Nowhere Man

Nowhere Man is a multilayered narrative portrait of a Bosnian boy by the name of Jozef Pronek. The diverse voices in the chapters of the book intercept to paint the multiple faces of Pronek. He is a man with many fates, but none that is coherent; he is a man with many homelands, but none that makes him feel home. The voices of the narrators trace Pronek in Sarajevo, Kiev, Lvov, Chicago, even Shanghai. Displaced from his home because of the war, Pronek never finds one place to live in, one job to work, one girlfriend to love. Even his sexuality is on the verge of the ambiguous. In this beautifully written text, through which unique images chase each other hastily like drops of mercury, Hemon reveals his skill to give an expression of the inexpressible state of the migrant, the nowhere man. And he does that in a second language - one that relates to his home only by the image of the missing home in the nowhere place in which the author lives.

A Ballet Morning, St. Pete's Style

A New York Times video story.

Does Your Kid Have a Drum Set?

When asked the above question, the wife of Paul Auster answers:

- No, that's Paul writing.

An interview by Granta magazine about the last book of fiction by Paul Auster - Invisible.

Granta Paul Auster Interview from Granta magazine on Vimeo.

After a long pause... on ugliness

I finally had a moment to go through the beautiful volume On Ungliness by Umberto Eco. The collection of essays is divided in several chapters looking at the concept of ugliness through time - from ancient Greece to modernity. There is a part dedicated to the martyrdom of Jesus Christ. The book is definitely worth-owning with its exquisite photos (representing ugliness through the centuries) and excerpts from the works of Plato to the radical feminists. Eco's text manages to succinctly and beautifully talk about the development of the concept of ugliness. He makes sure that the reader understands from the very beginning that there is no idea of ugliness without the concept of beauty. Now I am looking forward to reading his History of Beauty.

Here is an interview with Eco by New York Times.

  

Payback: Margaret Atwood on Debt

The prolific Canadian writer Margaret Atwood reads excerpts from her new book Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth on NPR's Book Tour. With this collection of essays, Atwood proves once again her versatility as an author: from a poet and a novelist to a nonfiction writer and a philosopher providing timely commentary on perilous economic situations. When you say "Hello" or "Good morning" to someone, when you open the door for someone, they owe you back something - at least a "Thank you", explains the basics of the debtor-creditor relationship Atwood. She muses on the different types of debts and the synonyms that debt has developed in modern Western culture. Forgiveness, according to the author, is often a type of debt. When Nelson Mandela was leaving the prison, for example, he wanted to forgive for all they have done to him right at this point so that he will not suffer later with the memories.

Debt is related to memory, says Atwood. Also, there is a story and a plot connected to every debt. Even in the animal world, the economic system works in a similar way: when a chimpanzee scratches another one, the receiver of the favor owes him a scratch back (they remember the debt), unless there is a hierarchical structure in which the scratched chimp is above the others and therefore exempt from paying back the favor. Very much like in politics - remarks Atwood. My favorite example that she gives concerns silver fish: when the male silver fish does a dance for the female silver fish, if she appreciates the dance, he then gives to her something called "sperm package"!

Thinking about creditor-debtor relationship, when someone reads your blog, don't they owe you something? Perhaps just a comment, or maybe a copy of a recently reviewed book! Come on, don't be stingy!

Starving for Bread and Knowledge in Yezierska's Bread Givers

Anzia Yezierska’s Bread Givers depicts the life of a Jewish immigrant family from Poland. The plot proliferates with themes and symbols seminal to the American immigrants in the beginning of the 20^th century. As the Smolinsky family struggles with hunger, questions of morality and gender discrimination come to the surface. Sara Smolinsky, the youngest daughter, epitomizes the social changes in the immigrant’s life: she emerges from a man-driven Old World to make herself “a person” and get education in the New World (159). The hungry for bread immigrant starves for knowledge as a pathway to individuality and independence.

Reb Smolinsky, the father, is a religious man who prays all day long and chooses not to work, but who believes that a woman is nothing without a man. His vision for getting bread at the table is solely rooted in the management of his four daughters: they give his wages to the family, they work for his well-being, and they are supposed to marry to rich gentlemen who will support the whole Smolinsky family. Thus, Reb Smolinsky marries three out of his four daughters to seemingly rich men; however, his poor matchmaking skills render his daughters unhappy and put them in marriages with men who either lied about their prosperity, spend all the money on themselves, or have numerous children from a previous marriage. The principles of the Smolinsky family call for happiness in prosperity and rich life and leave behind love and education.

The youngest daughter of Reb Smolinsky, Sara, disrupts the idea of her father by running away from the family. One day she gets tired of her father’s preaching, his gullibility as a businessman and his plans to marry her off to a rich man. Sara begins a life of her own, delving into a world of poverty but cherishing aspirations for education. Sara’s life in New York is marked by physical and epistemological hunger. She works at daytime in a laundry as an ironer and goes to school in the evenings. Her dream is to become a teacher. Despite the connection between the spirituality of father and daughter, Sara’s move clashes with Reb Smolinsky’s idea of a woman. He tries to marry her off to “a golden young man” who Sara initially likes because of his achieved independence but refuses to marry (207). The dispute between father and daughter ends their relationship for a while, illuminating the difference between the two worlds that Reb and Sara belong to: “I saw there was no use talking. He could never understand. He was the Old World. I was the New” (207).

Two worlds collide, and the new one attracts Sara more because of the possibilities it gives to a young woman: “It’s a new life now. In America, women don’t need men to boss them” (137). Sara’s hunger for knowledge overcomes her hunger for food. All her sisters were afraid to tear away from the old world because of the hunger that they and their family will face with their move. Sara does not fear hunger; she is on a quest to make herself a new person, one who deserves respect as much as men do . She enunciates a social change in the immigrant’s life: women can be equal to men in the new world.

In fact, all the men in the Smolinsky’s world are supposed to be “bread givers” but they fail as such. Reb Smolinsky does not even know how to handle his own money; he constantly loses whatever he has in a foolish way and lives on the wages of his daughters. Moe Mirsky, who marries the most beautiful of the Smolinsky daughters – Mashah – as a diamond dealer, is actually a simple clerk who cannot keep a job and starves his family while wearing expensive suits and eating at fancy restaurants. Abe Schmukler, the cloaks-and-suits dealer who marries Fania, appears to be a gambler who does not care about his wife’s emotions and while he provides for her good appearance, it is only because that makes him look good in the eyes of the others. Zalmon, the fish-peddler chosen by the father as Bessie’s husband, does not care about the happiness of his wife and is pleased as long as he has someone to take care of his house and six kids.

Sara Smolinsky sees that it is time to leave the world of men as bread givers; apparently, the question from the Torah “What is a woman without a man?” has a different answer in the new world (205). A woman could be a better bread giver than all the men in the Smolinsky family.

Crippled Imagination and Its Cost

Well, well, well. A talk about the educational system never seems objective enough to me unless it is confined by proper geographical, cultural, and chronological parameters. And here comes a second book on the education in American public schools by John Gatto. Weapons of Mass Instruction metaphorically prepares the reader with its title about the statement Mr. Gatto is to make once again: "mechanisms of familiar schooling which cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a by-product of role-memorization drills." It all sounds scary; the picture promises a dumb and handicapped generation. Wait, that's exactly part of the name of John Gatto's first book - Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1992). Then, the popularity of his Underground History of American Education which is available for free online, makes a similar point.

I wonder how many books by Gatto will it take for people to really see some of the basic problems that the system has. Though not a product of the American public school system, I have a significant experience with its products. In fact, I, you, and everybody out there in this country gets to experience on daily basis encounters of that kind (I'd like to think that Spielberg was not having those in mind when he was thinking of the "third kind" encounters). Don't we all deal in one way or another with public school graduates? Oh yes, you'd say, but after their public school some of them became University graduates and therefore they won't identify any more with their basic public schooling. True, but how many of you get your burger flipped or your oil changed by this University graduate? And why has it become normal in this country to have the foundation of one's education worse than the building it supports? Doesn't a good foundation make for a more solid structure? Wrapped in this line of thinking, I do forget however that the education we are talking about is actually called public. Public is part of a binary opposites whose other end must be non-public, or paid, or for those who can afford to pay for it, or maybe I should use the Chomskyan, for the "privileged." Now that the working concepts have changed - public versus paid education, or education for free vs. a better one that is paid - I think it makes sense why a book or two or even three are not exactly going to make that change. We live in a world where the more money you pay the better product you get. And yes, the product of the public schools is "what you paid for." Ironic, in a time of economic crisis. But eye-opening for many who did not quite think about it before. Now, we have to perhaps worry about the public schools more than ever because it is likely that we will get more and more products at a lower cost since we won't be able to afford the higher price. More products with "crippled imagination" to deal with on daily basis; knock on wood they won't live in your homes.