Guilt Manifesto
I’d like to get something off my chest, but first I would like to tell you about what I read.
I like literature the majority of people consider tedious and boring. I like to gnaw on one volume for a long period of time. I like quiet books without a lot of plot but with each sentence muscular, meaningful and elegant. I like internal, almost claustrophobic books akin to “The Enigma of Arrival,” by V.S. Naipaul. I’ve read “Enigma” twice, once while in Beijing, and then when I returned home.
After my illness eight years ago, my taste changed drastically--from mostly fiction to largely nonfiction. A friend of mine said I’ve lived a “big life.” I have experienced existence in an authoritarian, third world country, a developing country and I've learned English as a third language, all by the age of seven; I’ve known violence on the personal level and societal level in my twenties and I’ve had grand passions and made grander, spectacular mistakes. I’ve met Death walking my way (then he winked and took a detour). I no longer look for thrills of the heart in books but desire facts I can use to puzzle together a vision of the world. I want clarity.
("Clarity" by B.Y., gouache, 16" x 22")
My current endeavor is to read the Fourteenth Century Chinese text of the classic, “The Romance of the Three Kingdom,” about a time of disunity in 2nd Century A.D. It is no romance at all but a book of strategy. I am augmenting this reading with “The Iliad” and John Keegan’s, “A History of Warfare.” I will explore more Greek and Latin writers. A few years ago, with the help of my parents, I translated “the Art of Warfare” to better acquaint myself with classical Chinese. I think my translation is more accurate than any on the market, but I will not gag the world with yet another “Art of Warfare” for the corporate warriors.
Why so much material on warfare? First of all, because I am not a man; I want to know what it means to be a testosterone-driven male of the species. Secondly, because war is almost as old as mankind; I want to understand why we have glorified war. The first poem in Western literature is about war. Thirdly, I want to protect myself because what my father said was true: the world is a dangerous place. Having been brutalized by a stalker for years, I want to know my foe.
Toward the end of my life, I will read only poetry.
What would I like to get off my chest? If you are a writer, you make friends with other writers--the number grows exponentially--and the guilt becomes heavy because you have yet to read their latest books, wrought with so much energy and love.
I won’t be reading many of my friends’ books, not because I think them unworthy—far from it—but because time is no longer boundless, and I have charted a course in my reading life to make the best use of time. I may yet have three generous decades left, but I am going to read what I think is crucial and only what I want to read.
Amen.
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Jessica Barksdale Inclan says:
so much to say here
but first, this is what I was talking about yesterday (but not as eloquently or with such elevated examples, of course!). But you shouldn't bring your half-hearted brain to work you don't want to read. Listen, I do that often with student work. It's my job, and I am paid to read material I would rather not. I have to turn my brain into teaching gear and forget that time's winged chariot and all that is just around the corner. And, after a while, I realize that I enjoy making the work sing a little.
My youngest son and you would have a field day with the war theme. He is a pacifist military history expert. Seriously, this young man knows about wars that I never heard about, most of them occuring in Asia. Currently, he's studying Korea and the Korean war for an individual project. He reads tomes of great length and with excruciating detail. He also likes zombie books, so I think he's still willing to go off topic!
I have questions about your illness and your stalker, though I have heard about the stalker before.
Beautiful artwork, as ever. I love your anglular tree, your round mountains, your calm buddha woman.
Read what you want! Read only those books!
:)
J
essica Barksdale Inclan www.jessicabarksdaleinclan.com
Belle Yang says:
My blog
Was in response and reply to your kitty litter piece--lol. See people only remember the kitty litter. Just kidding. You got me to write the above manifesto so I knew it was much more.
I'll address the stalker and more some day. Then again maybe I won't ;) I feel so alive now. So alive.
I forgot to say I read graphic novels. That will be a blog with recommendations of the best literary graphic novels out there.
Jessica Barksdale Inclan says:
Graphic Novels
What taught my youngest son to read more than anything else on the planet was Calvin and Hobbes. He read. He read and he read and he read. All of them. And then I was able to get him to read for pleasure, for comfort, for warmth. One Christmas, I bought him Blankets, the graphic novel by Craig Thompson. He read and he read and he read. I thank god for graphic novels, for those people who draw and put words to the pictures. You all saved my boy's intellectual life. You gave him a way to learn how to read, to become a military expert; to love history. To love to learn!
I can't wait for your list.
J
Jessica Barksdale Inclan www.jessicabarksdaleinclan.com
Eric Nichols says:
Ahhh..
Muscular, meaningful, and elegant. Sounds just like me. :)
Well, let me say this about that. The fact that you have enough faith in me to recommend me to your agent WITHOUT having read my wares speaks volumes! You've put your good name on the line for me....for which I am unspeakably grateful. As Dave Barry is so fond of saying, THIS WILL GO ON YOUR PERMANENT RECORD! (By the way, Dave is the first actual famous person I'd ever corresponded with...and once he even published a few of my Tom Swifties in his column!)
Indeed, one can never live long enough to study everything that comes along. My first real job (other than washing cars) was working in a chemical lab. It was something I'd just waltzed into; I was an electrical engineering major, not a chemistry major. I almost changed my major to chemistry, because it was such a cool job. And, looking back, I could have become very wealthy...our company was an exclusive contractor with Texas Instruments in its embryonic years. But I returned to electrical engineering...which has certainly been good to me...no regrets at all. But the chemistry side-tour thing was almost like one of those novels with a "choose your own ending" feature.
The nice thing about being a writer is that I do have an excuse to explore things outside my normal line of business. I have the most eclectic, esoteric collection of books you're ever likely to see. Right now, I have on my desk one of my dad's old helicopter engineering texts, the "Chinese English Dictionary of Engineering and Technology, and "Radio Detection of High Energy Particles." I get some curious looks by my co-workers. "Looking for another job?" No...just doing some research for a book. Well, I guess I am looking for another job, after all. :)
Anyway....all that to say this. You have nothing to feel guilty about. Guilt is a lousy motivator anyway. And it's hard on your bones. (Psalm 32:3... "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long."
) Hugs n such,
Eric
Belle Yang says:
But, Eric
I have read your writing--the short story--and you've got style. Is the Psam for real or did you make it up. It's beautiful.
Eric Nichols says:
O would that...
....I could even aspire to write something that beautiful. But no, that was right from King David, (via King James).
Eric
Belle Yang says:
Eric,
Can you give me the location of the "bone" passage in Bible? I should just go to King David, but it will be easier on me if you can find it for me.
Thanks.
Eric Nichols says:
But
....the real burning question in all of our minds is....how did Foo ever get in Turtle's mouth in the first place?
The question lingers.
eric
Belle Yang says:
Well,
You'll just have to wait for thei book when it comes out next year, spring 2009.
Eric Nichols says:
I can't wait
I'd also like to know when my high school science teacher, Mr. Luperini, became a red fish. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. In fact, it's most fitting. He still has that same scowl....doesn't look like hes' mellowed a bit.
:)
eric
James Whyle says:
A fascinating post, Belle.
A fascinating post, Belle. I stopped doing fiction for a long time after reading Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evenings. A monster of a book, which led to a fascination with Egypt, and Sumer and Ur, those places were we started becoming where we are. I wanted to know that story. I read in the BBC news e-mail today that it is likely that there was a time when there were as few as two thousand of us. Living here in Africa.
I was also fascinated by your China post and pictures, having read a biography of Chairman M recently. It seems his spirit lives on… What a horrible man. I grew up thinking that Hitler was the big villain (although my German family used to mutter about the bombing of Dresden), and then one discovers Stalin. But Chairman M had more people available for slaughter and outdid them all…
Belle Yang says:
James,
"Ancient Evenings" was excerpted in Playboy in the 80's. The story was indeed fascinating and the illustrations gorgeous. Eunuchs have a huge role in Chinese Imperial rule.
I'm glad you popped up into this post because I've been wanting to ask you to please write posts about your life or reading life in South Africa. Anything at all, really. Redroom.com is weighted toward the northern half of the globe, and most of us are in America. You would be doing us such a big favor to give us a window into your hemisphere and your country.
I have a friend named, Anton Whyley in Zimbabwe and his family has sought haven in South Africa. You must have huge numbers of refugees from Zim. Anton's father refuses to leave his tobacco plantation and I have huge worries about how it's all going to turn out for the family.
I met Anton in Beijing some 20 years ago. He told me that he was going to take his American bride home to Zim, but now he has made his home in Hong Kong.
James Whyle says:
I hope Anton's father is
I hope Anton's father is okay. Things are a little sketchy in Zimbabwe at the moment. One good sign is that South African dock workers in Durban refused to unload a consignment of arms for Zimbabwe. And guess where they came from? Yes. China. As did the consignment of pangas used in the massacre in Rwanda.
China's foreign policy seems positively, well, American, really. And I say that as someone who loves America. Because of Patricia J DeLois and Mark Twain and John Krakauer and Norman Mailer and Steve Earle and Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller.
And you.
Belle Yang says:
Anton's parents
do not want to leave the land they have cultivated for generations. Anton's sister and brother-in-law have emigrated to Australia but the parents refuse to budge. The sister and brother-in-law were given just hours to get out of with a few pieces of personal belongings.
I keep seeing for them the scenario of my great grandfather and the coming of the Communists. Many thought they could continue to enjoy the life had always known.
Yes, I heard about the arms being sent back to China. Good for the Durban dock workers and good for Zimbabwe.
You are right about China's foreign policy being akin to America's. Thanks for the reminder.
Gerard Jones says:
A liberating post
...in many ways...but at the moment I want to thank you most for acknowledging the guilt you feel at not reading your friends' books. I joined the SF Writers Grotto a couple of years ago and my writerly social circle exploded. I want to read all their books, but even more I want to read more books by authors I've already married in my heart, most of whom are dead. And I want to spend time with family and friends, not always reading. And I'm an embarrassingly slow reader too, for a writer. So I will end up reading the books of only a fraction of my friends. But your post reminds me that we all go through this, and most of them will never read my books either, and so it is.
That's a stunning painting. The colors look as though they've burst from another world.
Belle Yang says:
Gerard,
You're the first one to actually comment on the same feeling of guilt. I, too, read "embarrassingly slow." And after I made my declaration of not reading what I don't want to read, I am reviewing a 600 pages long book for the WaPo which also takes away from the dead writers to whom I have also married my heart (you phrases in a lovely way).
It's a constant struggle to keep to my path. Just like I don't want to be eating peppermint candy, then peeps, then pig trotters, then sauerkraut, I don't want to my mind to be eating up bits of incongruous stuff. If "You are what you eat" makes sense for my body. I am what I read makes sense for my mind.
Thanks for popping in.
Renjie Wang says:
The Romance of the Three Kingdom
In my opinion is more of the story about life. I actually volunteered to be the "student librarian" when I was in second grade to read it every afternoon. The politics and struggles truly holds it up as an all time classic even till today. We should read it together in Chinese sometiem :)
The guilt will always be there, but I guess at the end of the day, all that you chose to experience will totally be worth all the fake nods you have to put up.
Renjie Wang redroom.com
p.s. I put up some more pictures in my gallary, as well some other stuff I found on my computer, they might worth a sec, but if not, please feel free to go back to The Romance of the Three Kingdom, to be beaten by it is still truly an honor :)
Belle Yang says:
Hi, Renjie
It's Chinese life but a life Americans wouldn't necessarily recognize as their own. It is everyone's life expect the life of Americans who live in a cocoon, demanding that truth and honesty should reign in all areas of life, including politics. The rest of the world is pretty much full of iniquity.
Hey, I'm on Chapter 61. Exactly half way through the book. Join me and Jean-Claude Brunner in Austria. I'm reading it along with him in Librarything.com :)