Italics are mine

Recent read: "You don't belong here" by Elizabeth Becker

This was a good read. I picked it up on a whim at Interabang and am so glad I did. Elizabeth Becker, who arrived in Vietnam in 1973, writes about three women photographers who covered the war before she did: Frances FitzGerald, Catherine Leroy and Kate Webb. Of course they had to deal with a lot of questionable behavior and prejudice, but still managed to leave their mark through their pictures. They were very much loners, although FitzGerald married later in life and Webb was briefly engaged (to a soldier who turned out to be married and decided against leaving his wife - she even left her job as reporter and returned to the United States to live on a military base with him, except that he hid her away in a hotel instead). 

I liked the book but I always felt some sort of distance or invisible glass barrier between the reader and the reporters covered. Yet their stories were fascinating, and I read the book as fast as I could. The chapter that took my breath away is toward the end, about the atrocities in Cambodia and the many journalists killed covering that part of the conflict. Such a waste of life - talented journalists and photographers murdered by the Khmer Rouge. Kate Webb luckily survived her own abduction, but seemed to have struggled with PTSD for years afterward. 

I only wish the book had shown more of their pictures, but I got so impressed by Elizabeth Becker while I read that I bought her account of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge revolution after I finished this. 

If you'd like to know more about these women, besides reading the book, here are some resources:

Catherine Leroy

• Wikipedia
• ICP
• NYT
• The Guardian

Kate Webb

• Wikipedia
• NYT

Frances FitzGerald

• Wikipedia

PBS's documentary on Ernest Hemingway

I usually love everything Ken Burns does so I eagerly watched his 3-part documentary (with Lynn Novick) on Ernest Hemingway, which I assume was made because we are coming close to the 60th anniversary of his suicide on July 2, 1961. Or maybe it was made because Hemingway remains a literary giant. I liked the documentary enough, especially the beginning (Paris, Spain, Martha Gellhorn) and the very end, when he struggles with alcoholism and a long descent into night. I wished there had been a little more about his writing and why it was so novel.

My main reservation about the movie was that I felt Burns/Novick pushed the concussion angle too much to explain Hemingway's deterioration. Unless someone kept a bit of Hemingway's brain somewhere to run tests, it seems really speculative to pin the blame on his psychosis and depression on a series of concussions. The man drank heavily for decades. That to me is much more likely to be the primary reason of his mental troubles. The pictures make him look far older than his 61 years - maybe closer to 71, frankly. Nonetheless, it was an interesting movie about a larger-than-life personality. 

Re-reading the Bhagavad Gita

 (Wow, I haven't updated this blog in a long time! I'll update it more frequently from now on.) I picked up the Jack Hawley translation of the Bhagavad Gita when I last went to Half Price Books. I read the Eknath Easwaran translation a few times some years back and I liked it enough but the Hawley translation was such a pleasure to read.

Here are some sentences that particularly caught my attention.

• "Arjuna, the cessation of your present pain and sorrow will depend on how well you overcome your ignorance of your True Self that lives within you." (p.15)
• "One's personal duty in life (one's sva-dharma) should be viewed as one's responsibility to his or her highest Self, the Atma... If you do not fight this battle of good over evil, you will fail in both your worldly duty and in your duty to your very Self. You will violate your sva-dharma. Not doing the right thing when it is required is worse than doing the wrong thing." (p.17)
• "Equanimity... is truly the ideal attitude in which to live your life." (p.21)
• "One's duty in life is one's dharma. This essentially means that you have to live by your inner Truth rather than your selfish desires. One must do one's duty." (p.35)
• "Those who find joy and peace completely within are the truly happy ones." (p.54)
• "Setting your heart steadily on the visible aspect of Me [God] and becoming saturated with devotion and faith will lead you quickly and surely to me, the Godhead." (p.109)
• "The objective of life is to reshape one's character upward in pursuit of a higher ideal - changing from indolence or inertia (tamas) into passionate effort (rajas) and then channeling that into calmness (sattva)." (p.126)
• "Suffering is the training ground where one shapes good character and right conduct (dharma). It is dharma (living a truth-based life) that lifts one to the serenity of sattva." (p.128)
• "Let the scriptures tell you what you should and should not do, Arjuna. Know what the right choices are and live up to them. It is simpler than you think. When you, or anyone, is firmly on the road to enlightenment there is no conflict at all between what you do and what the scriptures advise." (p.141)
• "There are three main methods of purification: the refinement of one's thoughts, words and deeds... Purifying one's deeds... consists of four key practices: veneration of the Gods... veneration of holy ones, persons who have so dedicated their careers; veneration of gurus (spiritual teachers, older people who set good examples); and veneration of the sages, those who already know Atma and have transcended body-mind. Purifying one's words... also includes four key practices: truth telling, not hurting, not flattering and devotional chanting... Consider now, lastly, the purification of thought... To develop equanimity of mind, allow only good thoughts and noble sentiments to arise in you." (p.146)
• "Sattvic firmness is an absolutely unwavering devotion to the Divine, a deeply profound resolve to move toward and merge in God." (p.157)

I've got more quotes but you really should read the book!