Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness retells the story of Marlow's job as an ivory transporter down the Congo. Through his journey, Marlow develops an intense interest in investigating Kurtz, an ivory-procurement agent, and Marlow is shocked upon seeing what the European traders have done to the natives.

Marlow begins telling the story of his adventures through the Congo to some of his shipmates one night out at sea while the sun slowly sets and the story envelopes them. Marlow was looking for adventure, looking for the exotic and when he finally was given charge of a ship he began his trek into a foreign land.

On his way to the camp he is struck by a chain gang of skeletal shadows, the humanity stripped from them, they toiled up the hill ahead of Marlow looking as if each one was close to taking his last step...Marlow is horrified by the inhumanity of this strange country where men are regulated to little more than animals based on the color of their skin.

When he finally gets to the camp he finds his ship is in disrepair and he spends months waiting for parts and trying to rig his ship back together as best as possible, meanwhile the bureaucracy is exposed as a virtually inefficient mercenary enterprise. He leaves as quickly as he can and begins the dangerous trek to find Kurts, who at this point he has begun to deify. He has imaginary conversations with Kurts and defends his name when slighted...only to reach Kurts camp and find yet another dissolution waiting for him. Kurts is nothing more than a psychotic, mercenary, megalomaniac. Capable of the kind of cruelty that had become commonplace in the Congo and justified by the search for ivory.

Kurts is unwell and dies on the ship, his last moments are ones filled with the horror of the immense cruelty he had inflicted on the natives he came into contact with the the utter darkness and depravity of the Congo.

He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath—"The horror! The horror!"

Three Sisters - Chekhov

"A thousand years from now man will still be sighing "Ah, how hard life is..." Yet he will fear death exactly as he does now...and be unwilling to doe. Life will remain just the same as it always was...it doesn't change. It remains..."

"A man must have some faith or must seek a faith, otherwise his life is empty. Either hi know what he lives for or it's all futile and worthless..."

Irina finally agrees to marry Tuzenbach and the day before the depart for the long awaited journey to Moscow, Tuzenbach is killed in a duel by Solyony who claims to love Irina...

Three Sisters describes the lives and aspirations of the Prozorov family. Three sisters and their brother Andrei. They are refined and educated living in a small provincial town and dissatisfied and frustrated with their present existence.

When Andrei decides to get married, the sisters despise his choice saying the bride, Natalia, is an uneducated floozy. They have bigger hopes and dreams for their brother and aspire to move to Moscow and begin a new life. Yet years later as Andrei has been slowly driven bankrupt by his gambling habits, Natalia becomes the woman of the house ans as the siblings dreams recede she takes control of whats left of the inheritance and their lives. Eventually the dream of Moscow never materializes and they see their dreams recede further and further..

Uncle Vanya - Chekhov

Uncle Vanya tells the story of a family headed by aging Professor Serebryakov, a once celebrated academic whose career and health are in decline, he owns the struggling country estate that once belonged to his late wife. Serebryakov's daughter Sonya and former brother-in-law, Uncle Vanya, now run the property with help from Marina and Telegin. Serebryakov has returned to the home along with his young second wife Yelena, whose beauty draws attention from both Vanya and Astrov, a country doctor and forester who is a frequent visitor to the estate.

All of the main characters are pitiable in that none of them have found a satisfactory life. The professor, once full of promise, is now gout-ridden and does not have the standing among the intelligentsia that he once enjoyed. Yelena is giving her best years to the old man, much to the distress of Vanya, who has already given Serebryakov decades of fruitless labor. Sonya has toiled on the property and loves Astrov, though his affections are directed toward Yelena. Astrov dedicated his life to healing the sick and preserving his beloved forests, only to find himself surrounded by peasants while watching his trees slowly disappear.

Love and angst, 2 fired shots that are as futile as the lives they all live. First Chekhov play I've read where all the characters have survived to the end...and yet the lives they live are long and monotonous...a long breath as they slowly wait to die.

The Seagull - Chekhov

A seagull lives happily by the sea until a hunter comes by and out of boredom destroys it.

Nina kind of loves Konstantin - but runs away with Trigorin, who quickly disposes of her. Nina no longer has anything to live for and must live out her days as a wandering shadow. Konstantin, after realizing she will never come back and return his love...shoots himself.

An explosion is heard, "it's probably just the ether..."

Dorn: (Lowering his voice) Get Nina away from here somehow...The fact is, Konstantin Gavrilovich has shot himself...

Ivanov - Chekhov

A man marries a rich Jewess, thinking her to have a large dowry - but when Sarah converts to Catholicism her parents disown her and she is given nothing. Ivanov is disappointed and soon becomes bored and dissatisfied. Slowly Sarah dies of consumption, unhappy, unloved and alone, while Ivanov turns his mercenary sights to Sasha. After Sarah's death and a borderline respectable time of mourning, Ivanov is about to be married to Shasha. Before the wedding he feels unable to destroy Sasha's youthful purity with his base calcultions and money grubbing and shoots himself...

S: (screams) I know what he's going to do! Nikolai, for God's sake!

I: I've been going down hill long enough - now I'll stop! There's a limit to everything! Stand aside! Thank you Sasha!

S: (shrieks) Nikolai, for God's sake! Stop him!

I: Leave me alone! (Runs aside and shoots himself)

You've got to hand it to Chekhov...he knows how to pile on the pepper...

On Liberty - John Stuart Mill

Mill was raised by his father, James Mill, to be a strict Utilitarian. Mill's childhood was rigid, and he suffered a nervous breakdown at twenty-one when he began to question some of his beliefs. Mill later struggled with his sense that Utilitarianism was too unemotional and that it failed to capture or understand the "higher" pleasures. On Liberty can be understood as an attempt to broaden the meaning of utility and show that Utilitarianism can provide a strong protection of rights. The essay also reflects Mill's passionate belief that individuality is something that should be protected and nurtured. As such, the essay illustrates his disgust at how he believed society squelches nonconformity...

"The subject of this Essay is not the so-called Liberty of the Will, so unfortunately opposed to the misnamed doctrine of Philosophical Necessity; but Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual..."

"Whenever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests and its feeling of class superiority..."

"The majority have not yet learned to fuel the power of the government with their power, or its opinions their opinions. When they do so, individual liberty will probably be as much exposed to invasion from the government as it already is from public opinion..."

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any person of society, against his will, is to prevent harm to others..."

"Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign..."

"The tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach..."

The Lady from the Sea - Ibsen

Spoiler alert: She's a mermaid...or is she? After reading a quick succession of Ibsen plays the theme seems to be unhappy couples...struggling for allusive freedom of sorts, often are unable to come to the terms that the freedom requires and instead shoot themselves... This is the only Ibsen play that I have read where all the characters have managed to survive to the end...

Basically the plot is Ellida is in love with the sea and has a past shrouded in mystery (because she's a mermaid) she has promised herself to a sailor and after many years the sailor imposes himself on the happy family and attempts to claim her. Her husband realizing he has no power over her gives her the freedom to choose her fate and by that gesture Ellida realizes she will stay despite her constant draw to the sea.

The Master Builder - Ibsen

The architect throws himself from his own structure...

Halvard, the master builder is burdened with being the most successful architect the world has ever known, exhibiting the classic traits of a narcissism that seems to define the profession. His understudy, craving his approval and also the freedom to design on his own is causally thrown aside to perpetually buttress Halvards sense of self.

A young woman comes to visit after meeting Halvard for the first time 10 years ago and persuades him that he has promised himself to her and convinces him that he must build a castle in the air - a feat only a true master builder could accomplish. Halvard, who is getting closer and closer to becoming immobilized by his insanity begins to obsess over the castle, his marriage since the death of his two sons has suffered and he throws himself into this new project with reckless abandon.

When their house/castle is finished, Hilda, that crafty vixen, persuades Halvard to attach a garland to the highest point on the tower, although he is afraid of heights, to fulfill her fantasy. As Halvard begin to hang the garland he slips and falls to his death...

Hedda Gabler - Ibsen

Yikes! A bored, entitled woman wreaks havoc on the lives of those around her...

Hedda Gabler, daughter of an aristocratic general, has just returned from her honeymoon...bored and already dissatisfied with her marriage, her husband has combined his academic research with their honeymoon and within the fortnight of love she has begun to despise him.

An academic rival of her husband comes to visit after just completing a best selling novel. Hedda assumes her husbands rival will take over the professorship and their already strained finances will become impossible. Although the rival denies any interest in the professorship, Hedda begrudges his success and her unfortuitous marriage and harbors resentment only capable of a self obsessed neurotic.

The rival has completed a masterpiece, a sequel to his best seller, with the help of Mrs. Elvsted. And Hedda unable to cope with her jealousy of everything including his relationship with Mrs. Elvsted, convinces the rival to get drunk and go to a party, perhaps hoping that he will fall prey to drink once more and quickly end his budding career as a writer and begin a career as a less successful drunkard. When her husband returns from an outing he tell Hedda that he has found the manuscript of the rival and says he must return it as soon as possible.

Yet...when the rival comes in a panic to Hedda, distraught over the loss of his masterpiece - instead of telling him she has the manuscript she encourages him to commit suicide, giving him a pistol. She then burns the manuscript and tells her husband she has secured his future by destroying their rival. When the rival does commit suicide, and the police discover the gun and trace it back to her...she in a moment of panic and grief that once again someone has control over fate walks into the study and shoots herself.

The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene

The novel tells the story of a Roman Catholic priest in the state of Tabasco, Mexico during the 1930's, a time when the Mexican government strove to suppress the Catholic Church.

The protagonist is a whiskey priest. A self professed sinner, the whiskey priest tries to avoid imprisonment by hiding among different villages attempting to remain one step ahead of the Mexican military. The priest has no visions of grandeur, no illusions of greatness and as he is driven on in a painful penitence, administering mass wherever he goes, he is on a desperate quest to pay for his sins and ultimately find a reprieve for his soul. He is haunted by the fact that he has fathered a child in a small village and when confronted with the child he feels only apathy while she feels evident disgust.

He becomes more apathetic as the book goes on and his desire to rest is mixed with a peculiar form of self destructiveness. Many times he could have just gone a bit farther and been free, but instead he falls prey to obvious traps and eventually is caught and finally made to pay the price for his sins.

The priest is definitely not a hero. On his last stop before almost certain freedom and liberation from the endless chase, he charges the villagers exorbitant fees to baptize their children, quickly calculating the profit in his head as he scans the crowds of children whose parents are willing to pay anything for the salvation of their children's souls...his calculating depravity at times is exchanged for moments of honor and yet it is the mercenary piety that leaves a bitter taste in ones mouth.

Non-Fiction Reading Break - The Miracle - Michael Schuman

So after reading between 8-12 hours a day of Western Canon fiction. Not only did I feel like punching Harold Bloom in the face...but I began to feel like all plots lines were one continuous stream of consciousness. One myopic blend of endless rambling...

So for the month of December I decided to jump into some of the non-fiction that's been piling up by my nightstand.

So the first book on the list was Michael Schuman's The Miracle, The Epic Story of Asia's Quest for Wealth. The book traces the rapid economic development of Asia's economies since the 1950s. It is rich on anecdotal stories of key protagonists ranging from presidents, dictators, bureaucrats and entrepreneurs covering Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, China and India. It is a good comparative study of history, but at times the anecdotes seemed to miss a strong qualitative analysis.

Many of the Asian countries in question started their development process with similar degrees of poverty and a lack of substantial natural resources. Some used heavy government intervention such as in Korea and Indonesia, others let the free market rule such as Singapore and Hong Kong. While the approaches differed, what all had in common was the realization that to succeed, they had to develop industries that could survive and excel in the global market. Whether that meant nurturing domestic companies like in Japan and Korea or attracting foreign companies like in Singapore and Taiwan. The key was exposure to global competition and the pragmatic adoption of best practices. Governments who strayed from that formula suffered slower growth and often greater political instability as in the case of Indonesia and Malaysia.

The downside to developmental dictatorships, which many of the countries engaged in for a time is human rights, yet some countries, like Korea, willingly sacrificed civil liberties in return for national economic advancement...this methodology only works for extremely poor countries. While poor people might be willing to trade liberty for improved living standards the middle class will demand political right to match their economic rights...