It's Sunday, so it seemed appropriate that I study the "original language" on this day. I figure the Almighty wouldn't mind if I studied some Hebrew in order to read the words of his book. I am close enough to the end of Ross' "Introducing Biblical Hebrew" that all the reading exercises are taken from the Good Book (in this case, Gen. 2:15-24 at the end of Lesson 49). The repetition of roots in Hebrew oratory seems less absurd than the equivalent King James English. Is this the result of the diversity of forms in Hebrew compared to the paucity of English? Another benefit of reading the passages in Hebrew is the clear identification of prose from verse. This distinction is sometimes lost in the translations into other languages, and prose and poetry often do not fit well into the other genre.
The grammatical form du jour is the Qal passive (herein exemplified by לֻקֳחָה), which the Rabbinic Scholars appear not to have believed to exist, since the standard passive form corresponding to the Qal is the Niph'al. The vocalization for the Qal passive is identical to the Pu'al, but who knows if that's how David would have pronounced it?
On other news, I have moved my "Learn Maltese: Why Not?" (the real title of the book) and its accompanying workbook up to Tahoe. This does not exempt me from including it in my New Year's resolution, but shifts it to next summer's segment of the project. I re-read the grammar sections of the book and understood much more clearly after spending so much of my summer learning Biblical Hebrew.
Showing posts with label Malta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malta. Show all posts
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Desolation On My Mind
Those who know me well are aware of my morbid predilection with movies portraying totalitarian societies or post-apocalyptic wastelands (yes, I include 1970's New York in that category), so they will not be shocked that I watched The Road (even though I found the idea of reading the book too depressing even for me) and am reading Collapse by Jared Diamond (the Silver Age successor to Steven Jay Gould).
The Road is based on the book of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, whose Southwestern novels I have read; I am not a fan of that genre. I did once read a Louis Lamour book once, but it did not compel me to pick up any others, and Western movies never grabbed me, even though I watched plenty of Paladin as a young kid. The Road, on the other hand, seemed like the bleak despairing movie I would enjoy, even if it did not seem appropriate for popcorn and a soda: the 2008 cut was not issued because it was too bleak and depressing. I suppose modern movie goers have not been inoculated with enough Ingmar Bergman. Viggo Mortenson was a good choice for the Man (as usual, someone of whom I had never heard played the juvenile lead), but the flashbacks and the tacked on feel-good ending presented problems. I suppose that the flashbacks served much the same function as the "satyr play" of a tragic trilogy, namely, to provide a brief respite to the sense of doom. The ending of the movie was marginally hopeful, which is the best one could expect from such a depressing setting. The inclusion of certain analogues to the Boy makes some sense, but the other companion of the adults at the end stretched credulity.
After I had finished Memoirs of a Geisha, I started reading Jared Diamond's Collapse. Reading it is a bit like reading The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant if Lord Foul had won: every time you think the book could not become more depressing, it exceeds itself (someone actually lived on Henderson?). The general results of ecological abuse seems to be same: ecological genocide, a barren wasteland, and near or total extinction of the human population. The horrifying aspect of these tales is that these were not people who were using intentionally destructive practices and just didn't care, but rather people who were just trying to feed themselves and their families.
I've never been to Iceland or Easter Island, but I have seen the effects of overpopulation, deforestation, and overgrazing firsthand in Malta, right before it surrendered its currency to the Euro. Malta is not a wasteland (it's actually quite lovely), and was never isolated in the way of Easter Island or Greenland, but it is a far cry from the "low wooded isle" with streams it presumably was in the days of Odysseus. In addition to the usual rainwater problems of a Mediterranean island in a dry climate, the remaining topsoil is so precious that it is recycled from site to site, vexing the archaeologists, and there are no permanent lakes or rivers.
The Road is based on the book of the same name by Cormac McCarthy, whose Southwestern novels I have read; I am not a fan of that genre. I did once read a Louis Lamour book once, but it did not compel me to pick up any others, and Western movies never grabbed me, even though I watched plenty of Paladin as a young kid. The Road, on the other hand, seemed like the bleak despairing movie I would enjoy, even if it did not seem appropriate for popcorn and a soda: the 2008 cut was not issued because it was too bleak and depressing. I suppose modern movie goers have not been inoculated with enough Ingmar Bergman. Viggo Mortenson was a good choice for the Man (as usual, someone of whom I had never heard played the juvenile lead), but the flashbacks and the tacked on feel-good ending presented problems. I suppose that the flashbacks served much the same function as the "satyr play" of a tragic trilogy, namely, to provide a brief respite to the sense of doom. The ending of the movie was marginally hopeful, which is the best one could expect from such a depressing setting. The inclusion of certain analogues to the Boy makes some sense, but the other companion of the adults at the end stretched credulity.
After I had finished Memoirs of a Geisha, I started reading Jared Diamond's Collapse. Reading it is a bit like reading The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant if Lord Foul had won: every time you think the book could not become more depressing, it exceeds itself (someone actually lived on Henderson?). The general results of ecological abuse seems to be same: ecological genocide, a barren wasteland, and near or total extinction of the human population. The horrifying aspect of these tales is that these were not people who were using intentionally destructive practices and just didn't care, but rather people who were just trying to feed themselves and their families.
I've never been to Iceland or Easter Island, but I have seen the effects of overpopulation, deforestation, and overgrazing firsthand in Malta, right before it surrendered its currency to the Euro. Malta is not a wasteland (it's actually quite lovely), and was never isolated in the way of Easter Island or Greenland, but it is a far cry from the "low wooded isle" with streams it presumably was in the days of Odysseus. In addition to the usual rainwater problems of a Mediterranean island in a dry climate, the remaining topsoil is so precious that it is recycled from site to site, vexing the archaeologists, and there are no permanent lakes or rivers.
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