Scan barcode
aeudaimonia's reviews
69 reviews
Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.0
Like many other reviewers have been saying, it's definitely dense and hard to get through, but so, so important. I wouldn't say it was a book for beginners; Masalha takes an extremely academic approach to history, drawing from dozens of scholars including Rashid Khalidi, another author whose work I highly recommend, and focuses less on a historical narrative and more on interpretation (personal and place names, knowledge/power nexus, etc.). The book does read more like a scholarly article than, say, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, but occupies a critical space in Palestine studies: undermining the Zionist myths of "a land without a people" and of (European) natives returning to their rightful country, Masalha centers indigenous histories and conventions, and reveals the rich multicultural, multi-religious history of Palestine.
The only thing that keeps it from being a 5-star read for me is the editing. First, each chapter is composed of sections (can be anywhere between 1 and 15 pages long). These sections, again, are not chunks of a larger historical narrative but meta-historical categories (so many sections on toponymy! But so interesting, especially if you make it to anthroponymy in Chapter 10). Because the sections aren't necessarily meant to reflect a cohesive whole, Masalha ends up relaying the same information again and again whenever it's relevant, and as if for the first time. This is good if you're still new to Palestinian, Middle Eastern, and/or Mediterranean history and struggle with names and locations, but by chapter 7 it all felt unnecessarily repetitive. Secondly, and I really hate to say this, there are just too many type errors. And not just misspelled words (although there are plenty), but whole sentences repeated verbatim paragraphs apart. On one hand this makes those passages much more difficult to read (especially since the subject matter is already difficult) but also renders the whole book longer and more complicated than it needed to be. Personally it wasn't enough for me to put down the book or doubt Masalha's scholarship - he is strong in the citations and notes department - but I worry that it'll turn future readers off of an important work like this. I'm hopeful that future editions will address the manuscript errors, and that this book will continue to be published for many years to come.
The only thing that keeps it from being a 5-star read for me is the editing. First, each chapter is composed of sections (can be anywhere between 1 and 15 pages long). These sections, again, are not chunks of a larger historical narrative but meta-historical categories (so many sections on toponymy! But so interesting, especially if you make it to anthroponymy in Chapter 10). Because the sections aren't necessarily meant to reflect a cohesive whole, Masalha ends up relaying the same information again and again whenever it's relevant, and as if for the first time. This is good if you're still new to Palestinian, Middle Eastern, and/or Mediterranean history and struggle with names and locations, but by chapter 7 it all felt unnecessarily repetitive. Secondly, and I really hate to say this, there are just too many type errors. And not just misspelled words (although there are plenty), but whole sentences repeated verbatim paragraphs apart. On one hand this makes those passages much more difficult to read (especially since the subject matter is already difficult) but also renders the whole book longer and more complicated than it needed to be. Personally it wasn't enough for me to put down the book or doubt Masalha's scholarship - he is strong in the citations and notes department - but I worry that it'll turn future readers off of an important work like this. I'm hopeful that future editions will address the manuscript errors, and that this book will continue to be published for many years to come.
Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts: Twelve Journeys Into the Medieval World by Christopher de Hamel
informative
4.25
The Poetic Edda by Unknown
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
4.0
Hollander's is a fantastic translation, to start with. The deliberately archaic vocabulary is hard to get used to but not impossible (with a glossary of terms in the back). The English is difficult to understand in places because of the jumbled word order - word order meant, I believe, to evoke the syllabic patterns of various Old Norse meters. Once you overcome these two hurdles, however, the beauty of the Norse verse shines through wonderfully. That said, the material is dense, repetitive, and complicated; I'd recommend starting with the Prose Saga or an easier poetic arrangement, such as Tolkien's Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun (itself a five-star read) to get some of the basic plot points down before diving in to the many different iterations of the North's Niflung legend.
The book's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: the late Hollander unfortunately reads as overconfident and sometimes downright mean with respect to a given poet's artistic merits, or a scholar's intellectual ones. Literary scholarship isn't so easily outdated as in STEM, but it's been 60 years since this book was originally published and I highly doubt that all of Hollander's points are uncontested today. The smorgasbord of violence, sexual assault, and misogyny warrants some caution for sensitive readers.
The book's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: the late Hollander unfortunately reads as overconfident and sometimes downright mean with respect to a given poet's artistic merits, or a scholar's intellectual ones. Literary scholarship isn't so easily outdated as in STEM, but it's been 60 years since this book was originally published and I highly doubt that all of Hollander's points are uncontested today. The smorgasbord of violence, sexual assault, and misogyny warrants some caution for sensitive readers.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Cannibalism
Selected Poems by John Donne
Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.
Usually I can weather repetitive subject matter, but I can only withstand 17th century relationship drama for so long. I wanted to start reading Donne for his devotional poetry - unfortunately that's the last section of the book and if I try to force myself there I'll probably kill myself. He's by no means unskilled or unimportant but this collection is nevertheless a threat to my mental well-being.
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold by C.S. Lewis
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, and Police brutality
The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
4.5
Fantastic for everyone who believes, or wants to believe, that there is and can be more to Christianity than the mainstream American evangelism in which we're immersed. His is a perspective, not a Gospel command--but it is a compelling perspective and at the very least offers hope for the Church that another Christianity is possible. Claiborne's authorial voice was hard for me to get used to--much more casual than the books I usually read and heavily reliant on the experiential. In the first chapter or so, I was a little turned off by that combination and highly suspicious of his authenticity and humility. By the midpoint, however, it reads more like an unapologetic vulnerability I'm inclined to trust, since, about 15 years later, he still is who he says he is (by all accounts).
Perusing some of the other reviews, two critiques in particular stood out to me. Firstly, that Claiborne is a bad writer. I won't deny that the writing of the Irresistible Revolution is unrefined, somewhat repetitive, and so casual as to seem irresponsible. But I think it's valid, too, that Claiborne is not a writer by trade; in writing this book, he was never trying to produce a literary masterpiece. In that sense, I think he executed relatively well what he actually set out to do. Nitpicking his style feels like a deliberately obtuse distraction from the heart of the book.
Secondly, some people seem to be accusing him of cherry picking Scripture. No shade to these people individually, but this is a ridiculous take. There are only so many verses you can "cherry pick" from the Bible before it ceases to be cherry picking and instead becomes what the Bible is literally saying. Idk.
My only real criticism is the lack of nuance. I can't be too mad; this book was written in 2005 and the kind of nuance I thirst after wasn't nearly as mainstream as it is now, 17 years later. Intersectionality is a big issue for me. "We can change the world"--yes! But the world hasn't given us all the same opportunities. Claiborne is a straight, cisgender, white, Christian man. No, he is not toxic, and yes, he's a different kind of Christian man, but the fact remains that he is at the top of the societal food chain. Talking about how many times you've been arrested because of your demonstrations and released because of your God falls flat with me. Yes and amen, hallelujah that God didn't put you in prison and keep you there--but let's not pretend that your whiteness doesn't protect you from the worst of police brutality and our biased judicial system. This lifestyle is substantially safer for Claiborne to practice than it is for women, BIPOC, and queer people. While Christians have never been called to a life of safety, I think it's an issue worth discussing.
The lack of nuance for which I can be more critical is his use of historical figures--particularly Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr. Regarding the latter, Claiborne at the very least doesn't make the very white mistake of taking him out of context and using his philosophy of nonviolence to maintain the status quo. But he cites both of them pretty often and, I think, neglects a certain complexity of their characters. (To be clear, though, I don't think every source you cite has to harmonize with your work 100%). So much of this book is about the lie of redemptive violence and the truth of redemptive peacemaking. Maybe this is just a personal hot take but I feel like you can't talk about how un-Christian redemptive violence is and then quote Bonhoeffer's (based) theology takes without addressing the fact that he may or may not have been affiliated with the 20 July Plot. These figures are complex and I love them for their complexity, and sometimes I felt like their complexity was compromised to keep the book from being 500 pages (not everyone's cup of tea, I know).
My criticisms constitute most of this book review, but this was still a 4.5 star read! On the whole I thought it was great! Keep living the revolution! And don't let my aimless rambling distract from the fact that I loved, loved, loved this book.
Perusing some of the other reviews, two critiques in particular stood out to me. Firstly, that Claiborne is a bad writer. I won't deny that the writing of the Irresistible Revolution is unrefined, somewhat repetitive, and so casual as to seem irresponsible. But I think it's valid, too, that Claiborne is not a writer by trade; in writing this book, he was never trying to produce a literary masterpiece. In that sense, I think he executed relatively well what he actually set out to do. Nitpicking his style feels like a deliberately obtuse distraction from the heart of the book.
Secondly, some people seem to be accusing him of cherry picking Scripture. No shade to these people individually, but this is a ridiculous take. There are only so many verses you can "cherry pick" from the Bible before it ceases to be cherry picking and instead becomes what the Bible is literally saying. Idk.
My only real criticism is the lack of nuance. I can't be too mad; this book was written in 2005 and the kind of nuance I thirst after wasn't nearly as mainstream as it is now, 17 years later. Intersectionality is a big issue for me. "We can change the world"--yes! But the world hasn't given us all the same opportunities. Claiborne is a straight, cisgender, white, Christian man. No, he is not toxic, and yes, he's a different kind of Christian man, but the fact remains that he is at the top of the societal food chain. Talking about how many times you've been arrested because of your demonstrations and released because of your God falls flat with me. Yes and amen, hallelujah that God didn't put you in prison and keep you there--but let's not pretend that your whiteness doesn't protect you from the worst of police brutality and our biased judicial system. This lifestyle is substantially safer for Claiborne to practice than it is for women, BIPOC, and queer people. While Christians have never been called to a life of safety, I think it's an issue worth discussing.
The lack of nuance for which I can be more critical is his use of historical figures--particularly Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr. Regarding the latter, Claiborne at the very least doesn't make the very white mistake of taking him out of context and using his philosophy of nonviolence to maintain the status quo. But he cites both of them pretty often and, I think, neglects a certain complexity of their characters. (To be clear, though, I don't think every source you cite has to harmonize with your work 100%). So much of this book is about the lie of redemptive violence and the truth of redemptive peacemaking. Maybe this is just a personal hot take but I feel like you can't talk about how un-Christian redemptive violence is and then quote Bonhoeffer's (based) theology takes without addressing the fact that he may or may not have been affiliated with the 20 July Plot. These figures are complex and I love them for their complexity, and sometimes I felt like their complexity was compromised to keep the book from being 500 pages (not everyone's cup of tea, I know).
My criticisms constitute most of this book review, but this was still a 4.5 star read! On the whole I thought it was great! Keep living the revolution! And don't let my aimless rambling distract from the fact that I loved, loved, loved this book.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25