Fritz
I loathed Aleph, found it horrendous, so someone gave this to me as a joke. But I actually kind of enjoyed it. It is sometimes a bit whimsical and sentimental, but it's a lovely little story about followint your dreams and trying to live close to your passion etc.
This was very good. Funny, crazy. Kind of like Kerouac's On the Road. Frantic dialogues with lots of popculture references that make more sense in the time it was written.
What an utter load of hautain silliness. It's quasi-spiritual and semi-intellectual, but fails at both. There were some interesting themes. But most of the story was conveyed in vague descriptions.
To top that he pretends to be very faithful to his wife while clearly being infatuated with the naked woman sitting on his lap (where invited her to sit). Which is a bizarrely dissonant thing to uphold as true.
Do not recommend this.
Awesome graphic novel.
Witty and original it combines Video Games style points and explanation of people. Very funny
This book took me by surprise. What a lovely profound and unpretentious take on making art and music as a spiritual undertaking. Redemption for the selves and the other. Loved it.
Not extremely profound, but it's a great articulation of a sense of loss and grief. What do you do when all your beliefs stop working? Do you give up? Do you look elsewhere?
Without going into much detail I think this book really struck a chord in a time where I was rediscovering some riches in religions (not just Christianity), in a time where I could relax a bit more instead of just finding things to throw sticks at.
This was fun. Exactly the sort of fun you'd expect from a Star Wars book about a casino. Perhaps a little better than I anticipated.
Hierdie boek was ‘n wonderlike introspektiewe soektog in die hart van die taal en kultuur van die Afrikaner. Wat maak dat ‘n mens in Suid-Afrika wil bly, waar vind ons ons oorsprong en wat gaan ons vashou vir die toekoms.
Not sure what I was expecting. But I heard that Agatha Christie's detectives were really good. And I felt that the plot sprang out of nowhere. Not something I think makes a good detective.
Interesting take on some stuff. A lot of other stuff felt disconnected.
Especially the part about the Hadzabe felt like it was very much removed from our world. Sure. We can learn from these societies. But the author is in a very different wealthy environment where she can fly in. Learn some stuff and go back.
Anyways. Interesting. But not a must read.
I liked the part about sharing responsibilities
Beautiful ink drawings of a boat journey. Story sort of revolves around storms and meeting people. However interesting and fascinating the journey must have been, it doesn't really transfer well into this story.
You do learn a lot about boats though.
I have never read a book like this. It is weird and has little punctuation. It's about politics but not in a way that describes a certain conflict or a strong cast of characters. But rather it is very abstract, using a party on the left, party on the right and party in the middle. None of the characters have names. They are only described by their title or their relation to others: e.g. the doctor's wife.
The book describes what can happen when the majority of the people legitimately cast a blank vote during elections. It displays a democratic multi-party government as obsolete. What does happen when there is no majority voting for parties. Do riots happen, or does life as usual run its course?
The first 100 pages are filled with conversations between the cabinet members of government, the party leaders and their direct subordinates. Silly debates, and pretentious arguments hold sway for that part of the book. Personally I found this part extremely tedious, and it was only the second try that got me further than page 55.
Conversations are stringed along sentences that can run for half a page, in the way a conversation is directly transcribed. Some conversations can ramble on without even taking place in real life and are just a what-if scenario described by the character that at that moment takes centre stage.
Looking back I might have caught on to the central part of this book earlier on in the book instead of the final stages of it. It's the small conversations that matter in the way that Coen Brother's movies are more about the dialogue than about just the storyline. I was looking for a plot, but found a very flimsy one. I was looking for engaging characters, but found abstract archetypes. However, I did find a very unique writing style and a book I might have to get back to, when I'm wiser and less restless. For that it deserves an extra star to what I initially wanted to give it.
Kerouac's nervous breakdown, takes you up and down into the twists and turns of his inner most honest thoughts. Thoughts of death and dying and life and living. The triumphant beat generation comes to an end. The bouts of drinking and madness turned to thinking and sadness.
A requiem for the kind of life that takes no no for an answer that never stops to think, but just cruises down the highway at a 100 mph.
It is uncanny, the amount of effort to break the madness and the futility of it all and to have the feeling that this book could have been written now. In a world of sad millennials who are dissapointed about their life and opportunities and the people who try to break the mould.
I loved it and binged it, as my generation does.
Dit prachtige boek is een soort ode aan de millenial die van de klassieke kunsten houdt: klassieke muziek, schilderkunst, poëzie en literatuur. Het heeft humor en beschrijft de eenzame mens die schouderklopjesbehoeftig is. Sterke proza en referentiele taal beschrijft in prachtige woorden het leven van igor, bekeken vanuit 2 protagonisten. De een verloren in zijn kunst (viool), de ander verloren in het gebrek daaraan (schilderkunst). Beiden zijn ze weg van igor, de man die alles kan. Die hun laat twijfelen aan de manier waarop zij hun kunst uitoefenen.
Een prachtig boek over mensen die als succesvol beschouwd worden, maar gevangen zijn in hun talent of in hun kunstvorm.
Het is prachtig, prozaisch en blijft op het randje van menselijk, terwijl het toch over een elitaire wereld gaat. Die van de klassieke muzikant. Een wereld die in het boek ook geridiculiseerd wordt, omdat zij zo hautain is. Een aanrader.
Het eerste gedeelte is fantastisch, het tweede gedeelte is goed. Daarom 4/5 sterren.
This book was marvelous, fantastic and legendary characters, great build up. Wonderful storytelling.
I should read this again in English (they didn't have it at the local library in English). Perhaps it will gain 5 stars then.
Wonderful prosaic and poetic phrases that twist and turn about. Uncommon use of punctuation, which reminded me of Jose Saramago. I gave it two stars, because the story itself was sort of stupid. And also incest. That never works for me in a story.
A gruesome story. With the setting and the topic of mutilation and revenge and it being set in the arid lands of Namibia I imagined a Charlize Theron from Mad Max rampaging on the German forces. It was horrid but splendid.
Some really cool ideas and concepts. But so verbose and some chapters are just devoid of content.
My notes:
Reality is broken - Jane mcgonigal
Unnecessary obstacles
A goal
Voluntary participation
Happiness that is intrinsically motivated is much more resilient. External motivation is prone to hedonistic adaptation. Law of diminishing returns.
1. We crave satisfying work daily
2. Experience success
3. Social connection
4. Meaning
Reality is unproductive and unclear
Many of us do work that feels more surreal than real. Working in an office, you often find it difficult to see any tangible result from your efforts. What exactly have you accomplished at the end of any given day? Where the chain of cause and effect is opaque and responsibility diffuse, the experience of individual agency can be elusive.
The Case for Working With Your Hands - The New York Times
Failure is necessary to keep the fun going. It increases our sense of agency
Use it in real life. Alternate reality games help make mundane tasks fun: Chore Wars
Or helps recovery from chronic illness etc: SuperBetter
Een bizar boek wat met verve en een soort manische drift geschreven lijkt. Ogenschijnlijk zonder samenhang en ratelend van associatie naar associatie.
Wel gaaf en vermakelijk. Benali is een erudiete geest en dit boek maakt weer eens duidelijk wat gegoochel met woorden teweeg kan brengen
This felt a bit like a Coen Brothers story set in Soweto. I really enjoyed the slang, the pace and the setting. That together with the inevitability of a cluster fuck looming over the protagonist Bafana's head made this worthwhile.