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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
Extremely admirable. Facets that reflect myself and all of humanity. And yet I was mostly unmoved. Perhaps I will increase this rating with time.
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Kafka's Metamorphosis รก rebours. i think the key to understanding her writing is just feeling it - and the Sartre'ian dread of free will and being condemned to living really made me feel things that occupied my mind before...
OK, so I have just finished this book so my thoughts are as fresh as they will ever be. Just as the author herself often mentions, these thoughts are transient and often hard to articulate so the sooner they come out of me the better. The more this gets delayed, the more likely it is that it will just be a fruitless and futile chore.
Everyone must be aware of that feeling of becoming acutely aware of one's own breathing. This is what this book is about. A woman in her apartment who becomes acutely aware of being alive. And akin to becoming aware of one's breathing, it is a highly uncomfortable realization to walk into.
The plot is skeletal at best. A woman sits alone in her apartment. Her maid has just quit. She contemplates cleaning the house as a sort of routine to follow. She decides to start with maid's now freshly vacated room. Here she comes across a cockroach. She crushes it between the doors of cupboard. Lies down. Throws up twice.
The plot isn't much to write home about. The plot has next to no bearing really. The plot is a brilliant example of a "nothing". Why is this brilliant? Because that's what this book is about.
As the author delves deeper into her sudden awareness of being alive, she realizes the absolute nothingness that it holds. At the same time she realizes the huge burden that nothing can be. She weaves through these realizations and it would be doing the book a great disgrace if I were to try and reiterate them here, but I'll try to summarize it to sell this book to a prospective reader.
She comes to numerous realizations, but at the core the main realization is this: life and all it's aspects have been given the flavour that we perceive purely because we as humans ascribe that very flavour to them as a sort of humanization of the things that surround us. The author claims that identity, is in it's essence, extreme neutrality. We as humans provide the seasoning to all these elements that surround us to make them more palatable. To save ourselves from the insipid truth that reality can be. As the book progresses, she gradually becomes disillusioned with the idea of humanization of things as she sees it as a hindrance to identity. It's quite a stark statement isn't it?
It would be easy and downright lazy to decree this as just another book that delves into the crippling fear that comes with acute onset existential dread but it's so much more than that. The sheer grace of articulation and mastery of language that she exhibits here is truly something to behold. She swerves through numerous arguments and, often, dead-ends and gets out of them so efficiently that halfway into the book you might just take it for granted. It's a wonder really.
But the real icing on the cake is that she comes to a certain sense of peace.
Towards the beginning we see her fight this strong tide but towards the end we see her understand
the very energy that is pushing her around. That nothing is really pulling her down. The source of the discomfort is herself and herself alone. It's the greed for flavour. The greed for more. She comes to (a rather weak yet promising) realization that reality can be just what it is. And that's okay. That she can loosen her expectations and hopes for the future which might exist just to distract herself from the sheerness of the present. To actually be in the now and enjoy the nowness of it all. To be okay with a sense of depersonalization that all of this will most likely bring along with it.
It probably is more a matter of timing more than anything that I find myself resonating with this books so deeply. In a sea of books dealing with existential crises where every one ends with a shrug and a "it do be like that" attitude, it gets tiring. It is a confession, of sorts, to say that I have felt and thought in very much the same way. The similarities are uncanny but I surely wasn't as eloquent or patient with my moments as she has been here. I guess what I am trying to say is that it's reassuring to see something come of it in the end. It is reassuring to see a straight acceptance of fear when this happens. It is reassuring to see the methodical calmness that she approaches it all with and how she comes to a truly content conclusion. A true sense being okay with neutrality.
Also towards the end, she decides to dress-up and go out with her friends. Just a cherry on top of this relatability cake.
Everyone must be aware of that feeling of becoming acutely aware of one's own breathing. This is what this book is about. A woman in her apartment who becomes acutely aware of being alive. And akin to becoming aware of one's breathing, it is a highly uncomfortable realization to walk into.
The plot is skeletal at best. A woman sits alone in her apartment. Her maid has just quit. She contemplates cleaning the house as a sort of routine to follow. She decides to start with maid's now freshly vacated room. Here she comes across a cockroach. She crushes it between the doors of cupboard. Lies down. Throws up twice.
The plot isn't much to write home about. The plot has next to no bearing really. The plot is a brilliant example of a "nothing". Why is this brilliant? Because that's what this book is about.
As the author delves deeper into her sudden awareness of being alive, she realizes the absolute nothingness that it holds. At the same time she realizes the huge burden that nothing can be. She weaves through these realizations and it would be doing the book a great disgrace if I were to try and reiterate them here, but I'll try to summarize it to sell this book to a prospective reader.
She comes to numerous realizations, but at the core the main realization is this: life and all it's aspects have been given the flavour that we perceive purely because we as humans ascribe that very flavour to them as a sort of humanization of the things that surround us. The author claims that identity, is in it's essence, extreme neutrality. We as humans provide the seasoning to all these elements that surround us to make them more palatable. To save ourselves from the insipid truth that reality can be. As the book progresses, she gradually becomes disillusioned with the idea of humanization of things as she sees it as a hindrance to identity. It's quite a stark statement isn't it?
It would be easy and downright lazy to decree this as just another book that delves into the crippling fear that comes with acute onset existential dread but it's so much more than that. The sheer grace of articulation and mastery of language that she exhibits here is truly something to behold. She swerves through numerous arguments and, often, dead-ends and gets out of them so efficiently that halfway into the book you might just take it for granted. It's a wonder really.
But the real icing on the cake is that she comes to a certain sense of peace.
Towards the beginning we see her fight this strong tide but towards the end we see her understand
the very energy that is pushing her around. That nothing is really pulling her down. The source of the discomfort is herself and herself alone. It's the greed for flavour. The greed for more. She comes to (a rather weak yet promising) realization that reality can be just what it is. And that's okay. That she can loosen her expectations and hopes for the future which might exist just to distract herself from the sheerness of the present. To actually be in the now and enjoy the nowness of it all. To be okay with a sense of depersonalization that all of this will most likely bring along with it.
It probably is more a matter of timing more than anything that I find myself resonating with this books so deeply. In a sea of books dealing with existential crises where every one ends with a shrug and a "it do be like that" attitude, it gets tiring. It is a confession, of sorts, to say that I have felt and thought in very much the same way. The similarities are uncanny but I surely wasn't as eloquent or patient with my moments as she has been here. I guess what I am trying to say is that it's reassuring to see something come of it in the end. It is reassuring to see a straight acceptance of fear when this happens. It is reassuring to see the methodical calmness that she approaches it all with and how she comes to a truly content conclusion. A true sense being okay with neutrality.
Also towards the end, she decides to dress-up and go out with her friends. Just a cherry on top of this relatability cake.
'The mystery of human destiny is that we are inevitable, but we have the freedom to carry out or not our inevitability: it depends on us to carry out our inevitable destiny. [...] It depends on me to freely become what I inevitably am.'
It is entirely impossible, and also just not necessary to try to explain or summarize this experience, and an experience is essentially what it is. What it does is attempt to convey a revelation, a fleeting, raw, grotesque but existential truth and way of seeing the world and life, while actively being aware that that's just not possible. Language doesn't suffice.
Living in the moment, giving up hope and future prospects to recognize the present and all it holds, recognizing oneself and one's life in everything and becoming indifferent towards the categories that shape and suffocate what really is.
This book is really about nothing, but kinda about everything at the same time?
There's essentially no real plot yet the journey it takes you on spans everything from confusion to claustrophobia to delight and transcendence, or not, if I understand correctly? which I don't.
The book recognizes that such experiences and revelations can not be conveyed or kept for long, they build up and form over time and dawn on you unexpectedly, reshaping everything you know, before you inevitably return to how things have to be.
A tough and intense read, insanely beautiful, enchanting and enthralling, well written prose. There's quotes and passages in here that are just breathtakingly well put and conveyed, it becomes overwhelming at times, it's just so unconventionally intense and divine.
I'll be thinking and contemplating this for a while, I made so many annotations I'll come back every now and then and get reabsorbed into, whatever it is.
It is entirely impossible, and also just not necessary to try to explain or summarize this experience, and an experience is essentially what it is. What it does is attempt to convey a revelation, a fleeting, raw, grotesque but existential truth and way of seeing the world and life, while actively being aware that that's just not possible. Language doesn't suffice.
Living in the moment, giving up hope and future prospects to recognize the present and all it holds, recognizing oneself and one's life in everything and becoming indifferent towards the categories that shape and suffocate what really is.
This book is really about nothing, but kinda about everything at the same time?
There's essentially no real plot yet the journey it takes you on spans everything from confusion to claustrophobia to delight and transcendence, or not, if I understand correctly? which I don't.
The book recognizes that such experiences and revelations can not be conveyed or kept for long, they build up and form over time and dawn on you unexpectedly, reshaping everything you know, before you inevitably return to how things have to be.
A tough and intense read, insanely beautiful, enchanting and enthralling, well written prose. There's quotes and passages in here that are just breathtakingly well put and conveyed, it becomes overwhelming at times, it's just so unconventionally intense and divine.
I'll be thinking and contemplating this for a while, I made so many annotations I'll come back every now and then and get reabsorbed into, whatever it is.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
loved this book, her writing is both circuitous and incisive. won't fall prey to the irony of attempting to write about the content of this book except to say that these are a series of meditations that I feel I undergo and understand only when dreaming and that to read this book is to dream while awake
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated