Blog - Francis Berger

Some Planned Reading and Rereading for 2019

12/31/2018

I do not make resolutions on New Year's Eve, but I do inevitably take a moment to reflect upon the year that has passed and examine some areas of my life I may have neglected and could improve. One such area is reading. As I mentioned in earlier post, I have been an extremely poor reader in the last two or three years, averaging about six or seven books a year. Now, I refuse to set concrete reading goals, but I have decided that I certainly need to get back to reading more. Thus, I will reinvest time and energy into a pursuit that was once as natural and effortless for me as breathing. Here is a partial list of a few books I would like to read or reread in the coming months:

Dostoevsky - The Brothers Karamozov; Demons
Dickens - David Copperfield
The New Testament, especially the Gospel of John
Eliot - Middlemarch, Silas Marner
St. Augustine - The City of God
Marcus Aurelius - Meditations
Christopher Dawson - some work or other
Sándor Márai - a novel or two in the original Hungarian
Bulgakov - Master and Margerita (in Hungarian)
Hungarian poetry - no specific authors or works determined yet

That should be good for a start. The rest I will leave up to fate.

Jon Jones Dominates - Nunes Destroys

12/30/2018

Well, my hopes were dashed - Jones emerged victorious, and decidedly so. As I wrote yesterday, I had a feeling Jon Jones would win, but I still held out some hope that Gustafsson might pull one out of the bag. I guess the only question now is what's next for the Mauler? This was his third failed championship bid, and it seems highly unlikely he will get a shot at a fourth at any time in the near future.

In any event, the most exciting match at UFC 232 was definitely the co-main event match between Cris Justino and Amanda Nunes. The punching power Nunes brings into the octagon is truly something to behold.

Here's Hoping Alexander Gustafsson Wins at UFC 232

12/29/2018

I have nothing but the deepest respect for mixed martial arts fighters because I cannot think of another sport where athletes train so hard and put so much on the line when it comes time to perform. The sheer endurance required to be successful in MMA is enough to boggle the mind. Having said this, I have lost considerable respect for the UFC, the premier MMA organization in the world today, due to its various controversies and marketing gimmicks that occasionally rival those of professional wrestling outfits. Nonetheless, the UFC remains the place with the most elite fighters and the most compelling fights. Case in point, UFC 232 is set to go down today and the card pits two longtime rivals – Jon Jones and Alex Gustafsson – against each other for the second time as they vie for the recently-vacated light heavyweight title.

This rematch has been a long time coming – nearly five years – and promises to be an exciting affair. Jones and Gustafsson first met at UFC 165; in that brutal match Jones was pushed to limits he had never experienced while Gustafsson came up just short of shocking the world. The question in every MMA fan’s mind today is will Gustafsson come up short again or will Jones finally suffer defeat within the octagon? I am hoping for the latter because I believe that Jones, for all his self-destructive, arrogant, and undisciplined behavior both in and outside the octagon, deserves to lose, and Gustafsson, for his stoicism and dedication to the sport, deserves the win. Unfortunately, MMA cares little for who deserves what, and if history is any guide, then Jones will likely defeat Gustafsson again. Regardless, I will be cheering for the Mauler and hoping he will tonight.

Go get ‘im, Alex!

Házi Áldás - Sentimental Kitsch or Profound Wisdom?

12/28/2018

Walk into a household in Hungary and you are likely to see some variation of what is depicted above. Be it embroidered on cloth, or carved in wood, or framed calligraphy, or a simple postcard, the Házi Áldás (Home Blessing, roughly translated) is a staple of many a home in Hungary. I have translated the simple message into English below:

Home Blessing

Where there is faith, there is love,
Where there is love, there is peace,
Where there is peace, there are blessings,
Where there are blessings, there God is.
Where God is,
there is no want.

I have always liked seeing this comforting and sweet message whenever I stepped into someone's home in Hungary, but in the past three or four years I have come to understand the complexity and profundity within this seemingly simplistic little stanza. Of course many would argue the verse is nothing more than syrupy sentimental sap - the very epitome of greeting card kitsch - and I suppose they would have a point. In all honesty, I held similar thoughts for many, many years whenever I encountered things like the Házi Áldás.

Nevertheless, I have learned to be somewhat wary of the mockers and the belittlers who callously dismiss everything as laughable, for I have found their attitude reveals more about their own ossified and shallow approach to life than it does anything else. Simply put, in their knee-jerk contempt, many fail to understand that wisdom - real wisdom - often hides in plain sight in simple little passages like the Házi Áldás. Of course, these same people would immediately begin to question the very notion of wisdom itself, but that shall perhaps remain the topic of a future blog post.

Note: The final line could also be translated as there is no need, but this could be misconstrued in English and not reflect the original that essentially states there is no lack of anything or scarcity in a home where God can be found.

Overwriting = Too Many Notes

12/27/2018

I have been thinking again about the criticism of overwriting that is so rampant in contemporary literary criticism and just how vacuous and flippant this criticism actually is in most cases. If I were to apply the average critic's disparagement of overwriting to some some classic novels, nearly all of them would be deemed overwritten:

Anything and everything by Dostoevsky, especially Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamozov
Ditto for Dickens, especially Bleak House and David Copperfield
War and Peace, Anna Karenina
Middlemarch
East of Eden
Everything from Balzac, for sure
Same goes for Stendhal, particularly The Charterhouse of Parma
D.H. Lawrence's novels
Perhaps even Tolkien's books

The next time you encounter the overwriting criticism, consider the brief list above and the countless other classics that would also be stamped as being severely overwritten, and take the criticism with a giant grain of salt.

Or better yet, remember Mozart whose music was often criticized for being "overstuffed." The film Amadeus did a wonderful job capturing the essence of this criticism through the Emperor's casual "too many notes" barb.

Reading the Gospel of John in Isolation

12/24/2018

Bruce Charlton has gathered his insightful and thought-provoking interpretations of The Gospel of John into a new 35,000 word mini-book that he has recently made available online. I re-read the Gospel last night and then studied Charlton's ideas concerning the Fourth Gospel this morning. I feel I will have to read both again many more times before I am able to add anything meaningful to the subject.

Lazarus writes: reading the Fourth Gospel in isolation can be viewed and downloaded here.

Let's Get in the Christmas Spirit

12/23/2018

This usually does it for me . . .

The Four Ghosts - Still My Son's Favorite Christmas Story

12/22/2018

The Four Ghosts is how my son refers to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, and it is still his favorite Christmas story for the second year running. We have watched three different animated retellings of the classic so far, and I am fairly certain he will want to squeeze one or two more in before the season is over. Perhaps next year I will read it to him so that he can enjoy the prose of the original.

On a side note, as I have been watching these various animated versions of the story, I have been struck once again by the inherent conflict between Christian and utilitarian doctines that permeate so many Victorian-era novels. Perhaps a fusion of Christian and utilitarian doctine would be more accurate. Regardless, the utilitarian yearnings and scorn for harsh industrial capitalism Dickens expresses in his slim classic are understandable when one considers his own life and the general milieu in which he lived, but I would be curious to know how Dickens would feel concerning the full embrace of utilitarianism and almost complete abandonment of Christianity in contemporary Britain, or the entire West for that matter.

Perhaps he would rewrite his story and feature only one ghost - the Ghost of Christmas Forgotten and No Longer Needed.

I will probably ask my son about this one day when he is old enough to converse about such matters. In the meantime, I'll simply let him enjoy the story and the joys it offers.

Budapest - A City of Overtourism?

12/21/2018

My love affair with Budapest began at an early age when the spirit of the city’s former late-nineteenth-century grandeur was still evident despite the destruction of the Second World War, the Hungarian Uprising, and the quarter-century of communism that followed. As a child, I found the baroque buildings – the grimy plaster facades of many marred by bullet holes and artillery fire – fascinating, and I remember spending much time studying the neglected angels and classical figures over the doorways wondering if and when they would emerge from their enforced hibernation and regain their former glory. Beyond the baroque and neo-classical buildings forming the inner city core stood ugly the lines of panel apartment blocks, which not only provided a strong contrast to the inner-city architecture, but also stood out as the unsightly testament of socialist utilitarianism.

I spent much time in Budapest as a child, and as a young adult I was fortunate enough to witness Budapest shake off its communist oppression and begin its renewal. Of course, this renewal was not without its trials and tribulations as the turbulent and tempestuous assault of unconstrained liberty drowned the city in feverish impulses and ruthless ambitions. Budapest of the 1990s and early 2000s was indeed a City of Earthly Desire, its streets marred by poverty, homelessness, and crude businesses that exploited the upended social structure and lured many of the country’s inhabitants to sell their souls in exchange for financial gains. These forces were dissipating when I lived in the city from 2001 to 2003, but the ill effects of the hyper-liberalization that filled the vacuum communism had left behind could still be felt, and I drew much inspiration for my novel The City of Earthly Desire from the two years I spent living in Budapest.

Before moving back to Hungary in 2015, I considered settling in Budapest again, but after having spent most of my life living in or extremely close to big cities – Toronto, New York, and of course Budapest – I had little desire to reside in an urban center again, especially after the rather pleasant experience of living in a small rural town in northern England. Hence, I turned my back on the possibility of Budapest and settled instead in a small village near a minor provincial city near the Austrian border. Though I have been to Budapest many times since moving back to Hungary nearly four years ago – mostly visiting relatives who live in the suburbs and outskirts of the city – my forays into the city itself were few and brief. I could feel the city’s magnetic pull, but I was reluctant to spend any significant amount of time wandering through its streets and reacquainting myself with its charms. I don’t know what the source of the reluctance was. Was I afraid of what I might find there, or did I simply wish to preserve the city that existed in my memory?

Fast-forward to 2018 and after my brief two-day visit I can proclaim that Budapest continues on its seemingly endless transformation from a capital debased by communism to a city that has recaptured and may even surpass its former glory. At the surface level, Budapest has never looked so good. Many buildings have been refurbished or rebuilt; the bridges gleam as they stretch across the Danube; the public squares are both tidy and inviting. The grime and soot that previously besmirched landmarks such as the Parliament Buildings and the Buda Palace is gone. Streamlined streetcars and busses have replaced the noisy, ramshackle public transportation vehicles of the past. As I walked through the city with my wife, I was overcome with wonder and admiration at the transformation that had taken place since we had moved away from the city, but the more we walked, the more my admiration became tempered by mild displeasure.

An unsettling form of over-cosmopolitanism has settled down inside the city’s refurbished exterior, especially within Districts V, VI, and VII. Here one can walk for blocks without hearing a single word of spoken Hungarian or seeing a single storefront sign that is exclusively written in the country’s language. The sidewalks here throng with tourists of every shape, form, and age – young Brits out on a boisterous pub crawl, kitschy Russians and Ukrainians sauntering past the marquee stores lining Andrássy Street, timid Japanese shuffling about the Parliament, groups of bewildered American retirees overwhelmed by the hustle of a guided city tour, and everyone else one can imagine mixed in among these crowds sloshing through the streets like ceaseless, almost liquid, human waves.

The amenities in these districts cater almost exclusively to Budapest’s international visitors – trendy burger restaurants, sushi stands, fusion cuisine bistros, burrito bars, and glorified street food venues have replaced the often grimy, but delightful eateries than once lined these sidewalks. You can enter one of these new restaurants and encounter serving staff who speak no Hungarian, and chances are even the native-speaking staff will greet you in English when you walk in the door. Concentrated between these eateries are the many bars, nightclubs, and drinking establishments where the price of a beer is easily triple what you would pay for one in another part of the city. And of course there are the boutique hotels, the designer stores, the high-end beauticians and barber shops, and the trendy clothing shops.

I walked past these establishments and tried to imagine the amount of money all the tourists milling around spent and how positive that undoubtedly was for the local economy. The only problem was I had a craving for a good, old-fashioned bowl of gulyás soup while I thought of these things, but I could not for the life of me find a simple Hungarian restaurant and ended up settling for an overpriced, modish goose meat hamburger instead. As my wife and I walked back to our hotel, I cast glances up at the apartment windows above the many rowdy bars, glitzy souvenir shops, and chic eateries and wondered how the locals felt about it all, assuming there were any locals left in those apartments. For all I knew, the lit windows might now be Air BNBs.

Overtourism is a difficult concept to define because it is hard to set the parameters delineating it, but I would hazard to guess that Budapest has morphed from being The City of Earthly Desire to a City of Overtourism. If I had to choose, I would find the latter preferable to the former, but that does not imply that the rampant overtourism Budapest is now experiencing is not without its pitfalls. Statistics show Hungary welcomed well over 50 million tourists last year; that works out roughly to five tourists for every citizen. I imagine at least two-thirds of the 50 million visited Budapest exclusively, which would put the tourist-to-local ratio somewhere in the ten-to-one or perhaps even the twenty-to-one range.

Now there is no denying the vast economic benefits tourism can bring to a city or a country, but I cannot help but wonder what some of the drawbacks might be, especially over the long term, and whether the short-term benefits are worth the long term negatives. Whatever the case may be, I humbly assert Budapest needs to be careful – another decade of the kind of hyper-tourism I witnessed may transform the city into nothing more than an urban playground for budget-airline party seekers and the global well-to-do.

And that would be a shame, to say the least.

Some Music I Have Been Listening to Lately: Hildegard von Bingen

12/20/2018

I am ashamed to admit that I was completely ignorant of Hildegard von Bingen (1098 ? - 1179) until about two years ago. Now I listen to her music at least once or twice a week. I highly recommend von Bingen for those with a penchant for sacred, medieval music. Her life makes for interesting reading as well!