Mad mad mad! Death death death!
What is this world that I am living in?

I stayed up late watching Bernstein’s six lectures at Harvard, titled “The Unanswered Question”. I read along with him. I read the scores while he demonstrated on the piano. The lectures were from 1976, three quarters into the 20th century.

What is the unanswered question? That is a piece written by Charles Ives in 1908. The question is: where is music going?

At the beginning of the 20th century, the western music had reached the final stage of romanticism. The romantic movement use the same musical language—the tonal language—to express the self. They called forever for more expressivity. Every composer invented more and more ways to express themselves. Then there came Wagner, who started to blur the walls of tonality. He wanted music to express more. More. Bigger. Louder. (Have we heard this somewhere before?) Then there came the end of tonality.

According to Bernstein, the farewell to tonality is Mahler’s 9th symphony. Grout in "A History of Western Music" also writes about how Mahler is all inclusive in his music, all inclusive for the classical/romantic period. Mahler is struggling with the end of tonality. Where can you go from here? How much more ambiguous can you get? Mahler asked.

In the end it is almost just madness. Then there came the 20th century. Schoenberg tries to continue the Romantic German tradition. He abandon the tonality altogether for more expressivity. But no, it is not possible because tonality is rooted in human psyche ("the song of the earth"), and no matter how much you try not to be tonal, you hear them in the music. So Schoenberg invented 12-tone method, a seemingly artificial ways to avoid being tonal. Then what? It can only reach a dead end, because what else can you go after you have no more tonality to get away from? No more order? No more restriction? Even after you invent rules and impose them onto yourself, you still want more and not satisfied! So, Stravinsky came and rescued the music from the crisis, Bernstein said.

The crisis is not only in music. It is everywhere. The 20th century is a maddening century. Everyone is obsessed with death. The world is crazy. The world wars. Technology advances. Worship of anything bigger, taller, longer, faster, louder, more powerful, more extreme, more this more that, even more nothingness. It is mad mad mad. Humanity lost a sense of direction. The artists went crazy. Cries. Desperation. Depression. Craziness. Death. Cynicism. Nihilism.... And all these –isms are desperate measures people take to get out of the madness, or get themselves drugged. Those who still can think ask, where can you go from here? How much more can you get? This is the crisis of the 20th century.

Bernstein is so inspiring. His voice reminds me of George. His accent. His language. His passion. His intensity. His concentration. His charm. His affection... (But I always know that George does not like Bernstein or anyone who is popular.) Nowadays I don’t even meet anyone like them.

Who cares about where we are going? We are having the best time in history with all our technological advances. Cell phones, telephones, DVDs, cars, this and that... I can’t even name them all. But, who is truly happy?

What did Stravinsky do? He invented "expressive detachment". Where have we heard of that? Ah, Francois. Taoism! Perhaps that’s the direction for humanity. It is to be immersed yet knowing the ultimate nature of our existence, stay detached. We are not expressing ourselves anymore. We have to get away from ourselves. We have to be the ultimate observer of humanity, of the universe, then we fall in love again. So the ultimate art is not for the sake of expressing oneself, but as an observation and a statement about the world. Not only art, but also everything, our whole attitude of life. That is the only way out.

The 19th century people began to realize the self. Everyone learned about the self, and is intensely interested in oneself. That was when they abandoned god. They turned to science. Science is a powerful tool men invented for themselves. In science they can believe. In god they doubt. But how much can we indulge in ourselves?

Does the death of tonal music signify the death of humanity in one direction? Perhaps, but we are finding a way out. Eastern philosophy compliment the western way of thinking. One concerns the self, the other concerns the whole. Aha! A new direction.

But modern men do not know. They want more progress. They want to move forward. I will always remember one conversation I had with George and Darrell back in 2001. George, a 70 year old critical thinker. Darrell, a 30 year old scientific technician. The question was: if you can choose a period of time to live in, when would you want it to be? George’s answer, I knew well before, was the second half of 19th century. It is when the romantic is in full bloom, and the end of the era has not yet come. George always says that I am living in the wrong era. If I were born 100 years earlier, then I would be among the most active thinkers, the most interesting musicians, the most passionate writers, the most expressive artists. True. But I never really wanted to be there. Maybe I had always felt unsafe with the uncertainty of the end of the era. Darrell’s answer was, of course, the future. He wanted to live in the technological future and see where modern technology will bring us. That’s a typical answer of the 20th century men. They are so sure of the progress of mankind. They are so eager to go forward. They are totally blind to the human spirit. Who needs spirituality when you can build a computer that runs faster every few months, a cell phone smaller and more capable, or faster and more fatal cars!

My answer back then was, I want to be alive at the end of time for man. I want to see where we are all going and how we end our foolish effort and struggle. I want to see the conclusion of man, a clean, complete summary. Now I understand why I wanted so. I didn’t want to live at that time. I was only wanting to be out of myself, be detached. I only wanted to live just to know.

Now I also understand why I am always so restless. Looking at all the books I have been reading in the past few years. All those 20th century classics. But what do they write about? All the books are only about death! About craziness. About absurdity. About hopelessness.

• Kurt Vonnegut. Absurdity. Detachment. Death. War. Not reality.
• Huxley. Panic. Rationalization.
• Henry Miller. No need to say anything about his craziness. Passion out of control.
• John Irving. Looking for faith. Growing up at a time when everything is losing. A Prayer for Owen Meany. Questions. Uncertainty. Faith is what saves us from going insane.
• Catch-22, Joseph Heller. Madness of the war. Death. Catch-22.
• John Steinbeck. Questions. Wrath. Where are we going?
• Bulgakov’s the Master and Margarita. Absurdity to the extreme. Simply crazy.
• One Flew Over Cuckoo’s Nest. Cruelty. Craziness. Death.
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. What is his answer? Suffering!
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. Search for what is lost.
• Way of the Peaceful Warrior. Which way? Eastern philosophy?
• Sophie’s Choice. Death and craziness and hopelessness.
• Maughm. Eastern philosophy.
• Douglas Adams. Absurdity. Only humor and laughter can mask our nakedness.
• James Joyce, Dubliners. Ultimate sense of loss…
• JD Salinger.
• Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
• Periodic Table, Primo Levi
• The Mosquito Coast, Paul Theroux. Madness.
• Long Day's Journey into Night, Eugene O'Neill. Death and loss.
• White Noise.
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Edward Albee
• Life of Pi, Yann Martel
• Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen
• El Senor Presidente, Miguel Asturias
• On the Road, Jack Kerouac
• Ironweed, William Kennedy
• Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
• Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
• Wenhua Kulu, Qiuyu Yu
• One Man's Bible, Xingjian Gao
• Stupid White Men, Michael Moore
• The Moviegoer, Walker Percy

Best sellers

• Memoirs of a Geisha. Now we are interested in the eastern way.
• The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
• Red Tent, The Anita Diamant

Books I actually enjoy:

• Robert Graves’s Claudius. It’s about the Romans. Complete detachment from the current century.
• Endurance, story of an artic expedition before all the world wars.
• Hermann Hess. He turns to eastern philosophy to see answer.
• Dostoyevsky. 19th century. Human spirit.
• Umberto Eco. Detachment, like Stravinsky.
• Dickens. 19th century. Fun fun fun. And so innocent.
• Graham Green. Why do I like him so much? He is about the search for god. He wants to get out. He struggles. He finds redemption through his religion.
• Calvino. Stravinsky of the words. He plays.
• Gabriel Marquez. Surrealism in a mad world.
• Myths to Live By, Joseph Campbell
• Anotated Alice, Lewis Carroll

--
The list goes on and on... Some may say that I am naturally attracted to works of depression and madness. It's true I do not read best sellers. They are like opium. They want me to forget how lost we are. I look at my bookshelves and see all the books I have acquired. All the 20th century books are all about loss and hopelessness and desperation. It should not be the only universal theme.


I have all these masterpieces on my bookshelves, but sometimes I don’t want to read them.

• SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
• TO THE LIGHTHOUSE by Virginia Woolf
• THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER by Carson McCullers
• INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison
• HENDERSON THE RAIN KING by Saul Bellow
• A PASSAGE TO INDIA by E.M. Forster
• THE WINGS OF THE DOVE by Henry James
• THE AMBASSADORS by Henry James
• TENDER IS THE NIGHT by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• A HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh
• AS I LAY DYING by William Faulkner
• HOWARDS END by E.M. Forster
• DELIVERANCE by James Dickey
• WOMEN IN LOVE by D.H. Lawrence
• LIGHT IN AUGUST by William Faulkner
• THE WAPSHOT CHRONICLES by John Cheever
• OF HUMAN BONDAGE by W. Somerset Maugham
• HEART OF DARKNESS by Joseph Conrad
• THE HOUSE OF MIRTH by Edith Wharton
• ANGLE OF REPOSE by Wallace Stegner
• RAGTIME by E.L. Doctorow

No wonder I always have a hard time picking out a book to read. It is all so depressing. All are screams of the 20th century people. Everyone is lost. Everyone is shouting and crying and saying, “I am lost! I am lost! I am crazy! I want to die!”

Perhaps I should avoid 20th century books for a while. I have had enough. As for music, I will avoid 19th century. I will investigate the 20th century madness. If Stravinsky has found a direction, perhaps I can learn from him. So I have picked out a few books to read that are not too branded 20th century.

What about movies? Movies are completely 20th century invention. How come movies can flourish in a time of desperation? In a period that all other art forms are going to an end or death. Talking about art. What about this chandelier that is all made of tampons?? What craziness is that?? Do I sound like an old woman?

Tragedy. It is all tragedy. That’s why I am so fascinated with Frank. He represents a 20th century man. And he is crazy. What can a sane, thinking person do in this century? Gone crazy. That’s the only way to stay alive and not be killed by depression. What about George? He is always struggling. He can never smile because the weight of the 20th century is too heavy on him. Maybe he even feels responsible. For people like me are only inheriting a world from him. And then I am Chinese.
20th century is a century of the Americans. We say no more.

My theme was always desperation. I threw myself into the abyss of movies, of computer games, of technologies, of indulgence.

-----
I want to get OUT!

It is a mad world and a direction is clearly needed. Maybe the 21st century will bring a new direction. I want to be the new direction. I want to find a way to save the human spirit. I come from the east. I am well versed in the western culture. Most of all, I have been once enlightened. Sometimes I feel I have been chosen. I have been called.

What shall I do?

(Some maddening words written during the flight from Detroit to Los Angeles.)