Book Notes: Sepharad by Antonio Munoz Molina

Image Source: Concentration Camp by Aspius

"Generalizations are harmful, I should know, but the real problem is our species, We’re aggressive primates much more dangerous than gorillas or chimpanzees; we carry cruelty and the will to dominate in our brains, and we get the oldest part of the brain from our reptile ancestors. I know the story that’s going around, that in the evolution of the species the instinct for cooperation has served us better than the law of the survival of the fittest. Except that some primates cooperate to wipe others out."

-from Sepharad - p. 316

Antonio Munoz Molina
Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden
Copyright 2001 Harcourt Publishing Co. Florida

I do not know what attracted me to Nazi literature eversince I read Viktor Frankl's 1946 book Man's Search for Meaning which chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate and described his everyday struggles of finding reasons to live despite the horrors of the death camp. That book teaches us how to find meaning in the midst of extreme suffering. Frankl also concludes that there are only two races of men, decent men and indecent. Therefore, no country is free of either of them, and thus there were "decent" Filipino policemen and "indecent" HongKong employers. So, let us not hate each other. (I was thinking of writing a commentary about that Manila hostage crisis but I’m sure at this time, nothing was left unsaid – so let us move on.)

I already watched many movies relating to Hitler, the war and the concentration camps and the Jews, such as The Boy in  Striped Pajamas, Valkyrie, Stalingrad and a lot more. Therefore, when I came across this book in BookSale SM Megamall (yes, I usually buy second hand books), I immediately bought it.

  
However, it took me a month to finish reading this book, because this is not an ordinary novel, and not an easy read. It is like cross-stitching which requires hardwork to form an amazing piece. In this novel, Antonio Munoz Molina tells 17 different stories about the Holocaust, Stalin’s purges, the Death Camps and the local Sephardic diaspora. He writes about the way memories overlap and interconnect, thread by thread. A sense of salvaging memory. Lives that deserves to be told – fade from memory as if they never existed. The novel is like a dark eulogy to the “disappeared.” Molina artfully incorporates the narratives of those who suffered through the Nazi or Soviet terrors or both – part fiction part history.

This novel also reflects some old truths that are present even in our modern world. We meet people everyday, our officemates, friends and thousands of strangers in the street. If we commit something wrong or just being wrongly accused, will they hide us when the authorities come or will they betray us? This novel tells us that we can never be sure of them, or of ourselves. 

Quotable Quote From the Book: (Quote about Travel)

"I don’t believe it’s true what they say, that as you travel you become a different person. What happens is that you grow lighter, you shed your obligations and your obligations and your past, just as you reduce everything you possess to the few items you need for your luggage. The most burdensome aspect of our identity is based on what others know or think about us. They look at us and they know what they know, and in silence they force us to be what they expect us to be, to act according to a certain habits our previous behavior has established, or according to suspicions that we weren’t aware we have awakened."  --p. 22, Sepharad: character musings--

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Book Review/Resources for Sepharad, Antonio Muñoz Molina 

[compiled by: Yodz de Veas Insigne]

• I'm A Stranger Here Myself :  New York Times review by Michael Pye
• Weary from tyranny's repeated blows Anonymity the only refuge: San Francisco Chronicle review by Theodore Roszak
• Exile and loss resonate in 'Sepharad':  Deseret Morning News review by Kason Swensen
• What is Sepharad:  Wikipedia Article
• Antonio Muñoz Molina: Official Homepage
• Comprehensive Articles: Antonio Muñoz Molina

Book Notes: Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho

I borrowed this book from Tonet who also loves Paulo Coelho books. It is a novel about a Brazilian girl named Maria. At a very young age, she was convinced that love is a terrible thing that will make you suffer. With dreams of finding fame and fortune, a club recruiter deceived her and ends up working as a prostitute. Drifting farther and farther away from love, she develops a fascination with sex.
She fall in-love with a young painter who showed her “inner light” and later realized the possibility of a “sacred “ sex in the context of love.

The main theme of this book is about sex, prostitution, and falling in love. I do not normally read novels with this subject but Paulo Coelho, being a gifted writer, never fails to inspire me. He doesn’t just write to entertain but to inspire. I also learned a great deal of information about clitorology. Ha ha. Cool stuff.
Some passages from the book:

“Sometimes life is very mean: a person can spend days, weeks, months and years without feeling anything new. Then when a door opens – as happened with Maria when she met Ralf Hart – a positive avalanche pours in. One moment, you have nothing, the next, you have more than you can cope with.” - From page 141

“When a boss humiliates an employee, or a man humiliates his wife, he is merely being cowardly or taking his revenge on life, they are the people who never dared to look into the depths of their soul, never attempted to know the origin of that desire to unleash the wild beast or to understand that sex, pain and love are all extreme experiences. Only those who know those frontiers know life; everything else is just passing time, repeating the same tasks, growing old and dying without ever having discovered what we are doing here.
Work, marriage, children, television, bitterness, old age, the sense of having lost many things, frustrations, illness, disability, dependence on others, loneliness, death.”

From Maria’s Diary : “I am two women; one wants to have all the joy, passion, and adventure that life can give me. The other wants to be slave to routine, to family life, to the things that can planned and achieved. I’m a housewife and a prostitute, both of us living in the same body and doing battle with each other.” - Page 149-151

“I’ve confronted my demons, and my dark side. I plunged into the depths of my soul and know that I still want good things, many good things from this life.” – Ralf Hart - From page 192;

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Coelho, Paulo. 2004. Eleven Minutes,.New York ,New York:HarperCollins Publisher Inc. ISBN : 0-06-072675-X

Book Notes: Warrior of the Light by Paulo Coelho

When I finished reading the “The Alchemist”, I immediately bought this book as an inspirational companion. It contains short passages, which invites every reader to live out their dreams, to embrace uncertainty in life and to rise to their own unique destiny.

This book really inspires me; hence, I named my personal blog “Struggles of the Warrior of the Light.” Paulo Coelho really helps me in bringing out the Warrior within me and showed me how to embark upon the way of the Warrior: appreciating the miracle of being alive, accepting failure and being the person I want to be.

For all the seekers out there, you must have this book.

Here are some passages from the book: (from page 84)

“You can recognize a Warrior of the Light by the look in his eye. Warriors of the Light are in the world, they form part of the world, and they were sent to the world without saddlebags or sandals. They are often cowardly. They do not always act correctly.

Warriors of the Light are wounded by the most foolish things, they worry about trivialities, they believe themselves incapable of growing, Warrior of the Light sometimes believe themselves unworthy of any blessing or miracle.

Warriors of the Light often ask themselves what they are doing here. Often they find their lives meaningless.

That is what they are Warriors of the Light. Because they fail. Because they ask questions. Because they keep looking for a meaning. And, in the end, they will find it.”

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Coelho, Paulo. 2003.Warrior of the Light, A Manual.New York: HarperCollins Publisher Inc.