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Literary Journal #14 - Hector and the Search for Happiness

 
    I remember writing a journal about this book last year. But I'm writing this blog post about this book again because my perspective and understanding of the book have changed over an year. The novel is about a psychiatrist who travels around the world to find out what really makes people happy. He first travels to China, Africa and then America(although it is not explicitly named). As he travels along, he experiences different events that awakens him in the way of knowing how to achieve happiness and writes down in this notebook 23 ways of becoming happy. Hector writes,

Lesson 1: Making comparisons can spoil your happiness.
Lesson 2: Happiness often comes when least expected.
Lesson 3: Many people see happiness only in their future.
Lesson 4: Many people think that happiness comes from having more power or more money.
Lesson 5: Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story.
Lesson 6: Happiness is a long walk in the mountains.
Lesson 7: It’s a mistake to think that happiness is the goal.
Lesson 8: Happiness is being with the people you love.
Lesson 8b: Unhappiness is being separated from the people you love.
Lesson 9: Happiness is knowing your family lacks for nothing.
Lesson 10: Happiness is doing a job you love.
Lesson 11: Happiness is having a home and a garden of your own.
Lesson 12: It’s harder to be happy in a country run by bad people.
Lesson 13: Happiness is feeling useful to others.
Lesson 14: Happiness is to be loved for exactly who you are.
Lesson 15: Happiness comes when you feel truly alive.
Lesson 16: Happiness is knowing how to celebrate.
Lesson 17: Happiness is caring about the happiness of those you love.
Lesson 18: Happiness could be the freedom to love more than one woman at the same time.
Lesson 19: The sun and the sea make everybody happy.
Lesson 20: Happiness is a certain way of seeing things.
Lesson 21: Rivalry poisons happiness.
Lesson 22: Women care more than men about making others happy.
Lesson 23: Happiness means making sure that those around you are happy?

"The most important lessons for me from this list are Lesson 3, Lesson 7, Lesson 8, Lesson 13, Lesson 17."    
   
   I'm not really sure how much literary value this novel contains, but I am certain that this book carries much more human values and analysis of human emotions, which basically motivate literature and its core values, than most other works of literature. Being happy has been one of the most basic yet difficult task and desire for every human being on this world. Everyday people find and follow their own ways to gather sources leading to(or at least they think they do) their happiness. And many times, people fail to do so and some of them even lose the motivation for their lives. These struggles have always been good topics for literature for centuries. Ancient epics deal with unhappy heroes and kings finding their ways to defeat the sources of unhappiness, Shakespearean tragic heroes try to solve their unhappiness by sour vengeance, and the modern novels allure their readers by throwing pieces of "happily ever after" kind of phrases.

    Somehow I find it interesting we define every human emotion caused by good things "happiness." For instance, a feeling caused by tasting a perfectly cooked juicy rib-eye steak and a feeling after getting an A on a physics test are both called "happiness." And it makes sense we are so hung up to making ourselves happy because we only want good things to happen in our lives. And in my understanding, literature has depicted human agonies when not always good things happen. This universal theme of literature is the inevitable variables in our lives. And literature often experiments human characters in extreme environments to test how those variables affect our lives. In mathematics, you need the same number(or more) of equations to the number of variables in order to figure out the whole equation. If the variables are the keys to happiness, the equations are our struggles to become happy. However, unfortunately, because there are infinitely large amount of variables, it will be impossible to find the wholistic equation for the human happiness, but the good thing is there are infinite ways we can struggle to be happy and the literature will always experiment and reflect the results of hypotheses regarding the universal emotion.

Literary Journal #13 - Robinson Crusoe

For a long period of time (by "long," I'm talking about years), I imagined myself living alone on an abandoned island in the middle of the pacific ocean. I cannot deny one of the reasons I had that fantasy was watching a movie called "Cast Away." For those of you who've never heard of it, it is a movie where a Fedex employee gets into a plane crash and lands on an uninhabited island. I, strangely, felt bad when the character escapes the island at the end of the movie. All he faces are sad news left by his beloved ones. I actually didn't even understand why he tried to escape the island. Of course, he would have missed his family and friends, and even any other human being. But wasn't he at least free from everything he didn't want to deal with in the bigger society?

Anyway, I find a lot of similarities between Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe and the movie "Cast Away." Since most people know the plot of the book, I would rather focus talking about the themes and motifs than summarizing the story.

Well, John Donne said no man is an island, and I'm quite sure the intended theme of this book is not too far from that. But is it really? During his stay on the island, Crusoe found his faith in God and became very religious. People might say that's because he had nothing to rely on and was afraid of the wild and dangerous environment he was surrounded by, but couldn't it be because Crusoe really had time to think about himself and the reality of the world while separated from the human society? Living in the modern world, where everyone checks their friends Facebook status every 15 minutes on iphone and watches movies on Netflix instead of going to the theatre, I often feel blinded. Yes, the human society and the technology has given me better chances to succeed in whatever I have been doing and make my life easier, but sometimes I feel like most people forget about the essence of human life and nature. Although humans are so-called "social animals" who make connections with other humans for many different reasons, but life is a solitary action which lasts from the birth of a human being to his/her death. And often most of us forget to look for the reason of our existence but rather try to interpret the result of our existence. In that sense, Robinson Crusoe, who -though it was not intended, saved his own life and pulled out what is deep inside of his human nature- is a true hero for me.

O mio babbino caro

O mio babbino caro,

mi piace, è bello, bello.

Vo'andare in Porta Rossa

a comperar l'anello!

Sì, sì, ci voglio andare!

e se l'amassi indarno,

andrei sul Ponte Vecchio,

ma per buttarmi in Arno!

Mi struggo e mi tormento!

O Dio, vorrei morir!

Babbo, pietà, pietà!

Babbo, pietà, pietà!

Literary Journal #12 - Their Eyes were Watching God

    First of all, I have to mention that I never thought I would like this book before I read it. Being an Asian kid who only lived in this country for a little over three years, I did not find any connection between an African American woman who lived in early twentieth century and me. But it turned out, that it became one of my favorite books of all time after I finished reading it. Honestly, I did not even want to read the book but I had to read it for my English class at school. Coming back to the States, I first opened the book in Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan, where I had 4 hour layover. Finishing the book on the plane right before it landed in Philadelphia airport, I felt like time passed by very quick. It was unusual because I abhor flying and become more impatient and bored in airplanes.

    Anyway, the novel is about an African American woman, whose name is Janie, leaves home to find her own life. She marries three men, and after her last husband Tea Cake dies, she comes back home.

    Identity of each individual cannot be defined by other people. In order to discover one's own identity, she/he has to go on a journey (which does not necessarily have to be a physical travelling) and experience the world she/he is surrounded by. I think I could have sympathy towards Janie because I felt I was having a similar journey as a young adult looking for my identity after I left home to live in a completely different environment and be friends with people who speak different language and eat different food in different looking houses.

    It is not an easy task to live a life that one wants to live. Ironically, it often seems easier to pursue the life that other people, instead of ourselves, value. But I always feel like life is a solitary act. Though we might be surrounded by people who we talk to and hang out with all the time, each of us is separate entity that carries different stories and character inside of us. And personal spirit can only grow within us when we admit that our lives are the hurdles to overcome. Often it hurts, but you can discover and appreciate more beauties after you overcome the great obstacles of your life.

Literary Journal #11 - Pagliacci

    Ruggero Leoncavallo's famous opera, Pagliacci, is a great masterpiece of music, literature and play. Although operas are not considered as a major branch of literature, they contain no less factors of literature than other forms of literature. Not only they have stories, they are plays and they are music. Out of many, many operas, Pagliacci is my personal favorite. It is a story of clown, Canio, and his commedia troupe. Canio's wife, Nedda, cheats on him and has affair with another clown Silvio. Driven mad after he found out about the affair, Canio stabs both Nedda and Silvio at the end of the opera.(for details, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagliacci) It will be insensitive to compare this work directly to other regular plays, but Pagliaacci is definitely a masterpiece in both literature and music.
 
    I personally feel Pagliacci and Shakespeare's plays have many things in common. One of them is that they both deal with human emotions and relationships that lead their characters into chaos and death. The tragic heroes complete and perfect the stories of humans. The biggest difference seems like Pagliacci is quite Italian. An English man would kill himself before killing his wife for cheating. But probably the reason Italians have made most of the best operas is their rich emotions and unstoppable passion.

    I remember posting a Youtube video of Vesti la Giubba (Put on the Costume) in this blog. It is sung by Canio, after he finds out about the affair. Even though he feels devastated, he still has to prepare for the show. Living as a clown, he has to make people even when he himself is very sad and depressed. Here is another great, great recording by the legendary Mario Lanza.

    Even though I understand new forms of arts have been developed throughout last several decades, I feel very sad not many people write operas anymore. People consider operas only as an antique form of art and don't think they would be fun. Yes, I admit some, no actually many lines in Italians operas are really lame. Often they like to kill their characters for no sufficient reason and talk about love in very vague ways. But everything develops over time. I want to see more operas coming out in the future. They are a perfect form of literature and art. Musicals are good too, but it seems to me operas often deal with more serious human emotions and are more attached to the literature and writings they are based on.

Literary Journal #10 - "Last Words to Miriam" by D. H. Lawrence

Last Words to Miriam

Yours is the shame and sorrow,

       But the disgrace is mine;

Your love was dark and thorough,

Mine was the love of the sun for a flower

       He creates with his shine.

I was diligent to explore you,

       Blossom you stalk by stalk,

Till my fire of creation bore you

Shrivelling down in the final dour

       Anguish — then I suffered a balk.

I knew your pain, and it broke

       My fine, craftsman's nerve;

Your body quailed at my stroke,

And my courage failed to give you the last

       Fine torture you did deserve.

You are shapely, you are adorned,

       But opaque and dull in the flesh,

Who, had I but pierced with the thorned

Fire-threshing anguish, were fused and cast

       In a lovely illumined mesh.

Like a painted window: the best

       Suffering burnt through your flesh,

Undrossed it and left it blest

With a quivering sweet wisdom of grace: but now

       Who shall take you afresh?

Now who will burn you free

       From your body's terrors and dross,

Since the fire has failed in me?

What man will stoop in your flesh to plough

       The shrieking cross?

A mute, nearly beautiful thing

       Is your face, that fills me with shame

As I see it hardening,

Warping the perfect image of God,

       And darkening my eternal fame.

        Maybe this is the reason why so many people dislike D. H. Lawrence. He is not reluctant to say whatever he feels in his mind through his writings. And because he is so attached to the theme of human relationships and shows his agony resulting from them, he is often called a sexist. 

   

        While the poem is constructed with quintets and traditional end rhymes, the theme and the message it carries is quite anti-traditional. Unlike other love poems, Lawrence's use of words and his expressions are extreme and crude. Until it gets to the last stanza, the poem sounds like a complete blame on the narrator's woman, Miriam. I mean, it is pretty unnecessary to name those words or paraphrase the key lines because you can really know what they mean. But once it gets to the last stanza, it becomes clear that the main purpose of the poem is neither blaming Miriam nor discovering the cause of the failure of the relationship, but it is to regret the narrator's inability to continue the relationship, as he puts himself into the position of "shame" and "darken my[his] eternal fame."

 

        To me, D. H. Lawrence is a romanticist rather than a sexist. He is able to throw out his crude emotions on the piece of paper and shape them into order. His genius perfects his poetry in which content and form are united into a finished piece of art.