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siddharthagolu's Reviews (243)
I loved this book! I haven't read any novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, but after this beautiful collection of essays by the author, I am really looking forward to read her other works. She has a simple yet incredible style, something which penetrates the heart of its readers. In the first chapter itself entitled "Introducing Myself," she is at her best, attacking the prevalent patriarchy of the current time with fierce wit. She writes,
In a beautiful little essay titled "Being Taken For Granite," she shows her brilliance in prose, writing about her vulnerability.
This book is filled with gems like these. Recommend to anyone having a soft spot for literature.
I am a man. Now you may think I've made some kind of silly mistake about gender, or maybe that I'm trying to fool you, because my first name ends in a, and I own three bras, and I've been pregnant five times, and other things like that that you might have noticed, little details.
...
...
Women are a very recent invention. I predate the invention of women by decades. Well, if you insist on pedantic accuracy, women have been invented several times in widely varying localities, but the inventors just didn't know how to sell the product. Their distribution techniques were rudimentary and their market research was nil, and so of course the concept just didn't get off the ground. Even with a genius behind it an invention has to find its market, and it seemed like for a long time the idea of women just didn't make it to the bottom line.
In a beautiful little essay titled "Being Taken For Granite," she shows her brilliance in prose, writing about her vulnerability.
Huge heavy things come and stand on granite and the granite just stays there and doesn't react and doesn't give way and doesn't adapt and doesn't oblige and when the huge heavy things walk away the granite is there just the same as it was before, just exactly the same, admirably. To change granite you have to blow it up.
But when people walk on me you can see exactly where they put their feet, and when huge heavy things come and stand on me I yield and react and respond and give way and adapt and accept. No explosives are called for. No admiration is called for. I have my own nature and am true to it just as much as granite or even diamond is, but it is not a hard nature, or upstanding, or gemlike. You can't chip it. It's deeply impressionable. It's squashy.
This book is filled with gems like these. Recommend to anyone having a soft spot for literature.
I'm unable to give a rating to this book - partly because I find myself unable to judge a work of philosophy which is unanimously considered to be brilliant, and partly because there were a lot of things that went way over my head. Especially in the middle of the book where Camus goes heavy handed into explaining what the Absurd is and his critics of the contemporary philosophers. I was unable to follow because it requires at least a general understanding of the works of people that he criticises.
This will require at least one, and possibly multiple, re-reads for me to finally be able to say that yes, I read The Myth of Sisyphus and I "understood" it. Until then, this essay will remain an enigma to me.
This will require at least one, and possibly multiple, re-reads for me to finally be able to say that yes, I read The Myth of Sisyphus and I "understood" it. Until then, this essay will remain an enigma to me.
"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good".
A beautiful and at times heartbreaking story of good and evil and the shades in between, and how our choices ultimately make us who we are. I was getting tired of seeing posts of "Wow, I read East of Eden and was blown away!" on reddit and finally decided to take the plunge and dive headlong into the saga, and I'm a little ashamed to admit that I belong to the same category. This was a beautiful book and I don't want to read anything by Steinbeck for a long time - because I want to savor this age-old ripe wine and shine in the afterglow.
I love to fall asleep while reading a book, but this might be one of those rare books that made me apprehensive about the ordeal while at the same time getting me excited for what comes next (the other one would be "House of Leaves"). I used to dread reading it at night because I knew somewhere down the line, there would be a chapter on Cathy, and I would get nightmares of her evil doings after that. It sounds silly when I say it out loud, but in my eyes, that speaks for the brilliance of this book. The length of the book allows it to explore each and every character to its core and oftentimes lead to conversations that would make me close my kindle and just think about what I had just read. The most illuminating pick of all those interesting conversations would be the one where the father-figure-cum-servant of the house discusses "Timshel" with one of the characters.
"Thou mayest"
I think if I ever get a tattoo (which might not be too distant a future), Timshel would surely feature prominently on my skin.
A beautiful and at times heartbreaking story of good and evil and the shades in between, and how our choices ultimately make us who we are. I was getting tired of seeing posts of "Wow, I read East of Eden and was blown away!" on reddit and finally decided to take the plunge and dive headlong into the saga, and I'm a little ashamed to admit that I belong to the same category. This was a beautiful book and I don't want to read anything by Steinbeck for a long time - because I want to savor this age-old ripe wine and shine in the afterglow.
I love to fall asleep while reading a book, but this might be one of those rare books that made me apprehensive about the ordeal while at the same time getting me excited for what comes next (the other one would be "House of Leaves"). I used to dread reading it at night because I knew somewhere down the line, there would be a chapter on Cathy, and I would get nightmares of her evil doings after that. It sounds silly when I say it out loud, but in my eyes, that speaks for the brilliance of this book. The length of the book allows it to explore each and every character to its core and oftentimes lead to conversations that would make me close my kindle and just think about what I had just read. The most illuminating pick of all those interesting conversations would be the one where the father-figure-cum-servant of the house discusses "Timshel" with one of the characters.
"Thou mayest"
I think if I ever get a tattoo (which might not be too distant a future), Timshel would surely feature prominently on my skin.
Reading alongside the popular Harvard course taught by the author (Here's the link if anyone wants to check it out - https://www.edx.org/course/justice-2), this was an extraordinary experience. Maybe my thoughts about this book got clouded by the thought-provoking lectures that accompany them, but that in no way takes away the credit of this book being an excellent introduction to political and moral philosophy.
Normally, I dislike the case-based approach of tackling a subject (I'm looking at you, Cal Newport), but it was the most suitable method of discussing disparate notions of moral philosophy. Prof. Sandel expertly intertwines the hard and difficult questions of the day - be it affirmative action, same-sex marriages or debates about rights - with the theories of political philosophers who attempt to answer them. I particularly loved this notion, which is present in all the debates throughout the course, that there's no such one perfect answer for these problems. You can't just say that one side is completely wrong and other is completely right. There's no black and white. Each side has merits and demerits and the real struggle exists in how to combine them together for an appropriate solution.
Apart from reading this book, I would highly recommend taking the course as well. You won't get solutions to all the mentioned problems, but you would come out with a greater understanding of problems themselves and how to tackle them.
Normally, I dislike the case-based approach of tackling a subject (I'm looking at you, Cal Newport), but it was the most suitable method of discussing disparate notions of moral philosophy. Prof. Sandel expertly intertwines the hard and difficult questions of the day - be it affirmative action, same-sex marriages or debates about rights - with the theories of political philosophers who attempt to answer them. I particularly loved this notion, which is present in all the debates throughout the course, that there's no such one perfect answer for these problems. You can't just say that one side is completely wrong and other is completely right. There's no black and white. Each side has merits and demerits and the real struggle exists in how to combine them together for an appropriate solution.
Apart from reading this book, I would highly recommend taking the course as well. You won't get solutions to all the mentioned problems, but you would come out with a greater understanding of problems themselves and how to tackle them.
