When He Was Bad

I thought I'd share this really lengthy address by Jurgen Habermas for the Richard Rorty Memorial Lecture at Stanford University last November. I haven't read it yet, but I am sharing just the same for sentimental reasons. Nope, we weren't old lovers or long lost pals, but Habermas became more than those two while I was writing my thesis about the evolution of civil society and its growing relevance for Third World democracies. His book "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere" became my bible, supplemented only by another philosopher Alain Touraine. I must admit that mine was not "compliant" with standard thesis expectations; I utilized nothing more than an armchair and three library cards. My adviser initially dissuaded me from pushing through with it and argued that my (ambitiously) theoretical work is more suitable for graduate class and not for undergraduate students (ahem!). But with a little help and a good recommendation from another professor (I am forever grateful to you Ms. Jo), I was allowed to pursue my topic even if it did not use either of the qualitative or quantitative research methods. My blockmates never found out how I cheated my way to graduation as they toiled in the field and spent thousand of pesos printing out questionnaires and surveys. And for that my adviser explained to me that she can't give me the elusive uno, how it is unfair to my classmates and how she would have wanted me to show her what I learned from four years of social research classes.

Back to Habermas. He wrote "Public Sphere" as his own thesis for a university degree so I guess it was nothing short of an inspiration that I thought I could do what he did. Unfortunately, the only thing that Habermas inspired in my work is its length; all 278 pages of almost incomprehensible jargons and terms excluding the bibliography (which was probably another 15 or so pages). I and my adviser submitted a copy to the Main Library with the hope of being awarded the rare opportunity to be catalogued (only outstanding graduate and post-graduate dissertations and on rare ocassions, exceptional undergraduate thesis, are archived at the Main Library). I only proved that that opportunity was even rarer because until now, my name does not appear when I type it in the OPAC.

There goes my Habermas encounter. And here are the links to his address: part 1, part 2, part 3.
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Shame on me, I can't remember the title (if it did have a title at all) of the first story in Milan Kundera's "Laughable Loves", which to me is one of the best short story collections. It told of a young couple who, while playing roles to "spice up" their love life, got lost in their own little games and ended up hating each other. I want to read the book again as I remember enjoying it immensely when I first did in my freshman year at college, but the Rizal Library does not have a copy. I wish I included this book in my Christmas wishlist.

My other favorite short story is "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant.
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I think Neil Gaiman's best work excluding his graphic novels is "Neverwhere".
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I'm trying to come up with a shortlist of the saddest, most depressing books of all time. Three titles that easily come to mind are Angela's Ashes, The Time-Traveller's Wife (even if it's sappy), and of course, Jude the Obscure. I'm hoping people can recommend some more titles that they think I should read if I feel like breaking my own heart.