Red Dust - Ma Jian

This post has 11 comments with rating of 5/511

• 
  caesar963
  June 9th, 2020
  

  

  ‘Spiritual Pollution’ - precisely the type of specific, unequivocal accusation which is easiest for the individual to defend against. How would a person even begin to go about exculpating themselves?

  Red Dust - Ma Jian
• 
  ssafe05
  June 9th, 2020
  

  

  (@caesar: ‘Spiritual pollution’ - I feel like we are back to onanism.)

  By the 4th century BCE, the Tao Te Ching was well aware of what happens when rulers seek to intimidate the people:

  The more laws and restrictions there are, The poorer people become.
  …
  The more rules and regulations, The more thieves and robbers.
  …
  When the country is ruled with a light hand
  The people are simple.
  When the country is ruled with severity,
  The people are cunning.

  Red Dust - Ma Jian
• 
  caesar963
  June 9th, 2020
  

  It’s all about survival. My own savage people must be the exception which proves that particular one. The rule here is light touch & balanced in approach; whereas the people are vastly, unfeasibly cunning. All hidden behind a mask of the purest simplicity, of course.

  The Tao seems to be small state, non-interventionist & low regulation in orientation. That’s not too popular these nanny-state days. Big state onanism, iow.

  Red Dust - Ma Jian
• 
  ssafe05
  June 10th, 2020
  

  @ceasar: might I recommend “The Captive Mind” by Czeslaw Milosz, the Polish poet. It is a masterful analysis of what happens when the State tries to get into one’s head to control one’s behavior. And it details the challenging mental gymnastics one makes to accommodate the cohabitation in one’s noggin as one tries to survive the incursion.

  I was fortunate enough to hear him speak and read his poetry, both in English and in Polish, and while I did not understand the Polish verses they were clearly lyrical with a flow and verve that did not exist in the English versions.

  Alas

  Red Dust - Ma Jian
• 
  caesar963
  June 10th, 2020
  

  Your contributions are always mucho thoughtful. I’ve got a beet red face due to my frivolous outbursts. I’ll try to get the Captive Mind, and then bend all of my will towards understanding it (I’m a will-bender, dontcha know). That post-colonial thing is a holy terror. The Poles have been wiped off the map several times in their history; and then they had the fascist/Marxist tag team working in concert against them within “living” memory. There’s little that is more evil than invasive thought control - attempting to deprive an agent of their conscious will and moral choice.

  When the colonisers are here in occupation long enough that they name the landscape, dispensing with the ancient, organic designations, it does betoken a profound, disturbing sense of ownership (what’s in a name?).

  The people of my land often reject legitimate authority, because for so long the imperial interlopers symbolised illegitimate authority. This attitude represents a fossilised legacy of 800 year old colonial duress. This is also why we employ a lot of creative circumlocution - to disguise meaning & motive from the official power. Post-colonialism takes different forms across the world, of course.

  Not having been an evil colonial/imperial power ourselves, we don’t have any marble effigy to cast in the flowing river, like our erstwhile British oppressors. Our statues, like Daniel O’Connell, were utterly opposed to slavery before it was a thang.

  Red Dust - Ma Jian
• 
  ssafe05
  June 10th, 2020
  

  To quote the queasy Mr. Deasy, “I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know that? No. And do you know why? —She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter as he stamped on gaitered feet over the gravel of the path. That’s why.”

  History is a nightmare from which we are all trying to awake.

  Red Dust - Ma Jian
• 
  caesar963
  June 10th, 2020
  

  Lest we become too proudful…
  I always liked the fact that his Odysseus was Jewish, and his Polyphemus anti-Semitic.

  On an unrelated matter, I finally began properly listening to Robt Jordan’s Wheel, at your behest/recommendation. It flows like the proverbial river - really enjoying it (although I can spot a slew of references). Feel free to issue more literary advice.

  Red Dust - Ma Jian
• 
  ssafe05
  June 10th, 2020
  

  I have a friend who has just twisted my arm enough to get me to read the Spellmonger series, which he swears by. I’ll let you know.

  I had a blast with The Expanse books on audio. And of course Jemison’s Broken Earth Trilogy has as good a reader as the story deserves.

  Not sure if those count as literary. In that case, just memorize “The Second Coming” by Yeats, and maybe Lycidas by Milton. ;)

  Ah, wait, I have the perfect recommendation in the ‘literature’ category (which I will now need to post…) “Man of My Time” just blows the doors off Dalia Sofer’s last tour de force.

  Depending on what Billy Barr does next to the First Amendment and freedom of speech, we may be forced to start making these recommendations over Telegram. :D

  Red Dust - Ma Jian
• 
  ssafe05
  June 10th, 2020
  

  * Jemisin

  Red Dust - Ma Jian
• 
  caesar963
  June 10th, 2020
  

  The whole telegram thing was dispensed with long before its time.
  Thanks for those, they’re greatly appreciated.

  As for the Second Coming, we have a “terminal” exam here at the end of the secondary cycle, it’s called the Leaving Certificate. It’s supposed to determine the course of your life (at 18) throughout all eternity - and beyond. I’m not sure what your equivalent might be (probably some form of shooting contest?). Adults routinely have nightmares about it decades later. Anyway, a collection of Yeats’ poems are set for the English exam, and that one was always my favourite (when I wasn’t Sailing to Byzantium, that is). I don’t have it memorised anymore but some parts of it do come bidden & unbidden (I’m no slouch, you see). He’s the national poet, y’know.

  Incidentally, Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya was the only country to emulate, to some degree, our Leaving Certificate exam (hadn’t those poor people suffered enough?!).

  I’m saving the Expanse series for myself, for some reason. Fearing to hope that it’ll be Battlestar Galactica quality in conception, ambition & reach.

  Red Dust - Ma Jian
• 
  toystory
  April 21st, 2024
  

  

  Hello, could you please re-seed as i would love to get this book as an audiobook, just started reading the paperback and i think listening to a good narrator would be a better way to read the book.
  Many thanks.

  Red Dust - Ma Jian

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