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A fiction book

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This book tells the story of Marco Carrera, an ophthalmologist, Marina's husband, and Adele's father.

The book tells the story of Marco's family, from his parents two generations forward.


The work is narrated in the third person and does not follow a chronological order. The book contains scenes from the 1960s, from childhood, to the 2020s.

Almost all the characters are memorable, but each has a reason for existing.

All the women in the story undergo therapy.


More specifically, they undergo psychoanalysis.

All the women (mother, sister, wife, daughter, etc.) in Marco's life undergo psychoanalysis.

I'm afraid to give any more details about the story or give spoilers.

So, from now on, read this review at your own risk, okay?


Marco had an older sister, Irene, who drowned.

From the beginning of the book, the reader is already suspicious. Drowned how? Strange…

Marco has a brother, Giacomo, who moved to the United States and completely ignores Marco…


This book makes us question betrayal.

What's worse: physical or emotional betrayal? Does emotional betrayal (not opening up emotionally to your partner but opening up to someone else) constitute betrayal?

Is it more or less serious?


The characters' psychological development is so well-constructed that you understand WHY each of them is the way they are.

You understand the behavior of Adele, the couple's daughter. She reminds me of the couple's daughter in Philip Roth's American Pastoral.


It should be common knowledge - but it isn't - that the fate of interpersonal relationships is decided at the beginning, once and for all, always, and that to know in advance how things will end, all you have to do is look at how they began.

The Hummingbird – Sandro Veronesi

This WONDERFUL book by Haruki Murakami

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“What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” is almost an autobiography of one of the greatest names in Japanese literature, who managed to completely change his lifestyle.


Who is Haruki Murakami?

I knew little about the author. But in this book, where he talks about his life-changing journey, he reveals a lot about himself.

Born in 1949 in Kyoto, Murakami previously lived in the US where he was a professor at Princeton, but before that, he was a bar owner.


In other books by the author, we see this theme of a jazz bar owner (as in "South of the Border, West of the Sun").

Before he started running, when he ran the jazz bar, Murakami would go to sleep when everyone else was awake and smoke a lot.


And right at the beginning of the book, he makes it clear that he doesn't want to talk about "let's run so we can all get healthy!", but he wants to show how much running meant to him and made him change in many ways.


"No matter how mundane an action may seem, stay with it long enough and it will become a meditative, even contemplative, act."

Who else has felt this while practicing an activity alone?


For Murakami, running is different from other sports. Because running is a solitary act in itself. It's you with yourself.

If you're the type of person who doesn't like competing with others, you've certainly never enjoyed playing sports with other people.


Murakami never liked to compete with others because people are naturally different, and every combination of differences creates discord.

And every discord can generate even greater disagreement.

But this is a suffering that is part of life, a necessary sorrow.


And realizing you're different from others is an excellent thing. Many people shy away from this realization (of admitting they're different), but that's where your greatest resource lies.

"Emotional hurt is the price a person pays to be independent."


This is what the author believes, and therefore, he actively sought solitude in various aspects of his life.

Murakami managed to channel his discontent with society into running. When he feels wronged, misunderstood, or socially exhausted, he runs more.


"I think most people would not approve of my personality. (...) Who could show sentimental friendliness to a person who does not commit himself; who, instead, whenever a problem arises, locks himself in the closet?"


Murakami satirizes his own personality. He makes self-deprecating jokes that resonate with us.

"Postponing the act of thinking about something is one of my specialties, a skill I've learned to cultivate over the years."


In 1978, at almost 30, he realized he was reaching an age where he would never be considered young again. And it occurred to him: "I can write a book." He wrote for a contest, won, and decided he wanted to write more.


Motivated to continue writing, he decided to quit smoking.

At the time, he was smoking sixty cigarettes a day and was overweight.

To help kick the habit, he decided to start running. But why running? Why not another sport?

Because besides not liking competition, running is simpler. It doesn't require anything special, other than a pair of sneakers and a track or street.

"To play tennis, you need to go to a court and you need another person. You can swim alone, but you need a pool."


Along with running, Murakami decided to close the bar and dedicate himself to writing professionally. He started running every day, which led him to quit smoking for good.

So many changes all at once: he changed careers (from bar owner to writer), changed his sleeping and waking hours...



"The natural desire to run more and more became a powerful motivation to stop smoking and help me overcome withdrawal symptoms. Quitting smoking was a kind of symbolic farewell to the life I used to lead."

I could talk a lot about this book because I identified so much with the author.

"I hated gym class. I could never stand being forced to do something I didn't want to do at a time when I didn't want to do it."



Murakami manages to connect running with the act of writing. They seem different, but both activities are about the same thing: 1) they're solitary; 2) they involve a keen sense of self-perception; 3) no one can do it the same way as anyone else.

I highly recommend this book. From the bottom of my heart.

He talks about the Boston Marathon (42km), how he felt throughout the race, and the time he ran 100km (yes, one hundred kilometers!) from Athens to Marathon, Greece.

You'll laugh and identify deeply with Murakami.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running – Haruki Murakami

the_stacker_muse

TERRITORY ANNOUNCEMENT - weekly writing contest in ~the_stacker_muse

billytheked

Thanks for mentioning me, I'm so happy! I love posting book reviews here on SN. 💛📚

The elegance of the hedgehog. WHAT A WORK! ❤️

![](https://m.stacker.news/100611)

It's narrated by two people: a 12-year-old girl who decides she's going to kill herself. She's very intelligent and shrewd.

The other character is the building's housekeeper, who everyone thinks is a fool.


The story takes place entirely in a chic building in Paris. The 12-year-old girl, the daughter of a diplomat, lives with her mother and sister (whom she considers frivolous) and enjoys being alone.

The housekeeper, who lives in a small apartment in the building and whom everyone thinks is illiterate, loves literature. and classical music. There's a scene where a (rich) resident talks about Marx to the governor.

Rich people who have never worked tend to appreciate Marxist ideals.

But how can a poor person understand that difficult language?


But this kind of rich person never talks about "revolution" for the poor to understand.

They talk to themselves.

And the housekeeper thinks, "I have to try harder to look more stupid than I am."

The 12-year-old girl is quite mature for her age and has several conversations with herself about life.


"My Everest is an intellectual challenge. I've set myself the goal of having as many profound thoughts as possible and writing them down in this notebook."

The girl has the impression that the governess isn't as young as she seems (on the contrary, she thinks she's quite intelligent), and the governess thinks the same.



In this book, there's a scene where the (poor) housekeeper talks about the desire of the rich to appear poor.

"It's not only ugly but insulting: nothing is more despicable than the contempt of the rich for the desires of the poor."

There's so much to think about, right?

The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery

Simply one of the best books I have ever read in my life.

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Pachinko tells the story of a family between 1910 and 1980: from when South Korea was colonized by Japan and through the world wars.


The book begins by telling the story of Hoonie (father) and Yangnin (mother), who gives birth to Sunja around 1915.

Hoonie dies of tuberculosis when her daughter is young, so mother and daughter are left to run the family inn alone, in a small town in Korea.


At that time, Korea was a single country and colonized by Japan.

One day, a guest from Pyongyang named Isak Baek arrived. He was a polite and kind man who was Christian (not common at the time).

Every day, Sunja would buy food at the market to cook at the inn.


A man started following her. He was Japanese. The Japanese were quite racist toward Koreans, so they didn't mix.

This man, Koh Hansu, followed Sunja until she got home. He would strike up conversations, and she would completely ignore him.


The friendship quickly blossomed into a romance, and Sunja became pregnant with Hansu's child.


SPOILERS AHEAD.


Sunja thought she would marry Hansu and they would live happily ever after. He said he could support her in Korea, but he couldn't take her to Japan because he was already married there and had daughters.

His dream was to be the father of a boy, but Sunja didn't want him to be a father like that.


When Noa was still a child, Isak and Sunja became pregnant with another boy: Mozasu (Moses).

However, Isak was a Christian and campaigned for the end of Japanese rule in Korea and for the freedom to practice his religion.

He was arrested and spent years in jail without his family hearing anything.


Noa decides to study English literature. He loved reading, was passionate about Dickens and Shakespeare, and wanted to be a teacher. He begins studying for the university entrance exam and passes. The problem: how to pay for college and housing in Tokyo?

This is how Hansu returns.



If I tell you anything from here on out, it'll be too much of a spoiler.

I highly recommend it. 10/10.



Pachinko – Min Jin Lee

This book is amazing

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Nora Seeds is 35 years old and lives alone in a small town in England. She has a degree in Philosophy but works as a saleswoman in a music equipment store.

Unhappy, she tries to take her own life, she decides to kill herself, but has an experience on the other side...


See: she got engaged to a guy, broke up with him two days before the wedding, had a band with a record deal but decided to leave, and to make matters worse, her beloved cat was run over.

You know when you're at rock bottom?


Well... She took a bunch of medication and suddenly woke up in a library with a bunch of green books. The librarian? Mrs. Elm, who worked in the school library when Nora was a kid and the two of them played chess together...


Mrs. Elm explains: each book is a version of her life that could have happened.

What if Nora had gotten married?
What if she had remained a great artist?
Nora was an excellent swimmer, what if she had become an athlete?
What if her cat had survived?


The book shows Nora living different versions of what her life could have been, and for me, it taught an important lesson: there is only one version of your life. And it starts today. Now. And you can change it at any time.

You are the master of all your decisions.


Matt Haig sensitively tells a story that reflects what we all think at some point.

I know you've also thought about what might have happened if you had made a different decision.

The book also shows how much we impact the lives of others.

This book is wonderful. I highly recommend it.

The Midnight Library – Matt Haig

Samarkand, by Amin Maalouf, is a book divided into four parts. The first two tell the story of Omar Khayyam, around the year 1000 AD.

![](https://m.stacker.news/99419)


These first two parts take place in several cities of ancient Persia. Today, Samarkand is a city that belongs to Uzbekistan and was the scene of conflicts and the birthplace of a very famous poet: Omar Khayyam.

Much loved by some sultans (emperors), Khayyam was an astrologer

to noble figures around 1078 B.C. Remember that we are talking about a time when the rich and powerful made some decisions based on the position of the stars, so the opinion of an astrologer was important.

In addition to being an astrologer, Khayyam wrote rubaiyats,

which are 4-line poems where the first two lines rhyme with the last. At that time, writing rubaiyats (or rubais) was very frowned upon, so for years, Khayyam wrote them in secret...

The first two parts of the book portray Khayyam's life when he arrived in Samarkand, at the age of 24, in 1072. Upon arriving in the city, Omar accidentally got into a fight and the judge recognized that he was a cultured, calm guy who would not get into trouble.

It was ESSENTIAL for Omar to become the darling of the nobility and to spend his life studying the stars, drinking wine and writing his rubais for various situations that occurred.

One that really left a mark on me was when a very powerful sultan of the time, Alp Arslan, faced his enemy Yussef.


Arslan's army captures Yussef, ties him up and takes him to Arslan to kill him with a bow and arrow.

Arslan says that it is very cowardly to kill a tied-up guy and asks a soldier to untie him.


The truth is that Arslan had been ruling the empire for a long time and thought he was very powerful, so he wanted to kill Yussef with an arrow, while the guy was standing.

The soldier unties Yussef, who jumps on top of Arslan and kills him with a knife that was hidden.


Finally, Arslan dies, Khayyam finds out about everything and writes this wonderful rubaiyat that left a huge impression on me.

ENOUGH SPOILERS, LET'S GO TO THE NEXT TWO PARTS


The other two parts are written by a guy who HAD Omar's rubais notebook IN HIS HANDS! And everything takes place around 1889-1912

These dates are curious, aren't they? If we force our memory, we will remember that England and Russia shared influence in Persia during this period.


The guy in question is called Benjamin OMAR (!!) Lesage, who doesn't have that second name for nothing (I won't give away that spoiler, you'll have to read the book, ok)

Ben was an American who, curious about Khayyam's story, decided to go to Persia to find the rubais notebook...

When he got there, he found a nation in crisis. Some people supported implementing the Constitution in Iran/Persia, others were completely opposed, and in the midst of all this he approached people who wanted a model of democracy like the US already had at that time...


Ben returned to the US and continued to keep in touch with a very influential woman in Persia, who sent her letters.

Ben became famous in the city (Annapolis), became a reference in the Arab world and was invited to write a column in a small newspaper, always about Persia.


but the story ends with the sinking of the Titanic and a question that won't leave the reader's mind: "did these people really live through ALL THIS?"

Samarkand, by Amin Maalouf

Civilization and Its Discontents

![](https://m.stacker.news/99330)

I think I understood 80% of the book, but I would need to read other works by the author to understand all the concepts.


because we are forced to fight against our own nature in order to live in community.

for example: sexuality. In society, "homosexual impulses" have to be repressed and the purpose of sex is reproduction, not pleasure (of course, a lot has changed today)


the permitted love is "heterosexual genital love", which is nevertheless repressed by legitimacy and monogamy.

Freud also says that there is a "clash of giants" within us: Eros (love, the father of civilization) and the death/aggression/destruction instinct.


Eros created culture because it unites us, brings cohesion, makes us evolve and reproduce. The death instinct is its main adversary.

This struggle is the cause of the malaise in culture, as we have to restrain ourselves from living these impulses.


Freud also addresses the issue of religion.

Do you know that feeling of infinite love that we feel in church (or in the religious temple you attend)?

It is the sensation of eternity or "oceanic feeling" that exists in every human being and forms the basis of religiosity.

This "oceanic feeling" was experienced by us when we were babies and did not know how to separate the self from the rest of the world.


Regarding happiness, Freud says that the purpose of life is to want to be happy. Absence of pain and displeasure + more intense feelings of pleasure.

Unhappiness threatens us through the finiteness of life and the decay of our body, anguish and relationships with other people.


Now here’s a part I LOVED:

When he explains about the “narcissism of small differences”

he uses this to explain why communists believed they had found the path to redemption from evil. The enemy is the bourgeoisie, the evil is private property.


“the narcissism of small differences” found psychological support in the persecution of the bourgeoisie in Russia.



Civilization and Its Discontents – Sigmund Freud

“If you were a demon, how would you keep people as far away from God as possible without them noticing?”

This book answers this question very well.

![](https://m.stacker.news/98924)

The answer: “It would create an environment where people feel constantly busy but without a greater purpose. It would keep them from reflecting on the meaning of life. It would encourage fear, insecurity and reinforce the idea that materialism and ego are the only things that matter.”

This book is a work of fiction that tells the story of an 8-year-old orphan girl, Momo, who ran away from the orphanage where she suffered.

Momo went to live in an abandoned amphitheater in the city, where she received supplies from the inhabitants and was visited by friends.


People in the city really liked Momo because she was an excellent listener. Couples, friends, etc. would come to her so they could reconcile.

Sometimes she wouldn't even say anything. She would just listen to people and that was enough.


Momo has two close friends: Gigi (tour guide) and Beppo (street sweeper).

They care about doing their job carefully, paying attention to people and observing the landscapes.


One day, a barber complains to himself: “I wish I had more time to live!”


The employee says that if the barber stops visiting his mother every weekend, helping an elderly woman who lives alone, serving customers without talking, etc., he will save time

And thus have more time for himself.

Really?


The barber is convinced by the speech and, without knowing it, signs a contract
Suddenly, he starts to act differently: he puts his mother in a nursing home, stops visiting the elderly woman who lives alone, reduces the service time from 30 to 20 minutes, hires agile employees...


Becomes more stressed and overwhelmed and feels alone, because he gave up important people in order to “save time”.


This is the goal of the gray men to “save people’s time”, taking away their time with family, friends, volunteer work…

But go ahead with your business! It’s okay to miss your child’s birthday. Next year it will be again.


and even if people cut out hobbies, dinners with loved ones, etc., they still feel exhausted and feel like they have no time for anything

The Gray Men convince people that “saving time” will be better for them in the future


We follow the development of when these employees find out about Momo, because it encourages people to spend their time with loved ones, hobbies, playing with children…

Everything they don't want


Momo meets Master Hora, the person responsible for distributing the lifespan of each human being.

I won't give any spoilers here, but Master Hora's speeches are AMAZING.


This book is for children and adults.

And for adults who need to remind the old child that hobbies, family, friends, etc. are not a waste of time.

They are OUR LIFE. They are not a distraction.


This book touched me deeply.

I HIGHLY recommend it to everyone.

Momo - Michael Ende

A fiction where two people who have never met in real life meet and one becomes the other's patient.

When Nietzsche Wept is a book full of deep dialogues about human nature and the conflict that we all experience with the choices we make.

![](https://m.stacker.news/98234)

In "When Nietzsche Wept", Yalom writes a fictional story in which two people who existed in real life and never met - the Austrian doctor Josef Breuer and Nietzsche - meet.

Several other elements of the book are real, such as the plot involving the meeting of the two.


The book is set in 1882. Breuer is dissatisfied with his marriage and the life he leads, and wonders if he is truly happy. He is the most renowned doctor in Vienna and one day he receives a note from a stranger: Lou Salomé

Yes, she existed and was the love of Nietzsche's life.


In the note, Lou appears distressed: she says that the future of German philosophy is at stake!

Breuer and Salomé meet for coffee and Lou explains that a good friend (Nietzsche) has suicidal tendencies and she believes that Breuer has the "right medicine" to treat her friend.


And why would Breuer be the right guy? Because Lou, who had a brother who was a medical student, heard about the case Breuer had treated of a psychotic patient who had episodes unknown to medicine.

Breuer accepts the challenge of treating Nietzsche - without him knowing he was being treated.


Lou gives Breuer two books by Nietzsche so that the doctor can see how brilliant Nietzsche is and Breuer comes across discussions about human duality, the eternal return, the Christian God, etc... And he sees that Nietzsche really is a different guy.


Breuer developed a method with his patient Anna who had relapses that he called "sweeping the chimney": when she was in a difficult psychological situation, Breuer asked her to say everything that came to mind.

The first steps of psychoanalysis were taken there. And it gets better...


Breuer has a close friend who is 20 years younger and very eager to learn: Freud ❤️

Breuer begins to share with Freud the treatment he will do with Nietzsche and Freud shows great interest

But Nietzsche is reluctant and does not want to talk about his emotions.


Then Breuer has an idea: "What if I pretend that I am interested in learning philosophy and Nietzsche is my teacher? That way, who knows, he might feel free to tell me what he thinks."

Breuer begins to talk to Nietzsche about human issues that are related to each other.


+ directly with his life. Breuer is very concerned with social acceptance, with the formalities of institutions...

The dialogues are something from another world


I have met many people who do not like themselves and try to overcome this by persuading others to think well of them. Once they do this, they begin to think well of themselves. But this is a false solution, it is submission to the authority of others.

Your job is to accept yourself, not to find ways to gain my acceptance.


- Does the eternal return promise a form of immortality?
- No! I teach that life should never be changed or crushed because of the promise of another kind of future life.

The immortal is this life, this moment (...) This moment exists forever and you alone are its audience.


Nietzsche: "Let this thought take hold of you. Answer this question: do you hate this idea or do you love it?"

Breuer: "I hate it! To live forever with the feeling that I have not lived, that I have not tasted freedom... This idea fills me with horror!"


Nietzsche: "then live in such a way as to worship the idea!"
Breuer: "all I worship now is the thought that I have fulfilled my duty to others"
Nietzsche: "duty? How can duty proceed from your love for yourself and your own pursuit of unconditional freedom?


If you have not personally fulfilled yourself, then "duty" is a mere euphemism for using others for your own aggrandizement."



The author, Irvin D Yalom, is one of the greatest names in psychiatry in the world, and has been a professor at Stanford University for almost 50 years - where he graduated in Medicine. 

When Nietzsche Wept

American Pastoral

A book about generational conflict: a Jewish father who grew up in the US in the 1940s and his American daughter (daughter of a Jewish + Christian) who grew up in the US in the 1960s. 

![](https://m.stacker.news/98089)

The book is told in the first person by Nathan Zuckerman, a young man who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Newark during World War II.

The local community was devastated by the events in Europe, but there was a figure who served as “encouragement”: the Swede.


The Swede is Seymour Levov, the main character in the story

Nathan studied with Jerry, the Swede's younger brother. Seymour was a star athlete and everyone admired him. He excelled in everything he did, getting people in his neighborhood to watch his games.


In Nathan's mind, the Swede was someone with the "perfect" life: the son of a glove manufacturer, the Swede inherited his father's business and made the factory expand greatly.

The Swede, like many people at the time, was very proud to be an American citizen.


Beginning in the 1950s, many American companies moved their factories to Asian countries to reduce labor costs.

Levov's gloves continued to be manufactured in the United States, employing many local workers for decades.


One day, around 1995, Nathan meets Sueco and the two talk. Sueco talks about his life in such a romantic way that it makes Nathan reaffirm what he had already thought: Sueco is someone who will never know frustration, because he married a beauty queen, went to live on a farm...


Shortly after this conversation, Swede, who was being treated for cancer, dies.

The one who gives Nathan the news is Jerry, Swede's brother, and it is Jerry who tells him that his brother's life was not as good as it seemed...

Swede had a daughter, Merry, who was the complete opposite of him.


The Swede grew up living the American dream: family, comfortable home, the business inherited from his father grew a lot and all his hard work was rewarded.

The US gave the Jews of Newark dignity and the right to live, something they valued after losing their families in the war.


The Swede excelled in all sports and his wife was beautiful. Merry, his daughter, grew up with a terrible stutter, in a very different social environment. She had seen the scene of the Buddhist monk burning (1963) as a form of protest against the war in Vietnam and it had an impact on her.

![](https://m.stacker.news/98090)


The scene was so intense that the girl talked about it for days.

Merry completely rebelled against the United States and the standard American way of life. She completely abhorred her family's lifestyle and began to reject her parents.


Despite years of treatment with therapists, Merry still stuttered and began to gain weight, becoming the opposite of her mother (a former beauty queen).

She felt even more different from the family and community she grew up in.

One day, Merry takes an action that changes her family forever.


(If I tell you what she did, it will be a spoiler. I don't want to ruin the experience)

Merry becomes a huge disappointment to her family and everyone gives up on her (in the sense of not wanting to have contact with her anymore), even her mother.


If I say anything else from now on, it will be a spoiler.

The book deals a lot with the issue of how everything suddenly became oppression. How come everyone suddenly wants to be a victim?



American Pastoral: Philip Roth

I read Indians on Vacation” – Thomas King. The book had such an impact on me that I thought about it for months.

![](https://m.stacker.news/97969)


The book is told in the first person and is narrated by Bird, an Indian descendant of the Cherokee (USA) who is married to Mimi, a descendant of the Blackfoot (Canada).

The couple travels to Prague and Budapest and Bird describes the places they visited in these cities.

Bird is a journalist and Mimi is a visual artist. Mimi is very proud of being indigenous and, therefore, whenever someone asks her where she is from, she says: Blackfoot. To which Bird "corrects" and says that she is Canadian.

Bird is of Greek descent and Cherokee father. He is a bit of a grumpy guy, and tells how he went in search of his parents' origins on other trips, sharing his reflections on understanding his own identity.


Thomas King is SO funny. I laughed several times while rereading the book in Prague and Budapest.

And so that we don't get lost in the book's location (Canada, USA, Greece, Prague, etc.), Bird always says "So, we're in Prague" with a tone of comical boredom.


But why did they go to Prague?

Because Mimi had an uncle named Leroy, also Blackfoot, who had a so-called "crow bag," a bag with indigenous artifacts that was now lost somewhere in Europe.


Uncle Leroy was an adventurous indigenous man who refused to occupy only the reserve space that the Canadian government had given him and who confronted the police who were guarding the reserve's boundaries.

He left for Europe with the Crown bag and Mimi's mission was to find the bag.


The couple is complete opposites: Mimi is excited and happy about everything, Bird is a grump who lives with boredom.

Mimi says that Bird has 5 demons and gives a name to each of them:

Eugene - fear
Cat/Kitty - pessimism
Didi - depression
Desi - despair
Chip - negativity

In truth, we all have demons that we have to deal with all the time. Bird "chooses" to listen to them more often, but despite all the negativity he accompanies Mimi on her adventure through Prague and Budapest.

Places mentioned in the book
Charles Bridge
Monument of the peeing statues, in the Kafka museum
The Franz Kafka museum
The astronomical clock

Have you ever read a book that made you want to travel somewhere?

The book that inspired the Rolling Stones' song Sympathy for the Devil

I will cite some sources that talk about the relationship between the work The Master and Margarita and the song "Sympathy for the Devil", by the Rolling Stones.

https://www.masterandmargarita.eu/en/05media/stones.html?utm_source

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-book-that-inspired-the-rolling-stones-sympathy-for-the-devil/?utm_source

The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov, is a classic of Russian literature written between 1928 and 1940.

A satire on the Soviet regime : o devil arrives in Moscow, invited by the intellectuals of the time.

![](https://m.stacker.news/97792)


That's right : o the book was written when Russia was already the USSR, during a period of censorship. Bulgakov was already a famous author whose works were banned by the regime.

The author wrote this book for more than 10 years and burned the pages. In 1960, his wife recovered part of the work.


In this book narrated in the 3rd person, the devil is invited by the intellectuals of the time (theater actors, writers who supported the regime) to go to Moscow.

1st criticism of the author that I noticed: "intellectuals" always think they know what's best for society.


In this book, the devil is a person, a magician known for performing black magic. He goes to Moscow with his gang - one of them, a black cat, an excellent character.

In one of his performances, the population goes to the theater to watch the magician (the devil!) with his gang.


In this presentation, the devil distributes money, shoes, clothes, etc. to the spectators. Luxury items that seemed to have some value at the time (spoiler: the next day, it was all a lie, everything fell apart! The money turned into insects, the shoes fell apart when you walked... Symbolic, right?)


All people who have contact with the devil and point out his evil deeds/attitudes are considered crazy and admitted to a mental hospital.

No one believes when someone points to the devil and says: "That's the devil, arrest him!"

And who is the master in question?


The master is an unsuccessful writer, who met his beloved (Margarida, who is married to another, very rich guy, but she is unhappy with him) and felt encouraged to try to publish his book.

Unsuccessful, he decides to check himself into a psychiatric clinic, far from his beloved.


Margarida, not knowing where her beloved is, meets the Devil, who every year throws a party and invites a woman named Margarida to be the hostess.

And our Margarida accepts the devil's invitation to host the party, with the hope that she will see her master, her love, again.


The devil invites several dead people to the party, people who REALLY existed, such as:

Monsieur Jacques (1395-1456), a French nobleman who worked for Charles II (the king at the time) and who poisoned the king's mistress.


Another interesting figure: Teofonia di Adamo, who lived in Italy around 1650 and was accused of poisoning more than 600 people.

Anyway, only good people, right? There are many more people at this party, it's one of the funniest chapters in the book.


The most GENIUS part of the book:

It tells two stories in parallel: the story of Pontius Pilate when he was governor of Judea and met Jesus Christ (year 33) and the story of the arrival of the devil in Moscow (the beginning of the Stalinist regime)

Do you understand the parallel yet?


I gave too many spoilers, but I devoured this book. I was euphoric. What a brilliant work! It is one of the most read books in Russia and it is really worth every page

Thank you to those who read this far 🫶❤️

Have you ever met someone who left a profound impression on your life?

Do you sometimes find yourself wondering what has become of that person's life?

For me, “South of the Border, West of the Sun” is a book about encounters. About how each individual is irreplaceable.

I love this book so much

![](https://m.stacker.news/97679)


The book is told in the first person. The narrator is Hajime, a man who was the only child in the school, besides a girl named Shimamoto.

At that time in Japan (1960s), it was very rare to have only children and they were viewed strangely.


This common characteristic - being only children - brought Hajime and Shimamoto together as friends.

Shimamoto was born with polio, so she was lame in one leg and walked by dragging it. She had no friends at school, which brought her and Hajime even closer together.


Their friendship began when they were teenagers. Every afternoon Hajime would go to Shimamoto's house to listen to jazz and rock records and talk about life, the future, the world...

The Beatles' explosion, the jazz craze in Japan, the cold war on the planet and the hormones of two teenagers.


They never had a romantic relationship. When Shimamoto was about 15 or 16 years old, he moved to another city and Hajime couldn't visit her.

Life went on, he dated another girl (and was a jerk to her), went to college, got married, had two daughters and opened a jazz bar.


He opened two branches of the bar. Hajime's father-in-law was a big businessman in the construction industry and helped his son-in-law a lot.

Even so, over the years, Hajime would always think, “What happened to Shimamoto?”


Until one day Hajime appears on the cover of a magazine because of his bar that became famous.

One night, while working at the bar, a beautiful woman walks in alone. Hajime looks at her.

It's Shimamoto, more than 20 years later.


Hajime's life is turned upside down. He can't stop thinking about her anymore. They keep meeting at the bar, and she tells him what happened in her life.

At the same time, he thinks about leaving the life he has - his wife, the bar, his family, etc.


Hajime becomes obsessed with Shimamoto, while also remembering a girlfriend he had in middle school, shortly before he graduated from high school.

He had done her a lot of harm and wanted to know how she was.

Spoiler: she was in terrible shape even after so many years.


The fact that his ex-girlfriend is in such a bad way makes Hajime blame himself.

How much can our actions perpetuate themselves in other people's lives?
How responsible are we for the harm people cause us?


This book is amazing.

Murakami managed to write a story about how we become obsessed with small things and are able to abandon security in search of a past that only existed in our imagination.

I highly recommend it. It's a short and very deep book

South of the Border, West of the Sun – Haruki Murakami

Books & Articles Weekly, Issue 70

siggy47

Thank you so much! It’s an honor for me to have two of my posts mentioned here. Everything is still very new to me, but I’m already loving it. You can expect more posts from me soon!

If you are interested in topics such as English aristocracy, politics, criticism of exploitation and poverty, you will certainly enjoy this book.

The Man Who Laughs, written by Victor Hugo in 1869, is frighteningly contemporary.

![](https://m.stacker.news/97572)


This book tells the story of Gwynplaine, a boy who, at the age of 2, had his face mutilated by comprachicos.

Comprachicos/cheylas/comprapequenos were groups of people who around 1600-1700 bought small children, mutilated their faces and sold them to the nobility.

These children were mutilated (not just their faces, but other parts of their bodies as well) so that they would become funny figures, with the aim of entertaining the nobility.

Gwynplaine was abandoned in an English town, all alone and there he met Dea, Ursus and his wolf Homo


Dea and Gwynplaine are adopted by Ursus, a philosopher and acrobat, who had a pet wolf, Homo

It is interesting to note how Homo is sometimes the more human aspect while Ursus resembles a bear/wolf, with its "brutal" way of caring for these orphans.


Dea was blind and Gwynplaine, who had his face mutilated so that he always appeared to be smiling, was ugly. The whole town laughed at him (and was frightened) when they looked at his face.

As a mummer, Ursus decided to "take advantage" of Gwynplaine's face to make money


(To avoid confusion: Gwynplaine was mutilated, but the Comprachicos began to be persecuted by the English monarchy at the time, so it was not sold to the nobility, but rather, it was abandoned)

Ursus presented the boy's face to people in exchange for money



People paid to look at the boy's face and laugh.

Dea, who was blind, was completely in love with Gwynplaine. She did not understand how anyone could find him ugly when he was someone so good, so virtuous and kind.

Dea saw Gwynplaine with her heart.


"Thus lived, one for another, these unfortunates, Dea supported, Gwynplaine accepted.

This orphan had this orphan. This sick woman had this deformed person.

Widows got married.

An ineffable thanksgiving emanated from these two abandonments. They were grateful."


Ursus, who saw the two "children" love each other, supported the relationship.

A fourth interesting character is the wolf.

"Homo was more than a companion to him: he was a fellow man. Ursus patted his thin flanks saying: I have found my second tome"


These 4, together, formed a family of acrobats

With the money he earned selling healing formulas (Ursus was also an "alternative" doctor) and with Gwynplaine's ugliness, Ursus buys a house on wheels and begins to present his play throughout England.


They begin performing the play in London.

Gwynplaine then becomes famous. He is known as "The Man Who Laughs" and begins to attract the attention of the nobility.


At a given moment in the story (which I won't detail so as not to give spoilers), Gwynplaine has the opportunity to speak directly with the lords, marquises, in short, the highest nobility in England.


This speech is chilling just to read.

Imagine someone who lived in poverty all his life, paying high taxes to the nobility, who had his face mutilated at the request of a nobleman at the time, having the opportunity to speak directly to the people who exploited him all his life.


"I am a wretch, carved from the stuff of which great men are made, by the pleasure of a king. This is my story. (...) I was thrown into the abyss.
For what purpose? That I might see its depths.

I am a diver and I bring back the pearl: the truth."


As he spoke about the misery that all of England lived in to support the luxury of the nobility, the dukes and marquises began to laugh.

Laughing at their deformity and because they thought it was all a joke.

"Bravo, Laughing Man! Bravo, puppet, animal!"

![](https://m.stacker.news/97573)


Victor Hugo describes: "he was the Man Who Laughs, caryatid of the weeping world. He was an anguish petrified in hilarity, carrying the weight of a universe of calamities, and he was walled up forever within irony, in other people's amusement."


It's amazing.

Victor Hugo denounces human misery and the hypocrisy of the church at the time, through a fiction that continues to this day.

I still don't have the words to describe The Man Who Laughs, but I recommend reading it to anyone interested in understanding the intricacies of inequality.


The book that inspired the creation of the Joker

The book that changed how I absorb and build my own opinions.

Thanks so much for the warm welcome! I'm really happy to have been well received here on SN. THANK YOU!

Betrayal

Invasion of the communist dictatorship of the USSR in the Czech Republic
Changing countries
Changing careers
Thoughts that will make you think "oh my God, THAT'S IT"


All this is consolidated in the book "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", by Milan Kundera

![](https://m.stacker.news/97415)


The book has few characters. The main ones are two: Tomas (doctor) and Tereza (photographer). Tomas has several "erotic friends", who are women with whom he has sex (one night stands), but there is one who is his recurring lover.

Sabine, an artist.


Despite cheating on Tereza horribly, Tomas likes her and wants to live with her for real. Tereza watches this sad dog, suffers a lot, has dreams where she sees Tomas with several women, but can't leave him.

All this in a difficult political context


It's the late 1960s and the USSR invades the Czech Republic. Tereza, who had little motivation to work, begins photographing the Soviet invasion of the Czech Republic and starts selling her photos to newspapers/magazines everywhere, portraying the suffering of her people.


And also portraying the advance of USSR soldiers on her country. Difficult moment, right? But Tereza was finally happy to be targeted by the international press in this way.

But this happiness lasts for a week. Tomas decides to move to Zurich. And Teresa, of course, goes with him.


In this context, we get to know Sabine better. She doesn't want to have a serious relationship, she has no interest in Tomás leaving Tereza to be with her, quite the opposite: she likes the role of a lover. The ease of not having the responsibility of a marriage.


A fourth character appears in this story: Franz, the emotional one. A married guy who begins a relationship with Sabine. But I won't tell you that part.


The book is from the 1980s and was heavily criticized by the left around the world, because the author does not mince words when criticizing the dictatorship of the Soviet Union and the persecution that was carried out.

One passage in particular really struck me:


"the fact that a conversation between two friends over a drink is broadcast on the radio can only mean one thing: that the world has been transformed into a concentration camp. (...)

The concentration camp is the total liquidation of private life."


It's incredible how this book manages to approach politics and relationships in this way.

And it's obvious to me now: relationships are always political. Every relationship is about negotiation. About freedom and privacy in the right measure.

I highly recommend it! 10/10


"From the moment our actions have a witness, whether we like it or not, we adapt ourselves to the eyes that observe us; and from then on, nothing we do is true. (...)

"Whoever loses their intimacy, loses everything," thinks Sabina.


The question: Should communists be excused for thinking they had discovered "the only possible way to paradise"?

Did they really not know what was going on? Or did they pretend they didn't know?

Can an imbecile sitting on a throne be excused from everything just because he is an imbecile?

What I learned from reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being

In this book, Sowell describes how intellectuals throughout history have misled the masses on important issues and never paid the price for it.

![](https://m.stacker.news/97294)

Thomas Sowell is a professor of economics at Cornell, UCLA, and other universities and collaborates on his studies at other relevant institutions, such as Stanford University.

He is also the author of several other books on economics and politics.

This book is divided into 9 chapters, where Sowell shows the vision that intellectuals have about different areas of society: economy, justice, war, etc.

But who are the "intellectuals"? Sowell defines the terms he uses early in the book :)

For Sowell, "intellectuals are an occupational category composed of people whose professional occupations operate fundamentally in function of ideas."

Example: writers, academics, journalists, etc. This does not include engineers or neurosurgeons, for example.

For Sowell, the work of an intellectual begins and ends with ideas.

But what is intellect, after all?

Intellect is the ability to grasp and manipulate complex concepts and ideas, which can lead to erroneous conclusions and, worse than that, senseless actions.

Marx's Capital is an example of an exquisite intellectual construction, but it is based on a conceptual error:

If it is true that "labor" (manipulation of materials) is the real source of wealth, why are countries with more labor not more prosperous?

Having defined intellect, Sowell defines what intelligence is: "it is the combination of intellect with the capacity for judgment and acuity in selecting relevant explanatory factors"

Intellect + judgment = intelligence.

But there is also the rarest quality of all: wisdom.

Wisdom is the ability to combine intellect, knowledge, experience, and judgment to produce a coherent assessment.

The opposite of wisdom is stupidity, whose manifestation is much more dangerous.

"George Orwell once said that some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual can believe them, since the common man does not make himself so foolish."

Have you noticed that there are groups of people who disseminate and support the ideas of figures like Mao, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin...?

These people think they are superior to society and think they are doing good.

Sowell calls these groups of people the Intelligentsia.


Like intellectuals, the Intelligentsia exists on both the right and the left. And their main characteristic: they defend, without question, the ideas of all the intellectuals who are admired by their respective groups.

Does this remind you of anything?


Sowell gives the example of Bertrand Russell, an Englishman who was important to philosophy and mathematics and lived in the 1930s.

Russell eloquently argued that the only way to peace for his country would be to give up all military power.


The Intelligentsia of the time listened to and defended Russell's ideas, but the government, fortunately, did not.

At the end of the decade, Germany would trigger the Second World War.

Imagine what would have happened to Europe if the British parliament had listened to Russell, a mathematician?