The Prophet

I have read this book before and in rereading it I'm really disappointed that I waited this long to pick it back up. It is a collection of maxims and advice that fortunately, while it has a spiritual feel, does not really identify itself with any particular religion. That may be the defining point of the book, its universality.
While by the end of each section it seems like I'm ready to call what I just read my favorite part of the book there was, happily, one part that really stuck out to me this time through.

"Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy."

The meaning or effect of this short quote may be significantly different from person to person, a lot of this book is left that way, it nevertheless reminds me in its own prescriptive way that there is still a lot of enjoyment to be had even from hard work (a nice thought with finals coming up).

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

In reading the few books I have by Pamuk the name Ataturk comes up often especially in reference to many statues that exist all across Turkey as representations of him. I became intrested in just who he was and looked it up on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataturk#Turkey to find out that he was a revolutionary leader who was responsible for much of the founding of modern day Turkey. He could be compared to George Washington in the United State's history except it seems that he is viewed with even more reverence than our first president. In fact, and this is the part I found the most interesting, it was recently made illegal to defame either his legacy or any of the many physical representations (statues and such) that exist across the country. Also at the time of his death, November 10 9:05am, all of Turkey generally pauses for one minute in rememberence of him.

You Have My Attention Mr. Pamuk

Recently there have been a few newsworthy Nobel prizes handed out for works of fiction, notably to a United States political figure, but when reading Pamuk a person really gets the sense that he deserves it. Now I'll gladly admit that I still have a ways to go before I'll be finished with The New Life, however I think I can still give a good, if only preliminary, review of the writing.

I still wholeheartedly believe, this book has only encouraged what I thought last week, that everyone should try to find a book by Pamuk that interests them and see how captivating his writing style really can be. That said, if I was to consider The White Castle easily approachable The New Life has been anything but, nearly half way through I'm not sure that I understand what's really going on; I'm not sure that I need to though, or want to. I can say that his writing style remains interesting and original enough to make the book hard to put down and that I still have faith that everything will make sense by the end.

Page by page reading through this work I find myself asking questions and wondering why, much like in The White Castle, certain thinks are refered to only by pronouns. Originally I assumed that they were simply MacGuffins ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin ) however I doubt that now. Some of the real fun of these books, for me, has been trying to work out (both while reading and after) just what the hell everything means.

"I read a book one day and my whole life was changed."

This beginning line to The New Life seems like a great example of Pamuk from what I know of him now.

Before you think it, I understand that you may not like these books as much as I do and upon reading them may wonder how I found them so facinating (though I doubt it). By far the most important thing about all of his writing, in my opinion, has been his truly unique writing style, I hope (if you get a chance to read him) you will at least appreciate that.

Cultural Exchange

At one point in The White Castle the young sultan makes a comment along the lines of "people are the same no matter where in the world they are fom". While on the surface this seems to be a rather played out or trite thing to say, it in fact may be some of the deepest advice/commentary that the book has to offer. This isn't to say that the book itself is shallow or trite but that instead it finds a way to enter into the reader's, or at least my, thoughts that reminds him or her of the genuine importance of this suggestion.
This also goes along with the purposeful confusion as to whether or not there is one main character. In fact, it is extremely interesting to see how two people from very different backgrounds might have so much in common with one another that their differing cultural identities cannot mask their similarities.

Not Just Good

This book was solidly the best read I've had in the last year at least. I'm not someone who reads books in one or two sittings as I generally like to get up and go do something else every 50 pages or so but I read this book in two sittings over a span of less than 24 hours.

Why is it so good? I could easily tell you all about the plot and character development making this a fun and interesting read, but I've already said I liked the book so let's leave that as assumed. Pamuk has a wandering and almost dreamlike style of writing that on the one hand allows the reader to believe the characters may have actually existed but upon reflection makes him or her feel as they'd been hypnotized for a time.

As for who should read this book, in my opinion everyone, but it's probably most appropriate for high schoolers and above. There are definitely a good number of words refering to things specific to the Middle Eastern culture that are simply not explained, it is asssumed the reader is familiar with these already which could make it a bit tough on anyone without a good international vocabulary. By far the best part of this book is it's real presentation of the old culture of the Middle East, a kind of fair presentation that most westerners are want to find even in their history books. This presentation of the culture is guaranteed to open the eyes and mind of anyone beginning to be interested in Middle Eastern studies, along with anyone who picks the book up for fun.

Enough analysis, what I mean to say is basicly this: If you have time to read just one book in the next year do yourself a favor and make it this book.

It's so unlike me to really like any new novel...

Living on the Street

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQh7KlT2_wk

Here is a fantastic slideshow video. Though I'm not sure the name of the video does that great a job of explaining it, it certainly brings to life a few aspects of Under the Persimmon Tree that I found a bit hard to imagine. First, it shows many pictures of Afghan women wearing burquas and just what that looks like. More importantly though it shows what it looks like when those women are forced to live of the street. Throughout the book there is a lot of talk of women being forced to live on the streets and how they would beg or hold their children, this could be a great illustration of just what it looked like for real women or refugees to have to go through such a hard time.

Cutting down trees

This may very well just get deleted but I thought it might be fun to blog/take notes on Under the Persimmon Tree as I read it, so here goes:

On picking up the book - The author is American, bad start.

First glance through (author's note and such) - There's a glossary of unusual/foreign terms, it's fantastic. The author is already admitting to taking liberties with the timeframe and series of events.

First chapter - Meet Najmah, a little farmer girl, and then thank god for the Taliban because another 20 pages on that farm and I'd have been ready to fall asleep. Najmah means "star".

Second chapter - Meet Nusrat, actually Elaine, a young blonde haired blue eyed woman from New York who is now living in Pakistan with her husband who is currently away. 9/11 is mentioned.

Third chapter - Uncle Mohiuddin is a bad guy, he wants their land. All the men and boys are gone from the village, the rest leave for Pakistan. Habib is born.

Fourth chapter - Meteors, omens, sick Margaret, no friends. Nusrat means "help"

Through chapter 7 - The author is starting to sound painfully American and some of the descriptions of the land are just dragging on forever. I could easily forgive these things if there was some original plot to hold my interest, but I'm still left hoping for that to develop.

Through book's end - Not much changes, certainly the story plays out and the plot is as predictable as anything could be, the author maintains an American perspective which makes most of the caracters seem out of place or simply not at home in an otherwise well described culture. I did not like this book, and the glossary was the best part, just as I had feared.

Let's see something different

Here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqEgd3InILA is a link to a youtube video that is simply of American troops returning fire. I find this extremely interesting because watching it I don't have to deal with any political views for or against the war, there are no statistics to be disputed, and I'm not watching any government officials. Instead, this is simply what it looks like when the military comes through your neighborhood. It's truly terrifying to look at it both from the point of a soldier (and its almost impossible to see what's being fired at) or from the point of one of the people whose house they must be on top of.

For a long time I've been interested in military engineers and construction workers. This http://warisboring.com/?p=256 is a link to a short article detailing some of what the Army Engineers have been doing while in Iraq. I personally think it's important for people to remember that not everything is bad and that there are parts of the military working hard not only to fix what has been damaged by war but to improve the infrastructure above what it had originally been.

The Secret Order of the Six-pointed Star

This may have been a more fitting title for the article "The Israel Lobby" because while it certainly does present a number of facts it seems that their connections back to the real world are stretched to say the least. The worst part of all of this, for me, is that I agree with many of the points the authors make, at least on the surface. Is Israel ignoring warnings and continuing illegal activities? yes. Is there a lobby within our governmental system trying to win our support for Israel? sure. Is there a massive conspiracy including that Israel lobby along with many other Jewish orgainizations and most of America's Jews? putting it that way makes the heart of this article seem a little bit more fantastic than the writers might have a reader believe.
I was ready for a new perspective on what was happening in the Middle East and I certainly got one in the article but, for me and for now, too much of it seems thinly connected.


For some reason the debate video wasn't showing on my computer, response to that coming as soon as I can load it.

What can I say?

I'm really not sure how I want to comment on Palestine Peace Not Apartheid so I guess I'd like to just write a mini review and see where that goes.
Without a doubt this book has been the hardest for me to put down out of everything I've read in the last ten months. I really regret that time constraints kept me only to a shortened version of the reading, something I will remedy as soon as I can. I found that within just the first few pages I was eagerly identifying with Jimmy Carter's want for knowledge and also with his realizations of how little he knew.
How do you pick a favorite part of a historically motivated book? I'm not sure, however I do anticipate rereading chapter five more than a few times within the coming months. It seems to me that this chapter may have, for me, some of the best background information that I've really been looking for.
Well, I guess there you have it, my recomendation to classmates and anyone who has only had time to skim this book, remember and read chapter five.

How to be heroic

If there are any heroes in Wild Thorns their identities are nearly hidden and their virtues are certainly confused. However, Basil stands out in my mind as certainly the closest thing to a heroic character that the novel might have. Simply put, Basil's a badass. He goes from simple schoolboy to freedom fighter in only the time it takes for him to curse a soldier.
The meanness and coldheartedness he displays at the end of the novel by demeaning his family is more due to how fed up he is with the situation and the fact that no one is doing anything than him just being a bad guy. He has the conviction of Usama without the fanaticism and the ideals of Adil without the ridiculous and dangerous pacifism.


For a significantly lighter take on the situation in Palestine check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T4Wk9M2ObE

Keeping it Real

In most the modern works that we've read it seems that realism is the only style of writing. Long gone is the writing in which a djin is behind every rock ready to put any passerby to some difficult or ridiculous task. But why is it that the magical and the fantastic has left the writing of such a beautiful culture?
While I'm sure there's no one, easy answer I wonder if it isn't the case that hundreds of years of war have taken their toll even on the hearts of these peoples. The beautiful fantasy of ancient fiction seems too often to have been replaced with the historical fiction of wartimes. I hope that I'm making a connection that isn't there or that is so incomplete that it's ridiculous, because if I'm not then what follows is really quite terrifying.
I guess what I'm really wondering at is: can a culture make so much war that when it's all over there may not be much left because the only thing left holding it together was the constant fighting?

Why didn't they bang on the walls?

It's hard for me to imagine a situation that I could be in where I needed to move so badly that I'd risk my life just to cross a border. For the three people in Men in the Sun life seems to have been almost meaningless without successfully being smuggled in to another country. Not only were they willing to sit inside a metal water tank during each checkpoint, in the end they were willing to die rather than be discovered. Granted, they may have been too weak due to the heat by the time they knew they were going to die but its still tragic that they'd rather die than bang the walls. It's also worth noting that the eldest of the three was good at keeping time without a watch so he would have known when too long an amount of time had passed.

Koran Reading

I had a bit of a struggle with this reading and I'm not sure that I got as much out of it as I probably should have, for that reason I'm looking forward to going to the Kalamazoo Islamic Center. The little bit that I did understand I found really interesting. Reading what was more like a criticism of the Christian belief that Jesus was God was facinating. Also the short bits that followed that recalled each of the other prophets from the Bible and then finding out how they related to Islam was also eye opening. Right around that spot though I think I started to get a bit lost because as I understood that each prophet had a relation to Islam I'm not sure I really understood the how.

Right by Occident

Though it really was unintentional that little video bit I posted seems much more appropriate after reading a bit of the history of the Middle East. I'd known, from a past professor mentioning it, that the west had totally messed up the Israel/Palestine area but I guess I'd never been 100% clear on just how it happened. That's awful! How could they/we promise an area to two peoples at the same time? Knowingly creating conflict and potentially civil war, this goes beyond irresponsible.
While the song may call it "an old man's war" it's hard not to understand why the wound continues to be fresh on both sides. Even reducing the issue to almost comical simplicity I could not imagine finding out tomorrow that Michigan had actually been promised to Canada and my choices were to become Canadian or leave. Even in this ridiculous context it'd get me wondering where my home was, on the one hand I'm American and my home would be in America, yet on the other I'm from Michigan and my home should be there. The recurring feeling of alienation that these peoples must deal with is simply staggering.

The Road to Peace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DGO3ANaYHQ

Finally got thinking, only took me 5 days, about the cartoons and images we looked at in class reguarding America's portrayal of the Middle East. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it earlier but this is a link to an amatureish video made to go with Tom Waits song "Road to Peace" off the album Orphans. All around a rather tragic song, and perhaps one of the more fair accounts (though fictional) of one aspect of conflict in the modern Middle East. So, if you have time, check it out, but the video (and the song for that matter) can be a bit graphic and overly real.

Wake up it's time to be away
Now's not the time to go astray
greet the morning one more time
and keep your tiredness at bay

This place is great, wide and mild
A place, it's shocking, once defiled
This is the way that it should stay
for things are best when left wild

Here we sit and there they stand
it must be nature's own demand
Climbing them's a young man's game
Those giant castles made of sand

I Dream of Jinni

After now having read a few stories from 1001 Nights I find the idea of the race of Jinn and of the role of magic both to be fascinating. First, the idea that the jinn are not always, and sometimes it seems hardly ever, friendly is totally against my previous idea of what a “genie” was supposed to be like. Granted there may have been a few popular horror movies that portrayed this race to be evil, which still doesn’t compare to a hugely successful Disney movie along with a very famous TV series when it comes to shaping my concept of what a “genie” is. I think, had I been asked a few months ago whether or not I’d fear meeting a jinni I’d have laughed as I imagined the genie from Aladdin. But to meet the jinn from The Trader and the Jinni or from The Story of King Shahryar would certainly be terrifying; I’m shocked that the modern portrayal could have gotten these beings so wrong.

Treating Men Like Animals

In The Story of King Shahryar we got to see some of the most obvious and outspoken racism of anything we’ve read up to this point. What makes this even more unusual is it is not Europeans being racist but instead Middle Easterners hating Africans.
Furthermore, though there were examples and hints of it in Othello this book comes right out and makes direct comparison between a moor and an animal. The depiction of the “blackamoor” in this work removes all humanity from it leaving behind only a creature driven solely by base instincts. It surprised me that throughout the story the kings never hated them as much as any of the other parties involved, this just really reinforced the idea that they were little more than animals in the eyes of the kings.

Turning

Apparently there was in interesting part to reading the play Othello that I missed simply because I was overconfident that I knew what the verb to turn meant. The essay “Turning Turk in Othello” spent a bit of time examining this verb and its many uses throughout the play, and I have to admit that I’m completely fascinated by it.
While there is undeniably a sense of warring religions in the play, knowing that the verb turn could mean both to convert in a religious sense and to pervert adds quite a bit, even to some of the exchanges that I thought I really enjoyed and understood. Suddenly, when Othello yells at his subordinates wondering if they’d all turned Turk, I no longer think that it is only on insult but possibly a sort of self-reflection.
The language of this play is really beginning to interest me, and while I’m not sure that I’ve really started to get any of it quite yet, or maybe I should say that I’ve just been thrown into continual doubt about what anything means, I do recognize that each new word use I learn seems to open up a new level of depth to the play that I had not first experienced.

Hating, One of My Favorite Writers

In all honesty I’m quite a fan of most of Shakespeare’s plays and especially of tragic plays in general. However, the play Othello is not one that I could be easily duped into reading again. While there’s certainly something to be said for a play that in its offensive nature “grabs up” the reader the racism in this play is so commonplace as to be nothing better than boring. I admit that it definitely shows how people thought at that time, but I could read a history book (or even a more interesting play, for that matter) and get that information.
Now I’m sure that there are more than a few people wishing I wouldn’t write off a play by SUCH a playwright simply because of the racism, but again, even the racism is boring. The main character is nothing more than a collection of the more simplistic and base parts of human nature; one minute madly in lust, the next ready to fight and obey, all the while showing none of his own intelligence but only doing as he’s told. Had this character been portrayed this way independent of his race, I may have liked the play better, but then again I wouldn’t have been reading Othello.
I guess all I can say is that the next time I hear someone refer to Othello as a “great Shakespearian tragedy” I’ll have to agree, though almost assuredly for different reasons.


Revisit - I had a lot of trouble deciding whether or not I should post a short revisit I wrote after writing the initial post. I still don't know if I'd like to change or alter my opinion that much so with that in mind here's a bit of what I thought might make my opinion seem slightly more fair:
The characters of Desdemona and Emilia are fascinating especially in the fact that they both seem to pretty much control their husbands. These are incredibly strong women for this period, but not only that, with a few slight updates they might even manage to continue to be strong even in today's society. Looking back at the complexity of these two, maybe all hope is not lost for me liking Othello.

Missing Out

It is truly amazing that Saladin is a king who, in my past, I can only remember meeting in film, and only one film at that. Shortly after reading his brief history, followed by the selection from the Decameron I found myself wondering which king, in the past, I could look up to that would have been like him, except of European heritage.
After hours of thinking I found myself more apt to quibble among my thoughts as to what exactly a European was, rather than to be able to start naming names. In fact, the best I could come up with in terms of finding a king as noble as Saladin was the mythical King Arthur. It really makes me sad, but with a sense of wonderment, that in order to find a king to rival Saladin’s greatness, except from my background, I had to resort to myth.
Why is a man so great neglected so often in the teaching of history?

I Wish I Could Know What I Knew

This is my fist attempt at blogging and, while years ago this may have been a means for me to be really creative with html and such, I'm finding out quickly just how much I've forgotten.