The Art of Success: My Brilliant Career!

New Day Publishers

"a not-for-profit publishing house"

(Image from New Day Publishers)

Today and tomorrow, I'm busy attending an international Medieval conference on "The Issues of Translation in Medieval and Renaissance Studies" that's being held -- conveniently for my purposes -- on the Kyung Hee University campus.

The conference is taking place under the auspices of the Medieval and Early Modern English Studies Association of Korea (MEMESAK), an organization to which I belong, and around 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, I'm giving a presentation titled "Finding Myself Lost in Translation," which puns in various ways too tedious to detail here.

I guess that you'll just have to be there.

Anyway, since I'm busy preparing for that, I'm going to be derelict in my blogging duties and keep my post mercifully short this weekend. Thus . . . an announcement.

A book that my wife and I translated from the original Korean version has recently been published, and just this week, we received our gratis copies. Some disclaimers, though. We're not involved in the publishing and receive no royalties or kickback or anything other than for our initial work as translators (and even then only from the KLTI). Also, I'm 'slightly' exaggerating to call myself a translator. Sun-Ae actually translates. I merely rework her hard efforts into a style that sounds more natural to English. Also, this particular book was not literature, which is what we ordinarily work in, but one of those self-help books for people hoping to rise to the heights of stardom as a CEO (Chief Executive Officer).

The book is titled Art of Success: Learning through Great Conquerers from Julius Caesar to Genghis Khan (ISBN 971-10-1170-3), by Kim Hoo, and its basic theme is that the great conquerors reached the heights that they did through a combination of charm and ruthlessness that the would-be CEO can emulate. Deception and betrayal are necessary to success. Typical advice:

Be free of all criteria of values. People tend to behave according to the standard of values they have, such as those rooted in a religion or faith. But the successful show themselves much more flexible than the common people in this regard. They are not bound to standards of values but, rather, know how to use them as freely as they like. (page 93)

In short, get ahead any way that you can. My wife and I considered taking Mr. Hoo's advice to heart, stealing his book, publishing it as our own, and perhaps making our fortune. Unfortunately, we let our values be our guide and remained honest but poor.

Perhaps Mr. Hoo will also remain poor, but in case any of my readers wants to help him line his pockets with silver and gold, his book can be purchased from New Day Publishers, a publishing company in the Philippines that, oddly enough, claims to be "a not-for-profit publishing house that aims to strengthen the life and witness of the church through the publication and distribution of books that are culturally relevant and people-empowering."

The book is reviewed on Inquirer.net by a certain Mr. Dante M. Velasco, specialist in "public relations," and in his review, "Choice of conquest: Territories or self?", he seems of two minds about the book:

Here comes a book that delivers a formula for success or conquest, with stories that steer clear of myths behind well-known conquerors in antiquity -- and with annotations that extract meaning from such stories. And yet this book must be read with a clear "PG Warning."

This is an unusual book on how to succeed because, at first glance, the stories come across as prescriptions of using such not-so-desirable behavioral patterns as betrayal, trickery, cruelty, hypocrisy, crocodile tears, cowardice, hatred, insincere love, unabashed use of religion and ideology, expansionism, and terrorism.

Velasco takes some cold comfort in the book's honesty:

Thankfully, the author has a warning in his preface: "For a long time, historians avoided the evil conduct committed by conquerors to make them seem greater than life and deserving respect. But actually, they also betrayed, fled during battle, treated love like a business deal, and sacrificed close friends without hesitation for specific aims."

Velasco, however, remains doubtful about the morality of the lessons to be learned.

As for me, I learned that, once again, as with almost every publication on which my full name appears, my middle name is misspelled as "Jeffrey."

Sigh...