Meum Edictum

What do I find interesting and attractive in literature? Why I'm so glad you asked. I find a lot of things interesting in books, poems, textbooks, etc. I have recently discovered that I gravitate towards beauty, whether it be beauty as a part in the plot, the beauty of a concept, or the beauty in the way a writer puts something together. That last one is probably my favorite, because I love language so much.

Let me talk to you about how I've discovered beauty in my literary history. I absolutely loved the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, mostly because I could connect with the  main character. Also, I found her personality and thought process beautiful, probably because it was so much like my own. Another book, or rather set of books, that I liked as a kid was the Series of Unfortunate Events. The author, Lemony Snicket, played with the American language, and phrased things in a way that I found amusing. 

I have also found beauty in the texts that we have read in class. My favorite passage, so far, is from "The Riddle of Poetry", and says, "For what is a book itself? A book is a physical object in a world of physical objects. It is a set of dead symbols. And then the right reader comes along, and the words, or rather the poetry behind the words, for the words themselves are mere symbols-spring to life, and we have a resurrection of the word." (4, Borges). This passage contained what I feel is the most refreshing truth I have read in my high school career. Borges put the concept of the "right reader" in such simple and honest terms, and exposed books for what they really are, just a set of letters and markings intended to make people understand something. After reading this I realized that it is up to the reader to take meaning from literature. The most that the author can do is make his or  her work relatable, increasing the chances that the reader will find some deeper meaning in the text. I found beauty in the way that Borges worded this concept, and the concept itself, because both are so simple, yet so honest. 

I happened upon beauty in East of Eden, by John Steinbeck, where there was a section about wording in the Bible. I found this passage to be so graceful because it was about how just a few words can change the entire meaning of something. In chapter 24 Steinbeck writes, "The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in "Thou Shalt," meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel-"Thou mayest"-that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world." (246, Steinbeck). The fact that the Bible could be interpreted in so many different ways, just from the way a single phrase is worded, sent shivers down my spine. It made me realize the power of language. After realizing that all three translations described the approach of different religions, such as Catholicism, Judaism, and others, toward sin, I got to see how language can impact the world. This made me like the passage even more, because Steinbeck didn't outright say that these different interpretations influenced major religions, but hinted at it enough to get me to realize it for myself. Steinbeck demonstrated the immense power and influence of language in this passage, a concept which I found absolutely breath taking.

I discovered beauty in the short story, "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It wasn't the language that hooked me, but the beauty in the acts of the villagers. They didn't know this giant man who washed up on their shores, but they took care of him anyway. Then, they were so moved by his appearance that they took ownership of him, and looked out for him, and felt empathy for him. They felt so attached to the man, who they felt could be no one else besides Esteban, that even after they threw him back to sea, their lives were still impacted by him. Marquez writes, that, "they were going to paint their house fronts gay colors to make Esteban's memory eternal and they were going to break their backs digging for springs among the stones and planting flowers on the cliff," (Marquez). They also made all of their doors wider and their houses bigger, so that, "Esteban's memory could go everywhere without bumping into beams," (Marquez). I thought that the way that they thought of Esteban as their own and looked after him, even though he was dead, was achingly beautiful. Some of the language in this piece went over my head, and I didn't grasp some of the concepts, but I did grasp the concept that the village people looked after Esteban and connected with him on some level that neither they, nor I, could completely explain. Marquez weaved this idea throughout the whole story, so he didn't really need brilliant language to explicitly say this, because it was soaked up by the reader as they made their way through the story.
The beauty of language is the most important thing in literature. Without beautiful words, the perfect reader will not connect with a text, and the most interesting story line will lose readers within the first chapter. And when beautiful words are used to describe a beautiful concept, well that is the jack pot. That is the perfect mix of language and theme, like cookies and milk. People come for the concepts and ideas, but they stay for the language and the words. 

Oppa Gangnam Style!

I first heard about Psy when watching the Today Show. Then on Facebook one of my friends posted his music video, and under it someone commented a link to an article about it. Having a hard time deciding what to read for my final article, I thought this would be great. 

The most striking thing about this song is it's catchy chorus, "Oppa Gangnam Style". As I am typing this entry, I am bopping my head and singing this part of the song in my head, over and over again. At first glance the music video seems like a cool, quirky video. But this article analyzes it in depth, and reveals the hidden meaning behind the song and the video.

While this video has a silly surface, according to the author of the article, Max Fisher, there is more to it than that. He pointed out several times that Americans who viewed the video wouldn't pick up on the social criticism, one because they don't know Korean, and two because they aren't familiar with Korean culture. Fisher found two people who were familiar with Korean culture, and found out that the music and the video, "suggest a subtext with a surprisingly subversive message about class and wealth in contemporary South Korean society." (Fisher, "Gangnam...") Fisher compared the satire with that in America, but then reminded the reader that South Korean society is much different than American society. While, yes, they do have democracy, they're society and culture is much different than ours. Fisher talked to Adrian Hong, a Korean-American consultant, and Hong said, "Korea has not had a long history of nuanced satire," (Fisher, "Gangnam..."). This is very different from America, where we have shows like the Colbert Report, The Daily Show, and Saturday Night Live, who regularly criticize society. 

Another difference that I noticed was that Psy's satire was more graceful than the satire in America. Psy says that he loves, "a classy lady who can afford a relaxing cup of coffee." Fisher brought this up in his article, and one of his sources, Jea Kim, said, "In Korean there's a joke poking fun at women who eat 2,000 won (about $2) ramen for lunch and then spend 6,000 won on Starbucks coffee." (Fisher, "Gangnam..."). This subtle, and not overdone, satire is invisible to the American eye. I am grateful to Max Fisher, for bringing this hidden meaning to my attention. It gives me a whole new take on the song, and I am able to appreciate it's silliness, but also the criticism underneath the craziness.

And even though I know that you've probably already seen it, I think that it is so awesome, you should see it again.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/08/gangnam-style-dissected-the-subversive-message-within-south-koreas-music-video-sensation/261462/

Ambiguity of Language

This article is on one of my favorite topics, language. I have always thought of language as something to be followed or broken, but Gary Cutting exposed its ambiguity when he wrote, "language is both our creation and our master." (Cutting, "Arguing...") This had never occurred to me before. I had always thought language was something that we molded, and it never crossed my mind that we had to obey language in order to be understood by others.

In my lifetime I have seen many additions to language, such as new verbal nouns, like "to facebook", "to IM (instant message)" and the best of all, "to google". I was never aware that, "Some people find split infinitives (“to plainly see”), “verbed” nouns (“let me caveat that”) or misspelled words (“supercede”) simply ugly." (Cutting, "Arguing...") I had never thought that "verbed" nouns were something to be ashamed of. I viewed them as language adapting to developments in technology. As I mentioned before, "to google" has become a regular verb in my lexicon, as well as the lexicon of many other people. I actually didn't even realize it was an abnormal addition to the American language, until someone pointed it out.

While I think the article brings up some interesting points of view, the author sometimes loses my attention, because he isn't writing clearly enough. Cutting was talking about how language can change from person to person and how it depends on personal taste, when he wrote, "There is room for lively and enlightening discussion, even though the final conclusion may be 'de gustibus'." (Cutting, "Arguing...") I found that I focused on the phrase "de gustibus", because I was excited that I knew it meant "of taste". Then I thought that some people, who aren't familiar with the Latin language, wouldn't know what this means without looking it up on the Internet. Because I was so occupied thinking of all of this, I had forgotten the beginning of the sentence. 

Even if this article weren't in the opinions section of the New York Times, I would've recognized the bias. The author is a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame, and his writing suggests that he is biased against the relaxed use of language among the younger generation. When discussing why some people have different views on language, Cutting wrote, "To be careless in how we speak and write can signal that we are ignorant or disdainful of the writers and speakers who helped craft our language." (Cutting, "Arguing...") I find it difficult to agree with this statement. This sentence made it seem as though Cutting thinks breaking some rules of the English language in any situation, such as talking with friends, is a slap in the face of the people who founded our language. I think his statement doesn't take into account the desire of young people just to be understood, and not to have exact grammar.

Overall, this was a very interesting article, which brought to my attention the ambiguity of language. It also helped me see language from a different point of view. I have always thought that language was something that can be changed, and never thought of it as something that needed to be preserved, and something that needed to be followed carefully.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/arguing-about-language/

The Best Religion You've Never Heard Of

The novel Cat's Cradle revolves around a made-up religion named Bokononism. I find it very hard to describe this religion even though it isn't that confusing. I liked this religion because it was very straightforward, and didn't force anything upon it's followers. Before the book even starts, Vonnegut includes a quote from the Books of Bokonon. He writes, "Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy." Below the quote, he has a note, that says "foma" are harmless untruths. This is a very key concept in the religion of Bokononism. The religion is full of foma. Below I will try to explain the religion, and why I like it so much.

When Jonah first came to the island of San Lorenzo, he saw a lot of posters, one of which said, "Anybody caught practicing Bokononism in San Lorenzo will die on the hook!" (134) This is very peculiar, because Jonah had read part of a book about the island of San Lorenzo and it said that Lionel Boyd Johnson, Bokonon himself, was one of the founders of the island. In the same book, he learned about Mona Aamons Monzano. Mona is the adopted daughter of the leader of San Lorenzo, "Papa" Monzano. Shortly after seeing the wanted posters , Jonah was at a welcoming ceremony when he saw, "Mona had slipped off her sandal. Her small brown foot was bare. And with that foot, she was kneading and kneading and kneading––obscenely kneading––the instep of the flyer's boot." (146) A little while later Vonnegut reveals that Mona was performing a ritual of Bokononism, called boko-maru. It consists of rubbing the bottom of your feet with that of another Bokononist, so as to become closer with them on a spiritual level. This brought up the question of why Mona was participating in a religion that was strictly forbidden on the island, when she was part of the "royal family".

This confusion is later cleared, when Jonah was talking with Julian Castle, the founder of San Lorenzo's sole hospital. When Jonah told Julian that he noticed a lot of Bokononists on the island, Julian said, "'You haven't caught on yet?' 'To what?' 'Everybody on San Lorenzo is a devout Bokononist, the hy-u-o-ook-kuh notwithstanding.'" (172) While this answers the question of why are some people practicing Bokononism, it raises the question of why is it outlawed if everyone on the island practices it?

Jonah went on to ask Julian why Bokononism was illegal in San Lorenzo, and Julian replied, "It was his own idea. He asked McCabe to outlaw him and his religion too, in order to give the religious life of the people more zest, more tang." (173). This is perhaps one of the wisest things I have ever heard. Bokonon recognized that if you outlaw something, it makes people want to do that even more. Look at teen drinking. It is illegal for teenagers to drink, but does that stop them? No, it makes them want to drink even more.

During the same conversation, Julian Castle revealed another wonder of Bokononism. He said, "it became evident that no governmental or economic reform was going to make the people much less miserable, the religion became the one real instrument of hope. Truth was the enemy of the people , because the truth was so terrible, so Bokonon made it his business to provide the people with better and better lies." (172). Here Vonnegut is saying that the entire religion of Bokononism is based on lies, or the aforementioned foma. When I read this, it resonated with me. I wanted to become a follower of Bokonon because he was honest about the purpose of his religion, wasn't ashamed that his religion was based on lies. Just think about it. With all of the different religions in the world some of them have to be lies, yet they all preach like they are the truth. Bokonon is revealing the true purpose of religion, as a coping mechanism. When Christians are having a tough time in life, they turn to God, and it is the same in many other religions.

Overall, Vonnegut highlighted the aspects of Bokononism that make it so appealing. He analyzed different religions in the world, and discovered what they were really used for. He demonstrated the wisdom of Bokonon by having Bokonon craftily outlaw his own religion to give it more passion, and creating a religion for the sole purpose of giving his people something to hope for. I just wish there was a religion out there that was actually like Bokononism, because it really is the best religion.

So Smart, But Where's the Responsibility?

One of the essential characters in Cat's Cradle is Dr. Felix Hoenikker. Although he is actually dead for the entire course of the book he still plays an enormous role. First of all, he is one of the scientists responsible for the atom bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War Two. He had three kids, Angela, Frank, and Newt. In the process of writing his book about what happened on the day that the bomb was dropped, Jonah got in touch with Newt and discovered that while Dr. Hoenikker might have been an extraordinary scientist, but had no responsibility, which resulted in him being a bad father, and causing the end of the world.

The first person to talk about Dr. Hoenikker was Newt, his youngest son. When talking about his sister in a letter to Jonah, he said, "Angela was twenty-two then. She had been the real head of the family since she was sixteen, since Mother died, since I was born. She used to talk about how she had three children––me, Frank, and Father." (15) Vonnegut is showing how irresponsible Dr. Hoenikker was, by showing how much Angela had to step into the role of a parent. This means that Dr. Hoenikker wasn't there to support his children after their mother died, which is also shown by the fact that Newt calls him father instead of dad. Even though he was a great scientist, he couldn't step up for his own family, and let himself be taken care of by his daughter.

In his search for more information to put in his book, Jonah went to the lab where Dr. Hoenikker worked. When he met Dr. Asa Breed, who supervised Dr. Hoenikker, they talked about the way things worked at the lab, and Jonah asked, "'Do you mean...that nobody in this Laboratory is ever told what to work on? Nobody even suggests what they work on?' 'People suggest things all the time, but it isn't in the nature of a pure-research man to pay any attention to suggestions. His head is full of projects of his own, and that's the way we want it,'" (42). Dr. Breed's reply shows how little responsibility he put on Dr. Hoenikker and the other scientists. Because of the freedom that Dr. Breed gave him, Dr. Hoenikker unwittingly created something in his lab that would cause the end of the world. He was approached by someone from the United States Navy, about creating something that would get rid of all the mud that marines had to trudge through. Dr. Hoenikker told the general that such a feat wasn't possible. But, secretly, Dr. Hoenikker worked on this conundrum, and created a particle which he named ice-nine. Again, he was narrow-minded with his creation, because ice-nine turns every particle of water that it touches, into more ice-nine. This means the world would end, because lakes would freeze, then rivers would freeze, and oceans would freeze, and any human who drinks or ingests ice-nine would die from freezing to death.

Jonah was at a bar in Ilium, New York, and got to talking about the Hoenikker family, when the barman said, "That man, who's so famous for having a great mind, he pulled that girl out of high school in her sophomore year so he could go on having some woman take care of him," (71). This shows how narrow-minded and selfish Dr. Hoenikker is. He stole his daughter's education, and as a result her possible careers, because he wanted to someone to do what he wouldn't do. He wanted someone to take up the responsibility in his family. Vonnegut draws a contrast between how smart Dr. Hoenikker is, and how stupid he was in pulling his only daughter out of school, by having the barman say, "That man, who's so famous for having a great mind,".

Vonnegut uses Dr. Felix Hoenikker as an example of how destructive unbridled genius can be. Also, he used Dr. Hoenikker as a warning against letting a person become too irresponsible, by showing the result of his imagination, and the damage that it caused.

No Cat, No Cradle

The book Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut is a simply crafted book. The title of the book is a very essential concept within the book. One of the characters, Newt Hoenikker, commented on the children's game of cat's cradle, for which the book is named. He described it, saying, "A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands...No damn cat, and no damn cradle." (Vonnegut, 166) Here, Newt is explicitly saying that the title for the game is misleading. Vonnegut uses this as a simile for many other things in the book, such as a marriage, someone's personality, and a religion.

(cat's cradle puzzle)

The marriage that Vonnegut suggested was like a cat's cradle, was that of Angela Hoenikker, Newt's older sister. Shortly before Angela displayed her skill with the clarinet, Newt told Jonah, the narrator, that her marriage was actually terrible, to which Jonah replied, "'From the way she talked,' I said, 'I thought it was a very happy marriage.' Little Newt held his hands six inches apart and he spread his fingers. 'See the cat? See the cradle?'" (179). Vonnegut uses repetition to bring the reader's mind back to the scene when Newt talked about cat's cradle before. By doing this, he conveys the idea that even though Angela says that she is married, what relationship she has with her husband has no resemblance to marriage at all.

Frank Hoenikker, Newt and Angela's brother, is portrayed in the beginning of the book as a pathetic, wimpy trouble maker. Supposedly, Frank went down to Florida, and got killed because of a mixup with some gangsters. This impression is given by other people in Ilium, New York, the town in which the Hoenikker family lived, thus giving Vonnegut a chance to contradict this image, in accordance with the cat's cradle theme. The only person that had something good to say about Frank, was Jack, the owner of the hobby shop in Ilium. When talking with Jonah, he talked about Frank's fascination with models, and said, "He'd put a lake where that hill had been and a trestle over the lake, and it would look ten times as good as it did before." (76) Vonnegut here says that Frank was labelled a weird kid, but actually had a remarkable talent with models. But he doesn't leave it at that, he takes the "cat's cradle misnomer" to an even deeper level. Towards the end of the book, Jonah and Frank were talking about what he did at the hobby shop, and Frank said, "I was screwing Jack's wife everyday." (201).

There is the obvious reason why Frank wouldn't want people to know that he was sleeping with Jack's wife, but he gave another reason, saying, "They would have been really surprised––especially the girls––if they'd found out what really went on." (201). The fact that Frank thought about people's reactions to the truth shows that he didn't tell anybody because he didn't want to disturb anyone, and wanted to appear normal. The same thing is true with Angela's situation. She wanted everyone to think that she had a happy, normal marriage, so she lied about it. It was easier for people to deal with the lie that she had a good marriage, than the truth she had a bad one.

With the simile of cat's cradle, Vonnegut shows that people are willing to accept a lie, because most of the time it is easier to deal with than the truth. If the string pattern wasn't called cat's cradle, what else would it be called? A mess of X's? Six triangles and a diamond? Instead of calling the pattern something that is true although more awkward to say, society takes the easy route, and calls it cat's cradle.

The 39 Year Old Octogenarian

In Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story, the main character, Lenny Abramov works in the industry of Post-Human Services. In simpler terms, he helps make people immortal. His boss, Joshie, is portrayed as a sort of father figure, and is close to becoming immortal himself. Throughout the book he becomes progressively younger and younger, and at the end he looks like a twenty year old, when he is really seventy years old.

Joshie's quest for immortality peaked at the end of the book, when he wrote to Eunice, Lenny's girlfriend, "I have to pace myself for my heart, because genetically I've really been dealt a poor hand there...in the next two years I'm going to have my heart removed completely. Useless muscle. Idiotically designed," (Shteyngart, 295). After reading this, I wanted to slap Joshie across the face, for being so arrogant and ignorant. The heart is the most important muscle and organ in the body, and in no way can be called useless or idiotic. Sure your lungs bring in oxygen, but there's no way that that oxygen can get to your blood without your heart. Not only does Joshie talk about getting his heart removed, but seems to have no debate about it. The two short sentences at the end suggest that his decision to eventually get rid of his heart was quick and easy. I wondered what sort of a society could possibly lead someone to think that the heart is a useless muscle. Then I realized that technology had become such a big part of society in this book that people started to overlook the wonders of the human body and take the human body for granted.

In the end of the book, Lenny gives a short little epilogue, where he talks about what happened to the industry that he used to work for. Lenny saw his former boss, and commented that Joshie's, "face, initially contorted into a serious academic expression, quickly fell apart, and he began to twitch from the recently discovered Kapasian tremors associated with the reversal of dechronification. Drooling magnificently over his interpreter, he told us...'We were wrong.'" (329) Shteyngart shows the consequences of becoming narrow minded with regard to life and science, and admonishes his readers to not make same mistakes as Joshie did. By giving an image of Joshie, and going into detail about how handicapped he now is, he gives the reader an impression of just how big of a failure the search for immortality was.

Sure, the idea of immortality is cool, but it makes life meaningless. It enables procrastination because it gives people an endless supply of tomorrows. Shteyngart reminds his readers of the downsides of immortality and demonstrates the consequences of obsession with his novel Super Sad True Love Story.

The Decline of America

The Decline of America? It feels like it's never going to happen. According to history, it's inevitable. I mean, just look at Spain during the 16th and 17th century, then France before the French Revolution, and Britain before America. They all acted as though they were going to be the number one country in the world forever and ever, and all eventually fell, or in the case of America will fall. (shout out to Dr. Schneider for all that global history knowledge).

But seriously at this point in time, does it feel as if America is ever going to decline? Not really. But it will. No matter how many medals America wins in the Olympics, no matter how many records we hold, no matter the state of our economy, America will eventually be knocked out of position as the number one country in the world. Shteyngart plays out the end of American global dominance in Super Sad True Love Story. About half way through the book, things start to hit the fan, and the whole country is thrown into chaos and disorder in an event that is later named The Rupture.

Shteyngart alluded to the Great Depression when Nettie Fine wrote in a message, "These ex-National Guardsmen boys are building cabins in the parks and protesting that they don't have their Venezuela bonuses." (Shteyngart, 100). Something very similar happened in 1932, when WWI veterans protested because they didn't receive their bonuses from the war, in something that became known as the Bonus March. The veterans built little towns in and around Washington D.C, marched to the White House, and clashed with police. Shteyngart skillfully foreshadowed the fall of America by reminding the reader of The Great Depression, one the worst times in American history.

(Bonus Marchers camp in 1932)

Shteyngart compares the quality of life in America with life in other countries by including the thoughts of immigrants in his book. Eunice's parents emigrated from Korea, and in a message to Eunice she wondered, "We come to America and now what happen to America? We worry. What it was all for?...Maybe we make big mistake," (169). The "American Dream" has been a big influence on foreigners, and for most of them, it was the main reason for coming to America. For some immigrants the American Dream turned out to be a nightmare, but for others America provided a country free of dictatorship and social injustices. Shteyngart reminds people that this glorious America won't be around forever, and warns us that we shouldn't act like it will, or our demise will be as violent as was in Super Sad True Love Story. 

Finding Out the Other Meaning of "Sic"

In my mind the word "sic" comes from Latin, means "thus", and serves as a conjunction. In the book,  Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart, this word pops up occasionally in the diary of Lenny Abramov. I finally asked my mom what it meant, because I was sick (hehe) of not knowing what it represented.

One of the first times that this word shows up is when Lenny, "walked out into the stifling June heat toward the ambulance bearing the legend 'American Medicle [sic] Response,'" (Shteyngart, 80). I recognized that the word medical in the name of the ambulance company was spelled wrong, and I was shocked. I figured that a well known company would care about their reputation enough to make sure they spelled their own name correctly. This illuminated the disregard for quality of grammar in the society which Shteyngart created. Shteyngart probably had inspiration from today's society, mainly from Twitter (see the picture below) and posts on the internet.

Perhaps the picture above is fake, but if it is a joke, there is still a basis for it, and a grammatical mistake that inspired someone to make the fake tweet.

I had seen one of the characters misspell something earlier in the book, when Eunice's best friend wrote "mails" instead of "males" on page 46, but I excused it because it was non-formal writing, and I could relate because when some of my friends are writing things to me, they seem to be more relaxed with spelling and grammar. Seeing the depth of apathy for grammatical correctness let me see how degenerated the country had become.

After my mom told me that an author uses sic when they are quoting something that they know includes a grammatical or spelling mistake, I wondered why Lenny wasn't commenting on the fact that it was misspelled, or launching a campaign against the slap to the proverbial face of the American language. I was surprised when he didn't do this because I have noticed that when people misspell things on the internet other internet users don't feel any shame in pointing out their mistakes. There are several pictures on the internet, like the example below, depicting Facebook statuses with extreme spelling and grammar mistakes.

Then I realized that Lenny didn't comment on it, because he didn't care. And his not caring about people respecting the English language was one of the reasons why it was so rampant. But I guess I shouldn't be talking because I am not always perfect with my spelling and grammar. This book has certainly inspired me to do my part to preserve the quality of the American language, with respect to spelling and grammar, so that I don't one get hurt, and see an ambulance with American Medicle Response written on the side.