Every 14 Days...(19)

Hagakure (Yamamoto Tsunetomo)

I'm sure I'd read this before, but sorting through my books, I noticed that the spine looked barely touched. Needing something to read, I decided that I would read it (again) and see if anything stuck in my memory this time.

Deemed 'the book of the samurai', this edition of 'Hagakure', or hidden leaves, translated by William Scott Wilson features around three hundred of the original teachings of Yamamoto, narrated to disciples when retiring as a monk. Essentially a series of anecdotes, these form the key teachings and life lessons by which samurai should live in the spirit of bushido.

With thoughts and ideas that have been seen throughout Japan's history, these are moral learnings as to how to samurai should conduct themselves, with the key life lesson: if in doubt, kill yourself. Many are thoughts transferable to the modern world, though others seem little more than little tales that seem irrelevant today and simply of the time in which they were conceived. Those left out by Wilson are more administrative matters or simple accounts of events of the time, with those included the more interesting point to teach us about an important way of life in Japanese history.

Read, I now have Internet evidence of its completion, though the spine looks barely touched.

Days to read: 17

Days per book: 16

The Nigger Factory (Gil Scott-Heron)

With a delightful title, 'The Nigger Factory' is the second novel written by poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron. Like much of his music, it's a political piece about the educational system in America during the Sixties. Set at a Black college in Virginia, it focuses on a three day period in which student protest erupts into violence.

Earl Thomas is the student president at Sutton University, and with two friends creates a list of actions they want to see taken at the University. The ideas are stolen by a more militant student group who quickly force the 'demands' on the powers that be within the university. The students demand immediate action, which the university refuses to give into, resulting in a student strike, internal conflict and the eventual closing of the university campus.

In seeking education and wanting to see change to the way the university is managed, what results is a violent struggle and all being left without. Scott-Heron wrote the book as a criticism of the educational system and its slow progress in updating with the times, without really allowing students to move forward with the times.

Like 'The Vulture' before it, 'The Nigger Factory' is a good read, with some interesting ideas and critiques on the changing times of the Sixties and Seventies.

Days to read: 14

Days per book: 15.9

Homage to Catalonia (George Orwell)

So continues my mission to get all of George Orwell's books read by some point in my life: now at 'Homage to Catalonia'. Written from memory of his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War, the book is a war diary about the complex political divisions within the War which would shape much of what he would subsequently write.

Little fighting actually happens over the course of the book. The start is more a description of how he and fellow militiamen kept themselves entertained when stationed at the Front Line with little more to do than stare back at the opposition. Then a long period of stand-off in Barcelona where little actually happens in the end. The comes his infamous neck wound from being shot, resulting in hospital stays and his attempts to leave the country once his group is outlawed. The book then closes with his take on the political divisions in Spain at the time he was there.

On paper, this isn't the most entertaining of reads. And, indeed, it isn't. But 'Homage to Catalonia' is an important step in Orwell's life and the experience of fighting fascism in Spain in the Thirties would shape his most famous works in the Forties, and for that reason alone, it is an important read in Orwell's oeuvre. 

Days to read: 14

Days per book: 15.9

A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings (Charles Dickens)

Reading 'A Christmas Carol' almost feels like a thankless task, being that the story has been told in a hundred ways on screen and stage. With 'The Muppet Christmas Carol' working direct from a lot of lines in the book, I almost felt like I knew half of it before having turned a page. But persevere I did.

And I'm glad I did. I can't remember having ever read any Dickens before, and 'A Christmas Carol' is a story full of wit and humour that wouldn't come across in a film, only by reading.

But while 'A Christmas Carol' proved to be the classic that it is, the other writings in this collection weren't really for me. While '' and 'A Christmas Tree' are short descriptive pieces of a Christmas scene, but some of the others feel like long, overdrawn, Victorian descriptions of bleak life, which my uneducated mind felt in no way entertaining.

I'm sure much of Dickens' other classics are as good as they are made into films and comedy parodies for, and I'm sure I will try some at some point, but only half of what was contained here worked for me. But still, with this collection of writing, you can see the sheer influence that Dickens' writing has had on the modern ideals of Christmas. God bless us, everyone.

Days to read: 14

Days per book: 15.9

Coming Up for Air (George Orwell)

I'm really starting to nail this fourteen days per book malarkey now: four books read; fourteen days to read each now. And what's more, I've notched off another Orwell. Oh, and another good one - the man now has a one hundred percent record with me; and my opinion counts, whether I use semi-colons or not.

Tired and fed-up with his life and the modern world, George Bowling yearns for the days of his childhood in a small village, away from the stresses or work, family and the sheer absurdity of everything he sees before him. But on leaving London to visit his boyhood home, he finds something different, but soon realises that the more things change, the more they stay the same, returning to his life and the endless cycles of nothingness he now feels.

What struck me first about 'Coming Up For Air' is its timelessness. Written in 1938, it is a book that feels just as relevant today as it did before the Second World War. With so much future on the future and the inevitable and looming threat of war with Germany. So much of what is written seems to come to pass, making the bleak view of the future seem more relevant than that of '1984'.

'Coming Up For Air' is a beautifully easy read, much less political than some of his other works, but with a similar effect, and along with his other works, like 'Burmese Days', says as much about the world now as it did when it was written.

Days to read: 14

Days per book: 15.8