North Korea: Another Country

North Korea: Another Country
© 2004 Bruce Cumings
241 pages

"It helps in understanding North Korea if you have lived in a fundamentalist Christian community...just like the North Koreans, we believed in the absolute purity of our doctrines. We focused inward and didn't want to be tainted by the outside world." - Anthony Namkung, quoted in both this and Korean Endgame.

I think of Korea as a small, impoverished, and underdeveloped military dictatorship ruled by a religious icon with silly hair. This is the impression established in my mind by intermittent television news, political speeches, and newspapers. Bruce Cumings has issue with this view, not chiefly because my own view is so shallow but because the US government’s own understanding isn’t much better. To Cumings, the United States treats North Korea like a perpetual and mysterious ’other’,  a place with no history and no substance beyond being a villain state. Cumings’ book attempts to broaden the readers’ understanding of Korea: unfortunately, while providing many interesting facts, his approach is scattered and incomplete. Another Country reads less like a focused book and more like a collection of six essays slightly edited so that they slightly connect.

Another Country’s two opening chapters document the devastation wreaked on North Korea during the ‘forgotten war’ and US presidential responses to the state’s nuclear aspirations. These two chapters constitute half the book, and are followed by a chapter chronicling the life of North Korea’s founder and “great leader” Kim Il Sung as a guerilla warrior during Japan’s invasion of China and Korea, with emphasis placed on the brutal way Koreans were treated by China, Russia, and Japan. Later chapters examine daily life in North Korea,  Kim Jong Il’s place in history, and the current living conditions of North Koreans. These last three chapters all reference Korean culture and its perceptions of good and evil as the foundation for Il Sung‘s “family state“.

If you gave this book to someone to read who had never heard of North Korea, they would after reading it have the impression that North Korea is a marginalized, misunderstood country ruled by a man who never wanted the position, and who in fact just wants to go home and play video games with his kids. Prison camps and human-rights violations are scarcely mentioned.  Perhaps Cumings assumed that his readers would be well-versed with North Korea’s reputation as a charter member of the “Axis of Evil” and wanted to shed light on other aspects of the nation, but the resulting bias is problematic.

I think Cumings succeeds in his overall goal to communicate why North Korea is the way it is, drawing on pan-Korean culture, the experience of Il Sung, and North Korea’s treatment at the hands of its neighbors and the United States. I don’t think this book does it as well as he might like. It helped me, but I will look elsewhere for an introduction to the nation.

This Week at the Library (19/5)

This week at the library....

Plato's Podcasts is an informal and slightly humorous take on Greek philosophy, operating from the idea that the dozen or so philosophers summarized within addressed the same essential problems that face people today. I enjoyed it, and it introduced me to interesting characters I'd never before met.

The Iron Heel, written in 1907 by Jack London, is a 'future history' novel set in a time where large trusts and monopolizing cooperations have taken outright control of the United States and rule it as a merciless oligarchy. The hero of the work is socialist revolutionary Ernest Everhard, who champions a vision of a better world. This book predates other dystopian works, and introduced some of the devices that would follow it.

The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir made for a much more lighthearted novel, being the story of Elizabeth of England's first twenty-five years.Elizabeth emerges as an independent and outspoken woman in an age wherew such things were discouraged: her character is forged amid times of political and religious violence. As she ages, she must defend herself against those who wish to use or destroy her. Delightful read.

I next read The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World, the follow up to the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler's interesting Art of Happiness. Troubled World focuses on society at large, examining the tension between individualism and collectivism while simutaneously addressing fear, vilence, hope, resilience, and humanist ethics.

Lastly I read Reading Judas: the Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity. I read this in part to see what Judas was about, interested in how his character might be defended. Surpisingly, Judas does not take central stage: that is given to the promotion of a new worldview, one which denounces the god of sacrifice and blood as a 'lower angel' and sees Jesus as sent to deliver the news that the material world is meaningless. The authors see the text as being another voice in the early debate over what it meant to be a follower of Jesus.

Pick of the Week: Iron Heel or The Lady Elizabeth.

Quotation of the Week: "I could learn to be a king," Elizabeth said seriously. "I could learn to order people about."

(She says this when she's four.)

Upcoming Reads:

• The Life of Birds, Sir David Attenborough. I started but did not finish this last week.
• Lord Hornblower, by CS Forester because someone checked out Hornblower and the Hotspur.
• North Korea: Another Country. I know little of the Korean war, and nothing of its context. 
• Africa: a Biography of the Continent. Sub-Saharan Africa is one of my historical blank spots.

I had intended to read something else from Alison Weir this week, but The Six Wives of Henry VIII is fairly hefty; even I would not venture to tackle it in the same week as Africa.

The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World

The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World
© 2009 Howard Cutler, Tenzin Gyatso
368 pages

Perhaps over a year ago I stumbled upon the predecessor to this work, The Art of Happiness. The Art of Happiness, produced by psychiatrist Howard Cutler’s many interviews with Tenzin Gyatso, better known as the Dalai Lama,  took a philosophical approach to happiness that I enjoyed immensely. I looked forward to reading this similarly titled work ,which is the third in a series of Art of Happiness books that Cutler intends to write.

Art of Happiness focused on individuals and interpersonal relationships as they relate to happiness, but In a Troubled World takes a larger view, examining society as a whole and tackling some of the problems that arise from living in nation-states. The first few chapters examine the role of the individual within groups, stressing the need for balance between the poles of individualism and collectivism while addressing prejudice. The second part of the book addresses violence and fear, while the third sings the praises of hope, resilience, compassion, and empathy.

Although Gyatso is best known as the Dalai Lama, the head of Tibetan Budhhism, and has authored dozens of books relating to that subject, Buddhism is largely absent from this book. He refers to his own practices from time to time, but like Art of Happiness this is a book intended for a larger general audience and both Gyatso and Cutler root their discussions in naturalistic psychology.

I found much to appreciate in this book, although it didn’t impact me in the way of The Art of Happiness. Then, I was just starting to think of happiness in philosophical terms,  and found it useful. This work only affirmed what I already believe, and indeed take for granted operating from my own humanist values.

Reading Judas

Reading Judas: the Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of  Christianity
© 2007 Elaine Pagels and Karen King
198 pages, including the author's own work, the text itself, and commentary on the translation.

Jesus Christ was a man who traveled through the land

A hard-working man and brave --

He said to the rich, "Give your money to the poor,"

But they laid Jesus Christ in his grave.

Jesus was a man, a carpenter by hand

His followers true and brave.

One dirty coward called Judas Iscariot

Has laid Jesus Christ in his grave.

(Woody Guthrie, "Jesus Christ".)

Mostly on a whim, I picked up Reading Judas on my way out of the library last week. I heard of the book as being Judas' account of Jesus' last days, in which Judas is hand-picked by Jesus to 'betray' his master, and thus serve him in the greatest way possible by allowing Jesus to fulfill his mission. This is controversial, since the canonical treatment of Judas is as a 'dirty coward' who betrayed Jesus for spite or money.

According to Pagels and King, though, and judging from the text of Judas -- included in this volume -- Judas wasn't written primarily to redeem or even defend Judas. The authors see it as another voice in the pre-Nicaean debate on who Jesus was, why he died, why he rose again, and what his followers should do in light of his example. A new cosmology dominates the text, and Judas takes central place for he is the only one of Jesus' disciples willing enough to depart from the old ways and learn it. Jesus sees his potential and takes him aside, teaching him in private while they ruefully shake their heads at the hidebound ignorance of the others. The author of the Judas text uses it to promote a world-view in which material matters are wholly irrelevant, where reality lies in the world of the spirits. That's where Judas realizes Jesus is from: the world of the spirit, and his death is a clarion call to followers that death is nothing: all that matters is spirit.

In the first century of Christian history -- or histories, as the authors see this time as an era of bitter rivalry between schools of thought, all of whom fixate on a particular teacher (Peter, Paul, James, and in this case Judas) as their banner -- many Christians were still waiting the return of Jesus to establish an actual kingdom on Earth. As time passes and Jesus is a no-show, Christianity moves more toward seeing that kingdom as spiritual, and becomes more concerned with spiritual matters. I suppose the watershed event is Augustine's City of God.  What Judas' author proposes is not all that controversial in reality, since Christians are oh-so-eager to defame the world and put their hopes in metaphysics. I'd wager Christians reading Judas would not be shocked by a preconceived idea that it defends Judas, but by the new cosmology, which refers to the god of sacrifice, violence, and blood that the disciples worshiped as  a "lower angel". The "true God" is better than that, and in Judas' eyes, that's what Jesus was sent to say.

Christian theology isn't one of my subjects of interest (theology in general, for that matter), but Reading Judas   added to my understanding of that early period. The authors of this book helped immensely, of course, introducing the book by examining the text in context before producing it. The four opening chapters examine Judas' perception as a traitor, the roles he plays in other texts, the book's cosmology, and its theology. This gospel is unlike the canonical books, which exist mostly as collection of stories throughout his life: it seems to be set in the week before Jesus' passover death. The text is also incomplete:  while the "holy" gospels were protected, Judas was left on its own and became holey in another way.* There are long portions of undisturbed text, but they may be followed by passages that have been nearly obliterated. An patchwork example follows.

"Jesus said [to them], "Cease sac[rificing........]. "It is upon the alt[a]r that yo[u........] [for they are] over your stars and angels, having already been completed there. Let them become [...] again right in front of you, and let them.... [about fifteen and a half lines are missing from the manuscript] to the races [...]. It is not possible for a bak[er] to feed the whole creation under [heaven]." (113-114) 

Passages like these are near-unintelligible, but the text is lucid for the most part. I can recommend this book to Christians, who won't find it as shocking as the "controversy" leads them to expect, or to anyone interested in early Christianity.

*Bless me father, for I have sinned.

Teaser Tuesday (18-5)

And lo! The Tuesday time for teasing is upon us again, from Should be Reading.

According to The Gospel of Judas, then, the fundamental problem is that "the twelve" -- here, stand-ins for church leaders -- do not know who Jesus is and do not understand who God is, either. They wrongly think that God requires suffering and sacrifice. But the author of The Gospel of Judas -- and others within the early movement as well -- was asking question like this: What does such teaching make of God?

Page 66, Reading Judas: the Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity. Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King.

The Lady Elizabeth

The Lady Elizabeth
© 2008 Alison Weir
480 pages

"Can you do what you like when you are king? [Elizabeth] asked, a whole new vista of freedom opening up in her mind.

"Of course I can," her father replied. "People have to do my will." There was an edge to his voice that, young as she was, she missed.

"Then," she told him, "I am going to be king when I grow up." (p. 19)

I have long been taken with the personality of Elizabeth the First, the storied 'Virgin Queen of England' who ruled long and well, setting England's course away from the Roman Church and continental wars, and towards Anglo-Scottish union and the New World.  Alison Weir's biography of Elizabeth came highly reccommended to me, but I do not have access to it: I do, however, have access to Weir's biographical novel of Elizabeth. Weir's account begins with the death of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth's mother, and the royal decree that Elizabeth and her older half-sister Mary are cut off from the line of succession. Weir tells Elizabeth's story beginning with this loss of favor, following the future queen's trials and triumphs until she is at last crowned Queen at the age of twenty-five.

Elizabeth, for me, is an almost-larger-than-life character, and her depiction in this book pays homage to her irrepresible indivduality and strength of will. "Precocius" is nearly an understatement, for even as a toddler Elizabeth is startlingly bold and mature, sounding at times like an adult. This may be due to the inherent difficult of an adult rendering how a young child might think and speak, to the tendecy for royal children to be raised as adults in miniature, or to the fact that Weir's sources -- letters penned by the young Elizabeth and recollections of her by her guardians -- depict a child with supreme self-collection.

Elizabeth's earliest memories are the blizzard of new stepmothers, for her father would marry four more times in his life, having done so six times in all.  Mary and Elizabeth are both bewildered by this quick succession, but their respective responses to their own mothers' fates define their characters: while Mary is partially broken by the humiliation of her mother (Katherine of Aragon) and lives her life forever dependent on others and weeping for the loss of what she loves, Elizabeth is determined not to endure her mother's fate. She develops inner strength, demanding independence and self-effected security for herself. The primary actor in Elizabeth's life is Elizabeth. She steels herself with philosophy -- being especially fond of Cicero -- and meets challenges with bristling defiance.

Elizabeth will need that strength of character to withstand her adolescence: when the king dies, she and her siblings become the pawns of ambitious nobles who seek to increase their fortunes and influence England's course during times of political and religious turmoil. Elizabeth must also resist the advances of lusty suitors, struggling against her body's innate desire to propagate. She scorns marriage, for her father's string of wives proved how little the status of wife is worth, and she distrusts the power her emotions have over her when encouraged.  Early adulthood is no easier, as rebellions against the Sovereign ensnare Elizabeth and send her to the Tower of London, where she occupies the very apartments her mother occupied before her own beheading. Her path to the throne takes her through a vast minefield of religious, political, diplomatic, and personal problems.

Weir took me by surprise: although my interest in the subject character played a part, The Lady Elizabeth was for me a genuine page-turner. Although I kept putting it down in order to read another book, it continually appeared in my hands again. I'm always pleased when authors comment on their sources and discuss how they used (or took liberty with) them, and Weir is generous in providing disclosure. I look forward to reading more of her fiction and nonfiction and recommend this with ease.

Teaser Tuesday (11-5)

Sunday, Monday, Happy Days

Teaser Tuesdays, happy days.

(from Should be Reading.)

"And in the day that we sweep to victory at the ballot-box, and you refuse to turn over to us the government we have constitutionally and peacefully captured, and you demand what we are going to do about it --- in that day, I say, we shall answer you; and in the roar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns shall our answer be couched. You cannot escape us." 

From Jack London's The Iron Heel. Ernest Everhard, London's hero, is responding to the Oligarchy's intention to maintain their control of the government through brute force. He's deliberately echoing their previous statement, with which the trusts revealed their true nature. That is below.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"This, then, is our answer. We have no words to waste on you. When you reach out your vaunted strong hands for our palaces and purpled ease, we will show you what strength is. In roar of shell and shrapnel and in whine of machine-guns will our answer be couched. We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain."  [...]

"I am answered," Ernest said quietly. "It is the only answer that could be given. Power. It is what we of the working class preach. We know, and well we know by bitter experience, that no appeal for the right, for justice, for humanity, can ever touch you. Your hearts are hard as your heels with which you tread upon the faces of the poor. So we have preached power. By the power of our ballots on election day will we take your government away from you --"

"What if you do get a majority, a sweeping majority, on election day?" Mr. Wickson broke in to demand. "Suppose we refuse to turn the government over to you after you have captured it at the ballot-box?"

"That, also, have we considered," Ernest replied. "And we shall give you an answer in terms of lead. Power, you have proclaimed the king of words. Very good. Power it shall be. And in the day [...]"

There the teaser picked up.