September 12, 2020 - Maugham, Shiba, Radcliffe, Satrapi, Christensen
This week, we look at failing artists, falling kingdoms, final words, and the Fibonacci sequence.
Fiction…?
W. Somerset Maugham - Of Human Bondage
British author W. Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage tells the story of Philip Carey, an adventurous wannabe artist, just after the turn of the century, whose ambitions and affairs lead him to the blind alleys and dead ends through which life so often takes us. After leaving a cold, unfeeling home to seek adventure, Carey finds himself in Paris, studying art. However, he lacks the talent of his peers (and more lust than wanderlust) and his struggle brings him back home to study medicine, as his father did. His wanderlust isn’t gone yet and his ambitions lead him into complicated love affairs, full of heartbreak, births, and dependencies. There is a happy ending here, but, like life, it’s not what you expected it to be. The moral of this story is something along the lines of: be happy with your lot…or maybe know your place (it’s a very British book).
I stole this book from my senior English class and the effect it had on me was profound. It’s a psychologically incisive bildungsroman, but one in which the hero is not epic or tragic, but human, with frailties, flaws, and limitations. The prose draws you in to the times and the personalities as good literature does. It’s been years (a decade) since I read it, but I can still picture the scenes in my head. 10/10 would become disillusioned again.
History
Ryotara Shiba - The Last Shogun
I started this book on the airplane to a model UN conference in NY/DC in high school and I devoured it even before the flight back. Shiba writes with such humanity that, even though this book is entirely historically accurate, it feels like fiction. Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the last Shogun of Japan, foresaw the end of the feudal system that that country had known for 700 years and which his dynasty had run for 250. In 1853, US Commodore Matthew Perry arrived at the port of Nagasaki with a fleet of modern, American warships. He demanded that Japan open its borders to world, border which had been closed for hundreds of years, or he would come back and open them himself. Though they tried small capitulations and reforms, in 1868 the Shogunate fell, the country began a period of incredible modernization (which would see more miles of railroad track lain than in Britain), and the last shogun went into a long, self-exile.
Yoshinobu took power as the writing was on the wall. He knew it and guided the country towards the inevitable, even though that meant the end of the dynasty. Yoshinobu stood between not just the Meiji modernizers and the Tokugawa traditionalists, but between the ancient, indigenous past and the Industrial, Western future. He’s a fascinating man in a fascinating time of transition, one of those few people who lives up to his times. There is much to be said about the backwards nature of colonialism, its damages and its evils. Every generation must face the new frontiers of their time with great care. Japan’s reaction to industrialization and Western, Great Nation influence would see itself becoming a colonizer and, ultimately, an Axis power in WWII. In that transition, we have a leader who saw suffering and made what they thought were the best choices for their nation and their people, often betraying their own desires and lineage.
Non-Fiction
Timothy Radcliffe, OP - Seven Last Words
As Christ lay dying on the cross, he uttered seven final sayings which are taken as crystallizations of his Message. His Last Words teach forgiveness, salvation, relationship, the pain of sin, and the glory of reunion. Much has been written on these words, tomes and dissertations, but Dominican friar Timothy Radcliffe’s little book on them, I think, deals with them best. In it, Radcliffe pairs his exegesis with 7 crosses which had been gifted to him by a prisoner, on a mission in El Salvador, an AIDS victim, and others. This is a touching, funny, and gentle guide, one which teaches Christ’s Message through embodied example rather than academic explanation, through human stories rather than abstract theses. A short and worthwhile read to get close to the heart of the Christian message.
Memoir/Graphic Novel
Marjane Satrapi - Persepolis
Incredibly creative and deeply powerful, Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis details her childhood and adolescence during the Iranian Revolution, overthrow of the Shah, and the Iran-Iraq War in the late 70s and early 80s. Her family was modern and progressive. Khomeini, who was turning a revolution against the corrupt, US-prop Shah Pahlavi into a violent, fundamentalist authoritarianism, saw people like them as a threat and persecuted academics, communists, and those who failed to abide by the increasingly stringent moral codes. The story details Satrapi’s experiences growing up in this dangerous transition period: her backlash against the veil and bans on foreign media; her loving uncle, extremely outspoken against the regime, being executed as a spy, the terror, suffering, and nationalism of the Iran-Iraq War. Persepolis is powerful and personal; much like The Last Shogun, a transitional, historical period told as human experience.
Poetry
Inger Christensen - Alphabet
Danish poet Inger Christensen brings us a mathematical lamentation in her collection of poems, Alphabet. Alphabet is structured according to the Fibonacci sequence and filled with phonetic power: each new poem is a multiple of the next number in the series and based on a letter. Take the first poem, just two lines:
apricot trees exist,
apricot trees exist
Christensen then takes us deeper and deeper into an ever-expanding world of memory and climactic devastation. It’s a beautiful collection, rich in craft and in content, reading through the collection is like falling into a kaleidoscope, with each new poem adding more layers of meaning and association. One of my favorite works.