Book - Things Fall Apart

Read - 1.06
Reviewed - 5.06

What I Think of it - This was a great book. The book was really good because it gave the western reader (myself) a look at the culture of an Ibo tribe in western Africa from the inside and explored what i perceived as an unbiased look at not only the good parts of this "primitive" culture but also some of the hardships and troubles they endured. It was valuable in giving a reader another way to view the world and expand their perspectives. For me the book helped me realize how many things in our own culture are not natural thigns that occur in every human all over the world but are rather things that are unecessarily imbedded in our culture....it also shows how many things all humans do have in common and shows how connected we really are. Things began to fall apart when the white man comes in, first in some acts of violence, and then forcefully begins to set up church's. Many of the Church's being built have good intentions and their are a lot of converts. The different ideology and worldview of the Church's makes things incredible difficult for the two cultures to coexist and as the Church takes more and more people away from the tribal structure and tells sons to deny their real father if they aren't a believer the old way that the main character (a now sonless father) tries clinging to slowly begins to die. It shows how thousands of years of perfecting a system and way of living for the Ibo was quickily changed and thrown aside as the Europeans forced themselves onto the land.

Summary - Okonkwo is a very prosperous man in an Ibo tribe. He is known for his great wrestling ability as a kid and is on something like a grand spirit council for his tribe. He has a few wives and has goals and aspirations for expanding his property and wealth. Okonkwo is obsessed with his masculinity and is motivated deeply by his pride and takes great satisfaction with his respected place in the community. In the book you learn about the witchdoctor, the evil forest, and intracate customs and rules that the tribe lives their life by. A church is eventually built in the evil forest in Okonkwo's village. They try telling the village that their is no such thing as an evil forest and that their rituals and beliefs are absurd. When nothing ends up happening to the church even though they are in the evil forest and don't follow the Ibo way, things begin to fall apart. Okonkwo's son joins the church which is a crushing and humiliating blow for Okonkwo. As the Church further intrudes into the tribes life their is conflict which eventually escalates into Okonkwo wanting people to fight the church, and at a meeting to get people to join in war he kills a white messenger trying to break the meeting up. Realizing that the people were not going to go to war against the Church, Okonkwo kills himself.

Book - Ishmael

Read - 3/06
Reviewed - 5/06

What I Think Of It - This book appealed to my strongest desire, that of finding a meaningful purpose to my life which would include somehow changing the world for the better. The book changed my mind and perspective about a lot of things and gave me a new way to view the world. Initially right after reading the book and while reading it I was ready to save the world, listen to everything he had to say and spend every moment of my life pursuing the goals he set out. After I cautioned myself against it understanding the child-like excitement and automatic approval I have towards every new different idea the first time I hear it, I saw some of the downfalls of the book and his "save the world" plan. One of the things that is central to the research behind his book is the idea that there have been many other groups of people that have tried out civilization but realized it didn't make them happy and so willingly gave it up to return to a tribal lifestyle -- we on the other hand are the only civilization to stubborn to give it up. One of his main examples is the Maya a group of people whose "collapse" is the topic of my senior thesis. A popular and credible book Collapse by Jared Diamond looks not only at the Maya but many other civilizations and I don't think he ever comes to the conclusion that any of them just gave it up because they wanted to live a tribal lifestyle again. The Maya, for instance, probably collapsed because of a number of different factors they did not see coming (like environmental) and didn't desire their civilization to break-up. Another thing about the book is that Daniel Quinn (the author), tries to say that in the animal kingdom they all know their role and that the animal kingdom remains diverse and healthy because they accept when it is their time to die because they realize the other animals need to eat (them)....the problem with humans and our civilization is that we have tried to dominate over this natural way of things and refuse to play our role and succumb to nature's way of population control. The problem is that as it is said in the Minority Report, "...every creature on this earth is interested in one thing and one thing only. It's own survival." No animal just lays down and dies. The other thing is that it is sometimes hard for me even in my most cynically mindest to deny that their is nothing good that has come out of science, technology and civilization in general. Also if we were to give up our civilization and go into a tribal lifestyle I fear that the cat is already out of the bag on the power that can be achieved with civilization or with all the technology out there. Their are too many people that would take advantage of the weak state that everyone would be in and take us over and force us into being enslaved to a tyrannical dictator. With all those objections I still really like the book and at the end he comes back a little bit from the radicalisms I object to and said that we don't necessarily have to go back but we have to "invent" a new way of living. Also I still liked the book enough to buy his non-fiction work entitled Beyond Civilization.

Summary - The book starts out with a man responding to an add "Teacher seeks pupil: must have an earnest desire to save the world." The man finds out that this teacher is really a gorilla who has learned to communicate with humans (I think telepathically). The gorilla explains to his student that most humans have this cultural myth about them that includes them being the most important species and that they must take as much as they can. They are Takers. He interprets Adam and Eve the way that he thinks they meant the story which was different because they had a Leaver mentality. He explains that Man went wrong when he got the knowledge of the Gods by eating from the tree and found out that he could control which species lives and dies, with this idea that he can control it the balance of things which was kept in control by the Gods has been off since we are taking more than our fair share instead of being under the control of the Gods who treats every species equally. The gorilla goes onto explain that civilization which is the lifestyle of the takers can't work forever and isn't the best way to live. Eventually the gorilla isn't at the apartment that he had always been and the student has to go to a carnival and meet with him. The Gorilla eventually dies and we are left with the student remembering the poster in the apartment which read "Without man is their hope for the gorilla" and then "Without the gorilla is their hope for man." Which i believe says that Man needs the gorilla not only to show him how to live as one with nature and as a part of the world rather than trying to dominate it, but also man needs all other species because diversity is extremely important for sustainable life. Also if man doesn't survive and western civilization ends up collapsing is their hope for the gorilla or will the gorilla and all of earth go with it since we are slowly destroying the earth.

Movie - Donnie Darko

Watched - 15-20 times (last time - 12/05)
Reviewed - 5/06

**(if you haven't seen it, stop what you are doing and go watch it before it gets spoiled for you by me or others)

What I Think Of It - This is definitely among my favorite movies of all time. I really like the music in this movie and the sort of "music videos" it has throughout. Together the songs give the film an aura and feeling that I really can relate too. I often wonder if the movie in some ways relates to me the way "Catcher in the Rye" relates to alot of other people, since when i read that book (7th grade) i didn't really like it or understand it like i was supposed to. Another reason i like it is becuase it has a lot of depth. There is a lot of symbolism if you wanna extract it as well as little parts of the movie you are only going to catch after watching it ten times. The dialogue, especially with Donnie, creates feelings of awkwardness and confusion...which i think any person honest with the world has experienced. It portrays Donnie as someone refusing to fit into society, resisting conformity but hating the solitude/confusion it brings....I am Donnie Darko. If the movie wasn't already good, there is the central plotline of Donnie being on a mission to figure out time travel before the world ends...with a 6ft. tall rabbit guiding him, or rather haunting him. DEFINETELY A MOVIE YOU DON"T WANT TO READ A SUMMARY (like the one below) BEFORE YOU SEE IT.....


Summary - When Donnie returns from a night where he was summoned to the golf course by Frank, a 6ft tall rabbitt, Donnie learns a plane engine (unaccounted for by the FAA) landed on his room. We learn later that it was at this time an alternate or tangent universe began and for everyone else almost the whole rest of the movie all it was was their "dream." Everyone in this dream though has a certain role and mission. With Frank, who is really Donnie's older sister's boyfriend in his rabbit haloween costume suit, he was their as a God type figure making sure that this dream (which was really a tangent universe) would end properly with Donnie travelling back in time and dying like he was supposed to so that the real universe and everyone in it could continue to exist. In this tangent universe Donnie finds love, exposes a local "hero's" child porn collection, among other things. Eventually, with everyone living out this "dream" in their own minds they are able to push Donnie to realize he must travel back in time and erase the bad that the tangent universe had eventually brought....his girlfreind dying and him killing Frank. At the end of the movie donnie is shown sitting in his bed laughing and shortly after, the plane engine crashes through the roof killing him. He is laughing either becuase he can't believe it worked, thought it was all a dream, or the supernatural that he had experienced has led him to beleive that he will die but that their will then be so much to look forward too.