Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Category: book review

  • Terror made him write: ‘Ghosts, Apparitions, and Poltergeists’, by Brian Righi – review

    Ghosts, Apparitions and Poltergeists: An Exploration of the Supernatural Through HistoryGhosts, Apparitions, and Poltergeists: An Exploration of the Supernatural Through History by Brian Righi

    My rating: 4 of 5 stars

    A ghost is really unfinished business. It was, it is, and it will be. The existence and belief of supernatural entities are universal in all human societies as regards the sense and sentiments common to all mankind. From the Far Eastern shore of Japan to the end of the Aegean Sea across a great divide of time, the forefathers of humankind revered, feared, or cherished the souls of the departed regardless of cultural and racial differences. Such human tendency of holding onto supernatural existence is, therefore, not an antediluvian pagan belief to be scorned or debased as a superstitious practice of the misty past but a natural phenomenon validated by historical eyewitnesses as presented in Ghosts, Apparitions, and Poltergeistsby Brian Righi.

    Although the title of the book may mislead you straightforwardly to the world of ghostbusters and mediums, it is anything but a sensational book about that sort of thing aimed for the jolt of psychedelic horror. Righi is both an erudite and refreshing writer well conversant with the ancient histories of the world and the related academic subjects, who treats the ghostly subjects of the book enlighteningly and entertainingly with the sap of a fresh-eyed academic, gripping the mind of the learned reader without losing the attention throughout the pages. He references Plato, Pliny the Younger, and the other ancient notables to corroborate the existence of supernatural strangers still roaming their once earthly abodes either not knowing they are dead or refusing to emigrate into the beyond for undying attachment to their life on earth. The method gives his stance on supernatural phenomena power of reality vested in the authenticity of truth.

    I find this book very much in accordance with my perspective on the souls of the dead, as it also corresponds to the Catholic belief in which the souls of the dead are officially revered in the fashion of feast days of saints and daily prayer for their deliverance from purgatory to heaven and asking them to pray for us to God. However, there is no prerequisite for reading this book as long as you want to know about why some of our once fellow-citizens of the terrestrial world are roaming about and living among us, seriously.

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  • This I think.

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    “The concept of witchcraft as devil-worship by the church unleashed authoritarian control, & the denigration of women, many of whom were burnt at the stake, drowned, etc., simply for growing herbs or liking cats! For me, these are heroines & warriors.”

    I happened on the above-quoted tweet, which impelled me to unravel in me a thread of complex feelings about a common popular conception of witchcraft as institutionalized persecution of women of unique professions and different opinions and canozing them as martyrs of Feminism or Paganism.

    First of all, it wasn’t just that iconic ‘Men v. Women’ or ‘Christianity v. Paganism’ facade that dominated the thematics of witchcraft. Of course, religion played an important role in enforcing the authority of the church as the one absolute administrator of justice and punishing anyone who dared to defy it. However, when the Church itself incorporated paganistic esoterism in its rites of ceremony and mechanical device of prayer, it cared less about the divinity of a pagan deity that the cult worshipped, unless it openly threatened the dogmatic foundation of the teaching of the Church. Rather, it was more of a societal practice of giving a tight rein in communal harmony that allowed no misfits or outsiders or recluses. It was grudge-filled, insular-minded, and jealousy-driven vendetta against whom you wouldn’t particularly like or whom you would harbor a kind of animosity because the targeted subject looked unpleasing, unprepossessing, or simply ugly of introverted disposition.

    Women were the worse. Forget Community of Sisterhood. The Daughters of Eve can be both ecstatically passionate and formidably vengeful. A single unmarried woman, both young and old, living in the bliss of solitude, minding her own business away from the vociferous melee that she didn’t feel related was likely to be a lamb savagely herded by the hateful melee to the inquisitional slaughterhouse. Modus vivendi of social norms was the armor that would protect her from the arrows and spears of the public attack on sovereign individuality that we take for granted in our time.

    Witchcraft is neither synonymous with Feminism nor Liberalism, both of which as proverbial party ideology have beocme the dogmatic foundations of Arts and Huaminities. It’s not a grand unified campaign against smart women with peculiar religious belief when you contemplate the fact that greatness results from simplicity, which is the answer to all complexities. The inquisition of popular sentiment in practice overrides freedom of individuals asserted in theory. Albert Einstein knew exactly about the dualistic nature of humanity that would return to the basic animalistic instinct such as persecuting the innocent because of their individuality: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe!” For this reason, I dare to defy the notion that the persecution of witchcraft was synonymous with the denigration of women in general.

     

     

  • National Theatre’s Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch as the creature – review

    Mary Shelley’s atmospheric gothic novel of Frankenstein has provoked a full arch of protean artistic imaginations in translating the story into the screen. Still, none of them is arguably more unforgettable and impressive than the production of National Theater, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature. It is as if the novel itself were played out by witchcraft of Art, conjuring up the spirits of the characters, possessing the souls of the performers and those of the spectators in the enchantment of the Sense and Reason in one fell swoop. 

    Cumberbatch’s performance of the miserable Creature is so well studied and crafted that it is quite impossible to conceive: the crudely sawed up sutures without even a remote sense of estheticism, the awkward gaits of one huge mystical beast – perhaps wodewose? -, the muttering that sounds like the low guttural hissing, and the face that only inspires diabolic terror to the eye of the beholder. It is a plenary reincarnation of all things abominable to Taste and Reason universal in mankind from which it is eternally barred. If Dr. Frankenstein resurrected a corpse into life, it is Cumberbatch who resurrected it from the textual existence with gushing emotions and passionate actions that give to his Creature Human Sentiments and Sympathy even. 

    Cumberbatch makes his Creature a creature of Pathos, a divine streak of humanity. It seems unpardonable and criminal to even feel toward such an abominable monster. The actor does it with the choreography of movements to express the changes in the moods and emotions. From the moment of its birth from death in the artificial placenta and to the return to its collapsed dreams and wishes, Cumberbatch does a superb job of expressing the tragic panorama. He delivers the Pathos of the Monster without the swashbuckling display of overt sentiments to render excessively contrived sympathy to his Creature, merely crying out, “I see inside, but I dare not go inside!” 

    The power of reality in the setting of the stage gives the story of the play the verisimilitude. The specious scene in minimalist background conspicuous by the splendid display of the lights expresses the changes in the moods, emotions, and feelings of the characters. It also produces a maximum theatrical effect of resonance of the voices and illumination of the actions, holding the attention of the spectators without the infelicity of interruption and disinterest, making every scene wholly real and engaging.

    This theatrical version of Shelley’s masterpiece is not a reactionary revision of the story. On the contrary, it is a manifestation of Shelley’s perspectives on her contemporary society, which is also contemporaneous with our own. This astonishing play makes the social and physiological elements realistic and enjoyable for the pure sake of exceptional art experience. It is a beautiful play inspired by a muse that would ascend the highest celestial stage with divine thespians to act and enchanted spectators to behold the swelling scenes. And yes, Shelley will be very content with this magnificently performed interpretation of her oeuvre from the heavenly balcony of immortal Theater of Arts by applauding the cast and the staff to the very echo.  

     

  • glittery wild west

    I have recently read an article about California Gold Rush from my subscribed British history magazine with particular interest as it was somehow relatable to my own experience of being a recent single pioneer woman from the East to the West with new prospects for the future. Although the article was informative in unpicking the social manifest and latent dysfunctions of Gold Rush, there were also new and innovative modes of business as spearheaded by adventurously daring individuals who paved the way to the prosperity of the Wild West in years to come. 

    Wells, Fargo & Company, founded by Henry Wells and William G. Fargo, started and prospered the West’s all-purpose business, consisting of transportation, security, and communication agents, buying gold from prospectors and selling them paper bank drafts and delivering the valuables and mail guarded by a hired detective against outlaws. Pony Express, founded by William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell, was the first express courier service in the U.S., delivering mail from California to New York in fifteen (15) days by dedicated excellent employees on horseback day and night until the transcontinental telegraph was established. And there’s the famed Levi Strauss, the founder of the iconic Strauss & Co., who made the first blue jeans for miners, cowboys, etc. 

    California Gold Rush prompted a huge spike in the demand for changes in various sectors of the American society, which was an inevitable calling of the ethos, Manifest Destiny, and it also begot some of the most interesting and impressive enterprising spirits whose establishments are still among us and whose names are made into the history of the U.S. 

  • ‘The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë’, by Syrie James- review

    The Secret Diaries of Charlotte BrontëThe Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë by Syrie James

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    Who would have thought that the woman with a calm and dainty exterior wrapped in an air of impeccable propriety was inwardly a passionate Dido, a willing Ariadne, and a beguiling Cleopatra?  Such a popularly conceived false shadow – by default of nature against her will – might have conveniently belied Truth and Nature of her substances to the eyes of the public, but her labors of love in the form of literary works bear the witness to the person of the Author. She is no less a person than Charlotte Bronte herself who created one of the most unforgettably iconic romantic characters of Jane Eyre, and who tells to readers of the millennium the stories of her own life in this beautiful and truthful The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte by Syrie James.

    The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte is neither nonfiction nor fiction eulogizing the greatness of the literary Titaness in the English literature. In fact, it is this mysterious ambit of the genre that gives to the book the status fused with the whimsicality of cross-over nonfiction in the likeness of fiction that reads like an enchanting novel. Drawn on the original diaries, miscellany, and poems written by Charlotte Bronte in frequent collaboration with her equally gifted sisters Emily and Anne, James does a superb job of weaving a tale of her admired literary muse as an admiring votary into one fascinating tribute narrated by Bronte herself as though to render her poetic justice on the truth and beauty of her person which had been largely unrecognized, if not ignored, in the discourse of the tale. In fact, reading this book, you will find yourself reading a posthumously published work of Charlotte Bronte with the style of writing, the tone of the narrative, and the sequence of the story, all of which superbly resurrect the atmospheric ambiance of the 19th Century English province. In this magical craft of writing, you will see Charlotte in the humble personage write in an expense of will and emotions, pages after pages filling them with heartfelt words, producing beautiful melodies of her heart and the soul.

    The beauty of this book collapses three centuries, five oceans and seven continents between Charlotte’s lifetime and our reading it, making us intimately acquainted with one of the most celebrated writers in the world. James is excellent in portraying Charlotte Bronte based on the extensive research on the original manuscripts and visitation to the places where she had trodden and lived as authentically as possible, with her immense admiration for the author delicately nuanced in the narrative, thus rendering the story the power of reality and authenticity of truth in the likeness of contemporary memoirs. That said, I am certain that Charlotte Bronte would have given the book the imprimatur willingly and wholeheartedly had she read it for review. And I also believe that her spirit would also love this book and bring it to the world beyond in all and mirth and merriment.

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  • Why Magic was popular and why it dwindled – review

    Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century EnglandReligion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century England by Keith Thomas

    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    Mankind in the face of contemporary existential strains of life has often attributed its frailties to the development of certain religious beliefs, leading to the shaping of the anima mundi of the time it possesses. Such a symbolic interactionist perspective on history is perspicaciously excised in Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas that shows us how collective splinters of folklore could influence the Modus Operandi of established religion.

    The pith of folklore is a reputed natural human tendency in dealing with daily life amid double jeopardy of whimsical nature and more capricious mankind that results in finding pain relief in the form of supernatural elements. Keith illustrates the social and cultural climates of 16th and 17th century England where the efficacy of magic was reputed to overwhelm the consolation of the Gospel in the recourse to the powerful being that could supposedly give the supplicants the immediate panacea to their existential malaise. This popular attitude toward the magical measure of putative healing betokens the reason why there was no active mass active involvement in radical social reform or political radicalism; it was their way of mitigating the rigor of their daily duties that life imposed. The concept of chance was a welcome method of diverting the rules of merit and reward in prosperous life that only a select few would and could achieve to the game of luck played by goddess Fortuna’s Wheel of Fortune. By trusting the work of pure luck, people would not jeopardize their self-esteem because fortune was beyond their measures no matter how hard they worked hard to obtain it.

    How the folk belief in magic influenced the established Christianity, particularly Catholicism, is the sine qua non of mesmerism of popular psychology and its portent efficacy of evangelization with a promise of magical healing. The church incorporated the magical elements of pagan belief to its rituals and doctrines of the catechism, such as transubstantiation and holy relics by reconciling the esoteric pagan knowledge with the orthodox Christian teaching. The investment of supernatural power through religious ceremony propitiated the minds of the low and high alike non-discriminately via syncretism until the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and the English Reformation that necessitated the emerging of new natural science and mechanical philosophy and the accordant mode of thinking ultimately debilitating the supreme power of magic and the magical elements used in the church.

    Keith is excellent in disabusing readers what might seem to be a trifle and pettifogging subject to advanced minds with his wealth of knowledge on the subject and human psychology narrated in plain language so that readers of all strata can access the secret garden of knowledge that he kindly invites us to visit and wallow ourselves in. This is my second time reading his work, and I am always amazed by his depth of erudition fabulously conflated with his witty remarks on events and vivacious descriptions of the period, all gleaned from his extensive research on the subject and keen scholarly observations thereon. This book is not a book of magical incantations, but about the power of the populace that made magic popular and unpopular as the seasons of mankind required new kind of belief system synonymous with the ethos of contemporary life.

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