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5.10.02 - the lit hum epilogue

When you come to Columbia, one of the most talked about courses is the Masterpieces of Western Literature and Philosophy class, also known as Lit Hum. This mandatory Columbia College requirement for first years is supposed to give students a good background of the more important texts in the western tradition and shed light on how great minds in history have thought and written. I began the course hoping that I would actually get something out of it and not merely rely on Monkeynotes to feign my knowledge. About twenty books later, some wholly assigned and some partially assigned, and read in their entirety by me, I have to admit that as time-consuming and oftentimes boring as these books may have been, I feel as if I've found a great pool of knowledge and I've only dipped my feet into the kiddie section. With the finals in just an hour, I just want to reminisce about some memorable moments from my readings and how they've influenced me.

The Greek literature of first semester was often a teaspoon of cod-liver oil that had to be ingested for my own good - or was it even good for me at all? Instead of an NBC feature movie on a Sunday night, I actually read the Odyssey and found that it was a complete, enjoyable text - all except for a forced, abrupt ending. The Iliad was a drag because after the first few battle scenes, it seemed as if the rest of the battles were just repetitions. It's amusing to read that a spear crushed someone's chest and that "clouds darkened the eyes" but after Achilles alone does it twenty times, you start to wonder when the blind fool will end his damn epic poem.

I read The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton in high school and in it, she talked about how the playwrights of Greece were the greatest of all time and only to be rivaled by Shakespeare in all of history. To me, plays will always be just plays. Besides Inherit the Wind, from which I realized that the real monkeys were those who didn't believe in evolution, the other plays I've read in my life, like Arthur Miller's fine collection, or even the classical Shakespeares, have been okay to read, but nothing to warrant any excitement. I particularly enjoyed Oedipus the King, the first part of the Sophocles masterpiece Oedipus Rex because I already knew the basic plot of the story and read the play focusing more on the literary techniques and themes; wow, what a nerdy thing to say - and yet, it is true and not even a bit pretentious! Aeschylus and Euripides were also good and I enjoyed Oresteia and Bacchae, respectively. These Greek guys surely know how to capture tragedy; it's no wonder Shakespeare won his fame by imitating them.

You read so much when you're taking history in middle school or high school that a Greek man - Herodotus - was the first historian. Well, I finally got to read some of what the "father of history" had to say, and it was entertaining for some parts and very boring for others. He travels many places and provides a then-wide scope of how Greece is perceived by outsiders and how the other parts of the world have come along in time. Though not without a barrage of unsupported conjectures and a certain degree of subjectivity, I can understand how his work may be considered one of the earliest historical texts. The other historian of the semester, Thucydides, who covered the Peloponnesian War, was, in my opinion, closer to a real, modern-day historian. His writing was not without subjective observations either, but his portrayal of Athenian decadence, an almost impartial depiction of the "enemy" Spartans, and a sad realization that the war was more of a civil, internal strife all made for some interesting reading, though his writing style was so hard to maintain without falling asleep.

Other texts from first semester include Plato's Symposium, from which I learned Greek men really do like little boys and like to do homo things with them while imparting their great wisdom (in a sense, it's cultivation of the mind for some butt-sex) and that Socrates was either the biggest pimp or the most coveted man on the block. I liked Hymn to Demeter because it was short and it had that aetiological ending of why the seasons exist. Plus, you get to find out how sneaky Hades is by slipping some seeds to Persephone before she goes back to earth, permanently binding her to his domain

So this Greek tradition as defined by my school allowed me to move one step further away from my ignorance and provided an aetiological story of its own - of how authors later on would dig into these texts and find valuable themes and styles, and how their writings would also develop into part of the western tradition. The first semester ended with some Bible readings and to see that the Bible was a text, not some out-of-the-sky prophecy, was refreshing. For once, the Bible could be critiqued and analyzed - in my opinion, the way it should be. I particularly enjoyed reading Matthew and John and how, taking the same basic story of Jesus, one was a parable-laden moral instruction with a compassionate Jesus and the other was a more spiritual and assertive writing with an arrogant Jesus. It amazes me how many of the pentecostal churches nowadays ignore the variety offered by the four Gospels and often focus exclusively on the message of John. To me, John 3:16 wasn't much of a personal revelation and, as Nietzsche said, Pontius Pilate must've been the most respectful man of the New Testament, with his overlooked question - "What is truth?"

The second semester material, what I will be tested on in an hour, was more diverse in the origins of the writers and the style of the writing itself. Virgil's Aeneid was great Roman propaganda that bridged the Homeric tradition with the celebration of the Caesars. St. Augustine, if he was alive, would've been on my hit list because his Confessions was the most torturous text ever. Sure it had some important themes like restraining the "lust of the eyes" or how reading affects the individual; but to thank God every other line and to proclaim himself to be so unworthy - who can enjoy such a text after the first few pages? I labored through it all and continued on through Dante's Inferno (eh), Boccaccio's Decameron (lots of raunchy sex stories - try putting the "Devil" in "Hell"), and Shakespeare's King Lear (very tough to follow). Other texts included Montaigne's Essays, Cervantes's Don Quixote, Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, and Woolf's To the Lighthouse.

What I found to be the most enlightening text of the year was Montaigne's Essays. I didn't even complete the reading on time, but when I actually sat down and took the time to read his work, it was truly a satisfying experience. He talked about kidney stones, taking dumps, eating what you like and all sorts of other things that usually remain in the private sphere but comes off as humorous when put into text. But it wasn't the humor that interested me because he didn't even mean to be funny. What I learned from Montaigne was what I already knew in a vague sense in the back of my mind. I write these webpage entries every now and then by recollecting my experiences, bits of my knowledge, and even some accounts of other people in order to come to some kind of new understanding of myself. I realized that was precisely what Montaigne was doing with his writing. He put much emphasis, like Socrates did, on self-examination and used experience most of all to venture through his proposed "trials" (essaies in French, and yes, he gave rise to the term "essay"). So as someone who enjoys taking dumps and relishes the personal details of life and most of all, as one who values personal experience, I felt most closely aligned to what Montaigne had to say.

Crime and Punishment was a testament to my willingness to complete all the texts. I was supposed to have finished it three weeks ago, but I procrastinated and fell about 350 pages behind. In two days of binge reading, I was able to achieve completion, but this was not without some slight inspiration. A week ago, my mother told me about her fondness for Russian text and how the mood, tone, setting, and themes most closely resembled Korea in the early to mid-1950s. From my recollections of Korean telelvision drama and some personal accounts of my grandma, I sort of saw the connection and felt an urge to read through the enitre novel to get a sense of what my mother was trying to say. To me, Crime and Punishment was a great novel in the sense that it gave me a feel for what Dostoevsky's Russia was: Dirty, grimy, gloomy, cold, despairing, and poor, but not without true human characteristics, both good and evil.

I remember trying to read A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf as a sophomore in high school. Ha - that all lasted the two pages it took for me to be completely bored and lost. But her To the Lighthouse provided me a different experience. I was actually able to catch on to the narrative and I was even intrigued by her style. After a short consultation with pinkmonkey.com, I realized that this story took place in a vacation house with a bunch of British people just hanging out and relaxing. I loved the way the story just flowed, not necessarily in a linear movement, but with an all-inclusive look at what everyone thought at the same moment. I loved the super-obvious Freudian thoughts of James Ramsey, the youngest child who wanted to kill his father so badly whenever the man was macking it to his mother. I liked how Lily Briscoe went from a object-oriented, tree-centering amateur to a Mrs. Ramsey-obsessed, perceptive artist - all within one sitting, observing the Ramseys ride the boat to the lighthouse. From this book, I was reminded that literature really had no set form (a six-chapter dip into Ulysses confirmed this notion). As long as it carries the essential elements - characters, themes, maybe even a plot - then anyone is welcomed to take the brush and express. I can see how exciting a prospect it may be to become a novelist.

I have half an hour until my exam and I probably should have studied harder - but here is my justification: I read the texts in their entirety, I feel like I understood the themes and literary techniques in most of them, and I believe that what I've read is now an essential part of who I am. I'm not saying that I'm a big western literature guy who thinks twenty or so books hold the meaning of life. I just feel that reading has definitely factored into the way I see the world. I'll have flashes of "extraordinary" pretentions when I'll feel like I'm blessed with Napoleon powers (C&P) or I'll have a self-inflicted humbling moment and quixotically compare that to Mr. Darcy's efforts to win Elizabeth. All in all, lit hum hasn't produce an ultra-radical change in me, but it has opened my eyes to what awaits me, not only in my college years, but even beyond, well into my life. The power of words, of written language, of literature has proven itself over and over again to me. Even in this world of nuclear weapons and the ease with which we can kill and destroy, I still feel that the greatest impact can be felt by what is written and read.