Dale
Too many people never take the time to truly ask themselves the simple question “Am I really happy?”. It's likely due to the fear of what asking such a loaded question can lead to. By acknowledging the negative you admit liability. The weight of the responsibility can be crushing. Nothing short of existential revolution separates that No from a Yes. And to those guilty of this ongoing crime, passion in all forms only serves as an accusation. It's easy to understand, then, why so many view this question as dangerous.
So what if an entire society decided to play it safe? To free itself of the guilt that comes from a wasted life. How hard would it be to hide from the nagging reminders that there should be more to life than the instant gratification of consumption? The first thing to burn would be art, for the emotions it stirs and thoughts it provokes, quickly to be replaced by the empty pleasures of simple entertainment.
I knew this was going to be one of my favourite books before I even finished reading it. The writing style is beautiful. Every sentence is told in lyrical metaphor and fluent prose, casting a fresh new light on the seemingly mundane. This only serves the underlying theme of trading in the safety of routine for the freedom of the bold.
“Am I really happy?” If you want the answer to be yes, whether as an individual or a society, be prepared to suffer, to be challenged, to be tested, and to fail before you succeed, if you succeed at all. But no matter what, never forget: It's worth it.
I was pretty disappointed in this book. Everything I read seemed painfully obvious. Don't be a jerk, keep the lines of communication open, set rules, etc. Pretty standard stuff. And for subject matter with as much potential as this, the book was an incredibly dry read. No fun or enlightening anecdotes, barely any humour, etc. As I read the book it felt like its only accomplishment was existing in a society that generally frowns on this type of content. But the content itself was pretty standard fare. This book is an enigma. If you're open minded enough to buy it, chances are you've already come to these conclusions on your own. If you haven't thought these things through before, chances are you're not the type who would be buying this book.
This book had its moments, and there were some memorable characters. I can understand why it's so well regarded. But I can't say it particularly connected with me. “wacky hijinks” has never been my type of humor, and the satire wore thin early on. I know the main character, Ignatius, is meant to be loathsome and not someone to identify with, but unfortunately he reminded me a bit too much of someone I had to put up with for years which just made him frustrating to read about. A well written book, just not written for me.
Ordered this book online after seeing a stellar recommendation on Gizmodo. Very glad I did.
An exciting sci-fi adventure in a brilliantly crafted world. And I found the writing style excellent and really carried the plot. Apparently Ridley Scott has the options for making a movie, I'd love to see that happen.
The goal of this book was clearly to disarm you of your classifications, language and presumptions about reality, and confront you with the nameless existence that just IS, and always is, and can be nothing else. And when it succeeds at this, which is no small task, it is hauntingly effective. But the process itself can be tedious and drawn out. This felt like a philosophical treatise that was forced into a novel.
The story of a man who finds everyday objects begin to give him a sense of nausea. Of unease. He's pierced the veil of perception and caught a glimpse of what it means to exist. He begins to fathom the indifferent nature of the universe, that it is something that just happens. He loses faith in the abstract concept of time and narrative, and finds himself a prisoner, locked in the present, a single transforming moment. He realizes how truly foreign this moment is, and that every object is unique. By grouping it, naming it and comparing it, we never truly see it. We see symbols. We separate ourselves from its overwhelming weight of presence, and its terrifying novelty.
He suddenly awakens to the fact that he is not his actions, not his beliefs or opinions, not his personality or memory or emotions, but only the involuntary EXPERIENCE. He has no right to exist, but he had no say... He has no name. He has no history. He has no true point of reference. Not when overbearing existence cleanses him of all his assumptions moment by moment.
These existential dilemmas I found fantastic, but too far between. I think the next time I read Sartre it will be one of his essays, for it was the fiction I found tedious in this novel, the underlying philosophy I was ready to devour.
If Goodreads allowed half stars I'd give this 4.5 stars. Half a star better than the first Hunger Games book. Everyone warned me the first was the best, and while there were some aspects I definitely liked about the first more, as a whole I think I actually enjoyed the second more! Hope the third is a satisfying conclusion. I've been told not to expect much, but so far I've been in the minority in liking the second more that the first, so who knows!
I hadn't seen the movie yet, but it was coming out on DVD very soon, and decided I'd read the book first. Now that I've really gotten into reading, I've been looking for my chance to be a hipster and see the latest blockbuster movies and get to say “Oh, it was ok, but the book was better!”
I'd known about the books/movie for a while and always thought the premise sounded ridiculous. But I was happy to find the book did a decent job of making it seem somewhat plausible.
While there was its fair share of violence, which was suitably disturbing, it was the survival elements I enjoyed the most. Fighting hunger and dehydration, braving the elements, dealing with wounds, hiding tracks, etc.
The same weekend I read the book, as soon as I'd finished it I watched the movie. I found the styles and fashions of the capital to be somewhat cheesy on the screen, despite them matching exactly what was described in the book. I was also disappointed to see it was rated PG-13. The disturbing nature of children brutally killing each other was an important part of the novel, I felt. Also, it skimmed over the survival elements I was so fond of. In fact the movie makes it seem like the Games play out over 2 or 3 days instead of over 2 weeks. In the movie it was handled with quick camera cuts and off-screen kills. In the end, it was ok, but the book was better.
Having just read The Communist Manifesto and finding it naive and utopian, this was the perfect follow up, and served as a confirmation to my criticisms.
A clever allegory, with many poignant comparisons to Soviet Russia. As the hardships of the common animals under their new self-appointed leaders are described, it's hard not to feel sickened by the fact that this story isn't limited to anthropomorphic farm animals. Entire countries of very human victims live under these conditions every day. A sobering read.
For most people relationships start and end with monogamy. The infinite depths of a single other person are enough to spend a life time exploring and discovering. But for some, monogomy is only the beginning.
Many, if not most, believe this can never work. A permissible sexual fantasy, but an invitation to disaster in reality. I consider myself an open minded person, and I believe it can work, though I fully admit that the complications would grow exponentially by every person added to the mix.
A failed relationship of the conventional standard is hardly an argument against monogamy, and I don't consider a failed menage-a-quoi an argument against polyamory or being “monogamish”. In fact I find most forms of relationships rather similar. More will fail than succeed, but the ride should be enjoyed while it lasts, and you should leave richer for the experience. Your chances of success are increased if the people involved are mature, considerate and self-aware. And the clincher is open communication.
Spoilers follow:
These are not the type of people this book focusses on. Early in the book all four characters are conversing in-between bouts of sex with one or both of the wives. The topic comes to defining what it is they're going to call this foursome of theirs. "Just sex" is the definition offered by one of the husbands, "a holiday". While it's clear two of the others have allowed emotions to get involved, and feel no reason to apologize. Scenes like this made it hard to empathize with these characters. They had decided to wait this long to have this conversation!? They were so careless and impulsive in how they handled the whole thing. I decided early on that they deserved whatever was coming. Throughout the book this juvenile outlook was reflected in their terrible parenting. These were not people approaching the situation with maturity, but treated it with the kind of impetuousness of teenagers.All that aside, I enjoyed the book. As I said earlier, one failed relationship is not an argument against that form of relationship. Some may take this book as an example of why anything beyond monogamy is doomed to fail. To me, it was just another breakup story. This just happened to be two couples breaking up. Of course that added some very interesting and unique twists to the story. And for that, I found myself quite intrigued.
When I was a young child all the movies and shows I watched used this mysterious entity called Communism as the faceless enemy of all that was good and righteous in the world. When I asked my Mother what Communism was, she simply told me it was when everybody shared everything. This was what was so evil that it was a threat to our very way of life? Even as a child, something seemed very hypocritical about this claim, considering everywhere else in my daily life I was being told sharing was a virtue.
As I grew up, I of course learned it was a much more complex matter. Communism wasn't just about sharing your property, it was about abolishing private property altogether. It wasn't about equal opportunity, it was about equalizing the human experience. Equal responsibility, equal reward, equal share. No more. No less.
I didn't like it. By now I knew I had an entrepreneurial spirit, and I wanted the right to follow my ambitions as far as they'd take me, and have the fruits of my labour be proportional.
When I decided to read this book, it was to once and for all get a clear picture of the thing I'd condemned most my adult life. It was time to give it a fair shake.
Reading it confirmed most of my criticisms. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that one and a half centuries have passed, I'd be hard pressed to believe anyone could actually fall for this. It is one long ‘ought' statement, with no consideration to what actually is. To be fair, reading it, it is painfully clear it is a product of its times. Capitalism was young, and hadn't been tempered by socialist practicalities such as minimum wage, safe work conditions, enforced limits on man-hours and bans on child labour. Many of the predictions Marx made about Capitalism's faults, should it be allowed to continue, hadn't yet been proven false. And the global revolutions Marx predicted in the near future hadn't yet failed to materialize.
Despite these considerations, it still has some of the most blatant contradictions I have ever seen. Its main criticism of all forms of society prior is that they've all been formed on the necessity of class struggles. For utopia to exist, we must cease these conflicts between classes. So how does Marx suggest we, the proletariat, free ourselves of this historical flaw? Well revolution of course! We need to unify as the underclass and attack the ruling class. So, to summarize:
Class struggle: bad.
Proposed solution: Class struggle.
And say we, the beleaguered masses, win. Then what? Once we control all the means of production, how do we prevent ourselves from dividing into new classes, resulting in a new oppressive ruling class? No answer. The entire Manifesto begs the question, and leaves the answer blank. And history has shown us, someone will always be willing to step up to the plate.
Time has proven most (but not all) of its criticisms of Capitalism false. While Marx argued that capital would pool into the hands of a small few (true), and that the divide between the wealthy and the poor would grow (also true), he also argued that this divide would in fact worsen the quality of life for the majority. Even the poor have a higher quality of life in every Capitalist state than its Communist counterpart, and that quality of life has almost uniformly been on the rise. And its criticisms of overproduction leading to collapse is only true of a single industry. This, however, is the spirit of innovation. Any time overproduction is reached, a clear opening for an alternative is ripe for the taking, which some capitalist will claim, and a new industry will then grow and thrive in the place of the previous.
I don't argue Capitalism to be perfect. Some of Marx's criticisms of Capitalism were proven accurate by time, but he offers no reasonable alternative. Time has been much less kind to Communism than Capitalism.
Economic considerations aside, one of my biggest gripes with Communism is it leaves no place for the individual. The joy in life is finding how and where you fit in, what makes you unique, what your personal goals and standards are in life, and how you go about bettering yourself to achieve them. Communism makes an argument for universal brotherhood. I have no qualms with this on its surface. But Communism seems to confuse equality with equivalence. And these are dangerous things to confuse.
All in all I am glad I read the book. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people criticize something they admittedly don't understand. I've explored Communism enough to confirm my dislike, though in the process did come across some fair criticisms of Capitalism I hadn't considered.
Understanding its origins helped me understand how Communism was ever considered reasonable in the first place. But that time has past.
There's a quote I heard once that always resonated with me:
“There's the person you think you are, there's the person they think you are, and then there's the person you actually are.”
After reading this book, I find myself questioning the existence of the last of the three. Or, if it does exist, it exists as a dialogue between the previous two. There's who we present ourselves as, who we see ourselves reflected back to us as in others, and the truth exists somewhere in the struggle to reconcile the two.
This book, through its story of a man dying with a secret, is a fantastic contemplation on the meaning of identity. It makes one realize the we can never truly know another person, and that others can never truly know us. And this, in turn, implies that we are defined by our secrets. It presents identity as a performance, and privacy as truth.
A fantastic novel that conveys its deep suggestions subtly, through a well crafted, expertly told story of man's life, his decisions, his secrets, and his undoing.
Going through the Penny Arcade books has been a blast of gaming nostalgia. This book covers 2006. The recent launch of the 360, and the imminent release of the ps3 and wii, the birth of casual gaming, a new “trend” called DLC, the shift in which consoles began to take the form of “media centers” and more. All with their trademark ruthless wit.
Other than a few cool nihilistic fortune cookie quotes, the book was a complete waste of my time. It tries so hard to be quirky and shocking, but all it manages to be is juvenile and pointless. I can't tell if I hated this book because I'm way too smart or way too dumb. But the fact remains, I hated this book.
The last third of this book, and especially the final chapter, left me completely speechless. This book will haunt me, I can already tell.
As I read it I was astonished at how unique this dystopia was, and yet how parts of it felt eerily familiar. 60 years later, the message this book so effectively delivers is as relevant as ever. A warning has become a reflection.
It stands as a powerful criticism not only of society, but of the inner workings of man. It shines a light on the darker side of human nature, and the weakness and failure of both the oppressor and the oppressed.
Orwell is a master of employing foreshadowing. By the conclusion of the book I saw that he'd been preparing me for it from the very first page. One can only hope this foreshadowing is limited to the confines of the book, and doesn't reflect itself in the future of our society.
I've always been a fan of Penny Arcade, more-so once I became a part of the gaming industry. Through their pod-casts and eventual PATV videos I've found their rise to internet demi-gods to be very interesting. This first volume which contains their first year and a bit of comics is a good read. Despite the fact that they were still finding their style, and the comics were very hit or miss, looking back on them gives a nostalgic look into the semi-recent history of gaming culture. And the bit of commentary that accompanies each strip gives an interesting look into the rise of the Penny Arcade behemoth that would eventually spawn such industry cornerstones as PAX and Child's Play.
Very well written, and a charming story. Though, as an agnostic, I found the hatred of agnostics to be off-putting. The moral of the story seems to be that religion is a way of making the horrors and/or boredom of life more palatable, and that without it we're left with “a dry yeastless factuality”. There was such a distaste for doubt; agnostics were portrayed as pathetic creatures too timid to take a stand. I found myself unsympathetic of the main character when he made such a shallow assessment of agnostics, and for that matter, reality. Anyone who needs to to turn to fantasy to find beauty in the world clearly isn't looking hard enough.
While I found this book hard to put down, and found the ending quite amazing, the fact that the book espoused a view of the world and religion in such stark opposition to my own (with such arrogance) kept me from giving it 5 stars. But it is a unique and thought provoking story none-the-less which I ended up thoroughly enjoying. It did not however, as the description on the back of the book claimed, make me believe in God.
Basically a much more compact and digestible version of Atlas Shrugged.
Yes, Ayn Rand can be overly simplistic and idealistic, but her writing is effective like propaganda. And as someone who believes strongly in individualism, I'm willing to allow myself to get briefly swept up in the idealogical jingoism once and a while.
When read as a parable with interpretive value, and not as a literal manifesto, Ayn Rand's books are enjoyable to those who already share her views on individualism and the social contract. I certainly don't see her changing any minds though.
Unlike anything I'd read before. It started as a slow burn, and I couldn't quite figure out where it was going or what it was “about”. But as I kept reading, that mattered less and less, because I became invested in the characters. They became real, and their joys, ambitions and fears began to matter, in the way you ask a loved one how their day went, knowing full well it ends with them talking to you about it.
By the end of the book I was sad to leave these characters behind. And I realized it had been “about” something after all. The World According To Garp explores concepts of sexual polarization, the dangers of idealism, and the vulnerability that comes with loving someone.
In one scene, Garp is defending his most recent novel to a vocal critic, and recites a quote “Life is a tragedy to those who feel, and a comedy to those who think”. This book so magnificently manages to make you think, and make you feel. It is both a comedy and a tragedy. It is the life of T.S. Garp.
Wow. This book was hard to read. It's not that it didn't grab my attention, it was concise in its short length, and masterfully written. It's not that it was inaccessible or dated, I found it quite easy to relate. It was its unflinching, drawn out first-person account of death. Real death. Not for a cause or ideal like in the epics. No, just the way an average man deals with a failing body, and the mental process of accepting what we all spend our lives never truly acknowledging awaits us all. Everyone dies, and it's rarely quick. Almost all of us will have time to contemplate the true nature of an impending end. This book poignantly illustrates that how we live plays an immense role in how we die.
I've always held that anyone who says they've lived their life with no regrets has not reflected deeply enough, and this book only strengthens that conviction. But to find, upon the acknowledgement that you're truly dying, that you've never truly lived... And the realization that it's too late. The depth and strength of that kind of regret is heartbreaking to consider.
This book confronts you with the things you don't like to think about, and it holds your gaze, forcing you to dwell on the fact that we all die, and we die alone. But that can inspire you to truly live. Don't live the safe falsity that not only hides you from death, but life as well.
I related with this character a bit more than is healthy.
The way he finds peace and safety in solitude, but every so often feels the need for social interaction, even if in the form of humiliation.
The way he is both incredibly idealistic and incredibly cynical, and how those polarize each other, further divorcing him from the reality that lies somewhere in the middle.
The way he values his intelligence even though he blames it for his misfortunes.
The way his overwhelming logic and scepticism increases his need to exert his free will, even when self-destructive.
This character helped me understand a bit more about my self, as a cautionary tale if nothing else. I haven't been able to get it out of my head since I put it down.
