“Since I called upon you that morning when you were, shall I say, floating your powerful mind in tea”

We pass through the present with our eyes blindfolded. We are permitted mearly to sense and guess at what we are actually experiencing. Only later when the cloth is untied can we glace at the past and find out what we have experienced and what meaning it has.

This was the first book by Murakami that I’ve read, and I have to say, I was surprised by how readable it was. I think because he’s won a Nobel prize I had in my head that his writing was going to be impenetrable, or at least very high-brow. But no, he writes like a normal person, with a fairly normal experience of the world. Well, sort of.

Its very clear from reading this book that Murakami is a goal driven person. He seems to love the cycle of putting in a ton of effort, and pain, and then achieving some massive result. Such as finishing a marathon, or writing a book. He holds himself to his own standards, which arguably is better than holding himself to other peoples, except that his own are very very high. He mentions a few times how he goes to see a massage therapist for his tight muscles and they are in shock how he could be in such a state without being in immense amounts of pain. The fact is, he is in immense amounts of pain, he just really wants to do well at the next race so keep pushing and pushing.

I initially picked up this book because I’m getting back into running, and I thought it would be a good companion along the way. I thought he might be able to give me new insights that would make me appreciate it more. And to some extent he did, I relate to a lot of what Murakami has to say, but not everything. I’m somebody who feels the freedom, the release, the escape, of running. I love that I just get to be in my own head, taking it all in and letting my mind sit in its happy medium whilst the world floats by. I love that I can’t really do anything else except run and look about me when I’m out there.

But on the other hand, I don’t see the challenge running can offer in the same way that he does. I like a challenge, and I like to push myself, but for me that is one of the lesser parts of life. Its not an all consuming raison d’etre for me, like it is for him. I feel like I know people who are like that in my life, and I’ve never fully understood them. In the end, as well as giving me a deeper understanding of running, this book has brought me slight closer to those people. And for that I am very thankful.

What a wild ride. I picked this book up on a whim, its title intrigued me, and I’ve had a lot of good experiences with French authors in the past. It was certainly something a bit different, which I guess is what I was hoping for, though by God its harrowing to read.

The book is all written from the first person perspective of a mother who is seriously mentally unwell. She hates everyone and everything, except perhaps her son, though that seems to more be just toleration. Her life seems to be entirely made up of hate and lust, occasionally interrupted by her bowing to the pressure of domestic servitude, usually in the form of cooking a meal or fellating her husband.

It wasn’t until I read a section of the book aloud to a friend that it really hit home how brutal, course and horrible the sentences are in this book. There are point where every line is just driving home the hell that it is to be inside her head.

I did kind-of enjoy reading this though, its not often I put myself in the shoes of someone who’s outward actions are generally awful. In the book she does a lot of horrible stuff, like popping out her husbands erection at the beach while he’s asleep on the sun-lounger in front of a load of kids because she is jealous of him thinking about other women in his dreams. Or walking through a glass sliding door on purpose. Or making her son drink random dirty pond water and leaves in some deranged trip. On one hand that’s pretty bad, but most the other characters in the book are also a bit fucked as well, so in perspective its not too surprising really.

Anyway, not sure I’d really recommend this book to anyone, but I don’t think I regret reading it. Its fun to give in to a random impulse occasionally.

This was a long read, I think I started in late September and have only just finished now at the very end of December. Well worth it though.

When beginning the book the main thing that struck me was how literally the text was written. The author directly describes what the characters do, what they think and how things make them feel, if a character is sad then you will be told as such rather than having it hinted at through allusions and dramatic effects. In some ways it reads like a play, in that you could take a lot of the text as instructions on how to portray the characters.

However, as I said, this was my impression at the start, now that I am at the end I feel somewhat differently. I think the most powerful thing about this book is how true to life the characters are, and whats more, how unexpected and surprising they are. And that is not surprising in that they are unrealistic, its quite the opposite, they surprised me in that way that I feel only another human can surprise.

At the very end Levin has a long searched for revelation that the way to live his life is to stay true to his soul and embrace the good coming from within him rather than searching for external, rational, philosophies of life, from which he has got nothing but despair. As he realises this transformation within himself he expects that this will change his whole way of relating to the world and stop him arguing and generally being unpleasant to people since he has now found the meaning of his life. But of course that doesn’t happen, and he eventually resolves that at the very end. I loved the journey of this, that as in life, we change incrementally, and the happy contented person, from the outside can look very similar to one in complete inner turmoil.

Anna Karenina herself, she is basically in a downward spiral within herself, but she pushes things down and down towards the end and is comes as a surprise to all who know her when she commits suicide (but of course not to the reader). Her perfect outward beauty and composure fool everyone to some extend, some more than others, but this book really captures how a difference between those two things can really look, outward beauty and inner misery.

Overall, like all good stories, this faithfully captures something very real and very human, that is just as true and present in all our lives as it was at the time this book was written. I have very much enjoyed reading it.

I also have to add, I got a lot of satisfaction from having this massive tomb on my bedside table, the edition was very well printed and satisfying to leaf through. Something about the picture on the front also really caught my imagination, the woman depicted is not meant to be Anna Karenina, it is a portrait of an English woman, an artist, that was painted in real life the same year that Anna has her portrait painted in the book. When Tolstoy describes the portrait and how it captures her beauty but also something much greater, it really fits the picture on the front, to an uncanny degree.

Like the woman on the radio said, if you’ve ever felt different to everyone else, flet like you’re existing and observing and feeling something incalculable, something inexpressible, then this is the book for you.

There was a beautiful sentance by Mrs Ramsey when she was alone:

Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by.

That is great. That sentance is what this book is about. I love the way it switches from one persons unfathomable depths to the next.

Page 153, chapter 7

This was a cool book, it was kind hard to read but cool. It goes so so deep. So so deep into everyone, into some highly entwined, very subtle relationships. I don’t know if I got the whole book, but I like the parts of it well enough. I found the more awake and alert I was when reading the better the book was.

I think this book edges on the kind of book that’s not for me, but it was close enough that I really enjoyed it. I like a book that flows along and takes me with it rather than one that’s a puzzle to be deciphered. Some people love those but I think that’s a bit weird.

Goodreads review: This is a powerful book, but very heavy. I found reading it in my usual bettime slot I could only manage five or so pages before the gentle arms of sleep embraced me. Not, that is, to say that the book is bad, it’s just its a lot on your prefrontal cortex.

It wasn’t until I had a few long spells on the train that I was really able to get into this, and boy, when I got into it I really did.

In this book there are very few major happening, and when they do happen they are a single sentance enclosed in square brackets at the end of a chapter. Most of the book goes deep, its made up of very deep 5 minute segments in characters heads. But that is what’s so cool about it, every one really is living their own life in their head. And we see a very small part of them, in fact a quote from the book can sum this up best:

Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by.

Most of this book felt like poetry, it was very beautifully written, but not always the easiest to get your head around.

Another absolute banger by Ursula K. Le Guin, she’s done it again. This was a relatively short book, only just over 100 pages, and yet it still felt like I was loosing a good friend when I finished reading it.

The world it conjured up was vivid and beautiful, with a dense forest covering all and the native people at peace with themselves. That is, until the Americans come, or at least, all their stereotypes. They are the villains in this book and they are comically evil. It’s basically all the worst characters from Apocalypse Now getting their way and that being taken to its local conclusion.

The foreword mentions that she wrote this book when she was really pissed off about Vietnam, and that is pretty much what the book is about. I didn’t need convincing that colonialism or war are bad ideas, but still, this was a very enjoyable read.

Birdwatching is a latent passion of mine. One that’s waiting under the surface, ready one day to come out when given the opportunity. At the moment, there isn’t much opportunity, I live in the centre of the city and don’t get to spend much time just existing in nature. Luckily, it turns out that this book was pretty much written for me.

Mostly the book goes through the authors life. He uses his experiences to illustrate the joy you can get out of observing what is there around you. He didn’t grow up birdwatcher, but slowly became one over time as he discovered the fun of it. Reading this, it made me want to go on the same journey. Actually, I really hope I do.

The chapters in this book don’t let you go, the writing style is funny and engaging. The author is a sports writer for the times and this is quite clear when reading it. He has a real ability to make not very much information stretch over many pages in the best way possible.

This is an insanely good book. 11/10. Its a great reflection on what is good about our society, and what goodness is hidden from us because of it.

As always with Ursula K. Le Guin what makes this special is how it manages to deal with humongous societal issues in a very personal introspective manner. At the end of the day, society is made up of individuals and the more you dig into the more clear the human nature in it becomes. This book cuts right to the chase and clearly lays out how the structures around us shape our lives in the details.

This book also had some great quotable sections. My favourite was this on the subject of economics: “…where greed, laziness, and envy were assumed to move all men’s acts, even the terrible became banal”.

Would recommend this book to anyone without a second thought.

I enjoyed this book. The Ladies Paradise is effectively the worlds first department store and this book attempts to capture what a crazy thing that was in a world not ready for it. It effectively catalogues the lives of people swept up in rapture and/or vehement hatred of the new store with a decent story set around it.

There were several points where it felt the author was rushing through the plot parts so he could spend more time writing about the hosiery department, the house made of gloves, or the hoards of ladies trapped by the store’s magnetism. Either rushing through or extending out miscommunications to allow more time revelling in the store.

In summary, would recommend, the extensive descriptions of the department store revolution and the lost world that came before are made readable by a decent plot.

I read this book because it is half set in Venas Di Cadore, a small town nestled in the Dolomites where I recently stayed on the way to a hike. Also because I like ice cream.

The story is interesting, and reflective. I enjoyed the variety of themes throughout, the poetry, the history, the introspection and of course the ice cream making. the author managed to cram a lot of distinct subejcts into the book.

While the descriptions generally rung true, it didn’t quite feel like the author had really lived in the Dolomites (maybe I’m wrong about this, I havent checked). It was fairly scant on the speicific details about the area.

What it did not miss out, on the other hand, was speicifc details about the women in the book. It seemed like half the book was either describing the protagonists lovers, or comparing other things to a lover. Some say having “women” as your only metaphore is lazy writing, but who am I to judge.

The poetry was my faviourite thing about this book. The author loves poetry and sprinkles references to and excerpts of various poems throughout along with interesting stories about the poets themselves. I feel like I learned a lot about it, though I’m not sure how much will stick.

Overall, I’d say this book is worth reading if you run an ice cream palor in Rotterdamn, and otherwise, not really (though I’m glad I read it).

Bloody good book. Amazing writing and a powerful human story. It feels like the essences of many wise and ancient proverbs retold in a fantasy world with as much delicious lore as middle earth.

Would recommend to anyone ready to enter a fantasy world very much intended for grown ups.

Interesting enough, the author did a good job building a world that made scientific sense, and the thriller aspect of it was good. On the other hand, the main character was a bit rubbish, and though he made very sensible decisions thoughout, I didn’t like his personality overly much. It also lacked what I usually love so much about sci fi, a reflection of some aspect of humanity explored in a world that takes it to its natural conclusion, or at least explored in more depth than it could be in a story set in our world. This on the other hand, felt more like a James Bond novel written by a secondary school physics teacher.

This was an amazing book, one of my favourites. In fact it inspired me to write a bit of a blog post.

I think my favourite thing about it is that Dickens in it reminds me of myself a lot. Of course he does present himself as pretty good in the book, but its just the way he views the world.

In his writing, there is so much moral good and moral bad, and it aligned so well with my own feelings about these subjects. It is of course complicated, but it makes its own sense. Like when he talks about how we should all get on boards, gentlemen on boards do very well for themselves, but then he puts in the utter contempt for the Veneering’s, very justifiably so (admitely this is from Our Mutual Friend not David Copperfield, but still). The characters are just so god damn compelling. I love it. 10/10.

I do see a lot of my own life in David Copperfield though. Dickens feels things so deeply. More deeply than I do, and I love that. And he values integrity so much. Where is that in modern writing? Where? Its just not something people seem to think about these days.

A great, if disturbing read. Something about the tone of this book really drew me in, it has a really clever way of slowing letting the emotions through a little bit as the book goes on. It seems the main character is really just very depressed and hooked on drugs, but then everyone is a little bit. Its the lack of love that’s not so obvious on the surface, but painfully obvious when you look that really lets you see. There’s nobody who gives a damn what our main character does with his life, even if he ties a 12 year old to a bed and rapes her. The phrase repeated so often throughout the book sums up so much: why not.

Life in LA for the children of narcissists really is hell disguised as heaven.

I like that at the very end of the book we finally being to feel a little sympathy for the main character, he finally becomes a tiny bit self aware. He finally moves from not caring to actually not liking, which is a pretty gold step.

Its just such a unique perspective on things, I’ve never read a book like it, I’m very thankful to my friend for recommending it.

This was a beautiful book. I think I very much enjoy nature writing. The descriptions of the Alaskan wilderness and the wildlife living there were excellent.

The dynamics between the main characters did annoy me a bit. Most problems they faced came from lack of communication rather than anything fundamental. I was able to forgive this in the end because their lives worked out well.

I also didn’t like that Fina melted away at the end one she had her child. I mean I get that something like that was sort of inevitable with the story book that the plot mirrored, but the fact that it was so magical does annoy me. At least provide a hint of something real.

A fun book, a good spy thriller. Though it really was a bit ridiculous. The main character seemed to get by primarily on luck rather than anything else. He also spent most his time dodging round the Scottish highlands. The ending was satisfying, the bad guys got uncovered, though the did manage to start the war.

Would recommend for a train journey or some such occasion.

An incredibly good book

This book started slowly for me. It throws you right into the middle of it, a community of lots of Scottish women with confusing Scottish names saying all sorts of Scottish things that are almost impossible to parse on the first run through.

But as it developed, this book really hooked me in. Garry Forbes coming back from war, from his fight of good against evil, looking to fix the world. He finds a small example in a girl from the village of this evil, she has claimed his dead friend betrothed himself to her before he left. Him trying to get this simple fact straight goes on to have utterly life changing consequences for a whole range of characters. Upon talking to Louie he quickly realises she is a bit more complicated than disgracing his friends name. She is wrapped up in herself and can’t get out, as is Ellen Falconer, one of the three Craigmyle sisters who unbeknownst to Garry becomes obsessed with exposing Louie. Ellen has been living her life in her fantasy world, she comes to realise at the end she has experienced almost none of it. Louie goes to utter ruin and never recovers.

This book gives such interesting perspectives on life, it gives me a view inside the heads of people I hadn’t even comprehended existed. These are the funny old characters that make up old tails, and it does bring me to wonder, what did I think was going on inside their heads? This book gives a beautiful view into the pains and trauma of community life. But also evokes a great respect for the people who get through it.

Notes

This book was ok, it was a bit of a novelty. The first chapter started off talking about the pleasures of going to a book shop and getting a new book. In great detail. It was good to read for the first half of the chapter but then it got a bit old. Eventually the protagonist (you) opens the book and starts reading. The story is quite good, about smuggling something on a train and of course has a love interest appear quite quickly (as all 11 stories did if you include the beta story). It’s interrupted by the rest of the book in question being blank.

I think it started off ok and then just got a bit too self involved. The ending wasn’t very satisfying (though I suppose this could be considered a theme of the book) and the stories all felt pretty similar, if engaging.

If it had any great meta points to say about literature as a whole I think they went a bit over my head. I don’t feel enlightened as to the nature of the book, or the great pleasures of reading.

I think he wrote this book for his ideal reader in the story, Ludmilla. Maybe she would have liked it. At least that way somebody would.

I enjoyed this book. Short and effective. I actually finished in 3 days. What a beautiful thunderous adventure through someones life. I actually really liked the characters in this book, not on a personal level, but just the idea of them, good but flawed people. She was very attracted to infidelity and thought it was a fundamental part of her personality. Maybe it was but it seemed with the massive twist at the end that maybe it was just that she was in unsatisfying relationships at that point.

I liked the build at the end. It was a real page turner, also covered ideas and life perspectives I just never come across/think about which is always good.

A truly brilliant ending. I actuallly totally did not see it coming at all, like it was really fully out there. Is Dickens the greatest writer of all time? I think he really must be. Like some of the passages from that book. The way he described the passing of 20 years by the echos of the footsteps in the corner of the house. That was really something amazing. And just the imagery off it all. And the classic cast of recurring characters. I did wonder why the names were so strongly made note of in the initial trial of Darney. But it does make sense, those two spies who looked to dump him in for it.

It really feels like such an amazingly original book, and whats more I dont feel like I’m reading bad fiction. Its so amazing how good Dickens is. I really really really like it.

I think next I will have to give David Copperfield a run for his money.

It doesn’t do to look too hard into this mystery, which is as far from being simple as it is from being safe. We don’t know enough about ourselves. I think it’s better to know that you don’t know, that way you can grow with the mystery as the mystery grows in you. But, these days, of course, everybody knows everything, that’s why so many people are so lost.

Damn that was a hell of a book. Really one of the greatest of all time tbh. Its so completely human and real. In a way that so many books arnt. It captures the complete experience of these people. And how fucking hard it was to have anything good back then. And how lost everyone is. I wonder what Harlem is like now under the surface. It certainly doesn’t feel gentrified. Hopefully things are genuinly better.

But really, what the hell America. What a fucked up place where a mam can be allowed to do that to a fellow man. And still to this day its happening. Continually. Its really aweful. Those old guys wondering round Harlem? They lived through parts of aprtite. Thats real man.

Its a bit like Of Mice and Men. Theres hope but you know that nothing can really work out. Or if it did there’s a 1000 of the same stories where it didn’t and everyone is just a broken wreck.

If Beale street could talk. Oh man, if those streets in Harlem could talk.

A powerful book. Very chaotic and hard to pin down but certainly enjoyable. For me I guess the main message was that getting our ideals is never simple. We can make a wish but the conciquences are always hard to predict. I was cool how it developed. The world they started in vs the world they ended in were completely different. Some mistakes they fixed but others they decided not to. And his wife changed a lot from dream to dream. The only things that were constant was the dream scientist harber and him. The aliens were a cool introduction, possibly they were just a way for him to try and process what was happening. That’s what he really wanted. The only way that couldn’t be understood by Harber. Introduce something completely new.

A good book but I’m not really sure what it fully ment. Very personality/human flaws driven like a lot of these books from the 20th century. In a way that doesn’t always feel relevent to todays world.

Now this was a cool book. A funny page turning piece of entertainment. The story started off great. With an introduction to Saffron Gardens. A beatiful part of town where the eccentricts lived. Such as the biologist who invested everything into looking the part. He may not have discovered any rare and exquisit creature but was there in the world that was more a rare and exquisit create than himself. And the poets who may not have written any great poetry but there was no greater subject for a poem than the men themselves. The plot starts off by really throwing you into it. A secret anarchic society run with the upmost order and precision. And a new memeber is to be raised to the council for the position of tuesday. Syme says as he and Gregory introduce themselves to the meeting that he is a representative of Sunday. And by the end of the meeting that turns out to be the case. He gets himself voted in.

I’m not sure what Sunday is. That is kindof the entire point of the book. “you will fully understand the beauty of the sunset and completey descirbe the stars in the sky before you truly know anything about me”. He is clearly something special. One by one the members of the council are discovered to be members of the sceret police corp tasked with penatrating the anarchist circle. The twist? it was sunday who recruited them.

I loved the chase scene with professor de worms. An old decrepid man from whom you could never escape.

“What isolation?” I asked him. “That which is now reigning everywhere, especially in our age, but it is not all concluded yet, its term has not come. For everyone now strives most of all to separate his person, wishing to experience the fullness of life within himself, and yet what comes of all his efforts is not the fullness of life but full suicide, for instead of the fullness of self-definition, they fall into complete isolation. For all men in our age are separated into units, each seeks seclusion in his own hole, each withdraws from the others, hides himself, and hides what he has, and ends by pushing himself away from people and pushing people away from himself. He accumulates wealth in solitude, thinking: how strong, how secure I am now; and does not see, madman as he is, that the more he accumulates, the more he sinks into suicidal impotence. For he is accustomed to relying only on himself, he has separated his unit from the whole, he has accustomed his soul to not believing in people’s help, in people or in mankind, and now only trembles lest his money and his acquired privileges perish. Everywhere now the human mind has begun laughably not to understand that a man’s true security lies not in his own solitary effort, but in the general wholeness of humanity. But there must needs come a term to this horrible isolation, and everyone will all at once realize how unnaturally they have separated themselves one from another.

Can One Be the Judge of One’s Fellow Creatures? Of Faith to the End

Remember especially that you cannot be the judge of anyone.[217] For there can be no judge of a criminal on earth until the judge knows that he, too, is a criminal, exactly the same as the one who stands before him, and that he is perhaps most guilty of all for the crime of the one standing before him. When he understands this, then he will be able to be a judge. However mad that may seem, it is true.

I’ve finished the book now. Nd it was really very good. The whole character ark of all three brothers was really something. Alexi remains almost perfect throughout, and yet, he changes. He starts off in the convent as a monk. The eldar effscfivly tells him he could do far more good if he wasnt a monk, which is true. There is a critique of religion here for sure, even though there were some very nice religous characters. Alexi also has a darkside inside himself, he will occasionaly suprise people when he reveals the darkness of his thoughts.

Lisa was a very interesting character. She seems to give a good idea of a womans life. She lvoes Alexi but he’s too nice and she hates him for it. She knows what she wants but she lacks any agency in society to do anything about it. And even though she loves Alexi she doesnt want him, though he was take her (she would just never know if he loved her or was just being nice). This ends up manifesting in her slamming her fingers in a door to try and self harm.

Ivan starts off suposedly in love with Madam kolakov but nobodies really sure if its the money he actually wants. Some part of his mind thinks “wouldnt it be nice if dad could just die and I could get his money”. He doesnt keep this in check and it ends up being his downfall. Smerykadov convinces him that he let the murder happen, and even says he only did the murder because he and Ivan had reached a mutual understanding.

The devil is a fun character. He has a lot of good lines. Dostoyevsky doesnt seem to be chrisitan but is happy to use its motifs.

Mitya is a simple character in some ways but so complex. Though honestly I cant think of who really because theres not many people like that. It does feel like a part of the human condition though.

This book, like all good books is timeless because it is about humans. Humans and nothing more. The characters really are very interesting.

I would highly reccomend

A nice easy to read book about the siege of Sarajevo by the Serbs. And of the life of refugee children living outside in Croatia worrying for their family inside.

It really makes me realise how aweful the chetniks really are. Coming at the weekends to take potshots at the people queueing for bread. The family at the center of the story were clearly very well connected and lucky. It seemed like they didnt have to go through it quite as bad as some of the others, with the dad having published maths textbooks and the mum working for an NGO. Still they experienced serious loss and had two of their uncles taken away from them.

It was a really good human insight story. It gave a real glimps into the lives of the two girls and made it feel very real. Certainly worth a read.

People often say the English are very cold fish, very reserved, that they have a way of looking at things - even tragedy - with a sense of irony. Theres some truth in it; its pretty stupid, though. Irony wont save you from anything; humor won’t do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, even decades; there are people who seem to go though most of their lives seeing the funny side, but on the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn’t matter how brave you are, or how reserved, or how much you’ve developed a sense of humour, you still end up with your heart broken. Thats when you stop laughing. After that theres just the cold, the silence, and the loneliness. You might say, after that, there’s only death.

A very depressing but seemingly quite precient book. Taking a critical look at indavidualised culture through some very extreme examples of people who were very much fucked up basically just because of an absentee mother. I guess it mostly took the idea of hedonism and personal pleasure to be that of sex and sexual pleasure. Maybe thats the case in France. In the book its all Bruno can think about, and micheals lack of it is sort of responsible for a lot of his woes in modern life.

It is hard for me to see the point this book is making, like was society before hippies so great? And even so communal? The author seems to think that living for others is the most Nobel thing, and I suppose in some ways it kindof is the ideal life. I dont really know though.

Its such a French book. At least it solidifies a lot of the reasons not to become a hippie. They do worship a very unclear God. One made of young flesh and simple pleasures that can work when yourl’re young but not when you’re old.

I can’t remeber where I saw it but Tue quote about all you need to be happy is a family, nature and people with simple needs that you can help. To be needed is a great thing, and not something hippies take into account so much I guess. I dont know. Glad I read the book though.

You cannot love what you fully understand. Love is a process not a state. Held still it withers.

Nice book, not as good as player of games or consider phlebus but still good

Notes

His universal compassion was due less to natural instinct, than to a profound conviction, a sum of thoughts, that in the course of living had filtered through to his heart: for in the nature of man, as in a rock, there may be channels hollowed by the dropping of water, and these can never be destroyed.

An excellent book. A wonderful story that left me sad as anything when Jean valjean died at the end and went to his unmarked grave but happy as anything that Marius and corsette were finally together. There were so many beautful extremes of emotion of character, of ideals all clashing together in a really quite unrealistic way. Jean Valjean constantly downtrodden and crsuhed by society because he stole a loaf of bread. But despite becoming the most holy of men society did not let him redeem himself. 19th century France sounds like a pretty hard place to live. Despite its upsides Paris really isnt that great.

The book went on so many detours about random shit that I didnt care at a about, completly irrelevent to the plot. Excellent prose but that was about it. The plot however was amazing and despite the rediculousness of the characters it really was a great story. I would say the BBC TV show was better though. It disnt miss out that much and was pretty comprensive. Man the book was good though. I would reccomend if you need one book to take you through 4 months or so.

Having a degree really has absolutly nothing to do with general intelligence. Especially when it comes to running a country - the ability to do well on standardised tests does not give you the civic sensibility and moral fortitude to make good desicions. Diversity makes for a good government and thats precisely what you loose when everyone comes from oxbridge. The more different ideas the better.

The idea that someone without a degree is less intelligent that someone with one is utter bull. For one, they chose not to go to university. In the current climate they easily could have if they wanted to. Two, standardised tests test your ability to do well in standardised tests and not much more. Three most jobs benifit from doing not from sitting in a lecture hall, someone who didnt go to uni probably has 4 more years of education than someone who did.

What does it mean to get what you deserve in life? Meritocracy is based on the idea that we go as far as our talents take us. There is an implicit assumption that this is a good thing, and that this is a just society. People get what they deserve. But do we really deserve a reward for our talents. Our God given talents? Our winnings fron the genetic lottery? Its really luck that we’re good at the things we’re good at. Sure effort may be involved, but its mostly luck. Especially that socity values the particular thing. Being really good at basketball in medieval Italy probably wasnt the most useful thing, it didnt get rewarded, but today professional players are worth millions.

Meritocracy just redfines the hirarcy on a differernt axis, one that allows the winners to believe they deserve what they have. Even if the talents you are bourn with are just as random as the family you were born with back in aristocratic times.

Even the ability to put in effort and do hard work is a God given gift/talent. Why should people be rewarded for something they are naturally endowed with. Your character is determined by your social setting and your family, something you dont have control over

The rewards we get from the market are rewards for giving people what they want (in an ideal free market world anyway). The markets are driven by consumer pr preferece. The actual ethical value of doing this, the merit of giving someone what they want is not so stright forward. It might be drugs, it might be gambling. Its crazy because this is quite obviously what we see in reality but this partucualr arguement is never address by either side of the public debate. I guess thats the hollowing out of public discourse in action for you. Its crazy that the author had to go back to 1920 for thus argument. I guess you only see the mountain from the plain.

An ecanomic system should be judged less by its efficiency in satisfying consumer demand then by the wants which it generates and the type of the character which it forms in its people. Ethically, the cration of wants is more important that want satisfaction.

Welfare that is distributed only when the recipients circumstances are beyond their control stops us respecting them. Everyone reviving welfare needs to frame themselves as unable to control there circumstances, they are viewed by scoiety of incable of acting responisbly and controlluig there actions. Hardly equal citizens.

This kind of thinking offers no aid to people deemed irrisponisble and humiliating aid to those it labels infierior. It defines the deserving as the inferior.

The ‘upwards mobility’ in American education is like an elevator where most people enter on the top floor

The way to counter the tyrany of merit is to reintroduce chance into the system. Rather than colleges accepting ’the best’ students, they should randomly pick from all qualified. Honestly they might do this already but the issue is that the people who get in think they deserve it.

People also need to be treated as respected citizents. People who have power and agency and can take part in the Democratic process. This, in America anyway, is sometimes viewed as the domain of the institutions of higher education. This would go some way to restoring the repect the less fortunate people deserve. In America more money is spent on prisons than on vocational training. And 160 times as much us spent on universities.

The meritocracy allows us to break out of poor conditions, to rise up. But society cannot be built on the promise of escape.

We need to readdress the dignity of work. Tax is inherintly a value judgement. Right now we tax labour more than we tax finacial profit even though one is taking money for nothing from society and one is making physical wealth. The reason everyone is upset is because nobody speaks for them. We need a new party or leader who is prepared to talk about these things

A strange but incredibly interesting book. It tells short partial biographies of some of the most exceptional geniuses in history, always with the slat that extreme suffering or extreme willpower are what causes the epifinies that advance science.

Whether thats true or not I dont know but the stories are amazing. Grothendeick who revolutionised half of maths with an evntual goal of discovering the central truth of it, but then at forty suddely became so scared of what he might unleash by doing so that he renouced all of mathmatics and devoted himself souley to doing as much good as he could in the world (even if he wasnt padticulary good at achiving this).

And how people succumb to the black holes (literally in the case of Schwartzchild) in their work, succed in to the point of madness, unable to escape the singularity left after the destruction of the previously accepted fundamental truths. When we cease to understand the world.

Its really crazy than Grothendeick only died in 2014. And spent his last years trying to undo all his influence.

The book ends saying that the real biggest threat to humanity isnt some advance in physics, ai or global warming or whatever, its maths. Maths could give us a level of understanding of the universe too powerful for us.

I’m not so sure on the purpose of the chapters of Schrödinger and Heisenberg but they were interesting, even if mostly fiction. I wonder if the author made up that facts that both of them basically arrived at their results in a dream and had no way of justifying them apart from that they worked. Thats probably not true.

It is crazy that so many people we’re defeated by the fundamental confusingness of quantum. God does not play dice with the universe. The end of both Einstein and DeBroglie.

A reallly good book.

What an out there book. I enjoyed reading it a good deal. Its grand scale sci fi but not focusing on the grand scale which is nice, just the story of a single town and the arakie who can only tell the truth and are just a weird ass alien orginisation.

Its hard to tell what is book is really about. I find it hard to believe its the language stuff becuase how could it be. There was a lot of power dyanmic stuff, the, total curruption the power brings. I guess a main point was that this society that had exsisted for 100s of years easily had the power to emancipate the aliens from their truth telling langague but they didnt. ‘Its not really something the ambassadors like to hightlight’ as bren said. Even when the world was ending they were reluctant to give up their power.

I suppose that was the takeaway. The author really things most power holders would rather die with their empire than give up their power to save it.

It feels like a deep book.

A really nice read. The book is based in an bombed nunnery, previously used as a war hospital previously previously used as a battlegroud. The only people there are Hana and the English patient. Hes a horribly burned mysterious dester spy, and shes a highy traumatised, from her work as a nurse, canadian fighting for the allies. They’re later joined by carvagio, her dads friend (dad recently died), as well as kip, the indian sapper.

The prose in the book is really nice, the english patiant (actually Almasy, a hungarian spy) had an affair with the wife on a English spy, who he thought was just a fellow desert explorer. Its really weird and not at all a good relationship,

I think one of the saddest things is the final chapter where both Hana, in canada with a seriouse but kind face, and Kip happily married doctor in India both are still constantly thinking about each other, those nights the spent together in the abandoned nunnary. It really stange how extreme places like that can exsist in a war, or other traumatic event, with all the characters trying to deal with their personal losses, some with morphine, some with love. I really like Kip. I want to be him.

The atomic bomb was crazy. Kip spent the whole war in Europe deffusing bombs so the people there could live. Then europe drops the bombs on aisa. Completely wiping out two cities. As kip says, they would never have done that if they were white. Then kip leaves to go back home driving off into the rain on his bike. The bike skids and they both go into a river. The author definatly wanted to kill him here but decided against it. I’m very glad of that. The atomic bomb was really fucked up though. I’m very glad I was born 55 years after it happened. That generational trauma fully lasted for like 20 years with all the nuclear hype.

Really good book, would highly recommend to anyone. Rory Stewart is redicolosy hardcore and very lucky, there are a lot of places where he just could have so easily died, crossing a snowy pass alone where on the way he met some people brining back a half decayed body of am oldish man who had tried to do the same thing, pretending he was an Indonesian professor of history to the Taliban people at the end who said that the British dont come here cuz they know we will kill them, then at one point told he to go down to a river or something which he didn’t, then they laughed and said if he had he would have been killed (this was on the last day of the walk as well). Also the city of the turquoise mountain, that’s pretty crazy, so the Ghors were a mountain tribe around 1200s who conquered india. When another mountain tribe murdered the son of the king of the Ghors the king went to their capital, murdered all the men, burnt the city then made all the women and children climb to this really inaccessible place up in the proper mountains. They then killed everyone and mixed their blood with the soil to make bricks and build a city called the turquoise mountain which was the capital of their empire until it got destroyed by Genghis Kahn. The area could normally only support like 5 people. To get supplies to it they had a massive floating board walk on the river for hundreds of miles. The location of this city was unknown until around 7 months before rorys walk. The only surviving part was the minaret of Jam, a random tower in the middle of nowhere with scripture from the Koran written on it. The locals were digging up the remains of the city to sell destorying a lot of the archeological evidence, there was a lot still there as it was burned down but the UN refused to acknowledge it because of the war and didn’t step in until too late. Its really crazy stuff. Also support for the Taliban is pretty high in places they havent killed loads of people. The warloads that control the different tribes fight so much that pretty much any form of peace is good. There are a lot of different peoples up on the central route and they havent changed that much since the times of elphinstone. It must be a really interesting place to be. Rory was walking most days like 30km and surviving only on the hospitality of the random village folk, also he had dissentry for the second half of the walk.

A really fucking good book. I think it has given me some hope.

A big takeaway from it is the idea that cynacism is lazyness. If you assume human nature is miserable, its fine to not do the good thing, its all fucked anyway.

This is a load of rubbish.

Good book I think, interesting to read about shamanism and what ayahoasca actually does, though premise is utter shit. Quite interesting to think of DNA as god and then try and shoehorn in creation myths, like DNA creates oxygen producers and clears atmosphere, i.e. creates the sky and so on.

It does basically cherrypick random parts of mythology and biology and claim that its something bigger than conicidence. Prehaps the reason that snakes are so prevelent is really just that they’re a wiggly line, a pretty easy shape to come up with.

DNA transmits ultra week radio waves which we can pick up when on drugs.

A really cool history of Delih and indian culture. Has very much made me want to go there though I highly doubt I could find all the cool places in the book and also if much of it still exsits.

Its really cool how much living history there actually is, like the fact that the great gradaughter (or something) of the last Mughal emporor who lost power basically in 1700s is still just around and living her life complaining that her family built this places and how much its being disrespected. Like it was completly a different age. It also seemed that any practice that has happened at any point in the history of Delih would still have some reminant of it happening in the Old town, like the pigeon facnying or the dancing eunuchs. Living history really is a thing if you know where to look for it. Reminds me of that man in the castle in scotland who started out as a page boy or something in the 1950s as a servent to the last lady of the castle before she sold it. He was living history and I met him, like a completly different time. Also the partitoin is crazy. Like really crazy. They destroyed so much good stuff with that. The british really do have something to answer for there. Though not like theres any point fussing over it now. The muslim city of delih is now Punjab. There also seem to be so many cool locations.

I like the idea of the Scottish family, Fraser who had a guy (William I think) who came over to delih and just basically formed his own army, living like a ancient warlord with his retinue riding round Delih killing all the bandits and bad guys. Very cool. And Lutyens with his facist architecture and new Delih thats apparently baiscally been forgoten along with most the biritsh legacy

Also the Mughal period sounds crazy, apparenlty lots of rotten people is fancy cloths killing their brothers and fathers, there was that one guy who took the throne off his father, killed his favorite son and sent him the head in a box saying “I send you a gift father, see that I have not forgotten you”. Fucked up but very cool, reminds me of the Empire in player of games.

Though by the sound of it if you think any of the modern stuff is bad Tughluq was worse. Part of the first lot of muslims he was a classic autocrat and tried to impose rather stupid ideas on his people who didnt like them, only making him angry and impose more stupid ideas. He had a secret police as well, slave girls and boys who reported to him, I didn’t realise they did that kind of shit back then, though from this guy it doesnt really suprise me. The poeple of the city staged some sort of protest against him and he retaliated by telling them he was moving the capital to Daulatabad 700 miles away and they had to walk there. Delih burnt to the ground (his actual palace was in a small place nearby so he was fine). 1 in 10 survied the walk. Also his palace sounds cool, I should find what it looks like.

I though the idea that 700 years later the maginificent tombs of these leaders are basically uncared about but some wise bloke who said some cool stuff and lived in a hovel has a tomb thats been continusly visited every day for hundrends of years, thsoe sufi mysitcs were pretty cool. Its a good moral point though, building a grand tomb doesnt make anyone respect you (unless you’re the geezer who built the pyramids).

Also the thing about some random tradition about the floods that dated back to the time of the Mahabharata (but isnt actually mentioned in the poem) is still just casually going on is pretty crazy. I wonder if it’ll stop soon though, mobile phones are a classic example of capitalisms failure, the world could be a lot better place without them. Maybe.

If I do ever get to visit delih I should reread this book.

Excellent book. Probably one of the coolest sci fi novels I’ve read. I would still say that Cats Cradel had more of an impact on me and The Stars My Destination was more spectacular but this was a really good book. Its really the best description of utopia I’ve ever come accross.

The culture is a post scarcity society where everyone can do what they want. The way its presented hobbies are basically replace the role of work. Personally I’m not sure how I would handle the idea of the meaning of life. I think some part of what gives my life (and probably most peoples life) a lot of meaning is that the world is constantly advancing, I know that the world is going to be a different place in 20 years, not sure how but the fact that it will be motivates me in some way. I really dont know how much though, probably to a far lesser extent than the idea of my personal development. That I can spend my time doing things now that will make me better in the future. Why should I become better? so I can have better children, raise them better and make other peoples lives better. This would very much not exsist in the culture. People live for themsevles. Theres not that much point devoting your life to giving your children a better chance, they’ll be genofixed to have a better life anyway. I wonder if I’d be better suited to the empire, probably not.

So much evil in the world comes from people wanting a good life for there children. If this was guarenteed, moreover, if it was impossible to give your children a real advantage then what would society look like? I guess the genes that stopped people coping with life would be ineviatably bread out. People in the culture can still have children though. Its kindof fucked how much better society could be if we removed the power of wealth and power to help our own children. We really need those omnicient minds to run life for us. Thats a really cool idea too. Having machines all just be based on humans, not some crazy other. They are just big sentiant people with the same rights.

Also the sex changing (and sex) seems like a very cool part of it all. I guess sex would be one of the main things to do when you take away the need to survive, its basically what makes life interesting, possibly even more so than children. And who wouldnt want to be a woman for a while if they had the chance, the idea that everyone fathers and gives birth to one kid is cool. A very progressive view for 1988 (probably) considering how troubled society is by trans people right now.

The Azad empire is clearly based on the other way our society could go. If the wrong part of human nature wins out, which at any given point over the last hundrend years, maybe a little less so today but not much, has seemed like a very real possibility.

I was very much expecting it to be an enders game situation near the end, and it did turn out to have those vibed. THE GAME IS REAL LIFE. basically. I wonder if humanity could get as low as the empire and maintain it. Also I really don’t give us much hope for becoming the culture, we would never suceed control to minds even if it was in the best interests, well maybe we would but not anytime soon. Capitalism is so fucked. I want to do what I can to change it, or more realisticly, not take much part in it, all the good bits of society are the bits that arnt capitalism, everywhere you look.

Fuck I just want to live in the culture.

Also this is meant to be a book review, not a rant, 10/10 good book, go and read it.

I wonder what would happen if an alt right person read this book?

A very strange book, some bits were quite enjoyable - the biographical sections of the authors life in dubline going from his bedroom to college and drinking a lot, the tale written by the young orlick with all those characters like furrusky at the end to get revenge on the author who had been keeping them all prisoner (Dermot Trellece) and some of the stories of all the people who had the be gathered for large books, cattle punchers and the like.

If this book was an expelery example of metafiction then I dread to read a bad one.

There were also parts of the book that seemed designed to bascially be skipped. The old Irish folk tales told by Fin Macool, they go on forever and really arnt easy to read. Even in the book the other characters are glad of a break.

I think the book has increased my vocabulary though, seemed to be at least one new word on every page.

I was really hopeing it’d be more like the third policeman, an excellent book, but allas it was not. It did seem a bit like a case of intellectual masterbation from the author.