After finishing Mikhil Bulgakov’s A Dead Man’s Memoir, I found myself needing to move away from my beloved dead Russian authors to living and non-Russian writers. This took me directly to Haruki Marakami’s Kafka on the Shore.

The writing is airy and the story itself contains so many layers, wrinkles, turns that reveal unlikely connections, unlikely crossing paths between Beethoven’s Symphonies, tells of Odipus Rex, and Hegal quoting prostitute. It does touch on philosophy and the metaphysical, after all the main character is named Kafka. Yet, it was done on a very light and surreal level – perhaps something like a more sensual, darker and grown-up version of Le Petit Prince. Early in the book, I encountered a scene where cats talk and I was concerned this novel would go over the top too quickly. Yet, just like we readily accept the talking cat in Mikhil Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, I found myself doing the same with Murakami’s talking cats.

I have to say I’ve fallen in love with this book and found the ~380 pages a refreshing and breezy read. I’ll be reading Marakami’s Hard Boiled Wonderland next, once I’m done reading Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story. Not sure if I’m liking this Shteyngart novel so far. We’ll see.

Recently, a friend gave me a copy of Mikhail Bulgakov’s A Dead Man’s Memoir. As Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita is one my favourite books, I eargerly dug into A Dead Man’s Memoir. It is a different beast of a book, so it would be unfair to compare the two.

A Dead Man’s Memoir feels semi-autobiographical, a comment made by many who have reviewed the book. The central character is a self-hating, awkward and easily frustrated by others, especially the Soviet-era writers and playwrights that the novel thinly satirizes. The central character reminds me of other Russian novels, albeit more contemporary 21st century ones.

Overall, the novel is charming. It would not be the first Bulgakov I would recommend reading, but something to add to your literary reading once you have read a healthy dosage of Russian literature.

I’m venturing in to an experiment in discipline and perhaps torture. I’ve ventured to follow a UC Berkeley Rhetoric 10 class. Specifically, it is a class taught by Daniel Coffeen from Spring 2008. Rhetoric is one of the oldest disciplines of Western Education (see Aristotelean Rhetoric).

Through some quick googling, I found the UC Berkeley webcast of the course, plus the accompanying blog (with syllabus) and the course reader (See links below).

Rhetoric has been something I find readily applicable when trying to shift to the current landscape of media (production and consumption) and as someone in the field of Marketing. When I attended the Strategic Decision Marking & Risk Management courses at Stanford, we did a lot of framing and seeing situation not in trying to find “the truth” or coldly ambivalent, but rather multi-bivalent. Indeed, for me, this very well relates to Rhetoric.

As far as what is Rhetoric, I will take from Coffeen’s description of the course as the definition:

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I’ve listened to the first two classes and while I’m very much a visual learner, Coffean’s energy and style translates well to a mere, simply podcast. There are 30 podcast (~1hr in length), so it means I should be able to “complete” the class in 2-3 months, reading and essay writing aside.

References:

• UC Berkeley Rhetoric 10 Blog:

  http://arhetorslife.blogspot.com/2008/01/introduction-to-class.html

• Rhetoric 10 Reader via CopyCentral:
  http://www.copycentralreaders.com/shopping/pgm-more_information.php?id=1159&=SID#MOREINFO
• iTunes University Berekely Webcast for Rhetoric 10:

  http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978535