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Heretics of Dune

September 8, 2015 / posted in images of being-human, life as we know it, lyrical-narratives, reviews / No Comments

Heretics of Dune (Dune Chronicles, #5)Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Although Dune was meant to be a trilogy originally, Frank Herbert has masterfully been able to extend the series. The way he does this is that both book 4 and 5 recalibrate the entire series.

On the one hand, this book lacks the energy from the previous novels. Yet it is able to clarify what’s at stake for the other books. At first I had thought this was about utopia — in fact the first three books seemed so. But then the 4th book showed us that utopia isn’t it since Leto II had already presented us the picture of what it meant to have it; again it was politics and power as usual.

Here, Herbert shows us what is at stake. Raising human consciousness. Not just physically but the correct adaptability. He shows us also, corruption, incredible corruption that comes with humans trying to achieve the sublime so that the world becomes degraded into nothing but struggles for novel sensations.

Much of the book seemed to wander though, and while there was the understandable politics that comes with Dune, this seemed beside the point; tiresome. Unlike the first few books where we cared more about the characters in this, we start to get a glimpse of what it means to build a world… it means that we define new subjectivities. It means we have to outline the process by which this comes around. And although there is no perfect way, the destruction of Rakis as the release of humankind from a concentration of power was what Leto II was after; this is the truth of being human. Rather than the technology and power view of what a perfect world is, Herbert shows us the way for us is to choose freedom, to let others grow and develop, so we too shall grow and develop.

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I, Claudius

September 8, 2015 / posted in images of being-human, life as we know it, love, lyrical-narratives, reviews / No Comments

I, Claudius (Claudius, #1)I, Claudius by Robert Graves
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a great book. Here, Graves takes some liberties with history, obviously, as no one knew what did or did not happen. But we do see the corruption of individuals within families interwrapped with such a complete power as to be a heady frightful mess.

While I saw the BBC tv show in serial as a teenager, this helped me appreciate history in a way that I did not for a long time. The interrelation of life, family, power, money and all the things that make us human is what elevates this story to a point of the human sublime.

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Darkness

July 29, 2015 / posted in lyrical-narratives, reviews / No Comments

DarknessDarkness by Yedda Morrison
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Out of the Heart of Darkness Yedda Morrison weaves a poetic line or two, bits of sunrise, bits of trees and greenery seen through glimpses of windows. This kind of transcendental move levels parts of the novel we know to form its own illegitimate immanence. Not a hard book to read, or long, but interesting in how she picks mood and ambiance through what is otherwise in support of something else. This kind of curating is a mode of what makes postmodernism post-modernism.

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A Field Guide to Getting Lost

June 26, 2015 / posted in art, images of being-human, lyrical-narratives, reviews, Theory / No Comments

A Field Guide to Getting LostA Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Pretty amazing book. Solnit approaches “lost” as more than an epistemological concept directly outwards. She wraps this conception around itself and demonstrates through as series of vignettes, allegories and musings (personal, historical, sociological, literary) in order exemplify aspects of being lost, which includes losing being, place, direction, knowledge, feeling and familiarity.

I was terribly awed by her wide reaching “direction” as she navigates us on how to get lost, or how others did it. What’s interesting is that she doesn’t seem to lose direction either.

Rhetorically and philosophically, Solnit is able to utilize environmental decoherence to defamiliarize the centerpiece subject. The original mark in a story, which is often a person, or a direction, is waxed in different territorial contexts until you literally lose place. At that point your sense of center is gone with it. I guess what keeps you from getting lost is that Solnit is always able to keep your attention focused on what was, and what will be. Those fixed points of reference allow her to transition smoothly forward and backwards, highlighting in the process what getting lost does to a subject. Her strength of direction afforded me, the reader, to let her guide me along. Very well done.

There is a mystic sounding voice to her writing, as if a love letter (another commentator said) and if you trust that intimate tone she sets for us, the pages will swallow you whole. You’ll find time slowly disappearing in this book as you start to get lost.

Admittedly, some of the tid-bits she brings up seem strained but some of the other ones, which are well researched and well put more than make up for their weaker transitional ligamentation.

If you want to get lost in a book, ironically, this is one to do it!

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The Timeless Way of Building

May 29, 2015 / posted in art, images of being-human, life as we know it, love, lyrical-narratives, manifesto, reviews, Theory / No Comments

The Timeless Way of BuildingThe Timeless Way of Building by Christopher W. Alexander
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In this thoughtful book, Chris Alexander takes an approach to architecture that understands it through the filter of human (and non-human) agency. He understands that the most useful buildings are ones that are created by the maximization of agency of the people involved, with the utilization of language based patterns that we inhabit to organize our behavior. He writes this book almost as if talking in a dream. Reading this book is a visceral experience of stepping into the a shower.

It’s quite a masterful work, one that deals with the aesthetics of embodiedness rather than the more mundane (but necessary) considerations of budgeting, and so on. In a way, this a book of one who is entering a mastery of the craft, where the detailed considerations fall to the wayside as the considerations of that pure level of agency come into full consideration.

Alexander’s method is more meditative and thoughtful, one that seems geared towards his process of consideration and his familiarity with the “pattern languages” that he utilizes more than anything else. What I find most interesting in this book is that he utilizes spaces from other cultures all the while remarking that such patterns are built into our native language. Are they then, really more a function of our cultural-mind? He suggests we know this intuitively, and yet most people cannot build accordingly as buildings cannot be formed from a poverty of our languaged patterns. So that seems like a big epistemological-cultural hole. But at the same time, his thoughts are so compelling, you want to believe in them. That there is a potentially rich environment of knowledge and consideration that we can dig from, only if we were in tune with it!

It’s no surprise then, that he originates in the Berkeley area, as San Francisco is the hotbed of such hippy mysticism. Still, there’s something to be said for his approach and his “method” which takes a much less mechanical view of building. We should gear our use appropriately to the individuals for whom a building should embody! Our culture is impoverished due to the fragmentation of disciplines and the jealous guardians who don’t want to share with their economic competitors! In a very real way he is talking about Taoism. I look forward to reading more of his work.

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Sula

May 19, 2015 / posted in art, images of being-human, life as we know it, love, lyrical-narratives, reviews / No Comments

SulaSula by Toni Morrison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Yes, we know that Toni Morrison talks about the deprivations of poverty, racial bigotry and its effects on black communities and especially on women of those communities.

Here in this book however, is an interesting take. The close and endearing friendship of two little girls extend beyond their life choices. One to assimilate into the black community from where she grew. And the other to strike out into the broader world beyond and then return to that community with a broader view. And while Sula returns to become a pariah, acting as scapegoat so as to unify the community that brought her up and hated her, so she also saw beyond it to a code of ethics not born of that community but one that sparked her friendship with her close friend from beyond the grave.

This is a pretty amazing work, as it invites us to get a glimpse of the early to mid 20th century’s economic and social forces in creating this black community as a place, so that the friendship of two little girls in that community could blossom and approach a meaning of its own.

It was confusing at first, to spend so much time with Sula’s maternal lineage. But this allows us to see the vector of her release into the world, and her sublime return as one who understands. In standing apart as an outsider, Sula allows us to nail down the black community in its pain and suffering, to come together in a time of need (dislike of her) and so their reduced vision is unable to withstand the sight of original singularity.

Short book, but well worth the read.

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The Anti-Oedipus Papers

April 29, 2015 / posted in images of being-human, life as we know it, lyrical-narratives, manifesto, reviews, rhizomatic architecture, Theory / No Comments

The Anti-Oedipus PapersThe Anti-Oedipus Papers by Félix Guattari
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In anticipation of re-reading Thousand Plateaus I thought I’d tackle this book. As a reader of Deleuze (I’ve read all his books), I always understood the progression of Deleuze’s thoughts with the turn coming after Logic of Sense. Some of Guattari’s books, such as Chaosomos enforced for me his role in bringing to Deleuze a completely different view. It didn’t help that Guattari did not publish nearly as much nor as systematically. But after reading this book, I fully acknowledge the debt to Deleuze that many do not see. Deleuze is often given credit since he is of an institution (of philosophy) but Guattari’s running amok, his ability to abstractly critique different ideas and view them from vastly different zones really hits home with his letters to Deleuze.

I’ve always understood Anti-Oedipus as a failed work in the sense that although they reject a metric by which to organize thought they still in interject a methodology (Marxism) by which to organize meaning. Part of this is due to the extension of their rejection of Lacan and psychoanalysis. By rejecting the normalization that psychoanalysis employs, D&G also end up rejecting all normalisations. In this manner they unwittingly step very close to Kant’s “all concepts are regulatory”. While I fully agree with Kant, I think Deleuze’s love of conception forces him to reject Kant’s systematization of thought on aesthetic grounds. In a way, Deleuze’s work ends up being very close to Kant in aesthetic but very different from Kant in method and content.

Again, reading this book allowed me to see that Guattari really pushed Deleuze, who was already pretty out there, to really refocus on how one should approach the problem of multiple-domain knowledges. There are many gems here, to be found. Various extensions of thought that may have gotten lost in Anti-Oedipus, various and of course, a seemingly lack of coherency on the part of Guattari to systematize a presentation that was not rambling. In a way, what Guattari brings to Deleuze is a grasp of normalicy that should be rejected. Guattari allows Deleuze to understand the effects of concepts outside of conception — the role they play on one another and society. In a way Deleuze already understood the way concepts match one another. He does this frequently, and to an extreme, as with Difference and Repetition. But what he failed to include was the political angle that concepts have on people, on subjectivities and logics of peoplehood.

Obviously this book would never have been published if D&G were not as popular as they are. Obviously this is not a complete work on its own because it references other works that you may not have read, that are not included in this volume. Still, if you like the other stuff, this provides another inflection point so that you can begin to understand what Deleuze and Guattari both brought to the table, and how their co-production was a unique synthesis that was necessarily a combination of their personalities, outlooks and backgrounds.

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The Only Ones

April 14, 2015 / posted in lyrical-narratives, reviews / No Comments

The Only OnesThe Only Ones by Carola Dibbell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Fairly promising book in the start, in terms of language but it tapers down to be stagnant towards the end. By tackling bioengineering in the way that it does, Dibbell aligns the view of the novel to the medical subject; in this instance, women’s management of bodies, motherhood and disease. There’s a big segue into education here, and Dibbell is careful to show how management of human bodies is also management of children’s minds. What appears at first to be a post-dystopia about the future ends up being a fairly static view that the novel then shoots off with the logical resolution of the conflict between the mother and her daughter and then with how the daughter situation is resolved quickly in order to leave the mother in a different zone, where she is then able to relate to all of us. I find this move a little unconvincing because it seems forced. The ending lacks a climax. The very promising stuttering of language from a very limited medical subjectivity in the beginning eventually pairs out to be a limited social-epidemiological horizon towards the end of the book. The mother doesn’t seem to own her own enlightenment because there doesn’t seem to be an implicit point at which the daughters behavior sparks a realization of some sort.

In that sense, the novel seems to crash under its own weight once the confusing and dense (but exciting) language the novel started with finally becomes normalized once we get a sense of place and time. Maybe I missed the point, and I am not sure that I have, but there doesn’t seem to be a point. The main antagonism of the novel never occurs (the They never materialize) and that conflict seems left by the wayside. Instead, the daughter enters the world on her own in the exact same way that the mother is shown to be in the world in the beginning. In that sense, the 17 or so years never changed the world, and that’s kind of confusing. We don’t need a larger story about how the world got so dystopic, and thank you Dibbell for not giving it to us; but the struggle that the world goes forward with never materializes as being relevant to today, but only a little. We aren’t hit in the face with the mother’s revelation in the way that I think we are supposed to be.

For that reason, I was disappointed. What was the mystery? What should have happened? I don’t know, but instead, we get the mother’s long long long struggle to raise her daughter and then her daughter does what the mother did, and the mother suddenly knows what’s going on, as the voice informs us from a place of knowing, but we never quite share in that moment of knowing. Instead, we see the daughter doing what the mother did. And how is that the only ones?

I’m going to read the ending again, maybe something more will come of it.

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The Impossible

March 18, 2015 / posted in images of being-human, lyrical-narratives, reviews / No Comments

The ImpossibleThe Impossible by Georges Bataille
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

By playing with desires, and people are nodal points, (letters and genders, but not names or identities), Bataille explores areas of desire and loss, sculpting a body of agony. This agony always finds release however, when desire is locked away and pulled apart from itself so as to be inarticulate. He manages to find a way to twist it a bit further, so that each node knows another by dominance, servitude and love. These middling complexities are glimpses of the intimacy each knew another by, so that their absence was in itself a union. It is impossible that we live, as organisms, as differences in consciousness and configuration can recognize each other and become adapted to one another’s presence that without them, we are nothing but less than ourselves. This is also not to say how their relationships can affect us too, so that our sense of self is our sense of another — a very specific other.

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Anxious Pleasures: A Novel after Kafka

March 18, 2015 / posted in images of being-human, lyrical-narratives, reviews / No Comments

Anxious Pleasures: A Novel after KafkaAnxious Pleasures: A Novel after Kafka by Lance Olsen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am not quite a fan of kafka, because he takes such a load to read, still, Olsen builds a baroque text that espouses a core of a family drama, that breaks itself apart into different narratives. I suppose each voice should be an “anxious pleasure” and that seems too inbred as most of the voices are of the love and exploration of young girls in a familial setting. Yet perhaps this is only the nest that Olsen is able to best hang together, as each story fragment bespeaks of a forgotten whisper of Kafka. Kafka’s interior pose, for Olsen, becomes the expressed structure, not the literal plot, but half-thought, interluded feelings of anxious rhapsody that meditate on themselves and release to intersect and push each other as an aggregate onwards. Each tendril expresses together as one plot hinged on half spoken feelings, although of course, there is the understood learning, the reading of text by Margaret, another kind of interior monologue of Kafka as so many theorists like to draw out of him, through their wild filters and their linguistic tropes that structure their immanent truths. Of course this one text read by a girl would center on one who reads this text, enchanted by new narratives and theological theories that would read on each other as much as their metaphors read on one another truths the kind that theory likes kafka for speaking about.

They come together as Kafka’s metamorphosis, a sacrifice of all the hard working boys for the burgeoning sexuality of a young girl, as their parents bask in her sunshine. So shall Olsen parrot this gesture as a tribute to kafka, and as an opportunity to weave new feelings from us, from the edges of our awareness, with the right inspecificity (he speaks of almost no names) and therefore the right specifcity. Truly a marvel, a working about nothing, saying nothing and therefore being about everything and saying it all.

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