[Book review] Lucy Daniel - Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein wouldn’t be unfamilliar to anyone who has some liking to literature generally. She was a cult figure in the literary modernism in the early 20th century, no doubt. What makes her so prominent, so eccentric, and so charming concomitantly is her seemingly paradoxical attributes within her expressed in her character and her writing style. All of that is portrayed vividly in this short biography which leads us chronologically into Gertrude Stein’s life, not in detailed, but concisely. Miss Stein’s character is quite appealing, even though it is told summarily through a book, via some anecdotes of hers, and her writing style is somewhat mind-blowing even thought it’s mentioned just in its rough surface. 

Right in her early years of life, her self-boasted personality which would be her currency later in literary circles already came to the fore, claiming, in her early teens, that she was afraid of having no decent books to read as she would reached 15. Yet, in spite of always making herself outstanding among people, especially among male figures in order to dominate or overwhelm them by her witty remarks, paradoxically enough, Miss Stein almost inclined to elude the use of her own voice in works, masquerading as someone else to convey her ideas, her thoughts.

In addition to her title of self-proclaimed genius which seems to be presumptuous, the talent of rthetoric expressed in her playful retorts and her charming communication is another eminent aspect of her personality. One of the most well-known anecdotes about her, which strikes me fancy the most, is when she and her girlfriend came back to New York in 1934, and faced a slew of questions by journalists, Miss Stein had a sharp-witted reply to a seemingly-wanting-to-tease-her question: 

“Why don’t you write the way you talk?”, asked the journalist.

“Why don’t you read the way I write?”, replied Miss Stein.

[Just some thoughts] On Wong Kar-wai's films

All of the sudden, I've just realized enlightenedly that why Wong Kar-wai's films absorb me so much. His films are not about love or affectionate sentiments, as many people regard them. For me, they're about the inevitable fate of human souls, that is, loneliness, the sheer one. And what else is this condition put on better than the representation of romantic love between people, between a guy and lady or a guy and a guy?! A stirring loneliness masquerading as love.

That feeling flashed through my mind as I was reading an analytic piece on a film by Wong, in which the author invokes a few key scenes in Chungking Express, one of them as shown below:

Tony Leung: You like noisy music?
Faye Wong: Yes, the louder the better. Then I don't have to think.

Quite a few times, I often turn on rock music and tune the volume to the almost ear-splitting level, just to immerse in it, and ultimately, just to keep me from thinking so much.

It's as if Mr. Wong's films are peering into my innermost realm, that is, my mind.

[Trích dịch] Chủ nghĩa hiện đại (modernism) & chủ nghĩa hậu hiện đại (post-modernism)

Đoạn nho nhỏ sau đây trích dịch từ cuốn Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory của Peter Barry, ấn bản thứ 2 năm 2002, cung cấp một mô tả súc tích về sự khác biệt giữa chủ nghĩa hiện đại & chủ nghĩa hậu hiện đại:

"The nature of the distinction between modernism and postmodernism is summarised in the excellent joint entry on the two terms in Jeremy Hawthorn's Concise Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory (Edward Arnold, 1992). Both, he says, give great prominence to fragmentation as a feature of twentieth-century art and culture, but they do so in very different moods. The modernist features it in such a way as to register a deep nostalgia for an earlier age when faith was full and authority intact.

…

For the postmodernist, by contrast, fragmentation is an exhilarating, liberating phenomenon, symptomatic of our escape from the claustrophobic embrace of fixed systems of belief. In a word, the modernist laments fragmentation while the postmodernist celebrates it.

…

A second, and related, difference between the two is also a matter of tone or attitude. An important aspect of modernism was a fierce asceticism which found the over-elaborate art forms of the nineteenth century deeply offensive and repulsive. This asceticism has one of its most characteristic and striking manifestations in the pronouncements of modernist architects, such as Adolf Loos's proclamation that 'decoration is a crime', or Mies van der Rohe's that 'less is more', or Le Corbusier's that 'a house is a machine for living in'.

…

By constrast, again, postmodernism rejects the distinction between 'high' and 'popular' art which was important in modernism, and believes in excess, in gaudiness, and in 'bad taste' mixtures of qualities. It disdains the modernist asceticism as elitist and cheerfully mixes, in the same building, bits and pieces from different architectural periods - a mock-Georgian pediment here, a tongue-in-cheek classical portico there."

[Bản chất của sự khác biệt giữa chủ nghĩa hiện đại và chủ nghĩa hậu hiện đại được tóm lược trong mục từ kết hợp về hai thuật ngữ này trong cuốn Concise Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory (Edward Arnold, 1992) của Jeremy Hawthorn. Ông nói, cả hai đều tôn vinh hết mực sự phân mảnh như một đặc tính của nghệ thuật và văn hoá thế kỉ 20, nhưng chúng thực hiện điều đó theo những tâm cảnh rất khác nhau. Giới hiện đại chủ nghĩa đưa đặc tính này vào nhằm khắc ghi một nỗi hoài niệm sâu thẳm về thời đại trước đó khi niềm tin tràn đầy và tính thẩm quyền còn nguyên vẹn.

[Chuyện tiếng Việt] Chữ "thể nghiệm"

Gần đây, thường xuyên gặp những bản văn có dùng chữ này, với ý chỉ đến những sáng tạo hoặc những cách tân trong một sự vụ nào đó, xét qua tiếng Anh thì ý này tương đồng với chữ "experiment(al)".

Rất nhiều nơi dùng chữ này, ví dụ:

• LIÊN HOAN PHIM TÀI LIỆU VÀ THỂ NGHIỆM MINI DOCFEST 2014
• Sân khấu thể nghiệm của Kịch 5B (Kỳ 1): Chuyện từ 30 năm trước
• Một số bài trên tờ Tuổi trẻ
• Một số bài trên trang Tiền vệ

Theo tui, đây là một sự lạm dụng và cưỡng ép chữ. Chữ này lẽ ra phải dùng với ý "experience" mới phải, nay lại được dùng tràn lan với ý "thí nghiệm, thử nghiệm". Hẳn là do cùng âm "th" nên có sự nhầm lẫn về nghĩa như thế này, với lại chắc là chữ "thể nghiệm" mang màu sắc hay hay lạ lạ (đúng với tinh thần "experiment"), thế là được ép vào chung chuồng với "thí nghiệm, thử nghiệm".

Có lẽ các vị quên mất, trên đời này có cái gọi là từ-điển.

[Just some thoughts] Daily detox

I’ve come across this article when skimming the newsfeed on Facebook. It’s kind of a quick overview of some fantastic bookstores around Tokyo, with quite a few wonderful images and descriptions of those stores appealingly teeming with all kinds of books which may work up any reader into a big thrill.

And somewhere in the text, the author gives a brief mention of the wrapping of books in covers to preserve books in mint condition and, interestingly enough, to maintain privacy, or, in other words, to wrap their minds from some looking into. I myself also have a habit of hiding the book front covers by facing them down, not deriving from an unassuming manner or the likes, just because I have a conviction that books read you and tell everybody who you are. Hence I want to wrap my mind up, prevent it from leaking through my books, just like Japanese people as aforementioned.

Yet I enjoy getting some glimpse of books in people’s hands, trying to catch a book title, whenever seeing somebody reading. That’s also my habit when, once in a while, taking some stroll at some bookstores. Going to bookstores isn’t simply going to buy books and waddling back home, but also about watching people buying books, overhearing people talking about books. In this kind of isolation from the bustling crowds and actitvities outside, one may find the strangely tacit connectedness with people, with some mysteriously ineffable meaning. That feeling is somewhat a kind of daily detox for me, albeit fleetingly, yet sufficiently.

Umberto Eco once said, it’s a fabulous privilege as we read because we are living many lives concomitantly. I rephrase that idea a little bit, by reading books and in touch with books we just live one life, but with many chances of daily detox, and then it’s truly one life.

[Trích dịch] Cái nhìn của Søren Kierkegaard về thi sĩ

Đọc mà rùng hết cả mình.

===

What is a poet? An unhappy man who in his heart harbors a deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so fashioned that the moans and cries which pass over them are transformed into ravishing music. His fate is like that of the unfortunate victims whom the tyrant Phalaris imprisoned in a brazen bull, and slowly tortured over a steady fire; their cries could not reach the tyrant’s ears so as to strike terror into his heart; when they reached his ears they sounded like sweet music. And men crowd about the poet and say to him, “Sing for us soon again” – which is as much as to say, “May new sufferings torment your soul, but may your lips be fashioned as before; for the cries would only distress us, but the music, the music, is delightful.” And the critics come forward and say, “That is perfectly done – just as it should be, according to the rules of aesthetics.” Now it is understood that a critic resembles a poet to a hair; he only lacks the anguish in his heart and the music upon his lips. I tell you, I would rather be a swineherd, understood by the swine, than a poet misunderstood by men.
"A" in Either/Or, I, p. I9 (Samlede Vaerker II 23)

[Thi sĩ là gì? Một gã âu sầu neo trong tim mình một nỗi thống khổ sâu nặng, nhưng có đôi môi khéo léo đến mức những lời than khóc đi qua chúng sẽ được biến chuyển thành tiếng nhạc mê hồn. Số phận của y tựa như những nạn nhân xấu số mà bạo chúa Phalaris đã nhốt trong con bò đồng (brazen bull), và từ từ tra tấn họ trên ngọn lửa cháy đều đều; tiếng la hét của họ không thể đến tai tên bạo chúa để có thể giáng nỗi kinh hoàng vào tim hắn; khi những tiếng la hét ấy đến được tai tên bạo chúa, chúng lại mang âm thanh tựa như tiếng nhạc du dương. Và người ta vây quanh thi sĩ và bảo rằng, “Hãy sớm hát lại cho bọn ta nghe” – vốn có ý giống như muốn nói, “Hẳn những khổ đau đã hành hạ tâm hồn ngươi, nhưng đôi môi của ngươi hẳn còn khéo léo như trước; bởi chỉ những tiếng la hét mới làm bọn ta sầu não, chứ còn tiếng nhạc, tiếng nhạc ấy, thật vui thích.” Và những tay phê bình tiến lên và nói, “Làm tốt lắm – y như cái cần làm, theo quy tắc của thẩm mĩ.” Giờ đây có thể hiểu là tay phê bình giống tay thi sĩ đến chân tơ kẽ tóc; hắn chỉ thiếu nỗi thống khổ trong tim mình và tiếng nhạc trên đôi môi. Tôi nói cho nghe, tôi thà làm tay chăn heo, được bọn heo thấu hiểu, còn hơn làm một thi sĩ bị người đời hiểu sai.]

(Trích và dịch từ cuốn Parables of Kierkegaard, biên tập bởi Thomas C. Oden, nhà Princeton University Press, 1978)

[Film review] Postřižiny (1980) by Jirí Menzel

The movie is based on the same name novel by Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal. The story takes place in the context around a brewery in a small town in Czechoslovakia, at the time, perhaps, of 1920s or 1930s.

Its very beginning is a sensuous saying which may work up any beer-buffs into some thrill:

 “Vaše podlomené zdraví, pivo upevní a spraví”

(“Feeling weak and pale, down a pint of ale”).

Czechoslovakia has long been considered as a place producing most tasty beers across the world, and here in this movie presents quite a few scenes in which characters consume food and beer contentedly in a charming and tranquil setting of a seemingly remote countryside. It’s such a pleasure to watch this lovely movie.

The plot revolves around a couple there: the husband is a manager of a brewery in the region who is of the reticent type, while the wife often expresses her freshness, carefree manner with lively vigor. Besides, there is a secondary character who is a younger brother of the male protagonist, who talks all the time with the loud and enthusiastic voice with as much carefree as the wife regardless of anyone’s thinking. This noisy guy often get the husband (and other male characters) into irritation and trouble. These three are core characters in this story, but in fact the female protagonist is the focus of attention (of both viewers and other characters). She possesses a terrific long and bright hair, always tied up. With her cheerful, active personality and her gulping food and beers in a keen manner, she always rivets everyone’s notice wherever she gets, which also causes the husband to be somewhat disturbed. Hence, as the movie rolls on a while, it reaches a slackened moment as the wife has an accident resulting a minor injury in her foot, and she has to take some rest. This detail easily evokes another cinematic incident, in the movie named Tristana (1970) by Luis Buñuel in which the female protagonist gets so injured in her leg as to amputate it. Consequently, the audience may feel concerned a bit, unsure whether that situation would lead to a certain troublesome outcome or not. Yet, this is a smoothly peaceful movie, in spite of some petty unfortunate episodes, or fleetingly and slightly worrisome thoughts in characters’ mind; and eventually the movie gets back to its cheery and insouciant mood.

The filmic representation resonates a comedic air of the silent era, seemingly echoes some aspects from Jour de fête (1949) by Jacques Tati, rings some bell in its unfortunateness from Tristana by Buñuel which might instill a little bit thrill into the audience, pushing the movie slightly out of its monotonous rhythm to be peppered with some bits and pieces of roughness. This work by Jiří Menzel is really a masterpiece in the kind of comedy which unfolds a subtle and pure sense of humor.

[Film review] The Imitation Game (2014)

Perhaps this is one of the most surprising films of 2014, because it has left me a great disappointment. I heard of the name of Alan Turing the first time around 5 years ago when reading a book named The Code Book by Simon Singh. This book dedicates a whole chapter to a encrypting machine called Enigma, including some of achievements of breaking down it done by Polish decryption experts in the period just prior to WWII, and achievements from the legendary Bletchley Park in Britain during WWII. Alan Turing is the most prominent figure at that time, no doubt. I also learnt about Turing afterward, and has taken some liking to him since then, a short-lived genius.

And Turing in The Imitation Game is quite different. It’s a Turing who is dramatized terribly in a movie which is dramatized even more. To the extent of phoniness. Turing (the character in the movie) is described as a super-hero who engages in the most intellectually quintessential place of Britain at that time. Ignore the fact that the movie depicts Turing mistakenly and exaggeratedly, just mention the logic behind the plot. The story of Turing (the character) and his partners’ achievements is similar to a tale of being hinted by some god in a summer night. So right in the beginning Turing (the character) rushes into sketching a machine which would be used to break down the Enigma, while during the movie progress there are no suggestions for us to know what is based upon or who he is inherited from in order to create that machine. There is only a mention of Polish in an early scene in the movie as smugglers who slipped the Enigma machine into Britain. And afterward, Turing (the character) and his partners act as God, just do it and achieve it.

The movie is overstated and inflated dramatically from the plot to dialogues, which easily arouse viewers’ emotion, as a line in the movie spoken by Turing (the character), “it’s because it feels good”. But for me, also copying another line right after (spoken by Turing the character too): sometimes I can't enjoy what supposedly feels good, I have to think what is logical, which really and truly feels good.

About a mathematics genius, an alleged father of computer science and artificial intelligence, the movie just delivers some hollow feelings. Alan Turing, I would meet you only through words and books.