We know that it is a post-modern work when the tone carried throughout the work is of an apathetic and monochromic color. For someone hailing from oneWe know that it is a post-modern work when the tone carried throughout the work is of an apathetic and monochromic color. For someone hailing from one of the most unreligious eras in human history, post-modern authors really know how to sigh like a religious one. Post-modern authors, it seems, always find themselves, perhaps echoing all of us, in a losing battle against time, motion and distance.
Hear the Wind Sing. It is a short and sweet bildungsroman novella about the pathos of distance. The novel heralded the birth of Murakami with his characteristic emphasis on angst and mundaneness of life (even in a supernatural settings, in his later novels). To put it in an image, his novel is a book-length contemplation on how footsteps on the beach fade away, without any trace or proof of its existence.
I am surprised that the archetype appeared in many Murakami’s novel are here, in his first novel; the mysterious women. Women are always portrayed in Murakami’s novel as aloof, mysterious, complex and of unfathomable depth, always looked from a certain unabridged distance. Perhaps we can never understand woman, like life. That’s how I interpret this recurring symbol in Murakami’s novels. It is no coincidence that nature, which houses the stage for our consciousness to play houses and actors, is called as Mother Nature. Woman are profound beings, I repeat, just like our life. “…It’s okay for them to owe us, but not if we owe them...” echoed somewhere in the novella.
The second novel Pinball, 1973, on the other hand, are off for a great start, even in the beginning. The anecdotes of Saturnian and Venusian people are very interesting. Saturn, the largest planet in our solar system, in mythology are Kronos, who killed his father Ouranos, only to be killed by his own son, Jupiter; an infinite cycle. This is the theme of Pinball, 1973, that is, to put in Nietzsche’s words, “eternal recurrence”. Returning back to Saturn and the endless cycle of overthrowing paterfamilias, Murakami used “people of Saturn” as a metaphor for revolutionary students back in the 60’s.
The people of the Venus, straightforwardly, are the people who “…[Venusian] humidity mean that most Venusians die young…. also means that everyone’s heart is overflowing with love…” Indeed, if the world is filled with innocent children and youth, our world probably a more peaceful one. (If we agree to close an eye on what happens in The Lord of the Flies, that is).
Why the novel is named as such lies in one passage, “…No, pinball leads nowhere. The only result is a replay light. Replay, replay, replay- it makes you think the whole aim of the game is to achieve a form of eternity…” Those words sounds like a condensed version of Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence, where a demon hailed one night and whispered how the world would be repeated again and again. Most of the people take this as Nietzsche’s affirmation to reincarnation, but that is not the case. Eternal recurrence, as Nietzsche understood it, is an affirmation to the cyclical and apathy of life, in a most diabolic and extreme manner. Even if years and ages passed in our life, without consolation and meaning, we must affirm to life, because there is only this one life, despite its entire shortcoming, that bear proofs that we are here. Life, just like pinball machines, is its own opium. When the game is over, you press replay/repeat/repent.
The other theme explored by Murakami in this novel is that of change. Now, change occupies a large chapter in many thinkers, and in Pinball, there’s frequent mention of Kant and his Critique of Pure Reason. Kant, regarding change, believed that for a change to occur, there must be something that remains. It sounds paradoxical, but let’s say, when the firewood changed into charcoal, if there’s nothing constant that exists in those two states, how could we perceive the changes in the same event, or make sense of it after all? Substance persists, only the state of the substances changes. There must be permanence, or else everything would be an eternal flux, Kant said. Even we have to change; there will always be something part of us that survive the change, even if it is painful.
“I” visiting the train station waiting for the dog his dead girlfriend once mentioned, the Rat making decision to leave his current pampered life, “I” having a closure with the pinball machine he once obsessed on, and the final goodbye between the twins and “I”; all of them symbolizes changes. Changes must come, for good or bad, and it will come in many forms. Some changes would appear bland and inconsequential, without any drama or significance and some changes would leave a bittersweet aftertaste; both of them are good and well....more
I really don’t sense the hostility and controversy mentioned by others in the book. He is a white Western guy who is proud and ready to defend their WI really don’t sense the hostility and controversy mentioned by others in the book. He is a white Western guy who is proud and ready to defend their Western ideals. And, I am a non-Western Muslim guy who is also proud and ready to defend my ideals. Does that makes both of us xenophobic, fascist and warmongers? If it’s a yes, then everybody who stood up when their national anthem played or cheered for their team in football match are racists. Everybody tends to fall into one of the two extreme poles, but mankind is vast and rich enough to have both of the poles. He can be proud of his country yet that doesn’t prevent him from appreciating the culture of other people of other cultures.
His thesis is this; that the future international policies and conflicts would be on the civilizational level, instead of national or ideological. An apt example showing the application for his model is that of his prediction on the Ukraine-Russian conflict. He predicted that Ukraine would be a cleft country, a termed he bestowed on a nation torn between two civilizations. In the Ukrainian case, the cleft is between the Uniate western part of Ukraine and the Orthodox Eastern Ukraine. 15 years after the book is published, Putin declared that the “liberation” of Crimea is the wish of the Crimeans. But, the thing with human prediction is, it works for few, but not to many. At the end of the book, he offered few pages of fully-fledged intercivilizational war beginning with Chinese invasion into Vietnam. I think it is these pages that triggered the people to (unfairly) label him as a warmonger, scaremonger etc. Yet, the setting of the war would be at 2010 and at present, 2018, no such calamity is around the corner. Maybe, in the future, who knows?
Regarding his vocal description against other civilization especially of Islamic and Sinic civilization, we can replace the other civilization’s name with Western and it still fits.
If he really a Western idolizer he perhaps would affirm with no hesitation that Westernization is a prerequisite for modernization. Yet, he admits that there’s 5 responses towards influence of Western ideals (rejectionism, reformism, Kemalism, chimeras and post-modern West), and anybody can see that he recognizes the limitation of Kemalism and the pain the people went through in their divorce with the culture and values they hold. This book, after all, are an exposition arguing from civilizational approach. If he is to propose that Western ideals is the sole savior of humankind while retaining in the earlier parts that modernity was only known by the West as only a part of its history rather than its inherent characteristic, he would commit himself in gross contradiction. He ends the part with concluding that Westernization is not the prerequisite of modernization, as shown by Japan and the rest.
At the end of the book, he remarked quite frankly that the belief for Western universalism is “false, immoral and dangerous”. He declared admirably for Singapore’s standing up to their own cultures and values, enlisting the country’s White Paper as communalities, one of the three ways he prescribed for peace in the face of intercivilizational future conflicts, despite saying that actions akin to Singapore by other non-Western civilizations are a “revolt against the West”, perhaps misunderstanding that we should pay tribute and obedience eternally to our past invaders.
The chapter "le revanche de dieu" commenting on the phenomenon of religious revival in current times. The author realizes and takes into account that the phenomenon of religious revival was not a frantic fanatic movement, but really a response from a meaning-seeking urban population. He noted that the phenomenon’s bulk comes from the “second generation indigenous” where they are of urban, socially mobile, highly educated, middle classed population. Perhaps the strongest sentence came from him was “…In this sense, the revival of non-Western religions is the powerful manifestation of anti-Westernism in non-Western population…” Taken out of context, it is indeed perhaps a statement of annoyance toward the revolt against the West. But, earlier he differentiates that the religious revival rejects “modernism” (which composed of moral relativism, egotism and consumerism) instead of “modernity”. And he concludes with “[Religious revival] is a declaration of cultural independence from West, a proud statement that “We will be modern, but we won’t be you” My friends, I haven’t heard of a statement so welcoming and positive towards the phenomenon of religious revival. He looked beyond usual prejudice with the words of “jihad” or “evangelicalism”; he also looked at the phenomenon from the existentialism point of view.
However, there are precise points where he started to turn, rather unfairly to Muslims. Of course, by adopting a bird’s eyes view in handling differences between cultures and people, he sees the Islamic bloc as a single unit, where Islamic doctrines are sufficient enough to move the people in said bloc in unison. Persuasive events are offered such as the unity of the Muslim world against the West in the Gulf War. Yet, as the forest looked like more or less the same color of green, he failed to see that even in what he called as the “Islamic civilization”, there possess a spectrum of attitudes in living their lives. People in Malaysia, for an instance, are much more moderate, while their counterparts in tribal Afghanistan are much more strict-even beyond necessary-, even in interpreting the same verse of the Quran. He mentioning, “…a concept of nonviolence is absent from Muslim practice and doctrines…” are rather too self-serving in explaining why Muslims are having problems in living peacefully with their neighbors. He himself said that Islam is a way of life and so Muslims should therefore engaging their everyday lives with Islamic practice and doctrines. If his former statement is really true, wouldn’t everywhere in the “Islamic civilization” would be anarchy and chaos? His frequent mentions of riots and violence occurring between Muslim Malays and Chinese in Malaysia sounded like it really is frequent. Yet, there’s only a single open and bloody confrontation occurs in the country and yet, it is not from religious clashes but from what the author oft repeat; “cultural fault lines”. This perhaps is due from the author’s loose application of the terms religion and cultural, sometimes they are different and yet sometimes they are of the same, somewhere in this book.
In conclusion, perhaps his ideas came to others as “simplistic”, but I think “simplicity” is the sole reason for any model or theory. We derive theories in order to make an order from all of these entropy and anarchy. While there’s so many opinions are against him such as “a prophet for the Trump era” etc., I couldn’t deny this book as a classic study and a good start in providing a taste on international affairs, perhaps an application for Arnold Toynbee or Oswald Spengler’s philosophy of history. Whether it really applies to reality, well, doesn’t human arrogance never managed to bring heaven back down, but only piling the Tower of Babel higher and higher?...more
The two chapters, "Rebellion" and "The Grand Inquisitor" were one of the best and most passionate chapters in the novel. Here was the famous line, adoThe two chapters, "Rebellion" and "The Grand Inquisitor" were one of the best and most passionate chapters in the novel. Here was the famous line, adopted from Schiller, where the atheist Ivan Karamazov said that, if the suffering of the world, especially the children are made by God to show Mankind of good, evil and He as his arbiter, if this is the price of wanting to know and have faith in God and to be received in his paradise, then he, Ivan Karamazov, returns his ticket back to Him.
And the poem of "The Grand Inquisitor", where the Inquisitor arrested the supposedly Christ after he appearing in the crowds, was so beautiful. The Inquisitor argued that it is because he, Christ rejected the three things "tempted" by the spirit in the wilderness- miracle, mystery and authority- is the root for all faithlessness and tragedy. He reproached Christ's rejection of the three matters so man can love and believe in him with their own freedom as naive, saying that "...from the burden of their freedom of choice they choose to reject you...".
The main plot, on the other hand, regarding the murder case of the paterfamilia Fyodor Karamazov ended with questions. The prosecutor argued with his vast knowledge of "psychology" and the defence attorney retorted that psychology is "a stick with two ends". I think it is not a coincidence that one of the chapter in Book XII that narrated the trial are named as "Adulterer of Thought", that human reasoning can produce multiple narration from a single set of evidence.
Notable ideas produced during the trials were, one of the many, was on what matters that one truly earns the title of the father. Fyodor Karamazov begets the three brothers, and possibly the servant Smerdyakov, and so he automatically earned the title father, even when he totally abandoned the children to lice and squalor, even not knowing of their existence for a time? This automatic reasoning, argued the defence attorney, is a belief by prejudice, a mysticism. Fathers should be asked "Do you love me when you beget me?" or "just in the moment of passion, under the influence of drinking" to earn the right to be loved and respected by their children. The family unit must be formed with the labor of trust and love and not established by a belief by prejudice. Ironically enough, it is the parents who applauded greatly when the attorney finished his point regarding this.
In conclusion, Dostoevsky's final novel were great in breadth and depth, covering pretty much everything, from the aping of socialism and liberalism, the institution of elders and politics between monks, parricide, religious criticism, Russian identity to the subtle question of what is and what must be done to earn the title of father. ...more
These two books and Ecce Homo would be one of the last books written by Nietzsche before his insanity. I expect the tone would be again sober and calcThese two books and Ecce Homo would be one of the last books written by Nietzsche before his insanity. I expect the tone would be again sober and calculating as in On the Genealogy of Morals, but perhaps Nietzsche was sensing how his effort to capture his reader's attention in that manner was to no avail. And so, he concluded his writing career with these two books.
One with the apt subtitle of; How to Philosophise with a Hammer. Thinking of a hammer, one usually use it with intensity and speed to drive the nail down in the wood. And so also in this book, Nietzsche brought us in a tour de force of his philosophy with lightning speed. He also brought the hammer down, finishing his effort battering on Kant and Schopenhauer.
The second book was essentially Nietzsche's attack on Christianity. His criticism was quite unique, for he actually lambasted Paul for putting words in the Master's mouth and corrupted Jesus' teaching. Nietzsche even said that the first and the last Christian was dead on the Cross. He was appalled upon finding the only one who proved to be a worthy opinion against Nietzsche's Dionysos, was used to justify negation and pessimism towards life.
In conclusion, Twilight of the Idols proved to be a worthy conclusion for Nietzsche's philosophy. Personally, I don't think that Nietzsche's philosophy provide us a new insight of frontier in philosophy. To compare it with medicinal analogy, his philosophy is not a ground-breaking wonder drug. His was a prophylaxis, a safeguarding and a medicine taking for precaution with the aim of "intellectual hygiene" he was so obsessed to....more
This book's scope, like its title suggested is massive. It is one of those book which started from the minutest detail of the microcosmos, that is ManThis book's scope, like its title suggested is massive. It is one of those book which started from the minutest detail of the microcosmos, that is Man, to the apex of Man's reaches; in this book, the Common-Wealth.
Hobbes' main project in this book is to provide an all-reaching argument supporting obedience to authority according to human reasoning. As he grounded his argument in human reasoning, it is necessary and wise for him to start with the single unit-Man- and define Man's passion and his natural rights. This is what Hobbes' embarked on the Part I of this book, titled Of Man.
The second part, after he elaborated on human passion, he worked on to justify the formation of Sovereignty from the data he amassed in the former part. He argued that the natural right for Man is to protect or to preserve his life, and in Man's natural condition, the limits for self-preservation is almost close to none. So, Man in his primordial anarchic state, can enforce his basic rights with whatsoever means and impunity and thus, a perpetual Warring state. Only by the formation of an Authority can guarantee both Man's natural rights for Self-preservation and Peace. By assenting to the formation of an Authority, a Common-Wealth is created, a Leviathan, a macro-image of the microcosmos, which every of its subject's natural rights are guaranteed.
The third part elaborates on the formation of a Christian Common-Wealth. The fourth part was essentially an attack on what Hobbes' called as "Vain Philosophy" and the "darkness" it wrought. Being a Renaissance man himself, it is understandable why Hobbes and his peers developed degrees of ambivalence (to put it nicely) towards the Scholastic metaphysics.
I would categorise this book as a World-building book for the reasons I mentioned above. I can only recall few books that can rival Leviathan's scope, the closest one being the Muqaddimah of Ibnu Khaldun. Of course, certain ideas in their works are severely outdated and disproved, but they still bear witness on Man's journey in discovering and exploring new frontiers....more
This novella by Dostoevsky embarked on a mission to show the irrational side of the human intellect and feeling. Perhaps, this novella was an effort tThis novella by Dostoevsky embarked on a mission to show the irrational side of the human intellect and feeling. Perhaps, this novella was an effort to dismantle rationalism, the romantic "the lofty and the beautiful" and a critique to Kant. Kant famously remarked that we can indeed calculate the cause and effect in human action, that is his behaviour. And this great conclusion of Kant somehow was warped-as everything in history- and from its Kantian soil there was born the doctrine of "rational egoism".
The doctrine of rational egoism propounds that man acts based on profits, and the project of educating and enlightening man would give rise to the "Crystal Palace", this sublime utopia of the enlightened rational egoists. This chimera, born from the shadows of Kant, is what Dostoevsky embarked to criticised.
Dostoevsky argued that we need both suffering and happiness to really be alive. He commented that even if man's needs are fulfilled to its very best, his life is ordered and formed, man would nevertheless rise up and rebel just for the sake of asserting his existence as a human being, not a mere piano key or gears in a machinery.
This novella perhaps are one of the novels who bravely investigate man's encounter with Nothingness. Before this, all are permeated with Socratic optimism, that to be happy is to be knowledgeable, that everything can be discovered and solved using reason. They believed that life comes in the form of the Sophoclean drama; that there's a prologue that introduced the cast and the story of the play. But this later men, the men of the Delta, saw nothing from this Socratic optimism other than the "beautiful and sublime", spoken with a critical and ironic tone....more
It is not excessive to say, that every man with a modicum interest to ambition and power, would definitely known Napoleon, even only by name. His lifeIt is not excessive to say, that every man with a modicum interest to ambition and power, would definitely known Napoleon, even only by name. His life has always been compared and placed in par with the great ancients such as Alexander and Caesar (whom he admired so much that his cheeks were moist with tears as finally a person placed him alongside the heroes he read and admired since he was just a schoolboy in Brienne). Yet, while the names of Alexander and Caesars are universally revered, Napoleon's is not that lucky. Many historians either to chastise his life to the point of absurdity, while the rest over-aggrandised it.
This book's particular good point is that, it portrayed Napoleon as a human.
Do not being appalled by the sheer size of the book, for while it is not a historical narrative where one can read like a novel, it is hard to not being pulled into the text. One could merely held back his suspense when Napoleon's was conspiring for the Brumaire coup, or try to held back one's tears when the author is retelling the touching moment when Napoleon left Fountainebleau for his Elban exile. This book is all and all an-all embracing text of Napoleon's great life, complete with all of his victories, losses and betrayals by his friends and generals....more
The book itself is a mammoth covering vast expanse of materials, incidents and intertwining characters. To make it more complex, different or alternatThe book itself is a mammoth covering vast expanse of materials, incidents and intertwining characters. To make it more complex, different or alternate worlds are offered ultimately bringing the readers into a mesmerising and surreal 600-pages journey, and even at the end, none of the questions have been answered. But of course, one can argue, considering of those random incidents, manuscripts, flashbacks in the novel, how can one even form a solid question? And thus, how can we expect to have our questions answered, if at the very first place, nothing solid can be grabbed to form a question?
It is a wonderful experience reading this book. Modern literature are very insistent on dismantling the Aristotelian plot; as everything is random, no climax can be drawn yet a beautiful piece of a story can still be constructed. Perhaps, all modern literature wishes us to snap awake from our dreams; those dreams thinking that the world can still be a stage of a Homeric epic, full of dramas and meaning.
Still scrambling for what the author trying to convey to us, perhaps the list of work consulted for the novel might offer us a clue. The list is full of books on the subject of Japanese role in the Manchuria and indeed the narration of the book eventually points to two matter; a chronicle recounting Japanese involvement in the continent and the odyssey of the main character in trying to bring back his wife, Kumiko home.
Some of the reviewers speculates that this work is trying to reconcile wartime heritage from two different stages; macrocosmic and microscomic. What does history really means to us, the people of the present? Perhaps at best, something to be memorised as dates for national holiday, at worst, a dusty tome untouched in an empty library. The only thing that can move us, the people of the present, is obviously, events of the present. Personal events, told from the view of an ordinary person. And so, the author tried to weave the connection between the abstract level of history and the everyday events of the individual. Jacob's ladder to heaven- a fitting mythological imagery in describing author's endeavour in this book.
Compared to Nietzsche's previous works, On the Genealogy of Morals are built to be a more solid and concrete writing. A suitable imagery would be thatCompared to Nietzsche's previous works, On the Genealogy of Morals are built to be a more solid and concrete writing. A suitable imagery would be that his previous works are akin to barrages of colourful fireworks firing here and there everywhere simultaneously, full of gasping epiphany and raptures, with an intent to awe the readers. This work, in contrast, was written in light of the event of Nietzsche failing in selling his book and so was written in a more concrete style and sober pace. (Not that his previous works are at blunders etc.)
One of the major premises Nietzsche embark on this work is that; Morality is a social construct born out from historical events. This book, I think, was Nietzsche's answer towards Kantian morality which insists that the law of morality, or law of practical reason, is universal and thus a priori. While Nietzsche clearly in the first pages of this book stated that even what is a priori to one could be not, or different in the other.
The book was divided into 3 parts with sections under them. The first essay attempted to elaborate on the distinction of the notion "Good-Bad" and "Good-Evil". Nietzsche believed that the former distinction applied to the aristocratic circles while the latter is by the oppressed people, who Nietzsche believed to give birth to the duality of "Good-Evil" out of resentment from the oppression they faced by the aristocratic values.
The second essay explores on Nietzsche's theory on how concepts such as conscience and guilt are formed. An interesting point he argues is that man creates such concepts when they are constrained by laws and customs of society they lived in; the internalisation of man. He also carried this point a bit further, suggesting that man encountered "soul" after the region of consciousness gain colour and depths due to obliteration of output vent made possible by societal customs. This general sketch of the repression theory would be picked up by Freud later.
The third essay is a critique on the ascetic ideals. Perhaps Nietzsche was trying, in this essay to provide a conclusive break with his previous idols, Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner, who espoused Schopenhauerism giving birth to the opera Parsifal, which Nietzsche seemed to have a problem with it.
All in all, this book provides a refreshing change after few previous books heavy laden with prophetic epiphany and metaphors. The book is also great for someone that is looking for a counter-arguments towards first, Kantian morality and to secondly, "...English psychologists [and philosophers]" as Nietzsche named them in the works. Nietzsche was probably thinking of Hobbes, Mill and his former friend Paul Reé in the latter term.
The question remains on how far could one apply Nietzsche's skepticism? I suggest that Nietzsche's works are great as an antidote, a reminder on the need of intellectual modesty and "cleanliness", as he puts it....more
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