The Curtain, drawn back.

Files recently unearthed from the Soviet archive reveal that Milan Kundera, as a student, may have reported a suspect who turned out to be a Western agent (as a result, the agent was ostracised–that is, exiled from the country from ten years. I didn’t realise that was still a punishment in modern times). In one of his earlier novels, The Joke, the main character reports someone who is trying to escape the communist regime out of love for the girl who has told him this ‘fact’ (except that said someone wasn’t actually trying to escape–it was an excuse she gave him so as not to tell him she as having an affair–and both the ‘escapee’ and the girl were interrogated, the girl ending up incarcerated for covering up for an ‘agent’). A similar situation, perhaps? Was the author writing what he knew? We may never know the truth.

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And I believe there is needing to know the truth for purposes of justice, but not necessarily for literary criticism. Regardless of what Kundera may or may not have done as a 21-year-old before he himself left the country to escape the regime, that doesn’t change his place in literary history as a communicator of Czechoslovakia under the Soviets, a writer of originality amongst his contemporaries, a major player in developing a certain kind of Central European philosophical approach and thought.

I’m listening to the debates on the Czech radio if he has the ‘right’ to be moralistic if he did indeed report a fellow citizen–and yet I’m not sure if they have really read his work, there isn’t exactly anything heroic about his characters. They don’t fight the system and win; the Soviet regime is indeed portrayed as all pervasive, yet his characters are essentially human. The protagonist of ‘The Joke’ is of an unfixed, changing mind, protesting the regime and then fervently supporting the communist philsophy, before realising the impact that his attempts to be both a good citizen and lover (not that it necessarily makes him a better person). His novels are explorations–there is never exactly a happily ever after.

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I think it reflects this kind of hunger that we’ve developed for information on everything about another person–there is so much difficulty in trying to know and come to terms with ourselves, yet an insatiable pursual of all things trivial. Tabloids sell more copies than more sober newspapers, there are celebrity magazines and ‘human interest’ magazines, where the general public are invited to write in their own stories to become a part of the magazine (or at least there is here–they’re magazines like Take 5 and the sort). Celebrities have behaviour clauses written into their contract, their future success is judged against their past actions, we google our companies, our acquaintances, and they return the favour, in order to verify our existence and also to develop their perceptions of us, based on things we may not necessarily have wanted them to know.

The quality and impact of his work should not be rejudged based on his personal history. In The Curtain, a recent book of literary criticism on the history of the novel, he talks about how authors and artists select works they feel best represents their oeuvre, what they feel is their definitive work–and historians (?) still push through to uncover letters, first drafts, revised manuscripts, abandoned juvenilia. That personal ‘right’, if there ever was one, to represent a mature personal philosophy based on selected works is overridden by the sheer availability of information and the curiosity of those who choose to study them.

I had thought along the lines of the literary historian (and as a historian in general); that in order to capture an overview of how an era was lived out and how a line of thought was developed, it is important to gain as much information as is available. And yet, as a lover of literature, I can suddenly see his point when his ability as a writer is suddenly questioned because of the apparent hypocrisy of being caught in the same passion/dilemma/day to day existence of the Czechoslovakian in the 1950’s–and choosing to become a published, well-known author from it.

Kundera’s Czech cycle of novels played a part, albeit much on a smaller scale, similar to Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago and Day in the Life–revealing to the world what it was like to live under the regime. Except instead of tales of hard labour and punishment in the gulag camps, his novels revealed the impact on what are essentially fragile lives and relationships, trying to exist and love under constant surveillance, the fervour of those who did believe in the philosophy, and the difficulty of trying to leave (and the even greater difficulty of trying to return once one had left). Smaller scale, yes, but no less human.

Perhaps the tale of Kundera’s protagonist choosing to report the supposed ‘escape’ in order to protect the woman that he loved rings true because Kundera himself had been there before. Unless he chooses to publicise the truth–unlikely, as he is a private person and this comes through clearly in his own literary criticism–that’s purely speculation. And it’s the kind of speculation that has become rife in today’s society, where the ‘desire’ to know all about others becomes the ‘right’ to know–and perhaps they could stand to read a little more closely than just scanning over the words. Because even if Kundera’s characters end up more lost than they had been when they started, it is due to the choices that they make in self-discovery–or the lack of it.

Living in one economy, my old life still in another.

The Czech economy is going great guns. Profit is up, the crown is strong, the sales of luxury goods are shooting up with the entry of stores like Gucci and other upmarket labels into the streets. They even opened up a Starbucks here in recent months–unlike back in Australia, where they’ve slashed three quarters of the stores, about 61 stores and cutting the jobs of a lot of students and travellers that I know.

The one-size-fits-all concept never really moved me, but one thing I always did appreciate about Starbucks as I struggled to get a hold of conversational German in Vienna and Nuremburg–they always hired travellers that could speak German and English, so if I was feeling a little bit rattled after a long day of trying to learn the language directly in the street, I could order my long-winded customised, flavoured macchiato and still be reassured that it was the same drink that I was getting back home.

I grew up a child of the recession, when mortgages were in the double digits and impossible to get, when my parents chased down a stray two dollar bill that slipped out of their wallet and flew along a pier because that was our petrol money home, where for a couple of years I was too young to realise what it was I was demanding of my parents when I wanted a treat and didn’t get one. Then the internet boom came,  and the ease of getting technical jobs as I worked my way around Melbourne; all of that saving and all of that enjoying the present but not in denial of the future. Professional jobs are still relatively easier for me to get with my experience–but I am still a foreigner, still an outsider, still mastering the nuances of the language and the culture. Prague is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and my Australian security holdings have crunched by a remarkable 30% in a year, and being surrounded by this post-communist affluence–it’s tempting to partake, but, then there’s the practicality of making sure that I can handle the inevitable rent rises whilst I’m waiting out the years to finally obtain permanent residency, eventual citizenship, so I can call this place my own home.

The kids I know who work at Starbucks back in Australia are talking about their redundancies. Once the credit crunch hit I knew this was coming, but it’s still frightening–still a sign to keep the bigger picture in mind and not to get too caught up in the beauty and new-found luxury of my new city.

New outlooks in dealing with gifted children

My sister and I were considered ‘gifted children’ when we were at school; both accelerated up a grade. Whilst we both experienced the usual challenges that one faces in their formative school years–being younger than everyone else posed even more interesting challenges in high school. The outcomes were vastly different for myself and my sister: she has continued to be precociously successful, and meshing well in society; I changed courses several times, ran off overseas, finally found my niche after first seeking ‘independence’ (whatever that truly is).

Now it is suggested that gifted children remain with their age group, and given enhancement and enrichment activities. Agreed, but another though having discussed these current programs with parents who have gifted children: having a supportive schooling environment and available teachers to act as mentors and idea champions for these kids is also crucial.

Because of tightly stretched budgets, pressures on time, and a lack of really good teachers (or any teachers at all–note that primary and secondary education tends to be a pull factor in overseas recruitment), it can be very easy to let gifted children slip through the educational net because they’re already doing well. Children who have learned along the way to be self-motivating and have an environment in which they can seek out their own challenges find their own way to thrive. Those who struggle, or choose not to excel out of rebellion or wanting to fit in with the crowd–and there are a lot of them–find it difficult to reach their potential or to find the niche where they will enjoy it the most–which may not be the conventional academic successes that is usually predicted of gifted students.

For several years I counselled gifted students who made similar choices that I had in high school–to allow the emotional pressure of trying to be a ‘normal’ teenager get in the way of appreciating and valuing their uniqueness. The outcasts, the pariahs, the ‘loners’. If emotional stress does indeed affect decision making, in a turbulent age it can be even more difficult for one to find their way on a path that is right for them, and to understand that there are choices that they can make to learn to appreciate their gifts. Sometimes one just has to grow up an experience the real world to understand the past in its context; sometimes these kids don’t allow themselves that chance.

Creativity and Science

How to Unleash Your Creativity – an article in Scientific American.

I’m more of an academic-journal fan, however Scientific American makes discussing and reading questions and answers on the mind, language, consciousness … even theoretical physics … really accessible and easy to understand.

Why Czech archaeology never ceases to amaze me …

Archaeologists find grave of suspected vampire

By ČTK / Published 14 July 2008

Pardubice, East Bohemia, July 11 (CTK) – Archaeologists have uncovered a 4000-year-old grave in Mikulovice, east Bohemia, with remains of what might have been considered a vampire at the time, Nova TV has reported.The experts made the terrifying find within their research of a burial site from the Early Bronze Age.

One of the graves was situated somewhat aside. The skeleton in it bears traces of unusual treatment.

When buried, the dead man was weighed down with two big stones, one on his chest and the other on his head.

“Remains treated in this way are now considered as vampiric. The dead man’s contemporaries were afraid that he might leave his grave and return to the world,” Radko Sedlacek from the East Bohemia Museum said.

This is for the first time Czech archaeologists have uncovered a “vampire’s” grave, Nova said.

In ancient times, people believed vampires are the dead who occasionally return among the living to harm their health or property.

http://www.praguemonitor.com/en/377/czech_national_news/25427/

Никого нет дома.

Okay, this is a completely bizarre addition for my ‘learn at least the basics of every UN language for International Year of Languages’ goal: learning to touch-type in Cyrillic has actually improved my grasp on the language ten-fold. Which isn’t saying much as my Russian was only really associative by way of Czech–but having tapped my way through a couple of basic case work and sentences, I can actually understand having to put words in different cases and genders much faster than when I was trying to learn the same for Czech. I think this is partially due to having to have learned the words the ‘hard way’, through a related language that was placed in the Latin alphabet, but also because I am very much a kinaesthetic learner. This is a really bizarre, but interesting, personal finding!

The internet is not accustomed to Cyrillic yet, though–I see that WordPress’s admirable attempt to convert the title of this post into ‘net readable code put it into a bunch of symbols. It’s a really nifty part of this interface that allows one to change what the post’s file name is, however.

How much of the Internet is written in Russian? In Chinese? In Spanish? The statistics hunter needs to go on the prowl.

Thoughts on way too many thoughts.

Two A.M. in the morning on a Monday, accompanied by the Arctic Monkeys playing in the background over the French international news. There are researchers out there who make a point of their good time management skills–they can complete their tasks with ruthless efficiency, get home by six p.m., with maybe a bit of reading to do at home just like their days back in uni or high school. I couldn’t settle with just wanting to answer one question, though, did I? No, indeed; I end up so absorbed into them that I don’t even notice that it’s midnight and I ought be sleeping until it’s well past and I don’t have the inclination for it anymore.

This is likely why I write about so many other things in my spare time–so many observations, and my internal world comes back to bite me in my dreams, in which I have very odd, elaborate dreams about large staircases and formal presentations and architecturally interesting buildings and, what was that funny detail I still remember from one of last week’s? Oh, yes, hunting down the fried rice amongst the potluck meal (there wasn’t much left of it–apparently fried rice is popular in my dreams).

I can’t stop being curious about the world–there is no easy way to try and communicate this. Even though I am on a path to answer questions that are bigger than myself, too big for myself really, there are so many little questions that so easily catch my attention as well. Even though I don’t talk or write about them, clearly they stick in my mind somehow, because it’s in that jumbled rush of the subconscious that all of the little things that have caught my attention come back to present themselves in another light … in that surrealist mix of the mind trying to categorise and make sense of everything.

Either there are not enough minutes in the world to absorb everything effectively, or I have not yet learned to do so. Perhaps that’s one key fundamental I need to take time out to focus on: how to sort out the tangled world of details from continuing to fall deeper into entropy.

Journeys through history in literature.

Richard Flanagan wrote the rivers and seas around the isolation of Tasmania, of the histories of the new colonies intertwining with the present day. Of convicts and of travellers, of families and of sons and daughters. Of the three books I have had of him, only one I have kept–the first edition of Gould’s Book of Fish, with its rare and unusual pictures and a different colour for every chapter.

Recently I borrowed a copy of Death of a River Guide from a traveller and had a read through it, letting the words rush over me. A book that is hard to put down once you are in the flow of it–I remembered that well. An auspicious debut that predicted the author’s themes. All of that literary stuff.

Sometimes things can only be explored in fiction because they are too difficult to approach through the sober, hard lens of non-fiction. Cut to Prague, scene of my new home. Reflections on Prague by Ivan Margolius, son of a man who was murdered during the Communist era. He intersperses recollections about his father with the details about what life was like in post-war Czechoslovakia, with recollections from prisoners themselves. Like the Gulag Archipelago, hard, disconcerting, real.

History as well as the future brought me here, and yet the exploration never ends the deeper one sinks beneath the surface and deciphers the stories that are told through the lenses of literature, of history, of art, of music.  It isn’t that I am perfectly secure and confident in knowing my path; indeed, often I am riddled with doubts. Seeking out mentors and answering questions still unanswered is the challenge of my lifetime, and in context, nowhere near as hard or as difficult as the moral and ethical questions that intellectual predecessors have had to face in the past. I can’t speak for their individual circumstances, I can only respect their existence.

Very ironic Gmail ads.

The conversation: increasing female participation in an academic group I am involved in. The ads?

The Elders
See Nelson Mandela
announce The Elders.

Social Justice, UCD
Interested in Social Justice @UCD Excellence in Teaching & Research.

Kevin Rudd
1 Minute Poll
Is He a Good Prime Minister?

Married and Unhappy
Find out why so many women today are unhappy in their marriages

Princes of the Night Show
Hens Birthdays and Ladies nights Male Burlesque at Crown

Alia Clinic
Australian liposuction pioneers. Safe, local anaesthetic techniques.

Feminism Research
Full-text feminism books, articles, journals at Questia.

I guess that this is proof that Google really doesn’t read your emails to try and target you with ‘relevant’ information, because the only thing that is relevant there is the link on Social Justice, and possibly the one of feminism (although the discussion is more about inclusion of women in a male-dominated project)–the ones on liposuction and hens nights are, well, just astonishingly inappropriate. So too the one on female infidelity, I suppose.

Why random work-at-homers shouldn’t get paid to write AdWords advertising copy.

A new Sim-game (probably not Maxis? I don’t know, I’m not satisfying Google by clicking on the link) is being billed as a ‘Fantasy Management Simulator’.

A Fantasy Management Simulator. Think about that one for a moment.

Okay: so you have about fifty characters to make your point, and ambiguity does promote curiosity (bet you’re searching for it now, eh?) but how many ways can we reinterpret this message?

Management Simulator: What happens in most day-to-day corporations.

Fantasy Simulator: Oh, possibilities are endless.

Fantasy Management: It’s Playboy Mansion!