Runaway Train

J.D. Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye

Another classic I had on my list for years but never managed to finish. Fascinating read, I had really missed out on something up to now.

I guess there is an "outer" and an "inner" story to this book. 17 year old Holden Caulfield gets once more kicked out of a prestigious boarding school. Having some days  left before his parents expect him back for Christmas holidays, Caulfield sets off for New York City. He books himself into a  run-down hotel, hangs out in various bars, gets drunk, tries to hook up with some tourists and ends the night with a botched attempt to hire a prostitute.

The next day, Caulfield manages to organize a date with an old date of his. Caulfield gets mad at her after she refuses to run off with him, ending the date in an argument. After more drinking, Caulfield finally heads home to see his baby sister Phoebe, all the while evading his parents' attention (who still do not know that he has been kicked out of school). Sneaking out of his family's apartment once his parents arrive, Caulfield visits his old English teacher who seems to be making an approach on him while he sleeps. The next day arranges for a meeting with Phoebe. Caulfield is all set on finally running off and heading west, but, after an argument with Phoebe, finally decides to head home. 

The "inner story" is much more relevant, though. Not sure whether the narrative technique can be labelled a stream of consciousness, but the whole story is told on the basis of Caulfield's thoughts and perceptions. Alienation and the loss of innocence seem to be the big themes. Caulfield feels surrounded by a world of "phonies", essentially (adult) people pretending to be something they aren't. He is definitely not a loner in the classic sense, having no problem finding people to spend time with during his days in New York. At the same time, he maintains his distance to virtually everybody he engages with. Caulfield's baby sister, Phoebe, seems to be the only person in the story he can properly relate to, mainly because she has still got the innocence of a child.

Overall a great read and a classic not to be missed... Salinger gives a great depiction of 1940s New York. Much more important, the book's central themes are easy to identify with. Wondering whether alienation would become a life-long theme for Caulfield, or whether he will simply settle into a life in accordance with social expectations one day....

Random Movie Association

Feels a bit like Home Alone 2. Drunk, on prozac and with a bit more sex.

Favorite quotes:

"Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad"

"I'm not kidding, the hotel was lousy with perverts. I was probably the only normal bastard in that place- and that isn't saying much."

"Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell."

"Guys that are very mean. Guys that never read books. Guys that are very boring"

"Lovely my ass"

"All of them swimming around in a goddam pot of tea and saying sophisticated stuff to each other and being charming and phony."

"I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dumb me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery."

"You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you are not looking, somebody will sneak up and write "fuck you" right under your nose."

"Don't ever tell anybody anything. if you do, you start missing everybody."

Take It Easy

William B. Irvine: A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

My first philosophy book outside the realm of political theory. Ever. Which makes me wonder whether this is a sign of a lack of education and previous interest or of an emerging mid-life crisis?

Irving sets out to make the work of ancient stoic philosophers accessible to readers who are looking for a practical philosophy of life. He focuses especially on the work of four Roman stoics, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Rather than merely reviewing their works, however, he breaks stoic philosophy down into various stoic techniques and advice on how to achieve tranquility in life:

• Negative visualization: The major technique of stoicism. This technique is about contemplating something bad happening, the loss of something valued. Negative visualization is to be done without emotions, with the purpose of better appreciating the things one has in life and being better prepared to deal with losses.
• Control: Breaking down things according to whether we have complete, partial or no control at all over them. A stoic internalizes his/ her goals and focuses on things over which he/ she has at least partial control.
• Fatalism: As it is impossible to alter the past or what is happening right now, a stoic should focus on embracing the moment (and influencing the future...).
• Self-Denial: Accept voluntary acts of discomfort and forego opportunities for pleasure.
• Meditation: Meditate regularly on the events of the day, and compare one's behavior to stoic principles.
• Duty: A stoic sees his primary duty as being rational, and focuses on living among others and interacting with them in a mutually advantageous manner.
• Social relations: Do not let other people poison your tranquility. A stoic does not waste time on thinking about what others may be doing or scheming, but also reflects on his/ her own shortcomings when feeling annoyed by others. Annoying incidents should be put in a cosmic context.
• Insults: The best way to react to an insult is to remove the sting it causes, and then to react with (self-depreciating) humor or simply ignore it.
• Grief: One of the ways a stoic can use to get over grief is to apply retrospective negative visualization, i.e. imagining one had never had the person one lost in one's life.
• Anger: Interestingly, stoicism (at least in Irvine's interpretation) embraces feigning anger in order to deter other people from acting in an unfriendly manner again. At the same time, stoicism admonishes us that allowing oneself to get angry means allowing to have one's tranquility shattered.
• Personal fame: Stoics shouldn't be seeking other people's opinion, but rather the things they have control over.

Overall, a nice little introduction to stoicism with some useful day-to-day advice. The book seems a bit too long though, and tends to get repetitive in the later chapters. I also had the impression that the authors kind of over-states his case in defense of stoicism against, among other, modern psychotherapy. The stoic techniques and advice Irvine lays out are convincing enough on their own; his chapter on the defense of stoicism doesn't really add to the book. Still, a recommendable reading. Not only for people approaching a mid-life crisis.

Random movie association:
Let's beat up a philosopher...

Favorite quotes: 

"It is impossible that happiness, and yearning for what is not present, should ever be united" (Epictetus).

"If we want our life to go well ... we should, rather than wanting events to conform to our desires, make our desires conform to events" (Epictetus paraphrased by Irvine)

"I must have as my goal "the service and harmony of all ... I am bound to do good to my fellow-creatures and bear with them." (Marcus Aurelius, who btw had a very, very skeptical view of humankind in general)

"What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgement about these things." (Epictetus)

"Anger is brief insanity... No plague has cost the human race more" (Seneca)

"We are bad men living among bad men, and only one thing can calm us- we must agree to go easy on one another." (Seneca)

"To have whatsoever he wishes is in no man's power, it is in his power not to wish for what he has not, but cheerfully to employ what comes to him" (Seneca)

Lost in Translation

Viet Thanh Nguen: The Sympathizer

My novel of the year up to now. Well, and it also won the 2016 Pullitzer Price for Fiction.

The story is told from the perspective of a captain in the South Vietnamese Army, an intelligence officer who has in fact been spying for the Vietkong for years. Being evacuated from Saigon during the chaotic last weeks of the Republic of Vietnam, the young captain finds himself in the Vietnamese exile community in Los Angeles. He stays part of the entourage of his old general, who is planning to start an insurgency in the now communist Vietnam. In order to protect his cover as a communist spy, the young captain gets implicated in the murder of two exile Vietnamese suspected to be Vietcong sympathizers, acts as a consultant on an American movie on the Vietnam war, and ultimately participates in an ill-fated military incursion into Vietnam which (somehow ironically) brings him into a communist re-education camp.

Nguen does a really great job of describing his various historical settings, be it the chaos of Saigon in April 1975 or the Asian community in Los Angeles. The major reason to like the book, however, is its central theme: alienation and ironic distance.The young army captain remains continuously aware of his mixed Vietnamese- French descent, which already makes him an outsider in his own country. He maintains a detached attitude during his time in the United States, continuously observing his environment with profound sarcasm, but without getting absorbed or integrated into it. The non-committal affair he begins with an American-Japanese university clerk nicely exemplifies this, as do the two murders the young army captain, who had never killed somebody during the war, gets involved in. The entire story is told with a dark sense of humor, which nicely plays together with the setting of war, espionage and murder.

Random movie association:
Obviously something related to Apocalypse Now...

Favorite quotes:
"In short, I was in a familiar place, the place of feeling unfamiliar, which I responded to in my usual fashion by arming myself with a gin and tonic."

"And let's get one thing straight, playboy. If we get involved, and that's a big if, there are no strings attached. You do not fall in love with me and I do not fall in love with you"

Favorite music reference:
Bang bang, je ne l'oublierai pas (the French version of Nancy Sinatra's song). Sung by the general's daughter at a show for the Vietnamese exile community in Los Angeles.

This is the End

Robert Harris: Dictator


Part 3 of Robert Harris' trilogy on the life of Roman statesman Cicero. It follows Imperium and Conspirata. Once more an awesome read. Definitely if one has studied Latin for five years and is into nerdy ancient Rome staff, but also for everybody else...

The novel starts off with Cicero in exile, with his old enemy Clodius having been elected tribune with the help of Julius Caesar. We then see, among others, Cicero return to Rome, his alignment with Pompeius in the civil war against Caesar, Caesar's reign as dictator and assassination, and Cicero's increasing opposition against Marc Anthony and support for Caesar's adopted son, Octavian. Ultimately, Cicero is being killed after Marc Anthony and Octavian (temporarily) settle their differences. At Marc Anthony's bequest, Cicero's hands and head were displayed on the rostra (the platform for public speeches) on the forum romanum.

The book is every bit as thrilling as its predecessors. It offers great insights into the end of the Roman Republic. What is especially interesting is to follow the increasingly violent politics and populism of the late republic, all against the background of still existing republican political institutions. In that regard, ancient Rome may offer interesting insights to better understand nowadays contested/ semi-democratic regimes, such as Iraq or Afghanistan. The character of Cicero os also nicely captured as a classic politician thrust into increasingly militarized power politics. Finally, the book offers some nice insights on Cicero's philosophical work during his late years. I am not too familiar with his philosophy, but the way Harris describes it, it seems it had a lot of stoic elements. 

Overall, another magnificent read and a great piece of historical fiction. Harris likened it to a "West-Wing-on-the-Tiber",  the perfect description... Perhaps not entirely en par with Robert Graves' I Claudius, but the target audience is also a bit different. Robert Harris has constantly managed to convince over the last decade, be it An Officer and a Spy or Pompeii. 

Random movie association:
Frank Drebin and the Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar...

Favorite quote: 
"A room without books is like a body without a soul."