Author: Michael @ Knowledge Lost

A Look Back at 2010

Posted January 7, 2011 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Writing / 0 Comments

With 2010 now behind us, I thought it was time to review some of my favourite posts and book of the year. I’ve been neglecting my blogging a little, as I’ve been focusing on my reading (ended up reading a total 87 books for the year). I’m hoping 2011 will be different; currently aiming for one post a week.

Blog Posts

10. Trying to Understand Existentialism

9. Twin Peaks and Dream Interpretations

8. Five Books That Changed My Life

7. René Magritte’s The Lovers

6. My Goals for Knowledge Lost

5. Poetic Shock

4. Evolution of the English Language

3. Education Vs. Passion

2. Did Pop Culture Destroy Literature?

1. Nec Spe, Nec Metu (Without Hope, Without Fear)

Favourite Books Read in 2010

10. Fatherland by Robert Harris

9. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

8. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder

7. Animal Farm by George Orwell

6. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

5. The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

4. Maus by Art Spiegelman

3. On Writing by Stephen King

2. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Education Vs. Passion

Posted December 18, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Education / 10 Comments

For the past year I’ve been receiving an education, but not in the conventional sense. I don’t believe education starts and ends in the classroom. It can be a never ending process and it really depends on the person’s willingness to learn new things. When I’m talking about education, I believe there are multiple ways to become educated and that’s why, if people are willing and open to learning new things, we will learn.

I’m only new to the possibility of learning new things; and if you have been following my blog for a while you would notice the evolution involved. I started with Culture, then there was literature, writing, art, philosophy and now I’m talking about education. I believe that when you discover your God-given talent and develop a passion for it, interesting things happen. I would have never expected to develop an interest in education but I think that came with developing an interest in learning and discovering passion.

Picasso famously said “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” The harsh truth of this statement is that we have lost the ability to try and be creative; we are taught from an early stage in life that failure is bad and we grow up always thinking that. Sir Ken Robinson said it best when he said; “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” Along time ago I read a book called Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success by John Maxwell, in which it discussed how failing is not a bad thing; it is how to move of from failure, ultimately failing moulds us into the people we are today.

I’ve only just started reading this fascinating book by Sir Ken Robinson called The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything; in which he talks about the importance of passion in life and how it can affect every aspect from job satisfaction, creativity and even education. But before reading the book I just wanted to write some of my views and I may talk more about this later.

Public Education (or from what I remember) is so standardised that it could almost be viewed as a conveyer belt in a manufacture line and we are just churning out the same information to every student and expecting the same results. I know I had this problem at school and I never really did well. When it came to go to university I just didn’t feel it was right for me then, and I wasn’t sure what I wanted.

Public Education Hierarchy doesn’t help the students; we shouldn’t be telling the kids that some subjects are more important than others. While it is important that some subjects are essential for every student we need to get out of the habit of making some subjects inferior to others. The hierarchy I believe is;

Math, Science and Languages
Humanities
Arts

Parents and Educators need to be careful not to step on any students’ dreams. There are no wrong answers when it comes to dreams and passion. Parents and teachers seem to be more concerned with what job the student will end up with; the ability to make lots of money shouldn’t be more important than job satisfaction. There is no reason a person should have their dreams squashed; we don’t know what the future would be like so we can’t predict how the students will thrive in that situation.

An education doesn’t begin and end in the classroom. A lot of people have been educated in unconventional ways; my education is self education at the moment; people learn in different ways so education needs to be adapted to the person.

Discovery of Natural Talent is not the sole role of the person. While they need to learn to look inwardly and get to know themselves, they also need to learn to try new things. The people around them can help by doing simple things like providing encouragement. How much happier in your job would you be if the boss could see what you’re passionate about and found something in that field that could be added to your job description? What about if a teacher discovered that you are doing really well in a certain subject and they encouraged you further into the study of this topic? Or if your parents could see your passion and they sent you to a school that does well in that field?

I could probably continue on about Education and finding that spark in life that makes you happy, but this was more of a chance to get some thoughts down before I study this topic further. I know not all schools are standardising education and I know education reform has been a big focus all around the world. I just wanted to express some aspects that I’ve noticed from education that may be squashing people’s ability to be creative or to find joy in life. I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

My Goals for Knowledge Lost

Posted November 26, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Writing / 0 Comments

My wife and I decided to look at our goals in life and what we would like to achieve as a couple and individually in the next one to five years. Of course, my dream involve writing & my blog. It is obvious that I would need to put in a lot of work and study into achieving my goals and that’s fine, but I feel like I’ve come up with a plan to help build towards these goals.

Knowledge Lost has primarily been about my personal growth in Art, Culture, Philosophy and Literature. I feel that if I want to be able to able to get a job or do something related to these topics, I might want to learn how to teach people about them. As you may be aware there are four little windows across the top of my blog which have been used to display the most recent post in the four primary topics of my blog. What I’m planning to do is change that; I’m going to transform them into launching pads for a basic lesson in the four topics of my blog. This way I’m still learning and I’m also compiling an action plan for my future, just in case I ever get the opportunity. This also starts me building material for possible ebooks in the future.

This is going to be hard to do and will take a lot of work, but I would love to know if anyone has a wealth of knowledge in Art, Culture, Philosophy and Literature. I don’t want to have these turn in to personal opinions and would love to have someone I could ask for advice and bounce ideas off in regards to these issues. This will be a workin progress for me but will make a big change to me and my blog.

William S. Burroughs & Surrealist Writing Methods

Posted November 19, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature, Writing / 2 Comments

Post-modern author, William S. Burroughs is best known for his experimental writing style. He was a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major influence in popular culture as well as literature.

In 1959, he released Naked Lunch which he described as “Automatic writing gone horribly wrong”. Previously, I have posted about Automatism, but it is a process of writing where the writer tries to avoid conscious thoughts. Burroughs has said that Naked Lunch wasn’t a book he wanted to write, but he had no choice but write it: he couldn’t write anything else. When it came to using André Breton’s method of automatism; where the subconscious focuses on one image or phase, Burroughs found his subconscious was taken over by a hostile entity. The results speaks for its self, Naked Lunch is not only full of obscene language but completely weird.

William S. Burroughs moved to Paris in the 1960’s where he met a painter named Brion Gysin. The two of them are often credited for rediscovering an old surrealist method known as Cut-up. This technique is when you take a finished piece of text, cut it up and rearrange it for a completely new novel. Burroughs experimented with this technique, which resulted in The Nova Trilogy; also known as The Cut-up Trilogy. The first book in the trilogy, The Soft Machine, was the result of the two on a journey (with the aid of some recreational drugs) to find hidden meanings in Naked Lunch. Using the cut-up technique, Burroughs wanted to find the answer to the question that had been plaguing him; the question of control; why did he have no control over the writing of Naked Lunch? The Soft Machine was first published with 182 pages; though in the second edition Burroughs removed 82 pages, replacing them with another 82 pages & with the other 100 pages, he rearranged and restructured using further cut-ups.

William S. Burroughs will always be known for his Beat influences, political trenchancies, cultural influences, his satirical writing and hopefully his experimental use of surrealist writing methods.

Olympia Press; Controversy & Erotic Fiction

Posted November 16, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature / 4 Comments

It’s hard to imagine a life without a freedom to talk openly about sex. Before the sexual revolution things were completely different and there were two publishers that pushed the boundaries. In 1929 an English man named Jack Kahane formed Obelisk Press, based out of Paris. His goal was to publish books other publishers would not touch for fear of prosecution. Though Obelisk Press went bankrupt, it paved the way for dbs (dirty books) later known as Erotic Fiction. Obelisk Press published books like Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, DH Lawrance’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover & James Joyce’s Haveth Childers Everywhere (often considered a working progress of Finnegans Wake).

While Jack Kahane laid the ground work, it was his son Maurice Girodias, who pushed the envelope on censorship. In 1953 Maurice started Olympia Press, a rebranded Obelisk Press which came under fire straight away for Austryn Wainhouse’s English translations of Marquis de Sade’s Justine. In a move that put Olympia Press under a lot more fire, Maurice started offering good money for dbs, though most of these books were eventually banned they were able to make a small profit before being removed from the shelves. Obelisk Press were responsible for such books like Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, The Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs & The Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy.

Though both publishers ended in bankruptcy, they did pave the way with controversy and erotic fiction in English literature. Apart from the controversy it start the ball rolling for other authors and took the risk in publishing book others wouldn’t. What would books be like nowadays if no one printed books like Lolita, The Naked Lunch or James Joyce’s works?

Please Ban My Book, I Want it to Become Popular (Banned Book Week)

Posted October 2, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Listology / 0 Comments

This week is Banned Book Week, where we celebrate our freedom to read whatever we want. Though books still get banned and censored by the government, I think now is the time to look at some of the best and worst books that have been banned or censored.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was banned in the province of Hunan, China, beginning in 1931 for its portrayal of anthropomorphized animals acting on the same level of complexity as human beings
American Psycho has a sale and purchase restriction in the Australian State of Queensland. Sale is restricted to persons 18 years old or older in the other Australian states
Animal Farm banned in the former USSR and the author’s preface suppressed in nearly all of its editions during 1940 – 45
Brave New World was banned in Ireland in 1932 due to alleged references of sexual promiscuity
The Da Vinci Code was banned in Lebanon after Catholic leaders deemed it offensive to Christianity
The Diary of a Young Girl was also banned in Lebanon for “portraying Jews, Israel or Zionism favourably”
The Grapes of Wrath temporarily banned in many places in the US because it made the residents of this region look bad.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover banned in the United States and the United Kingdom for violation of obscenity laws
Nineteen Eighty-Four was banned by the Soviet Union in 1950, as Stalin understood that it was a satire based on his leadership, and it was nearly banned by U.S.A and U.K in the early 1960s during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Ulysses was banned in U.K during the 1930s and in Australia during the 1930s to the 1940s and challenged and temporarily banned in the U.S.A for its sexual content
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was banned in the Southern United States during the Civil War due to its anti-slavery content.

Nowadays books are still getting challenged and banned. One book that is currently under fire is Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak which tells the story of a teenage girl who deals with depression after become a victim of rape. The author has said the following about censorship;

But censoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in the darkness and makes them vulnerable. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. Our children cannot afford to have the truth of the world withheld from them.

Censorship and book banning seems to fling books into popularity more than some books deserve. For example Lady Chatterley’s Lover; if this book was never banned it would of just faded away into oblivion. Also there are many great books that have come under fire that really are spectacular books.

Also check out IO9’s 10 great science fiction novels that have been banned.

The Seat of Emotion

Posted September 17, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Philosophy / 8 Comments

Nowadays, the source of emotion and passion is considered to be the heart; poetically referring to the soul and physically tied to the feeling of love (increased heart rate & increased blood flow). Reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I’ve noticed DH Lawrence using the loins and bowels as the seat of emotion and passion, which got me thinking about the philosophy behind the heart. In earlier times (Biblical and Archaic) the bowels was the source of pity or compassion and the loins the source of strength and power.

Interestingly enough, some of the early philosophers and scientists including Aristotle considered the heart as the seat of thought as well as emotion and passion, often rejecting the value of the brain. But the Roman physician Galen was one of the first to consider the seat of passions to be the liver, the seat of reason to be the brain, and the heart to be the seat of the emotions.

Thought we don’t often talk about the liver in reference to passion it is often said that the liver governs anger, the kidneys fear (the adrenals sit atop the kidneys) the lungs sorrow/ depression and the stomach or spleen as the source of anxiety and worry. Though these physiological responses to emotion are often obvious, modern society considers the seat of emotion and passion to be the heart and the seat of thought to be the brain. The heart is often represented with the shape & typically coloured red suggesting both blood and passion or strong emotion.

The Ten Commandments of Writing

Posted August 17, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Writing / 0 Comments

Recently I read an article from the Writer’s Digest that I thought was fascinating that I had to share it with everyone. Of course there are no real rules for writing but below would be the top ten issues to focus on when trying to become a professional writer.

1. Take yourself seriously
If you’re not going to take your writing seriously, it will be hard for anyone else to do the same. Writing is part of who you are, not just a pastime.

2. Act like a professional
When it comes to your work, try to be professional about it; it is important to take the time to look at the grammar, punctuation, spelling and even format of your work.

3. Write your passion
Forget what’s popular at the moment, write what you’re passionate about.

4. Love the process
If you want to be a writer you will need to learn to love what writing involves. If you don’t like spending time in front of a computer, rereading or rewriting, you will find it difficult to love the process of becoming a writer.

5. Read—a lot
It is very important to know your genre, to get an idea of what works and what doesn’t. To do this you need to learn to read lots; it will help your writing style improve.

6. Stick to a schedule
Personally, I’m a procrastinator, so I never get any writing done. Especially for me, I need to schedule time to write and I need to stick to it.

7. Be critical of your work
All writers end up being their biggest critic; don’t be to upset with your work, it is a necessary evil to help improve.

8. Develop thick skin
You will receive a lot of criticism and rejections, it is important not to take it personally and analyse logically. Not everyone has the same taste, and not everyone will love your work, but these rejections will help you improve your work.

9. Trust your editors
Editors and trusted readers of your working progress are there to help you polish your work. You have to learn to trust them in order to get the best version of your story possible.

10. There are no certainties
All in all remember that there are no certainties in life, just write and enjoy yourself.

If you want to read the full article you can do so here. I just wanted to share this list with some of my opinions. Are there any more commandments you would add to this list?

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

Posted August 11, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Classic, Science Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: The Man in the High Castle (Goodreads)
Author: Philip K. Dick
Published: Vintage, 1962
Pages: 259
Genres: Classic, Science Fiction
My Copy: Personal Copy

Buy: Amazon (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

For those who haven’t read this month’s Book club book, the alternate reality classic The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick, I will try not to give away too much of the story. Most of you are aware of the basic plot outline, but I will just give you a quick overview before talking about the interesting concepts I found within the book. Set in 1962, 14 years after a longer World War II, life is under totalitarian Fascist imperialism as the war was won by Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Having divided the world the Axis Powers are now conducting intrigues against each other in North America.

Alternate Reality

With Japan and Germany being in power, the world is a much different place; more of a dystopian society, where everyone is considered racially superior to the Americans. The last remaining Jews are in hiding and continually being hunted down. The book actually deals with justice and injustice; gender and power; the shame of cultural inferiority and identity; and the effects of fascism and racism upon culture.

Metafiction

The Man in the High Castle focuses the story around a popular and banned novel written by Hawthorne Abendsen (The Man in the High Castle). The book entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy portrays an alternate reality where Japan and Germany lost the war and America and England become the victors. Changing racialist-cultural tensions and creating a liberal, democratic, capitalist society.

I Ching

In this novel the I Ching (Book of Changes) is often consulted by the characters as an oracle. I Ching is an ancient Chinese book of divination and was used by Philip K Dick to determine the plot particulars. In two separate interviews Philip K Dick has said;

“I started with nothing but the name, Mister Tagomi, written on a scrap of paper, no other notes. I had been reading a lot of Oriental philosophy, reading a lot of Zen Buddhism, reading the I Ching. That was the Marin County zeitgeist, at that point; Zen Buddhism and the I Ching. I just started right out and kept on trucking.”

“In the event, he blamed the I Ching for plot incidents he disliked: “When it came to close down the novel, the I Ching had no more to say. So, there’s no real ending on it. I like to regard it as an open ending.”

Philip K Dick’s classic science fiction novel has a lot of interesting aspects to it. I think it could easily be one of those books you could spend hours discussing all the little characteristics to it. Another book that challenges your views on society by showing what life could be like if the war turned out differently. Reflected above were just the major aspects to this book.

What is Metafiction?

Posted August 10, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature / 4 Comments

I’ve heard a bit of talk about metafiction lately and to be honest I wasn’t sure what it was. The dictionary defines it as; fiction that discusses, describes, or analyses a work of fiction or the conventions of fiction. That didn’t really help me with understanding the concept in greater detail. After further investigations I found the most common types of metafiction and some examples of each one;

A novel about a writer creating a story (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man).
A novel about a reader reading a novel (The Princess Bride)
A novel which features itself as its own prop or McGuffin (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)
A novel within the novel (The Man in the High Castle, Sophie’s World or The Princess Bride).
A novel wherein the author (not merely the narrator) is a character (Breakfast of Champions or Slaughterhouse Five)
A non-linear novel, which can be read in any order other than from beginning to end (Finnegans Wake).
Merging characters or elements from diverse works of fiction into a new fictional scenario (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)

There are many more scenarios of metafiction out there and the more you think about it the more books start to fit. I just though I would give some examples so you can better understand metafiction too. If you have some interesting examples of metafiction please feel free to let me know.

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