Literary Journal #7 : The Old Man and the Sea

Sea is a source of life. The gifts she gives are endless and infinite. At the same time, sea is violent. When she is having a bad day, she likes to throw her anger at vulnerable men and women.

Sea is a popular literary theme and background. To ancient play writers to 20th century American writers, sea has been a place of mystery where they seek to find the essence of human life. Beowulf had to cross the seas looking for his adventure and Herman Melville found his interest in sea men through "Moby Dick."

Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" is a classic masterpiece. As all of you know, it's a story of an old fisherman catching a giant marlin and losing it to the sharks. What makes this work a masterpiece is its frank and sympathetic view towards the nothingness of human life. Unlike many other novels, "The Old Man and the Sea" doesn't have either noticeable conflicts, except internal conflict of the old man, or complicated plot. Like the name of the book, it is just a simple story of an old man and an incidence he goes through. However, the theme and ideas this book make us reflect on is not that simple.

I saw the old man's solitude and vulnerability in the middle of the sea as a life of every human surviving through his days. Like the old man puts all of his energy left for the marlin, everyday people desperately look for chances of fortune and success. But when they lose things, they eventually realize it is the law of nature that things come and go.

Human life is full of frustration. Because we often don't admit that we are fallible existence, we are dominated by anger and agony when we fail. By the time we suffer enough from the frustration and stress, our life becomes like the old man's wrinkly tough skin.

Literary Journal #6 : Tuesdays with Morrie

I have always thought this book was so popular that it seemed like a naive topic. I remember when I was in grade school, the book was just translated into Korean language and was bestseller for months. Well, of course I did not read the book back then because I would have not even understood what the book was trying to tell me, but now taking this theology class called Death and Dying (and I am sure there will be hundred more people writing about this book), I was required to read the book. It is not always "fun" to read books that are designated by teachers or courses. And it is even less fun when I have to take a quiz or test based on the reading. But, surprisingly, I actually enjoyed the book. I am not sure if the book is a literary masterpiece that can be compared with Shakespeare or T. S. Eliot, but its content and meaning are no less greater than any other literary work I have encountered.

Morrie Schwartz, a former professor at Brandeis University, slowly dies from a disease called ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. While suffering from the terrible pain, he never loses smile on his face. The book is based on a series of dialogues between Morrie and his former student, and the narrator, Mitch Albom.

Death is brutal. It takes away all the good things we have experienced and learned in this world. Sometimes I become skeptic of my own life whenever people around me die. Sometimes it is just hard to understand what I live for and why I put so much of my energy trying to achieve things that I will lose someday. But after looking at Morrie, who doesn't regret or resent his fate, I had a chance to think about my birth, life and death once more in different perspective.

Morrie said "death ends life, not a relationship." I'm not sure if I was supposed to interpret the quote in a religious view point, but I was pretty sure he did not only mean relationship between human beings by saying it. Our relationship with the mother nature is also eternal. And death is only a small part of our worldly life. Death is as intense as our birth. The difference is, we were wet babies during the moment of birth just got out of the mother's womb trying to take the first breathe in, we die taking the last breathe out.

I don't know if there is afterlife or not following our deaths. But listening to Morrie saying "love always wins," I looked back and thought about what kind of life I want to live and I am living. Am I really loving myself? And I realized that I couldn't love anything or anyone else if I fail to love myself.

Literary Journal #5 : Fahrenheit 451

Humans have writing and reading books for thousands of years. Even though books are recognized as excellent sources of information, knowledge and even pleasure, some of them were, and still are banned in some societies. From censorship, political powers have shown their struggle of separating their people from the truth. Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 depicts a society where reading and possessing books are strictly prohibited. Its fire fighters, instead of extinguishing fires, set books that they find on fire. Making the long story short, Guy Montag, the main character and who is a fire fighter, rejects to follow the society's law and start reading books after he meets a girl named Clarisse. After found out about his "ill acts," Montag runs away from home and the society. Soon after his runaway, a war breaks out and the society is completely destroyed by bombing. And the novel ends with a hint that Montag and his followers who he met while running away will build a new society.

I realize that most of us living in this century are used to taking things for granted. I have no intention of making this post a political journal but this book shows the possible ways our society can be ruined when people do not pay enough attention to the world. Freedom is not a mere romantic word that teenagers look forward to having from their parents or school. While freedom is a right, it is also a responsibility. When people fail to look directly to the truth and make decisions based on composite facts and their logic, freedom is in danger. Look around the world. Notice how many people in different countries are still not able to practice their unalienable rights!

From "Blade Runner"(1982)

The novel also shows how fallible humans can be. Under corrupted powers, it is a matter of time to brainwash the people. Only absorbing the false and fabricated information like dry sponges, the spirit and minds of people become completely subordinate to the government. All the walls are covered with TV screens and people always keep earphones called "Seashells" in their ears separating themselves from the reality.

I heard North Koreans call TV "idiot box." (It is not a slang) But I realize it really make sense to call it that way. Visual impressions are much powerful and lasting than just reading texts. And you really become an "idiot" if you decline to think but just accepts everything that is shown to you on TV.

The book warns us not to be "idiots" of modern society who lost their spirit and logic to the corrupted power.

Literary Journal - 4 : Oedipus

   Ancient Greek culture has been always fascinating to me. Although they were around thousands of years ago, some of their philosophy and ideas are very similar to those of our modern world. Actually, when you really pay attention to history, it almost seems like we are heading back to the Greek culture. The Greeks were the first to adapt democracy to their social structure(although it was limited to their men citizens) and their philosophers such as Socrates, Aristotle and Pythagoras are still quoted and their ideas are constantly studied and analyzed today. They were one of the first people to enjoy literature and record their thoughts. Theatre was popular in Greek culture and we actually still perform their plays today. The Oedipus Plays is one of the most famous Greek plays of all. It has set the basic structure and values for the proceeding plays.

   One of the things makes Oedipus so remarkable is its emphasis on human complexity and absurdity. It shows how Greeks had struggled to find the true meaning of life and their understanding that human flaws can cause tragic consequences, as seen in this play. (If you haven't read it, Wikipedia does good job explaining : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus) Tragic heroes were presented and protagonists and antagonists were characterized. Although they didn't really write happy stories, they knew how to express and elaborate sophisticated ideas. It is interesting to see the majority of today's audience looking for instant and powerful pleasure through different types of art, including literature, while Greeks entertained themselves by talking about the meaning of life and gathering at an amphitheatre and watching tragic plays.

   Antigone, the daughter of King Oedipus has been one the most interesting literary characters to me. She defies the corrupted authority and chooses death . Though she was prohibited to bury her brother Polynices, she does so and is about to be punished. However, she ends the tragedy by ending her own life. She is able to distinguish what is "right" and "wrong." And she chooses to do what is right rather than doing what is favorable and beneficial for her. 

   One of the other interesting thing I could observe is that suicide has been seen as a honorable way to die in Greek culture. When the righteous people are confronted by the corrupt of the society, they tend to kill themselves as a way of resolving the conflict. Socrates drank hemlock and died when he was imprisoned and sentenced to death even though he could easily escape the prison. Like Socrates, the tragic hero Antigone in this play decides to choose "veritas" than compromising with false social structure.

   Greeks were great thinkers. They provided the cornerstone of the development of later human societies. Their literary themes can be still agreed and applied to today's world, and their philosophy still impresses us how the core values of human society have been kept consistent over many thousand years. It's hard to know where we are now if we don't know where we were yesterday.

Literary Journal - 3 : The Great Gatsby

   First of all, The Great Gatsby has been of the my favorite novels of all time. I believe most of you who are reading this post have read the work.

   Powerful images and motifs were used throughout the book. I will not necessarily list all of them in this post, but I will look into some of them to show how this book was built to be a masterpiece. I can still remember the eyes of T. J. Eckleburg looking down on the Valley of Ashes. As F. Scott Fitzgerald had been trying to show the misery of the "Lost Generation," the book is full or negative images and themes. It is a sequence of failures. For instance, the "Dream Girl" Daisy Buchanan is someone Jay Gatsby cannot ever gain.
 
   The wealthy characters throwing crazy parties and showing off their fancy automobiles and clothes are a complete contrast to the other middle class characters like George and Myrtle Wilson. Greed is what causes all conflicts in the story. As punishment for their greed, failures, chaos, destruction of families and even death(Myrtle) follow.
 
   T. J. Eckleburg is a god-like figure looking down all the conflicts going on in the town. It is irrelevant but after finishing my summer readings, his eyes also remind me "Their Eyes Were Watching God," except the difference is that the characters in the G. Gatsby don't even seem to realize there is such a sign. I'm not sure if it's from the book or just from the 1974 movie but the most memorable scene to me was when Gatsby starts throwing his shirts from England(according to his description) to Daisy and Daisy starts crying. When you think about it, how weird is that? But after thinking over that scene many times, it was easier to recognize that this scene is closely related to the great theme of the novel. Materialism and earthly matters dominate the characters.

   It was a little difficult for me to understand the themes of this book when I first read it. I didn't know that much about American history or culture as a Korean kid who just came to this country. But coincidentally, I was taking American History at the same time and it was very interesting to see how American writers actively related their current issues (of that period) to their works. They used literature as a tool to reflect their society. American novels always excite me because they usually don't tend to trick their readers and the themes are relatively straightforward. I am not sure if I will go to GB one day and will start liking all of their literature, including T. S. Elliot.

Literary Journal - 2 : Cormac McCarthy

   Even though not many readers recognize his name, you might have heard of his works since many of them were made into movies. "No Country for Old Men"(2007), "The Road"(2009) and "All the Pretty Horses"(2000) have been filmed based on his works. His private personal life contributes to the themes of his work. (He rarely shows up on TV or magazine articles --throughout his writing career, he only had a few interviews)

   My mother being a big McCarthy fan, I first started reading his works several years ago. No Country for Old Men was the first book of his I read and then I started reading The Road and Blood Meridian (although I never finished Blood Meridian). What I could tell for sure is that his stories are not like something I had ever read before.

   His works are original and radical. What I mean by radical is he defies the old naive themes found in many contemporary works. What I found really amazing about his works is that he seeks peace among violence. For instance, he throws a brutal and devastating setting or situation, and then he looks through the eyes of each character calmly and peacefully to find peace and silence. His story(the actual plot) does not necessarily carry themes and ideas, which I find revolutionary(and that's what make his works different from cheap horror stories). Rather, readers question themselves about their life and death, eventually converting the story into the themes of their own.

   Like you cannot taste each ingredient of a food when you put too many things in it, it's hard to analyze life when we are given too many things. But when we lose everything, we really start to see the essence of our life. It is easier to find the truth in violence than in happiness. Literature has been a means of mankind to seek for the true meaning of our life. And McCarthy provided a new way of doing that. Instead of dipping his words into Greek philosophy or Biblical allusions, he rather goes out to the nowhere and stares at the floating nothingness.

   To talk a little more about his books, I consider The Road as one of the best American novel ever written. As some of you might know, it is a story of a father and a son striving for survival in a devastated world. The story line is fairly simple and it's hard to pull out many themes and motifs in this story. Even McCarthy himself  says the meaning of the novel is straightforward(watch the interview linked beneath). But what makes this work so great is that it is so human. You can write about a great hero using his supernatural power to save the world and make it a bestseller. But true essence of human nature and vulnerability is shown when the characters don't possess anything and don't have anything to hide or show off.

   We walk along the road everyday. Life is a journey and we can't tell what's going to happen during that journey. Sometimes the road is full of dangers and sometimes it is peaceful and comforting. But the most important thing is we don't stop walking until we run out of time and energy. We just keep walking every minute and hour dipping our feet into the sticky mud. How simple is that?

McCarthy Interview

Literary Journal - 1 : The Little Prince (1/2)

  
   Like many others say, it was hard to understand The Little Prince fully when I first read it. It is quite surprising to me many times I find this book in children's section at local bookstores. Though it was an entertaining reading when I first read the book more than ten years ago, it took a while to really understand what the story really wanted to say.
   To me, the "little prince" was a heroic figure. Well, first of all, he is not from this planet. And as many other kids did, I have been always admiring the space outside this planet and the power of universe. The prince always looked like a coolest kid to me. But as I grew up, I started to forget about my childhood dreams and fantasies. And I one day found myself trying to fit myself into this world. It is really depressing when you realize you are becoming more and more realistic. You forget how to dream.
   Although many people consider (I really don't know why, but they do) this story as children's book, I am certain this work is one of the greatest literary achievement of the last century.
 Probably what most people would think of when they hear "The Little Prince" is the picture above. The little prince tried to draw a snake eating an elephant. But not very surprisingly, the picture looks like a hat. He does and says things most people don't do. In other words, he is totally "nonsense." But that is what makes him so special. His rejection to compromise with the dominating thoughts of the rest emphasizes how pure this character is. He absolutely has no mask. He is purity itself. He doesn't try to hide a bit of his feelings or try to achieve anything. Perhaps he is too young and ignorant to understand or pursue anything, but being young and ignorant is not always a bad thing.
   I realize as we grow up, we tend to think too much. Thoughts dominate our bodies. Not many people are motivated by their original feelings but they want to run their life the exact way they want and design. Like Sartre said, human existence preceeds essence. But a lot of us try to set the essence first and let the existence follow. When I think about the path of life, we come empty handed and leave empty handed. My flesh will deteriorate into the soil and become a handful of dirt. But my spirit and soul will not perish.(sounds very grandiose but true) So I don't have to and don't necessarily want to care about the earthly matters.