Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe: by Fannie Flag.
How do love and friendship between two friends battle against a physically and in every other way abusive husband of one, long after her love (and the other friend's much loved brother) has died in an accident? The ultimate solution lies in the fact that all red flesh looks alike after all, and when served as a dish, the policeman who is on the side of the abusive male and persecuting the two women with a suspicion about the disappearance of the said abusive male (who had threatened them with everything he could and was quite capable of carrying out his threat, never dreaming delicate young women could strike back in defence) has no suspicion about what his latest free meal at the cafe the two women run consists of - he merely appreciates the taste.
From Here To Eternity: by James Jones.
Home truths about war and US military with heartbreaking and one being forced to recognise the truths of this work, From Here To Eternity is to US what All Quiet On The Western Front is to home truths of war in Europe and German army in wwI. A must.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Lincoln's Mothers: by Dorothy Clarke Wilson.
A very good book about some very good people, nice to read, and leaves one with a good feeling suffusing one's heart.
Lincoln spoke about his mother, and most people understood it to be about his birth mother who died soon after. The author here questions that automatic assumption, and while makes no dispute about someone who gave life to such a great man, hypothesises that it might in fact have been about his stepmother who influenced him and was responsible for encouraging his aspirations of reading and learning despite the harsh frontier life of Illinois - Indiana - Kentucky border where his future wife was brought up in a mansion in style with slaves while he lived in a log cabin.
Lincoln spoke about his mother, and most people understood it to be about his birth mother who died soon after. The author here questions that automatic assumption, and while makes no dispute about someone who gave life to such a great man, hypothesises that it might in fact have been about his stepmother who influenced him and was responsible for encouraging his aspirations of reading and learning despite the harsh frontier life of Illinois - Indiana - Kentucky border where his future wife was brought up in a mansion in style with slaves while he lived in a log cabin.
Friday, December 17, 2010
The Canterville ghost, The happy prince and other stories: by Oscar Wilde.
“The Canterville ghost is one of the most delightful stories for all its subject's seriousness - for, like it or not, believe it or not, England is reputed to be riddled with ghosts, and whether the living are scared or amused or intrigued or bored or oblivious, it cannot be anything but torture for a departed soul to linger on in agony of the horrors suffered in life - or for that matter the punishment for misdeeds one did that preclude the progress of the soul.
So there is the very sensitive and loving young daughter of the visiting family who brings solace to the ghost, and the parents who simply refuse to believe there is anything of the sort anywhere at all, and the family servants who are taking care of the estate and the new tenants while keeping mum on the topic mostly. But then there is the pair of young twin boys who will be boys and this time in a good way, who not only see and believe what they see plainly and hear but fight back with all their arsenal - and the old ghost is no match for the tween pair. They set traps and the ghost is caught, they throw water and the ghost catches cold, and so forth, with increasing delight for the boys and despair for the ghost. Then there is the practical mother of the children who gets the bloodstains washed and wiped clean as a matter of fact every day, and they are all amused to notice that the colour of the blood stains begins to change to various shades of red - and then one day it is green, to the total perplexed attention of four out of five. The sensitive young girl is in tears meanwhile due to the stains, since the production of the stains by the ghost has been depleting her precious paints and she knows she will only be blamed if she were to inform them why the latest one is green. The parents are so rock firm in their lack of belief in ghosts!
So there is the very sensitive and loving young daughter of the visiting family who brings solace to the ghost, and the parents who simply refuse to believe there is anything of the sort anywhere at all, and the family servants who are taking care of the estate and the new tenants while keeping mum on the topic mostly. But then there is the pair of young twin boys who will be boys and this time in a good way, who not only see and believe what they see plainly and hear but fight back with all their arsenal - and the old ghost is no match for the tween pair. They set traps and the ghost is caught, they throw water and the ghost catches cold, and so forth, with increasing delight for the boys and despair for the ghost. Then there is the practical mother of the children who gets the bloodstains washed and wiped clean as a matter of fact every day, and they are all amused to notice that the colour of the blood stains begins to change to various shades of red - and then one day it is green, to the total perplexed attention of four out of five. The sensitive young girl is in tears meanwhile due to the stains, since the production of the stains by the ghost has been depleting her precious paints and she knows she will only be blamed if she were to inform them why the latest one is green. The parents are so rock firm in their lack of belief in ghosts!
Importance of Being Ernest:: by Oscar Wilde.
Delightful and seemingly silly comedy with Ernest being a name, one that more than one suitor of a couple of young women claim, and seem finally to have - what with a nanny who lost a baby by confusing it with a handbag she was going to check in at a safe storage facility, fortunate finding of the said lost baby transformed into a young male, and so forth.
The title however is a clue to the wit of the author, the subtle or perhaps under the circumstances not so subtle commentary on the prevalent norms that penalised him for his lack of reverence for social norms of the day, the tongue in cheek nature of the title being hollow since Ernest is only a name after all.
The title however is a clue to the wit of the author, the subtle or perhaps under the circumstances not so subtle commentary on the prevalent norms that penalised him for his lack of reverence for social norms of the day, the tongue in cheek nature of the title being hollow since Ernest is only a name after all.
Importance of Being Ernest: by Oscar Wilde.
Delightful and seemingly silly comedy with Ernest being a name, one that more than one suitor of a couple of young women claim, and seem finally to have - what with a nanny who lost a baby by confusing it with a handbag she was going to check in at a safe storage facility, fortunate finding of the said lost baby transformed into a young male, and so forth.
The title however is a clue to the wit of the author, the subtle or perhaps under the circumstances not so subtle commentary on the prevalent norms that penalised him for his lack of reverence for social norms of the day, the tongue in cheek nature of the title being hollow since Ernest is only a name after all.
The title however is a clue to the wit of the author, the subtle or perhaps under the circumstances not so subtle commentary on the prevalent norms that penalised him for his lack of reverence for social norms of the day, the tongue in cheek nature of the title being hollow since Ernest is only a name after all.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Lady Windermere's Fan: by Oscar Wilde.
With a name like that you would expect a delightful comedy, and you would be wrong - this one begins to break heart right from the word go. There is the very young Lady Windermere with her new husband she is very much in love with and the friend of the couple who is in love with her, and the whole society buzzing with the woman of disrepute new in town who the said husband has recently taken up with, including paying her very expensive bills; she even almost blackmails him to give her more money, and he is unable to refuse. The woman is audacious enough to make acquaintance of Lady Windermere herself, which might compromise the latter in view of the reputation of the former, and has boldness enough to demand that the husband gets her invited to the party the wife is throwing. The husband is desperate enough to ask, the wife refuses in all rectitude, and the husband sends out the invitation anyway in the wife's name, normally a privilege and a right that belongs solely to her. The wife upon seeing the woman she has not invited informs him she shall strike the woman with her fan, a public insult he implores her not to offer - and she lacks the courage to do so. Then she sees the huge amount he has paid out to the woman, and decides it is time to leave him, and takes support of the very persuasive friend who has been attempting to convince her he will be a far more faithful lover than the husband - of course he is not about to remind her of the life of ignominy she shall live thereafter as either an adulteress or as a divorcée, or worse if the said lover abandoned her.
And then comes the full knowledge offered by the author to the reader (but it is to be kept from the innocent young bride for her own security) and the twists that save her, and too the "other" woman. The end is truly delightful, after all the heartbreaks through the whole play.
And then comes the full knowledge offered by the author to the reader (but it is to be kept from the innocent young bride for her own security) and the twists that save her, and too the "other" woman. The end is truly delightful, after all the heartbreaks through the whole play.
Howard's End: by E. M. Forster.
A good exposé of caste system as understood - perhaps not so named, but well entrenched for all that - in UK, generally Europe, and even in US all except the aristocracy bit (and even that, albeit not supposedly so). Those that have money look down on those that do not, although those that have been brought up having it and expecting to continue the life that money allowed them to live are then in uncertain circumstances when money is not quite there for whatever reason - a will, an entailed estate, whatever.
A lover might then jilt a perfectly wonderful young woman with aplomb upon discovery - or with prior knowledge - of her penury or a little straitened circumstances resulting in lack of a sumptuous dowry, and expect no harsh consequences for himself; rather, she must expect to be socially outcast for having a well to do male trifle with her as if she were able to afford a dowry suitable to purchase his betrothal.
An older male with wealth might notice a younger woman in straitened circumstances and propose marriage to her expecting her gratitude, even that of her whole family, along with a prompt acceptance; after all he is providing her and them with a shelter and food on table, and they must see to his convenience in all things concerned no matter what else transpires.
If a young woman with no money takes up with a man of education and higher aspirations and attempts to help him out of a tender heart, she stands to be ridiculed or worse if he is married and - or - less well to do.
When all of the above come together in one story, it makes for quite a social commentary on the social hypocrisy regarding the said caste system of west, dealing with interactions of rich, poor and in between, their expectations and aspirations, education and dreams of a life with art and music and literature.
A lover might then jilt a perfectly wonderful young woman with aplomb upon discovery - or with prior knowledge - of her penury or a little straitened circumstances resulting in lack of a sumptuous dowry, and expect no harsh consequences for himself; rather, she must expect to be socially outcast for having a well to do male trifle with her as if she were able to afford a dowry suitable to purchase his betrothal.
An older male with wealth might notice a younger woman in straitened circumstances and propose marriage to her expecting her gratitude, even that of her whole family, along with a prompt acceptance; after all he is providing her and them with a shelter and food on table, and they must see to his convenience in all things concerned no matter what else transpires.
If a young woman with no money takes up with a man of education and higher aspirations and attempts to help him out of a tender heart, she stands to be ridiculed or worse if he is married and - or - less well to do.
When all of the above come together in one story, it makes for quite a social commentary on the social hypocrisy regarding the said caste system of west, dealing with interactions of rich, poor and in between, their expectations and aspirations, education and dreams of a life with art and music and literature.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
All Quiet On The Western Front: by Erich Maria Remarque.
One of the few looks at a war depicting it with all its horrors and unappetising, sordid details - perhaps an original in that sense. Not bugles but barely school graduate (or not even graduate) boys leaving in tears just held back while they can just about not cling to their mothers as the train is ready to leave; not glories but the real details of a war as it happens to normal soldiers. This is the reality when the war is as pointless as that begun by Germany in wwI, and the horror then spread to involve various other nations and their soldiers, what with the years of trenches and living in mud in all sorts of weather in northern Europe.
The author is respected and celebrated as one of the best for very good reason, even if he had done nothing but this one brilliant piece telling it like it was.
The author is respected and celebrated as one of the best for very good reason, even if he had done nothing but this one brilliant piece telling it like it was.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Mexico: by James Michener.
October 15, 2008
This is temporary I hope - I haven't finished this yet, partly due to an unwillingness to go on to watch a bullfight even on paper, what with the very evocative writings of this author.
He truly brings alive the history of the continent, of the indigenous and their encounters with the invading marauders who assumed supremacy due to colour and size, the change over from a once flourishing civilization that not much is known now about, to one in constant state of flux with various military and other regimes and neighbours looking down on the nation that was once great in various achievements.
But reading this made one aware of much of the world that one is generally unlikely to know about, and the history is sometimes - often more often than not so, amazing; and then again a little off-putting in the concepts about bloodshed.
And then the fights themselves, while reading this I found an unasked question being answered, though it was not mentioned here - not as far as I read.
One always wonders why torture an innocent animal like this, one that can be far more useful and friendly too, unlike dangerous ones that can turn into human-hunters, although mostly even they do so usually by accident.
And I wondered if it was not a necessity of food, and the difficulty of killing a bull in prime without a fight, that began as a needful activity and turned into a spectator sport. Else it makes very little sense really.
Various people that go throwing paint on fur coats have not paid attention to this and other cruelty to animals on everyday basis is also due to this - it is easy to shout against a luxury of a few that kills a few animals, but difficult to protest against food of many. This is all the more so, especially when huge financial interests are involved, the butchers (who have taken to call themselves farmers, as if they and not the animals are responsible for the cattle reproduction, which is not a sowing and harvest, it is a mammal reproduction of the species) and the markets that sell and the chains that serve it.
So the protest against mink coats that makes no sense to a vegetarian might be really a token by an awakening mind and consciousness that nevertheless weighs carefully the consequences - if you protest against any chains serving burgers, you might be thrown in jail or worse, asylum; while throwing paint on a coat you couldn't afford anyway is treated lightly, the rich one might be induced to buy another one after all!
It is a fight they pick carefully, and do not even protest the leather shoes or bags or briefcases when those have become unnecessary. And of course those are the least of it all - if you are going to eat a huge quantity of animals in a culture what do you do with the leftovers? The least is leather goods manufacture, which in fact can be done even without the eating part - after all the animals are going to die one day, on their own.
It is far easier to protest killing of foxes in distant regions where their roaming is not a threat to your children and your pets and your barn animals.
October 15, 2008
............................................
December 9, 2010.
Finally one gets over the reluctance to go through a gory death or two, certainly of the innocent animals involved who are bred and brought up only so that they can be murdered for sport, never mind the honour of being mounted on walls of owners and breeders with pride about how they fought well, but also of the men involved in the killing of the animals, occasionally - after all it is an honourable way to kill the poor animals tricked into the arena to be killed, only with swords and other similar weapons rather than with a bullet at a distance safe enough for the killer.
Having sealed oneself to any sensibility of the gore involved, one proceeds to go through the rest of the book and it proves more rewarding with a history of Mexico along with the related parts of history of Spain, US, church, and so forth. It is a letdown to accidentally read the acknowledgement at the end to find that a good deal of it is "fiction" as stated by the writer, but then again, that is about specific people and names mentioned, including that of city of Toledo in Mexico. Other parts however are perfectly true, such as inquisition in Europe in general and Spain in particular. Palafoxes might be fiction, but burning of dissenters by church is as real and historical as bullfights or civil war of US.
That being the case, the initial uncanny feeling one gets while reading the history of Mexico, (with the history of its primitive and beastly nomadic tribals from northern parts creeping closer to and overtaking the far superior civilisation of the Builders who have grown too peaceful to resist the vicious onslaught due precisely to the vastly superior civilisation they have achieved - they have built, are peaceful, have civil administration, and other amenities and achievements more than comparable to any other of the period in the world - and the subsequent subjugation and massacre of the superior civilisation by the wilder tribes from north before the wild tribes settle down, adopt ways of the subjugated ones and absorb their culture and achievements and proceed to be civilised and build on top of the ruins they brought about), that it is all too similar enough to history of Asia (what with tribes of Mongolia and central Asia descending on India and reigning havoc with destruction and massacres before settling down and adopting much of Indian culture including superior buildings albeit built over the destroyed older ones), is all too easily explained after all. It is perhaps an coincidence of history after all, with similar events occurring clear across the world, but it is just as likely a history of another land written by someone more familiar with the more famous history of a much older civilisation overrun by tribes of Mongolia, central Asia, Arabia and then Europe, just as it happened perhaps in Mexico. The Goddess described by Michener with revulsion might be a fact of Mexican history, and then again his description might just be the reaction of Europe to images of Kaalie the Mother Goddess worshiped in India, a reaction that stems through a total absence of perception and comprehension. Certainly the description and the reaction is all too similar, with the difference of the thought that all such images stem from imagination rather than a greater perception of reality, for how could anyone with a more than feeble colour of visage and less than totally vicious lack of regard for others have any superiority of mind and spirit, goes the reasoning.
All this from a source that has historically brutal massacres of any dissenters merely for the reason of dissent, massacres held valid while dissent held abominable even now with usage of words and terminology describing the inquisition, the burning at stakes, the subjugation and conversion of other people, and so forth including enslaving of almost three continents and looting of their wealth while sneering at the people empoverished thereby. It is almost a vicious satire on the thinking of the dominant races that preach of their supposedly superior idols and the murders, massacres and slavery of others in the name of a philosophy of love and kindness, all the while boasting of their horror at idols of others who in fact are far more of the civilised and achieved people in terms of mind and spirit.
.....................................................
Europe had gunpowder - from China - while Mexico and southern civilisations had astronomy, architecture, and much more; the meeting of the two civilisations resulted in havoc reigned on the latter by the former. Admission of all this is covered with equivocation by the descriptions of human sacrifices by a fictional tribe in a fictional city and building of structures of civil society over an already established city while stealing its valuable minerals - silver in this case - in the book; much of the fiction is only fiction re specific names, while the general history is all too real, only taken from various sources in Mexico and perhaps subconsciously from Asia as well.
The greatest virtue of the book is in the fact that one wishes to go on reading about the history of Mexico and various other parts of the continent of what is so falsely termed "New World" - twenty thousand years of life in the continent, including nearly a millennia of familiarity to Nordic Europe what with Viking settlements in Canada and as far south as Boston, is hardly what one would call "new", unless compared to far more ancient civilisations of Asia such as India or China - and this even apart from the dismay at the discovery of the author's declaration that the specifics herein are "fiction". So next one finishes the other book, not declared fiction by the author of that one but on the contrary one that questions the popular and assiduously propagated versions of history, by Hancock.
One nice point is the beginning of a consciousness in humans of the brains of cattle with the fast learning ability, all too similar to humans; another is about the genealogical relationship of qualities received from the parents - physical abilities from father, courage from mother. Put the two together, it is not difficult to understand how those that live with cattle in harmony rather than a relationship of slavery have a regard for the cattle, brought about by the perceived and understood qualities of gentle and yet strong, courageous species with an ability to understand, an ability to learn and love and more, all too like humans. And if this perception is allowed to filter through the ego it has to lead to the destruction of misogyny - for a clear evidence of qualities of cows compared with bulls has to lead anyone not too stupid to question if the inferiority of the human female is not an invention of male institutions of church and other sort to subjugate and enslave half of humanity for selfish purposes rather than an actual perception of qualities and differences thereof.
This is temporary I hope - I haven't finished this yet, partly due to an unwillingness to go on to watch a bullfight even on paper, what with the very evocative writings of this author.
He truly brings alive the history of the continent, of the indigenous and their encounters with the invading marauders who assumed supremacy due to colour and size, the change over from a once flourishing civilization that not much is known now about, to one in constant state of flux with various military and other regimes and neighbours looking down on the nation that was once great in various achievements.
But reading this made one aware of much of the world that one is generally unlikely to know about, and the history is sometimes - often more often than not so, amazing; and then again a little off-putting in the concepts about bloodshed.
And then the fights themselves, while reading this I found an unasked question being answered, though it was not mentioned here - not as far as I read.
One always wonders why torture an innocent animal like this, one that can be far more useful and friendly too, unlike dangerous ones that can turn into human-hunters, although mostly even they do so usually by accident.
And I wondered if it was not a necessity of food, and the difficulty of killing a bull in prime without a fight, that began as a needful activity and turned into a spectator sport. Else it makes very little sense really.
Various people that go throwing paint on fur coats have not paid attention to this and other cruelty to animals on everyday basis is also due to this - it is easy to shout against a luxury of a few that kills a few animals, but difficult to protest against food of many. This is all the more so, especially when huge financial interests are involved, the butchers (who have taken to call themselves farmers, as if they and not the animals are responsible for the cattle reproduction, which is not a sowing and harvest, it is a mammal reproduction of the species) and the markets that sell and the chains that serve it.
So the protest against mink coats that makes no sense to a vegetarian might be really a token by an awakening mind and consciousness that nevertheless weighs carefully the consequences - if you protest against any chains serving burgers, you might be thrown in jail or worse, asylum; while throwing paint on a coat you couldn't afford anyway is treated lightly, the rich one might be induced to buy another one after all!
It is a fight they pick carefully, and do not even protest the leather shoes or bags or briefcases when those have become unnecessary. And of course those are the least of it all - if you are going to eat a huge quantity of animals in a culture what do you do with the leftovers? The least is leather goods manufacture, which in fact can be done even without the eating part - after all the animals are going to die one day, on their own.
It is far easier to protest killing of foxes in distant regions where their roaming is not a threat to your children and your pets and your barn animals.
October 15, 2008
............................................
December 9, 2010.
Finally one gets over the reluctance to go through a gory death or two, certainly of the innocent animals involved who are bred and brought up only so that they can be murdered for sport, never mind the honour of being mounted on walls of owners and breeders with pride about how they fought well, but also of the men involved in the killing of the animals, occasionally - after all it is an honourable way to kill the poor animals tricked into the arena to be killed, only with swords and other similar weapons rather than with a bullet at a distance safe enough for the killer.
Having sealed oneself to any sensibility of the gore involved, one proceeds to go through the rest of the book and it proves more rewarding with a history of Mexico along with the related parts of history of Spain, US, church, and so forth. It is a letdown to accidentally read the acknowledgement at the end to find that a good deal of it is "fiction" as stated by the writer, but then again, that is about specific people and names mentioned, including that of city of Toledo in Mexico. Other parts however are perfectly true, such as inquisition in Europe in general and Spain in particular. Palafoxes might be fiction, but burning of dissenters by church is as real and historical as bullfights or civil war of US.
That being the case, the initial uncanny feeling one gets while reading the history of Mexico, (with the history of its primitive and beastly nomadic tribals from northern parts creeping closer to and overtaking the far superior civilisation of the Builders who have grown too peaceful to resist the vicious onslaught due precisely to the vastly superior civilisation they have achieved - they have built, are peaceful, have civil administration, and other amenities and achievements more than comparable to any other of the period in the world - and the subsequent subjugation and massacre of the superior civilisation by the wilder tribes from north before the wild tribes settle down, adopt ways of the subjugated ones and absorb their culture and achievements and proceed to be civilised and build on top of the ruins they brought about), that it is all too similar enough to history of Asia (what with tribes of Mongolia and central Asia descending on India and reigning havoc with destruction and massacres before settling down and adopting much of Indian culture including superior buildings albeit built over the destroyed older ones), is all too easily explained after all. It is perhaps an coincidence of history after all, with similar events occurring clear across the world, but it is just as likely a history of another land written by someone more familiar with the more famous history of a much older civilisation overrun by tribes of Mongolia, central Asia, Arabia and then Europe, just as it happened perhaps in Mexico. The Goddess described by Michener with revulsion might be a fact of Mexican history, and then again his description might just be the reaction of Europe to images of Kaalie the Mother Goddess worshiped in India, a reaction that stems through a total absence of perception and comprehension. Certainly the description and the reaction is all too similar, with the difference of the thought that all such images stem from imagination rather than a greater perception of reality, for how could anyone with a more than feeble colour of visage and less than totally vicious lack of regard for others have any superiority of mind and spirit, goes the reasoning.
All this from a source that has historically brutal massacres of any dissenters merely for the reason of dissent, massacres held valid while dissent held abominable even now with usage of words and terminology describing the inquisition, the burning at stakes, the subjugation and conversion of other people, and so forth including enslaving of almost three continents and looting of their wealth while sneering at the people empoverished thereby. It is almost a vicious satire on the thinking of the dominant races that preach of their supposedly superior idols and the murders, massacres and slavery of others in the name of a philosophy of love and kindness, all the while boasting of their horror at idols of others who in fact are far more of the civilised and achieved people in terms of mind and spirit.
.....................................................
Europe had gunpowder - from China - while Mexico and southern civilisations had astronomy, architecture, and much more; the meeting of the two civilisations resulted in havoc reigned on the latter by the former. Admission of all this is covered with equivocation by the descriptions of human sacrifices by a fictional tribe in a fictional city and building of structures of civil society over an already established city while stealing its valuable minerals - silver in this case - in the book; much of the fiction is only fiction re specific names, while the general history is all too real, only taken from various sources in Mexico and perhaps subconsciously from Asia as well.
The greatest virtue of the book is in the fact that one wishes to go on reading about the history of Mexico and various other parts of the continent of what is so falsely termed "New World" - twenty thousand years of life in the continent, including nearly a millennia of familiarity to Nordic Europe what with Viking settlements in Canada and as far south as Boston, is hardly what one would call "new", unless compared to far more ancient civilisations of Asia such as India or China - and this even apart from the dismay at the discovery of the author's declaration that the specifics herein are "fiction". So next one finishes the other book, not declared fiction by the author of that one but on the contrary one that questions the popular and assiduously propagated versions of history, by Hancock.
One nice point is the beginning of a consciousness in humans of the brains of cattle with the fast learning ability, all too similar to humans; another is about the genealogical relationship of qualities received from the parents - physical abilities from father, courage from mother. Put the two together, it is not difficult to understand how those that live with cattle in harmony rather than a relationship of slavery have a regard for the cattle, brought about by the perceived and understood qualities of gentle and yet strong, courageous species with an ability to understand, an ability to learn and love and more, all too like humans. And if this perception is allowed to filter through the ego it has to lead to the destruction of misogyny - for a clear evidence of qualities of cows compared with bulls has to lead anyone not too stupid to question if the inferiority of the human female is not an invention of male institutions of church and other sort to subjugate and enslave half of humanity for selfish purposes rather than an actual perception of qualities and differences thereof.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Templar Legacy: by Steve Berry.
How many imitations and parodies, how many attempts to cash on the success of DA Vinci Code with the same format and same history with slightly different turns to the story and convenient solutions to the mystery (so as to not anger the powers quite as much as DVC or its original research base - Holy Blood, Holy Grail - did) - I don't know if anyone has kept a tally. This one might have sold on the name and the huge publicity then to the topic, but if it made waves they were not comparable.
Descriptions of the Knights Templar history and of the Languedoc region with Pyrenées thrown in for good measure, interspersed with a murderous chase across Europe from Copenhagen to Pyrenées and Avignon to Rennes-Le-Chateau, positing Templars alive and well, well hidden in remote Abbeys and attempting to rediscover the famed and very well known wealth they hid so well from Philip IV when he let loose the greed oriented massacre on them that nobody found it until now, forms most of the content of this poor imitation or poorer spoof of DVC.
The author poses a key question, only one, in fourth part- which is the only part that makes it worth a look - and answers it with a solution of a find along with a "let's not rock the boat" comforting for those of official beliefs or those of interests in official beliefs.
To his credit the author does give one - only one - other point of view different from the official church of Rome, but that is the view of the power of oil today, noted mainly due to the shock of "how can they not love us, how can they hate us so much" post 2001 with a convenient belief that this accommodating along with a downright denouncing of any other view will make the things all right once again and oil producers will love the majorly oil consuming populaces.
So while the fourth part asks very relevant questions and posts various facts about the story now over two millennia old, the finalé offers a solution that contradicts a very major point of the very query in the fourth part, and goes with the official version instead, namely, blaming Jews for the execution of an all loving man rather than answering how such an all loving man was executed by Roman powers by the method usually reserved for those that rebelled against Roman occupation of Judea and fought for independence in the usual ways. This makes for a major hole in the book while the very reasonable and rational explanation of the "resurrection" attempts to placate both science and faith, although chances are the latter will reject the obvious.
Descriptions of the Knights Templar history and of the Languedoc region with Pyrenées thrown in for good measure, interspersed with a murderous chase across Europe from Copenhagen to Pyrenées and Avignon to Rennes-Le-Chateau, positing Templars alive and well, well hidden in remote Abbeys and attempting to rediscover the famed and very well known wealth they hid so well from Philip IV when he let loose the greed oriented massacre on them that nobody found it until now, forms most of the content of this poor imitation or poorer spoof of DVC.
The author poses a key question, only one, in fourth part- which is the only part that makes it worth a look - and answers it with a solution of a find along with a "let's not rock the boat" comforting for those of official beliefs or those of interests in official beliefs.
To his credit the author does give one - only one - other point of view different from the official church of Rome, but that is the view of the power of oil today, noted mainly due to the shock of "how can they not love us, how can they hate us so much" post 2001 with a convenient belief that this accommodating along with a downright denouncing of any other view will make the things all right once again and oil producers will love the majorly oil consuming populaces.
So while the fourth part asks very relevant questions and posts various facts about the story now over two millennia old, the finalé offers a solution that contradicts a very major point of the very query in the fourth part, and goes with the official version instead, namely, blaming Jews for the execution of an all loving man rather than answering how such an all loving man was executed by Roman powers by the method usually reserved for those that rebelled against Roman occupation of Judea and fought for independence in the usual ways. This makes for a major hole in the book while the very reasonable and rational explanation of the "resurrection" attempts to placate both science and faith, although chances are the latter will reject the obvious.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Indian Anti-Communists: Bal Thackeray, C. Rajagopalachari, Sita RAM Goel, Mamata Banerjee, Salwa Judum, Arun Shourie, RAM Swarup, Gurcharan Das
The book has two readers on the site where I found it, as of now, and the other one is in hiding. But even apart from this there are ironies in the situation when one considers it as a title on shelf on a site based in US, what with the title with its first three words.
Two largest democracies of the world, US and India - both nations relatively large in sizes, relative to, say, any of the democratic European nations, and the latter making up in numbers (over a billion and counting) what it lacks in development and prosperity as measured by western standards - differ in may ways and contrast in much, but never in any as much as in this - that when you enter US you must declare if you have ever entertained any leftist sympathies, which is supposed to indicate you might be attempting a communist takeover of the country you are trying to enter; while anyone in India not overtly paying lip service to leftist thought and latest fads of whatever is dictated thereby is fraudulently accused of not only being "right wing" but of running around with knives, never mind the facts about any of it (the last time a major massacre happened one way with knives was in Calcutta in '46 in order to twist Gandhi's elbow to give in to demands of dividing the then united nation along religious lines with a truculent party with a fundamentalist inability to live with others of different views and faiths winning their separate piece to throw out others out of) - and hence the absurd title of "anti-communists" epithet here does not convey how much hatred is inherent in the two words, however undeserved.
A very militant Tamil once told a secure gathering how she hated Thackeray, and went on to repeat it for a few minutes with no explanations - she thought none were needed, since Thackeray has consistently opposed any politics and policies that go against local people in his state.
I did not wish to bring forth a diatribe of muck which I was quite certain she was capable of unleashing, and so forebore from pointing out what everyone - at least those that remember the beginning of Thackeray in his home state - know so well; which is, he is but a pale mirror image of those that rule her own home state, which allows no tolerance for anyone from outside the state, none for anyone who is of a different linguistic origin, and generally makes life hell for any dissidents; no jobs for outsiders however superior in qualifications of every sort, goes without saying, while Tamilians on the other hand not only enjoy jobs at every level including highest in most other states - especially in Mumbai and other economically prosperious cities of India - but promote one another without question and set up cry if locals are given a preference of any sort.
The state of Tamilnadu which was carved out with a major portion of Madras state pre independence enjoyed preferential treatment given by British due to help they gave in defeating 1857, especially compared to neighbouring states of Karnataka (then Mysore) and Kerala (then Travancore and so on), and still clamour to keep the status quo. If now one of the states is given a much needed railway connection, up goes the furore in Madras to claim more or most of the pie as per tradition - and let us not even get started with the ridiculous wars over water.
All this might seem irrelevant, except that left or right in India is mostly a matter of who calls names louder and gets established with his lies.
One person visiting a state across to east gets s promptly arrested and thrown out on charge of being a right wing trouble maker since he was for a particular temple with a popular support, while another one from the said eastern state threatens to arrive in a western metropolis to conduct a ceremony of worship for reproductive purposes publicly (the latter ceremony is normally a private affair) in order to establish that millions of his home state people have a right to live in the said one metropolis never mind how much bursting at seams. This latter one threatening to conduct the reproductive worship publicly is counted as a left wing non religious politician. He gets to call names, while those with more culture and civilisation conduct themselves on their dignity.
So the title really begins with a name calling, whether so understood in US or otherwise. And fact is, while for example Shourie might not love or hate communists per say, he would expose them for their frauds as he would anyone - he was a journalist par excellence and integrity with fearlessness was the forte of his newspaper as long as he was there. For this, lack of blind following of orders from the correct brand of "foreigners", he gets to be called anti communist here.
The rest? Chakravaty Rajagopalachari was a very respected man in Congress who was less than appreciated in his own home state of then Madras, due to his realistic and benefic views rather than pandering to populist vocalisation resulting in half baked economic results. He is branded as anti communist due to his policies which might actually might have benefited his people and his nation far better without keeping conservative past necessarily brought into future. But politics was more important than people to his opponents, who are branded leftist.
As for Mamata Banerjee, it is inexcusable to call her any names - she is, simply put, the sister of the poor and disfranchised in her state, which due to leftist (read obedient to marxist-maoist) policies is now one of the poorest states of India for several decades, down from the days of pride of being the capital of the British before the formality of empire and crowning (for which they chose the historical capital of India, Delhi). If she is anti communist it merely points strongly to communists being not only wrong but total jackasses. And so they have been in the state they have had a free hand to rule for quite a few decades, imposing the party rule rather than going with what is good for people, what people wish or feel or need, thus following the usual line of a totalitarian rule by whatever the name of creed. Mamata Banerjee is the much beloved Didi (sister) of her people, which is why she has any clout at all - she works for them, unlike the communists of India.
Thus the politics of India, with words separated from meanings, never mind the Divine status of Word and Meaning expounded on by an ancient poet - fortunately the ancient tradition was not of burial, else they would all be turning in pain.
Two largest democracies of the world, US and India - both nations relatively large in sizes, relative to, say, any of the democratic European nations, and the latter making up in numbers (over a billion and counting) what it lacks in development and prosperity as measured by western standards - differ in may ways and contrast in much, but never in any as much as in this - that when you enter US you must declare if you have ever entertained any leftist sympathies, which is supposed to indicate you might be attempting a communist takeover of the country you are trying to enter; while anyone in India not overtly paying lip service to leftist thought and latest fads of whatever is dictated thereby is fraudulently accused of not only being "right wing" but of running around with knives, never mind the facts about any of it (the last time a major massacre happened one way with knives was in Calcutta in '46 in order to twist Gandhi's elbow to give in to demands of dividing the then united nation along religious lines with a truculent party with a fundamentalist inability to live with others of different views and faiths winning their separate piece to throw out others out of) - and hence the absurd title of "anti-communists" epithet here does not convey how much hatred is inherent in the two words, however undeserved.
A very militant Tamil once told a secure gathering how she hated Thackeray, and went on to repeat it for a few minutes with no explanations - she thought none were needed, since Thackeray has consistently opposed any politics and policies that go against local people in his state.
I did not wish to bring forth a diatribe of muck which I was quite certain she was capable of unleashing, and so forebore from pointing out what everyone - at least those that remember the beginning of Thackeray in his home state - know so well; which is, he is but a pale mirror image of those that rule her own home state, which allows no tolerance for anyone from outside the state, none for anyone who is of a different linguistic origin, and generally makes life hell for any dissidents; no jobs for outsiders however superior in qualifications of every sort, goes without saying, while Tamilians on the other hand not only enjoy jobs at every level including highest in most other states - especially in Mumbai and other economically prosperious cities of India - but promote one another without question and set up cry if locals are given a preference of any sort.
The state of Tamilnadu which was carved out with a major portion of Madras state pre independence enjoyed preferential treatment given by British due to help they gave in defeating 1857, especially compared to neighbouring states of Karnataka (then Mysore) and Kerala (then Travancore and so on), and still clamour to keep the status quo. If now one of the states is given a much needed railway connection, up goes the furore in Madras to claim more or most of the pie as per tradition - and let us not even get started with the ridiculous wars over water.
All this might seem irrelevant, except that left or right in India is mostly a matter of who calls names louder and gets established with his lies.
One person visiting a state across to east gets s promptly arrested and thrown out on charge of being a right wing trouble maker since he was for a particular temple with a popular support, while another one from the said eastern state threatens to arrive in a western metropolis to conduct a ceremony of worship for reproductive purposes publicly (the latter ceremony is normally a private affair) in order to establish that millions of his home state people have a right to live in the said one metropolis never mind how much bursting at seams. This latter one threatening to conduct the reproductive worship publicly is counted as a left wing non religious politician. He gets to call names, while those with more culture and civilisation conduct themselves on their dignity.
So the title really begins with a name calling, whether so understood in US or otherwise. And fact is, while for example Shourie might not love or hate communists per say, he would expose them for their frauds as he would anyone - he was a journalist par excellence and integrity with fearlessness was the forte of his newspaper as long as he was there. For this, lack of blind following of orders from the correct brand of "foreigners", he gets to be called anti communist here.
The rest? Chakravaty Rajagopalachari was a very respected man in Congress who was less than appreciated in his own home state of then Madras, due to his realistic and benefic views rather than pandering to populist vocalisation resulting in half baked economic results. He is branded as anti communist due to his policies which might actually might have benefited his people and his nation far better without keeping conservative past necessarily brought into future. But politics was more important than people to his opponents, who are branded leftist.
As for Mamata Banerjee, it is inexcusable to call her any names - she is, simply put, the sister of the poor and disfranchised in her state, which due to leftist (read obedient to marxist-maoist) policies is now one of the poorest states of India for several decades, down from the days of pride of being the capital of the British before the formality of empire and crowning (for which they chose the historical capital of India, Delhi). If she is anti communist it merely points strongly to communists being not only wrong but total jackasses. And so they have been in the state they have had a free hand to rule for quite a few decades, imposing the party rule rather than going with what is good for people, what people wish or feel or need, thus following the usual line of a totalitarian rule by whatever the name of creed. Mamata Banerjee is the much beloved Didi (sister) of her people, which is why she has any clout at all - she works for them, unlike the communists of India.
Thus the politics of India, with words separated from meanings, never mind the Divine status of Word and Meaning expounded on by an ancient poet - fortunately the ancient tradition was not of burial, else they would all be turning in pain.
In Spite the Gods: The Rise of Modern India; by Edward Luce.
The official description on the site, which may or may not represent the book or the author, and might very well be an editorial comment, goes :-
"India remains a mystery to many Americans, even as it is poised to become the world’s third largest economy within a generation, outstripping Japan. It will surpass China in population by 2032 and will have more English speakers than the United States by 2050. In In Spite of the Gods , Edward Luce, a journalist who covered India for many years, makes brilliant sense of India and its rise to global power. Already a number-one bestseller in India, his book is sure to be acknowledged for years as the definitive introduction to modern India. In Spite of the Gods illuminates a land of many contradictions. The booming tech sector we read so much about in the West, Luce points out, employs no more than one million of India’s 1.1 billion people. Only 35 million people, in fact, have formal enough jobs to pay taxes, while three-quarters of the country lives in extreme deprivation in India’s 600,000 villages. Yet amid all these extremes exists the world’s largest experiment in representative democracy—and a largely successful one, despite bureaucracies riddled with horrifying corruption. Luce shows that India is an economic rival to the U.S. in an entirely different sense than China is. There is nothing in India like the manufacturing capacity of China, despite the huge potential labor force. An inept system of public education leaves most Indians illiterate and unskilled. Yet at the other extreme, the middle class produces ten times as many engineering students a year as the United States. Notwithstanding its future as a major competitor in a globalized economy, American. leaders have been encouraging India’s rise, even welcoming it into the nuclear energy club, hoping to balance China’s influence in Asia. Above all, In Spite of the Gods is an enlightening study of the forces shaping India as it tries to balance the stubborn traditions of the past with an unevenly modernizing present. Deeply informed by scholarship and history, leavened by humor and rich in anecdote, it shows that India has huge opportunities as well as tremendous challenges that make the future “hers to lose.” "
The underlying biases are so taken for granted that they are not clear in plain sight, and amount to biases similar to equating blond with beautiful (with opposite assumptions silent but held tacitly far more strongly).
The title for instance assumes no reaction to any insult to the many, many religions and faiths and differences of thought that are equally held reverent in the country, mainly due to the character of the traditional way of thought of majority and their religion (often denied a status of religion in western television channels, since it does not confirm to a one person one book one god imposed on all followers and attempting to convert all others sort of pattern understood more easily for its simplicity, never mind the similarity of such faiths with any totalitarian way of thought) - but also the very freedom of worship inherent in the character of the nation is blatantly ignored, or worse, heavily disrespected, in the title and the underlying assumption therein.
Often people tend to hold concatenation as causal connection, and in west this has happened with economic rise being related to a relentless imposition of authoritative mode of faith and wiping out of alternatives - even all knowledge and rights thereto - being imprisoned within the authority fences and the duel that therefore necessarily was fought for freedom of thought against the religious authorities. It is forgotten that while this need to fight for the freedom of thought and knowledge might have helped a great deal, the prosperity would be far less if not accompanied by colonial occupation of other continents and usurping of their wealth, whatever the state of the local people and the treatment accorded to them by the colonial usurping occupiers, whether in Australia or across the ocean in American continent or Asia or Africa.
If this is not believable, just think of how life would be in Europe if there were no migration possible to any other continent, if everyone who wished to travel from Europe anywhere had to mortgage a significant part of their properties and undergo humiliating experiences on arrival in the other lands. Without the migration and the loot from other continents, Europe would be very crowded with poor as it was only two centuries ago - in fact, UK sponsored migration to Australia for all her poor just post wwII, officially, just as it was done for a while towards Canada or US prior to the wars so as to free large estates of aristocracy of the poor locals.
Much more to the graphic illustrative point, imagine if Africa owned the diamonds and the firms in Europe and coffee were to be as expensive as diamonds are today to west, while diamonds cost as much as best Champagne (and I mean, Champagne, not sparkling wine from elsewhere) - which might very well happen if local people owned the lands and used it to feed their own, sparing little for export to others for luxuries.
Once a neighbour in Germany had described poverty of East Germany where she visited relatives by relating how they could not afford bananas. I pointed out that first and foremost if the thing does not grow locally it could not be good for health, much less a necessity; as long as they had apples in their back or front yards on trees, they were in good shape for health and food and fruit. Bananas in fact are suitable only for tropical consumption, where they do grow - they are good food for heat of the locales and are cold in effect as food.
But to continue the thread, here is one more - imagine bananas cost more than opium and its byproducts in lands where they do not grow, and coconuts are no less than precious metals by weight. Would that be deprivation, when a product of one's own land gets a mere fraction of that from another? That is what the ex colonial lands (and natives of occupation forgotten lands of Australia and America too) have lived through.
In short, the prosperity of west has just as much to do with the looting via colonial occupations of various lands and migration to the lands taken over for good, as to do with the science versus faith wars Europe had to fight resulting in tremendous growth in science and technology.
Relating this prosperity to the religion of the west is the false assumption inherent in the title. Relating the prosperity to virtue of every kind is the other, deeper false assumption.
"India remains a mystery to many Americans, even as it is poised to become the world’s third largest economy within a generation, outstripping Japan. It will surpass China in population by 2032 and will have more English speakers than the United States by 2050. In In Spite of the Gods , Edward Luce, a journalist who covered India for many years, makes brilliant sense of India and its rise to global power. Already a number-one bestseller in India, his book is sure to be acknowledged for years as the definitive introduction to modern India. In Spite of the Gods illuminates a land of many contradictions. The booming tech sector we read so much about in the West, Luce points out, employs no more than one million of India’s 1.1 billion people. Only 35 million people, in fact, have formal enough jobs to pay taxes, while three-quarters of the country lives in extreme deprivation in India’s 600,000 villages. Yet amid all these extremes exists the world’s largest experiment in representative democracy—and a largely successful one, despite bureaucracies riddled with horrifying corruption. Luce shows that India is an economic rival to the U.S. in an entirely different sense than China is. There is nothing in India like the manufacturing capacity of China, despite the huge potential labor force. An inept system of public education leaves most Indians illiterate and unskilled. Yet at the other extreme, the middle class produces ten times as many engineering students a year as the United States. Notwithstanding its future as a major competitor in a globalized economy, American. leaders have been encouraging India’s rise, even welcoming it into the nuclear energy club, hoping to balance China’s influence in Asia. Above all, In Spite of the Gods is an enlightening study of the forces shaping India as it tries to balance the stubborn traditions of the past with an unevenly modernizing present. Deeply informed by scholarship and history, leavened by humor and rich in anecdote, it shows that India has huge opportunities as well as tremendous challenges that make the future “hers to lose.” "
The underlying biases are so taken for granted that they are not clear in plain sight, and amount to biases similar to equating blond with beautiful (with opposite assumptions silent but held tacitly far more strongly).
The title for instance assumes no reaction to any insult to the many, many religions and faiths and differences of thought that are equally held reverent in the country, mainly due to the character of the traditional way of thought of majority and their religion (often denied a status of religion in western television channels, since it does not confirm to a one person one book one god imposed on all followers and attempting to convert all others sort of pattern understood more easily for its simplicity, never mind the similarity of such faiths with any totalitarian way of thought) - but also the very freedom of worship inherent in the character of the nation is blatantly ignored, or worse, heavily disrespected, in the title and the underlying assumption therein.
Often people tend to hold concatenation as causal connection, and in west this has happened with economic rise being related to a relentless imposition of authoritative mode of faith and wiping out of alternatives - even all knowledge and rights thereto - being imprisoned within the authority fences and the duel that therefore necessarily was fought for freedom of thought against the religious authorities. It is forgotten that while this need to fight for the freedom of thought and knowledge might have helped a great deal, the prosperity would be far less if not accompanied by colonial occupation of other continents and usurping of their wealth, whatever the state of the local people and the treatment accorded to them by the colonial usurping occupiers, whether in Australia or across the ocean in American continent or Asia or Africa.
If this is not believable, just think of how life would be in Europe if there were no migration possible to any other continent, if everyone who wished to travel from Europe anywhere had to mortgage a significant part of their properties and undergo humiliating experiences on arrival in the other lands. Without the migration and the loot from other continents, Europe would be very crowded with poor as it was only two centuries ago - in fact, UK sponsored migration to Australia for all her poor just post wwII, officially, just as it was done for a while towards Canada or US prior to the wars so as to free large estates of aristocracy of the poor locals.
Much more to the graphic illustrative point, imagine if Africa owned the diamonds and the firms in Europe and coffee were to be as expensive as diamonds are today to west, while diamonds cost as much as best Champagne (and I mean, Champagne, not sparkling wine from elsewhere) - which might very well happen if local people owned the lands and used it to feed their own, sparing little for export to others for luxuries.
Once a neighbour in Germany had described poverty of East Germany where she visited relatives by relating how they could not afford bananas. I pointed out that first and foremost if the thing does not grow locally it could not be good for health, much less a necessity; as long as they had apples in their back or front yards on trees, they were in good shape for health and food and fruit. Bananas in fact are suitable only for tropical consumption, where they do grow - they are good food for heat of the locales and are cold in effect as food.
But to continue the thread, here is one more - imagine bananas cost more than opium and its byproducts in lands where they do not grow, and coconuts are no less than precious metals by weight. Would that be deprivation, when a product of one's own land gets a mere fraction of that from another? That is what the ex colonial lands (and natives of occupation forgotten lands of Australia and America too) have lived through.
In short, the prosperity of west has just as much to do with the looting via colonial occupations of various lands and migration to the lands taken over for good, as to do with the science versus faith wars Europe had to fight resulting in tremendous growth in science and technology.
Relating this prosperity to the religion of the west is the false assumption inherent in the title. Relating the prosperity to virtue of every kind is the other, deeper false assumption.
Turin Shroud: by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince.
The famous relic named or known popularly as Turin Shroud is not a relic after all, but a photograph, made during renaissance or thereabouts, using process and chemicals well known since antiquity. This in short is the conclusion of the book, presented with compelling evidence and arguments but very badly written in most part, especially the first few chapters until they go into the personal attacks they had to suffer in the process of working on the research.
This is the book telling about the research, sifting through evidence, experiences of various interactions with diverse people involved in the process, and a conclusion arrived at about the mystery of the Turin Shroud presented with compelling evidence of part of the fact and good arguments but not quite conclusive ones about the identity of the person responsible for the relic or artifact.
The duo went through some horrendous opposition of the sort intended to terrify them into shying away from any conclusion away from the official position that the relic is a true shroud of no one other than the church object of worship, a position not held up by scientific evidence - ironically the carbon dating test was officially supported by church with intention of proving the relic as true, which in fact cannot be done even if the artifact is two millennia old precisely - since the carbon dating proved that it was only about eight or so centuries old, give or take a century or two at most.
Towards the end the writers recount how there was a mysterious fire with equally mysterious hour of delay in calling for firemen post the evidence that not only this is not a true relic but in fact it is a photograph, proven by many recreations of the process involved in what could have been the way it was made during renaissance using a camera obscura, recreations by many persons independent of one another.
The fire might have or might have been intended to damage the artifact so far as to declare it officially destroyed so that no further examination can be made, since such an examination or even a casual viewing might further not only convince the general populace of the fact that it is a photograph but might raise questions about the complicity of the church in producing the forged relic in the first place for the sake of power over people's minds and financial gain in more than one way.
(Monday 22 November 2010)
.........................................
If one would like to know about the general history facts and reasoning on the subject, this is not quite the book one should begin with.
One generally picks up a book of this sort for information about what is going on, what is known, and so forth. Opinions and biases of writers are bound to come in, but good writers and thinkers manage to sift through what is known and go with some reasonable logic to their conclusions and manage to present them in their work with some credibility. That last part is somewhat missing or at least garbled in this work.
Less than halfway through one manages to see the pattern that continues consistently - the duo has arrived at some conclusions and are presenting them as fait accompli from almost page one, without going through the process of reason or logic for benefit of the reader. It begins to look like a session of bashing up some other writers and thinkers and more, on the whole, and it is not clear why since the thinking process of this duo is obscure.
Often they object to the thinking or logic or conclusions of others with huge gaps in their own logic for doing so, and it is repeatedly this sort of confusing material that brings one to suspect that the whole idea is to bash up the reader with a great deal of emotionally charged diatribe without much logic until one gives up and agrees with the writers - a typical tool of gossip sessions of afternoon coffee sessions.
.............................................
The idea here seems to be that since one cannot pooh pooh scientific evidence that has gone against the faith about the shroud and the identity of the shrouded, then of necessity there must be someone to pay the price, pay for the demolition of faith of millions those that have been following the line set out by Rome, even if the line is general and not specific in this matter.
And who better to pay for it than the most brilliantly intelligent of the geniuses of renaissance, the mysterious artist who also was a scientist and thinker par excellence, of not only his time but amazing even today with his various sketches of inventions of his own, the one recently shot into fame due to a painting and its coded messages, "the" Leonardo Da Vinci?
So here is a book to hit him with accusation of fooling everyone, for which every other possible thesis must be first and foremost discredited if not ridiculed.
...............................................................
As for the shroud, it remains mysterious to the writers as it is to perhaps everyone else (or we would have had huge headlines about the solution to the puzzle) - how the image formed, how it remained on one side, why it seems to be that of someone crucified but is merely from renaissance according to carbon dating, who could then have done it in what way that is unknown today and cannot be replicated, and more - if it indeed is genuinely from two millenia ago, where was it all this while?
But the last is begging the question in many ways, including the loyalty of church to the actual person (and his relatives) of the worshiped figure on the cross - what with various writings of last quarter of a century and discoveries of church dictating definite versions of the story and wiping out not only other versions but any trace of anyone who could possibly be a clue to the other versions, possibly the real ones at that, it is more than possible that such possessions had to be in hiding.
For instance many of faith find it troubling to read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code - and this is silly, since the only thing that DVC demolishes is the official version of the story, not the question of divinity. But the official version has been forced with burning alive of people daring to think independently and during centuries before Science established her reign as the alternative alter for intellectuals of west, and this divide has created havoc. Persecution of Galileo and others did not help.
..............................................
Even if the shroud were to be proven scientifically to be two thousand years old this does not prove whose it was, to begin with, since the crucifixion was not limited to one person but quite commonly used to punish all sorts of those that went against the occupation of the land by Rome. The shroud if it is two millennia old still could be anybody's, logically and scientifically speaking, unless there is more proof of the identity of the shrouded.
Such identity could come from DNA, in two ways - one, with living relatives, and second, with a known grave and body therein. Even this might be not conclusive enough evidence, the second that is, since such a tomb and grave ought to be known for all this time and not suddenly discovered now or disclosed without overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Living relatives, for which there is such overwhelming evidence pointed at although not conclusively established, what with the various persecutions through centuries by church and yet the new discoveries of various manuscripts in places unsuspected when they could and would have been destroyed, is another matter.
Quite possibly there are living relatives in spite of the persecution through centuries including holocaust and pogroms and general hounding of his people - for that precisely is what Jews are after all, his people and possibly descendants of relatives - but such a discovery and establishing of such a fact would be threatening to church and power of church just as much today as it has been since the crucifixion; so it is highly unlikely such evidence would come forth.
And so there goes any possibility of establishing the shroud through DNA even if carbon dating were to either confirm age of the shroud or to be bypassed for some convincing reason.
..................................................
Really, though - why this obsession with scientific proof of something that is clearly a matter of faith, of spiritual realm?
To begin with science has demolished the possibility of shroud being two thousand years old with carbon dating - but even if another one of the right age were to be found, so what? It could be of anyone crucified, of which there were plenty.
On the other hand the formation of the image seems to baffle science, but quite likely there were processes then known - possibly even today known except in west where inquisition wiped out knowledge - that might form such image either due to shroud being real or with some other process. The writers here go on (and on and on) discrediting any such thought, but really all that comes to is that they are discrediting it and something else still might be out there, not widely known yet, which is what the solution to the puzzle is. (Ok, so it is not oil and myrrah, how about this other spice?)
....................................................
And most of all - why does faith need scientific proof?
If the shroud - this shroud, or any other so declared - is not real, so what? If the resurrection was a story made up later, so what? If he were really married as a young male from a respectable family then ought to have been, and fathered a respectable number of progeny - so what? If there is divinity in someone, and it is innate rather than a human achievement, why should it be wiped out with something so natural to all life?
An artist, a scientist, a person of tremendous achievement in one or more realms can very well have a normal - or at least relatively normal - family life; and so could one with a spiritual facet. Why is it necessary for humans to determine that a divine being could not just as well do so?
.............................................................
There is of course another possibility - that crucifixions went on during inquisition, destroying any evidence of any sort that might threaten the power of church by methods other than burning people in public. The shroud might be real, and belong to another age, whether to a divine being or a mere human.
And then there is the widely known factor of the legend about his having traveled to India twice - one, his missing years between boyhood and sudden appearance shortly before crucifixion; second, post crucifixion, when he vanished - and there is the Himaalyan village that claims to have known, always, that he arrived and lived there, and there is the grave there that they claim to have known was his, known all these centuries.
............................................
Faith ought not to cling to scientific proof of something material, or possibility that someone after all did have children.
Spiritual realm is not enclosed in faith, whether it be blind faith dictated by some authority with power or faith given some crutches with a story and some relics.
Science has to do with an intellectual working out, of reality - and spiritual can only be higher, more inclusive of possibilities, than intellectual.
Faith is only one factor of spiritual realm, and not necessarily something to need crutches for.
(Wednesday, October 6, 2010)
This is the book telling about the research, sifting through evidence, experiences of various interactions with diverse people involved in the process, and a conclusion arrived at about the mystery of the Turin Shroud presented with compelling evidence of part of the fact and good arguments but not quite conclusive ones about the identity of the person responsible for the relic or artifact.
The duo went through some horrendous opposition of the sort intended to terrify them into shying away from any conclusion away from the official position that the relic is a true shroud of no one other than the church object of worship, a position not held up by scientific evidence - ironically the carbon dating test was officially supported by church with intention of proving the relic as true, which in fact cannot be done even if the artifact is two millennia old precisely - since the carbon dating proved that it was only about eight or so centuries old, give or take a century or two at most.
Towards the end the writers recount how there was a mysterious fire with equally mysterious hour of delay in calling for firemen post the evidence that not only this is not a true relic but in fact it is a photograph, proven by many recreations of the process involved in what could have been the way it was made during renaissance using a camera obscura, recreations by many persons independent of one another.
The fire might have or might have been intended to damage the artifact so far as to declare it officially destroyed so that no further examination can be made, since such an examination or even a casual viewing might further not only convince the general populace of the fact that it is a photograph but might raise questions about the complicity of the church in producing the forged relic in the first place for the sake of power over people's minds and financial gain in more than one way.
(Monday 22 November 2010)
.........................................
If one would like to know about the general history facts and reasoning on the subject, this is not quite the book one should begin with.
One generally picks up a book of this sort for information about what is going on, what is known, and so forth. Opinions and biases of writers are bound to come in, but good writers and thinkers manage to sift through what is known and go with some reasonable logic to their conclusions and manage to present them in their work with some credibility. That last part is somewhat missing or at least garbled in this work.
Less than halfway through one manages to see the pattern that continues consistently - the duo has arrived at some conclusions and are presenting them as fait accompli from almost page one, without going through the process of reason or logic for benefit of the reader. It begins to look like a session of bashing up some other writers and thinkers and more, on the whole, and it is not clear why since the thinking process of this duo is obscure.
Often they object to the thinking or logic or conclusions of others with huge gaps in their own logic for doing so, and it is repeatedly this sort of confusing material that brings one to suspect that the whole idea is to bash up the reader with a great deal of emotionally charged diatribe without much logic until one gives up and agrees with the writers - a typical tool of gossip sessions of afternoon coffee sessions.
.............................................
The idea here seems to be that since one cannot pooh pooh scientific evidence that has gone against the faith about the shroud and the identity of the shrouded, then of necessity there must be someone to pay the price, pay for the demolition of faith of millions those that have been following the line set out by Rome, even if the line is general and not specific in this matter.
And who better to pay for it than the most brilliantly intelligent of the geniuses of renaissance, the mysterious artist who also was a scientist and thinker par excellence, of not only his time but amazing even today with his various sketches of inventions of his own, the one recently shot into fame due to a painting and its coded messages, "the" Leonardo Da Vinci?
So here is a book to hit him with accusation of fooling everyone, for which every other possible thesis must be first and foremost discredited if not ridiculed.
...............................................................
As for the shroud, it remains mysterious to the writers as it is to perhaps everyone else (or we would have had huge headlines about the solution to the puzzle) - how the image formed, how it remained on one side, why it seems to be that of someone crucified but is merely from renaissance according to carbon dating, who could then have done it in what way that is unknown today and cannot be replicated, and more - if it indeed is genuinely from two millenia ago, where was it all this while?
But the last is begging the question in many ways, including the loyalty of church to the actual person (and his relatives) of the worshiped figure on the cross - what with various writings of last quarter of a century and discoveries of church dictating definite versions of the story and wiping out not only other versions but any trace of anyone who could possibly be a clue to the other versions, possibly the real ones at that, it is more than possible that such possessions had to be in hiding.
For instance many of faith find it troubling to read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code - and this is silly, since the only thing that DVC demolishes is the official version of the story, not the question of divinity. But the official version has been forced with burning alive of people daring to think independently and during centuries before Science established her reign as the alternative alter for intellectuals of west, and this divide has created havoc. Persecution of Galileo and others did not help.
..............................................
Even if the shroud were to be proven scientifically to be two thousand years old this does not prove whose it was, to begin with, since the crucifixion was not limited to one person but quite commonly used to punish all sorts of those that went against the occupation of the land by Rome. The shroud if it is two millennia old still could be anybody's, logically and scientifically speaking, unless there is more proof of the identity of the shrouded.
Such identity could come from DNA, in two ways - one, with living relatives, and second, with a known grave and body therein. Even this might be not conclusive enough evidence, the second that is, since such a tomb and grave ought to be known for all this time and not suddenly discovered now or disclosed without overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Living relatives, for which there is such overwhelming evidence pointed at although not conclusively established, what with the various persecutions through centuries by church and yet the new discoveries of various manuscripts in places unsuspected when they could and would have been destroyed, is another matter.
Quite possibly there are living relatives in spite of the persecution through centuries including holocaust and pogroms and general hounding of his people - for that precisely is what Jews are after all, his people and possibly descendants of relatives - but such a discovery and establishing of such a fact would be threatening to church and power of church just as much today as it has been since the crucifixion; so it is highly unlikely such evidence would come forth.
And so there goes any possibility of establishing the shroud through DNA even if carbon dating were to either confirm age of the shroud or to be bypassed for some convincing reason.
..................................................
Really, though - why this obsession with scientific proof of something that is clearly a matter of faith, of spiritual realm?
To begin with science has demolished the possibility of shroud being two thousand years old with carbon dating - but even if another one of the right age were to be found, so what? It could be of anyone crucified, of which there were plenty.
On the other hand the formation of the image seems to baffle science, but quite likely there were processes then known - possibly even today known except in west where inquisition wiped out knowledge - that might form such image either due to shroud being real or with some other process. The writers here go on (and on and on) discrediting any such thought, but really all that comes to is that they are discrediting it and something else still might be out there, not widely known yet, which is what the solution to the puzzle is. (Ok, so it is not oil and myrrah, how about this other spice?)
....................................................
And most of all - why does faith need scientific proof?
If the shroud - this shroud, or any other so declared - is not real, so what? If the resurrection was a story made up later, so what? If he were really married as a young male from a respectable family then ought to have been, and fathered a respectable number of progeny - so what? If there is divinity in someone, and it is innate rather than a human achievement, why should it be wiped out with something so natural to all life?
An artist, a scientist, a person of tremendous achievement in one or more realms can very well have a normal - or at least relatively normal - family life; and so could one with a spiritual facet. Why is it necessary for humans to determine that a divine being could not just as well do so?
.............................................................
There is of course another possibility - that crucifixions went on during inquisition, destroying any evidence of any sort that might threaten the power of church by methods other than burning people in public. The shroud might be real, and belong to another age, whether to a divine being or a mere human.
And then there is the widely known factor of the legend about his having traveled to India twice - one, his missing years between boyhood and sudden appearance shortly before crucifixion; second, post crucifixion, when he vanished - and there is the Himaalyan village that claims to have known, always, that he arrived and lived there, and there is the grave there that they claim to have known was his, known all these centuries.
............................................
Faith ought not to cling to scientific proof of something material, or possibility that someone after all did have children.
Spiritual realm is not enclosed in faith, whether it be blind faith dictated by some authority with power or faith given some crutches with a story and some relics.
Science has to do with an intellectual working out, of reality - and spiritual can only be higher, more inclusive of possibilities, than intellectual.
Faith is only one factor of spiritual realm, and not necessarily something to need crutches for.
(Wednesday, October 6, 2010)
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
The General's Daughter: by Nelson Demille.
No matter how much she achieves, she could never achieve one thing she desperately needed as a child, her father's approval and love. He is a high profile general and a selfish man in that his career, his standards, his name is everything. Perhaps a male heir would beat him at his own game, perhaps not, who knows! But a daughter has no chance whatsoever no matter how high an achiever in his own field, because she has other needs too, of love and admiration, and if she does not get them from him she could only go frigid and die within or do something that would inevitably blot the father's escutcheon, since respectable ways of a happy life with love do not match requirements of a life with high achieving career if you are a woman, not in west, certainly not in military.
So when she is dead in a position incompatible with her father's position, he must order an inquiry but makes his requirements clear, hush. And the setup of the inquiry is as suitable for the purpose, or so those that arranged it think.
Only, those that are given the job have more of a conscience and integrity. They will go to the end to discover truth, and will not hush it up. And truth is, however much others in the base hated her or whatever, for whatever reason, it is her own father that is responsible for her murder, in a more literal way than the slow torture of her life from childhood on.
.............................................
All that assuming the general is well meaning and honest, sincere at all times. But that is an assumption demolished cruelly for the daughter in her hour of most need of a father, when he turns out to be not merely less of a father than a marionette to be commanded by his paymasters, but far worse - he takes orders to hush her up, have no inquiry to ascertain who were participants in the gang rape she suffered from her own colleagues - which in US military happens often enough in individual setting for most women in military, but with just as little redress - but tells her to forget it ever happened and assures her it is for the best. How would he know any better? Women usually do not rape men, much less gang rape with all the repercussions involved, being made feel like trash being only one, and open laughter amongst colleagues around her for another.
Only, if he were a father - which he biologically was but never grew up enough to be, perhaps not even as much a human as a machine aiming at one thing, his own career - he ought to have known, and more. He ought to have felt all her pain and humiliation and outrage, and ought to have moved heaven and earth and hell too if necessary to get justice for her and punishment for the miscreants, beasts that raped her, only for being superior to all her colleagues. If he were human, if he were grown up enough to be a father more than in biological terms.
He however was far more concerned about his own career, although the issue was dressed up in terms he and others could dress up suitably so as to not seem like he exchanged his daughter's life for his own medals - interests of nation, military, future of women in military, whatever blah would sound right.
Only, this veil of secrecy, pretense of nothing happened, forgetting, did not save future for women in US military - on the contrary.
It was a subterfuge everyone could clearly see through, and from that day one it was not only his own daughter that was presented to all males who could and wished to rape her - it was any and every woman, in military or otherwise. For sake of medals for him and anonymity of rapists heart's desire, all women of world were officially sacrificed to the base ignoble males of military of US and elsewhere. It was regression at its worst.
And the daughter's sense of justice would not give up, either, just as much as her heart bleeding tears of blood for the father she had needed in her most dire moment continued to force him to look at her, to acknowledge it did happen.
...............................................................
Fortunately for her the investigating team did hear her - after her death. And they chose not to overlook and pretend and forget.
In this perhaps she was luckier than most women of the world, and not because she was the general's daughter.
So when she is dead in a position incompatible with her father's position, he must order an inquiry but makes his requirements clear, hush. And the setup of the inquiry is as suitable for the purpose, or so those that arranged it think.
Only, those that are given the job have more of a conscience and integrity. They will go to the end to discover truth, and will not hush it up. And truth is, however much others in the base hated her or whatever, for whatever reason, it is her own father that is responsible for her murder, in a more literal way than the slow torture of her life from childhood on.
.............................................
All that assuming the general is well meaning and honest, sincere at all times. But that is an assumption demolished cruelly for the daughter in her hour of most need of a father, when he turns out to be not merely less of a father than a marionette to be commanded by his paymasters, but far worse - he takes orders to hush her up, have no inquiry to ascertain who were participants in the gang rape she suffered from her own colleagues - which in US military happens often enough in individual setting for most women in military, but with just as little redress - but tells her to forget it ever happened and assures her it is for the best. How would he know any better? Women usually do not rape men, much less gang rape with all the repercussions involved, being made feel like trash being only one, and open laughter amongst colleagues around her for another.
Only, if he were a father - which he biologically was but never grew up enough to be, perhaps not even as much a human as a machine aiming at one thing, his own career - he ought to have known, and more. He ought to have felt all her pain and humiliation and outrage, and ought to have moved heaven and earth and hell too if necessary to get justice for her and punishment for the miscreants, beasts that raped her, only for being superior to all her colleagues. If he were human, if he were grown up enough to be a father more than in biological terms.
He however was far more concerned about his own career, although the issue was dressed up in terms he and others could dress up suitably so as to not seem like he exchanged his daughter's life for his own medals - interests of nation, military, future of women in military, whatever blah would sound right.
Only, this veil of secrecy, pretense of nothing happened, forgetting, did not save future for women in US military - on the contrary.
It was a subterfuge everyone could clearly see through, and from that day one it was not only his own daughter that was presented to all males who could and wished to rape her - it was any and every woman, in military or otherwise. For sake of medals for him and anonymity of rapists heart's desire, all women of world were officially sacrificed to the base ignoble males of military of US and elsewhere. It was regression at its worst.
And the daughter's sense of justice would not give up, either, just as much as her heart bleeding tears of blood for the father she had needed in her most dire moment continued to force him to look at her, to acknowledge it did happen.
...............................................................
Fortunately for her the investigating team did hear her - after her death. And they chose not to overlook and pretend and forget.
In this perhaps she was luckier than most women of the world, and not because she was the general's daughter.
The Letter And Other Stories: by W. Somerset Maugham.
Stories of Maugham are favourite for their wry wit along with a fresh look a tlife and virtues, or at least those of the virtues that often cause mayhem in lives and society, and more. He writes without blinkers about most affairs of any sort, be they of social or of hearts or of colonial empire.
His stories of south seas in particular deal with the colonial empire and its men and women, thrown in situations away from home and dealing with them in ways perhaps they would not at home due to social considerations - although that can at best be a guess - and hence a portrayal of human mind, heart and behaviour at its more original picture, of how people deal with life left to their own resources.
.................................................
The Letter:-
A murder of a paramour that happened in a moment of rage following frustration of losing the lover, gone wrong due to his having left a letter with his preferred mistress, who extorts the full value, which results in the husband coming to realise the wife was not an innocent pure woman assaulted by the loose character after all. They won't separate, not legally anyway, but their marriage and life together is now only a show for social reasons.
...................................................
His stories of south seas in particular deal with the colonial empire and its men and women, thrown in situations away from home and dealing with them in ways perhaps they would not at home due to social considerations - although that can at best be a guess - and hence a portrayal of human mind, heart and behaviour at its more original picture, of how people deal with life left to their own resources.
.................................................
The Letter:-
A murder of a paramour that happened in a moment of rage following frustration of losing the lover, gone wrong due to his having left a letter with his preferred mistress, who extorts the full value, which results in the husband coming to realise the wife was not an innocent pure woman assaulted by the loose character after all. They won't separate, not legally anyway, but their marriage and life together is now only a show for social reasons.
...................................................
The Complete Short Stories Of W. Somerset Maugham: by W. Somerset Maugham (Of course! who else!)
So many favourites in this - most people like Rain more than any other, at any rate it is the most discussed one. My personal favourite however is Virtue, an unforgettable one.
There are many, many others of course - Round Dozen for one, with amusing details of a much married man aggrieved by one of his wives turning him in.
Then there is the heartbreaking one of love and loss that I can't think of the name and it is a rare one for lack of cynical or otherwise bringing the reader down to earth sort of twist.
There is Letter with its murder of a paramour gone wrong due to his having left a letter with his mistress who extorts the full value,
There is the story about a widow who married a friend of her murdered husband and the daughter who looks like the second husband.
And there is another one with the Italian husband murdering his own father on suspicion of an affair between his father and his wife.
And all these are only what I can recall off hand after three decades or so.
I suppose the one of love and death with grief and heartbreak remains close to heart, along with Virtue that remains close to conviction, with total agreement with the protagonist by the time the story is over.
I wish I could remember if the story about the expensive wife becoming beautiful is here, or it is by another writer.
.................................................................................
The Round Dozen:-
About a much marrying man who was much aggrieved and felt a genuine sense of injury and grievance when one of his wives informed the law - not particularly handsome or accomplished in any way whatsoever, middle aged and lower class and not educated nor sophisticated nor well to do, he had nevertheless developed a talent for marrying successfully by his own definition. He found lonely older women of certain financial independence at holiday places and paid them attention, and post marriage gave them a good time until their money ran out. Then it was time to move on. To his chagrin, there was a small matter of having married only eleven times. Most of his wives were in fact willing to take him back.
After his leaving prison, the protagonist received a post card from him one day, and understood he had made his round dozen to his satisfaction after all.
.....................................................................................
Rain:-
This must have been terribly shocking to the hypocritical and pious while being nothing new to those without blinkers, when published first - 20th century was nothing if not one that shredded many such veils of pretension from established societies of west.
The story takes place on a voyage in Pacific where a woman of certain profession is having fun along with a few of males around - after all being alone most of their lives far away from home was tough on the guys, and an accommodating woman who was not merely paid goods but one with some spirit, some heart and joy, was a blessing.
Unfortunately for them there is not merely a usual contingent of the disapproving couples and other respectable members of society but also a preacher very sure and proud of himself, who goes after the woman with denunciation and promised hell fire to all that would consort with her. She is brought to abject surrender and is entirely dependent on him subsequently in her submission to a pious life henceforth. And the preacher is willing to sacrifice himself, to go to her at any hour of day or night she might need him, as his wife very proudly testifies to his selfless sacrifice of his own comforts.
The preacher meanwhile has dreams of hills of Nebraska (having read it so long ago I could be wrong about the name of the particular state) - and then one day the preacher is found dead, having committed suicide, while there is sound of phonograph and laughter and dancing from the room of the woman who was trying to reform, and a note of bitter victory.
She was sincere in her repentance and her attempt to reform, but the high minded preacher all too fallible and unaware of his own Achilles's heel shared with all life, if not more than a little hypocritical in his imposition of his will and his standards of virtue on all and sundry.
..............................................................
Virtue:-
We are begun on a gentle note with the story of a forty odd year old man, caustic and yet much loved but admittedly difficult, finding love and being completely smitten with his wife he considers himself fortunate to marry - he is the same man but now happy and his acerbic nature is taken now as wit due to his basking in his wife's love, a much loved woman in society, and their insistence on being put up together when invited is an amusing embarrassment for hostesses who lack room and are used to couples wishing to be put up rather apart.
And then there is an acquaintance of the writer (protagonist really, except one tends to assume he is the writer) from colonies in Malaya, a young man who needs to have some company and is introduced to the couple. Some time later, the couple is separated, and the wife is adamant in not returning to the husband, and he commits suicide.
The protagonist is called to interpret a letter from the young man in Malaya who has now returned, and informed that he is responsible for the love that the young man and the not so young wife (now widow) fell into since he introduced them. The letter is cautious and sympathetic about her loss but equivocal about her prospects of being able to come to Malaya to marry him.
The hostess, a friend of the protagonist makes the observation that it is up to him to make the young man realise his responsibility having gone into the love affair and caused the separation, which is when it becomes clear that the wife in love with another man had never crossed her limits being a virtuous woman.
"Virtue be damned" informs her the protagonist, since it had caused so much grief and a death of a loving husband - if only the wife had quietly had had her affair and finished it the man would still be alive.
And while to some pompous hypocrites it would be an opportunity to gasp and act shocked, today the reality of that statement is only too obvious, what with "the lack of commitment" of males being so huge a problem in US.
..........................................................
There are many, many others of course - Round Dozen for one, with amusing details of a much married man aggrieved by one of his wives turning him in.
Then there is the heartbreaking one of love and loss that I can't think of the name and it is a rare one for lack of cynical or otherwise bringing the reader down to earth sort of twist.
There is Letter with its murder of a paramour gone wrong due to his having left a letter with his mistress who extorts the full value,
There is the story about a widow who married a friend of her murdered husband and the daughter who looks like the second husband.
And there is another one with the Italian husband murdering his own father on suspicion of an affair between his father and his wife.
And all these are only what I can recall off hand after three decades or so.
I suppose the one of love and death with grief and heartbreak remains close to heart, along with Virtue that remains close to conviction, with total agreement with the protagonist by the time the story is over.
I wish I could remember if the story about the expensive wife becoming beautiful is here, or it is by another writer.
.................................................................................
The Round Dozen:-
About a much marrying man who was much aggrieved and felt a genuine sense of injury and grievance when one of his wives informed the law - not particularly handsome or accomplished in any way whatsoever, middle aged and lower class and not educated nor sophisticated nor well to do, he had nevertheless developed a talent for marrying successfully by his own definition. He found lonely older women of certain financial independence at holiday places and paid them attention, and post marriage gave them a good time until their money ran out. Then it was time to move on. To his chagrin, there was a small matter of having married only eleven times. Most of his wives were in fact willing to take him back.
After his leaving prison, the protagonist received a post card from him one day, and understood he had made his round dozen to his satisfaction after all.
.....................................................................................
Rain:-
This must have been terribly shocking to the hypocritical and pious while being nothing new to those without blinkers, when published first - 20th century was nothing if not one that shredded many such veils of pretension from established societies of west.
The story takes place on a voyage in Pacific where a woman of certain profession is having fun along with a few of males around - after all being alone most of their lives far away from home was tough on the guys, and an accommodating woman who was not merely paid goods but one with some spirit, some heart and joy, was a blessing.
Unfortunately for them there is not merely a usual contingent of the disapproving couples and other respectable members of society but also a preacher very sure and proud of himself, who goes after the woman with denunciation and promised hell fire to all that would consort with her. She is brought to abject surrender and is entirely dependent on him subsequently in her submission to a pious life henceforth. And the preacher is willing to sacrifice himself, to go to her at any hour of day or night she might need him, as his wife very proudly testifies to his selfless sacrifice of his own comforts.
The preacher meanwhile has dreams of hills of Nebraska (having read it so long ago I could be wrong about the name of the particular state) - and then one day the preacher is found dead, having committed suicide, while there is sound of phonograph and laughter and dancing from the room of the woman who was trying to reform, and a note of bitter victory.
She was sincere in her repentance and her attempt to reform, but the high minded preacher all too fallible and unaware of his own Achilles's heel shared with all life, if not more than a little hypocritical in his imposition of his will and his standards of virtue on all and sundry.
..............................................................
Virtue:-
We are begun on a gentle note with the story of a forty odd year old man, caustic and yet much loved but admittedly difficult, finding love and being completely smitten with his wife he considers himself fortunate to marry - he is the same man but now happy and his acerbic nature is taken now as wit due to his basking in his wife's love, a much loved woman in society, and their insistence on being put up together when invited is an amusing embarrassment for hostesses who lack room and are used to couples wishing to be put up rather apart.
And then there is an acquaintance of the writer (protagonist really, except one tends to assume he is the writer) from colonies in Malaya, a young man who needs to have some company and is introduced to the couple. Some time later, the couple is separated, and the wife is adamant in not returning to the husband, and he commits suicide.
The protagonist is called to interpret a letter from the young man in Malaya who has now returned, and informed that he is responsible for the love that the young man and the not so young wife (now widow) fell into since he introduced them. The letter is cautious and sympathetic about her loss but equivocal about her prospects of being able to come to Malaya to marry him.
The hostess, a friend of the protagonist makes the observation that it is up to him to make the young man realise his responsibility having gone into the love affair and caused the separation, which is when it becomes clear that the wife in love with another man had never crossed her limits being a virtuous woman.
"Virtue be damned" informs her the protagonist, since it had caused so much grief and a death of a loving husband - if only the wife had quietly had had her affair and finished it the man would still be alive.
And while to some pompous hypocrites it would be an opportunity to gasp and act shocked, today the reality of that statement is only too obvious, what with "the lack of commitment" of males being so huge a problem in US.
..........................................................
Rain and Other South Seas Stories: by William Somerset Maugham.
Rain:-
This must have been terribly shocking to the hypocritical and pious while being nothing new to those without blinkers, when published first - 20th century was nothing if not one that shredded many such veils of pretension from established societies of west.
The story takes place on a voyage in Pacific where a woman of certain profession is having fun along with a few of males around - after all being alone most of their lives far away from home was tough on the guys, and an accommodating woman who was not merely paid goods but one with some spirit, some heart and joy, was a blessing.
Unfortunately for them there is not merely a usual contingent of the disapproving couples and other respectable members of society but also a preacher very sure and proud of himself, who goes after the woman with denunciation and promised hell fire to all that would consort with her. She is brought to abject surrender and is entirely dependent on him subsequently in her submission to a pious life henceforth. And the preacher is willing to sacrifice himself, to go to her at any hour of day or night she might need him, as his wife very proudly testifies to his selfless sacrifice of his own comforts.
The preacher meanwhile has dreams of hills of Nebraska (having read it so long ago I could be wrong about the name of the particular state) - and then one day the preacher is found dead, having committed suicide, while there is sound of phonograph and laughter and dancing from the room of the woman who was trying to reform, and a note of bitter victory.
She was sincere in her repentance and her attempt to reform, but the high minded preacher all too fallible and unaware of his own Achilles's heel shared with all life, if not more than a little hypocritical in his imposition of his will and his standards of virtue on all and sundry.
..............................................................
Pool:-
About a young and self assured woman who bathed in the pool in the forest - and the story around that enchanting scenario.
.................................................................
MacIntosh:-
The elder man was the sort who would dress for dinner, in heat of Malaya, every single day - for years and decades that he spent alone in his bungalow on the plantation. The younger one is not quite from the same class, and is disapproved of by the elder. It takes time for him - the younger one - to realise it is not all about class and money, and that values imparted by upbringing is a vital part of it.
While not every upper class person brought up in cushy circumstances does always behave appropriately, the story is about values, essentially.
..................................................
This must have been terribly shocking to the hypocritical and pious while being nothing new to those without blinkers, when published first - 20th century was nothing if not one that shredded many such veils of pretension from established societies of west.
The story takes place on a voyage in Pacific where a woman of certain profession is having fun along with a few of males around - after all being alone most of their lives far away from home was tough on the guys, and an accommodating woman who was not merely paid goods but one with some spirit, some heart and joy, was a blessing.
Unfortunately for them there is not merely a usual contingent of the disapproving couples and other respectable members of society but also a preacher very sure and proud of himself, who goes after the woman with denunciation and promised hell fire to all that would consort with her. She is brought to abject surrender and is entirely dependent on him subsequently in her submission to a pious life henceforth. And the preacher is willing to sacrifice himself, to go to her at any hour of day or night she might need him, as his wife very proudly testifies to his selfless sacrifice of his own comforts.
The preacher meanwhile has dreams of hills of Nebraska (having read it so long ago I could be wrong about the name of the particular state) - and then one day the preacher is found dead, having committed suicide, while there is sound of phonograph and laughter and dancing from the room of the woman who was trying to reform, and a note of bitter victory.
She was sincere in her repentance and her attempt to reform, but the high minded preacher all too fallible and unaware of his own Achilles's heel shared with all life, if not more than a little hypocritical in his imposition of his will and his standards of virtue on all and sundry.
..............................................................
Pool:-
About a young and self assured woman who bathed in the pool in the forest - and the story around that enchanting scenario.
.................................................................
MacIntosh:-
The elder man was the sort who would dress for dinner, in heat of Malaya, every single day - for years and decades that he spent alone in his bungalow on the plantation. The younger one is not quite from the same class, and is disapproved of by the elder. It takes time for him - the younger one - to realise it is not all about class and money, and that values imparted by upbringing is a vital part of it.
While not every upper class person brought up in cushy circumstances does always behave appropriately, the story is about values, essentially.
..................................................
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Moon And Sixpence: by W. Somerset Maugham.
About Gaugin.
(12092008)
Unlike his other contemporaries Gauguin was not young when he took to painting but middle aged, with a family that he abandoned for the purpose of being free to paint. From there to his life in South Pacific islands where he spent his last years and did some of his most astounding paintings, his life story is the base of this book.
(13092010)
The story by Maugham goes into a crescendo after the artist leaves for Pacific islands, and the last part where the protagonist sees the ultimate artistic achievement of the artist in his final abode is unforgettable, with his realisation that those final works of the artist are neither possible to transport to elsewhere where they would create sensation and fetch tremendous price, nor would it be appropriate for the simple reason that they belong where they are, where they stem from and live, are a part of the life the artist found - and that he did this, intentionally, having realised as much, paying his tribute to to place where he found the greatest expression of his talent possible due to the place so full of life and peace.
Looking at some of the works of Gauguin after reading this brings one shivers, not in the smallest part due to the sheer beauty and life of the work.
(22092010)
(12092008)
Unlike his other contemporaries Gauguin was not young when he took to painting but middle aged, with a family that he abandoned for the purpose of being free to paint. From there to his life in South Pacific islands where he spent his last years and did some of his most astounding paintings, his life story is the base of this book.
(13092010)
The story by Maugham goes into a crescendo after the artist leaves for Pacific islands, and the last part where the protagonist sees the ultimate artistic achievement of the artist in his final abode is unforgettable, with his realisation that those final works of the artist are neither possible to transport to elsewhere where they would create sensation and fetch tremendous price, nor would it be appropriate for the simple reason that they belong where they are, where they stem from and live, are a part of the life the artist found - and that he did this, intentionally, having realised as much, paying his tribute to to place where he found the greatest expression of his talent possible due to the place so full of life and peace.
Looking at some of the works of Gauguin after reading this brings one shivers, not in the smallest part due to the sheer beauty and life of the work.
(22092010)
Of Human Bondage: by W. Somerset Maugham.
Love is not always sweet or fun, if it is indeed love, and not a pleasant social connection one has cranked up into thinking of as love so one might feel proper about going ahead into intimacy or marriage. Love can be heart wrenching and painful, and one can be helpless in love with someone one might not approve of, someone who despises one in spite of the lover's superiority and the inferiority of the object of love. Life and love do not follow convenient patterns of paths to happiness, one has to hack out one's path and climb up with difficulty.
This is somewhat a sense of what Maugham describes far more beautifully.
This is somewhat a sense of what Maugham describes far more beautifully.
Theatre: by W. Somerset Maugham.
Long ago, someone well rounded in education and interest in much of arts and other spheres, had once said reflectively, that of all the fine arts painting was comparatively most suitable for someone not interested in (or unable to) sell oneself; any performance art in giving one any success does take into account one's own looks, and while one might be extremely accomplished, if the audience does not like to see one that is the end of it, while anyone with good looks has his or her - especially her - talents ignored or disparaged by those that envy and therefore pretend to disparage beauty.
This is all the more so when age comes in, and even more for any woman, in most performing arts. As it is women in any field whatsoever, nowadays even in marriages in lands where divorces are easy and an everyday reality, tend to lose whatever interest their talent had generated and whatever level of respect they had earned due to their achievements, with age. Most judges are male or young, and respect for age, experience and wisdom is gone down during last century while the only criteria for respect seem to be looks apart from power of money or sheer physical power to hurt the other. Since women rarely are geared toward acquiring one, tend to lose if any of the other, and are seen merely as old even when extremely beautiful, age is seen as a tragedy without solution for women on the whole, with no roles and no regard for anyone over reproductive youth.
Today moreover arts are marketed through other media than personal viewing, and the only winner in this respect is music where it is no longer quite entirely a performing art, what with radio, recording and distribution of recorded music having made watching and listening in person more a luxury post success rather than a necessity before success.
But arts like dance and even acting do depend on looks, and it gets worse with age. Unless one has another sort of clout such as an underworld don approving of one and issuing orders to the contrary an actress or a dancer is pushed aside with age, and the bar is lowered all the time. In this respect thirty is the new eighty. Dance does give a performer another window in starting a school and training others, and thus imparting the skills perfected with age. Acting merely pushes an aged actress to do elderly roles and the bar is lowered on that where an actress playing a mother might in fact even be younger than her screen "son" in real life.
...............................................................
Maugham writes in this book about matters as they were in his time, a century ago. An actress with beauty and accomplishments and consequent fame, with a handsome theatre producer and director for a husband and a perfect son with a perfect life, and wonderful career due to very adoring audiences and long fame well into her forties, might in privacy realise she was not that young and be anxious about losing her youth, her popularity, her fame, her career, while it is still going strong and she is not yet history. And when an opportunity arrives to regain her youth in spirit - perhaps even in fact as a result of the affair - she takes it, and blooms with a return of youth and beauty. This is a story of such an affair and twists and turns.
Julia has more than one adoring fan, and a long standing friend who has always waited on side with proposals over the years and has comfortably settled into a companionship of dinners and other harmless activities together, giving her a glow of not only a perfect home life but also being desired and seen publicly to be so desired.
Now, at a moment of age creeping in, with producers etcetera looking at other - younger and newly established - actresses for the younger roles such as Juliet while making it clear she is intended to play Juliet's mother, she notices a very young man paying her attention, and in a moment of despondence with the loss of her popularity looming on horizon condescends to visit him in his lower middle class bachelor digs. It is as unexpected to her as to the reader when he makes advances without preamble or professing love and she - taken aback at this affront - ends up having sex for sheer lack of protest or defence.
She is surprised, pleased at this proof of her still being attractive, and this continues until she finds him in bed with another, new and very young aspiring actress. He in fact asks her to help the new woman, unaware of her having found about the affair. And he is sullen when confronted with the relationship.
Julia is in a quandary - if she says no, she might not only lose face in being seen as spiteful older woman but in fact might lose it all if the young man blabs about his having had sex with the older woman and her being interested while his dalliance was not serious. If she does help the younger woman, this is a sure step to her being sided to oblivion.
How she deals with this, and to the surprise of reader succeeds completely, having made fools of everyone concerned and regained her supremacy in her position as the reigning diva, is the story told delightfully by Maugham as usual.
Her art, her mastery of her art of acting, is half the reason for her being able to turn the tables and not only keep but regain all that is hers, to keep or discard as she would choose. Her sharp mind and connecting with her son is another factor, while her friend and his support being now discovered for its truth is yet another side story in this to bring a smile to the reader.
Entirely delightful.
This is all the more so when age comes in, and even more for any woman, in most performing arts. As it is women in any field whatsoever, nowadays even in marriages in lands where divorces are easy and an everyday reality, tend to lose whatever interest their talent had generated and whatever level of respect they had earned due to their achievements, with age. Most judges are male or young, and respect for age, experience and wisdom is gone down during last century while the only criteria for respect seem to be looks apart from power of money or sheer physical power to hurt the other. Since women rarely are geared toward acquiring one, tend to lose if any of the other, and are seen merely as old even when extremely beautiful, age is seen as a tragedy without solution for women on the whole, with no roles and no regard for anyone over reproductive youth.
Today moreover arts are marketed through other media than personal viewing, and the only winner in this respect is music where it is no longer quite entirely a performing art, what with radio, recording and distribution of recorded music having made watching and listening in person more a luxury post success rather than a necessity before success.
But arts like dance and even acting do depend on looks, and it gets worse with age. Unless one has another sort of clout such as an underworld don approving of one and issuing orders to the contrary an actress or a dancer is pushed aside with age, and the bar is lowered all the time. In this respect thirty is the new eighty. Dance does give a performer another window in starting a school and training others, and thus imparting the skills perfected with age. Acting merely pushes an aged actress to do elderly roles and the bar is lowered on that where an actress playing a mother might in fact even be younger than her screen "son" in real life.
...............................................................
Maugham writes in this book about matters as they were in his time, a century ago. An actress with beauty and accomplishments and consequent fame, with a handsome theatre producer and director for a husband and a perfect son with a perfect life, and wonderful career due to very adoring audiences and long fame well into her forties, might in privacy realise she was not that young and be anxious about losing her youth, her popularity, her fame, her career, while it is still going strong and she is not yet history. And when an opportunity arrives to regain her youth in spirit - perhaps even in fact as a result of the affair - she takes it, and blooms with a return of youth and beauty. This is a story of such an affair and twists and turns.
Julia has more than one adoring fan, and a long standing friend who has always waited on side with proposals over the years and has comfortably settled into a companionship of dinners and other harmless activities together, giving her a glow of not only a perfect home life but also being desired and seen publicly to be so desired.
Now, at a moment of age creeping in, with producers etcetera looking at other - younger and newly established - actresses for the younger roles such as Juliet while making it clear she is intended to play Juliet's mother, she notices a very young man paying her attention, and in a moment of despondence with the loss of her popularity looming on horizon condescends to visit him in his lower middle class bachelor digs. It is as unexpected to her as to the reader when he makes advances without preamble or professing love and she - taken aback at this affront - ends up having sex for sheer lack of protest or defence.
She is surprised, pleased at this proof of her still being attractive, and this continues until she finds him in bed with another, new and very young aspiring actress. He in fact asks her to help the new woman, unaware of her having found about the affair. And he is sullen when confronted with the relationship.
Julia is in a quandary - if she says no, she might not only lose face in being seen as spiteful older woman but in fact might lose it all if the young man blabs about his having had sex with the older woman and her being interested while his dalliance was not serious. If she does help the younger woman, this is a sure step to her being sided to oblivion.
How she deals with this, and to the surprise of reader succeeds completely, having made fools of everyone concerned and regained her supremacy in her position as the reigning diva, is the story told delightfully by Maugham as usual.
Her art, her mastery of her art of acting, is half the reason for her being able to turn the tables and not only keep but regain all that is hers, to keep or discard as she would choose. Her sharp mind and connecting with her son is another factor, while her friend and his support being now discovered for its truth is yet another side story in this to bring a smile to the reader.
Entirely delightful.
Plays - W. Somerset Maugham.
The play that remains in memory after over three decades is Constant Wife, although others are good as well - and it is a softer version of the later one named Women by Claire Booth Luce. There are other differences, such as Women has no men on stage, while men are equally present in The Constant Wife, but the key difference is in the delightful twists in Maugham's English version with its dry humour while Booth Luce's Women remains sanctimonious and absolves men, as US versions of English originals often do whether sitcoms like Man About The House (copied as Three is company) or more serious comedies such as Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister (anyone remember the boring, pompous President on US television? didn't last a season, and it was too much at that!) - thereby destroying much of the delight of the original.
Constant Wife is about a husband indulging in extramarital affair, and how the wife deals with it.
He has been having an affair, and she has been trying to keep a good front for sake of the home, the children, the society.
A friend returns from abroad with love for her still in his heart, and his eyes light up when she walks into the room. She takes him up on his offer to go away - and the husband confronts her.
How she smoothly irons those difficulties is the delight and the charm of this work, this writer. She intends to go, have the holiday, and return to her home - and cannot be threatened out of her well deserved vacation or her home either, the husband has lost the moral right and does not have the courage to be exposed to the public eye as the philanderer he has been and they have all known.
Constant Wife is about a husband indulging in extramarital affair, and how the wife deals with it.
He has been having an affair, and she has been trying to keep a good front for sake of the home, the children, the society.
A friend returns from abroad with love for her still in his heart, and his eyes light up when she walks into the room. She takes him up on his offer to go away - and the husband confronts her.
How she smoothly irons those difficulties is the delight and the charm of this work, this writer. She intends to go, have the holiday, and return to her home - and cannot be threatened out of her well deserved vacation or her home either, the husband has lost the moral right and does not have the courage to be exposed to the public eye as the philanderer he has been and they have all known.
Collected Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham.
So many favourites in this - most people like Rain more than any other, at any rate it is the most discussed one. My personal favourite however is Virtue, an unforgettable one.
There are many, many others of course - Round Dozen for one, with amusing details of a much married man aggrieved by one of his wives turning him in.
Then there is the heartbreaking one of love and loss that I can't think of the name and it is a rare one for lack of cynical or otherwise bringing the reader down to earth sort of twist.
There is Letter with its murder of a paramour gone wrong due to his having left a letter with his mistress who extorts the full value,
There is the story about a widow who married a friend of her murdered husband and the daughter who looks like the second husband.
And there is another one with the Italian husband murdering his own father on suspicion of an affair between his father and his wife.
And all these are only what I can recall off hand after three decades or so.
I suppose the one of love and death with grief and heartbreak remains close to heart, along with Virtue that remains close to conviction, with total agreement with the protagonist by the time the story is over.
I wish I could remember if the story about the expensive wife becoming beautiful is here, or it is by another writer.
.................................................................................
The Round Dozen:-
About a much marrying man who was much aggrieved and felt a genuine sense of injury and grievance when one of his wives informed the law - not particularly handsome or accomplished in any way whatsoever, middle aged and lower class and not educated nor sophisticated nor well to do, he had nevertheless developed a talent for marrying successfully by his own definition. He found lonely older women of certain financial independence at holiday places and paid them attention, and post marriage gave them a good time until their money ran out. Then it was time to move on. To his chagrin, there was a small matter of having married only eleven times. Most of his wives were in fact willing to take him back.
After his leaving prison, the protagonist received a post card from him one day, and understood he had made his round dozen to his satisfaction after all.
.....................................................................................
Rain:-
This must have been terribly shocking to the hypocritical and pious while being nothing new to those without blinkers, when published first - 20th century was nothing if not one that shredded many such veils of pretension from established societies of west.
The story takes place on a voyage in Pacific where a woman of certain profession is having fun along with a few of males around - after all being alone most of their lives far away from home was tough on the guys, and an accommodating woman who was not merely paid goods but one with some spirit, some heart and joy, was a blessing.
Unfortunately for them there is not merely a usual contingent of the disapproving couples and other respectable members of society but also a preacher very sure and proud of himself, who goes after the woman with denunciation and promised hell fire to all that would consort with her. She is brought to abject surrender and is entirely dependent on him subsequently in her submission to a pious life henceforth. And the preacher is willing to sacrifice himself, to go to her at any hour of day or night she might need him, as his wife very proudly testifies to his selfless sacrifice of his own comforts.
The preacher meanwhile has dreams of hills of Nebraska (having read it so long ago I could be wrong about the name of the particular state) - and then one day the preacher is found dead, having committed suicide, while there is sound of phonograph and laughter and dancing from the room of the woman who was trying to reform, and a note of bitter victory.
She was sincere in her repentance and her attempt to reform, but the high minded preacher all too fallible and unaware of his own Achilles's heel shared with all life, if not more than a little hypocritical in his imposition of his will and his standards of virtue on all and sundry.
..............................................................
Virtue:-
We are begun on a gentle note with the story of a forty odd year old man, caustic and yet much loved but admittedly difficult, finding love and being completely smitten with his wife he considers himself fortunate to marry - he is the same man but now happy and his acerbic nature is taken now as wit due to his basking in his wife's love, a much loved woman in society, and their insistence on being put up together when invited is an amusing embarrassment for hostesses who lack room and are used to couples wishing to be put up rather apart.
And then there is an acquaintance of the writer (protagonist really, except one tends to assume he is the writer) from colonies in Malaya, a young man who needs to have some company and is introduced to the couple. Some time later, the couple is separated, and the wife is adamant in not returning to the husband, and he commits suicide.
The protagonist is called to interpret a letter from the young man in Malaya who has now returned, and informed that he is responsible for the love that the young man and the not so young wife (now widow) fell into since he introduced them. The letter is cautious and sympathetic about her loss but equivocal about her prospects of being able to come to Malaya to marry him.
The hostess, a friend of the protagonist makes the observation that it is up to him to make the young man realise his responsibility having gone into the love affair and caused the separation, which is when it becomes clear that the wife in love with another man had never crossed her limits being a virtuous woman.
"Virtue be damned" informs her the protagonist, since it had caused so much grief and a death of a loving husband - if only the wife had quietly had had her affair and finished it the man would still be alive.
And while to some pompous hypocrites it would be an opportunity to gasp and act shocked, today the reality of that statement is only too obvious, what with "the lack of commitment" of males being so huge a problem in US.
..........................................................
There are many, many others of course - Round Dozen for one, with amusing details of a much married man aggrieved by one of his wives turning him in.
Then there is the heartbreaking one of love and loss that I can't think of the name and it is a rare one for lack of cynical or otherwise bringing the reader down to earth sort of twist.
There is Letter with its murder of a paramour gone wrong due to his having left a letter with his mistress who extorts the full value,
There is the story about a widow who married a friend of her murdered husband and the daughter who looks like the second husband.
And there is another one with the Italian husband murdering his own father on suspicion of an affair between his father and his wife.
And all these are only what I can recall off hand after three decades or so.
I suppose the one of love and death with grief and heartbreak remains close to heart, along with Virtue that remains close to conviction, with total agreement with the protagonist by the time the story is over.
I wish I could remember if the story about the expensive wife becoming beautiful is here, or it is by another writer.
.................................................................................
The Round Dozen:-
About a much marrying man who was much aggrieved and felt a genuine sense of injury and grievance when one of his wives informed the law - not particularly handsome or accomplished in any way whatsoever, middle aged and lower class and not educated nor sophisticated nor well to do, he had nevertheless developed a talent for marrying successfully by his own definition. He found lonely older women of certain financial independence at holiday places and paid them attention, and post marriage gave them a good time until their money ran out. Then it was time to move on. To his chagrin, there was a small matter of having married only eleven times. Most of his wives were in fact willing to take him back.
After his leaving prison, the protagonist received a post card from him one day, and understood he had made his round dozen to his satisfaction after all.
.....................................................................................
Rain:-
This must have been terribly shocking to the hypocritical and pious while being nothing new to those without blinkers, when published first - 20th century was nothing if not one that shredded many such veils of pretension from established societies of west.
The story takes place on a voyage in Pacific where a woman of certain profession is having fun along with a few of males around - after all being alone most of their lives far away from home was tough on the guys, and an accommodating woman who was not merely paid goods but one with some spirit, some heart and joy, was a blessing.
Unfortunately for them there is not merely a usual contingent of the disapproving couples and other respectable members of society but also a preacher very sure and proud of himself, who goes after the woman with denunciation and promised hell fire to all that would consort with her. She is brought to abject surrender and is entirely dependent on him subsequently in her submission to a pious life henceforth. And the preacher is willing to sacrifice himself, to go to her at any hour of day or night she might need him, as his wife very proudly testifies to his selfless sacrifice of his own comforts.
The preacher meanwhile has dreams of hills of Nebraska (having read it so long ago I could be wrong about the name of the particular state) - and then one day the preacher is found dead, having committed suicide, while there is sound of phonograph and laughter and dancing from the room of the woman who was trying to reform, and a note of bitter victory.
She was sincere in her repentance and her attempt to reform, but the high minded preacher all too fallible and unaware of his own Achilles's heel shared with all life, if not more than a little hypocritical in his imposition of his will and his standards of virtue on all and sundry.
..............................................................
Virtue:-
We are begun on a gentle note with the story of a forty odd year old man, caustic and yet much loved but admittedly difficult, finding love and being completely smitten with his wife he considers himself fortunate to marry - he is the same man but now happy and his acerbic nature is taken now as wit due to his basking in his wife's love, a much loved woman in society, and their insistence on being put up together when invited is an amusing embarrassment for hostesses who lack room and are used to couples wishing to be put up rather apart.
And then there is an acquaintance of the writer (protagonist really, except one tends to assume he is the writer) from colonies in Malaya, a young man who needs to have some company and is introduced to the couple. Some time later, the couple is separated, and the wife is adamant in not returning to the husband, and he commits suicide.
The protagonist is called to interpret a letter from the young man in Malaya who has now returned, and informed that he is responsible for the love that the young man and the not so young wife (now widow) fell into since he introduced them. The letter is cautious and sympathetic about her loss but equivocal about her prospects of being able to come to Malaya to marry him.
The hostess, a friend of the protagonist makes the observation that it is up to him to make the young man realise his responsibility having gone into the love affair and caused the separation, which is when it becomes clear that the wife in love with another man had never crossed her limits being a virtuous woman.
"Virtue be damned" informs her the protagonist, since it had caused so much grief and a death of a loving husband - if only the wife had quietly had had her affair and finished it the man would still be alive.
And while to some pompous hypocrites it would be an opportunity to gasp and act shocked, today the reality of that statement is only too obvious, what with "the lack of commitment" of males being so huge a problem in US.
..........................................................
Up At The Villa: by W, Somerset Maugham.
The young Englishwoman who is centre of attention of the English and locals alike in prewar Italy, with fascism established but yet unable to convey its horrors to the visiting or permanent resident English diaspora, has little money but excellent gentle bringing up and is ready to be a proper wife to a suitable candidate. With her lack of dowry however the number of eligible bachelors around her is as limited as the general interest in her by males not quite suitable for marriage (without loss of class, certainly, that is). There is one, though, a prize catch - one that is older but still in prime and a certainty for a very high post in colonial British empire. The town is abuzz with his arriving in town only to ask her hand in marriage.
The older woman who befriends the younger one understands the dilemma of the young one and relates a tale about her giving herself to a poor man from sheer exhilaration of being a dream beyond dream to him. This is an impossibly romantic fantasy, and there is no sane person around to advise the younger woman against it - it is only affordable when a woman has nothing to lose thereby.
And what with the black shadow of fascism spreading over Europe, there is no dearth of handsome young poor males who are fugitives in Italy from Austria, newly occupied. There are some that are not merely poor but desperate, fleeing in fear for life from the beast and nowhere to go, starving, and all too set to see in her an angel of mercy when she acts from a natural kindness in providing a meal with human kindness rather than acting aloof suitable to a class difference.
Soon the train of events gets out of hand and the young woman finds herself in tight spots, intrigues and adventures which taken together are entirely unsuitable for wife of a man with a high level position the Empire, especially with times being so difficult - Caesar's wife and so forth. He would have to give it up before he can accept, since he is a gentleman and moreover loves her since she was young girl, and the proposal is a word of a gentleman.
The whole dilemma of a poor young woman in upper class circumstances who needs to marry well and has no prospects, and nevertheless has not only a code of conduct to follow but a heart yearning for more than staid life in public eye, is dealt with delicacy.
Amazingly parallel to the world stage and Europe in particular, this unlikely tale portrays the dilemma and the travails and the release from the old order of the world and people enslaved in various very different forms in the story of the young woman personified - there is the staid old order with security and code of conduct and secure future in public sight, the yearning for more and travails and nightmare lived through that the world lived via wars and the young woman in her romance and horrors, and the release of the world and the woman from old secure order and a secure future into a liberation with uncertainties but freedom.
Amazing and unlikely parallel, because the sanctimonious are likely to see merely a sordid scandal in the story of the young woman - and yet, it is a parable for the history of the war years, releasing people into liberation and uncertain freedom.
The older woman who befriends the younger one understands the dilemma of the young one and relates a tale about her giving herself to a poor man from sheer exhilaration of being a dream beyond dream to him. This is an impossibly romantic fantasy, and there is no sane person around to advise the younger woman against it - it is only affordable when a woman has nothing to lose thereby.
And what with the black shadow of fascism spreading over Europe, there is no dearth of handsome young poor males who are fugitives in Italy from Austria, newly occupied. There are some that are not merely poor but desperate, fleeing in fear for life from the beast and nowhere to go, starving, and all too set to see in her an angel of mercy when she acts from a natural kindness in providing a meal with human kindness rather than acting aloof suitable to a class difference.
Soon the train of events gets out of hand and the young woman finds herself in tight spots, intrigues and adventures which taken together are entirely unsuitable for wife of a man with a high level position the Empire, especially with times being so difficult - Caesar's wife and so forth. He would have to give it up before he can accept, since he is a gentleman and moreover loves her since she was young girl, and the proposal is a word of a gentleman.
The whole dilemma of a poor young woman in upper class circumstances who needs to marry well and has no prospects, and nevertheless has not only a code of conduct to follow but a heart yearning for more than staid life in public eye, is dealt with delicacy.
Amazingly parallel to the world stage and Europe in particular, this unlikely tale portrays the dilemma and the travails and the release from the old order of the world and people enslaved in various very different forms in the story of the young woman personified - there is the staid old order with security and code of conduct and secure future in public sight, the yearning for more and travails and nightmare lived through that the world lived via wars and the young woman in her romance and horrors, and the release of the world and the woman from old secure order and a secure future into a liberation with uncertainties but freedom.
Amazing and unlikely parallel, because the sanctimonious are likely to see merely a sordid scandal in the story of the young woman - and yet, it is a parable for the history of the war years, releasing people into liberation and uncertain freedom.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Christmas Holiday: by W. Somerset Maugham.
One cannot help remembering a short story by Maugham where the father sends the boy to a holiday to see Paris and arms the young man with explicit instructions about how to be safe by clinging to virtue; the boy however does gamble and win tremendously, goes back with a young woman whom he sees steal his money and when she sleeps takes it from her hiding place - only to discover that he came away with her money as well; and tells his father that he did all right in spite of breaking every rule of his father's virtuous code of conduct. The story is told by the father to the protagonist / writer with a worry about the boy going on believing his father was wrong and virtues and code of conduct means nothing, and the father is worried about the boy's future. The writer / protagonist cannot help laughing.
The similarity of this theme makes one wonder if the writer did not think of both the versions at the same time and elaborate on the story with serious twist for a novel while keeping the wry wit that was his forte for the short stories where it belonged.
The similarity of this theme makes one wonder if the writer did not think of both the versions at the same time and elaborate on the story with serious twist for a novel while keeping the wry wit that was his forte for the short stories where it belonged.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
The Eleventh Commandment: by Jeffrey Archer.
About the unwritten eleventh commandment which is generally followed as most important for politics and politicians, diplomats etcetera - thou shalt not get caught - while going on about business of assassinations in other countries, toppling their governments and generally keeping them unsettled, since fair means are difficult to fight with and wiping another's line easier than drawing a longer one for oneself.
Honour Among Thieves: by Jeffrey Archer.
A plot cooked by Saddam Hussein to steal the constitution of US and bring it to Baghdad and then burn it on television for the whole world to see, which almost succeeds but is foiled neatly by vigilant US men and the honour among thieves that won't let such an atrocity take place. Thrilling, horror, delightful in the foiling of the whole mission of insult to US, and good read.
First Among Equals: by Jeffrey Archer.
A look in political system of UK (sans royalty) via men who aspire to serve their country through working for people, with various major parties - Labour, Tory, and later on the Liberals - and the parliamentary system of the nation.
Other nations have adopted the system with one perhaps major difference - the shadow cabinet. It is a powerful tool to keep the ruling party on their tows with requirements of sharing papers and decisions, while the opposition is not free to topple the government and has in fact to assume responsibility of the nation as soon as such an event occurs.
Story of various men who rise from young aspirants to more powerful roles in their parties, their constituencies, with the family and private life of each playing a considerable role as do their personal styles and charisma. Very skillfully written and very enjoyable, as as many many of works of Archer.
Other nations have adopted the system with one perhaps major difference - the shadow cabinet. It is a powerful tool to keep the ruling party on their tows with requirements of sharing papers and decisions, while the opposition is not free to topple the government and has in fact to assume responsibility of the nation as soon as such an event occurs.
Story of various men who rise from young aspirants to more powerful roles in their parties, their constituencies, with the family and private life of each playing a considerable role as do their personal styles and charisma. Very skillfully written and very enjoyable, as as many many of works of Archer.
A Prison Diary: Book 3: Heaven: by Jeffrey Archer
The cover photo with a patch of bright sky behind bars high above in the cell shown here is probably from the last cell he occupied in the place he surprisingly names Heaven (wouldn't earth be more appropriate, with Heaven reserved for home and family and freedom?) in this last part of his prison diaries, North Sea Camp, for one day.
That itself is a shocking turn of events stamping forever the British justice and other bureaucratic systems with a blot on the escutcheon, where individuals might be decent on the whole but bullied or otherwise persuaded into officially behaving otherwise, depending on their own bent of mind and heart or on their own individual circumstances. Anyone threatened with a loss of job or pension might do something rather unfair to someone however unwillingly.
And the fact of Archer being treated with unfair persecution, overblown noise about a lie and general misuse of law to punish someone for a completely different reason has been obvious from the start of the affair, even to the lay members of public reading about it all in news. Drunken drivers getting less sentence is just one example of this in evidence, as is the protective treatment of sex offenders in prison including paedophiles. And there is more.
Other than that the book is as others in the series full of interesting stories about how and why people, specifically men, end up in prison, and moreover might be decent apart from their specific crimes. The most horrendous crimes according to prisoners is sex crimes, and paedophiles need not only segregation but a cover story to be able to stay alive in prisons full of murderers. Going by the stories from just four prisons Archer gives this gradation is truly more along what should be put in place in dealing justice.
Strangely enough while prisoners including burglars and murderers see this as well as any general family people, most legal systems don't. Another one they - the legal systems - don't see the danger really of is drivers who drink, more than once being involved in accidents. These ought to be dealt with on par with potential manslaughter and illegal substance users, but in reality get a mere few weeks and have no remorse whatsoever.
His - Archer's - observations about how to prevent spread of intoxicants (I don't see why drugs should be used as a term both for therapeutic medicines and illegal unnecessary substances as well) and how to stop people going from comparatively mild and less harmful stuff like marijuana (much less harmful than tobacco or alcohol, much less addictive, as shown by its prevalent usage in so called less developed nations without any accompanying increase in crime) to seriously harmful substances like heroin, cocaine, and so forth, are very worth paying attention to - although given the circumstances of his persecution by authorities in Britain I would not be surprised if his recommendations are put in place by nations other than Britain first, even US. After all LA was almost the first place to make smoking illegal in public.
There are some human interest, even hilarious stories, about prisoners desperate to go to prison either from being more safe or for wanting to be with someone. There are observations about the general medical system being low compared to that in prison (one gets to see the doctor within an hour without appointment, and is taken to hospital as soon as needed).
And then there is the usual mistake, probably from Archer's need to protect the real names and complete indifference about providing another genuine one.
Patels being Sikh is about as likely as Archer being Romanov prince in entirely male lineage, less in fact. Or a Dubois being entirely Siberian, or a Smith being of Turkish ancestry in entirety.
That itself is a shocking turn of events stamping forever the British justice and other bureaucratic systems with a blot on the escutcheon, where individuals might be decent on the whole but bullied or otherwise persuaded into officially behaving otherwise, depending on their own bent of mind and heart or on their own individual circumstances. Anyone threatened with a loss of job or pension might do something rather unfair to someone however unwillingly.
And the fact of Archer being treated with unfair persecution, overblown noise about a lie and general misuse of law to punish someone for a completely different reason has been obvious from the start of the affair, even to the lay members of public reading about it all in news. Drunken drivers getting less sentence is just one example of this in evidence, as is the protective treatment of sex offenders in prison including paedophiles. And there is more.
Other than that the book is as others in the series full of interesting stories about how and why people, specifically men, end up in prison, and moreover might be decent apart from their specific crimes. The most horrendous crimes according to prisoners is sex crimes, and paedophiles need not only segregation but a cover story to be able to stay alive in prisons full of murderers. Going by the stories from just four prisons Archer gives this gradation is truly more along what should be put in place in dealing justice.
Strangely enough while prisoners including burglars and murderers see this as well as any general family people, most legal systems don't. Another one they - the legal systems - don't see the danger really of is drivers who drink, more than once being involved in accidents. These ought to be dealt with on par with potential manslaughter and illegal substance users, but in reality get a mere few weeks and have no remorse whatsoever.
His - Archer's - observations about how to prevent spread of intoxicants (I don't see why drugs should be used as a term both for therapeutic medicines and illegal unnecessary substances as well) and how to stop people going from comparatively mild and less harmful stuff like marijuana (much less harmful than tobacco or alcohol, much less addictive, as shown by its prevalent usage in so called less developed nations without any accompanying increase in crime) to seriously harmful substances like heroin, cocaine, and so forth, are very worth paying attention to - although given the circumstances of his persecution by authorities in Britain I would not be surprised if his recommendations are put in place by nations other than Britain first, even US. After all LA was almost the first place to make smoking illegal in public.
There are some human interest, even hilarious stories, about prisoners desperate to go to prison either from being more safe or for wanting to be with someone. There are observations about the general medical system being low compared to that in prison (one gets to see the doctor within an hour without appointment, and is taken to hospital as soon as needed).
And then there is the usual mistake, probably from Archer's need to protect the real names and complete indifference about providing another genuine one.
Patels being Sikh is about as likely as Archer being Romanov prince in entirely male lineage, less in fact. Or a Dubois being entirely Siberian, or a Smith being of Turkish ancestry in entirety.
Friday, September 17, 2010
A Man For All Seasons: by Robert Bolt.
A man who would be careful in treading the narrow path, serving his king and his faith, with careful steps to preserve his loyalty to one and his integrity of self and soul in another realm - and yet must be hounded out due to political needs of the day, with all means used and none barred. One of my most favourite tales - and it reaches its pinnacle when the wise lawyer is debating his son-in-law about fighting those that oppose truth, and explains why "cutting down every tree in the forest that the devil might hide behind" is a bad idea.
Thomas More is known for much wisdom and scholarly achievement, during a difficult time for his nation. He did his best in keeping loyalty to his sovereign and to his faith, and if he was torn it was perhaps the fault of a demand rather than the one who is expected to fulfill it. State and faith ought never to have conflicts, and subsequent (although not immediate) Regina Queen Elizabeth was largely able to see to it that a nation is forged and made strong with conflicts of this nature put behind it.
Thus A Man For All Seasons by Robert Bolt.
And yet - Bolt conveniently leaves out a few details, such as the men who were burnt alive by More while he was in office working for the church and the king both, when he knew fully well the troubled relationship between the two and the fact of the king's growing disenchantment with the politics of Rome and his need to strike free, and his increasing interest in reading on Protestant or otherwise free thinking views. The crime of those burnt alive by More? Thinking, and writing, without permission of Rome.
That Bolt leaves this out says as much for him as for the strong lobby attempting to impose domination of Rome, pretty much like the threatening groups of another religion that stems from the same roots and is younger, attempting to take over the whole world by threatening death to all that do not convert.
Thomas More is known for much wisdom and scholarly achievement, during a difficult time for his nation. He did his best in keeping loyalty to his sovereign and to his faith, and if he was torn it was perhaps the fault of a demand rather than the one who is expected to fulfill it. State and faith ought never to have conflicts, and subsequent (although not immediate) Regina Queen Elizabeth was largely able to see to it that a nation is forged and made strong with conflicts of this nature put behind it.
Thus A Man For All Seasons by Robert Bolt.
And yet - Bolt conveniently leaves out a few details, such as the men who were burnt alive by More while he was in office working for the church and the king both, when he knew fully well the troubled relationship between the two and the fact of the king's growing disenchantment with the politics of Rome and his need to strike free, and his increasing interest in reading on Protestant or otherwise free thinking views. The crime of those burnt alive by More? Thinking, and writing, without permission of Rome.
That Bolt leaves this out says as much for him as for the strong lobby attempting to impose domination of Rome, pretty much like the threatening groups of another religion that stems from the same roots and is younger, attempting to take over the whole world by threatening death to all that do not convert.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Prison Diary part II: Purgatory: by Jeffrey Archer.
Archer was able to buy a beautiful emerald for his very worthy wife as a Christmas gift, even as he was in prison - but if he is able to figure out why he is victimised, and who are the powers really behind it, he is not saying. He is a citizen of UK, and as such won't be able to articulate the truth if he has any suspicions of where it all came from. But it was all clear even as it began, the whole smear campaign that unbelievably blew into this kangaroo court case and the incarceration.
Baroness Nicholson lied about his misdeal with red cross funds for Kurds, not for a frolic without a fear of reprieve but due to perhaps orders from above, perhaps merely a nudge that she was happy to oblige for her own satisfaction. Potts, who knows if he was pressured, blackmailed, or none of the above, merely presented a case of preservation of some authorities higher above in the nation.
Fact is he was and is victimised for being a friend of Diana, the Princess of Wales (one would say late if it were not really that it seems so unreal, even apart from the fact that there won't be another until William is married and PoW), the Queen of Hearts.
He is getting off much lighter at that, compared to Charles Spencer, the brother of Diana - he had his children taken away from him by the divorce that came after death of Diana, and who can say if that was a natural course of events or if Lady Spencer was really persuaded by those that disapproved of Charles telling it like it is and being applauded at the funeral? If she really was persuaded, moreover, who knows how it was done, with threats, or blackmail?
Fact is Charles Spencer is now alone, having lost his family for being the only relative of Diana to be able to defend her, to speak of the beautiful woman with glowing terms unlike the disparagement fashionable in highbrow circles along with a excusing of her being supplanted with a mistress by her husband with a "she was not intellectual enough" (hello, was or is her husband a Nobel prize contender in science? Even a postgraduate degree holder from Oxbridge? A first, perhaps?) - and who knows, perhaps Charles Spencer got off lightly at that, due to his wife leaving her and him losing his family; the option might have been an accident to him, too, in yet another foreign land. Or even right in England.
English history after all is replete with such disposing off of inconvenient persona.
Baroness Nicholson lied about his misdeal with red cross funds for Kurds, not for a frolic without a fear of reprieve but due to perhaps orders from above, perhaps merely a nudge that she was happy to oblige for her own satisfaction. Potts, who knows if he was pressured, blackmailed, or none of the above, merely presented a case of preservation of some authorities higher above in the nation.
Fact is he was and is victimised for being a friend of Diana, the Princess of Wales (one would say late if it were not really that it seems so unreal, even apart from the fact that there won't be another until William is married and PoW), the Queen of Hearts.
He is getting off much lighter at that, compared to Charles Spencer, the brother of Diana - he had his children taken away from him by the divorce that came after death of Diana, and who can say if that was a natural course of events or if Lady Spencer was really persuaded by those that disapproved of Charles telling it like it is and being applauded at the funeral? If she really was persuaded, moreover, who knows how it was done, with threats, or blackmail?
Fact is Charles Spencer is now alone, having lost his family for being the only relative of Diana to be able to defend her, to speak of the beautiful woman with glowing terms unlike the disparagement fashionable in highbrow circles along with a excusing of her being supplanted with a mistress by her husband with a "she was not intellectual enough" (hello, was or is her husband a Nobel prize contender in science? Even a postgraduate degree holder from Oxbridge? A first, perhaps?) - and who knows, perhaps Charles Spencer got off lightly at that, due to his wife leaving her and him losing his family; the option might have been an accident to him, too, in yet another foreign land. Or even right in England.
English history after all is replete with such disposing off of inconvenient persona.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Absolute Power: by David Baldacci.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And who has more power than the holder of the most powerful office in the most powerful nation in the world?
........................................................
A meticulously good artist, copying paintings at a museum, is also a thief that is an artist in this profession - when he decides to burgle a very wealthy man's home in DC area, he has done his meticulously good research and knows the house well, from architectural plans to various settings.
What he did not know before saves his life that night - that the vault for jewels in the bedroom separated from the main area by a glass wall is a viewing room, with the glass wall being a one way mirror.
He is in the vault when he is trapped by entrance of the mistress of the house, who happens to be returning from a rendezvous with her current lover, the US president. Only, things don't go as romantically as she was expecting. The lover is a power freak, insecure man, who slaps her around for his cheap thrills and begins to hurt her seriously when in fury she slaps him back. She fights for her life as he is strangling her, uses a letter opener and he cries out in pain. His security crew rushes in and shoot to kill, then proceed to clean up the place of traces of their visit.
All this while the artist thief has been watching, transfixed in horror, unable to move lest he reveal himself. When they leave, he comes out, discovers that the letter opener has been left behind and collects it, along with the diamond necklace lying on the night stand worn by the murdered woman that night, and manages to escape unidentified by the security personnel who have returned to collect the letter opener they had forgotten in their confusion.
They now know there is a thief who knows everything, they do not know who he is or how he looks. He has a fighting chance for survival, and they have all the state machinery to hunt him down and destroy him. And they are not above using the machinery, certainly not above killing anyone at all to save their own hides. Anyone however innocent.
He has a daughter, who happens to be a public prosecutor, and as an extra help from powers above the police chief assigned to the case happens to be honest, which is all that the now persecuted thief has on his side. The daughter is unaware of how much the father has watched her through the years he kept apart due to a need to protect her, and there is nothing to save her from the now persecuting murderers - except him.
The story weaves between the thief being prudent and horrified to coming to a steely determination to not let them get away with it (and achieving his end superbly with facing the grieving widower), as he - the thief - goes from being transfixed in horror, prudently fleeing and watching in disgust as the president lies on television, changing his decision to flee and warning the killers right in their home turf, meeting his daughter in spite of all the dangers he knows he faces and being well prepared while managing to remain alive with some luck and managing to meet her and let her know precisely what is going on. He manages to protect her, to punish the miscreants, and in the process incidentally builds back the relationship with his daughter.
And who has more power than the holder of the most powerful office in the most powerful nation in the world?
........................................................
A meticulously good artist, copying paintings at a museum, is also a thief that is an artist in this profession - when he decides to burgle a very wealthy man's home in DC area, he has done his meticulously good research and knows the house well, from architectural plans to various settings.
What he did not know before saves his life that night - that the vault for jewels in the bedroom separated from the main area by a glass wall is a viewing room, with the glass wall being a one way mirror.
He is in the vault when he is trapped by entrance of the mistress of the house, who happens to be returning from a rendezvous with her current lover, the US president. Only, things don't go as romantically as she was expecting. The lover is a power freak, insecure man, who slaps her around for his cheap thrills and begins to hurt her seriously when in fury she slaps him back. She fights for her life as he is strangling her, uses a letter opener and he cries out in pain. His security crew rushes in and shoot to kill, then proceed to clean up the place of traces of their visit.
All this while the artist thief has been watching, transfixed in horror, unable to move lest he reveal himself. When they leave, he comes out, discovers that the letter opener has been left behind and collects it, along with the diamond necklace lying on the night stand worn by the murdered woman that night, and manages to escape unidentified by the security personnel who have returned to collect the letter opener they had forgotten in their confusion.
They now know there is a thief who knows everything, they do not know who he is or how he looks. He has a fighting chance for survival, and they have all the state machinery to hunt him down and destroy him. And they are not above using the machinery, certainly not above killing anyone at all to save their own hides. Anyone however innocent.
He has a daughter, who happens to be a public prosecutor, and as an extra help from powers above the police chief assigned to the case happens to be honest, which is all that the now persecuted thief has on his side. The daughter is unaware of how much the father has watched her through the years he kept apart due to a need to protect her, and there is nothing to save her from the now persecuting murderers - except him.
The story weaves between the thief being prudent and horrified to coming to a steely determination to not let them get away with it (and achieving his end superbly with facing the grieving widower), as he - the thief - goes from being transfixed in horror, prudently fleeing and watching in disgust as the president lies on television, changing his decision to flee and warning the killers right in their home turf, meeting his daughter in spite of all the dangers he knows he faces and being well prepared while managing to remain alive with some luck and managing to meet her and let her know precisely what is going on. He manages to protect her, to punish the miscreants, and in the process incidentally builds back the relationship with his daughter.
The General's Daughter: by Nelson Demille.
No matter how much she achieves, she could never achieve one thing she desperately needed as a child, her father's approval and love. He is a high profile general and a selfish man in that his career, his standards, his name is everything. Perhaps a male heir would beat him at his own game, perhaps not, who knows! But a daughter has no chance whatsoever no matter how high an achiever in his own field, because she has other needs too, of love and admiration, and if she does not get them from him she could only go frigid and die within or do something that would inevitably blot the father's escutcheon, since respectable ways of a happy life with love do not match requirements of a life with high achieving career if you are a woman, not in west, certainly not in military.
So when she is dead in a position incompatible with her father's position, he must order an inquiry but makes his requirements clear, hush. And the setup of the inquiry is as suitable for the purpose, or so those that arranged it think.
Only, those that are given the job have more of a conscience and integrity. They will go to the end to discover truth, and will not hush it up. And truth is, however much others in the base hated her or whatever, for whatever reason, it is her own father that is responsible for her murder, in a more literal way than the slow torture of her life from childhood on.
So when she is dead in a position incompatible with her father's position, he must order an inquiry but makes his requirements clear, hush. And the setup of the inquiry is as suitable for the purpose, or so those that arranged it think.
Only, those that are given the job have more of a conscience and integrity. They will go to the end to discover truth, and will not hush it up. And truth is, however much others in the base hated her or whatever, for whatever reason, it is her own father that is responsible for her murder, in a more literal way than the slow torture of her life from childhood on.
Eye Of The Needle: by Ken Follett.
Future of civilisation and humanity depended on Allies winning, and before Normandy invasion it looked even chance - albeit not as bleak with need of fortitude as when Britain was going it alone in face of impossible odds - so all the more it was vital the invasion succeed. Allies had brought about an elaborate deception with Patton in East Anglia to give the impression that the invasion would be spearheaded from there at Calais, with shortest distance from England to France to Germany involved, and Patton being the star of various battles until then.
What if the deception was discovered, what if there was a spy, a needle in a haystack, a German who looked and spoke as an upper class Englishman and no one had a clue to his truth, and what if such a needle could get to a submarine in sea off English coast with a launch and alert them that East Anglia was a ruse after all?
If indeed it all happened, we are lucky the lonely woman who was falling for the stranger she and her husband saved after his launch crashed in a strong gale off their island was not blinded by love or even blinkered - for when she discovered her handicapped husband's death, and realised moreover that he had not fallen off a cliff after all but was murdered by the stranger, she did not hesitate in using all her mind and other faculties in trying to overcome whatever the stranger's aim in all this.
She did not know even then - although her husband had been suspicious to begin with and found out, which is why he was murdered - that it was not about jealousy but about the war and espionage. When she did discover that, she managed to stop him from giving it away. How, makes a very worth acquainting oneself with sort of a thriller. And if any of it is true history in fact, she deserves a supreme award of recognition and honour.
What if the deception was discovered, what if there was a spy, a needle in a haystack, a German who looked and spoke as an upper class Englishman and no one had a clue to his truth, and what if such a needle could get to a submarine in sea off English coast with a launch and alert them that East Anglia was a ruse after all?
If indeed it all happened, we are lucky the lonely woman who was falling for the stranger she and her husband saved after his launch crashed in a strong gale off their island was not blinded by love or even blinkered - for when she discovered her handicapped husband's death, and realised moreover that he had not fallen off a cliff after all but was murdered by the stranger, she did not hesitate in using all her mind and other faculties in trying to overcome whatever the stranger's aim in all this.
She did not know even then - although her husband had been suspicious to begin with and found out, which is why he was murdered - that it was not about jealousy but about the war and espionage. When she did discover that, she managed to stop him from giving it away. How, makes a very worth acquainting oneself with sort of a thriller. And if any of it is true history in fact, she deserves a supreme award of recognition and honour.
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