of St. Peter’s, the tufted pillars of the umbrella pines, and the keyhole in the green door outside the gardens of the priory of the Knights of Malta on the Aventine Hill—they are all eyes of God. We look through them; they look through us. Everything is designed around the light."

I end this last book entry of 2022 (good riddance, 2nd annus horribilis in a row!!) with what is becoming our family's battle cry, echoed in this beautiful book as well: "Keep the light on!"



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Book Review: MANI - TRAVELS IN THE SOUTHER PELOPONNESE by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese by Patrick Leigh Fermor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the pleasures of the annual Christmas/New Year break is the leisurely reading of designated "vacation reads." These are books meant to be read S-L-O-W-L-Y, each musical sentence savored over a sip of coffee rolled unhurriedly around the tongue (although this book might be better off paired with retsina or ouzo, hehe). There's no pressing plot to turn pages excitedly for, no stressful life deadline threatening to cut off the sheer hedonism of a full morning or afternoon immersed in Greek splendor.

If ROUMELI (1966), which I read up in the mountains a week ago, was about the Northern Greeks and the mental/emotional divide between the Byzantine and ancient Greek heritage, then MANI (1958) is about the South, and the legacy of ancient Sparta.

Both are widely considered to be among the best travel books of all time. However, to this reader, MANI most especially is less a travelogue than a literary painting, less of a chronicle and more of an extended reflection on History and Time. It takes very little to trigger Paddy Fermor, as the sight of a rock or the face of a shepherd sets him off pages and pages of romantic flights of fancy that are deeply rooted in the sociolinguistic patterns of history.

"Countries are only great if they can produce wise men, and if they have the sense to elect them. Otherwise the individuals, however good and brave and sensible they are, are like noughts, vast quantities of hollow, round valueless noughts. Place a statesman at their head, and it is like the digit in a written figure, it gives value to all the noughts... take away the digit, and the noughts are noughts again, and they can be blown away or dispersed by any chance wind," says a random villager in a taverna a stone's throw away from where ancient battles turned into blockbuster movies were fought.

What must it be like to live with history so close, so tangible? To be able to swim to where the ancients believed was the entrance to Hades, or to be able to visit islands that Homer wrote about, where Paris and Helen trod? This wonder-full book's every chapter is the result of this dizzying height of emotion.

But for this reader, the most fascinating chapters were the ones inspired by ikons, that uniquely Orthodox religious art form. In Fermor's hands, what could have been art criticism became a transcendent piece touching on theology and the visible difference of Western Christianity from the East after the Schism of 1054.

"Western Christs expose their wounds; Eastern Christs sit enthroned in ungesticulating splendor... religious art in the East sought to bring man to God's level, and in the West, bring God to man's; each laying stress on a different half of Our Lord's nature... Knowing that the representation of Christ as God was as impossible a task as uttering the ineffable, they tried to indicate the immediately assimilable incarnation of Christ in such a way that it gave wings to the mind and the spirit and sent them soaring through and beyond the symbol to its essence, the Transcendent God, with whom, as they themselves had defined, He was consubstantial... in the foredoomed task of indicating the unfathomable mystery of Godhead in visible terms, the Greek ikon-painters chose the hardest way. They sought ingress to the spirit, not through the easy channels of passion, but through the intellect."

It was also fascinating to read of the syncretism of the ancient Greek pantheon merged with Christianity, as this fusion of prehispanic religion and Catholicism is also present in this reader's culture... how Hermes became the archangel Michael, Athena became the Blessed Virgin, Helios became the prophet Elijah, and so many others!

All told, this book and its sequel are wonderfully written tributes to Time and how she carves out man's destiny, and how there are traces of our historical beginnings everywhere, if we would only peel back the film from our eyes and gaze at our world with wonder, the way Paddy Fermor did.

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Book Review: MAUS - A SURVIVOR'S TALE (Vol. 2: And Here My Troubles Began) by Art Spiegelman

Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If Volume I brings tears to the reader's eyes, Volume II shatters one's faith in humanity. Or at least, that's how I imagine the effect would be, if this was given to a child and not processed properly by the adults around her.

This is the darker sequel to the "My Father Bled History." In "And Here My Troubles Began," Art Spiegelman continues his account of how his parents survived Auschwitz and Birkenau, and in the process, winning the Pulitzer in 1992 (the first ever graphic novel to do so)!

There is something terribly stark about the black and white illustrations, matching the unsentimental way the story progresses. This is harsh truth, with humans drawn as animals so as not to drive the reader mad from grief. It's the statistics and the details that get you... The description of the bodies pulled from the Zyklon B showers. The accounts of family members surviving the death camps, only to be killed by the Poles who had squatted on their land upon their return. This book come with the strongest trigger warnings, as some panels were honestly so disturbing, even to this adult viewer, that I had to put down the book for several minutes to calm myself down!

The trauma of the war affects even the artist, Art Spiegelman, who draws his attempts to get his father talking about his war experiences, as well as what it's like to live with someone who, in many ways, didn't survive Auschwitz wholly human.

In one of the haunting panels, Art sees his psychiatrist (who is also a Holocaust death camp survivor), and talks about his dad.

Shrink: "Then you think it's admirable to survive. Does that mean it's NOT admirable to NOT survive?"
Art: "Whoosh. I think I see what you mean. It's as if life equals winning, so death equals losing."
Shrink: "Yes, Life always takes the side of life, and somehow the victims are blamed. But it wasn't the BEST people who survived, nor did the best ones die. It was RANDOM! ... Look at how many books have already been written about the Holocaust. What's the point? People haven't changed... Maybe they need a newer, bigger Holocaust."

Perhaps human nature doesn't change, but this shows the importance of story-telling, and why we need to keep telling and sharing even these difficult stories, if there's even a hope for us to avoid a repeat of this state-sponsored genocide.

There are books we read out of desire, then there are those we read out of necessity.

MAUS demands to be read. MORE people need to read it, and thanks to the book ban, it is once again very much in the public's eye.

To read MAUS is to defy censorship and the whitewashing of history. It remains for us adults to make sure that our children do not read this too early, but read it they must (this teacher recommends they do so in high school). For to deny the past is to deny all lessons learned from it.

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Book Review: MAUS - A SURVIVOR'S TALE (Vol. 1: My Father Bleeds History) by Art Spiegelman

Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"My Father Bleeds History" is the first of two volumes of the (in)famous MAUS graphic novel, and tells the rise and fall of the Spiegelman family fortunes in Nazi-occupied Poland from the 1930's until 1944.

I've been wanting to read this ever since a school board in the U.S. banned the books, which of course made sales skyrocket. It took this reader more than 11 months to FINALLY track down the books because they were sold out everywhere, even from international sources!!

You know how some terribly violent movies suddenly switch from full color to black and white, when things are about to get especially gory?

Art Spiegelman's art is like that. Make no mistake: this is not an innocent children's book one gives to the very young because "they're comics with cute mice and cats."

This is brutal history, redrawn primarily I think as a way to make it more palatable, otherwise one would simply put it down from sheer horror.

This is the true story of one family's fight for survival, with Jews drawn as mice and Nazis as cats, but it only marginally distracts from the reality drawn in. At some points, the tragedy was nearly overwhelming, I was downright GRATEFUL for the conceit of animals drawn in, instead of humans.

I'm only halfway done, with second volume in hand, so I shall be continuing the review as these two really ought to be read together. But already, I can't wait to see how the story plays out.

No matter the horror, this book SHOULD be kept in libraries and discussed in schools. We do our children a disservice by shielding them utterly from all evil, to the point that, when they inevitably encounter it in real life, they are unequipped to deal with it.

But perhaps MAUS should be introduced at the appropriate age level. I think this should be kept for the eyes of high school students only, and definitely with both parents and teachers processing the text afterwards.

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Book Review: PROJECT HAIL MARY by Andy Weir

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Our hero wakes up from a coma, with dead crewmates all around, and no idea why he's alone in outer space. Very interesting beginning! Unfortunately any responsible reviewer will need to stop there. This is a book one cannot speak too much about, for fear of spoiling!

It was a pleasant enough read, but Weir is one of those authors whom you read purely based on plot, and not for beauty of language nor nobility of thought.

I liked how Weir used "real" science in the real world to make his scifi novel seem robust and realistic.

Some might like how contemporary Weir's characters sound, as if they really lived in 2021 (the date of the book's publication) because they speak the lingo of 2021. I guess it's just a personal preference for me to want the protagonist (a science teacher, hurray!) to say more heroic / profound things. Weir also tries his best to explain a great deal of scientific jargon in simple words, however, non-scientifically inclined readers still need to be on their toes (and have access to Google) to look up a lot of words not necessarily encountered outside a high school Science class (like "centrifuge" and "the Krebs Cycle"). In short, this book demands a lot from its reader!

This is my first time to read Weir, although I greatly enjoyed watching the film version of his other book "The Martian."

I think this is the appeal of Weir's books: how an everyman can get himself into the unique position of being Earth's Messiah. Whether or not he pulls it off ... well, you'll have to read the novel to find out. Or watch the upcoming Ryan Gosling movie. I have a suspicion this would work better in movie form.

Over-all, a most pleasant read, and a palate cleanser from this reader's usual diet of literary fiction.

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Album Review: THE LOST BIRDS by Christopher Tin (Decca)

 

"It makes us think of all the dead

That sauntered with us here.

By separation's sorcery

Made cruelly more dear...

An ear can break a human heart

As quickly as a spear,

We wish the ear had not a heart

So dangerously near."

I've been a fan of composer Christopher Tin ever since I heard his incredible Grammy-award winning music for the computer game Civilization IV. I went through a year-long phase where I would play the latest iteration, Civ 6, mainly so I could listen to the Tin score again and again, without ever getting tired of the artistry and sheer beauty of his compositions.

So when I finally had time to listen to his latest pandemic album, The Lost Birds, my expectations were high indeed.

He shattered them and me, completely. With one of the best choirs in the world, Voces 8, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tin created what is meant to be a tribute to extinct birds, setting texts from poems by Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Sara Teasdale, to some of the most sublime music I've ever heard! I must have looked half-mad while in the bus, a drop or two moving silently down my cheeks. This gorgeous album called forth emotions I'd kept firmly repressed, but today, on the eve of Christmas, one can't help but indulge in a bit of sentiment. It's all Tin's fault!

Tin's music is more than a call to action for us humans to reverse our destructive habits before more birds and animals are lost. After all, to artists, birds stand for other things.

The first track grabs the heart and doesn't let go. "Flocks a Mile Wide" (and its partner track, the slower, more poignant "Intermezzo") set the tone. This is majestic, sweeping art of the highest order, blending the pain of loss with hopeful gratitude.

And when Voces 8 joins in with The Saddest Noise, the spell is complete. Lock yourself in your room, bring several rolls of tissue. It's going to be a cry-fest, honey.

All the album's songs are beautiful in their own way, but the first ("The Saddest Noise") and last ("Hope is the Thing with Feathers", which echoes the haunting melody we first heard in "Flocks a Mile Wide") are the stars that shine brightest in the firmament that is Tin's compositional prowess.

At Christmas, we celebrate all that is beautiful and good, and what a beautiful thing it would be if Tin would win the Grammy (again) for this musical gift.

I think this album can be more accurately described as a paean to our dearly departed. It provides so much comfort for me, and I hope, for other families with similar empty places in our Noche Buena tables. Let us eat our ham and cheese, and smile, for if we cannot be merry we can at least be joyful in expectation, and grateful for memories of fuller tables past. And, as Tin/Dickinson remind us, to never stop hoping and singing.

It's available on Spotify and YouTube! I hope it brings you as much comfort and peace as it did me. Happy Christmas!!!

Book Review: FRAULEIN SCHMIDT AND MR ANSTRUTHER

Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"It is the kind of book you must go on reading - angry, rebelling at every page, but never leaving it till you've reach the last word... it has burned itself into your soul."

I am stunned. I read this book while on vacation, never thinking it would burn this much, affect me so; I did not expect to fall so deeply in love with a literary character, perhaps even more than I love Jo March, Sara Crewe, Anne of Green Gables, and Laura Ingalls Wilder! The pages of my copy have so many underlined passages, perhaps ten times the normal amount in other books! It looks like it has gone through a censor in wartime!

This is a textbook case of the cover not conveying the entirety of this wonderful book, now one of my favorites of all time! The cover art is gorgeous, to be sure, but screams "romance," or "chick lit." The book is neither! Not that there's anything wrong with either, but this von Arnim again defies quick genre labels as it goes against the stereotype and refuses categorization apart from the wholehearted "good read" label. Nay, it is not merely good, it makes its reader better for having read it. And books that do so are few and far in between!

"I deliberately consider my life glorious. And when will you see that there are kinds of gloriousness that cannot be measured in money or position?"

Fräulein Schmidt is who I aspire to be. She is all of my feminist heroes of childhood, but stronger, braver... complete and whole unto herself. Damning the world and its prejudices and prejudiced people, she is one who sets out to forge her own happiness, who gives no one the power to make her feel small.

A few modern readers might criticize her character for "toxic positivity" that brooks no patience for souls of a more tender bent, who feel unhappier than most. But I think we could all learn a thing or two from someone who has suffered much, but whose spirit remains indomitable. Like so many of us in 2022, our heroine goes through many kinds of death... whether a physical family member or that of many relationships. And yet she smiles. And yet she laughs. And writes to exhort one young man in particular to do the same.

"But do you suppose that, having given you all this, I am going to give you my soul as well? To moan my life away, my beautiful life? You are not worth it... My life shall be splendid in spite of you. You shall not cheat me of one single chance of heaven."

The book is written in the form of many letters from our German fräulein to a young Englishman of far more noble birth than she. Poor but joyful, rich in books and spirit, she captured this reader's heart from page one!

"People are born in one of three classes: children of light, children of twilight, children of night... Bother the gloomy. They are an ungrateful set. If they can they will turn the whole world sour, and sap up all the happiness of the children of light without giving out any shining in return... the twilight children can by diligence come out of the dusk into a greater brightness. Only, they must come out by themselves... And don't you know - oh, have you forgotten? - that the Kingdom of God is within you? There is no help, except what you dig out of your own self."

Have a wonderful Christmas, everyone, and like Fräulein Schmidt, may we all, like her, "be able to chant my song of life in a major key in a world so manifestly minor and chromatic."

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Book Review: ROUMELI by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece by Patrick Leigh Fermor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The seas of Greece are the Odyssey whose music we can never know...insanity and genius vibrate in the air."

Why read a book about an Englishman's travels in Greece published in the 1960's, if you're going somewhere totally different? Why read of sun and sea when you're going to colder climes?

I have this theory... that it's akin to writing cursive exercises over and over again in school, or studying the periodic table and the solar system even though you have zero plans of being a chemist or astronaut. They're all preparation for something else, whether it's coordinated fine motor muscles, or a deeper understanding of the composition of the universe and our place in it.

In Paddy Fermor's case, to read him is to wonder at his powers of concentration and language, and to hopefully develop an eye and an attitude for seeking beauty wherever it may be. No wonder he is the patron saint of travel writing! But his works are so much more than to-do lists of how-to-get-here and what-to-do-there.

Fermor is obsessed with people and languages, and how history and geography shape both. The care with which he takes to describe the torn but proudly worn outfits of the fiercely independent nomadic Sarakatsánissas and their music, freedom personified, the poetry of his word paintings ("Olympus is the sky's echo, Parnassus the rush of an eagle's wing.")...

He keeps reflecting on his past readings and how his armchair travels inform his physical ones.

Fermor wrote of the two contrasting entities that reside in every Greek, calling it the Helleno-Romaic Dilemma. Half of his blood inheritance is the Hellene who speaks pure Katharévousa, "written by a few, spoken by none." This is the language of scholars, of noble ancestors like Plato and Aristotle... unreachable in their godlike dignity.

The other half is the Romaic who speaks Dimotiki, the tongue of the masses.

"Hellene is the glory of ancient Greece; Romaic the splendors and the sorrows of Byzantium," Fermor writes, and records an observation made by a guard they encountered on a boat:

"Greece is an idea... that's what keeps us together... and those old Greeks, our celebrated ancestors, are a nuisance... we can never be as great as they were, nobody can... if we weren't such fools and always quarreling among ourselves, if we could have no wars or revolutions for fifty years, you'd see what a country we'd become!"

He could be speaking of our own Motherland!

There's so much more to this book, and I can't wait to read its precursor, Mani! For Roumeli is the ancient name for northern Greece, and I have the pleasures of the South to look forward to, thanks to book mail!

To read Paddy Fermor is to celebrate life. ❤️

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Book Review: THE ENCHANTED APRIL by Elizabeth von Arnim

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"What would she see out of her window? A shining world, or a world of rain? But it would be beautiful -- whatever it was would be beautiful... Such beauty, and she there to see it. Such beauty and she alive to feel it."

I've been wanting the peace and quiet that comes with cold mountain air for years, and tomorrow I shall endure a long bus trip to get it, for a few days. But old habits die hard, and it's difficult to shake away teacher's guilt at even five minutes of purposeless sitting.

How wonderful, then, that this is the first book read during the Christmas break. It It is THE PERFECT BOOK to begin any break from reality with, whether it's only the weekend, or a few weeks!

I think I was only on page five of this book when I frantically ordered the two other von Arnims available from a local bookseller, it was THAT good!

Written exactly a hundred years ago, the concerns of the protagonists are very much ours today. What if one desires a vacation but can't afford it? Why, one finds friends, old and new, with which to split the cost, of course!

Von Arnim brings together four women from different backgrounds, all facing challenges in life and love; souls heavy with the friction of daily living, eyes dim with the toll of years of endless routine. Their only connection? An Italian castle, rented for a month in April. This Heaven, however, needs to be worked for. As anyone who has planned an out-of-town break knows, the preparation takes months. Transportation, accommodation, not to mention food expenses... it takes a great deal of headache before the actual trip, in order for it to proceed smoothly (and even then, unexpected problems arise!).

Von Arnim's characters fight over sitting rooms, who is to order lunch, how much is to be spent on groceries, and who can invite a husband (or lover). They are petty, and snap at each other... but come together so beautifully at the end, that it fills the reader with joy and good will towards all humankind.

Using von Arnim's criteria of a good book ("No one should ever write a book God wouldn't like to read."), this is a very Christmas-like book indeed. It is far wiser than I thought it would be, and far better for my soul than so many other "deep" prize winners. Begone, salt on wounds! Give me wisteria and sunshine, and wounded souls longing for the comforts of beauty and kindness.

Von Arnim reminds us again that a great deal of happiness lies in just being empty "cups of acceptance," of the importance of smiling "not because they were happy, but because they wished to make happy," that we need only look for the good in others and ourselves, in order for that cycle of love and joy to come back to us. And yes, that vacations ARE necessary and not evil luxuries we need be guilty of taking!

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Book Review: GALATEA 2.2 by Richard Powers

Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The weight of glory. The sheer mass of beautiful passages in only three hundred pages. I suspect this novel was the author's way of getting through a mid-life crisis, two heartbreaks, as well as a mild form of writer's block, but oh, what a flex of literary virtuosity!

What if I type up my autobiography until my thirty-sixth year, and insert a fiction which is a literary mass of my profound reflections on the internet and artificial intelligence? Richard Powers must have thought to himself, and proceeded to do just that. His protagonist in the fiction work is named after him, and has even written books with the exact same titles, same plotlines. Life gives him a plum job for a year in a university where he gets embroiled in a scheme along with other professors and scientists: Can humans train a computer to pass the Turing test, by teaching it to be human through exposure to the best of our art, music, and literature?

Supposing this is Richard Powers at his worst, he is still sooooo good! This was my fourth novel by the same author of BEWILDERMENT and OVERSTORY, and the quality of his thoughts and writing is so marvelous, I shall do my best to slowly collect all his books over the course of my lifetime. To read Powers is to have him "explain in miniature where history had left me." He gives us The Big Picture, and asks hard questions about the nature of humanity in a landscape that is becoming increasingly and alarmingly soul-less, only we are too caught up in it to realize.

Written in 1995, Powers meditated on the twin wonders/terrors of the internet and technology:

"I thought: a person might be able to make a life in all that etherspace... debates flowed without beginning or end, through tributaries and meanderings, responses to responses to responses... the longer I lurked, the sadder the holiday became. People who used the web turned strange... the web began to seem a vast silent stock exchange trading in ever more anonymous and hostile pen pals.

The web was a neighborhood more efficiently lonely than the one it replaced. Its solitude was bigger and faster. When relentless intelligence finally completed its program... and everyone could at last say anything instantly to everyone else in existence, it seemed to me we'd still have nothing to say to each other and many more ways not to say it..."

Galatea, after all, was shaped by the sculptor Pygmalion. In a way, that's what all parents, all teachers are. And that's what fascinates me the most about this book: the detailed curriculum of a lifetime, with the aim of producing the most human AI possible, fed to the computer... the construction of a soul in a year.

Along the way, Powers muses on the power and limits of art, the supremacy of the lived human experience, and the fragile and hurtful nature of human love.

I also love how he writes about music, one of the most difficult things to do! He writes "how a sonata layered itself like a living hierarchy," of how the Clarinet Concerto K# 622's middle movement was "the most pained palliative in creation...the clarinet and orchestra exchanged phrases, elaborating on the ongoing expansion, unfolding, inhaling beyond capacity like the lungs of a patriarch wedging open the air after being told of the death of his last great-grandchild. The endless phrase spoke of how you reach an age where anything you might answer would not be worth asking. Who in all this restless measurement had time for so infinite an aside" for such "hopeless peace... a grace too huge and slow for understanding?"

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A Cross-Post: Commentary on Christmas TBR Lists

                                                    (Original entry can be found here)

In 1983, Marguerite Yourcenar wrote:

"The time of commercial Christmas is already here... For most of the celebrants today, the great Christian feast is limited to two rites: buying, more or less compulsively, useful or unuseful objects, and gorging themselves..."

No wonder, then, that some religious denominations choose NOT to celebrate Christmas at all. And having walked in the pouring rain yesterday for hours on end because of the December Carmageddon that made the local news yesterday (* achoo *), I'm feeling rather Scrooge-y at the moment.

So I'm glad to be reminded by Yourcenar about the meaning of the season: 

"It is concerned with a birth, and a birth such as births should always be, that of a child awaited with love and respect, carrying within himself the hope of the world... It is concerned with the poor... It is the festival of men of goodwill... It is the festival of the human community... It is a festival of joy, shaded with pathos... Finally, it is a festival of the Earth itself -- of the Earth which, in its revolutions, passes at this moment the winter solstice and leads us all towards Spring. And that is why, long before the Church fixed this date for the birth of Christ, it was already, in antiquity, the Feast of the Sun."

This is a bookstagram post, after all, and won't be complete without my asking: What books did you gift yourself this season?

Behold my To-Be-Read list! We have our annual two weeks of break coming up, and I look forward to sleeping in and reading as much as I can :) 

I FINALLY have volumes 1 and 2 of MAUS, the famous graphic novels featuring the real experiences of the author's father who survived the Holocaust. MAUS became prominent this year because a school board in Tennessee voted to ban it from the curriculum, sparking an international conversation and driving up the demand for these books so high, it was sold out everywhere! So it means so much to be able to grab these babies, now!

I'm also excited to read I Promessi Sposi 's English translation, The Betrothed. Nothing like the Pope saying it's his favorite book to recommend it!

I got a copy of Seven Pillars of Wisdom two years ago, but am only going back to it now, after having watched (AND LOVED) the film with Peter O'Toole of the blue eyes, Lawrence of Arabia. No wonder the movie is a classic, it's truly a gem! I hope the book matches the magic of the film!

Speaking of Arabia... I have a nonfiction account of Danish explorers in the 18th century going to modern-day Yemen, formerly known as Arabia Felix. Am so glad this account was written of a little-told story, as the world is in need of such inspiring stories of courage and scientific curiosity!

I'm also looking forward to The Levant Trilogy by Oliva Manning, based on her wartime experiences in the Middle East.

There's a certain geographic and historical slant to my reading choice for Christmas, although I am only realizing this now! While it's hard to pinpoint why I'm drawn to wartime exploits during a peaceful holiday, I suppose it has to do with what Yourcenar mentioned above: the fact that Christmas is actually tinged with melancholy, even from its very origin. A child is born, who will grow up to die for humanity. This underscores that JOY is a choice. May we choose joy every day, and not just this December. And with the help of books, coffee, and good company, there is so much happiness to look forward to!

 

A Cross-Post: Have Yourself A Merry LITTLE WOMEN Christmas

 

(Original post can be found here)

What, for you, is a book that contains the essence of Christmas?

For me, it has GOT to be LITTLE WOMEN. Heck, even the opening line, the very first word, contains this blessed holiday:

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without presents.”

This line is uttered by our heroine, Jo, the second of the four March sisters, whose shenanigans have been the subject of so many film adaptations after author Louisa May Alcott put them down on paper.

(In the spirit of the season, let's not get mired into that debate over which film version is the best, which essentially depends on which Laurie was deemed most swoon-worthy. That being said, let me just say that it's hard to beat Christian Bale's dashing good looks in the 1994 version. Now if we could only combine him with Rossano Brazzi serenading June Allyson with "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt" on the piano ... * swoons * )

LITTLE WOMEN has defined my life, and that of so many others. Critics say it is old-fashioned, and only for children, but I've read it both as a child (in its abridged form, with lots of pictures) and as an adult, and found more joy in it as a grown-up! Perhaps it's because I see how the golden values it speaks of are all the more sorely needed in a world that increasingly teaches its children to be cut-throat.

If being old-fashioned means valuing generosity above counting the cost, caring for our fellow man instead of selfishly hoarding money, and putting family above personal ambition, then I gladly welcome the label, and dare modern hipsters to do the same.

Louisa May wrote many other books, and not all were as wholesome as her most beloved bestseller. But a close second is LITTLE MEN (the sequel), which depicts the life of a family devoted to teaching.

I think LITTLE WOMEN is very timely especially this December 2022, when so many families are enduring financial hardship wrought by the global recession, and so many have lost a member and are setting plates for empty chairs in memory-laden tables.

In our grief we remember happier times, and hope for more joyful Christmases to follow.

To borrow the line from a certain heartbreaking viral advertisement, “Christmas is made, not bought.”

Have yourself a merry LITTLE WOMEN Christmas, dear reader! And whether you enjoy it in book form or movie version, let us give thanks for the American author who shone the spotlight on the sacredness of the family, and proved that this is truly the reason for the Season.

A Cross-Post: Chemistry's Life Lessons

 

 

                                                   (Original post can be found here)

I have the most awful memories about a Chemistry teacher in high school. He lacked the ability to explain complex topics in a simple manner, and made his students feel stupid if we couldn't comprehend his lessons, as if his incompetence was somehow our fault.

I thought I was dumb. I thought Chemistry was the most difficult subject ever ... until I took Science classes in college under different teachers, and to my shock, realized that I could understand what seemed formerly incomprehensible! It was the teacher, after all, and not myself to blame.

Still, I am grateful to this chemistry teacher. He taught me how NOT to teach, and what kind of person NOT to be.

One of the seismic changes in education globally this year entailed my taking on a high school Science class, apart from my usual comfort zone of humanities subjects (English, Drama, etc.). In January we shall be embarking on the Chemistry portion of the curriculum, and I've dug up my old textbook (oh hello Zumdahl we meet again). I also got THIS new reference from FULLY BOOKED and look forward to devouring it over the Christmas break!

It's made to look like a real notebook :) Turning the pages is a delight, and the language is very student-friendly!

In truth, I envy the students of today a bit. They have, at their fingertips, access to infinite sources of knowledge!

The role of a teacher nowadays, I think, should be less that of lecturer filling in empty minds, but more of a buffet restaurant owner.

Our job is to scour the Internet and what books we have access to, for the best, simplest, and most interesting explanations of our topic... then present this in condensed form to our students.

All students are intelligent, I believe. We just need to make them see it, and believe it themselves.

In this brave new world of hybrid teaching, I think the biggest mistake any teacher can make now is to teach how they have been taught. Here's to embracing the challenge of doing better!

(And yes, I'm aware that this is contrary to what teacher education is like in my country -- focused more on uncritical implementation of modules or a single, solitary textbook that may be full of errors -- but let's save that debate for another time!)

What subjects terrified you as a student? Were you able to find a book to help you pass a class?

Book Review: FIFTY SOUNDS by Polly Barton

Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book seems like it was written by two women. Or rather, two different people inhabiting the same identity: a  British woman who works as a Japanese translator. (And no, this isn't some multiple personality fiction plot, as white Fitzcarraldos are nonfiction.)

The first Polly Barton that we meet is an academic, with an undergrad degree in Philosophy and additional degrees in Sociology, not to mention advanced studies in Japanese. As if further proof is required, apart from the very scholarly tone in certain parts, all one need do is glance at the back of the book to see the Review of Related Literature -like compilation of studies and books she references. She throws around words like "naff" (uncool) and "argot" (esoteric slang). Her sentences are so polished, they gleam: "Scattered throughout the gloom I trod were little pockets of breathable air, whose existence I owed entirely to my friends." Like any proper Philosophy major, she has a bit of angst, falls in love with Wittgenstein ("My feelings of inadequacy didn't go away when I studied him, but at least I was sure he was worth feeling inadequate for" LOL), and wonders continuously about "being perfectly authentic in that moment." Her penetrating insights into the nature of all learning, and the human psyche, are many and explained in a manner both poetic and succinct.

But the second Polly is what would nowadays be called a "hot mess," as befits one who is attractive yet barely keeping it together. This hot mess is in her early twenties, falls in love with both men and women, undergoes therapy, and suffers one heartbreak after another. 

In this series of fifty interconnected essays (meant to be read in order, as the flow of the narrative is there), Polly begins with a title: a Japanese onomatopoeia, and its meaning. Then she proceeds to tell an anecdote from her stay in various places in Japan throughout the years: a small island in the country, then urban Tokyo and Osaka. Readers expecting a travelogue will be disappointed, as this is more of a memoir on language learning, an extended reflection on the merits of Japanese versus English, and the weaknesses of both in terms of language and the people; the society they are products of.

But for anyone who speaks more than one language, and has caught themselves marveling at how different they feel and think when code switching from one to the other, this book holds marvelous nuggets of wisdom from philosophers like Wittgenstein and other authors like Rachel Cusk. Language teachers, especially, will find much food for thought as Polly recreates the awkwardness of learning both a foreign language and culture through complete immersion.

"Languages are the building material through which our very selves are constructed," Polly writes, then shares her insecurities, self-doubt, as she went through what all of us must: finding one's place in the world, through interacting with others. "Our language is the lens through which the world is constituted for us." No wonder she went through a bit of an identity crisis, as her Japanese and English selves were being formed separately, depending on which country she was staying in at the time.

"If I've loved Japanese, I've done so because I've loved the glimpses of people I've caught through it." 

This can be read as a romance. Barton falls in love, desperately, but it is forbidden and doomed (as the most epic love affairs are). There is so much pain, still, that seeps from the pages, that when she concludes this reader has to admit that the ending feels forced, that there is still a great deal of unprocessed pain and grief there, that this book tried to unpack. 

All in all, a brilliant read despite the abrupt ending. But again, not for someone looking for a tour guide to physical places. Barton is a tour guide for the mind and the soul, which is arguably the more difficult job. It is one of my favorite reads from 2022!

P.S I read this book as a companion read to BABEL. You see, the R.F. Kuang epic fantasy on the magic of translation was SUCH a doorstopper, and since I couldn't bring it inside my smaller lady-like bags, I had to choose a slim paperback (thank you Polly Barton!) because to leave the house without any book is simply out of the question!

My reading of Polly Barton and R.F. Kuang blended into one cohesive unit, as did the novelization of Wittgenstein's life that I read a few months back (THE WORLD AS I FOUND IT by Bruce Duffy). But then, don't all our literary experiences inform one another and form a mix inside us? And hopefully we make a coherent whole out of all the knowledge and self-knowledge we've gained, and channel this outwards to make our little worlds better?

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View my review on THE WORLD AS I FOUND IT by Bruce Duffy

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Book Review: BABEL (OR THE NECESSITY OF VIOLENCE: AN ARCANE HISTORY OF THE OXFORD TRANSLATORS' REVOLUTION) by R.F. Kuang

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No; a thousand worlds within one."

It's not a spoiler if it's in the title. Expect violence, dear readers. (But if you've read the POPPY WAR trilogy by the same author, then you'd know what to expect already.) Kuang speaks of violence in a righteous war, as a last resort, fought from a commitment to a greater cause.

And what cause is higher than freedom?

BABEL, a stand-alone novel set in a setting where everyone except home-schooled kids relate to, is truly an R.F. Kuang book. Her trademark style of scholarly accessibility, with a healthy dash of footnotes (some of which contain entire backstories that can be future plots of separate books!), and a cast focusing on POC's, is a very addicting blend. I can understand why this book was sold out everywhere for months, forcing this reader and her book club mates to (gasp) pre-order from a local seller!

It brings to mind Robert Jackson Bennett's FOUNDRYSIDE trilogy, because of the similarity in the way "magic" is wrought: through writing words on inanimate objects. In BABEL's case, we have silver bars as the key to Empire, and the translators of Oxford transcribing different word pairs to alter reality as they see fit, bringing about an imbalance of wealth in the world for Queen and country.

I've always had a healthy respect for the written word, but reading this book brings a new awareness about translating! "The poet runs untrammelled across the meadow. The translator dances in shackles," Kuang writes. As a bilingual Filipino (most of my countrymen have three or four languages!), the book made me reflect on how differently I translate the physical phenomena of the outer world, depending on the language I am using in my head. Truly, our languages determine our realities and how we make meaning of what happens every day.

If more academics were like R.F. Kuang, capable of writing exciting fantasy novels while somehow featuring their real-life research, there would be more people applying to grad school! As it is, I'm curious to see how enrollment increases in Linguistics departments globally, thanks to this incredible book.

Well worth shelling out cash for and buying brand new! I love how young R.F. Kuang is (she's only twenty-six!!!), because it means we can look forward to so many more excellent reads from her!

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