What's on the bookshelf lately.

It's book report time.  I read a lot.  I don't get a chance to often to talk to anyone about the things I read, tho.  I don't usually go for the latest NY Times best-selling mystery thrillers from the likes of Koontz, Grisham et al.  What I do like are fictional works that are still educational in some way - historical novels and such - and a lot of non-fiction.  Like my taste in music, my preferences for books change with my mood.  One day it may be some dry scholastic work, while the next day may bring a hankering for some Kurt Vonnegut.  So on to it, here's a few words about some books I've read and been affected by lately.

Human Accomplishment: The Persuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950.  This book, by the coauthor of the controversial bestseller The Bell Curve, is an attempt to quantify emminence in accomplishment of those, as the title would imply, who have contributed to the arts and sciences during the specified years.  I'm about as far from a math whiz as a human being can possibly be, but I love a good dose of statistics and this work does not dissapoint.  But what I like most about this book is author Charles Murray's unflinching readiness to forgo political correctness and expound on the merits of some accomplishments versus others.  To quote at length on judgement, Murray says:

"The widespread attitude these days is an extreme reluctance to be "judgemental" in any arena, an ethos that has spread across questions of morality, religion, politics, and the arts.

 My first objection to this stance is that bgeing nonjudgmental is internally contradictory and an impossibility.  If you refuse to accept that there are any objective differences, expressible as continua from negative to positive, between the nude painted on black velvet and Titian's Venus of Urbino, between a Harlequin romance and Pride and Prejudice, between How Much Is That Doggy in the Window and Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, you are not standing above the fray, refusing to be judgmental.  It is a judgment on the grandest of all scales to say that How Much Is That Doggy in the Window is, in terms of quality as a musical composition, indiscriminable from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.  And if you really believe it, you have also made a sweeping judgement about the capacity of the humand mind to assess information."

It's no surprise how Murray's work has come to be very controversial.  As he admits, the lists of emminent people provided in the book amount to a "who's who" of dead white males. That could be looked at as a problem, except that, as Murray explains, women and minorities have not historically had the same opportunities for expression as those who make the lists of great accomplishment have.  I guess it could be looked at as elitist to formulate any such lists, but if the goal is to inquire into the reasons behind why a group of people in a specific area at a specific period of time have made such a large contribution, then I fully support such inquiry.  If we had a better understanding of the conditions under which human beings flourish and innovate intellectually, we'd be in a heck of a better position to replicate the boom in Human Accomplishment covered in this book.

De Profundis.  Oscar Wilde.  How can you not love this guy?  Or at very least, love to hate him.  De Profundis is a very long love letter sent from jail to his friend, lover, and reason for being behind bars, Lord Alfred Douglas.   In late 19th century England, libel was taken more seriously than we take it today in this country.  At that time, Douglas' father had publicly accused Wilde of sodomy which was a felony.  So Wilde sued Douglas' father in court for libel, but when it was through various means proved to be a factual charge (Wilde was gay, after all), Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labour in jail.  De Profundis was written from Reading Goal where Wilde had spent over a year at that point.

Throughout the letter, Wilde throws bitter recriminations at his former lover as much as he does toward himself for allowing himself to end up in the devastating position he finds himself in.  Wilde writes:

"Our ill-fated and most lamentable friendship has ended in ruin and public infamy for me, yet the memory of our ancient affection is often with me, and the thought that loathing, bitterness and contempt should for ever take that place in my heart once held by love is very sad to me: and you yourself will, I think, feel in your heart that to write to me as I lie in the loneliness of prison-life is better than to publish my letters without my permission or to dedicate poems to me unasked, though the world will know nothing of whatever words of grief or passion, of remorse or indifference you may choose to send as your answer or your appeal."

And so goes the constant back and forth, love and hate sentiments that pervade the letter.  One moment his friend was the most beautiful young man full of promise he'd ever beheld, the next he pronounces their friendship as intellectually degrading the absolute ruin of his art.  However, somewhere in between the extremes Wilde shows himself to be the genius that he is.  I usually don't like it when people talk all artsy-fartsy, but one can forgive it in this letter, even tho it is ubiquitous.  There are gems to be found among the talk that ranges from the nacississtic to the utterly realistic. In De Profundis is found one of my favorite quotes among all literature, a quote that, blessedly, I can relate to someone in my own life:

"I remember talking once on this subject to one of the most beautiful personalities I have ever known: a woman, whose sympathy and noble kindness to me, both before and since the tragedy of my imprisonment, have been beyond power and description; one who has really assisted me, though she does not know it, to bear the burden of my troubles more than any one else in the whole world has, and all through the mere fact of her existence, through her being what she is - partly an ideal and partly an influence: a suggestion of what one might become as well as a real help towards becoming it; a soul that renders the common air sweet, and makes what is spiritual seem as simple and natural as sunlight or the sea: one for whom beauty and sorrow walk hand in hand, and have the same message."

Some of that could be said of Wilde himself - a soul that renders the common air sweet, for sure.  Read De Profundis and find out.

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time.  This book, written by David Oliver Relin about and with the help of Greg Mortenson, is a heartbreaking yet inspiring and hopefull look at the work that Mortenson has been doing in Pakistan and Afghanistan for almost two decades. There, as a village chief Haji Ali tells Mortenson, "we drink three cups of tea to do business: the first you are a stranger, the second you become a friend, and the third, you join our family, and for our family we are prepared to do anything - even die." 

Greg Mortenson has a peculiar means of fighting terrorism, if it is compared to the means we HAVE been employing in Iraq and Afghanistan for some time.  Forget the bombs and bullets, give them buildings and books.  Mortenson has gone from mountaineer to humanitarian hero after a failed attempt to summit K2, one of the most unforgiving mountains in the world.  Getting lost on his trek out of the mountains, he found himself in the small village of Korphe in rural Pakistan.  Like many similar villages around the world, the basic necessities of life take priority such that luxuries like education are nearly non-existent.  Mortenson set out to change that, for at least one village.  Three years after first stumbling into Korphe, Mortenson oversaw the completion of their school. 

Since then, and with the help of many contributions from people in the mountaineering community (and others), the Central Asian Institute of which Greg Mortenson is the Director, has built dozens of schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.  How does this fight terrorism? It gives the children in these impoverished areas a choice.  Whereas before, economic necessity barred many of the children of these areas the opportunity for an education, they now can choose.  Previously, much of the availible lines of education in rural areas were from madrasses that ended up pumping out many of what would later become Taliban extremists.  Mortenson has hedged his bet on the idea that, given a choice and the opportunity to allow children (especially girls, who in Islamic countries have not had the same level of opportunity as males) to persue whatever educational paths they chose, extremist forms of indoctrination in such madrasses will become less appealing. 

It makes sense to me.  I'd just as soon see someone handed a book instead of shot at. Seems that giving people the means to help themselves will always win out over trying to force them into a position that they neither understand nor have a vested interest in.