It lost me at Starwars and Jedi for such an important topic.
It is such an incoherent text which is written backwards. The conclusion was made first and rest of the text was put together to make it look worth it. And, the title is just a rhetoric.
There are better books around this topic as this falls into is a page filler with no substantial line of thought to offer.
Peace
What exactly does an identity mean? Is this is a common trait found among different people or is this is an idea that brings the like minded people together?
Identity has always been an abstract thought which has generally been defined as a post event analysis. It is very frequently the case that after an incident the analysts go after a trait and end up zeroing on one characteristics which fits the bill. This is more of a generalisation of uniqueness.
Race, colour, gender, sexual orientation, political views, nationality, religion and a hundred other factors can be used to label people in a single cohort. But apart from the physical traits everything else is a choice. A choice that you are not born with but prefer against everything else. And the sad part of these identities are the push for the approval of it.
The moment you start contemplating on the influence of an identity it is seen as a sign of opposition to it. So, does it matter what other recognise as long as you are comfortable with your choices? No. But is it going to be easy to live your choices? Depends, but you don't make these choices on the basis of level of comfort.
It is a bit complex to put your thoughts around it here but this one was a good read.
Peace
This is not a full size book but a collection of two letters from the author. The first one is more personal which is addressed to his nephew and the second one is more of an essay or commentary on the current state and future.
This is small but with a big impact. I have not read any of his works earlier but I am sure this was a good start. It does talk about the past but this is more future facing. Love comes as a solution in emotional accounts but in this book which carries a lot of burden from past, it was really good to hear. The problem with emotional solution is that it takes time, and really long time to show any results but this is the only solution. You speed the things up and it will be a mess again.
Forgiveness is not a virtue all the time but sometimes it is something which helps you unload the bad in your life and make room for some good. It is not easy. It is far easier to fall for a passion specially the one which promises the quick solution. The solutions which resonate with your own temporary thoughts but don't stand the test of the time.
Worth a read irrespective of your interests.
Peace
Sometimes the books has that shock quotient, and this was really high on it. I did pick it up for the strange title but I was also wanted to read some recent writers from Japan.
This one covers some topics from a difficult life which are always there but never discussed openly. From breast augmentation to teen existential crisis to parental choices. And the best part was that it was all conversational rather than preaching.
This is rather long which I believe is due to been written in sequence at different points. But it does shows sad state of being poor irrespective of which country you are in. A country with $5T GDP and high PPP doesn't translate to a good life for everyone.
Every theme in the novel can be discussed in details independently but that is not the aim here. But even it was a real long one, it does leave you with new line of thoughts. You can argue against them but can't write them off.
Life sometimes come with difficult choices which doesn't make the life unlivable. The idea of life needs to be taken with resilience and positivity. Its difficult to always look at the bright side of the things but its always the light which carries you forward. Nobody led by darkness reached anywhere.
Peace
This was so long again, and not because of number of pages.
There are some books which you can rush because they feel like a natural rhythm but this one was something I slogged and not jogged through.
This was a story the author wanted to tell himself and I am glad that he found a publisher too. But this was not the best one to read. There are much real accounts of that era and all of them tell a story worth telling but not this.
It has a lot of dark episodes but they don't lead to a thought, it is just there. You can pick the one that echoes your thoughts but I couldn't find one. The one thing I really liked was that the thoughts of every character was out there and that might be a reason for so many pages which feel like a drag but it might be much more interesting for a different reader.
The second best thing is a long acknowledgement. It is great to see so many people being recognised by a writer who directly or indirectly influenced the book.
Peace
A blind girl, an orphan, a lost diamond and a war. This is what the book is all about.
It is a rather longer read and moves among different timelines which requires a bit of jog to the memory but good to read.
War is an end of a lot of things but the worst of them is end of innocence. The thoughts and feelings which it consumes. And this is what feeds it.
Wars will keep happening. It may change its form but that struggle is constant. We will always be choosing between our ideal and survival and none of them are wrong, they are just circumstantial.
Peace
How a girl differs from her family when it comes to the perception of truth.
Apart from anything else this one is all about patience and justice. It took long for Amor to circle back to the truth she believed in but it wins after all.
It goes into a lot of details for the characters to come out and portray them in a way which makes them all the more human. The greed, dishonesty, reluctance or even procrastination are very well represented. But the patience for truth to find its way is the most dominant one.
There were even some passages where you can doubt if the promise was actually made or just imagined. Because at times it is very much possible that your sense of justice creates a moral argument in favour of something which doesn't even exist. And later you are not interested in the conception, but you want to see the end of it.
Worth a read.
Love
This is a rather short book and I will say that the first half of it really got my nerves.
All of it was utter rubbish and senseless to me but I may not be the target reader in this case.
But the second half was real good. It actually captured the essence of the situation and put it so vividly that the reader feels like being a part of it.
Death is not easy and it is more difficult to talk about. You add a beautiful small creature to it and it will be unbearable to read because it is difficult to see the right or rational into it. The helplessness just takes the whole experience a notch above.
I have read about this syndrome earlier and people are definitely talking a lot about it but all the awareness is good. Specially, when it comes from a personal experience.
If you are picking this up I suggest just skip the Part 1 if you feel like lost in the first five pages.
Love
This is a one big book.
A lot of trees because the whole story is about them. There are humans who hear the voice of the trees and pick up the cause of conserving it.
There is nothing like sustainable consumption. It is just there or not there. For a real long time (billions of years) the eco system was growing with the disruption until the humans start growing their consumption exponentially. There are so many technological and scientific advances that this was bound to happen. Nobody was thinking what burning coal would cause when the first steam engine moved. We are moving from one fuel to another but the consumption is going to stay.
The trees are getting extinct fast and deforesting is one of the biggest cause. Blaming the conglomerates for this disturbance is the fastest conclusion that we can jump on to but the one thing which gets neglected is that eventually all of these are individual consumption. There are cars, machines factories which are releasing these poisonous gases into the environment but they are serving for the individual human need.
It needs more of a revolution than rebellion to bring the balance back. It all came with the technological advances and the technology is going to find a solution for this. To make it happen it will require a habit of conscious consumption which is equally difficult but not impossible. And if it doesn't happen, nature will find its way which is going to be very disruptive for the whole ecosystem (trees or living beings).
Coming back to the book, this is big and a tad bit boring at times with a lot of details. But if you are not looking for a quick summary reading it whole is recommended.
Peace
The intention was good but there are some holes in the theory.
It ended up focusing on a lot of instances which an active reader have come across already from different news outlets. Repeating a lot of them and trying to put them in a perspective would have been better rather than just quoting them and concluding this is wrong. A lot of points were a bit myopic in nature given the potential of the small changes in a longer term.
We can't call it revolutionary even if it asking for a revolution. Change is a slow process and speeding it up can cause more complicated scenarios. The one thing which I agree to is that education is the most important part because once the critical thinking is set in motion by knowledge (and it doesn't just have to be scientific, even art/literature will do), it will bring logic and reasoning in the whole debate. There are many examples which show that the education has failed but in a broader perspective they are very small in quantum if they sound loudest.
Patience is the keyword and there is nothing like eternal peace.
Peace
This is a regular love story with some identities thrown in.
We all carry our crosses, and it is not fair to say that one is heavier than other. Which is what was the best part in this book. It doesn't try to be the voice which opposes the violence against black people. It rather takes this up in a subtle manner and shows how it actually affects their lives at a very micro level.
The fear, anger, and helplessness that comes out of being the target changes you a lot and there is nothing that can justify it. The worst part is that we are still talking about these things in 21st century which tells us how much change is still required.
The voice of the whole book is a lot dreamy and I didn't connect with all of it but it is worth a read.
Love is not strong in itself but it can bring the strongest out of you.
Peace
It is a bunch of notes which might be considered to be dirty by some or it can be euphemistically called crude.
But it is neither dirty nor crude. And if you are uncomfortable with some details of sex and desires then it is not for you.
I have not read any of his poetry but this is on my list now.
Peace
Madness comes in all forms and it is not just the action/behaviour but the thoughts, dreams or even feelings can be categorised as madness by a person who doesn't understand what causes it.
Nagel is an epitome of dreamer with the eyes that can see shrewdness which is not visible to others. But this knowledge doesn't alter his behaviour. He is equally generous to anyone. His idea of love which swings between self sacrifice and innocence.
The narrative is easy to follow and is written with a unique monologue style where a lot of times you don't see the statements from other characters. I can't say if it makes it unique but definitely gives a different outlook.
I believe it is called mysteries because it is full of them. But a lot them remain unanswered because it is not a thriller but a psychological portrayal of all the characters directly addressed or not (there are some characters who are mentioned but they never appear).
You can see a more aggressive version of Dostoevsky's Myshkin in Nagel but Nagel comes with a different wavelength where he puts himself in absurd positions and then defends it too.
I'll look forward to read Hunger one day.
Love
I am going real global in my reading because library is full of works from Noble prize winners.
I never read an Egyptian author before and was glad that I found this one. Not because it is from a Noble prize winner but because it tells you the stories of people from different countries and cultures.
But one this is for sure that the sad things are more or less same everywhere. This is a story of a middle class family who falls into chaos after the death of the head of the family.
It is full of emotions of growing up, love, loss, pride and absurdity of life. It has a tight narrative which leaves you on a high and dry note in the end.
We're what we choose willingly or otherwise (poverty, greed, love, pride) and no matter what, the world keeps going.
Peace
Never read anything about IRA and this was the first one but it was less focused on IRA but more on how people make revolutionary choices.
Alice, is a woman you can see around and it might be difficult to guess what they have on mind. And even if they align themselves to a cause they still remain a different personality. A person who takes care of maintaining the decorum, setup for normal living conditions, everyone's convenience, staying pleasant and of course look for warmth in friends and relationships.
Hence the title. These people don't fit the bill of being a terrorist but of a person who has independent thoughts but still having an internal struggle. The people who don't know how far they can go for the ideology they are committed to. One man's terrorist another man's freedom fighter.
Unfortunately, commitment to an ideology without any flexibility can potentially cause a lot of harm. It can make you short sighted or even blindsided for a lot of things which might have sound evil to a rational mind. Since, there is no fixed formula to gauge the affect of current actions on the future, people living in the moment can end up doing things which will look bad in the hindsight.
Love is priceless but you may not know what you will end up paying for it.
Love
Books like these make you wish you have known the language in which it was originally written. But if you actually start with this thought then it is going to be a lot of languages.
Camus had his own themes and designs when he wrote these masterpieces. Of course, it hits like an absurdity to a lot of people but it was not written for them and we are all entitled to our opinions.
This is fairly small with only 120 page but the one thing which I noticed was that the first part was quite dedicated to develop the characters and the second part goes into the signature thought process what Camus is known for.
The title sounds like that Meursault was the stranger but if you get into his shoes, everyone else will look like a stranger. A man who is different and indifferent. The worst part is that he is not even trying to fit in.
This is not a synopsis of a research proposal but it is very easy to drive a wide range of conclusions on this one and given the brevity of the text they all may get aligned with a few good enough points.
It is definitely worth reading, and should be subjected to individual analysis and thoughts.
Peace
