What is friendship, anyway? What makes a friend? I started thinking about this question when I read the "Friendship" chapter in C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves, a couple months ago. I was pretty sure his definition was wrong, but I realized that I wasn't quite sure what I thought friendship was. I think I've got it now.
Of course, I can only speak for my friendships, not having great experience with anybody else's. So if this doesn't fit you, I'm sorry write your own definition. Lewis said his definition was only about male friendship (the whole chapter is actually pretty sexist, even for 1960), so maybe mine is for female friendship. And of course it is possible that I am, once again, writing about things I am unqualified to explain.
Lewis asserts that true friendship occurs only when two people discover something they are both passionate about, and that all real friendship must therefore be "about" something. I was slightly offended; by this definition all my dearest friends to whom I am not actually related are demoted to mere "companions," a lesser relationship than real "friends." My closest friend and I have nothing in common. We are complete opposites: she is popular, outgoing, athletic, on the good side of crazy and loves to party and date. I am none of those things, loving instead books, poetry, and solitude. We do have some things in common - we both like learning, boys, the gospel and chocolate - but we also have them in common with about 95% of the female population at BYU. According to Lewis, such different people can't be friends, and yet we are. His definition must be at least incomplete.
So what else is there - what is friendship? It's a choice. My friend is my friend because I love her. Why do I love her? Because she's my friend. Circular, yes, but so is friendship. When people choose to love each other, to watch out for and care about and cry with each other, they become friends. Nothing else is necessary, only love.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
Simile #1 in POS Major
Note: not its actual title, but I kind of had to, didn't I? Also, more posts on the way soon, because I feel bad about disappearing for so long and not fulfilling my moral obligation.
Like waterfalls
rushing, pouring, giving
watering living
laughing, dancing, surging
flowing
continuing
Like trumpets
bold and brassy
clarion clear
harmonic, lovely, sweet
exhilarating
annunciatory
Like wings
flight
heaven
joy
Like waterfalls
rushing, pouring, giving
watering living
laughing, dancing, surging
flowing
continuing
Like trumpets
bold and brassy
clarion clear
harmonic, lovely, sweet
exhilarating
annunciatory
Like wings
flight
heaven
joy
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Per
Hi. Here's your story. Sorry it's so late, I expected to be done with it a week ago. So you better like it because it was hard. And you're not getting another one until at least Christmas. Despite all the work it took, I'm not sure if I like it or not. I suspect this happens because I will insist on writing about things I know almost nothing about. And in ways I'm not very good at. Thoughts?
This was inspired in part by a story by Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party. And in part by a poem by Susan Elizabeth Howe. But it's not really like either of those.
Per is a Latin word meaning through. I'm not sure why it's the title of this story. It just is.
__________
Saturday, August 27, 2011
A Report
So, everyone, looks like I'm back at college for the year. I guess that means it's time to report on my summer reading. To my eternal shame, I did not manage to read all of the books on my reading list, despite having a job that just barely qualifies as part-time. I did, however, read most of them, and they will all get read eventually. In fact, I fully expect them all to be read by the beginning of next summer, just in time to start a new reading list. And I did read many many books that weren't on the list, so that should count for something, right?
Also I wanted to tell you that I am working on a story, and you should have it at least by the beginning of next week. So don't despair. However, if, in the coming two semesters, a week has passed without a blog post, please forgive me. It probably means I procrastinated an important paper; I trust you can sympathize.
Also I wanted to tell you that I am working on a story, and you should have it at least by the beginning of next week. So don't despair. However, if, in the coming two semesters, a week has passed without a blog post, please forgive me. It probably means I procrastinated an important paper; I trust you can sympathize.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
The Ocean
I didn't say so last post, but I feel really, really bad about neglecting this blog so long, especially when I don't even have the excuse of busyness. So to make up for it, I give you two posts in one day. AND, as further apology, I will try very hard to get you a story by next week. That's how sorry I am.
The ocean has always frightened me a little.
Maybe that's why I'm so attracted to it -
a love affair that's less than unrequited,
a fascination I can't quite explain.
Perhaps because it's so mysterious,
unknown, so deep and strange and unexplored.
We know it's very beautiful, a world
as full of life as ours, but we know too
that deeper down is only terrible darkness.
So powerful, the waves, the tides - a force
unstoppable, inexorable, immense.
The sea is merciless, it's true, and yet
so filled with lovely secrets whispered soft
and only fuzzily caught in shell-like ears.
I splash at the edge, in fun, maybe imagine
a life beneath the water's glittering face,
look longingly out to sea and the setting sun,
and tell myself I'm not afraid at all.
But if I were someday to take the plunge, I would
calm my racing heart, look up, and smile,
open my eyes, and dive.
The ocean has always frightened me a little.
Maybe that's why I'm so attracted to it -
a love affair that's less than unrequited,
a fascination I can't quite explain.
Perhaps because it's so mysterious,
unknown, so deep and strange and unexplored.
We know it's very beautiful, a world
as full of life as ours, but we know too
that deeper down is only terrible darkness.
So powerful, the waves, the tides - a force
unstoppable, inexorable, immense.
The sea is merciless, it's true, and yet
so filled with lovely secrets whispered soft
and only fuzzily caught in shell-like ears.
I splash at the edge, in fun, maybe imagine
a life beneath the water's glittering face,
look longingly out to sea and the setting sun,
and tell myself I'm not afraid at all.
But if I were someday to take the plunge, I would
calm my racing heart, look up, and smile,
open my eyes, and dive.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
The Brothers Karamazov
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Nine hundred and eighty-five pages. Sixty-six chapters. I-don't-know-how-many characters. Completely wonderful. (I recently realized that I will never review a book I don't recommend. When I dislike a book, either there's not much to say about it, or I'm ashamed to admit I read it.) If my review is a bit confusing because I didn't put in enough stuff about the plot, I apologize, but it really is one of those books that's impossible to summarize. Also, I'll occasionally be comparing it to Crime and Punishment, but if you haven't read that, you can just ignore those parts.
(Note: I would like to insert some tangential praise of high school English class, which is where I read Crime and Punishment. I know it's easy to bash English ("it just teaches kids to hate books, blah blah blah..."), but I am a huge fan. Crime and Punishment is something I would never have read on my own - esoteric Russian author, lots of pages, unexciting title, etc. But I read it in class - and loved it. In fact, I loved it so much that I sought out another book by the author. One with even more pages and a less exciting title. And I loved it even more. So I owe an debt to English class, if for nothing more than bringing The Brothers Karamazov into my life. And in fact, while reading the latter, I found myself missing the in-depth discussion environment I had while reading the former. Discussing a book with yourself just isn't the same.)
Anyway. The Brothers Karamazov. Like I said, kind of impossible to summarize, but I'll try. It's about three brothers - Mitya, Ivan, and Alyosha - and their father, Fyodor. And another possibly-brother. When that father is murdered, it seems obvious that the eldest son, Mitya, is the killer. To the astute reader, however, it is even more obvious that nothing is ever that simple.
The murder doesn't occur till halfway through the book, though. Everything before it, and a great deal after it as well, is dedicated to developing the brothers. We learn of Mitya's and Fyodor's rather disturbing woman troubles, and Alyosha's spiritual journey/issues. Ivan has troubles of his own, of course, and I find him to be the most complex brother. I wish that Dostoyevsky had spent more time inside Ivan's head, because he is also the least discussed. As it is, the "main" character is Alyosha. Which I am okay with, because I love Alyosha. In fact, I like all of the brothers, even though I'm not quite sure I'm supposed to.
Alyosha (Aleksey Fyodorovich), the youngest, is the spiritual one, a novice at a monastery and devotee of its resident Elder. He is somewhat of a "holy fool," which is an archetype of Russian literature, and one I wish was more prominent in the Western tradition; I believe it - and Alyosha - really tap into the "as a little child" ideal that is otherwise so hard to explain.
Mitya (aka Dmitry Fyodorovich) is the one most suspected of the murder because he and his father both love the same woman (eeeew) and he believes his father has cheated him out of his inheritance. Again, I like him, even though he is a "scoundrel" (which has rather different connotations here; it means wicked person more than mischievous rascal). He is blatantly immoral, a drunkard, spendthrift, womanizer, gambler - pretty much everything that is despicable about mankind, he is. And yet he has a rigid honor, and is constantly racked by his own conscience. There is a Promethean quality about him that I like very much - a rebel against the universe, but also great and good, a hero.
The thing I liked most about The Brothers Karamazov is the morality and philosophy contained in the story. The relationships are key - Mitya's with his father and lover(s), Alyosha's with his Elder and his family, and Ivan's with himself (he's a tortured intellectual atheist). In Crime and Punishment, I liked that the reader experienced moral discovery with Raskolnikov. At the beginning, she could be convinced that moral law really is just a convention, and some people are above it; Raskolnikov's choices aren't apparent right from the start. The Brothers Karamazov is the same way, although the morality is a bit more complex. I think, though, that the core of the issue is whether or not a person can love and help others (including his family) when both he and they are imperfect, even evil. Can one sinner redeem another?
Perhaps because that question is so complicated, the sense of closure at the end is minimal. Sure, all the important thematic issues are resolved, but I would have liked to know what happened to Ivan. Despite this, I did like the ending a lot, and think it was one of the most powerful parts of an extremely powerful book.
A few words on some more schematic matters: I read the Penguin Classics edition, which was okay. The translation was pretty good, but not beautiful, and had enough notes for me to tell that the original language really is beautiful. It had helpful footnotes, but for some reason they were all at the back of the book, which was annoying. Also it had a very nice introduction, but if you can, don't read it until you've finished the book. Oh, and protip: Grushenka is the same person as Agrafena Alexandrovna. It took me ages to figure that out.
(Note: I would like to insert some tangential praise of high school English class, which is where I read Crime and Punishment. I know it's easy to bash English ("it just teaches kids to hate books, blah blah blah..."), but I am a huge fan. Crime and Punishment is something I would never have read on my own - esoteric Russian author, lots of pages, unexciting title, etc. But I read it in class - and loved it. In fact, I loved it so much that I sought out another book by the author. One with even more pages and a less exciting title. And I loved it even more. So I owe an debt to English class, if for nothing more than bringing The Brothers Karamazov into my life. And in fact, while reading the latter, I found myself missing the in-depth discussion environment I had while reading the former. Discussing a book with yourself just isn't the same.)
Anyway. The Brothers Karamazov. Like I said, kind of impossible to summarize, but I'll try. It's about three brothers - Mitya, Ivan, and Alyosha - and their father, Fyodor. And another possibly-brother. When that father is murdered, it seems obvious that the eldest son, Mitya, is the killer. To the astute reader, however, it is even more obvious that nothing is ever that simple.
The murder doesn't occur till halfway through the book, though. Everything before it, and a great deal after it as well, is dedicated to developing the brothers. We learn of Mitya's and Fyodor's rather disturbing woman troubles, and Alyosha's spiritual journey/issues. Ivan has troubles of his own, of course, and I find him to be the most complex brother. I wish that Dostoyevsky had spent more time inside Ivan's head, because he is also the least discussed. As it is, the "main" character is Alyosha. Which I am okay with, because I love Alyosha. In fact, I like all of the brothers, even though I'm not quite sure I'm supposed to.
Alyosha (Aleksey Fyodorovich), the youngest, is the spiritual one, a novice at a monastery and devotee of its resident Elder. He is somewhat of a "holy fool," which is an archetype of Russian literature, and one I wish was more prominent in the Western tradition; I believe it - and Alyosha - really tap into the "as a little child" ideal that is otherwise so hard to explain.
Mitya (aka Dmitry Fyodorovich) is the one most suspected of the murder because he and his father both love the same woman (eeeew) and he believes his father has cheated him out of his inheritance. Again, I like him, even though he is a "scoundrel" (which has rather different connotations here; it means wicked person more than mischievous rascal). He is blatantly immoral, a drunkard, spendthrift, womanizer, gambler - pretty much everything that is despicable about mankind, he is. And yet he has a rigid honor, and is constantly racked by his own conscience. There is a Promethean quality about him that I like very much - a rebel against the universe, but also great and good, a hero.
The thing I liked most about The Brothers Karamazov is the morality and philosophy contained in the story. The relationships are key - Mitya's with his father and lover(s), Alyosha's with his Elder and his family, and Ivan's with himself (he's a tortured intellectual atheist). In Crime and Punishment, I liked that the reader experienced moral discovery with Raskolnikov. At the beginning, she could be convinced that moral law really is just a convention, and some people are above it; Raskolnikov's choices aren't apparent right from the start. The Brothers Karamazov is the same way, although the morality is a bit more complex. I think, though, that the core of the issue is whether or not a person can love and help others (including his family) when both he and they are imperfect, even evil. Can one sinner redeem another?
Perhaps because that question is so complicated, the sense of closure at the end is minimal. Sure, all the important thematic issues are resolved, but I would have liked to know what happened to Ivan. Despite this, I did like the ending a lot, and think it was one of the most powerful parts of an extremely powerful book.
A few words on some more schematic matters: I read the Penguin Classics edition, which was okay. The translation was pretty good, but not beautiful, and had enough notes for me to tell that the original language really is beautiful. It had helpful footnotes, but for some reason they were all at the back of the book, which was annoying. Also it had a very nice introduction, but if you can, don't read it until you've finished the book. Oh, and protip: Grushenka is the same person as Agrafena Alexandrovna. It took me ages to figure that out.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Ishmael
I recently read a rather interesting book: Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. It is unusual among other recently read books in that I did not seek it out; my brother bought it because it is required reading for his environmental science class and, well, I'm not one to leave a book unread.
Ishmael is really more of a philosophical treatise than a novel; it takes the form of a series of discussions between a human pupil and his gorilla mentor, Ishmael. The unnamed narrator responds to a newspaper ad seeking a pupil with "an earnest desire to save the world." To his surprise, the teacher is a telepathic gorilla, and the world is in grave danger from the current human model of civilization. He soon learns how the civilized world has based itself on the myth "the world was made for man" and by so doing endangered its own existence. They have several discussions about agriculture, sustainability, population, and how the world might be saved.
There are several things I like about this book. For one thing, I appreciate that even though it is idea-driven, it still has characters and a plot (a simple one). That makes it more enjoyable to read, at least, than a 250-page essay. Additionally, it is very well written, and Quinn presents his arguments convincingly. I also do like that these arguments are in the Socratic format of question and answer. If I ever write a philosophy book (unlikely) it will be in that format. I love it because it's just so hard to argue with.
However, that really only works if the teacher asks questions whose answers are inevitable; that is to say, if he is right. Quinn does have many points that are valid and that the world needs to know and act on: humans must take only what they need, and respect other life on earth, for example. But he also says a great deal that I disagree with. The main point of the book is that the hunter-gatherer societies have it right and the system of more-than-subsistence agriculture we use now is bound to destroy mankind. Now, if your only goal for mankind is continuation of the species, well... yeah, that probably would work the best. But a specific question Ishmael asks his student comes to mind. He asked the student to picture what the world would be like without humans. The narrator replied that it would be a frightening, chaotic jungle (the question was asked to illustrate the point that our culture views the earth as something to be tamed and organized by man). When I considered the same question, I thought, "It's beautiful... but there's no one to appreciate it, no one to discover its secrets and wonders."
As you may have guessed by the fact that it puts the blame for the destruction of the world on the idea "the world was made for man," Ishmael is a decidedly non-religious book (it isn't quite so militant that I would call it anti-religious). A particularly eyebrow-raising part is when Ishmael explains that the accounts of the Fall and Cain and Abel are actually about the agricultural revolution. However, it is also decidedly non-scientific/technological (again, not quite over the line into anti-). I happen to be quite fond of science, technology and religion, and disinclined to look at them as symptoms of a dying world. Take away religion and science, and what is left of humanity? Only the mind of an animal: appropriate, I suppose, for a book whose main assertion seems to be that man is an animal and ought not to put himself above his fellows.
Now, just because I happen to disagree with a lot of its arguments doesn't mean that Ishmael isn't a good book or that you shouldn't read it. Would I spend all this time telling you about something I thought was worthless? Really, it was thought-provoking enough to keep me up several hours. It might force you to consider or discover your own opinions. And it does have a lot to say that needs to be said, and heard. Finally, even if you hate the mere mention of environmentalism and think any account of the Earth in trouble is a myth, it does some good to read something you disagree with every once in a while. It could give you, at the very least, some perspective.
Ishmael is really more of a philosophical treatise than a novel; it takes the form of a series of discussions between a human pupil and his gorilla mentor, Ishmael. The unnamed narrator responds to a newspaper ad seeking a pupil with "an earnest desire to save the world." To his surprise, the teacher is a telepathic gorilla, and the world is in grave danger from the current human model of civilization. He soon learns how the civilized world has based itself on the myth "the world was made for man" and by so doing endangered its own existence. They have several discussions about agriculture, sustainability, population, and how the world might be saved.
There are several things I like about this book. For one thing, I appreciate that even though it is idea-driven, it still has characters and a plot (a simple one). That makes it more enjoyable to read, at least, than a 250-page essay. Additionally, it is very well written, and Quinn presents his arguments convincingly. I also do like that these arguments are in the Socratic format of question and answer. If I ever write a philosophy book (unlikely) it will be in that format. I love it because it's just so hard to argue with.
However, that really only works if the teacher asks questions whose answers are inevitable; that is to say, if he is right. Quinn does have many points that are valid and that the world needs to know and act on: humans must take only what they need, and respect other life on earth, for example. But he also says a great deal that I disagree with. The main point of the book is that the hunter-gatherer societies have it right and the system of more-than-subsistence agriculture we use now is bound to destroy mankind. Now, if your only goal for mankind is continuation of the species, well... yeah, that probably would work the best. But a specific question Ishmael asks his student comes to mind. He asked the student to picture what the world would be like without humans. The narrator replied that it would be a frightening, chaotic jungle (the question was asked to illustrate the point that our culture views the earth as something to be tamed and organized by man). When I considered the same question, I thought, "It's beautiful... but there's no one to appreciate it, no one to discover its secrets and wonders."
As you may have guessed by the fact that it puts the blame for the destruction of the world on the idea "the world was made for man," Ishmael is a decidedly non-religious book (it isn't quite so militant that I would call it anti-religious). A particularly eyebrow-raising part is when Ishmael explains that the accounts of the Fall and Cain and Abel are actually about the agricultural revolution. However, it is also decidedly non-scientific/technological (again, not quite over the line into anti-). I happen to be quite fond of science, technology and religion, and disinclined to look at them as symptoms of a dying world. Take away religion and science, and what is left of humanity? Only the mind of an animal: appropriate, I suppose, for a book whose main assertion seems to be that man is an animal and ought not to put himself above his fellows.
Now, just because I happen to disagree with a lot of its arguments doesn't mean that Ishmael isn't a good book or that you shouldn't read it. Would I spend all this time telling you about something I thought was worthless? Really, it was thought-provoking enough to keep me up several hours. It might force you to consider or discover your own opinions. And it does have a lot to say that needs to be said, and heard. Finally, even if you hate the mere mention of environmentalism and think any account of the Earth in trouble is a myth, it does some good to read something you disagree with every once in a while. It could give you, at the very least, some perspective.
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