Maus - Art Spiegelman

I love, love, love Maus!  Such an amazing story of pain, of terror, of suffering, of hurt but also of resistance, persistance, love, fellowship amd survival.
Anja's suicide haunts me...  Why did she end her own life after surviving such a horrific ordeal during WWII?  Vladek is portrayed as a miserable man.  Mala thinks Anja must have been a saint to have tolerated Vladek.  Yet Vladek seems to have been a very loving partner in his narratives to Artie.  We will never know since Anja didn't leave a note.  Somehow, I feel her grief and her family's grief in dealing with her death - powerful, powerful stuff considering that the mice in the book does not show much expression other than raised or furrowed eyebrows.
What a great loss that Anja's journals were destroyed.  I deeply want to hear her voice, her story.

Keeping Vladek's voice (in his own broken English) is perfect - it captures his personality more.
Is Vladek such a miserable person because of his experience in the holocaust?  Was he a more likeable person previously?  Other survivors have not turned out as he has.  Each individual experiences trauma different and thus also reconciles them differently.
"I'm not going to die, and I won't die here!  I want to be treated like a human being." (Maus I: 54)  Would this make others think about the suffering of animals in captivity by humans like I do?
"But you have to struggle for life!" (Maus I: 122) - life is not just happiness, it also includes sadness, challenges and struggles - we may thankfully not eperience the holocaust but there are struggles nonetheless, more for some than others.
Survival for Vladek was due to his quick intelligence/wit, ability to adapt as various professions or to mask as those professionals, his ability to pose as a German and a Jew (it sounds like Anja was too Jewish-looking to pass as a different ethnicity/nationality) but it was due to a lot of luck.
In dire situations, human-animals and I am sure other animals resort to selfish acts for self-preseverance but there is also many stories of love, sharing, caring, suffering for others, risking one's lives for others.  We are capable of 'evil' but also of 'good'.
The killing/extinction of flies with bug spray while talking about Auschwitz (Maus II: 74) is a little ironic if you ask me.
"How amazing it is that a human being reacts the same like this neighbour's dog" (Maus II: 82) - all sentient beings (human-animals and non-human-animals) are capable of suffering, pain and have a desire to live.
Train for cattle to cattle human-animals to death.  Piled up high like 'things' only (Maus II: 85). Why does this horrify us while we justify this cruelty when it comes to food-animals?  Why is the human-animal so short-sighted in their ability to empathize with others?
The mice drawings, their faces specifically remind me physically of my pup's face which perhaps moves me even more.
Art Spiegelman does not tell us too much about himself other than his tensed relationship with his father, mother and ghost brother, Richieu.
Still amazed at how powerful the medium of comic can be - this is inspiring to me!

Antony and Cleopatra

Bard on the Beach 2010 production

Where does duty lie?  To the individual (Cleopatra) to the community (Rome)?  To both really.  There is not one in particular that is necessarily more important than the other.  My partner and I were talking a little bit about this issue last night.  He talked about people we admire - musicians, activists, intellectuals, artists and so forth - people who have moved us, caused awe in us and who have influenced society in profound ways and how he did not feel that he is currently doing anything at all to further himself/influence society, etc.  I think he was in many ways just feeling hard on himself, a lack of insecurity and self-loathing.  I pointed out to him that things may not seem as rosy or perfect as they really are.

Howard Zinn admitted that he missed most of the meaningful events in his children's lives and neglected his relationship with his wife because he was too busy working.  If Zinn has not been an obsessive hardworking man committed to education and social activism, his children may have benefitted from a closer relationship with him but then again, this may also mean that we may not have had the volumes of incredibly important work from him.  A balance has to be struck and sometimes it is difficult to determine how.

Cleopatra, much as I don't particularly like her character (for her extravagance and childishness at times), I still empathize and can relate to her.  She is the "Other" as a sexual female and as a dark foreigner.  The biases of the Romans come out with their racist and sexist overtures.  The female exotic "Other" is portrayed as an overly passionate individual rather than the more subdued culture of the Romans but not in a good way.  I think this portrayal of the "East" lives on today and certainly even in more recent times in which certain races of peoples are hypersexualized.  Cleopatra proves herself principled in the end and chooses to commit suicide to die in honour rather than to die as a slave/prisoner to be paraded as an example.

The Awakening - Kate Chopin

The Awakening, a sensuous novel, I enjoyed it very much.  It is nice to finally read more from female authors.  As a student who has most recently been studying anthropology courses, this novel reads like a narrative on an ethnography of a married's woman's life just before the turn of the 19th century.

Edna is clearly resisting gender and societal mores and norms.  She exposes explicitly women's sexuality, a taboo subject during her time.  She reasserts herself as an individual and as a woman, as opposed to as her husband's property.   She 'breaks loose', moves out, tries to support herself - she realizes in the sad ending that to be independent is to be alone as Mademoiselle Reisz is.  Mutual love that cannot ever be realized between Edna and Robert.

Edna's children do not seem to get much attention from her as she is busy with her personal awakening but in the end, she sacrfices herself so as not to taint their reputations and future.  Is it a sacrifice of love for her children? I am not clear.  The children are talked about at some points as a burden as while she can sever her ties on her husband, she cannot do so with her children.  They weigh her down.  She ends her life to end her loneliness/misery which she knows will accompany her whole life as an independent woman.  Did she 'awaken' and remembered her children in the end?  I am not sure...

I can certainly relate to Edna's awakening.  Many of us have in our own ways, broken out of our old molds by breaking social and gender norms.  Not all women have a maternal instinct.  I have not really desired to procreate, not because I view them as a burden, on the contrary, I adore and love kids and generally feel happy around them but I am too afraid to take the risk to become a mother and I just do not see the need to create a mini-me.  I have fallen into the trap in the past that independence meant empowerful, which it is in many days, but if one is still mentally in chains, one cannot truly be free.  I was once in love and I was very independent but my mental chains were tying me to a man I was hopelessly in love with - the problem is that it was an abusive relationship, mentally and financially.  And so Edna's 'rebirth' or 'awakening' speaks dear to me as I have awakened oh so many times: (1) to recognize myself as an individual but to remember my relationship to others around me,  (2) to become more socially aware and to actually care and to get angry about issues, angry enough to want to do something, (3) to be aware of the horrific suffering of animals that was just 'food' to me in the past, to be completely moved by my willful blindess to this large scale suffering, brought out extreme guilt in me..  which I am still in the process of reconciling.  I have been seeking a Krishna last year to teach me, to tell me what to do...  I realize later rather than never that only I, hold the answers to my own internal dilemmas..  but dialogue certainly helps.  To hear different perspectives.  I try to convey this in my work, when students ask me "What should I study?", "What should I become?" and so forth.

It is sad that Edna ends her life abruptly at the end.  I have experienced depression/despair - I think we all have and can understand the pain that one feels when one is grieving or in despair.  I would certainly never advocate suicide as the solution but I can understand wanting to end the pain or to die rather than to live in chains, be it real or metaphorically speaking.

Julie, or the New Héloïse - Rosseau

The first thing that struck me about this text is the role reversal of 'norms'. In Abelard and Heloise, Heloise was the 'weakling' where as in Julie, Julie commands over the male partner, Saint-Preux.  Julie is the teacher vs. Abelard as the teacher. In some ways, Saint-Preux seems more passionate to me that the female whereas it is the opposite in A&H.

Very evocative language, very passionate.

Merging of characters (shared thoughts and feelings) (58, 115) - a love based on virtue rather than the physical/tangible - reminiscent of the divine love as advocated by Socrates in Plato's Symposium.

The concepts of benevolence, virtue and duty reminds me very much of Mencius.  Ideas replicate themselves around the world at different times.

Music and the arts a production of passion (106) - agreed! Although one can produce 'art' by just copying a piece of work, these types of work tend not to move people emotionally.

Humanitarian politeness (107) - an important concept! and so much more meaningful than politeness based on rank/class.  Perhaps a little lacking these days (and perhaps always).  In a sense, one is being virtuous and true to one's self, to one's principles.  Like Antigone although one could argue she wasn't exactly polite...

I do not agree with Rosseau that virtue means doing duty to family.  I do but not if your family is abusive, which I believe to be the case in Julie's case, concerning her father, more specifically.  Duty is a double edged sword like love or folly.  Duty to family should not be the absolute cases.  It needs to be a general rule but make room for a case to case basis (like Hume's philosophy).

The concept of virtue seems a bit strange to me.  In a way, it seems to be self-hating in denying your own happiness and to deny yourself the person who loves you and vice versa.  I do believe in the mantra that you need to love yourself to love others and you cannot do this if you are unhappy.  As such, to remain unhappy is doing a disservice to own's self and all others.  Virtue is a bit of a loaded term I suppose much like love, passion, etc.  As Steve said, through our modern lens, we would have wanted Julie and Saint-Preux to have eloped, start a new life - this in many ways seems more virtuous to me.

Treating slaves better is 'progress' but not really at the same time - it is a band aid solution and should not be accepted as virtuous!

I do appreciate his critique of high society however and the corrupting effects of institutional rules and the lack of autonomy resulting from this restriction.

Love is a Stranger - Rumi

The background on Rumi and Middle Eastern culture from Shab was very, very helpful in trying to understand Rumi a little better.  I confess that I didn't really know what to write for my journal entry on Rumi (or Sappho).  The poems are lovely and evocative but can be interpreted in many ways.  I won't (and do not dare to) attempt an analysis on Rumi but will instead comment on some few concepts that were significant to me.

I do not disagree that Rumi speaks on divine love but one can interpret divine love in many ways.  Through my atheist lens, I read 'divine love' (as applied in my own life) as the unity/oneness we feel for all of humanity, all creatures, all living and non-living things on earth (and beyond).  This one sentence captures the sentiment well for me.
"I've disappeared like a drop of vinegar
in an ocean of honey" (14).

I adore The Root of the Root of Yourself (16-17)!  But I adore it in a secular way despite the mention of God.  Letting go of one's ego, setting oneself free from "things that don't exist" (17).  Very Buddhist!  A very passionate poem, speaking on the bliss that one can attain if you let go of the things that don't really matter in life.  I read the concept of God much as the "Buddha/God" within you, not some higher being that we look up to.

In The Intellectual (21), Rumi appears to put down reason and to note the importance of passion.  Rumi certainly manages to convey passion very well!  There is often sooooo much emphasis placed on reason in our modern western world and passion put down.  It is refreshing and a wonderful sign that Rumi's passion is still being read today.  I think that our ability to be passionate is an important element of our ability to reason.  It is my passion for animals that lead me to my vegan lifestyle.  My mind has been very preoccupied with the Occupy movements around the world.  I would argue that it is reason but it is also a lot of passion that fuels the 99%.  I was worked up in passion/rage during the 2010 Olympics.  I was baffled by seemingly intelligent people who did not understand why some resisted this event, not just on Coast Salish territories but all around the world.  My insightful partner said, “Intelligence does not equate awareness.  You are giving intelligence far too much credit”.  This stuck with me.  In the context of Occupy, I am seeing a lot of passion from various parties.  The movement seems fractured but I think the passion will carry the people through.

Letters of Abelard and Heloise

"The senses are like windows through which the vices gain entry into the soul" (29).
Interesting how pleasures in life are labeled as evil/bad.  Why does piety = non-pleasures and serving of an abstract idea (God)?  Why is there not the view that embodied pleasures are a gift from God to rejoice in? This negative view of bodily pleasures seem to have carried forward into the 20th century in our 'war' against drugs and in some religious circles, the 'war' against sexual pleasure.  Abelard appears to blame his libido as the source of all his troubles.  Given his misfortunes, one can see why he had this view although I am not convinced that this was a rationale thought.  Brilliant as he was, he did not seem to blame his downfall partly on his own arrogance.

"Since the beginning of the human race women had brought the noblest men to ruin" (13).
A very patriarchal thought.  Even the relationship between Abelard and Heloise is very patriarchal.  Abelard boasts of his conquest of Heloise.  He beats her as part of his 'front' of merely being Heloise's teacher in front of her uncle, Fulbert.  He later admits that he did not love her but lusted after her.  In his letters, he alluded to the rape of Heloise on more than one occasion by violent force.  Is this really a love story then?  Or was this an abusive relationship with Heloise under the illusion that she was in love?

In the case of Heloise, she was a beautiful, intelligent young woman with libido.  Jilted of her lover physically, mentally and sexually, she lives a religious life that she had no heart or desire for.  She appears to be bitter about being jilted and 'forced' into a life she did not wish for.  Interesting that she criticizes her piety as viewed by others and notes her own hypocrisy as a 'pious' woman and that she criticizes the role of marriage as a sham to socially control human sexuality yet she does not question in particular the patriarchal nature of her treatment, of women's treatment in society.  She appeared to accept her 'natural' subordinate to Abelard despite his confession that he merely lusted after her.

II cannot help but feel sorry for Abelard, a seemingly broken man.  Despite his initial inflated ego, he did not deserve the tragedies that befell him.  Perhaps his piousness and simple monastic lifestyle was a way for him to reconcile the horrors he experienced.  I am not convinced that he was atoning for his sins.. although it could be interpreted as such, rather, I saw an intelligent but mentally broken man who was doing was he needed for survival.

Despite his high intelligence, it was his perceived heresy and/or lack of faith that landed him many of the subsequent woes after the cruel castration inflicted on him.  To lead a simple, monastic and pious life might alleviate some of these accusations, thus lessening his enemies and the dangers in his life and may have allowed him to attempt to his best ability make peace with his 'perpetual hell on earth' by various enemies.

On a more positive note, I appreciate Abelard's idea of understanding and intent in action and not just reading without understanding or action without heart (205, 209).  Somewhat Mencian.

Sappho

Beautiful, beautiful language! but I didn't know quite what to make of this text as some poem fragments are literally only a few words long.  The language is very sensuous, evocative and communicates embodied experiences very well.  By that, I mean the very real physical sensations one feels even though the cause is psychic (e.g. when one is longing for another, when one is happy, sad, anger).  The emotions expressed appear timeless despite the poetry written many moons ago.

After class thoughts: A classmate pointed out that Sappho's simple fragments, incomplete as they are, provide very rich descriptions of what life was like at the time (at least as experienced by someone of Sappho's class, education and gender).  I confess that I hadn't given this much thought until this was mentioned in class.

Symposium

What is love?  A few different answers are provided in this text.

There is the story of love - seeking love, one's soulmate or other half and an explanation for one's orientation coupled with a fantastic creation myth!

There is the story of love - sexual love or lust.

There is the story of love - guidance to a life of virtue, the importance of the role of a mentor to another.

There is the story of love - framed as the pursuit of happiness and/or abstract knowledge/wisdom (Socrates and Diotima) and as means to achieve immortality.  (1) Physical immortality = you are never the same and you are mortal.  Perpetual procreation by offsprings after offpsrings will ensure that you (your genes) live on forever.  (2) Mental/Spiritual immortality = guidance through mentorship, passing down or "reproducing/giving birth" knowledge to a life of virtue (43-45).  What struck me on page 45 is the similarities to ideas expounded in the Bhagavad Gita on fleeting moments or the ephemeral nature of life.  There is also a quality mentioned that is reminiscent of non-attachment on page 48, in that something or an idea (e.g. beauty) just is.  The slow process in the search for wisdom is also reminiscent of Siddhartha Gautama's slow search eventually leading to enlightenment or Buddhahood.

After class thoughts: The Form of Beauty and more generally, Plato's theory of forms, again reminds me of Buddhist ideas.  When one achieves oneness with one's form (e.g. a dog that is most doglike in its abstraction) is to be the ultimate being, godlike, reaching Budhhahood.