Dynamic Life Under My Heels
Dynamic Life Under My Heel
‘Babe, give me your best memory,
But it doesn’t equal pale ink.’
Song ‘Pale Ink’ by the Jimmy X band
When asked by anonchiya to write a recommendation towards English books through my own experience, the request was not only an honour, but also a chance to search back the rolling memories between then and now, them and us. Introducing my view with Chinese proverb adapted for lyrics in song ‘Pale Ink’ by the Jimmy X band (Harlam, 2003) with mixed feelings toward books - a nourishing, contradictory trajectory, just like what life is, seeded in these scenes, from which I breath, struggle, reflect, growth, and march on. I hope that you might be prepared to relax into the lines of possibility of who and how I might be-come, with them, with you.
A massive my fellow men’ complaints - English has been stealing our ancestors’ show and glory in our history since 1066, a smiling date in England in which a victory in battle by Alferd saved the English language (British History, 2002). Imagine being reluctant to speak with alien tongues by shutting our inherited mother tongue up. Yes, feel that pain. So do I.
Just as Ben Okri reminds us: ‘We began before words and we will end beyond them’ (Okri, 1996) May China overwhelm, suppress other ‘invaders’, take over our past harvest, amazing the entire world once again, provided that victory can only be secured by understanding our opponents, language would lie at the heart of this conquest.
Making a defeat needs some necessity of survival, “no pain, no gainJ there is an immediate solution i.e. to start with novels, savouring its fun along bitterness. After putting into your heart, head and soul into the others, yours vision will crack wide open.
There are two main thrusts to good books, at least from my point of view, known not only containing the penetrating insights into the authors’ scenario, but for the beautiful language they demonstrate for a audience equipped with a flavour of fun-loving spirits on top with which they expressed their souls too. Many books I recommended includes both of these features, some contributes mainly to one.
Historical fiction, The Lord of Rings (Tolkien, J), The Queen’s Fool (Philippa Gregory), and Absolute Friends (John Le Carré) are highly appreciated.
The Lord of Rings a wonderful epic with wonderful characters!
Philippa’s profound linguistic background gave a series of strikingly successful history events of the reign of Mary Tudor, daughter of King Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon on The Queen’s Fool. To the extent that there is a central message in this book to deliver that Hannah is becoming happier at risk amidst the political and religious turmoil of the time. She has there a new world to create, and an ardent faith in accordance with which to create it. At this point, it contains coincidental hidden values in the film Gang of New York
“It is winter, 1553. Pursued by the Inquisition, Hannah Green, a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl, is forced to flee Spain with her father. But Hannah is no ordinary refugee. Her gift of "Sight," the ability to foresee the future, is priceless in the troubled times of the Tudor court. Hannah is adopted by the glamorous Robert Dudley, the charismatic son of King Edward's protector, who brings her to court as a "holy fool" for Queen Mary and, ultimately, Queen Elizabeth. Hired as a fool but working as a spy; promised in wedlock but in love with her master; endangered by the laws against heresy, treason, and witchcraft, Hannah must choose between the safe life of a commoner and the dangerous intrigues of the royal family that are inextricably bound up in her own yearnings and desires.” (Book Description)
Absolute friends, a classic narrative story of tragic-cosmic writing about ‘the two men meet first as students in riot-torn war Berlin of the late sixties again in the Cold War, and most terribly, in today’s unipolar world of terror, counter-terror and the war of lies…’ (Relevant information could be viewed from http://www.hha.com.au). Full of wisewarnings come to his political insights in our contemporary world, war and its disaster is part of his warning about our Today and Tomorrow…
The Making of Modern Japan (Jansen, Marius R), The East and West (Patten, Chris) serve as useful resources about today world events attached with Asia…. Written with grace and wit, interwoven with touching and struggle moments in his work and life in Hong Kong before the handover in 1997… As Oxford Chancellor, Patten shows off his mastery academy of professional English in the East and West, even tough he downplayed his political role (my prior supervisor’s opinionJ)
Classics literature, A la recherche du temps perdu, In search of lost time (Proust, M), and Persuasion (Jane, Austen, 1811)
Jane Austen
Persuasion Miss Austen maturest works was written in 1812-1816 such as Persuasion and Northanger Abby rather than her well-known first novels, i. e. Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. In Persuasion, her ironic record of everyday fact flowing in and out the shocking events would have attached with her ‘sensational’ sense: ‘sudden death, accidents, discoveries of unfaithfulness’ which shatter our presumption towards life that life could have been peaceful and wonderful, but very large was not; which echoes Russell (Russell, 1996) claims that human existence was a miserable business.
‘Anne Elliot, the heroine is reserved, elegant and reflective ..she had fallen in love with a very desirable young man, went worth, but his connections and moreso his position in society made it not all desirable for anne's beloved friend, lady l to allow her to continue her relationship.
now 7 years later they meet again to renew their love and affection; he being a captain now and possessing a large enough fortune. Though at first he receives the attentions of louisa musgrove and anne the attentions of her cousin, mr. elliot, the heir to her father, they soon come to realise that what felt from the heart is the truest meaning of love. with the help of her many friends anne soon returns the affections she once held for captainwentworth.(Book description)’
Proust, one of the proudest figures in, Classics literature of the past century, was crowned in Western world on the literature scenes which displayed his unique Proustian prose; the prose was to glory in the course of twentieth century, but surely the influence of Proust could get a foot on the literature ladder further on.
In search of lost time It is a book of more than four thousand pages, written in the early twentieth century. The beauty of this book has a twofold function. It offers us not only his enjoyable adventure with a series of interesting spectacles, surprising experiences, and his friends, lovers, and his fellow travellers from different social class with whom he established along the course of his journey in his living language; but the thought-provoking from trivial events of our everyday lives to let us mirror, mediate, and introspect our own days.
He starts off with his bright and tidy introduction, introduces us a circle of people in his trips in a manner that entertains us, makes all his characters play their parts in his plots, and is unerring in his ‘curtains’. In a general way, he recorded faithfully society how it is rather than with how it should be …these trips take him his lifetime, but they brought him into a new world and outlook, too.
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