Atheist Book Club

Germinal

Emile Zola's portrayal of French mine workers, beaten down by poverty and lead by an outsider to rebel in a Marxian vein. For those of you who don't have any background about Germinal, it's the thirteenth in a series of twenty books by Zola called the "Rougon-Maquart" sequence, which he wrote intending to scientifically follow the effects of heretidy and environment on one family. His ideas of heredity were highly influenced by Darwin, but are much more extreme than what is generally accepted by today's standards, as he saw the genes as being physiological determinants, to which humans had no choice but to submit. Zola considers himself a scientist of the human state.

The protagonist of this novel, Etienne, has an ancestry fraught with madness and murderous tendencies. He manages this hereditary trait to some extent, but Zola presents him as being in a constant struggle against his genetic predispositions. In Germinal, the question of heredity, while still important, is veiled under an overriding theme of bourgoisie v. proletariat, where Etienne is the instigator of a mining strike.

As Etienne is encouraging his mates in "Village Two Hundred and Forty" to strike, the topic of the church comes up, with the mother (Maheude) of Etienne's adopted family maintaining that they must live as the priests tell them, and they shall be rich in the next life. Etienne responds:

There's a lot of silly ideas for you. Why do you need a God and a paradise to be happy? Can't you make your own happiness in this world?

And can't you? Why always look to the afterlife? This is what frustrates me about a lot of the religious doctrines. There are so many little tricks they use to get around it, but what it comes down to is: this life sucks, the next life is better, but you're stuck here til (the gracious and loving) God lets you out of this pathetic existence.

Make your own happiness in this world, friends.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Well I finally started reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig last night.

There seems to be 4 main characters. The first is the "main guy" (I don't think his name was said yet), the main guy's 11 year old son Chris, the main guy's good friend John, and John's wife Sylvia. The four are going on a road trip on of course, their motorcycles. So far, it has been hard for me to pay attention to the book, so I have only read the first chapter. The main conclusion of the first chapter seemed to be that the main guy thought that John and Sylvia were extremely scared of technological advances, and he compares this with "beatnick's" and "hippies". There is also a hint of information on Buddhism towards the end of the first chapter, but it seems kind of vague to me.

On to Chapter 2!

Siddhartha Part 3

In the last section, Siddhartha had just left his lover Kamala. He returns to the ferryboat captain who he had befriended years ago. The captain allows Siddhartha to stay with him and help raise crops and drive the ferry. Siddhartha learns that there is much to learn from the river, a fact which the ferryman confirms. Word has spread through the area that Gotoma (The Buddha) is dying. This creates business for the ferrymen as people from all over wish to see The Buddha before he dies. One passenger he sees is Kamala, who is with the son she had with Siddhartha. While there, she becomes ill and dies, leaving the son with Siddhartha.

Siddhartha takes care of his new son, though he finds it difficult. The son is used to his old life, and doesn't listen to his father. The wise old ferryman convinces Siddhartha that he must let his son find his own way, similar to the way that Siddhartha did. At one point the son disappears. Siddhartha attempts to track him down, but eventually relents, and allows his son to find his own way. Thus the circle of life is completed.

Conclusions
Okay, I'm done with this book now. Its quick reading, and engaging. Its so short, though, that it amounts more to a short story than a novel. I found it interesting that when Siddhartha was an uppity young man, rebelling against his father, as a reader I saw his point of view. But when he was the father, with a son who was similarly rebellious, I still sided with him. This is no doubt the intended reaction, but it seems somewhat forced. The portrayals of Siddhartha's father and son seem so one-sided that there really is no room for ambiguous feelings. Meanwhile, Siddhartha is shown having conflicted feelings, which is a much easier situation to understand.