Book review: Samuel Beckett

I acquired on my bookshelves two Samuel Beckett books, which I've just got around to reading.

I'll keep one, but the other I'll deposit in the local book exchange.

Based entirely on reading these two books, the big thing that jumps out at me is that Beckett is incredibly good at writing at length, and with great fluency, on nothing.  The way he focuses on the mundane and trivial, going around and about for multiple pages and yet getting nowhere, is impressive.

Sometimes it's amusing in a dry way, and it sort-of works in his play, Waiting for Godot.  There are enough witticisms in the short book to keep me turning the pages.

But it's also often incredibly boring.

In my opinion, Malone Dies doesn't have enough to keep the interest, and it was a painful read.  I felt compelled to complete it, and while the last 20 pages or so were better, overall for me it wasn't worth it.

I guess the works are supposed to have an existentialist point, in the sense that they focus on the characters' small everyday activities, blowing them up to high importance compared with an outside world which is seemingly incomprehensible.  The characters' persistence and narrow focus on their concerns is rhetorically exaggerated, showing at the same time their subjective importance to the characters but also the objective triviality and meaninglessness.  The characters' serious fight for the pointless is both pessimistic and blackly comedic.  That is, the works seem to have built into them the key existentialist thoughts of (a) existence before essence and (b) absurdity and rebellion with respect to the characters' intentions when compered to the world around them.  The one existentialist thing missing for me, though, was self-awareness.  As I understand it, existentialist authenticity is about recognising the human condition, but persisting anyway.  Beckett's characters persisted but showed no self-aware recognition; the awareness was at best only on the part of the writer and reader.

But as I see it, reading fiction is also about simple entertainment, and if stories don't have that then it's rare that philosophic points alone will make it worth it.

Waiting for Godot passes the keep-it test, in part because it's such a well-known classic and in part because there's enough thoughtful humour in the short work.  But for me Malone Dies is not worth keeping.

Yet more climbing

Here's a couple more climbs that we videoed Miya doing yesterday.  We don't usually bother to video Miya doing greens, but this was a more interesting and challenging one with the dyno.

And here's a good pic:

Climbing

And another climb for Miya today:

School music and PE

This year Mulan is doing Year 11 Music at school, and is sitting NCEA 1.

Along with music theory and history there is also a practical component, where the students prepare and perform pieces, which are assessed.  One assessment is a group performance, while another is solo.

The school does not tell students which instrument to use, or which pieces to play.  The students choose the instruments they are personally most skilled at, and over a number of weeks practice and polish their pieces both in and out of class (and often with their private teachers).

In other words, one aim of Music at school is to assess the students' specialist areas at their best.

What would school Music be like if, instead of this, the students' practical component was assessed by looking at how well they learnt a new instrument they'd never played before?  What if the school chose the instrument that all students were required to play (intentionally choosing a more obscure instrument that likely no one has played before), gave the students a few weeks of in-class lessons, then evaluated their performance playing that new instrument?

This year Mulan is also doing Year 11 PE at school, and is sitting NCEA 1.

Similar to Music, PE in school has both a theory and practical component.  (Although one difference is that the theory component of PE is entirely internally assessed, whereas Music has some external assessments.)

This year Mulan's school has decided to assess all Year 11 PE students on both gymnastics and handball.  Students do not choose the sport they are assessed in.

Last term Mulan's class went out of school to have gymnastics lessons at North Harbour Gymnastics.  During class they prepared routines, which they then performed for assessment.  Some students had never done gymnastics before, and so the lessons and routines were fairly beginner level.  Mulan was lucky** that for a few years and up until about a year ago she'd casually learnt gymnastics.  Consequently, Mulan found the required gymnastics skills both familiar and easy, and she comfortably achieved excellence on that assessment.  (**Or was Mulan unlucky that those school lessons were a bit of a waste of time for her?!)

This term the students will be introduced to handball, an Olympic sport that's popular in Europe but almost unheard of here in New Zealand.  Mulan's PE teacher told us that this sport was intentionally chosen as likely none of the students have done it before.  Teachers will observe and assess the students as they learn this unfamiliar sport, getting to know the rules of the game and acquiring the basic skills.  As part of the assessment students will also need to reflect on their learning experience.

What would school PE be like if, instead of this, the students were assessed in sports that they were most skilled at?  What if the students chose their own sport, worked on polishing their skills, and then were observed and assessed performing at their specialist best?

Why is it that at school Music is seen as a subject in which students are encouraged to perform as skillfully as possible in their chosen specialist area, whereas in PE one is assessed more on one's learning attitude, reflections and teamwork spirit?

KBB festival

The KBB Music Festival is happening all this week, where school orchestras and bands perform and compete.

Yesterday Mulan was there with her school orchestra, so the rest of us family went along to sit in the audience and enjoy the music.

Mulan was involved in three 30-minute sessions:

First up, Westlake entered the non-competition Pupuke Pops Players.  This was then followed by a huge multi-school play-in.

Then after lunch the Westlake Symphony Orchestra did their competition pieces.

(Mulan is front-right with her cello.)

The final Gala event is this Saturday, where the best four bands in each category (symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra, concert band and jazz band) play again.  We've bought tickets for the evening show, as WSO will be playing.

Music season

Suddenly it's music season, and we've got a busy several days.

First up, last Sunday Mulan and Miya played in the West City Youth Concert Band, at their Unveiled show (I wrote about it here).

Then on Friday night Westlake Girls and Boys schools put on a combined Gala show with all their music groups performing.  With so many groups the show was over five hours long, and split into two sessions.  Mulan, playing her cello in the Westlake Symphony Orchestra, performed last, which meant that she didn't get home until after 10:30pm.

Mama bought a ticket to watch the show, but Miya and I stayed home.  No, it's not because we don't care about Mulan.  It was just that we wanted to sleep, because ...

Yesterday (Saturday) morning we had to leave home at 6am to drive to Hamilton.  The New Zealand Concert Bands Association are having their Nationals competition this weekend at Waikato University, and West City Youth Concert Band had their 30 minute slot at 9am.  The livestream worked, and you can watch their performance 39 minutes into it here.  Mulan's on the left playing her flute while Miya's on the right playing her clarinet.

After lunch, at 1pm the Band had a 40-minute workshop, where they got some tips on how to make it sound even better.

Looking ahead, on Tuesday Mulan is back with her school orchestra, playing at the KBB music festival.  As the Pupuke Pops Players they are performing at 11:30am, and then as the Westlake Symphony Orchestra they are on at 2:30pm.

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Meanwhile, dance is still continuing.  Today Mulan has over six hours of ballet, while Miya has two.  On Friday Mulan will sit her RAD Advanced 1 ballet exam.

School subjects

It feels like 2022 has barely started, and yet Mulan's school is already requesting that students lock in their choices for next year.

Yesterday, Mulan and I spent about an hour looking at her subject options for Year 12 (NCEA 2) in 2023, before submitting her choices.

Mulan still doesn't have strong opinions about what she wants to do after school (in just 2.5 years!).  So, it's about keeping her options open.  She may want a music career, or possibly something in sports science.  She still enjoys doing a lot of dance.  Or maybe something completely different.

Music was an easy first choice.  It's by far Mulan's favourite subject, and the learning environment at Westlake Girls is excellent.  From the sounds of things teachers and students are passionate and motivated and they're having fun learning at a high level.

Mulan quite enjoys science, despite teacher troubles in the first half of the year.  Westlake has been having difficulty getting enough teachers, and Mulan was stuck with relievers who were not very skilled communicators.  Mostly, the students were teaching themselves.  It was so bad that we contacted the school about this; the person we talked with was very understanding, but said it was the best they could do.  Fortunately this term Mulan's class has a new science teacher, who seems good.  For Year 12 Mulan has decided to take three science classes -- Biology, Chemistry and Physics (with her preference in that order).

Mulan finds maths relatively easy, although she has never been that interested in it.  While homeschooling, and before starting school, Mulan was consistently working at about two years ahead of her age.  Since starting school a year ago Mulan's maths has stagnated somewhat.  Often the school work has been easy, or with familiar content; she sometimes comments that class lessons progress too slow.  On the other hand, one assessment dropped below excellence, suggesting that the learning environment for new content is not ideal.  For Year 12 Mulan has decided to take Maths Progression, which is the second tier course (behind Maths Extension).

Mulan dislikes English, but it's still compulsory in Year 12 (she's looking forwards to Year 13 when she doesn't have to take it!).  This year Mulan was selected into the extension English class (English Writing), which includes some work that's a year ahead (NCEA 2).  For Year 12 she's again applied for the English Writing class, which will do some NCEA 3 work.  (If she doesn't get in she'll do English Literature instead.)

Mulan is taking Accounting this year, and has selected it as her 2023 backup option.  We were wondering about doing this instead of three sciences, but Mulan enjoys science more than accounting.

Mulan is also taking PE this year, but has decided to drop it.  It has been very interesting to contrast PE (and Dance, which Mulan did last year) with Music.  In our experience, the motivated musicians choose Music as a school subject, and the class lessons work at a high level.  On the other hand, it seems the motivated sportspeople generally don't take PE, and neither do the motivated dancers take Dance.  My impression is that school PE lessons are not as high level as non-school-subject sports lessons and training.  (Similarly, school Dance classes are not as high level as non-school dance classes and training.)

After submitting the subject courses we looked at Mulan's mid-year school report (which came through at the same time).  So far this year she's got a couple of merits and the rest excellences.  The main teacher comment is that she needs to ask questions more when she doesn't understand something!

Old man climbing

At our usual climbing session today Miya videoed me on a new green.  (Greens are commonplace these days for Miya, so we don't bother to video her completing them, but they are still significant for me.)

West City Band concert

Mama and I enjoyed a date without the children yesterday.

We started with a pleasant nature walk around Te Atatu Peninsula,

and then followed that up with a concert in the evening.

West City Band performed their Unveiled show, and it was thoroughly enjoyable.  First up, their Youth Concert Band performed four pieces, then their String Orchestra performed three, and finally their Concert Band played one piece.  The concert programme is here.

Relatedly, there were a couple of familiar faces in the Youth Band.  Mulan was playing her flute, while Miya played her clarinet.  (We'd dropped them off a few hours before the show.)

If you missed it, they're playing again this Saturday (6th) in Hamilton.  If you can't be there, then check out the livestream.  The Youth Band (with Mulan and Miya) will be playing at 9am.