Perfume (Patrick Süskind)

(SPOILER ALERT) Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the man who can smell his way into the world, was born in the most auspicious of places – in a wet market among the guts and scales of fishes. From then on, his life has been determined by the persistent call of his nose and he finds himself in situations that bring him closer to his goal: the extracting and packaging of the most fragrant perfume of all.

Grenouille is like an autistic savant. He has a gift: a hypersensitive sense of smell, more powerful than Wolverine's, so much so that he can break down a perfume into its basic components, and even recreate it given all the scent-ingredients. The sniffing genius in him can identify not only the components of a smell but also the exact proportions of each component, the exact formula to a perfume. Yet like an autist, Grenouille has the problem of connecting emotionally with people. He is an introvert, emotionally detached from the world, and his singular purpose keeps him from plunging ahead in life.

In Perfume, Patrick Süskind gives us a portrait of the perfumer as an artist. He does so in the style of an inverted German fairy tale, a twisted tale of the Brothers Grimm. And as a Bildungsroman, the epiphanies arrive and they come in the form of scents, of odors, and of concentrated essences.

Grenouille’s life can be outlined by his settlement from place to place: childhood in an orphanage, early labor in a tannery, apprenticeship with the perfumer Baldini, a seven-year sojourn in the desert, a brief stint as a 'New Age' curiosity among the bourgeoisie following his 'cure' by the Marquis Taillade-Espinasse (conspicuously absent in the movie), a perfume-extraction trainee in Grasse, and a murderer of beautiful young virgins. In between these discrete acts, the author dismisses (discard) his other characters in the most cursory manner (e.g., Madame Gaillard succumbing to the fate she most dread, Baldini toppling down the abyss after securing the formulas for perfume that will secure his place as the most renowned perfumer in all of Paris).

It is as if after their encounter with Grenouille, the other characters’ lease on life has been definitively cut; they now have served the purpose of their existence in Grenouille's life. They now must cease in order to give wings to Grenouille’s dream. In this respect, the author mirrors his protagonist’s single-mindedness: everything else outside the purview of his interest is extraneous, so it must be discarded after it has been extracted or exploited. It is not enough that the old characters exit peacefully, they must be terminated.

A fairy tale tone is maintained throughout by the book’s magical prose. Perhaps no other novel has exhausted words signifying different kinds of smells, fragrances, and odors. Notwithstanding the cold violence and the madness portrayed in the novel, Grenouille’s adventures and misadventures are lightly skimmed in a magical manner.

If Grenouille's extreme nature and behavior are to be rationalized (or an equivalence to be found for the allegory), Grenouille’s acts and decisions reflect the temperaments of a struggling artist.

The perfumer’s goal is the encapsulation and preservation of virgin scent for consumption and for posterity. The achievement is not self-centered and egotistical, it is self-justified. His whole existence is geared toward the actualization and realization of his art (perfume). This, usually, is how society perceives how an artist works.

Grenouille does not consciously seek fame, though in a way he is forced to show off his abilities in order to attain his objective (e.g., recreating the scent Amor and Psyche for Baldini, one of the best parts in the book). He doesn’t want fame, he just wants to fulfill his aim.

The perfect and most fragrant of smells that Grenouille created transports its wearer to another place and time. If one of the goals of art is to transport its readers to another milieu or to transform their perception of meanings and forms, then Grenouille succeeded in becoming a master perfumer by clouding the perspectives of those who smell his scent. Süskind himself strives to develop a milieu for 18th century France and succeeded in creating a stink-rich canvas for his protagonist.

The most perfect of smells inspires lust among those who caught scent of it. This is a by-product of success. It commands cult following and promotes adherents to its cause. Every connoisseur then becomes a champion of the smell and its creator.

The perfumer-artist improvises methods where there are none previously. He is a student of experimentation. Grenouillle has to go to Grasse to capture all the available methods of extracting scents and to distill from them the ways he can bring into life his vision. Because he does not know all the methods, he continually seeks the house of the masters to learn from them. He grabs all available opportunity to improve his craft. He is after his masterpiece.

The perfumer-artist pursues his subject with care. Grenouille is a conscientious stalker. He does not just grab the object of his affection out of the blue. He allows it space before he carefully plucks its fragrance. Süskind allows us to participate in this voyeurism. The reader is in thrall to the deviant workings of the perfumer. This is akin to Gustav von Aschenbach's pursuit of his muse in Death in Venice, a pursuit that feeds and drives the destruction of the artist. Grenouille is a slightly more refined dog.

The perfumer-artist feels apart from the rest. He has the distinct quality of being separate from his subjects. In Grenouille’s case, being a man without any trace of smell is to be taken not only as an irony of his situation as a superior delineator of smell. He has to lack smell not only because he needs to be set apart from the rest of humankind.

A perfumer-artist needs time to know himself. This is usually what prods an artist to gain experiences in life and what brings him inspiration. Grenouille’s retreat in the desert took the whole of seven years in which he survived and subsisted with the natural offerings of food (locusts), rainwater, and the shelter of a cave. He led a hermit’s life, surpassing the length of time of young Jesus’ 40-day retreat in the desert. The span of the “hidden years” of a soon-to-be perfumer-artist is long but may be necessary in the development of the artist’s resolve to "take on" the world and bring it to its feet.

These factors point to the novel as a parable of the creative genius, of the dogged pursuit of the creative endeavor, and of the creative process. Every step of Grenouille's life is directed toward the building of his magnum opus. And his masterpiece? The scent of virgins. The scent of innocence. Bottled and stoppered in a flacon, ready to be sprinkled to unsuspecting consumers.

The novel's climax (the presentation of his art) and its ending (the ultimate reception of the artist) provide a measurement of the perfumer’s achievement. They show how two classes of society, in differing ways, positively accept the role of the artist.

The frenzy of the climax deals with the reception of Grenouille’s art and his elevation into a saint, an angel, a deity. In the orgy scene, Süskind pulls the rug from under the feet of his readers. It depicts the gullibility of the masses, including the aristocracy, to lap up the works of art without seeing through the artificiality of realism. The outrageousness of the scene seems like a play on the popularization of the works of art into a consumer product. The masses are not even aware that they are under the spell of a perfume. They are easily deceived by appearances; surfaces are all they perceive; the sense (of smell, not its substance) is all they crave for. They cannot distinguish art from abomination.

The ending of the novel is the height of irony. The novelist's chosen act for his perfumer’s disappearance is via cannibalism no less. The lowest of the lows of society (criminals, prostitutes, vagrants) elected to consume Grenouille, not content with idealizing him as a deity/messiah/angel like the crowd at Grasse. Grenouille has to be consumed and used in a practical manner – to satisfy hunger. What society has deprived them of – attention, food, essence, love – they get from the artist and all the art contained in him. There's no more differentiation between art and artist, the former is incorporated in the latter.

The orgy and the cannibalism hint at a commentary on the crassness of the times. And of the way certain classes of society use “art” for their own ends. The masses dance and fornicate around it, the dregs of society have to have some choice portion of it. The reader, meanwhile, detects a snapshot of stink.


(Flippers will be sniffing the pages of Perfume this month. The image above taken from portrait-artist.org)

Who’s afraid of indigenous peoples?

The article by Mark Dowie, “Conservation Refugees*”, for the November/December 2005 issue of Orion magazine, is a critique of the environmental NGOs’ interventions in protected areas which lead to the displacement of indigenous peoples. In the name of environmental conservation, indigenous peoples, mostly in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia, are summarily evicted from their ancestral lands. This is to eliminate the “harsh” human impacts in the hinterlands and leave unspoiled nature, who knows best, to heal itself.

This accusation is surprising, considering the supposedly untarnished record of the conservation NGOs in fulfilling the noble mission of looking after the welfare of the environment and the people. These NGOs include Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and World Conservation Society. Indigenous leaders collectively call them big international NGOs or BINGOs.

For years, the tribal communities have been engaged in a give-and-take relationship with their environment, its rhythms and harmonies so interwoven in the fabric of their culture, in their ways of life. Their songs, dances, rituals, and customs are reflective of their close affinity with nature. The breakage from this co-existence must only have come from outside interference of their social and economic affairs. Their misfortunes (in these 'cultural hotspot' areas) began with the institutionalization of national parks.

In recounting the unlikely travails of the Batwa people of Uganda and of other tribes in many other countries, Dowie is confounded by BINGOs' conservative and puritanical brand of conservation that is removed from the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples. The implication is that conservation and its strategic manifestations (e.g., the creation of protected areas like natural parks and the imposition of restrictions inside it) has become the modern environmental contract. This contract explicitly pits indigenous peoples against their own place such that one cannot survive without eliminating the other in the picture. In so doing, the NGOs have become guilty of their very cause, conservation. But this is conservation in a convoluted sense: driving people away from their homeland and securing a place for the sake of securing it.

Indigenous peoples, in theory and in practice, belong to the marginalized sector of society. An empowered indigenous cultural community is almost a contradiction. Indigenous peoples have no clout. They do not have the benefit of formal education. They are not always able to articulate their discontents and cannot directly influence policies that regulate their ways. The burden of the indigenous people is their identity. The burden of identity is self-assertion. To assert one’s self or one’s tribe is to self-determine their sense of place. They must establish themselves in a static location and show proof of this habitation. Customs that are handed down by oral literature and never put on paper or never etched in cave walls are ephemeral. Laws such as the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) of the Philippines are supposed to safeguard these rights. But even this law asks for concrete proof of ownership or claim, writ on paper, marked on ground. Tribes who learned to travel guided by the blow of the wind or the chirping of birds are lost in trying to find their boundaries.

Going indigenous is not a trend, it is a need (PCARRD, 1998), and environmental managers are slowly gaining acceptance of indigenous knowledge systems as the roadmap in protected areas. It just so happens that indigenous peoples, self-proclaimed original conservationists, get in the way of the “traditionally accepted” conservation measures. They are then to be sacrificed, displaced, and relocated. All the more because they are afraid of them. But who are they? Who’s afraid of indigenous peoples?

We should also ask why they are afraid of them. They are perhaps afraid of them because their education tells them so. Their education is higher than the know-how of a lowly native. Their ways are more “civilized”, more “humane.” This is the irony of knowledge. The better one knows, the more one knows nothing at all. Environmental managers are always after the best scientific and up-to-date information, not knowing that the knowledge they are going after is maybe as old as time itself, and that science is already ritualized in chants and meditations.

We are afraid of indigenous peoples because they occupy a large tract of productive lands, dwell in high-density forests, and fish in resource-rich waters. We see them as our competitors to the bounty of the environment.

We are afraid of indigenous peoples because we think our worldviews are superior to theirs. Our enlightened philosophies of capitalism and globalization are what makes us survive in the cutthroat world of supply and demand.

In the process of attaining their noble ends, do the BINGOs become the enemies of conservation themselves? Cultural diversity is not unrelated to biodiversity. The preservation of indigenous knowledge systems may hold the key to the identification of sustainable conservation practices. NGOs have strategized conservation to the point of commodifying conservation. Strategies sell, and the response of global transboundary conservation efforts is corporatization. NGOs tend to be fund-driven, and this makes them more readily responsive to outside priorities, or to their own priorities, than to local priorities (Eder and Fernandez, 1996). The global arena of the BINGOs is expanding to the point of elevating them as the new power player, a mega-stakeholder in the business of conservation. A new strain of David-and-Goliath syndrome is in-the-make.

Not giving indigenous peoples a chance to showcase their capacities for conservation is the major blunder of the BINGOs. In negating any heritage value or any non-marketable value of the unknown indigenous knowledge, we deprive the environment of fruitful conservation strategies. Dowie puts forward resource co-management as a possible solution to this conflict. The purist conservationist will learn to “compromise” with the indigenous settlers. Although a promising venture, Dowie still cautions about the uses and abuses of such schemes. Resource management is in itself already a compromise. The demands of capitalism will still push raw materials in the forefront of agenda. Men will still look after their interests.

Given the pervading paranoia of indigenous peoples and of what they are capable of, the ecocentric model will always be put forward as the strategia exemplar. Yet given the inhumanity of displacing the “enemies of conservation,” the ecocentric model will always be questioned as a valid construct. To illustrate this dichotomy, let us have a simple thought experiment called the paradox of Schrödinger’s cat, developed in the field of quantum mechanics. A cat is put in a box with a radioactive substance. A measuring device which measures the amount of emitted radioactive material is attached to the box. When the measuring device tipped its scale, we are asked the question: Is the cat dead or alive? The paradox of the answer is that we will never know for sure unless we open the box and see for ourselves. The uncertainty lies in the observer not knowing the actual condition of the cat, and the act of observing actually contributes to the final outcome of knowing. Similarly, the old conservation model demands a state where the environment is free from any human intervention, and that any occupant (indigenous people) we place in it (or already in it) will surely degrade the closed system. But we are not even sure. The truth is that the occupant will both degrade the system and not degrade the system. We will only ever know the truth or falsity of our assumption when we open the box.

The problem with the present conservation model is its inherent bias against any occupant of a protected area. The pre-existing ethnocentric model, which is challenged by the BINGOs and extractive industries, may well prove to be the key to resolving the paradox: leaving the cat be, abandon the experiment.

If it is a question of compatibility of biological diversity and of human rights, then the argument is settled. Human rights and biodiversity enhance each other. They sustain both the diversity and welfare of man and other living things. Life support systems are respected when human rights are respected.

Maybe the solution that we are all striving for is the null hypothesis. Let us try to leave the tribes in their sanctuaries. That is probably the only way that such a place will truly be called a sanctuary. Maybe that is the only viable way to protect a protected area.

“Conservation refugees” is a strong term and its usage reflects the discontents of the times. For a moment then, let us be guilty of dangerous words, characteristic vocabulary of post-9-11 era. Indigenous warfare, weapons of mass extinction, ethnic racism, eco-terrorism, ethno-terrorism. Let us focus our attention on the latter two words. Ethno-terrorism may be defined as any serious harm dealt with an indigenous person or an indigenous cultural community. Eco-terrorism, on the other hand, is any serious harm dealt with the environment, the downgrading or reversal of its ambient quality or the further debilitation of a degraded environment. Eco-terrorism is exemplified by the irresponsible extractive activities of those in power: transnational corporations, big mining who disguised themselves as small-scale operators, public officials who invested in uprooting mangroves and cultivating fishponds in their place. It can be argued that eco-terrorism is a form of ethno-terrorism. They have the same effect in the long run because the destruction of wilderness habitats destroys the lives of indigenous peoples living in them. The subtlety of ethno-terrorism is that, in the guise of environmental protection, it has become accepted. Either it can not be easily detected or it can be tolerated by those who know of it. In some cases it is upheld, in most cases it is justified.

In Palawan, traditional ancestral zones (TAZ) are recognized as one of the zones in environmentally critical areas network (ECAN), the main strategy of Republic Act 7611 or the Strategic Environmental Plan (SEP) for Palawan Act. In tribal ancestral zones, as well as in core zones, traditional activities of indigenous peoples such as almaciga-tapping and honey-gathering are allowed. A memorandum of agreement between the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD), the implementing agency of SEP, and National Council for Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), the implementing agency of IPRA, is being negotiated to iron out gaps between the ECAN and ancestral domain claims delineation.

Since the promulgation of IPRA, there have been success stories such as that of Tagbanwa in Coron, Palawan, who were able to obtain their certificate of ancestral domain title (CADT). The Tagbanwas are able to apply for a CADT through the lengthy process outlined in the law. Their awarded claim covers not only two islands, Coron and Delian, but a substantial portion of ancestral waters as well. Their success, however, can be mainly attributed to outside help coming from an NGO, the Philippine Association for Intercultural Development (PAFID).

The Coron CADC is a rare case. History has proven, and is still proving, that the recognition of ancestral domains in the Philippines is taboo. The root of the problem lies in the intrinsic contradiction of Philippine legal system of land ownership, a Western-based system, with the customary laws of indigenous peoples (Molintas, 2004). IPRA is admittedly one of the best things that happen to the indigenous peoples for a long time, but it is far from perfect. Undermining its provisions are several laws like the Mining Act of 1995. The 1992 National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS), also a Western concept, has some provisions on the recognition of indigenous rights. Section 13 clearly states:

Ancestral lands and customary rights and interest arising shall be accorded due recognition. The DENR shall prescribe rules and regulations to govern ancestral lands within protected areas: Provided, That the DENR shall have no power to evict indigenous communities from their present occupancy nor resettle them to another area without their consent: Provided, however, That all rules and regulations, whether adversely affecting said communities or not, shall be subjected to notice and hearing to be participated in by members of concerned indigenous community.

The free and prior informed consent (FPIC) is already outlined here prior to the promulgation of IPRA in 1997. Any transaction of a project proponent with an indigenous cultural community prescribes the securing of FPIC. The negotiating table, however, has offered many variations on psychological manipulation and tactics. The battle for FPIC can be said to have produced two distinct breeds of indigenous peoples: the pan-tribal group and the quasi-indigenous group. The former refers to the group of people who have tried to adapt to outside intervention (usually the state through state-sponsored laws such as IPRA) and the whims of political will. McDermott (2000) suggests that their emergence is inevitable and it may lead positively to the consolidation of efforts of indigenous community, thereby uniting them. However, this can also be interpreted as a negative triumph, because the indigenous peoples are subsuming themselves under the jurisdiction of laws that are strange to them. The deculturation process is also inevitable when they start negotiating as political players.

The latter kind of indigenous peoples, the quasi-indigenous group, are not really a legitimate group of indigenous peoples. They may only be migrants who proffered themselves as natives of the land for any political or economic benefits they may get from meddling in the issue. Quasi-indigenous groups, in a way, also have some rights, but these are not as valid or as paramount as the rights of the true indigenous groups.

The emergence of other kinds of indigenous peoples is indicative of their evolving modern predicament. At the fundamental level, they seek more than recognition. They seek more than being given the tenurial instrument to their land and waters. They want, ultimately, to be understood. So that no entity, conservationist or extractive, will ever be afraid of them.

*The link is to an abridged version of the original article. 

References:

Eder, J. F., and J. O. Fernandez (Eds.). 1996. Palawan at the crossroads: Development and the environment on a Philippine frontier. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. 170p.

McDermott, M. H. 2000. Boundaries and pathways: Indigenous identity, ancestral domain, and forest use in Palawan, the Philippines. Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. 413p.

Molintas, J. M. 2004. The Philippine indigenous people's struggle for land and life: Challenging legal texts. Arizona Journal of International & Comparative Law 21: 269-306.

Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources (PCARRD). 1998. People, earth and culture (Readings in indigenous knowledge systems on biodiversity management and utilization). Los Baños, Laguna: PCARRD – NCCA. 303pp.

Republic Act No. 7586. National Integrated Protected Areas Act of 1992.

Gerilya (Norman Wilwayco)

Makalipas ang ilang dekadang pagpupunyagi ng mga kapatid nating New People’s Army, ano na ba ang estado ng kanilang mga ipinaglalaban? Tila wala na yatang katapusan ang giyera ng mga gerilya. Ang dating silakbo ng rebolusyonaryo ay hindi na ganoon kaagresibo. Ang mga dating nakikisimpatya ay di na ganoon kasigabo ang pagtanggap sa isang digmaan na sa tingin nila, habang tumatagal ay lalong wala nang patutunguhan. Ang Marxista ay namarkahan na ng kawalan ng pag-asa. Wala na ring gana ang taumbayan na makinig sa paulit-ulit na atungal ng mga bala.

Malimit nang kinukuwestiyon ang kaangkupan ng ideyolohiyang komunismo sa makabagong panahon, partikular ang uri ng ideyang pinapalagananap ng CPP-NPA. Binansagang terorista, hindi na ito ang dating maliksi at progresibong pulitikal na pangkat. Ito ay napaglipasan na. Nawawala na sa sirkulasyon ang tiim-bagang na pagsukbit ng riple at kalibre, sumugat ng isip, bumutas ng tao.

Sa sobrang gasgas na ng drama ng NPA ay mukhang wala nang pakialam ang masa na nakababad na ang atensyon sa praymtaym na teledrama. Ang estado ng pakikibaka ay nasasalamin na lamang ng estadistika: ang bilang ng gerilya na naitumba at nailibing sa kabundukan, ang kabuuang halaga ng kanilang nalikom na buwis pangrebolusyunaryo, ang bilang ng militar na natimbuwang at naisilid sa bodybag, ang bilang ng sibilyan na nadawit sa opensiba.

Kung ganoon ang estado ng rebolusyon, lumalabas na ang nobelang Gerilya na tumatalakay sa pakikipagsapalaran ng mga NPA ay wala na ring saysay. Marahil ay hindi na akma ang ganitong istorya sa panahon ng Twitter at Facebook? Kailangan pa bang bigyang pansin ang ganitong mga obra?

Sa tingin ko, at dahil ako ay nasorpresa ng nobela, kailangan pa nating imulat ang ating mga mata sa mga babasahing tulad nito na sumasalamin sa katotohanan ng pamumundok. Bagamat tila pasaw na ang pakikibaka, nabigyang buhay ng manunulat at nobelistang si Norman Wilwayco ang isang aspeto ng NPA nang hindi tumutulay sa propaganda.

Kung isang sukatan ng kabuluhan ng akda ay ang umilag sa mga patibong ng sentimentalismo at pulitikal na plataporma, ay naibahagi ng nobela ang aktibistang pamumuhay na balanse ang pananaw. Nailahad ng nobela ang damdamin ng mga lumalabang karakter at naitawid ang kanilang mga paniniwala at prinsipyo nang may mataas na pagpapahalaga sa kanilang dangal, hindi lamang sa kanilang pagiging gerilya kundi sa kanilang pagkatao at pagka-Pilipino.

Hindi kinasangkapan ng panulat ni Wilwayco ang pagsususog ng sariling agenda o manipesto ng pag-aaklas laban sa sistema kundi pinihit nya ang kanyang pluma para palutangin ang kontemporaryong boses ng mga rebolusyonaryo ng makabagong panahon.

Ang kuwento ng Gerilya ay ang karanasan ng dalawang bagong rekrut na estudyante ng UP na tuluyang sumapi sa hukbong NPA. Ipinamalas ng dalawang pangunahing karakter na ito ang dalawang uri ng tugon ng kabataan sa hamon ng panahon. Ang kanilang mga kalakasan at kahinaan ay pinatingkad ng kanilang pakikipagsapalaran sa hanay ng mga kasamang rebelde. Hindi lahat ng aksyon ng mga rebelde ay makatarungan at dito maaaninag ang matalas na pagtingin ng nobelista sa indibidwal na boses ng isang rebelde at kolektibong boses ng grupong makakaliwa. Tila isang insayder sa pangkat-NPA si Wilwayco dahil makatotohanan ang paglalarawan niya ng pamumuhay sa gubat ng pakikipaglaban.

Kakaiba ang estilo na ginamit ni Wilwayco para gawing interesante ang mga eksena. Ang kanyang boses na ginamit ay malalim ang pinaghugutan – isang masinop na paglilimi ng mga litanya ng sambayanan. Sinsero ang angas na pinakawalan nya mula sa umuugong at umuusok na damdaming radikal. Ang pagbabasa ng nobelang Gerilya ay sya ring pagsalat sa teknika ng panulat na masasabing mas higit ang antas ng paglalagom ng layon at ideya kaysa sa mga popular na naisulat katulad ng sa piksyonistang si Bob Ong.

Karapat-dapat ihanay ang Gerilya sa mga kontemporaryong akdang patuloy na hinahanap ang sagot sa misteryo ng pagiging isang tunay na makataong Pilipino. Bagamat hindi nito masosolusyunan ang problema ng NPA, maaari pa rin itong makapagparating ng anumang mensahe na nagsasabing may karapatan tayong lumikha ng mas makatarungan at mas kaaya-ayang lipunan.

(Maraming salamat sa Bookay-Ukay na naglathala ng ebook ng Gerilya sa kanilang website. Pwede ring ma-download ito ng libre sa mismong blog ni Norman Wilwayco. Makakabili ng kopya ng Gerilya sa Bookay-Ukay bookstore na matatagpuan sa #55 Maginhawa St., UP Teacher's Village, Diliman, QC. Para sa impormasyon ay bisitahin lamang ang bookay.multiply.com.)

Six Easy Pieces (Richard P. Feynman)

What better way to follow up five moral pieces than with six easy ones?


Subtitled “Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher”, the six easy pieces are drawn from Richard P. Feynman's The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1963, originally prepared for publication by Robert B. Leighton and Matthew Sands). That Lectures book is chosen by Discover magazine as one of the top 25 science books of all time. Feynman’s work joins such quaint books as Newton’s Principia (1687) and Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859), and modern science texts such as Einstein's Relativity (1916) and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962).


The lecture-pieces are collected with a view of compiling the six easiest chapters in the Lectures. Reading them is like attending an introductory course to physics. It is definitely a painless approach to the subject considering that the entire Lectures edition (definitive and extended) runs in three volumes and weighs 10.8 pounds! Pieces is to laymen as Lectures is to physicists.


Pieces is also an introduction to the Feynman style or the Feynman approach to physics. In the introduction to the book, by Paul Davies, the Feynman style is described as “a mixture of reverence and disrespect for received wisdom.” The reader will appreciate the truth of this conflicting description soon enough. Indeed, reverence and disrespect goes hand in hand in the discussion of physical concepts in the book and they are not mutually exclusive.


The Feynman style is a rebellious way of dealing with scientific ideas, in the sense that it questions everything and tries to put into context the history of science as developed by its conscientious scientists and philosophers. The reader is then cautioned to not expect a conventional treatment of physics as he is in for an enjoyable and “tantalizing” taste of the Feynman style of learning and, for me, teaching the subject.


The prefatory materials did well to introduce the readers to the content of the book and to water down the expectations they may have had prior to reading it. It is not meant to be a comprehensive introduction but a good enough jump off point for anyone with just a slight curiosity about the subject. The first preface by two of Feynman’s colleagues serve to contextualize the background of the actual lectures in Caltech, how they came about, the objectives of the lectures, and the actual reception of the students to the live lectures.


The second preface is by Feynman himself, unedited as it sometimes refers to pieces not actually included in the book. Feynman explains the lecturer’s after-the-fact view of his own achievement. The lecturer himself feigns failure in his interaction with his students—which really is a measure of his humble and discreet character. He may not be too successful in the original batch of his students but I think his future students are indebted to this work.


Six Easy Pieces really is a glimpse of two things: the subject of physics and the teacher himself. Feynman is one of the charismatic physicists the twentieth century has produced. He is born in 1918 in Brooklyn, and received his doctorate from Princeton in 1942. His teaching stints in Cornell and Caltech earned him notoriety for the unorthodox approaches and methods he brought to the subject.


For his pioneering work in quantum electrodynamics, he was made a co-winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics. He died in 1988, leaving behind a legacy of books, technical publications, original theoretical works, and unique approaches to teaching.


The book is mostly a transcript of the actual spoken lectures in an actual class, and so it does read like a script. There are many instances when Feynman injects some jokes and ad-lib surprises into the material. The minimum of mathematics, if at all, makes this introduction very friendly and will be cherished by anyone easily deterred by anything containing plus, minus, and equal signs, exponents, and algebraic formulations.


The real spirit of the book is in Feynman. The lectures are given in such a way as to cultivate in the reader (whether a teacher, student, or otherwise) the fundamental aspects of physics as the most fundamental of sciences.


I wish that I have read the book myself during my college struggles when I dreaded the alienating presentation of physics in textbooks and the robotic explanations of learned professors. But I am still lucky to have read this now as a physics teacher myself. I have been teaching the course in a local university for two semesters now.


My view of this book then is influenced by two perspectives: that of the (perpetual) student's and that of the teacher's. I must say that both have been enriched by Feynman’s physics course in this book. As a student, I thoroughly appreciated Feynman’s gentle approach to the subject. As a teacher, I commend his genius grasp of the subject matter and his apt analogies when trying to demystify the almost “otherworldly” ideas of quantum mechanics and gravitation. I am inspired by the way he constructs his surprising parallelisms of physical ideas: he leads me to think for myself some creative metaphors to compare with physical phenomena and matter.


For a teacher, it is a great aid to be able to deduce ways of making topics that are fairly new to students, (such as the uncertainty principle) comprehensible and digestible. The lively manner in which Feynman shared his free-wheeling and alert thoughts, jumping from the words on the page, is itself a physical event—teleportation maybe. I can just imagine how the living Feynman must have struck awe to the listeners of his lectures.


My only reservation is that portions of the book are now obviously dated. Certain materials covered are no longer sufficient to explain the current findings and status of physics. For example, the explanation on fundamental particles (still incomplete at the time of Lectures) does not contain reference to the Standard Model which, although still incomplete, is the more generally accepted explanation of that idea. The new developments in modern physics could have been included as an appendix or afterword of the book.


Going back to what the book’s editors are trying to accomplish, I think it answers well to the purposes to which the pieces are brought together:


The six pieces, are they easy?—Yes. In fact, there’s another Feynman collection of six other topics collected under the title (what else could it be) Six Not-So-Easy Pieces. On my wish list is the omnibus of these two books called (not-so-surprisingly) Six Easy Pieces and Six Not-So-Easy Pieces. I'm also looking out for his surely candid bio, Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!


Do the lecture-pieces represent the “essential of physics” as the subtitle suggests?—Yes. They cover the basic introduction to atoms, basic physics, the relation of physics to other fields of study, the law of conservation of energy, the law of universal gravitation, and quantum mechanics.


Are the pieces explained brilliantly, as also suggested in the subtitle?—Yes, the brilliance is inspiring.


Is it ultimately a good reference for students and teachers?—It works for me. Where previously I lack focus, I believe that I’m a better instructor for it.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Gabriel García Márquez)

It isn’t right that everybody should know that they’re going to kill her son and she the only one who doesn’t.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold can really stand another rereading. There is still a lot to be mined for such a short book, a novella in fact. Gabriel García Márquez has so imbued the book with folk wisdom and traditional beliefs that I find that this is not one of those ‘magical realist’ works that has everyone gasping in disbelief. It is rooted in its own domestic atmosphere of news and gossips.

The novella centers on a courtship, a wedding, and a murder. There’s no magic realism in these pages. There is fatal realism, for sure. It concerns mass guilt and a stab at the culture of machismo that has so pervaded the decisions of an entire village to condone a murder. Throughout the narrative, a sustained voice of inevitability permeates the telling that it is impossible not to turn your eyes away from the pages, even if the outcome is already foretold, even if by rereading, it is somehow retold.

The patriarchal and matriarchal society is what defines the novella’s strength as more than a chronicle but a document of conventional attitudes on such principles as honor and justice. I think also that the role of mothers in Chronicle of a Death Foretold is important in understanding the whole puzzle, just as important as the machismo that propels the announced crime of murder to its bloody success.

You always have to take the side of the dead.

The man whose death is foretold is Santiago Nasar. The motive is clear: he is accused of the unforgivable crime of tarnishing the honor of a just-married woman, Angela Vicario. Only in the man’s death will the woman’s honor be regained. A murder is then set in motion – a murder that has every chance of being thwarted and yet every indication of being a foregone conclusion.

The novella’s chronicler is one of Santiago Nasar’s friends who comes back to investigate the cold case a good many years after. With the obsession of a journalist, he interviews almost all the people involved in the crime. The major witnesses sought for explanations and recollections include Angela Vicario herself and Pedro Vicario, one of the two murderers who are twin brothers of Angela Vicario. (It was all too neat that the killers be twins. Perhaps to better emphasize the conflict and wavering of resolve between them.) Yet the primary witness is the entire village who was helpless to stop the crime unfolding before their very eyes.

There had never been a death more foretold.

What is poetic justice? Is it the same as the plain old romantic justice that is a condition of a society in which evil is outshone by good?

The novella is a lens for observing human behavior and responses shaped by a tragic event. The novelist is deft in providing all the necessary means, motive, and opportunities for a crime whose consummation is the very reflection of guilt, both individual and collective. There is a popular backing behind the murder and the narrator tries to find out why. Eventually it is no longer essential to know whether Santiago Nasar really is guilty or innocent of “dishonoring” a woman– this is not ultimately resolved at the end. What is perhaps more important is to understand why so many people can be so powerless to stop something they have all the means to prevent.

Is it deep-seated tradition that puts the village on the spot and leads them to commit a crime of omission? How can people be expected to react and to take action, if their long held beliefs in things such as honor is the one put on trial? It is this very same belief that commanded “what a man should do” to avenge the honor lost. It's not unlike the fundamentalist attitudes of religion.

For years we couldn’t talk about anything else. Our daily conduct, dominated then by so many linear habits, had suddenly begun to spin around a single common anxiety. The cocks of dawn would catch us trying to give order to the chain of many chance events that had made absurdity possible, and it was obvious that we weren’t doing it from an urge to clear up mysteries but because none of us could go on living without an exact knowledge of the place and the mission assigned to us by fate.

This is a book in which a second reading will not put anything in better perspective but will leave the virtue of ambiguity intact. It does not judge anyone. Not the killers, not the murdered man, not the woman on whose disgrace the murder was predicated. The killers only could do what is expected of them. The book does not judge anyone because everyone is implicated in the crime.

Gabriel García Márquez’s blow by blow style is a powerful thing. He made the reader spectator to the crime. On second reading, the reader is still held hostage by the narrative pull. It has the intensity of a thriller. The murder, even if already forecast in advance, is still a murder mystery and will remain unsolved.

Love can be learned, too. This cliché is put to good use in a surprising subplot. But that is another story. If the pursuit of love is like falconry, what about the pursuit of truth? The falcon cannot hear the falconer?

(Image: Le Fauconnier. France, 17th century; watercolor and gouache on vellum)