Jorge Luis Borges's "Ficciones"

Analyses of three of the stories in Jorge Luis Borges’s collection
Ficciones 
By Isaiah Cabanero 

           The three stories “The Library of Babel”, “The Theme of the Traitor and Hero”,  and “Three Versions of Judas”, all by Jorge Luis Borges, are chosen to be analyzed and/or reflected upon in this analytical paper purely because of the intriguing interests and powerful impressions each of the title exudes upon first reading.

To continue reading the article, click here. 

Tonight, One Quote

"The life of a man, male or female, if, say, compared to a complete sensible sentence, can, or at some point must, have commas within it for pauses or separation of ideas and, by the end of the thought, be punctuated with a period to declare the end. This is man’s life in a sentence, or his “life sentence”."

Nadine Gordimer's "Six Feet of the Country" & Wole Soyinka's "Telephone Conversation"

A Critical Paper of Nadine Gordimer's and Wole Soyinka's

 Six Feet of the Country and Telephone Conversation

By Isaiah Cabanero

“The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow,

he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing.”

- Dr. Eric Berne

The natures of the relationships the African population had, in general, with the other populations of the world, particularly the ones they had with the population of the whites, who first came to settle in for trade and agriculture, then eventually to colonize, the southern portion of the African continent in the decades past have had very significant impacts in world relations and literature. Most especially during the Apartheid period^*, when the natures of these relationships were at their gravest, the African population suffered grievous separation policies of the ruling white government not only racially, but also economically, socially, and educationally. This is both the subjects being presented and tackled in Nadine Gordimer’s short story “Six Feet of the Country” and Wole Soyinka’s poem “Telephone Conversation”.

In “Six Feet of the Country”, a white couple living in their farm in the countryside, just ten miles outside the city of Johannesburg, is faced with a situation involving them and their young African farm boy and his brother, who illegally immigrated to Johannesburg to find work but got severely sick along the way, lied ill in his brother’s hut for days, and then died, inside the premises of the couple’s farm. The couple now is thrust with the responsibility to take care of and bury the dead young man’s body. The conflict arose when the young African farm boy’s dead brother’s body is handled by the authorities differently than what he, in coherence with his family’s tradition, had hoped for.

In “Telephone Conversation”, an African is on the phone, calling up to a landlady in some location far away in order to get himself some space to stay in upon his arrival there after his journey. He confessed to her that he is an African, and then their conversation over the telephone went from negotiating the price of the space he’d want to stay in upon his arrival to negotiating the lightness or darkness of his complexion. Their conversation soon ended with the landlady hanging up her receiver on the other end of the line.

The two selections, “Six Feet of the Country” and “Telephone Conversation”, though one is a short story and the other a poem, can be creatively analogized to the elements of the foremost-mentioned quotation by Dr. Berne; taking one of the two as the jay and the other as the sparrow. Concerning oneself much of which selection is which from the other, as what is followed-up by the quotation, forfeits oneself of seeing the essence of the selections or the messages they preach. With this kind of reasoning in mind, the two selections can be analyzed together, as one, as if in an overlapping or super-imposing manner, with the lines of the poem tried to be weaved harmoniously into the mesh of the short story’s paragraphs. Some of the lines of the poem are further chopped into composite sensible phrases, and are weaved not necessarily chronologically into the sequence of the paragraphs of the short story, but more soundly into the most comparable and most parallel ones. This kind of literary approach is part-Deconstruction, part-New Criticism, part-New Historicism, part-Structuralism, and part-Semiotic Criticism. ...

To continue reading the article, click here.

A Harry Potter prequel written by J.K. Rowling

An Account of One of James's and Sirius's Adventures:
 
          The speeding motorcycle took the sharp corner so fast in the darkness that both policemen in the pursuing car shouted ‘whoa!’ Sergeant Fisher slammed his large foot on the brake, thinking that the boy who was riding pillion was sure to be flung under his wheels; however, the motorbike made the turn without unseating either of its riders, and with a wink of its red tail light, vanished up the narrow side street.
          "We’ve got ‘em now!” cried PC Anderson excitedly. "That’s a dead end!”
          Leaning hard on the steering wheel and crashing his gears, Fisher scraped half the paint off the flank of the car as he forced it up the alleyway in pursuit.
          There in the headlights sat their quarry, stationary at last after a quarter of an hour’s chase. The two riders were trapped between a towering brick wall and the police car, which was now crashing towards them like some growling, luminous-eyed predator.
          There was so little space between the car doors and the walls of the alley that Fisher and Anderson had difficulty extricating themselves from the vehicle. It injured their dignity to have to inch, crab-like, towards the miscreants. Fisher dragged his generous belly along the wall, tearing buttons off his shirt as he went, and finally snapping off the wing mirror with his backside.
          "Get off the bike!" he bellowed at the smirking youths, who sat basking in the flashing blue light as though enjoying it.
          They did as they were told. Finally pulling free from the broken wind mirror, Fisher glared at them. They seemed to be in their late teens. The one who had been driving had long black hair; his insolent good looks reminded Fisher unpleasantly of his daughter’s guitar-playing, layabout boyfriend. The second boy also had black hair, though his was short and stuck up in all directions; he wore glasses and a broad grin. Both were dressed in T-shirts emblazoned with a large golden bird; the emblem, no doubt, of some deafening, tuneless rock band.
          "No helmets!" Fisher yelled, pointing from one uncovered head to the other. "Exceeding the speed limit by – by a considerable amount!" (In fact, the speed registered had been greater than Fisher was prepared to accept that any motorcycle could travel.) "Failing to stop for the police!"
          "We’d have loved to stop for a chat," said the boy in glasses, "only we were trying -"
          "Don’t get smart – you two are in a heap of trouble!" snarled Anderson. "Names!"
          "Names?" repeated the long-haired driver. "Er – well, let’s see. There’s Wilberforce… Bathsheba… Elvendork…"
          "And what’s nice about that one is, you can use it for a boy or a girl," said the boy in glasses.
          "Oh, OUR names, did you mean?" asked the first, as Anderson spluttered with rage. "You should’ve said! This here is James Potter, and I’m Sirius Black!"
          "Things’ll be seriously black for you in a minute, you cheeky little -"
          But neither James nor Sirius was paying attention. They were suddenly as alert as gundogs, staring past Fisher and Anderson, over the roof of the police car, at the dark mouth of the alley. Then, with identical fluid movements, they reached into their back pockets.
          For the space of a heartbeat both policemen imagined guns gleaming at them, but a second later they saw that the motorcyclists had drawn nothing more than -
          "Drumsticks?" jeered Anderson. "Right pair of jokers, aren’t you? Right, we’re arresting you on a charge of -"
          But Anderson never got to name the charge. James and Sirius had shouted something incomprehensible, and the beams from the headlights had moved.
          The policemen wheeled around, then staggered backwards. Three men were flying – actually FLYING – up the alley on broomsticks – and at the same moment, the police car was rearing up on its back wheels.
          Fisher’s knees bucked; he sat down hard; Anderson tripped over Fisher’s legs and fell on top of him, as FLUMP – BANG – CRUNCH – they heard the men on brooms slam into the upended car and fall, apparently insensible, to the ground, while broken bits of broomstick clattered down around them.
          The motorbike had roared into life again. His mouth hanging open, Fisher mustered the strength to look back at the two teenagers.
          "Thanks very much!" called Sirius over the throb of the engine. "We owe you one!"
          "Yeah, nice meeting you!" said James. "And don’t forget: Elvendork! It’s unisex!"
          There was an earth-shattering crash, and Fisher and Anderson threw their arms around each other in fright; their car had just fallen back to the ground. Now it was the motorcycle’s turn to rear. Before the policemen’s disbelieving eyes, it took off into the air: James and Sirius zoomed away into the night sky, their tail light twinkling behind them like a vanishing ruby.

Source: http://www.mugglenet.com/potterprequel.shtml

Hey Buddy,

Tonight is something.

Tonight my friend told me that her father has cancer. Stage two. Cancer, it's the most common torture of the time. I told her "it's okay" and we said our "good nights".

It wasn't. It was not okay as I walked back home to my place. I felt like every step I make hesitate to step on the ground, and as if my butt drags me back to where my friend and I said our "good night"s. God, it was an unknown pain inside I was feeling. I kept thinking of forgetting something. I felt a hug was missed. I felt bad. Seriously bad, it almost had sickened me as well as the share she'd told me.

I didn't know what exactly to do! Should I go back? Run back after her, and give her the hug I felt forgotten and missed? Or should I just... I don't know, don't mind the thought? I couldn't take it. It's so bad a feeling I felt really bad. Damn it! i say.

I ran back, rushed down my place and back outside. I rushed to her building as quickly as I can feel, damn it pushed the elevator up myself up to the ninth floor, rang the bell, her door opened, and gave her my hug. I told her "it's okay" though I know it's not. She told me "it's fine" and thought I left my bag at hers. I told her "it's okay" and told her "good night".

She to me is special, and she deserves the hug. I just want to let her know that I do care and that it's okay even if the world knows it's not at the moment. 

Tonight was a good night. Not doing what I had just done, I must have felt sickened by myself 'til morn. Destitution perils not only the destitute, but, sometimes, perils the one that destitutes more. 

I felt drunk. I regret not the hug.

Your buddy

Tonight, One Quote

 

"As common windows are intended only to admit the light, but painted windows also to dye it, and to be an object of attention in themselves as well as a cause of visibility in other things, so, while the purest prose is a mere vehicle of thought, verse, like stained glass, arrests attention in its own intricacies, confuses it in its own glories, and is even at time allowed to darken and puzzle in the hope of casting over us a supernatural spell."

 

Read more about it here.

Today, One Quote

"When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw."

Tonight, One Quote

"... that while a man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do. But you can, with precision, say what an average man will do. Individuals vary, percentages remain constant. So says the statistician. I am not an average man."

Hey buddy,

Whatsup mothafucka? It's almost eleven at night over here at my place. I just got back from walking out ya know. It's a nice thing to do, I thought. Was planning to grab a can of beer on the walk back to my place but the fucking liquor ban raced me through it tonight and won. I got a can of Coke in behalf. It kind of sucked, I know. My stomach's a bit in disagreement of why I got it even. It feels! Anyway, I thought it cool to write to you once in a while. I'm startin' to feel a bit lonely here. More lonelier than last month, honestly. Even more lonelier than I've ever been before, ya know. It's a feeling of loneliness that's still unfamiliar to me, and to my body. I believe I cope by eating, or I don't know coz I'm not really sure. I've been eating A LOT really these past few days. I can't be left unfed for more than four hours. Or else, I'd think that I'd better die than starve. I'm getting the feeling of starvation more frequently than any man along this Katipunan Avenue has ever been. I feel for the African nation now. ... My music pausing intermittently. It's making my focus loose. Wait a sec...

Hi. I went to pee. It's all the cola I just drank. Finally it went out of my system. Anyway, what was I gonna say again? Yeah, I got some exams coming. Major exams, and some papers to write, too. Wait a sec again, sorry... Sorry, hey. It was my best friend from high school. He just sent me a link to pornsite. I don't why, or I don't know what got to him tonight ha ha but this is unexpected. I know I hoped for quite a time already he'd actually send me these kinds of stuff, coz ya know that'll make me say we share this more brotherly bond, but I never expected he'd actually be able to do it. Ha ha! Clap clap bro, clap clap. Okay, anyway, where was I again? Sorry, I think I have this short-term memory loss thing going on in me now. It just started a few weeks ago, or so I just noticed. Also, I think my eyes got bad just recently. Probably because of all the readings I've been doing for my literature classes and for my personal thing, too. But I don't wanna to put much priority to them now. I got major exams coming, remember? Wait, sorry, brb in a sec again... Okay, sorry about that again. This site called reddit.com my best friend told me about is just funny. They got some cool stuff to read actually. 

So, anyway, I guess I'll end writing to you here for tonight. I am yet to find more things to talk about and more words to represent them to you, my buddy. Yeah? Alright, I'll write to you soon definitely. 'til next time!

Your buddy

Tonight, One Poem

Ten little soldier boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were Nine.

Nine little soldier boys sat up very late;
One overslept himself and then there was Eight.

Eight little soldier boys travelling to Devon;
One said he stayed there and then there were Seven.

Seven little soldier boys chopping up sticks;
One chopped himself in halves and then there were Six.

Six little soldier boys playing with a hive;
A bumble bee stung one and then there were Five.

Five little soldier boys going in for law;
One got in Chancery and then there were Four.

Four little soldier boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were Three.

Three little soldier boys walking in the Zoo;
A big bear hugged one and then there were Two.

Two little soldier boys sitting in the sun;
One got frizzled up and then there was One.

One little soldier boy left all alone;
He went and hanged himself

And then there were None.

                                                                 Frank Green, 1869

William Shakespeare's sonnet "17"

An analysis of William Shakespeare’s sonnet

 17

By Isaiah Cabanero

Who will believe my verse in time to come

If it were filled with your most high deserts?

Who will indeed? Who people will believe his verse in time? People dream so much, sometimes even too much. They are the only beings known to this world that can, and are deemed to be the only ones that are capable to, dream and think of highly incredible things and overly far-fetched ideas. Re-running through the already long history of people’s time, just take for example the three precise dessert pyramids in Egypt; or the laid out great wall up along mountain ranges in China; the climactic revolution that shook the French monarch in France; the complete abolishment of slavery in America; the nuclear bombings that wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan; or the erection of the two colossal skyscraping towers in World Trade Center in New York. ...

To continue reading the article, click here.

 

"To walk in the rain is probably one of the most peaceful thing to do. To walk in those moments in just a little bit of rain, and be able to think boundlessly by yourself, unnoticed by other people, hurrying to get under some roof, like mice scurrying to get into their little holes. The rain falling and curtaining you as you walk through and think of bigger thoughts in your head, like you just got the whole world to be your private personal shower; and you control yourself at best not to burst aloud to sing."

Trek to Taal Crater Lake

It was a journey to a (crater) lake in a volcano... in a lake... in a volcano. Ta-al!

Brief introduction: Taal Volcano is the smallest active volcano in the world. Its unexplained shape and location on an island within a lake within an island, makes it a unique geologic wonder, enthralling thousands of tourists and geologists yearly. (more information at http://www.taalvolcano.org/information.htm)

Most entertaining and exciting boat ride!

Early morning, from a permitted docking point at the shore of the Taal Lake, a sturdy motor boat big enough to sail eight people, including the boatman, took me a level closer to the X that marks the spot. By the way, if one is lucky enough, there is a special motor boat that exists at the docking point where I went to that offers free entertainment and booming musical background while sailing the calm heavy fresh waters of the lake. I got more than lucky enough, you see. It was one of the most fun and most exciting boat ride I'd ever had!

A few minutes to almost half an hour later, I reached the very foot of the volcano (within the lake I just sailed in). Some little communities of people have surprisingly, for me, settled there already and welcomed trekkers with plain civility. No grand pa-fiesta hooray!, nor any talking. Just a blank.. silent.. long stare at "foreigners" coming to land.

Anyway, moving on! The path of the trek is as easy to follow as walking a paved path in a park. Don't get me wrong though, the trek path isn't paved. The path is overlaid with black sand for fast recognition and swift instruction, I think. It's a prolonged period of flat terrain walk at the start of the trek. No climb or slide on steep slopes yet. Reaching the end of the first part of the trek though, there'll be this quite high climb to do and by the top, a magnificent and relieving sight of the crater lake would first show up. It assured me I was trekking the right thing when I first caught sight of it. Swear, it was breathtaking. 

View of the crater lake from atop

I was on top, off some height, right? So, of course, to get down to the crater lake for much closer proximity, I made my descent to the crater of the volcano. This descent shall be fun. I suppose that if I had actually pushed myself to just go slide down one of quite a number of descending slopes back there, than had descended like a person slowly going down a contorted-ly arranged set of steps of a staircase, I would have had more fun and more adrenaline excreted. But it's fine. The manner I did it was still fun enough.

So, okay. Then the crater lake... The crater lake, I tell you, is a beauty! It's a beauty to behold. I'd just let some of the photos that I took of the crater lake from its shore convince you:

Green grass and white cows

I grabbed the two club sandwiches I brought to eat. That's my lunch, plus a 5-gallon supply of distilled water to rehydrate me from time to time. I took my good time there quite seriously; took some rest and some quiet time to myself. 

Also, I did not miss to take home a bit (a rugged Obsidian) of the crater lake for myself on my way "out", or on my back to the foot of the volcano. I took this different path back, passing a plain of grazing white cows and lava rocks, for more adventure. I was just hoping to not get real lost the whole time, and get trapped in the island volcano. I can't take being an actual Survivor, that's just not for a television show, trapped somewhere.

I got home so satisfied with the adventure and the experience. You can check out more of the photos of the trek to the crater lake here.

Tonight, One Poem

Because I Could Not Stop For Death, 
by Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the feilds of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling on the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

Tonight, One Short Story

Two Minutes Past Midnight

By Isaiah Cabañero

 

TWO MINUTES past midnight:

My eyes opened up in the cold dark room of my apartment. The air-conditioning has just dozed off on timer.

I got up; my head up off my pillow. I was double-wrapped by my blanket and my bed’s sheets. What to do? I thought.

I thought of sitting up by my writing desk.  Perhaps I could write some stories. No, just some notes. Stories would be too ambitious at the moment.

The exposed red brick wall behind my desk appears weirdly illuminated by the moonlight in my room. Or was it the light from the outside of my room that is still on?

I sat up on my chair. It creaked a bit as it swiveled upon my weight. What to do? I thought. What to write then? I thought.

A few pages of blank paper lie on top of my desk. Plus some smaller pieces of ones that I use as papers for reminders to pin on my corkboard that rested at an angle between the desk and the window pane. It fell off the wall a few days ago and I had not had time to mount it back again. I had to buy yet another roll of mounting tape from the bookstore.

What to write? I thought.

To change the world, what do I do? I started to think.

I shall build a new civilization. Rebuild, or build a new one. ...

To read on, click here.

Nadine Gordimer's short story "Six Feet of the Country"

An analysis of Nadine Gordimer’s short story

 Six Feet of the Country

By Isaiah Cabanero

          As narrated in the short story “Six Feet of the Country” by Nadine Gordimer: “We bought our place, ten miles out of Johannesburg on one of the main roads, to change something in ourselves, I suppose; you seem to rattle about so much with a marriage like ours. You long to hear nothing but a deep satisfying silence when you sound a marriage. The farm hasn’t managed that for us, of course, but it has done other things, unexpected, illogical.”

          Upon these lines that, in part, opened the story, in some way, presents the state of mind of the protagonist in the story, the narrator, himself a married white man, living as master or baas (a South African term for “boss” or “master”) in his farm a few miles out of the city of Johannesburg in South Africa; and these may as very well present the ultimate thesis of the short story itself. To simply put things out, solely based on those opening lines, a “change” must have been sought, so a “search” or “journey” to a far away is supposed and is set foot for this “change”, and whether or not that “change” sought was found in the far away indeed, all that is just clear and known here is the fact, rooted from the narrator’s testimony, that the “search” brought about other things: things unexpected and things illogical. ...

To continue reading the article, click here.

Tonight, One Poem

Beer,
by George Arnold

     HERE,
     With my beer
     I sit,
     While golden moments flit:
     Alas!
     They pass
     Unheeded by:
     And, as they fly,
     I,
     Being dry,
     Sit, idly sipping here
     My beer.
     O, finer far
     Than fame, or riches, are
     The graceful smoke-wreathes of this cigar!
     Why
     Should I
     Weep, wail, or sigh?
     What if luck has passed me by?
     What if my hopes are dead,—
     My pleasures fled?
     Have I not still
     My fill
     Of right good cheer,—
     Cigars and beer.
     Go, whining youth,
     Forsooth!
     Go, weep and wail,
     Sigh and grow pale,
        Weave melancholy rhymes
        On the old times,
     Whose joys like shadowy ghosts appear,
     But leave me to my beer!
        Gold is dross,—
        Love is loss,—
     So, if I gulp my sorrows down,
     Or see them drown
     In foamy draughts of old nut-brown,
     Then do wear the crown,
        Without the cross!

Today, One Quote

"One has only to look at the thing quite independently, broadly, and uninfluenced by commonplace ideas, and [the] idea will by no means seem so... strange."

Some Poems from "Leaves Of Grass" by Walt Whitman

                               9
What do you seek so pensive and silent?
What do you need camerado?
Dear son do you think it is love?

Listen dear son—listen America, daughter or son,
It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess, and yet it
satisfies, it is great,
But there is something else very great, it makes the whole coincide,
It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands sweeps and
provides for all.

                               25
Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me,
If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.

We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun,
We found our own O my soul in the calm and cool of the daybreak.

My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach,
With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds.

Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself,
It provokes me forever, it says sarcastically,
Walt you contain enough, why don’t you let it out then?

Come now I will not be tantalized, you conceive too much of articulation,
Do you not know O speech how the buds beneath you are folded?
Waiting in gloom, protected by frost,
The dirt receding before my prophetical screams,
I underlying causes to balance them at last,
My knowledge my live parts, it keeping tally with the meaning of all things,
Happiness, (which whoever hears me let him or her set out in search of
this day.)

My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really am,
Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me,
I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you.

Writing and talk do not prove me,
I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face,
With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.

Tonight, One Quote

"Writers, especially poets, are particularly prone to madness. There exists a striking association between creativity and manic depression. Why are more creative people prone to madness? They have more than average amounts of energies and abilities to see things in a fresh and original way -- then because they also have depression, I think they're more in touch with human suffering."  

Is it foolish to romanticize life?

YES.

To romanticize life ... is such a foolish act to do. Such a foolish act indeed. 

But you must ask me, must ask me!, "would you romanticize life?" -- yes. Oh, yes.

It is as foolish to do as jumping into the Green lake in the summer, in my underpants. Or perhaps naked, braving the ice-cold lush waters. (Sweat starts to condensate upon my palms as I type these words, I'm noticing. I'd put to say that my palms are feeling the heat within these words that I type...ing) Again, it is such a foolish thing to do, and a foolish thought to think of too! But what's more romantic to a man to be thought of other than of a fool, such a foolish fool? 

Thinking of the times I feel the sky is talking to me, or the light that is filtered through my window's blind displaying the mood of the moment in me I am left wordless to describe or name. 

Such is a foolish feeling. And such a fool I am of a man to feel such. Yet I feel sweet romance.

Tonight, One Quote

Leopold had written to Loeb:

"A superman ... is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do."

Tonight, One Essay

An analysis of Nadine Gordimer’s short story

 Six Feet of the Country

By Isaiah Cabanero

            As narrated in the short story “Six Feet of the Country” by Nadine Gordimer: “We bought our place, ten miles out of Johannesburg on one of the main roads, to change something in ourselves, I suppose; you seem to rattle about so much with a marriage like ours. You long to hear nothing but a deep satisfying silence when you sound a marriage. The farm hasn’t managed that for us, of course, but it has done other things, unexpected, illogical.”

             Upon these lines that, in part, opened the story, in some way, presents the state of mind of the protagonist in the story, the narrator, himself a married white man, living as master or baas (a South African term for “boss” or “master”) in his farm a few miles out of the city of Johannesburg in South Africa; and these may as very well present the ultimate thesis of the short story itself. To simply put things out, solely based on those opening lines, a “change” must have been sought, so a “search” or “journey” to a far away is supposed and is set foot for this “change”, and whether or not that “change” sought was found in the far away indeed, all that is just clear and known here is the fact, rooted from the narrator’s testimony, that the “search” brought about other things: things unexpected and things illogical. ...

Continue reading, click the link: An analysis of Nadine Gordimer's Six Feet of the Country by Isaiah Cabanero  

Nadine Gordimer - Banquet Speech at the Nobel Banquet 1991

Nadine Gordimer - Banquet Speech

Nadine Gordimer's speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1991

Nadine Gordimer

     "Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Your Excellencies, Fellow Laureates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

      When the six-year-old daughter of a friend of mine overheard her father telling someone that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize, she asked whether I had ever received it before. He replied that the Prize was something you could get only once. Whereupon the small girl thought a moment: 'Oh' she said, 'so it's like chicken-pox.'
Well, Flaubert said that 'honours dishonour' the writer, and Jean-Paul Sartre declined this particular honour, but whether as malediction or malady one cannot say. I certainly find being the recipient at this celebratory dinner more pleasurable and rewarding than chicken-pox, having now in my life experienced both.
     But the small girl was not entirely wrong. Writing is indeed, some kind of affliction in its demands as the most solitary and introspective of occupations. We writers do not have the encouragement and mateyness I imagine, and even observe, among people whose work is a group activity. We are not orchestrated; poets sing unaccompanied, and prose writers have no cue on which to come in, each with an individual instrument of expression to make the harmony or dissonance complete. We must live fully in order to secrete the substance of our work, but we have to work alone. From this paradoxical inner solitude our writing is what Roland Barthes called 'the essential gesture' towards the people among whom we live, and to the world; it is the hand held out with the best we have to give.
     When I began to write as a very young person in a rigidly racist and inhibited colonial society, I felt, as many others did, that I existed marginally on the edge of the world of ideas, of imagination and beauty. These, taking shape in poetry and fiction, drama, painting and sculpture, were exclusive to that distant realm known as 'overseas'. It was the dream of my contemporaries, white and black, to venture there as the only way to enter the world of artists. It took the realization that the colour bar - I use that old, concrete image of racism - was like the gate of the law in Kafka's parable, which was closed to the supplicant throughout his life because he didn't understand that only he could open it. It took this to make us realize that what we had to do to find the world was to enter our own world fully, first. We had to enter through the tragedy of our own particular place.
     If the Nobel awards have a special meaning, it is that they carry this concept further. In their global eclecticism they recognize that no single society, no country or continent can presume to create a truly human culture for the world. To be among laureates, past and present, is at least to belong to some sort of one world."

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1991, Editor Tore Frängsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1992

Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1991

Tonight, One Poem

Worst, Worse, and Bad Is Good, Better, and Best 
by Isaiah Cabanero

     Best is best,

          worst is worst.

     Better is better than good,

         and good is better than bad

         as bad is better than worse,

          and worst is worse than worse.

     Worse is worse than bad,

          and bad is worse than good

          as good is worse than better,

          and best is better than better.

     Best is best,

          worst is worst.

     What is better,

          so what is worse?

The Philippines Moves Forward [HD]

Tonight, One Quote

"Men do things. We listen when it is time for us to learn. We speak when it is time for others to listen. We stay silent when speaking will make not make us heard. We do what needs to be done when the time for listening and speaking is done."

"How Girly Sees Politics"

Another excerpt from Miguel Syjuco's "Ilustrado":
 
     Boy Bastos's daughter Girly asks his father, "Daddy, what is politics?" Boy is very proud of her inquisitiveness. As he's gotten older, spent and rebuilt the small inheritance his father Erning left him, risen in politics, watched his daughter grow, witnessed his son being born, seen his marriage shed its glitter, he's realized that our greatest doom is to raise children who'll repeat our mistakes. This he know is something he doesn't want.
     He says, "Well, Girly-girl, let me explain it this way. First, I'm the head of the family, so you can call me the President. Your mom makes the rules, so you can call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we can call you the People. Your yaya Inday works for us, and we pay her for her work, so we'll call her the Working Class. And your baby brother Junior, let's call him the Future. Now think about that and see if it makes sense."
     Girly goes to bed, pondering what she heard. In the middle of the night, Girly awakens. She hears baby brother Junior crying, so she checks and discovers he's totally crapped in his diaper. Girly goes to her parents' room to find her mother fast asleep. Unable to wake her up because of the sleeping pills taken every night, Girly goes to her yaya's room. The door, however, is locked. Girly peeks through the keyhole and sees her father in bed with Inday. Girly goes back to bed.
     At the breakfast table the next morning, Girly tells her father, "Daddy, I think I understand politics now."
     Boy is proud. "Wow!" he exclaims. "You really are sharp! Explain to us in your own words how politics work."
     "Well," Girly begins, "the President is really fucking the Working Class. And the Government doesn't do anything except sleep and sleep. Nobody ever pays attention to the People. And the Future, well, the Future swims in shit."

I just finished reading the book. For its first time. 

The Government/Family

Tonight, One Quote

"There are dreamers and there are realists in this world. You’d think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not the opposite is true. You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep them from soaring too close to the sun. And the realists, well without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground."

Thoughts: "The Last Rite" by Lee Yu-Hwa

It is the classic old versus new thing. In post-revolution "modern" China, after the centuries-old dynastic empire has been overthrown at last, starts a story of a boy named Chou nan-an coming back home, after having been gone for college for three long years, to his ill-stricken grandmother. But as it turns out, his ill-stricken grandmother was not the only one he'd find himself coming back home to: a self-disappointing confrontation and "neglect of duty" discussion with his father, a completely unexpected turn-around by his sister, a surprising revelation to his unsurprised mother, and a long been waiting rite to pass, as dictated by his culture and tradition, supposed to be his last.

His father asked him what, after three years gone, he has learned in the modern school. He answered, in complete respect, how broad the knowledge being taught in the modern school is that it seems to him so complicated and difficult to simply explain outright. A master of retort, his father sneered at him, telling him there is nothing more complicated to learn and to explain if only what the modern school teaches boys like him is just how to live a life of a man; not a bunch of sciences and varied culture and all that crap. Then his father led the talk into raising an awful reminder the neglected duty his son has left in the house since he went away: the arranged marriage of Chou and his betrothed fiancee. This a duty, as the culture dictates, he owes gravely to his father, and a wish by his grandmother he quite traditionally needed to grant before she dies. 

His sister was excited for the coming of her soon to be sister-in-law; she shall finally have someone to talk to and sew with. Upon this, Chou was infuriated and completely taken aback. For long, he thought he could have his sister on his side and have counted her support in undertaking his new modern ways and ideals. He has duties and responsibilities only to himself as an individual, he claims during their conversation; and none to this fiancee of his but fake ones! He told his sister that her mind is poisoned for yielding and compromising to this culture. Moreover, he added that he does not wish to marry her, the fiancee, for she is not the type of girl that he would choose for himself to marry.

His mother told him not to tell his father anything of this until all the wedding is over. He had just told his mother that he is already married to another woman, a modern friend in college. It turned out, after this supposed to be shocking revelation to his mother that apparently didn't surprise her a bit, for she calmly replied to his son that a marriage, no matter when, where, or with whom, is not and never a marriage as long as the family had never arranged it. This just becomes something unrecognized by the whole family unless acted upon with destitution by the unauthorized-wedded wife to be just the second one to his groom. His woman, if she wishes to be recognized, has to beg to become the second wife if the arrange wedding pushes through! He thought, again, of how the family's morality bespeaks paradoxical ideals so loudly upon this discussion with his mother.  

Soon later, the wedding happened and was pushed through. The red sedan of the fiancee was brought to the house of Chou. The night came and both were inside the newly-wed chamber, as dictated by culture and tradition, in a part of the house. During that night, however drowned and clouded and hard his mind might be, after the many rounds of drinking he had with his cousins prior, during his long due thinking he has gotten beside that bed, as soon as the tears had started to fall down his bride's rogued cheeks, he exercised the rite. He exercised his rite.

Traditional Chinese family portrait

One of the many Confucian principles in Confucius's "The Analects" teaches that the father must be kind and the son be devotedly obedient, that the elder brother must be gentle and the younger be humble and respectful, that the husband must be righteous in behavior and the wife be obedient, that the elders must be humanely considerate and the juniors be deferential, that the rulers must be benevolent and the ministers and the subjects be loyal, so that the society be harmonious for all.

Well, that is quite a clear point, Confucius. Anyway,  you can read the whole story here.