James Fenimore Cooper

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), was a United States author. He is Chiefly remembered for his Leatherstocking series of novels about Indians and frontiersmen, but he also wrote tales of the sea and other books. Cooper was the first American author to win wide popularity in Europe. He did more than any other writer to create the theme of the crafty but noble Redskin pitted against the equally resourceful woodsman.

Mark Twain and others ridiculed Cooper for his impossibly wooden heroines, his unreal dialogue and plots involving miraculous escapes from dangerous situations. Much of the criticism is justified, but Coopers skill in weaving an exciting tale and picturing a romantic woodland background has helped his books remain popular.

Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey, the second youngest in a Quaker family of 12. When he was one year old, the family moved to the shore of the Otsego Lake in western New York. There his father founded the village of Cooperstown. Young Cooper soon became acquainted with the Indians and the forests of the region. He entered Yale College at 13, but was dismissed in his third year for playing a prank. He went to sea as a common sailor in 1806, and in 1808 he received a commission as midshipman in the navy.

His dissatisfaction with an English novel provoked him to say he could write a better one. Precaution (1820), an imitative society novel, was the result of his wife’s demand for proof. It was unsuccessful. In 1821 Cooper published The Spy at his own expense. This romance of the American Revolution made him famous on both sides of the Atlantic and caused him to be called the equal of Sir Walter Scott as a historical novelist.

What is this poem about ?

  

As I walk along this lonely beach

I hear the echo of a jungle tree

Or is it a parrot that tried to scream

Or the unknown shadows of a long dead beach

Was there a jungle to the left of me

Or just dead tree trunks that tried to flee

The sun is dimmer than it used to be

When and where can I now be

Is this the Earth I left behind

In the year 2029

There is nothing here for me to find

How could fate be so unkind

The Man with the Bad Idea- Short Story

 

Many years ago, I worked as the chief engineer for one of Sri Lanka's biggest hydropower projects. It was in the Hill Country, the picturesque central mountainous area, where tea is grown so abundantly that almost all the mountains are entirely covered in perfectly hand plucked tea bushes, making it look more like a fairytale painting than an actual mountain. I was one of the “foreign experts” who would make Sri Lanka's ambition of becoming self sufficient in energy a reality. Life here was good with it’s slow pace and laid back attitude and a cup of Sri Lankan tea is just what you need in the cool Hill Country. 

But one day a strange man approached me, he was one of the minor employees, who I sometimes suspected had something a little wrong with his head. He was not educated but had a strange grand way of talking. A man with big ideas, R wasn’t educated but considered himself a practical man and “a man of the world.” It was obvious that the Hydropower project had caught R's imagination. But I was surprised when he came up to me and said that he had an idea which would make him rich, but he wanted to try it in his village. He said he wanted to use the movement of the sea waves, to pump water to a nearby cliff. From this cliff would flow water through a pipeline downwards which would be used to turn a Generator, from which he would get electricity for the entire town. At first I could not decide whether he was extremely intelligent or a little too simple minded, but I soon realized that it would never work, for it seemed to go against all the laws of physics, particularly Lord Kelvins First Law of Thermodynamics. But to my utter disbelief he wouldn’t listen, he was convinced that it would work and nothing I said could convince him to give up his idea.

A year or so later I heard he had tried to implement his idea by collecting money from the villagers, had lost a lot of money on it, had been beaten up by the villagers and put in prison; I blamed myself for not having convinced this madman to give up his idea. Many years later I visited  Sri Lanka as a tourist, and was walking in the dusty streets of Colombo with my son; memories of my earlier days on this adventurous island came flooding back, when all of a sudden a Limousine stopped in front of us. The man who got down from it had the appearance of an important politician, but then I realised that it was none other than R. “Don’t tell me you made it on the pumping sea water to the cliff idea” said I. “No” said R in his thick accent “But while I was in prison I improved my idea, and eventually sold it and made a lot of money."  “That’s unbelievable” said I not knowing what else to say. But in a way it wasn’t unbelievable because R had always had ideas, most of them bad, but he had so many bad ideas that one of them turned into a good idea with experience. And that’s more than you could say about most people in this world, they don't have any ideas either good or at least bad.

How the Universe Formed - Short Story

During World War II my grandfather had been stationed as an officer in the then British colony of Ceylon. It would have made a great impression on him for he spoke about it for fifteen years when I was growing up. Great stories of holy mountains, rock fortresses, and ancient kingdoms with the most advanced irrigation systems in the world. For many years I thought he was making most of it up, but it intrigued me. So one day I finally decided to visit the Island to find out if he was telling the truth.

The Airport is about 30 Kilometers from the capital Colombo. Colombo borders the sea and its port is one of the busiest in Asia. In the lower central part of the country, there is a mountainous area where tea is grown so abundantly that it looks more like a picturesque painting than an actual mountain. There really is a holy mountain here called Sri Pada which is said to be the holiest mountain in the world. And the Sigiriya Rock fortress built in the 5th century is one of the marvels of the ancient world. And the great Tank Civilization of ancient Sri Lanka is still being used today to irrigate. I was amazed to find out everything my Grandfather said was true, this really is a great Island. 

But the most interesting aspect of this island is the people. Although I do not have a degree in psychology I have a strange habit of analyzing the people in every country I go to, so I would do the same here. Sri Lankans in general are very friendly and very intelligent, but for an intelligent people they do not think deeply about some things that trouble at least a small minority in some other counties, like for example: how was the universe created? Are there things smaller than atoms? Are we related to monkeys? This kind of thinking is absent even among highly educated scientists who are qualified to answer these questions. But even here there is an extremely small minority of people who think of such things, but unfortunately, they are so rare that you could spend an entire lifetime without meeting one.

But I did meet such a person on the island and he was the clerk in the hotel. “Aren’t you Carl Saban the famous American astronomer, and the world authority on supernovas?” said he. “Yes,” said I a little surprised that someone here knew me. “I’ve been reading the articles you write, they are interesting and I have used your observations to verify my theories, theories that I think solve all the problems of the universe, including how it was created, and I have written it down in this book, it would only take a few minutes to read, can you tell me whether it is correct,” said he. He took out of his pocket a much-crumbled book that looked like it had been slept on. For a moment I could not decide whether he was just joking or completely mad, but he thrust the book at me so fervently that I accepted it. 

I present below just the first two pages of his book, exactly as he wrote it without any modification by me:

Everything is made up of atoms, but atoms themselves are made up of even smaller particles. Even though our senses fool us we and everything around us are energy fields. The movement of these tiny energy particles moves electrons, atoms, aero-planes, stars, galaxies and everything else in the universe. These tiny particles and their ability to move are the only reality in the universe and other things such as Time or Space are not real and are how the mind perceives the movement of these particles. 

According to this theory, there is nothing called space, three-dimensional or otherwise, for when these particles move, as they always do it creates this illusion in our senses. There is nothing to fill, for there is nothing else. Similarly, there is no dimension called Time, this is what the mind perceives when these particles move, but it isn't real, for there isn't anything separate called Time. If there is nothing called Time then the universe could not have been created at a particular point in time in the past, this solves the mystery of creation. These particles would have always been and will always be.

So how does this explain Singularity, or what is popularly known as the Big Bang? If matter were to lose its ability to move, it would converge to a point infinitely small, but soon the deep tendency to move would lead it to expand outward, which would eventually form Stars, planets, Galaxies and everything else that is in the Universe. How does this explain Gravitation? It has been found that when a sub-atomic particle was moved another particle that was seven miles away moved in exactly the same way, and it has been estimated that however far these particles are separated they would move exactly in the same way. This is strange for nothing moves faster than the speed of Light. This twin movement could be used to explain Gravitation, for if a particle were to move, its twin particle would move towards it.

                           xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The rest of the book contains calculations to prove this theory, which I can’t fully understand, but which seem profound all the same. Can somebody tell me by reading this book whether this young man from Sri Lanka is, in fact a great scientist or a little wrong in the head?

Walter Scott

  

Sir Walter Scott, (1771-1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, historian and critic. He was for many years one of the most widely read authors in Europe and America. His stirring tales of adventure brought to life for millions of readers the history of Scotland and England from the 12th through the 18th century. “The Lady of the Lake” (1810), a story of the Scottish Highlands in the 16th century, was the most popular of Scott’s narrative poems, and has been the most often reprinted. Critics consider “The Heart of Midlothian (1818), a novel set in 18th century Scotland and England, the best of all Scott’s works.

Scott’s popularity rested largely upon his descriptions of scenes and manners unfamiliar to his readers, and upon lively action and romantic episodes. He did not plot carefully, and wrote hastily and without revising. As a result, his novels and narrative poems lack unity and forcefulness. Most of his heroes and heroines are unrealistic, and their speech is stilted and trite. Except for some of the short lyrics incorporated in his narrative poems, his verse is second rate.

Scott’s importance is based on several valuable contributions to literary development. He created the historical novel and gave prestige to the novel in general. Among writers he influenced were Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Dumas the Elder, Leo Tolstoy, Alexander Pushkin, and James Fenimore Cooper. Scott was the first novelist to present people of the lower classes as real human beings rather than as comic or sentimentally idealized figures. He was also the first novelist to use regional dialects in a serious instead of a mocking manner.

Experimental drawing

 

Experimental Drawing

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), was an American short-story writer and novelist. "This Side of Paradise" made Fitzgerald famous at the age of 24 and he married Zelda Sayre. "The Beautiful and the Damned" (1922), describes a young man and his beautiful wife, who gradually degenerate into middle age while they wait to inherit a large fortune. Ironically, they finally get it, when there is nothing of them left worth preserving. Perhaps to avoid this the Fitzgerald's together with their daughter led an extravagant disorderly life. Fitzgerald began to drink too much and Zelda suddenly, inexplicably began practicing ballet dancing night and day. In 1930 she had a mental breakdown and in 1932 another, from which she never really recovered.

Through the 1930's they fought to save their life together, but the battle was lost and Zelda was admitted to a sanatorium. His next novel "Tender is the Night" is the story of a psychiatrist who marries one of his patients, who as she slowly recovers exhausts his vitality until he is "a man used up." Unfortunately for Fitzgerald, the book was commercially unsuccessful. With this failure and the despair over Zelda, Fitzgerald was close to becoming an incurable alcoholic. However, by 1937 he recovered enough to become a scriptwriter in Hollywood. In 1939 he began the novel "The Last Tycoon." It was Fitzgerald's last attempt to capture a dream he had for a long time. In its intensity of imagination and brilliance of its expression, it is equal to anything Fitzgerald ever wrote. And it is typical of his luck that he died of a heart attack with the novel only half-finished at the age of 44.

Perhaps an insight could be gained by analyzing Fitzgerald's life through his most famous novel "The Great Gatsby". One of Fitzgerald’s most important concerns is the idea of the American Dream. Jay Gatsby rises from poverty and acquires enormous wealth, believing that success will allow him to win back Daisy Buchanan (Who is now married to Tom Buchanan). Tom comes from an extremely wealthy "old money" family. Unlike Gatsby, who earned his fortune (new money), Tom was born into wealth and social status. He is arrogant, dominating, prejudiced and unfaithful. He believes his position in society gives him authority over others. However, Gatsby’s dream ultimately ends in tragedy because it is based on an idealized past. Through Gatsby, Fitzgerald suggests that the American Dream has become corrupted by materialism and social inequality. This division reflects Fitzgerald’s observation that wealth alone cannot overcome entrenched social barriers. Gatsby becomes rich, but he is never fully accepted by the old-money elite.

The Importance of Composition - Art

 

Many years ago I tried my hand at painting. I wasn’t a natural draughtsman, and colour was a total mystery to me, but what worried me most was the flat look that all my paintings had. The reason this happened was wrong composition.

Composition is the way different elements are arranged in a picture. Many artists place composition above both drawing and colour, because even if the drawing is impeccable and the colour of the highest quality, if the composition is at fault it will fail to satisfy the eye. But many impulsive beginners are so anxious to get on with the painting that they ignore composition.

There are some rules in composition that should not be forgotten. The painter must lead the eye of the beholder into the picture and not across it. Into the picture does not mean the center of the picture, but towards the center, to some focal point where the eye can rest and be content to remain. Also the painting should be balanced, a dark cloud at the top of the picture must be balanced by some other object in a different part of the picture. However it must not be completely balanced, this creates a kind of "tension" that makes the picture more interesting. In the picture I drew given below these principles are followed. The smoke stacks in particular are not balanced and create a tension. However, the most prominent feature of this drawing is a careless even crude use of line and color that energizes the drawing I hope.

Serendip - Poem

 
Far far from the shore
In a place I don’t want to go
Lies a sunken ship
The ship they called greed

We once sailed to an Isle
Far beyond the Nile
In a ship that made 
Thoughts that were vile

In this Isle
We stopped for a while
They sailed on
For I had seen the dawn

In greed they went
They were my friends
Their mighty needs
They could never reach

Their stars faded
The seas abated
They lost their way 
For their souls I pray

I found me
In the Island of peace
This is all I need
They call it Serendip

A Lonelier World

  

When I was a kid this village was filled with fireflies. Now there were hardly any. Actually, there seem to be far fewer insects now than there were a few decades ago. In just half a lifetime a lot seems to have changed. Maybe it was my imagination, so in one of my foolish ventures, I decided to find out more about insects.

Insects seem to be as different from human beings as it is possible to be. To begin with, they don’t have a heart, lungs, blood as we know it, a skeleton, or much of anything else. They are clearly built very differently. They have a tough exoskeleton and six legs and these seem to be their most prominent external feature. They were the first creatures to fly. You don’t have to be an expert to realize that they took a very different evolutionary path very early on. What they are however is essential to all life on earth. They are the food for birds and fish, every terrestrial and freshwater ecosystem relies on them. Oddly out of the millions of different varieties of insects, only about a few hundred have taken to the sea. (The sea is dominated by other kinds of arthropods like crustaceans.) Even plants rely on insects for pollination. It seems that they are declining at an unprecedented rate that some scientists call the global Insect Apocalypse. But there are so many varieties of them that scientists don’t know exactly by how much. Some scientists estimate that they are disappearing at the rate of 2% per year. That is a lot in 20 years.

To begin with, bees are in peril, and so are another order of insects, butterflies and moths (order Lepidoptera), and beetles (Coleoptera), and freshwater insects like dragonflies and damselflies. Loss of habitat, insecticides, climate change, and pollution are thought to be the reasons. It is believed that if insects go so will their predators like many kinds of birds and fish and other animals further up the food chain. Many years ago a writer named George Orwell wrote, "By retaining one's childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies, and toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable." A world without fireflies, dragonflies, butterflies, beetles and many birds, fish and toads would be a sad world indeed.