Nineteen Eighty-Four

Well, finally finished Nineteen Eighty-Four. Actually it didn't take long once I got into it - it just took a while to get into it. The first half took me about a week, the second half about four or five days then I whizzed through the last part in a couple of days.

So the story is set in a future dystopia. The world is divided into three super powers fighting with each other - Oceana, Eurasia, and Eastasia. It is written from the pespective of Winston, living in London, which is part of Oceana. Oceana is under the control of a totalitarian political party, i.e., nearly all public and private behaviour is regulated. In fact the party controls society to such a degree that they monitor citizens' thoughts, watch them 24/7 via telescreens - monitors installed everywhere out of which the party broadcast various things. Big Brother is head of the party, whether he is a real person or just a representation of the party is not clear. His image appears on posters showing his watchful eyes everywhere informing people that they are under his constant gaze - 'Big Brother is watching you.'

The book begins by introducing us to Winston's oppressive world. He is a party member, a member of the outer party, and he works in the truth department, whose job it is to rewrite history. The party is organised into inner party, which forms the core, the outer party, whose members perform smaller jobs, and then there are the proles, the proletariat, the great unwashed, workers and so on who live in relative squallor.

Winston feels alone in his world, he questions the party, but dares not voice his dissent because to question the party, even in thought - Thoughtcrime - means death. Even such things as a flicker of the eyes can be picked up by the party. However, for his sanity, he keeps a diary of his thoughts, this provides us with insights into his thinking.

He falls in love with a young lady he suspected of being a member of the Thought Police. She followed him around and appears by all externals to be ultra loyal to the party. He believes she is onto him and contemplates killing her. However, it turns out this exterior is cunning cover for her dissidence. They begin an affair meeting in out of town places away from the cameras and hidden microphones. Or so they think. This goes on for some time until they discover an old room rented out above an old antique shop in the prole's part of town - a squalid area not subject to the same scrutiny as Party-members' accommodation.

They keep the affair up for a while, they talk of finding the Brotherhood, a supposed secret alliance set against Big Brother. Winston works with a member of the inner party, O'Brien, whom he suspects is a member of this brotherhood. They meet one day in a corridor at work and O'Brien gives him a signal to come to his apartment for "work" - a most unusual offer. Winston takes this to be O'Brien's way of reaching out to him as a member of the Brotherhood. He heads over to his place and reveals all. O'Brien informs him that he is indeed a member of the brotherhood and gets him to pledge to being a member - this pledge includes lots of strange things like throwing sulphoric acid in a child's face if the brotherhood command it. He agrees without reluctance such is his hatred for the Party.

The affair continues and Winston is slipped a copy of the Brotherhood's handbook exposing the party. At their rented room in the city Winston reads from the book and finds all that it contains concurring with everything that he has thought about the party until this time. Suddenly the windows smash, big brother's voice emerges from behind the wall, and the Thought Police enter the room. It turns out he has been under surveillance all this time and O'Brien as well as the shop owner, are members of the Thought Police. They have been watching his every move for the past year and his every move in the secret room through the wall.

The third part of the book begins. Here Winston is subjected to torture or the worst kind for weeks and months on end. In fact he is not even sure for how long as he is in such a state. Slowly he is purged of his rational suspicions about the party. 2+2 no longer equals four, but can equal 5 if the party says it does. There is no objective history, only a history created by the party. The party is the only thing that speaks the truth, and he must submit. There is no objective reality. Eventually he does submit. But he still retains one shred of humanity - his love for her. This proves to be his final purging. He is taken to room 101, a room in which one's worst nightmare is realised. Here he is threatened with having his face torn to pieces by the overgrown rats of prole town. He snaps under the pressure and bleats out the one thing that will save him - give the torture to her, his girlfriend, let the rats tear her apart – and he means every word of it.

The book draws to a close. Winston is released a changed man. He awaits his death which may come at any moment - always a bullet in the back of the head. He meets with her in a park, they no longer feel the same. Evidently she was also tortured and cracked under pressure in room 101. Their hearts grown cold now. As he sits sipping gin in a bar, his new hobby, the telescreen announces Big brother's success over Eurasia in a battle, and it is at this moment his conversion is complete – his heart wells with love for big brother. His will has been bent. The book ends.

Depression: a Guide

A Step by Step Guide to Feeling Depressed

It occured to me while I was washing a week's worth of piled up dishes today that it would be useful to list all the thoughts and beliefs that contribute to making me feel so unmotivated and depressed. I had a quick flick through How to Win Friends and Influence People last night and Mr Carnegie makes a very good point in a preliminary chapter on how the human mind is so utterly useless at retaining information and how we must revise things on a regular basis in order that we don't forget them entirely.

The list:

1. Be harsh, critical and punishing with yourself especially about past events
2. Play back painful past events over and over in your mind reliving the emotions
   
3. Take a completely unsympathetic view of yourself, your actions and life
   
4. Call yourself names, caricaturing yourself by focusing on some negative quality or action
   
5. Take a simplistic unsympathetic view of all things devoid of nuance
   
6. Sit at home neglecting yourself, avoiding enjoyable activities and human contact
7. Do nothing productive whatsoever, instead sit in your own mess wallowing endlessly
8. Make your happiness dependent upon the approval and esteem of others
   

Alternatively:

1. Be gentle and understanding with yourself, you're a human
   
2. Beating yourself up about past events = depression, nothing more. Stop it.
3. Take a sympathetic understanding view of yourself, you're human
   
4. Remember that humans are a complex mix of positive negative and neutral
5. Remember that things are never as simple as they seem - many factors are at play
6. Do things that you enjoy and work on building a heathly social circle
7. Be productive, have realistic goals, keep yourself occupied
   
8. Approval addiction = dangerously vulnerable junky-like state. End it now.
   

The Humanities

An acquaintance used the term 'humanities' around me a few times recently. While I have a vague idea what the term encompasses, I could not say with certainty exactly what and I certainly couldn't give a good definition. Typically I nodded and went along with the conversation too embarrassed to admit my ignorance before subtly changing the subject.

So, what exactly are the humanities? According to the oracle of reliability that is Wikipedia they comprise all the academic disciplines which study the human condition using methods which are analytic, critical or speculative as opposed to empirical as employed in science. Traditionally these fields are:

1. Classics
In the West 'classics' refers to the cultures of classical antiquity. This is the period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea beginning with the Greek poetry of Homer (8th-7th BCE) through to the rise of Christianity and the decline of the Roman Empire (5th AD). It is followed by the Early Middle Ages (500-1100) which saw the dissolution of classical culture. More broadly it refers to the foundational writings of the earliest major cultures of the world, including, e.g. Lao-Tse in China.

2. History
Straightforward enough. History covers the interpretation and study of the records of humans, families and societies. Apparently in modern academia, it is increasingly classified as a social science, especially when chronology is the focus. Social sciences are disciplines that study human aspects of the world empirically, such as geography, economics, education, political science, psychology.

3. Languages and literature
The study of language is different from linguistics which takes a scientific approach to language and includes things like phonology and syntax. Literature covers the use of language in prose, poetry and drama. Prose is writing distinguished from poetry by its greater rhythmic variety and closer resemblance to everyday speech.

4. Law
Law straddles the boundry of the humanties and social sciences. Which camp it falls into depends on one's point of view. Law is defined as a 'system of rules' to achieve justice, as an 'authority' to mediate peoples' interests, and even as 'the command of a sovereign, backed by the threat of sanction'.

5. Performing Arts
The performing artist uses his or her own body, face, presence as a medium. This is different from the plastic arts, a subdivision of the visual arts, in which the artist uses materials such as clay to produce an art object. Performing arts include: acrobatics, comedy, dance, magic, music, opera, film, theatre, juggling, marching arts, busking.

6. Philosophy
From the Greek 'love of wisdom'. It questions life, existence and human reasoning. The world's oldest subject of study which branched and evolved into separate disciplines over time, including physics in the 16th century and psychology in the 19th.

7. Religion
Straightforward again. Just to add that apparently most historians trace the beginnings of religion to the neolithic period when people generally worshipped a Mother Goddess, Sky Father, the Sun or the Moon. In the 6th Century Hinduism and Buddhism arose in India and Zorastrianism in Persia. In the East Taoism, Legalism and Confucianism arose. Abrahamic religions are those derived from the ancient Semitic tradition which go back to Abraham (1900 BCE), these are Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

8. Visual Arts
This one is pretty obvious really. It includes drawing and painting, photography, printmaking, filmmaking and also sculpture and achitecture which are called the 'plastic arts'.

To Kill a Mocking Bird

Year: 1960
Author: Harper Lee

This book restored faith in my ability to read. So many times over the last few years I've picked up books from the Western canon in an attempt to improve my puny mind only to fall asleep after a chapter or so. Not with this book, I couldn't put it down. Perhaps the mistake I was making was in attempting to start at the beginning of the canon - I tried to read the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Old Testament. What I should have done is begun with more recent books, built up my "reading muscles" with things I could relate to better, and then worked backwards. Come to think of it, maybe I should just read things which actually interest me.

To summarize, the story is set in a small town in the American deep south in the 1930s. It concerns the lives of two young siblings, Jem, a boy of about 12 I think, and Scout, a young girl of about 8. It is written from the perspective of Scout from some future vantage point looking back at two or three years surrounding this period in her life. Apparently it is loosely based on real events from Harper Lee's own childhood.

The first part of the book revolves around the escapades of the children, there comings and goings at school, friendships, their relationship to their father, and their fascination with their reclusive neighbour, Boo. Their mother has died and their father, Atticus, a highly intelligent and respectable gentleman and local attorney, is raising them on his own with the assistance of their housekeeper. The reclusive family neighbours are apparently some kind of strict Baptists - 'footwasher' if memory serves. These people keep themselves to themselves and believe all enjoyment is a sin or something. Their adult son, Boo, never leaves the home.

The children are fascinated by Boo and get up to all sorts of mischief trying to get a look at this mysterious figure. He becomes the object of their fascination every summer when their friend, Dill, comes to stay in town. All sorts of fantastic stories revolve around him. Apparently he comes out only at night and hauntingly paces nearby streets and yards.

The story builds to a climax around the case of a young black gentleman who is accused of raping a white girl. Atticus is called in to defend the young man and as a result the family are subjected to abuse and threats and the children come to learn all about the pain and unfairness of deep racial prejudices saturating the deep south at that time.

The young man is innocent but, despite and airtight defence from Atticus, is found guilty by the jury of locals. His accusers are a trashy father and daughter who live over at the nearby dump. Apparently the girl had a crush on the boy and forced herself on him in their home. Her abusive father, disgusted at seeing this take place, beat his daughter and forced her to testify against the man.

At this point I felt the book fizzled out a bit. It built up to this point so spectacularly that what followed felt a bit limp by comparison. Nevertheless I read on and the story does pick up once again.

Following the trial the father threatens to get even with Atticus for implicating the father and daughter so devastatingly in the court. Eventually the father catches up with the two children as they depart from a school pageant one dark evening. He attempts to kill them, a struggle takes place and a mysterious rescuer comes to their aid. The father ends up dead, pierced by his own knife, and the children make it home, Jem with a broken arm, and Scout with little more than a few bruises thanks to her chicken-wire pageant costume.

The book ends beautifully with Scout's realisation that the rescuer turns out to be Boo from next door. Questions circle Atticus's mind as to what happened - should his son stand trial? Atticus believes he should but the local sheriff, sympathetic with the death of the young black man, will have nothing of it. It is never revealed what exactly happened in the struggle as it is written from the perspective of Scout whose sight is obscured by her costume at the time. She walks Boo back home hand in hand and the book draws to a beautiful close leaving the reader wanting more.

Tales of Ordinary Madness

Year: 1981
Director: Marco Ferreri
Starring: Ben Gazzara
Starring: Ornella Muti

Based on the works and the person of US poet Charles Bukowski. The story follows Charles Serking, a poet, drunkard and lecherous womaniser on his meanderings around LA. He eventually meets a beautiful hooker with self-harming tendencies, Cass, played by Ornella Muti. In her first scene - I think it's her first scene - she pierces her cheeks with some kind of skewer. Later on she attempts to commit suicide a number of times. Their relationship is complex and stormy.

Serking receives a job offer with a large publishing house out of town. Tempted by the offer of money he decides to leave, much to the protests of Cass who won't join him. He arrives at his new base and discovers it is not for him. He continues drinking excessively to, at times, comic effect. But soon enough he decided he's made a mistake and heads back to Cass in LA only to discover that she has committed suicide in his absence.

He drinks himself into oblivion and eventually reaches catharsis. (Although I'm not sure it was Ferreri's intention, I found some of the scenes of drunkenness here utterly hilarious; oh well, maybe that's my strange sense of humour.) Having hit rock bottom he decides to head for a seaside guesthouse, a place where he had his happiest moments with Cass. He discovers a new female interest, a young admirer, and with her help rediscovers his poetic instinct. The film ends with a beautifully rendered beach scene - a Marco Ferreri trademark.

Although the film was received very favorably in Europe, it didn't do well in the US, despite its US setting - in fact even Bukowski himself didn't like it. One reviewer points out that this may have had something to do with Gazarra's portentous pronouncements working better in subtitles. Nevertheless, Ferreri picked up four David di Donatello and two Nastro d'Argento awards for Best Director.

Alessandro Zarelli

Although I've no interest in football and not much interest in television of late. Yesterday afternoon I flopped on my bed feeling particularly lethargic and watched a programme on Sky called Superfakes: Football Fakes. It was fascinating.

Apparently a fellow from northern Italy - somewhere near Turin - going by the name of Alessandro Zarelli (sometimes Sarelli) had managed to blag his way into various football clubs in Wales and Ireland. He targeted struggling clubs appealing to their hopes that an injection of Italian panache would rescued them from continued league table failure. He faxed fake letters of recommendation to the clubs signed by some Italian FA official informing them that Alessandro had been selected to join them for a season, that he was an up-and-coming superstar, and that he'd played for various respectable clubs like Sheffield Wednesday. Eyebrows were raised, but not enough to make follow-up inquiries it seems.

Other than the fact that this guy was Italian and willfully came to these bleak shores - I always find that strange! - what fascinated me was that he'd had the balls to do this (to use an appropriate expression), to do it in a foreign country no less, and to do it so spectacularly coolly. He didn't even speak good English and wasn't even a good player - he got ousted from each club he managed to join within a few weeks due to his terrible performances on the pitch. But he wasn't a bit camera shy. He posed for newspaper photographs (as above), accepted interviews - even television interviews. He was as cool as a cucumber, full of smiles, said all the right things and even played up to the role of Italian heart throb by flirting with interviewees.

The real person behind the Zarelli persona turned out to be something of a mystery. Predictably the Italian clubs he claimed he'd played for had never heard of him, and the Italian FA official who supposedly recommended him didn't even exist. But the documentary team did some checking, traced faxes to a shop around the corner from his parents' home in Italy and telephone numbers to his parents' apartment. Eventually he was discovered in London and tricked into meeting a supposed football scout in a hotel. He sat there lying utterly convincingly for 20 minutes before a camera crew emerged through the door informing him what was going on. How did he react? Without even a flicker of discomfort he sat there, smiled and admitted everything before coolly strolling off with, 'I think I'll go now'. He was then shown walking calmly down the road smiling while the cameras trailed him.

Having sat through a couple of job interviews lately lying through my teeth, I could only watch in jaw-dropping admiration at this young Italian's performance. Not a bit of sweat on his brow, as cool calm and collected as a Zen master and utterly convincing in his elaborate stories. The only hint of discomfort was in a few of his self-touching gestures - I hear this is an indication that a person needs physical reassurance. But other than that, brilliant, especially with a camera crew shoved unceremoniously in his face.

Before departing from the hotel, the interviewer handed Zarelli a card with a number to call if he wanted to get in contact. At the end of the documentary he's heard on voice mail: 'Thank you for the story, you have made me famous... and you are big son of bitch!'

As another blogger put it, 'Alessandro Zarelli... Legend.'

Purpose of this blog

I find that writing things down is helpful in a number of ways. Firstly it helps me commit those things to memory better and secondly it helps me clarify my own thoughts. There are other benefits as well, such as helping improve my English and engaging my brain in general - something which I have grown unaccustomed to in recent years. For these reasons I will attempt this, my second blog, and hopefully this time I'll write more than three entries.