Monday, December 28, 2015

Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow: Book Review

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.”-A. Huxley


Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow: Review

By Armando Ortiz

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was born in England and is best known for his novels Brave New World, Point Counter Point, Island, and numerous essays that touch on topics of culture, society, the human body, medicine and religion. At some point in his life he saw his house and everything in it burn to the ground. He continued to write all the way up to his last days. Though he is not widely discussed in our perspective society he’s had a significant impact on the way many of his readers approach life.

In Crome Yellow there is a story that is told by one of his characters where a dwarf ends up inheriting the family house along with the family fortune. What was strange about the dwarf was not his size or the fact that everyone around him was regular sized. It was the manner he went about transforming everything around him to conform to his inner ideals and desires. His parents loved him and gave him the best education that was possible. Then his family began to die, making him think about his life and the legacy, if any, that would be left after he died. The dwarf’s preoccupation with marriage and having children made him start dating, but in his mind stature was a problem. For a time he dated a woman that was of normal height and they got along well, but that still didn’t satisfy him. He didn’t want to live in a world that reminded him of his short stature. So he paid a match maker to go out and look for a woman that was about his height and came from a respectful and decent household.

The matchmaker ends up finding a fair woman who also was also a dwarf, and soon she was brought back to the estate. They soon married and managed to live two years together without having children, since he was preoccupied with the fear of having regular sized kids or worse, dwarf kids. The man of the house went about reducing everything inside to fit their size. The tables and chairs were reduced in height, and the doors and beds as well. He also proceeded to slowly fire his servants and replace them with servant dwarfs. The couple also found ponies to replace the regular horses. By the time their first and only baby son was born the whole mansion and people living there had been transformed.

The baby grew, and by the time he was a few months old they knew he would be a regular sized person. What had kept them from having children in the first place came to be. All the work that they had put into their house thinking that they’d live a dwarf’s life became a bit problematic. Nevertheless, the kid grew and went to school and by the time he was eight years old was as tall as his father. Instead of dealing with the problems the child would face living in a dwarf’s house, the parents decided to send him to boarding school. The kid’s primary and secondary education were spent studying somewhere else, but of course the kid returned home for the holidays and for summer vacation. As time passed, his visits and his attitude grew more and more aggressive towards them. He’d purposely break things and mistreated the dwarf servants. The story continues to unfold and eventually leads to some very unfortunate and sad events, but I will let the reader finish the story themselves.

In the book, Huxley briefly mentions the Nazi, but this short story found in the novel Crome Yellow can be seen as an allegorical allusion to what the Nazi would do in the years to come. The Nazi government and everyone that took part in all the atrocities during World War Two tried to change their society to the extent that they began removing Jews from the general population, then the handicap, then gypsies, then homosexuals, and even then some Jehovah Witnesses. They were moved into ghettos and then into concentration camps to be separate from the German population initiating the attempt at the slow eradication of their populations.

The Nazi believed in a pure and strong race where every German idealized quality that was prized could be seen in its people. Yet, Huxley’s allegory begs a question- what if they would have been successful in their attempts, and they would have cleansed their society of every perceived ill or threat? Would evil and prejudice itself have disappeared from society? What would have become of their society? Would less criminal activity exist? Would prostitution have been eradicated? Would everyone have had equal access to goods and services? Would poverty have been wiped out? Would the violent and mentally ill no longer exist? Would the chronic poor no longer exist? Huxley points to the son that the two dwarves produced and says no. Human beings are too complex to define them as this or that. Yes, there are people that have different cultural backgrounds, but to have the certainty that by ridding society of certain groups of people for the sole reason that they have some marked difference or strange tradition will never be a valid reason to exterminate other humans. Though, of course, history is riddled with such events and not one piece of land on this earth has been immune to this reality. Instead of focusing on the things that mattered in life, the dwarf focused on changing things around him, though he could not control how his own son would grow up to be.

Drawing of Huxley

Trying to alter your surroundings in such a way that it meets your idealized vision of how the world should run will never work. Even today with all the technological advances that we have has proven that humans still need to go out and work, and be active or else they turn into something disturbingly unnatural. One thing remains certain, and that is the randomness and serendipitous nature of life and human nature and the human spirit. Good and evil cannot be walled in or put into an ivory castle because no matter how good a society might be or think it is there will always be an element of evil and deviance in human nature.

Huxley suggests that things ought to be left alone and that we ought to just live life. Living with the aim of being aware of what is going on in our society and being the change we want the world to be. 1921, when he wrote Crome Yellow one could only gather hints as to what would happen in Europe in the next few decades, yet he was able to embed his criticism of society within his writings and look ahead to the oncoming problems.

Metaphorically speaking cannibalism does exist in our societies, and everyday people are being exploited and used for economic and political gain, more specifically undocumented immigrants, the chronic poor and women. The machine continues to churn and devour those whose voice is not heard. In the past, concentration camps segregated certain segments of the community, which in turn were sent to gas chambers and pyres. In Europe, Jews were seen as expendable, and these days its people are deemed illegal aliens and have no rights. There will always be oppressed and ignored people and those in power will try to rid themselves of the unwanted by using force or nowadays the media with its endless entertainment will create a collective stereotype and amnesia of people that lack political and economic power.

In the past, Empires exercised force, and everyone knew the empire was being created at the expense of other societies. In the 20th century empire and conquest began to take a new shape, being that the media became more refined via film, radio, magazines and newspapers. During the first half of that century those in power knew what was going on and Huxley suggested that force and elimination of the unwanted solved nothing.


Sunday, December 27, 2015

Roberto Bolano's 2666: Book Review

Roberto Bolano’s 2666: Review

By Armando Ortiz

Introduction:

Roberto Bolano,born in Chile, spent significant time in Mexico with brief visits to Chile and El Salvador before eventually moving to Spain. There he had several odd jobs before having success with writing. In between his travels and writing, Bolano faced addiction but managed to get clean. As a result he managed to create literature that is not your common everyday reading. Instead it's material that makes you think, unblinds and changes your life. 

First and foremost, Bolano’s 2666 is a novel that will leave a lasting impression on your life and conscience, making it a worthwhile read. 2666 explores the search for answers to unsolved murders through the use of symbolic imagery. Additionally, the novel delves into the theme of migration and its impact on individuals. Another significant aspect of the novel is the presence of marginalized characters and their struggles.

Bolano populates his novel with characters from the cultural and societal fringes, taking readers on a journey from Mexico to the U.S. and eventually settling in Europe. Bolano reveals how invisible affect marginalized individuals and lead to collective amnesia, blinding us to what is truly happening in our communities. He does this by telling the story in a dark and gothic manner, as if one were watching a mystery horror movie.

This essay will mainly focus on two themes found in Bolano’s epic novel. I will start first with a short description of some of the various characters that live in the novel and what makes them unique. Then I will move on to a reflection on the world that Bolano paints in his writing where the poor, oppressed and marginalized exist, and make connections to our contemporary society and culture.


Frontier Characters at the Margins:

The novel is riddled with writers of all sorts. Struggling writers that are barely making ends meet, but are publishing books and articles- though in small time publications. Life for these artists is tough, earning low wages and publications are meant for small readerships.

For instance, one of the characters in the novel is professor Morini, a German literature specialist who chairs the academic circle responsible for selecting papers for publication. Although he is a cultural gatekeeper he is drawn to the life of a marginal artist who at one point decides to cut off his hand. This artist does so for shock value and monetary gain.

Another character, Oscar Fate, works for an African American magazine and is forced to delve into Santa Teresas’s criminal underworld. He visits the training compound of a boxer and there finds a fellow African American from Los Angeles who is working as a sparring boxer. They both reminisce on life in Mexico and the US. 

Similarly, Josue Hernandez Mercado, a Chicano character, works for a small community newspaper. The books he's written and published are written in an unorthodox manner, where he code switches from Spanish and English, making him an unconventional writer on the crossroads of two cultural fringes. Despite his unconventional style a small-time literary company from Texas has published two volumes of his poetry and two of his novels. Similarly, we encounter a person who picks up from where Josue left off. Mary-Sue Bravo, is another Chicana writer who works for a small-time newspaper in Phoenix, Arizona.

Furthermore, Lalo Cura is a local from Santa Teresa and is recruited into the police force. The gradual transformation of his life from street kid to police officer is interesting. Lalo has a penchant for learning and at one point begins to independently read books on how to conduct investigations. He begins implementing what he’s been learning, but is quickly discouraged to do so by his boss. Later, Lalo’s life gets further entangled in the mysteries of his city. 

Moreover, these characters are representative of endemic issues around the world. The problems of a society whose marginalized ghetto dwellers are intimately in tune with. They are left to solve their problems with crime and violence. In Bolano’s world this is not possible, because no one attempts to stop the murder of women and the disappearance of males. These characters, despite their unconventional backgrounds, attempt to solve the unknown murders.


Fear, Poverty and Marginalized:

 A broader theme that he deals with is precisely the life of the poor and vagrants. The overlooked are left to fend for themselves and to find some type of concrete solution to their daily survival, which turns into fear of being involved in anything that might jeopardize their lives. Witnesses to crimes prefer to run away to avoid involvement and implication. In Santa Teresa cops and medical help rarely show up on time, preferring to let time pass so as not to have to go through the whole process of questioning people. Though there are crimes and violence happening in Santa Teresa the only attention it gets is from sensationalist magazines or or small time reporters - the marginal publications. 

In relation to the marginalized populations in Santa Teresa, Bolano explores the theme of poverty and the exploitation of marginalized people. Jobs are plentiful in the city, but not enough time for selfcare; pay is minimal at most and delayed. There is a sense that people are able to sustain themselves, but not in the manner that is intended for to further develop socially, communally and culturally. The city experiences a constant influx of people, partly due to its proximity to the US border and the demand for cheap labor. The pull to these centers seems to be a dark force, like a meat grinder, where people end up not by choice nor by chance. In essence, the fictional city of Santa Teresa is representative of the pressures societies living on the margins face. 

Similarly, the German peasants recruited to fight on the Russian front during World War Two are descendants of German peasants who fought in The Great War. In the novel the poor fight the poor in wars, and return to their hometowns maimed. As  handicapped men, attempting to resume their “normal” peasant lives. Just like some of the cops in Santa Teresa, who are drawn into violence regardless how that came to be, come from the chronically poor parts of Mexico. Their allegiances fluctuate between government officials and powerful narcos, who provide them with food, pay and guns to kill or protect them. In the end these cops, like the soldiers of the eastern front, are also powerless. Somehow, we become accomplices to these ills, because we are either blind or have been kept blind. We forget that we might be one step away from being in poverty and homeless. 


Reflection and Conclusion:

The novel connects to my world because it reminds me how to get entertained is easier than staying informed. It is easy to hear about a girl that was kidnapped somewhere in the Midwest, yet remain blind to numerous women disappearing in Native American Reservations. There are those that do look at the grimy and overlooked side of life, but they are few and their voices have yet to reach the ears of the general population. Bolano becomes the shaman who points at how there is no spiritual or moral starvation, but there is a general malnourishment in society. As long as humans walk this earth the greatest concern and fear is not what might become of us, but of what we are now and have been for centuries doing to each other. 

Bolano created characters that in real life might get overlooked and live in the fringes. He focuses on how our surroundings and the margins of society are affected by external forces. It is either society or the powers that be that create a collective amnesia, blinding us to what occurs in our communities. A meaningful existence that has ritual and meaningful connection is missing, and maybe has been its inception. 

Bolano exposes the ills of society, highlighting how the powerful dominate the weak. He makes us look at our own communities as he reveals these things in his novel. The irony is that all around the world, the poor and marginalized, the invincible, are the ones who become keenly aware of the forces that affect the lives of other invisible populations. To them what happens in the streets is nothing new, but what was happening in Santa Teresa was shocking.