Future Library (Margaret Atwood, Denizen #1)

A library is growing in Norway.

The Future Library is a time-capsule project, of sorts. A thousand trees were planted in a Norwegian forest this summer, to be harvested in a century's time. Every year until the day of the reaping, a different author will be invited to contribute a story to this library. The catch? The story will remain unread until these trees are made into the paper on which these works will be printed. The writers who contribute towards the beginning of the century won't likely live to see their books published. And that's sort of the point. In a hundred years, none of the originators of the project will be around to see its completion.

It'll be interesting to see what authors end up participating. It takes a certain sort of writer to produce a work that will likely be published posthumously, and to be happy with having completed it, without any notion of where it might stand in public opinion or among literary critics. It's fitting that the first contributor to the Future Library is Margaret Atwood; a science fiction writer is likely to agree with the notion of art as time capsule for future generations.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/05/margaret-atwood-new-work-unseen-century-future-library

Her story about the "lost" Haida manuscript in the above Guardian article is particularly apt. Who knows how language might change in a century? We certainly think differently than our ancestors did in the early 1900s. We find references to iceboxes and horse-drawn carriages archaic, for example, and there are many words that have disappeared from common usage in the past hundred years. It begs the question of whether authors who are consciously writing for the future, without the preconditions of a contemporary readership, would choose to write differently. To what extent, after all, does art demand and audience?

I am reminded (as I often am) of the Percy Shelley poem "Ozymandias," as well as of Faulkner's Nobel acceptance speech. The Future Library seems simultaneously an endeavour without ego and perhaps the greatest projection of self-preservation instinct an author can have.

I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

I Am Very Real: Kurt Vonnegut's letter on censorship

This week is Banned Books Week, which I am celebrating by reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. It's a book that has frequently been censored and banned for its critical treatment of religion (true), and, more laughably, for its misogyny and its depiction of polygamy and violence (these are all elements that the book portrays negatively). There are many writers who communicate eloquently on the subject of censorship, Atwood included, but I am particularly struck by the following letter, written in 1973 by Kurt Vonnegut to the man who burned his books:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-am-very-real.html

We live, as Vonnegut points out, in a country that prizes and was indeed founded upon the ideal of freedom. Freedom of speech and of knowledge is enshrined in the very documents that form the fabric of our government. But true freedom only exists with unfettered access to information. It's horrible that teachers -- those who are responsible for the youngest, most impressionable members of our society -- would seek to restrict any child's learning.

Vonnegut rightly takes censorship as an insult -- to the writer, to the reader, and to the children who should be presumed intelligent and independent enough to read a work and think critically about it. A reader should be free to read -- and disagree with -- whatever she chooses. A reader who is never challenged by concepts that are difficult, disturbing, or opposed to her own perspective will never gain the rich education that reading offers, and will never learn to think for herself. No child should be denied that education on the whim of the adult at the front of the classroom.

And this is why Banned Books Week is important. It reminds us every year that this is an ongoing battle, that censorship still happens in this country, and that ignorance and bigotry must be fought at every juncture.

Eleanor Catton on Literary Elitism, Some Thoughts

I recently read this year's Man Booker Prize winner, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. It's a sprawling epic of a mystery novel set in Australia during the gold rush, and brings together a large cast of close third-person characters. It's tremendously ambitious and very well-written, though to me, it seems a little "constructed" -- in large part due to the constraints of its narrative structure, which assigns each of the viewpoint characters an astrological symbol, and bases each chapter on an astrological interaction.

I then found this article that Catton wrote on elitism within the literary community -- a topic I've discussed quite a few times with people in the publishing industry, with fellow English majors, and with people who are enthusiastic readers but not involved with such communities:

http://metromag.co.nz/metro-archive/eleanor-catton-on-literature-and-elitism

Catton writes eloquently on the subject of literary criticism, and the idea of critics and qualified tastemakers in general. Her biases are, of course, obvious: she's the winner of a major literary prize, and a product of the MFA (Master of Fine Arts) system, which teaches what is considered serious literature.  (I have some of my own pet peeves with that school of thought, one of which is their rather rigid definition of what might be considered "serious literature" -- often snubbing genre fiction of equal quality -- but that's neither here nor there.)

Biases aside, Catton makes some excellent points. There is a difference between quality as discerned by a critic -- presumably someone well-educated and qualified specifically for the role -- and enjoyableness as experienced by the lay reader. That's part of the value of a degree in literature, after all: the ability to recognize quality and to critique. (That's not to say that only English majors are qualified to write novels, or that all novels are written by English majors -- it's merely that, statistically speaking, such an education is more likely to confer the necessary skills.) Also, it's less a matter of creation as it is of appreciation. There's always a context, an artistic tradition, in which a work of art is produced, and it's a critic's job to bring her knowledge of said context to bear when judging the merits of the piece. In the case of prizes, that's especially true: the only way to evaluate a novel as "better" or "worse" than any other novel, given the subjectivity of the reading experience, is to view it in the context of greatness, meaning, and technical mastery as established by the books that came before it. Obviously, any individual critic might have, say, a penchant for Shakespeare and a gripe against Dostoevsky -- personal preferences that color her judgment -- but across many readers, scholars, and thinkers over the centuries, "the canon" has generally been tested and found to be a functional measure of quality.

These books are not necessarily the most "enjoyable" to read -- in fact, many of the best books are, to a certain degree, difficult. They require a level of thought and engagement from the reader that makes the experience that much more rewarding. After all, art is in many ways a conversation -- with its creator, with all the art that preceded it, with its audience, and with the criticism and study that it engenders. People these days -- Americans, especially -- are culturally obsessed with the idea of genius, of creation springing forth like Athena from the mind of Zeus, without taking into account the foundation (personal or societal) laid in preparation for the act of creation in the present. (I've previously written about this here.) Just as a writer -- an artist in any medium, really -- learns the craft by studying the greats, so too should an informed and conscientious reader strive to be a better appreciator and critic by putting in the work to understand a novel in its proper context. Only then can the reader really evaluate the book, whether her reaction is positive or negative, or (most often) somewhere in between. A thoughtful and articulate negative criticism of a book, I find, usually requires the deepest literary background, because the critic must develop a good sense of what the book and its author were attempting to do, and where the work fell short, as compared to literary masters who did it well.

Anyway. This is a topic of particular interest to me, so I expect to revisit it later. Also, I imagine it won't go away anytime soon, so there will probably be more articles, and more perspectives, that catch my eye.

"Borges and I" by Jorge Luis Borges

I was just rereading one of my favorite short stories, and I wanted to share it with all of you. It's a very short piece called "Borges and I" by Jorges Luis Borges, and may be found here:
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/borg&i.htm

It's not precisely a story, and it's so short that it might qualify more as flash fiction or microfiction -- or perhaps not any sort of fiction at all. I first encountered it, that I can remember, in a philosophy of literature course at university. Even then, I was awed by the way the piece conveys all the meaning of an essay in just a few paragraphs. It's stayed with me, the idea of the human being as a vessel for the creative spirit, much like Athena in the skull of Zeus.

In particular, there's the line "I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me." I find that over the past few years, I've appropriated that term, "justify," for my own use when thinking about creative output, human identity, and self-worth. It's a particularly powerful word in that it demands an answer. A person spends a lifetime striving for that answer -- especially artists, philosophers, creators, and others who feel the need to pursue goals greater than themselves.

It also introduces, in just a few turns of phrase, the dichotomy of solitary creation and human experience. Art is usually a form of commentary and a crystallization of ideas -- even if the artwork and the artist espouse no agenda nor any overt message. Good art requires some understanding of the themes and cadences of human existence, of living our lives on this planet. And yet so often, when an artist in the act is not experiencing anything new of the outside world; rather, he experiences himself in the act of creation. So, in one flesh and one mind, there must be some rub between the human being who lives and learns, and the artist who creates. Is it, then, the artist's fate to oscillate forever?

Just some food for thought, going into the new year. (The lunar New Year was this weekend.)

Cover-a-Week #27: "May It Be" by Enya, from The Lord of the Rings soundtrack

It's a week for mourning writers, so in honor of Tolkien's fortieth death-day, here's Enya's "May It Be" from the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings:


http://youtu.be/juwu5tTC0hc

I maxed out the new microphone... again. (It's clearly the deadly combination of high notes, vibrato, and volume.) I tried putting a sweater over the mic -- perhaps next time, I should try sitting a bit farther back?

R.I.P Seamus Heaney

A literary luminary died today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13930435

I've owned a copy of Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf for as long as I can remember, and I've read it cover-to-cover at least three times. It's beautiful, and not just because the parallel text (with annotations!) indicates just how faithfully Heaney translated from the original Anglo-Saxon. Rather, given the cadence and word choice of his modern English, it becomes immediately evident that the translator is himself a poet.

Few poets have been as universally revered in their lifetimes as Heaney was. It has been said, even before today, that he was Yeats's successor as Ireland's foremost poet -- and one would be hard-pressed to find a competitor for the accolade. His original poetry was not only sublime, but also widely accessible -- he was a true poet of the people. His laurels are too many to count (including the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Struga Golden Wreath, and the Irish PEN), but in my mind, one of his most significant accomplishments was that he brought poetry to those who might not otherwise consume poetry, who might consider the art too academic, too arcane. He brought beauty and wonder to generations of readers who saw something of themselves set on paper in his words.

He was, by all accounts, a compassionate and upstanding man who was profoundly aware of his position as a voice of the people in a land often rent by civil and religious strife. He tried to balance a sense of cultural heritage and pride of place with a concern for individuals that was evident in everything he wrote. One of my favorite of his poems, "Digging," describes his work as a natural continuation of the life's work of his forefathers, telling the story of several generations in just a few verses. (You can hear Heaney's own rendition of it here.)

A star has fallen.

Edit: I just discovered that Seamus Heaney's last words, delivered via text message, were "Noli timere" (Latin for "Be not afraid"). How fitting -- he was a poet to the last.

The Economist: On Pollution, China is Better and Worse Than We Think

I'm reading Jared Diamond's excellent book Collapse (you know it's important when it has its own Wikipedia page!), which devotes a whole section to the real sociopolitical dangers modern China faces as a result of environmental fragility and degradation. I rather serendipitously happened upon this article in The Economist, which discusses developments therein (both good and bad) since Collapse was published in 2005:

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21583245-china-worlds-worst-polluter-largest-investor-green-energy-its-rise-will-have

I subsequently ended up thinking a lot about the subject, so I thought I'd muse about it in prose. (Sometimes -- very occasionally -- I miss writing essays for college history classes...) This post is rather long, so I've put it below the cut:

Cover-a-Week #20: "City Hall" by Vienna Teng

In celebration of the recent Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, United States v. Windsor:


http://youtu.be/lkrvnkgKTu0

The song was originally written about the 2004 same-sex marriage initiative in San Francisco, but it's just as relevant today; it commemorates the victory of love, justice, and human dignity over the prejudices of a shrinking minority.

Also, Oscar Wilde's two pence: http://www.gocomics.com/thenewadventuresofqueenvictoria/2013/06/27

Faulkner on Literature, Humanity, and Immortality

On Sunday, I had dinner with my friend Brett after an afternoon visit to the Met. I was telling him about an amazing, inspiring book talk I'd recently attended: it was a conversation between Adam Johnson, a Stanford English professor and this year's Pulitzer winner in fiction, and Fredrik Logevall, a Cornell history professor and the Pulitzer winner in nonfiction, moderated by their editor, David Ebershoff, of Random House.

Brett was reminded of (and sent me) this particular speech delivered by William Faulkner on the acceptance of his Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949:
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html

It's brilliant and quite worth reading (and not very long) -- so do actually read it! Faulkner's claim is, essentially, that literature -- the written word, storytelling, art -- is humanity's way of achieving some semblance of immortality. He writes not of the genetic "immortality" perpetuated by our biology, of course; I think one of the prerequisites of sentience is a consciousness of meaning greater than base instinct. Rather, Faulkner speaks to our legacy as a species -- the ideas, the intellectual and creative achievements by which humanity might define itself.

Literature is one such vehicle. I would hesitate to call it a record -- that term falls too much in the realm of historiography (which is itself an ambitious and meaningful endeavour, of course) -- but perhaps one might consider literature the pared-down essence of what it means to be human. In books, in art, we see reflected not only the best (and the worst) -- but also the deepest, truest, and most beautiful aspects of ourselves. In literature, we are immortal -- not only the writer, and sometimes not the writer at all (Homer is the example that comes to mind) -- but we, as a sentient species, are captured, burnished, chased in silver -- forever.

Shakespeare expressed a similar sentiment centuries earlier:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
(Sonnet 18, lines 13-14)

The Rise of Agriculture: the Worst Mistake in Human History?

I recently found this article by Jared Diamond, a scholar and writer I admire (famously the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel):
http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html

It's an excellent piece, and not too long, so you should read it for yourself! The gist of it is: structured, populous (agrarian) societies naturally develop lopsided hierarchies, putting a portion of the population at significant disadvantage (compared to the unstructured, sparsely populated communities of hunter-gatherers). The quality of life of the average hunter-gatherer was actually better than that of the average farmer, despite the relative sophistication of the latter's society; the reason for the prevalence of agriculture and husbandry over hunting and gathering is that "quality over quantity" doesn't apply when one population can overwhelm another by sheer numbers. (I bet Leonidas of Sparta would have something to say about that!)

Another interesting point Diamond raises is that gender dynamics tend to be more equal in hunter-gatherer societies -- partially because such conditions are less conducive to hierarchy in general (see above), and also because the practical day-to-day circumstances of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle cannot support any house-bound, "idle" population, be they women or an aristocracy. Women who had to be on their feet all the time simply couldn't bear as many children in quick succession -- especially since the children had to be as mobile/portable as everyone else. The patriarchy couldn't simply turn them into brood mares, because the women contributed valuable labor and the children had to be spaced at large enough intervals that their mothers only ever had to carry (whether in utero or on her back) one child at a time. (Methinks twins wouldn't have fared as well in these societies.)

This is actually quite relevant to our own times. Notice how, as women have become increasingly educated (on par with men, especially if we consider university completion rates) and increasingly productive in the work force (issues of equal pay aside), they tend to have fewer children, and said children are born later in the mother's life. Unchecked childbearing, it appears, has always been a way for the patriarchy to turn women into second-class citizens. (Anti-abortion/birth control Republicans, I'm looking at you!)

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury

He died this week (on the 5th). The New York Times obituary:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/books/ray-bradbury-popularizer-of-science-fiction-dies-at-91.html?_r=1&ref=arts&gwh=DAB304701677810DA93A673A1510F1D2

I first learned of it from Neil Gaiman's blog, actually. He was tapped to write a tribute piece in The Guardian, and he paints a beautiful portrait of this science fiction maestro:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/06/ray-bradbury-neil-gaiman-appreciation

We all knew that Bradbury was a pioneer of the genre. We all admired his skill, his imagination, his understanding of human nature. This reveals a side of him that, sadly, many of us never encountered -- the genuine, kind human being. People like that are precious.

Here's another:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120608-meeting-the-master-ray-bradbury

I love his devotion to the book as an object (something I'm more than a little afraid that e-readers will kill off), especially seeing as he was a science fiction writer. (I have an e-reader, but I feel the same way about books, which increasingly makes me appear a troglodyte among my peers.) I love his enthusiasm. And of course, as Gaiman so eloquently depicted it, his kindness.

Rest in peace, Mr. Bradbury.

BBC: V (for Vendetta) as a Cultural Symbol

In light of the Occupy movement's and Anonymous's adoption of the Guy Fawkes mask as a rallying image, Alan Moore, the creator of the original comic V for Vendetta writes for the BBC on the cultural cachet that the vigilante V holds in the collective consciousness:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16968689

The tagline should be V's quotation about how he's not a man, but an idea -- and ideas never die. One of the problems that the Occupy movement, at least, will have to confront, is precisely that it's an idea, an exercise of populist sentiment. Its lack of leadership and a practical agenda might well deflate the movement. The advantage that V had is that his idea was embodied in a single person, with his own goals and vision, his own coherent plan of action. He was the figurehead, if not the de facto leader of his own revolution. Occupy doesn't have that single person, than coherency. It has the mask -- many such masks -- but not the single visionary behind it.

The Stanford Daily: Ann Patchett at Stanford

Ann Patchett came to lecture on campus last week. She's one of my favorite living authors (I definitely had a geek-out moment when she was signing my books!), and she's also a wonderful speaker. Anyhow, I got to cover her lecture for my column:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/02/03/book-critiqua-ann-patchett/

Not only is she a bestselling author, she's also an indie bookstore owner; the write-up in The New York Times is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/us/ann-patchett-bucks-bookstore-tide-opening-her-own.html?ref=books

I especially loved her line, from her talk, about how her bookstore was "her gift to the city she loves" (Parnassus Books, in Nashville).

Washington Post: Writers on Writing

A collection of interesting and occasionally enlightening thoughts on writing, from a diverse list of authors:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/2011/08/24/gIQAJoEUYK_story.html

Some of my favorites:
"The dream of becoming a writer as a young boy has been realized. I am so pleased I did not let my young self down." ~ Jack Cantos

"I once watched a 6-year-old laugh so hard at my book “Diary of a Worm” that milk shot out of his nose — and I mean projected out like a jet stream. Hilarious." ~ Harry Bliss

"My mother was a living “book” of poems for me — and I grew up swimming in the ocean of poems she knew by heart." ~ Carol Muske-Dukes

Look What I Got for Christmas!

A ukulele!

It's a concert-sized Lanikai (LU-21C). I did my research (looking at online reviews, mostly), and it seems like this is a solid choice for a beginner (good quality for the price, decent sound, etc.).

There's a story behind it. Remember this post (about the Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer show that I attended last month)? If you don't want to read the whole article (it's short, though), the relevant bits are: she performed her song "Dear Old House," which became one of my favorite pieces on the spot (give it a listen below), and then her "Ukulele Anthem," one of the most memorable lines of which explains that it only takes an hour to learn to play the ukulele, which is comparable to the time required "to teach someone to build a standard pipe bomb." I was intrigued. I wanted a ukulele.

Then, my sister asked me what I wanted for Christmas. It appeared that my parents were a bit stumped as to what to get me. Ergo, I asked for a ukulele. They were a little confused as to what the instrument actually is (I don't imagine that "ukulele" is a word one would encounter in the standard Chinese-English dictionary), but I explained that it was a bit like a guitar, only smaller and Hawaiian. They were afraid it would be made of pineapples or coconuts or something [edit: there apparently actually exists a type of ukulele known as a pineapple ukulele], and I think they were secretly a bit relieved that it was a completely normal-looking, if slightly small, instrument. And so we went to the local Sam Ash when I got back to New York, and my father bought me one. I just learned to play "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen. I'm working on "Dear Old House," too, but the chords are harder.

 And that is what I got for Christmas.

Today

is the 141st anniversary of the death of Alexandre Dumas (the elder). Although he made his literary debut as a playwright, he is most famous as the author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.

When I first read the Musketeers books and The Count of Monte Cristo, I wasn't quite old enough to pick up on all the greater themes that a literature class might have brought to the table. It was all swashbuckling adventure fiction in my eyes. I wanted to be d'Artagnan for a while (though I had enough sense not to want to be Edmond Dantès; I was never really a vengeful sort of child). I think I told my mum once that I wanted to take up fencing, but I remember she was properly horrified (thought it unbecoming of a little girl, probably), so I never brought it up again. Then I told my father I wanted a feathered hat, and he was amused, and told me he'd find me one for Hallowe'en (which was at the time several months away, so he forgot about it by October). This was my version of "playing dress-up" or "knights and ladies" or whatever small children played.

Anyhow, Alexandre Dumas, a significant influence on my childhood. I rediscovered this particular breed of fiction in my teens, in the form of Steven Brust's Khaavren Romances (also fun reads, and heavily stylistic). If you like one (and are open to some genre-crossing), you'll like the other.

The Stanford Daily: Gaiman and Palmer in SF

Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer performed a show in San Francisco last week, and I covered it for The Daily (pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, above):

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/11/04/gaiman-and-palmer-read-rock-and-talk/

It was awesome. I want a ukulele. 

Book Critiqua @ The Stanford Daily

I have a column this volume (read that aloud) in Intermission (arts section of The Stanford Daily). It's called "Book Critiqua" -- for those of you who aren't typography geeks, it's a play on the font "Book Antiqua." Anyhow, my inaugural column came out today, featuring Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket). I attended his talk in San Jose, but the even cooler part was, I got to interview him! So here's the article, with a bunch of lovely soundbites:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/10/28/a-not-so-unfortunate-visit-from-lemony-snicket

He's wonderful in person, and a great conversationalist. And not actually really creepy or anything like that, in case you were wondering.

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog

One of my English professors held a Middle English workshop last week, and showed us this:
http://houseoffame.blogspot.com/

It's brilliant and hilarious in a really nerdy, English-major-y way. (Chaucer himself was quite funny, and the blog does him justice.) I've been reading it a bit obsessively the past week. Go have a gander -- I promise you'll laugh. (If you have trouble with the Middle English, there are some translation resources in the sidebar.)

R.I.P. Steve Jobs

The visionary of Apple died today: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/business/steve-jobs-of-apple-dies-at-56.html?_r=1&hp

I'm an Apple user. I'm typing up this very post on Mycroft, my Macbook. I've had one Macbook before him (a black one, named Marvin), I use an iPhone, and I have used various iPods before it. I have a distinct, albeit annoyingly unquantifiable, preference for Apple products (as opposed to comparable computers and phones) -- that's part of the magic.

There is little I can say about Steve Jobs that has not already been said. But I think that one of his greatest accomplishments is taking everyday, functional items -- the personal computer, the phone, the music player -- and making them beautiful. An often overlooked piece of his background: he audited a calligraphy class once, in college. This led to the diverse palette of computer fonts we have today. It's the little things like this that made him great; he didn't invent the computer, but he brought to it a certain irresistible aesthetic. Sometimes, it's all in the details.

Edit (11/28): William Gibson says it better, at http://imgur.com/hu40O