aeudaimonia's reviews
83 reviews

Notes from a Dead House by Fyodor Dostoevsky

dark reflective slow-paced

3.75

These are very much Dostoevsky's notes, not a novel. Chapters tend to cover topics (Christmas, punishment, animals, a particularly horrible one detailing the graphic domestic abuse and murder of a convict's wife) rather than narrative beats; the prose is often repetitive bordering on self-indulgent. Part of this comes down to its serial publication over the course of a couple of years - it just reads differently than modern books do. However, comparing Dostoevsky's writing in Notes with Crime and Punishment, also published in the papers just a few years later, the difference in quality is noticeable. Despite being a relatively easy read for Dostoevsky, it drags. 

Embedded in the repetitive and sometimes triggering material, however, are Dostoevsky's trademark insights into human nature. The final chapter and the appendix, "The Peasant Marey," brought me to tears and make the read more than worthwhile.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse

Minor: Animal cruelty, Antisemitism

Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke

emotional inspiring reflective relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

Rilke competed both the Elegies and the Sonnets after a long period of depression; so have I read them. Existential dread and the terror of the divine and the daunted but resolute commitment to live.

“Earth, isn't this what you want: to resurrect 
in us invisibly? Isn't it your dream
to be invisible one day? Earth! Invisible!
What's your urgent charge, if not transformation?
Earth, my love, I will.”

Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen

emotional lighthearted reflective relaxing sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Leonard cohen save me

Why Be Jewish?: A Testament by Edgar M. Bronfman
Did not finish book. Stopped at 17%.

Nothing against the book, but my audio subscription ran out in the middle of it and I have no inclination to renew it. Will definitely finish the book when I can find another audio or physical copy.

Paradise Lost by John Milton

challenging reflective slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny

Minor: Sexual assault

The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse

challenging reflective slow-paced

5.0

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault

challenging informative slow-paced

4.0

Anti-Judaism by David Nirenberg

challenging dark informative slow-paced

4.75

One of the best books I've read this year, Anti-Judaism takes an intellectual approach similar to Edward Said's Orientalism: tracing through history the development of anti-Judaism as a system of thought up to, as Nirenberg quotes Nietzsche, the "creeping calamity" of the Holocaust. While some chapters take us outside the Western Christian context, specifically those covering Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and early Islam, it should be required reading for anyone who is or was raised Christian. 

My only qualm is that each chapter could be its own 400-page book (currently it boasts of a little under 500 pages, excluding another 100 pages of notes). Fleshing out each time period could easily have taken 1000+ pages. Not everyone's cup of tea, but the last main chapter covered everything from Karl Marx and Max Weber to Joseph Goebbels and Nazi propaganda to the Cassirer/Heidegger debate and the perceived Judaization of mathematics. It needed more space to breathe. With that said, this book is an effective springboard for readers who want to study in more depth, and Nirenberg's bibliography provides literally hundreds of avenues to do so.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Antisemitism

Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life - In Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There) by Sarah Hurwitz

informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot

funny lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

This book's kind of great. There are several racist parts because it was 1939. Highly uncomfortable lines notwithstanding, T. S. Eliot is master of English verse (especially how he plays with meter - very good) and the poems maintain their energy and intrigue throughout, despite all of them being about cats. They even manage to be hilarious. But the best part of the book by far is that it was clearly written by a cat lover for cat lovers. Poems like The Rum Tum Tugger, the Song of the Jellicles, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, etc. are great and bizarre but also just dramatized versions of what it's like to have cats; we can read the Jellicle Ball, for example, as a poeticized take on when cats get the zoomies at three in the morning. I'm a major fan.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Racial slurs, Racism