Progress Report

When 2008 began, one of the goals I set for myself was to finish 1 book per week. That means that when this year ends, I have to be done with 52 books. So how am I doing, now that we’re at the 27th week of 2008? 

Not so bad, actually. 

My progress report: 

1. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
2. The Bartimaeus Trilogy vol 2: Golem’s Eye by Jonathan Stroud
3. The Bartimaeus Trilogy vol 3: Ptolemy’s Gate by Jonathan Stroud
4. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
5. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
6. Spiderwick vol 1: The Field Guide by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
7. Spiderwick vol 2: The Seeing Stone by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
8. Odyssey by Homer
9. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick
10. Ulysses by James Joyce
11. Robert’s Rules of Writing by Robert Massello (reread)
12. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
13. *Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson
14. *Who Goes There? by John W Campbell
15. *Nerves by Lester del Rey
16. *Universe by Robert A Heinlein
17. *The Marching Morons by Cyril M Kornbluth
18. *Vintage Season by Henry Kuttner and C L Moore
19. *…And Then There Were None by Eric Frank Russell
20. *The Ballad of Lost C’Mell by Cordwainer Smith
21. *Baby is Three by Theodore Sturgeon
22. *With Folded Hands by Jack Williamson
23. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
24. Black Boy by Richard Wright
25. Way of the Shepherd by Kevin Leman and William Pentak
26. English Plain and Simple by Jose A Carillo
27. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
28. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Asterisk indicates stories that are originally published as novellas (and sold in individual copies) but have been anthologized in Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume 2. It also has The Time Machine by H G Wells, but I’ve already read it two years ago and I didn’t reread it.

And I’ve also read these graphic novels, although I won’t count them in for anything (not until I’m desperate):

• Gotham Central vol. 1: In the Line of Duty by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka
• Gotham Central vol. 2: Half a Life by Greg Rucka
• Fables vol. 5: The Mean Seasons by Bill Willinghan
• Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore (oh, I dunno. How many times have I reread this anyway?)
• Batman: The Man Who Laughs by Ed Brubaker

I’m planning to read Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Dune by Frank Herbert, 1984 by George Orwell (yes, I haven’t read this. I am very ashamed), One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, and Native Son by Richard Wright. I might even reread The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Can you suggest anything else? I’m fine with books from any genre (even nonfiction), as long as they don’t have Fabio on the cover.

This Side Isn’t Paradise

In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, people live for Henry Ford’s assembly-lines mass production. They are classified by castes, and each caste serves different functions to society. And, so that they can manufacture with greatest efficiency, they are conditioned to be happy. This happiness is gained by gratifying human’s want for pleasure. Everyone just works, and then have sex and Soma - a drug that makes them rapturous, and makes them forget all problems.

It may sound like a good idea to live in that world, so do you want to try it? Since the system is bent on happiness for the sake of a stable society, you’re not allowed to feel anything contrary to that externally stimulated joy: no sadness, no pensiveness, and no pity; all your miseries are flushed by a gramme of Soma. When you mull on art, religion, and science, you are ostracized. You cannot be bothered with any emotional bond to anyone, since you’re only allowed to be happy, and emotional bond does not always make you happy. Parenthood are shunned, fidelity laughed at, and unconditional love despised. Once again, all your miseries are flushed by a gramme of Soma.

*

I’ve been outside of Philippines and I see that, generally, our people are happier than anywhere else’s. I’m just unsure of if our kind of happiness is still conducive to progress. See, I don’t believe that Pinoys are as incapable of independent thought as those Brave New World’s zombified people are, but what exactly have we done with our woes? Filipino novels published 50 years ago, such as those by F Sionil Jose, have presented problems that still prevail today. Have we even tried to deal with them? Have we bridged the separation of classes? Have we indicted our corrupt leaders, who have been corrupting us in the same way as they have been since we’ve become an independent country? Have our working class gained more privilege, and did we fight to ensure that this is so? Have our rags-to-riches brothers bothered to help lift those who are left behind? Have the rich among us done anything but squander in an aristocrat’s hedonistic world?

Even the bums in our streets can enumerate our errors. However, we try so hard to live while ignoring our errors. Instead of rebuilding our society, we turn to escapism. We direct our attention to whatever the media give us, be it the blitz of Pacquiao boxing matches, or the frivolity of the latest showbiz scandals (which we never seem to run out of). We waste away our lives by jumping from one hopelessly-Americanized fad to another. We call ourselves liberal by only adapting its unrestricted promiscuity, as though liberalism were merely standing for freewheeling sex and drugs. All these make us cheer. All these make us suppress our discontent with our system. All these make us happy. All these become our blissful ignorance; our Soma. We do nothing that compels us to understand our sufferings, and to take a more active role in righting our society.

*

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World as a response to America’s hedonism during the Roaring Twenties. Roaring Twenties, by the way, has nothing to do with your age; it’s about the years from 1920-1929 when America’s economy had an unprecedented boom. During then, Americans were too confident (quoting 20’s president Herbert Hoover, “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.”), thinking that nothing bad can ever happen to them. They mass consumed, just for the sake of pleasure. They didn’t know that, as a result of their recklessness, what was to come was The Great Depression.

Right now, Philippines are depressing. Our stocks are crashing, and prices of all our necessities are inflating very steeply. Sadly, we have yet to wake up from our Soma. Despite all our government’s PR talks, we’re at our most destructive age. If we don’t do anything soon, our place will be as bleak as that dystopia from Brave New World.