Book Diary 2021

30.12.

Now this was really damn delicious. It's a story about a man who enters a classical concert while pondering about his spiritual experiences, moral beliefs and past life. The narrative style and structure are taken from typical sonata, Carpentier knew his music theory after all.

29.12.

28.12.

This one's difficult to describe. The story is based on a baroque concerto about the conquest of America, but as usual the story doesn't really have anything to do with reality, it's all just product of imagination. Not just that, but it's also a story about an ironic dialogue between the old and the new world, and an idea of art and creativity as tools to make sense of world around us and other similar stuff.

The translator also wrote a short essay about the author and his style. According to her, there wasn't any real modernist movements in Latin America, so that's why Carpentier's literary style leans more towards Spanish baroque, and so do his interests and themes. The more I learn, the more I'm interested in this stuff.

28.12.

Incredible short novel about a young man who is employed by an elderly woman to write a book. The old lady lives with her niece, with whom the young man falls desperately in love. The story at its core is very surreal and dreamlike, but at the end also very poetic and even beautiful.

Also despite the surreal nature it's still very easy to read.

25.12.

This novel consists of multiple vaguely connected shorter stories about perverse love and obsession, madness and death. It's not as easy read as you would think and there might be lots of references Europeans wouldn't get, but it's still a great book.

24.12.

This novel is like a literary version of Citizen Kane, it's all about flashbacks and complex circulating psychological narrative. It's even said that the author attempted to create his own written vision of visual cinematic language. Isn't that interesting or frigging what?

This isn't an easy and quick read, though. You should at least be aware of this stuff before checking it out. I wasn't at first, and it was difficult to follow.

24.12.

The mother and father of all epic historical novels and my grand christmas project. First time I attempted to read this I had to stop before the first half was done, but now I made it to the end and it was great. Had I known that the best parts actually begin after the first 2 books (out of 4) I would probably had read this one way sooner. Totally worth it.

23.12.

A rich elitist artist ends up wandering in a jungle with bunch of other people. While they try to find their way through the darkness of the forest and the wonders it hides beneath the mysterious surface, the man thinks about his inner world.

What an interesting novel, very rich in both meaning and depth. Carpentier was clearly above most other writers of his time.

22.12.

Out of all the Marquez's novels I have read so far this was my least favourite.

22.12.

Another mediocre Dick.

21.12.

I guess this was the last Llosa I still hadn't read. What a wonderful novelist, but not his best novel.

21.12.

21.12.

18.12.

A legendary novel that turned out to be surprisingly superficial and boring. Maybe it's just historically significant and not that great to begin with, I think.

15.12.

The idea is interesting, but at the end of the day nothing really happens.

15.12.

Nothing special.

15.12.

One of Marquez's best short novels. The story is about a brutal honor murder that happens in a small Columbian village after a man learns that his newlywed wife isn't a virgin.

13.12.

13.12.

12.12.

12.12.

11.12.

It's fine, but faaaaarrrrrrrr from the masterpiece some people make it out to be.

11.12.

Can't say I enjoyed it. Might be the faulty translation, but I found this novel very confusing and difficult to read.

9.12.

A very philosophical and symbolic novel, it might be easier to digest if you happen to know a thing or two about the politics and culture of the 19th century Europe.

6.12.

One of the greatest novels ever written. The narrative is so rich and moves so fast it's rather difficult to read, but the satisfaction it gives is absolutely worth it. It's a little mystery what the story was all about, but it only makes you want to read it again with fresh mind.

5.12.

This was my third or fourth time reading this thing and it's still one of the best graphic novels ever.

3.12.

By this point I have already read so much of this stuff that most of this book is just repeating the same old plus it's once again a political commentary to then recent state of Russian working class, so nothing that interesting here.

Another bunch of theoretic papers was about dialectic materialism and the theory behind it. Most of it was very outdated to say the least, but the core and history of the thought were very intriguing.

2.12.

They told me never to read this evil book, since it's like literally new Mein Kampf, so of course I did, because fuck them.

The story begins when millions of Third World migrants begin their journey towards the promised land in the West. Every poor country understands the consequences if they let them in, but the modern Western countries end up facing a serious moral dilemma by either having to leave them to suffer and pretty much destroy them or letting them come in and risk destroying themselves. Of course all sorts communist and anarchist factions use the situation to their advantage to destroy the capitalist Western societies.

I know, right. This book was written back in the early 70's when the great migrant crisis of 2010's was just a fantasy, as was this story. I don't think it really is racist, since the point is once again to criticize modern politics and naive rich Westerners who have been completely alienated from the real world. Morally good intentions don't always mean morally good results, and I think that's the main point of this novel.

2.12.

A moral study of classical Roman and Greece history and culture. This is one of the most influential christian books ever written, and surprisingly easy to read if you know your history inside and out.

1.12.

Another very laconic Houellebecq. This time an Islamic Party takes over France and something weird happens. Some people say this is racist, but I think he laughs at chaotic modern French politics where any crazy thing can actually happen any time.

29.11.

Few days in a life of a worthless man living in a worthless world. It's a nice and easy read with very laconic tone.

I kinda like it.

28.11.

Another motherload of ideological soviet writings, this time included this book here with about thousand pages worth of extra material. The most were either essays or responses to other people who alongside their own writings have been completely lost in time, so there wasn't much to work with here. Gives a lot of insight into this stuff, though.

There will be more still...

28.11.

It's a spiritual autobiography, so take it as you will.

11.11.

I think one should always be willing to learn to understand other people even if you're not into their way of thinking. That's why I gathered some Soviet-era ideological literature and had some fun with it. Good thing this stuff is still stored in local libraries as historical documents.

So far I've read this book and a one big collection of essays, speeches and letters, and it's very fascinating. I don't think even people advocating this stuff have ever read all this nonsense. But now I understand the strange logic behind Soviet Union a little more than I did before, and that's just what I wanted.

There will be more...

7.11.

2.11.

26.10.

One big problem with these comedies is that much of the wordplay cannot be translated and references really don't mean anything for modern audience, which is very sad.

26.10.

25.10.

25.10.

23.10.

22.10.

22.10.

18.10.

18.10.

16.10.

My favourite Shakespeare. It's a classic story about a man and his destiny, the latter being becoming a king and later losing his crown to his friend's son when a forest marches towards his castle.

16.10.

A young man reads a book which ends up turning his life upside down, the grand theme being the thin blue line between inner and outer realities of man.

16.10.

A man takes an identity of another person and starts reflecting the reality through his lenses. Apparently, the another person is journalist so the story becomes a pastische of symbolism, inner and outer dialogues and smaller stories and mysteries. Luckily I had a loan book which had someone else's markings, so I had some help spotting all the important details.

15.10.