tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-245214392024-03-13T08:51:37.359-07:00itiuvachaRandom Writings, Reviews, Rants and RavesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger237125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-69655197970696139672023-04-18T02:14:00.000-07:002023-04-18T02:14:10.621-07:00The Man from Motihari - a need of the hour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCd5PeO9Lz_0LZQM5aNtEnbgNt5Y-T2qTfupXWihQ9gvXiO4OgefsYDWzlNeg3mCYNwHH71OT2K7izf_AlupbZ1fbjRbcABJD8cn9AKgre2YssNZ0hFcsI4DZPZArtlmAADcTnIlg-t13eNyFPmAmMeoX7r1v7z3dROotLJ1wtBIvf08_pL74/s3529/Man%20from%20Motihari.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3529" data-original-width="2340" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCd5PeO9Lz_0LZQM5aNtEnbgNt5Y-T2qTfupXWihQ9gvXiO4OgefsYDWzlNeg3mCYNwHH71OT2K7izf_AlupbZ1fbjRbcABJD8cn9AKgre2YssNZ0hFcsI4DZPZArtlmAADcTnIlg-t13eNyFPmAmMeoX7r1v7z3dROotLJ1wtBIvf08_pL74/s320/Man%20from%20Motihari.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><p style="text-align: left;"><i style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://amzn.eu/d/j0Afl5r" target="_blank">The Man from Motihari</a></i><span style="font-family: verdana;"> comes as a need of the hour. The novel speaks in the almost now –
we are surrounded by the kind of historical events which form the background of
the story. Though set in a small region of one particular nation, such unfortunate happenings are being echoed around the world in our now. In a sense,
Abdullah Khan captures this universality by sending his protagonist across the
globe in the later part of the story.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The story serves another and much more reasonable function then telling us about these times. I use the word
reasonable in the sense of a thing which can be reasoned out and which can thus
prove functional. <i>The Man from Motihari</i> wants to write. He writes across all
possible challenges of his circumstances. And his foray into this profession so
unlikely in his world exposes him to all the steps and tips and traumas of
writing. The book thus becomes a valuable guide or manual for those who want to
write.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">The value
of a book increases with the number of functions which it serves. <i>The Man from
Motihari</i>, besides giving us history in the making, and telling us what it takes
to be a writer, goes on to offer an anthropology and sociology of Bihari
Muslims as well as </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">anthropology and sociology of </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">a section of our youth who seek education for jobs –
the community of Indians of a certain age who struggle through bank and civil
services exams.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">As
mentioned, novels with many dimensions </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">sparkle</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">like diamonds with every facet
they task themselves to bring to light. So Abdullah Khan has well-honed
his work and besides all the robust functions I’ve discussed above, he brings
to the reader the clarion call for good quality education especially for girls.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lest you
imagine that since this book is so diverse in what it covers it might be
boring, let me hasten to reassure you. It is a most delightful entertainer and
a page turner feast. It has all the spicy delight to tickle the Indian palate
and enough cosmopolitan garnish to please the epicure from elsewhere. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-34500886005984031252022-02-20T00:57:00.003-08:002022-02-20T00:57:51.772-08:00Stupidity Infection: Reading remedies<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> <span>Yesterday, I finally finished <i>Moby Dick.</i></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">.</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups" src="https://read.amazon.in/kp/card?asin=B072KN8SYF&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_KF07E61V151SGC5ZDFZQ" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe> </span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Since the
onset of the pandemic and the first strict lockdown, I felt as if I was on a
desert island or in some other form of solitary confinement but with access to
books. It is at times like this that one thinks of what remains to be done in
life. For many today, that, for some extraordinary reason, involves bungee
jumping. For others, especially since lockdown curtailed bungee jumping
avenues, it became a chance to read the books one should read in a lifetime.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>Time in such periods of solitary confinement becomes both endless and terribly short. One thinks about the time one has left on earth, in this odd combination of flesh and consciousness. Physically, we can only explore so very little of the world. And, temporally, we can only be in the now, physically speaking.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>The only way, then, to be able to see a great deal of the world and to travel past our lifetimes in either direction, is to read. Great books describe places and things and people and more. They are a passport that is always valid to visit anywhere and anytime. </span></span></p><p><span><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>And it is thus that I consumed <i>War and Peace.</i></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups" src="https://read.amazon.in/kp/card?asin=B07HMNLC38&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_7KJXFSM3XJTMA07Q9C0Y" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I felt a twinge of regret that such a book was not suggested to me when I was very young. After gobbling up the Tolstoy tomes, I fell upon that whale of a book – </span><i style="font-family: verdana;">Moby Dick</i><span style="font-family: verdana;">. And nibbled my way through the giant. Again, I wondered why such a book was not handy when I was at my most bookwormish. Yesterday, I completed the huge Herman Melville early in the day.</span></p><div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Around mid-afternoon, the Internet became sluggish and stuttered to a standstill. I spent some time investigating my offline hoardings – chanced upon some books I’d forgotten I had or had mislaid in my drive. I organised some other things too and finally, switching on a defrag, I took my Kindle and curled up on a sofa, looking forwards to <i>100 Eternal Masterpieces of Literature</i> that I’d found there for free.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups" src="https://read.amazon.in/kp/card?asin=B08HTXLLTP&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_G70BCAK1NHBQTPFKH6C6" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Alas, it had not been downloaded. And so I turned to the Kindle app on my phone and it is there that I found </span><i style="font-family: verdana;">The Brothers Karamazov</i><span style="font-family: verdana;">. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups" src="https://read.amazon.in/kp/card?asin=B07DV7R99B&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_PEV2DER6YQB9MTJ2TFSJ" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Now I have read some Dostoevsky back in the day. I was terribly terribly young then and very odd. And so I read or tried to read <i>The Idiot </i>in French.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups" src="https://read.amazon.in/kp/card?asin=B00GMIM8L8&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_D7CKCFXYQEYN8C07J9MA" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">I would hardly browse a few pages before I became Prince Myshkin. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Now, several decades later, I’m ready to take the plunge again to try and discover why so many people say one should read <i>Crime and Punishment</i> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups" src="https://read.amazon.in/kp/card?asin=B0984R6TRZ&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_S13CDWA0MTRXNE5J3PXD" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">and why so many film versions of the Brothers book continue to come out.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">And this is what I read:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><blockquote>Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. For the present I will only say that this “landowner”—for so we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own estate—was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest; he ran to dine at other men's tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard cash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless, fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not stupidity—the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and intelligent enough—but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of it.</blockquote></i> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">I was already unable to suppress a smile – such brutal truths and so eternal and yet as gentle as neighbourly gossip. I read a great deal more without feeling restless – it was that easy.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">But it was not really my choice for my next read which was perhaps a Thomas Mann as some of his books are held in high esteem by my partner and I have never read anything of Mann. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">In the meantime, I’d also like to finish </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>A Country Doctor's Notebook </i>by Mikhail Bulgakov.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups" src="https://read.amazon.in/kp/card?asin=B00AI13TW2&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_SYWYRWEVE1FY815Z15ED" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Even if lockdowns no longer loom, you are always free to retire to your desert island and open the treasure chest of books waiting to be read. Don’t waste your time on trash from the present for the works that have survived time hold many secret messages for you which will, time and again, help you through all the troubles of life whatever they may be and, if not, they will entertain </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">and enrich you infinitely</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> beyond anything bestsellers can supply. </span></div></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-23622441684567106482021-12-29T21:46:00.000-08:002021-12-29T21:46:34.216-08:00Maxwell's Demon: a useful devil! <p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Demons are scary and Maxwell's Demon is bound to be even more so. Maths and physics frighten many of us as much as any ghost or devil. But did you know that physicist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell">James Clerk Maxwell</a>, in 1867, actually birthed a demon in a thought experiment? </span></p><p><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic;"></span></p><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">In the thought experiment, a demon controls a small massless door between two chambers of gas. As individual gas molecules (or atoms) approach the door, the demon quickly opens and closes the door to allow only fast-moving molecules to pass through in one direction, and only slow-moving molecules to pass through in the other. Because the </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_temperature" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0645ad; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Kinetic temperature">kinetic temperature</a><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> of a gas depends on the velocities of its constituent molecules, the demon's actions cause one chamber to warm up and the other to cool down. This would decrease the total </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0645ad; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Entropy">entropy</a><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> of the two gases, without applying any </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_(thermodynamics)" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0645ad; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Work (thermodynamics)">work</a><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">, thereby violating the second law of thermodynamics.</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Most demons are rather useless in practice, because they simply don't exist. However, Maxwell's demon has helped scientists, pointing the way to overcome problems even in concrete aspects of life. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">To understand more about Maxwell's demon, try </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-maxwells-demon-continues-to-startle-scientists-20210422/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">How Maxwell’s Demon Continues to Startle Scientists</a>:</span></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><blockquote><i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Ideas like this could prove useful in designing more efficient thermal systems, like refrigerators, or even in developing more advanced computer chips...</span></span></i></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">But, if that's too much too, try a short story based on Maxwell's pet thought experiment: </span><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/510182a" target="_blank">Maxwell's Demon Went Down to Georgia</a>.<span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span> </p><span style="font-family: verdana;">And, if that is also not your cup of tea, try this:</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/11QkX4u6RJg" width="320" youtube-src-id="11QkX4u6RJg"></iframe></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">While too many humans still cling to beliefs about supernatural beings, and while such persons often end up causing devilish horrors in real life, there are also a number of people who prefer to flex the muscles of their brain to learn more about the world in which we live. So let's put all our mythical monsters into fiction where they belong and enjoy them only in stories. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Our children would do better to learn more about Maxwell and other great minds than be brainwashed into primitive belief systems which are causing barbaric bloodshed in the present. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">James Clerk Maxwell produced his first scientific paper, “<i>On the Description of Oval Curves</i>,” when he was only fourteen! If parents can focus on reading to improve their knowledge of the world, rather than on consuming best sellers, would it not give a nation's children a better chance at improving the world? </span></p><i> </i><p></p><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic;"></span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-64815885977843907132021-10-16T01:28:00.000-07:002021-10-16T01:28:14.425-07:00Tolstoy's War and Peace: a tale of two families<span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>War and Peace</i> was much in the news in India some years back. Apparently, it was considered a dangerous book by some arm of the law. But did the noise it created incite interest in the book?</span><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3NGWZ59VXSo/YWkSRd_ediI/AAAAAAAA2Vg/nY3M6yP5KkkP20AKWqHqbaZp2_-d-jT4ACNcBGAsYHQ/s1080/891px-Ilja_Jefimowitsch_Repin_004.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="891" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3NGWZ59VXSo/YWkSRd_ediI/AAAAAAAA2Vg/nY3M6yP5KkkP20AKWqHqbaZp2_-d-jT4ACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/891px-Ilja_Jefimowitsch_Repin_004.jpg" width="264" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leo Tolstoy - a painting by Ilya Repin</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;">Not for me, at least. In my case, the tipping point came early in the pandemic when some people began online readathons to keep sane during the lockdowns. And what can be better for the purpose than books that people insist should be read in a lifetime? So I began the big book.</div></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />I began it on June 4, 2020. However, I seem to have suddenly picked up the pace in more recent months. Certainly it was after I came across an article which looked at reading for 30 minutes a day and covering some 30 pages in that rhythm. And thus it is that I finished the book sooner than anticipated. <br /><br />It is an easy book to read and holds your attention most of the time. People love family gossip. <i>War and Peace</i> is as easy to get into as is the TV series, <i>Friends</i>. And, while friends are many in the book, the story mainly revolves around two families: the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys.</span><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />The Rostovs are father and mother and their three children. There is also a poor relative, a girl called Sonia. But our attention from the start is focused on fair young Natasha, the little daughter running hither and thither at a grand party for the grownups. Although we will plod through the wastes of war after all that partying, she will linger in our memory and slowly but surely emerge as the love interest for Prince Andrew Bolkonsky, one of the major figures in the story. <br /><br />Though Natasha’s confidante is mostly poor Sonia, she is equally at ease with both her brothers. And the destinies of the two major families in the story are further cemented when the elder brother, Nicholas, falls in love with Andrew’s sister, Princess Mary. <br /><br />While both families are wealthy and from noble lineages, the Rostovs reach ruin as the elder son incurs gambling debts but their father is no less responsible for rapidly running through the family’s finances. <br /><br />And, lastly, there is the youngest son, Petya, with whom Natasha continues to enjoy childhood joys well into her womanhood. <br /><br />Last but not least is the long suffering Sonia who is in love with the elder brother, Nicholas. Having no money of her own, she spells tragedy for the family if Nicholas marries her and so it is soon established that this is a lost cause. <br /><br />In contrast, the Bolkonskys are an aloof lot. An eccentric father spends his days in study and torments his frail daughter out of contempt. He is rather more proud of his son who, in any case, respects his aged father. <br /><br />We meet most of this star cast early and mostly in the grand settings of ballrooms and at dinner parties. Except for the elderly Prince Bolkonsky and his daughter who live in exile. <br /><br />Then comes the war – Napoleon has marched into Russia. Prince Andrew goes to battle as does Nicholas. And, in time, Petya too.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6UWnZw53bOQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="6UWnZw53bOQ"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">The volumes of the book that deal mostly with the war do not mention much about the rest of the family but there is a break in hostilities and we return to the families. Andrew comes back from being a prisoner of war to find his wife on her death bed from childbirth. It is a dark tragedy for him, compounded by the guilt he experiences as he had pure contempt for his childlike wife. <br /><br />However, when his mind is more settled by working for the welfare of the peasants who toil for him, and in the course of traveling for work, he stays a night with the Rostovs and there he becomes aware of Natasha. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XYxYoKQPSPo" width="320" youtube-src-id="XYxYoKQPSPo"></iframe></div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">The seeds of love are sown and bear flower when he meets her next but his ill tempered father does not view the match with favour and so Andrew chooses to stay away from Natasha for a year. <br /><br />As fate will have it, when his return is imminent, a scoundrel seduces Natasha and is about to elope with her. The bid is foiled but rumour spreads and Andrew coldly sets Natasha free of their engagement. <br /><br />War returns to tear the families apart and, this time, Andrew is fatally wounded.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-it3xLhlRckA/YWqFLLZqiwI/AAAAAAAA2Vw/BuT-qpF6LcAYvop0jGiIV6Zm2vz7SSgiwCNcBGAsYHQ/s1353/1353px-Battle_of_Borodino_1812.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1353" height="255" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-it3xLhlRckA/YWqFLLZqiwI/AAAAAAAA2Vw/BuT-qpF6LcAYvop0jGiIV6Zm2vz7SSgiwCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/1353px-Battle_of_Borodino_1812.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.32px;">Battle of Moscow, 7th September 1812</i><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.32px;">, 1822</span><br style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.32px;" /><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.32px;">by </span><i lang="fr" style="background-color: #f8f9fa; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.32px;" title="French-language text"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Fran%C3%A7ois_Lejeune" style="background: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Louis-François Lejeune">Louis-François Lejeune</a></i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Natasha serendipitously nurses him to the end and, somehow, that love is vindicated. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kfT93A4kVl0" width="320" youtube-src-id="kfT93A4kVl0"></iframe></div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Yet, somehow too, his death sets his sister free to marry Nicholas. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Thus the story closes with the two families becoming very close.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Besides these two families there are, of course, several others but those are not shown to us in as great detail. <br /><br />Taking these two families as background, Tolstoy paints for us a grand canvas of Russia in that time and exhorts us to remember how terrible war is. <br /><br />Families lose dear ones in war. Even unarmed women and children get killed in battles. Wars destroy the finances of a nation, affect agriculture and lay low edifices that have taken years to build. The heart of a nation beats in its household hearths. War plunders not only the wealth of a country but decimates the peaceful pace of family life.</span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-79809771892723861032021-08-27T02:07:00.002-07:002021-08-27T02:07:48.343-07:00I Prefer Not To: Are we Bartlebys?<span style="font-family: verdana;">Unlike the Bartleby in the short story, I have recently decided to do things I prefer not to do. Thus, I'm back to a routine of writing a thousand words every day. That mode has always been productive. The first time I undertook the challenge, I wrote some short stories of which I remain fond. <br /><br />Read the short story in question: <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Piazza_Tales/Bartleby_the_Scrivener" target="_blank">Bartleby the Scrivener</a>. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Unless you prefer not to. You might want to listen to it instead:</span><div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WOykKznF90Y" width="320" youtube-src-id="WOykKznF90Y"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Most do very little that is worth the while. Is it because, most of the time, we prefer not to? </span></div></div><div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />In writing a thousand words a day, is it the routine that becomes a chore over time and, one fine day after another, I find I prefer not to? <br /><br />Reading the classics is another thing one avoids. And, thus, though a teacher tried hard, early in my life, to interest me in </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Herman Melville, I preferred not to. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">However, I recently came across a useful tip that will probably help me try some of Melville's longer works some day: </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>Moby Dick</i>, <i>Billy Bud</i> and <i>Typee</i>. There are films of these works and watching them might inspire some to proceed to the book:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0nReoQYPep8" width="320" youtube-src-id="0nReoQYPep8"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">or</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yRG0oc2p9ag" width="320" youtube-src-id="yRG0oc2p9ag"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The book is about a whale and it is a whale of a book. When that is the case it is not often that you have a whale of a time because you have to spend a whale-like amount of time on it. However, as a consequence of trying to write a thousand words a day, I've had to decide to read something good every day too. For it is impossible to churn out so many words a day without knowing much about anything. </span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">But how does one get around to reading when one prefers not to? I soon found some help online in an article on how to read the classics and it suggested reading twenty pages per day. And that is how I now have a whale of a time every day, galloping through Tolstoy's <i>War and Peace</i> for some thirty minutes at a time. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">However, fiction is not enough to provide fodder for a daily writing habit and I soon had to factor in another half an hour for reading research. All in all, one good habit leads to another.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />And so I’ve managed to read up a tiny bit about <i>Moby Dick</i> and why it is considered so great. One thing becomes clear: like all the greats, Herman Melville was extremely well read. For example, in <i>Moby Dick</i>, he mentions the Indian <i>matsya avatar</i>.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><blockquote><a href="https://scroll.in/magazine/878736/moby-dick-says-elephanta-has-the-oldest-whale-portrait-where-on-earth-did-melville-get-that-idea" target="_blank">‘Moby Dick’ <i>says Elephanta has the oldest whale portrait. Where on earth did Melville get that idea</i>?</a></blockquote><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />To return to another specimen or avatar, Herman Melville's short story <i>Bartleby the Scrivener</i> is about a man who prefers not to. Whatever you ask of him, he prefers not to do it. <br /><br />I was reminded of another story in this context. It was about a little boy who said no to everything. That was a very moral tale and I think the boy had the bad luck to meet a witch who cursed him for his 'no' to her. The poor lad then said 'no' to everything, even when he wanted to say 'yes'. <br /><br />In the case of Bartleby, also, he comes to a rather sad end. <br /><br />Melville’s story first introduces us to the narrator, a lawyer with an office and some employees. Then he describes these – two copyists and an office boy. Along comes an increase in work and enter our 'hero'. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">The work of a copyist must be a thing of the past, given that we now have photocopiers and such. <br /><br />Bartleby does a lot of copying but absolutely nothing else. At first it seems like that’s alright but in time the narrator begins to be annoyed by the refusals and, indeed, at some point, Bartleby even prefers not to do any copying too. <br /><br />Finally, to get rid of him, for he now even lives on the premises, the narrator has to shift office. All is well for a while until the new owners begin landing up at the narrator’s new office for Bartleby will not vacate their premises. <br /><br />Ultimately the pest is jailed or something like that. <br /><br />Melville takes on the challenge of writing about something in which no action is imminent. And which is low in the promise of emotion. <br /><br />Yet you will read through the story as gripped by it as if it were a tense detective novel! <br /><br />I don’t know where I read this but apparently, before the fall of man in Christian theology, man enjoyed idleness – a condition that is also revered in the <i>Ashtavakra Gita</i>. So Bartleby is suffering the indigestion of the apple.<br /><br /></span></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-85685811028745647912021-08-08T04:05:00.000-07:002021-08-08T04:05:16.292-07:00Condensed Books - Readers Digest Classics<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Volumes of condensed books lined library shelves when I was young. These were brought out by a then popular magazine called the Reader's Digest. It was a magazine that looked more like a book and, while the magazine survives, its bookish nature has not. The magazine is no longer worth more than flipping through where once many hoarded copies and read them over and over. Every now and then, the Reader's Digest also brought out enchanting books on useful topics. Of all these achievements, their Condensed Books remains the best.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Each volume had a certain number of novels abridged quite elegantly. And this is a really honourable service for we cannot read all the good books in the world in one lifetime. And it is often a quick way to know what to expect when you finally get around to reading the unabridged version. A synopsis can often be found on the Net but most don't give you an adequate idea of the story. And many will try to make you pay for shoddy summaries by some person of low worth for the task. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Here is one of the volumes of the Condensed Books:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Readers Digest Condensed Books, Volume 4, 1973</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="384" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/in.ernet.dli.2015.350620" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="560"></iframe></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The volume has the following:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>La Balsa: The Longest Raft Voyage in History - </i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vital_Alsar">Vital Alsar</a> with Enrique Hank Lopez</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6dObITWaSNY/YQ-1c_WwJMI/AAAAAAAA2GE/5vOJFigOsjkdTeBB9Sz92791470RIOMmgCNcBGAsYHQ/s2048/29864971155_08cd208f9e_k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1465" data-original-width="2048" height="229" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6dObITWaSNY/YQ-1c_WwJMI/AAAAAAAA2GE/5vOJFigOsjkdTeBB9Sz92791470RIOMmgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/29864971155_08cd208f9e_k.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f3f5f6; color: #212124; font-family: "Proxima Nova", "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start;">La Balsa</span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">This is the account of a great and unrecognized adventure in fairly recent times. My father was fond of a book about a similar, earlier escapade -</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki">Kon-Tiki</a> pacific expedition by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl">Thor Heyerdahl</a>.</span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sunbird" target="_blank">The Sunbird</a> </i>- Wilbur Smith </span><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wSrJg4pA_gA/YQ-5YI83FlI/AAAAAAAA2GM/B6SkfG0yKcA5PqQ8hZSjsZMEYo7dWHiXACNcBGAsYHQ/s387/TheSunbird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="256" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wSrJg4pA_gA/YQ-5YI83FlI/AAAAAAAA2GM/B6SkfG0yKcA5PqQ8hZSjsZMEYo7dWHiXACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/TheSunbird.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The second novel covered by the volume is equally inviting. However, it lost popularity as it is reported to have a colonial stance. My attitude to such things is that we can surely read anything even if it conflicts with our stances on issues. Otherwise, we run the risk of being as narrow minded as those we oppose. </div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><i>State Trooper</i> - Noel B. Gerson</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">I could not find out much about this book but readers have enjoyed it. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><i>The Search for Anna Fisher</i> - Florence Fisher</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">From reviews online, I gather that it's a moving account of a lady who was adopted and who seeks her biological parents.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Mrs. Starr Lives Alone - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Godden">Jon Godden</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Again, the net offers too little about this story but it appears to be quite thrilling.<br /></span><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">So, dive in and enjoy four books in one volume!</span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-24065976938145072492021-02-20T02:51:00.001-08:002021-02-20T02:51:41.700-08:00The Reading Habit: the what and how of it all<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Reading is good. But what to read? And how to read. Because there is so much to read.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0X_aKgSPLeA/YBzaHSlyRhI/AAAAAAAA0Qc/43E2BXpiVcwvv6a3t11d9LtOnxuD9H9KACNcBGAsYHQ/s1080/576px-Carl_Spitzweg_021.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="576" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0X_aKgSPLeA/YBzaHSlyRhI/AAAAAAAA0Qc/43E2BXpiVcwvv6a3t11d9LtOnxuD9H9KACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/576px-Carl_Spitzweg_021.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bookworm_(painting)" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: courier;">The Bookworm - Carl Spitzweg</span> </a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">What to read comes more easily to some. In some families, most enjoy reading. So each new member gets the habit. Seeing adults reading for pleasure, the child imitates them even before learning to read, even holding a book, upside down, perhaps. In some families, if at all there are books, no one touches them. They are for show. But even these collectors of books are rare. Beyond books bought to pass an exam, there may be no other form of literature in the house. Some households have religious books but even in this scenario, few are those who actually read the scriptures. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pNzZCtlYGb0/YBze11YJ1zI/AAAAAAAA0Qs/6URXTW5-JRcc1Mloni1SQTJvErYupx9IgCNcBGAsYHQ/s638/bhagavadgitawith00londiala_0289.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="638" data-original-width="428" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pNzZCtlYGb0/YBze11YJ1zI/AAAAAAAA0Qs/6URXTW5-JRcc1Mloni1SQTJvErYupx9IgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/bhagavadgitawith00londiala_0289.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Not all those who merely collect books but rarely read them are unworthy cases. There is the famous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku" target="_blank">Tsundoku</a> and most of this set that I have met have merit. Somehow, just owning the right books makes a difference. However, most of the benefits of that mode can more easily and beneficially be obtained in another manner. </span></div></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Identify, first, what people say are good books to read. This is easy today: Type best books to read in the box on your search engine page and you will get many suggestions. Most will repeat certain books. Thus, you will soon see which books many say need to be read in a lifetime. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">But can you read so many books? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Reading will never become a habit where reading speed is low. Here is a way to test your speed: </span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="http://www.freereadingtest.com/" target="_blank">Free Reading Speed Test</a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Once your eyes are trained to spend time with words, the brain automatically kicks into gear in time to make sense of what you read. And soon your eyes will pick out what is important in text as you skim over pages like the bird diving in and out the flower to extract honey. You will note that people who love reading do not find it difficult to consume books and, in no time, finish one and hunger for another.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Often, what stops people from reading in the first place is the question: why should I read? In fact, in many regions of the world, most families are illiterate and poor. In such a situation, it appears normal to consider reading a waste of time that should be spent doing something useful. Alas, such a consideration does not take into account the fact that b</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">ooks tell you all you need to know about almost anything. Reading provides you with all kinds of information about the world. Good books are like libraries or encyclopedias and give you a glimpse of the most important thoughts in the world. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">And, if you learn to love books, you are never really alone. What is more, reading makes you a more interesting person.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">If you need a nudge, try <a href="https://www.facebook.com/writersrites" target="_blank">Writer Rites</a> on Facebook where I have curated some literary gems. You can also find such a feed on my Twitter account. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Happy Reading, friends! </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-48196543432877195982020-11-22T21:59:00.000-08:002020-11-22T21:59:25.389-08:00Down the Rabbit Hole - Alice's First Adventure in Wonderland<div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Stories that I read early in life have walked me through thick and thin. Providing many useful messages to future selves. One of those tales is called </span><i style="font-family: verdana;">Alice's Adventures in Wonderland</i><span style="font-family: verdana;">. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />I hope to walk you through the story from my perspective. We begin by going <a href="https://www.adobe.com/be_en/active-use/pdf/Alice_in_Wonderland.pdf" target="_blank">Down the Rabbit Hole</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">A little girl sitting beside her sister on a river bank sees a white rabbit hurrying past. That sounds quite natural but the rabbit has a waistcoat and is consulting his watch!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iwm_6E7gh4c/X7OSIwN_jMI/AAAAAAAAzUQ/MV0QGufYM08RrgzxgBnvGV94m8wikrumgCNcBGAsYHQ/s1200/Down_the_Rabbit_Hole.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iwm_6E7gh4c/X7OSIwN_jMI/AAAAAAAAzUQ/MV0QGufYM08RrgzxgBnvGV94m8wikrumgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/Down_the_Rabbit_Hole.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: courier;">Illustration by <a class="extiw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:John_Tenniel" style="background: none rgb(248, 249, 250); color: #0b0080; font-size: 13.6px; text-align: start; text-decoration-line: none;" title="w:en:John Tenniel">John Tenniel</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><div style="text-align: left;">Alice follows the rabbit and falls down a rabbit hole. The fall seems to last forever - the feeling we have when we are about to drop off to sleep. In fact, I suppose we are to assume that little Alice has drowsed off in the pleasant heat of the day. And all that follows is but a dream. This is a good tactic to draw us into the story, to make us suspend belief so that we can expect almost anything. </div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">And the adventures that Alice has when she falls down the rabbit hole are absurd and beyond all belief. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Before she reaches the bottom, she sees things on either side of the tunnel she's tumbling down: maps and bottles and bookshelves too. Though the fall is long, Alice talks to herself - a habit I'm sure many of us do to while away the time. Or has the habit gone since we talk on the phone to others all day long?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Upon landing she is faced with many passages and many doors. Which to choose? Is this not what we perpetually face?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Of course, in the marvellous insanity of the story, she finds a key! And so do we though there are few humble enough to confess to that serendipity in life.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Sure enough, Alice also finds a hidden door that the key opens. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QJwNMEEwl4w/X7OXJjQhEiI/AAAAAAAAzUo/hH2S0cf1mwAzenOJm6qyEOJq7EphRloHQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1280/alice-in-wonderland-4515463_1280.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QJwNMEEwl4w/X7OXJjQhEiI/AAAAAAAAzUo/hH2S0cf1mwAzenOJm6qyEOJq7EphRloHQCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/alice-in-wonderland-4515463_1280.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a class="hover_opacity" href="https://pixabay.com/users/annaliseart-7089643/" style="color: #555555; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-size: 15px; margin: -3px 0px -8px 60px; opacity: 1; outline: none; text-align: start; text-decoration-line: none; transition: opacity 0.2s ease 0s;"><span style="font-family: courier;">AnnaliseArt</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Inside, she finds a Drink Me bottle. </span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yxvR6Zzp-Y8/X7OVQEFHnYI/AAAAAAAAzUc/fnsdoifwFj4prFvW4AVjiNi4KgAf3jYMgCNcBGAsYHQ/s696/Alice_par_John_Tenniel_04.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="489" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yxvR6Zzp-Y8/X7OVQEFHnYI/AAAAAAAAzUc/fnsdoifwFj4prFvW4AVjiNi4KgAf3jYMgCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/Alice_par_John_Tenniel_04.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-family: courier; font-size: 13.3px; text-align: start;">Illustration by John Tenniel</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><div style="text-align: left;">And that makes her very small. Which makes her rather sad as she can't reach things. But then she also finds an Eat Me cake - what will it do?</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">To find out, wait for my take on </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Chapter 2: The Pool of Tears ...</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-50524259991626719012020-10-17T01:03:00.000-07:002020-10-17T01:03:49.331-07:00James Hadley Chase - Hardly Chased Today<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> I cannot remember which I first read: a Raymond Chandler or a James Hadley Chase. Both write racy thrillers. However, while Chandler has received significant literary attention, posterity has not pursued Chase. All I can proffer from memory is that, while Raymond Chandler had exquisite constructions which live on in the mind, the James Hadley Chase novels have not left much lingering.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Except for one story. It was in my early undergraduate years that I finally found my sort of friend. I lost touch with her after she left town to pursue studies in a big city. And I never quite found that kind of friendship later. But it was she who told me about <i>Miss Shumway Waves Her Wand</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Naturally, a story about a bandit who becomes a sausage because of a curse and who is then eaten by a dog which then turns into a talking pooch is bound to fascinate. Well, let's admit that I have a taste for humour, for one thing. And, for another, whacky wit is irresistible to me. But it's not really everyone's cup of tea. Most prefer the sensational tales of money hungry men and women and the bitter ends they meet.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">That is what Chase basically offers (aside from the abovementioned sausage story). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">But who is Chase, you ask. Now, that is a charming story!</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Like today's Lee Child, Chase was British. Like Child, Chase wrote about American gangsters. But how he came to do it is yet another fascinating tale. A salesman for books, Chase discovered that a particular novel was so well borrowed at the local library that it was always off the shelves. This gem was <i>The Postman Always Rings Twice</i>.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" src="https://read.amazon.in/kp/card?asin=B0043M67AI&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_74PIFbXDZ2JGM" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">So Chase decided to pen some purple prose on his own and thus was born </span><i style="font-family: verdana;">No Orchids for Miss Blandish</i><span style="font-family: verdana;">. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q7AfqUP1goE/X4AJS4BqC7I/AAAAAAAAyhQ/HmTjBMh0S6gm0S6C98fJaJBA5D8fj8FfACNcBGAsYHQ/s391/No_Orchids_for_Miss_Blandish_film_poster.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="391" data-original-width="255" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q7AfqUP1goE/X4AJS4BqC7I/AAAAAAAAyhQ/HmTjBMh0S6gm0S6C98fJaJBA5D8fj8FfACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/No_Orchids_for_Miss_Blandish_film_poster.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 20px; text-align: start;">No Orchids for Miss Blandish (film) poster - Fair Use</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">And then he churned out one pot boiler after the other. Some were made into films but no one seems to rave about those. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CtJ8HwZ2eXk" width="320" youtube-src-id="CtJ8HwZ2eXk"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">His novels were devoured around the world - India had or still has faithful fans. However, the Americans were not at all amused that a Brit made money out of their lurid lives. Oddly, the French have a fancy for Chase, it is reported. Which brings us to the similar phenomena with Harlan Coben. Whatever the je-ne-sais-quoi of a Hadley Chase, we must admit that the French have good taste.</span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">At the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding. So why not nibble at a James Hadley Chase today? I bet you won't be able to stop till you devour the book and that you might not stop till you've munched through any Chase that you can find. </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="384" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/epdf.pub_strictly-for-cash" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="560"></iframe></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-77522822106068837442020-09-08T01:25:00.000-07:002020-09-09T02:09:17.745-07:00Doctor in the House - Prescribed Reading<p> <span style="font-family: verdana;">There was a time when novels about doctors were popular. There were moving tales and funny stories. Somewhere along the way the stories grew dark and most medical fiction became scary. But, once upon a time, there was the Doctor series by Richard Gordon.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VLT65A0ToHM" width="320" youtube-src-id="VLT65A0ToHM"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>Doctor in the House</i> is his first:</span></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="384" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/in.ernet.dli.2015.149402" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">This first book opens with an exam situation. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 18px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 20px;"><blockquote><span style="font-family: courier;">Every six months this orderly quiet is broken up like a road under a pneumatic drill. Three or four hundred students arrive from every hospital in London and from every medical school in the United Kingdom. Any country that accepts a British qualification is represented. There are brown, bespectacled Indians, invariably swotting until the last minute from Sir Leatherby Tidy's fat and invaluable _Synopsis of Medicine;_ jet-black gentlemen from West Africa standing in nervous groups and testing their new fountain-pens; fat, coffee-coloured Egyptians discussing earnestly in their own language fine points of erudite medicine; hearty Australians, New Zealanders, and South Africans showing no more, anxiety than if they were waiting for a pub to open; the whole diluted thoroughly by a mob of pale, fairly indifferent, untidy-looking British students conversing in accents from the Welsh valleys to Stirlingshire.</span></blockquote></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Richard Gordon's books have left me memorable giggles and I hope you too will enjoy the amusing stories of life as a doctor. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-56731552866064144682020-08-14T01:40:00.003-07:002020-08-14T01:40:44.637-07:00Sacks' Migraine - no headache to read<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="">We tend to assume that good literature is fiction and poetry and drama. However, there are works of nonfiction that are gems of good writing and reading them gives as much pleasure as would any novel.<br /><br />Books by <a href="https://wiki2.org/en/Oliver_Sacks" target="_blank">Oliver Sacks</a> cover a variety of areas, all more or less related to his field - medicine, in general, and neurology, in particular. H</span><span face="">e </span><span face="">writes about medical conditions in an engaging style.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span face="" style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace; font-size: small;">Neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks at the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival. © Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span face="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><i></i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: verdana;">His books are, basically, case histories. It is the way he narrates things that takes what might be dry-as-dust and makes it fascinating to read. </span><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/#" style="font-family: verdana;">Migraine</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">, 1970, is his first book but rather hefty in size. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />I've suffered from bad headaches for years and a lot of folks I know, especially women, endure terrible migraines. Sacks had his first one when he was just three or four years old!</span><div><span face="">
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</span><span face="" style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i>“I was playing in the garden when a brilliant, shimmering light appeared to my left—dazzlingly bright, almost as bright as the sun. It expanded, becoming an enormous shimmering semicircle stretching from the ground to the sky, with sharp zigzagging borders and brilliant blue and orange colors. Then, behind the brightness, came a blindness, an emptiness in my field of vision, and soon I could see almost nothing on my left side. I was terrified—what was happening? My sight returned to normal in a few minutes, but those were the longest minutes I had ever experienced.“</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.americanscientist.org/article/a-perspective-on-the-migraine-mind" target="_blank">A Perspective on the Migraine Mind</a> </div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" src="https://read.amazon.in/kp/card?asin=B00569FPN2&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_vbMlFbEC9WF48" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe>
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</span><p> <i style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">“My firstborn, written in a burst (nine days!) in 1967, stimulated in part by working in a migraine clinic and in part by a wonderful book (Liveing’s </i><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">On Megrim</span><i style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">) written a century earlier.”</i></p>
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<a href="https://www.oliversacks.com/books-by-oliver-sacks/migraine/" target="_blank">oliversacks.com</a></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: verdana;">It would do anybody great good to have several Oliver Sacks books at home but those who suffer migraines would be especially grateful to get to read it.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-58168265395480940252020-07-21T01:12:00.000-07:002020-07-21T01:12:42.348-07:00Infinite Vision <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span><font face="verdana">Today it is hard not to have contempt for the medical profession, hard not to mistrust doctors and hospitals. On the one hand, there is amazing progress in medical research. But, on the other, all one sees when accessing medical help is greed.</font></span><br />
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<font face="verdana"><span>For me, it is especially painful to see how things are for patients. My father was a doctor and he even resigned his job at the top of his career because he could not live with the fact that his bread and butter depended on the misery of others. He continued to practice but not for money. </span><br />
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<span>So, naturally, when growing up, stories of doctors formed core reading for me. The <i>Reader's Digest</i> fed me a satisfactory supply of the lives and adventures of doctors. There was Lloyd C Douglas with his syrupy doses of the spiritual and the professional. There was <i>The Dear and Glorious Physician</i>, a historical account. And there was Richard Gordon with his hilarious Doctor series. </span><br />
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<span>Somewhere along the way books about doctors and medicine dwindled. And even writings from earlier times fell out of sight. Meanwhile, medical dramas sprouted on TV. Most of these are quite ridiculous and only add to the growing divide between the world of medicine and that of patients.</span><br />
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<span>It is in such a setting that I found myself blessed with <i>Infinite Vision</i>. The book burst into my world bringing a bright gleam of hope. </span><i>Infinite Vision</i><span> speaks of a flourishing initiative that allows patients to pay or not and offers quality care either way. It is, basically, the saga of the Aravind Eye Care System, a set of eye hospitals and ophthalmological initiatives that is now spread around the world.</span><br />
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<span>Have a look at what Aravind is basically about:</span></font><br />
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<font face="verdana">Today, in this terrible time, such a book can offer hope - what we need to do at this juncture is to look at how we can offer almost cost-free medical service to populations. Alas, that seems to be last on the list of anyone's concerns. The contemporary doctor has to whip up enough money to pay various EMIs - rent for the clinic, for equipment, for staff. And for family needs which rise with status. In this book you can find strategies which might provide some solutions. </font><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-56051426122355899462020-07-14T00:47:00.008-07:002020-07-14T00:56:42.580-07:00Coasting Masters' Savages - The Roots <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana">A savage is <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/savage">a person whose way of life is at a very early stage of development</a>. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Masters">John Masters</a>, a twentieth century English novelist, wrote a series of novels set in India at various historical times. The novels' protagonists, the Savages, all come from the same family. In this case, Savage is just a surname. </font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana"><br /></font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana">But, to the Europeans who sailed forth to other continents at a certain point in history, the scantily-clad peoples of some warmer lands appeared as savages as they did not display much pride in their culture. Apart from a fanatic set of taboos and elaborate ritualistic behaviours. </font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana"><br /></font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana">So, it is perhaps natural that the Europeans then regarded themselves as masters. And, perhaps, we can see that such an attitude would be fairly normal in anyone. However, why was there such a lacuna in the first place? </font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana"><br /></font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana">For one thing, most of these lands had not passed through the then modern trend of revolutions. In many of the regions that the Europeans of that time encountered there was already a steep unchallenged hierarchy where cultural worth was forever out of the reach of most. This rather savage view has coloured narratives from the colonial times. </font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana"><br /></font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana">To counter the trend, some decided that the way out was to put these accounts out of sight and mind. Unfortunately, as with all such initiatives, it has not only not been too helpful in eradicating certain behaviours but it has helped create generations of real savages - people deprived of any thought of any cultural worth. </font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana"><br /></font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana">Creators of cultural worth are rarely anything but extremely free in thought - which is anathema to those who hold morals above culture. Morals are unreliable artefacts of humanity's </font><span style="font-family: verdana;">struggle towards humanism. Many a moral value has had to be challenged by cultural representations until some barbaric moral behaviour was forced to change. Social change has often had to tussle with existing moral bias to establish more humane principles. It is only when we examine world classics of cultural worth to help us process the past, voraciously, and without prior moral bias, that we can begin to evolve humane principles. </span></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana"><br /></font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana">Now, John Masters is not a writer of great literary merit but, because most of his novels focussed on India across history, they ought to be of interest to us. Given that most of us in India have a less than basic idea of our own history, it becomes more vital to set off in search of our past with whatever exists. Of course there are better books for the purpose but Masters is quite juicy and, once the novice mind is engaged, we can look more deeply, on our own, at the times of which he writes. Today, as we read on various apps, it is easy to quickly dive into the Net in search of further information. Revisiting this novel that I read in my early youth, I had a delightful time exploring India in the seventeenth century via the Web. </font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana"><br /></font></div><div dir="ltr" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana">For me, John Masters was a reading hand me down. My father regaled us with snippets from Masters' <i>Nightrunners of Bengal</i> and <i>The Deceivers</i>. His words served to fill the rustling night outside with delicious dreadfulness. Along with Rudyard Kipling and Somerset Maugham and others, the novels of John Masters brought to life the Western concept of an exotic Orient. Once we accept them as fantasy, such exotic writings can be entertaining.</font></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ub7DlpHvKeo/Xw1j7_Ho5bI/AAAAAAAAxB4/QQbulGuAMYU1gLTtGrO8KbT-uqFqJDy0QCNcBGAsYHQ/s1000/Thomas_Daniell_%25281749-1840%2529_-_The_Fort_of_Vellore_in_the_Carnatic%252C_India_-_732241_-_National_Trust.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="743" data-original-width="1000" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ub7DlpHvKeo/Xw1j7_Ho5bI/AAAAAAAAxB4/QQbulGuAMYU1gLTtGrO8KbT-uqFqJDy0QCNcBGAsYHQ/s320/Thomas_Daniell_%25281749-1840%2529_-_The_Fort_of_Vellore_in_the_Carnatic%252C_India_-_732241_-_National_Trust.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; text-align: start;"><font face="courier" size="2">Thomas Daniell (1749-1840) - The Fort of Vellore in the Carnatic, India - 732241 - National Trust, public domain</font></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana">Though I began with family recommendations, I soon homed in on the first in the series and the fifth in order of publishing. In <i>Coromandel!</i> we enter the Savage saga in the <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">1620's with young and illiterate </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Jason Savage. In the general savagery of the times,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"> his life takes an unforeseen turn when he has to flee for his life, boarding a ship that is off to the Orient. After onboard adventures, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">he's washed ashore with a map that claims to show where treasure is buried. </span></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NCanWS87QKs/Xw1lEdkxRaI/AAAAAAAAxCE/ZYmUZgz77eco5bIqPGrHWqSCAhsnUiWfACNcBGAsYHQ/s1024/1024px-A_man_overboard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="651" data-original-width="1024" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NCanWS87QKs/Xw1lEdkxRaI/AAAAAAAAxCE/ZYmUZgz77eco5bIqPGrHWqSCAhsnUiWfACNcBGAsYHQ/s320/1024px-A_man_overboard.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #202122; font-family: courier; font-size: 13.3px;">Hand-coloured aquatint engraving of the "A picturesque voyage to India, by the way of China" / by Thomas Daniell, R.A., and William Daniell, A.R.A. Wikimedia Commons</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">The tale will ring many bells to those who have read Robert Louis Stevenson and Lobsang Rampa and, of course, the others we've mentioned above. And there will be love and passion and beautiful 'native' women and magic. Enough adventure and action to prove the right read for the indoor season when endless rain imprisons us.</span></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana"><font color="#333333"><br /></font></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana"><font color="#333333">It is a ridiculous novel but might trigger a hunger in the reader to know about the area, once called the Coromandel Coast, in the seventeenth century. For those who already consider themselves masters of the history of the region it could help more reasonably savage Masters' Savage accounts.</font></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana"><font color="#333333"><br /></font></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><font face="verdana"><font color="#333333">So, why not try <i>Coromandel!</i> with hot chai and snacks!</font></font></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-32489459321504516072020-06-04T03:30:00.001-07:002020-06-04T03:30:40.159-07:00The Overloaded Ark - Cameroon's Birds and Beasts <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><font face="verdana">Gerald Durrell is a childhood favourite. I've enjoyed many of his books on animals and you will too. When trapped indoors for ages, what can be better than going on a </font></span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">six-month journey to Cameroon to get some animals for a zoo?</span><font face="verdana"> Begin with Durrell's first book, </font><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Overloaded_Ark" style="font-family: verdana;" target="_blank"><i>The Overloaded Ark</i></a><span style="font-family: verdana;">. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ezObzqXMSHE/XoBorMMHdqI/AAAAAAAAsls/h-JHd7scBY4IeMRH3El3pe4SYcCtBL8wwCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/TheOverloadedArk.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="393" data-original-width="253" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ezObzqXMSHE/XoBorMMHdqI/AAAAAAAAsls/h-JHd7scBY4IeMRH3El3pe4SYcCtBL8wwCNcBGAsYHQ/s400/TheOverloadedArk.jpg" width="257" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48624607" style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">By Source, Fair use</a><font face="courier new, courier, monospace"> </font><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><div><span style="text-align: center;"><font face="verdana"><i>The Overloaded Ark</i></font></span><font face="verdana"> is rich with descriptions of the country's landscapes and people. </font><span style="font-family: verdana;">The book may be hard to find but if you take the trouble you will not regret your embarkation:</span></div><div><font style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i><blockquote><font face="courier">The ship nosed its way through the morning mist, across a sea as smooth as milk. A faint and exciting smell came to us from the invisible shore, the smell of flowers, damp vegetation, palm oil, and a thousand other intoxicating scents drawn up from the earth by the rising sun, a pale, moist- looking nimbus of light seen dimly through the mists. As it rose higher and higher, the heat of its rays penetrated and loosened the hold the mist had on land and sea. Slowly it was drawn up towards the sky in long lethargically coiling columns, and gradually the bay and the coastline came into view and gave me my first glimpse of Africa.</font></blockquote></i><div style="font-family: verdana;">Wonderful illustrations enrich the book. So do try to find and read it. Also, it has a lot of humour - something that is good for us now more than ever. One of the most memorable characters in the book is a cigarette-smoking chimpanzee. </div></div></font></div><div><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><font color="#333333" face="courier new, courier, monospace">I know that I visualized an ape about three years old, standing about three feet high. I got a rude shock when Chumley moved in.</font></span></i></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"></span></i></span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">He arrived in the back of a small van, seated in a huge crate. When the doors of his crate were opened and Chumley stepped out with all the ease and self-confidence of a film star, I was considerably shaken. Standing on his bowlegs in a normal slouching chimp position, he came up to my waist.</span></i></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">He stood on the ground and surveyed his surroundings with a shrewd glance, and then he turned to me and held out one of his soft, pink-palmed hands to be shaken, with exactly that bored expression that one sees on the faces of professional hand shakers.</span></i></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"></span></i></span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">He seated himself in a chair, dropped his chain on the floor, and then looked hopefully at me. It was quite obvious that he expected some sort of refreshment after his tiring journey. I roared out to the kitchen for someone to make a cup of tea, for I had been warned that Chumley had a great liking for the cup that cheers.</span></i></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"></span></i></span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">As I poured the tea and milk into Chumeley’s mug and added three tablespoons of sugar, he watched me with a glittering eye and made soft “ ooing” noises to himself. I handed him the mug and he took it carefully in both hands. He tested the tea carefully with one lip stuck out, to see if it was too hot. As it was, he sat there and blew on it until it was the right temperature and then he drank it down.</span></i></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"></span></i></span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">Chumley’s crate was placed about fifty yards from the hut (next to a great gnarled tree stump to which I attached his chain) From there he could get a good view of everything that went on in and around the hut, and as we were working he would shout comments to me and I would reply.</span></i></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">That night, when I carried Chumley’s food and drink of tea out to him, he greeted me with loud “ hoo hoos” of delight, and jogged up and down, beating his knuckles on the ground. Before he touched his dinner, however, he seized one of my hands in his and carried it to his mouth.</span></i></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"></span></i></span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">With some trepidation I waited as he carefully put one of my fingers between his great teeth and very gently bit it. Then I understood: in the chimpanzee world, to place your finger between another ape’s teeth is a greeting and a sign of trust. To place a finger in such a vulnerable position shows your confidence in the other’s friendliness.</span></i></span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"></span></i></span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">His manners were perfect. He would never grab his food and start guzzling, as the other monkeys did, without first giving you a greeting, and thanking you with a series of his most expressive “ hoo hoos.” Then he would eat delicately and slowly, pushing those pieces he did not want to the side of his plate with his fingers. His only breach of table manners came at the end of a meal, for then he would seize his empty mug and plate and hurl them as far as possible.</span></i></span></blockquote></div></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-68411464507716384872020-05-29T03:58:00.000-07:002020-05-29T03:58:59.977-07:00Mo's Monkey King - Timothy's Take Tickles<div><font face="verdana">At a time when some find relief in making China a scapegoat, </font><span style="font-family: verdana;">Timothy Mo's </span><i style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://draft.blogger.com/#">The Monkey King</a> </i><span style="font-family: verdana;">might hit the right spot. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Timothy treads the traditional trajectory of seeing the Chinese through the lens of the colonising Europeans. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">From Somerset Maugham and his literary like, we 'learned' that the Chinese are filthy in their personal habits, are liars and quite crooked in their dealings. And Maugham can rest easy in his grave as such </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">caricatures</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> continue to </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">infuse our view of the other. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Half-white Mo's novel, like a cartoon show, is filled with rude and ready humour. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Timothy was only in his twenties when he wrote the book and the tone of the tale is probably due to chips on his shoulder.</span></div><div><font face="verdana"><br /></font></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">The very first chapter of </span><i style="font-family: verdana;">The Monkey King </i><span style="font-family: verdana;">plunges you into a dizzying spiral of insane </span><span style="font-family: verdana;">characters and situations</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">. Very quickly you're stuck in a large old house - almost a vertical fortress. And up and down its entrails you go, meeting all sorts of spurious specimens. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><font face="verdana"><font color="#4d5156"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_WCxC_eTbIA/Xq_hFmT-FMI/AAAAAAAAt1A/w2TmABrZCFYtpUAngF16WRbJisQuG5z6QCK4BGAsYHg/The_Monkey_King_%2528Mo_novel%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="281" data-original-width="180" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_WCxC_eTbIA/Xq_hFmT-FMI/AAAAAAAAt1A/w2TmABrZCFYtpUAngF16WRbJisQuG5z6QCK4BGAsYHg/w256-h400/The_Monkey_King_%2528Mo_novel%2529.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><font face="courier"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58718271">By Source, Fair use</a></font> </td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></font></font></div><font face="verdana"><font face="verdana">Before I read Mo's novel, the Monkey King, for me, was the impish simian disciple of a mythical Buddhist monk. Says <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_King">Wikipedia</a>:</font><div style="font-family: "times new roman";"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px; font-style: italic;"><font face="verdana"></font></span><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><font face="verdana"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">... he is a monkey born from a stone who acquires supernatural powers through </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoist" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Taoist">Taoist</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> practices. After rebelling against heaven and being imprisoned under a mountain by </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Gautama Buddha">the Buddha</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">, he later accompanies the monk </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_Sanzang" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Tang Sanzang">Tang Sanzang</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> on a journey to retrieve </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Buddhist">Buddhist</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutra" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Sutra">sutras</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> from the West (India) where Buddha and his followers reside.</span></font></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Mo's novel, however, has little to do with apes or Buddhism. Says </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_King_(Mo_novel)" style="font-family: verdana;">Wikipedia</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><font face="verdana"><i><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">The Monkey King</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> follows the humorous exploits of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagonist" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Protagonist">protagonist</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> Wallace Nolasco, who finds himself in financial straits after being denied his </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowry" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Dowry">dowry</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> in hectic </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-war" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Post-war">post-war</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950s_in_Hong_Kong" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="1950s in Hong Kong">Hong Kong</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">, and must by guile better both himself and the moribund reputation of the </span><a class="mw-redirect" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_clan" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Chinese clan">Chinese house</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> he has </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arranged_marriage" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Arranged marriage">married</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> into. The plot of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">The Monkey King</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;">, which is a family saga, divided into three sections, is driven by the tensions between Wallace and his father-in-law, the patriarchal Mr Poon.</span></blockquote></i></font></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">It is sometime in the 1950s. Wallace Nolasco is a Macanese, of Portuguese descent. He is in his mid-twenties and has returned to Macau from the mainland where he was studying engineering:</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><font face="verdana"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></i></font></div></div></font><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><font face="verdana"><div><div style="font-family: "times new roman"; text-align: left;"><font face="verdana"><i>On the whole Wallace avoided intimate dealings with the Chinese. Despite a childhood spent cheek by jaundiced jowl with the Cantonese in Macau, he still found the race arrogant and devious. Worse, they revelled in the confusion of the foreigner: turning blank faces to the barbarian and sneering behind his back. Like his fellow Portuguese, Wallace made the best of the situation. In fanciful moments, he saw the Chinese and himself as prisoners together in a long chain gang, the descendants of the original convicts.</i></font></div></div></font></blockquote><font face="verdana"><div><div style="font-family: "times new roman";"><font face="verdana"><i><br /></i></font></div><font face="verdana">Wallace is not well-off and nor is his family. So he is advised to marry a girl from a Cantonese family - rumour has it that the Poons are rich. Alas, May Ling is but the child of a concubine! <br /><br /></font></div><div><font face="verdana">Our hero is mercilessly mistreated by one and all or almost at his in-laws'. But the joint family hell is not only why you should dive into the world of <i>The Monkey King.</i></font></div><div><br /></div><div>It's not likely that we'll be able to travel around much for, perhaps, months to come. Why not visit the Macau and Hong Kong of the fifties then? Mo's story is often like some Hong Kong slapstick comedy. </div><div> </div><div>The closing page leaves you with something that echoes many prejudices - a monkey brain as food scene. Exotic enough? D<font face="verdana">ip into the novel and relish the unusual! </font> </div></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-26409073601269943972020-04-06T01:26:00.003-07:002020-04-06T01:48:22.862-07:00Spring Cleaning - Sundry Samples from Literature<div>For many the recent changes have spelt bouts of spring cleaning. In fact, given the nature of the thing, cleanliness is encouraged. It is in that spirit that I recently chose Spring Cleaning as theme for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/writersrites/">Writer Rites</a>. These days deep cleaning your living spaces has almost reached a philosophy of life. People scramble to declutter and to adopt minimalist lifestyles. But what was it like in earlier times? </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Imagining the Bounds of History</i> gives us a glimpse of <a href="https://shannonselin.com/2018/04/spring-cleaning-19th-century/">Spring Cleaning in the 19th Century</a>.</div><div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">A manual for young housekeepers provided these instructions for spring cleaning in 1869.</span></div><div><blockquote><blockquote style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #666666; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px 40px; padding: 0px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">Were you, reader, some day in spring, generally in the week before Easter, to take a walk through villages which we know, you might be ready to suppose that a general emigration was contemplated. You would see chairs and tables, kneading-toughs and cradles, bedsteads and bedding, all put out for an airing, while the busy cottagers are scrubbing and whitewashing, and perhaps painting and papering within doors. Neither is the practice confined to the poorer class only….</p></blockquote></blockquote><div>Things have indeed changed over time. Even in my own lifetime. From brooms to microfibre mops we've come a long way, baby! Of course, spring cleaning is never meant to be Bean's way:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oQxfQ9INq6s" width="320" youtube-src-id="oQxfQ9INq6s"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div></div><div>But, jokes apart, spring cleaning has generated fiction. Here is a short story about what happens when a daughter and granddaughter try to give an older lady’s home a makeover while she’s in hospital. </div><div><br /></div><div><p style="color: #333333; font-family: "minion pro", times, "times new roman", georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px;"></p><blockquote><p style="color: #333333; font-family: "minion pro", times, "times new roman", georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px;"><i>“Right,” says my mother, as we drive out of the hospital car park. “Now’s our chance to get to work on that bungalow.”</i></p><p style="color: #333333; font-family: "minion pro", times, "times new roman", georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px;"><i>Even with both eyes fixed on the road, she must notice my alarm, because she takes her left hand off the wheel and places it on my knee and says, in that wheedling what-do-I-ever-ask-of-you tone, “Come on, Emma. If we do it together we’ll have that place bottomed in no time.”</i></p><p style="color: #333333; font-family: "minion pro", times, "times new roman", georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px;"><i>Home from Uni for the Easter holidays, I’m supposed to be churning out an essay on the English civil war. I’m supposed to be searching for a McJob to tame my overdraft, or hanging out in the pub with friends I haven’t seen since Christmas. Unfortunately, what I’m supposed to be doing is of no consequence to my mother. Set against one of her projects, any plans of mine turn out to be as flimsy as cobwebs.</i></p></blockquote><p style="color: #333333; font-family: "minion pro", times, "times new roman", georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.5px; margin: 13px 0px; padding: 0px;"></p></div><div style="text-align: right;"> <a href="http://apt.aforementionedproductions.com/2009/08/spring-cleaning-by-anne-goodwin/">Spring Cleaning</a></div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div>However dull it may seem to spend time brushing away cobwebs, spring cleaning can also be poetic. Marilyn Nelson's poem <a href="https://poets.org/poem/dusting">Dusting</a> says </div><blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Thank you for these tiny </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>particles of ocean salt, </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>pearl-necklace viruses,</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>winged protozoans: </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>for the infinite, </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>intricate shapes </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>of submicroscopic </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>living things. </i></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-65027903118765290092019-09-25T00:18:00.000-07:002019-09-25T00:18:39.340-07:00A Look at a Banned Book<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Book banning happens periodically across the world. From writings that can upset political status quo, to those that contain disturbing amounts or levels of sex or violence, various works have at various times been considered for or subject to banning. More recently, we have seen cases of books being banned for hurting religious sentiment. Since book banning happens periodically, we have times when a society decides what we can or cannot read, and times when it appears to allow and encourage its members to read a lot and widely. As such, reading has only recently become a skill almost anybody can acquire.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What this means is that, until very recently, most people simply could not read - were not literate. And, it is only recently that more people can not only read but consider reading for pleasure and growth. Thus, it is very hard to have a public, at this point in time, who can make an informed decision about banning books. In such a scenario, we find a report about an Indian judge allegedly finding Tolstoy's <i>War and Peace</i> inflammatory reading. One positive fallout of this unfortunate news item is that people might actually read the book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The only reason I can find fault with the book could be for length - a person once told me that they managed to finally read <i>War and Peace</i> during a long convalescence. However, it is hard, beyond the question of length, to consider that anything in Tolstoy's writings can incite the reader to violence.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="550" src="https://read.amazon.in/kp/card?asin=B075CR5WXS&preview=inline&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_gBgHDbDM009V3" style="max-width: 100%;" type="text/html" width="336"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The best way to settle the matter is to read <i>War and Peace</i>.</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="384" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/warandpeace030164mbp" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="560"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Or listen to <a href="https://librivox.org/group/267?primary_key=267&search_category=group&search_page=1&search_form=get_results" target="_blank">it</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And you can even enjoy the epic as film:</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/3DqanxfecIA/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3DqanxfecIA?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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Directed by Sergei Bondarchuk, the film, made in the sixties, has been screened again this year. Which makes it a must-watch but don't take my word for it - all the reviews rave about it:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Virtuosic camerawork rendered each scene of Bondarchuk’s War and Peace its own sort of spectacle<br /><br />The director’s plan to hook the masses relied on shock and awe, bending even the most stubborn detractors into submission via the sheer magnificence of his vision. ... the crew mounted a series of astonishing set pieces, continually topping themselves.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/2/15/18223285/war-and-peace-sergei-bondarchuk-adaptation-1966" target="_blank">vox.com</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Or as TV series:</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/H-BCmUeHE5c/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H-BCmUeHE5c?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now, though the TV show has attracted some minor criticism, it is made by the BBC and, thus, one can expect a certain standard and never be too disappointed. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>There are three things the BBC does very well. Nature/science documentaries (narration by Attenborough or GTFO), make baking seem interesting, and most pertinently costume drama.</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://cinapse.co/war-peace-an-admirable-adaptation-from-bbc-weinstein-blu-review-11dce0279564" target="_blank">cinapse.co</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I hope that I have convinced you that <i>War and Peace</i> is not a book to be banned. I also hope that I might have convinced you that book banning is never a good idea. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Just in case this is not enough, we shall look at a banned short story in the next post.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-10597526301118933072019-09-13T21:42:00.000-07:002019-09-16T03:11:04.295-07:00Icy Wastes, Peril at Sea and Gold at Rainbow's End<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2d2d2d; font-size: 16px;">The Worst Journey in the World </em><span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #2d2d2d; font-size: 16px;">was one of my father's favourite books. It is an epic account of a polar adventure.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Cherry-Garrard’s memoir of a miserable Antarctic expedition, </i>The Worst Journey in the World<i>, was ranked number one on National Geographic’s list of the 100 greatest adventure books of all time. “As </i>War and Peace<i> is to novels, so is </i>The Worst Journey in the World<i> to the literature of polar travel: the one to beat,” </i>wrote<i> the magazine.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/inside-worst-journey-world-180961589/" target="_blank">This Catastrophic Polar Journey Resulted in One of the Best Adventure Books Ever Written</a></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">While you can dip into the book using the cover picture above, you can also listen to the book <a href="https://librivox.org/the-worst-journey-in-the-world-by-apsley-cherry-garrard/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And, if you're in the mood for more, here is a </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">drama documentary based on the book. </span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_0lUU8EBAJo/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_0lUU8EBAJo?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This is a book that is worth adding to your bookshelf, even one that is virtual.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="384" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/worstjourneyinwo01cher" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="560"></iframe></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">While you build up the courage to face that longer read, try a short story about </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>a kayaker’s peril at sea:</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/03/read-the-edge-of-the-shoal-by-cynan-jones-winner-of-the-bbc-national-short-story-award" target="_blank">The Edge of the Shoal by Cynan Jones</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>He swings the fish from the water, a wild stripe flicking and flashing into the boat, and grabs the line, twisting the hook out, holding the fish down in the footrests. It gasps, thrashes. Drums. Something rapid and primal, ceremonial, in the shallow of the open boat.</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Fact and fiction aside, poetry has always celebrated adventure and has even created fantasy worlds that draw the imagination on and colour drab reality with magic hues:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Listen to Poe's <a href="https://poets.org/poem/el-dorado" target="_blank">El Dorado</a></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, composed to music: </span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/q58GfVoi2As/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/q58GfVoi2As?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">From reviewing books I return to a strategy I've adopted earlier: showcasing readings under various themes - I'd appreciate your feedback, dear reader. Does this kind of enterprise please you?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Visit next week for a look at some writings that were considered for banning. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.indiblogger.in/post/icy-wastes-peril-at-sea-and-gold-at-rainbow-39-s-end" title="Top post on IndiBlogger, the biggest community of Indian Bloggers"></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img alt="Top post on IndiBlogger, the biggest community of Indian Bloggers" border="0" height="96" src="https://cdn.indiblogger.in/badges/235x96_top-indivine-post.png" width="235" /></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-70066964014103625442019-08-01T20:05:00.000-07:002019-08-02T01:21:24.250-07:00Jealousy and Revenge - How a Count Counters Conspiracies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As a young girl, I was enchanted with Alexandre Dumas' <i>Le Comte de Monte Cristo</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>The Count of Monte Cristo</i></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> remains one of the few works that I read in French. It is, basically, a tale of revenge.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Revenge is a dish best served cold, some say. Though the story is old, the relish remains fresh. Read <a href="http://the%20story/" target="_blank">the story</a> to enjoy the recipe - the link also provides an audio version. I'm sure you will enjoy it as the tale has fared well across time, even made and remade as movies and TV series across the world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">At his happiest moment in life, a young man is thrown into prison by a jealous rival. And that is it, in a nutshell. Of course, there is the second course - the hero emerges from the depths of a dungeon to avenge himself bitterly and mercilessly. Jealousy and revenge - as old as mankind.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>The story of Edmond Dantès is inspired by the real life story of François Piçaud, an innocent man denounced as a spy and jailed for seven years. Similar to Edmond, a prison friendship led him to acquiring a great fortune, and upon his release, he sought revenge on those who'd accused him. In Alexandre Dumas's fictionalized version, the innocent Edmond escapes from prison, finds a fortune his dying friend tells him about, feigns the identity of a wealthy count, and sets about the business of a thousand pages worth of revenge.</i></span></blockquote>
<h1 class="routes-Site-routes-Post-components-Post-components-PostTitle-___PostTitle__title" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #04151a; letter-spacing: 0.8px; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.kqed.org/pop/11584/from-revenge-to-the-count-of-monte-cristo-why-stories-of-retribution-captivate-us" target="_blank">How Revenge and The Count of Monte Cristo Capture Our Eternal Need for Closure</a></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Apparently, that's not the only connection with historical incidents and people:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Dumas’ appetite for action-packed tales led him to the 1838 publication Memoirs from the Archives of Paris Police, a collection of true crime stories arranged by author Jacques Peuchet. Among the accounts featured was the particularly macabre tale of Nîmes-born shoemaker <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=y8ltBQAAQBAJ&pg=PT1101&dq=pierre+picaud&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3AR2VYGpD8aZsQSmhoKIAQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=pierre%20picaud&f=false">Pierre Picaud</a>, who was framed for treason by three men who lusted after his wealthy fiancée. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/64861/15-things-you-might-not-know-about-count-monte-cristo" target="_blank">15 Things You Might Not Know About The Count of Monte Cristo</a></span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But it was not all taken from the darkness. According to another account, there was a <a href="https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-scientist-who-inspired-the-count-of-monte-cristo-1588185366">scientist Who Inspired the Count of Monte Cristo</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is also the fact that the novel has inspired all sorts of research. One such explores the <a _the_count_of_monte_cristo="" href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325913424_Geographies_of_Vengeance_Orientalism_in_Alexandre_Dumas">Geographies of Vengeance: Orientalism in Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo</a>.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HMNhHjasFrE/XTAB_3C8MPI/AAAAAAAAmzI/N9pUtMEAAhUmCXdL04HzaCtIzjrl0imZgCLcBGAs/s1600/1024px-Ch%25C3%25A2teau_d%2527If_%2528Marseille%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="1024" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HMNhHjasFrE/XTAB_3C8MPI/AAAAAAAAmzI/N9pUtMEAAhUmCXdL04HzaCtIzjrl0imZgCLcBGAs/s400/1024px-Ch%25C3%25A2teau_d%2527If_%2528Marseille%2529.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Not far from port of Marseille (France) this castle built in an island became famous because of Alexandre Dumas's novel "Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. Philippe Alès [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And another that examines <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC539647/">Cerebrovascular disease in The Count of Monte Cristo</a>. If that is all related to the past, we also have an article about <a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/security/what-the-count-of-monte-cristo-can-teach-us-about-cybersecurity">What the Count of Monte Cristo Can Teach Us About Cybersecurity</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So I do hope you will read the story and perhaps watch the upcoming <a href="https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/the-count-of-monte-cristo-new-series-british-broadcaster-1203106983/">New Version of ‘Count of Monte Cristo’</a>.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-40461299788842008962019-07-17T00:36:00.000-07:002019-07-17T23:16:18.665-07:00By the Will of the Pike! <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One of my favourite books when I was a child was Vasilisa the Beautiful: Russian Fairy Tales. I enjoyed most of the stories in it but I still remain fond of <a href="http://www.mftd.org/index.php?action=story&id=3042">Emelya and the Pike</a>. Please read it quickly so that I can go on to tell you why I like it so much. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I3P-fq69G20/XSV1t9RNeFI/AAAAAAAAmbc/GAFMWB_QoiYSIPpqqM1PJJwhY7iCDlfjQCLcBGAs/s1600/Atkinson_Isba_1803_crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="558" data-original-width="799" height="278" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I3P-fq69G20/XSV1t9RNeFI/AAAAAAAAmbc/GAFMWB_QoiYSIPpqqM1PJJwhY7iCDlfjQCLcBGAs/s400/Atkinson_Isba_1803_crop.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Аткинсон, Джон Огастес Public Domain</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What most captured my fancy in the story was the stove on which Emelya lies all day long. At that point in time I had not even seen an oven nor even a tandoor. And it's not only that Emelya spends his days dozing on the stove, he also uses it to go hither and thither!<br /><br />Emelya falls into the famous anti-hero category found in many tales from around the world. For the Russians it is normally Ivan the fool. There's even a Tolstoy <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/tolstoy/leo/t65i/" target="_blank">Ivan the Fool</a> story - one that I like. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Michael Sevier (illustrator) [Public domain]</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Emelya's story also falls into the wish granting fish category. Of course, you can see that Emelya's pike is a much better wish granting fish than the one the fisherman found. The lack of 'moral of the story' only serves to make <i>Emelya and the Pike</i> a much more enjoyable story. Sometimes, it's only by resorting to extreme absurdity that we can fight limiting superstitions. <br /><br />In the <a href="https://russian-crafts.com/russian-folk-tales/golden-fish-tale.html" target="_blank">fisherman's tale</a>, he is granted three wishes and, with the last wish, he's back where he was. The story is bitter and pointless given we're never going to find magic things which grant us our wishes. When we're anyway going into the realm of fantasy, why not just go with the flow?</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-exdkqDU4GWY/XSmzBS3GHRI/AAAAAAAAmnI/dVlNbr8YztA-c4mBd3eOdtv96f4T_TToACLcBGAs/s1600/Conte_du_petit_poisson_d%2527or_%2528Bilibin%252C_1933%252C_priv.coll%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-exdkqDU4GWY/XSmzBS3GHRI/AAAAAAAAmnI/dVlNbr8YztA-c4mBd3eOdtv96f4T_TToACLcBGAs/s400/Conte_du_petit_poisson_d%2527or_%2528Bilibin%252C_1933%252C_priv.coll%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin, 1876-1942 [Public domain]</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And that is what Emelya does. He goes with the flow in letting his sisters-in-law send him fishing. Note that he also does agree only when promised bribes of new clothes and such. In that sense, there might be a moral to the story: passive and reluctant obedience can bring rewards. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Here's a movie version. It's in black and white and has no subtitles but it's still very enchanting!</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-28871048959480391782019-07-08T20:40:00.001-07:002019-07-10T01:01:46.206-07:00The Vanished Pleasure of a Richard Gordon Doctor Series Book<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Perhaps it was natural for me to read the <a href="https://wiki2.org/en/Richard_Gordon_(English_author)">Richard Gordon</a> Doctor novels. After all, my father was a doctor and I spent a great deal of my younger years being exposed to the world of hospitals and doctors. The books are mostly quite hilarious in a bawdy sort of way but also satisfy the same desires that now lead us to watch a Doctor House or some other Hospital show. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The films and TV dramas based on the Doctor series were fairly funny and you can find samples on You Tube.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The books will tickle your funny bone and take you on an amusing tour of the world of medicine and the private lives of doctors. While the medical fraternity will find familiar scenes, we can all enjoy the stories as all of us get to visit hospitals for one reason or another.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Dr. Gordon was professionally adrift, working as a surgeon on a cargo ship in the South Pacific, when he began writing his first book in 1950. “I had nothing to do except drink gin with the chief engineer,” he later told the Daily Mail. “To save myself from developing cirrhosis of the liver, I wrote about my experiences as a medical student.”</i></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>The result was “Doctor in the House,” a ribald comedy about a callow, rugby-playing medical student who chases women, spends nearly as much time at the bar as at the hospital and is eventually “transformed from an unearning and potentially dishonest ragamuffin to a respectable and solvent member of a learned profession.” The protagonist, like the pseudonymous author, was named Richard Gordon.The novel sold more than 3 million copies and was reportedly used to teach conversational English in Japan.</i></span></blockquote>
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<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/richard-gordon-who-wrote-more-than-a-dozen-books-in-the-doctor-series-dies-at-95/2017/08/16/1f0e52bc-828f-11e7-ab27-1a21a8e006ab_story.html?utm_term=.ec45e73f41eb"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Before writing ‘Doctor in the House,’ he was a surgeon in the South Pacific</span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /> In those days there were quite a few authors who were doctors and whose writings were set in their professional world: A J Cronin, for example. I wonder why that is not the case these days ...</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-24783603807447666592019-07-02T21:27:00.000-07:002019-07-04T00:16:38.167-07:00Tripwire - a New High from Lee Child<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I came across Lee Child by chance. Having developed the convenient habit of travel reading, I make it a point to carry a book or two on trips. For that particular journey I had a book left by someone: <a href="https://wwwitiuvacha.blogspot.com/2018/04/makes-me-want-to-reach-for-another.html">Make Me</a> and it made me reach for another Lee - <i>Bad Luck and Trouble</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The trouble is Jack Reachers are addictive if you're into that sort of thing - good fight scenes, in particular. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Tripwire</i> offers giant doses of romance and a truly evil villain. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The story begins with Reacher digging swimming pools in a part of the US that the author had visited during a vacation in the nineties. Someone is looking for Reacher. And that person is found dead. Two goons have also been inquiring about him. Are they killers?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Our hulk, Reacher, sets off to find out the who, what, why, when and where of it all. Which leads him to a very attractive young lady lawyer who happens to be the daughter of Gerber, an officer Reacher respects. Together the couple traverse many hair raising adventures to solve the mystery. In the meanwhile, we get to enjoy the villain and his dastardly accomplices in action.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The romance might be a bit icky to some as there's the age thing. Jodie was a teenager when they first met. The fact that Gerber was a father figure to Reacher and that Reacher met Jodie when she was a young girl and had the hots for her bring in a touch of the forbidden. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The grotesque villain also comes in the way of full enjoyment - he's almost like Captain Hook! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Nevertheless, Lee Child is always a satisfying read. He brings geography and technical things alive and we also get some historical perspectives. In this case, it's the ill-fated </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Vietnam war. What happened to prisoners? How were the injured cared for? In all the confusion of those times, all kinds of mess ups and cover ups became possible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Even though </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Tripwire </i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">will not be among my top Reacher books, I'm busy devouring two more. And I leave you with a wonderful chance to eavesdrop on two great contemporary writers: </span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-39161357463289847882019-04-30T20:31:00.000-07:002019-05-01T01:12:49.302-07:00Killing it with his First Book - Lee Child Floors Readers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Music in novels is something I've begun to look forwards to with joy. Now, there are various functions for music that goes with reading. One can read whilst listening to music and what could be better than to read to music mentioned in a book?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lee Child has a relationship with music as you can see below: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">To give you a bit of background, Lee Child writes the adventures of Jack Reacher. Ex of the US army. Military Police, in fact. He's huge, and now walks the length and breadth of the US of A. Every novel begins with trouble he encounters on these road trips. And then he has his unique way and philosophy so that he has no credit card and owns no more than the clothes on his back and a folding toothbrush. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lee Child is British. Not American. And he's written some 24 Jack Reacher novels. After I'd read a few, breaking my self imposed rule of never reading more than one of any author, I decided to try and follow the chronology but then which one? The order in which they were written or the chronology of the Jack Reacher story? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>Killing Floor </i>is Lee's first book. And an award winner. Naturally. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Reacher is in a town looking for a Blues musician. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">He's arrested for murder. And somewhere during the long wait in the police station he listens to music in his head. There's fan tribute to that at </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://blogaddress-generic.blogspot.com/2010/05/music-in-my-head-jack-reacher-playlist.html" target="_blank">The music in my head</a>.</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Besides the internal music there's the radio:</span><br />
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<i style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">I fiddled with the radio built into the nightstand thing. Came up with a station playing something halfway decent. Sounded like they were playing through an early Canned Heat album. Bouncy and sunny and just right for a bright empty morning.</i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">More on the radio:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i> I fiddled with the radio dial and heard Albert King tell me if it wasn't for bad luck, he wouldn't have no luck at all.</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #6c757d; font-family: "roboto" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And back to inside Reacher's head:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>I was leaning up in my corner running a Bobby Bland number through my head. An old favorite. It was cranked up real loud. “Further On Up the Road.” Bobby Bland sings it in G major. That key gives it a strange, sunny, cheerful cast. Takes out the spiteful sting from the lyric. Makes it a lament, a prediction, a consolation. Makes it do what the blues is supposed to do. The relaxed G major misting it almost into sweetness. Not vicious.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>But then I saw the fat police chief walk by. Morrison, on his way past the cells, toward the big office in back. Just in time for the start of the third verse. I crunched the song down into E flat. A dark and menacing key. The real blues key. I deleted the amiable Bobby Bland. I needed a harder voice. Something much more vicious. Musical, but a real cigarettes-and-whiskey rasp. Maybe Wild Child Butler. Someone you wouldn’t want to mess with. I wound the level in my head up higher, for the part about reaping what you sow, further on up the road.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>I started dreaming about John Lee Hooker. In the old days, before he got famous again. He had an old steel-strung guitar, played it sitting on a little stool.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>To calm down, I ran music through my head. The chorus in “Smokestack Lightning.” The Howling Wolf version puts a wonderful strangled cry on the end of the first line. They say you need to ride the rails for a while to understand the traveling blues. They’re wrong. To understand the traveling blues you need to be locked down somewhere. In a cell. Or in the army. Someplace where you’re caged. Someplace where smokestack lightning looks like a faraway beacon of impossible freedom. I lay there with my coat as a pillow and listened to the music in my head. At the end of the third chorus, I fell asleep.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />So, if you've not read a Jack Reacher yet, begin now. After all, you have your playlist handy!</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-81945129249677100212019-03-17T21:10:00.000-07:002019-03-17T21:10:57.012-07:00An Unexpected Diversion - My Hobbit Habit <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">People have books they like to read time and again and mine was <i>The Hobbit</i>. And <i>The Trilogy</i>. It was somewhere a little before 1969. My father had returned from a posting in Boston, I think. And he had brought the set back with him. It was literally a set, set within an elegant cardboard five-sided box. As I cannot find a free to share picture of that experience, I offer you a preview of the first book of the series from Amazon:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My father told us the stories, a little bit at a time, every day, when he got home from work. And they were among the first books that I read. I continued to re-read them annually, well into the years of motherhood when I read them aloud to my son.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But, first of all, let me tell you what a hobbit is. A hobbit is like a small person, except that hobbits have furry feet. And they live in a hole in the ground. In fact, that is how the whole concept began. Apparently, Prof Tolkien was quite upset with the nonsense a student had written and he wrote as comment: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." But it was </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.</i></span></blockquote>
<i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Hobbit</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> can be read alone and some feel that it might be better to read it after tackling </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Trilogy</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">. For </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Hobbit</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> can be perceived by some as a book for children. Indeed, one can read all of them at any age but Disney and ilk have used business sense to convince some of us that there are books for each age as well as for each gender.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The very first chapter of <i>The Hobbit</i>, The Unexpected Party, is a delight. Imagine how you would feel if some thirteen dwarfs and one wizard gate crashed your place and demanded to be fed. You would be fed up! And it would not be a good morning at all. Except that that is how the story sort of begins:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">“Good Morning!" said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Gandalf is the wizard in the story. </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">"What do you mean?" he said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">"All of them at once," said Bilbo. "And a very fine morning for a pipe of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain.</span></i></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">However, the wizard appears thick skinned and Bilbo, the hobbit, decides to be firm:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>"Good morning!" he said at last. "We don't want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water." By this he meant that the conversation was at an end.</i></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>"What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!" said Gandalf. "Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won't be good till I move off.”</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The story is bound to make you chuckle, not only at first reading but even later, when memories bubble up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So, the dwarfs and the wizard make themselves at home in the hobbit hole and soon begin to sing: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Chip the glasses and crack the plates!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I do hope you haven't seen the film and I do hope you won't. The book is much better.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Bilbo's heart sinks as the purpose of the party slowly manifests: to set off on a treasure hunt fraught with dangers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>The dark filled all the room, and the fire died down, and the shadows were lost, and still
they played on. And suddenly first one and then another began to sing as they played,
deepthroated singing of the dwarves in the deep places of their ancient homes; and this is like
a fragment of their song, if it can be like their song without their music. </i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>Far over the misty mountains cold</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>To dungeons deep and caverns old</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>We must away ere break of day</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>To seek the pale enchanted gold.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">To compound matters, Bilbo is to be a key figure in the enterprise. But I leave you to discover the joys of Tolkien's tale on your own. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For those who are already smitten with the story, let's see what other devotees have done. A tidbit for the newbie: a hobbit is fond of food. So, it was a delight to discover <a href="http://www.inliterature.net/in-cinemas/2013/01/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-party-menu-and-recipes.html">AN UNEXPECTED PARTY MENU AND RECIPES</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">For music to read by, do try </span><a href="https://thetolkienist.com/2015/02/02/part-1-music-middle-earth/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Music from Middle-earth</a><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">So I leave you to gate-crash the story and hope to follow this unexpected diversion of mine with some Roast Mutton - the name of the second chapter of <i>The Hobbit.</i></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24521439.post-32245192110973204342019-03-07T21:34:00.000-08:002019-03-10T15:28:41.586-07:00Psychoanalysis, a Long Poem and a Short Story - Jung, Browning, and Vonnegut <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My father was a psychiatrist. Those who have some acquaintance with the field will immediately think of Freud. A few might also recall Jung. My father was averse to Freud and I have inherited that phobia. Freud </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">appears obsessed with sex.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> And I admit that I have not read his works and that my bias is based on what I have heard of his theories and how I see their influence. However, as he is not the focus here, I leave you to do the digging. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Freud, father of psychoanalysis. Google Images - CC BY-SA 4.0</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When I was a child I grew up in a house where books reigned supreme and among those was </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Carl Jung</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'s </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://archive.org/stream/MemoriesDreamsReflectionsCarlJung/Memories,%20Dreams,%20Reflections%20-%20Carl%20Jung_djvu.txt" target="_blank">Memories, Dreams, Reflections</a></i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Upload by Adrian Michael - Ortsmuseum Zollikon, Public Domain</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Though not without faults, Jung's was one of modern history's most intriguing minds and </i>Memories, Dreams, Reflections<i> presents a rare, infinitely insightful glimpse of its inner workings...</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/memories-dreams-reflections-a-rare-glimpse-into-carl-jungs-mind/254513/">Maria Popova</a></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Read it <a href="https://the-eye.eu/public/concen.org/Carl%20Gustav%20Jung%20-%20Memories%20Dreams%20Reflections%20audio-book/Carl%20Gustav%20Jung%20-%20Memories%2C%20Dreams%2C%20Reflections%20492p.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As for me, Jung brought me the concept of persona and of archetypes. Again, it's just in a crude way and so for me, persona is </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>a face to meet the faces that you meet</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock" target="_blank">The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T S Eliot</a></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And as for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype" target="_blank">archetypes</a>, it is a fascinating concept. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>These archaic and mythic characters that make up the archetypes reside with all people from all over the world, Jung believed, and it is these archetypes that symbolize basic human motivations, values, and personalities. He believed that each archetype played a role in personality, but felt that most people were dominated by one specific archetype. The actual way in which an archetype is expressed or realized depends upon a number of factors including an individual's cultural influences and unique personal experiences.Jung identified four major archetypes, but also believed that there was no limit to the number that may exist.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/what-are-jungs-4-major-archetypes-2795439" target="_blank">The 4 Major Jungian Archetypes</a></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Now, that I've dangled a morsel of psychoanalysis over you, I have to confess that </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Adler" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Adler</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> is whom I really want to look into at some point!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Having dragged you through your subconscious, I shall now let you down gently with a poem about murder. From the past. Browning's brooding protagonist is driven by the demons of the subconscious:</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arthur Hughes [Public domain]</td></tr>
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<b style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Porphyria's Lover </b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>The rain set early in to-night,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>The sullen wind was soon awake,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>It tore the elm-tops down for spite,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>And did its worst to vex the lake:</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>I listened with heart fit to break.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>When glided in Porphyria; straight</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>She shut the cold out and the storm,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>And kneeled and made the cheerless grate</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Which done, she rose, and from her form</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>And laid her soiled gloves by, untied</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Her hat and let the damp hair fall,</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>And, last, she sat down by my side</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>And called me.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Porphyria%27s_Lover" target="_blank">Robert Browning</a></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Click on the poet's name above to read what happened next!</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And from the dungeons of the past I now fling you into a far future with Kurt Vonnegut's <i>Report on the Barnhouse Effect.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The story reflects archetypes related to war. A good tale for those of us who appear to have forgotten the cost of conflicts between countries. Listen to it here:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="140" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/ReportOnTheBarnhouseEffectByKurtVonnegut" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="500"></iframe></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.indiblogger.in/post/psychoanalysis-a-long-poem-and-a-short-story-jung-browning-and-vonnegut" title="Featured post on IndiBlogger, the biggest community of Indian Bloggers"></a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img alt="Featured post on IndiBlogger, the biggest community of Indian Bloggers" border="0" height="96" src="https://cdn.indiblogger.in/badges/235x96_featured-indivine-post.png" width="235" /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img alt="Top post on IndiBlogger, the biggest community of Indian Bloggers" border="0" height="96" src="https://cdn.indiblogger.in/badges/235x96_top-indivine-post.png" width="235" /></span><br />
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