Reviews | Interviews | Giveaways | Recommendations | "I'm Mad About Books"
February 8, 2018
Fragments by Heraclitus
Written around twenty-five hundred years ago, Heraclitus declared that energy is the essence of the matter, that everything becomes energy in flux, in relativity. Fragments if a form of collected writings by the Greek, since the title and the context of the book both suggest that.
March 7, 2017
My Rating: 4/5
Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity
This is a call for self-honesty and harmony with nature in the writings of Henry David Thoreau.
Walden was published in 1854 written during the reign of transcendentalists of which Thoreau was a central figure. Transcendental was a philosophical movement that was influenced by romanticism, Platonism and Kantian philosophy in which one must examine and analyse the reasoning process which governs the nature of experience. German philosopher Immanuel Kant developed the base idea for this movement.
February 7, 2017
I must confess the Hercule Poirot is not one of my favourite detectives. Not even close. But that’s personal opinion. What I enjoy most Poirot’s cases or I must say, Agatha Christie’s writing is the how the cases unfold in the end after reaching the climax. This book has a brilliant ending, that’s all. No spoilers. I enjoy her writing which never fails to create a tension on the reader to get to the end of it. And Then There Were None is the best case scenario.
January 19, 2017
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
– Seneca
Human beings are master of not thinking rationally over the time. We live in denial of recognition [of our conscious time] which then leads to us being unproductive procrastinators and our frequency of fantasizing about the outcome of a situation “in a perfect” manner turns into something we want to forgetfully avoid it and further leads to passivity.
Distracting ourselves, as we cruise through our daily lives, in this manner is strictly equal to being absent from our selves. Roman philosopher Seneca wrote in an essay about 2,000 years ago: On Shortness of Life.
He writes:
August 23, 2016
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, or Seneca was a philosopher and is best known for his wisdom that may help one to rethink of his own perspectives on life. Seneca was a stoic and during his time embraced Stoicism. He was also an advisor to the Roman Emperor, Nero, in 54 AD. His essays such as On Shortness of Life, and On Anger clearly reflect his contribution to the Stoic philosophy.
Surprisingly, I was never introduced to the word Stoicism before. Not during my school years, nor my college years. I guess, it is my mistake that I was never curious enough to explore, open to ideas such as Stoicism posses, until recently when I first read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations.
On Anger is a book which is further divided into three books in which Seneca reflects how this passion, this feeling can make us endure for the rest of our lives. He describes anger as an emotion, “and under its possession any human being does remain not humane.” We have all felt anger, on various points. Sometimes it us, many a times it because of the others, we may think. Some follow it is quite pragmatically causing terror that reflect up on the rest of the humanity. Some just want to avenge on the injury they have become a victim to:
June 24, 2016
This one certainly one of the most famous Agatha Christie’s crime tale. Whomsoever I am talking with about crime fiction, does bring up Agatha Christie (even if they haven’t read her). The queen of crime as they like to call her, but Hercule Poirot certainly not the king of detectives.
Murder on the Orient Express is a renowned locked room mystery. A locked room mystery, if elaborated is a crime that sounds impossible to ensue. The plot starts on the famous Orient Express train that promises to take her passengers to a journey across the Europe, but is stuck somewhere in between due to heavy snow. Now this is a real incident, an experience the queen of crime has shared with us, her readers from the memorabilia of her life.
This locked room mystery is based on the whole coach of the Orient Express and Hercule Poirot happens to be in that coach. The deed is done, the culprit runs away and Poirot is given the task of bringing the culprit into the spotlight and by deducing his every move, to satisfy his own curiosity as well as the readers of the book. (more…)
May 31, 2016
Redemption. We all seek redemption. Most of us are seeking it from our past self for an idealistic future self in various forms. Writing Crime and Punishment for Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a creative redemption from his past and some of his brother, originally titled The Drunkards. Dostoyevsky became fond of this project and rewrote a version of it from scratch, that we take in our hands today and proudly read.
From the start of the novel, the author accomplishes to decipher that the protagonist, Raskolnikov, is tortured by his own thoughts. A student, as many, poverty-stricken, plans an instantaneous murder of an old pawnbroker, thinking it will delay his poverty for few more weeks, completely ignorant of the aftermath and having minimal self-control. This act of morality follows an aftermath which turns out to be psychological for Raskolnikov and the author spots an absolute scenario of what happens after one stands on the brink of insanity using Raskolnikov as his puppet until the protagonist is bring in contact with his own buried conscience and another sufferer. On the engagement of the book and one’s mind, one will indulge in it actively enough as the plot moves forward.
There is suspense in the novel no doubt. Dostoyevsky, in some amount succeeds in the main theme which he tries to revolve around the story: redemption. Characters like Raskolnikov do have a place in a reader’s mind once they have acquired his attention, for longer period of time. But novels like itself, fails to provide strong reasoning for characters who prove to be a drag thoughtout it. I am not going to name a few, you have to read it and judge it for yourself. My assessment is this, when moving forward the path author wants it to and so does the reader, then why a writer like Dostoyevsky would use elements to create a labyrinth, a maze which has no possible point to prove through the novel and does proves to be unnecessary?
(more…)
May 27, 2016
Writing a review of Meditations is a hard task since there is too much to describe and discuss in one post considering the idle length of a blog post, or of a book review or to have your attention till the end of the post, but it is not enough. I rejected the idea of writing a review before writing this review, several times. But as Marcus Aurelius said:
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work – as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’
Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD. He is considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers and what we read today as Meditations is actually a personal notebook written by Marcus, for himself. He divided his work into 12 shorter volumes that comprise today the Meditations. One might question, what to learn from a man who is now a part of wandering dust, who is dead for almost 18 centuries? Wisdom. Wisdom is the crux of life.
In each of the 12 volumes, Marcus’ writing is clear as he describes the virtue of one’s life as a plot that progress as the essence of how universe as a whole works. In his journal, he reminds himself with understanding of universe is recursive in nature.
Everything have always been the same, and recuring, and it makes no difference whether you see the same things recur in a hundred year or two hundred, or in an infinite period.
There is no point in loathing how one’s life is and Marcus writing helps one in endurance. He offers wisdom on how tackle endurance without affecting one’s mental or physical state, constantly reminding us of the solo life we have. From the start of the book, Marcus focuses on the logos, the reasoning, the rational part of our minds, our thoughts our actions, each totally depended on one another. He emphasis the importance of work and discourages the distractions and desires we all have to deal in time. The presence of oneself, the conscious moment, and in that moment he encourages one to be patient and control our actions accordingly. His words shine a beam on the tolerance of nature and how one dislikes, disapproves of another, and reminds us that everyone have faults, thus, one should not concentrate his physical and mental energy on anger.
April 17, 2016
Last weekend I wanted to start my journey with Vladimir Nabokov. He has been admired by many, and that always stupefied me. So I decided to read one of his books, and I started out with The Luzhin Defense or The Defense, if you prefer. It is a story of obsession, that turns into madness. Luzhin, born in a Russian aristocratic family, a boy who is ridiculed by his peers at school, finds to solace in the game of chess as happened to be introduced by guest, one night in his father’s study.
Luzhin’s obsession with chess turns into his ability that draws him away from everyone, his peers as well as his parents. It becomes his refuge from everyday life. This causes major absentmindedness but he observes everything as of a significant move as in the game. Soon enough his obsession makes him a grandmaster and he travels Europe, making money by playing the game “blindly”. The author’s in-depth knowledge of the game is a clear exhibit throughout the book.
Luzhin’s soon turns into madness as he suffers from a nervous breakdown against another Grandmaster from Italy. The game is suspended and has to give up his obsession only after he marries an unnamed girl that becomes undemonstrative. His obsession with chess takes as far in his conscience as he begins to see the world around as a giant chess game with repeated moves in the shadow of his past which comes haunting back in many forms. Luzhin, at last, solves the puzzle, of life. (more…)
April 13, 2016
People have been reviewing Great Expectations for 150 years. It’s the essence of a classic to survive such a long time and still being read. It is also a writer’s name that adds to a classic’s character, but that is not always the case. However, with Charles Dickens it is the former case and readers have expectations. I do. Whenever I start reading a Dickens novel, I expect it to be long, and contain all the elements of a story telling. Certainly, Dickens is one of the masters of the art.
The story is of an orphan,Pip, who from the beginning of the novel is not an ideal protagonist who have to be heroes or emotionally and physically strong. The story in short is tale written in first person narrative is about a person and his “great expectations”. It is the tale of self-understanding and perception. As a young boy Pip, lives with his sister ad her husband, kind soul, of whom he is fond of in his childhood. One day his presence is at demand in front of a strange woman who lives in a grand house with her niece. This is the starting of Pip’s “Great Expectations”. (more…)
