The Bluest Eye

I finished this book on the train from one client meeting to another. For many reasons, the book struck me and I hope I was as moved as Toni Morrison wanted her readers to be.

This struck me:-

We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humour. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used - to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength.

And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only agggressive; we were not free, merely licensced; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word.

[p163 of my edition]

There are some books, and films that make me quiet inside. And there are others that have my mind racing. Incomprehensibly, this book did both, at once. As I walked through icy winds from the train station to my workplace, I thought about these words. I thought about being not good, not free, not strong. I thought about how I delude myself into thinking I am these things.

I thought, also, about another passage that struck me in the book. That struck me because it sounded like it could be about me - or at least (or worst?) an eloquent articulation how I am feeling about myself at the moment.

[H]e found misanthropy an excellent means of developing character: when he subdued his revulsion and occasionally touched, helped, counseled, or befriended somebody, he was able to think of his behaviour as generous and his intentions as noble. When he was enraged by some human effort or flaw, he was able to regard himself as discriminating, fastidious, and full of nice scruples.

As in the case of many misanthropes, his disdain for people led him into a profession designed to serve them.

[from page 131 of my addition]

I could keep on in this vein. I could keep typing out passages in some kind of homage to Toni Morrison's ability to hold a mirror to my view of myself, and of the world. I would be doing so mostly to impress upon you the need to experience Toni Morrison's ability to hold a mirror up to yourself. You will probably find different things that hit you where it hurts, that make you confront some ugly truth you don't want to admit about yourself. But you will find them.

The first novel I read of Toni Morrison's was Song of Solomon. Someone gave it to me thinking it was a rendering of the Biblical love story of Solomon. And certainly, it was something like that. (Not that I am overly familiar with Biblical stories, but I suspect Toni Morrison is.) I know, when I read Toni Morrison, that I will be horrified and saddened, and rendered so much more human because of my horror. But I have never before been so discomfited - and not because of the incestuous rape of a character by her father - but by the way she has implicated me - the reader of a piece of fiction - in the act.

I could more succintly say what all the above ramble means: You, too, should read The Bluest Eye.

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More Randomness (Eight more, to be exact)

Hedgehog has tagged me to do an 8 Random Things meme.

The 8 Random Things meme has a rules list. I don't like rules, especially the kind that suggest chain lettering. I guess that's what memes are: chain blogging. Anyway, I'll post the rules (cribbed from Hedgehog) but I'm not abiding by the rules. So there.

"Rules:
Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged."

Seeing that eight is the number of children in my family, I am going to tell you a random thing about each of them in order of seniority.

1. My eldest brother is the shining child of the family: a first born, a boy and born in the year of the Dragon. All things must go well for this brother, or else he betrays his lucky birth. Thus far, all things have been going pretty well for him. My eldest bro and I bookend our family well: he can do, and has never done, any wrong. I have been rebellious and troublesome since before I could even speak. My father's affectionate term for my mother is: Mother of [my eldest brother's name]. In contrast, my mother's term of annoyance for my father is: Father of Oanh.

2. Next in line is the Black Belt. The Black Belt is born in the same creature year as me (I baulk from typing Chinese Zodiac but I cannot think what else to call it. In Vietnamese, I would say he was born in the same year as me, but that suggests he is my twin.) This means that he is exactly twelve years older than I am. What else that might mean, I do not know.

3. Finally, a girl! I have great admiration for my eldest sis. She brought me up, is a wonderful mother and amazing cook, and she sure knows her own mind. Much like all the women in my family, actually. But eldest sis has been the one who has forged all the paths for the rest of us. By the time my parents got to me, they were too worn to fight my stubbornness.

4. Another girl! Next sister along is the most independent. She lived for a long time with my grandmother and grandfather, rather than our parents. She always held an aura of mystery for me, when I was young.

5. Another girl? This sister was the tomboy of the family. She and sister above pushed my uncle into the river. And held him there. When I was in primary school, it was her task to walk me from home to school and safely back again. She was impatient with my drifting, meandering ways, and my much shorter legs. She often arrived home without me and would toss her head disdainfully when my parents asked after me.

6. What? Another girl? Although this sister was closest to me in age, she felt the furthest away. She always seemed so much more mature than me. I put it down to her being girly; she, to me being pigheaded. I'm right, of course. After adolescence, however, we became, and have remained, quite close.

7. My brother breaks the chain: one more girl and a row and we would have all been princesses. Instead, he is spoiled rotten. This is very lucky for me. I would have made a crap princess.

8. And along comes me. You already know all about me.

I ain't tagging nobody. And no rules are gonna make me, either.

Also, I am going to be absent awhile (I know I've been pretty absent for ages now. Sorry.) I will be home, and filling my guts with my family's cooking: goi cuon, pho, banh xeo, bun nuouc leo, banh canh, crabs, and fabulous Brisbane food of all cuisines!

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I am a Nerd!

For a long time now, the tags list has been really bothering me. I much prefer a tag cloud. Del.icio.us first introduced me to the wonders of tag clouds (gmail having already introduced me to tags) and Wordpress has a tag cloud function. It has been annoying me that Blogger doesn't. Annoying me so much that I contemplated switching blogging platform over to Wordpress. However, I am attached to Blogger and Google otherwise runs my life, so I could not quite make the leap.

Although I was an early uptaker of e-mail and all things internetty, I sort of plateaued. I never learned any html (I cut and paste from other sites). Then I got my partner. When computery-type things go wrong, I plaintively say his name, elongating his single syllable into two. If things are really bad, I use three. Sporadically, and without much commitment, I google to find simplistic me a tag cloud maker. As you can see, just over there to your left, I have finally been successful.

Should you also wish to make a tag cloud and have otherwise not done so, here is the link.

I was so happy with the result, I thought I would make a thank you comment. So I surfed my way over to the original post. Plenty more people have been there before me, with their two cents: 370 of them. Mine seems pitiful, and possibly bothersome, so I haven't commented. Here, and this, seems a better forum to thank the tag cloud maker.

Phydeaux3, should you ever find your way here: Thank you. The list was really ugly. I like the cloud much better.



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