The monoliths
rise before our eyes,
vertical steppes of basalt and sunburnt grass-
so out of place in this country,
this barren country,
stumps and thirst and empty wombs,
timber stripped and turned mockingly skyward.
How,
how on earth,
did they find time to build tombs while...
oh.
Oh.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Chinese eunuchs and PKD's Exegesis
Hey, look, it's been a while. What a surprise.
I blame school, mostly. The semester's simultaneously flown and crawled by, punctuated by one Chinese assignment after another, logic tests, and so on. I've got a week of classes left after Thanksgiving, and then finals. Or a final, really, since my last grades for three-fourths of my classes will come in the form of papers and such.
School stuff aside, I've been doing what I always do, and that's read. This habit almost unquestionably gets in the way of school sometimes, but I don't care, because it's reading, dude, and therefore impossible to classify as detrimental behavior. I've read a handful of books over the past couple months, and am in the midst of several more. Two of these, the recently-published Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, and The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty by Shih-Shan Henry Tsai, deserve special note. No, I'm not going to try and relate the two.
The Ming eunuch book, along with another volume (The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China by Timothy Brook, which I finished in October) have been invaluable resources about aspects of Chinese history that usually receive a few passing comments or are dealt with in broad strokes. Since I decided to take a stab at writing an historical novel that partly involves Ming China, I've read a number of books and essays dealing with various features of said dynasty, and the Tsai and Brook books have so far been my favorites- not only because they're packed with information that almost always leads to further research (God, so much to learn!), but because they've helped solidify some of my ideas for the novel. Not to mention they're both well-written and well-researched books.
The eunuch thing has been particularly fascinating. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around almost every aspect of castration-as-career-advancement, mainly because I can barely put up with what modern work demands of me. Complete emasculation under horribly unsafe conditions so I can work in the imperial household (if I'm lucky)? No thanks. Still, Tsai's book casts new light on the positive role eunuchs played in various spheres of Ming life, contrasting what he describes as a systematic bias against them by the betesticled scholar-gentry. He doesn't deny that there were notorious eunuchs, but clearly feels that those who did admirable work have been overshadowed in the history books. I would complain that the book could use some more personalized, humanizing accounts of eunuch life, but I think the absence of such material, both from this book and the historical record, proves Tsai's point. When I was in China I saw a biography of the last Qing eunuch, Sun Yaoting, who died in 1996, and while he was born a couple centuries after the end of the Ming dynasty, I bet his story would be worth hearing.
On to a different form of madness. No, madness isn't the right word, whether dealing with an era when "voluntary self-castration became epidemic," to quote Tsai, or the 8,000 mostly handwritten pages of Philip K. Dick's Exegesis, a personal (i.e., not really meant for publication) investigation into the causes and effects of what PKD called 2-3-74. This series of events is well-known to fans of PKD's work (hey, that's me!), and there's plenty about it online, so I'll spare you and I both a description. It would be easy to write off Dick's experiences as some kind of insanity or mental breakdown, but in my opinion such an approach wouldn't be accurate.
Well, not entirely accurate. The Exegesis as it exists in printed form is roughly a tenth of the material Dick wrote before his death in 1982, and I'm less than a tenth of the way through this version, which puts me at less than 1% of the original work. (Which will probably never be published in its entirety- the introduction to the excerpted version makes this clear, and the text itself makes it clear why.) Even at this point I find myself in that most interesting of positions: unconvinced by Dick's explanations of what happened to him, yet deeply intrigued by the variety of possibilities he entertains and his workings-out of them.
The degree of self-examination- which is what the Exegesis is at its core, albeit a type of self-examination that understands the self as part of something much greater; the whole microcosm/macrocosm thing, generally speaking- is staggering, downright Proustian at times, if Proust had had metaphysical and cosmological concerns as his focus. This kind of feverish attempt to explain one's experiences via constantly-shifting models- including Dick's own books, ancient Christianity, and extraterrestrial intelligence(s)- is one of the things that leads many to believe Dick lost it in the early '70s, which maybe he did to some degree. I see it- at least right now- as a sort of awakening, although since I really enjoy PKD's later work my opinion may be biased, and the books that emerged from the 2-3-74 thing aren't a complete break from earlier work anyway. A thematic detour, perhaps, but not a 180. I can't argue that the behavior that produced the Exegesis isn't obsessive, but again, I wouldn't necessarily use that term in a negative sense.
Another striking feature of the Exegesis is Dick's impressive knowledge. Some of his ruminations are grounded in faulty understanding, sure, but the ease with which he discusses philosophy, religion, and science gives me hope. In our day and age (read: the Internet era) one doesn't come across polymathic minds as often as one would like, so seeing Dick expound on all kinds of things, seemingly off the cuff, is a distinct pleasure. His wide range of interests is apparent in many of his novels, but it really shows when he isn't bound by narrative or plot. This in turn relates to why people are interested in writers' unpublished work: they like to see what writers write for themselves.
Christ, all this pontificating makes it sound like I've read more than I have- how could I glean this much from less than eighty pages? There's a couple ways to address this. One: by virtue of all the other PKD books and related material I've read over the years, I effectively have read more of, and about, the Exegesis. Two: despite being a fraction of the way through, my prior knowledge, and the structure of the book itself, leads me to believe that what I've read thus far is representative of the rest of the book. Not in terms of content, necessarily, but I think the central conceit- understanding his own experiences and, by extension, reality itself- will remain. If it doesn't, great; I'm down for all kinds of diversions from the path, the detours from detours, and seeing as how this isn't the kind of book one reads quickly, I'll have plenty of time to ponder each of Dick's new theories about why things are the way they are.
As I mentioned earlier, Dick's theories don't convince me, even though I enjoy mulling them over. I don't get the impression that he's trying to convince me, though- why would he, since the Exegesis wasn't meant for a particularly wide audience? Personal project or not, I'm glad it has reached a wider audience, which will find all kinds of intellectual gems (or proof of madness, depending on how one reads it) and interpret the work in all kinds of ways. If anything, the Exegesis will be good for that- not bad for a personal project!
It appears logorrhea's gotten the best of me. It's time to work on something else, so I'll say goodbye for now, and I'll try to write more often. Later, folks.
I blame school, mostly. The semester's simultaneously flown and crawled by, punctuated by one Chinese assignment after another, logic tests, and so on. I've got a week of classes left after Thanksgiving, and then finals. Or a final, really, since my last grades for three-fourths of my classes will come in the form of papers and such.
School stuff aside, I've been doing what I always do, and that's read. This habit almost unquestionably gets in the way of school sometimes, but I don't care, because it's reading, dude, and therefore impossible to classify as detrimental behavior. I've read a handful of books over the past couple months, and am in the midst of several more. Two of these, the recently-published Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, and The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty by Shih-Shan Henry Tsai, deserve special note. No, I'm not going to try and relate the two.
The Ming eunuch book, along with another volume (The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China by Timothy Brook, which I finished in October) have been invaluable resources about aspects of Chinese history that usually receive a few passing comments or are dealt with in broad strokes. Since I decided to take a stab at writing an historical novel that partly involves Ming China, I've read a number of books and essays dealing with various features of said dynasty, and the Tsai and Brook books have so far been my favorites- not only because they're packed with information that almost always leads to further research (God, so much to learn!), but because they've helped solidify some of my ideas for the novel. Not to mention they're both well-written and well-researched books.
The eunuch thing has been particularly fascinating. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around almost every aspect of castration-as-career-advancement, mainly because I can barely put up with what modern work demands of me. Complete emasculation under horribly unsafe conditions so I can work in the imperial household (if I'm lucky)? No thanks. Still, Tsai's book casts new light on the positive role eunuchs played in various spheres of Ming life, contrasting what he describes as a systematic bias against them by the betesticled scholar-gentry. He doesn't deny that there were notorious eunuchs, but clearly feels that those who did admirable work have been overshadowed in the history books. I would complain that the book could use some more personalized, humanizing accounts of eunuch life, but I think the absence of such material, both from this book and the historical record, proves Tsai's point. When I was in China I saw a biography of the last Qing eunuch, Sun Yaoting, who died in 1996, and while he was born a couple centuries after the end of the Ming dynasty, I bet his story would be worth hearing.
On to a different form of madness. No, madness isn't the right word, whether dealing with an era when "voluntary self-castration became epidemic," to quote Tsai, or the 8,000 mostly handwritten pages of Philip K. Dick's Exegesis, a personal (i.e., not really meant for publication) investigation into the causes and effects of what PKD called 2-3-74. This series of events is well-known to fans of PKD's work (hey, that's me!), and there's plenty about it online, so I'll spare you and I both a description. It would be easy to write off Dick's experiences as some kind of insanity or mental breakdown, but in my opinion such an approach wouldn't be accurate.
Well, not entirely accurate. The Exegesis as it exists in printed form is roughly a tenth of the material Dick wrote before his death in 1982, and I'm less than a tenth of the way through this version, which puts me at less than 1% of the original work. (Which will probably never be published in its entirety- the introduction to the excerpted version makes this clear, and the text itself makes it clear why.) Even at this point I find myself in that most interesting of positions: unconvinced by Dick's explanations of what happened to him, yet deeply intrigued by the variety of possibilities he entertains and his workings-out of them.
The degree of self-examination- which is what the Exegesis is at its core, albeit a type of self-examination that understands the self as part of something much greater; the whole microcosm/macrocosm thing, generally speaking- is staggering, downright Proustian at times, if Proust had had metaphysical and cosmological concerns as his focus. This kind of feverish attempt to explain one's experiences via constantly-shifting models- including Dick's own books, ancient Christianity, and extraterrestrial intelligence(s)- is one of the things that leads many to believe Dick lost it in the early '70s, which maybe he did to some degree. I see it- at least right now- as a sort of awakening, although since I really enjoy PKD's later work my opinion may be biased, and the books that emerged from the 2-3-74 thing aren't a complete break from earlier work anyway. A thematic detour, perhaps, but not a 180. I can't argue that the behavior that produced the Exegesis isn't obsessive, but again, I wouldn't necessarily use that term in a negative sense.
Another striking feature of the Exegesis is Dick's impressive knowledge. Some of his ruminations are grounded in faulty understanding, sure, but the ease with which he discusses philosophy, religion, and science gives me hope. In our day and age (read: the Internet era) one doesn't come across polymathic minds as often as one would like, so seeing Dick expound on all kinds of things, seemingly off the cuff, is a distinct pleasure. His wide range of interests is apparent in many of his novels, but it really shows when he isn't bound by narrative or plot. This in turn relates to why people are interested in writers' unpublished work: they like to see what writers write for themselves.
Christ, all this pontificating makes it sound like I've read more than I have- how could I glean this much from less than eighty pages? There's a couple ways to address this. One: by virtue of all the other PKD books and related material I've read over the years, I effectively have read more of, and about, the Exegesis. Two: despite being a fraction of the way through, my prior knowledge, and the structure of the book itself, leads me to believe that what I've read thus far is representative of the rest of the book. Not in terms of content, necessarily, but I think the central conceit- understanding his own experiences and, by extension, reality itself- will remain. If it doesn't, great; I'm down for all kinds of diversions from the path, the detours from detours, and seeing as how this isn't the kind of book one reads quickly, I'll have plenty of time to ponder each of Dick's new theories about why things are the way they are.
As I mentioned earlier, Dick's theories don't convince me, even though I enjoy mulling them over. I don't get the impression that he's trying to convince me, though- why would he, since the Exegesis wasn't meant for a particularly wide audience? Personal project or not, I'm glad it has reached a wider audience, which will find all kinds of intellectual gems (or proof of madness, depending on how one reads it) and interpret the work in all kinds of ways. If anything, the Exegesis will be good for that- not bad for a personal project!
It appears logorrhea's gotten the best of me. It's time to work on something else, so I'll say goodbye for now, and I'll try to write more often. Later, folks.
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