Are the last bastions of hope in human made hell Just one day can feel very long if one is in a Russian labA piece of old bread or a spark of humanity
Are the last bastions of hope in human made hell Just one day can feel very long if one is in a Russian labor, optional death and extermination, camp. Solzhenitsyn describes the autobiographical impressions of how prisoners, guards, and incredibly incompetent bureaucracy work together in a mass murdering machinery with unknown millions of victims. The personality traits of the angels and devils of this purgatory are the main focus besides the
Appreciation of the small things in life As so often, the Western reader realizes how precious and privileged one can be with food, a home, and especially peace in a, not always given, democracy. Because works like this can still bring many people around the world into prisons similar to the camps described in this work, if not death and terror squads already did the killing job with even less subtility before. What always, subjectively, comes to mind when confronted with the biggest atrocities humans are able to orchestrate, is that
Labor, concentration, and extermination camps Around the world are, were, and will be always the same. But the big difference is if there is anyone like Solzhenitsyn describing them and an audience reading it and spreading the word. Because talking about the dark aspects of a nation's history is often primarily seen as unpatriotic nest fouling, especially in the country that committed the crimes and if it won the war. Contrast for instance German/Japanese/ Russian/Chinese history and how much is known about it nowadays thanks to history written by the winners. Nobody knows how many million Russian and Chinese civilians were killed by their own governments. And because close to each other big, especially colonial, nation built its wealth on exploitation, war, and crimes against humanity, optional against its own people too, this topic often will be avoided like the plague. No country is interested in that, and combined with the mentioned
Winners writing history what should nowadays people do? They didn´t commit crimes centuries and decades ago and what´s making it even more unsolvable are the economic and territorial interests that are still directly related to it. Colonialism and later fascism and communism made some nations incredibly rich superpowers, some even stayed at that level. Historical revisionism, some more truth in history books, may even be tolerated as a great greenwashing, corporate responsibility, and public relation stunt. But giving back land, wealth, and products thanks to superior industrial and technological capabilities? Not so much, imagine how the US would look if it would just give back some of all the land that once belonged to the indigenous people. Because
Maybe a bit too strange Because of the violence and weirdness, I wouldn´t consider it as a clean, normal read for all agesDon´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.
How did Caroll get his ideas? Many questions arose both around Carroll´s alleged drug consumption and the mental Try to avoid hyperactive white rabbits
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.
Communism, theocracy, fascism, capitalism, neocolonialism, neoliberalism, always the same piggy style
Although it was mainly aimed at Russia and the SCommunism, theocracy, fascism, capitalism, neocolonialism, neoliberalism, always the same piggy style
Although it was mainly aimed at Russia and the Sowjet Union Because they at least tried to establish a socialist communist workers' utopia just like China and other states in South East Asia and around the world. The fact that it always failed is something so multidimensional that it would blow the complexity of this review throughout the book cover. And I´m not qualified too. So let´s better say that each system has its flaws, and that coincidence, big history, and geopolitics influence the rise and fall of theism and totalitarianism.
All animals are the same but some are more equal Especially apes love this idea to look at fur, gender, religion, political or economic ideology, skin color, tradition, clothes, etc. to find something that differentiates them from others as a legitimation and reason to exterminate them. Or at least first exclude, stigmatize, discriminate, enslave, and then commit genocides on them. Ironically some dictatorships like communism at least didn´t try to kill all black, Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, etc. people, but just everyone who disobeyed, although I´m not sure if this really is an advantage in contrast to fascism. Communism could simply kill so many more people in Russia, China, etc. because they had much more time to do so. So judging by the numbers, one could say
That the kill count counts But how should one know which numbers are correct, because often nobody counted or was killed for trying to do so Colonialism under authoritarian dictatorships aka monarchy fused with theocracy torture terror killed an unknown number of people Fascism killed at least something between 75 and 100 million people Communism killed something between 125 and 250 million people Capitalism, neoliberalism, and neocolonialism killed an unknown number of people in all exploited areas with billions of citizens by not helping them to develop and stabilize. And guess what, I would bet that each avoidable death within the last decades, now, and in the future could reach the levels above. Another Western derision after centuries of colonialism, now rebranded as neocolonialism under the neoliberal economic Nobel Price agenda. Nobody can say how many people are dying after unimaginable suffering each minute and, most disturbing, no media or politician cares or talks about it. It´s just too taboo to touch this connection with a pitchfork because of the implications and because of manufacturing consent crushing everyone who dares to speak out. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Evil intelligence No matter which farm animal, ape, or human tribe, the clever and ruthless sociopathic males will always try to dominate for more power, resources, sexy ape girls, and influence. All of human history could be seen as a permanent struggle with the megalomania of superpowers which have at least been somewhat tamed by democracy and capitalism. But even there are huge differences between the libertarian free US market and eco social Europe.
Orwell simply later modified the same concept for 1984 or, one could assume, wrote a prequel 1984 is the same with fascism and humans instead of pigs and communism and, of course, also the more famous one because it showed the direct consequences that are normal everyday life for many people around the world.
No need to enter misantropic mode There have been incredible improvements in the last 100 years and social evolution has become a peaceful revolution in many states, especially Scandinavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_... , my all time favorite example of a perfect balance of state and economy, of eco social politics and a controlled market. On the other hand, there are of course also states backlashing and thereby failing in Africa, South America, South East Asia, and the Southern US, but with the never ending hope for enlightenment, education, and distributional justice one can imagine a brighter future for them.
This one is ideal to show the overestimation of the classic, upper literature, especially if it is mixed with patriotism and this idealization of "ourThis one is ideal to show the overestimation of the classic, upper literature, especially if it is mixed with patriotism and this idealization of "our" author who is treated like a national sanctuary. Yes, a long time ago there weren´t many authors, but one must differentiate between the ones that sold many great books because they were talented and loved by a huge audience and those who got hyped by the decadent establishment and so-called intellectuals. Böll is no bad author, but this work is simple, minimalistic and of average quality, nothing outstanding or unique.
There could be a kind of tutorial to get a Nobel Prize for literature that goes as follows: Just take large, epic topics that have influences on in contrast small, in detail described persons that deal with many inner and outer demons and avoid to be entertaining, funny, logical, have too many settings or follow the thousands of years old rules of good storytelling.
There were so many great authors at any time that never got a Nobel Prize and enriched my life while many Nobel Prize laureates where disappointments. If they had written pure sociological, psychological, philosophical nonfiction books it would have been ok because the reader would have known what to expect from the work. There is so much Zeitgeist that it is difficult to understand without detailed foreknowledge, the often strange writing style, open ends and yes, mumbo jumbo. And it doesn´t make fun to read it, there is no flow kicking in. Kids hate reading because of stuff like this that they are forced to read in school and each country has these ancient works of strange authors in the schedule. Do you know how many of them had really weird views of the world that used to be normal at those time? The joker, on the other hand, is a clown beloved by kids, but comics aren´t good enough for school.
Mark Twain or Jane Austen made real art that is old, but entertaining and timeless. The Nobel Prize, it appears to me, has in many cases always been and more and more become a kind of intellectual self- gratification of readers, writers and the jury. And what may be more difficult, to write a lord of the rings or game of thrones or always similar story about a tearful, mentally unstable person with a cynic world view that is behaving like an arrogant emo kid with severe personality disorder (quite kind always the same)?
Mario the lone bookwolf
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