In this case, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
It was not vanity that drew her to the mirror; it was the amazement at seeing her own "I." (41)
Tereza felt her soul rushing up to the surface through her blood vessels and pores to show itself to him. (48) ... The crew of her soul rushed up to the deck of her body (50).
What was screaming in fact was the naive idealism of her love trying to banish all contradictions, banish the duality of body and soul, banish perhaps even time (54).
What [her mother] meant by her injunction was: Your body is just like all other bodies; you have no right to shame; you have no reason to hide something that exists in millions of identical copies (57).
...all Sabina's paintings, past and present, did indeed treat the same idea, that they all featured the confluence of two themes, two worlds, that they were all double exposures, so to speak (63).
It's 12:48. I'd analyze these now, but I'm tired...I guess you'll just have to wait for a prewrite or the Lit X paper. O the suspense!
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Lit X: A Beginner's introduction
If I *have* this body, then I guess I'm something *other than* this body. When I say "I own my body" I don't mean "This body owns itself" - probably a meaningless claim. Or does everything that no one owns own itself? Does the moon belong to everyone, to no one, or to itself? What can be an owner of anything? I can, and my body is just one of the things I own. In any case, I and my body seem both intemately connected and yet distinct. I am the controller; it is the controlled. Most of the time. [...] (6) // This passage illustrates the difficulty in establishing a relationship between mind and body
The idea that *what you are* is not simply a living body (or a living brain) but also a soul or spirit seems to many people to be unscientific, in spite of its ancient tradition...But not all versions of the idea that you are something distinct from your purely physical body are so vulnerable to ridicule and refutation. Some versions, as we shall see, actually flourish in the garden of science. (7) [...] // This passage shows that pure scientific/biological reductionism does not dismiss the concept of body and soul.
To discern what went on in one's mind one just "looked" --one "introspected" --and the limits of what one thereby found were the very boundaries of the mind. (11) // The true problem.
-The Mind's I
This last quote is the crux of the matter. How can one examine itself fully, if it is limited by the very limitations that it is trying to observe? See the madness quote from Shadow of the Wind in a previous blog. The Mind's I argues that "the mind begins to emerge as a self-designing system of representations, physically embodied in the brain. (15)
Other notes:
Definition of soul: "the perceptually unbreachable gulf between principles and particles...the incompressible core that determines how you are, hence who you are."
"What is it like to be a bat?" Examining self-reference in a different way. We want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat, not for a human to be a bat. This is probably impossible given our limitations.
Much more on this to come...in my Lit X paper. Hopefully you're interested now...and hopefully I have some ideas now.
The idea that *what you are* is not simply a living body (or a living brain) but also a soul or spirit seems to many people to be unscientific, in spite of its ancient tradition...But not all versions of the idea that you are something distinct from your purely physical body are so vulnerable to ridicule and refutation. Some versions, as we shall see, actually flourish in the garden of science. (7) [...] // This passage shows that pure scientific/biological reductionism does not dismiss the concept of body and soul.
To discern what went on in one's mind one just "looked" --one "introspected" --and the limits of what one thereby found were the very boundaries of the mind. (11) // The true problem.
-The Mind's I
This last quote is the crux of the matter. How can one examine itself fully, if it is limited by the very limitations that it is trying to observe? See the madness quote from Shadow of the Wind in a previous blog. The Mind's I argues that "the mind begins to emerge as a self-designing system of representations, physically embodied in the brain. (15)
Other notes:
Definition of soul: "the perceptually unbreachable gulf between principles and particles...the incompressible core that determines how you are, hence who you are."
"What is it like to be a bat?" Examining self-reference in a different way. We want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat, not for a human to be a bat. This is probably impossible given our limitations.
Much more on this to come...in my Lit X paper. Hopefully you're interested now...and hopefully I have some ideas now.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Lit X...quickly...a preprewrite?
A quick thought about focusing my Lit X topic:
Reading stories from "The Mind's I" has taught me a ton about the Mind-Body Problem, and I have begun to realize how gigantic the problem is.
In large part due to "Godel Escher Bach," I have decided to focus on how the Mind-Body Problem is affected/viewed in terms of self-reference.
Also reading "The Mind's I" has triggered another thought that could really determine what I work towards in my Lit X paper. I would like to know how God, a belief in God, or atheism, for that matter, changes a personal view on the mind-body problem. Of particular interest is the story from The Mind's I "Is God a Taoist." It is an excellent, witty dialogue that came closer to my true beliefs in God than I would have thought. Google it and read it if interested.
I do have quotes for these ideas; I will add them when I have the books, perhaps in a Lit X prewrite.
IN any case, I don't have much time now, I just wanted to put these thoughts down.
Reading stories from "The Mind's I" has taught me a ton about the Mind-Body Problem, and I have begun to realize how gigantic the problem is.
In large part due to "Godel Escher Bach," I have decided to focus on how the Mind-Body Problem is affected/viewed in terms of self-reference.
Also reading "The Mind's I" has triggered another thought that could really determine what I work towards in my Lit X paper. I would like to know how God, a belief in God, or atheism, for that matter, changes a personal view on the mind-body problem. Of particular interest is the story from The Mind's I "Is God a Taoist." It is an excellent, witty dialogue that came closer to my true beliefs in God than I would have thought. Google it and read it if interested.
I do have quotes for these ideas; I will add them when I have the books, perhaps in a Lit X prewrite.
IN any case, I don't have much time now, I just wanted to put these thoughts down.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Happy New Year...Solitude
So it's New Year's Eve Day, and this is not the time of year to be talking about solitude, but here is a little reflection about my essay.
In short: I think I have some good ideas but that the essay lacks some organization and coherence.
First, I apologize for its length; I didn't intend to write so much. But Marquez's signature is his Magical Realism, and there is more than enough material when you're talking about distortion of literary elements.
Second, I'd like to say one thing that I couldn't find a place for in my essay. This is kind of taken from the "Dialectic of Solitude" article. It's interesting how Marquez distorts the concept of solitude so that it doesn't actually deal with a sole person, but rather with an entire culture of solitude. I believe Marquez also discussed this in his Nobel Prize speech.
Third, I'd like to talk about my essay. It turned out (kinda) exploratory; I hope that's OK. I looked through my blog of 100YOS observations, and I started out with the idea about Marquez distorting the idea of death. Actually, I had my Melquíades paragraph first, but after reading the Lois Simpson article, decided to move it to being last; I thought that Colonel Buendía would provide a stronger introduction to the problem. So I used the distortion of death as a framework for the essay, every "section" begins with a different distortion of death. I worked under the premise that every point I would discuss, and every distortion is enhanced by his distortion of death. Maybe I should have emphasized that more in my intro; it is a little sparse I think -- more of a hook than anything else.
So, the first main section uses the distortion of death to introduce the notion of solitude. This is pretty straightforward. The inspiration for this was the Lois Simpson article about Death in 100YOS. I adapted some of her thoughts and expanded upon them, occasionally agreeing and occasionally disagreeing (though I don't say this outright). This made it easier for me to get into my essay.
The second idea seems to be more complex and more developed. I begin with Ursula being able to choose when she dies, and then branch off of this to encompass a greater distortion of archetypes in general. I begin to reach my main point at the end of this section.
The third idea is Melquíades'. Here I use the distortion of death to introduce one of the most important distortions: the distortion of time.
Finally, I conclude based on the final essay prompt, not the one I started with. Honestly, this paragraph fit better when I first conceived it, but I still think it's possibly clever and good. The point here was to talk about the distortions left in the reader's mind rather than the distortions that Marquez consciously injected into his novel. This was supposed to draw back the scope of the paper to make a larger comment on human nature and the human experience.
Oh yeah. I left this line out of the essay because I thought this draft was actually pretty legit, but this was my real point ... In this book, Marquez suggests a vision of the world in which the Buendías experienced One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Enjoy, and Happy New Years.
In short: I think I have some good ideas but that the essay lacks some organization and coherence.
First, I apologize for its length; I didn't intend to write so much. But Marquez's signature is his Magical Realism, and there is more than enough material when you're talking about distortion of literary elements.
Second, I'd like to say one thing that I couldn't find a place for in my essay. This is kind of taken from the "Dialectic of Solitude" article. It's interesting how Marquez distorts the concept of solitude so that it doesn't actually deal with a sole person, but rather with an entire culture of solitude. I believe Marquez also discussed this in his Nobel Prize speech.
Third, I'd like to talk about my essay. It turned out (kinda) exploratory; I hope that's OK. I looked through my blog of 100YOS observations, and I started out with the idea about Marquez distorting the idea of death. Actually, I had my Melquíades paragraph first, but after reading the Lois Simpson article, decided to move it to being last; I thought that Colonel Buendía would provide a stronger introduction to the problem. So I used the distortion of death as a framework for the essay, every "section" begins with a different distortion of death. I worked under the premise that every point I would discuss, and every distortion is enhanced by his distortion of death. Maybe I should have emphasized that more in my intro; it is a little sparse I think -- more of a hook than anything else.
So, the first main section uses the distortion of death to introduce the notion of solitude. This is pretty straightforward. The inspiration for this was the Lois Simpson article about Death in 100YOS. I adapted some of her thoughts and expanded upon them, occasionally agreeing and occasionally disagreeing (though I don't say this outright). This made it easier for me to get into my essay.
The second idea seems to be more complex and more developed. I begin with Ursula being able to choose when she dies, and then branch off of this to encompass a greater distortion of archetypes in general. I begin to reach my main point at the end of this section.
The third idea is Melquíades'. Here I use the distortion of death to introduce one of the most important distortions: the distortion of time.
Finally, I conclude based on the final essay prompt, not the one I started with. Honestly, this paragraph fit better when I first conceived it, but I still think it's possibly clever and good. The point here was to talk about the distortions left in the reader's mind rather than the distortions that Marquez consciously injected into his novel. This was supposed to draw back the scope of the paper to make a larger comment on human nature and the human experience.
Oh yeah. I left this line out of the essay because I thought this draft was actually pretty legit, but this was my real point ... In this book, Marquez suggests a vision of the world in which the Buendías experienced One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Enjoy, and Happy New Years.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Some Lit X Quotes and Thoughts
I decided that instead of writing these down in a document somewhere I'd write them down in my blog, so...here's some random Quotes and thoughts.
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
-Excellent book, highly recommended
-Most of the valuable (lit x-wise) thoughts in this book were kinda implicit, but there were some pieces that I thought could be really helpful:
"Julián told me that a story is a letter the author writes himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise."
"For some time now, Julián had been wondering whether he'd gone out of his mind. Does the madman know he is mad? Or are the madmen those who insist on convincing hiim of his unreason in order to safeguard their own idea of reality?" (444)
Having read Godel Escher Bach as my last Lit X book, I viewed this book examining it in a similar light. A central element to this book is a parallel between Julian and Daniel, separated by a generation, and joined by Julian's books (though the story is far more complex). Basically, Julian sees himself in Daniel, and Daniel sees himself in Julian's books. Also, Julian becomes a different person after a series of crazy events, but his old self is still contained in his old ficition novels, which someone (read to find out who) sets out to destroy. All this drew up another question for me: What kind of "strange loop" is at work in an autobiography?
The first quote above also has to do with a system looking to itself from outside of itself. Godel Escher Bach presents 3 modes: the Mechanical, Intelligent, and Un-Mode where a system "turns itself off" in order to view itself. That's kinda like this. THis is the heart of godel's incompleteness theorem, which implies that no system, using its own rules and capabilities, can adequately describe itself. Not too difficultly, this notion of viewing yourself from outside of yourself leads into the second quote about madness and reality. This quote, in turn, leads into the mind-body problem, connecting a real physical state, madness, to its perception. Again, there is the dichotomy of reality vs. unreality. We have what is actually happening, perhaps sanity, and then what is perceived, perhaps madnesss. The paradox presented by this quote is very difficult to explain in words, but I trust that the reader can understand it by interpreting the quote for himself. It's late and my words aren't quite coming to me, but regardless you should be able to see the paradox of the two statements, and how they entail "strange loops" which lead to better, or at least more complete, understandings of a system.
Next: "Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our ehart and mind, and great readers are becoming mroe scarce by the day." (484)
The important part: "A book is a mirror that offers us only what we carry inside us." Again, interesting to see how when different systems interact, they are limited to each other. This reminds me of something, perhaps unrelated. I saw a TedTalk yesterday about consciousness by Dennett, co-author of The Mind's I. An interesting 15-min introduction making the use of optical illusions to illustrate an interesting point on consciousness. TED.com, by the way, is a fantastic site. Kinda like an always relevant, intellectually stimulating youTube. But there's also some good comedy and music, etc. there. I recommend it, too. Here's the Dennett talk for those interested: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/102 But really do explore TED.com, for those who haven't yet discovered it.
I feel ready to go to bed; this seems adequate for tonight. Really do read The Shadow of the Wind, too. It's a really great book. I knocked it off in 3 days. I've made progress with Unbearable Lightness of Being (Kundera) and I've begun Invisible Cities (Calvino). The Kundera book is just chalk-full of philosophical quotes, and plenty of them that pertain to my lit-x paper. I'll need to decide on a more focused guiding question before picking and beginning to analyze them. Merry Christmas.
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
-Excellent book, highly recommended
-Most of the valuable (lit x-wise) thoughts in this book were kinda implicit, but there were some pieces that I thought could be really helpful:
"Julián told me that a story is a letter the author writes himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise."
"For some time now, Julián had been wondering whether he'd gone out of his mind. Does the madman know he is mad? Or are the madmen those who insist on convincing hiim of his unreason in order to safeguard their own idea of reality?" (444)
Having read Godel Escher Bach as my last Lit X book, I viewed this book examining it in a similar light. A central element to this book is a parallel between Julian and Daniel, separated by a generation, and joined by Julian's books (though the story is far more complex). Basically, Julian sees himself in Daniel, and Daniel sees himself in Julian's books. Also, Julian becomes a different person after a series of crazy events, but his old self is still contained in his old ficition novels, which someone (read to find out who) sets out to destroy. All this drew up another question for me: What kind of "strange loop" is at work in an autobiography?
The first quote above also has to do with a system looking to itself from outside of itself. Godel Escher Bach presents 3 modes: the Mechanical, Intelligent, and Un-Mode where a system "turns itself off" in order to view itself. That's kinda like this. THis is the heart of godel's incompleteness theorem, which implies that no system, using its own rules and capabilities, can adequately describe itself. Not too difficultly, this notion of viewing yourself from outside of yourself leads into the second quote about madness and reality. This quote, in turn, leads into the mind-body problem, connecting a real physical state, madness, to its perception. Again, there is the dichotomy of reality vs. unreality. We have what is actually happening, perhaps sanity, and then what is perceived, perhaps madnesss. The paradox presented by this quote is very difficult to explain in words, but I trust that the reader can understand it by interpreting the quote for himself. It's late and my words aren't quite coming to me, but regardless you should be able to see the paradox of the two statements, and how they entail "strange loops" which lead to better, or at least more complete, understandings of a system.
Next: "Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it's an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our ehart and mind, and great readers are becoming mroe scarce by the day." (484)
The important part: "A book is a mirror that offers us only what we carry inside us." Again, interesting to see how when different systems interact, they are limited to each other. This reminds me of something, perhaps unrelated. I saw a TedTalk yesterday about consciousness by Dennett, co-author of The Mind's I. An interesting 15-min introduction making the use of optical illusions to illustrate an interesting point on consciousness. TED.com, by the way, is a fantastic site. Kinda like an always relevant, intellectually stimulating youTube. But there's also some good comedy and music, etc. there. I recommend it, too. Here's the Dennett talk for those interested: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/102 But really do explore TED.com, for those who haven't yet discovered it.
I feel ready to go to bed; this seems adequate for tonight. Really do read The Shadow of the Wind, too. It's a really great book. I knocked it off in 3 days. I've made progress with Unbearable Lightness of Being (Kundera) and I've begun Invisible Cities (Calvino). The Kundera book is just chalk-full of philosophical quotes, and plenty of them that pertain to my lit-x paper. I'll need to decide on a more focused guiding question before picking and beginning to analyze them. Merry Christmas.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
On Solitude
First, I'd like to say that I did read the book and just didn't come to school at all today.
Second, I'd like to briefly present several ideas and themes that hit me as I read the book, since I couldn't participate in today's discussion. This could probably help a lot coming up with essay ideas. I loved the book, btw.
I'll just go down my list -- no particular order, just observations.
-It may just be the translation, but it seems that marquez's syntax is very interesting and unique. The most important part (content-wise) of all of his sentences is not the most important part grammatically. All the important stuff is added as a dependent clause.
-There is an insane amount of foreshadowing that drives me nuts. It probably can't even be called foreshadowing - it's more like he just states the future. I guess it happens from the first line with the firing squad.
-A very intriguing part of the book is the relationship between life and death, changing times and different generations. Marquez goes to great lengths to make the repetitive/cyclical nature of the book very obvious as well as the relationship between generations and the progression and regression to and from modernization. I was more fascinated, however, with certain character's interactions with the dead, and moreso even the nature of death. For instance, even after Melquíades is dead, he has not reached "ultimate death" until Aureliano figures out the translation. Further, Melquíades' death is viewed differently by different people (some people see him, some don't, some see his room all neat, some don't). And even further, Melquíades sees stuff from the dead and was able to make predictions about when he was dead back when he was alive. That probably doesn't make too much sense; I was talking about his predictions about the family story that he made all the way through the end of the family line.
-There also appears to be a common juxtaposition of traditionalism and progressiveism (i.e. Fernanda and Meme, older generation and younger generation, the incoming of the railroad, etc.). This compliments the conflict between liberalism and conservatism.
-The book is obviously about solitude (and 100 years of it), but it is actually just as much about love. More correctly, it is about the relationship between love and solitude. In my humble opinion, Marquez presents the theme that love leads to solitude. Kinda depressing, really.
-We have been looking at this book as an example of mythology, but it is also an example of meta-mythology (?), I believe. We see the creation of new myths within the book - especially, Pilar Ternera's stories, Colonel Buendia becomes a myth, the killing of the people from the factory becomes a myth. Beyond that, there are many direct and indirect references to the Judeo-Christian myths within 100YOS, a myth itself. For example, there's the Noah's Ark flood, the baby in a basket, Jonah and the Whale, perhaps the story of Lot and Macondo being turned to dust or sand or something like that. Then there's Ursula perhaps as a Christ figure rather than an Eve figure or a mother-figure. I really hadn't considered this at all until she died on Good Friday. The mention of Good Friday and Marquez's experiments with time are actually mildly reminiscent of Sound and Fury. But I like this book better.
-There seems to be a question as to whether solitude is good or bad. Actually, the question is probably more as to *when* solitude is good and when it's bad. Often it leads to insanity, but just as often it leads to inner peace.
-It's kind of ironic that for a while, it seemed like Marquez was most sympathetic to the concubine.
-I wish Marquez had made the pig's tale at the end more of a surprise, but I guess the fact that you knew it was gonna happen made it a little more exciting?
-If there's one thing I learned from this myth, it's DON'T COMMIT INCEST! (or, as the big mentioned, do stuff with animals, either)
-Actually, I forgot to mention the significance of the animals and their reproduction. There. Now I mentioned it.
See you tomorrow. Or actually Friday since tomorrow is the Senior Health thing.
Second, I'd like to briefly present several ideas and themes that hit me as I read the book, since I couldn't participate in today's discussion. This could probably help a lot coming up with essay ideas. I loved the book, btw.
I'll just go down my list -- no particular order, just observations.
-It may just be the translation, but it seems that marquez's syntax is very interesting and unique. The most important part (content-wise) of all of his sentences is not the most important part grammatically. All the important stuff is added as a dependent clause.
-There is an insane amount of foreshadowing that drives me nuts. It probably can't even be called foreshadowing - it's more like he just states the future. I guess it happens from the first line with the firing squad.
-A very intriguing part of the book is the relationship between life and death, changing times and different generations. Marquez goes to great lengths to make the repetitive/cyclical nature of the book very obvious as well as the relationship between generations and the progression and regression to and from modernization. I was more fascinated, however, with certain character's interactions with the dead, and moreso even the nature of death. For instance, even after Melquíades is dead, he has not reached "ultimate death" until Aureliano figures out the translation. Further, Melquíades' death is viewed differently by different people (some people see him, some don't, some see his room all neat, some don't). And even further, Melquíades sees stuff from the dead and was able to make predictions about when he was dead back when he was alive. That probably doesn't make too much sense; I was talking about his predictions about the family story that he made all the way through the end of the family line.
-There also appears to be a common juxtaposition of traditionalism and progressiveism (i.e. Fernanda and Meme, older generation and younger generation, the incoming of the railroad, etc.). This compliments the conflict between liberalism and conservatism.
-The book is obviously about solitude (and 100 years of it), but it is actually just as much about love. More correctly, it is about the relationship between love and solitude. In my humble opinion, Marquez presents the theme that love leads to solitude. Kinda depressing, really.
-We have been looking at this book as an example of mythology, but it is also an example of meta-mythology (?), I believe. We see the creation of new myths within the book - especially, Pilar Ternera's stories, Colonel Buendia becomes a myth, the killing of the people from the factory becomes a myth. Beyond that, there are many direct and indirect references to the Judeo-Christian myths within 100YOS, a myth itself. For example, there's the Noah's Ark flood, the baby in a basket, Jonah and the Whale, perhaps the story of Lot and Macondo being turned to dust or sand or something like that. Then there's Ursula perhaps as a Christ figure rather than an Eve figure or a mother-figure. I really hadn't considered this at all until she died on Good Friday. The mention of Good Friday and Marquez's experiments with time are actually mildly reminiscent of Sound and Fury. But I like this book better.
-There seems to be a question as to whether solitude is good or bad. Actually, the question is probably more as to *when* solitude is good and when it's bad. Often it leads to insanity, but just as often it leads to inner peace.
-It's kind of ironic that for a while, it seemed like Marquez was most sympathetic to the concubine.
-I wish Marquez had made the pig's tale at the end more of a surprise, but I guess the fact that you knew it was gonna happen made it a little more exciting?
-If there's one thing I learned from this myth, it's DON'T COMMIT INCEST! (or, as the big mentioned, do stuff with animals, either)
-Actually, I forgot to mention the significance of the animals and their reproduction. There. Now I mentioned it.
See you tomorrow. Or actually Friday since tomorrow is the Senior Health thing.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
1 (more or less) line blog...more to come tomorrow
So: 1. apparently there isn't really any incest in the Bible
2. I actually may be reading the first chapter of Genesis from the Torah in a few weeks.
3. I love this book but will be reading a TON of it in the next few days.
4. Uh...more tomorrow. G'night.
2. I actually may be reading the first chapter of Genesis from the Torah in a few weeks.
3. I love this book but will be reading a TON of it in the next few days.
4. Uh...more tomorrow. G'night.