A Different Stripe

Monday Multimedia: Two Ways of Writing About War

Just before Halloween, the New York Institute for the Humanities sponsored a panel discussion about Vasily Grossman and Curzio Malaparte, two writers who worked as war correspondents on opposite sides of the Eastern Front during WWII. When it was Chris Hedges turn to speak, it became clear that he believed the most significant divide between the two writers to be not geographical or narrowly political, but primarily moral. The panelists were too polite to duke out the merits of realistic writing versus the fantastic mode or the value of giving voice to war's victims (Grossman) rather than focusing on those in power (Malaparte) right then and there. Too bad, we would have liked to hear panelist and Malaparte translator Walter Murch come to Malaparte's defense.

Last month, the radio program On The Media gave Hedges an opportunity to discuss war writing, Grossman's bravery and what he terms Malaparte's "war pornography" in more depth. It takes a minute, but an audio player should load right on this very page.

By the way, it's worth listening to this entire episode of On The Media, which took "The Future of the Book Industry" as its theme.

Checking in on Thoreau: arguing about John Brown and finding friends in windfall acorns

Today's excerpts from Henry David Thoreau's Journal are in posthumous dialogue with The New York Times. The first dates from exactly 149 years ago and itself was written around the one-year anniversary of John Brown's execution. As these editorials from earlier in the week show, we haven't finished arguing about the raid on Harper's Ferry. The second excerpt came to mind after reading the Urban Forager's recipe for acorn-flour bread. In these two passages, we see the diversity of subject in Thoreau's daily log, but also how, in each case, he draws from the particular moment (a debate, a discovery) a lesson for about life and its proper conduct.

Dec. 3 [1860]. Talking with Walcott and Staples to-day, they declared that John Brown did wrong. When I said that I thought he was right, they agreed in asserting that he did wrong because he threw his life away, and that no man had a right to undertake anything which he knew would cost him his life. I inquired if Christ did not foresee that he would be crucified if he preached such doctrines as he did, but they both, though as if it was their only escape, asserted that they did not believe that he did. Upon which a third party threw in, "You do not think that he had so much foresight as Brown." Of course, they as good as said that, if Christ had foreseen that he would be crucified, he would have "backed out." Such are the principles and the logic of the mass of men. It is to be remembered that by good deeds or words you encourage yourself, who always have need to witness or hear them.

Oct.8 [1851]. By the side of J.P. Brown’s grain-field I picked up some white oak acorns in the path by the wood-side, which I found to be unexpectedly sweet and palatable, the bitterness being scarcely perceptible. To my taste they are quite as good as chestnuts. No wonder the first men lived on acorns. Such as these are no mean food, such as they are represented to be. Their sweetness is like the sweetness of bread, and to have discovered this palatableness in this neglected nut, the whole world is to me the sweeter for it. To find that acorns are edible,—it is a greater addition to one’s stock of life than would be imagined. I should be at least equally pleased if I were to find that the grass tasted sweet and nutritious. It increases the number of my friends; it diminishes the number of my foes. How easily at this season I could feed myself in the woods!

More excerpts from the Journal:
June 10th, 1857
June 15th, 1852
August 11th, 1858
Oct. 22, 1837

TIA: The One-Straw Revolution by the Reverent Eater

Part of an occasional series in which we post excerpts of reviews from around the web. This excerpt comes from the blog of a Unitarian Universalist minister who writes about sustainable farming at The Reverent Eater.

After reading [Fukuoka's] chapter on "Do-Nothing Farming," I think finally understand better the 29th chapter of the Tao Te Ching, which I've read translated by Peter Merel as:

Those who wish to change the world
According to their desire
Cannot succeed.

The world is shaped by the Way.
It cannot be shaped by self.
Trying to change it, you damage it;
Trying to possess it, you lose it.

My favorite translator of the Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell, has interpreted the same passage to read:

Do you want to improve the world?
I don't think it can be done.
The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.
If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.

His interpretation of the chapter continues:

The Master sees things as they are
without trying to control them.
She lets them go their own way.
And resides at the center of the circle.

Ironically, despite my interest in farming and the natural world, in the past, I've always understood this portion of the Tao as a reference to the world's social problems. I've usually interpreted it to mean, rather pessimistically, that we ought not bother trying to change those things that are troublesome about the world, such as the poverty, the racism, the human rights violations, and even climate change. As such, I've really wrestled with this passage.

But perhaps when Lao Tse said "the world," he really did mean "the earth" - "the natural world," rather than the society that humans have created, complete with all of its problems. What is climate change, after all, but the world thrown out of balance by human intervention? To not address it, Fukuoka would say, would be abandonment. He might recall the time when, as a young man, he was handed charge of his father's orchards and, eager to put his new way of thinking into action, he too suddenly allowed the trees to take care of themselves without first doing what he could to ease them back into a place of natural balance with their surroundings. As a result of his inaction, the trees withered and failed to produce fruit. There is an immense difference between "Do-Nothing Farming" and neglect, he learned, just as there is a difference between wu wei (non-doing), and not doing anything at all.

[read the entire post here]