Connection: Amir and Berlioz

We know that many of the older conductors had some interesting songs, influenced by very wide-ranging histories. Classical music is probably one of the more engaging genres to study because of this fact, and yet it can be one of the more disturbing as well.

In band this year, we received a movement from Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, one of the 1800s conductor's more famous pieces. This one, titled March to the Scaffold is very dark.

The background goes like this: the protagonist is dreaming that he has just killed his wife and is sentenced to death. His drug- induced dream culminates with watching himself getting decapitated. All the while, he dreams of how much he loves his wife.

It's this constant, knowing march to his death that I think is related to Amir's story. On a more subtle note, Amir is marching to his scaffold (guillotine). We think of execution as a form of justice for a pretty bad crime, in this case murder.

Throughout all of the Kite Runner, we get the sense that Amir is seeking atonement for his sins. The book builds up to Hassan's assault, in the way a symphony builds. From there, like a decrescendo, it's all downhill. The idea is that Amir has killed his honor, his love, and he needs to find a way to get it back.

So, while Amir isn't literally walking towards his beheading, he is building up to some sort of redemption. We mentioned that memoirs are all about reconciliation and atonement. In a way, Berlioz's symphony speaks of the simplest form of redemption, execution.

We can only hope that Amir won't face the same fate as Berlioz's character, but there are parallels in their seeking for justice.

Best of week: Words That Just Don't Translate

In the midst of one of our many Kite Runner discussions this week, an interesting issue came up. On page 38, towards the middle of Chapter 5, we are given details on the walking terror of Amir's childhood, Assef. Amir recalls he later "learned an English word for the creature that Assef was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: sociopath."

To analyze the quote on its basic level is pretty simple: Amir is assuming that Assef is a sociopath because of his terrible deeds and apparent lack of any feelings or empathy. Of course, later in the book, Assef's actions get even worse and culminate (maybe) in the horrible alley scene with Hassan.

To use micro vs. macro here, we can assume that Hosseini is writing this on the micro level. Amir is just making a possible statement about Assef's mental condition. But, as we look on the macro level, Hosseini is doing something pretty interesting: he's showing that words don't necessarily translate well.

Let's take a step back from the details of the story for a second and see what might be going on. We know that this is in 1970s- 1980s Afghanistan, so obviously education wasn't at its prime. It's probably one of the harshest regions in the world, and it's not likely that they had the time or necessarily the wanting to develop words for social disorders.

So, what I'm really saying is that words in a given language can tell you so much about the place that they come from. A little research on Farsi shows that it originated in Iran and spread all around the area, into places like Afghanistan and Bahrain. Now, given the fact that there's no Farsi word for "sociopath," we can make a pretty important assumption: they didn't ever take the time to research or develop facts on disorders.

This could all be a stretch, and I might be completely wrong, but if you think about the way languages work, there's some big evidence. We only develop words that we're really going to use, ones that we need. It usually takes time for a word to catch on and circulate. When words are missing, there usually either isn't a huge need for them, or nobody knows that there's a need for them.

The core of the statement I'm making is that Khaled does a great job of showing us something about the way Afghanistan works. It only took him one passage to make the point that Afghanistan was lacking something, empathy for those with disorders or the complete lack of knowledge on mental conditions. This is so powerful because we know a lot more now about the world our characters live in.

Of course, there'd be no point in making this macro statement if it didn't apply elsewhere. The reason there are so many languages in the world is that every distinct region has its own, every area or country shapes its own words. Take for example the word google. Recently, it was accepted as a real word, one that means "to search the internet using the Google search engine." Now, if you went to a third-world country and find me a lingual equivalent for this word of ours, I would be completely surprised. They won't have a word for it because they don't know about it, they don't need a word.

Lastly, we have one more interesting observation to think about. Given that our languages are all different, we can be certain that not all translating will be smooth; some words won't translate at all. So, we need to think more outside of our language and the barriers that we set on it, and look at other languages. Words can tell you history, they can teach you everything about people and places. Therefore, locking ourselves up in the English language is like ignoring history everywhere else. This is why we study foreign languages, and why Hosseini's point is so brilliant.

Change Of Mind: The Blue Sweater

Every day, we hear about a bunch of charity organizations and people working to collect money and help around the world. There's no doubt that all of this is done with good intentions, and it can help. What I learned with The Blue Sweater, though, is that good intentions just aren't enough.

Take, for example, an organization like UNICEF. They get millions of dollars every year from donors across the globe, but as Jacqueline Novogratz addresses, some big foundations like this don't really get the job done. Sometimes, money can end up in the wrong hands, or people simply don't know what to do with it.

Novogratz created the Acumen Fund, a group which fixes these problems. What she's really stressing is that you need to educate people on money: they need to know what business means. So, by getting social entrepreneurs rather than just blind donors, we can fix a lot of these problems. She focuses on young people out of some sort of business school, with a lot of determination to change the world. The ideal candidate would know about the world's problems, have an idea about how businesses work and how to sustain them, and be able to listen to others.

So, my big change in thought was that we need to change our charities- or get rid of them altogether. There isn't any sustainability in just giving money away; we need to educate and train people to use it, so they can make it on their own. While the intentions of most people are already pretty good, we need to change their actions.

This is a pretty important change in thinking because of the position we're in at our age. We have to decide relatively soon what to do with the rest of our lives, and knowing that helping people can go along with a good education and smart thinking is pretty important. As we go into college, it's certainly something to think about. With social entrepreneurship, I'd say saving the world is a little bit bigger of a possibility.