 The least interesting story in this series so far.
Song Yong creates fictional locale (Nongol), a spatial construction that mirrors the shut off, despairing world of the protagonist who lives on the margins. The story starts as the protagonist revisits Nongol, having somehow escaped its interior that renders its inhabitants listless and helpless; what is the outside world? Not 100% sure of the reasons for his usage of Christianity and Korean shamanism (the source of the drumbeat referenced by the title).
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 Short and interesting essay that compares Occidental and Chinese/sino-systems of thought.
According to Han, "Far Eastern thought begins with deconstruction" (p.11). Unlike Western thought that is based on ontological assumptions of an unchanging essence/Being that undergoes ruptural transformations, sino-systems of thought "empties out Being in the process or way that has neither beginning nor end." These two systems of thought read works of art differently. While the Occident values the Original artwork as a creative event, the Chinese masterpiece "is regularly overwritten by connoisseurs and collectors" (p.13) and is a constant process. While copying original masterpieces is forgery from a Western perspective, it is a "sign of respect" (p.15) from the Chinese perspective, and these copies regularly make their way into the artist's oeuvre. Han continues by analyzing the Chinese 山寨 or fake from this perspective; the Chinese fake is not a mere copy, a lack of creativity, but a specific display of creativity that adapts to the specific context. Short but very interesting and provocative. It's in the "Untimely Meditation" series, but I think that such works are rarely divorced from the historical conjuncture, I wonder what Han was thinking as he wrote this.  Read this short story because I want to read Barthes' analysis in S/Z.
My first Balzac stories, I cannot really say too much about Balzac's writing just yet, these two stories are not sufficient for such an evaluation. Both used the technique of telling a story within a story. Maupassant does this a lot, too. In Sarrasine, Balzac's descriptions of the old man foretells his identity as a castrato: "His excessive thinness, the delicacy of his limbs proved that his proportions had always remained slender... Quite a rust-coloured jabot of English lace, the magnificence of which would have been envied by a queen... Besides, the feminine vanity of this fantastic figure was already forcefully proclaimed by the golden rings hanging from his ears... Silently, and as immobile as a statue, it exhaled the musky odour of the old clothes that the heirs of a duchess exhume from her drawers during an inventory..."  A great practitioner's manual to foresight through scenarios.
Scenarios are stories that foresight practitioners construct to provide a context for decisions in the future. These are not mere extrapolations, but serve also as a vision around which stakeholders can coalesce. This is a very practical book with good advice. Schwartz does not aim for theoretical and methodological rigour, this is a how-to manual with clear step-by-step instructions coming from his years of experience in the field. For example, in his section on information gathering and hunting (futurists need always to be consuming information from heterogeneous sources) he presents a long list of the magazines that he has personally consulted over the years for new information. The most theoretical (but still very practical) section is the "Creating Scenario Building Blocks" chapter, where he presents the categories he uses for constructing scenarios. Of these there are three. Driving forces are fundamental forces that affect the outcome of the scenario; because there are so many of these, salient driving forces should center around the decision being made. Schwartz categorizes driving forces into five categories, these are: society, technology, economics, politics, and environment. Predetermined elements are certain to happen, an example can be slow-changing phenomena like demographic information: a certain number of people are sure to turn a certain age by a certain date. Finally, there are the critical uncertainties. These can be found by examining predetermined elements: one might know demographic information in the future, but it is uncertain what kind of habits this generation will have. After determining salient information in these three categories--most effectively in a team to cover each other's weaknesses, biases, and to broaden the topic from different perspectives--it is time to compose the scenarios. Schwartz recommends two or three different plots, more would be too difficult to process at once. Schwartz gives some of the plots he utilizes the most. An example is the "Winners and Losers" plot, where resources are limited and everything is a zero-sum game. I think some interesting "plots" can be constructed that go beyond his suggestions. Works of history and historiography might be useful here to get a theoretically informed perspective of how history is made. As a very practical man, Schwartz recognizes the fact that decisions are made by people, and encourages future foresight practitioners to involve decision-making managers into the scenario building process, so that they are emotionally invested. He also acknowledges the power of stories to temporarily suspend disbelief; in the subjunctive "as if" (as opposed to the imperative mood) world of the scenario, decision makers are more willing to engage with new perspectives. A nice and practical, step-by-step user guide at the end completes the book.  A remarkable historical and literary text by Shen Fu, a failed literati who lived in the late 18th century. Four of the six records remain, and I enjoyed reading the first, "The Joys of the Wedding Chamber"--where he details his relationship with his wife, Yun--the most.
"By this time the scent of jasmine in their hair had mixed with the aroma of the wine, all of it overlaid by the smell of perspiration in their make-up." How many scents, fragrances, smells are lost to us in historical documents? On the reunion with Yun after a short departure Shen Fu writes: "...I went into our room and Yun rose to greet me. She held my hand without saying a word. Our souls became smoke and mist. I thought I heard something, but it was as if my body had ceased to exist." Being an anthropologist, I tend to think through the lens of (cultural) difference. Is romantic love in "human nature?" Does it escape the specifications of culture; does it mean the same thing for Shen Fu as it did for someone 2000 years ago as it does for people today? There is a part where Yun dresses like a man to accompany Shen Fu to the festival of Tungting Temple; a demonstration of light-spirited transgression and agency.  For Connor, a nation is an ethnic group, and nationalism is ethnonationalism (as opposed to patriotism, a sense of belonging not to a nation but a state).
The ethnonation takes on the metaphor of kinship. Connor suggests that social scientists who study nationalism take the emotive dimensions of nationalism seriously, even if the ethnic origin myths are not historically accurate.  Zhang Ailing: what an incredible writer; what enormous powers of observation.
In this collection of stories she dissects the differences between East and West (Red Rose and White Rose), the mainland and Hong Kong (Shanghai is transmogrified into the conservative East, while Hong Kong is represents an awkward mishmash; "Hong Kong garden parties are even better. Hong Kong society copies English custom in every respect, but goes on adding further touches until the original conception is entirely lost"), and casts her scrutinizing gaze on the figure of the overseas Chinese (George Qiao, Liuyuan etc) in an often cinematic style ("First, pour yourself a cup of tea, but be careful--it's hot! Blow on it gently. In the tea's curling steam you can see...a Hong Kong public bus on a paved road, slowly driving down a hill."). I read 封锁 and 倾城之恋 in Chinese two or three years ago, I am afraid to say that there were a couple of misunderstandings on my part in my Chinese reading of 倾城之恋. With that being said (and my less than great Chinese admitted), I think that the translations in this collection captured Zhang's dynamism.  Is this a novel of resistance? The inscrutable vegetarian who is the titular character of this novel decides, one day, to stop eating meat. She remains illegible and unknowable from the changing perspectives of her husband, her sister's husband, and finally, her sister. The only time her thoughts are articulated are in the short and evocative dream sequences in the first part of the novel.
As the story progresses the vegetarian starts to vegetate, both as a patient of a mental hospital and by actually attempting to become plantlike. Is Han Kang attempting a connection to post-humanist ideas? The controversial translation of the novel is interesting in itself, Deborah Smith took artistic licence in her translation of the book, creating debate about translation and the role of the translator (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/15/han-kang-and-the-complexity-of-translation is one discussion of the topic).  I heard a lot about Houellebecq so I picked up Submission from the local used book store.
What an engaging read--Houellebecq's style is informal, conversational, and has a laxity about it that I do not associate with French writers. Submission refers to submission to Islam. The year is 2022, and the Islamic party in France has won the national elections for the first time. I can't really speak to the French political context, but what I found more interesting is Houellebecq writing the story through an examination of French writer Huysmans. I read in an interview that Houellebecq originally wanted to entitle the novel The Conversion (or something to that effect). François is a disaffected Professor of French Literature specializing in Huysmans. There is nothing to look forward in life for him. He tries to follow in Huysmans' footsteps and look for meaning in life through conversion to Christianity, but fails to do so. Is this because of the displacement of Christianity in Europe's psyche? I got the impression that for Houellebecq Europe is one marked by decay, a decline from older glory days.  Great ethnography, helped me to understand the 'ontological turn' in a concrete way.
De la Cadena writes on page 283 that "the ethnography that is this books has the intention to invite awareness to the ontological disagreement in which modern politics already participates in while ignoring such participation." By the ontology of modern politics, de la Cadena is referring to Bruno Latour's 'modern constitution,' which is the "invention of the ontological distinction between humans and nonhumans, and the practices that allowed for both their mixture and separation." The Quechua runakuna live in a different ontological mode that recognizes the agency nonhuman beings (the Earth Beings). Through indigenous labour leader Mariano Turpo, de la Cadena tells a story of (mis)translations, as Earth Beings participate in the political process through Turpo, but escape recognition in the ontology of modern politics. |
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