Category: Books

I done did it, I read another book! I stuck to classics again to better my chances of not hating the experience. But the choice was blinded by the ebook format, which does not give you a chance to weight the amount of paper you’re about to tackle. I read Moby Dick, inspired by a comic I read (Achab by Patrick Mallet, meant as a prequel) which made me curious about the real book. And it’s a big book, the contents of which are very dense. Since I only seem to find time to read at the tail end of a day, my mental energy is usually depleted which makes it hard to go through more than a few pages. But it kept me coming back, which is saying a lot about its quality. Once I got used to the unusual words and turns of phrases it got easier, the same thing happened with the Grapes of Wrath. This is making me realize my English is lacking a certain range, it’s a struggle to grasp older turns of phrases. I wasn’t particularly apt with the seafaring vocabulary either :).

The book with very rich with many references, most of which I didn’t know, which left me wishing for annotations. It describes the world of whaling very, very, VERY, exhaustively. It can sometimes be a little much, some of the encyclopedic indexing of whale types, and bones were very dry. But it has the merit of not making assumptions about what a reader may know about a world which no longer exists. These details give texture and meaning where imagination couldn’t fill the gaps.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, I understand why it’s a classic. I liked understanding how a world once worked, I liked the characters, the metaphors are inspired, and a few sentences are so salient with meaning as to give one pause.

Great short read. Saint-Exupery just has a unique sensitivity for describing life in a way that pulls out the child you buried under layers of adult responsibilities. And the story is a cool glimpse into the operation of the aéropostale and what it meant to fly then.

This is why people hate books. It’s not meant to tell an interesting story, it’s an exercise in the absurd by the author. I only finished it because it was short and I thought something must happen eventually. The dude doesn’t even get his head chopped off at the end. I picked it because it’s a classic and I heard a journalist I like talk about it as a life altering book. I don’t see it in the least. Nicole told me Camus is responsible for the stereotype of “ennui” as seen in Inside Out 2, makes sense. This book has zero purpose, it’s written to be boring and it’s quite effective in that regard.

Do I feel any shame being the uninstructed critique of renowned authors? Not at all, this book sucks.

I was forced to read as a kid, which made me despise books and go through school avoiding them at all cost. I can count on my hands the number of books I actually read. Half of which were when I met Nicole and took interest in the books she liked. It’s a sad fact, but literature eventually found its way via music with Brel & Brassens. I could at least enjoy some good prose but I still avoided boring paper for decades. Learning English eventually made me more interested in language. Lately I’ve felt like friends were getting something out of books that I wasn’t, and so that I should try again. I’ve also been interested in refactoring media habits, less algorithmically fed bite size outrage, and more human chosen focused & continuous.

How to pick a first book in decades, and not get burnt? Well I decided to stick to classics thinking they were well liked for a reason. The current economic context led me to pick The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck.

It took me a while to get through it, reading is really not natural and I need to establish the habit. And I loved it. I loved recognizing a uniquely American hardiness in Tom & his fambly. Nicole & I have observed well before this book that Americans have a particular way of going through hardships. Resigned, no push back, just acceptance and enduring. Sometimes, and that may be the latin in my own cultural mix, you kind of want to shake them and ask why they are just accepting things that could be pushed back on. This cultural trait is well illustrated in this book. It was rough to read at first and it took me a while to understand some of the words. The illustration of economic exploitation was also well received and helped me understand a pan of US history, and present state. Everyday economics here is objectively a lot more cutthroat than western Europe. This can be good or bad, much like unquestionably enduring hardships. More freedom to do great things, and more freedom for greedy predators to help you hang yourself.

I know it was a good book because it stays in my mind well after having read it. I hope I can keep fanning that flame going forward.