One of the most influential and anti grinchy works of all time.
It might be hard to impossible to find someone who hasn´t at least heard about this clOne of the most influential and anti grinchy works of all time.
It might be hard to impossible to find someone who hasn´t at least heard about this classic example of Christmas ethic seminar, something close to impossible to achieve and to thank Dickens for as a paladin of humanism. The story is well known, close to an epigenetic factor because of its prominence, so let´s drivel around the core element.
I don´t know where this kind of moral storytelling originated, probably tens of thousands of years ago when the first shaman or chief thought it would be cool to use vision, prophecy, the power of dreams, imagination and a grain of indoctrination to communicate the right behavior to her/his people. Ethics and moral are important, omnipresent, and timeless topics that shouldn´t be reduced to the few holidays of different religions to give people, working against the interests of humankind to enrich themselves the whole year, a bad conscience (as if this would be possible, as if they would even realize what monsters they are as they don´t directly kill, but just indirectly support the misery by playing key roles of a dysfunctional system), but used in everyday life, politics, and every single decision. Ok, before it gets completely unrealistic, I´ll better end this review.
Just one more if you have time? Great. A bit too much fourth wall breaking here today, sorry for that.
The bigotry and mendacity of society and the middle and upper classes have grown since Dickens times, as they were at least confronted with the poor and their suffering, directly starving on the streets next to the degenerated elite, while noblemen and ladies were worried there shoes or clothes could get stained if a dying person collapses in their direction as blood was so difficult to get out those days without fancy detergent tech.
Today, the hardship and slums are kept far away from the modern, beautiful, important parts of cities, recreational and cultural centers, etc. so that nobody has to burden her/himself with thinking or even worrying about the majority of people living in precarious conditions to serve the upper class to enable their useless, earth shattering consumption and snobbish spare time activities they need wage slaves for to really enjoy, as they can´t even get their lazy buttocks moving to make themselves a coffee or meal or find hobbies not involving dozens of minimum wage paid people needed to support their entertainment.
Not even to mention the Southern hemisphere and the immense, unnecessary, by a fair economic system easily preventable, suffering of billions and dying of tens of millions of people directly caused by this system.
Trying to anthropomorphize as much human cruelty as possible There is a dictatorship, torture, sex slavery, war, fundamAnimal farm on beta carotenoids
Trying to anthropomorphize as much human cruelty as possible There is a dictatorship, torture, sex slavery, war, fundamentalism, and propaganda in a fluffy combination of shocking scenes. What is especially funny is that one associates wild rabbits with anything sweet and cuddly, not with them going hardcore following the leader style. And as if this wasn´t already sad enough, there is
The black rabbit, Frith, and other instrumentalized faith too The only thing missing is a kind of economic terror, because now we have religion in the mix too, jay. Although the main focus of criticism stays on fascism, the religious part plays a big role especially for the main protagonist strongly believing in a kind of rabbit hero savior.
Adams´ one hit wonder I already compared Animal farm and Watership down in the opening line and subjectively, Orwell is the much better writer. Objectively Adam´s exactly wrote this one, that could go above a 4 star rating, and all his other works don´t really get good grades. But no matter how talented an author is, the tradition of using fables to
Indoctrinate people with a good intention is as old as time Especially (in this case reasonably elder ones that can handle the gore) kids can get deep insights from this literary style that has aged well. It´s also this deep connection to nature, we once lived in, that makes animals dealing with human problems a fascinating thought experiment. Because I can´t jump over my own shadow, I just have to expand this concept to sci fi and all the options pimped cyborg bioenhanced animals could have for satirizing the ideologies we´ll create in our future. Or, maybe, in the present age with
Some tales dealing with socioeconomic topics for adults Maybe it would help them to better understand what their political and economic opinions create around the world. Because strangely, there is a wide variety of books and graphic novels dealing with the bloody consequences of theocracy, fascism, communism, fundamentalism, and extremism, but no book showing privileged first world country people what they unknowingly are. The antagonists of these tales making profit from the outsourced suffering on other continents.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland aka Alice in Wonderland
How did Caroll get his ideas? Many questions arose bothTry to avoid hyperactive white rabbits
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland aka Alice in Wonderland
How did Caroll get his ideas? Many questions arose both around Carroll´s alleged drug consumption and the mental state of the author and besides himself, nobody will ever know. But it has been used to argue for pro drug consumption by hippies, for damnation by all of their political and ideological opponents, and as part of
The myth of how authors find inspiration The idea of how the mental state of a writer, or artist in general, influences her/his works is even more fascinating, because the line between sane imagination and creativity and madness or getting lost in a world one created her/himself is thin. Just genetic luck or pure coincidence may make the difference between a world-building, ingenious, and very successful author superstar and severe, lifelong mental illness. Being in the zone and flow state of positive creative overkill or of uncontrollable mindfucks one really isn´t into. Mental strength and self-discipline, to let the demons work for one instead of killing them, or a small pharmacological help may make the difference between world fame and mental asylum and completely blocking or losing the controllable and not harmful symptoms might destroy the ability to make such works, take away the needed basis of dreams, hallucinations, and loss of reality necessary to create unique works. A manifestation of how precious and fragile those human egos, fictional surrogates of what the brain wants, are.
One of the first comedic fantasy works with depth At a time when there was close to no fantasy literature available, Carroll wrote a precursor of today's bizarro fiction/fantasy/ crossover/horror/comedic whatever genre, focussing on the hero´s journey of one main plot with the strangeness and surreality of the other characters and environment as main driving engines.
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
Don´t look behind the mirrors
Maybe a bit too strange Because of the violence and weirdness, I wouldn´t consider it as a clean, normal read for all ages anymore, but closer to the elder kid section. A true classic, having a lasting impact on pop culture and many other works and tinkering with the ideas of reality, consciousness, the layers of dimensions that might lie beyond the known three, and the realm of interpretations, connotations, and innuendos.
More in it than in stereotypical standard classics Because it is highly subjective, it is very difficult to draw the line between witty, hidden criticism and satire and simple plot devices with coincidental benefits, and just the author knows what the true intention was. But just that so many, big, clever, whatsoever generations of adults and parents are thinking about and puzzling around what hidden meanings might be behind that lovely story with beheadings, bipolar, schizophrenic, and generally prone to mental illness side characters, highly developed nanotech that let´s one grow and shrink and stuff, differentiates it from other classics.
The extra easter goodie for the adult readers One of the rare examples where timeless, all-devouring questions have been compressed and distilled to an allegedly benign, nice, little tale for the kiddies, but the deeper the interested adult digs, the further she/he explores the Matrix-style abyssal depths of the hidden human thoughts, fears, and imaginations, the bigger the WTF factor becomes.
Inspiration unknown I don´t know where Carroll took his ideas from and what inspired him to invent this tale, as for instance other pioneers of fantasy tended to use, steal, and adapt old mythology, but much of the content is just so bizarre that it can´t be compared with the typical standards of the innocent (except the violence, opportunism, sexism, racism, extremism, and many other evil isms) old tales.
Warning, contains spoilers and bad anti aging tips that might ruin one's complexion
Do you really want to liForever young. I want to be forever young
Warning, contains spoilers and bad anti aging tips that might ruin one's complexion
Do you really want to live forever? Well, together with all the others, why not? Besides faith, similar weird pro death ideologies, and stuff, nobody wouldn´t like to live until whatever comes after this edition of the universe with the big freeze, rip, bang, or rebirth by a black hole. But it can also be quite
Lonesome on the immortality front For instance, if all the others would still age while one stays young. From a sociopathic or dark empath perspective, this wouldn´t seem that bad. One should probably camouflage oneself with makeup to seemingly age, to not let others get too suspicious regarding bathing in the blood of virgins that wasn´t extracted by harmless and consensual blood donations, selling one's soul to the devil, and sacrificing humans to the flying spaghetti monster or whatever one is into fetishizing to get kinky style aroused. Without proper aging style, this could lead to
Envious people ruining a show that could go on for a very long time If this would be the only front, it could be easy to handle. But of course, poor, weak ephemeral flesh embedded, human minds, souls, and other questionable and theoretical constructs, just can´t handle the pressure of seeing the manifestations of one's true age in a not so flattering painting. Then paranoia and other mental issues kick in and the whole thing tends to go
Towards psychological gothic horror That combines the fear of death, evil forces, psychiatric disorders, and some historical fun facts about the society of the Victorian era. The snobby elites with all the decadence and superficiality are contrasted with Dorian slowly drifting towards insanity. While the aging Dandys (seemingly every age has to have a hilarious hipster equivalence for people addicted to manifesting their narcissistic personality disorders with second hand embarrassment creating styles) keep pimping hard, poor Dorian gets more and more problems with
Handling his OCD tendency to take a short glimpse That might be a breach of contract. And if already human lawyers are a pain in some body regions, imagine what a literally hellish contract may include. All in all, together it´s one of the best classic novels of all time, combining social satire with dark elements and the big questions of life and death and thereby immortalizing the ingenuity of Oscar Wilde.
Immense depth It´s tricky to get the whole innuendo load of this thing, because who is history nerdy enoAutobiograpical bias in a metafictional satire
Immense depth It´s tricky to get the whole innuendo load of this thing, because who is history nerdy enough to know the details of the 16th/17th century? Although historians might get an overkill out of it. For average readers, there is dense humor combined with subtle criticism of authority, knights, faith, and society in general. Don Quixote can be seen
As the mirror of a deeply bipolar society That thinks that it´s the pinnacle of sociocultural evolution. But in truth, they´re bigoted, insecure, and hypocritical, have no real skills, are just strong against weaker enemies, and especially create a fictional reality to avoid any cognitive bias. Because realizing how immense their incompetence and shortcomings really are would
Crush their worldview So no matter how ridiculous their self inflicted defeat, they´ll always try to lie, fake news, and construct alternative explanations about how it really happened. The fun fact is that most authors, especially the old ones but not gold ones, have a tendency to glorify their dysfunctional medieval, pre industrial, and even modern societies. So
Cervantes was more than ahead of his time He owned, Chuck Norrised, and totally roasted it. With protagonists as struggling and weak as the bad old days he created a monument of the best literature can give. An eyeopening, enlightening masterpiece that certainly inspired many other progressive thinkers and authors to take the worst parts of their societies and let people laugh about the mess they live in.
Described in detail by one of the big storytellers Twain just had the intuition and talent to create a milestone ofThe ugly face of slavery and racism
Described in detail by one of the big storytellers Twain just had the intuition and talent to create a milestone of enlightening literature, showing humankind its worst flaws by not moralizing, proselytizing, and thereby boring the audience. Instead, all the atrocities are shown in the actions, mentalities, and especially dialogues of the
Bigoted and primitive people of that time That deem themselves superior, smart, and just sheer Übermensch. Many works against slavery, fascism, extremism, and faith use that storytelling trick of making the hatemongering trolls, the stupid, uneducated antagonistic people of that time, ridiculous in contrast to the progressive, sophisticated protagonists. In the case of Huckleberry Finn
Everyone except the protagonist is evil Because the norms, rules, and laws of the time allow them to be. That´s the subject Twain isn´t directly pointing his finger at, but the underlying core of the tale, that opportunity makes thieves. And a society based on exploitation and brutality creates inhuman, full citizen status subjects with all democratic human rights that treat anyone inferior like an animal and worse than their dogs. That´s
A scheme as old as history And Twain digs deeper into it in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... He goes above the average evil citizen and describes the ones, kings, god emperors, and faith fueled fanatics, who want this mess to better rule the mad masses. One of the, subjective, main reasons why Huckleberry is so much more successful than the Yankee is that it´s easier to read about bad people doing unfriendly things without directly attacking the system itself. The Yankee does this in a satiric way and is even today just too uncomfortable for people who believe that everything is fine. This
Humor and irony are the final ingredients Other great works against slavery are mind opening and well written too, but come with a depressing and hopeless undertone. Twain doesn´t just deliver the important messages, but he does it in combination with creating hilarious dialogues, motivations, and character evolutions that combine deep thoughts and giggles. When first reading Twain as a teenager I didn´t get that, I didn´t see the ingenuity of the whole plot that permanently delivers deep and cynical, postmodern social satire with tons of dark comedy elements.
Starting the avalanche of sophisticated children´s books
With a bang so loud that it´s hard to top The density of philosophical insights, innuendos, anStarting the avalanche of sophisticated children´s books
With a bang so loud that it´s hard to top The density of philosophical insights, innuendos, and connotations is so immense that one can´t find just one interpretation, but tons of them. It subjectively depends on what one´s ideology is to imagine what the different characters and actions could mean. Because besides the
Obvious criticism of the destruction of childhood imagination and creativity by indoctrination and conformity One could put on a political, sociological, economic, ethical, psychological, etc hat and start guessing what snake, prince, pilot, child pilot flashback, different humans, the asteroid, etc. mean. Not just Saint Exupery delivered different options when talking about his work, but loads of wise people reading and reviewing it too.
Many other classics can widely be defined with one interpretation but that´s definitively not the case here. One is left with a universe of possible ways to expand one´s thoughts, which is also the reason why this concept has been copied so many times in books and graphic novels. The seemingly trivial, short, and superficial works are so much more than they seem, they do the same service as very good satire. They
Enlighten kids even more and try to open the ossified minds of the adults Because one has to face it. After reading, again, one more of these short stories, novellas, and sometimes even full novels, one goes into New Years´Eve good resolutions mode. „I´ll change my mindset, check my cognitive biases, be more objective towards my own beliefs, yada yada yada.“ What´s mostly left after days and weeks is that one is still the same, stubborn, bigoted adult scarred by nature and, by this work, perfectly owned and ridiculed nurture and education.
Mario the lone bookwolf
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