Colors of the Mountain

Da Chen

They knew revenge was coming and they waited in agony. Every day they watched me come and go, and whispered to each other. I stayed in the corner and sometimes threw a quick look their way, accompanied by my middle finger.

While I respect Da Chen (or Chen Da as it is in Chinese) for all of the trouble he went through growing up, and for his determination that got him to where he is now, I think perhaps he should have left this one as a story for his grandchildren. The story itself, his boyhood remembrances, is not boring. Actually if the rest of this man's life was like his childhood, he most likely is a very interesting person to talk to. But the story simply never moves beyond an interesting occurrence or a "When I was a boy" type tale. To be sure Da Chen went through a childhood unlike any in the recent history of the Western world.
The story has plenty of exciting adventures and does invoke a sense of sympathy in you as you read about the next unfortunate twist of fate which has apparently conspired to make life as hard as it can for Da Chen. But the story never goes anywhere. It stays at the level of an adolescent who has some interesting adventures, and is related as such. There are a few moments of brief insight where Da Chen describes things with more perception into the human soul than you might otherwise have expected, but these are not plentiful. Da Chen's style on the dust jacket was described as "sincere" and "genuine" but I have a feeling these critics have mistaken an inability to step out of the self-centered outlook of a child for frankness and sincerity. At first I found myself enjoying Da Chen's more simplistic style of storytelling, but after a while you expect him to step beyond who hated him when he was young and who loved him. Perhaps my standards had been raised a little to high by the previously read works of Gao Xiaosheng, who at least had some style.

The Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius

Boethius

And so for this and other reasons resting on the same ground, inasmuch as baseness of its own nature makes men wretched, it is plain that a wrong involves the misery of the doer, not of the sufferer.

The Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius was described in its introduction as being one of the most influential books of its day, claiming that every philosopher of the era owned a copy. Whether or not this is true, Boethius’ philosophy is at times mind-blowing. The book covers many topics, all under the Job-like consolation of a man who once had everything and now has nothing. Boethius had risen to incredible levels of success and wealth, but lost all due to political machinations of his world.

While in prison, sunk in despondency he composed this “Consolation” which is his reasonings as to how such a thing could happen and what his reaction ought to be. Beginning then with whether he has a right to complain or not, he develops a case which says that he lost nothing in losing everything. While it refrains from venturing into the ambiguous realms of “Vanity of Vanities,” Boethius’ Consolation still plunges into philosophical depths which I have never visited.

Specifically, the quote above, comes from a portion of the Consolation where Boethius attempts to reason out why seemingly good things happen to bad people, as well as the converse. Ultimately he comes to the realization that when an evil man succeeds in his desires (whatever they are) that man is to be more pitied than the good man who continually fails in his desires. I won’t lay out his argument here, but I assure you it is far more logical than should have been possible.

Also as an interesting note, Boethius concludes his work with a lengthy discussion of the paradox of foreknowledge and free-will. This seemed to be one of the better resolutions of the paradox, although it promised many of the same answers which are generally submitted in response to the question.

Broken Betrothals

By Gao Xiaosheng

If you had rice you ate it. If none, you ate porridge. If no porridge, there were gourds and vegetables. If even that was beyond your power you could make do with elm leaves and edible herbs.

At first I thought that Gao Xiaosheng’s collection of short stories was merely propaganda, and then I did not—however I later realized I was wrong. Despite always seeming to have a happy ending, this collection of short stories is still worth the read. Particularly well written are the “Chen Huansheng” stories as well as “Fishing” and “Underwater Obstruction” as well as the piece from which the above quote was taken. All the stories deal in some way with Cultural Revolution era peasant life in China, idealizing it and making such a life seem sort of happy and yellow, a lot like Steinbeck’s treatments of the Salinas Valley, although nowhere near the same caliber.

Gao however does compose stories which are interesting. They seem at first to strike you as more propaganda from a government known for propaganda, but after you read further and begin to think about what is happening, the propaganda line doesn’t seem quite so natural. There are certain elements which though they may seem sweet, often end in an unsettling aftertaste.

I felt that the stories got better as you moved through this small anthology, although that might merely have been Gao’s style winning me over. Still, the first story, that for which the entire book is named, was certainly my least favorite. If you find yourself put off by this one, by all means skip ahead.

The Jungle

Upton Sinclair

The evangelist was preaching “sin and redemption,” the infinite grace of God and His pardon for human frailty. He was very much in earnest, and he meant well, but Jurgis, as he listened, found his soul filled with hatred. What did he know about sin and suffering—with his smooth, black coat and his neatly starched collar, his body warm, and his belly full, and money in his pocket—and lecturing men who were struggling for their lives, men at the death-grapple with the demon powers of hunger and cold!—This, of course, was unfair; but Jurgis felt that these men were out of touch with the life they discussed, that they were unfitted to solve its problems; nay, they themselves were part of the problem—they were part of the order established that was crushing men down and beating them! They were of the triumphant and insolent possessors; they had a hall, and a fire, and food and clothing and money, and so they might preach to hungry men, and hungry men must be humble and listen! They were trying to save their souls—and who but a fool could fail to see that all that was the matter with their souls was that they had not been able to get a decent existence for their bodies?

On the whole I found that The Jungle was something spurious and misdirected—that it was nothing less than a piece of propaganda. But despite my own ideological reaction to it, there is no denying that Sinclair is one hell of a writer. The story has a power over you which is not akin to many other things written. I wouldn't necessarily call it a page turner, but I will say that there were parts which caused certain other things in my life to be ignored.

Before this I had read Germinal and found that to be a better, more real defense of socialism than the honorable Sinclair’s version. Perhaps this is because I had the misfortune to be reading Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago in tandem with The Jungle. And the curious thing was that the many evils which Sinclair ascribed to the capitalists (the corruption, the collusion, the abuse, the unfairness) were in Solzhenitsyn’s book the evils of the people Sinclair claimed to be virtuous and heralds of the pure and good future. Really it was a sad picture between the two books. One written less than half a century before the other, so full of hope as to a new way of life, as to a new and heroic world in which things would be different, and the other looking back on the outcome of such heroism only to find that it was not any better and maybe even a whole lot worse.

In the Packing-town of Sinclair the poor were forced into horrible conditions, unfair labor, and ultimately taken advantage of to such an extent that they were doomed to death. In the Gulags of Solzhenitsyn the poor were forced into horrible conditions, unfair labor, and ultimately taken advantage of to such an extent that they were doomed to death. The only difference was who had the power. First the capitalists, second the socialists. Both were to misuse the power they had been given. Is this a lesson into the nature of man? Is this the reflection of our own poor state? Perhaps.

But enough of the sermon. The Jungle is worth the read, even if just for the passing reference at the end to the socialist Jack London (something I had not learned about him until I read The Jungle).

A Double Story

George MacDonald

And that is all my double story. How double it is, if you care to know you must find out. If you think it is not finished--I never knew a story that was. I could tell you a great deal more concerning them all, but I have already told more than is good for those who read but with their foreheads, and enough for those whom it has made look a little solemn, and sigh as they close the book.

This story, a true fantasy in the old sense, is possibly the best book I have read so far this year. MacDonald does not bother with the petty details which so often clog up modern fantasy, rather using the freedom which the genre can grant to develop an incredible study of human nature. A Double Story may leave some people wishing that MacDonald had written a sequel--it does break off at a seemingly odd point--but if you pay attention this, too, is only most fitting.
A Double Story border on psychological fantasy, taking you around the back way of thinking about the human mind. MacDonald's conceptions of our own foibles (especially in interactions between people) are clean cut and often caught me off guard. However you want to look at it, A Double Story is something which ought to ensure you are not the same person sitting down with it as you are rising.

Reginald

Saki

I found everyone talking nervously and feverishly of the weather and the war in South Africa, except Reginald, who was reclining in a comfortable chair with the dreamy, far-away look that a volcano might wear just after it had desolated entire villages.

Reginald is certainly one of the more witty works I've read in a while. I do not mean witty in the sense of using puns, or witty in the sense of the comics, but instead simple, crushing wit--the type the British are famous for, the type my grandfather can bring down upon any one at a moment's notice.
Reginald is a sort of British high society tale, full of cynicism (especially when the preposterous pretensions of high society are involved) which reminded me very much of P. G. Wodehouse. Of course, Wodehouse is much jollier and never quite so sarcastic, but I got the feeling that Wodehouse drew heavily on this sort of thing in creating his own stories.
If you find yourself entertained by half-whimsical, half-cynical romps through society life, in which many of the more biting witticisms are not explained, but worth understanding, I think you might like Saki.

Hiero

Xenophon

Since, it would seem, all living creatures alike take pleasure in meats and drinks, in sleep and sexual joys. Only the love of honour is implanted neither in unreasoning brutes nor universally in man.

As far as what I read, Hiero, was interesting, a fictional dialog between a king (or despot) who had supposedly risen to power from a lower status and a famous poet. It's a typical example of the dialog.
It focuses mainly on what pleasure or happiness there is in being a king as opposed to being a peasant or other person of lowly status. While I'm sure Xenophon was quite the reasoner in his day, I couldn't help feeling that there was a hollowness to his case that being King is much worse than being impotent villager. But then again, I wonder if any amount of logic could convince a person that less is better.