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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
Bisa dibilang sebenarnya saya gagal membaca jurnal ini karena saya mengalami kesusahan dengan gaya penulisannya, banyak deskripsi dan bahasa indah berbunga yang susah saya cerna. Apalagi banyak ilmu pengetahuan yang dijabarkan menjadikan jurnal ini mirip buku pelajaran, kosakata yang kurang, dan ditambah lagi konsentrasi yang buruk dan kemampuan mata yang sering menurun membuat saya semakin susah mengerti :D
Pemikiran seperti "ah saya juga berpendapat seperti itu" atau "ah saya juga mungkin akan melakukan itu" kadang terlintas di pikiran saya saat membacanya. Karena memiliki lebih banyak perbedaan daripada persamaan, saya akan merasa senang apabila bisa berteman dengan Mr. Barbellion.
Membaca jurnal ini mengajarkan bahwa manusia boleh saja merencanakan sesuatu tetapi tetap Tuhanlah yang menentukan segalanya.
Pemikiran seperti "ah saya juga berpendapat seperti itu" atau "ah saya juga mungkin akan melakukan itu" kadang terlintas di pikiran saya saat membacanya. Karena memiliki lebih banyak perbedaan daripada persamaan, saya akan merasa senang apabila bisa berteman dengan Mr. Barbellion.
Membaca jurnal ini mengajarkan bahwa manusia boleh saja merencanakan sesuatu tetapi tetap Tuhanlah yang menentukan segalanya.
I can't remember the last book where I underlined as many lines, as in The Journal of a Disappointed Man, or laughed as much, or cried. Actually cried, quiet rolling tears, while my husband slept beside me in bed.
This journal starts in 1903 when Barbellion (a pen-name) is 13 and wants desperately to be a naturalist (the journal is full of wonderful descriptions of nature), but has to follow his father and become a local journalist. Still, he is determined, and despite ill-health and being completely self-educated takes an exam and gets a job at The Natural History Museum in London (unfortunately, and rather amusingly the job he is given is to measure the legs on lice). He becomes more ill, but (after much indecision) marries and has a child. All the while recounting his illness, and his thoughts on life and death. Eventually, while still in his twenties, he learns he has multiple sclerosis, only because he opens a letter from his doctor that was not addressed to him. He worries about money, and how his wife and child will manage, but he lives to see his journal published. He dies age 31.
So it is desperately sad, but W.N.P (or Bruce) is funny, and clever, and witty, and thoughtful, and despairing. This year is 100 years since his death, and yet he seems so very real and close.
This journal starts in 1903 when Barbellion (a pen-name) is 13 and wants desperately to be a naturalist (the journal is full of wonderful descriptions of nature), but has to follow his father and become a local journalist. Still, he is determined, and despite ill-health and being completely self-educated takes an exam and gets a job at The Natural History Museum in London (unfortunately, and rather amusingly the job he is given is to measure the legs on lice). He becomes more ill, but (after much indecision) marries and has a child. All the while recounting his illness, and his thoughts on life and death. Eventually, while still in his twenties, he learns he has multiple sclerosis, only because he opens a letter from his doctor that was not addressed to him. He worries about money, and how his wife and child will manage, but he lives to see his journal published. He dies age 31.
So it is desperately sad, but W.N.P (or Bruce) is funny, and clever, and witty, and thoughtful, and despairing. This year is 100 years since his death, and yet he seems so very real and close.
I don’t think I’ve quite reacted so emotionally to a book before. Powerful stuff.
dark
reflective
medium-paced
dark
funny
sad
slow-paced
TL;DR
Reading this journal, "The journal of a disappointed man", and finishing it will feel like you've made a friend and then lost him. You will get to know the author intimately and most likely get attached to him. His ambitions, struggles with life and death, and lyrical way of revealing the world, make this a pleasant read (I can almost imagine how enraged he would be by this adjective haha).
28 January 2023
My last "conversation" with Barbellion
It has been a few years since I've written a Goodreads review, unfortunately. And this feels less like a review and more like a journal entry, but given the book, I believe it is quite fitting.
I started reading the book as a "natural" choice following two other books, a novel and a journal, where a character in the first book and the author himself in the second, had to deal with a diagnostic and the knowledge that they will die within a few years.
A few days after starting this book, I was suggested the spectre of a gloomy diagnosis myself and while I was rather optimistic with the outcome, I couldn't help thinking about the worst case, with the dark shape of death slowly starting to emerge down my road, sooner than I would have hoped. This fundamentally changed my relationship with the book, from an intellectual exercise to actually having to learn and apply what I will find within its pages, feeling like I wanted to desperately grab the author's hand and hold it tight, preparing for the storm that was to come.
Nevertheless, as I was continuing my read, the gloomy prospect that was haunting me vanished into the best scenario I could hope for, and the spectre of death was nowhere near me...apart from the pages of the book.
But then something even stranger happened, which might be due to my reading the Romanian translation. There were very many sentences, passages, which, had I encountered them on the sporadic pieces of paper I sometimes note my thoughts on, I could've sworn were written by me ! I was astonished by how similar his lyrical way of noting events or little things in life, was to mine. One evening I even entertained the ludicrous thought that maybe his soul is mine, returned to this life once again, reading its own journal ! And, ridiculously enough, many pages later he encounters the journal of Marie Bashkirtseff and feels about her journal the way I feel about his ! I couldn't help but start laughing, noting to get my hands on her journal too and see how I feel. Is this the third journey of this soul into this world ? Three is such a beautiful digit. And some of the ways in which his mind plagued him, are no longer present now!
I wonder if his grave's location is known. If I go there, will my soul tremble when near it, "the dust, the atoms buried deep in the ground there, they were our home a long time ago.."
Maybe it's time for a fundamental change !
And do you see, how all I've talked about was me ! And not the book. Barbellion would have been proud, or at least could relate.
All in all, after finishing the book I feel so strange. Like I've lost a friend I never met, but whom I know rather well. Over many lunch breaks and quiet evenings I would find out about how Barbellion's days went, how he felt about this or that, snippets of his life, mind, reactions, thoughts. And now it is over, he is gone yet again, he died once more, this time in my mind.
Reading this journal, "The journal of a disappointed man", and finishing it will feel like you've made a friend and then lost him. You will get to know the author intimately and most likely get attached to him. His ambitions, struggles with life and death, and lyrical way of revealing the world, make this a pleasant read (I can almost imagine how enraged he would be by this adjective haha).
28 January 2023
My last "conversation" with Barbellion
It has been a few years since I've written a Goodreads review, unfortunately. And this feels less like a review and more like a journal entry, but given the book, I believe it is quite fitting.
I started reading the book as a "natural" choice following two other books, a novel and a journal, where a character in the first book and the author himself in the second, had to deal with a diagnostic and the knowledge that they will die within a few years.
A few days after starting this book, I was suggested the spectre of a gloomy diagnosis myself and while I was rather optimistic with the outcome, I couldn't help thinking about the worst case, with the dark shape of death slowly starting to emerge down my road, sooner than I would have hoped. This fundamentally changed my relationship with the book, from an intellectual exercise to actually having to learn and apply what I will find within its pages, feeling like I wanted to desperately grab the author's hand and hold it tight, preparing for the storm that was to come.
Nevertheless, as I was continuing my read, the gloomy prospect that was haunting me vanished into the best scenario I could hope for, and the spectre of death was nowhere near me...apart from the pages of the book.
But then something even stranger happened, which might be due to my reading the Romanian translation. There were very many sentences, passages, which, had I encountered them on the sporadic pieces of paper I sometimes note my thoughts on, I could've sworn were written by me ! I was astonished by how similar his lyrical way of noting events or little things in life, was to mine. One evening I even entertained the ludicrous thought that maybe his soul is mine, returned to this life once again, reading its own journal ! And, ridiculously enough, many pages later he encounters the journal of Marie Bashkirtseff and feels about her journal the way I feel about his ! I couldn't help but start laughing, noting to get my hands on her journal too and see how I feel. Is this the third journey of this soul into this world ? Three is such a beautiful digit. And some of the ways in which his mind plagued him, are no longer present now!
I wonder if his grave's location is known. If I go there, will my soul tremble when near it, "the dust, the atoms buried deep in the ground there, they were our home a long time ago.."
Maybe it's time for a fundamental change !
And do you see, how all I've talked about was me ! And not the book. Barbellion would have been proud, or at least could relate.
All in all, after finishing the book I feel so strange. Like I've lost a friend I never met, but whom I know rather well. Over many lunch breaks and quiet evenings I would find out about how Barbellion's days went, how he felt about this or that, snippets of his life, mind, reactions, thoughts. And now it is over, he is gone yet again, he died once more, this time in my mind.
I will say of this journal what the author wrote of another:
“how we should have hated one another! She feels as I feel. We have the same self-absorption, the same vanity and corroding ambition. She is impressionable, volatile, passionate – ill! So am I. Her journal is my journal. All mine is stale reading now. She has written down all my thoughts and forestalled me! Already I have found some heartrending parallels. To think I am only a replica: how humiliating for a human being to find himself merely a duplicate of another. Is there anything in the transmigration of souls?”
“how we should have hated one another! She feels as I feel. We have the same self-absorption, the same vanity and corroding ambition. She is impressionable, volatile, passionate – ill! So am I. Her journal is my journal. All mine is stale reading now. She has written down all my thoughts and forestalled me! Already I have found some heartrending parallels. To think I am only a replica: how humiliating for a human being to find himself merely a duplicate of another. Is there anything in the transmigration of souls?”
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced