Miguel de Unamuno
When I was studying Spanish at Weber, several of the professors commented on Miguel de Unamuno. He is, indeed, an interesting author, and his stories are thought-provoking and entertaining.
Unamuno fought for intellectual freedom during his life—after he had returned from a five-year exile, he began his lecture by saying "As we were saying yesterday, ...", as Fray Luis de Leon had done in the same place four centuries before, as though he had not been absent at all. He ended his public career opposing a violent and strong political movement in a speech. A couple of excerpts: 1) from the beginning: “Sometimes, to remain silent is to lie, since silence can be interpreted as assent”; 2) at the end: “This [the university] is the temple of intelligence, and I am its high priest. You are profaning its sacred domain. You will win, because you have enough brute force. But you will not convince. In order to convince it is necessary to persuade, and to persuade you will need something that you lack: reason and right in the struggle.”
La Tia Tula (Aunt Tula)
This story challenges traditional men and women roles; shows how pursuing what looks like a worthy goal, often negatively affects others; that forceful people push others into poor decisions; that people often make poor decisions even though they know better. It was a very thought-provoking book.
San Manuel Bueno, martir (martyr)
San Manuel is a well-beloved Catholic priest who lost his faith, but continued to minister to his flock and to encourage them to be faithful to the Church. The narrator of the story and her brother learn of his unbelief, and the story relates the many conversations they had with him over the years until he passed away. As of the inmates of which Solzhenitsyn wrote, the priest used relentless work to bring meaning to his life until he could sleep without dreaming.
La Novela (novel) de Don Sandalio
This story tells of a man who writes regularly to a friend Felipe. This man has become tired of the foolishness of mankind, and looks for solace in nature, but shortly thereafter he begins to frequent a casino where he watches Don Sandalio play chess. When Sandalio's opponent doesn't appear one day, this man plays chess with him. This continues day after day for some period of time. No conversation passes between the two men as they play. But at times, the author wonders if, after the chess games were over, whether Sandalio ever thought of him. When Sandalio is absent from the casino one day, some of the other patrons try to tell the author what has happened to him, but he doesn't want to know. He has, in his own mind, determined what it is he knows about Sandalio. This disinterest continues when Sandalio mysteriously dies in jail. Then Sandalio's son-in-law comes to the author to speak with him, and relates that when Sandalio was at home, he spoke very animatedly and intimately about the author. The author is puzzled in that they had never spoken of anything, and he posits that Sandalio had done the same thing that he had, in creating a person in his own mind.
Un Pobre Hombre Rico ( A poor rich man)
The poor, rich man speaks of a man who works and saves all he can, and moves away from his boarding house allowing the women he loves and who loves him to believe that he wasn't interested, Subsequently, she marries someone else. Years pass, and she becomes a widow, and he then has another chance to be part of her life, and he marries her. At the end, Unamuno comments, “Now you see that I can write a story that doesn't end in tragedy.”
Heart of Darkness
This novel characterizes most of the human race as a group who is only motivated by grabbing as much as they can, with no understanding that there are other people on the planet.
But occasionally there comes a man like Kurtz who wields tremendous influence over his followers. He has great charisma and attracts a great following, even after his death. He also provokes many to great self-introspection. But when we ask them who Kurtz is, what he stands for, where he's from, what his background is, etc., no one knows. He listens to no one, dominates all conversations, is often openly hostile and violent to his followers, but he has their loyalty.
The book tells about what power does to people. Kurtz knows that he has been overcome with darkness, and loathes himself and everyone else. But before we too quickly condemn Kurtz, Marley, the narrator, asks us what we would become if there were no civilized people around us and no police to restrain us, and the opportunity presented itself.
Abraham Lincoln by Thomas Keneally
This is a biography about Lincoln. In 1831 when he saw the blacks mistreated, he became opposed to slavery. He was very honest, insisting on paying his debts, even when his partners walked away. He had bouts of melancholy, and it appears that his time as president with the nation at war was extremely physically and mentally draining on him. At times he doubted the divinity of Christ, but after a great loss during the Civil War called for a day of fasting and prayer. He also acknowledged the existence of a divine being who watched over the human race.
His marriage to Mary Todd was very trying. She went through moods—at times was a loyal supporter willing to do anything for her husband and children and exerted a great influence with people. At other times she made everyone around her miserable. When she was in a bad mood, he often would would stay in his office or go on the road. Often he brought the children to his office for their protection.
The South decried the mistreatment of workers in the North factories as inhumane. They asserted that the North could treat their workers anyway they pleased because there were always new, healthy people arriving from Europe needing work. In the South, however, they had to buy their work force, so it was to their advantage to treat them such that they could work for them for years.
The assertion that freeing the slaves would mean that they would take all the white jobs in the North was countered by Lincoln's belief that the freed slaves should be deported to other nations.
The concept of “popular sovereignty” was proposed, in that each admitted state would choose to be free or a slave state. Lincoln saw that this would lead to all states eventually becoming slave states as the North labor market could be flooded with slaves from the South. He also astutely asked, “Can the people of a United States territory, in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution?”
He argued that the Declaration of Independence said that all men were created equal, but others stated that it didn't include blacks. Referring to the “Know-Nothings”, he stated that if they get control, “I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
The opponents of freedom stated that this would lead to marriage between the races. Lincoln emphatically stated that just because he didn't want a woman to be his slave, didn't imply that he wanted her to be his wife.
There was one thing that Lincoln didn't understand. He felt that if a man were free he could work hard for someone else, and eventually be his own boss. He didn't understand that in many situations even a free man didn't earn enough to ever escape his situation.
Lincoln was opposed to President Buchanan's attempt to admit Kansas as a slave state and other decisions, like considering surrendering Fort Sumpter to the Confederates. As we've seen elsewhere, Buchanan often took the easiest choice, rather than the correct choice.
Lincoln exercised as much restraint as possible with the seceding states. When Fort Sumpter had no provisions, he sent ships in to resupply the fort. He told the Confederates that the ship was only delivering supplies, but they were fired upon, thus starting the war.
He had a terrible time getting generals who would fight. He went through general after general who just made lame excuses. His patience with them was extraordinary, much to the frustration of his cabinet.
When Lincoln freed all slaves in the rebel states when they refused to return to the union, the ward took on a moral dimension. Other countries could not support the South and claim to believe in freedom.
When it was heard that the South was executing black Union solders instead of keeping them as prisoners of war, it was suggested that the North execute Southern solders in like manner. Lincoln refused to lower himself to such barbarity.
Angel of Repose by Wallace Stegner
The title refers to the angle of a hill at which when dirt is dumped where it obtains stability. It follows a couple in the late 1800s who have very different goals in life, but marry anyway. They work very hard at being united, but never overcome their separateness.
Oliver Ward is a somewhat quixotic person—hardworking with personal integrity; a man living his dream and vision; honest and trusting and generally forgiving of others; always within reach of being a great builder of the West, but never able to attain it—generally because of others who lose vision, or because he refuses to compromise his personal integrity, and, hence, is unable to support his wife and family as she desires.
Susan Ward, his wife, is a brilliant and beautiful writer and artist, loving culture and those who are well-known in society. She wants Oliver to be great, well-known, witty, intelligent and sensitive as her friends back east are. No matter how hard he works, he never measures up to her expectations. As he experiences failure after failure, she loses faith in him, and often emotionally and physically separates herself from him.
Even when a period of physical separation is over, rather than having a happy reunion, she seems more concerned with whether Oliver has changed during the separation, and her reservations are so overpowering that they continue to poison the relationship. In these circumstances he seeks solace in drink, and she gives her heart to someone else.
But when a tragedy strikes the family because of her affair, even Oliver, who can forgive those outside his family circle any manner of outrages, cannot find it in himself to forgive Susan. In his despair he destroys the rose garden that he made for her.
Their lives end on that note, at that angle of repose.
The narrator of the story is Lyman Ward, their grandson who is writing a book on his grandparents. He is suffering a progressively fatal disease, and was betrayed by his wife who left him when he was diagnosed with the disease. Helping him organize the grandparents' papers is Shelly, a young-adult woman who is caught up in the 60s-hippie culture. Lyman and Shelly spar over whether things are better now than when Oliver and Susan lived their Victorian lives.
Then Lyman learns that his ex-wife now wishes reconciliation, and he is faced with the same challenge as his grandfather.
The book, over 500 pages, progresses ploddingly, up to the last chapter, which then progresses rapidly. Lyman has a dream which is nothing like the rest of the book. In fact the dream is very much like the scenes as described by Chief Bromden in
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