Books: Last Book You Read and Rate It
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Thucydides
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2009
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As a new parent I found this to be pretty good, shows how other cultures raise children way different than we do in the western world with a lot less anxiety , depression and other issues.
I couldn’t help but think of Sebastian Jungers book “Tribe” when reading it.
8/10
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy (1998) - The final entry of McCarthy's Border Trilogy, a series of youthful epics set across the US-Mexican border. Cities of the Plain, much less violent than any other novels written by the author, has the paths of John Grady Cole (All the Pretty Horses) and Billy Purham (The Crossing) collide towards a tearful finale. Collide may be too strong a word as both characters are friends and confidantes from the beginning of the book. Both are aware that they are living in a dying world and are under no illusion that they can hold unto it or change its course. The ranch they work on will eventually be repossessed by the US army and being a cowboy appears to pay less than the little it once did. The characters still try to make it work and a dominant theme of the book is the beauty and validity of (male?) friendships, a topic where I find McCarthy a more touching and eloquent writer than romantic love.
The latter subject constitutes an important sub-plot (and eventually, the central plot) of the story. Much like in All the Pretty Horses, John Grady falls in love with a Mexican girl and bad things follow, predicted by other characters, such as friends and wise elders. Much like in All the Pretty Horses, John Grady doesn't care. As described by someone at some point in the book, he's a guy good with the spirit of an outlaw. The problem for him is that the girl he's fallen for is a prostitute whose pimp, a slicker named Eduardo, is also in love with her and smirks at the idea of letting her go. Purham advises John to try and forget her and as a man of infinite honor, he still acts as a go-between in an attempt at buying her freedom where he immediately realizes that his friend is in trouble. Neither side relent and the quarrel leaves the love triangle dead, ending with a masterpiece of knife fight between pimp and cowboy that is one of the best moments in the trilogy.
While I appreciate all the aspects of the book, one realization occurred and one belief was strengthened. The realization is that The Crossing is my favorite book of the trilogy and that I would not have come to that realization without having read Cities of the Plain and getting the rest of Billy Purharm's story. And on a related note, while I love my wife and have known a few really swell girls in my first thirty, I am far more attracted to matters of honor than matters of love, which establishes Billy Purham, a little hero who tries to return a she-wolf to her home, retrieve the stolen horses of his murdered parents, looks all over Mexico for his wilding little brother who ditched him and does everything he can to save John Grady from himself and Eduardo as my favorite character of the trilogy. It is good to see McCarthy give him a dignified end, a kind old man taken into the new millenium by a kind family after decades of loneliness and hardship. By that point, long gone are the adventures of him and John Grady saving orphaned puppies from a den and they are more memorable for it. The book has a lot of similarities to the first two (lots of horses, lots of monologues by wise old folks) and is a beautiful end to an accomplished set of books. What else can you call stories that make a young Arab prefer to be a cowboy than a crusader like Saladin?
The latter subject constitutes an important sub-plot (and eventually, the central plot) of the story. Much like in All the Pretty Horses, John Grady falls in love with a Mexican girl and bad things follow, predicted by other characters, such as friends and wise elders. Much like in All the Pretty Horses, John Grady doesn't care. As described by someone at some point in the book, he's a guy good with the spirit of an outlaw. The problem for him is that the girl he's fallen for is a prostitute whose pimp, a slicker named Eduardo, is also in love with her and smirks at the idea of letting her go. Purham advises John to try and forget her and as a man of infinite honor, he still acts as a go-between in an attempt at buying her freedom where he immediately realizes that his friend is in trouble. Neither side relent and the quarrel leaves the love triangle dead, ending with a masterpiece of knife fight between pimp and cowboy that is one of the best moments in the trilogy.
While I appreciate all the aspects of the book, one realization occurred and one belief was strengthened. The realization is that The Crossing is my favorite book of the trilogy and that I would not have come to that realization without having read Cities of the Plain and getting the rest of Billy Purharm's story. And on a related note, while I love my wife and have known a few really swell girls in my first thirty, I am far more attracted to matters of honor than matters of love, which establishes Billy Purham, a little hero who tries to return a she-wolf to her home, retrieve the stolen horses of his murdered parents, looks all over Mexico for his wilding little brother who ditched him and does everything he can to save John Grady from himself and Eduardo as my favorite character of the trilogy. It is good to see McCarthy give him a dignified end, a kind old man taken into the new millenium by a kind family after decades of loneliness and hardship. By that point, long gone are the adventures of him and John Grady saving orphaned puppies from a den and they are more memorable for it. The book has a lot of similarities to the first two (lots of horses, lots of monologues by wise old folks) and is a beautiful end to an accomplished set of books. What else can you call stories that make a young Arab prefer to be a cowboy than a crusader like Saladin?
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Reconnaître le faux (2016) by Umberto Eco - A quick read that's a translation of an essay Eco had written in 2011, regarding different types of deceit and how to spot them, making difference between what is faux and an outright lie, however malicious or self-deceptive. For the most part, Eco doesn't really dwell on his own opinions and rather gives a matter-of-fact approach to the subject, along with a couple of jokes and enough examples that what's talking about is both interesting and clear. Good read and the more complex the concept game, the prettier it got, IMO. Especially when you start to think just how deeply deceptiveness can go and how far you could take a concept, if you really wanted to be a stickler about it. Much like he says, thank God we have some general rules to accept/determine authenticity. If not, we'd be done for, at least philosophically, IMO.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Hippasus
1,9,45,165,495,1287,
A Student's Guide to Fourier Transforms: with applications in physics and engineering, by J.F. James
I feel strange rating this item since it was very difficult to comprehend, but I'm rating it under the supposition that I am within the target audience of the book as an undergraduate.
There are a couple varieties of transforming very intractable real world problems: Laplace transforms and Fourier transforms. Both typically involve two functions in the integrand, so the Calculus II technique of integration by parts is required as a fundamental concept.
This book is mired in technical details, as it meant to introduce the advanced student to highly specialized applications in physics and engineering.
How does it work? I can try to explain it in my own words, but I believe this short quote would go further than I could hope to at this point:
"The Fourier transform uses an integral (or "continuous sum") that exploits properties of sine and cosine to recover the amplitude and phase of each sinusoid in a Fourier series. The inverse Fourier transform recombines these waves using a similar integral to reproduce the original function."
The following two paragraphs are not from the book, but from me, just to try to put this book in a bit of context.
Repetive patterns are imbued throughout nature, human behavior, and technology. Trigonometry, invented by the ancient Greeks, provides a basic language describing such patterns. This basic area of study does so by focusing on triangles and circles. Then, with Descartes, the Cartesian coordinate system was invented. This allowed geometrical and algebraic expressions to be analysed within a unitary framework.
I've been trying to get a feel for applied mathematics at this point in my studies, but I still have a preference for pure mathematics. I feel somewhat guilty about this fact, though, since historically, philosophy, pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and physics were not so clearly demarcated and marked by specialization like they are in contemporary times. Newton's Naturalis Principia Mathematica, I would contend, is roughly the point at which this transition occurred. I think his focus on physics and nature provided an example during the Enlightenment that others followed from his fruitfulness and originality. But like he said, he was standing on the shoulders of giants.
Rating: 425
200: distasteful and pathetic
300: mediocre or subpar
400: average, but decent
500: very good
600: superb
700: transcendental
I feel strange rating this item since it was very difficult to comprehend, but I'm rating it under the supposition that I am within the target audience of the book as an undergraduate.
There are a couple varieties of transforming very intractable real world problems: Laplace transforms and Fourier transforms. Both typically involve two functions in the integrand, so the Calculus II technique of integration by parts is required as a fundamental concept.
This book is mired in technical details, as it meant to introduce the advanced student to highly specialized applications in physics and engineering.
How does it work? I can try to explain it in my own words, but I believe this short quote would go further than I could hope to at this point:
"The Fourier transform uses an integral (or "continuous sum") that exploits properties of sine and cosine to recover the amplitude and phase of each sinusoid in a Fourier series. The inverse Fourier transform recombines these waves using a similar integral to reproduce the original function."
 | Fourier transform - Wikipedia A Fourier transform (FT) is a mathematical transform that decomposes functions depending on space or time into functions depending on spatial frequency or temporal frequency.That process is also called analysis.An example application would be decomposing the waveform of a musical chord into terms of the intensity of its constituent pitches.The term Fourier transform refers to both the ... en.wikipedia.org |
The following two paragraphs are not from the book, but from me, just to try to put this book in a bit of context.
Repetive patterns are imbued throughout nature, human behavior, and technology. Trigonometry, invented by the ancient Greeks, provides a basic language describing such patterns. This basic area of study does so by focusing on triangles and circles. Then, with Descartes, the Cartesian coordinate system was invented. This allowed geometrical and algebraic expressions to be analysed within a unitary framework.
I've been trying to get a feel for applied mathematics at this point in my studies, but I still have a preference for pure mathematics. I feel somewhat guilty about this fact, though, since historically, philosophy, pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and physics were not so clearly demarcated and marked by specialization like they are in contemporary times. Newton's Naturalis Principia Mathematica, I would contend, is roughly the point at which this transition occurred. I think his focus on physics and nature provided an example during the Enlightenment that others followed from his fruitfulness and originality. But like he said, he was standing on the shoulders of giants.
Rating: 425
200: distasteful and pathetic
300: mediocre or subpar
400: average, but decent
500: very good
600: superb
700: transcendental
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Child of God by Cormac McCarthy (1973) - Been messing around with short stories but knocked this one in a couple of days. Fairly short and by far his most accessible, both in terms of structure and vocabulary. For an author that's already very macabre, this might be the one that takes the cake. It follows descent into deeper madness of the already mad Lester Ballard, a young man who lives destitute in Tennessee before becoming a cave-dweller and serial killer. I'm being lazy, but it's very good, ends with a knockout of a final realization by its main character that one wouldn't expect even if it's obvious from the first chapter what this man is. It also has a welcomed balance between accessibility and McCarthy's poetic outbursts. Lots of chapter are only 2-3 pages long, not even that. I've now read all of his books but his first.
Blood Meridian
Suttree
--
The Crossing
The Road
All The Pretty Horses
--
Child of God
No Country for Old Men
Cities of the Plain
Outer Dark
They all range from excellent to masterpieces to some of the greatest novels of all-time, IMO.
Blood Meridian
Suttree
--
The Crossing
The Road
All The Pretty Horses
--
Child of God
No Country for Old Men
Cities of the Plain
Outer Dark
They all range from excellent to masterpieces to some of the greatest novels of all-time, IMO.
jacobhockey13
used to watch hockey, then joined HF Boards
Open City — Teju Cole
A book that brought me a lot joy reading, and felt trancelike at certain moments. Describing some of the book's occurrences would be a disservice I think, so I would just say that there's a fascinating mix of observations and historical notes, on reflection.
Uncanny Valley — Anna Weiner
I picked up this book because I was feeling a bit disenchanted (though I've arguably never been particularly taken with the most blatant dogma from the industry) about tech, and my place in it. The author spent time living and working in Silicon Valley, at a few different startups.
I liked the book, it captures the zeitgeist that we've all inherited, accepting the changes, or at least the shifting power, that has been brought on by the internet. It raises the problems that are insidious in the industry (unfair treatment of women, a lack of real perspective beyond dollars, growth, and popularity, hostility to minorities and others). As much as places like the tech invaded Bay Area like to promote themselves as different, weird, and free-thinking; there's an awful lot of homogeneity that aligns interests with making money or being successful.
I have to admit, I read most of the book in Spanish, and I feel that it didn't hit me as hard as if I had read it in English. I think I lost some of the humour that I would have enjoyed more in English. I still did enjoy it, and I'm glad I read as a kind of contextualization as I'm at a bit of a juncture in my life after finishing university and likely to start working in the industry.
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Thucydides
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2009
- 8,153
- 845
Another book trying to be “moneyball”, but unlike Lewis, Sawchik is not a masterful storyteller. Having said that, if you are a baseball fanatic this book will appeal to you, but don’t expect another moneyball . It’s the story of how the Pirates turned around their franchise in 2013-2014. Some interesting tidbits but it fell flat a lot.
6/10
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
I know there's some Cormac McCarthy fans that pop into this thread so thought I'd drop this. 75 minute interview was put up on Youtube a few days ago. From the Sante Fe Institute, where he works.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Thought I'd read something I'd disliked on a first read.
The Theft by Saul Bellow (1989) - I still disliked it. Way too long to get going, its main character if of essentially no interest despite the philosophy with a style hautain. It becomes such a slog to read with too much focus on self-absorbtion regarding topics that held no interest to me. It made it kind of disjointed for me, with its jumps between the Velde's love-life and the theft of her ring. There's a couple of funny lines and it's written by someone who knows how to write but that's about it. It gives off the impression of being a little too smart for its own reading good and while the racism isn't exactly held up as a positive, you're never sure where the books really lands on that subject. I understand that this is the possibility when the main character itself is iffy and I'm not expecting any author to explicitly state anything when you consider Bellow's history...well, that's my mistake. I shouldn't let that influence my reading. But I did.
The Theft by Saul Bellow (1989) - I still disliked it. Way too long to get going, its main character if of essentially no interest despite the philosophy with a style hautain. It becomes such a slog to read with too much focus on self-absorbtion regarding topics that held no interest to me. It made it kind of disjointed for me, with its jumps between the Velde's love-life and the theft of her ring. There's a couple of funny lines and it's written by someone who knows how to write but that's about it. It gives off the impression of being a little too smart for its own reading good and while the racism isn't exactly held up as a positive, you're never sure where the books really lands on that subject. I understand that this is the possibility when the main character itself is iffy and I'm not expecting any author to explicitly state anything when you consider Bellow's history...well, that's my mistake. I shouldn't let that influence my reading. But I did.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
A couple of lazy reviews.
The Life by Jeanne Cordelier (1976) - Kind of bailed on this. It's written competently but it kind of just left me indifferent. Actually, I'd even say it's more than competent. Cordelier can write and she's got talent. I don't know if I just wasn't in the mood for it but I found myself not really caring to pick it up or not, despite the interesting subject matter that's intertwined with its stakes (the life of sex workers in Parisian brothels).
Little Expressionless Animals by David Foster Wallace (1989) - Loved it. Despite the many balls that gets juggled, the entire piece stands up and remains engaging to read both on a surface/plot level and as an intellectual exercise. This is important because some of it went over my head so it's nice that happenings of the story remain fun to read. This is from the Girl with Curious Hair collection and it's apparent that individuals' relationship with media was important to Wallace and here he weaves it in with a deeply humanist story. It's in stories like these that you get what he means when he starts talking about his problems with irony. It's an awesome piece.
Luckily the Accountant Representative Knew CPR by David Foster Wallace (1989) - Really disliked this one. It's only 7 pages long but bloated to the max, moving at a snail's pace for reasons I can't comprehend. Feels like he just tried to cram as much as he could, words included, for a piece that I don't think had that much going for it. Just a big bore, IMO.
The Life by Jeanne Cordelier (1976) - Kind of bailed on this. It's written competently but it kind of just left me indifferent. Actually, I'd even say it's more than competent. Cordelier can write and she's got talent. I don't know if I just wasn't in the mood for it but I found myself not really caring to pick it up or not, despite the interesting subject matter that's intertwined with its stakes (the life of sex workers in Parisian brothels).
Little Expressionless Animals by David Foster Wallace (1989) - Loved it. Despite the many balls that gets juggled, the entire piece stands up and remains engaging to read both on a surface/plot level and as an intellectual exercise. This is important because some of it went over my head so it's nice that happenings of the story remain fun to read. This is from the Girl with Curious Hair collection and it's apparent that individuals' relationship with media was important to Wallace and here he weaves it in with a deeply humanist story. It's in stories like these that you get what he means when he starts talking about his problems with irony. It's an awesome piece.
Luckily the Accountant Representative Knew CPR by David Foster Wallace (1989) - Really disliked this one. It's only 7 pages long but bloated to the max, moving at a snail's pace for reasons I can't comprehend. Feels like he just tried to cram as much as he could, words included, for a piece that I don't think had that much going for it. Just a big bore, IMO.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
The Devil in the Flesh by Raymond Radiguet (1923) - I don't know if the fact that this novel was written by a 20 year-old should figure into the discussion but it's hard not to think about it. I feel that I wouldn't be as impressed if it was written by a 45 year-old as you don't expect the sort of composure present in the book's prose from a first-time/extremely young writer. With that said, Jean Cocteau (who appears to have been madly in love/close with/to Radiguet) called it a work of genius. The back of my paperback contains only this Cocteau quote (I'm translating from French):
Raymond Radiguet shares with Arthur Rimbaud the terrible privilege of being a prodigy of French letters.
I personally find this very hyperbolic to the point where I wondered if their personal relationship didn't affect the praise and his perception of the work. The work is very good, even great. But prodigious? No, I personally wouldn't call it that. There's something too rigid, not adventurous enough about the work. It's immensely readable and you get caught up quick in its story of an intelligent and arrogant 16 year-old carrying an affair with a married 19 year-old whose husband is away fighting in WWI. A good way to put it is that it's a literary page-turner in the best of ways. Radiguet is fully aware of what is important and what is not. There are not unnecessary details and happenings. But I'd say it's a book written by a precocious talent that shows the promise and possibility of future genius than genius itself. If Radiguet peaked at this current book, there would be absolutely no disappointment in his talent and achievement. But, to me, genius requires a dynamism that I didn't get here on a second (third?) reading. The metaphors are sometimes too easy, almost sounding like platitudes. While I find that readers often underrate the utility and necessity of literary exposition, I believe Radiguet abuses it here, as the book is almost entirely reliant on it.
With that said, the depth of thought and capacity to pinpoint feelings and intentions would be impressive coming from most of any men, let alone such a young one. I'm just not sure they're always delivered in the most artistically-satisfying of ways and you sometimes get the impression that Radiguet was too smart for his own good, too satisfied with himself. This can become a flaw in a work where a certain lack of self-awareness regarding sentimentality appears at certain intervals. In short, for such a smart, arrogant writer (and subsequent character, which was based on himself) there are some mawkish misfires throughout the narrative.
Hemingway once said that Radiguet was as good as using his pen as his pencil to advance his career (get it?). I don't know if he was right, Radiguet was very good, especially beyond his years, but prodigious seems to require genius, and I'm not sure it's there in this one Genius, to me, is sustained over an entire work. But it is impressive. I've had a copy of Radiguet's other novel (The Count's Ball) for a couple of years now. I'll definitely read it this year.
Raymond Radiguet shares with Arthur Rimbaud the terrible privilege of being a prodigy of French letters.
I personally find this very hyperbolic to the point where I wondered if their personal relationship didn't affect the praise and his perception of the work. The work is very good, even great. But prodigious? No, I personally wouldn't call it that. There's something too rigid, not adventurous enough about the work. It's immensely readable and you get caught up quick in its story of an intelligent and arrogant 16 year-old carrying an affair with a married 19 year-old whose husband is away fighting in WWI. A good way to put it is that it's a literary page-turner in the best of ways. Radiguet is fully aware of what is important and what is not. There are not unnecessary details and happenings. But I'd say it's a book written by a precocious talent that shows the promise and possibility of future genius than genius itself. If Radiguet peaked at this current book, there would be absolutely no disappointment in his talent and achievement. But, to me, genius requires a dynamism that I didn't get here on a second (third?) reading. The metaphors are sometimes too easy, almost sounding like platitudes. While I find that readers often underrate the utility and necessity of literary exposition, I believe Radiguet abuses it here, as the book is almost entirely reliant on it.
With that said, the depth of thought and capacity to pinpoint feelings and intentions would be impressive coming from most of any men, let alone such a young one. I'm just not sure they're always delivered in the most artistically-satisfying of ways and you sometimes get the impression that Radiguet was too smart for his own good, too satisfied with himself. This can become a flaw in a work where a certain lack of self-awareness regarding sentimentality appears at certain intervals. In short, for such a smart, arrogant writer (and subsequent character, which was based on himself) there are some mawkish misfires throughout the narrative.
Hemingway once said that Radiguet was as good as using his pen as his pencil to advance his career (get it?). I don't know if he was right, Radiguet was very good, especially beyond his years, but prodigious seems to require genius, and I'm not sure it's there in this one Genius, to me, is sustained over an entire work. But it is impressive. I've had a copy of Radiguet's other novel (The Count's Ball) for a couple of years now. I'll definitely read it this year.
Thucydides
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2009
- 8,153
- 845
Who knew the history of the church was filled with such incredible violence ? This book has a bit of everything from the Roman Empire, Jewish wars, cannibalism, God, and the rise of the church from the very beginning .
It's not slow perse, but incredibly detailed which at times can feel like a chore, but great parts more than make up for it.
It's amazing that the church and religion has been able to survive when reading about the resistance it was met with- Christians being fed to lions, burned alive, raped, tortured, villages ransacked with atrocities , but they never wavered, even when brought to trial and told to denounce God and save yourself , or be hung from your feet and burned to death a little bit at a time- They chose God . When that didn't work they sent people in to sabotage and bring the church down from the inside.
The book follows the church through a rotating cast of Roman Emperors , some more evil than others . It's not until we get to Constantine where we see a shift in thinking and God and the church is finally accepted, heralding in the winds of change that ripple across the entire world.
The result is a harrowing narrative of hope, courage, persistence, and faith even in the face of death.
It's not slow perse, but incredibly detailed which at times can feel like a chore, but great parts more than make up for it.
It's amazing that the church and religion has been able to survive when reading about the resistance it was met with- Christians being fed to lions, burned alive, raped, tortured, villages ransacked with atrocities , but they never wavered, even when brought to trial and told to denounce God and save yourself , or be hung from your feet and burned to death a little bit at a time- They chose God . When that didn't work they sent people in to sabotage and bring the church down from the inside.
The book follows the church through a rotating cast of Roman Emperors , some more evil than others . It's not until we get to Constantine where we see a shift in thinking and God and the church is finally accepted, heralding in the winds of change that ripple across the entire world.
The result is a harrowing narrative of hope, courage, persistence, and faith even in the face of death.
Thucydides
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2009
- 8,153
- 845
The point of this book is that God is unknown to us, and always will be, and because of this, meditating and contemplating God is divine because it's endless.
No matter how much we think or try and intellectualize God we won't ever truly understand Him, the unknown author of this book (thought to be an old priest) argues that the only way to reach God, and be the beneficiary of his gifts is to love Him, and love Him out of purity, not because we want, or need something from Him. So many people try to reach God this way, and because their needs are selfish, they give up and retreat to worldly affairs, but it's those who persevere who reap the rewards. Reaching God is hard work.
I thought the concept of the book was thought provoking at times, but having read a lot of books interpreting Christianity , after awhile the argument all sounds the same - give up lowly desires of the flesh and reach for higher , and in doing so, be cleansed of your sins and find true peace on earth. This one did provide something a little different, while giving detailed instructions on how to climb and reach the top of the mountain that is God. Still, nothing compares to Augustine's - City of God when it comes to Christian writing, and if it's of any interest to you, that is the one I'd recommend above all others, as daunting as it may seem.
It's probably time for a break from the theology books but I've got a stack of them to get through yet.
7.5/10
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau (1947) - Between this and Zazie dans le Metro, Queneau might be the funniest literary writer I've ever read. This book is incredible. So the concept is simple. Queneau tells and retells the exact same story in 99 different styles. The story too is simple. But also oddly hilarious, weird and random. On a city bus, an unnamed narrator witnesses a young zazou with a long neck (some old flamboyant French style that included large clothes and hats) start an altercation with another passenger who he accuses of stepping on his foot whenever other passengers get off then immediately p***y out because he thinks he might get slapped and slinks towards an empty seat. Two hours later, the narrator sees the same zazou by the train station walking with a friend, who's advising him to add a button to his coat. That's it. That's the story. Told 99 times. It must have been something he witnessed and he got a tremendous kick out of. Good on him for seeing/coming with the inherent absurdity in the story that suits itself well to the exercises he's going for.
The results range from normal to bizarre to hilarious. Some of the styles end up barely making tangible sense but there is nothing careless in any of the telling. It's all very deliberate, thought-out and made to look a lot easier than it must have been. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to come up with that sort of variety and have it hold up. For example, there's one where it's using rainbow colors. Another (hilarious) one is styled as an official government letter. Well-versed in science, some of them are based on formulas. You'd almost call Queneau demented for it if it wasn't for the tightrope act he pulls over the course of the work.
I wonder how a translation of this book might look like (one of the styles is even anglicism). I feel like it's something that loses a lot without being read in its original language and I feel lucky to be francophone if only to be able enjoy this jewel of a book. Definitely one of the coolest I've ever read.
The results range from normal to bizarre to hilarious. Some of the styles end up barely making tangible sense but there is nothing careless in any of the telling. It's all very deliberate, thought-out and made to look a lot easier than it must have been. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to come up with that sort of variety and have it hold up. For example, there's one where it's using rainbow colors. Another (hilarious) one is styled as an official government letter. Well-versed in science, some of them are based on formulas. You'd almost call Queneau demented for it if it wasn't for the tightrope act he pulls over the course of the work.
I wonder how a translation of this book might look like (one of the styles is even anglicism). I feel like it's something that loses a lot without being read in its original language and I feel lucky to be francophone if only to be able enjoy this jewel of a book. Definitely one of the coolest I've ever read.
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Thucydides
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2009
- 8,153
- 845
My wife gave me this book wanting me to read something upbeat, and light. It sat around for awhile and she's been bugging me to read it for months now, so started a week ago, finished it today.
When I started it, and looking at the cover I was getting some Harry Potter vibes, but not the case.
Linus is a caseworker at The Department in Charge of Magical Youth. His life is pretty empty, he lives alone with his cat, he has no friends, and his neighbour openly wonders aloud to him how he hasn't yet committed suicide.
One day Linus is called by upper management and given a very secret assignment - he has to travel to a remote island and determine whether the children there are dangerous .
Over time Linus comes to really enjoy the children, and sees that even though they are different, they are still good people and because of them he flourishes, growing into his own person. He's suddenly willing to take risks with his life, and step out of his comfort zone.
The heart of this book is a pro LGBT book, urging the reader to be unafraid to be themselves , no matter the risk. Life is short, be, and do you. There's nothing wrong with being "different".
A pretty light, breezy read, whose target audience is more the young adult reader, though I can see how this has crossed over into appealing to adults as well.
The Goodreads rating is something crazy like 4.44/5 with over 400,000 reviews and ratings. I don't think I would rate it that highly myself, but I get why people love it.
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Thucydides
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2009
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- 845
This book starts out as a bit of a memoir- Tolstoy tells us that when he was young he committed every sin one can think of from theft, to lust, to challenging men to duels just so he could murder them. He begins writing and surrounds himself with other writers which turns into an echo chamber of the same ideas being repeated all the time. He achieves fame, wealth, and looks around and realizes he's really unhappy. His friends are morally bankrupt, and though he achieved what he wanted from life - writing- he realized that he was a deeply arrogant man who only wanted these things - fame, wealth, glory to fill his ego.
Tolstoy falls into a deep depression. He refuses to go hunting for fear he might commit suicide. He becomes deeply suicidal, and as time goes on it's not getting any better until he decides one day to look at those around him, those who haven't achieved fame, or wealth and asks himself what it is that keeps them going? He realizes that it's their faith.
Tolstoy again struggles with accepting God, because it's not something he can think of on an intellectual level, and thus falls again into despair. He continues to come back to God and then dismisses a lot of the Bible, as it makes no sense to him, but forms a faith based on living in search of God.
If it had or ended there, I would have thought it deserved 5 stars , but the rest of the book is spent rallying against science, scientists , the rich. He makes strong points about all even though I disagree with some. He rallies against tyrants , and how if the world would all turn to God, there would be no more violence. For someone who seems to understand humanity so well, he turns into an idealist and his arguments start to sputter.
Maybe in the early 1900's there were no studies on personality disorders - narcissism , sociopathy- and that these people will always see themselves as the true God, based on being mentally ill. There is no cure for this disorder. How do you convince someone who sees themselves as a God that they're the problem? That they need help? You can't , so because of this there will always be people wanting to start cults, always be people thirsting for any kind of power, always be people who surround themselves with powerful people so that they are connected to power, and there will always be those with little to no critical thinking who buy into someone's charisma and do their bidding for them. Violence is always going to exist, at both macro and micro levels, whether it's war, or domestic violence. So perhaps the answer is to round up those with diagnosed personality disorders and off them in one big act of violence? But what about those that come after? Will we do the same?
Thankfully the majority of the population doesn't have a personality disorder , and it's easy for people to seek God, but what about when things are going badly on a societal level? When the economy is in the dumps, and people are hungry , and suddenly someone comes along and seems to have all the answers , and those answers provide people with hope. And then this someone convinces the populace to give him power , and by doing that it will fix things, and only they can fix things. And knowing that people need someone to blame for their problems, the finger is pointed at a minority group. Mob mentality = mob violence.
This is where Tolstoy's argument falls flat, why war is as old as time, and why violence will always exist, God or not.
I could poke holes in tons and tons of Tolstoy's philosophical digressions, but to keep this short, I won't. The book was fine when the focus was on Tolstoy and his story, his journey, but went off the rails when he became blind to his idealism, and chose that lens, instead of an objective lens.
Tolstoy talks about how at the time of his writing that the world was morally bankrupt and society needed to turn back to God in order to cure it of its ills. I had to laugh and wonder what Tolstoy would think if he were alive today - take a look at social media, watch the news, or scroll the "live" section of tiktok for 5 minutes and it's not hard to see that a fairly large part of society has become morally bankrupt.
History shows that this is a cycle - turning to and away from God. I can't help but wonder, as Tolstoy suggests, that in the near future we will see society again noticing the moral rot(the worship of wealth, of porn, of reality stars, of social media stars , of material things, mass consumerism), the late stage capitalism that runs rampant in our society today , and search upwards, and inwards for God yet again. Time will tell.
5.0/10
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy (2022) - Stella Maris is considered the companion piece to The Passenger (2022), two books published roughly month apart in late October and early December. As a Christmas present, my wife got me the boxset, the two novels likely constituting the last novels we get from Cormac McCarthy, an author I consider to be my favorite and from my experience with American letters, its greatest artistic genius or at least, its most intelligent artist in so far as I understand intelligence.
Stella Maris is essentially entirely centered around intelligence, of the mathematical kind. I'm currently in Mexico for a period of six weeks and intended to bring The Passenger with me and due to sightly miscalculations, ended up packing Stella Maris (while you can probably read them out of order, the plot and publication dates makes it obvious that Stella Maris is meant to be read second) instead, only finding this out when I picked up it up to read it. Familiar with his entire bibliography, I figured I wouldn't be too at sea if I read it first. I was right, even though I've still yet to read The Passenger - the book only peripherally touches upon the plot of the first book and is only related in that it delves into the relationship between the main character of each book (Bobby Western in the first, sister Alicia Western in the second). In this one, the book is constructed entirely as therapy sessions between Alicia Western, a 20 year-old mathematical genius who had herself committed to a mental institute for schizophrenia and her doctor, a very smart man nowhere near as smart as she is and fully aware of it.
It's hard to call this book a novel. I mean, it is, but companion piece definitely seems to fit more. More than all of that, it appears that Alicia Western is a vessel for Cormac McCarthy's final concerns and conclusions. This is entirely a book of ideas, ideas that McCarthy seems to have a largely formed by the last 30 or so years that he's spent working at the Santa Fe Institute, which according to Wikipedia 'dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, including physical, computational, biological, and social systems.' as the guy who writes fiction from there, discusses with a bunch of scientists and helps them edit their papers and is apparently now a trustee of the institution. Without even having completed a BA.
A lot of the nitty-gritty mathematical stuff (and a couple of its purely mathematical conclusions) went over my head but when McCarthy combines the mathematical with the universal and notions of the unconscious or our relationship to reality, it becomes some of the most interesting stuff that I've ever read. I'm not a scientist, nor is this book the biggest feat of story-telling or ambitious structure, but McCarthy is such a good storyteller and writer that the most obscure theory becomes fascinating and some of the truths/opinions that he unleashes sometimes feel like a certitude anyone could have felt somewhere inside them but without the intelligence or science to explain it. The only thing he'd published between The Road and now was a scientific paper on the nature of the unconscious and its relation to language (in short, the unconscious doesn't spell things out for us because it's not used to it. Language hasn't been around long enough and the unconscious has been guiding human beings, somewhat successfully, for much longer), some of which is verbatim in the novel. He arrives at a couple of conclusions that I find to argue with, not the least being that true/most important intelligence is the scientific/mathematical one, that verbal intelligence can only take one so far before hitting a wall, as verbal intelligence won't even know what or where the wall is. Combine his oratory/philosophical skills with what appears to be his vast knowledge of science and you get a potent prototype to spit out some serious stuff.
I'll stop continuing because I'm a little tired and want to doze by the pool. Might add more later. But if this is the last of his books (pretty much a certitude given that he's 89 years old now), what a note to end it on, at least philosophically. I don't see how anyone who reads up a bit on this man's can't come away flabbergasted by his path and the life he's lead and his dedication but when that brain of his shuts down and that big ass forehead of his is under ground, what a loss and cause for celebration it'll be. I try very hard not to have heroes but if I'd have to be susceptible to somebody, it'd be him. An utterly brilliant career and some monstrous achievement, not the least of which being so accepted by some of the (apparently) most brilliant scientists in the world as one of their own. All this as a fiction writer.
Stella Maris is essentially entirely centered around intelligence, of the mathematical kind. I'm currently in Mexico for a period of six weeks and intended to bring The Passenger with me and due to sightly miscalculations, ended up packing Stella Maris (while you can probably read them out of order, the plot and publication dates makes it obvious that Stella Maris is meant to be read second) instead, only finding this out when I picked up it up to read it. Familiar with his entire bibliography, I figured I wouldn't be too at sea if I read it first. I was right, even though I've still yet to read The Passenger - the book only peripherally touches upon the plot of the first book and is only related in that it delves into the relationship between the main character of each book (Bobby Western in the first, sister Alicia Western in the second). In this one, the book is constructed entirely as therapy sessions between Alicia Western, a 20 year-old mathematical genius who had herself committed to a mental institute for schizophrenia and her doctor, a very smart man nowhere near as smart as she is and fully aware of it.
It's hard to call this book a novel. I mean, it is, but companion piece definitely seems to fit more. More than all of that, it appears that Alicia Western is a vessel for Cormac McCarthy's final concerns and conclusions. This is entirely a book of ideas, ideas that McCarthy seems to have a largely formed by the last 30 or so years that he's spent working at the Santa Fe Institute, which according to Wikipedia 'dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, including physical, computational, biological, and social systems.' as the guy who writes fiction from there, discusses with a bunch of scientists and helps them edit their papers and is apparently now a trustee of the institution. Without even having completed a BA.
A lot of the nitty-gritty mathematical stuff (and a couple of its purely mathematical conclusions) went over my head but when McCarthy combines the mathematical with the universal and notions of the unconscious or our relationship to reality, it becomes some of the most interesting stuff that I've ever read. I'm not a scientist, nor is this book the biggest feat of story-telling or ambitious structure, but McCarthy is such a good storyteller and writer that the most obscure theory becomes fascinating and some of the truths/opinions that he unleashes sometimes feel like a certitude anyone could have felt somewhere inside them but without the intelligence or science to explain it. The only thing he'd published between The Road and now was a scientific paper on the nature of the unconscious and its relation to language (in short, the unconscious doesn't spell things out for us because it's not used to it. Language hasn't been around long enough and the unconscious has been guiding human beings, somewhat successfully, for much longer), some of which is verbatim in the novel. He arrives at a couple of conclusions that I find to argue with, not the least being that true/most important intelligence is the scientific/mathematical one, that verbal intelligence can only take one so far before hitting a wall, as verbal intelligence won't even know what or where the wall is. Combine his oratory/philosophical skills with what appears to be his vast knowledge of science and you get a potent prototype to spit out some serious stuff.
I'll stop continuing because I'm a little tired and want to doze by the pool. Might add more later. But if this is the last of his books (pretty much a certitude given that he's 89 years old now), what a note to end it on, at least philosophically. I don't see how anyone who reads up a bit on this man's can't come away flabbergasted by his path and the life he's lead and his dedication but when that brain of his shuts down and that big ass forehead of his is under ground, what a loss and cause for celebration it'll be. I try very hard not to have heroes but if I'd have to be susceptible to somebody, it'd be him. An utterly brilliant career and some monstrous achievement, not the least of which being so accepted by some of the (apparently) most brilliant scientists in the world as one of their own. All this as a fiction writer.
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Thucydides
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2009
- 8,153
- 845
Been picking away at this for months and months and just got around to finishing it this weekend.
Excellent book. He doesn't hit with every single poem but 85% of them he does.
Whitman writes so jovially about America, democracy, the human condition and life. It is a celebration.
If you've never read Walt Whitman, or don't care for poetry , I think one should at least spend time with this poem.
9.5/10
Thucydides
Registered User
- Dec 24, 2009
- 8,153
- 845
Another book I started last year, stopped at 60% and just about to finish.
Goggins grew up in an abusive family and rises above it all to become a Navy Seal and accomplished endurance athlete. Even after failing BUDS training a couple times, he doesn't let it get to him and on his last chance completes it and makes it through. From there he wants to see how far he can push himself so he joins up for these ultra races where he's running through Death Valley, etc. He shows how he pushes his mind further and further and each time he does he breaks down another wall, so he can push himself further the next time. Book gets a little repetitive with all the races, but while reading it, I did find it inspiring. It did show me where I'm lacking in my own life and how to fix things .
It's not great writing (it's not supposed to be), but he accomplishes what he set out to do with this book - to motivate you - and for that reason I would recommend if motivation is what you need.
The Bible.
I would rate it 5/10. I grew up in a family where religion was nothing we ever talked about. Growing older, I started questioning things in life, such as the big bang theory. How can something be created out of nothing? I was seeking for answers and thought I might find them in the Bible, giving how highly other people praised it.
I did not touch it for years and just got more and more curious. After finally reading it, I was somewhat disappointed. There are things inside that are just far too unrealistisch.
I would rate it 5/10. I grew up in a family where religion was nothing we ever talked about. Growing older, I started questioning things in life, such as the big bang theory. How can something be created out of nothing? I was seeking for answers and thought I might find them in the Bible, giving how highly other people praised it.
I did not touch it for years and just got more and more curious. After finally reading it, I was somewhat disappointed. There are things inside that are just far too unrealistisch.
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Hippasus
1,9,45,165,495,1287,
Just make up your own grading scale, give it a number or verbal designation, and add a sentence or two. Or paragraph or two if it really hits you in some way.
Kane One
Moderator
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
The book takes a while for all the different plots to come together, but when it does, it’s amazing.
Kreider! (sorry, I’m watching the Ranger game as I type this)
There’s a lot going on in the book, and it’s a pretty cool history lesson, especially in China during the Cultural Revolution, and also of different scientists throughout history.
I don’t think it’s fair to give it a rating since I’m not really well-read, but I’d definitely recommend it. Apparently there’s two more books in the series after this so I can’t wait until I get through the rest of the books on my reading list.
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles (1943) - So weird and awesome. The pacing is a bit off but the wackiness of the story and its characters made this such a funny story to read. Some of the stuff is odd to the point of obscurity but her comic sensibilities were pretty great and some of the stuff she said was really intelligent. Not really beautiful writing or one a prose that has an immense amount of flair (as opposed to her husband, a drastically different writer) but very effective and genuinely clever and quirky in a way that doesn't come across as faux. It's a shame she only wrote one novel. She was very talented.
Joan Didion: The Last Interview (2022) - A bunch of interview of Joan Didion that span from the early 70s to the COVID years. The quality of the interview tend to depend on the quality of the interviewer and it starts off with a bang, when a woman interviewer in 1972 immediately tries to shoe-horn a feminist reading into Didion's writing, which she calmly dismisses, detailing that she thought her concerns affected all humans, that she had not grown up with the expectation that she could not do anything that she wanted to do and that womanly images in her writing aren't based on feminism but that simply, since she is a woman, a lot of the images which come to her will involve a woman. The interviews are filled with these sort of reasonable sensibilities that seem shocking to people who want to lionize artists. Didion was a bright, talented woman whose concerns were not out of the ordinary, concerns that she was able to articulate very well without the pretension of a higher purpose. The last interview is brutal though, obviously grating Joan Didion with the dumbest questions such as: 'What does it feel like to have been the voice of a generation?' or 'What does it feel like to be considered a fashion icon?' which receive extremely short and dry answer. Thankfully, most of the other interviews involve intelligent people who ask decent to good questions and that bring about thoughtful answers from Didion.
Joan Didion: The Last Interview (2022) - A bunch of interview of Joan Didion that span from the early 70s to the COVID years. The quality of the interview tend to depend on the quality of the interviewer and it starts off with a bang, when a woman interviewer in 1972 immediately tries to shoe-horn a feminist reading into Didion's writing, which she calmly dismisses, detailing that she thought her concerns affected all humans, that she had not grown up with the expectation that she could not do anything that she wanted to do and that womanly images in her writing aren't based on feminism but that simply, since she is a woman, a lot of the images which come to her will involve a woman. The interviews are filled with these sort of reasonable sensibilities that seem shocking to people who want to lionize artists. Didion was a bright, talented woman whose concerns were not out of the ordinary, concerns that she was able to articulate very well without the pretension of a higher purpose. The last interview is brutal though, obviously grating Joan Didion with the dumbest questions such as: 'What does it feel like to have been the voice of a generation?' or 'What does it feel like to be considered a fashion icon?' which receive extremely short and dry answer. Thankfully, most of the other interviews involve intelligent people who ask decent to good questions and that bring about thoughtful answers from Didion.
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