Italics are mine

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!

Best Fiction Read in 2020

Here are my favorite works of fiction I read in 2020, in no particular order. Do you see any of your personal favorites in the list? 

 

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Another masterpiece: "The Flight Portfolio" by Julie Orringer

What a masterpiece this book is. I started reading it in hardcover, couldn't go past the first ten chapters - stupefied, like many other readers, that Orringer had focused the story on Varian Fry's imaginary male lover from his Harvard days rather than the real-life artists he helped escape Occupied France, for which she got lambasted in the NYRB - but I decided to give the book another try when it came out in paperback and I am glad I did.

This time, probably because I had gotten used to the premise and also because Fry's son had written the NYRB to say Orringer had been right (his father had indeed been a closeted homosexual), I enjoyed it from beginning to end. It was hard to put down. The prose sizzles, the plot twists are unexpected, the dialogue reads vividly, and the insights into human nature (especially the big reveal about Tobias Katznelson at the end) deliver a punch to the gut. It saddens me that this novel didn't reach the large audience it deserved to reach because of the controversy regarding Fry, whom the world had not known to be a closeted homosexual before Orringer did her research and publisher her novel about him. But maybe it will be picked up by book clubs now that it is in paperback and will get a second life. Orringer knows how to write. Five stars out of five.

Unexpected gem: "How to write an autobiographical novel" by Alexander Chee

 I bought this when I was in Melbourne, Australia in November, and after reading the first few essays I didn't think I was going to care enough to finish it. I set it aside and I gave it another try in late August, about ten months later, when I had to decide whether to keep reading or discard it. This time around, I loved it. Perhaps it was because I made it to "After Peter" and "My Parade". After that there was no putting the book down. It is unfortunate that the first few essays didn't come across as quite as strong compared to the ones later in the book, because this collection of essays is deeply original and shows a perspective of the world that is very vivid and unique to the author. Basically, this book is the reason why people like me read books. And the chapter about the day after the 2016 election is one of the very best essays I've ever read. Five stars.

Great introduction to Anna Akhmatova's life and work: "A Poetic Pilgrimage" by Amanda Haight

I feel tremendously lucky that I snatched the last used copy of A Poetic Pilgrimage by Amanda Haight on Amazon.com. It provided a short but focused and compelling introduction to Akhmatova's life and work and offered gorgeous translations of her poems as well as the best explanations of them that I have ever read. Coming out of re-reading her selected poems in Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series, I felt there was enormous value in placing them in the context of her life while also steering clear of the most obvious explanations. I also noticed when I read the Everyman's volume that her production seems to have been much slimmer in 1920 and it was interesting to read that it was because of the man she was with at the time. I don't remember reading about another artist who seems to have borne such general unhappiness in her personal life and sometimes crushing sorrow (she had many failed relationships and her relationship to her son was difficult too and some of her friends and lovers died under Stalinism) as what she viewed as the price she had to bear for her unique sensibility. I am not trying to say she viewed it as "worth it", but people who feel like they belong to the world and are content generally don't have a burning drive to break conventions and forge a unique creative path.

My favorite quote is on p.1: "She had to learn early to accept the fact that the sacrifice of her poetic gifts could not make her what she was not, an ordinary woman."

The best novel ever written? "Winds of War" by Herman Wouk

This may well be the best novel ever written: Winds of War by Herman Wouk. I discovered it because I watched The Getaway starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw during the stay-at-home order and MacGraw in it was surprisingly better and less wooden than in Love Story, which is the one movie I had seen her in, decades ago. I looked into what else she had done during that time, and of course (as anyone who followed her career knows) she didn't do anything while she was in that famously toxic relationship with McQueen, but in the early 1980s, at almost 45, she played Natalie Jastrow, who was supposed to be 15 years younger, and while she does look a bit too old for the role she was also perfect for it, showcasing a spunk that even Jenny Cavilleri in Love Story could not match. (Jane Seymour replaced her in the sequel, War and Remembrance.)

The TV mini-series is excellent, all 10+ hours of it, but this got me interested in seeing how the mini-series differed from the book itself. At almost 900 pages, the book was always supposed to be daunting, but it dazzled by the sense of detail and Wouk's ability to get in his characters' head. This is without a doubt what I learnt most from this book: the way to inhabit a world and to help readers see it through a character's eyes. 

Just a phenomenal book and a top-notch mini-series! Highly recommended for readers and writers alike: readers will be transported to another world and writers will learn third-person point-of-view from the best. A true gem.

Would give six stars if I could: "Townie" by Andre Dubus III

 This book only has an average rating of 3.75/5.00 on Goodreads.com and when I saw that I had to ask myself, what is wrong with people? Townie by Andre Dubus III is a masterpiece. It is a memoir about family, sibling ties, broken households, a troubled philandering father who works as a college professor and dates some of his students, a troubled narrator who tries to find himself first through fighting and later through writing, where he follows in his father's footsteps, and ultimately the luminous bond between a father and a son who shared the same name and the same passion for words The writing sparkled and made the scenes come to life thanks to a great sense of details and use of sensations. I could really feel I was in the author's head. The main character's growth was also impressive: from "wimp" to street kid itching for a fight to short-story writer with a writer and four children, accompanied in his growth by his brother and two sisters. By the end (and long before the end, in fact), I agreed with Andre Dubus II's assessment of his son: You're a writer, man. I bought this book because Andre Dubus III participated in the Virtual LitFest 2020 seminar in Denver this June in conversation with Peter Orner and I liked enough what they had to say to buy some of their books. A very worthy purchase. Highly recommended for those of you looking for memoirs about families. 

"The Lady in Gold" by Anne-Marie O'Connor

I've had this book for a while and for some reason the first time I tried reading it a couple of years ago I just couldn't connect with it and put it away after the first 20 or 30 pages. But I was going to give it another try on the plane to Vienna before my trip got canceled and so while I indulged in an impromptu, involuntary home retreat I decided to read it anyway. It was a bit hard at first to get over the fact that I was supposed to be in Vienna and visit all the museums I'd been dreaming to see (the Belvedere and the Albertina and the Kunsthistorisches Museum and all the paintings by great Austrian artists like Gustav Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka). I was one day and a half away from going when all hell broke loose and I really wanted to go on that trip. But I'll go some other time and soon enough I was engrossed in the story.

I have to admit I remembered nothing of my first attempt at reading the book, and now I found myself amazed at the feistiness and personality of Adele Bloch-Bauer in Part One, captivated by the lost world of cultivated, artistic Vienna in Part Two, heartbroken at the fate of Jewish art collectors oblivious to the threat of Nazism until it was far too late, and appalled by the greed and evil of all the people who stole from them, including the staff of Viennese museums who knew very well the paintings had bee taken under duress. Part Three has been recounted in the Hollywood movie Woman in Gold (2015) with Helen Mirren and Ryan Gosling, which leaves out all the information of Part One and Part Two that really grabs the reader's heart and instead glosses over the deep questions this raises over human nature and prefers the happy-ending story of the legal battle that handed a victory to the now elderly Maria Altmann, whose family had owned the painting back in Vienna. (Altmann sold the painting in 2006 to Ronald Lauder and died in 2011.) I remember seeing the painting when it was exhibited at the (Lauder-owned) Neue Galerie in New York. Seeing the picture in a book really doesn't do it justice: it is a very large painting and there is a lot of gold.

The atrocities of Part Two resonated the most with me. Part Three (the legal victory and restitution) was only possible after enough time had passed. The museum curators knew where to find the incriminating paperwork and they all remained silent for decades. While that story has a happy ending, I think it says something profound about the depraved, jealous nature of many people in society when others have things they want for themselves without working hard for it. The war just created a set of circumstances that made this impossible to ignore, when enormous atrocities were committed at the national level in Germany and its annexed countries. But I think that the same instincts lurk in many people today who are not happy with their lives and jealous of the people who have shown the talent, discipline and intelligence to succeed in their chosen endeavor. This book illuminates an aspect of human nature we would rather forget, and should not, lest the fate of families like the Altmanns' one day happens to us.

On George Orwell and "Homage to Catalonia"

 

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 Sometimes the information I need is right under my nose all along and I am too stubborn to see it. Case in point: George Orwell. A mentor of mine has been telling me for about two years now to read Homage to Catalonia because of the novel I am writing that takes place in Madrid at the very end of the Spanish Civil War, and me being me, I kept saying yes and not reading it, because the Spanish Civil War is basically over when my novel starts and anyway it takes place in Madrid not Barcelona (the setting of Orwell's memoir of his time at the front with the Spanish Republican militias) and also I always have a ton of books I want to read and not enough time to read them. All this to say, Orwell was on the back burner.

(And when I first attempted to buy the book on Amazon.com I selected the first edition that showed up in the search results and unwittingly ended up with a pirated copy with the worst typeset and abysmal quality. Just heartbreaking to see Orwell's work misused by a cesspool of fraudsters. But I got a refund from Amazon.com and ended up with the legitimate edition at last.)  

So I had Homage to Catalonia but no inclination to read it except the nagging thought I should listen to my mentor. (Now might be a good time to mention that I read 1984 in high school but didn't care for it. Those were different times, the Soviet Union was collapsing and the world Orwell described seemed irrelevant to the world I lived in. Ah, the naivety of youth.) But I also had a new house and no inclination to get out of the house to exercise, a problem I solved by getting myself a walking treadmill. Now I can watch movies and documentaries while walking (with ankle weights). I only needed something good to watch and past experience has shown that the "courses" in The Great Courses are a good fit for me and that kind of endeavor (you want something interesting but not too interesting so that you won't forget to walk!). In fact I learned Spanish using The Great Courses (more on that in another blog post). So I got George Orwell: A Sage for all Seasons. And I loved it.

Professor Michael Shelden from Indiana State is a talented lecturer and an expert on Orwell with in-depth expertise including many first-hand accounts from acquaintances of Orwell's. In fact, his 1991 biography of Orwell was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and his interest in his subject really shines through. The life of George Orwell (born Eric Blair) was gripping from the start. His father lived on the other side of the world for years because he worked in the Opium department of the Indian Civil Service. Blair attended boarding school at St Cyprian's from 1911 to 1916 and hated the experience, which provided the basis for his essay Such, such were the joys. He then attended Eton, where he seems to have neglected his academic studies. He then joined the Imperial Police and was posted in Burma. He resigned in March 1928, after 5 1/2 years of service, to become a writer. This became the basis for the novel Burmese Days (1934) and the essays A Hanging (1931) and Shooting an Elephant (1936). He lived in London and Paris before returning home. He dated a clergyman's daughter and wrote a book of the same name. He met his future wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy in London in 1935.

His book The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) investigated the social conditions in economically depressed northern England. (Until Animal Farm and 1984, it is safe to say that Orwell was a far superior essayist than novelist.) Shelden also provides great anecdotes about how Orwell's books found publishers and makes those times come to life. He married Eileen in June 1936 and set out for Spain in December 1936. I won't spend this post detailing Orwell's life (suffice it to say he died in January 1950 of tuberculosis, having remarried after Eileen's death in March 1945, and his second wife appeared to show little love for him but enjoyed playing the role of Orwell's widow for decades afterwards).

But the point of this post is for me to write about Homage to Catalonia. I thought it'd be a boring read, because I didn't really want to read about war, especially since the Fascists won and ushered Spain into a dictatorship that lasted about 35 years. Yet from the very first pages I found the book gripping. There is an immediacy to Orwell's writing that makes the reader feel she is in Barcelona or at the front with him. Orwell proves to be an astute observer with a sharp eye for the internecine conflict putting Anarchists against Communists and he deciphers the public propaganda like no other. We are treated to a glimpse into the backstage conflicts that led to the Republican defeat. Orwell punctures a number of myths in the process. What a blessing to have a writer of his talent share a first-hand account and decipher the conflict for us. Homage to Catalonia is definitely one of the best nonfiction books of the century.     

Further reading: an essay by Masha Gessen in The New Yorker. 

Five stars for "Samuel Barber: The Composer and His Music" by Barbara Heyman

 I first heard of Samuel Barber's biography by Barbara Heyman when I watched the documentary Absolute Beauty, which I reviewed elsewhere on this blog, and when I went on Amazon.com to purchase the biography I found out a second edition was published just last month. I wasn't sure which edition I should purchase, especially given the hefty price of the second edition ($55), but in the end I am really glad I bought the more expensive and more recent one.

The hardcover book is of great quality, with thick pages - not too thick, but not too thin either, so that they can display easily both the text and the scores of many music excerpts included in the book. It is always hard to write the biography of a musician or musical artist as his/her contributions were auditory more than visual, but the use of those tidbits of scores helps make this biography a winner. The book is interspersed by findings that Heyman made in the process of researching this book and I have to say I came away with the impression that this biography, in its multiple editions, was the great contribution of her life to society - and what a contribution it is. Barber really comes to life in these pages. The writing is never tedious. We understand better his friendships and his goals.

The book that this reminds me the most of is the acclaimed biography of Leonard Bernstein by Humphey Burton. It is a rare feat for a biographer to make his/her subject come so compellingly to life. What an achievement for Heyman that she could pull it off for Barber, analyzing his works in depth, mentioning his personal life without being gossipy or voyeuristic, and ultimately ensuring his place in the Pantheon of American composers.

 

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 Of course this biography begs to be read while music by Samuel Barber plays in the background. I recommend Barber: Violin Concerto Op. 14/ Piano Concerto Op. 38 / Adagio for Strings, with Leonard Bernstein conducting. Barber: Adagio for Strings; Violin Concerto, again with Leonard Bernstein, is also a classic.