This is Bertrand Russell: An introduction

Bernard Shaw said, “Hamlet is a half-dozen characters rolled into one”, the same can be said of Bertrand Russell who is a mathematician, philosopher, logician, writer/Nobel laureate (in literature), atheist, and advocate for social reform/pacifist.

Noble and aristocratic origin

He was born into an aristocratic family; his grand father, John Russell, 1^st Earl Russell, was twice the Prime Minister for Queen Victoria. He was left an orphan at age of 3 and was raised by his grand parents.  Queen Victoria once stopped by to visit his grand father and Bertrand Russell was sitting on the Queen Victoria’s lap. I’ll quote some of his family myth of interest; he wrote in his autobiography:

"Edith [his 4^th wife, an American, as was his 1^st wife] and I each had family myths to relate.  Mine began with Henry VIII, of whom the founder of my family had been a protégé, watching on his Mount for the signal of Anne Boleyn’s death at the Tower.  It continued to my grandfather’s speech in 1815, urging (before Waterloo) that Napoleon should not be opposed.  Next came his visit to Elba [where Napoleon was exiled to], in which Napoleon was affable and tweaked his ear. . . ."

He succeeded to the earldom in 1931 when his brother died; he wouldn’t use the title except when strictly necessary for formal occasions.  Friends asked Alfred North Whitehead (Russell’s teacher/colleague/friend) how to call him, Whitehead answered, “Well, it is difficult to say, I always call him Berti.”  In a letter to his publisher friend, Russell wrote,

“You will have seen my brother died suddenly in Marseilles, I inherit from him a title, but not a penny, as he was bankrupt.  A title is a great nuisance to me, as I am at a loss what to do, but at any rate I do not wish it employed in connection with any of my literary work.”

Alfred North Whitehead:  mentor, colleague, collaborator, and friend

an excellent book

Thanks to Harry and Peggy’s giving me Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, I came to know Bertrand Russell.  Whitehead and Russell collaborated on the epochal Principia Mathematica.  Whitehead was 11 years his senior and recruited him to the elite, prestigious and intellectual Apostles Society at Cambridge University.  Russell at one time moved into Whitehead’s house working on the Principia Mathematica, the 1^st of 3 volumes was published in 1910. (Carnegie Library does have these books, bur are considered reference books and are not allowed to be checked out.)

But, the difference in temperament and political view pulled them apart.  In his autobiography (Volume II, 1914-1944) he wrote, “The first days of the war [WWI] were utterly amazing.  My best friends, such as the Whiteheads, were savagely warlike.”

While serving a six-months imprisonment in 1918 for his pacifistic action, Russell wrote a letter to the Whiteheads whose youngest son, Eric, was killed serving in the Royal Flying Corps. (the letter didn’t survive) Mrs. Whitehead, Evelyn, replied,

“. . . Hearts don’t break so here we are; indeed, I will try to make life sweet still for North and Jessie, but I am not clever at facing it without my Eric. . . I cannot tell you about Alfred, he looks much older. . . Dear Bertie, which ever one of us you prefer to see will go; just choose the one who will best fit your mood—You will hold out—old friendships strain but do not break.  Later on we will talk of all this time of divergence and of my beloved Eric—With dear love from us all, Yours affectionately . . .”

In his biography, The Life of Bertrand Russell (by Ronald Clark), it was mentioned that Russell and Mrs. Whitehead, Evelyn, might have something romantic more than affectionate friendship.  Russell kept silent in his 3-volumes autobiography, but in one of his letters to Ottoline Morrell (his “soul mate” so to speak), with whom he had a long affair, he wrote,

“Much my strongest affection after my love for you is affection for Mrs. Whitehead.  This is rooted in years of difficult and very painful cooperation in tasks which both think very important—chiefly keeping Whitehead from knowledge of things which upset his balance.  It is not a feeling in which there is anything to cause you jealousy but it is quite indestructible and very deep."

When Alfred Whitehead died in 1947, Evelyn burnt all the letters Bertrand Russell wrote to Alfred or her.

Why I am not a Christian – by Bertrand Russell 1927

Russell lectured at Peking University for one year in 1920.  It is reputed that both Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai attended his lectures.  During his visit to China, 趙元任 was his translator, accompanying him traveling across China.

He wrote in his autobiography,

“I was told that the Chinese said that they would bury me by the Western Lake 西湖, and build a shrine to my memory.  I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist.”

His letter to Colette or Ottoline (both had affair with Russell) echoed his eerie sentiment.
“I have missed much by not dying here, as the Chinese were going to have given me a terrific funeral in Central Park; then bury me on an island in the Western Lake 西湖, where the greatest poets and emperors lived, died and were buried.  Probably I should have become a God.  What an opportunity missed.”

When asked what he would say to God if he found himself before Him, Russell answered, “I should reproach him for not giving us enough evidence.”

Many of the great minds whose work attract me are all atheists:  Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehaed (an agnostic at one time), Richard Dawkins, James Watson, Francis Crick, Lin Yu-Tong, . . . the list goes on.  The thought of it at times frightened me until one day it dawned on me that I was attracted by their being among the greatest intellectuals in general, not by their atheistic views in particular.  They are men of courage, of superman power; they are superhuman being, and not the ordinary mortals.  They can be sustained in times of sorrow without the mercy and comfort of the Almighty; they can “walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil’ even though they do not feel “thou art with them.”

Reading science is to seek the ‘truth’ of Nature, and that of humanity/literature, beauty of life and yet neither science nor art can provide the strength or comfort in time of sorrow and trial, which comes from the merciful Almighty, and that is where religion/faith comes into play.

Immoral personal life for one with strong moral conviction

He was awarded Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 (Churchill was his runner-up then, and had to wait another 3 years for his laurel) “In recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humantarian ideals and freedom of thoughts.”  He fought ferociously with force and style for his strong moral conviction, however unconventional and unpopular it might be. 

However, it is ironic, in my view, that his personal life leaves a lot to be desired as far as the morality goes.  While reading his biography and autobiography, it is not a small task to keep track his four marriages and numerous affairs/liaisons that include Lady Ottoline Morrell, Colette (Lady Constance Malleson), T.S. Eliot’s wife, the list goes on.

He went to China with Dora Black (his former student and eventually 2^nd wife) in 1920 while still marrying to his first wife, Alys Pearsall Smith (an American quaker).  During his one-year stay in China, he got Dora pregnant while writing love letters to both Ottoline and Colette staying behind in England.  He probably should have listened to the lyric of Jolene (by Dolly Paton) “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, I 'm begging of you, please don't take my man even though you can.” Something you don't do it just because you can.  On emerging from his delirium (from pneumonia) his first action was to write to Ottoline:

Dear O,

I am just able to write again so I want to tell you how profoundly you have been in my thoughts all this strange time.  I am told I tried to write to you during my delirium but of course I could only produce a meaningless scrawl.           . . . My most true love, B

His affair with Ottoline began at a dinner’s invitation by the Morrells and her husband, Philip, was unexpectedly called away, and after dinner Russell and Ottoline sat talking over the fire until four in the morning.  Russell wrote recording the event, “I did not know I love you till I heard myself telling you so.”

He didn’t admit some of the affairs in his autobiography (He might be brutely honest at time, he is still no Jean Jacques Rousseau after all and was not writing a Confession), he wrote, “I became great friends with him [T.S. Eliot], and subsequently with his wife, whom he married early in 1915.  As they were desperately poor, I lent them one of the two bedrooms in my flat, with the result that I saw a great deal of them.  I was fond of them both, and endeavoured to help them in their troubles until I discovered that their troubles were what they enjoyed.”  T. S. Eliot was Russell’s student when he was lecturing at Harvard, as J. Robert Oppenheimer ('Oppei') was Alfred North Whitehead's, also at Harvard.

Russell, not a man without blemish

Russell is not a man without blemish; he might twist the fact or conveniently ignored evidence to make his point.

He was denied a passport to lecture at Harvard in 1916, upon hearing the news he wrote, “I loathed the thought of the exile.  But you cannot imagine how it infuriates me as a piece of tyranny.  I want a fuss made about it.  I want it pointed out that I was going to teach logic that the Government thinks logic wd. put America against us.”  The fact is that Professor Woods of Harvard Philosophy Department explicitly stated on his invitation that the courses based on his political views of War would be included.

Woods also made arrangement of lecture-engagements at half a dozen other universities, and only University of Michigan wanted Russell only on philosophy, “owing to the strong local feeling for the Allies”.

He wrote in his autobiography (Volume 3, 1944-1969),

“When I was called to Stockholm, at the end of 1950, to receive the Nobel Prize—somewhat to my surprise, for literature, for my book Marriage and Morals—I was apprehensive, since I remembered that, exactly three hundred years earlier, Descartes had been called to Scandinavia by Queen Christina in the wintertime and had died of cold.”

I read the Nobel presentation speech, which emphasizes he ‘champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought”  Several of his nearly 100 books were mentioned including A History of Western Philosophy, but not Marriage and Morals (1929) in which he expressed very liberal views that shocked his contemporaries or even the fainthearted of our time.  He argued that “a lapse into sexual unfaithfulness by either married partner should not, necessarily, be a ground for divorce.” (from his Biography) Admittedly, he might be just ahead of his time; some of his proposals in the book were made into laws in England.

If you can read only one book of his, pick A History of Western Philosophy, you’ll be ‘entertained’ intellectually. (I use 'entertain' instead of 'enlighten', as it may be more enticing to get one to read.)  It was a ‘best seller’ in America when it was published in 1946.  Russell wrote, “I had no idea it would have a success which, none of my other books have had, even, for a time, shining high upon the Americanlist of best sellers.”

No pacifist can survive Hitler, not even Bertrand Russell

He was a staunch pacifist during the WWI, but he realized there will be no peace as long as Hitler is around; he wrote,

". . . But Hitler’s Germany was a different matter.  I found the Nazis utterly revolting—cruel, bigoted, and stupid.  Morally and intellectually they were alike odious to me.  Although I clung to my pacifist convictions, I did so with increasing difficulty.  When, in 1940, England was threatened with invasion, I realized that, throughout the First War, I had never seriously envisaged the possibility of utter defeat.  I found this possibility unbearable, and at last consciously and definitely decided that I must support what was necessary for victory in the Second War, however difficult victory might be to achieve, and however painful in its consequence."

In a letter to a friend, he wrote on Dec 22, 1939, “I try hard to remain a pacifist, but the thought of Hitler and Stalin triumphant is hard to bear.”

To the same friend, he wrote on May 19, 1940, “Perhaps it would have been better if the Kaiser had won, seeing Hitler is so much worse.  I find that this time I am not a pacifist, and consider the future of civilization bound up with our victory.  I don’t think anything so important has happened since the fifth century, the previous occasion on which the Germans reduced the world to barbarism.”  He was talking like a Churchill!

He was an outspoken critic of the American military intervention in Viet-Nam (and, for sure, Iraq, if he were still with us.)  This is his broadcast after the explosion of the first hydrogen bomb, “Remember your humanity and forget the rest.  If you can do so, the way lies open to a new paradise:  If you can not, nothing lies before you but universal daeth.” 

In the end, Russell prevailed and the true character shown on those supported him in time of trials

Being an atheist, pacifist and political activist advocating provacative, unpopular, liberal, or revolutionary views on all things, Russell ran into trouble at all times:  imprisonment twice, dismissals from Trinity College (in 1916 and was reappointed in 1944) and the City College of New York.  But, in the end, he prevailed.  He was bestowed on the honors of the Order of Merit (OM) in 1949 and Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950.

During the debacle of the City College affair in 1940, John Dewey, Whitehead and many other academics came to Russell’s defense.  Aldous Huxley sent him a letter.

Dear Bertie:

     Symapthy, I am afraid, can’t do much good; but I feel I must tell you how much I feel for you and Peter in the midst of the obscene outcry that has broken out around your name in New York.

                                                                                                Aldous Huxley

When the Student Council of the City College sent him a letter of support, Russell replied,
“I am very happy to have the support of the student council in the fight.  Old York was the first place where Christianity was the state religion, and it was there that Constantine assumed the purple.  Perhaps New York will be the last place to have this honor. . . “

“I am afraid that if and when I take up my duties at the City College you will all be disappointed to find me a very mild and inoffensive person, totally destitute of horns and hoofs.”
In a long letter, John Dewey wrote,

“ . . . If men are going to be kept out of American colleges because they express unconventional, unorthodox or even unwise views (but who is to be the judge of wisdom or lack of wisdom?) on political, economic, social, or moral matters, . . . I am heartily glad my own teaching days have come to an end.”

When Russell was reappointed as a Fellow at the Trinity College, Whitehead sent him a letter on Jan. 3, 1944, saying “ . . . Our warmest congratulations.  It is exactly what ought to have happened.”

Bertie is a fervid egoist

“Bertie is a fervid egoist.” Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary about her friend.  What a great observation!  Russell's own assessment, “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life:  the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”

He died of influenza on February 2, 1970 at age of 98—a long, arduous life, “not entirely uneventful.” as Churchill spoke of his own.

Flirting with French

I am reading an eBook (borrowed from Carnegie Library through OverDrive) called “Flirting with French” (by William Alexander).  Earlier this year I wrote a post of “Bill Gates is trying to take up French, so am I”.

I first downloaded a “sample”; I was sold when I read the following paragraph.

A rainy afternoon with my wife at a Left Bank brasserie, watching the city scurry home, the drizzly streets an impressionist canvas come to life.  Anne and I drunk on cold beer, on Paris, on love, happy as happy gets, neither of us speaking much, just enjoying the scene, and realizing how lucky we are to love the same things, and Paris, and each other.

This is not really a learning French book, but the author (an American) talks about French while touring France with his wife.  The following paragraph gives you a feel of it.  The blue/italicized words are French.

. . . even before tackling French I already knew a number of French words, in addition to petit and problème. How much of our vocabulary is shared with French?  To get an idea, take a stroll through an English garden (jardin), where you may find a fleur in bloom, perhaps an insecte perchè atop a rose, enjoying the soft petales.  Attention! Some of these plantes might be dangereuses, while others are quite     dèlicieuses. A quarter to a third of all English words come from French.

Albert Speer deserves no forgiveness: My letter-to-the-editor was published at Observer-Reporter today

On Monday (Dec. 7) a headline article reporting the story of a retired California University professor (Dr. Leonard Siegel) who corresponded with Albert Speer for 12 years after he was released from Spandau prison.  Professor Siegel also interviewed Speer for three days at Speer’s residence in Germany.

In my early days of reading WWII, I was of an opinion that Speer was a decent gentleman, among all the Hitler’s thugs, the likes of Goring, Goebbels, Himmler and Ribbentrop.  Many years of reading later, he became a sly, despicable and immoral figure.  He “escaped a death sentence by presenting a subtle and sophisticated mixture of self-exculpating [exonerating] and self-blame.”  (From Richard Evan’s The Third Reich at War.)  He obviously tricked the judge at Nuremberg trial to spare him from the noose.

Professor said Speer was “an avid gardener who turned a vegetable garden at Spandau Prison into an elaborate garden with paths, and a variety of flowers.”  He also showed the professor his garden as he did Hitler 35 years earlier.

Speer would have liked our garden, no wonder I “liked” this guy in my earlier days of reading.  Reading is to find the truth and beauty; the beauty of people, of mind and of language.  Truth is hard to come by especially reading the history.

Tantalizing 可望不可及: Reading history, learning English

“The ruins of the village of Vaux changed hands thirteen times during March, and yet the fort itself still lay tantalizingly beyond the German reach.”

The above quote is from John Keegan’s (a British military historian) The First World War.  It epitomizes the characteristics of the WWI: stalemate and attrition resulting in enormous casualties for nothing.

There is hardly a day went by without my learning of  how an English word is beautifully and effectively used.  “tantalizingly” here caught my attention.

“Tantalize” originates from Greco-Roman mythology. “Tantalus” was a king who for his sin was condemned to stand on Tantarus up to his chin in water that receded whenever he stooped to drink.  So “tantalize” means “to tease or torment by presenting something to the view and exciting strong desire but continually frustrating the expectation by keeping it out of reach”

The German force very much wanted the fort in Vaux and fought for it ferociously with tenacity and yet couldn’t get it.  可望不可及, so to speak. 

(Many English verbs turn into adjective by adding “ing” to it: ‘tantalize’ is a verb and’ tantalizing’ is adjective)

I was surprised to learn (from Charles) that “serendipity” evolves from an ancient fairy tale.  I bet few people are aware of the origin of “tantalize”.  While I am at “tantalize”, I might as well say something about “tantamount”.

The Lend-Lease is a Bill enacted by Congress, empowering the President to send war supplies to the allied countries fighting the Axis.  This Act was passed (3/11/1941) before America plunged into the war.  It greatly delighted Churchill, who reportedly said the Lend-Lease Act was “tantamount to a declaration of war by the U.S.”

“Tantamount to” is the same as “equivalent to”.

Churchill quoted Scripture with effect

Churchill was not a particularly religious man; he didn’t quote Scripture often, but when he did, it was done superbly.  The following is my favorite.  (One of his great-grandsons has a book with a title of “God & Churchill”.  I didn't read it, but after reading some of the review articles and based on what I have read, I feel there is some imaginative stretch.)

While Cairo Conference was being planned, FDR cabled Churchill that their “meeting place is known to enemy” and suggested moving to Khartoum.  Churchill thought Cairo well protected and cabled FDR, “See St. John, Chapter 14, Verses 1 to 4”; the passages are:

Let not your heart be troubled:
Ye believe in God,
Believe also in me . . .
I go to prepare a place for you.

No sooner had the cable sent out, than Churchill began to regret, as he was afraid that people might be thinking he was so grandiose that he thought he was Jesus.  FDR agreed with Churchill’s plan in no time.

We heard the following in his first speech to the Joint Session of Congress on December 26, 1941, a bit over one year before Madame Chiang Kai-Shek did.

As long as we have faith in our cause and an unconquerable will-power, salvation will not be denied us.  In the words of the Psalmist, “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.”  Not all the tidings will be evil.

Churchill was hesitated to quote the Scripture in the speech and mentioned his concern to FDR, who gave his approval; at which time Churchill was living in the White House.

Historian Arthur Marder wrote, “A stream of memoranda, virtually ultimata, issued from the Private Office covering every aspect of the war at sea and leaving the recipient in no doubt as to what the First Lord [Churchill was the First Lord of Admiralty during WWI and WWII] wanted.” These memoranda became irreverently known as the First Lord’s Prayers because they frequently opened with “Pray inform me . . .” or “Pray why has . . . not been done.”

In the old days “pray” was often used, instead of “please”.

Churchill’s first speech as the Prime Minister through BBC on May 19, 1940 is known as “Be Ye Men of Valour” as it was concluded by quoting 1 Maccabees 3:58-60 in Apocrypha.
Today is Trinity Sunday.  Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: “Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar.  As the Will of Gods is in Heaven, even so let it be.” (1 Maccabees 3:58–60)

By teh way “ye” is the plural form of “thou”.  I think this is from Hebrew Bible written at the time after the conquest of Judea by Alexander the Great.  But one doesn’t need to know the story behind it to appreciate how good a quote for the occasion.

Did Madame Chiang Kai-shek conduct sexy and seductive diplomacy?

I was hoping to learn some modern Chinese history by reading Hannah Pakula’s The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and the birth of modern China, but I was disappointed as I have my doubt about some of the material she used.  As the New York Times Book Review said of the book, “Pakula uses no source in Chinese and offers little evaluation of the ones she does use.”  Pakula is no historian; she may not have the professional training to evaluate the material she uses.

In the book Pakula was making a case that Mme. Chiang and Wendell Willkie had an affair and even a one-night stand when Willkie visited Chongqing in October 1942.

After losing to FDR in his Presidency bid in 1940, Willkie traveled the world representing FDR.  He was a very respectful and influential political figure, advocating Lend-Lease (a 1941 Act by Congress, empowering the president to send war supplies/money to the allied countries).

Madame Chiang understandably wanted to charm and woo such an important figure from USA, from whence their war supply and money came.  But the book portrays her as a seducer and that she wanted to come to USA with Willkie.  When Gardner Cowles (a publisher, who accompanied Willkie on the trip) told May-ling that she could not come to the States with Willkie.  May-ling scratched her long fingernails down Cowles’ cheeks, so deeply that the marks remained for a week.   Sensational story if it were true.

In Hannah Pakula’s The Last Empress, we read the following paragraph (at Cairo Conference),

May-ling, who was wearing a black satin sheath dotted with yellow chrysanthemums, continually arranged and rearranged her feet in order to give glimpse of what Brooke called “the most shapely of legs” via the long slits in her skirt. “This caused a rustle amongst those attending the conference,” he wrote, “and I even thought I heard a suppressed neigh come from a group of some of the younger members!”

The following paragraph is from William Manchester/Paul Reid’s The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm 1940-1965 Volume 3 (Churchill’s biography).  Paul Reid, using Manchester’s material after the latter was stricken by stroke, to complete the book.  Manchester was a respected historian, who apparently felt Alan Brooke’s diary (Churchill’s right hand man—Chief of Staff during WWII) was credible and trustworthy.

Madame Chiang, who spoke perfect English, translated for her husband, leaving Brooke with the impression that Madame “was the leading spirit of the two, and I would not trust her very far . . .The more I see of her the less I like her.”  Not so the other staff officers, whose collective breathing almost stopped when Madame’s “closely clinging dress of black satin with yellow chrysanthemums displayed a slit which extended to her hip bone and exposed one of the most shapely of legs.”

In the Volume V (Closing the Ring) of Churchill’s The Second World War, with which, I feel, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, Churchill wrote about his impression of Mme. Chiang during Cairo Conference (Nov. 1943).

I had a very pleasant conversation with Madame Chiang Kai-shek, and found her a most remarkable and charming personality.  I told her how much I had regretted that we could not fix an occasion for a meeting at the time when we had both been in America together, and we agree that no undue formalities should stand in the way of our talks in the future.  The President had us all photographed together at one of our meetings at his villa, and although both the Generalissimo and his wife are now regarded as wicked and corrupt reactionaries by many of their former admirers, I am glad to keep this as a souvenir.

In the Volume IV (The Hinge of Fate) of Churchill’s The Second World War, we read why Churchill and Mme. Chiang did see each other when they both were in America (also in 1943).

On this weekend was discussed the question of my meeting Madame Chiang Kai-shek, who was making and extensive tour of the United States.  She was at this time in New York, and intimated that she would be glad to receive me there.  Amid the pressure under which we were working and in the few days that remained before I must leave I did not feel able to make so long a journey.  The President therefore invited the lady to lunch with him to meet me at the White House.  The invitation was refused with some hauteur.  Madame was of the opinion that I should make the pilgrimage to New York.  The President was somewhat vexed that she had not adapted his plan.  It was my strong desire to preserve the unity in the Grand Alliance, and I offered to go half-way if she would do the same.  This offer was however considered facetious, so I never had the pleasure and advantage of meeting this lady until the Cairo Conference.

In Hannah Pakula’s The Last Empress, we read the following conversation between Churchill and Mme. Chiang, (so far I cannot verify this conversation indeed happened.)

Churchill: You think I’m a terrible old man, don’t you?
Mme. 
Chiang: I really don’t know.  You believe in colonialism and I don’t.
Churchill: Now tell me what do you think of me?
Mme. 
Chiang: I think your bark is worse than your bite.

The articulate Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-Shek)

This is how Churchill began his speech in the Joint Session of Congress on December 26, 1941.  The book of The Roar of the Lion is a gift from a lawyer friend of nearly 40 years.  It is about the stories of Churchill's wartime speeches.

“. . . I wish indeed that my mother, whose memory I cherish across the vale of years, could have been here to see.  By the way, I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way round, I might have got here on my own.”

Madame Chiang Kai-Shek made her famous speech in the Congress in February 1943.

She first told a story about an American pilot returning a bombing mission over Tokyo and bailed out in the interior of China.  The pilot, after seeing the Chinese people, felt like he had come home even though that was the first time he had ever been to China.   After explaining that she had been educated in the U.S. and felt that she had come home.

She and Churchill used the same technique telling their audience that the speaker was indeed one of you in your midst.

She brought the house down with her speech, “the chamber fairly shook with applause.”  You have to listen to part of her speech in the following YouTube before reading further.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlSMfF3hOJM

There is no better word than “articulate” to describe her speech in the Congress.  There are two meanings of articulate; one is “pronounce a word distinctly” (咬字清晰); the other meaning is “to express oneself clearly and effectively” (表達清楚). Soong Mei-ling was indeed “articulate” in the true sense of the word both ways.  She only stayed in the States about nine years (age 10 to 19).

I once said Churchill was not articulate and that brought forth the protest from my daughter, who didn’t realize I was using “articulate” as 咬字清晰.  If you watch and listen to the Godfather and you’ll agree with me that Marlon Brando was not articulate.

After reading Empress Dowager Tzu-Hsi (Cixi), I checked out The Last Empress (biography of Soong Mei-ling).  Nowadays I only checked out the print books when the Kindle ebook is not available. This book does have ebook version, which was not available at Carnegie Library.

No Last Rose of Summer in our garden: they charm us well beyond the summer

10/18/2015

Thomas Moore’s ‘the last rose of summer’ leads us to believe the roses faded when summer left us.  Our roses charmed us well into the late fall.  These photos were taken on October 18, the first severe frost came the night before, all flowers (zinnia, salvia, marigold and celosia etc.) perished except roses.

The faded flowers wouldn’t allow me to put their photo on Facebook unless I promise to also show them when they’re still blooming in full blossom.

10/18/2015



10/18/2015

What’s in a name in A Dream of Red Chamber (紅樓夢)?

If one reads article discussing the many hundreds of characters, main or minor, of A Dream of Red Chamber, one may not read about Hongyu (紅玉) or better known as Xiaohong (小紅).  In fact, this post was written after reading why Hongyu (紅玉) had to be called Xiaohong (小紅).

又問名字。小紅道：「原叫紅玉，因為重了寶二爺，如今只叫小紅了。」鳳姐聽說，將眉一皺，把頭一回，說道：「討人嫌的很！得了玉的便宜似的，你也玉，我也玉。」
Next she was asked her name,
“I was first called Hongyu (紅玉),” she answered, “but because of the ‘yu’ in Master Bao’s name they call me Xiaohong (小紅) now. Xifeng (鳳姐) frowned and tossed her head.
“Disgusting! You’d think there was something special about ‘yu’ (玉), the way everybody wants that name.” ß English translation in book

My comment:
Cao Xueqin (曹雪芹) has a penchant of playing the names of his characters, such as 賈元春 (first spring), 賈探春 (seeking spring), 賈迎春 (welcoming spring), 賈惜春 (treasuring spring). Even the last name of 賈 has a special meaning, but that is beyond the scope of this writing.

The three love birds (three major protagonists) in a “triangle love” (or so I thought?) are 賈寶玉 (Jia Baoyu) and 林黛玉 (Lin Daiyu) that shares the “yu” (玉); another couple is 賈寶玉 (Jia Baoyu) and 薛寶釵 (Xue Baochai) that shares the “Bao” (寶).  There is another character of  Miaoyu (妙玉), of whom I know little yet, other than she is a nun.

Cao Xueqin (曹雪芹) is aware that so many characters (male or female) have a yu (玉) in their name, thus we read this in Chapter 27, “得了玉的便宜似的，你也玉，我也玉。」”  It was translated as “You’d think there was something special about ‘yu’ (玉), the way everybody wants that name.” (the original says nothing “special” about “yu”).  It seems logical to say that, but a more faithful translation is “It costs nothing to have yu (玉) in their name, everyone wants it.” (Even Mei-Yu wants it.)

 

In Chapter 24 we began to know who is Lin Hongyu (林紅玉, Red Jade) whose family served the Jias (賈府) for generations, so she was sent to Happy Red Court (怡紅院) as a maid when she was fourteen (English translation says “sixteen”).

 

這小紅雖然是個不諳事體的丫頭，因他原有幾分容貌，心內便想向上攀高，每每要在寶玉面前現弄現弄. 只是寶玉身邊一干人都是伶牙俐爪的， 那裡插的下手去？

Simple as Xiaohong was, with her good looks (幾分容貌) she was foolishly eager to climb up in the world.  She had long been looking for a chance to attract Baoyu’s attention, but his other attendants were too smart to allow her to put herself forward.  ßEnglish translation in book

 

My comment:

This is fairly good and faithful translation, talking about the “ambition” of a maid with a good look

 

誰知寶玉昨兒見了他也就留心， 想著指名喚他來使用. 一則怕襲人等多心， 二則又不知他是怎麼個情性，

Now Baoyu (寶玉) had been so struck by Xiaohong the previous day that he would have liked to have her wait on him, but he feared this might upset Xiren and the others; besides, there was no saying how the girl would turn out.   ßEnglish translation in book

 

My comment:

This English translation author loves to use “upset”; he used it for “感傷歎息”; here he used it for “多心”, which is probably “worry or concern”.

 

情 (sentiment) 性 (personality, character). Baoyu knows Xiaohong has a good look, but no way to tell whether she is a gentle and loyal or one with a hot temper and a railing tongue.  I don’t quite like “there was no saying how the girl would turn out”, but I cannot make it better.

The beauty of the language: Simple is Beautiful

While commenting on the English translation of A Dream of Red Chamber, I often lament the loss of the beauty of Chinese literary language.  But what is the “beauty” of the language?  Is the beauty of Chinese the same way as the English is perceived? I am afraid not.

Hemingway: A lion in winter

I am in no position to describe or define the beauty of Chinese language.  Florid and pompous language in Chinese is considered high class and magnificent or even beautiful.  This may not be true in English: simple and short words are welcome.  As Mark Twain would say, “Damn the subjunctive.  It brings all of our writers to shame.  As to the Adjective:  When in doubt, strike it out.”

The earth moved

Hemingway is a man of letter and also a man of action; he wrote using subjective and verb only.  We read in his For Whom the Bell Tolls, after Robert Jordan (played by Gary Cooper) and Maria (played by Ingrid Bergman) 雲雨巫山 (making love) 一番.

“But did thee feel the earth move?” Robert Jordan asked, and she says yes.

“And it is not thus for thee with others?” Maria asked him,

“No. Truly.”

“Thou hast loved many others.”

“Some, But not as thee.”

“And it was not thus? Truly?”

“It was a pleasure but it was not thus.”

“And then the earth moved.  The earth never moved before?”

“Nay. Truly never.”

“Ay,” she said. “And this we have for one day.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Fourteen pages later, under pressure from one of the guerrilla leaders to tell what happened, Maria looks away and says only, “The earth moved.”

雲雨巫山 and 溫存了一番 are Chinese language to describe sexual intimacy tactfully and tastefully; Hemingway’s “the earth moved” reaches the “climax” of English language that simple is beautiful.

Churchill “mobilized English language” to fight Hitler.
I may not be able to define the beauty of English language, but when I see it I know it.  As I said it many times before that reading Churchill and Lincoln led me to discover the beauty of English language.  It should come no surprised that he was awarded Nobel Prize in Literature.

In his first speech in the House of Commons on May 13, 1940, after being appointed as the Prime Minister, Churchill said, using mostly short and simple words.

I said to those who have joined the Government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against the monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.  That is our policy.  You ask, What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.  Let that be realized; no survival for the British Empire; no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal.  But I take up my task with buoyance and hope. . .

Translating literary Chinese into English is a daunting task

When I lament I only know English and yet I long for to learn French deep in my heart, Janice always reminds me I do know Chinese, not as much as I should though.

The strength of Chinese language lies in its aesthetic quality, thus its literary beauty is unmatched by English.  But one should never learn science, especially chemistry or math in Chinese, which is inherently a bad tool for this task.

While writing about the English translation of “A Dream of Red Chamber” (紅樓夢), I wrote, “No matter how good a translation, the beauty of the Chinese language was lost in translation.”  I am not the only one hold this view.  In his The Importance of Living, Lin Yutang wrote ,“One is often forced to write bad English in trying to express such Chinese aesthetic ideas or notions, . . .”

Chapter 5 of the Dream is important in foretelling, through Baoyu’s dream in fantasy, the unfortunate fate (薄命) of the Twelve Beauties of Chinling (金陵十二釵).

寶玉喜不自勝，抬頭看這司的匾上，乃是「薄命司」三字，兩邊寫著對聯道：「春恨秋悲皆自惹，花容月貌為誰妍？」
Baoyu (寶玉) was overjoyed.  He looked up and saw on the tablet the name Board of Ill-Fated.  This is flanked by the couplet:

They brought to themselves spring grief and autumn anguish;

Wasted, their beauty fair as flower and moon?

 

My comment:

“Overjoy” is a very appropriate translation for 喜不自勝.  There is nothing wrong to translate 薄命 (“thin fate”) as “ill-fated”, but Chinese readers know that it is conventionally used in describing the ill-fate in a marriage or a relationship of a woman, such as the idiom of 红颜薄命 (a great beauty suffers ill-fate).

 

春恨秋悲皆自惹,   They brought to themselves spring grief and autumn anguish;

花容月貌為誰妍？    Wasted, their beauty fair as flower and moon? ß translation in book

                                    [For whom the delicate beauty wasted?] ß my translation

My comment:
花容月貌 is “as beautiful as flower and moon”.  妍 is elegantly pretty of women.  妍 is an adjective, but it is used as a verb here.  It basically says “nobody is around to appreciate such a delicate beauty, thus wasted.”

早有一位仙姬在內，其鮮豔嫵媚，大似寶釵，嬝娜風流，又如黛玉.
More amazing still, he saw there a girl whose charm reminded him of Baochai (寶釵, with whom Baoyu eventually married), her grace of Daiyu (黛玉)  ß translation in book

My comment:
豔 is gorgeously beautiful, dazzlingly beautiful, passionate, voluptuous (like Mae West ß Lin Yutang’s example).  媚 is seductive, enticing, beauty of softness.  It is fitting to translate 鮮豔嫵媚 into “charm”, which is so plain that the “great charm and beauty” of Chinese language was lost.  The same is also true for 嬝娜風流 as “grace”. (I’ll devote a post just talking about 風流).

騷 is poetic, sentimental; we call poet 騷人.  We have a friend well versed in classic Chinese literature, 出囗成詩 真是騷人一個. Although one has to be careful using 騷. 風騷 is amorous, lustful, passionate, more of sensual love, or in a way, “hot”. 發勞騷 is complain, grumble, vent.

It is imperative to know that our 騷人 (the one we know) does not 發勞騷, nor 風騷.