from Martin Dahren
to ANS-L@listserv.binghamton.edu
date Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 8:27 AM
subject Re: Query: Origin of Armenian surnames‏

Try the article "Das Armenische Personennamensystem" in "Europäische Personennamensysteme: Ein Handbuch von Abasisch bis Zentralladinisch", ed. by A. & S. Brendler (Hamburg 2007), pp. 57-66. It includes on p. 64-65 a topical bibliography that lists all serious publications on the subjects incl. etymological dictionaries of Armenian surnames.

I have no access to the book at the moment, so I cannot give you any more details. I analyzed the book recently. It is a real treasure systematically dealing with the personal names of 77 languages in today's Europe.

Martin Dahren

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http://www.amazon.de/Europ%C3%A4ische-Personennamensysteme-Handbuch-Abasisch-Zentralladinisch/dp/3935536658
145 EUROS

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Ikiru begs the question, why is it so hard and outrageous for someone like Watanabe to do something beyond his bureaucratic ‘reach’?  Many of Watanabe’s coworkers, at his wake, refuse to give him credit for building the park, because it was not in his jurisdiction.  The questions raised by the functioning of the bureaucracy in Ikiru caused me to add Jacoby’s book to my bibliography, in order to get a better understanding of the workings of bureaucracy.  Jacoby often quotes the famous German theorist Max Weber.  Weber’s philosophical musings provide another element to the role of bureaucratization and its relevance to Ikiru, for instance, Weber’s idea that unchecked bureaucratization would “[splinter] the soul”  provides an understanding of Watanabe not offered by the other books.  I hate to reference Harry Potter, but it is a if Watanabe’s soul was splintered and put into horcruxes and only by accessing these horcruxes, can he access the parts of his soul (memories) that he put away.  For those who do not know, horcruxes are objects that a (evil) person can store his or her divided soul in.  The photograph of his deceased wife and his son’s baseball bat both allow Watanabe to access memories he could not access on his own, as if they were horcruxes.  In the beginning of the film, Watanabe is not cognizant of his splintered soul (which is caused by years of bureaucratization), so the document to Increase Efficiency he finds in his desk does not bring back any memories (he uses it to clean his pen), but as soon as he realizes that his soul is splintered (after he finds out that he has cancer), objects start to bring back forgotten parts of his soul.
    The book also has relevance to the film in its analysis of the immutability of the bureaucratic system, Jacoby writes, “the attempt on the part of democratic movements to break out of this bureaucratic closed sphere always ends by leading back into it;”  evidence of this comes from both the women who are unable to make any progress in fixing the cesspool in their neighborhood and Kimura, who rises in an attempt to follow Watanabe’s example, but ends up right back at his desk where he started.
    A possible explanation for the two-part structure of the films if that, as a bureaucratic, “the individual must […] undertake an essential schism within himself.”   Jacoby is saying that the bureaucrat must make a distinction between the ‘bureaucratic’ self and the ‘social’ self, which is what Watanabe has been unable to do.  The two selves are one and the same in Watanabe, and when he separates the two, by deciding to do something about the cesspool (which is in contrast to what his ‘bureaucratic’ self would do), the film separates in two.  Now this might be inferring too much, but the text does offer many insights into the film that none of the other authors have made.  While the book deals neither with cinema nor Ikiru, it provides an understanding of the process of bureaucratization and the bureaucratic system that allows for applications to the film.  By applying these concepts and theories to the film, one comes away with a unique understanding of the film.