Weekly Blogs
Tropic of Cancer
by Henry Miller
Henry Miller is one of the most influential writers of all times. He was born in America from German parents and he lived both in USA and Europe, more specifically Paris. Many of his novels are autobiographical and reflect his experiences as a writer in different societies. One of the first acknowledgments of Henry Miller as a major modern writer was by George Orwell in his 1940 essay “Inside the Whale”, where he wrote: “Here in my opinion is the only imaginative prose-writer of the slightest value, who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past. Even if that is objected to as an overstatement, it will probably be admitted that Miller is a writer out of the ordinary, worth more than a single glance; and after all, he is a completely negative, unconstructive, amoral writer, a mere Jonah, a passive acceptor of evil, a sort of Whitman among the corpses.” Henry Miller sought to reestablish the freedom to live without the conventional restraints of civilization. His books are potpourris of sexual description, quasi-philosophical speculation, reflection on literature and society, surrealistic imaginings, and autobiographical incident. After living in Paris in the 1930s, he returned to the United States and settled in Big Sur, California. Miller’s first two works, Tropic of Cancer (Paris, 1934) and Tropic of Capricorn (Paris, 1939), were denied publication in the U.S. until the early 1960s. He was married five times and his marriages are an important part of his work. His most characteristic works are Tropic of Cancer (1934), Black Spring (1936), and Tropic of Capricorn (1939). He also wrote travel memoirs and essays of literary criticism and analysis.
The publication of Miller’s Tropic of Cancer in the United States in 1961 by Grove Press led to a series of obscenity trials that tested American laws on pornography. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Grove Press, overruled the state court findings of obscenity and declared the book a work of literature. This decision of the American Court was one of the most notable events in the sexual revolution. Miller is considered a “literary innovator” in whose works “actual and imagined experiences became indistinguishable from each other.” His books did much to free the discussion of sexual subjects in American writing from both legal and social restrictions. Set in France (primarily Paris) during the late 1920s and early 1930s, Tropic of Cancer centers on Miller’s life as a struggling writer.
5/30/2023
The Literature we forgot
How literature influences us even when we do not read? Every day we are surrounded by technology, yet some fail to understand where back in time it all began. In a world that focuses on commodity and on making things easy every day, library doors stay close and internet sites prosper beyond our wildest dreams. It is the saddest of the things to see how books have become equal, or how classics have become redundant, the world has become unbalanced films give us the books we shall read forward.
Good books become great after a TV series or a film is made on them. We buy the book at that point simply to understand parts of the story a film could never tell us. People have the tendency of preferring a film or a TV series for they keep things clearer, picturing what one can imagine, makes one`s understanding of the story easier. There are moments in which books talk to the reader into a surrealist way, apart from what one is when one is reading a book. Books find us in moments of happiness or sorrow, turning us back to where our lives have started, our lives as readers. For me, it was Oscar Wilde`s “The Happy Prince”, usually for the ‘80s children it was a classic that seduced us into the world of words.
Do not make excuses for reading. Do not say you cannot read because you do not have time, it is just an excuse you make to waste your time on other activities that help you with exactly nothing, sending you to a state of oblivion. It is easier, it shouldn’t be, but it is. Why do we forget books we read years back? Can we hate so much a character as in to put it in the back of our mind and never think of it again? And yet, don’t we do things better, more focused, when we are angry? Don’t we read better a book, don’t we understand a story to its very core better when we read it angry? For me it was Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Love in Times of Cholera”. Superb! It made me so angry. It satisfied me so much. I screamed at it, I stood my ground when Fatima annoyed me beyond reason. It is a book I never forgot, yet I would never read it again. Never again! But I remember, better than the plot, I remember that anger it caused me, how my life was the worst and the best, when I read it. How wonderful it is that books never give up on us. One takes a book, reads half of it and puts it away for life happens and time is never enough. And a book will stay forever condemned on the same shelf, in the same house. Finding you all over again when you need it the most.
It is more and more difficult to socialize with people, our society has shocked us into loneliness and we seem to not be able to find ways to communicate in many moments. It is maybe time to embrace books as our quite friends. Turn back to Dickens and his sad Oliver. Because Oliver never leaves us, Oliver is there when all else has fallen into pieces. Save me from my books, save me from all I have read, because I do not know what my thoughts are, and what I took from books. So we take books for granted. We say that we want to be avid readers, yet we do not value books, we buy them at expensive prices only to read and forget them, who are we, killers, savages, wildlings. There is a power to telling your story, unlimited power to open up your imagination for others to dig in with their claws. To save yourself by letting people see you as you’re not. Write. Just write and read, that is the key to a happy life. Lately, I have been overdoing both. Best weight loss recipe I have ever tried.
5/2/2023
HARD TIMES
By Charles Dickens
I recently read and thought to recommend to you Hard Times by Charles Dickens. It is strikingly similar to the uncertainty we live in today and the struggles we go through as everything seems to be changing lately.
Hard Times describes the social and economic problems of the industrialization period, more specifically 18th century. An interesting fact about this book is that the action is set, not in London, as many might have thought, but in Coketown, a fictitious Victorian industrial town. The novel contains three books and a title of each book is inspired from the Bible, book of the Galatians, chapter 6, verse 7: “For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” The titles of his books are “Sowing”- the first one; “Reaping”- the second one, and the last one is called “Garnering”. The first book opens with the voice of one of the main characters, Mr. Gradgrind, who is telling to his pupils a strong speech based on the idea of facts, of proved things. As we can guess from the first title and the second one, Mr. Gradgrind sowed ideas of nothing but facts. In the end he reaps only facts which were more or less painful.
Thomas Gradgrind is a very important person for Coketown. He is the founder of the system of education in the town. He aspires to a proper education, the kind of education based on facts. He is also, in my opinion, a very intelligent and well-mannered person but, on the other hand, he is too realistic, speaking in a figurative way because he says all the time that poetry, fiction, love and affection are “destructive nonsense”. We have this image of the character from the very beginning when he speaks with Cecilia Jupe “Sissy” and tells her that things like “fancy” should not exist, that it is a waste of time to believe in them.
But Mr. Gradgrind beliefs were also reflected during the history. The Industrialism came and found people quite unprepared from many points of view. Kind of like Chat GPT did to us, I say. They saw machines that were able to do what only human being could do before that age. Some of them, like Mr. Gradgrind, create for themselves a too strong image of the fact that many things were no more the creation of God, as men are able to make a machine which does amazing things instead of human. They felt that society should change, should prove any new idea, so in the end people became almost similar with machines: no filings to be shown, no creative imagination, no sense of fancy. So they start believing only in what they saw.
I found it to resemble the times we live in now very much. Different context, same reactions to the novelty we encounter on a daily basis. Give it a chance on this spring rainy weather and I believe strongly you will understand what I mean by it.
3/16/2023
HOW TO BUILD A WEBSITE
Starting a website can be overwhelming as you begin to think what are the steps to take in order to actually build one. Well, I would like to tell you how I started. Make sure you have some little money for it, but not too many, buying a domain is not very expensive and this is one of the best parts when choosing a hosting company, which is the first step actually.
I personally choose Bluehost as a provider to host and buy my domain from, and I did research first, Bluehost seemed the best choice and what I personally recommend, but in all honesty you do you, and choose whatever you prefer. But do a bit of research first. After buying my domain name for a period of one year, and btw, I truly recommend you buy it on a longer period of time, I set up an account with WordPress, and worry not, Bluehost has a very easy process for that, as do all providers in all truthfulness. After all that was finished I started working on my website per se.
Now, please do not get scared at these steps as I am not a programmer or someone savvy with computers. But I went to my favorite part of the mighty web, Youtube. You can find step by step tutorials that will help you built your website, and my advice is – take your time with it. Look at tutorials as much as you can, personally before I actually started this website, I researched the steps for about 2 weeks. And then, when I actually began I followed on a different computer a Youtube tutorial and I followed it step by step, pausing it as I set the website and its pages.
It took me about 4 to 5 hours, because yes, I made a lot of mistakes. But when I was ready with it, it made me proud and it paid off more than I expected. Anyway, hoping this helps, I leave you with one more tip. First step is not those 10 dollars you need or the two weeks watching of tutorials. First and foremost, you have to decide to do it. To physically actually do it. It’s a cliché and I’m sorry for having to say it, but you have to decide and actually do it. Good luck!
1/25/2023
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY
Oscar Wilde
“The Picture of Dorian Gray” is the only novel written by Oscar Wilde. It is also a heartfelt recommendation for you to read and enjoy because in many aspects this novel is mind blowing. Wilde is one of the most and frequently quoted and well-loved author. The novel was written under the influence of Wilde’s ideas “Art for Art’s sake”. This particular literary movement sustains the idea that a work of art is complete in itself, however useless. It was borrowed by the France literature at the beginning of the 19th century. It is a slogan meaning that the beauty of the fine arts is reason enough for pursuing them and art does not have to serve purposes taken from politics, religion or economics. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe argued for the doctrine “art for art’s sake”. MGM uses the Latin translation “ars gratia artis” as a slogan in the circle surrounding Leo the Lion’s roaring head.
The novel describes the bohemian life in which its characters live. The word bohemian was first used by the English language in the 19th century to describe the non-traditional lifestyles of marginalized and impoverished artists, writers, journalists, musicians, and actors in major European cities. Although, Dorian Gray and Henry Wotton are not artists as Basil is, they both live unconventional lives dedicated to selfsatisfaction. However the two characters that live according to boheniamism are Basil Hollward and Sibyl Vane. Destroied by Dorian’s vanity, their figures are a constant reminder of his decadance. Oscar Wilde manages to gather in his novel a series of influences he witnessed during his time.
“The Picture of Dorian Gray” was, as expected one might say, not well received by the critics. It was believed to be an immoral story, thing that made Oscar Wilde to write four more chapters plus a Preface that represents the essence of Wilde’s work. His beliefs were revolutionary for the Victorian Era. At the time society held the appearance, although the individuals were beginning to defy the canons especially in art, therefor in literature. When the second edition of “Dorian Gray” appeared, in 1891 Oscar Wilde began a homosexual relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, affair that had a scandal as a result. Four years later Wilde was sentenced to two years of hard labor. He continued to be faithful to his ideas and when he was finally released he lived in poverty leaving England for Italy and France. He did not published under his own name again and whoever knew him declared that he never recovered after those two years in Wandsworth.
“The Picture of Dorian Gray” embodies themes such as beauty and decadence having at the same time a strong Faustian theme. Unsatisfied with his future, Dorian makes a bargain apparently with the Devil, unaware of the consequences. He has all that one could want, youth, beauty and a social status. However, he is terrified with the perspective of being old and disfigured in a few years. As a result to his fear he states that he would give everything in order to remain young forever as the painting. Nor Dorian or the readers realize that his desire is fulfilled until later on when the portrait starts changing.
A society of individuals that do not understand the deeps of human mind and soul do not conceive that one of them might be capable of a life dedicated to the self and to sinful pleasures. The picture itself is not just a mirror of Dorian’s rotten soul but a mirror for a dysfunctional society. Victorian Era is known as a period of great achievements in British Society and Culture. The international development and the industrialization began in Great Britain. However, the backgrounds presented by Oscar Wilde are the proof of hypocrisy. People that represent the power of a society have no clue of what human soul consists of.
11/29/2022
The amazing Sylvia Plath
-a brief word about her talent-
Sylvia Plath is considered to be a postmodernist poet and short-story writer due to her ability of opening a way into her life through the poems she wrote. Plath was not just a poet, she was a painter also dedicating almost all her existence to art. Her paintings were exhibited in London some years back by her daughter, painter Frieda Hughes. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for her two published collections: The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel. In 1982, she became the first poet to win a Pulitzer Prize posthumously, for The Collected Poems. She also wrote The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death. She completed her masterpiece, Lady Lazarus, in the days prior to her suicide in 1963, while in a state of disturbance, distress, and obsession. To Plath, this was not just a poem; rather a message to others about her life, her enemies, and her struggles with everything from her family to mental stability. Lady Lazarus conveys Plath’s real life suicide attempts, parallels to her classic novel, The Bell Jar, as well as a biblical allusion in its title, resulting in a horrific, yet detailed annotation of her psychological troubles. In this poem one can see the cyclical rhythm of death and revival reflecting Plath’s pervasive philosophical concerns with the Jungian concept of the individual’s dual-nature. The poem uses the doomed Electra figure that reoccurs throughout the Ariel collection to convey the ferocious duality that emerges from loving and hating the patriarchal figure. The figure is contradictorily described as both ‘Herr Doktor’ and ‘Herr Enemy’. Perhaps this is the most intimate personal emotional experience exploring the dark feelings of the underside of life – “a cry from the heart” or from a confessional poet who dares to probe private taboo subjects. Plath cites influences from Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, her husband – Ted Hughes and Robert Lowell who were not afraid to plumb the depths of their psychological problems in public declarations of their secret and private lives. Lowell wrote about his treatment in a mental institution. There is evidence that Plath may have been subjected to electro-shock treatment following a suicide attempt.
Sylvia Plath has openly and frankly admitted that she had a happy childhood but a sad adolescence after the death of her father. Her mother, Aurelia Plath tells that Sylvia was very active in caring for her father after his leg was amputated and spent a lot of time praying for his health. In the morning, informed of his death, she pulled the covers over her head and cried, “I’ll never speak to God again”. Throughout the poem, Plath objectifies her persona through repetitive use of concrete nouns. She describes her face as ‘featureless, fine Jew linen’ and her foot as ‘a paperweight’. In doing this, the identity of the persona is lost, as her body is split into separate objects of death, each representing a mused detachment from physical life. Alongside this degradation, there are dark contrasts between ideas of purity and morbidity. The personas skin is described as a ‘Nazi Lampshade’ with the contrast between these terms insinuating more of a sinister glow, and in turn, a sinister opinion on her own suffering. The constant references to Nazism that are apparent in this poem create a direct relationship between her own suffering and that of the Jewish people. This exaggeration of her own misery only adds to the melodrama that runs throughout ‘Lady Lazarus’, and is a technique she uses in many of her other works in ‘Ariel’.
11/23/2022
The Raise of the Cinema Industry
By Gina V. M.
For the United States of America the sixties brought economic prosperity at a level no one truly expected, all culminating in 1969 when the American flag is left to flutter on the Moon. Yet the young Americans felt that society has not solved the cruelty of the racial inequality and underneath the perfect way of life ligers the insecurity of the minorities and the unfairness of the Vietnam War. The assassination of President Kennedy followed by the assassination of leaders Malcolm X and Martin Luther King plus a war no one believed in pushed young people to treat life with drugs and Flower Power.
From that decade on America started to receive cultural sympathies due to the spreading of hippie music and the movie-making industry. The American Dream was no longer a myth, it became a truly civic religion of the modern times. Today America is the link between cultures both at a national level and an international one permanently trying to relive a glorious past and reinvent itself. America fascinates the world, the American way of life with its positivism and inexhaustible energy seduces people throughout the word. The American myth is so strong because is made out of a gathering of stories which seem to work better if there is a hero to be the worldwide image of the story. It is not important if these tales have positive or negative characters to be the center of them. The importance is held by the way in which they get to those who provide the feedback by creating an entire cult to sustain the myth in the story. After the Golden Age in American Cinema the ideas circulated with the purpose of influencing people as well as entertaining them, started to change in what many saw as a void without sense of value.
Many nations claim the invention of the cinema but the beginning of the first moving pictures cannot be placed exactly in time. Several inventors contributed to the development of movies, Edison in the United States, William Friese-Green in United Kingdom, Max Skladanowsky in Germany, yet the names that often are referred to as the pioneers of cinema are those of the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis. The film style and technology were internationalized although France had supremacy due to the superior equipment the Lumière brothers possessed and they were leaders in terms of market dominance. However starting with Thomas Edison the American Film Industry gained acknowledgement for the innovation it brought in mimicking the visual conversations or improving the visual quality. Soon enough American films constituted more than half of the movies projected both in United Stated and Europe. The early years of film production were dominated by the non-fiction film, a category that held no threat for the society values though the industry’s critics pleaded for the movies to be censored as a result of moral vulnerability they supposedly induced.
Starting with 1910 various film companies set their studios around the suburbs in West Los Angeles. After less than a decade Hollywood was not only the name of a small suburb, but of a system that came to dominate the cinema all around the world, from Norway to South Africa and Bengal. Hollywood was not a number of studios gathered together or a business of production and publicity. It was a model of a studio system mirroring the American dominance and success in every part of the process. The great achievement of Hollywood is that it started like a successful business whose purpose was to ensure a stable link between producer and consumer by providing as many films as the public required. It became the center of all producing in film industry combining American and European producers which contributed to a rapid development in the quality of the motion picture as well as in long term market dominance. The Hollywood film making became a standard model throughout the world, Paramount, Fox or MGM gained millions of dollars per year in profit. (The Oxford History of World Cinema 55 – 68) The popularity of the American movies demanded non-stop production making the impact upon the world enormous turning young people rapidly into aspiring movie stars. Producers and directors learned to base the advertising system on promoting new actors that created a model of great success achievement in the minds of the American middle-class. Such an example is Rudolph Valentino who was constructed to appeal to women in a manner that made him a legend although Hollywood was still in the silent era when he started his career. He is one of the few movie stars performing previous to sound films to have such a great impact on the public’s imagination. Valentino came to United States from Italy as a teenager. To many he represented the emigrant filled with hope, coming to America in pursue of his dream and eventually fulfilling it.
11/16/2022