That´s a sociological and psychological study to How Frank describes both the outside world and the complex, inner relationsA sad, very important work
That´s a sociological and psychological study to How Frank describes both the outside world and the complex, inner relationships between the involved humans, is one of the essential elements of the book. One other are the
Thoughts and feelings of a teenager In a world that totally lost control over sanity and humanity. The descriptions of the Holocaust are what the work is most known for, but especially for young female readers, it´s also an interesting work about becoming a woman in conservative times. That´s the forgotten element, that
Even the normal traditions of that time seem bizarre by nowaday standards Because it was also the beginning of the time of breaking the sexism, cultural norms, and discriminations women faced for millennia. So what Anne´s family believes, thinks, and says is an as important element as the genocide going on outside. If it would have been written by a boy, it would be more interesting for the male audience. But no matter the age, gender, or social group, descriptions of
Totalitarian atroticities Will always be haunting when the disaster is over. Most of the famous works of that genre come from Germany or Russia because of the bloody history, but there may have been thousands of hidden, secretly written manuscripts by prosecuted people that have been burned together with the authors over the centuries. Exactly this moment this is happening all around the world in the dozens of dictatorships that torture, intern, and kill unknown numbers of dissidents each day. That´s one of the things people living in Western democracies tend to forget. That the terror isn´t over yet.
Make some clever allegories about the stupidity of imbalanced power structures And yes, it´s witty and somewhat deep, but it´s just not really absorbing because Swift hasn´t the same intuition and talent for creative writing, leading to permanently losing focus while reading. What is interesting is the
Description of different cultures of that time I didn´t dig that deep, but history nerds will definitively find interesting connections and be able to compare and drivel for hours. As with many century old classics, a bit of racism and discrimination can´t be kept out of the mix, but it´s modest in comparision to other works like for instance the terrible Robinson Crusoe. All in all, it´s a short, not as exhausting work as the mentioned Don Quichote and can rather be seen as an average, entertaining short story collection with one, uniting character. I´ve seen that Swift has
Written some other satirical stuff That hugely varies in quality and thereby ratings. Sadly it´s kind of tricky to choose the good ones, but no matter how good or bad the stuff is, it shows the immense power of satire, the most important way to criticize and open minds. Because people don´t like being bored by proselytizing progressive forces, no matter how true, right, and good their intentions are, they prefer
Subtle subtext behind the seemingly trivial and superficial satire That´s what the really good high class comedy does, hiding the message of being aware of the malfunctionings and grievances of societies by ridiculing the ones causing them. Swift does this far too direct in the reader´s face and kills many subtilities that way. That´s also the reason why the censors of the time immediately recognized the messages and exterminated everything that was deemed too hot and critical, reducing the old editions of the work to a children´s book after having eliminated everything that could get the rulers angry.
Because of the rarity of witty classic writing and because it´s not that long and easy to consume it´s still no bad choice for skimming and scanning action, especially if one is interested in the theory of humor and how traditions, nationalism, patriotism, sociology, etc yada yada yada, of that time worked.
The gold standard predetermined to rule historiographic metafiction
Characters, world, and deeper meaning combined in astonishing density and quality SoThe gold standard predetermined to rule historiographic metafiction
Characters, world, and deeper meaning combined in astonishing density and quality Some rare books have a certain something, the perfect combination of many good qualities that are rarely found in one novel and it somehow reminds me of John Irving and Dan Simmons too. It´s all so perfectly fitting together, so clever, deep, witty, add some more positive adjectives if you wish, there are just so many worth mentioning.
Big history By using different periods of Spanish history, the author draws a living Ken Follett style history picture that especially points the finger at how all the periods are interconnected and what caused which problem. One of the essential tools for this is the
Mysterious book This single plot device enables Zafon to make credible main story arcs and construct an amazing panorama of Spanish culture. Of course, he doesn´t just point the finger at the evil protagonist, but at the ideologies that made them monsters, which has certainly led to the one or other conservative outcry when it was published and became an international megaseller as an extra bonus. It could also be that it was the authors' intent to push the sales by especially aiming at this effect.
Inception style story within a story Maybe one of the best uses of this trope I´ve ever seen, linked with family history. While the book is the main physical red line, the backflip retrospective time loop effect makes the character development more suspenseful and always opens questions about the many different options the story could push forward, leaving the reader no time to rest together with the great characters.
The perfect dose of sadness There is absolutely no overkill of emotions or tragedy, it always stays in the acceptable dose range and, very probably, is credible too. See, I´ve some kind of problems with objectively assessing how good emotional descriptions are, because I tend to rate plot and ideas over characters in most of my reading (and am dead and cold inside) and novels like that are exceptions in my schedule to camouflage my totally über cool weirdness and try to understand human relationships and emotions. But with incompetent subjectivity, I deem it sweeping without escalating towards soap opera for just any moment.
Fascistic dictatorship until 1977 This historic anomaly, with the extra bonus of hardcore conservatism and Catholicism, is what makes Spain a European exception. A socioeconomic and epigenetic subject that is certainly in full focus of many humanities, as it shows the longtime effects of such terrible management styles in all fields of society. For Spanish readers, it adds the reading bonus of nonfiction facts and a move towards reappraisal and a culture of remembrance that uses objective measures just as in all other countries haunted by fascism. It´s extremely disturbing to think about the fact that Francos' terror continued for 3 decades after all other European dictatorships had been crushed in WW2.
The love for and magic of books Many philosophical and metaphysical options to talk about imagination, the power of fantasy, or just living in fictional universes, but no matter what one picks, it´s a declaration of love for the best hobby to rule them all. And, of course, accelerate the, hopefully not backlashy and incestuously degenerating, course of history by spreading wisdom, enlightenment, and progressive ideas.
Easy to enter for all groups of readers One of these novels everyone, no matter what genre preferences, more in character or plot focused works, should read, because the ingenuity of unique pieces like that lies in taking anything that already worked well in creative writing and endless amounts of tropes, postmodern deconstructed stereotypes, and mechanisms to assemble them to such an unforgettable reading fun.
The role of women in dark times With full focus on how the sick, conservative, and sheer evil ideologies torture women, Zafon creates intense and sad pictures of the ultimate consequences of alpha male dominance. War and murder are the big picture, but what is often forgotten are the unknown and uncounted numbers of abused and raped women, who were forced to abort their unworthy mongrel babies, because of Christian charity and autocratic governments working together to create real life hellhole prison states.
There is no substitute I could endlessly talk about what makes it great, but instead, I will encourage everyone to read it, and Irving and Simmons I already mentioned of course too. In all three cases, I ask myself how long it takes to write such works and how it´s even possible, although I would agree with Stephen King, who said he is envious because Simmons writes like a God. And probably all of the three are half-Gods, alien human hybrids, or something, I could find no serious scientific literature dealing with this theory, but still deem it an option.
A predecessor and founding father of the extreme horror genre with an implemented, very direct in your face criticism of the economic system.
Maybe a A predecessor and founding father of the extreme horror genre with an implemented, very direct in your face criticism of the economic system.
Maybe a bit overrated I´ve read much weird stuff, old and new, and must say that this one is simply and completely overrated. There is so much static drivel about status symbols, the music the protagonist likes to listen to and even not really enough violence for the genre. Cheap self promotion: If you want the really cool stuff, look into my extreme horror shelf, that´s both disturbing, the content, and why I read that stuff. And there are many cool, better written ideas on how to torture, even with some dark fantasy elements to make it more dynamic.
Conspicuous consumption mixed with extreme violence and some very thin plotlines That´s the whole novel, decadent, evil, WEIRD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychol... guys sitting together to talk about their wealth or the protagonist driveling about his possessions, style, good taste, general narcissism, etc. Then the next chapter goes full frontal torture rape murder to switch back to product presentation again until it culminates in some kind of showdown that´s somewhat putting together elements of the storylines of his victims to end without any morality, because rich people can get out of anything without any problem. It´s not really a novel, because taken alone, the commercial parts could be a boring, endless exposition, and the violent parts extreme horror. By mixing them together, the author tries to create a pseudo sophisticated, deep impression of an experimental novel, but it´s just avoiding the effort of writing a real, cohesive, good book with a meaning transported by a character fused with the plot, not products and violent crime separated from the ever so sociopathic antagonist.
The rest of the review is driveling me about censorship because of violence in books and movies, so well, that was it regarding the book. But at least it inspired this thought, so it´s maybe at least a bit not too far off topic? No, a clear and definite, no.
Let´s better censor than talk about the inherent problems It´s always funny to see which books and movies got and still get put on the index cause they deal with sex and violence. There is hardly any discussion about the underlying social misconstructions and grievances that cause those problems, even if the criticized work of art isn´t just pure splatter, but has a deeper meaning too. Philistines and their political and bureaucratic equivalents love bashing the author with idiotic argumentum ad hominem instead of a civilized conversation about the problems they produce with their ignorance, greed, and sick ideology.
For kids it´s ok, but don´t spoil our teens and young adults, please. The whole thing makes me think about the MPAA film ratings, that allow inappropriate and sometimes too extreme content in children´s movies that could be traumatizing while dealing with the question if an elder teenager could be traumatized by, gosh, murder and rape. The kids that should be protected get content that is too hard because the rating system wants to help the film industry to make as much money as possible and the older audience gets patronized for no reason.
Something regarding censorship that annoyed me, even more, when I was still watching television Gratuitous censoring of adult content, so that the meaning of the movie gets lost, is another hobby of these, above mentioned, bigots. But at least extreme horror is becoming more and more popular so that I see a fair chance of a reasonable argument about what art can and can´t do and especially why and that an open discussion should take the place of faceless censors in the background. And, most ridiculously, those frigid abstemious people should try to get a more easygoing connection to their sexuality, because they do totally accept extreme violence as long as there is no sex.
The circus of life can be a terrifying horror freakshow too
This on one of the greatest, weirdest, and definitively not for the faint of hearth novels The circus of life can be a terrifying horror freakshow too
This on one of the greatest, weirdest, and definitively not for the faint of hearth novels with so many passages I still remember years after reading it, which is always a very good sign that the stuff was good and of high quality, (view spoiler)[ just as the stuff the father in the novel is feeding his wife to breed mutants to get more visitors for his freakshow. A first-person narrator leads through a world of child abuse by creating freaks and mutations by giving anything harmful to the pregnant mother, escalating to self-amputation and a mad sect. (hide spoiler)]
Sophisticated slasher fun I would put it in a line with similar literature one-hit wonders, a work so full of innuendos, dark humor, and shocking passages that it should take its place in modern world literature. But it may still take time until full-aged readers can enjoy works like that, because both the explicitness and the philosophical sharpness on society in the monologues are not easy to digest and for many, it will be simply too sad and bloody. So if you can´t handle blood, perversion, and sick deviancy, stay away from this book. All others (is it right to say that in this context?) should have much fun.
Torsoing to Elysium Quite a drastic allegory to faith, self flagellation, and escalating absolution methods, one of the main plotlines is freaking hardcore. I wonder how many readers will be disgusted by this and stop reading… Although the idea of manifesting the willingness to sacrifice in such a form is maybe one of the best medicines to cure extremists and a welcomed trope in darker cyberpunk and cosmic horror sci fi subgenres too.
Nobody would publish this thing nowadays It´s one of those novels that took a unique idea and polished it until perfection, not one of the nowadays a novel a year mainstream stuff focused on agreeableness with as many readers as possible, but true literature with much of the authors´ self included and giving a penetration about how politically correct or disturbing it will finally be.
Now that´s how good fordshipping alphas, betas, and the unimportant, stupid, but still necessary other lower castes, like to roll.
It don´t always havNow that´s how good fordshipping alphas, betas, and the unimportant, stupid, but still necessary other lower castes, like to roll.
It don´t always have to be annoying secret police death squads kicking ones´ door at 3 am to usher one into torture prisons and detention, reeducation, and extermination camps, it can be much more subtle and less bloody too. Like in real, nowadays Western democracies for instance.
Drugs Soma could be seen as a metaphor for everything, all the free and prescription drugs everyone from kid to grandpa is boosted with, or as all the coincidental side effects of all the chemicals and poisons food and environment provide for the modern human.
Sex What´s better than getting horny high as hell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1188... so the government wants their citizens as fu**ed up as possible to let them better deal with life in general and absolutely not care about who is ruling over them. Best combined with flaming monogamy to stigmatize possible, alternative ways of finding happiness like love or a great, deep relationship with friends and family.
Media All propaganda and forced into line, controlled by conglomerates and the military industrial complex with their sockpuppet politicians driveling manufacturing consent. But I began thinking about the fact that streaming and the incredible world of 4K and 8K old school media and VR is just the beginning and one can imagine how this might look in 100 or multi k years. People who are still free to choose will prefer the perfect, forever, simulated utopia to reality and many won´t even have the chance to realize that they´re manipulated or living in a kind of simulation, because the perfection of how the system is run leaves no room for bugs and glitches that could make them suspicious. That was a bit off topic, back to the show.
Good upbringing To make sure that nobody avoids the first 3, special prenatal, baby, and child treatment methods are implemented to get what´s needed for the right purpose of breeding cheerful idiots. Not more or less of something that´s essential for the perfect functioning of the world government that once was a single state. Nice innuendo so socioeconomic status defining the worth of everyone and the lovely side effects of eugenics implemented, without biotech, but much medtech.
Drugs, sex, media, and good upbringing together make good sheeps All together leads to the happy slave tragedy, that people are completely satisfied with their life and not even noticing what´s really going on. The perfect, forever dictatorship, one could also call it the end of history with, totally realistic, endless, exponential, economic growth in liberal democracies.
Similar stuff I´ll add this to my somewhen, procrastination caused postponed, review of 1984 too. If you´re a time traveler, you might have already seen it. Besides Brave new world, Karel Capeks´ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8... dark, disturbing masterpiece is possibly one of the best dystopian terror pieces. It´s focusing on the role of big money and industry, of innocence turned into the same evil it suffers, was written in 1936 and satirizes Germans, Japanese, Russians, societies, ideologies, and economy in general and is a timeless memorial against political and economic terrorism and extremism of any kind. Aldous Huxley, duh, was Orwells´ college professor and they definitively inspired and mentally inseminated another to form these brave new worlds. Zamyatin Yevgenys´ We is another, historical extremely interesting piece, although just not as famous and fancy as the others, kind of the same problem as with the underappreciated Capek. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7... An extremely difficult to read one is Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... which comes very close to Huxleys´ ideas, but is much darker. Some more dark and/ or satiric tones: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... A similar idea by the master of philosophical, satirical sci-fi, the great, unique Lem: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
There have been so many deep, detailed thoughts about how to install the best dictatorship ever, and give aspiring god emperors some tips on the way to total world domination, that don´t get appreciated enough because Huxley and Orwell are ruling the dystopic genre. How ironic.
Not as good as Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist, a tiny bit better than A tale of two cities, but to its core just Oliver Twist 2.0 with a first persoNot as good as Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist, a tiny bit better than A tale of two cities, but to its core just Oliver Twist 2.0 with a first person narrator, and a perfect reason for why nobody likes serialized short stories condensed to weak novels.
I mentioned some of the weaknesses of Dickens writing in my review of A tale of two cities https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and the reason why it´s not as bad as it because he went back to a topic he could describe with more credibility because of the real life experiences he had made, and possibly people wanted more Oliver Twist and he knew he could sell more or just because he was nostalgic while getting old.
It´s quite kind of sad that his great, timeless, and important first works that point the finger at many societal problems are indirectly reduced by readers who choose to pick this work or Tale of two cities first instead of reading his masterpieces. I would completely understand if one wouldn´t want to try a second book after this one.
From all UK/US classics I´ve read, these two novels are by far the weakest. I do often think that some classics, many of them I won´t be able or willing to read, weren´t really good, subtle, or ingenious, but just the first on the market and had no competition, as simple and unromantic that might sound. I mean, reading outside stupid indoctrination BS was long time deemed a dangerous, stupid women activity real men would never do and as the wasted centuries were over and humankind awoke out of the terrible nightmare of the unnecessary Middle Ages, the first average writers had the easy stand of being the only person writing in a genre or even just one of 5 to 10 authors sold at all. That´s what I call a monopoly,
And the authors were idealized and glorified, mixed up with patriotism and national pride, made superstars, it was the first wave of endless Bieber fever for all ages.
Both factors contributed to a romanticized idealization of works that are just your average reading if nothing else is out there, but nothing one would read with flow and enthusiasm, more with a meh attitude instead of watching TV, social interactions, or other wastes of lifetime.
Mario the lone bookwolf
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