The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a Review

November 30, 2012

"You ought to read The German Ideology" says Madame Michel, one of the two voices in this rich, beguiling novel, thereby almost giving herself away. For she has chosen to remain disguised as what she thinks of herself--or as what she thinks the world takes her for, a 54 year old concierge dressed in a "white nuptial meringue [undergarment] buried beneath a lugubrious black pinafore," who only "gets through her everyday life thanks to her ignorance of any alternatives." We are therefore treated to her spasms of fear, palpitations of being outed as the intellectual that she is (despite the fact that she only went to school from five to twelve); she is overwhelmed by the huge chasm of class/social distinction between the concierge and the occupants/owners of the apartments in this venerable building.

The other voice belongs to Paloma, a hyper-intelligent 12 year old who lives in fear of showing her freakish intelligence--that's how her classmates and family would treat it, or so she fears. She therefore hides it by reading everything her friend (who is second in the class) and carefully imitating the latter's work: French as "words in coherent strings, correctly spelled"; Math as the "mechanical reproduction of operations devoid of meaning"; history as "a list of events joined by logical connections"--all to "dumb down" the appearance of her true intelligence.

Each of the two voices take turns, more or less, to beguile us with considerations beyond the ordinary, of the sort if not common or familiar, one would hope is at least recognizable to those belonging to that which baccalaureate exercises frequently describe as the "community of educated men and women." Paloma's revelations are revealed as journal entries (in a sans serif font) while Madame Michel's (Renee) are only sometimes referred to as journal entries. One such memorable occasion is when she compares her journal writing to the hypnotic, unconscious rhythm of mowing grass: "The lines become their own demiurges and, like some witless yet miraculous participant, I witness the birth on paper of sentences that have eluded my will."

Both voices therefore hide their light under the proverbial bushel; they are wabi, Japanese for an understated form of beauty, of "refinement masked by rusticity." They each recognize in the other the radiance of intelligence. Paloma, while speaking of the concierge in her journal, cries out: "I implore fate to give me the chance to see beyond myself and truly meet someone." The novel shows how they each eventually make their own way towards the light.

Along the way, guarded and repressed as they are, they reveal flashes of gnomic insight. Paloma speaks of grammar as "an end not simply a means ... pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language." Madame Michel makes breathtakingly short work of Husserl's Cartesian Meditations: Introduction to Phenomenology--a "ridiculous little book...[born of] hard-core autism." Chancing on Paloma's older sister's thesis on William of Ockham's Potentia Dei Absoluta, she concludes that academia has not always chosen wisely or well between "elevating thought" and "the self-reproduction of a sterile elite." Stunned by a still life by Pieter Claesz, even though it is only a copy, she declares she would without hesitation "trade the entire Italian Quattrocento [Fra Angelico? Donatello? Leonardo?]" for Dutch still life.

Not to make this review overlong, let it be said that there are passages of great tenderness and humor, as well as more gentle disquisitions on philosophical issues of moment. Madame Michel has found the library and it allowed her to expand her horizons; the VCR and the DVD have transported her senses. She is friends with pre-1910 Russian literature, movies from Yasujiro Ozu's cinematic equivalents of Pieter Claesz to the Blade Runner and the Terminator, music from Mozart (whose "Confutatis" appears at a most startling point) to Eminem; she reflects on the difference between doors that swing open and those that slide.

You ought to read this book!

NANOWRIMO

I received an email yesterday reminding me that November is the month during which those who sign up are challenged to write 50,000 words.  See NANOWRIMO website.  

This is no mean task: it works out to writing 2,500 words a day for twenty days, =50,000 words assuming one works on the basis of a normal five day work week.  The website provides writers working on their individual novels with a sense of community that most writers do not have and might miss.  I thought of signing up as a challenge to finish a spy novel on which I have been working for some months, tentatively titled Operation Kashgar.  I have posted some of it on this site and more on a website for writers, AUTHONOMY.

But there are two other writing projects that clamor for attention right now.  Together they might add up to 50,000 words, but they are not novels or short novels, they are plays.  Every writer knows that if you write you must listen to the little voice inside.  The plays will be a re-writing of Heaven is High and the Emperor is Far Away, A Play; for this I have had the benefit of a dramatized reading with comments submitted by the audience as well as readings I myself did before smaller audiences.  The other is a dramatization that I have in mind of the investigations of Judge Dee.  He was a real life figure from the Tang dynasty during which he rose from a county magistrate to the position of something like the Chief Justice of Metropolitan Chang-an (or Xi-an, both names for the Tang capital).  His investigations have been "written up" by a gifted Dutch diplomat, Robert van Gulik, who died in 1967, see website.  

Judge Dee's cases have a devoted following much as Rumpole or Hercule Poirot do, although the medium is different.  Hence, reluctantly, I will not register with NANOWRIMO, but I welcome the challenge and hope to have written or re-written 50,000 words by the end of this month.

A new Review in Amazon

Engrossing world view, October 7, 2012

By 

Anne Carlisle "Anne Carlisle"

This review is from: The Battle of Chibi (Red Cliffs): selected and translated from The Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Kindle Edition)

 

What makes "The Battle of Chibi," a 300 pager,such a worthwhile read is a feeling of global impact. Here is a mythos/history of ancient China worth absorbing. The world view of the most populous nation on earth and one that retains much of its ancient heritage should interest us, yet Western readers know little of its evolution. In this fascinating novel, which is part history, part fiction, part drama, and part poetry, Hock G. Tjoa ably takes on the mantle of translator and literary interpreter for a battle along a river that determined four hundred years of ancient Chinese history.

Tjoa does an excellent job at meeting his goal of providing the original in a more "readable and lively language as well as internal consistency." It's a worthwhile though not an easy read. As a boy in the book says, "I cannot remember all the names."

At the outset, the author provides useful background. The historical events were originally recounted in a classic Ming novel, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," written in 1400 by Luo Guanzhong. In turn the "Romance" was a compilation of work by writers living in the third and fourth centuries AD. (The Arthurian legend immediately comes to mind.) Luo's version is in four volumes of 120 scenes/chapters, the first 80 of which is about the decline of the Han Dynasty and the rise of three kingdoms, a period of transition from 184 to 280 AD. Tjoa characterizes the divergence as one "between imperial unity and fragmentation."

The selections chosen from the "Romance" center on the Battle of Chibi (Red Cliffs), dated 208AD, which Tjoa points out was "the tipping point" between the Han and Three Kingdoms periods. One of the three realms, the Shu, was led by Han loyalist Liu Bei. A second, the Wei, was led by Cao Cao the Usurper. Cao's plan was to become the new unifier of China, but his ambitions disqualified him in the eyes of the other two leaders. A third realm, the Wu led by Sun Quan, lay on the fringe of what was called All under Heaven, a name, says Tjoa, that equates to a Greco-Roman term, "the whole known civiilized world." An interesting pattern emerges in the novel's three-part structure. To my eye, a dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis unifies the diversity of the structural components as well as underlining the clash of cultures. The dynasty's decline is vividly characterized by its eunuchs, warlords, and rebels.

I became engaged in the story also through the spare, dramatically staged dialogue and the pleasing literary elements. The title of Chapter 8 ("Like Fish Seeking Water") is one example of how metaphor and poetry are used to illustrate what is going on. Here's another: "Screens, decorated with feathers,/Divide the space inside/Bamboo fences and fragrant flowers/Define the space outside."

A new world order emerges from the divisiveness, and though the country is no longer unified, neither is it so insularly focused. At the end of the day, Tjoa's work is historical romance in the most classic sense of the term. It would certainly lend itself to screen adaptation.

Anne Carlisle, Ph. D., reviewer and author of "Home Schooling: The Fire Night Ball"
Original Amazon Review

FROM PRINT TO E-BOOK

September 22, 2012

Who would have thought it could be so difficult?

Having published the print version of The Battle of Chibi (Createspace, 2010) I thought it would be a breeze to produce an e-book version.  Well, it is harder than I thought.

I loved learning about the process of writing a book.  It had to be well-written, of course.  There ought not to be any mistakes, grammatical, typos, or worse; I understand.  There should be consistency in the format of the pages and of the paragraphs; naturally.

Wouldn’t it be the same for e-books?  Well, not exactly.  The text for print must be the same and consistent through-out, so the best format is Adobe Acrobat which produces "pictures" of each page, as it were.  But in an e-book, the text has to flow and wrap around regardless of the size of the font or of the page.  Needless to say, page numbers are worse than useless and an index that cannot refer to page numbers, well!  As for Adobe Acrobat, just forget about it.  On the other hand, it would be nice for the reader to find roughly where he or she needs to be so it is highly recommended that the Table of Contents has links to the different chapters and chapter-like elements.

As it appeared from the existence and recommendations of various style-sheets that different electronic publishers could be very different, I thought it would be a more complete education to try to publish the e-book on two web-sites.

The first site I used required all the items I mentioned two paragraphs earlier.  This exercise was like proof-reading except that it included the “cues” to the publishing mechanism regarding paragraphs, font styles, etc.  There are no more than a dozen of these things that one has to learn in addition to the items required for a print edition.  So it was relatively simple to send this to an automated process on the publisher’s web-site and in a day or two the process was done.  A couple of problems were flagged for correction and then we were done-done.

The other site proceeded as smoothly except that the publisher’s web-site kept sending me what I thought were mixed signals.  Specifically, it would tell me that the conversion was complete and I would find upon proofing it that it was not.  So I tried again, and again.  Since each attempt took about three weeks, I decided that three times was enough.  I “simply” paid to have this done for me.  I don’t regret that decision one bit.

Promoting The Battle of Chibi

Sept. 19, 2012

This is an attempt to promote The Battle of Chibi  as an e-book.

It is available for FREE at Smashwords through Sept. 21.  Available in all e-book formats.

I hope it will be available as a Kindle book the following week Sept. 24-28, also for free.

It's the Law

Humanity of Justice

 

I have created a separate page for reviews but this book by Burke E. Strunsky is worth a Post (since I have recently discovered the difference between the two on Blogger).

The author makes a passionate plea for improvement in the American criminal justice system.  He believes fervently that it works and requires only a little fine tuning.  In making this case, he shows a fine eye for the details of marriages growing stale, the horror of child molestation, the paranoid public mind-set that allows for children to accuse adults of this, the fine lines that must be made and perhaps crossed in the pursuit of justice, as for example in the case of the application of the death penalty in California, or of "clergy-penitent" privilege, and the practical difference between the right to bear arms and the too easy access to a hand-gun when in a moment of "diminished capacity" or extreme rage.

The examples are told with great power of description and characterization; the case histories have provided for the often twisting and unexpected plots.  But ultimately this is an attempt to explain; it is non-fiction written powerfully. Except that it does not persuade.

It is not for lack of passion.  Perhaps a reader might be persuaded that the American judicial system works and needs only a few tweaks with better argument, more organized reasoning.  In the end, this reviewer is not persuaded that lawyers and the legal system is about justice.  The author quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes who might have the last word on this.  He famously told Felix Frankfurter on his way to the Supreme Court that he/Felix would not go to uphold Justice but to uphold the Law.   That is, as lawyers like to say, the gravamen of the issue.  Additionally, it will not be so easy to regain the public trust in the system as the author passionately desires; it will, alas, be impossible to cure the system of its apparent indifference to human tragedy.

But it is bracing to read this book.  The author is one lawyer that has not given up.  Perhaps he will continue to campaign for limitations on handguns, reduction of truancy, more and better resources to be provided to Child Protective Services.  Perhaps, more law-makers will read his book and be persuaded to a similar approach towards the Law.
Four stars out of five

Reviews and Author interviews

Having blogged a few reviews, I have decided to create a new page for them and while I was at it to create a new page for author interviews.  The reviews will stay for an indefinite time.

But the author interviews will be spaced out--one a week and each to stay on for four weeks.  I shall also "tweet" about each interview.

If I get ambitious I shall remove the reviews that have previously appeared as blog posts and put them on the review page.