How is it Thursday Already? Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I've Just Finished Reading

Who has two thumbs and has finished reading The Gulag Archipelago? That's right, me! I think that most of the meat of the trilogy is contained within the first volume - not that the second and third books aren't worth reading, because they are, but they are in a sense supplemental material to Solzhenitsyn's thesis, which he expounds in volume one, "that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains ... an unuprooted small corner of evil."

And therefore any and all attempts to clean or perfect humanity by killing the portion of it that you deem evil are not only evil in themselves, but useless at the outset. If you want to kill the evil portion of humanity, then you'd have to kill all humans.

There is this one quote, though, from the third volume, which I've been turning over like a stone in my hand - about forgiveness. It's a long one, so

"In this thick volume we have pronounced absolution so often. I hear cries of astonishment and indignation. Where do you draw the line? Must we forgive everyone?

No, I have no intention of forgiving everyone. Only those who have fallen. While the idol towers over us on his commanding eminence, his brow creased imperiously, smug and insensate, mutilating our lives - just let me have the heaviest stone! Or let a dozen of us seize a battering ram and knock him off his perch.

But once he is overthrown, once the first furrow of self-awareness runs over his face as he crashes to the ground - lay down your stones!

He is returning to humanity unaided.

Do not deny him this God-given way."



I also read Oliver Sacks The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which I really enjoyed. It's a series of case studies about unusual neurological disorders that have come through Sacks' office over the years, some of which are a bit nightmarish (I suspect which cases one finds most upsetting will change from person to person; the one about the woman who lost her proprioception, her sense of her own body - who now feels literally disembodied, like a ghost - really got to me), but all of which are thought-provoking. Some of his terminology is a bit dated - the book was published in 1984; I don't believe anyone uses "moron" as a diagnostic term anymore - but Sacks is nonetheless a thoughtful, compassionate writer.

I also finished Annie Jacobsen's Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America, which is a book that is interesting more for its subject matter than for its treatment of it. Jacobsen lays out a convincing case that the US Department of Defense willfully turned a blind eye to the Nazi pasts of many German scientists it brought to the US - up to and including scientists who committed human experimentation at concentration camps - but somehow all the details slipped through my mind like water through a sieve. The subject is clearly worth exploring, but I can't quite recommend this particular book.

In less heavy (both in size and in subject matter) reading material, I read the latest Penderwick book, The Penderwicks in Spring, which I enjoyed but not as much as the earlier books in the series.

What I'm Reading Now

I've returned to Sarah Rees Brennan's Unmade. I am determined to finish this book, but my progress is dragging because of two seemingly contradictory reasons. First, because I've heard that a character (I don't know which character, but apparently someone everyone likes, because all the reviews I've seen were annoyed) is going to die; and secondly, because the supposedly wicked murderous sorcerer now in charge of Sorry-in-the-Vale has failed to kill any of the characters we like, which makes it hard to take his wicked murderousness seriously.

Possibly when I get to the death, that will make him seem like a slightly more formidable antagonist, but so many characters have escaped certain death already, I suspect that it's going to make the authorial intervention when someone finally bites the dust seem very obvious. You've taken care of everyone else so far, so why didn't so-and-so deserve your protection too, Brennan?

What I Plan to Read Next

Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia.

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

He is returning to humanity unaided.

Interesting idea...

I enjoyed The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat too. Makes you think about the depiction of behaviour in fiction where writers try hard to make things 'likely' and 'realistic' when in fact real life can be so very strange.

'Awakenings' is interesting too...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

The quote on forgiveness seems to go along with the general notion that we aren't required to forgive someone who's continuing, unrepentant, to do the bad thing that makes them in need of forgiveness.

I like and agree with S's thoughts on evil and the human heart, too.

Regarding The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, I had a completely opposite reaction to Oliver Sacks! I didn't find him compassionate at all: to me (I only made it through the first three stories), he seemed merely fascinated. And sometimes I felt he was cruel, as in the second story, when he made the man who was no longer building up long-term memories look in the mirror, which showed a middle-aged as opposed to young face--causing the guy understandable distress.

I think, judging by how many people have liked the book, it's a problem with me as a reader: I think Sacks probably *is* sympathetic and I simply can't hear it.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

There's a quote from someone (I always forget who says these things) which says that the difference between real life and fiction is that fiction has to make sense.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I keep having a thought about forgiveness that is related to this, but it flits away like a will-o-the-wisp before I can get it down in words.

I think Sacks frontloads the roughest stories in the book. I actually tried to read it in college and quit because I found the story about the woman who lost her propagnosia so distressing. So you might find it a better read if you read some of the later stories and then circled back to the beginning?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I might try that.

[ghosted.livejournal.com]

To answer your question from before: I've read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, Awakenings, and Hallucinations. Musicophilia was my favourite because I found its subject matter the most interesting, and from what I remember, Sacks is a keen musician too? Hallucinations is good, and Awakenings I didn't finish because the second half was too dry. I enjoy Sacks' writing because he comes across to me as so curious and humane, not to mention intimidatingly well-read.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Is the first half of Awakenings worth reading? He kept referring to it in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and it sounded intriguing. What makes the second half dry?

[ghosted.livejournal.com]

As I remember, the first half is about the case studies which are fascinating, and then the second half is about the science. Or the philosophy? I think. I tried to read it a few years ago, so I might be talking nonsense! If you're interested it's worth picking up! It's famous and everything, and probably I am just Weak.