Anthem, by Ayn Rand

Review of Anthem, by Ayn Rand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnXTjVJtoNQ

Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse

From C.S. Lewis to Frankenstein to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, truth in religion and

spirituality has been a deep philosophical question in works as old as Dante’s Divine Comedy. Hermann Hesse’s cornerstone novel, Siddhartha, features a young Indian prince classically trained as a Brahman (a high Hindu priest). It follows his journey from asceticism to Enlightenment, his physical travels reflecting a spiritual exploration many young people undertake in their lives.

Siddhartha’s story is loosely based on the story of Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of the Buddhist religion. An Indian prince, raised as a Hindu, Siddhartha renounces his riches and becomes an ascetic. After finding no peace in the Samanas’ teachings, he goes under the tutelage of a wise man named Gotama, who was believed to be a Buddha (one who has achieved enlightenment). Yet unsatisfied, Siddhartha goes off on his own, searching for his own answers instead of following a predetermined path. However, the absence of companionship leaves him prey to worldly temptations. Siddhartha takes up with a beautiful escort, Kamala, and acquires many possessions, including a house, fine clothes, toys and servants. Living a life of luxury, he abandons his quest for Enlightenment. Siddhartha has a revelation about his lifestyle and deserts his materialistic life to live with a ferryman by the river. He finds out that Kamala birthed a son with him, and after her death, takes the boy under his arm. However, the young man is much like Siddhartha in his youth – stubborn and unwilling to learn from those much older and wiser than he is. As his life comes full circle, Siddhartha realizes that only knowledge can be passed on – wisdom comes with age. Achieving Enlightenment, Siddhartha can live out the rest of his life in peace.

Hermann Hesse and many other novelists throughout history have undertaken coming-of-age novels, in which the protagonist, through trials and tribulations, finds himself and the meaning of his life. Examine Catcher in the Rye. Feeling emotionally disconnected from other youths his age, young Holden Caulfield runs away to find out the path his life is meant to take. This story is considered a seminal novel in the development of the coming-of-age genre.

However, Siddhartha explores another side of the teenage angst novel. Siddhartha is not just lonely in the sense of physical loneliness. No, our protagonist suffers from spiritual solitude – he has questions and is isolated from the vast community of divine disciples. Spiritual loneliness is the deepest and most intense sequestration from common society possible. The most complex and permeating questions plague one constantly – and like Siddhartha, the religious outsiders in our society have no friend to find solace in.

While this is, in a way, similar to Mr. Caulfield’s dilemma, many people, as adolescents, experience the sensation of seclusion from others for differences in behavior, opinions or appearance. Many novel protagonists find comfort in others that walk off the beaten track, others who think as they do and can provide a guiding hand. Spiritual exile to the extent that Siddhartha experienced it is a bigger issue, and many people who experience such detachment can only find comfort when they have wrestled the doubts that beleaguer them.

Spiritual separation from society can be a feature of many coming-of-age novels. But finding oneself and overcoming one’s religious demons are two very different accomplishments. Mother Teresa once said the most terrible poverty is loneliness, and surely she would agree that spiritual loneliness the most unsettling loneliness of all.

When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor, by William Julius Wilson

This book was recommended by one of my Splash ESP teachers, after a class on food deserts. Though the book is a bit outdated (published in 1996), Wilson takes a scholarly look at the world of the inner-city poor - the causes of poverty, the disproportionately African-American profile, and the circumstances maintaining the divide.

I liked Wilson's book very much - although it was full of facts and figures, it balances out with anecdotes, quotes, and is moderately easy to read (although it did take me a few months to finish). His main explanation for the cause of so much inner city poverty is racism - this may sound a bit racist to begin with, but I found that Wilson gave equal credit to both blacks and whites in his language and attitude. Basically, when integration of the big cities began, the white people (the ones with businesses, homes and jobs) moved out, leaving a jobless, economically downtrodden inner-city area, which the majority of relocating blacks moved into. Due to civil rights issues, it was incredibly difficult for black entrepreneurs to get loans to start businesses, further sinking the area into economic despair. As the area spirals downward, crime arises, and new businesses don't want to start there, fearing the safety of their investments and their families.

Now, while this makes plenty of sense, one big question posed by many people today is: Why is that still the case? These places are just as bad as, if not worse than, they were fifty years ago. Well, Wilson doesn't have a quick fix. He doesn't have a simple solution, which I like - like so many issues of our day, there is no quick fix, no easy solution. He doesn't blame it on racism, the moon cycles or the Republicans, or suggest throwing more money into the cities as a solution. Instead, he carefully explains the problems many black people face getting (and keeping) jobs, and also addresses issues of single parenthood, drugs and crime. It's hard to say where the cycle of poverty really begins, so I'll start with the example of a child.

A child in the inner city is extremely disadvantaged compared to a privileged, or even simply middle-class child in the suburbs. Black inner city children go to underfunded schools with low-quality teachers, who often don't believe in the child's success and don't bother to teach them well. When they come home, they are surrounded by their only role models - for the most part, single parents, drug dealers and other "participants in the informal economy", as Wilson calls them. If they are lucky enough to make it through high school and graduate, a significant accomplishment in such a difficult school environment, their prospects of going to college are limited.

Ignore the funds issue for a moment, as financial aid is available to most individuals, especially those with extreme need. A college or university is much less likely to take a student from Detroit with Bs and As than a student from Quincy, MA with Bs and Cs. Because of the low quality of education in the inner cities, those good grades aren't worth quite as much. Even putting THAT aside, take the standardized tests. Even assuming the student is prepared, their prospects are slim. For example, I'm scheduled to take my SATs in early 2012. I am prepared to purchase the study guide, take a prep course, and take the test 2-3 times in order to get my highest possible score. A disadvantaged high school sophomore or junior doesn't have that opportunity. They have one shot.

So our graduate has made it out of high school with a diploma and acceptable grades, but no college degree. He has no car, and bus transportation is both costly and unreliable, so he has to take a job in his immediate area. He doesn't have money to buy business clothes, so it will have to be something relatively unskilled, but also casual, like a manufacturing plant. But wait - the majority of our manufacturing has moved to China, and blue-collar jobs are nowhere to be found. Surrounded by drug dealers, who can make anywhere from $20-100 for a gram of cocaine on the street, you can see how prospects for a true career are instantly limited, and "informal economy ventures", like drugs and prostitution, are an attractive option - or a necessary one. If our graduate was supporting perhaps a mother and a younger sibling (a common occurrence), it would be much easier to submit to a career as a crack runner (and feed his family) than struggle to find a minimum wage job at a much higher real cost (clothes, transport, etc).

To take a different road, assume our graduate is lucky enough to find a job. He has a difficult time getting one, due to preconceived notions or negative employer experiences with inner-city employees. Because of the lack of job-holding role models in his like (a statistical probability), he is lacking in basic knowledge like dress code, employer-employee relations and job expectations. Statistically, even if he does obtain the job, he won't hold it for very long.

Wilson also addresses issues of teen pregnancy, related to the role model issue. A lot of these things are cyclical. Girls grow up without a father present (they probably also have many friends without fathers). Due to the virtually complete dissolution of a black inner-city family dynamic, they have no clue how to act in a relationship, and men have no clue how to treat their partners. Additionally, having a baby is something of a stamp of responsibility - in a way, it "proves" that you are mature and is a mark of womanhood. It also gives girls who may have been abused as children (statistically, girls who grow up in homes with "intermittent male role models" are many times more likely to be abused than their suburban counterparts) something to love, that loves them back. Teen pregnancy is also not as big of a deal in the inner-city. Whereas a teen pregnancy might scandalize a suburban neighborhood, inner-city girls really don't have much prospect for a future. Therefore, they aren't really "ruining their lives". Just like our high school graduate above, they don't have much hope for a real future.

He also talks briefly about welfare and welfare fraud. Wilson cites facts and figures about different welfare benefits in our country, comparing them to the minimum wage at the time, and over time, welfare benefits have gone up (in 1990 dollars). Now, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that economically, it makes more sense for a mother with a child to go on welfare and receive food stamps than work two minimum wage jobs without benefits.

Wilson does more than just address these issues - he suggests innovative public policy changes and programs that would help reduce welfare dependency, joblessness and single parenthood. For example, he cites a city in the U.S. (in Iowa?), which changed their public policy so working parents were still eligible for public assistance like welfare and food stamps. This led to a decrease in the number of people on welfare, because it closes the gap between wage earnings and welfare benefits.

I would absolutely recommend his book to anyone interested in studying public policy, nonprofit work, inner-city work or politics. It is a great, albeit heavy read, and I think it will really change the way you look at inner city politics today.

Overall: 10/10

Details:

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Vintage (July 29, 1997)
ISBN-10: 0679724176
ISBN-13: 978-0679724179

Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck is one of America's most famous classic authors, persistent in his pessimism. I am not a personal fan of Steinbeck's - in my opinion, he is negative and discredits the persistence of the American spirit.

His classic novella, "Of Mice and Men" tells the story of a large, unusually strong and mentally challenged man and his friend George. While Steinbeck makes obvious use of foreshadowing (as any dime store novelist can), there is no literary technique that he appears to have any talent at, other than beating the reader to death with his message. Life beats the living crap out of you, and at the end it doesn't matter because you don't get what you want anyway.

Sound familiar? Steinbeck's other cornerstone novel, "The Grapes of Wrath" has basically the same theme. If I remember correctly, after losing almost everything in the Midwest, the protagonist family travels hundreds of miles, racking up countless expenses and losing family members, only to be less than wage slaves to an orange grower. Also, I'm pretty sure most of them are dead at the end.

Steinbeck would have an ironic, sad sort of feel to him (Heller, Vonnegut, etc.) if he didn't overly saturate every one of his novels with this pithy replacement for depth. I would also wonder perhaps what happened in Steinbeck's life to make him such a bitter and angry individual if he didn't insist on shoving his point of view down my throat in such poor excuses for literature.

Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, by Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben’s "economics of environmentalism" book fully covered the community crisis surrounding our world today. From the economics of happiness to environmental stability, his text flowed smoothly from eating local to lack of community aid in our country to our durable future. He gets straight to the heart of many of these issues, down to the fundamental attitudes that effect our decision making. While McKibben addresses so many of the problems we have in our society quite well, there are holes in his logic.

When it comes to eating locally, he spent a year eating only foods that grew within an hour or two of his home. While that was a great decision, McKibben lives in Vermont – probably one of the densest farm states in the nation. In fact, I think they do have the most farms per square mile of any state in the country. Most of America doesn’t have a fully sustainable (meat, cheese, dairy, egg, fruit and vegetable) CSA farm within an hour of their home, like McKibben does. This doesn’t give us an excuse to eat pineapples in January, but one should realize that eating completely local might not be a realistic goal for most of the country. While I have a fabulous farmer’s market minutes from my home, they do not sell meat, cheese or dairy, so if I ate those and wanted them locally, I’d have to go all the way to Foster to get them, if I could even get them there. McKibben also completely ignores the plight of inner-city communities where fresh food is totally unavailable in any form – he doesn’t even acknowledge that living completely locally simply isn’t realistic for a lot of people. That being said, McKibben has a lot of great ideas that, in my opinion, are fairly realistic solutions to our problems.

McKibben also has a distinct bias. I got some pretty Socialist leanings based on his political commentary. He seems to support forcibly driving out “bad” industries or technologies using laws and regulations. It’s still a good book, but take his opinions with a grain of salt. A lot of issues (taxes, national health care, Social Security) are a lot more complex than simply giving all for the good of the community. (Although, to his credit, when covering politicians’ roles in these issues, he seemed to give fair play to both George Bush and Bill Clinton).

He strikes a good balance when it comes to statistics. He isn’t heavy on them but he provides data along with the anecdotes. However, I don’t trust some of them outright. For example, McKibben stated that as more Wal-Marts arrived in a specific community, those communities grew poorer. That may not be totally accurate – the appearance of the Wal-Marts (to me) signifies a demand for cheap goods, implying an inherent community poverty that would motivate Wal-Mart to open multiple stores within a fairly small area. He also cites a statistic in which “security” outranked any form of “being able to help your children” as a benefit of money – where in my mind, money provides security, partially in the ability to help your children.

While McKibben’s points are good, he has a difficult time pulling what we call in literature a “red thread” – a topic or overarching theme that ties all your evidence or reasoning together. While the book was an enjoyable read, I found myself forgetting his overall message – that we, as a society, need to ease back on economic efficiency so intense that it sacrifices community, family time and our happiness. That we must make our economy less traditionally efficient in order to increase the wealth of our communities, happiness of our citizens and increase both our independence and codependence. And that above all, we need to focus more on improving the quality of life for all human beings, including ourselves, rather than the quantity in our bank accounts.

Overall: 7 out of 10.

Details:

Paperback: 272 pages

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; Later printing edition (March 4, 2008)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0805087222

ISBN-13: 978-0805087222

Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

Forgive, this is a copy/paste of my literary analysis for class. I found it suitable.

You’re born, you live, you die; so what? That’s Kurt Vonnegut’s view on life – at least, as far as anyone reading his 1969 groundbreaker, Slaughterhouse-Five can tell. Told by an omniscient narrator, Slaughterhouse-Five is a true-to-life story about the bombing of Dresden during WWII. Vonnegut’s tone is evident throughout the novel, and many believe the narrator is Vonnegut himself.

Slaughterhouse-Five takes place during WWII, following Billy Pilgrim, a rather flat and distant character as he enters the war and is taken prisoner by enemy forces. As Pilgrim experiences stressful and dangerous situations, he “time travels” to his future and distant planets. Events culminate in the Dresden bombing at the end of the book, and we see Pilgrim towards the end of his life, his madness fully developed at this point. Pilgrim is the only major character in this story. While others are fleshed out, they are mainly stock characters that lack development through the story. Even Pilgrim himself does not grow in any way, a great example of Vonnegut’s irony.

Kurt Vonnegut has a very distinctive tone. His point of view could in fact be best described as “You’re born, you live, you die; so what?” – an expression that fits in very distinctively with his atheism. After every mention of death, dying and destruction, he uses the phrase “so it goes” – as if the death of a character is only as tragic as a bottle of flat champagne. “Major” characters die in ignoble and unexpected ways, representing the eventuality and irony of death – unlike most war novels, in which major characters often die heroically. Sometimes ironic, sometimes satirical and sometimes just sad, Vonnegut’s style evokes a fatalistic version of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. Vonnegut experienced a lot of suffering in his life – from his mother’s suicide while he was away during WWII to the schizophrenia and war trauma that plagued him all his life, he was a broken individual. Many modern scholars claim that Vonnegut had post-traumatic stress disorder, another explanation for his use of Billy Pilgrim as a distant projection of himself.

One may question the book’s success as an anti-war novel. Published in 1969, during the height of Vietnam and pacifistic protests, Vonnegut’s novel was explosive almost immediately. Except for the first chapter (told from Vonnegut’s point of view), and the inclusion of a book excerpt lamenting the bombing, Vonnegut never explicitly expresses any anti-war sentiments. Slaughterhouse-Five has enjoyed its success for that very reason. Many scholars have suggested that Billy Pilgrim is, in fact, Kurt Vonnegut – that Pilgrim himself is not a character, but instead is a version of Vonnegut, used so he wouldn’t have to deal with the trauma he suffered during the war. Both show clear symptoms of schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder – Pilgrim’s “time travels” are just hallucinations, brought on by stress and anxiety, and Vonnegut was known to suffer from schizophrenia. Many things he encounters in reality show up later in his delusions (such as the dirty picture of the woman and horse).

This novel can definitely be considered quasi-autobiographical – Pilgrim is only aware of his own thoughts and feelings (of which there are few – a distant relationship between events and emotions is another characteristic of schizophrenics and trauma victims). He not only exhibits the qualities of the same mental illness Vonnegut himself had, but also shares experiences with Vonnegut – after being taken prisoners of war during WWII, both were held captive in a converted slaughterhouse called Slaughterhouse-Five. With Vietnam (and its protestors) raging and the discovery of PTSD, it’s no wonder Slaughterhouse-Five fueled the anger surrounding the war and the mental health of veterans.

Slaughterhouse-Five was a roaring success, and continues to enjoy fame as a modern classic. Depicting horrifying wartime events with his trademark black humor, satire and irony, Vonnegut’s 1969 novel is masterfully subtle, speaking louder than any anti-war diatribe ever did.

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart

Sorry it's been so long since I posted - I've been busy and this book took 2-3 weeks to come into the library. I'm making my way through my reading list, which contains a lot of nonfiction (Kolbert's climate change novel was also on that list). In a similar thread, Cradle to Cradle is basically about environmentalism, but it absolutely shattered every notion I'd had about being good to the environment. McDonough and Braungart start off talking about the effects the many different products we use on a daily basis have on us. They don't bog down with statistics, chemical or biological terms, but run quickly through some of the hazards of modern chemical living.

One concept I found very interesting was their view on recycling. Braungart, a chemist, explains that to break down soda bottles into rugs or coats, or even more soda bottles, not only are you doing more damage to the environment with chemical processes, risking your own health as these chemicals off-gas into your home and using much more energy than just creating a new bottle, you're "downcycling" the material. An analogy I would like to make is to recycled paper. Compare it to a new piece of virgin paper - recycled paper is grainy, brown, thin and aesthetically very unappealing. This is because turning that used piece of paper into "new" paper, actually downgrades the quality of the material - the same with almost everything we recycle in modern life. They say our products should be designed to be recycled indefinitely, with no effect on quality (which is possible). Braungart and McDonough blow the cover off modern environmentalism, basically stating that we need to redesign the way we live. Being "less bad" by buying recycled paper, "all natural" sheets and using the bus isn't good enough. They want American innovators to design products that are made to be good. Focusing less on what we're taking out of the environment, but how to give back to it. Basically, a version I suppose of their ideal product would be something made of nonharmful, effective and limited "ingredients" that benefits whatever it is meant to be used on, then goes back into the earth and further benefits the ecosystem that lives there. Their design proposition for products basically is this: Think outside the box. Don't work on improving the car - redesign our transportation system so that it eliminates the need for cars entirely.

I would also describe them as "locavores" in that they believe products should be made for individuals, not in a "one size fits all" mentality. They say that laundry soap flakes are made for the hardest job they might have to do, which means they can do anything, but it also means they are too strong for the job they usually have to do. Many people in less developed countries apply these soaps with their hands, in rivers used for bathing and washing. In this situation, these women need gentler soap that will work with the environment they are being used in. They want to design products made to be used in particular situations, suited totally to the needs of one system or group, and that are enjoyable to use. Respect diversity, don't eliminate it.

Another concept they introduce in the book is improving modern manufacturing. They describe the work they did with a Ford factory implementing eco-effective strategies to manage problems from worker happiness to rainwater management. With Braungart and McDonough (and a team of biologists, chemists and toxicologists), Ford cleaned up the dead and polluted soil around the factory using native plants and microrganisms, installed an underground water collection system that would filter water out to local waterways in a safe way. They also installed tons of skylights and windows in their building and implemented new heating and cooling strategies - making the workers much happier and more productive, aesthetically improving their building, and saving thousands on energy costs.

The book was exceptionally well-written, well-organized and easy to read. Their language flowed beautifully and kept the reader interested and in the loop - you won't find dry statistics, charts and technical jargon here. That being said, you must have an interest in environmentalism - it will be boring without one. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone as an essential read - but get it from the library. Although it is made of a durable, waterproof, indefinitely-recyclable and chemically safe synthetic, this technology is new and very expensive.

Overall: 10 out of 10.

Details:

Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: North Point Press; 1st edition (April 22, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0865475873
ISBN-13: 978-0865475878