“Educated” by Tara Westover

This is a memoir of Westover’s journey from an eccentric upbringing homeschooled in rural Idaho, to college at BYU, a fellowship at Harvard, and a PhD from Cambridge. Westover begins by claiming her “story is not about Mormonism.” But a reader cannot help seeing her entire life through the lens of a family controlled by a father with his views of faith, extreme even by traditional Mormon standards. “Dad worries that the Government will force us to go [to school] but it can’t, because it doesn’t know about us…. We have no medical records because we were born at home and have never seen a doctor or a nurse. We have no school records because we’ve never set foot in a classroom…. When the World of Men failed, my family would continue on, unaffected.” Westover remembers vividly her father’s continual preparations for the Y2K computer bug and then the minutes just after midnight on January 1, 2000. “I wondered how God could deny him this. He, a faithful servant, who suffered willingly just as Noah had willingly suffered to build the ark. But God withheld the flood.”

Reflecting back, Westover also views much of her childhood with nostalgia, particularly the mountains that surrounded her home. “There’s a sense of sovereignty that comes from life on a mountain, a perception of privacy and isolation, even dominion. In that vast space you can sail unaccompanied for hours, afloat on pine and brush and rock. It’s tranquility born of sheer immensity; it calms with its very magnitude, which renders the merely human of no consequence.” It takes Westover’s leaving home for college for her to realize the immense pull her father, her family, and her faith have on her. “My loyalty to my father had increased in proportion to the miles between us. On the mountain, I could rebel. But here, in this loud, bright place, surrounded by gentiles disguised as saints, I clung to every truth, every doctrine he had given me.” It takes a special kind of piousness to see Provo, Utah as the pits of Hell.

It costs Westover a lot to gain her education and break from her family’s traditions. “Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind.” It is a struggle that the reader senses is not just in her past, but is present as she writes her memoir still. “The truth is this: that I am not a good daughter. I am a traitor, a wolf among sheep; there is something different about me and that difference is not good.” She has become everything her father had preached against. “But what has come between me and my father is more than time or distance. It is a change in the self. I am not the child my father raised, but he is the father who raised her.” Westover realizes that the self she has created and chosen for herself is not one that her father will ever be able to accept into his family. In the end, she feels compelled to choose her own truths over her father’s. “Not knowing for certain, but refusing to give way to those who claim certainty, was a privilege I had never allowed myself. My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”

“Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” by Haruki Murakami (translated by Alfred Birnbaum)

This is a philosophical fantasy novel about the nature of human consciousness. “In time your mind will not matter. It will go, and with it goes all sense of loss, all sorrow. Nor will love matter. Only living will remain. Undisturbed, peaceful living.” Of course, there are the classic Murakami pop references sprinkled throughout. The music of Bob Dylan and the fiction of Ivan Turgenev play reoccurring roles. “I almost never identify with anybody in Dostoyevsky, but the characters in Turgenev’s old-fashioned novels are such victims of circumstance, I jump right in. I have a thing about losers.” The structure of the novel is also classic Murakami, with chapters that alternate between two different plot lines, until the mystery unravels and the two stories merge into one. The characters are also as quirky as usual. The hero has a thing for whiskey, jazz records, and cooking. There is an absent-minded professor, a dwarf and giant gangster duo, a chubby, sex-starved teen, dressed only in pink, and a brainy librarian with gastric abnormalities. “Chubby girls in pink tend to conjure up images of big strawberry shortcakes waltzing on a dance floor, but in her case the color suited her.” There is also a fair share of scientific speculation thrown into the mix. “Don’t blame me. That’s evolution. Evolution’s always hard. Hard and bleak. No such thing as happy evolution…. Evolution is mighty gruelin’. What do you think the most gruelin’ thing about evolution is?… It’s being unable to pick and choose. Nobody chooses to evolve.” And as usual for Murakami, the plot has plenty of fantastical elements too- glowing unicorn skulls, talking shadows, dream-reading, underground monsters, herds of beasts, and mind-altering brain surgery. “Shuffling was a door to a new world. He said that although he’d developed it as a method for scrambling computer data, with a little doing a person might scramble the world.” The plot is almost besides the point. It does the work of carrying the book’s digressions into philosophy—on the nature of life, what is truly important in this world, how memory works, and what it is that makes a mind human. “Many things will become clear for you over the course of the winter. Whether or not you like what you learn, it will come to pass. The snow will fall, the beasts will die. No one can stop this.”

“The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious” by C.G. Jung (translated by R.F.C. Hill).

Jung, in this collection of essays, seeks to explain how culture, myth, and tradition can create a collective unconscious within modern civilization. This is a very different concept than the repressed personal unconscious found in Freudian psychoanalysis. Jung begins, “so far as the collective unconscious contents are concerned we are dealing with archaic or—I would say—primordial types, that is, with universal images that have existed since the remotest times.” These types are expressed in tribal lore, myth, and fairytale as a form of esoteric knowledge embedded within tradition. He continues, “the term “archetype” thus applies only indirectly to the “representations collectives,” since it designates only those psychic contents which have not yet been submitted to conscious elaboration and are therefore an immediate datum of psychic experience…. The archetype is essentially an unconscious content that is altered by becoming conscious and by being perceived, and it takes its colour from the individual consciousness in which it happens to appear.”

Many archetypes exist for Jung- the anima, the shadow, the trickster, the child, the mother, and the old man, among many others. Jung begins by describing, in general, how archetypes of transformation work in his schema. “They are not personalities, but are typical situations, places, ways and means, that symbolize the kind of transformation in question…. They are genuine symbols precisely because they are ambiguous, full of half-glimpsed meanings, and in the last resort inexhaustible.” Thus, archetypes are able to reveal almost limitless meaning and references. “There are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life. Endless repetition has engraved these experiences into our psychic constitution, not in the form of images filled with content, but at first only as forms without content, representing merely the possibility of a certain type of perception and action.” 

Jung then clarifies, “archetypes are not disseminated only be tradition, language, and migration, but… can rearise spontaneously, at any time, at any place, and without outside influence…. There are present in every psyche forms which are unconscious but nonetheless active—living dispositions, ideas in the Platonic sense, that preform and continually influence our thoughts and feelings and actions…. The representations themselves are not inherited, only the forms, and in that respect they correspond in every way to the instincts, which are also determined in form only.”

Jung explains how the conscious mind interacts with the rest of the Self. “Our conscious intentions are continually disturbed and thwarted, to a greater or lesser degree, by unconscious intrusions whose causes are at first strange to us. The psyche is far from being a homogenous unit—on the contrary, it is a boiling cauldron of contradictory impulses, inhibitions, and affects…. The unity of consciousness or of so-called personality is not a reality at all but a desideratum.” Jung, however, does not overplay the power of the unconscious, either. “The “omniscience” of the unconscious components is naturally an exaggeration. Nevertheless they do have at their disposal—or are influenced by—subliminal perceptions and memories of the unconscious, as well as by its instinctive archetypal contents. It is these that give unconscious activities their unexpectedly accurate information…. The unconscious is not a second personality with organized and centralized functions but in all probability a decentralized congeries of psychic processes…. The unconscious has a Janus-face: on one side its contents point back to a preconscious, prehistoric world of instinct, while on the other side it potentially anticipates the future—precisely because of the instinctive readiness for action of the factors that determine man’s fate.”

Jung is concerned with the development of modern man. He often expresses the worry that today’s civilization has been divorced from its cultural past to man’s detriment. He states, “the psyche has attained its present complexity by a series of acts of introjection. Its complexity has increased in proportion to the despiritualization of nature.” What in the past was viewed as a part of nature has become embodied within modern man. “Man woke up in a world he did not understand, and that is why he tries to interpret it.” For Jung, the role of ancient myth is immensely important in the forming of the collective unconscious. “The primitive mentality does not invent myths, it experiences them. Myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings, and anything but allegories of physical processes…. They are the psychic life of the primitive tribe.” Contemporary man would do well to reconnect with these traditions of his ancestors. “In myths and fairytales, as in dreams, the psyche tells its own story.” Furthermore, “the animal has always symbolized the psychic sphere in man which lies hidden in the darkness of the body’s instinctual life…. Outwardly people are more or less civilized, but inwardly they are still primitives. Something in man is profoundly disinclined to give up his beginnings.”

Jung stresses the fundamental role of the archetype in uniting modern man back with his past. “The archetype, because of its power to unite opposites, mediates between the unconscious substratum and the conscious mind. It throws a bridge between present-day consciousness, always in danger of losing it roots, and the natural unconscious, instinctive wholeness of primeval times…. Progress and development are ideals not lightly to be rejected, but they lose all meaning if man only arrives at his new state as a fragment of himself, having left his essential hinterland behind him in the shadow of the unconscious, in a state of primitivity or, indeed, barbarism.” Man must also give up the Manichaean interpretation of life. Instead, man must accept the confrontations that “life is always bringing us up against: namely the uncertainty of all moral valuation, the bewildering interplay of good and evil, and the remorseless concatenation of guilt, suffering, and redemption…. [Life] is ambiguous, questionable, dark, presaging danger and hazardous adventure; a razor-edged path, to be trodden for God’s sake only, without assurance and without sanction.”

On an individual level, Jung is concerned with the lifelong process of individuation- the uniting of the whole Self, including spirit and soul, as opposed to just the ego. One, among the many archetypes that Jung explores, is the child motif. He claims, “The child is potential future…. It anticipates the figure that comes from the synthesis of conscious and unconscious elements in the personality. It is therefore a symbol which unites the opposites; a mediator, bringer of healing, that is, one who makes whole…. The goal of the individuation process is the synthesis of the self.” The child, as archetype, is at once vulnerable and magical. Another aspect of individuation is a limiting of the Self from the object world around it. “As an individual phenomenon, the self is “smaller than small”; as the equivalent of the cosmos, it is “bigger than big.” The self, regarded as counter-pole of the world, its “absolute other,” is the sine qua non of all empirical knowledge and consciousness of subject and object. Only because of psychic “otherness” is consciousness possible at all. Identity does not make consciousness possible; it is only separation, detachment, and agonizing confrontation through opposition that produce consciousness and insight…. The object lost the attribute of absolute reality and, in some systems, became a mere illusion.” The stakes are high indeed. “Psychic experiences, according to whether they are rightly or wrongly understood, have very different effects on a person’s development.”

Jung is concerned with modern man, not just for the sake of his own development, but for the future of humanity. Politics and social systems have rushed ahead of the capabilities of individual humans to cope. Consciousness is lost in a world untethered. Jung sees this disjointed man, disconnected from his past, and, therefore, forced to grope towards a nerve-racking future. He warns, “psychic evolutions do not as a rule keep pace with the tempo of intellectual developments. Indeed, their very first goal is to bring a consciousness that has hurried too far ahead into contact again with the unconscious background with which it should be connected…. It is a task that today faces not only individuals but whole civilizations…. The tempo of the development of consciousness through science  and technology was too rapid and left the unconscious, which could no longer keep up with it, far behind, thereby forcing it into a defensive position which expresses itself in a universal will to destruction…. The masses are not changed unless the individual changes…. The bettering of a general will begins with the individual, and then only when he makes himself and not others responsible.”

“Kuunmong (The Nine Cloud Dream)” by Kim Man-Jung (translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl)

Kim was part of the yangban, the ruling class of literati in seventeenth century Korea. He reputedly wrote this short novel for his mother while both were in exile. This is one weird novel- full of magic and philosophy. Its plot is almost besides the point. The novel begins by comparing the philosophies of Confucianism and Buddhism. “If a youth diligently studies the Confucian classics and serves his country as a minister of state or a general when he is grown into a man, he may dress in silks with an official seal upon his jade belt. He may look upon beautiful colors with his eyes and listen to beautiful voices with his ears. He may enjoy beautiful girls and leave an honorable legacy for his descendants. But a Buddhist monk has only a small bowl of rice and a cup of water.” Later, Kim puts into the voice of King Ksitigarbha more Buddhist teachings, “Each man has his own path to perfection, and each is reborn in order to carry out the things necessary to work out his karma. No man can escape the cycle of samsara.”

The plot of Kim’s novel intersperses pithy gems throughout. The hero of the novel, Shao-yu’s, hermit father forewarns him before ascending to immortality, “Meetings and farewells, farewells and meetings—that is the way of the world.” Sometimes Kim’s lines seem almost unintentionally humorous, as when Shao-yu’s long-lost aunt, a Taoist priestess, juxtaposes her quest for nirvana with her family duties. “I was about to go off and retire to the Kung-tung Mountains to pursue immortality, but now that your mother’s letter has reached me with this request, I will stay a while longer to help you.” One theme of this novel is the nature of impermanence. Shao-yu states, “The Buddha said a man’s body is a transitory illusion, like foam on the water or flower petals in a gust of wind. Who can say, then, what really exists and what does not?” 

The novel’s plot is filled with classical Chinese allusions. There are also many references to classical Chinese poetry. The emperor, commanding Shao-yu to write some verse, states, “Li Po was not only the best poet amongst subjects, he was the greatest of all time…. I would like to enjoy what it must have been like to watch Li Po composing poetry while he was drunk.” Humility, respect, and deference for one’s superiors is a constant recurrence. “The Book of Rites says one bows to the king’s horse not for its sake but because the king is riding it.” Often things get a little weird. A Dragon Princess explains to Shao-yu, “I am covered in scales, and I do not want to defile your bed with my fins and my repulsive fishy smell.” Another strange motif throughout the novel is the offbeat tricks the nobility pull on each other. Minister Chang admonishes his whining daughter, “Today you have mounted a dragon! That Yang is brilliant! There’s an old story about Wang Wei dressing up as a musician and playing the lute in the palace for Princess T’ai-p’ing. He also went on to win the top score on the government examinations. If Yang went so far as to dress as a woman to win his bride, then he is truly resourceful. For this prank you say you dislike him? In any case, what you saw was a Taoist priestess, not Yang. It’s not your fault that he made a very pretty girl musician!” Sometimes the pranks seem more cruel than lustful. Later the Empress Dowager schemes, “Marshal Yang has resisted me three times for the sake of Princess Ying-yang. So I would like to play a trick on him…. When he returns, tell him your daughter took sick and died…. Let us see if he can recognize her on his wedding day!” It is not giving the plot away to reveal that Shao-yu is showered with all sorts of enviable worldly delights. He recounts to his master, “I cannot tell if the dream was not reality or if this reality is not a dream. Please teach me the Way so I may understand.”