The Alaskans, Time-Life Books

Since my visit to Alaska in 2003, I could never forget this unique land. Glad to find out from ebay The Old West series by Time-Life books, issued in 1970s to subscribers only. The Alaskans is one of the 26 volumes in this series. It contains numerous valuable historic photos, with decent text by Keith Wheeler.

The text starts from 1741 when the Russian explorers had a glimpse of Alaska, and ends at August 24, 1912 when President Taft signed Alaska's home-rule bill into law.

It is a bloody history that the nature (the wild animals and resources) is mercilessly exploited by human beings' greedy. However, civilization awakes eventually, although after the quick exploitation is satisfied.

The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck

This is a story of a Chinese farmer Wang Lung. It is of his poverty at youth and having to ask a slave as wife from a rich lord; his miserable flee to the south to escape famine; his hard working and unexpected fortune in the time of social upheavals; his growing rich with more and more lands and eventual becoming a rich lord; his burning lust to a beautiful prostitute Lotus and cruelty to his wife O-lan. Above all, his love to the good earth, which smoothed his ruining sexual desire, nourished him all the time, the only one bringing peace and joy to his heart.

I would say that this is a solid work. Pearl Buck observed and wrote it down faithfully. However, this story, almost every plot and scene, reads so familiar. Probably Pearl Buck borrowed too many elements from her readings in Chinese literature, and eventually she lost her own voice in this work. If this is not true, at least I can say that Buck's observation is superficial, not penetrate through the life of Chinese people. Reading this novel is like reading a faithful report by an anonymous author. Therefore, this work does not meet my expectation, considering it winners of Nobel Prize in Literature and Pulitzer Prize. Lao She (老舍)'s Rickshaw Boy (骆驼祥子) is far superior than this one, but it did received Nobel Prize, whose authority is then questionable.

Some thoughts about human desire.

"... it is not to be thought ... that one woman is enough for any man ... And it is not for you to repine when he has money and buys himself another ..." This is the nature of human beings. It is not shameful since human beings are born with it. It is not sinful since it is not obtained by choice. It is the consequence of natural selection. We are selected (winners, in nicer words) to spread seeds. So what's wrong with the lust? It is said that it is against morality. But morality is not truth. Morality (mixed with a big part of junk) is established to balance human desire and make it under control. Therefore, they are of opposing forces, and it is the existence of both and their interactions that makes progress. Lost in either one will blind your eyes. Keep sane, and observe how they play.

Desire is considered healthy or unhealthy. Wang Lung's desire for land is considered health, and therefore regarded as "love", and his lust for the beautiful prostitute Lotus ruining. However, from Wang Lung's side, they are the same, just the will to own something not owned. The real difference lies in whether the desired one rewards back positively. However, it is risky to depend on the other side's response. Be a master of oneself.

The book I read is a paperback published by Washington Square Press. ISBN 0743272935.

Desperate Remedies, by Thomas Hardy

The story has a mysterious beginning. A young architect, Ambrose Graye, fell in love with a young lady, Cytherea, during his Christmas stay in London. Cytherea, "without positively encouraging him, tacitly assented to his schemes for being near her." However, when Graye proposed, she rejected it with apparent agony. Graye could never forget his first love, and the unobtainable became the absolute one shadowing his entire life. Grayed got married later and had a son, Owen, and a daughter, Cytherea, so named to remember his unforgettable love, who grew to be a most elegant young lady.

What follows is Hardy's eternal theme: Life is full of "accidents", and those so called accidents are there to install one back to the track of his fate, no matter how he struggles. Here the story continues. Graye died in an accident, and left his children in debts. They moved to a small town to seek new job opportunities. There Cytherea and Springrove, his brother's colleague, fell in love immediately at their first encounter, and the feelings grew stronger with each day. However, before his departure for London, Springrove told Cythrea that he had no right to love her because of something forbidding.

With increasingly worse financial situation, Cythrea had to advertise herself for a job of lady's maid, and was hired by Miss Aldclyffe, a lady not young anymore but was still remained with certain charm. Miss Aldclyffe turned out to be the Cytherea, Ambrose Gray's first lover. After Cytherea arrived, Miss Aldclyffe used tricks to recruit Mr. Manston to her estate as a steward. Mr. Manston was an extremely handsome young man, but a real villain. Miss Aldclyffe made all the opportunities for Manston to get close to Cytherea, and as Manston's accomplice she forced Springrove to give up Cytherea. However, one day, Manston's wife appeared, but was burned alive in a fire accident in the very night she arrived. Cytherea, in desperate situation to help his sick brother, agreed to marry Manston although she did not love him. After the couple left for honeymoon, Manston's first wife was reported seen alive after the fire. Manston at first denied such possibility in order to get Cytherea back, but suddenly changed his attitude and with surprising ease found his wife and brought her back from London. But who the lady is? Who Mr. Manston is, and what's his relationship with Miss Aldclyffe? Cytherea lived in a nightmare, and a thriller started.

This is the first book published by Thomas Hardy. In his desperate effort in getting it published, after his first book was rejected everywhere, Hardy intentionally made the book complicated with plots. I agree with critics that the story is over-plotted, disintegrated, and of inconsistent genres. However, the reading is still a delight surprise to me. I never imagine that our serious Thomas Hardy can write something like a thriller. This book is regarded by critics as a "false start" of Thomas Hardy, but I think the novel already shows a bit of Hardy's genius. His eternal theme on fate is there, although not fully developed as in later works. And his beautiful prose never disappoints me. Something worth mentioning is that the story of Cythrea and his lover Springrove bears some similarity with that in Jude the Obscure. And I am glad to see that the desperate love here ends happily. Maybe this is a comfort to Jude; whose penetratingly sad eyes I can't forget.

The book I read is from Penguin Classics series, with nice notes by editor Mary Rimmer. ISBN 0140435239. This edition uses the very first edition of the novel published in 1871. Rimmer described in the notes how Hardy revised the text in later editions. It is interesting to see how slight revisions were made here and there, and most of them made good sense.

Spring Torrents, by Ivan Turgenev

On his way back to Russian from Italy, twenty-three years old noble man Dimitry Sanin stopped in Frankfurt planning a half-day stay. In a small Italian cafe, he encountered a very beautiful girl, the cafe owner's daughter, whose brother just passed out. By saving the boy, Sanin got acquainted with the girl's family. Immediately, Sanin "for the first time fell deeply, deliriously in love", and he realized this love after a ironical duel with a military officer who had insulted Gemma. This duel won the heart of Gemma. However, Gemma's mother, a practical widow, asked that Sanin had to live in Frankfurt with her family and offer financial support for her depressing business. "Convinced that nothing can come in the way of everlasting happiness between them, Sanin impetuously decided to sell his Russian estates and started a new life". Maria Nikolaevna, the rich wife of his old classmate, was the one to whom he tried to sell his estates. Maria was a strong-mind women who exploited every opportunity to satisfy her desire on sexual pleasure and conquering men. Not being able to resist her allures, although well recognizing it from the beginning, Sanin fell as one of her slaves in three days. In the carriage leaving for Paris, Sanin, entirely destroyed, was peeling a pear for Maria's husband, with Maria mocking him with smile.

This is a book about love versus sexual desire, and will versus choice. Turgenev, who suffered his entire life from sexual desire, questions the existence of real love. It is true that sexual desire is most often mistaken as love; however, I believe that real love exists. Sexual desire origins from oneself, and it is a desire for fulfilling an image in one's own subconsciousness. An object in existence arouses this desire because it bears some similarity to that image. The object is used barely as a tool or channel to exercise the desire, but it will never satisfy the desire. Love is different in that the object involved is the one being loved; it is loved as it is. Sexual desire could be converted to love, when the image in one subconsciousness is gradually replaced by the loved one (which stays in consciousness), a process achieved after long-time communications, mutual understandings, and mutual affections.

Turgeneve is a follower of Arthur Schopenhauer, the author of The World as Will and Presentation, who believes that one has no real choice, and everything was just the will of the fundamental forces lying underline human beings and the nature. Well, I agree that most (almost all) people have no choice -- what is presented just looks like a choice, but the choice is determined. However, I expect that the real choice is obtainable, although very hard. Human beings are part of the nature and built with the fundamental forces; however, we have one powerful tool, the ability to think, that could earn us freedom. Through thinking, by understanding how the nature and those forces impact on us, one could be able to improve/reconstruct/rebuild his inner world, and eventually become God of his world.

I never consider Turgenev a genius: to me he lacks something that makes him stand out as a giant. However, I go to his works again and gain. He has something that I favor, just like those which are unique in home dishes and could never be replaced by sophisticated cuisine. After reading the translator's essay, I know what it is. It is his mild character that attracts me all the time. I am a sort of strong-mind person, and, on the contrary to Turgenev who admires those who will their lives (such as Maria Nikolaevna in this story), I always wish I could become more tolerant and be nicer to ones I love.

I recommend reading this story together with Turgenev's First Love, which is more romantic and has more beautiful writings on the feeling of first love (or indeed sexual desire). Spring Torrents, on the other hand, is richer and through it you can understand Turgenev better.

The book I read is one of Penguin Classics, translated by Leonard Schapiro. ISBN 014044369X. I never like Penguin Classics series because of its poor paper quality and very often small font. The book I read, 20-year old, is already so damaged by moisture that it becomes a home of germs. My body itches all over when the book is opened. However, this particular edition contains an excellent essay written by the translator. This 66-page essay (Turgenev's story is only 175-page long) provides a great deal of information useful in understanding Turgenev and the themes of the book.

Chef at Home

K sat with us during lunch. She has a chef dad.
"You must have great dishes to eat every day at home, right?" D said.
"Why?" K looked surprised.
"Your father is a chef."
"Oh, yes. He cooked all kinds of dishes in the restaurant, but in a different way at home. Vegetables are boiled only, no oil added. He even does not want to put much sauce". I can see the pain on her face; she is obviously a one who knows how to enjoy life. "Fish is steamed, and no oil -- you know it lacks something if no oil. Something is missing ..."
"He just likes such light food?"
"Not at all," K said, "when we ate out, he enjoyed the rich sauce and those unhealthy dishes. "
"When eating out, one has an excuse to have unhealthy dishes." I said. It is my happy time to have the brown sauced slow cooked fat pork when eating in Chinatown.
"Exactly. Cooking at home, no excuse anymore."

苏州之行 -- 后记

期待的是一个江南小城，沥沥春雨融在青石路上，打着花伞的小姑娘的身影飘逝在小巷深处。
感觉到的却是失望。这也许对苏州是不公平的。
“毕竟只是后花园。”
见多了北京的皇家园林，再多的游人，也无法弱其一分气势。对苏州园林，也许应该用另外一种心情游玩。
“在街上走着，看见附近有一花园，随性进去一走，觉得很漂亮。”
的确，特特地赶去，人声嘈杂，再精美的后花园，也觉不出美了。
“苏州城里没有什么水了。我家的地方，离太湖很近，有很多的水。小时候，嫌绕道过桥麻烦，就直接从河中游过去上学”。
很可能，苏州的美是在那标价的景点之外，在点点滴滴的普通人的日子里。在日新月异的现代节奏的冲刷下，苏州的表层已经变样了。要领会真正的苏州，需要时间，需要另外一种方式，寻觅隐秘在表象之后的，沉积千年的苏州的味道。